elves and unwitting humans-could well be doomed. Yet if she did nothing, doom might be reserved for Qilue Veladorn alone. .
'Hold, Namra!' the dark-eyed man snarled, his voice harsh and loud. Heads turned to look, all over the room, and Qilue saw other heads appear behind the man's shoulder. Crowded together in the doorway, their eyes were cold and alert. One of them whispered some shy;thing Qilue couldn't catch. Men and women in the laughing, chattering height of revelry drew hitherto-concealed knives from under sleeves, out of bodices, and from the side slits of gowns, and plunged them calmly into the throats of those they'd been standing joking with.
'Sweet Mystra,' Qilue murmured, hastening toward a window. So these invaders valued human lives as nothing. The gurgling dying behind her must have all been humans of Scornubel, and their slayers the dis shy;guised drow who'd slipped in to take the places of their neighbors, and vanish among them. So open a butchery meant that the leaders of the invasion considered the city already theirs-or cared nothing for the drow who'd become Scornubrians.
The window ahead was an increasingly attractive destination. The doors might all be too distant and too well guarded, but she wasn't so old yet that she couldn't manage a little tumbling.
Behind Qilue, a cold, cruel voice snapped an order in words she did not understand, and there came a thun shy;der of movement as a hundred or more feet began to move in haste, converging on her in what seemed almost a charge.
A dozen or more grim-faced humans-spell-disguised dark elves, no doubt-stood between her and the window. They were moving to block her, ranging them shy;selves carefully to allow her no way past, and to give each other room to fight. Every one of them had a knife of some sort, and at least two held full-sized swords ready in their hands. Dark eyes glittered with hatred. . the eyes of her own kind. Qilue swallowed.
Murmuring words she'd hoped not to have to use, she spun around with a dancer's grace and hurled a spell at the onrushing drow. The stars of Eilistraee were quickly spread everywhere in the room, and an unseen, inex shy;orable force that only worshipers of the Dark Dancer could withstand was hurling her pursuers back, some of them stumbling awkwardly amid the furniture and onto the bodies of those pressed too closely behind them.
Qilue wasted no time in gloating, but spun around again and hissed the words of her next spell at the drow between her and the window. Two of them were almost upon her, stabbing, and it took all of her skill at bobbing and weaving to finish her spell and send forth lightning among them.
Blue-white bolts leaped almost hungrily from her fingertips, and the bodies they darted amongst con shy;vulsed and screamed, arching and dancing helplessly in the crackling air. Here and there between Qilue and the window, humans flickered into their darker true shapes as they convulsed and screamed under the raking pain of her leaping bolts, and the daggers in their hands burst into tiny falling stars of molten metal.
Qilue ruthlessly kicked sobbing forms out of the way and sprang toward freedom. She was still half a dozen sprinting paces from her goal when a gray mist occurred before her-and almost immediately hard shy;ened into a smooth, blank wall of unyielding stone.
Qilue fetched up hard against it, shoulder first and rolling away to one side to lessen the blow. In the process she looked back to the room behind her where someone had dispelled her repulsion spell. Fifty or more drow were hastening forward again, their blazing eyes all bent on her.
Real fear rose deep in Qilue's throat for the first time in a long, long while. She hated having to strike down fellow dark elves, and yet expected no such mercy from them. . and there were so gods-be-cursed
She hissed the words of a spell that should have melted away the stone, and anything solid beyond, into a tunnel for her to flee down, but nothing happened. The power to feel magic that Mystra had bestowed upon her was dulled. The very air seemed dark and dead, as if no spell could reach here, or thrive if this air reached it. She was in some sort of anti-magic field, no doubt the creation of one of the leaders of the drow invasion-either the dark-eyed man or one of the coldly scornful women who'd stood behind him. As groans around her told of the pain-wracked struggles of those who'd felt her lightning, the other drow were racing down upon her. She had just sec shy;onds to call on the most powerful magic she could, to banish the magic-quelling effect.
The air seemed to brighten and momentarily glow the faintest tinge of blue. Qilue danced away from a man who was lunging at her with a slender short sword in the style of a noble fencing his way through a duel. She opened her mouth to melt the stone between her and the window with one of her last powerful spells, and the magic-quelling returned with a vengeance, its dim shy;ness rolling down over her with renewed vigor. Someone else had cast a second anti-magic spell, and robbed Qilue of the last few vital seconds she needed.
Cruel knives slid coldly into her biceps and upper thighs, then firm hands were upon her. Unfamiliar arms wrapped themselves around her burning, suddenly enfeebled limbs, pinioning her as she gasped and kicked and bit. They dragged Qilue to the floor, where ungentle knees came down on her throat, and bodies sat hard on her laboring lungs. A small army of strong, grim drow clung to her. They held her down with her limbs spread in unyielding fleshy prisons, and cuffed her spell-hissing mouth until blood threatened to choke her, and her arch shy;ing body could call up spells no more.
'Quztyr,' commanded a voice that Qilue's stolen memories identified as Daerdatha, 'find out just who our fierce little guest is, will you? She's yours, by the way, after we're done.'
'My pleasure,' the dark-eyed man replied. The memories Qilue had seized from Anlaervrith Mrantarr identified Quztyr as a dangerously capable warrior, but she couldn't even see him through the many bodies holding her down and clapping their fin shy;gers over her eyes. Someone forced her jaws open by jabbing cruel fingers into their hinges, and someone else thrust the point of a dagger into her mouth, advancing it coldly along her tongue until it just touched the back of her throat.
From above her head, a hard brow descended to meet hers, and the same mindtouch magic she'd used on Anlaervrith flooded into Qilue's mind. Unfortunately for Quztyr, he wasn't facing a terrified, battered drow spy or human enspelled into drow shape, but an angry, alarmed dark elf archpriestess of Eilistraee who also happened to be a Chosen of Mystra, the powerful god shy;dess of magic.
His own sentience boiled away in a flaring instant of futile terror, and his convulsing body fell away onto the floor beside the pinioned Chosen in a welter of thumps and a long, tremulous gasp. Wisps of smoke curled from his nose, sightlessly staring eyes, and mouth. Qilue heard the drow all around her gasp. Several of the painfully tight hands gripping her started to tremble. She had the time, now, to launch one magic of utter destruction. It would reduce her to blinded helplessness for hours, perhaps days, rend this mansion and everyone in it, and bring her no closer to learning more about the invaders of Scornubel. Despite the part of her that wanted to bring a screaming end to all of this, restoring her to freedom, Qilue lay still under the hands that held her, and awaited more pain.
'Nuelvar,' Daerdatha's cold voice came again, 'slay that mindless carrion for me.' After a little silence, the voice sharpened as it added, 'You heard me. I'm not accustomed to repeating my commands, warrior.'
There followed a brief, wet sound, a gurgling, then the slump of a heavy body onto the floor.
'That's better,' Daerdatha said silkily. 'So passes the overly ambitious, exceedingly arrogant Quztyr from the scene-belatedly, some would say. Approach, now, and press the palm of one of your hands down on a spire of the crown on my head. Blood must be drawn.'
'And-?' Nuelvar asked hesitantly.
'Your mind will be linked to mine-as, shortly, will that of Brelma here, and Durstra, Syldar, Ghalad-dyth, and Chaladoana. Oh, and Chaladoana's three apprentices-gather them, dear.'
Nuelvar grunted, a short sound that was almost a bark of pain, and Daerdatha added, 'Well done, war shy;rior. Together, once the crown links us all, we can with shy;stand the strongest spell this little spy can possibly have waiting inside her head, and overwhelm her to learn what we must of who sent her here, and how much they know-or have guessed-of what we've done in Scornubel. She must be kept alive, for our own safety… witless, but alive.' The cold chuckle that came from Daerdatha's throat gave Qilue her first shiver in years.
It seemed a very short time thereafter that another brow pressed against Qilue's, and a cold and numbing worm seemed to probe into her thoughts, sinking inex shy;orably through the mind thrusts she sent at it-the attacks that had shattered Quztyr's mind. Though the pinioned priestess of Eilistraee could do nothing to stop this cold, heavy invasion of her psyche, she could hear gasps and growls of amazed pain from close by. She gathered that several of the drow linked to the crown were discovering real mind pain for their first, unpleas shy;ant time.
Daerdatha gave a louder gasp, and followed it with the words, 'Heed, all of you! We must be very careful. Brelma, draw that dagger out of her mouth-carefully-and thrust Quztyr's glove, there, into it. Pinch her nostrils shut
