Chapter Thirty-Four – Cania

Jaiyan woke to pale dawn light and the odd sensation that her right foot had gone numb and that something heavy pinned her shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw Valen slumped half across her, one leg over hers, and his head lolling against her chest. His tail was looped loosely around her arm, and his breath against her skin was warm. Carefully, and not without some regret, she rolled him off her, then grinned as he burrowed into the pillows and muttered something. "Valen?"

"Asleep," he said, barely audible. "Not getting up."

She wrapped his tail around her wrist and tugged lightly. "Sure about that?"

He opened one very blue eye. "Sorry, did you say something?"

"Ready to strike out into Cania?"

He groaned. "No. Not really."

She swept loose hair away from his forehead. She loved the feel of the strands slipping against her fingers, soft and silken. "Got other plans, have we?"

"Mmm. Yes. They involve you, a bath full of hot water, a bottle of wine, and a bed." He swept a hand down her side, and up over the curve of her hip. "Though I suppose we can't, can we?"

"No, we can't." She kissed him quickly. "Besides, I need some new armour. Possibly made out of fur."

He laughed. "You're too short for fur. You'd look…ridiculous."

She shot him an icy glare, but could not quite hide her smile. "Says the man with the reddest hair I've ever seen."

Giggling, she dodged the lazy swipe he aimed at her. While he checked through their supplies, she heaved her clothes on and made her way downstairs. She found the taproom deliciously warm, and was almost not surprised when the dragon innkeeper inclined his head in greeting. Past a table occupied by card-playing imps, she found Deekin sitting perched on a stool, a cup of spiced wine in his hands. "Morning, Deeks."

"Boss sleep well?"

Yes, when we were actually sleeping. "Yes…fine, thanks. Ah, Deekin?"

He sipped his drink. "Yes, Boss?"

"Do you have any more of that potion?"

"What potion, Boss?"

She gritted her teeth. Damn teasing kobold. "The potion you gave me. The one that will stop me finding out if giving birth to babies with horns hurts even more than it normally would."

"Oh. Yes. Deekin has plenty."

"Good." She dragged a chair up to his table, sat opposite him. "What have you been up to?"

"Talking to people, Boss." He shrugged his wiry shoulders. "Supplies Boss can get at the quarry outside. And all the ghosts be scared."

She blinked at him. "What?"

"The ghosts, Boss. They all be talking about it. How their souls be stolen away, taken to serve Mephi…Mephistop…big red devil."

Something cold wormed into her stomach. "He's stealing them?"

"To fight for him, Boss. To help him on our world."

She shivered, and wondered if Imloth and the Seer still lived, or if Mephistopheles had crushed the ruins of Lith My'athar already. "This is not good, Deeks."

"Nope."

"You know, I thought we'd be back up in Waterdeep much quicker." She sighed and leaned her chin on her hands. "Not dead and swapping places with devils."

Deekin's eyes glittered shrewdly. "Not all bad though, Boss?"

Her face coloured. "No. Not all bad at all."

"Deekin also got these." He dug a handful of gleaming bottles out of his pack. "These be made from red berries."

She eyed the potions skeptically. "And they do what, exactly?"

"Keep you warm, Boss." He nodded emphatically. "Big blue dragon says berry plants make good fires, too."

"You have been busy." And you've been doing what? A bit of soul-searching and a lot of tiefling-searching? "Deekin…I'm really sorry. About all this. About being dead."

He shrugged philosophically. "Boss being silly."

She opened her mouth, thought better of it, and simply sat with him in companionable silence. Valen emerged into the taproom, his flail strapped across his back and his armour gleaming. She saw him scan the tables, his jaw tightening when he saw the imps and devils sitting with drinks. He said nothing, but his eyes were hooded, and she wondered again how he would fare, a tiefling in Cania.

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Outside, the cold bit into her. A brisk wind flurried snow off the high ice ramparts, and billowed the ground before them. The air itself was glacial, and every breath she took tasted knife-sharp. She led along a path carved into the deep, firm snow, and tried to ignore the cold burrowing into her skin. Beside her, Valen strode – no, she thought, he's stalking, like he expects to be attacked any moment.

The track curved up towards the ice quarry, and she heaved open huge metal doors. The wind howled, and she staggered inside, followed by a whirl of loosed snowflakes. Behind her, Deekin brushed snow from his shoulders and muttered something about kobolds not being built for such conditions.

"You new here?"

She looked up, and then up further, into the scarlet-skinned face of a tall, winged devil. He was glaring through narrowed amber eyes at her, and smoke curled from his flared nostrils. "Ah...yes?"

"You're here for the quarry, or what, mortal?"

"No, not the quarry." Her gaze was skipping across the devil's massive shoulder muscles, up to the arch of his wings. Good gods above, he is huge. "You sell supplies?"

The devil grunted. "Supplies and armour, if you have the coin."

"Right." Stop staring. Just get the damned money out. "You have anything that will fit me?"

"Not much. Have a look." He gestured her past him, into a small chamber that seemed part armoury, part junk room.

Jaiyan sifted through suits of armour, most hung with mail, some in plate and propped up against the wall. "Anything to keep away the cold?"

The devil blinked. "The black one. Leather, there. Woven with small enchantments. Won't keep you alive in a blizzard on its own, but it'll help."

Her hands touched soft, treated leather, and she lifted the armour up. Sheenless black all over, tipped with steel at the laces. Small studs followed the line of the collar and the hem. "You don't know anything about True Names, do you?"

The quarry master grunted again. "That why you're here, stranger? Heard that Mephistopheles had gone somewhere. That got anything to do with you?"

"Perhaps." She held the armour against her and shrugged. "I'll take it."

The devil accepted the handful of gold and eyed her thoughtfully. "Get yourself to the temple. Speak to Sensei Dharvana. See what she has to say to you."

Jaiyan thanked the quarry master after heaving the new armour on. It fit snugly over her frame, and smelled clean and new. She rolled her shoulders experimentally, and smiled as the armour shifted around her. She chose a thick cape next, and picked out one for Deekin as well, in deepest blue.

Back outside, the wind howled. The sky overhead threatened grey with stormclouds, and she spat snowflakes from her lips. Beside her, Valen was rigid, breathing hard. He had one hand clenched on his flail haft, the other balled into a fist.

"Valen?" She touched his elbow, and flinched when he whipped round.

"What?" Small drops of sweat beaded his temples. "What is it?"

She stared into his eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Everything," he snapped. "The whole time we were in there, I wanted to rip him apart. It's…it hurts, Jaiyan. My head hurts."

There was nothing she could do, she knew. She saw the strained anger in his eyes and worried. She had seen him fight, knew what he was capable of; and here, in the Hells, every breath he took, every beat of his heart would be screaming at him to give in.

"I'm sorry." She slipped her fingers into his.

For a long moment, he was unresponsive. But then his hand locked around hers fiercely. "My love, you have to promise me something."

"Anything."

He shook his head, still grim. "I mean it. If something happens, if I…I want you to promise you'll get away from me."

"What..?"

"I mean it." His fingers tightened, almost painfully. "Promise me."

She stared up into his bright blue eyes. "Alright," she said, haltingly. "I'll try."

"Thank you." He lifted her hand, pressed his mouth to her fingers. "Beloved."

They found the temple past high white arches of snow-covered rock. Tall, elegant spires reached up towards the roiling sky. Lights gleamed through half-blocked windows, and groups of odd-looking, reptilian figures huddled near the closed doors, or else stood near the steps, staring wordlessly at the whirling snow. Walking beside Valen as they approached, Jaiyan tried to quell her apprehension. She had never once been naïve enough to believe they could waltz through Cania and find the Reaper's True Name without any measure of effort, but this talk of vanishing souls and the unbreakable whiteness around her frightened her.

Just what the hells was Mephistopheles doing up there, anyway?

No. Don't even think about that.

Can't do anything about it from here.

She trailed Valen up the steps, and in through the doors. Pale candlelight met her eyes, and some sense of utter tranquility. The air did not move here, but it was not stagnant; rather, all was peaceful. Books lined the walls, and soft carpet muffled the stone floor. Sitting at a desk was a tall, elegant woman in dark robes. She turned her head, and Jaiyan stared.

She's not human, she thought rapidly. But why should that shock you anymore?

The woman's face was scaled, and faintly green. Dark eyes glittered above a wide, ridged nose, and she smiled. "Do you come seeking the Sleeping Man?"

Now it just keeps getting stranger and stranger. "Are you Sensei Dharvana?"

The woman nodded slowly. "I am. Do you come for the Sleeping Man?"

Jaiyan frowned. "Who's the Sleeping Man?"

"Man who sleeps, Boss. Think about it."

"He who sleeps and waits in the temple." The Sensei tilted her head. "He whiles away an eternity and more, waiting for answers to his questions."

"Right." Jaiyan scrubbed a hand across her eyes. "I need to find someone who can tell me True Names."

"Ah." A small, secretive smile lifted Dharvana's mouth. "Then you need to leave this city, and go out through the gates, and into the wastes beyond."

It seemed there was a weight in her belly, and weariness in her heart. "Because nothing's ever simple."

"And so you will need to see the Sleeping Man." Dharvana stood, and her robes rustled. "Perhaps the dreams and thoughts that linger in his mind can help you. Show you the path that you are meant to take."

Now, we're getting somewhere. "Yes," she said. "Can we see him now?"

The Sensei laughed, not mocking. "No. You must find the answers to the Five-Fold Mysteries."

Jaiyan sighed. She was tempted to snarl that she did not have the time, that Lith My'athar was probably already in ruins, that Mephistopheles stalked the surface world bent on conquest and carnage. That she did not want to venture out into freezing tundra on the word of a scholar who was not human. That she wanted to be away from this unsettling, frozen hell before Valen's tightly-leashed control was tested any further.

But she did not know the rules of this place, and there was little else to do except give in. She clasped Valen's hand, felt him faintly trembling, his skin clammy. A quick glance at him showed his face to be drained, his eyes fever-bright.

Hold on, she thought desperately. I need you. Hold on.

She looked back at Sensei Dharvana, and saw nothing but still calm on the woman's angled features. "Alright," she said, slowly. "Tell me about these Mysteries."

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Imloth sat in the infirmary and gripped the hilt of his sword until his knuckles changed colour. Around him, clerics and healers attended to the wounded, and he tried not to listen to half-stifled groans and sighs. Nathyrra sat beside him, her shoulder still wrapped, while the Seer moved among the injured, dispensing healing spells.

Their flight back to the city had been ragged and confusing, a bolt through uneven darkness. They had returned to find Lith My'athar smouldering, while Nathyrra and the others salvaged supplies from destroyed buildings. No hint of the arch-devil or whatever minions he might summon had reached them yet, but every hour that passed, Imloth fretted.

Nathyrra touched his knee gently. "You look like you want to kill something."

He sighed. "I think I do. Nathyrra, how did it come to this?"

She said nothing, but he read her thoughts on her downturned face. The Valsharess killed, yes, but the prophecy lost, along with their saviour, and Valen.

The Seer had taken the tiefling's death badly, Imloth knew. He had found her standing amid the tumbled blocks of the temple, her eyes turned up to the stone roof overhead, and silently weeping.

He approached her, walking louder than he usually would, giving her the chance to hear him first.

She turned, and he saw the tears spilling down the sharp slant of her cheekbones. Her long white hair was unbound, and tumbled down to the middle of her back. "Seer?"

She said nothing as he joined her, carefully stepping around blackened lumps of stone. "There's hot food at the tavern," he said gently. "You're exhausted. Come and eat with us."

"Imloth…"

Something touched him, some brush of shock or excitement. She had never before called him by name, had always maintained perfect decorum. But now, she was standing surrounded by the ruins of her own hopes, and her terrible vulnerability made him ache. "Seer. Please come and have something to eat."

She shook her head. "I am not hungry, I fear."

He stepped up beside her, wondered if he should touch her shoulder. "You're wasting away," he said, mildly admonishing. "Come on. Please."

"I lost them, Imloth." Her eyes were wide and unseeing. "I lost them all. Your soldiers. Jaiyan and Deekin. Valen."

"No. You didn't lose them. You did everything you could."

"By sending them to their deaths?" The Seer's voice cracked. "Imloth, I promised them peace. I promised them freedom, the Valsharess vanquished, and that Eilistraee would keep them safe." More tears fell, lining the smooth angle of her cheeks. "Instead, I delivered them into death."

"It was not your fault," he said fiercely. "Valen knew..."

"Did he? I helped him, I saved him, and then I killed him." She shook her head wildly. "And Jaiyan…she came down here a stranger, and threw herself into such trials, for us. Yes, I know what Halaster did, but..."

"Seer…"

She cut across him, her words ragged and trembling. "They found each other, Imloth. Did you see how happy he was? He found her, and then I killed them."

"No." Firmly, he closed his arms around her shoulders, held her against him. The embrace was passionless, but comforting, and he felt her shudder. For a long, terse moment, she was stiff in his arms; and then she collapsed against his chest. Her sobs were harsh and exhausting, and he held on through the tremors that wracked her.

He was not used to this, what a surfacer would call hugging. Drow did not initiate innocent contact. And he, a male, to put his hands on a female without permission or command? Some part of him wanted to laugh; he had spent his youth in fear of proximity with others, since being touched by a female invariably led to a particularly brutal kind of intimacy.

The Seer's arms wrapped around his waist, holding him as if he might be the only thing in the world keeping her sane. He let her cry out her grief against his tunic, did not move even when her hands pressed awkwardly into his back. She muttered something in their own language, something he did not quite catch. He heard Valen's name, and that of their saviour, and then the Seer's body convulsed again, and her hands clutched at his shoulders.

When her sobs subsided, he remembered something Valen had once said about women, and he stroked her hair gently. She quieted under his hands, but did not pull away. "Come and eat something," he said.

She raised her head, and stared up at him through bloodshot eyes. "I'm not…"

"No arguments." He carefully disengaged himself from her. "Come on."

Imloth stood up, pried his fingers away from his sword hilt.

"What are you doing?"

He glanced down at Nathyrra. "We can't stay here," he said. "Get everyone together. I'll talk to the Seer."

He found her kneeling beside a wounded drow, her hands clasped loosely over the soldier's shattered shoulder. A flood of pale light, and the broken bone shifted and began to knit. Under her hands, the drow wailed.

"It's difficult," the Seer murmured. "I can heal them, but I can't spare the extra magic to stop the pain."

Imloth reached down, gently maneuvered her to her feet. "How many of the injured still cannot walk?"

"Enough," she answered. "What are you thinking?"

"I think we should leave." Over her sudden frown, he continued, "Seer, there's nothing left here. In five days, we'll run out of food and supplies. There'll be nothing past the water in the river. We killed the last rothe yesterday. I say we pack everything up and leave."

She stared up into his face. "And go where, Imloth?"

He drew in a deep breath. He knew his idea was insane, suicidal even, but with an arch-devil loose, and everything in flames around them, he was not sure how much else they had to lose. "I think we should go up to the surface."

Behind him, Nathyrra's head turned. "What?"

"When Jaiyan came down through Undermountain, she came down through a gateway in the back of a tavern."

Nathyrra straightened up painfully. "You want us to make for a surfacer tavern? In a city recently attacked by drow?"

"I know how it sounds." He raked both hands through his hair. "I just…where else is there to go? Down here, we're rebels, weak and about to die. Up there…I don't know. Jaiyan spoke about that tavern, The Yawning Portal, and the innkeeper, Durnan. Maybe he would…"

"What?" Nathyrra raised a scornful eyebrow. "Accept a group of drow refugees into his cellar?"

"I don't know," Imloth snapped. "I just don't think we should stay here. The Yawning Portal or the Underdark…take your pick."

"And the arch-devil?" the Seer asked quietly.

Could be anywhere, he thought. Though if he was down here still, I'm sure we'd all be cold piles of ash on the floor by now. "I think he's already on the surface."

"And you want to send us there?" Nathyrra demanded.

I want to know what's happened. "I want us to find somewhere to hide. Somewhere that isn't still smoking. Somewhere that we know we won't starve in within days." He looked desperately at them, and his heart sank when he saw Nathyrra shake her head.

"No," Nathyrra said. "Too risky. What do we know about the surface? And this inn? For all they know, we're responsible for killing the hero they sent down, in any case."

"We are," the Seer said, quietly. Her gaze swung from Nathyrra to Imloth, and he saw steel. "And we will make for the surface. What else is there for us to do?"

"Seer," Nathyrra protested.

"Do you trust me?" the Seer murmured. "After everything that has happened, do you trust me?"

For a long moment, Nathyrra gazed at her. "Yes," she said, eventually. "Yes, I do."

"Good." The Seer straightened up, and something determined flashed in her eyes. "Then trust me, and do what Imloth says."