A/N: Okay, I said I'd update through anything thrown my way... I guess I miscalculated. I couldn't update through car crashes, broken hands or obliterated laptops. Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on wether you like the story or not – I am back on track, and ready to work again. All the work I had was lost, though, so I had to write this chapter anew... I tried to do a lot of things with it, and I'm not sure if I pulled it off... You tell me. On a separate note, is being funny with me and does not let me edit things –documents, my profile... – so apologies for how this might look.
Dream of a mirror
Valen was angry. In spite of that, though, he admitted – through gritted teeth, that is – that he shouldn't have called her a coward. Firstly, because he knew, deep down, that she wasn't one. And secondly, because it was a sure way to get her all riled up... Yes, it was bound to cause the kind of glare that was being glared his way at that precise moment. He sighed. He was still pissed, and he still believed that her actions had been all but appropriate, but soon it became obvious to the weapon master that if he wanted to move on and to get things done, he had to acquiesce, apologize and forget.
And that, for a being as proud as him, was no easy feat.
Valen took a deep breath and forced his brain to think of the Seer. Of course, the ancient drow would say that he was being irrational. And, truth be told, a part of him agreed. Unfortunately, it was a very tiny part of him and he could drown out its voice easily enough.
There was something very primal, something genuinely Valen, which could not agree with not fighting the enemy on sight:
There were the avariel elves, a graceful people who had fallen under a mighty spell and had been torn apart from their home and their soaring skies and had been brought to a stinking Underdark cave by the combined power of Halaster and the Mirror of All Seeing. They were Bystanders. There were Yria and he, two stubborn individuals who were pretty much able to level a whole battlefield on their own and who had a Mission – that of recovering the Mirror of All Seeing, restoring the Bystanders, and ultimately defeating the Valsharess. They were Friends. And then, there were the Valsharess and her troops, an eclectic bunch of bastards who threatened everything in a 100 mile radius. They were the Foes. It was an easy enough classification, in Valen's mind.
And according to Valen's mind, the Friends were supposed to battle the Foes and to accomplish the Mission, all the while not involving the Bystanders. Simple and effective.
That was why he had been quite annoyed when they had hiked all the way to the small cave where the former Queen was hiding to try to pry some information out of her and, upon seeing a small group of drow commanded by the same Red Sister they had battled before, had hidden.
He was okay with the idea of an ambush, but when the score of trained assassins had paraded by under their noses – literally, for they were crouching behind a rocky outcrop off to one side of the main path and quite high above it – and this had provoked no reaction whatsoever from the sorceress, his scheme of things had shattered and he had been quite angered.
Valen couldn't see how it could be a good idea to let the Foes go without attempting to kill them: it was inconceivable for that base part of him to let those sly warriors walk past and regroup, not erasing the haughty grimace from the face of the Red Sister with a clean swipe of Devil's Bane while their guard was down, crushing her skull and to see if she could still cast her gods damned spells with the top of her head mashed against her jaw...
... The primal thing in him sounded an awful lot like the demon, now that Valen stopped to think about it...
With a low, menacing grunt, he managed to shove out of his mind some of his anger – or of his pride, he wasn't quite sure which one and he didn't feel up to the task of sorting those two apart. Through gritted teeth, he admitted inwardly that perhaps they weren't ready to confront the powerful dark elven cleric as of yet, and that, after all, the confrontation was not necessary in order to get the information.
The demon complained, saying that the Red Bitch had carried one of the mirror shards on her at the time and that, had they attacked, it could be theirs now; but Valen scolded it, saying that she'd have teleported her ass to safety again and left them heavily outnumbered fighting a bunch of footsoldiers again. The demon made to protest, but Valen put his foot down and said that that was that, and it quieted.
The warrior threw a glance at the sorceress, her small frame protected behind her crossed arms and radiating an almost tangible aura of something that felt for all the world like white-hot anger, and for a moment it seemed as if he was about to say something. But he held back. He had calmed down some, but not enough. Not nearly enough to face the conversation that was looming ahead without losing his temper yet again.
Scrunching up his face in thought, he tried to pinpoint the other causes of his original anger, and to reason them away. Perhaps that would help him to, ah, keep things in perspective and cool down. Nathyrra always said that his failures were brought unto him by himself, because he couldn't see beyond the tip of his nose, and so he tried to peer a little bit further.
All the way to his extended right hand, at the very least.
They had two mirror shards. That wasn't great news, because the Red... Sister had another one and there were two more waiting to be recovered, but it wasn't what was bothering him: he was pragmatic enough to know what was impossible and what was reasonable.
It certainly wasn't the way they'd acquired the shard from the avariel merchant. That one, if anything, had been smooth. Valen couldn't help a smirk: how could it not be smooth, if it involved Yria and a merchant? Then again, buying hadn't been all that easy, since the once greedy winged elf, now twisted and turned into his exact opposite, had wanted to trade for something less valuable. Leave it to Yria to find something less valuable than a broken piece of mirror: somehow, when Valen was starting to think that perhaps shaking some sense into the elf was in order, she had sprouted some story about cursed coins. Cursed coins that only brought bad luck upon those who knew they were cursed and willingly accepted them. Of course, such an item was utterly useless. More so than a broken mirror, which still could be used to reflect part of your face. It was so useless that the tiefling couldn't understand how the merchant had believed anyone would create it. But he had, and they had acquired their first mirror shard.
A small voice in the back of his head complained that she had used his coin to fast talk the merchant, but even the demon snorted. It was one gold coin; and anyway, money was not that necessary for him – after all, every single one of his expenses was taken care of at the temple.
No, definitely that was not it.
The second shard they had laid their hands on had been found in the library. He didn't really know how it had gone, because Yria had gone in alone. Aha, the little voice in the back of his head and the demon said at the same time, alone. He was miffed because he had grown so used to being depended upon that he felt uneasy when he was not needed. He was angered because he was uncomfortable, and was uncomfortable because, if she didn't need him, then he didn't know what his place was.
Valen shook his head. Of course not; that could not have been the reason. It had been logical: they had learned that the librarian had gone quite nuts, and had been burning down all the books under her new form: that of a medusa. The source had been quite reliable too – the husband of the formerly nice and quiet book keeper. And, as Yria had said when she had bodily stopped him from following, they had not means to turn stone back into flesh.
The demon, malicious as ever, took the chance to ask, as nonchalantly as it could, why she had gone in if that was the case. And why she had come back with a smile, a mirror shard, and a promise to the anxious husband – "there, there, you will have good old her back soon enough", she had said.
The weapon master didn't really have an answer to that, so he tried to think of the Seer again. He could almost hear her melodic voice saying that that was the point in which he had to make a leap of faith, and trust his comrade – and their savior.
It didn't make Valen feel any better. In fact, it made him feel even worse, for now the always controversial topic of trust was once again present.
Just as he was about to sink deeper in thought, soft and clearly forced coughing brought the tiefling back to the world and forbade him from investigating any further the dangerous field of introspection. The once avariel wizard, currently a homeless wretch intent on experiencing the world and on keeping as far from magic as possible, was looking at him expectantly. He was clearly waiting for him to do something. A part of Valen was genuinely glad to be considered the leader again, but another part actually worried about confronting the offended sorceress – if the old mage had wisely stepped back and casually hidden behind a small boulder, there sure had to be reason to worry. The warrior sighed once more and braced himself for what he knew was coming, and spoke.
Or, rather, tried to speak, because Yria chose that moment to explode and cut in first.
"Let them get this shard. Let's go for the other one. We'll still have the upper hand."
Valen did a double take. Perhaps he hadn't known what was coming, he admitted. Was she actually dropping the insult? His eyes widened as he came to grips with her comment.
"What? Are you crazy?" Or are you a traitor?
"I'm not crazy. Look," Yria took a step backwards even as she spoke, "the Mirror cannot be fixed without all of the shards. They already have one, so the confrontation is unavoidable, isn't it? Well, let them get this other one while we go and grab the last shard and we'll still have more pieces of Mirror than they, right?"
Valen stared at the girl, and then his gaze, following hers, locked on the massive tower looming above them.
His mouth opened and closed. The demon roared, but he managed to tame its voice into a rather meek, "What?"
"We don't need it," Yria's voice was steely with resolve. "We need the whole mirror, not the shards. It'd be ideal to let the Red Sister exhaust her troops and her resources, and then time our move and get the price."
"We won't sit here and let them gain advantage on us," Valen growled out, his words barely audible under the demon's screech.
Yria was going to reply, to explain once again her point – the drow would be getting no advantage, just a large number of troops consumed by the effort of acquiring the shard – but wisely she fell silent. If nothing else, she knew that there were some buttons she couldn't press with the tiefling, and she recognized the present issue as one of them. She scowled, and somehow the expression was ill-fitted for her usually smiling face.
"Fine," she said. "We'll go and grab the shard and come out again. But I want this to be very clear – I think it is a lousy idea."
"Your opinion is clear as crystal," Valen almost barked. "Now, let's go."
They opened the large oaken doors and walked along the eerie entrance corridor, making their way into the wizard's tower. From the very beginning, a weird sensation pickled the back of Valen's neck, giving him goose bumps. The place felt dead. Empty. It was the kind of vacuum that can be felt when having a bad nightmare... it was the lack of magic. The warrior glanced to the side, to see if the sorceress had caught on it, and although the stony look in her face as she marched onwards by his side prevented him from asking anything, it also let him know his answer. Of course she had noted it. Perhaps even sooner than he did.
Then he felt the other energy. It was a magic trail, yes, but it was not the Weave. No, it was something that inebriated him and pulsated in his temples and through his veins; something that pumped in time with his heart.
Baatezu.
The demon within stood, reared and charged, empowered by the constant pounding of the Blood Wars drums. It broke free and roared in all its glory, tasting the acrid smell of battle in the air and rejoicing with the thought of spilling a devil's blood. It grabbed the man and threw him in a prison, shackling him as it rushed forward.
A piece fell into place, and what was left of Valen understood.
The tower was a place of wild magic. Wild magic meant, literally, that anything could happen, and a sorcerer was all about magic. Yria had felt it, and she had known that she would be nearly defenseless and quite useless. A fireball could turn on them, and even the most harmless spells could backfire and lash out at their caster as raw power. And, somehow, she had also felt the devils' presence. Either because she had scrapped the information from the rather incoherent speech of the former wizard, or because she truly had some uncanny abilities when it came to magic, she had known that creatures from the lower planes had been let loose on the Prime.
As Valen saw his body joining the melee, killing the drow who had entered the tower before them and the devils summoned by the arcane defenses with no distinction, he realized that, of course, she knew of the Blood Wars. She wasn't a traitor or a coward; she had merely foreseen that the demon would take over.
Valen had time to think that, perhaps, it would have been smart to let the drow be decimated by the tower and then steal the shard from them afterwards, but he didn't even finish the thought. His heavy flail swung hard, tearing off the head of an Erynnie devil that had come too close for comfort.
The demon howled in glee as it bathed in devil's goo, and it breathed in the scent of fresh gore as everything went black for the man.
Everything was burnt. The air itself seemed to have been scorched and felt as dry parchment with every inhalation. The smells assaulting his senses spoke of blood and pain, but mostly of blood. His whole body throbbed, but it somehow helped him to keep a point of focus. Something was poking at his side, and though at first he tried to ignore it, soon it became the only solid thing in his universe. He could not will it to go away. He grunted and opened his eyes.
Yria was leaning over his side, her eyes still serious and her face still tense. Valen tried to sit up, but one look was enough to keep him motionless. As her eyes went back to her task – whatever she was doing with his side hurt like all the hells – he tried to recollect his memories. The weapon master could not remember what had happened after he had charged the tower-turned-into-battlefield, but it must have been something big – the energetic sorceress looked exhausted and almost ready to collapse, and her clothes were singed here and there.
As the pain on his side subsided, he attempted to get up again.
"How must I tell you to remain still?", the sorceress asked with a slightly annoyed tilt to her voice.
"I'm feeling all right now," he answered stubbornly, managing to push himself up on his elbows.
Yria stared at his side, almost holding in her breath. Miraculously, the bandages held.
" I... Can we talk?" The warrior fixed her with his cyan eyes. From what he remembered, before the demon took over, he had something important to tell her.
However, if earlier on he had thought that she had dropped the insult, he could not have been more wrong. The young human girl just smirked and sat back, rolling her eyes and recovering a bit of her characteristic attitude.
"Yeah, yeah... I know, you don't trust me, you're watching me, I won't get away with anything..."
The tiefling frowned and pushed himself upright. So much for an easy apology...
"That's not what I was going to say," he started, but then he had to bite his tongue. No, he hadn't trust her, had he? He had had to go into the tower and see the drow in there and the devils, and apparently almost get them both killed, in order to believe her good intentions.
Was it so impossible for him to actually make the infamous leap of faith?
But, how could he ever make it? He was a planar who had seen one too many so-called gods face to face, who had seen one too many failures of the divine to be able to have any faith. Could he have faith in the good of people, perhaps? Hardly, taking into account how some people put the skills of demons to same at any given time.
...Could he have faith in Yria, then?
She didn't give him time to answer the question, nor to say anything else for that matter. With a smile firmly in place, her good old confident self stood and cleaned her hands on her torn and singed leather pants.
"You just get some rest now, and then we're finishing our business here." With that, she left him, presumably to get some sleep herself.
Valen noticed that she hadn't dropped the insult. However, she was not mad at him: she was hurt, and he didn't really know which one was worse.
A healing potion was shoved down the tiefling's throat when he woke up after a restful sleep. He guessed that she had drunk another one, because the burns and bruises were gone from her visible skin, but he decided against asking. The sorceress had in place the light smirk that meant trouble, and the spring that he had come to associate with her step was back, so he assumed that their little problem was over. They had other things to focus on: for example, the last shard.
When Yria pushed open the temple doors, she had a feeling of uneasiness nestled quite comfortably in her stomach, but she hid it well. So well, in fact, that she managed to forget it was there right up until the moment where an utterly unknown spell hit her. She felt it latching onto her body, and she felt her energy draining. It was as if she had just cast a lot of spells, but worse. Her head started to feel dizzy and she broke a cold sweat. She felt that life was draining out of her with each breath she took.
That was when she panicked.
The avariel priest had been a good person. The fact that he was so utterly evil under Halaster's spell only proved how good he had been, and could be again once the curse was lifted.
"Are you strong enough to survive my test? Will you survive the illness that wracks your body by Talona's will? Oh, I can already feel it, weakening you, slowly killing you..." the elf batted his wings and cackled.
He could have been turned back into a kind and compassionate priest... if, in his madness, he had chosen another target.
"Test? Test, my ass!"
The fireball was flying before the priest even realized that the woman in front of him could actually attack him, instead of passing his test. He tried to counter, but the first spell had barely hit him when another one was being cast: this time, five fiery rays pierced the smoke left by the explosion to bite his flesh.
Concentration broken, he staggered back and realized his mistake, trying then to parlay.
As his hands raised high in the air, the sorceress right hand came forward and he felt like his blood was on fire. He screamed as his flesh followed, and with an ear-shattering cry the cremated elf fell on the floor of his defiled temple.
With his death, the curse lifted and Yria leaned back against the cool stone wall, trying to get her erratic breathing back to normal. She felt more than saw the shocked look a frozen Valen was giving her. Through half lidded eyes, she allowed herself to smile sheepishly at him, and that seemed to snap him out of his stupor.
The tiefling pried his eyes away from the smoldering remains of the priest and rushed to the girl's side. He reached out to steady her, and she did not complain when he helped to hold some of her weight.
"You should take a potion... we have not finished our stock, have we? And you need some rest," he said, sounding truly concerned.
Yria, however, shook her head. "Nah, no need for potions. Just give me a moment." It was true that she was pretty much trashed, but even as she spoke, she felt the foreign warmth in her chest.
She smiled, focusing on the light weight of the spidery medallion that hung hidden by her tunic, and that surely would be glowing faintly while it worked its magic, and almost immediately she started to feel better. It had been a touching gift, and Yria had appreciated it truthfully, but only had she discovered its true value the previous night, when it had slowly but steadily healed all of her burns and wounds, gained in the tower's carnage. Perhaps she should have guessed it, for the drow, especially male, were notorious for their pragmatism and it was deliciously logical for a charm that wore the symbol of Selvetarm, the god of war, to heal its bearer. But she had not, and the discovery had been a pleasant – and handy – surprise.
She pushed away from the wall, and smiled wickedly up at Valen.
"Okay, I'm fine now. Let's go get that Mirror, and then let's go back to the camp. I miss my bed already..."
Sergeant Ossyr abandoned his post at the gates and ran all the way to the training fields. He made his way through small clusters of sparring elves, desperately trying to locate the harsh voice of the commander.
Imloth was having an impromptu meeting with the commanding sergeant of House Maeviir and another elf who Ossyr vaguely recognized as the leader of the former slaves just recently added to their troops. However, he didn't have time to find out what the meeting was all about.
"Commander Imloth, sir! The Valsharess is on her way!"
The temple doors opened violently, and out came the Seer, magnificent in her humble white attire. Her kind, wise visage had transformed, and both her face and her attitude spoke of a drow female ready to battle: in her pose, she appeared as dangerous and ruthless as any Matron Mother. And the image suited her fine, because dangerous and ruthless she was willing to be, in order to save the few rebels who had laid their trust upon her.
As she descended the obsidian steps that lead to the former House of Lolth, she was flanked by her lieutenants: Nathyrra to her right, the deadly training and lethal coolness of a Red Sister serving the very cause the Red Sisters were created to fight; and Imloth to her left, his stony expression an example of discipline and his mighty dire mace, hefted onto his right shoulder, a symbol of fighting prowess.
The trio marched on towards the center of the city, were the rebels were gathering as they geared up for the battle to come. The small crowd that was already there parted to let them through, and on the Seer walked, letting her troops share a little of her own decidedness to ease their concerns. Already waiting for her was Matron Maeviir, standing proud between two of her best trained clerics and her House's High Wizard. If the other commanding group of Lith My'athar was worried or disappointing by not seeing either the so-called prophetical savior nor the bright red bulk of sheer destruction that was Valen, their faces never showed it – they all remained stoic as if chiseled in basalt, and only Maeviir herself gave a small, cruel smile.
"The Underdark shall be bathed in blood tonight," she said, with a soft sneer.
Creeds forgotten for the time being, the Lolthite and the Eilistrayan shared a resolute look: the look of two drow Matrons going to war. Savior present or not, the blood they envisioned turning crimson the Dark River's waters was that of the Valsharess.
The last swirl of teleporting magic dissipated in the air, and Queen Shaori was gone. Yria smiled widely at Valen.
"Another job well done!"
The tiefling nodded back, and had to agree. It had taken them way too much effort for his liking, and it had provoked some nasty fights between them, but everything seemed to have been solved – the sorceress had become her happy self and forgotten all about her grudge as soon as she had laid hands on the repaired Mirror of All Seeing.
The pair walked back to where Cavallas had left them in a companionable silence, and only once they had settled down and the boatman started to prepare to leave, did Yria pull the magical artifact out of her bag.
She paid no attention whatsoever to the creepy being as he fussed around her – she had long decided she didn't really care what he really was as long as he was helping her; Valen, on the other hand, didn't seem to sit well with that decision and sat an arm's length away, his suspicious eyes never leaving Cavallas... Then again, this was Valen, so the tension and the behavior were hardly unexpected.
When the warrior caught her amused and lightly vacant gaze fixed on him, she merely winked – to rile him up, of course – and focused back on the Mirror of All Things - On her Mirror of All Things. She just wanted to see...
The dark skinned warrior buckled the last piece of his leathers in place, and ran his fingers nervously through his off-white hair. His gaze lingered for a moment longer than what was necessary on the beautiful blade that rested completely alone in the weapon rack, and he allowed himself to admire its beauty yet again. The pommel and the guard were a plain cross of cold iron, and the hardened leather scabbard was as unadorned as they came, but his expert eyes could not be fooled by this lack of filigrees – he saw the sharpness, the toughness and the perfect balance of the weapon, and his skin prickled with its power. It was the best sword any warrior could dream of. And it was his.
Rizolvir grabbed the sword and strapped it in place. The weight felt foreign on his hip; it had been too long...
Who would have thought!? Are you sure that you know how to wield me, or are you apt only for manhandling weapons?
The drow smith smiled when he heard Enserric's slightly nasal voice. He had had a chance to appreciate the blade's attitude when he had first acquired it and had run a few tests on it, to determine what it could actually do, so he just answered while he clasped a cloak around his shoulders.
"Do you think I was born a smith? I'll let you know that I was a fine warrior before House Zarosta decided to... employ me."
Uh uh... Whatever you say, pal. Anyway, how long ago are we talking about, exactly? All this time feeling weapons up can't have been soft on your technique, can it?"
"Shut up already!" the drow snarled, too insecure to feel comfortable with the sword's undermining.
Or else?
Rizolvir stopped dead in his tracks towards the city core, and stared maliciously at the blade hanging on his hip, a rather cruel smirk curling up his lips.
"I am a smith," he hissed. "Keep that up and I'll forge you into a chamber pot."
...Spoilsport. Okay, I'll shut up, but you get me out of this stupid smelly scabbard! The pointy end goes towards the enemy, by the way.
Rizolvir stalked on to take up his post.
...The pointy end is...
The drow drew Enserric and raised the blade to his face, and gave it a proper glare.
"I know which one the pointy end is, I'm not stupid! And now, shut it and make yourself useful!", he bellowed.
Suddenly, a patrol of maeviir drow was staring at him and the idea of actually going to war while keeping a conversation with his weapon didn't seem all that great anymore. The smith sighed and kept moving, twirling Enserric once in his hand to get used to its feel. He didn't want to die, and it had been too long, way too long.
But he didn't want to die yet...
The image reflected on the Mirror blurred, and Yria was back in Cavallas' small boat. She gasped, horrified, and looked up, searching for Valen. Upon seeing her pale face and her eyes wide open, the tiefling frowned.
"What's wrong?"
"Lith My'athar... It's coming under attack! We must hurry!"