of her. 'Take out thy dagger,' it said, in soft, feminine tones.
Shar stared at it for a moment and then did so, never taking her eyes from the floating sphere of light.
'Follow,' it said softly, and retreated across the clearing the way it had come. Shar did so, casting a quick glance around as she crossed the damp, fern-studded ground. There was no sign of other life.
The wisp was hovering above a tangle of brambles. 'Cut away enough to pass,' it told her, 'and go down.'
'Go down?' Shar asked, but there was no reply. She went to her knees and sawed at the thorny branches obediently, laying them aside in a neat pile as she cut herself a tunnel. Beyond, there seemed to be an emptiness in the gloom. Before Shar could will her enchanted dagger to glow and give her light to see by, the wisp drifted silently over her shoulder. Its radiance showed her a hole in the ground, half-covered with fern root creepers. She drew them aside and stared at worn stone steps and darkness beyond.
Shar wiped her dagger on her thigh and sheathed it- the wisp bobbed approvingly-and put her legs forward, onto the steps.
Then, cautiously, she shifted forward, holding on to the edges of the hole, and began to descend. The wisp drifted past to hang just in front of her, lighting her way down those old stone steps… down a dozen feet and more, then turning to the right-to avoid the roots of a huge duskwood she'd seen, Shar judged-and plunging down more steeply, another eight steps, before opening out into a damp, stone-floored chamber.
A tomb. A stone coffin stood on a bier before her, almost filling the room. Around it, the walls were of cracked and fallen tiles, unadorned squares that bore no inscriptions, scenes, or heraldry to tell her who was buried here. Their smooth run was broken by the roots that had dislodged some of them.
Bones littered the floor beyond her boots, scattered human bones. She could see at least three skulls, and there were probably more around the back of the coffin. Adventurers had come here to plunder, and met some sort of doom.
Shar drew back onto the lowest step. The will o' wisp winked sharply beside her. 'Lift the lid and take the sword within.'
Shar tilted her head to look obliquely up at the beautiful sphere. 'It's not a good thing, to disturb the dead.'
She shivered suddenly, her words taking her back to someone else speaking that same phrase-a cold, cruel voice offering a mocking warning not to try to flee through a crypt in the Underdark.
And suddenly, as the memories so often took her, she found herself back in that glow-cavern with the barbed lash curling fire about her bare thighs, trying not to scream as she heard the dreadful promises spoken so softly and lovingly by the priestesses who wielded such whips, the loving daughters of Lolth with their crazed plans.
The plans that had kept her alive. Long after they'd broken her, making her crawl to kiss their booted feet at a gesture or command, posing herself to accept the lash automatically when they appeared, they kept her alive. Kept her alive for their darkest plan after they'd slain men who could give them greater pleasure-slain them by flogging the skin right off them and then exchanging their whips for long flails with barbed iron bars, or whips with hissing, hungry living serpent heads, to work on the fleshless, moaning shapes that remained.
She was to be bred to a spider. A giant, hairy spider whose limbs bore barbs and saw-edges, whose bulk almost crushed her when they'd experimented, lashing its mandibles together with their whips to keep it from beheading or slashing open the pale-skinned victim chained beneath it, slick with sweat and fear, writhing helplessly.
A spider whose spell-twisted brood would have hatched in her paralyzed body and eaten her from within to nourish themselves into life as manspiders-'biddable driders,' as one priestess had called them, her face alight with excitement at the thought. Manspiders who could serve as loyal, intelligent fighting steeds for drow warriors paired with them, in a war against rival drow cities deep in the lightless Underdark.
Sharantyr shivered again, recalling days of pain and humiliation, and nights of eerie terror, as the glowing, gelatinous fungi had crept slowly down the stone walls where she lay chained by the throat to a huge ring in the wall, bedded on hard, sharp human skulls, and flowed over her, their translucent pseudopods covering her with glistening slime as they lapped at her wounds and body openings, healing and cleansing her, absorbing her wastes and blood and energy alike, leaving her too weak to work toward any escape.
The touch of jelly or jam on her skin still left her drenched with sweat, and quivering with fear-and excitement.
'Trust me in this, and do as I bid.' The voice was musical and assured, almost amused. Shar closed her eyes. 'Trust me' had been one of the taunts used by the priestess with the strongest liking for her pale-skinned human prisoner. Trust me.
Shar opened her eyes deliberately, swallowed, and stared at the winking globe of light. 'Who are you,' she asked softly, 'that I should trust you?'
'Mystra,' came the soft reply, and it seemed that an echo arose from that softly spoken name and rolled across the chamber to recede into vast distances, as if they stood in an immense void and not a small tomb smelling of damp earth and the roots of the forest above.
Shar shuddered. Sylune, she complained in her mind, what have you gotten me into now?
The wisp drifted closer, and the echoes seemed to roll and thunder again in the distance. 'Well?' it asked, its voice a sudden challenge. 'This is no drow trick.'
Shar shuddered; it must be reading her mind. Oh. A goddess. Of course it could. She could. Shar shook herself, smiled, and stepped forward. 'Why didn't you say so?' she asked almost petulantly, as she laid her hands on the cold, crumbling lid and shifted it aside.
Stone grated, and Shar peered cautiously into the darkness within, but the wisp flashed across the chamber to hang where she needed light. The coffin held heaped dust and a wild-weave of cobwebs, but no body that she could see. A scabbarded blade lay in front of her, shrouded in dusty gray webs. Without hesitation she reached in and took it.
A cold tingling ran up her arm, and fear awoke to accompany it. What if the blade turned her into some sort of monster or visited a curse on her? What if- Enough, she told herself firmly, stowing the blade under her arm to free her hands for replacing the lid.
The wisp seemed to bob approvingly again, but as she turned toward the stairs, it flashed through the air to block her path. 'Draw the blade,' it told her.
Shar nodded and held the scabbard out horizontally before her, drawing the sword slowly. It was a magnificent, gleaming long sword, curved more than was the fashion in the Dragonreach lands. The hilt, grip, and blade seemed to be all of one piece, polished mirror bright and glossy smooth. As it came free of the scabbard, the sword awakened with its own blue radiance, a light that grew and grew until it blazed.
'This is yours to bear, Lady Knight,' the wisp told her. Shar turned it slowly, feeling its weight, and replied feelingly, 'An honor.'
'Indeed.' The wisp sounded a little amused. 'You may not always feel so. You hold a weapon against the Malaugrym. Return to your camp, and in the morning go down to the bridge that Itharr mistrusted so. There draw this blade, and it will show you a gate that will transport you to the plane of shadows where the Malaugrym dwell. When drawn, this sword will show you all gates nearby, and work them for you if you will it so. Take your companions and go and slay Malaugrym for me.'
Shar took a pace away from the wisp to gain room, and swung the blade experimentally. It hummed as it cut the air, and a delighted smile came to her face. What a magnificent weapon! It matched her as if made for her, and its rippling weight made her feel like a dashing young hero, the excited girl she'd once been when she first sought adventure, long before she'd ever seen the endless Underdark… or drow.
Shar laughed, her unbound hair swirling about her as she leapt lightly around one corner of the tomb, fencing with an imaginary foe. The blade felt alive in her hands. Yes! With this, she could rule the world!
At swordplay, at least. She turned to look at the will o' wisp, and asked, 'Will I see you again?'
'No,' came the flat reply, and to Shar's ears it sounded sad. But when the voice came again, it was calm. 'No mortal shall ever see this aspect of me again in Faerun. It is a fading thing I inherited, a shell of ghosts and shadows. I cannot wear it well.'
The wisp drifted toward the stairs. 'Go now, Sharantyr. Make us all proud of thee.'
As she went up into the glade and saw the white glimmering ring that must be the gate to take her home, Shar thought she heard a familiar old voice, a mere whisper behind her. 'Well said. Very well said. Ye'll do
