The Scepter of the Sands, Book 3 of the Vicelord Chronicles

by ely.cady.313

Traveling with the last remnants of her husband's lordship, Vala must seek out allies new and old to take back her home and her station. With new and terrible powers bubbling up from her subconscious, she must also uncover their source, and the identity and truth of a man she has seen only in her dreams.

The Scepter of the Sands

Book 3

of the

Vicelord Chronicles

Ely Cady

The Vicelord Chronicles

-Book 1 The Jewel of the Sands (2015)

-Book 2 The Kingdom of the Sands (2015)

-Book 3 The Scepter of the Sands (2017)

-Book 4 The Throne of the Sands (TBA)

Also by Ely Cady

The Enchanter's Cycle

-Book 1 The Path in the Shadow (2014)

-Book 2 The Phoenix Fate (2015)

-Book 3 The Scythe and the Seer (TBA)

-Book 4 The Will of the Conclave (TBA)

-Book 5 The All-One (TBA)

-Book 6 The End Time (TBA)

The Dreadborne Legacy

-Book 1 The Heart of Darkness (2012)

-Book 2 The Will of the Old Ones (TBA)

-Book 3 The Soul Forge and the Darkest Depths (TBA)

Standalones

The Blessed of Sune (2015)

The Wayfarer of Sune (2016)

The Dragon's Apprentice (2015)

The Faerûnian Calander

Every year on the world of Abeir-Toril is measured in three hundred and sixty five days, split up into twelve months of thirty days each. The months are given both formal names and common names, spoken depending on the nearness of a holiday or with special emphasis. Each week consists of ten days, called a tenday. Each year is commonly measured by the Dalereckoning scale, beginning in the Year of Sunrise, when the Standing Stone was raised by the elves of Cormanthyr and the Human Dalesfolk.

Month: Formal Name, Common name

1: Hammer, Deepwinter

2: Alturiak, The Claw of Winter

3: Ches, The Claw of the Sunsets

4: Tarsakh, The Claw of the Storms

5: Mirtul, The Melting

6: Kythorn, The Time of Flowers

7: Flamerule, Summertide

8: Elesias, Highsun

9: Eleint, The Fading

10: Marpenoth, Leaffall

11 Uktar, The Rotting

12 Nightal, The Drawing Down

Prelude:

Almraiven, Calimshan (5th of Hammer, 1380 Dalereckoning)

Three days of fire. Three days of blood, blood now lost and forgotten amid the shifting sands outside Almraiven's lofty walls.

Entire houses raided.

Entire houses razed.

The vassals and majordomos of the realm gathered in the audience hall...those not slain by the coup at least, awaiting word from their king.

But the Throne room, while being the finest known display of Calimshan's extravagance, served only as the facade for a second, hidden chamber, the shadow to its sunlight. Here was where the king stored his most treasured artifacts, tools through which the royal family had maintained order for three generations.

"Crafty little wretch..." King Ahriman mused, scratching his chin.

Following his gaze, Amon "Felbinder" Silasar, studied the drifting, tenebrous motes of starlight gamboling along the surface of the scrying orb, ignoring the representation of the quarry within. He'd seen this already; Vala, conferring with a Dark Elf raiding party. Vala, allying with the Lady of Silverymoon and her vile wizards to usurp the throne. Vala. Vala. Vala.

"Every image is false." He reiterated, "Every detail. A ploy to conceal her true location and intentions. Adir's as well. This Psion's capabilities in defeating your divinations are...impressive".

"No mortal alive can defeat my enchantments." Ahriman snapped, agitated as he had been since the uncanny escape of Vicelord Adir, Amon's hated rival, and his eminently unusual bride, the Half-Drow Vala Oblodra, "But she doesn't need to. She's merely creating false traces that my spells seek, diverting them again and again, despite how many times I cast. She has turned several attempts made simultaneously".

Amon didn't point out the depth of focus necessary to project so many illusions in such fine detail in such a short amount of time. He knew little of the Invisible art, few did, but he knew no tales of such a powerful practitioner of any kind.

"I am not convinced it is her doing alone." Amon confessed, drawing the attention of his king, "Perhaps she has allied with others in the short time since their flight. Or perhaps one of the strange Drow gods shields her".

"It matters little." Ahriman conceded, "They may elude me, but here, in the heart of my power, I am invincible. With Adir weakened as he is, they will never be able to lay siege to Almraiven and rout us. Likely, they will seek asylum in some far removed place".

"I wish Adir dead."

"You have made that abundantly clear."

He held in his next retort; always had Adir vexed him. Pretending to be his erstwhile ally had been a constant strain on his sanity, and the moment of betrayal should have been absolute. Vala had denied him that, so she had to die too. He found that he hated her in nearly equal measure to her husband.

"Fear not, my friend. You may yet get your chance. Let us wait and see what our adversaries decide to do".

Yes. Yes he would. He would wait for his chance, though he would hardly be idle.

He decided then that more mundane measures might avail. There were many skilled men at his disposal, and the deserts of Calimshan remained a dangerous realm to traverse...

Chapter 1:

Calimshan (24th of Hammer, 1380 Dalereckoning)

Ilythiiri.

Visions of a male Elf with pale skin and kind eyes, and his darker-skinned mate.

A city aflame.

Ilythiiri.

The bloodline, lost to demonic corruption.

Infected with Demonic Taint.

Wendonai.

Wendonai.

Are you the one, Vala?

Are you the one?

Vala?

Vala?

"Vala?"

She startled, blinking, and found herself again riding along a stone-lined trail, the blistering desert sun peaking through the drab brown curtains of their covered wagon.

But all of this was muted detail, lost within the deep, dark brown of Adir's eyes.

The Sun Elf Pasha sat beside her, his skin left tan and rugged by a lifetime in the Calim Desert, much of it concealed by his dark robes and turban. The gem set in his crownpiece shimmered with enchantment, not unlike the sapphire in her choker, left mostly inert through Ahriman's meddling.

"I'm sorry, husband. What did you say?" she asked, righting her skirt as she shifted position, taking care not to disturb her father, Netal, who slept through the days covered in a thick shawl. He hadn't yet taken to the surface and its bright sun.

Vala smiled at the sight of him. As her orcish mother, Gul'tah, was no more, he was the only family she had left save the child she'd carried for nearly two months now.

"You still dream of him, then?" Adir asked, more intrigued than envious of this attention she gave to another male, and she shrugged, "An artificial memory, I think. Prepared by someone else. These words make no sense to me: Ilythiiri. Wendonai. I remember Iljrene speaking of the Ssri-Tel'Quessir, which were the race of Elves which later became the modern Drow.I don't know what these visions mean, or how I used them to...do the things I did in Almraiven, but I know they're connected. They have to be".

She shivered at the mere recollection of the power that had flowed through her body. Mere moments...but that had been more than enough to almost completely redefine her understanding of the invisible art.

She'd struggled to hold on to what she'd learned, but still, much had slipped away. Far too much...

Adir wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and she rested her head against his chest, privy to the rhythmic beat of his heart, "I know I need to discover the truth of this vision, this...ancestor? I still feel something about me; a presence like ozone and static. This power frightens me, but I know we will need it if we are to reclaim our home".

It had taken time to acclimate to her place, but Adir's manse and Almraiven in general had indeed become her home. Even now she felt an ache not unlike she had when fleeing the Dark Promenade, Nezierre's scornful words trailing her like winged devils.

"We've made good progress." Adir noted, "A few-weeks trek has brought us to Manshaka, and with what remains of my wealth I have secured this caravan, led by servants both old and new. We will reach Memnon, and Pasha Ormat, and there I can determine our next steps".

Vala winced. The foppish Genasi had been the one to drug her wine, after all, in a revel she'd attended at Adir's invitation. Her servitude had been a result of his trickery.

Adir grinned at her discomfiture, "Worry not, my love. With that bit of awkwardness behind you, I'm sure you two will make fast friends. You have much in common, after all".

Rolling her eyes, Vala sat back, content to watch the wagon crest the endless sandy hills of the Calim desert in the stifling, exhausting heat, aware but not quite awake, as she reviewed again the visions of this Moon Elf with pale skin and kind eyes...

...

Amon suffered another day consolidating King Ahriman's rule.

More nobles to intimidate or execute.

Commoners to disperse.

Currency flowed through one avenue or another. The new influx of slaves, and the deportation of the like; mostly locals that would resist the new authority but were of possessed of no ability to actually combat it. Servants of the dethroned Vicelords, mainly. Adir's manor was still impassible thanks to the damned gargoyles, but the servant quarters at least had been emptied.

He knew not their fates and found he could care less. In this world, all others besides himself were expendable. It was the attitude that afforded him his survival and his station, his power and his pleasure.

Still, Amon found himself relieved as he entered his harem, far removed from his actual sleeping chamber. He had no desire to actually rest beside his thralls, after all. Here he would enjoy a purely physical form of release, while the pleasure of killing Adir and his Dark Elf whore eluded him for a time.

He clapped his hands, twice, summoning his consorts. Seven approached him through the translucent curtains covering the massive bed in the center of the room, natives of Calimshan or imported from lands beyond. A fire-haired lass from the dales. A blond, blue-eyed maiden from the High Forest. A trained Tuigan catamite from the far east, a secret depravity known only to the wealthiest of buyers, though an admittedly short-lived experience.

But it was the least impressive one that he chose today, a born native, and his most recent addition.

Erona Firelash, deposed Vicelord and powerful wizard, had been his sweetest conquest, for he despised her nearly as much as he did Adir.

She scowled, though her eyes were downcast. Her split lip and black eye had healed nicely, though the lashes across her back had not. Inspired by her moniker, he'd heated the whip before using it to break her spirit. Those marks were well hidden by the raunchy, disposable costumes he forced her to wear.

"What do you wish of me, master?" she asked in a dull tone, only a hint of hostility coloring it, easily unnoticed by one who had not spoken with her at length. Amon noticed it. He backhanded her, reopening her lip, smiling, "Have you scrubbed the floors about this chamber, like I asked?"

She nodded.

"Have you dusted?"

Again, she nodded.

"Good. I will have you tend to this entire manor soon. But don't worry, I will find the energy to see to you yet. The clothing. Lose it".

Her gown parted down her shoulders, tumbling into a small pile at her feet.

He reach out a hand, and cupped her breast, making a show of considering, before adopting a look of supreme disappointment, "Into the back room with you. I don't like others watching when this mood overtakes me, and I find that I will achieve pleasure through your pain".

Her eyes widened, but she let him lead her through a darker-lit section of the room, and as the curtains closed behind them, she let out a little cry of exasperation.

Oh, her cries would be louder than that...

...

While her body slumbered peacefully next to Adir, Vala drifted along the currents of her mindscape; the metaphysical representation of her thoughts, memories, and emotions. Manifesting as a likeness of a night sky filled with constellations of heavenly bodies and shimmering clouds of stardust, here was where she roamed during meditation in an effort to attain new insight into herself, and thus, her psionic abilities.

The shadowed areas, those she could not see clearly, were merely aspects of herself she had not yet discovered. Every psion, as every living sentient being, was born incomplete and unaware of the whole of themselves, and self realization brought about heightened awareness of one's abilities.

But this once familiar realm had changed...

Not since her imprisonment and forced marriage had she been able to access her mindscape through meditation, and so, after so much had befallen her, Vala had assumed things would be different. But...this...?

Every part was no longer static, that is, solidly affixed to the demesne proper and thus herself, but flowed inward to a central point, a point which was not shadowed, but...blurred. Some gravitated faster than others, but it seemed everything would inevitably collapse into that rift.

The shadowed corners of her mind represented untapped potential, insight, the unrealized possibility of apotheosis. But this...this she could not explain.

"Staring", or affixing her attention on this phenomenon, caused sharp spikes of pain that followed her into the waking hours, so she'd since opted to observe indirectly, and thus, she was able to comprehend little of it nature or its purpose.

Was this pull it was exerting on her being indicative of her change of perspective as Adir's wife? Or was she changing into something different altogether, something she could not understand?

Was it related to these strange visions of days long passed?

More importantly, what would happen when everything she was fell in?

A city aflame.

Ilythiiri.

The bloodline, lost to demonic corruption.

Infected with Demonic Taint.

Wendonai.

Wendonai.

Distressed, Vala tried again to access the visions with the use of her powers, but found that they eluded her. She only called up her memories of the event, not the actual event itself.

"What do you want from me?" Vala asked, and found her "voice" to be wavering, uncertain. It reminded her of the first, unpleasant days with her husband.

Troubled, Vala opened her eyes, again in the caravan on its way to Memnon, a fur blanket draped over her to banish the night chill.

How could a place so miserably hot in the daytime be so cold at night?!

Glancing around, she found the wagon to be empty aside from her and Adir, so she gently twisted out of his embrace without waking him, and dressed herself in the corner. Having taken the effort to find her a more economical facsimile of her dancer's regalia, the ornamentation bronze and copper rather than gold, Vala had decided to humor Adir by wearing it during their attendance in Ormat's manor. As it was the only other article of clothing she now owned it was a relatively easy decision...

Begrudgingly, Vala donned a top with a plunging bosom and bronze-tinted trim, gauzy sleevelets cut at the elbows, thin enough to be slightly translucent. Bracelets weighted her wrists, resembling shackles with a connecting chain and ring for each index finger, and she also wore leggings that were mostly transparent below the knee-line and cut around the exterior of the thigh to allow easy movement, and a pair of anklets with small copper charms which made a gentle chiming noise as she walked.

As the outfit lacked footwear, Vala briefly concentrated and formed a thin layer of telekinetic energy about the bottoms of her feet, so she wouldn't vent body heat through the cold ground.

She also covered herself in Calimshan custom with a thin, translucent veil over the bottom half of her face, since the actual need for a Hijab outside a city proper was negligible.

Her hair, thanks to the attentions of her handmaidens, remained finely brushed, tumbling down her shoulders in wavy lengths, save for a thick lock that parted over one eye.

Daring a glance at her husband and finding him to be sound asleep, exhausted by his days of experimentation and study, the better to regain a measure of his power, Vala leaned over and gently kissed him through the veil.

His only remaining weapon, the Codex of the Infinite Planes, was likely sequestered in a very hidden place. Having stolen the near-sentient artifact, it alone had remained with her during her time in Almraiven, and thus had remained safe during King Ahriman's duplicity. Whether it, her psionic abilities, or both, would prove their salvation remained unclear, though she knew it could grant incredible powers to those worthy to wield it.

She believed Adir to be of that caliber.

Exiting their wagon, Vala surveyed the caravan for her father. They had made camp in a narrow ravine, the Marching Mountains a blur on the eastern horizon. From Manshaka, a small but necessary trade route along the Shining Sea, they had turned north through St. Taril's Monestary, then west across the bridge of the Calim River, and then north again, skirting the river, the mountains, and the Faeressar; stronghold of the abolitionist Janessar Clan, in a swift but unsafe trek to Memnon.

They had considered seeking shelter among the Janessar, but Adir, a known slave trader, a pair of Dark Elves, one pure, one half-blood, and their Human servants would find little rest among such a group, all but the latter at least.

No matter. Two or three more days along the River Agis would bring them to Ormat, and there Adir would consider their options in earnest.

A dozen tents surrounded the wagon, and three fire pits smoldered dimly, the better to avoid alerting slavers, highwaymen, or worse of their presence. Adjusting to infravision, the heat-privy sense unique to Underdark-dwelling races, she squinted at their now blinding luminescence, but nonetheless located Netal's heat signature, as well as four patrolling guards. They were thicker, larger, and burned warmer than he did, so it was easy to pick him out at the camp's outskirts.

Smiling, Vala called upon her experiences among the Darksong Knights of the Drow goddess Eilistraee, and crept towards her father. So soft, so graceful were her footsteps, that the charms about her ankles didn't once make a sound.

She circled around a tent, and could see the heat signatures of a male and two females. Their sprawled positions informed her that the male had and would continue to sleep very well until the morning.

Tiptoeing around a fire pit, she could just make him out outside of the infrared spectrum. Netal Oblodra was sitting cross-legged, staring out into the desert. When she reached ten paces, he looked back to her, startling her.

Disappointed, Vala resumed a normal walking pattern, anklets jingling, before kneeling beside him, hands in her lap.

"It is...strange." Netal noted, eyes upward, "This roofless cavern. I feel as though I will fall up through eternity whenever I look up, and forward whenever I look beyond the next stretch of land".

Grinning, Vala shrugged, "When they first brought me to the surface; the maidens of Eilistraee, that is, they had to pull me upright, because I ended up crouched over, holding onto the grass for dear life. It took almost a half hour for me to calm down enough to open my eyes".

His expression remained unchanged, but a slight glint in his eyes betrayed his amusement. Drow could be notoriously inscrutable, but Vala knew the signs...

That was why she shifted uneasily as his mood visibly darkened.

"When you offered me a place in Adir's court." he added dryly, changing the subject, his eyes burning like hot coals in the gloom, "I was not under the impression it would be as a refugee".

"That's true." Vala conceded, looking away, "As we are, we are a valid noble house escaped from house warfare. With no right of accusation, we must be cautious and ruthless in reclaiming our place atop the hierarchy...or even beyond that".

"But consider, Father..." she added with dramatic flair, "This glorious opportunity. In Almraiven, the hierarchy is not so set. If we succeed, we will be akin to the Baenre in power and authority. Surely such a possibility intrigues you".

"To serve a powerful house as a lackey."

"To serve a powerful house as a warlord."

"A title only".

"You forget..." Vala replied, "...that gender roles are mostly reversed here. I will attain rank and status only as Adir's wife and a close advisor. That is the farthest up the hierarchy I can attain as a female and an outlander".

"Yet you are content with this?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

He looked over to her, the confusion he felt evident.

Vala shrugged, then held a hand to her belly, which had expanded with her slowly advancing pregnancy, "Perhaps my upbringing has stunted my ambition, or the humility I learned as an initiate of Eilistraee, but I do not think this is so. I feel...that there is something else I need to do, something more important than the petty trappings of power. I cannot explain why I feel this way, but it feels right. And besides, what is most important to me is right here".

"To what are you referring? The Faerie Elf? His seed?"

"Adir. This child. You. My family. That's what's important to me."

"The beginnings of your noble house? The success of your house?"

"In a sense."

"I...suppose I understand".

Vala eyed him sadly, "No. You don't. But perhaps you will. In time..."

They sat in silence for a time, listening to the mournful wind as it passed through and around the hills of sand, then, "It was worth coming here anyway. If nothing else, I feel more alive and awake than I have in decades. Every little sound, the constant shifting of heat patterns in the wind... It is very different on the surface".

Vala grunted an affirmative, then paused, confused, "Speaking of which...do you mark that down there? That bloom of heat?"

"Where?"

"There."

It was only visible for a few moments, but she pointed it out as best she could; on the other side of a small trench that had served as a latrine for their encampment.

He shrugged, "I see nothing. A stray animal, perhaps? Not everything is giant and carnivorous here, or so you assure me"

"That may be the case..." Vala admitted, biting her lip, "But that doesn't mean the surface is entirely safe, either. Wait here. I will inform the guards to stay alert".

She rose, and turned around, cutting through the camp swiftly but without much urgency. It was just a coyote, certainly, scrounging through their refuse for scraps of food. They were common to the region.

She glanced briefly around the firepits, then grew more alert as she failed to find the guards. They were supposed to be orbiting the outskirts of the camp before reconnoitering every five hundred count. She'd waited at least that long. Hadn't she?

Just to be safe, she placed two fingers against each of her temples, and focused her consciousness outward in an empathetic link, seeking Adir's unique thought patterns.

But then she heard music, and it spoiled her concentration.

Snarling, the Half-Drow decided she would have the woman flogged for singing while they were supposed to be traveling with all possible secrecy. Now she stomped her way towards the music, not caring who heard. They would learn not to defy the orders of-

Just as she rounded a tent, Vala recoiled, finding herself within seven paces of a monstrous creature. Standing among the four sentries, or rather, perched among them, the Lamia had the upper torso of a beautiful Human female with russet hair and dark eyes, her modestly exposed with the casual ease Vala had only seen among highborn Drow. Indeed, the males seemed quite taken with her...despite the fact that below the waist her four-legged body was that of a lion, its tuft-tipped tail flicking with agitation, or perhaps pique.

She sang again, her voice so akin to Qilué Veladorn's rich soprano and yet also her own mother's hard, rumbling croon, that Vala found her surprise and horror overwhelmed by a crushing sense of sadness and longing. Knowing the sensation to be mere illusionary suggestion, Vala righted herself as the creature turned towards her, smiling cruelly.

"A Dark Elf! My champions, defend me! Slay it!" the Lamia rasped in a dry voice, incongruous from one with such a young face, and the armored Humans drew scimitars and rushed her, their eyes glazed over by magical domination.

"Guards!" Vala shouted as loudly as she could, "We are attacked!"

Willing herself truly incorporeal, rather than into ectoplasm, Vala immediately began to penetrate the clearly weak minds of Adir's mortal servants while ignoring their attacks as they passed without resistance through her shimmering flesh.

As she did this, she conjured a sheet of cold vapor that would slow and hinder her attackers, and a half dozen dagger-length shards of psicrystal that orbited her body in smooth, rhythmic patterns to confuse and disorient them.

It didn't work. As the Humans thrust again and again, their accuracy never wavered. Were it not for her incorporeal nature, they would have cut her down in seconds.

Four of her shards separated from the others, and hurled towards the Lamia, only to deflect off her skin as if it were plate armor. Two more projectiles followed, each of which flew into a small talisman hanging from its belt, vanishing on impact.

"You are far from home, stranger..." The Lamia mused, sneering, completing her series of mystic passes with a broad flourish. Vala intuited the tap of Mystra's weave, and a powerful wave of disjoining magic washing over her...

To no effect.

Her psionimancy derived from another source altogether than conventional spells. But the incorporeal nature proved to be a prodigious drain on her focus. She willed herself backwards several paces before returning to normal.

With only moments to prepare, Vala summoned another series of shards, aiming for the legs. The Human warriors emitted no battle cry, as was normally their wont, and charged in silence, their eyes raging beneath their cowls. The first man died in silence, as a hand closed about his throat and a thin, expertly balanced Drow blade pierced his kidney. Netal let him fall, and hurled a pair of balanced daggers into the back of another, tumbling him.

The sight of her father jarred her for the precious moments she had left, and she cursed, set upon.

Calling upon her combat training with Iljrene, Battlemistress of the Dark Promenade, the Half-Drow angled her body slightly sideways to present a smaller target, and threw out her ankle and right elbow, hooking the thrusting blade of one berserk Human while kicking his leg inwards, unbalancing him.

Using the man's body as a shield, his sword arm pulled too far out to pose an immediate threat, Vala heard the other Human collide thoughtlessly with his fellow, steel sinking into flesh that wasn't hers. Seeming not to notice whatever wound his ally gave him, the struck Human grasped her throat with his hands, and tried to squeeze. Her choker, Adir's symbol of marriage and ownership, saved her life. He fumbled around its surface just long enough for Vala to reinforce her neck with a thick sheet of psicrystal, forming rudimentary armor.

The second Human struck again. The one choking her coughed blood, but didn't seem to notice.

As one, they collapsed in a heap.

Vala gasped as they tried to claw at her, as she struggled futilely, then screamed as she willed her cloud of vapor to lethal temperatures in a panic. She heard sharp intakes of breath, then the shriek of the Lamia somewhere far away, and then a stifled curse, before she regained enough of her focus to become intangible again and stand up.

As she rose, she concentrated ectoplasm vapor to coalesce into lengths of psicrystal that formed a whipblade, Toshisha, which manifested in her right hand, which had grown a shade paler from the cold.

Looking down, she noted that the two Humans wouldn't be getting up to harass her, so she turned, shivering, towards her attacker.

Several, actually.

In the time she'd struggled with her would-be assailants, the camp had roused to repel dozens more attackers, a motley band of dirty, emaciated Humans, Lizardfolk, and Half-Elves, led by a trio of Lamia, one female, not including the one she sought, and two males.

The Lamia from before fought tooth and nail against her father up a small hill a bowshot in the distance, his body covered with rippling shadows; a technique she'd taught him to blur and distort his actual position. The creature, in turn, was covered in faerie fire, a harmless but brightly burning flame called into being by full-blooded Drow in times of need.

By the looks of it, the Lamia couldn't retreat any further, pinned between the sharp descent of the hill on one side and her and the camp on the other.

Despite her magical defenses, the Lamia sported several shallow but heavily bleeding wounds, the result of the deeply biting Drow steel called adamantine.

It screamed; a vile, deafening peal like that of a Banshee, and both Netal and Vala herself groaned, and she was forced to clutch her ears and avert her eyes at both the sound and the unexpected brightness that followed. Heat blossomed all across her skin, leaving pinpricks of sweat. In contrast to the cold she'd experienced moments prior, it felt invigorating.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to strike, Toshisha forming a tight coil.

Adir caught her arm, his mouth pinched, his eyes blazing with wrath focused solely upon her.

Reminded very poignantly of the authority of the Sun Elf slaver and necromancer, Vala paled, and relaxed in his grip. Toshisha crumbled apart. He turned her towards the battle, and she grimaced, seeing the female quite dead, her scorched and blackened body curling into a tight ball. Her father backed away from a pillar of crackling flame, which perched nearby, writhing and undulating like a living thing, the only sign of his agitation the tenseness of his back.

The fire elemental turned towards the camp, then darted forward with prodigious speed, encompassing and immolating a male Lamia. Its fellows, horrified, managed to cast hasty counterspells, but if their efforts even annoyed the creature she couldn't say. It rampaged among their thralls without slowing.

Adir pointed towards the other male, and a thin green shaft of light discharged from his fingertip. When it struck the man-beast, the air behind him pulled towards an unseen point, a column of viridian light opening wide to form a portal that dragged him inward. The Lamia could only scream as his body passed through the threshold, and a gout of intense flames burst outward in his wake, a grim signifier of his fate.

Adir must have finally mastered the elemental summoning spell and the planar banishment, two advanced abilities offered by the codex and not obtained through his other studies. Elementals were hardly his forte, after all...

The raiding party swiftly dissolved into a mob, and Adir's men, several armed with crossbows, picked off the dominated thralls while they covered the retreat of the lone surviving Lamia. Adir pointed his finger again, no doubt intent on casting that deadly banishment spell again, then stopped, puzzled. He rubbed his eyes, hissing with discomfort, and by then it was gone, its four legs carrying it with the speed of a horse.

He turned to his elemental, which approached now that the battle had ended, awaiting further instruction.

"Run it down..." he snapped, his grip on her arm painful, "When it lies dead, you are free to return to your home demesne".

Vala watched as the being of flame surged forward, leaving a thin trail of smoking volcanic glass in its wake, and did not envy the beast its fate.

...

Netal stepped towards his daughter and his new patron, puzzled by their body language.

"Scabbard the steel, Netal." Vicelord Adir snarled, "Now".

Only because of the precariousness of his position in the surface world did he obey the word of a Faerie Elf, and a fellow male, at that...

"Rafid." the Elf continued, speaking into a small charm on his bracer, and through it, his majordomo, "Secure the camp. Execute the enemy survivors. Tend to the wounded. We must be ready to move in an hour".

Pausing, considering his daughter, the Elf turned to him, eyes narrowed dangerously, "I tasked you with one thing and one thing only, Netal, since you decided to join us; keep Vala out of danger. Why then, have I found her under a pile of my own men, frozen half to death by her own hand? Could you explain this to me".

"I'm fine, Adir..." Vala assured him meekly. Against him, her shivering stopped, and normal coloration returned.

Neither of them paid her heed.

Not willing to suffer disrespect from a male, even after that display of power mere moments ago, Netal scoffed, "She is female, and Drow, and a Psion. They were Humans. Iblith. There was no danger to speak of."

"She is my wife and carrying my heir!" Adir replied vehemently, "I will decide what is to be considered dangerous. And do not insult my men ever again, Irinal, or I will take your tongue in recompense".

He almost drew steel. Almost. Vala's despondent expression stayed his hand.

Confused, he merely nodded in acquiescence.

"And you..." Adir continued, wrapping both arms around the female and turning her to face him, his voice softening, but only somewhat, "That was foolish of you. Running into the fray? You are heavy with child! You are too important for me to expend on trivialities. You will not fight again, even to save them. Do you understand?"

Instead of putting the impertinent male in his place, Vala only nodded, eyes downcast, "I understand. Forgive me, husband".

He forced her eyes to meet his, a peculiar smile across his face, as he stroked her cheek, "Of course, my love. Let us return to the wagon. We can travel in relative safety in the small hours before dawn. Lamia hunt in small packs of four or five, but live in colonies of up to a score or more, so it would be best to be far away".

With that, he led her away, leaving Netal fumbling for an explanation for his daughter's behavior.

The surface was a different creature indeed from the Underdark that was his home...

Chapter 2:

Memnon, Calimshan (28th of Hammer, 1380 Dalereckoning)

With the knowledge that a full-scale attack by Lamia could occur at any time, the caravan veritably sped through the desert. Their journey indeed proved to be only two days, two mornings, camping outside of the city proper on that second night.

Concealed by her psionic illusions, she, Adir, and Netal approached Pasha Ormat's estate as dusky-skinned Humans, their clothing unremarkable and threadbare. Their escort of four she left as Humans, but with slightly altered appearances as not to draw remark.

All in all, they looked like a traveling band of merchants, more visibly armed than the usual rabble but not enough so to draw attention.

Her father also wore a thin, dark blindfold in addition to a hood, the better to filter the sun's light for his sensitive eyes.

Confused, hostile eyes trailed them regardless, and she regretted not adorning their illusionary forms with at least a little finery after passing through the poorer outskirts of the city. They wound up looking very out of place in the finer district once they reached it.

The roads, paved sandstone, were partially buried, the buildings also sandstone but sporadically adorned with rosewood, marble, iron, or bronze, and were densely packed together as not to provide alleyways for muggers. Domed roofs of green or yellow tiles or shingles loomed over them, casting them in shadow, which still did little to blunt the heat of the mid-morning sun.

There was a constant din of activity, as street peddlers, beggars, and working girls plied their respective trades. The air stank of sweat, leather, and dung. It poignantly reminded her why she'd slept through the daylight hours in her first days in Calimshan. A few lines of shackled slaves were led in and out of a warehouse, likely headed to market, and she averted her eyes, wincing.

"How much farther, husband?" she asked, rubbing her temples as painful spikes akin to a migraine signified her depleting energy and focus.

"Not much." Adir replied thoughtfully, "You passed through this very path before. You don't remember?"

She shook her head, sidestepping a beggar, who tried to clutch to the skirts worn by her doppelganger, but gasped, horrified, as his hands passed through empty air, "The drugs dulled my memory somewhat... Wait, how do you know what path I took?"

"Sabih was watching you in Almraiven, and a secondary divination I cast tracked you to Memnon. I didn't want you to come to any harm on your journey to the revel".

Vala scoffed, taking in their surroundings with a practiced eye. The noble quarter was smaller than Calimport and Almraiven, but rigidly separated from the other districts. One thing she noticed immediately was that the temples, devoted solely to Selûne, existed only in the poorer neighborhoods. She'd also seen countless street ministers, also Selûnites, collecting tributes from the beggars and peasants...yet they seemed oddly absent here.

By the way they spoke, too, Vala knew that these followers of the goddess, a known ally of her own Eilistraee, were in no way kin to those she had seen and spoken to further north. There was no kindness in them, no understanding. They reminded her more of loan enforcers from Almraiven than holy men, and they were all men. Another odd incongruence.

They reached the manor at the edge of the docks, a wide two-story affair at least the size of House Duskryn, relatively unremarkable from the outside beside several other, similar palaces. Four Human males stood before the double doors, their thick cloaks and hoods a muted blue that was nearly grey. The adornments did little to conceal their ornamented armor, or the hilts of the massive curved swords sheathed at their backs. They eyed Adir and her with open disdain, disguised as they were.

"I will do the talking." Adir said quietly, then approached the sandstone steps leading to the guards. They tensed at his approach, but he kept his arms wide, his posture nonthreatening. He spoke in two clipped sentences, too far away for her to eavesdrop, and one turned in through the doors, concealing a scoff, while the other three remained.

Minutes passed, and the tension was palpable. Vala couldn't think of an ally close enough to be any help. Adir's gold had only lasted so far. Ormat was their only chance.

The Human returned, nodded to his fellows, and Adir beckoned her and the others over.

"What did you say to him?" Vala asked, wide-eyed, as their retinue passed through the threshold, to which Adir chuckled, "I said to inform Ormat that "the fellow he shared a meal with on the isles" had returned, and wished to parley. He knew the reference".

"What in the nine hells does that mean?" she asked, nonplussed, and he shrugged, "Maybe another time, my love. Come".

Contrasting the blistering sunlight, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the inside of Ormat's manor.

"Lloth's hairy legs.." Netal swore, under his breath but audible regardless, as he removed his blindfold, "I was not expecting such grandeur outside of Menzoberranzan..."

Vala smiled at her father's discomfiture as they entered the estate, through the vestibule and into the antechamber. As she remembered from the revel, there was a grand hallway, with a rectangular table long enough to comfortably accommodate over two dozen, and a floor large enough to admit scores of dancers and entertainers. The walls were ribbed, constructed of pure white marble, with many flying buttresses that were intricately carved into the likeness of dolphins.

The many windows were colored glass, vivid murals depicting sea life and clear skies, though the largest specimen, directly behind the Pasha's seat, depicted a sea at storm; wild, crashing waves beneath a dark cloud alight with thunderbolts.

Pasha Ormat sat in repose, studying them intently, as she had no doubt her father was studying him.

Of a race unheard of in Menzoberranzan, he was a Water Genasi, born of a cross-breeding between a Human and an elemental being, likely more...solid, than the one Adir had summoned. His blue skin, white hair, and lanky frame made him easy to mistake for an Aquatic Elf, another, equally rare species.

Shirtless, shoeless, and heavily tattooed, his station was betrayed in the bejeweled scimitar on his lap, as well as a fabulous ruby amulet about his neck, the stone cut in sunburst and set inside of a ring of diamonds. A talisman at his belt, a gold dolphin with aquamarine eyes, also revealed him as a priest of the underwater god Sashelas Deep, lord of dolphins, knowledge, and benevolent sea creatures. An odd adornment for a pasha, but then...what was there about Ormat that wasn't a little odd?

He laughed, a rich, vibrant sound, tinged with a hint of menace, "The detail is extraordinary. Since when did you practice illusions, my friend?"

"It would be best if we conversed in private." Adir replied, "Issues in my city demand a gentle touch".

"Fear not, for no hostile ears abound."

Adir coughed, and his cough echoed through the high ceiling of the manor. A poignant statement without words.

"The walls absorb sound. And my less trusted servants I have sent away. We are free to speak openly."

"Very well. Vala".

Nodding, the Half-Drow placed her index and middle fingers to her temples, and willed the field of psionic energy that maintained the illusions to dissipate. In an instant, they were themselves again.

If she had ever seen Ormat surprised, this was likely it, though he only inclined one finely trimmed eyebrow ever so slightly, "Your powers return to you. Curious."

Vala passed her husband, and approached the Genasi. His face crinkled in amusement, and he rose to his feet, whereupon she balled her fist, and struck him flat on the nose. She felt it fracture with a wet crunch, and felt such satisfaction as she had rarely known in her life as he recoiled, took a step back, and collapsed back into his seat.

He winced, surprised not by her act but by the sheer force of the blow, and she scowled at him, "That was for dosing my drink, you slippery little eel! Next time, it won't be just a fist..."

Every person in the chamber stared agog, except for Adir and Ormat.

Both laughed.

"Oh, how I admire your fire." Ormat chuckled, spitting a small globule of blood while a thin stream leaked from his right nostril, "I might have abandoned my normal proclivities had you stumbled into me before my lucky friend here".

He eyed Netal, rubbing his nose with a wince, before a cloud of glowing silvery mist enveloped his face and repaired the damage she had caused, "And more surprises. A true Drow. The lass' father, no doubt. The resemblance is present, if...hmm, muted by her mother's features".

Her father, too, inclined an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Exult in the ever-changing beauty of life." Ormat replied, reciting a holy passage of his god, "Revel in the joy of creation and increase its myriad aspects. So the King has set himself as a tyrant. Word travels fast, of course. I doubt he will be content with Almraiven alone for long. If he could scatter the Vicelords, even the Syl-Pasha will take notice".

"He already has." Adir confessed, referring to a man she did not know of, "But apparently he thinks this is a matter I can resolve without him".

"So you came to me, to beg for my favor?"

"To offer the possibility of a delicious conspiracy."

"More an armed rebellion. I am not possessed of a standing army."

Adir shrugged, "This land is ruled by the hidden dagger, not the loosed sword. I only need a safe place to conduct my conspiracy. Ahriman would suspect I would seek you...but not that you would offer me aid. There is no loyalty among pashas."

"Obviously."

"So will you help me?"

"Of course." Ormat said, grinning mischievously, "If I started doing what people expected me to, I would hardly last a day. I'll have a secure location within seventy-two hours. You can send your retinue up to the servant's quarters. They will dress as my own. You three will remain with me, and eat my food and drink my wine, and be merry."

He clapped his hands, and the candles along the length of the dining table ignited. Small bells rang in the floor above. She heard the frantic shuffling of footsteps, and suddenly over a dozen Human females filed into the chamber, bearing trays of fruit and silver ewers. It had taken no more than a twenty count.

"I keep provisions ready for surprise visitors." Ormat explained, taking his seat again and gesturing to either side, "Usually, my visitors are less politically controversial, but also less interesting.".

Vala approached a chair two seats away from their host, as was custom, and awaited her husband. He, in turn, pulled out her seat, and pushed her in after she sat, a custom more common among northern cultures but sometimes present there. He then took his seat between them, and Netal, curiously, took the corner, his back to the wall, or at least, the wall closest to the table.

Ormat smirked at the display, but said nothing.

She eyed her plate, which was already being loaded with sliced melon, squash, and sweet potato, baklava, and flatbread and hummus. They poured a drink into her glass, and she eyed their host, who shook his head, "A basic cider, milady. Mine are trained to notice and accommodate pregnant females. Why else do you think I would have female house servants?"

Vala decided she would make a note to puzzle out the meaning of his continued allusions, another time.

But first, she sipped her drink, and exhaled, finding a slight tingling, bubbling effervescence.

"So, anyway." Ormat continued, taking a long draught of his own glass, "The good word is abound, but I love a little dramatic storytelling. While we wait for the main course, do tell me how you walked out of Ahriman's throne room with nary a scratch between you. And this...aah, I apologize! I never formally gave introductions...you are...?-" he asked, motioning to her father.

"Netal Oblodra." he replied dryly, "Weapon Master of House Telth'zol".

"Splendid!" Ormat beamed, "Indeed Vala's Father, newly recruited from the mysterious Underdark! I love it! Tell me everything."

Adir looked to her, expectant, and Vala shrugged, "Very well. You can imagine that after abducting me, Adir did something to inhibit my powers?"

Ormat nodded.

Netal shifted uneasily.

She motioned to the gold and sapphire choker about her neck, "Well, King Ahriman's throne room could, at his command, nullify all enchantments and spells not of his making. That which left Adir defenseless also destroyed the enchantment of this device. And restraining my powers for that time only amplified them, heightened my connection to myself, and to..."

She paused, uneasy, "Someone else. I do not fully understand. But I know I am now able to...do things that I could not previously. And my mentor, Kimmuriel Oblodra, had already considered me a born prodigy, begrudgingly, due to my mixed heritage. I repelled Ahriman's spells, the peculiar psionic presence of his scepter. I broke open the doors of that infernal chamber. And I drew us away using an empowered dimensional door".

"Impressive."

"At great cost." Vala replied sadly, remembering the last sight of Sabih, Adir's previous majordomo, as he'd charged into the throne room with a few choice men to buy them time.

"Well I must admit." Ormat noted dryly, "You are a dreadful storyteller. No sensitivity to the bard's silver tongue, but this tale is interesting regardless. His scepter has psionic abilities? Curious. And this nullification barrier. My dear, you probably witnessed more of the unleashed power of an Almraiven king that anyone has in this lifetime. What some might pay for this information..."

He made a show of considering, "I may have a means to supply us with some extra funds. Put the goodly King on his toes a little. Make him wonder who else might have been watching him during his coup. Hah. But I must add that Ahriman also has, so they say, unlimited control of the sky and sands around his city."

"And a ruby that makes him virtually immune to harm. Maybe immortal."

"Really?"

"Yes. I was planning to steal it before Adir came to me."

"Quite a heist." Ormat conceded, chin rested atop his hand as he considered a shallow bowl of steaming lentil stew, "Not immortal, for sure. There's been a few other rulers with a red stone set in their jewelry, and they came of age normally enough. That might be worth stealing, though. Alas, we must penetrate his other, more immediate defenses first. We have quite a bit of work cut out for us. But Ahriman, like all men, is vulnerable in some way. We mortals deceive ourselves otherwise, but it is always so."

"I will work on Ahriman." Adir announced, "I still have allies here and beyond. Barboris, for one."

"Disgusting Sharran..." Vala spat, recalling her brief employer with instant and unconditional revulsion.

"Perhaps." he conceded, "Alustriel and her council remain another potential asset. I have little doubt they will jump at the chance of altering the ruling bodies of a slaver port, though I will of course keep the two parties acting without knowledge of the other."

He could manage. Adir was as skilled a diplomat as Qilué herself.

"The Promenade no doubt is in disrepair with the death of Eilistraee..." Vala noted sadly, still grieving for a faith she'd nearly found in the Dark Maiden, "But perhaps they will know the meaning of my...visions. I would return there... It is just...-"

"I know, my love. I trust you can manage transport to the High Forest...?" Adir asked the Genasi, who replied with a dismissive shrug, "Of course. You will, of course, try to bring a few of your friends back with you. Having a few Dark Elves in my midst sounds...well, exciting."

"I make no promises. I also doubt you would enjoy their company."

With brief consideration, his earlier words were quite obvious.

"Oh, fine." Ormat replied with a sulk, eyes widening in delight at the sight of a large platter of seared lamb kabob, "Oh yes, it is my nameday, isn't it? In all the excitement I completely forgot. You will all enjoy my finest delicacy, even you, milady. At least a little".

Eyeing the red meat, which usually reminded her too vividly of the mysterious stew fed to her and the other slaves in her early days in Menzoberranzan, Vala sniffed distastefully, "A bite or two perhaps. But no more. I also wish to retire soon. The road, you understand, has been..."

She politely left out that her advancing pregnancy was sapping her strength, leaving her exhausted through much of the day, constantly interrupting her meditation sessions.

He inclined his head, "Of course, of course. Women. So, Netal, was it? You have been much too quiet. Enjoy a glass, and tell me tales of your homeland. It's always a pleasure to learn of the world, and I find that the soft-spoken are often the most eloquent orators..."

...

As the evening ran its course they wished their host a good night and retired to a small but luxurious room on the second floor.

Despite only being about the size of an average loft, it was perhaps the finest chamber Adir had ever seen, even compared to Ahriman's throne.

Decorated in Ormat's...exotic tastes, the curtains were a deep, fur-lined blue, so dark as to be nearly black, with dangling lengths of silvery charms, and the walls were opaque glass filled with something akin to quicksilver. The fluid was in perpetual motion, affording the illusion of a churning sea. The ceiling, too, was possessed of this effect. There was no balcony, nor were there windows.

He assumed this was where his friend copulated with the members of his harem...and tried to summon the willpower to lay flat in the richly cushioned bed. To his honest surprise, the sheets were dry.

"I don't want us to part..." Vala noted sadly, eyes averted, "Even for a matter of days. But I know you have work to do...and I need to return to the Promenade. There is something in addition to learning about these visions that I have to do."

She paused, uncertain, before meeting his gaze, "Do you still have it?"

He nodded, reaching into the folds of his robes, about his neck, and withdrawing a plain leather cord, tied to which was a thick, chipped, yellowed tusk.

"I never left it out of my sight." he assured her, parting with the grim memento of her mother, the only thing she had left of her, "Are you...certain you wish to bring it there?"

"I have conquered my demons." Vala replied, setting the tooth on the mantle, "Or perhaps I have outgrown them. Since my first days with you, the being that I called Nobody has been nothing but a distant memory".

He nodded, for he knew little of the aspect she had adopted during her time alone in the wilds of the Underdark, a dark reflection of animal survival instinct. It broke his heart to think of her in such a state, but he was relieved that her turmoil was in the past.

"Fine then. Enough with such grim business, then."

He dared a glance into the adjacent washroom, and grinned, happily extricating himself from that bed to peer in through the portal, "Will wonders never cease? A bathtub was not sufficient for the humble pasha. He made himself a miniature waterfall."

The floor was a massive bowl of veined white marble, with a small hole near the center to drain. A second opening in the wall, terminating into the long snout of a bronze dolphin, served as the fountainhead. It expelled a steady stream of water, that was even then beginning to steam the mirrored walls.

"A proximity trigger?" Vala asked, shrugging dispassionately, "How do you men sleep at night knowing there are beggars starving in the streets?"

"You were hardly inclined to aid the less fortunate during your time as a thief."

"Truth, that..." she conceded, already parting her top down her shoulders, "But I only held on to what I needed to survive and to enhance my natural abilities, the better to ensure my survival. Ormat hardly needs a waterfall in his bathhouse."

"Truth, that."

Adir set aside his robes and the few protective talismans he'd acquired to replace those he had lost, before pulling his wife to him .

"No, let me..." he whispered in her ear, pressing against her, her back knotting as he undid the wrap about her waist, then relaxing as he pushed down her leggings, lifting each foot to be rid of it.

He brushed his nose against the side of her neck, then his lips, ending in a shallow kiss, supporting her thin frame with one arm. She leaned into him, sighing. His hand found her abdomen, then her lower belly, which he gingerly cupped as he inched them towards the water. The heat settled there betrayed the life forming in her body. He could feel it even against the cloud of steam filling the chamber.

"They may have to suffer the indignity of my company for a time..." he whispered as the water broke across his back, soaking his hair, "And I hate waiting. We've been on the road a while, so this might hurt a bit..."

She didn't reply. She didn't need to. A brief glance back to him betrayed her disposition...

Chapter 3:

Memnon, Calimshan (2nd of Alturiak, 1380 Dalereckoning)

When morning came and their initial coupling ran its course, Vala bade her husband good fortune, for he needed privacy to recover his strength, and allowed a familiar face to lead her to the bathhouse proper. Since they were not able to leave the manor, for their presence needed to remain a secret, it seemed a good a place as any to waste time, especially since their host was by no means of a scholarly persuasion, and possessed no study.

She considering visiting his room of instruments, but she was out of practice. It'd been many months since she'd used her flute, which had remained in her room in the poor quarter of Almraiven, and years since she'd sampled the elegant stringed instruments of the Promenade. Maybe one day she'd endeavor to become a maven of bardic practice, but right now the thought seemed silly.

And, she thought with mirth and a little melancholy, the people of Faerûn would hardly suffer her, be it in a tavern or in an amphitheatre. And she likely couldn't suffer that much attention.

"Have you been treated well, Amara?" she asked her middle-aged northerner handmaiden, who had survived Ahriman's betrayal as well, as had most of Adir's retinue that day.

She smiled, her worry lines deepening, "Well enough, milady. Better than if we'd been seized by the king."

"Although..." she added, considering her uniform, a black velveteen cloth affair with white trim and a pleated apron, that was oddly more revealing than not, "I would have a thing or two to say about the dress code here."

Sharing a laugh, Vala nodded, "I have had to acclimate to custom, myself. I think I like it now. All these light fabrics..."

"That is noble custom in general." Amara corrected, "Ah, here we are. Right this way."

She was led through a rosewood door, for the heat would have certainly bled out of such a small chamber with veils or curtains.

Ormat's bathhouse was nearly level with the sea; a large pool that actually spilled out into the ocean, the fresh water and salt water separated by a peculiar membrane that fish and other sea life could penetrate, before realizing the shift in the water's particularities and hastily darting back out.

Nonetheless, she saw a dolphin banked near the boundaries, equipped with a jeweled headpiece adorned with a long ivory spike, making the animal reminiscent of a narwhal. She assumed it was Ormat's underwater mount. It eyed her with keen intelligence and no small amount of curiosity.

There were also a pair of fountains, not unlike the one in their room, a steaming porcelain tub, and several massage tables.

Durrah stood quietly before one such table with a hole near its end. Having done this before, Vala knew she would normally place her head face down, and then she would receive a massage. As her belly was too sensitive to press down like that, she would lie on her side.

But she wanted to know something first, something that had been bothering her.

She studied the woman, a native of Almraiven. The way her expression never changed. Even a little, where the lower half of her face was concerned.

"Durrah..." Vala started, troubled, "If...you were compelled by geas not to speak, would you have a way of telling me?"

She nodded.

"Are you compelled by geas?"

She shook her head.

"Let it go, milady..." Amara warned, but she had an inkling of the woman's silence.

"Were you...disciplined for speaking, by Adir?"

Again, she shook her head.

"By anyone."

She nodded.

"Please, Durrah. I know we haven't been on amiable terms...so far as I can tell. Things are different now. You can-"

"Her last owner was a merchant of flesh." Amara pointed out, gently but firmly separating them, "She tried to barter away his secrets in return for her freedom, but her actions were betrayed to her owner and her buyer abandoned her without fulfilling his promise. So the man had her tongue cut out."

Durrah's expression darkened, and Vala saw a flash of teeth.

"Leave it be."

"I think not!" Vala snapped, "Durrah, I am learning new powers every day. Did you not once think I might try to help you if you told me?"

"It nah be hulpd..." Durrah said, her vowels muffled as the stump of her tongue struggled to compensate, "I tock too mah. Now I nah tock too mah."

Vala made a split decision, without the approval of her husband.

"You are free, Durrah."

Her eyes went wide.

"Milady, you have no right to-"

"Adir owes me his life." Vala corrected, "And thus a service, which I invoke now. Durrah, Amara, you are both free to leave, or to serve us as hirelings if that is your desire. Neither of you will ever have to speak to me in anything other than a manner of equals. If anything, as Adir's property, it is I who would reply in honorifics."

"Durrah, if you remain, by your leave I would try to find a way to restore your lost flesh, and anything else that will settle life's inequities. What do you say to this?"

She seemed at a loss for words.

"Whah?"

"Because I will it so." Vala replied, "I need no more a reason than this."

She nodded, a faint smile on her face.

"Good. Now that we're all friends here... I'll take that massage, if you are willing. You can discuss your wages with Adir later. My ankles and back are killing me."

...

Such a small thing. Such a banal thing.

Adir set the codex on the floor in front of him, as it was too heavy to safely place in his lap like his lost spell book.

Vala had told him she'd had no trouble handling it, but had found herself unable to actually open it. This was because only a wizard could access it, and she was no wizard.

The codex had no reason to make things futilely difficult for her.

Its dark leather cover was unremarkable. Its pages were another matter altogether.

Adir steadied himself, and opened it to its first page.

Already he had completed this trial, that he might contact the beings of the outer planes.

He turned to the second page.

Already he had unlocked the ability to sacrifice mortals to these beings through a powerful banishment, the better to placate them and invite gifts in turn.

Like most sentient beings, elementals were known to enslave rivals, and oftentimes force them to demeaning tasks, like serving mortals, for one.

The third page detailed the summoning of lesser elementals, and the fourth, greater.

He intuited that the final page detailed the binding of Elemental Lords, the equivalent of archdevils, but this was a feat reserved for gods or their chosen. And there were hundreds more pages before then, each of which containing a trial, each of which needed to be overcome to advance further in.

Adir knew from the failure of so many iterant wizards that to presume to challenge the codex beyond the strictly permitted process invited a painful death. To be unworthy or possessed of weakness was to also invite death.

Those who survived could peruse its pages and learn its powers, though not without risk. To learn too much invited madness, for the codex gradually surrendered a part of itself to its reader. In essence, the reader became the codex, by absorbing its knowledge and memory. Already he possessed images and sensations that were not his own, fragments of the language that filled the codex's pages.

His standing theory was that of a god, in his final moments, creating the codex as a means to duplicate himself, attaining a form of subjective immortality. Though he knew not the being, he fancied this figure a possible progenitor to Azuth, Mystra's subjugate deity and warden of all magic.

Adir knew that he dared not absorb too much of the book, for he risked losing himself to it. Becoming a creature he didn't recognize.

But he also knew that without this power he could not reclaim his home. He would not be able to keep his family safe.

His family...

"Oh, what have you done to me, Vala?" Adir mused as he held the edges of the current page, in the last moments before the next trial began, "Things seemed much clearer when I only fought for myself."

He flipped the page, and at once, he ceased to be in Ormat's private room.

...

While Adir read his book, Ormat found himself left with a difficult decision.

He sat at his parlor, pouring himself rare imperial cognac in one of his specially made crystal glasses.

He sloshed the dark amber fluid, sniffing its unique bouquet of vanilla, hazelnut, and oak, taking in the sights of Memnon, his home.

Its beauty.

Its treacherous beauty.

All those that lived within its lofty walls survived only due to their dedication to pragmatism. And pragmatism only thrived without constraints of higher mortality.

He took another sip, exhaling, palming the enchanted bead Amon's spymaster had left him many years ago. A device that had up until now been quiescent.

If he wanted to, Ormat knew he could defeat his friend in single combat. With only the codex, he was more vulnerable than he'd been in decades. Vala would be leaving soon, and Netal's loyalty seemed uncertain at best.

He could hand his friend over to Amon. The rewards would sustain his proclivities for decades more. He could strengthen his hold over Memnon, be named its king. A war between Memnon and Almraiven would be to his benefit; his allies were not restricted to those that walked on land, and both cities hugged the coast. Power of the sands would not avail Ahriman, and his armies were small, necessarily so.

He set down his glass. In his other hand, he drew his holy symbol, his connection to Sashelas Deep.

Would his god approve of such a thing?

"Adir is a slaver and a necromancer..." Ormat pondered, voicing his conflict, "He has no greater right to moral superiority than Amon or Ahriman."

But he was also a good man. A friend, if ever Ormat had known such a thing in this cruel, uncertain life. Adir had shown him that one's origins did not define him. Adir had been born a slave, but he had become a pasha.

Ormat had been born of an evil elemental spirit, an agent of the Kraken Society and a cutthroat pirate...and yet...

And yet he had also become a priest of a goodly deity, become an ally to Aquatic Elves and other benevolent species. He'd even considered freeing his thralls, the females at least, ungrateful louts that they were.

He'd made him home in this city of vice, but tried to become something more than a scoundrel.

And what else, if not a scoundrel, would betray Adir now?

The bead in one hand, the symbol of his god in the other. What an apt metaphor. What was more important to him? To survive? To profit?

Or to survive to accomplish something meaningful?

...

Adir found himself floating in an infinite void, so, naturally, he assumed that he'd failed, and thus found himself amid Shar's nothingness. He'd always wondered if another deity would take him in his final moments, and found himself immeasurably disappointed, whether in himself or the pantheon he couldn't say.

Panic might have set in, but for the peculiar haze had settled over his mind, like taking a pinch of minddust in a crowded bazaar.

But then, coherent notions began to form; he could not be dead. His final precaution had survived Ahriman's abjuration, the better for him to reactivate at a later time. The gem had been latent; no dispelling could have affected an item that didn't output magic of any sort.

Right?

Before him appeared a massive pillar of jacinth, ringed in silver, and he knew he was not in the embrace of Lady Loss after all. Yet.

Still, everything was cloudy. What had he been doing just moments ago?

Nothing for it, he projected himself forward, floating, reached towards the gem, entranced by the light.

As his hand brushed across its faceted surface, there was a cacophony of light and sound, and Adir watched, awestruck, as dozens of metallic pillars ascended from the empty space beneath him, and likewise descended from the empty space above him.

And then he was by no means among empty space. The pillars were innumerable.

Their surfaces reflected the gem's light, and looking at a thousand perfect reflections of his face, he realized they were mirrors. All of them. Roughly cut, each pillar nonetheless emitted a perfect reflection, no matter their angle or exact direction.

He was not the sort to be overly prideful of his own appearance, nonetheless, he felt that this element of his surroundings was important somehow. Indicative of narcissism, or desire for apotheosis?

He touched the pillar closest to him, and in a flash of light, felt himself being whisked away...

...

When she returned from dining with Ormat and his retinue, for Adir had not answered the summons, Vala found him right where she'd left him that morning.

He sat cross-legged before the book, his eyes vacant, emitting a steady drone of indeterminate chanting. In another instance, she might have assumed him to be lost amid the pages of a particularly engaging book.

But she knew that in this case that was exactly the matter, in the literal sense.

Knowing that becoming privy to the words of the codex may very well include her in its trial, Vala smiled sadly, knelt down, and kissed him on the cheek, "I go to sleep now. If you...don't come back until after I wake, I just want you to know that you will be in my thoughts until I return. Always. Goodnight, my love."

Chapter 4:

The High Forest (3rd of Alturiak, 1380 Dalereckoning)

The wizard in Ormat's service hadn't been able to determine the exact spot in which she intended, so she'd simply imparted its image in his mind. When she stepped through the shimmering barrier, crossing a distance of several nations, far beyond the capability of her dimensional door, Vala had briefly wondered if she would end up inside a wall or turned inside out by magical displacement.

Thankfully, she found herself quite intact, staring dimly up at a forest canopy, about two bowshots from the cave she'd shared with Alirana Srune'Lett, the former Priestess of Lloth responsible for her mother's death, now a redeemed agent of the deceased Eilistraee.

Her father, unwilling to accompany her, had remained in Memnon, the better to safeguard her husband. And fight off Ormat's flirtations. Battling a persistent smile provoked by the thought, Vala turned north-west, remembering the path from the cave to the outpost that had been attacked, and hopefully later rebuilt. Her feet were bare, save for golden rings on each of her big toes that provided the effect of her psionic fields. A gift from Ormat as an apology for her rough treatment. One of several.

She wore another of his gifts as well, a much finer set of dancer's regalia, a light shade of aqua with accents of indigo and gold, wrought of thin, finely spun silk and genuine gold thread. While she was uncomfortable showing so much skin, as the leggings were cut in such a manner that only a thin undergarment covered her modesty, held up by a knotted waist wrap and synch, he'd also paid to provide her with a near replica of a Drow piwafwi, a special hooded cloak that shimmered in the light, designed to disguise a person's heat signature or even stop a bolt from a Drow hand crossbow.

It would serve if she was feeling shy.

Her earrings, lapis lazuli cabochons, were enchanted to deflect certain hostile spells. A pair of bangles were likewise enchanted to deflect scrying attempts other than those cast by Adir, Ormat, or another of their choosing.

Those, along with her powers, would serve if things didn't go well.

For over an hour she followed the trail, adrift in her memories. While they had shunned her after she'd attacked Alirana in a blind rage, the Dark Promenade was where she'd been born, or at least, reborn. They had rescued her from the wilds. They had brought her back from the suffocating darkness that was Nobody. She owed them her life...and it made her wish she could have parted under better circumstances.

Then again, she would never had left. Never have found Adir and forsaken Nobody completely. Never would have been reunited with her father.

She would have fought against the agents of Ghaunadaur and Lloth. She might have protected Qilué and saved her, and thus, Eilistraee. Or she might have died in battle.

Fate was a curious thing...

Soon she felt as if eyes were upon her. She knew to trust her instincts.

Nonetheless, Vala continued unerringly towards the outpost, making no effort to conceal her footsteps. She did draw her piwafwi closer about her, indeed feeling uncomfortable in presenting herself to her former peers. They were not likely to understand the choices she had made, or those that had been made for her.

Sighing, Vala kept her eyes forward, even when she heard someone creep closer. Another would not have noticed, so subtly did they time their footsteps with hers, all the while keeping pace. Another might have failed to approach under such conditions without disturbing the thicker bunches of wild grass, still laced with morning dew.

Her Underdark experiences had to count for something.

She stopped, turned directly towards them, and crossed her arms, adopting a look of supreme disinterest at the sight of a startled Half-Elf male. His pale skin and dark eyes marked him as part Moon Elf. He recovered quickly, retreating with his rapier and blowing a long, clean note with a hunting horn in his other hand.

She let him do it. She didn't even move towards him or manifest a power, allowing him to take a more advantageous position. His brow crinkled in confusion, but his eyes narrowed dangerously.

Another horn echoed through the forest. Another. Fellow hunters, answering the call.

"Who are you?" he asked quietly but sternly, "Why are you here?"

For a moment she almost replied "Nobody."

Instead, she smiled, "My name is Vala Oblodra Telth'zol. I was once an associate of the Dark Promenade. I have returned to seek counsel".

He frowned, thoughtful, "They are gone from this place. But their emissary hunts with us from time to time. Hold out your hands and surrender any weapons".

Vala did as he bade, opening her piwafwi. He blinked at her attire, but said nothing.

"No weapons?"

"I am the weapon." she replied with a smirk, "I came here by portal. No risky travel, you see".

The horns signaled again, much closer this time.

"Are you going to tell me your name?"

He blinked, but said nothing.

Vala inclined an eyebrow, hands on her hips.

"I do not know you, irinal. I will not surrender my name to an Dark Elf of uncertain but obvious magical ability."

There was a rustling among the thick pines and oaks.

"First its iblith..." Vala mused, motioning to her extended lower canines, a sign of her orcish lineage, "Now irinal. Seems like everyone has a derogatory for me."

Three more Moon Elves, these ones purebloods, took positions on lower hanging branches thick enough to support their weight, yew longbows nocked, arrow tips pointed directly at her. She made a note of meeting the eyes of each one.

It made it harder to shoot someone if you looked them in the eyes. Even her own people became nonplussed.

Another Elf approached from ground level, a Wood Elf.

But then Vala realized it was not a Wood Elf. Her skin was too dark, like oak bark. Her eyes were also an unnaturally dark shade of hazelnut. More importantly, her features were distinctly familiar. As was her Singing Sword, the signature weapon of a warrior of Eilistraee.

"Nezierre?" Vala asked, bewildered, naming the Darksong Knight initiate that had defended Alirana from her attack, then carried out her banishment.

The female seemed equally surprised to see her.

"What are you doing here, Vala?" she asked in richly accented Drowic, and it took a moment for her to remember the words to reply.

"What has-"

"What are you doing here?"

The Half-Drow paused, then, "I need to speak to Iljrene."

"You will not be permitted to rejoin us after-"

"It's not about that!" she snapped, her shock blunted by the woman's continued hostility, "I need to know more about the history of the Drow, before The Descent. It's important."

Nezierre's eyes clouded over, betraying her internal conflict, "Very well. Noah, bind her wrists."

Vala looked sidelong at the Half-Elf, clear amusement on her face as he did as bade, restraining her with a thick cord.

"I remember your abilities." she said calmly, but with audible menace, eyes narrowed, "If I see you trying to concentrate, I will assume you mean to use your powers over us and I will kill you. Do you understand?"

Vala shrugged.

"So be it. You will find your answers, or not. And then you will leave. Do I have your word?"

She nodded. This was no longer her home. Her place was far to the south...

...

He studied his surroundings, unsure exactly at what point he'd ceased to be in the endless hall of mirrors, and instead arrived...here.

It might have alarmed him that he stood before a great tower of iron amid a sand-blasted landscape pockmarked with stagnant pools and rivers, the skies a mix of glowing vermillion green and impenetrable oil black. The winged, cackling demons and cowering mortals being led in lines of shackles may also have been distressing...but not a single living thing amid the ruined hell before him seemed to even notice his presence.

"Dis." Adir concluded, "Second layer of the hells and realm of Dispater."

That wasn't right. The only means to enter the lower regions of the hells was through Avernus, and that realm, well known to many mortals, himself included, did not in any way resemble his previous location. Had he uncovered some previously unheard of backdoor into the lower realms?

"The trial!" he exclaimed, his mind racing, "I would wager had I selected another mirror, I may indeed have found Shar's Shadowfell. Or Arvandor. Or anywhere else."

It made sense; the gem had been the focal point, and the effect had been the mirrors, the spell the book would allow him to cast. Each one was likely a gateway to another extraplanar realm.

But how did this comprise a test?

It was only now that Adir noticed the second pillar, directly behind him, the mirror he'd touched earlier.

Only now, there was no reflection. It could have been sculpted from hematite. A thin silvery cord connected them to each other. Passing a hand over the thread revealed it to be intangible.

Touching the pillar, anew flashed the light, and he was in that empty expanse once more.

"What opportunities I might find in instantaneous travel between any realm of my choosing..." he pondered, "With Vala's abilities, I could steal anything in all the realms to use against Ahriman. An artifact of the divine. An item possessed of the nullification field common during the Time of Troubles. Or perhaps I could spill open the contents of one or another plane of the abyss right in the King's bedchamber! The possibilities!"

His mirth was short lived; his smiled died when he considered his surroundings.

"Dark..." he cursed, looking to the jacinth shard. A crack marred its surface, small, but deeply pitted.

Quickly, as to test his theory, Adir returned to Dis by tapping the same mirror, and quickly transported himself back by repeating the gesture.

The crack had visibly grown in size.

"It isn't merely the reagent." Adir observed, "It's a timepiece. I only have a set amount of astral jaunts before the reagent is lost."

The results of failure were unclear; would he simply be trapped here until his body perished from dehydration, or would he be returned to his body?

He was in no mood to find out for himself; the trial had to be completed.

"But what must I do?" Adir asked himself, puzzled, "Is there a "correct" realm to choose? What is the solution?"

...

With nothing better to occupy him, and having become quite finished with their host's incessant offers for drink and company, Netal sat opposite to the Faerie Elf who would rule their Great House.

"I wonder what she sees in you." he wondered distantly, critically assessing Adir's blank, unresponsive face. A skilled wizard, certainly. Possessed of reliable allies, possibly. But what allowed him to pacify his daughter so fully?

She was a half-blood, certainly. Born of slave stock. But she was a Psion, powerful, an Oblodra female in mind if not entirely in lineage. Her fortitude to survive alone in the wilds of the Underdark, and at such a young age, was unheard of. Even the Do'Urden renegade had been in his forties, trained for decades by Melee-Magthere and one of the best Weapon Masters Menzoberranzan had ever seen. Her sheer telepathic presence, for one so young, that had overwhelmed him, brushed aside his defenses without effort... Her Power was frightening, monstrous.

Unnatural.

"I can't even imagine..." he mused, "Where she found this strength, nor how you seem to have separated her from it. She has the power to rule a restored House Oblodra, on the surface or in any other city controlled by our people...and you've made her into a lap lizard bellying-up to be stroked."

Adir, enraptured by the subtleties of the Codex, offered no reply, wasn't even aware of his presence.

"Perhaps it would be a service." he thought to himself, "If I killed you. Blame assassins and slip away in the confusion with my daughter when she returns."

They lacked resources, but with their powers they could steal as they pleased, make their own way. He would suffer her indignity for a time, but her sentimentality would shine through. And her pragmatism.

"Nothing for it now." he decided, "I've cast my lot in with you unless I can manage a jaunt to Skullport, and I'd rather avoid becoming a foot soldier of Bregan D'aerthe if I can."

This labor could bear fruit. They could make a great house on the surface to rival the Baenre. They could rule Almraiven, or Memnon, or wherever they planted their feet. With such a powerful Psion, anything was possible...

...

The trip was a short one. Nezierre had used a small but stable portal to travel from the village, now called Lunarglen, oddly, to the Dark Promenade. It had needed to be recalibrated to allot two. It took another hour, with Nezierre glaring at her all the while. Vala, unwilling and unable to wage a war of nerves, ignored it as best she could.

As she stepped through the rift, she immediately felt the staleness of the air, noted the lack of wind and birdsong, and intuited the oppressive weight of the sheer mass of stone between her and the surface that had become her realm.

She shivered, though it wasn't cold.

Several more Dark Elves, each sharing the inexplicable new features as her escort, guarded the gate. Each one looked to her in surprise and suspicion, though she didn't recognize any of them.

"You will go no further than this room." Nezierre told her, "I will bring Iljrene, and she will do as she will. Then we will return to Lunarglen and you will be gone."

Nodding, Vala waited patiently, as the Darksong Knight exchanged quiet words with her sisters, then exited through a narrow passageway.

Several minutes passed, the portal gone quiescent, with the guards eyeing her the entire time, and Vala considered taking a seat on the hard stone floor when Nezierre returned with three in tow.

The first was another female Dark Elf and clearly a Darksong Knight, for belted at her waist was another fabled Singing Sword. It took several moments for her to place the female, time for them to stand before her, waiting for her address.

"Lelliana Vrinn." she finally stated, recalling a well respected member of the sisterhood and an occasional advisor to Qilué. They'd never spoken at length, but she remembered dancing with her in worship.

The second she knew immediately; though no shorter than Vala herself, her slight, child-like frame, so slender and possessed of such an innocent face and high pitched voice that most mistook her for a fledgling initiate. Most of them wound up with a series of painful welts as the resident Battlemistress masterfully dispatched them with the flat of her blade.

"Iljrene." she said, inclining her head respectively.

The third, a Human female, stood among them, out of place but by no means apart. She wore a dark violet gown with a black velvet cloak, her nearly ageless face at odds with her ancient eyes. Never before had she seen the woman, but her appearance was distinctly familiar.

Vala smirked, "You are Laeral Silverhand, Lady Mage of Waterdeep and Chosen of Mystra."

The woman blinked, surprised.

"My, my. Does my reputation proceed me?"

"I spoke to Alustriel. She said you might still be here."

Laeral nodded, though she seemed at a loss, "True enough. Soon, we will select a new sanctuary for the Ssri-Tel'Quessir and I will part ways, but for now I will advise the Sisterhood as I am able."

Each of them took in her garb with mixed response. She pulled her piwafwi a little tighter.

"It has been a long time, child..." Iljrene noted sadly, undoing the bindings on her wrists, "You did not part well from us, but it pleases me to see you well."

Her eyebrow raised in a question.

"Well enough." the Half-Drow said dismissively, "First of all, I need to know what has happened to you. All of you. Was this Eilistraee's doing?"

Iljrene looked stricken, "Alustriel would have told you of Qilué... No, this is not the work of the chosen or the goddess. A male named Q'arlynd Melarn is responsible for resurrecting the Ssri-Tel'Quessir, the ancient race of primordial Dark Elves, through us. With his aid, and the sacrifice of Eilistraee, we continue to return to the surface in accordance with her wishes."

She smiled, though there was an unbearable sadness there, "This place is not what it once was. Most that were not killed in the assault by Ghaunadaur have moved to our burgeoning surface villages. In time, we will make a capital city in the High Forest and begin our society above."

Nodding, Vala eyed her skin, still a dusky grey, "Did this happen to everyone here?"

Iljrene nodded, "And many beyond. Only those of pure Miyeritar blood or those in worship to the goddess were changed. Sadly, it seems that House Oblodra was Ilythiiri in origin.

Her skin went gooseflesh.

"I am here to learn of Ilythiir."

Iljrene stared blankly, so she briefly explained her journey beyond the Promenade, and the peculiar visions that had plagued her.

The blademistress' eyes clouded over when Vala mentioned her "marriage" to Adir and her impending child, but a flash of recognition forced her from her consideration, "Yes. We know of Wendonai as well. It seems we have much to discuss."

She glanced to her Human companion, "Laeral, perhaps you can explain it better than I. You were the one who spoke to Q'arlynd".

The Chosen nodded, "First, we need to get comfortable. This could take a moment."

She clapped her hands, and in a whoosh of displaced air, a small table and chairs suddenly occupied the portal chamber. She took her seat, back to the portal. Lelliana departed, saying she would check on "the twins", earning a look of gratitude from Laeral.

Since she didn't understand the reference, Vala simply sat, demurely with her hands in her lap, and waited politely.

"Q'arlynd Melarn and the reformed wizards of Sshamath were most helpful with providing insight into this largely forgotten period of time." Laeral began, "This story begins with two cities founded by the Ssri-Tel'Quessir, named Ilythiir and Miyeritar. Miyeritar was conceived in -18000 DR in the areas later known as the High Moor and Misty Forest, center of elven art and high magic in Faerûn."

Moonlight.

Visions of a city. A name.

Ilythiiri.

"It was also the rival of Aryvandaar, a prominent city founded by the Sun Elves, who tried to peacefully annex their neighbor into their realm. The repeated refusal of Miyeritar provoked an armed response, and thus was the beginning of the First Crown War, roughly thirteen thousand years ago."

"A dark time for all the people." Iljrene noted grimly, earning a nod from the human wizard.

"Ilythiir covered the part of Southern Faerûn where the areas later known as Shaar and Forest of Amtar lay. It was an ally of Miyeritar and also founded by Ssri-Tel'Quessir, and so, with their aid, Miyeritar and the Dark Elven nation thrived. Some Ilythiiri houses began to venerate Lloth in order to gain power, who was at that time known as Araushnee the Weaver. She offered them a vision of Ssri-Tel'Quessir prosperity, and eventually supremacy."

"In roughly -11700 DR Ilythiir began the Second Crown War, presumably in retaliation for Aryvandaar's attack on Miyeritar. It was about this time the Balor Lord Wendonai was sent by Lloth to seduce a high Ilythiiri clan into her service, and the church of Lolth began to rise in importance. None now know which house, exactly, or if its members endure to this day. Hopefully, they do not."

Infected with Demonic Taint.

Wendonai.

Iljrene nodded, finishing the story with, "When Lloth betrayed Corellon Larethian and tried to invade the Seldarine, both cities were razed by their neighboring Sun and Wood Elves. And so our people were forced into the Underdark, followed by our lady Eilistraee, who chose exile that she could someday redeem us, and lead us back to the surface. "

Her voice wavered, briefly, then, "It would seem she suceeded."

The bloodline, lost to demonic corruption.

Stricken.

Betrayed.

Cast down into the darkness.

"Recently, Q'arlynd discovered that House Melarn, as well as several surviving houses today, were not of the Ilythiiri, the Dark Elves who were active in the Crown Wars, but rather of the Miyeritari, those who were wrongly forced to partake in The Descent."

Visions of a male Elf with pale skin and kind eyes, and his darker skinned mate.

Ilythiiri. A Dark Elf of Ilythiiri blood.

Bound with Faerzress, the fire that they called at will from Underdark radiation.

"I think the high Ilythiiri clan that first sided with Lloth later became the Oblodra..." Vala replied suddenly, startling her, "Or at least one of its members split from that clan and formed the Oblodra."

Descendant.

Benefactor?

"Her mate was..." Vala puzzled, clutching her head, suppressing the agonizing pulses of a migraine that came with this revelation.

Visions of a male Elf with pale skin and kind eyes, and his darker skinned mate.

"Was..."

She saw, but did not understand, as her hosts rose to their feet, alarmed. Blades were drawn.

Are you the one?

Vala.

Vala?

"Vala?" Iljrene asked, advancing a step around the table.

Vala.

Vala?

Are you the one?

"A Psion!" she gasped, everything falling into place, "A Moon Elf Psion! He's the reason our people have one family, only onefamily, possessed of so many Psions. He passed the ability down through his bloodline. My bloodline!"

It felt like her head was splitting. One realization led to another.

"And he's communicating with me." she realized, "Maybe not directly. A power, manifesting through our shared blood, activated not by the restoration of my powers but by the change wrought upon our people with the death of Eilistraee and the cessation of the Faerzress!"

"He knew his family was to be lost to Demonic corruption. They were Ilythiiri. All of them. He knew they may never return from it." she continued, laughing, "But he allowed the possibility for a benefactor, a pupil, to redeem his house. That's why my powers increased. Why he speaks to me in these visions. He's trying to teach me. He has been dead for over ten thousand years and still..."

"Still he wants his house restored to its former glory." Laeral finished for her, "The kind of ability one would need to have a power manifest after so much time, so much turmoil..."

"He may have been the first Elven Psion as well..." Iljrene noted, "It is a very rare ability for any of the people to manifest, a trait more common among Humans and Illithid, and we know that Humans likely learned from the latter."

"Maybe this Moon Elf did, too." Vala said, still grinning, in spite of her discomfort, "I must learn more of this male. Do you know where I might look?"

The expressions of her hosts dampened her enthusiasm.

"As I've said..." Laeral reiterated, "This is a forgotten period of time, nearly contemporary with the Dragon Kingdoms that dotted Faerûn in its earliest days."

"Still..." Vala said, not discouraged, "I know this is the key to fully unlocking my powers. Already I feel my connection deepening with my new understanding."

"Yes, well..." Iljrene added, "It certainly looks like you are, as well..."

Vala looked down, to the lengths of psicrystal budding from her flesh, the tenebrous blue mist seeping from her pores.

"Sorry." Vala said, withdrawing the manifestation with conscious effort, "It's a great deal to take in."

Iljrene sheathed her sword, sighing, "You might as well remain for the night. I sense there is more you wish to learn, but we can hardly discuss it with you in such a state."

"Yes." Vala agreed, still trembling, then, "Is she here?"

The Battlemistress nodded.

"I would speak with her."

"That is not a good idea."

"I know." Vala persisted, troubled, "But I need to, regardless. Please, Iljrene."

"We will see."

It was the best she was going to get. She let the matter drop.

"You will have a room and a bed tonight. A meal will be delivered. I am sorry, but you cannot roam these halls freely. You understand."

"Of course, Battlemistress."

"Very well. I will make the necessary preparations. Excuse me."

...

Predisposed to logic puzzles, for how else could he have solved the previous trials of the codex, Adir arrived at a few different possible solutions after a time of careful consideration.

Perhaps the goal of the trial was simply to find the mirror pertaining to Toril before the gem shattered, to return to his physical body. This was unlikely, as the previous trials were based more in higher ingenuity than mere luck, but then, no written documentation of the Codex existed, so the assumption that the continued trials were based solely on logic was hardly concrete.

Perhaps, as his theory postulated, the creator of the codex was a nearly divine being, possessed of each of its bequeathed abilities, and this was a record of sorts of all the planes it had visited, and by merely surveying each safely, he could complete the trial.

Or perhaps there was a specific order he was supposed to observe. With no means of knowing any of this, and having attempted to cast divinations to ascertain knowledge of the codex in the past, Adir knew there was no way to obtain this information beyond what he could see and interact with here.

Or perhaps there was something he needed to do in each realm in order to fulfill a hidden requirement, and by neglecting to do so, he provided the cracks in the gem.

Decisions, decisions...

"Perhaps I should have simply given the Codex to Ahriman." he chortled, "Let him lose himself in its pages and rid me of it. I could have it sent by proxy, have its pages inserted into his diary. I wonder if he has a diary..."

...

In the end they prepared for her a small chamber near the portal, likely the quarters of the guards assigned to her. Four beds filled the room, one in each corner. Three Darksong Knights were present, her personal escort, to dice her into filets the moment she did something inauspicious. Mostly ignoring them, since she'd tried two times to provoke a conversation and failed miserably, Vala cleaned herself in a washbasin, a wretched thing compared to Ormat's hospitalities but welcome regardless, and ate a sparse meal of mushroom bread and rothé cheese, a familiar staple of Underdark life.

With evening well underway, she sat cross-legged and meditated, accessing her mindscape to review her daily experiences and opening herself to new insights. Immediately she knew that certain dark clouded areas were thinning. Still, the turbulence remained, that frightening, swirling maelstrom at the center of her being. She knew now that while it came from her, it was not necessarily of her. Maybe it would kill her. Maybe everything it'd taken would spill back out. She couldn't say for sure.

"Can you speak to me?" Vala asked it, troubled but expectant, "Do you want to speak to me?"

She'd hoped that with this new revelation, she would receive another vision. Yet her ancestor's shade remained silent.

Nothing for it, she resumed her usual ritual of consolidating her experiences, and then emptying her mind entirely and indulging in something akin to reverie. Most Drow could not enter the waking dream, and some Elves couldn't either. Adir certainly couldn't. As a Half-Drow, Vala needed to sleep, but the period of relaxation akin to reverie left her restive. When she finished, she rose and collapsed onto the bed, throwing the thick, coarse wool sheets over her, and knew no more...

...

Adir scoured the realm of Dis, or at least, he now realized, a representation of the second level of the hells. Around the iron tower, the landscape extended roughly a league before terminating into a barrier of impenetrable darkness. Knowing the boundaries of this trial, he entered the iron tower, lacking protection spells but thus far unmolested by the phantom representations of various devils.

On the first floor, he observed shackled lines of humanoids being processed by their captors. Despite his profession as a slaver he had no taste for the sheer callous brutality he witnessed, as they were lashed with barbed scourges and branded with hot iron, and he looked away, sickened. Consulting the few necromantic spells he could without his spellbook, one of which could identify and locate nearby undead, he concluded that either these phantoms were mere representations of long lost souls, or a construct of the codex itself. There was no connection to them that implied living or undead status. A fortunate thing, due to what he saw, and he hoped the latter. Not even men like Ahriman should be made to suffer in this manner...

Up an ascending stairway there was a large study, packed with shelves of leather-bound volumes, lit by a fireplace smoldering at the far wall. The books were mundane enough, though the furnishings were not. The room was filled with the moans of anguished dead. The shelves were sculpted of bone, still fed by a network of pulsating veins. A fleshy membrane hung from the walls like curtains, which contained humanoid faces animated in grotesque caricatures of life. A table of bone hung supported by clusters of limbs stitched together, digits groping sightlessly. Resting in a chair of similar make, a golden-skinned, crimson-eyed woman studied him as he approached, clearly privy to his presence.

Adir reached for his defensive spells, but found his mind oddly muddled. Mystra's weave seemed closed to him at that moment.

The woman, almost like a fellow Sun Elf but of a race of devils known as Erinye, smiled with a mouth filled with fangs.

"You are not him." The Erinye said coyly, "Too bad for you."

Adir blinked.

"You were expecting someone?"

"Yes."

"You appear more...alert than those in your court, milady."

She nodded, "This is a memory. One I have become entrapped in. One I can only escape by killing him."

"Who?"

"It doesn't matter. He isn't coming back." the Erinye hissed, "I will be trapped here forever, in this wretched illusion, unless..."

She came to a realization, and Adir's instincts alone saved him, for he leapt back as she crawled atop the chair and hurled herself forward, propelled by dark feathered wings. A thin blade thrust into the space he'd occupied, pricking the skin under his pectoral but not penetrating.

Backpedaling, Adir quickly took stock of the room and what he could use as a weapon.

Reaching for the nearest shelf, Adir parried the Erinye's next attack with a thick tome, which struck through with little resistance. Dropping the book rather than engage in a struggle, the Devil screamed in frustration as the tome weighed the sword, plummeting it to the floor. The Erinye swiped with her claws, and Adir grunted, pained, as she opened furrows across his chest. Were it not for the thin armor plating hidden in his layered robes, he might have been dealt a far more serious injury.

Rolling away and rising in a crouch, Adir reached for a burning log from the fireplace, its end crumbling apart.

"You think to use fire against me?!" The Erinye cried, laughing derisively, "Die, fool!"

Snapping the log out like a sword, he knocked her right hand out wide. As she leaned in to bite, he ducked under her, swatting her in the back of the head hard enough to break off the burning section of the wood. The Erinye stumbled forward, into the unbreakable metaphysical tether between him and the exit which, until that moment, had been behind him.

With a body more finely honed than most of a wizardly weal might have bothered with, Adir threw himself into her, legs pinning her wings, and held two ends of the tether, pulling it against her neck like a garrote. His superior weight held her down as he applied greater pressure, strangling her. She thrashed, gurgling, with the strength beyond her dimensions, and it took everything in him to keep from being pushed off. His knotted muscles clenched, as he nearly lost his balance. Sweat beaded his brow, stinging his eyes. He held tightly until the Devil stopped moving.

"Not exactly the proper use of an astral tether..." he grunted, breathless, "But it'll suffice. What now?"

As if to answer him, the study disappeared in a cloud of impenetrable shadows, and he was again in the chamber of mirrors. The Pillar to Dis was no more. The pillar of jacinth possessed no more damage than it had before. A curtain of light manifested in the distance, reflecting his room in Ormat's Manor. A spell burned itself into his mind; a teleportation spell, cast without reagent, that would transport him to the realm of Dis, though it could only be activated if he was in Avernus.

That was his answer, then. In each of the reflections there was something that didn't belong. A guardian. To kill them without magic was to unlock that realm for travel. He intuited, rather than realized, that every realm needed to be unlocked to progress to the next page in the Codex, but he could now leave at any time, having unlocked one.

He had some work to do. For one, he'd get a proper weapon from Ormat. Maybe a few wands or scrolls, to test if he could cast magic using a medium. Garroting a devil was a little too risky for his taste.

...

She woke in the usual manner, ever since her body had begun adjusting to her pregnancy.

Vala startled awake, doubled over, and crawled to the side of the bed, where she'd wisely left the chamber pot. Assuming a posture not unlike prayer, she gagged over it, holding her belly as the morning nausea intensified.

Her roommates studied her, already awake, as she was sick in a louder manner than she tried to be.

When she was finished, she set the thing aside and took a deep breath, eyeing the growth of her belly. Not yet considerable, it could be mistaken for winter fat. Having seen what females looked like in the advanced stages, she hoped she would still be able to move by the end of it.

"I know I can't wander." she said to the disinterested expression of one of the Drow warriors, "But if you can find me a good spot to think, it would be appreciated...

...

Iljrene followed her subordinate to a small, partially submerged quarry near the bottom of the Promenade, thankfully still far away from the pit from to which their foul invaders had entered.

The lake had already nearly taken this room; glowing underdark coral and algae lit the dark waters, and thick vines covered the walls. A few toads or lizards gamboled about, but thick metal bars prevented the entrance of more dangerous fauna. Vala stood over an overhanging balcony, staring blankly. Her posture was relaxed, arms crossed over the railing.

She sensed Iljrene's approach, and turned, tense, then calming.

"You have changed much in your travels." the Battlemistress stated, eyeing her garb. Vala shrugged, though her cheeks colored and she pulled her piwafwi a little tighter, "Maybe. I don't feel much different."

"Happier, I think."

At that, her expression softened, "Yes. Adir changed me. Changed...a great many things. I think I've found my home." Vala replied, "Which is why I will fight to reclaim it. I know...things are not well here, after..."

She paused, voice breaking, then, "I can never fully appreciate what Eilistraee meant to you. I was no priestess, even though I wanted to be. For a goddess to..."

"I am not so certain that she is gone from us forever." Iljrene noted, earning a confused look from their guest.

"What do you mean? Was she not slain when she inhabited Qilué in the final battle? You told me that the Crescent Blade can destroy a soul through decapitation. And Qilué was..."

Truth enough. While the events of Lloth's desecration of the Promenade, its most sacred artifact, the Crescent Blade, and the subsequent loss of their High Priestess and Chosen was a tragedy, it may not prove to be a complete tragedy.

"...Cut down by the traitor Halisstra Melarn, Lloth's Lady Penitent, her chosen of sorts. And Lelliana Vrinn killed Halisstra with her singing sword. The moon vanished, the swords went silent, and our powers waned... But despite Halisstra's actions, it is possible that Eilistraee wasn't truly killed."

"What do you mean?"

"When the Lady Penitent used the re-forged Crescent Blade against Qilué Veladorn, she was being inhabited by the Dark Maiden, becoming an avatar." Iljrene considered aloud, voicing a suspicion she'd silently harbored for some time, "That would mean that the blade didn't hit the goddess herself, but a part of her essence infused in her chosen's body. Deities can only be truly killed while in their planar realm or by being starved of followers. Therefore, Eilistraee's survival is not impossible. She may only be...weakened, returned to mortal form, even. But perhaps not dead."

"Then it is our duty to search for her..." Vala gasped, "All of us. Is anything being done?"

"Not at this time." Iljrene conceded, "Corellon shields us, and we have regained a fraction of our former strength, but we are still reeling from being nearly destroyed. We could not weaken ourselves further based only on my suspicions."

"I understand. But when Ahriman is no more and our home is ours again, I would return. If..."

She wavered, uncertain. In her expression, so open for a Drow, Iljrene observed a tumult of regret, fear, and longing.

"It is not my place alone to decide." she replied, "But we will see, child."

Vala inclined her head respectfully, then her eyes went wide.

Iljrene realized the girl was not looking at her anymore. She turned, to find Alirana Srune'Lett standing in the doorway, her expression veiled.

...

All over again her memories overcame her; Gul'tah, her mother, dying in the grips of a Demon summoned by Alirana for the sake of a sick hunt. Alirana, her faced blurred and indistinct, her senses dulled by the inexact memories of Nobody. Vala remembered attacking her, after the female had stolen her mother's tooth. And again, when she had found her near a still pond, her mind lost. And again, in a forest beside their sisters.

Alirana, the fat, dilettante noble.

Alirana, the hardened warrior.

Alirana, the priestess and knight of Eilistraee.

She looked so familiar, and yet so different. Her earliest memories of the woman was a regal, graceless, vindictive cow.

This one, this Battlemistress, was nothing like that.

The sword of Eilistraee, tarnished but beautiful, hung from her neck. She wore a coat of silvery mail, and the livery of the Dark Promenade. Her eyes were hard, but yet also gentle, filled with empathy.

In that moment, she knew for sure.

Her legs went weak, her skin gooseflesh. The words she'd memorized jumbled in her head.

The female's expression never changed, though Vala intuited an equally chaotic and disjointed reaction.

"I..."

"Keep away."

Nezierre approached as well, hand on her hilt, "Say what you will and be gone. I will have no violence here, in our temple".

Nodding, Vala fought to regain herself, and breathed deep.

"I am here to tell you something..." Vala said, shakily, "...and...to ask something of you."

Alirana nodded, but said nothing.

She breathed deeply, then scowled, "I have feared you. I have hated you for nearly all my life. I told myself that...I could never forgive my mother's murderer. That I could never rest until she was dead."

Nezierre tensed, balancing on the balls of her feet. Even Iljrene looked nonplussed.

Vala fought for breath, averting her eyes, "I gave myself to Nobody, knowing that I was too weak. Knowing that I could not wantonly kill even to avenge my mother. It was my fault that I attacked you after the battle with the Yochlol. A part of me could have stopped it, but didn't."

Alirana took a step towards her. Another. Vala knew her skin bled vapor.

Nezierre drew her sword half an inch from her scabbard.

Another step. They were nearly two paces from each other.

"I knew in my heart that I had to kill you. I knew I couldn't live if I didn't..."

Iljrene leaned forward.

Alirana frowned, thoughtfully. But there was no fear there.

There was no fear.

Vala lunged forward.

She buried her face in Alirana's breastplate, shaking, and could not hold back the tears, "...but I realize now that my mother's killer died a long time ago. In the caverns of the Underdark, at the hands of Eilistraee. My vendetta was wrongly placed. I attacked you, hated you, for something that was not your doing."

"And so...I need to know..." Vala moaned, feeling ill but unable to abate the words bubbling unbidden from her lips, "Can you ever forgive me?"

Nezierre exhaled.

Alirana recoiled at her touch, as if struck. Vala, fearing for one horrible moment that she had erred, looked up to Alirana's face.

The Darksong Knight's facade crumbled, and all Vala saw there was naked pain.

"Yes." she said instantly, returning the embrace, "I'd thought myself unworthy. I thought that nothing could ever erase the stain of what I had done. I despaired at what I'd done to you. That I'd put you in such a state that you felt apart from Eilistraee, from your sisters here. That you had to choose between your mother's memory and your future. I hated myself when I woke to learn of your sentence. For a time, I hated Eilistraee, for making you make that choice. I agonized over your fate. I still do".

"I just..." Vala said, trembling, "I just miss her so much. All the time."

"I know." Alirana said, weeping, "I am so sorry..."

She fell to her knees. So did Alirana.

How long they remained in that state, she couldn't say.

But eventually, she calmed.

"You are Alirana of the Promenade now." she continued, pulling away, though they were no further than arm's length apart, "Alirana of the Underdark is no more. There is nothing for me to forgive. Your soul, your destiny, is your own."

"...So I brought you something. Something I wanted you to have."

Vala slipped her hand into her piwafwi, and withdrew her mother's tooth.

Alirana blanched.

"Take it." she said, offering the token, "My mother is at peace, for her killer is no more. I don't need it anymore."

"Child, I-"

"Take it." Vala insisted, "It cannot absolve me, but I want you to have it. Please."

The Darksong Knight nodded, and accepted the tooth, tying it about her neck, where it came to rest beside her holy symbol, "I will keep it with me always."

Vala nodded, tried and failed to rise to her feet. She was so distraught, so unsteady.

But then Alirana took hold of her arms, and helped her up.

"You are one of us, Vala. You always were."

She nodded.

"Always, you are a Sister of Eilistraee." Iljrene said.

Again, she nodded, wiping away her tears.

"If ever you need a place, a purpose, a family. We will be waiting." Nezierre added, sheathing her sword, "I am sorry for my words to you, sister."

"I needed them." Vala replied, "I needed all of it. But I am at peace now. I am free."

She smiled, "Thank you. All of you. I have done what I needed to, and now I must go."

"I would help you in your travels." Alirana said, but Vala shook her head, "You must remain, to rebuild. This place, our people, are too important."

Stricken, the Dark Elf nodded regardless, taking her hand in a warrior's embrace, "Our people. May the Dark Maiden safeguard your path, sister."

"And you as well, sister."

Chapter 5:

Memnon, Calimshan (4th of Alturiak, 1380 Dalereckoning)

Even after he'd set up a portal to a small, two-story manse situated on the outskirts of Memnon, having collected over two dozen soldiers for his personal retinue, Amon still held the enchanted bead tightly in his right hand, fingers crushed against it. It'd remained inert for hours now, but a sequence of pulses transmitted from its twin in Pasha Ormat's estate had conveyed more than enough. Adir was in Memnon. Ormat was providing lodging, soon to transport his guest to a secondary site. Amon had two days to organize an ambush here, and as soon as the portal closed behind him he was already laying down protective and concealing wards in preparation for their arrival.

Viridian light poured from his fingertips, swirling across the walls of the entry hall and forming intricate networks of runes. To dampen spells, disperse fields of magic, and finally, prevent teleportation in or out once activated. Adir would find no easy escape when he arrived.

He also had made inquiries in how to defeat manifestations of psionimancy. Vala's powers would be to no avail either. Satisfied, he ordered his soldiers to board up the windows, and sat himself down before the door, conjuring a bottle of fine brandy. Inhaling its bouquet, he drank right from the bottle, expectant.

Two days, and he would have his satisfaction.

...

Her journey back to Memnon, pending a short jaunt below, would be far more gradual than her arrival from it. Lacking portal magic, her dimensional door, a derivative of the Nomad Discipline, could transport her many bowshots and she could cast it many times without tiring, but even with her newfound prowess it had its limitations.

And her pregnancy was taxing her. Kneeling down in a copse on the outskirts of Waterdeep, Vala sighed, leaning against a tree for support. Its branches sheltered her from the worst of the midday sun, and she'd adapted remarkably in her time with Adir to suffer it. She could clearly make out the city walls from here, as well as the coastline. The brightness ached, but distantly, at least out of direct exposure, unlike before, in which everything beyond arm's length had appeared coated in a white miasma painful to even look at.

Daring a short period of rest, she bunched her piwafwi about the side of her head, using it like a pillow, and acclimated to her surroundings. Even in the shade, she felt the sun's warmth saturating her, pooling in her lower belly. Smiling, Vala closed her eyes, concentrating only on that warmth, the smell of earth and saltwater, a faint breeze brushing against her skin.

Receding further into herself, she no longer felt the wind, or the sun, or anything for that matter. The golden stalks of wheat became countless celestial bodies in an endless expanse. All that surrounded her was strictly of her. Except for the anomaly.

Perceiving its boundaries, Vala felt herself draw in a sharp intake of breath, perhaps duplicated by her body as it rested, perhaps not. Suddenly she understood that what she saw wasn't explicitly a sphere, drawing in all around it. Seemingly fed from what it'd taken already, it appeared to have shifted position dramatically since she'd last seen it, somehow...away from the center. Complying with the theme of the rest of what was, it looked like a red star, orbiting a twin that was bright blue, smaller but more dense, and she knew immediately that this blue star was explicitly hers. But this second one...

"Nobody?" she asked, assuming it to be a manifestation of her bestial alter-ego, which had been created during her time wandering the Underdark alone as a child. Without it, she would never have survived...

But with it, had she really survived? An outcast, a thief, too afraid of her own anger to dare a connection to another living thing?

There was no answer to either of her questions, but she was relieved that the anomaly wasn't drawing from her anymore. It appeared to be in cohesion with the core of her being, that small blue star.

For now.

Something drew her attention back to her body, and she startled awake just in time to see a Human that had crept up to her, garbed in roughspun and reeking of sweat and saltwater. He recoiled, cursing, pulling a knife from his belt.

"Damn Drow!" he snapped, backing away, "What-"

Having no patience, Vala assumed her ectoplasm form, a duplicate body that unmoored her actual one in the astral realm. Thus protected from his attacks, she rose to her feet and readied her things, against his protests.

"I don't have the energy for explaining myself to some shithead porter. A momentary rest was too much to ask for I guess..." she said coolly, then willed a dimensional door to manifest beside her, and pulled herself in. Now right on the periphery of the coast, she invoked another ability of the Nomad Discipline; one that rendered the ground in a three-by-three meter space beneath her feet temporarily intangible. Levitating downward, Vala closed her eyes, willing her infravision to activate. The Underdark often resisted normal methods of teleportation, so lacking a stable portal this would suffice to bring her to Skullport.

"Hope you're still up for an audience, Kimmuriel." she muttered to herself, as the realm above became a distant thing, "Because I don't think I can handle you on my own like this."

...

Adir conquered the trials of each of the Nine Hells, slaying or outwitting their guardians and opening their realms for the teleportation spell. He'd also breached the Green Fields, and actively sought Arvandor, the elven afterlife. Maybe he could scheme his way there when his luck eventually ran out... Alas, he knew he could only transport himself or another person one at a time, given his current reserves of strength. Likewise, he couldn't open a portal that would admit extraplanar beings into Toril, so the "pour devils into Ahriman's bedchambers" was unlikely to be a possibility.

Pity, he thought, for the image of his once king wrestling with a pit lord in his underclothes brought a smile to his face. Dauntless, he sought out his next conquest while his body rested in preparation for his transfer to a safer location.

...

Skullport seemed no different than when she'd last seen it, all murk, rot, rust, and misery. A great cavern on which grew dwellings like fungus, connected by intricate rope and netting systems chaotic and hazardous enough to have been conceived by Lady Lloth herself.

Lines of shackled slaves were drawn by cruel taskmasters, and every time a scourge broke upon them it took a little more of her willpower not to reveal herself and show their tormentors exactly where they stood in the measure of strength. She found the safehouse easily enough; her days spent under Kimmuriel's tutelage had involved being transported between it and the promenade's own holding daily. It had been a risky, and costly, endeavor for her sisters to make.

Frowning, for she'd never been able to repay them for their kindness and regretted it dearly, Vala willed herself intangible, and passed through its walls, taking a seat in the parlor. There were a few Bregan D'aerthe mercenaries inside, and they tensed at her approach. Unmindful, she pulled a platter of mushrooms from a rack, and treated herself. Earthy, a little too much salt. Dry. She could kill for a platter of grapefruit at that moment.

"Don't pretend you didn't sense me coming." She snapped, seemingly at thin air, "We're past that point by now, right?"

Frowning, Kimmuriel Oblodra, a distant relative, she now knew, manifested by telepathic projection opposite her.

"You've proven capable to detecting and neutralizing my tracers." he noted dryly, "After the period of time where your mind was shielded from me completely."

Motioning to her choker, Vala grinned, "Couldn't use my powers, but it shielded me from other Psions as well. I almost kind of miss the feeling."

Nodding, he took note of the rest of her clothing as she shed her piwafwi and laid it over the back of her chair, then her expanding belly, appearing not at all amused.

"You've taken well to surface customs."

"That's a polite way of putting it."

Blinking, Kimmuriel was otherwise inscrutable. She decided not to test his patience, "I've come to purchase Bregan D'aerthe's services."

"With what?"

"Trade contacts in Almraiven. Access to magical artifacts. And some gold, to sweeten the pot."

"Not interested."

"Please." Vala teased him, "I heard about what you did in Calimshan, with Enteri and the Shard. Taking a whole castle...with a giant red crystal sticking out of it. Hah! And they say Drow subtlety is a thing of the past."

If her jest fazed him, he certainly didn't show it, so she waxed serious, "I know you're not looking for conquest. Just a foothold, the better to open trade between the surface and the Underdark. I'm fine with it. My husband is fine with it. From what I can tell the sisterhood is too. Why not add one more city to your list of prospects?"

"And what exactly do you want of Bregan D'aethre?"

"For now...nothing." Vala replied, "I won't know the specifics of our plan until it's about ready to set in motion. The gist; one target, one base of operations. Quick, and quiet. Lots of wizardly magic. Weather manipulation. Complicated. And an artifact; a small gem. Protective magic. Powerful protective magic. Interested?"

Kimmuriel didn't reply immediately, so that meant he wasn't about to dismiss it out of hand. "Before you noticed my intrusion and locked me out, I happened to notice that you didn't register as one mind anymore, but two. I'm not certain how to interpret it."

"Me neither."

He tried to hide it, but having been in his head, she recognized the look; Kimmuriel was uneasy. He'd never been entirely sure what to make of her; a half-blood, but also a half-blood likely of his family line, now confirmed, and a born prodigy. For a moment in their sparring, he'd nearly slain her outright, fearing her powers.

And her powers had grown considerably.

"What the people could accomplish with the haste of the lesser races." he said distantly, "With such brief lives, you accomplish so much in so little time. I almost envy you."

He dared another glance at her belly, then, "I will consider your task, with an additional consideration; if that is a female-child, and if it is of greater concentration of elven blood, you will rear her to be a Matron Mother."

"Another contact? This time in Menzoberranzan?" Vala asked, immediately following his line of reasoning.

Kimmuriel shook his head, "In a sense. But more importantly; the restoration of House Oblodra. With power like yours, passed onto one of purer blood..."

"Good to know you still think so highly of me." she replied rudely, "I'll keep you posted. Go ahead and send another of those mind links. I won't block it this time."

Tensing as she felt her relative's mental prodding, Vala let just enough of his psionic energies settle to establish a link, shutting him out of her inner faculties.

"I'll need to return to Memnon for the present. My husband and retinue will be moved shortly."

"You think there will be trouble?"

"I know it."

Kimmuriel smirked, just a little, "You have a little of us in you, at least. Maybe I can work with that. Just don't expect me to tolerate a Faerie in my midst."

"I would not indulge to so test your hospitality." Vala replied snidely, then became more serious, "There's some things I learned about House Oblodra."

"Does it pertain to anything presently relevant?"

"I don't think so."

"Then leave it be."

Stiffening, Vala nodded, then excused herself. It would be a tiring sojourn back to Adir, and she needed to hurry. As she left the periphery of the slaver port, Vala again influenced the stone above her and made it temporarily insubstantial, forming a narrow shaft that would lead her to the surface.

How long she ascended, Vala couldn't say. It certainly felt longer than the trip down.

"I'm just anxious to complete the journey." she assured herself, "And my concentration is nearing its limit."

Soon she would have to meditate to restore herself. Hopefully in a location in which she could remain unmolested. Just as she considered her next meal, a sudden wave of disorientation washed over her. Her levitation wavered unsteadily.

"Damn the Underdark and its peculiarities." she cursed, quickening her ascent, then cursing again as the shaft ended abruptly, and certainly not in the windswept plains surrounding Waterdeep. Instead, she found herself in a cavern city comparable in size to Menzoberranzan but more crudely fashioned from shale and connected with rope bridges and causeways. Unlike Skullport, these avenues were clearly, carefully organized with rigid, inhuman precision. A pale viridian light emanated from stalagmites and stalactites treated with some unknown substance, just bright enough to disrupt her infravision and to illuminate the dark clad beings surrounding her in a semicircle. Soulless, milky white eyes bored into her from hideous, octopus-like faces with draping tentacles. One was a step closer than the others, and from it a distantly familiar presence entered her mind.

"Hu'um." Vala replied, concealing as best she could her surprise and uneasiness, inclining her head respectfully, "What can I do for you?"

"You could not resist." his bubbly, otherworldly voice echoed within her, "This can be an easy process."

Just as the violent torrent of psionic energies washed over her, Vala erected the Iron Tower defensive technique in her mind. The sudden and merciless assault left her body wavering, and she registered distantly that she'd fallen to her knees. Knowing well that she couldn't last long like this, she targeted her former mentor and attacked with a concentrated telepathic spike to disrupt his concentration, then hopefully his bodily functions, only to have it rebound off his own carefully prepared defenses.

Toshisha, her psicrystal whipblade, materialized in her hand, and thrust with intelligence and purpose. Expecting her foes to be intangible, she gambled and passed its tip into the astral plane. Hu'um was indeed on the astral plane, and it struck true, but his position spatially wasn't as it appeared. What should have impaled him through the chest instead lodged in his arm. The skin under his lidless eyes crinkled, but he gave no other indication of discomfort, coating Toshisha in an additional layer of psicrystal, immobilizing it. Her hand, likewise, became immobilized, the crystal terminating just at elbow level.

These was no foothold to gain; he'd prepared this ambush well, and his retinue overpowered her within a twenty count before she could do more than crack his wall of defense. Again and again, the Illithid face tentacles lurched up, emitting an audible whump and conical blasts of disorienting telepathic energy, and soon she found herself in a prone position, then not aware of anything at all.

...

Recoiling, Hu'um held a hand to its head, resisting the painful spikes of a migraine left behind by the half-breed's attacks. She'd grown in power so quickly...even hopelessly outnumbered and outmaneuvered she'd managed a formidable defense. Had the altercation lasted seconds more it's life at least might have been imperiled. Its arm ached, but a minor power repaired the damage.

"Bind her." it ordered its apprentices, "Bring her to the agreed upon location."

This would be a worthwhile endeavor; it'd felt the stirrings, as had the Elder Brain. The Adversary, the First Adversary, had finally chosen a benefactor. She was the one. She had to be. Ilsensine would finally have its herald among the Drow, and Hu'um would be richly rewarded in altering her to serve the interests of its people.

Chapter 6:

Memnon, Calimshan (5th of Alturiak, 1380 Dalereckoning)

When he was satisfied he could glean no more from the infinite realms without critically tiring himself, Adir closed the Codex and lounged in his room. He missed his wife's warmth in his bed, but wouldn't consider taking one of Ormat's staff to compensate. A peculiar thing, since he'd bedded many women while courting his other wives.

Previous wives, he amended. They, along with the rest of his staff, were in the custody of the king, to be slain or sold off, most likely. He didn't particularly grieve any of them, though he would have preferred his wives freed than relocated to newer, likely worse, forms of bondage. The thought of women harmed distressed him, despite his profession as a slaver. Something to be done to Almraiven's customs in later centuries, from a higher seat of power, he'd always told himself.

Nothing for it now, he broke fast on lentil soup and flatbread and reviewed his spells, having crafted a new spellbook to store the knowledge of the codex as well as the few cantrips and evocations he clearly remembered. The rest resided incomplete in various notes. Preparing the day's spells had been relatively short, due to the loss of most of his repertoire, something he bitterly resented and endeavored to rectify as quickly as possible. Maybe he could still call upon his gargoyles when the need arose and proximity permitted.

Hopefully they weren't all laying broken in a heap at the base of his manse...

...

Wakefulness was a gradual process. Her dreams and the waking world blurred, and the passage of time was uncertain. Everything felt numb. Vala tried to glean what she could from her surroundings, but could determine nothing. She was in a darkness so profound her infravision couldn't penetrate it.

She sensed she was not alone, however. Even in this fugue state, she could intuit the insidious tendrils of alien, otherworldly entities burrowing into her mind, altering everything they touched. She resisted, ferociously. While her powers could not avail her, Vala summoned what she could of herself and again erected the Iron Tower, concealing what was left of her that was still her, and resisted as her invaders attempted again and again to tear her apart.

"Valiant, but irrelevant." Hu'um gurgled, as if his voice was bubbling up from some deep, unfathomable place beneath even the Underdark as she knew it, "We have enough to isolate you and still control the bulk of your functions. You can remain."

There was a sickening lurch, an inflection of motion where no other sensation implied it. Vala perceived distance, but felt no sense of connection to it.

"We were promised you as you were being transported to Ched Nasad." Hu'um said wickedly, "A ripple emerged from the astral plane as you first awakened your powers. But we were uncertain of its importance. When House Srune'Lett failed to deliver, we were not overly troubled. There were other living Oblodra to carry on that line, after all. And when you emerged among the warriors of Eilistraee, I leapt at the chance to investigate personally."

A long pause, then, "A scrap of your brain tissue sufficed for our preliminary examination. Enough to determine he chose you. What remarkable potential, wasted potential, if you ask me. Hidden within a half-breed outcast. A more difficult task it will be to reintegrate you to Menzoberranzan because of this."

"A tiresome task." he added, "Bloodline doesn't mean as much to us as it does to the Dark Elves. But a necessary accommodation, if you are to prove useful."

"What do you want from me?" Vala asked, though she couldn't hear her own voice as she spoke. Perhaps she was in stasis.

"To rectify a broken oath, given to our ancestors and known only by the Elder Brain, and a select few. To serve us as we weaken Menzoberranzan from within."

An impression of amusement, "You don't know, do you? None of you did. None of you remembered him."

Him. The simple word evoked such images. Terrifying images.

Visions of a male Elf with pale skin and kind eyes.

A city aflame.

Are you the one, Vala?

"You don't need to."

A horrible sensation of being pulled taut wracked her body, or maybe her mind. Vala cried out as she was locked away, deeper, deeper...

...

Hu'um commanded the creature to rise to its feet.

It complied.

Blank, lifeless eyes stared back, awaiting new instructions. Carefully, that its new creation would imitate the complexities of sentient being, Hu'um carefully programmed her contextual responses to stimuli, modeling her after a typical representation of her species, then, for the present, isolating responses that would coincide with her current behavior and attitudes. To all but fellow Psionicists, Vala would appear unchanged from her descent into the Underdark.

"Let us test the limits of the domination." Hu'um decided, rendering both it and its creation intangible, and transporting them to a lower pen, which housed the mindslaves it'd dominated for the purpose of arena combat. It no longer had the energy to devote to this beloved Illithid pastime, and so they had expended their usefulness.

But those among Illithid slaves who ceased to be useful could be made useful again.

Malformed, vaguely lupine heads jutted from thickly muscled necks trailing long, ropy tendrils of hair. Double-jointed legs, tightly coiled as if to spring, ended in wicked claws. Humanoid hands with opposable thumbs grasped crude iron implements. They wore shirts of roughly hammered mail and padded leather leggings, concealing thick coats of fur. Bipedal, ferocious, and at times cunning, its Gnoll pack would be perfect for this test.

"Kill all that are not of your species or myself." Hu'um commanded, activating both the Half-Drow and the Gnoll pack, twenty in all. In an instant, the pen became a vision of chaos Lloth herself might have approved of, as the Half-Drow emitted lethal cold and psicrystal in all directions, sporting thick plates like armor. Wordless, she cut down the first two before they'd even swung. The weapons of two more passed through her flesh without resistance. Her weapons, however, struck home, spearing through their skulls and pinning them to the far wall.

Howling their battle cries, the remaining Gnolls circled their prey, jabbing with spears. Cocooning herself in dense ectoplasm that she might still attack with impunity, their innumerable attacks deflected. Four tendrils of psicrystal, not unlike her whipblade, emerged from the small of her back, and struck with purpose and intelligence. The focus necessary to animate and direct them simultaneously, even while dominated, impressed Hu'um greatly.

"Perhaps in later centuries, if you last that long, I will allow you your sentience. There is much we can learn from you." it decided, watching with admiration as she dispatched another three, constricting her prey with the lengths of barbed psicystal, simultaneously asphyxiating and lacerating. Opting for mass and defense rather than evasion, due to her decreased physicality, Vala would be a formidable ally. But unlike her sentient iteration, this creature could be molded to act as a Matron Mother to a restored Oblodra. One with its original purpose intact.

Gleefully, Hu'um watched the Gnolls retreat, assuming defensive formations as the ectoplasm protecting her began to expand, then fill the chamber. Walling them off, Vala drew them into the thick, gelatinous mass, and there they died for want of air.

Not even winded from the exertion, its creature retracted her defenses, and awaited further instruction.

"We cannot return you to your people just yet." It observed, "But your current endeavor might afford you the opportunity to grow in power further. Return to this Adir, and help him in his task. We will be watching, carefully."

An opportunity to reclaim another lost asset, perhaps. Unlike Kimmuriel, Hu'um had observed the female even after her powers had been inhibited. He'd seen, in stark detail, the scepter the king had wielded. A very old, very familiar, scepter.

Acquiescing, the construct that was Vala emitted a field of intangibility as she had before, and rose unimpeded through the ceiling.

Chapter 7:

Memnon, Calimshan (6th of Alturiak, 1380 Dalereckoning)

Adir woke with his wife pressed against him. He inhaled, smelling her hair, and smiled, despite the day he faced. She stirred, groaning, turned to face him with a weary smile to match his.

"Hey."

"Hey." she parroted, blinking, "Progress?"

"Somewhat. Yourself?"

"Kimmuriel and Bregan D'aerthe will be ready when we need them. The price will be high."

"It always is with the best."

"Mmph."

Rising from bed, his wife went towards the cabinet. Or tried to, before he pulled her back in, planting a long, deep kiss. She tensed, only for a moment, before melting against him, reciprocating.

"We won't get far today like this, husband."

Smirking, Adir otherwise gave no answer, savoring her a few moments more before allowing her to clothe, considering the meal left for them in the doorway. A cucumber and tomato salad, with flatbread and oil for dipping. He'd kill for a breakfast more in the northern custom; something with meat. His studies left him drained in such a way that only heavy protein could fix.

Eating quickly, and pausing only to share his discoveries of planar travel, he donned his robes and turban, and together they met Ormat and a retinue of a dozen men-at-arms in a small chamber. Amara and Durrah, Vala's handmaidens, were not present, free hirelings due to his wife's abrupt and irritating streak of generosity, Adir thought bitterly. A circle of powder replete with intricate runes surrounded them, save for a two foot length that was missing. "The safehouse is just outside the city proper." Ormat told them, completing the line of powder around their retinue as they took their positions, "A small, walled-off cavern. I've had it cleared of undesirables. All here will remain with you as you prepare your infiltration. Everything you've requested has also been delivered."

Nodding, Adir prepared himself, when suddenly Vala tensed.

As the portal magic enveloped them, drawing the powder, runes, and the floor itself, they set down in a very different environment. Not a cave, but a house, crafted more of wood than stone, its windows boarded up. By the dimensions of the room, perhaps thirty paces by twenty, Adir assumed it to be a lounge, though bereft of furnishings as it was it could have doubled as a storeroom. Opposite to them, before the reinforced door and backlit by torch-fire, was Amon Silasar.

"My gratitude, Ormat."

As he brandished a pair of wands, Adir felt the bindings hidden on his person deactivate; the doing of Amon's wards, no doubt. Unfortunately for him, those bindings weren't protective wards, but instead served to conceal the elementals he'd secretly inserted into the teleportation circle. A trio of fire elementals sprang into being, incinerating the men Ormat had brought with them. Adir held his wife close, and due to the connection between summoner and minion, the flames never touched either of them.

Ormat lunged towards them, unharmed by the flames due to his priestly protections, scimitar in hand, but Vala was ready, and a field of ectoplasm engulfed them, turning it's deadly edge. Amon began a spell of disjoining, hands assuming swift, mystic passes. Adir began the threads of his own spell, only to find his concentration inexplicably scrambled.

"We need to move." he told her, drawing a silver-edged rapier, well-worn thanks to the denizens of the hells. Nodding, Vala assumed a distant expression, then blinked, "Something is disrupting my powers. I can't feel the connections to make a dimensional door."

"You can't become intangible, either." Amon noted dryly, completing his spell and banishing Adir's elementals in a cloud of noxious smoke, "I've prepared for that."

Tendrils of ectoplasm emerged from the mass protecting them and thrust at Amon like spears, all of which turned against an invisible barrier.

"That's a new trick." he added, summoning a pair of Displacer Beasts, "Still a perfect time for these."

Not unlike panthers in figure, the demons were nonetheless distinguishable by their glowing green eyes and barbed, scourge-like tails. Able to travel between planes of existence, they'd bypassed his wife's ability to shift into the astral plane. Here, they would likely pass through the ectoplasm and attack them inside.

Intuiting this, Vala struck first, tendrils of ectoplasm hardened into psicrystal shafts. Two shifted planes, and were unharmed, but another was struck and pinned to the floor, its body already disintegrating into putrid smoke. Amon, scowling, brandished a rod, a scepter, Adir noted, and a tangible weight settled on him. His concentration wavered further, and the threads of a spell he was painfully scouring his mind for twisted and guttered out.

Ormat pressed his attack, but able to interact through the ectoplasm as he couldn't, Adir parried with some difficulty with the rapier, a much lighter weapon. The guard served, and he even nicked his traitorous friend on the wrist, drawing blood. The Genasi backed away, surprised.

"It's been an enjoyable venture, my friend." Ormat said jovially, "I will remember my time with you fondly, as I come to rule Memnon."

"You always were a terrible liar."

...

Hu'um had not expected the scepter to appear so quickly, and nearly dared blasphemy by praising Tymora for its luck. But luck, like all immaterial things, were mere illusions. Invisible, intangible, and undetectable, the Illithid probed the artifact for its sentience, and received frantic pleas of distress. "We have not forgotten you." Hu'um assured the being within, "And now you are within reach."

Relief. Elation, even.

How far this entity had strayed from its nature. No matter. "You will return with us, the better to deliver your full report. Then, we can work to add you to the collective of the Elder Brain."

Acquiescence.

The wizard's wards might affect, even disrupt, psionic abilities, but beyond its reach, behind the caster, Hu'um simply co-opted its strength with the scepter to transport it below, where it could be recovered and transported back with them.

Amon, suddenly clutching at empty air, snarled, "You wretched Elves and your tricks!"

A cloud of wretched energy bled from his body, and Amon discharged a pulse of it into Vala's ectoplasm field. Smoking, the material held, if barely, but the Displacer Beasts leapt through without resistance, their claws raking Adir as he defended the mindslave. His rapier plunged into one, but it darted out of reach, intangible once more, and its fellow planted its teeth in his arm.

More annoyed than dismayed, Hu'um bombarded the demon with confusing stimuli and it backed away, yelping pitifully. Vala struck again, rebounding against Amon's defenses, but this time the wizard flinched, eyelid twitching as his barrier weakened. Hopefully.

The Genasi pressed the attack, maneuvering around Vala's psicrystal appendages, cutting and thrusting with focused abandon, punctuating his strikes with gouts of flame or disjoining magic. Her ectoplasm shield wavered uncertainly, threatened to break. Willing its mindslave to greater focus, Hu'um focused its attention not on the wizard and its demons, but rather the wards restricting Adir's casting. The less the Illithid intervened, the better.

...

Adir felt the weight over him lessen, saw a few of the runes inscribed into the floor gutter out.

Unwilling to question his fortunes, he hastily began summoning elementals, and completed just as Amon filled the room with dozens of Mezzoloths. Covered in chitin plates, they looked like a conjoining of Goblins and Wasps, long, narrow arms clutched crudely fashioned weaponry, pincers snapping as their membranous wings carried them, crashing, into Vala's barrier. His elementals, living pillars of flame, had no effect on the fiends, and he cursed. Discharging a narrow shaft of green energy, he banished one to the realm of fire, then another, before cursing and orienting on Amon.

Dimensional doors opened all around them, swallowing a few Mezzoloths before they adapted their courses to avoid them. But more and more opened, thinning their numbers. Vala snarled, an inhuman, bestial sound, and turning to her he noted fearfully the change that had settled over her. Her eyes, still their lustrous blue, were ringed in red like blood, and thickly pronounced veins lined her eyelids, pulsating. Her Ajna chakra burned like a hot coal, and her skin went gooseflesh. Teeth bared, her entire body stood rigid, bleeding frigid vapor and sprouting psicrystal.

He had to finish this quickly.

Summoning another trio of Displacer Beasts, Amon commanded them to attack, and Adir sent his elementals to intercept them while calling up another pair to orbit Amon, striking again and again against his barrier. Troubled only somewhat by the temperature, the demons charged him, their bodies rippling as they moved through the planes. All of them rebounded off a sheet of psicrystal that burst from the floor, existing perhaps in multiple planes at once.

"Kill..." Vala snarled, "...you..."

Amon completed another spell, and a wave of disjoining banished his elementals. Amon had not the strength to call more. Another banishment struck his barrier, and it flickered away, spent.

Vala fell to her knees, weeping blood. Adir stood between her and Ormat, who sliced through her ectoplasm field.

"And now it ends, my friend."

Smirking, the Genasi lifted his sword high, then turned, and hurled it into Amon's, planting it deep into his chest. Whatever spell he'd begun died stillborn.

The demon binder blinked, started to turn, to speak, only to spit blood, and double over. His Displacer Beasts, unmindful of their master's injuries, obeyed his last command and lunged. Still unable to cast, Adir flinched as a hasty disjoining cast by Ormat immolated them in golden fire borne of his clerical magic, and banished them back to their foul dimension.

Vala, visibly bewildered, wiped the blood from her eyes, panting.

"Close call." Adir said coldly, "I guess having his men posing as yours was a nice way to get them all in close proximity. He probably thought he was going to have them restrain me. Idiot."

Nodding, Ormat retrieved his sword, twisting it in Amon's corpse, "Poor fellow had considerable protection against conventional magic and psionimancy...but he forgot priestly spells. All the while I was testing his barrier, probing it for weaknesses. His loss."

"Could someone explain what just happened? Please?" Vala snapped, still emitting vapor.

"Good question." Adir conceded, eyeing Ormat, "I wasn't entirely sure what you would do when we dropped in. Had to make the surprise genuine, right? Glad you decided against profit this time."

"You sure?" the Genasi asked with a laugh, "If I betrayed you in earnest, I doubt Sashelas would keep providing me spells. And my afterlife in his blissful realm would have likewise been imperiled. I was thinking profit in the long term, silly."

Shrugging, Ormat briskly searched Amon's body, located several magical talismans and a spellbook.

Motioning for it, Adir caught it from an underhand toss, and briefly perused its contents, "Fascinating. This will give me some interesting future opportunities. The portal back to his estate will prove much more valuable in the meantime."

"Until the king discovers what happened and has it destroyed on the other end."

"I intend to be in Almraiven before that happens."

...

If Hu'um were capable of laughter, it certainly would have done so. Ormat, against all odds, choosing to side with his friend. Hardly.

Ormat had intended to betray Adir for profit. Were it not for Hu'um's silent insistence, having wormed its way into the Genasi's subconscious, that's exactly what he would have done. In twisting his intentions indirectly, rather than dominating him outright, Ormat would retain his god-given spells, making the influence near-impossible to detect. Everything was going perfectly. The only complication was...-

...

Netal confirmed his suspicions, having observed the exchange in a shadowed corner of the room, forgotten the moment the teleportation took effect. He wasn't nearly as powerful as his daughter, but born in Menzoberranzan, among some of the finest and most insidious Wizards in Faerûn, he'd learned long ago how to slip through and around magical barriers. Likewise, he'd learned to mask his presence; not true invisibility, it simply made others forget he was there unless he directly acted in their field of view.

And so, unobserved, he could clearly tell Ormat had suffered telepathic attack, but not from his daughter. In fact, her mind had also been altered before she'd returned the night prior. Naturally, Netal assumed the same person was responsible for both.

Knowing he didn't dare probe the mind of another Psion, he instead inserted himself into Ormat's, hoping the person or group that had meddled with it wasn't still there. They weren't. Surreptitiously reviewing his list of available prayer spells, Netal found what he was looking for, and implanted an urge to cast it.

The Genasi, frowning, began a soft chant under his breath. Noticing his peculiar shift, Adir tensed, calling out his name.

Completing the prayer, a bright light tinged with blue flared from his fingertip, and smote his daughter. She convulsed, then collapsed in Adir's arms.

"What did you just do?!"

"I...don't know." Ormat sputtered, helping Adir lower her to the floor.

Looking up, Adir's gaze passed over the spot on which Netal stood, and his alertness penetrated the shroud of concealment.

"This is your doing?!"

"Yes." Netal said, cursing under his breath, "I had him cast a prayer of fortitude. It was among his active repertoire."

"Fortitude? Then why did she collapse?"

"On someone impaired by magic..." he explained, "For instance, restraints or incapacitation, it could loosen the magic's hold on that person. In the case of someone altered by mind magic, it can call up dormant aspects of their psyche, allowing them to resist."

"Altered? What-"

His answer was forthcoming, as an Illithid emerged from the floor, his body made intangible by mind magic.

"You will suffer greatly for this inconvenience." a bubbling, otherworldly voice echoed in his mind.

In the brief moment before the telepathic attack that followed, which disabled both Adir and Ormat, Netal hoped his daughter was as strong as he hoped...

...

Swirling, tenebrous motes of light.

Two spheres, ever orbiting.

One blue, one red.

Shadow.

Pain.

Visions of a male Elf with pale skin and kind eyes.

A city aflame.

Are you the one?

Vala?

No.

There was a Vala.

There was another.

Screaming. No longer Silent.

Pushing toward the surface, buried deep. So close. So close.

Chains, strained, ready to break.

She felt herself pushed the rest of the way.

Opening her eyes, she smelled blood. Adir, and Ormat, holding her. Questions.

No time. She stood up, felt a presence. She didn't fight it, and instead focused on that smell.

...

Hu'um turned to its acquisition, infuriated. But as it began to probe her psyche, it found only a singular focus. His intrusion blunted, and was turned away.

"What is this?" It wondered, "You always use the Iron Tower. You were never confident in the Empty Mind maneuver."

Heedless, Vala attacked. Hu'um felt a crushing telepathic attack simultaneous with her lunging towards it. The sheer ferocity, not the flailing of the recently enthralled but the concentrated, singularly murderous intent of a cornered animal, opened a brief but exploitable gap in its defenses. While its body remained intangible, it shuddered as her telepathic spike burrowed into its brain, and shattered apart, breaking its concentration. Its own offensive crumbled.

Rather than attack with a whipblade, Vala slashed with hands coated in psicrystal like gnarled, crystalline talons, unmindful of her ineffectiveness upon its incorporeal flesh. Snarling, beyond thought, her psychic attack nonetheless intensified. Daunted, but determined to recover its asset, Hu'um called out to several of its peers to converge on its location. The response was immediate; pens of slaves were prepared for just such an occasion. The scepter appeared in its hand, bolstering its defense.

There was a whoosh of displaced air, as multiple dimensional doors opened in the large chamber, gaping voids that vomited forth such unseemly hosts; dozens of Goblins, armed with crudely fashioned weapons, towering Bugbears, and an Ogre, forced to hunch lest it strike the ceiling.

Hu'um didn't think the force would delay her for long, but fellow Illithid followed, more discreetly, their doors admitting them, intangible, into the floor and ceiling. Coordinating their efforts, several bursts of disorienting telepathic stimuli reverberated through the floor. Intangible, Hu'um was unaffected, but anything smaller than a Dragon would quickly incapacitate.

Not so; for some impeccable reason, Vala stood unabashed, and shrieked, her voice empowered by her powers into an ear-splitting peal that shook the very foundations of the house. The slaves cowered, and shrank away.

"How are you able to resist us?!" Hu'um asked, mystified. Its confusion turned to horror, as its body began to vibrate. Her shriek, not unlike a banshee, was vibrating the very particles of its body simultaneously.

Despite her incessant telepathic attack, it penetrated her consciousness enough to determine two disparate beings before its world exploded in pain.

...

Adir blinked, and found himself staring at a ceiling. His ears rang, and a peculiar vibration wracked his body. There was a wet popping sound, and the ringing stopped. Blinking again, he rolled onto his side, and found himself eye-to-eye with a pudgy goblinkin. He started to recoil, but noted the lack of awareness in its beady yellow eyes, and determined it to be quite dead.

Sitting up, he found himself beside a menagerie of goblinkin, all dead, bleeding from their ears. Other than that, they bore no obvious injury. Ormat and Netal were a few paces distant, equally disoriented but alive and seemingly unharmed. Amon's body had disappeared. Vala, his wife, stood over a revolting mound of purple flesh, its original form crushed beyond recognition. Her body was a host of crystal and frigid vapor.

She kneeled over, picked up an object, Amon's scepter, he realized dimly.

Ahriman's scepter.

She looked back to him, and her expression, so unlike her, took him aback. There was no measurable sense to this incongruity; it was nothing he could explain rationally, but he instinctually knew something was very, very out of place.

Then he noticed something physically different; around her eyes remained a flare of red, like a corona of fire the color of blood.

"What happened?"

She looked at him as if she'd never seen him before.

A suspicion formed; she'd been altered, Netal had said. By how much?

"Who are you?" he asked, dreading the answer.

Looking for all the world like he'd just asked her the most puzzling riddle, all she could reply was, "Somebody."

...

Waiting expectantly as his Cornugon servant hauled its catch through the dimensional door he'd erected, Bazrulnorganon tapped his clawed fingers against his sleeves. Assuming his Tiefling form, the better to navigate the cramped space comfortably, the Hellfire Wyrm nonetheless exhaled blistering smoke when Amon's lifeless body was laid at his feet.

The Cornugon, also known as a horned devil, groveled for a few moments, then departed where it would wait to receive its reward. If Bazrulnorganon were feeling generous, that was...

Calling upon his hellish powers, the Wyrm beckoned Amon's soul from its resting place in Cania, up through the layers, to his estate in Avernus. Dark, putrid shadows collected about the human's slight frame, his wounds cauterizing with hellfire, blistering and leaving gruesome scar tissue.

Amon inhaled, his eyes opening wide as coins. Breathing irregularly, he scrambled a moment before Bazrulnorganon snatched him up with strength his humanoid form shouldn't have possessed.

"I hold my end of our bargain complete." he said in Infernal, "One death, undone, and free passage back to Toril. My payment..."

Nodding, Amon beckoned with his hand, summoning a hidden talisman, and from it manifested the Sword of Bahamut.

"You will feel much safer in you station now." Amon said hastily, "It will prove the bane of many of your peers, since I've altered its enchantment to be wielded by you alone. As we agreed."

Nodding, for he was pleased with his continuing returns of investment, the Wyrm held Amon a little tighter, "If you want another escape from death, you will have to provide me something equally as valuable."

"Ahriman has no shortage of rare artifacts..."

"I care not for his control over sea and sand." Bazrulnorganon snapped, "It's all mountains here, and the only rivers are of molten rock. I want something far more delicious."

"What?"

"A soul." the Wyrm said greedily, "A pure soul of a goodly weal. There's a ritual I intend, that will require it."

"You will have it. I know just the one."

Chapter 8:

Memnon, Calimshan (7th of Alturiak, 1380 Dalereckoning)

Vala had refused to answer any further questions, and remained with her father in a second floor bedroom after they fortified the house Amon had taken for himself. Adir had personally overseen the re-purposing of the wards. With the original caster absent (probably not permanently dead, he reminded himself bitterly), it was a relatively simple task to twist them against their intended purposes. Requesting the aid of his god, Ormat also shielded the foundation against psionic intrusion, such as a dimensional door or long distance teleportation. Neither of them could assure the other that the Illithid couldn't find a way through, but it was a start.

"Looks like we have a safehouse, then." he noted dryly, appreciating the more mundane defenses; the windows were boarded up, the front door reinforced with steel and the rear door sealed entirely.

"Not the prettiest abode, but you will be safe here. I will have it stocked with several weeks of supplies. Nobody travels this street often, save the occasional misthead or alleyway robber. This isn't the nicer part of the city, after all."

"Perfect." Adir replied, "With a few servants and men-at-arms, we will manage here while I plan our infiltration of Almraiven."

"And if Ahriman himself comes for us?"

"Away from his defenses, he is weaker. And he can't move soldiers into a rival city without provoking armed conflict. No; he will wait for us, if he knows of this place at all. Or maybe send more assassins."

"Expensive."

"He's a damned king, Ormat! Nothing we can't handle."

The Genasi nodded, distant, "Alright then...just stay out of that book for a while, will you? I'd hate to see my rare turn of conscience go unrewarded."

He nodded, and the silence stretched.

"Hey..." Adir added, approaching his friend with a smile bereft of any of his usual tact, "I'm glad you sided with me. I was worried for a moment there."

He offered his hand, a gesture he'd made to signal an assassination on more than one occasion, and felt a profound sense of relief when Ormat looked genuinely embarrassed, hesitating for a moment to take it. But take it he did, sighing, "I'd like to say I wasn't tempted, but Sashelas would scorn me for it. I'm happy it turned out this way, I think. That at least doesn't taste of a lie."

Daring an embrace, something he'd never done before, Adir nodded, and left his friend to his thoughts. There were more pressing matters...

...

Two, swirling, circling. Awareness, for the first time, of each other.

Questions, many. Unfocused. Difficult to formulate when inside.

A request, quickly rebuked.

Repeated, insistent.

Fear. Indignation.

Assurance.

Uncertainty.

Apology.

A moment's confusion, acceptance.

Vala.

Vala.

"Vala."

Vala blinked, repeatedly, but her eyes adjusted quickly. The disorientation, however, was slower to pass.

Her father was watching her carefully, eyes narrowed, betraying intense concentration.

"Your presence feels...different now. More how it used to. Your eyes are normal again."

Nodding, Vala rubbed her temples, "I never knew. All this time and I...I never knew."

"Knew what?"

"I never...even stopped to consider..."

"Knew what?"

"How could I have shut her away like that? What was I-"

Her father forcefully shook her, his teeth clenched, rage held at bay by a measure of control only a Dark Elf could manage, "What should you have known?!"

Placing a hand over his, Vala nodded, "It isn't just me in here."

His intensity not diminished, Netal bade her continue.

Vala struggled for words, then, "That's how I fought off the Illithid's domination. There wasn't just one mind in me, but two. She took over. When I...lose control, I feel an awesome power grip me. I lose myself. I feel...distant, like I'm being pushed away. I should have known that what I called Nobody wasn't just an extension of me. It was, is, another me."

Again, that little voice roiled inside of her, and this time she didn't fight to push it back down. Words, unbidden, echoed in her mind, in an accent more akin to Menzoberranzan, "These words...difficult. I'm not used to...speaking, like this. I've only been inside. So...angry."

"When I went into the Underdark." Vala said, regaining control, "Something broke inside me. I went feral. Everything became...fuzzy. I think, being alone for so long, my mind couldn't take it."

"One became two."

"When Iljrene and Alirana found me, they brought me back. This other part of me was newer. It was unfocused. It couldn't communicate. So they restrained it, or made me restrain it, by forcing me to remember. The drugs they used...goddess..."

She stood up, unable to contain herself anymore, "And whenever I felt those stirrings, I pushed them down inside me. She only took over when I lost control entirely; raging, uncertain..."

"Somebody."

"Yes. You're not Nobody. You're somebody."

"This is too much."

Confused, Vala watched her father stand up, "So you're telling me what killed those Illithid is not who I am speaking to now? That you're two people? Two Psions?"

"It would explain my resilience. My extra reserves of power. The change in tactics. She learned her abilities more abruptly. She's untrained. Inexperienced. But immeasurably stronger. No wonder I relied on her when I had nothing left."

"And you just spoke to her, right now? She spoke to you?"

"Yes."

"By the dark below...you realize how insane this sounds?!"

"We dealt with madness every day down there, Father."

"This is different."

"Is it?" Vala asked, "They say Lloth had many aspects, many fragments that interact with the denizens of the Demonweb Pits, with mortals here in the Prime Material Plane, and even with each other."

"You're not a god."

"No, I'm not." she acquiesced, "But there's something different about me. Something special, maybe. And I know who can tell me what that is."

"But first..." she decided, "Somebody isn't going to cut it. What should I call you?"

An impression of one of her books impressed upon her, one she'd read in the Promenade's study. Legends of the east, wherein lands were terrorized by six-armed Demons of wrath. A name, "Asura."

Hesitation, then, "Asara."

"It'll do. Well, I suppose that makes us Vala Asara Oblodra Telth'Zol."

"Damn mouthful, that."

"Right."

"You know what we need to do."

Nodding, righted herself, Vala drew the scepter Ahriman had used to nearly break her back in Almraiven, "And we have another to deal with, too. I don't know who you are, but I think we can help each other."

Distress, but begrudging acceptance. The scepter was hers, for now.

"Good. I hope Adir learned to travel to many realms already. I need to get into Arvandor."

...

He hadn't yet returned. Should it have taken this long?

Erona Firelash scrubbed the floors, careful not to leave anything behind.

Amon had thought his abuse, these petty tasks, would break her spirit. They only made her angrier.

Though outwardly calm, even timid, Erona stroked the fires of her rage, teasing it near sublimation. So close, but never enough to burst free. Let Amon enjoy his victory. He would grow careless, and she would be ready.

He may have taken her spellbook, her components. But her greatest strength was her willingness to suffer to get what she wanted. To the hells with magic when a sharp object would work perfectly well. Her escape she could purchase with the scrolls on his person, maybe contact her servants, if any there were.

A door slammed in the distance, and she heard her name being called. Harshly.

She smiled; it seemed Adir still lived, and better, clearly proven the stronger. If she had to guess, it took one of Amon's Demon allies to save him.

That knowledge she stored away; Adir could be useful to her, when he returned to Almraiven.

Another door, much closer. She stood up as he burst into the room, his eyes ablaze with murderous rage that mirrored her inner sentiments. But she played the role of helpless prisoner ably, looking startled, abashed even.

"Room. Now." he snapped, striking the rag from her hands, and storming to his private chambers.

A little longer. More fuel for the fire, the better to burn him away when the time came.

...

"Absolutely not!"

"Adir..."

"First, you tell me of this Asara...then you ask me to send you alone into the afterlife?! For no reason than to speak with this patron you've seen in hallucination?"

"It isn't something I can easily explain..."

"Damn it, woman! You are bearing my heir! I suffered you your return to your people and I nearly lost you forever today. I will not suffer this."

"Adir..."

"No!" he snapped, "You will remain by my side, and together we will see the death of Ahriman and the return of our home. I will not allow this."

"You must."

"Why?"

Father seemed equally unconvinced of her course; his disapproving gaze fixed upon her since Adir had entered the room, demanding to know what had happened to bring the Illithid into their business.

Vala smiled, "Because this is all happening as it should. I can't explain it, but...when we met, I felt like everything was falling apart. Now I see how it's all falling into place. The visions, my powers. Ahriman. Everything. We were meant to flee Almraiven, as you were meant to read the Codex. You were meant to ferry me to Arvandor. Somehow...I feel like he planned this."

"Your ancestor?"

"Yes."

"Your dead ancestor?"

Vala's smile became a smirk, and she eyed him critically, "A necromancer who thinks that death is the end? Come now, husband. He's in Arvandor, and I need you to send me to him. I will return after I've given him whatever he wants."

"What if he wants your death?"

She took his hands; they felt so solid, so coarse, against hers.

"Then he could have left me to die in the Underdark. He invested something in me. Nobody could have advanced their powers as quickly as I had at that age. Nobody. Kimmuriel knew it, just like Qilué knew it. Just like you know it. My powers are my own, but I wouldn't have had a chance if he hadn't given me one. I owe him. Enough to hear him out."

She smiled at him, and saw a flicker of doubt. A chink in his armor.

"I cannot consider this."

"I need you to trust me."

Adir frowned, "I do. But this...? And after everything else that just happened?"

"We're nearly ready. We will be ready."

She kissed him, uncertainly. He returned it, and the tenseness went out of him.

"I will trust you then, with this. But I will be watching, the entire time. You will consent to a metaphysical tether, that I might draw you back to Toril the moment I deem it necessary."

"Of course."

Adir sighed, "Very well. Let me begin making preparations."

Epilogue:

Arvandor, The Seldarine (9th of Alturiak, 1380 Dalereckoning)

He was there. He was waiting for her.

Swallowing, Vala advanced into a thick, verdant morass, blooming flowers clinging to nearly every surface. She had to tread carefully not to trample them. Sitting cross-legged before a weathered oak, its surface pitted and cracked, perhaps the only rustic thing in this forest, was her ancestor, the male she'd seen in her visions.

He looked frail, with his slight frame and pale, pale skin. His dark hair, bound in a topknot, reached to his waist, synched to his robes, which were pure white trimmed with silver. Dark circles lined his eyes, which, while calm and gentle, surged with power, less frightening perhaps than the psicrystal shards that emerged from his brow like devil's horns.

He smiled, betraying his fangs, which like his psicrystal horns seemed more an affectation than a natural occurrence.

"You've come to me." he said, his voice far deeper than his frame would suggest, "Both of you. Unexpected."

"My husband has his ways." she explained, sitting opposite to him.

He closed his eyes, not replying, and it took a moment for her to realize he was meditating. Doing so as well, Vala returned to herself, beside Asara, and awaited her ancestor's words.

How much time passed, she couldn't say, before she opened her eyes, and found him studying her intently.

"So much time has passed." he noted sadly, "Here, in this place, waiting."

"For us?"

"For many things."

He blinked, wearily, "But my burden is my own. I am Norudriel Oblodra, known by many names besides. Tell me your names."

"Vala."

Again, she was in her mindscape, but this time there was no tangible connection to her body.

"Asara." her twin said through her lips, "And I'm not all pomp and ceremony like the other one. We're here to talk about House Oblodra."

If she'd had control of the body, Vala might have put her face in her hands.

"Of course, my child. Time presses." he replied, "House Oblodra's tale is my own; a tragedy in two acts. You know of the fall of Ilythiir, yes?"

The sudden shift of perspective as they exchanged places jolted her, but Vala managed a nod, "Lloth infiltrated it, used a demon to...poison the well, so to speak."

"I was no Dark Elf, but Ilythiir was my home all the same. When its people were forced below, I followed them, beside my betrothed, soon to become my wife. Her name was Irelia."

He smiled, though there was a great pain in it, "She was Ssri-Tel'Quessir, and I was not. I was hardly welcome among them. And so, against her wishes I was cast out along their trek into the caverns of what would soon be known as Great Bhaerynden. She could not follow, for her father was a house patron, and restrained her in his convoy."

His expression darkened, "I was an accomplished sorcerer at the time, but little else. It was a harrowing trek through the wilds of the Underdark."

Remembering her own ordeal, though he'd been older and more experienced, Vala nodded grimly, "You weren't born with your psionimancy. You developed it?"

Norudriel shook his head, "I stole it, actually. My travels brought me to the outskirts of an Illithid civilization. I was brought before their Elder Brain."

"Their...Elder Brain? They didn't just scramble your grey matter into mush and had you picking mushrooms or something?"

He smiled mischievously, so much like Adir she blushed, "You're an impertinent one. They'd never seen an Elf before; the people rarely had reason to traverse the Underdark, after all. They were curious, enough to analyze me."

"And you cast some powerful wizardly spell, and thus stole the secrets of Psionimancy?"

"Entered a communion, actually."

Vala waited for him to elaborate, then sighed, "With the Elder Brain?"

"Yes; an ancient reservoir of the collective experiences of its servants. Dedicated to the collection of knowledge."

"Great. You're a scroll-scribbler. And a priest?"

Norudriel shook his head, "It had no interest in priests. It...changed me. Gave me a task."

"And that was?"

"Infiltrate the Ssri-Tel'Quessir. Patron a noble house that would act in the interests of the Illithid."

"Sounds like you did what it wanted."

"No..." he replied, "The opposite, actually. House Oblodra served Lloth as a barrier from the predations of the Illithid for many centuries. If it noticed or cared about my betrayal, it never really showed it."

"Okay. What's this got to do with us? Why a Benefactor?"

"Because I need you to retrieve something for me. Irelia."

Vala paused, confused, "Your wife?"

"I had many heirs, and I loved them dearly." Norudriel explained, "But they were Drow, Lloth's through-and-through. Irelia never belonged...but that didn't stop the powers that be from barring her from this place."

"While you were pushed through after your death." Vala reasoned, "And she went to-"

"The Demonweb Pits." he cursed, "I asked them, I told them, to send me there. I would have been content beside a demon queen if I was still beside her."

Asara took over, and she could feel her lips pull back in a bestial grimace, "So you want Adir to take us to the Demonweb Pits, brave Lloth and who knows what else so we can snatch up your old brightbird?"

"I would ask you not to insult her."

"I would ask you not to assume I wasn't thrilled with the idea. Steal a soul from that spider-kissing bitch? Done. How we going to find her?"

"I'll accompany."

She blinked, "You're dead."

"And traveling from one Afterlife to another."

"Good point. What's in it for us?"

"Power."

"Great. Ummm..."

Norudriel laughed, "My power. I'll do what the Elder Brain did to me."

"Will it...hurt who we carry?"

A spark of curiosity, excitement, "I can modify the alterations not to. Worry not."

"Great. But power...like, to kill Ahriman."

"Yes."

Asara laughed, "Adir's not going to like that. When do we start...?"

...

To Be Continued

...

The Vicelord

Chronicles

A riveting tale of the perilous lands of Calimshan and the Underdark alike, detailing the travels of a young, outcast Psion, an up and coming hopeful to the Dungeons and Dragons' mythos offers this exciting new entry and hero to complement the likes of Liriel Baenre and Drizzt Do'Urden as she treks through Faerûn's most dangerous reaches.

-Book 1 The Jewel of the Sands

An outcast child wanders the realms of the Underdark, haunted by her heritage and a power that she cannot understand. She will find that the attention of the gods can be a curse as much as a blessing, as light and darkness battle for her immortal soul.

-Book 2 The Kingdom of the Sands

Tempered in the hardship of Faerûn, a young woman plays with fire as she dares to upset the lordship of her new homeland. She will find that many can hide falseness in truth, and truth in falseness, as she seeks a treasure that will give her the power to rule her own destiny.

-Book 3 The Scepter of the Sands

Traveling with the last remnants of her husband's lordship, Vala must seek out allies new and old to take back her home and her station. With new and terrible powers bubbling up from her subconscious, she must also uncover their source, and the identity and truth of a man she has seen only in her dreams.

-Book 4 The Throne of the Sands

Her course decided and the last die of her ancestor finally cast, Vala must brave her dark past and Lloth herself. Ahriman and whatever powers he bargains with loom on the horizon, ready to bring their journey to a swift and bitter end, but with friends like Bregan D'aerthe and a Pasha of Calimshan, who needs enemies?