'Sshamath, I think,' the scout replied. 'It's reasonably close, and I have contacts there. If I go alone, I can be there and back quickly, and no one who doesn't fear Bregan D'aerthe will even know I was there.'
'No,' Danifae said, startling both Valas and Pharaun.
'The young mistress has a better suggestion?' Pharaun asked.
'Sschindylryn,' she said.
'What of it?' asked Pharaun.
'It's closer,' Danifae replied, 'and it's not ruled by Vhaeraunites.'
She sent a pointed look Valas's way, and Pharaun allowed himself a smirk.
'I'm tired,' the Master of Sorcere said, 'so I will weaken enough to speak on Valas's behalf. He is Bregan D'aerthe, young mistress, and his loyalty goes to she who is paying. I don't believe we'll have trouble with our guide jumping deities on us. If he can get to, through, and out of Sshamath faster, then let him do what he's been hired to do.'
'He will go to Sschindylryn,' Quenthel said, her voice so flat and quiet that Pharaun wasn't certain he'd heard correctly.
'Mistress?' he prompted.
'You heard me,' she said, finally looking up at him. She let her cold gaze linger for a moment, and Pharaun held it. She turned to Valas. 'Sschindylryn.'
If the scout had any thought of arguing, he suppressed it quickly.
'As you wish, Mistress,' Valas replied.
'I will accompany you,' Danifae said, speaking to Valas but looking at Quenthel.
'I can move faster on my own,' the scout argued.
'We have time,' said the battle-captive, still looking at Quenthel.
The high priestess turned to Danifae slowly. Her frigid red eyes warmed as they played across the girl's curves. Danifae leaned in ever so slightly, eliciting a smile from Pharaun that was as impressed as it was amused.
'Sschindylryn. . ' the wizard said. 'I've passed through it a time or two. Portals, yes? A city crowded with portals that could slip you in an instant from one end of the Underdark to another … or elsewhere.'
Danifae turned to Pharaun and returned his smile—impressed and amused.
'How much time do we have?' Valas asked, still ignoring the more subtle, silent conversation-within-a- conversation.
Pharaun shrugged and said, 'Five days. . perhaps as many as seven. I should have provided the ship with adequate sustenance by then.'
'I can do it,' Valas replied. 'Barely.'
The scout looked to Quenthel for an answer, and Pharaun sighed, pushing back his frustration. He too looked at Quenthel, who was gently stroking the head of one of her whip vipers. The snake swayed in the air next to her smooth ebon cheek while the other vipers slept. Pharaun got the distinct impression that the snake was speaking to her.
A sound caught Pharaun's attention, and he saw Jeggred shifting uncomfortably. The draegloth's eyes twitched back and forth between his aunt and the viper. Pharaun wondered if the draegloth could hear some silent, mental exchange between the high priestess and her whip. If he could, what he heard was making him angry.
'You will take Danifae with you,' Quenthel said, her eyes never leaving the viper.
If Valas was disappointed, he didn't let it show. Instead, he simply nodded.
'Leave when you're ready,' the high priestess said.
'I'm ready now,' the scout replied, perhaps a second too quickly.
The viper turned to look at the scout, who met its black eyes with a furrowed brow. Pharaun was fascinated by the exchange, but exhaustion was claiming him all the more quickly as the discussion wore on.
Quenthel slid back to rest against the bone rail of the undead ship. The last viper rested its head on her thigh.
'We will take Reverie, then, Pharaun and I,' the Mistress of the Academy said. 'Jeggred will stand watch, and the two of you will be on your way.'
Danifae stood and said quietly, 'Thank you, M—'
Quenthel stopped her with an abrupt wave of her hand, then the high priestess closed her eyes and sat very still. Jeggred growled again, low and rumbling. Pharaun prepared himself for Reverie as well but couldn't help feeling uneasy at the way the draegloth was looking at his mistress.
Danifae slipped on her pack as Valas gathered his own gear. The battle-captive walked to Jeggred and put a hand lightly on the draegloth's bristling white mane.
'All is well, Jeggred,' she whispered. 'We are all tired.'
Jeggred leaned in to her touch ever so slightly, and Pharaun looked away. The draegloth stopped his growling, but Pharaun could feel the half-demon watch Danifae's every move until she finally followed Valas through a dimensional portal of the scout's making and was gone.
Why Sschindylryn? Pharaun asked himself.
It was the battle-captive's calming touch with the draegloth that accounted for the wizard's uneasy Reverie.
Chapter Four
A little more than half a mile under the ruins of the surface city of Tilverton, two dark elves ran.
Danifae breathed hard trying to keep up with Valas, but she stayed only a few strides behind him. The scout moved in something between a walk and run, his feet sometimes appearing not even to touch the slick flowstone of the tunnel floor. As they'd emerged from the last in a rapid, head-spinning series of gates, Valas had told her they were more than halfway to Sschindylryn, and it had been only a single day. Danifae admired the mercenary's skill in navigating the Underdark, even as she dismissed his obvious lack of ambition and drive. He seemed content in his position as a hired hand—scout and errand boy for Quenthel Baenre—and the idea of that sort of contentment was utterly alien to Danifae.
After all, she thought in time, Valas is only a male.
The scout came to an abrupt halt, so abrupt in fact that Danifae had to stumble to an undignified stop to avoid running into him. Happy for the chance to pause and rest, though, she didn't bother to complain.
'Where—?' she started, but Valas held up a hand to silence her.
Even after all her years as a battle-captive, a servant to the foolish and slow-witted Halisstra Melarn, Danifae hadn't grown accustomed to shutting up when told to. She bristled at the scout's dismissive gesture but calmed herself quickly. Valas was in his element, and if he wanted silence, both their lives might well depend on it.
He turned to her, and Danifae was surprised to see no hint of annoyance or irritation on his face, even as her one word still echoed faintly in the cool, still air of the cavern.
Another portal up ahead, he told her with his fingers. It will take us far, almost to Sschindylryn's eastern gate, but it's not one I've used in a very long time.
But you've used it before, she replied silently.
Portals, especially portals like this one, Valas explained, are like waterholes. They attract attention.
You sense something? she asked.
Danifae's own sensitive hearing detected no noise, her equally sensitive nose no smell but her own and the scout's. That didn't mean they were alone.
As if he'd read her mind, Valas replied, You're never alone in the Underdark.
So what is it? she asked. Can we avoid it? Kill it?
Maybe nothing, he answered in turn, probably not, and I hope so.
Danifae smiled at him. Valas tipped his head to one side, surprised and confused by the smile.
Stay here, he signed, and keep still. I'll go on ahead.
Danifae looked back along the way they'd come then forward in the direction they were going. The tunnel— twenty-five or thirty feet wide and about as tall—stretched into darkness in both directions.
