Windwalker, Part 3: Zephyrus

by Teutonic Titwillow

Undrentide has fallen. Rebecca Blumenthal has turned her back on her old life and embraced her new life as a vagabond priestess of Shaundakul and bad-tempered do-gooder. But, as shadows pool in Waterdeep's streets, she finds out that you can never really escape your own past - and that while she may be done with heroism, heroism isn't done with her. (HotU with...twists.)

35. Trust

A/N: *zips by, hits 'post'*

Here's another long chapter for y'all. I couldn't figure out how to split it without losing momentum, especially as the whole thing is linked thematically, but I'm sure you'll forgive me by the time you reach the end. xoxo

---

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

- George Eliot, Middlemarch

I know that each one of us travels to live alone, alone to faith and to death. I know it. I've tried it. It doesn't help. Let me come with you.

- Giannis Ritsos

~*~
Chapter 35: Trust
~*~

A scratching at my door jerked me out of a dead sleep.

I opened my eyes. Silk sheets were tangled around me. I fought them off and sat up. "Whozzat?" I yelled, still half-asleep.

A familiar voice cut through the door like a diamond saw through glass. "It be me, Boss," Deekin called. "Can I come in?"

I looked around. There was no way to tell the time in this forsaken place, but it felt like I'd only managed to crawl back in here and get to sleep five minutes ago. Grumbling, I pulled the sheets around myself and shouted back. "Okay, but it had better be worth waking me up!"

The door creaked open. A scaled snout poked through, shortly followed by the rest of the kobold. "Oh, it totally be worth it," Deekin reassured me. He closed the door behind him. He had his pack slung over his shoulder and a calculating gleam in his liquid black eyes. "So. I gots a question for you, Boss."

"Which is?"

The kobold grinned. "You wanna be rich?"

"Gods, no, not again."

Deekin nodded patiently. "O-kay. You wanna have more money than no money, at least?"

"Maybe. Why?"

The kobold's grin widened until his face was practically all teeth. "'Cause Deekin just finished doing all the addings and subtri…suttra…minus-ings, and if he be right, all we gots to do is find a merchant who'll give us an okay price for some of this stuff and then we be rollings in the dough."

I wavered. It would be nice to have a little money. Not enough to cause trouble, but enough to buy myself some decent supplies. "All right," I conceded. "Give me time to take a bath and get dressed."

Deekin bobbed his head. "You might wanna do something about your hair, too, Boss," he suggested. He turned around, his spindly hand already on the doorknob. "You kinda be reminding Deekin of Heurodis, and it kinda be freaking him out."

What a lovely little tidbit of criticism to wake up to. "Fine. I'll go sit in the bathtub and slit my wrists, won't I?"

Deekin rolled his eyes. "Gawd, don't be so dramatic, Boss." Then he slipped out of the door before I could answer.

On the one hand, it was nice to see that the little guy had become so self-sufficient. On the other hand, he was starting to sound a little too much like me, and it was making me want to stuff his tail in his mouth.

I felt slightly more human after a boiling hot soak and a little sorely-needed personal time in the tub. I hoped any drow who were spying on my quarters enjoyed the show, or what they could see of it through their peepholes, but even if they didn't, that was just too bad, because under the circumstances I needed all the stress relief I could get.

Still, stress relief or no stress relief, a black malaise still gnawed at me, apparently unrelievable by any means I had available. Strange, half-remembered dream images lingered in my head, like fog.

Deekin was waiting for me in the hallway. His eyes brightened when he saw me. "Ready to go, Boss?" He was practically bouncing on his toes.

The urge to make the kobold eat his own tail faded at the sight of his beaming little face. "Yeah." I reached down to take his hand. The black malaise receded, a little. "Let's go, little buddy."

Outside, a small contingent of golems was marching back and forth across the temple square under the watchful eyes of Imloth, who was lounging on the temple stairs with what looked for all the world like a cigarette in hand. Nathyrra's slim, leather-clad shape was walking among the golems, talking and gesturing animatedly.

Further on, there were tall, shining figures patrolling the city walls, and more wandering the streets. Winged red shapes circled over the city. It seemed like Valen hadn't just found places for the golems – he'd put them on guard duty. Figures. A grudging smile rose up through the gloom that covered me, pushing the malaise back a little further. If he could surround the Seer with a wall of metal men, he would.

I made my way down to Imloth and plopped down next to him. He nodded at me and blew a stream of smoke from his nostrils, his pale eyes narrowing with some kind of private amusement. "Vendui, priestess." He indicated the golems with a flick of his cigarette. "I hear that we have you to thank for our new allies."

Holy shit. I actually recognized that word from Nathyrra's lessons. Vendui meant 'hello'. "Vendui, Imloth," I said, waving Deekin ahead. The kobold made a face and dashed off to pester Nathyrra and the golems. "Yeah," I went on. "I decided to give the locals a challenge – bring them somebody who couldn't be poisoned or backstabbed." Imloth chuckled. The smell of smoke made me twitch with an urge I hadn't felt in a while. I gestured at his smoke. "You mind if I…"

Without comment, the drow passed me his rollup. I took a drag and watched smoke curl away from me on my long exhale. The soothing buzz of nicotine went through me, taking a little more of the edge off of my mood. It wasn't quite a cigarette – it was spicier, sweeter, muskier – but it was close enough. "Thanks," I said with a relieved sigh, and passed the rollup back.

Imloth took the cigarette without looking. His eyes were on Nathyrra. "Is it not beautiful?" he murmured.

I followed his stare. Nathyrra was, for some reason, measuring one of the golems with a piece of string. What was the woman doing? Had she decided to add tailoring to her insanely long list of accomplishments? "What's beautiful?" I asked absently.

An odd, sad smile crooked up one corner of Imloth's mouth. "Her innocence," he said. He took a deep lungful of smoke and exhaled it slowly, watching Nathyrra pepper the golem with questions. "Lolth kills innocence. Yet after all Nathyrra has seen and all she has done, there is still an innocence to her that Lolth has never been able to take. And that is beautiful."

It was hard to think of an ex-assassin as innocent, but he did have a point. Nathyrra knew a lot more than me about complicated stuff, like magic or languages, but not as much as I would have expected about the simple stuff, like how to make small talk or stop viewing everything as a competition. Thoughtfully, I accepted the cigarette again. Inhaled. Exhaled. Passed it back. "The Seer called Lolth a disease," I remarked.

Imloth nodded. "Yes. Lolth is sick, and makes us sick, like her." He looked away and took a long, contemplative drag on his cigarette. "We are not an evil people, priestess. No more than yours."

I studied the drow's face. His playful air was gone, and it had taken his smile with it. "So what are you?" I asked quietly.

Imloth sighed. "Afraid."

I looked out over the city, and all of its graceful spires and twilight colors and velvet shadows. "What happens if Lolth never comes back?"

Imloth looked out over the city, too, his eyes distant. "Eilistraee willing, my people will wake from their nightmare."

My gaze shifted to my fingers. They flexed. For a moment, in the place of my fingers I almost saw long, hooked black claws, like knives. I shuddered and looked up. "I hope so. God knows I've had enough of nightmares."

The drow's smile flickered back to life, faintly. "As have I, priestess. As have I."

Imloth and I sat and smoked for a while in companionable silence. "So," I said, a couple of cigarettes later. "I wanted to ask you…"

Imloth perked up. "Yes?"

"Deekin has some things to sell, and we were looking for a merchant who won't try to cheat us too badly."

Imloth's eyes brightened. "Ah," he said laughingly. "A challenge!" He stood, dropping his cigarette and grinding it out with the toe of his boot. "Come, then. I can spare a little more time from my duties. I will take you to someone I-" He paused. "I almost said 'trust', but this is not the right word," he corrected himself, in his lilting and slightly halting way. "Shall we say, someone that I mistrust not so much?"

I grinned. "Fair enough," I said, and followed him down the stairs.

As we crossed the temple square, Deekin and Nathyrra drifted over to meet us halfway. They were both writing things down, Deekin in his messy journal and Nathyrra in a small leather-bound book no larger than her hand. When our paths crossed, Nathyrra fell into pace without looking up from her notes. "I cannot even begin to understand the layers of enchantment here," she began without so much as a 'hello', as if resuming a recently interrupted conversation. "The duergar are known for their magical craftsmanship, but this is exceptional, even for a duergar." She closed her book with a snap and looked up, her dark eyes shining. "And the minds of these golems! They are fully self-aware and highly intelligent, although in some ways it seems that they still think like constructs. I have never seen their like."

I look at her askance. "You seem pretty fond of them."

The drow woman hesitated. "I suppose that I am," she admitted at last. "They are…very pure, in a way." Her voice softened. "It gives me hope. If the natural inclination of all thinking beings is towards goodness, and evil a corruption of that natural state, then perhaps my people are not beyond saving." Abruptly, she looked around, as if she'd just realized that we were walking somewhere. "Oh. Where are we going?"

I wasn't sure how a former assassin could be this oblivious. I was starting to suspect that it was because while she'd been trained as an assassin, what Nathyrra truly was, at heart, was a raging nerd. "We're going to the market," I explained. "Deekin and I have a few things to sell."

Nathyrra nodded and slipped her book into a belt pocket. "Good. I shall accompany you. I need to buy a few things, myself."

This was turning out to be an all-hands-on-deck shopping expedition. "Maybe we should ask one of the golems along to carry our bags," I mused.

Nathyrra looked at me sharply. Then she smiled. "I will be right back," she said, and trotted back to the golems. "Cupron!" she called. "I would speak with you a moment."

---

It was a strange group that wound its way through the streets of Lith My'athar.

So, I mused. A kobold bard, an ex-killer-for-hire, a drow playboy, a whatever-I-am of Shaundakul, and a giant metal bellhop walk into a bar…

I wasn't sure what the punchline to that joke would be, but I had a sneaking suspicion that we were the punchline.

I felt a little guilty about the fact that we'd pressed one of the golems' leaders into service as a glorified pack mule, but Cupron didn't seem to mind, so I figured I shouldn't, either. As we walked, Cupron looked around him with an air of earnest fascination, his head swiveling as he seemed to absorb every sight and sound and tidbit of new information like a really big, shiny sponge.

The Lith My'athar market was a bizarre echo of a surface open-air market. Merchants' stalls with their colorful awnings stood in rows that filled the market square, exactly like any other market I'd ever seen, in this world or my old one. The stalls weren't wooden, as they would have been topside, but were anything from stone to mushroom fiber to metal, and all were lantern-lit. Faint tracers of smoke rose from the lanterns, and a slight, funky smell hovered over the market. It reminded me of the Bedine, and the dried camel dung they used for their fires.

Nathyrra gave me a little lecture on drow culture as we walked. "Most of the noble Houses have their own artisans – smiths, alchemists, enchanters, and so forth - which see to many of their needs," she said. "Thus, you will not often see nobles shopping in a place such as this, unless they are young and…adventuring."

"Slumming it, you mean," I supplied.

"I am sorry," Nathyrra said politely. "I do not understand. What is slumming it?"

Trying to find ways to explain slang to Nathyrra was, if nothing else, giving my brain a workout. "Um. Okay. A slum is….the poor part of the city. When people from the rich part of the city go to the poor part for fun, you call that 'slumming it'."

Nathyrra nodded crisply. "I see! Thank you. And yes, it is just as you say. Sometimes, noble young will go to places they should not, because they should not."

"Some things must be universal." Drow or human, Earth or Toril, there seemed to be some constants everywhere I went. People doing stupid shit when they were young was obviously one of those constants.

Nathyrra smiled. "I must admit, I did much the same when I was younger." She shrugged. "Though I soon grew out of such folly. I was young, untrained, and a ripe target. It is a wonder I was not assassinated just to teach my mother a lesson about letting me act so imprudently." Her voice turned dry and a little bitter. "But then, I was the youngest of four daughters, and my mother seldom noticed what I did unless it inconvenienced her."

The question was already surfacing from my throat before I could think better of it. "How old are you?"

Nathyrra thought for a moment. "I have lived for ninety-two years, as you surfacers reckon time."

She was old enough to be my grandma, only the last time I'd seen my grandma she'd been doddering, white-haired, and so far into don't-give-a-shit senility that she routinely tried to talk her nurses into threesomes, whereas Nathyrra was so sharp she could cut people, and probably had. "Right," I said weakly. Note to self: never ask an elf's age again. Ever.

Nathyrra went on, apparently not noticing my discomfort. "Regardless, it is more likely that you will see commoners here, or the servants of noble Houses, or even the House artisans themselves, buying food and supplies and other small necessities."

We passed a stall which looked for all the world like a produce merchant, with crates full of strange tubers and of mushrooms that ran the gamut from innocuous, like the plain little white caps, to bizarre, like the little red puffballs with long, spidery white whiskers. I also, to my shock, saw something that looked much more familiar. "Holy crap! Are those fenberries?" I needed to make potions, too. As soon as Deekin had money, those berries were mine. "And…do I see apples? And garlic?"

Nathyrra glanced at the stall. "I do not know what these – apples, you said? – are, but yes, not all that you see here comes from the Underdark. Lith My'athar is a wealthy city, and thanks to House Vharzyym, with its druidic talents and its ties to the surface, it has better access to surface markets than most – though I warn you, such goods are likely to be quite costly." She coughed. "Also, I would not recommend staring at the merchandise. It is considered gauche."

I was staring, but not at the produce. There was a human woman shopping at the stall. She was pale, blonde, young, and had a metal collar around her neck. She hadn't looked up from her task. I didn't think she'd seen me, but I'd sure as hell seen her.

Nathyrra's head turned, following my stare. She winced visibly. "Oh. Ah. Yes," she said, her voice going a little stilted. "Noble Houses often keep human slaves. They are quick learners, intelligent, and useful for…" The drow woman got a good look at my face, and the rest of her words came out on a rush. 'Formanyformsoflabor."

Several of the drow in the square were looking at me. In light of that slave, I thought I could be forgiven for seeing collars and chains in their glances. "How do humans end up down here?" I asked.

Nathyrra cleared her throat. "From raids on the surface or the slave trade through Skullport." She gave me one of her cautious sideways glances. Her dark face was still hard for me to read, but the slight forward hunch of her shoulders suggested discomfort. "I…am sorry. I thought you knew. Perhaps I should have warned you."

I looked away from the slave, drew in a deep breath, and blew it out slowly through my nose. "Right," I said tightly. "Fine. Now I know. Fine."

The weight of an arm settled on my shoulder, and a slender, black-skinned hand appeared in front of my face, a lit cigarette held loosely between two of its fingers. "Perhaps, one day, our people will see that it is better to make friends than enemies and slaves," Imloth said. He looked around sadly. "Alas, I think that day is very far away."

I took the offered rollup with relief and sucked on it until the filter glowed cherry-red and the urge to rip that collar off the woman's neck and beat her so-called owner to death with it had faded. Slightly. Thank Shaundakul for nicotine, that's all I can say. The human slave had moved on to another stall. She kept her head down, I noticed, and didn't speak, only communicating through gestures. I hoped she didn't look up. I didn't want her to look up and see me, walking free while she wore that collar.

My eyes stung. "Do they ever get away?" I asked. Nathyrra shook her head mutely. I took several frantic puffs on Imloth's cancer stick. Smoke rose in front of me like I was a signal fire. "Yeah. Guess they wouldn't." Slaves were valuable, and a human, alone, was a goner in a place like this. At least I had allies who were well-armed and knowledgeable and could see in the dark, and the fact was, if not for them, I'd probably be just as screwed as that woman over there.

Our golem companion was looking from Nathyrra to the slave. "Query. This woman of whom you speak is not free?" it asked.

Nathyrra turned to the golem. "No, Cupron," she said, her voice taking on a strangely patient note. "She is not."

Cupron seemed to process this. "This is wrong," he said slowly. "She is a sentient being with free will, as are we. She should be free, as are we." He thought a little more. "Query. Is it possible to free her, as we were freed?"

Nathyrra winced a little. "Not at present. I am sorry, Cupron."

The golem turned a puzzled, emerald-eyed gaze on the drow. "Query. Why is freeing the human slave not possible at present?"

The drow woman sighed. "Because she is enslaved by our allies, and if we free her, we will anger them, and then they will not help us defeat the Valsharess, and then we will all be enslaved. Or killed."

Cupron's eye-lights dimmed for a few seconds, as if he was thinking so hard he'd temporarily gone into standby. Then they came back on, brighter than before. "Ah. I see. You state that to correct the greater evil, it is necessary to accept the lesser evil."

"That is correct."

The golem's coppery face almost seemed to go molten as it morphed into a frown. "How many sentient beings do our allies keep as slaves?"

"Many, I am afraid," Nathyrra answered.

"Query. How many is many?"

"I do not know, Cupron. Hundreds. Perhaps thousands."

The golem spoke slowly, as if struggling his way through a new idea. "Query. The decision to permit an evil to continue is determined by the ratio of one form of evil to another form of evil?"

Nathyrra blinked. "I…suppose you might put it that way, yes."

Cupron's frown deepened. "To determine a ratio, a measurement must be obtained. Query. What is the correct unit of measurement for evil?"

Nathyrra's patient tone hadn't budged. "There is none, Cupron. It is…a subjective judgement."

"I see," Cupron said. Abruptly, he sat down in the middle of the street. "This is difficult for me to comprehend. I must think," he announced. The lights in his eyes went out, and he went still.

Imloth started laughing.

I nudged the golem with my foot. He didn't react. "Uh, Nathyrra? I think you broke him."

The drow woman stared at the golem. Her voice rose into a very un-Nathyrra-like squeak. "I did not mean to!"

Imloth laughed harder.

The golem didn't budge even when I gave him a good shove. "My question is, if something's wrong with him, do we take him to a healer, or a blacksmith?" I wondered.

The kobold poked at the golem with one clawed finger. "Dunno, but Deekin gonna go out on a limb and say it gonna be pretty hard to take him anywhere. He be awfully heavy."

Nathyrra sighed. "We will have to leave him here, for now. I doubt anyone will be able to steal him, and perhaps he will have finished thinking by the time we are done." She gestured. "Come. We should not tarry too long. People are beginning to stare."

I looked around. She was right. I hit Imloth's shoulder lightly with the back of my hand. "Chill, abbil," I said. "We're making a scene."

Imloth finally got a hold of himself. "Yes. You are right." He lips twitched. "I beg your pardon." He straightened his leathers, then led us to a stall with a red awning. There was a drow man lounging behind it, who stood up and called out a greeting when Imloth approached. Imloth replied with a liquid string of syllables, laughing, before turning back to us. "This is Jevan, who is dishonest but honestly so, and is willing to do business even with rebels and humans if we have anything of interest to offer," he said, by way of introduction. "Now, what were you selling?"

Deekin tugged imperiously on my pants leg. "Lemme up, Boss, I gots to see."

I picked him up so he was level with Jevan, reflecting as I did so that it really took a lot of patience to be friends with my friends.

Then Deekin upended his bag on Jevan's counter, and I stopped reflecting, although a whole lot of other things did – reflect, that is.

Jevan looked down. His black fingers closed on an eyeball-sized sapphire, and he lifted it up to the light, clearly admiring its sparkle. Then he looked at Deekin and smiled. "Welcome to my humble shop, honored customer. How may I assist you today?"

---

I tugged on the square of red silk knotted around Enserric's crosspiece. "I like it," I said. "Red's definitely your color."

Enserric's voice was sullen. "You are lucky I am no longer alive. Were I alive, I think I would presently be asking someone to kill me."

I craned my head around to eye the sword where it rode in a scabbard slung across my back. The scabbard was black leather, tooled, and had cost a pretty penny. Just as Magda always said, it made the sword a bitch to draw, but now at least I could have both hands free when I wasn't fighting – and I wouldn't have to worry so much about dropping the damn thing. And if someone got the jump on me, well, I had plenty of other ways to hurt people, if I had to. "Don't be so grumpy, Enserric," I groused.

"Very well. Perhaps I should ask someone to kill you, instead? I think that might improve my mood."

"Or so violent."

"Excuse me? I am a sword, not a fluffy blanket. My sole reason to exist is to do violence."

Imloth looked at my sword, then looked at me. "Does this happen often?" he asked. "That you and your weapon argue, I mean to say."

I sighed. "All the time."

Cupron's arms were overflowing with bags. "Query. How does this serve the greater good?" he asked Nathyrra.

The drow woman pursed her lips. "It equips us to fight the Valsharess more effectively."

"I see." Cupron looked down at the bags. "No, I do not see," he amended. "How does this 'food' equip us to fight, please?"

Nathyrra plucked a small meat pie from a mushroom-paper sack the golem had tucked into the crook of his elbow. "Living beings require energy," she said, holding up the pie. "Food is our power source." Then she took a big bite.

The golem's face cleared. "Ah, now I understand." He stood up a little straighter, radiating benign contentment. "I am glad that I chose to accompany you. I am learning many interesting things about other sentient beings."

Nathyrra smiled and touched his arm with a strange fondness. "Learning is always a worthy pursuit," she assured him. She turned to me. "I must return to my duties," she said abruptly, which would have come off as more professional if she weren't gesturing with a meat pie. "Have you considered your next steps against the Valsharess?"

Maybe there was a reason why nobody liked Nathyrra. The woman was as tactless as I was, but a lot chillier and not nearly as friendly about it – as if I really needed to be reminded of the Valsharess's existence right now. "Not yet."

She nodded. "Please keep me informed. In the meantime, I will continue to study that map you received. I believe that it may yield more information about this putative alliance between Vharzyym and Ischarri."

Imloth arched an eyebrow. "More work? I believe we should celebrate our new allies. A little drink and a revel at the city tavern seem called for, no?"

Deekin looked back and forth between us. "Er," he said. "Does this mean we be going where drow be eating?"

The look of apprehension on the bard's face spoke volumes. "You don't have to go, Deeks."

Deekin's voice said he was thinking of his art, but his face said he was picturing kobolds on skewers. "But…"

"I'll tell you all about it afterwards," I reassured him. "Then you can fill in the blanks by making shit up, like you usually do."

Deekin thought about that for about two seconds. Then he grinned. "Deal."

Nathyrra was frowning. "Do we have time for such frivolous pursuits?"

Imloth smiled almost sunnily in the face of her frown. "We will make time. Come. Are you drow, or a duergar, to be so dour?"

The drow woman's frown deepened. She tossed her hair. "I am no such thing, and you, male, are presumptuous."

Imloth's smile went crooked. "Yes, I am. But I am not stupid, and I think it would be good if the city sees the priestess. They talk about her now. If they do not see her, they will say she is afraid to show her face."

Nathyrra's frown was slowly losing its disapproving edge and turning pensive. "You are suggesting a show of confidence."

The other drow half-shrugged, half-nodded. "Yes. What you said. So, we shall go to the tavern and let it be seen that she is our ally and she does not hide." He stubbed out another cigarette with the toe of his boot. He sighed. "After I have taught some of our forces that the proper use of an arrow is not the pinning of your own ear to your own head."

I looked at him curiously. "I thought elves were good at archery."

Imloth grimaced. "If so, no one has told these elves about this."

Nathyrra was tapping her finger against her lips, thoughtful. "A show of confidence," she mused. "Yes. That is prudent. Now that Rebecca has caught the city's attention, I think it would be wise to try to shape their opinion of her to our advantage."

That killed what was left of my good mood. The idea of going out for a celebratory drink was great. The idea of doing it while surrounded by drow who might want to kill me was not so great. "You think the Houses have noticed me?"

Nathyrra looked at the Maker's golems, standing diligently to attention all around the temple and patrolling the streets and walls of Lith My'athar. "I think it is probable," she said clinically. "And I suspect that they will soon begin testing you in earnest." She bowed briefly. "Until later."

Imloth watched her go, his face unreadable. When she was out of sight, he turned to me. "Priestess," he said, and flashed me his devastating smile. "I will come help you adorn yourself, later. If you will go among the drow, you must look your best. Drow disdain other races, but prize beauty and power above all. When we show you to them, we cannot show a human – we must show a goddess." He looked me up and down and punctured my ego a little by adding, "Leave ample time. This will not be easy."

I restrained a wince. "What about armor?" I touched Enserric. "And weapons?"

The drow shook his head. "In Lith My'athar, as in many other cities of the drow, peace is enforced in the places of revelry, weapons are forbidden, and bloodshed is punished severely."

I started to relax a little. "You mean there's no killing allowed?"

Imloth looked vaguely surprised. "Oh, no, no, there is killing." He smiled, as if trying to be reassuring, only it was going to take a whole lot more than a smile to make up for that statement, especially when he added, "But if it is done, it must be done without a weapon, and must not be discovered. So it is very difficult and only the truly cunning or desperate attempt it."

These people were insane. "You're telling me anything goes as long as you're smart enough to figure out how to get away with it?"

Imloth chuckled, and for once, there was no mirth in it. "Yes. Such is the way of the Lolth-ridden." Then he sighed. "This is the game, priestess," he told me. "I do not like this game any more than you, but while we are in the Underdark, we must play." He bowed. "Aluvé."

I wasn't sure what he'd just said, but I nodded anyway. I watched the two drow go, each to their separate duties. Then I heaved a sigh of my own, retrieved my bags from Cupron, thanked the golem for his help, and trudged back into the temple.

Deekin trotted after me, clutching his pack with its thoroughly deceptive little bag of holding. "Whatcha doing now, Boss?"

I touched the silk scarf that was knotted around Enserric's hilt. "Something crazy. Wanna help?"

The kobold grinned from ear to ear, or at least ear-hole to ear-hole. "You even gotta ask?"

Deeks and I dropped off our shopping bags and found an empty practice room, one with a row of practice dummies at one end. Perfect. I unslung Enserric's scabbard from my back and drew the sword out. Just a few dim red sparkles showed in the glossy black blade, which seemed to be a sign that Enserric was either taking his version of a nap or sulking. I started to flick the blade with a fingernail, then I remembered the black-haired ghost I'd seen in Lomylithrar's cage, and I tapped the sword gently, instead. "Enserric. I need you."

The sword flashed red. "What?" the dead mage's voice echoed out of the blade. "What's happened? Did somebody die? Does somebody need to? What?"

I sighed. I missed Silent Partner – especially the 'silent' part. "No, nothing like that. I just wanted to try something." I set Enserric down against the wall and untied the red silk scarf. "You said the sword you're in is made of…blood glass, wasn't it? Is that really a kind of glass?"

Enserric flickered. "Technically, yes. It is a naturally occurring byproduct of volcanic activity, so the composition is not quite the same as man-made glass, but it is similar. Why?" That funny rolodex flipping sensation happened in my head. The sword's voice changed, taking on a note of sudden intrigue. "Oh! I see that the money spent on your education was not entirely wasted." The flickers increased, almost as if in eagerness. "Pray, proceed."

I snorted. "I only slept through most of school, not all of it." I held the sword up and began rubbing the silk scarf against the blade, like I was polishing it. "Anything happening?"

Red rippled through the black blade. "It…tingles. Rather unpleasantly, I might add."

"Good."

"Good?"

"Yeah. Means it's working. Maybe." I polished a little more vigorously. The silk started to cling to my fingers. Then it started to crackle.

Then, faintly, a tiny blue-white pinpoint flashed on Enserric's obsidian blade.

As soon as I saw the spark, I dropped the silk scarf and ran my palm along the flat of the sword, feeling a tingle gather in my hand. Here goes, I thought, and drew up my power, calling to that little built-up cluster of static charge.

A tiny lightning bolt jumped from my hand and fizzled out halfway to the floor.

Enserric harrumphed. "I think your technique needs considerable refinement."

I ignored that little remark and retrieved the scarf. "Let's try this again."

My next lightning bolt was a stunted little thing, although it still managed to hit a weapons rack and knock a couple of daggers to the floor.

The next bolt was still stunted, but it grazed a dummy on its way to the wall, which I supposed was progress, since I'd been aiming for the dummy all along.

I rubbed, gathered, called, aimed. My aim got better, grazing the dummies more often than anything else, but the size of my lightning bolts didn't improve much.

Deekin watched owlishly. "What're you trying to do, Boss?"

Blowing out a frustrated breath, I lowered Enserric. "I need lightning, Deeks."

"Can't you just call it?"

"Not without a storm, I can't. There are none down here, and I can't make lightning out of thin air. The Maker's lab had plenty, and the Power Source had more, but I can't use that without lobotomizing a whole bunch of golems, so…" I did my little experiment again. This time, the lightning bolt jumped towards the ceiling and knocked a tiny chip out of the marble. I sighed. "I was kinda hoping I could make some this way, but it isn't working so hot."

Deekin clicked his talons together, frowning in thought. "So you can't call lightning unless you gots lightning already there to call, is that it?"

"In a nutshell."

The kobold stared at me. "Bo-oss!" he wailed. He stamped his foot. "Why don't you tell Deekin these things?"

I blinked at him. What was he yelling at me for? "Er. Sorry?"

Deekin's spindly hands clutched his head. "Don't be sorry, just stop keeping secrets!" he yelled. He jumped up. "Wait. Wait. Hold on. Deekin gots an idea." He scampered for the door. Then he bounced off a pair of mithril-encased shins and looked up. "Oh. Hi, goat-man. You looms awfully suddenly sometimes, you know that?"

Valen frowned down at the kobold, his hands on his hips. With his height and his broad-shouldered, athletic frame, the way he filled the doorway was, in all fairness, kind of loom-y. "Are you ever going to stop calling me that?"

Deekin grinned cheekily. "Who knows? Deekin thinking maybe he should cultivate air of mysteriosity. Keep people guessing. All the best bards do it." He looked back at me and waved. "Deekin be back soon, Boss. Gotta check his notes." He dodged around Valen's legs and scampered off, muttering. "Hmm. Maybe…no, that not work, but…ooh! Yeah, maybe that…"

Valen watched the kobold go. "Is 'mysteriosity' even a word?" he asked huffily. "I do not think that is a word."

I shrugged, not really trusting myself to answer. I hadn't been expecting him to loom so suddenly, as Deekin put it, and those remarks about my so-called 'recklessness' still rankled, and I wasn't sure if he was still upset with me or not, and for once in my life, I couldn't really think of anything to say.

Silence fell, wherein Valen and I looked at the wall, the floor, the weapons racks, and then, when we'd exhausted all other options, each other.

After a few moments, Valen cleared his throat. "I was just looking for you."

I met his blue eyes. "Oh. Uh. Well. Here I am." I cleared my own throat. "So," I said then.

Valen stared at me. "So."

More silence. "You wanted to see me?" I ventured, a little desperate.

He jumped a little. "Ah…yes." He looked at me sideways, started to speak, stopped, and started again. "How are you? The Seer said you seemed…weary."

'Weary' was obviously a very Seer way of saying 'depressed'. Also, I got the impression that whatever Valen had originally meant to say, it hadn't been what had actually come out of his mouth. He'd fumbled a little too much over his words, and anyway I didn't think he'd tracked me down here just to ask how I was. "I'm fine," I said. "I mean, as fine as can be expected. Considering." Hell, the fact that I wasn't curled into a fetal position and sobbing on the floor already struck me as a big accomplishment. Considering.

Valen nodded and wandered across the room as if searching for something. He reached the scorched practice dummy and poked it. His fingertips came away black with ash. Absently, he rubbed them together, brushing the ash off. "What were you doing? Practicing spells?"

I flushed. "Uh. Sort of." I looked down and scuffed my toe on the mat. Deekin's admonishment about keeping secrets replayed itself in my head. "On that note, I, uh, should probably tell you something."

The red-haired warrior turned to look at me. His eyes roamed over my face. "Very well. What is it?"

Was my face red? It felt red. "I ran into a little problem when I came to the Underdark." I realized that I was fiddling with my hair and lowered my hand. "Okay, so I lied. It's actually a big problem." Then, my words coming out in a nervous jumble, I explained about the whole no-lightning-underground thing.

Valen stared at me. Then he smacked his forehead and palmed his face in the universal pantomime of dismayed exasperation. "Why did you not mention this earlier?"

"Deekin asked the same question." I winced and rubbed the back of my neck, averting my eyes from his. "Honestly, I think I'm just too used to working alone. Didn't really occur to me to say anything, and if it did, it never seemed to be the right time." Drogan had taught me to be self-sufficient, and the past few years on the road had only cemented his lessons. Life on the road was unpredictable. Shit happened. Friends and travel companions came and went. The only constant was myself. Also, if I wanted to be even more honest, I didn't like having to admit to weakness in front of Mister 'I Survived the Abyss'. Deekin was right, though. Keeping secrets like this was pretty dumb, even for me. Besides – Valen wouldn't hurt me. He might scold me, but if he hadn't hurt me after all the provocations and opportunities I'd given him, he wouldn't hurt me now. "I'm sorry," I added, contrite. "I've been told that keeping secrets is a bad habit of mine."

Valen stared at me. Then he sighed and he looked down, running a hand through his hair. "Well, better late than never," he muttered. "And I suppose I cannot blame you for being reluctant to speak up, considering..." He trailed off, frowning and flushing and avoiding my eyes, the very picture of guilt.

I wasn't sure how we'd gotten from me making a confession to Valen looking guilty, but it made me want to reassure him, all of a sudden. "Deekin said he had some ideas," I supplied, and grinned crookedly, as if my smile could drag one out of him. "I've got faith in him. If the world famous kobold bard can't figure something out, no one can."

Valen nodded. My attempt to get him to smile failed, but his expression did ease. "He is amazingly resourceful," he admitted. Tilting his head a little, he studied me. A lock of blood-colored hair fell across his eyes, a problem he solved with an absent-minded toss of his head. "What can I do to help?"

Suddenly, Enserric was about the only thing holding me up. "What can you-" I repeated in a shocked wheeze. "You're serious? You actually want to help?"

Valen's forehead furrowed, as if he couldn't quite make sense of what I was saying. "Yes, of course. We are in this together, after all." He looked at me a little more closely. His eyes widened just a touch. "You are not used to asking for help, are you?"

I shrugged and looked down at my feet. "Not really, no." My job was to help people, not ask for help, and I'd be damned if I failed to do my job. Again. "I don't know how you could help, though," I added. "I mean, thanks, but unless you have a way to make lightning…"

Valen frowned. "Alas, I do not." He drummed his fingers on his flail. "Pity we cannot ask the golems to give up their Power Source."

I sighed in agreement. "Yeah. I had the same thought. Shame the Maker didn't make two." My tone was wistful. "If I had one of those, now…"

Valen gave me one of those odd looks. "Would that you did."

"Why do you say that?"

His voice was wry, but not only. If I'd taken a lot of drugs and then fallen and cracked my head on something really hard, I would have called it admiring. "I saw the storm you called in the Maker's sanctum, with the aid of the Power Source. If you had such a device permanently at your disposal, very little would be able to stand in your way."

I remembered Aghaaz. "Golems would."

"Yes, and rocs, and blue dragons, and Powers forbid we run into an air elemental – we are underground, after all, so one should be along any moment now," Valen retorted, his voice so tart it could have curdled milk. "Windwalker, why is it that every time I try to give you a compliment, you turn it into a complaint?"

He really was a snarky son of a bitch. I shrugged and smiled disarmingly, trying to deflect his snark with the patented Blumenthal charm. "What can I say? It's a gift."

Valen gave me a long, level look. "I can think of many words for it, but 'gift' is not one of them."

My patented Blumenthal charm obviously worked as well on him as a thin stream of piss worked to put out a grease fire. "Okay, fine. So I don't ask for help and don't take compliments." I put my hand on my hip, affecting an indignant pose. "Was there anything else you'd like to critique today?"

Valen's comeback was swift. "As a matter of fact, yes. Your swordmanship still needs work. You do not even seem to be aware that you have a left flank, much less how to protect it."

If I ever started to feel good about my combat skills, I knew who to turn to in order to be cut down to size. Thing was, he was right. "That's only natural," I conceded. "I'm right-handed."

Valen shook his head. "And that is the first thing you must unlearn. You always lead with your right side. It makes you predictable, and predictable will get you killed." He stabbed a finger at me. "You cannot afford to think of yourself as right-handed or left-handed when wielding a two-handed weapon. You must learn to think and to move with both sides of your body, and to favor neither. Why your teacher did not teach you this in the first place-"

"Teachers. Plural. But I think they had their work cut out for them." I'd never held a weapon before Harry had put a quarterstaff in my hands, and while he'd done what he could in the time he had, I'd still come to Drogan knowing less about combat than his other students. Hell, I'd known less about everything, compared to his other students. They'd grown up in this world. I hadn't. "Besides, one of my teachers was basically a mute, and the other was a wizard."

"A mute and a wizard taught you how to fight?" One red-gold eyebrow arched. "That explains a great deal."

I bristled. "Hey, those are my mentors you're talking about there, pal. They were good people. Show some respect."

Valen looked at me for a moment. Then he inclined his head, a faint blush high on his cheekbones. "You are right. I…allowed my temper to get the better of my tongue. I beg your pardon."

My hackles settled. "It's all right," I relented. "You've got a point. A wizard was never going to be the best weapons trainer in the world." I looked at him sharply, realizing that I'd never really seen him favor one hand over the other. "What are you, anyway? Right-handed or left-handed?"

Valen looked down at his own hands. Then he held out his left hand, wiggled his fingers a little, and looked at me.

I blinked. "You're a leftie?" Abruptly, I laughed. He'd better not tell the folks back home – it might confirm a few superstitions that didn't need confirmation. "I'd never have guessed."

Valen smiled thinly at me. "Precisely." He surveyed the weapons racks. Then, all at once, he strode over to one and selected a wooden practice sword – with his right hand, I noticed. Then he turned back to me, twirling the sword to settle his grip. "Let me show you."

I looked at him warily and shifted my grip on Enserric. "Shouldn't we blunt my sword?" I asked. I summoned some bravado from somewhere. "You don't normally fight with a sword. I'd hate to hurt you."

The tiefling's body didn't swagger, but his voice did. "Little chance of that," he said, and without warning, his sword lashed out.

The blow connected with the tendon on the back of my right forearm, sending a shuddering pain running up and down my arm and forcing my hand to open. Enserric clattered to the ground. I bit back the cry of pain, but not the curse. "Fucking showoff," I ground out, cradling my arm.

Valen huffed an all-too-brief laugh at me. "Pick it up," he said, pointing his chin at my fallen greatsword. He circled me, his narrow-eyed smirk something close to cocky. "And pay more attention next time."

I retrieved Enserric, and for my troubles, I got a stinging thwack on the left hip. I yelped and went to bat it away, but I was too slow – the son of a bitch was already backing away, resettling the sword in his hand. "That wasn't fair!"

Valen's face was unsympathetic. "Life is not fair," he told me. "In a true fight, your opponent will not stand and wait while you retrieve your weapon. I am already going easy on you – I will not teach you bad habits on top of that." He gestured with his weapon. "Now, raise your guard."

I gritted my teeth and did as he said, holding Enserric point-up and slanted across my body, close-in, one hand above the crosspiece and one below. "Fine. And now?"

Then, the weapon master came after me.

His first hit batted my sword sideways and whipped back around in a blur to add to the bruising on my hip.

Damn it. I gritted my teeth, and we squared off again.

Next time, I shifted my guard to the left but the fucking ginger seemed to predict I'd do just that and his sword was already snaking through the fence of my greatsword to give me a nice firm poke in the ribs. I swatted his blade away, too little too late, even as he withdrew it, so that I didn't so much deflect as give him a retaliatory swipe.

Obsidian rang against steel-cored wood, again and again, and gradually I saw what he was talking about – I held Enserric to my right side more than any other, protected my right side more than any other. I didn't know why, but instinct spun me that way, and I followed instinct, but it kept hitting me in the ass – literally, in this case, as Valen's practice sword left me limping.

Irritation rose, and with it, a whisper of power, murmuring in my blood and breath and humming in my hand where I held Enserric. My skin pebbled and my spine tingled and my senses seemed to sharpen like I'd just gotten a rush of adrenaline, only instead of heat I felt my senses go sharp and cold, like icicles.

The power ran through me, and suddenly, Enserric and I were in sync again, just like we'd been in that cage, and the sword in my hands didn't feel so alien anymore.

Obsidian rang against steel-filled wood, and I swatted the tiefling's next strike down and away – barely away, but away.

Valen stepped back, lowering his sword. "Good." He didn't have to sound so surprised. "You learn quickly."

Enserric drooped in my hands, and just like that, the crystal clarity drained away, like water through my fingers. Dismay ran through me in the place of…whatever that had been. I wasn't sure what was worse – the fact that I'd known what to do, or that the crystal clarity that had fallen over me had felt so cold and so dark, like black glass. "I've got a lot of incentive," I muttered. Abruptly, I sat on the bench, my knees gone wobbly. "What with the queen of the drow trying to kill me and all."

Valen looked at me, his sword still held low. Some strange inner struggle passed over his face, and with a huff of breath, he gestured at the bench. "Sit. Rest." He leaned against the walls, his eyes still on me. "Speaking of the Valsharess, have you decided where to go next?"

My mood soured a little more. I wondered how deranged Eilistraee had to be, to tell her Seer it was a good idea to put me in charge of this stuff. "Mindflayers, undead, or beholders. Decisions, decisions." I kept my tone light. Better that way – if I let myself dwell on the reality of the situation, I'd stop laughing and start crying. "It's so hard to choose. They all sound just as bad."

Valen bent his head in acknowledgement. "Truth." He looked at me thoughtfully. "What of the undead? You are a priestess. Does your god grant you powers against the undead?"

I tried not to squirm in embarrassment. "I'm not that kind of priestess," I admitted reluctantly. "Never been able to turn so much as a zombie." I'd tried it once. All that'd happened was that the fucking thing had tried to eat my holy symbol, and also me. I'd slapped the shit out of it with Silent Partner and resolved never to try that again.

Valen accepted that with a surprisingly calm nod. "Beholders, then?"

"Maybe." It felt strange to discuss this so calmly. Hey, so, we're going to walk into a nest of beholders. What should we pack for lunch? Pastrami sound good to you? "I can shield against magic," I said. "Not sure about beholder death rays. I never tried." I frowned. "Do you remember what all their eyes are supposed to do? I always forget."

Valen's husky voice fell into a strangely hypnotic cadence, for all the world as if he was reciting a poem. "One eye to lift and one eye to sleep," he said softly. "One to charm man and one for beast. One eye to wound and one eye to slow. One to bring fear and one to make stone..." At that verse, his recitation trailed off, and his voice returned to its normal tones – still silk over gravel, but not quite so hypnotic. "Gah. I forget the rest."

It took a couple of tries to figure out where my voice had gone off to. The man had missed his calling. He could have been a hell of a bard. "Guess we'll find out when they use it on us, whatever it is," I said weakly. "Hey, I know. How about we go with whatever's closest? At least that way we won't die footsore."

The tiefling huffed a brief, grim laugh. "Fair enough. Zorvak'mur is closest. And perhaps the mindflayers may be…reasoned with, at least. Certainly more than the undead or eye tyrants."

I frowned. "Won't the mindflayers be able to read our minds, though? Or suck our brains out?" I distinctly remembered reading something in Drogan's bestiary about mindflayers and brain-sucking. My brains weren't much, but they were all I had, and I would rather keep them inside my skull - and I really didn't want any superintelligent tentacle monsters going through my brain and finding out about my home world. Earth had no magic and no experience with stuff like this. It was an easy target, and the fewer who knew about its existence, the better.

Valen's reply was not encouraging. "Yes, but Zorvak'mur is a trading outpost and the drow here do regular business with them. They must have some way to avoid such a fate." He frowned thoughtfully. "I shall ask a few people for insights. If all else fails, the Seer can open her war chest and we can buy our way onto a caravan."

He was awfully free with the Seer's money. Then again, wars were expensive, especially if you wanted to win them. "How far is it to Zorvak'mur?" I asked.

"Hard to say," Valen answered. "The trade caravans between here and there stop twice on the way to rest, so the equivalent of two or three days' march, I'd wager."

That meant six days, minimum, which meant we were better off leaving ourselves a solid tenday to deal with the usual delays and complications that inevitably came up on a trip like this. The only silver lining was that we wouldn't have to worry about the weather, though we'd have so many other things to worry about that the silver lining was whisker thin. We'd need trail rations, too, since we probably wouldn't be able to light a fire – Drogan always said there were nasty things in the Underdark that were attracted by light of any kind. And that brings up another thing. "How am I going to be able to see out there?" I asked. If I had a map to look at, my direction sense, and Shaundakul, I could probably find my way anywhere, but not if I couldn't see. "How dark is the Underdark, really?"

Valen frowned in thought. "Hellfire. I keep forgetting about that." He rubbed his chin. "It is not always truly dark, but there will be places which will be tricky for you to navigate, that is true."

He had to be pretty fucking forgetful, if he couldn't remember that I didn't have his glow-in-the-dark-eyes trick. "Well, good news is, I probably don't have to worry if I walk off of any cliffs," I joked.

Valen winced. "Perhaps, but I would still be happier if you could refrain from doing that," he grumbled. "I think I lost a year off of my life when I saw Aghaaz drop you, and it is not as if I have many years to spare."

A loud clatter made me jump. I realized it was Enserric. I'd dropped him in sheer surprise. "Oh. Uh." I searched for something to say. "S-sorry? I didn't mean to…" To what? Scare him? Valen wasn't scared of anything. Upset him? I didn't think he cared enough to get that upset, unless it had just been the prospect of having to tell the Seer her supposed savior had gone splat that had so spooked him.

Valen stared at the floor for a long moment. Then he spoke. "Actually, it is I who should be apologizing to you."

I'd run out of swords to drop. I settled for goggling semi-inertly. "Come again?"

Valen took a deep breath, as if preparing himself for some herculean task. "I have been stalling," he confessed. He clasped his hands, then unclasped them and let them fall by his sides. "I did not seek you out to spar, or to talk about our plans." His throat moved as he swallowed. "I…have been thinking about what you said to me. On the Maker's Isle." He drummed his fingers against the hilt of his flail, a nervous little riff. "You asked why you should trust me, when I did not trust you."

I stared at him, wondering where this was going. "And?"

"And you were right. Trust works both ways." Valen took another deep breath and turned to face me squarely. "That is why I wish to apologize," he announced, his words coming in a jumble as if he had to get them all out at once or not at all.

I blinked and rubbed my eyes before looking at him again. No – he was still there, with his face getting steadily redder the longer I stood and stared at him. "For what?" I asked. Not that I couldn't come up with a few things, but I wanted to hear this one from the horse's mouth.

"For not trusting you," Valen answered. He grimaced. "And for not being…entirely honest."

I opened my mouth to deliver some clever retort, but then I seemed to feel a set of ghostly knuckles rap my forehead, and the sharp words wilted in my throat. Judging by the color of his face, Valen was suffering enough. Besides, the Seer had told me that nice wasn't the same thing as good, but it occurred to me that if I really wanted to be either of those things, maybe I should start with not yelling at people who were apologizing to me. "Okay," I said. "I'm listening."

Valen's words came as if he had to drag them out one-by-one. "I said I did not trust you, but the truth is more complicated than that. The truth is that I…resented you. A little. I wanted to be the one to keep the Seer safe, and I had been working so long to keep the rebels alive that I did not want someone bursting in and taking all of the credit." He met my eyes briefly and looked away, his voice stiff. "Especially not some high-up lady, who might feel entitled to it."

A puzzle piece clicked into place. Despite my best efforts, my voice took on an edge. "You think I'm some kind of arrogant snob who thinks she deserves to be in charge of everything?"

Valen shook his head. "No, no, of course not." He hesitated. "At least…not now."

I hmph'ed. "So you did think that."

The tiefling's tail thwacked into the bench in clear annoyance. "What was I to think? I knew nothing about you," he snapped. Then, as if trying to gather the scattered shards of his temper, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes and spoke again, his voice was softer. "I…do not have much experience with women of your social stature. When I was told of your background, I feared that you would look down on me, push me aside, or worse, try to tell me how to do my job. So I convinced myself you could not be trusted, that perhaps the Seer's vision was wrong." He paused for yet another deep breath. His voice softened further. "And yet you have proven yourself, again and again. You have even, to be fair, shown more trust in me than I have in you." He met my eyes gravely. "I am sorry that I have been so slow to return that trust, but I think..." He trailed off, thoughtful. When he spoke again, he sounded a little surprised. "Yes. I think that I trust you."

A jumble of emotions ran through me all at once, tangling together until I felt so snarled up I couldn't even begin to sort myself out. One feeling came through clear as day, though, and while I didn't really have a word for it, it made me think of an ice cube slowly melting in a tumbler of good scotch. "All right," I said. "Fine. You're off the hook-"

Valen blew out a relieved breath. His smile was faint, but it changed the skies in his eyes from winter in the mountains to summer at the beach. "I am glad."

I held up a forestalling hand. "-on one condition."

A little tension seemed to flow back into him. "Which is?"

If the man got any jumpier, he'd turn into a grasshopper. His armor was even the right color for it. "Enough with the 'Windwalker' this and 'my lady' that. I have a name. I want you to use it."

Valen's tension bled away again. His smile came back. Then, to my everlasting surprise, he gave me a short bow. "As you wish, Rebecca."

A hot, light feeling, like my heart had become a hot air balloon, made me laugh out loud. "All right. Fine. Now you're forgiven." Blowing out a gusty breath, I looked at him sideways. "Wow. You seriously thought I was going to look down on you and try to boss you around?"

Valen offered an awkward shrug. "As I said, I do not have much experience with noble ladies, and what I do have is almost universally bad."

I remembered that hint of inner city swagger, and the way he'd said, 'my lady', like the words left a bad taste in his mouth. Another puzzle piece clicked into place. "So you're a poor boy from the 'hood, huh?" I looked at his expression and added, "From the bad part of the city. That's what they called it where I grew up, anyway."

He blinked. "Yes," he said, his tone a little cautious. "Where I come from, they call it the Hive." He looked at me curiously. "You grew up in a city, as well?"

Oops. I coughed. "Yeah."

The tiefling's tail went briefly still, then curled into a sinuous question mark. "What city, if I might ask?"

Crap. I needed some way to divert his attention. "You first," I countered, thinking fast. "You still owe me for all those times you called me 'my lady' and really meant 'you bitch'."

Valen's eyes went hot, as did his tone. "I did not."

"Fine," I said. I lifted my chin to stare him in the eyes. "Then look me in the eyes and tell me I'm wrong."

Valen's eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth. Then he snapped it shut, huffed an irritated breath, and looked away. "Very well," he grumbled. "Have it your way, Rebecca." An amused and slightly dangerous glint appeared in his bright blue eyes. "This time."

I smiled. Diversion successful. For now. "I will."

Valen's voice went dry. "I know. For all that you claim to have left your noble origins behind, you certainly act like a woman who is accustomed to getting what she wants."

I waved an exasperated hand at the bench next to me. "Oh, just shut up and sit."

A red eyebrow arched. "Case in point."

"Case in what point?"

"If you do not want me to call you 'my lady', perhaps you should stop giving me orders."

All right, so maybe he wasn't wrong. "Okay. Would you please shut up and sit down?"

Valen rolled his eyes. Then, all at once, he relented, moving so swiftly and decisively that I barely had time to blink before he was there, sitting next to me with a graceful sideways sweep of his tail. "I am from Sigil," he told me. "Some call it the Cage. Most call it the City of Doors." He gave me a measuring stare. "Would I be correct in guessing that you've never heard of it?"

"You certainly would," I admitted cheerfully. "Never heard of it in my life. Where is it?"

Valen smiled his sparing half-smile. "It lies in the center of the planes, at the top of an infinite spire."

I held up a hand. "Wait. That makes no sense. How can an infinite spire have a top?"

The half-smile became a mischievous little smirk. "Ah." The man leaned back, although even in that relatively relaxed pose, even in what was probably the safest place in the city, he still kept his hand on his flail's hilt – his left hand, I noticed, now that I was looking for it. So he hadn't totally trained himself out of his left-handedness. "As to that, countless generations of philosophers have spent countless hours getting incredibly drunk in taverns all over the multiverse while arguing over that very question."

"Have they ever come up with an answer?"

"No, but they have had some legendary brawls."

I laughed at that. "Sounds like that might be fun to watch."

Valen quirked an eyebrow at me. "You have a peculiar definition of fun."

I shrugged. "Spent too much time around dwarves and Uthgardt, I guess." I felt a painful pang at the thought of my friends on the surface, but the only thing I could do for them right now was survive so I could get back to them, so I pushed the pang away and turned my attention to Valen. "So, what's your city like? Tell me about it."

Valen's expression became wistful. "It is…impossible to describe."

"Try." I wanted to hear this. Sigil sounded more like a fever dream than a real place.

Valen paused, seeming to gather his thoughts. "It is an odd place," he said at last. "Beautiful and hideous and dangerous and all in-between." He smiled the reminiscent little smile of a man who'd just been mugged on Memory Lane. "And it is a glorious mess. Chaos, in the guise of a city. It is the nexus of trade and travel throughout the multiverse, and beings from every Plane of existence walk its streets. It is a place where mortals mingle with planars, devas rub shoulders with baatezu, planewalkers pass through on the way from one world to another, and strange weather blows in from the Elemental Planes."

I let his words, and the crazy images they painted, sink in, savoring them. "That's so wild," I breathed. Then I blinked, confusion suddenly dropping an ice cube down the back of fascination's shirt. "But I don't get it. I thought the universe – sorry, multiverse – was huge."

Valen shook his head. "Not huge," he corrected me. "Infinite."

"And now you're making even less sense. How can you be in the middle of infinity, any more than you can be at the top?"

Valen frowned reluctantly. "I do not know if Sigil sits at a literal, physical center of the Planes," he admitted. "It might be better to say that it acts as a hub because it touches on all the planes but belongs to none – thus, Sigil can be reached from everywhere and everywhere can be reached from Sigil."

I couldn't see my own face, but I was pretty sure my expression painted a picture, and its title was 'Confusion'. "That makes no sense, either. How does it touch on all the planes if it's not in any of them?"

"Portals, of course," Valen answered archly. "Sigil is home to innumerable portals, thus its nickname-"

Something clicked in my head. I finished the sentence for him. "-the City of Doors."

He was nodding. "Yes." He raised a precautionary finger. "But there is a danger there, because in Sigil, few portals are fixed. Most appear or disappear or shift to new locations more or less constantly, so one never knows where a portal might be hiding. To confound the issue, any bounded space can be a portal. A doorway, an arch, a window-"

To enter the portal, hold a shard of glass in your left hand and a blade of grass in your right. My voice was quiet. "A picture frame?"

Valen paused, then cocked his head in a thoughtful half-nod. "For example."

Puzzle pieces were falling like a flurry. I jerked upright. "That's why you're so nervous about doorways!" I shouted triumphantly. "You think they might be portals!"

He looked at my expression. His lips twitched. "Yes. Now you understand." He shrugged. "I suppose the risks of running afoul of a random portal are much less, here, but old habits die hard. I have been away from Sigil for a long time, but my skin still crawls when I see a doorway standing where no doorway should be."

I slouched back again, grinning. "That's insane. So, if you lived in Sigil, you could get up in the morning, walk into the bathroom, and find yourself in…" I groped for a name of one of the Planes he'd mentioned. "I don't know. Arcadia?"

Valen made a face. "That would be a rude awakening. But I suppose it is always a possibility, yes." Suddenly, he chuckled. "And Arcadia is likely to be one of the better options. Imagine, instead, that your bathtub had become a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water."

"Mmh. Sounds bad."

"Given that you would drown almost instantly unless you had prepared some kind of water breathing enchantment? Yes."

"Wow. Sigil sounds like a hell of a place." My smile was tinged with envy. "You probably saw some amazing things when you were growing up." No wonder he acted so jaded sometimes. He'd probably seen all there was to see before he'd lost his baby teeth. "This world must be pretty dull for you."

Valen grimaced. "On the contrary. It has never ceased to surprise me." He paused and his eyes lost focus for a moment, as if he was collecting his thoughts. "When I first came here, I thought my experiences on the Planes would render me harder to take advantage of. Instead, they made matters worse. I had no idea what to expect of this world, and to a planar such as myself, it seemed very strange. However, I knew that the multiverse can be a very strange place, and so I found myself accepting some very strange stories without question."

I cocked my head. "So someone could've sold you a pound of cheese and called it gold and you'd have figured, hey, could be true, maybe the gold on this world just smells like cheddar?"

Valen winced, his cheeks going a little pink. "That is a distressingly accurate description," he muttered. "There was…an encounter I had while I was searching for the Seer. I stumbled across an ogre wizardess who led a band of hobgoblins. They claimed to be innocent travelers, set upon by thieves. At the time, I knew nothing about your world, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and agreed to help them."

"Ogres aren't generally nice," I observed. "Now, there's an exception to every rule, but…"

"Not in this case, unfortunately." Valen's voice was grim. "As it turned out, this so-called thief was a paladin. He attacked, and by the time I thought to question him and discover the truth, he was already injured and convinced I was as evil as the ogress." The tiefling sighed. "I was forced to kill him, or else he would have done his best to kill me." He eyed me, his face red. "I suppose you will say I was naïve."

I studied my fingernails, avoiding his eyes. "No," I said at last, my voice distant. "No. I can totally understand how you might make that mistake."

I felt his stare on me. "You can?"

"Yeah. I get it." A strange, dizzy feeling of relief was building in me. Finally, someone else who got it. No one else did. Everyone else I'd met here was from here. "I really do." But we were getting into dangerous territory. I shifted position a little – the damn bench was rock hard and obviously not made to encourage people to linger - and I changed the subject. "You seem to have adapted well enough, though. You even speak drowish."

Valen sighed. "I have adapted to the Seer and her people, perhaps, but to be honest, once I found them, I have not dared to venture out of their company."

It was hard to imagine Valen turning down a challenge. "Really? Why not?"

He looked down, frowning. "This world is…different from what I am used to. In Sigil, tieflings are as common a sight as the cobblestones, and while we are not trusted, we are tolerated. Or ignored."

I looked at him, with his brilliant blue eyes and rich red hair and sculpted alabaster face, and wondered how anyone with eyes could ignore him. "And here?"

He sighed. "Here…people do not always know what a tiefling is, but my appearance is enough to make most people react with fear, even hostility. I have learned to avoid people. It is simpler." He touched one of his horns and lifted one shoulder in a moody half-shrug. "Once I found the Seer, things improved," he added, as if not getting chased by pitchfork-wielding mobs was a step up, for him. "Her people hide from surfacers, and I have been able to hide along with them. Until recently, it was not an exciting life – but then, I have seen a great deal of excitement in my life, most of it unpleasant, so I did not mind the reprieve."

I studied his face. He said he'd been living on the surface, but his complexion looked like it had never seen the sun. Maybe the drow only came out at night. "How long have you been here? In this world, I mean."

He paused, then shrugged. "A few years. Three or four, perhaps. I cannot be sure. I…have never been good at keeping track of time."

He'd been here about as long as I had, then. "You mind hearing an opinion?" I offered.

Valen's expression turned curious. "Go ahead."

"This is a pretty nice world." There were no real cities, but the vast, pristine landscapes and the weird and wonderful places hidden within them went a long way to making up for that. "I think it's worth seeing. Maybe, after this is over, you could give it another try. I'm sure that if you do your homework, you can find places to go where you won't get too much hassle for being a tiefling."

The tiefling in question tilted his head, considering. "You have seen a great deal of this world, have you not? Perhaps you might tell me where you have been." His little smile was almost shy. "That way I might have some idea of where to go."

That ice-cube-in-good-scotch feeling was back. Impulsively, I jumped to my feet. "I'll do you one better. Help me find a map, and I'll show you."

Valen sprang to his feet, as well. "There should be one in the library, somewhere."

I was already heading for the door. "Let's go look."

The library was empty, fortunately. Unfortunately, that made the map even harder to find. We finally found it wedged underneath a chair at the end of a length of shelving that looked like it hadn't been disturbed since Myth Drannor fell. Valen cleared a table by the simple expedient of grabbing a pile of books and throwing them onto the nearest chair in a way that would have given Xanos an aneurysm. While he did that, I unrolled the map, smoothing it flat and weighting its curling corners down with more books. The map's colors were crisp and bright. It was either new, or old but barely used. "All right," I said. "What would you like to see?"

Valen leaned over the map. His fingers traced coastlines and mountains with evident fascination, though they lingered more over the coastlines and eventually settled on the Sea of Fallen Stars. "This looks like an inland sea. Have you ever been there?"

"Just to the lake on the western side." I touched the blue-ink leaf shape of the Dragonmere. "I visited Suzail. That town you see on the north side. That was before I crossed the Stormhorns-" I tapped a mountain range that curled around the Dragonmere's northernwestern coast like a sleeping cat. "-here."

Valen's eyes followed the path of my hand. "A shame," he murmured. "I have heard of this world's oceans, but I have never seen one. There are oceans in the Abyss, but they are…not what you might call picturesque. Or peaceful."

I felt a moment's surprise. Then I smiled. "So it's oceans you want, huh?" I wouldn't have taken him for a beach bum, not with his lily white complexion and complete lack of chill, but if anyone needed a long, relaxing vacation with lots of naps and pina coladas and absolutely no demons, devils, or drow, it would be him. "All right. Let's find you an ocean." I leaned over the map, hunting for coastlines. "We're probably closest to the Sea of Swords right now." My fingers walked west. "Not many beaches, but there's this beautiful rocky shore all the way down to Baldur's Gate." My fingers stopped at the 'Gate. "Just came back from that area, actually. Took passage on a gnome steamship bound for Athkatla out of Port Castigliar." I made a face. "Now that was a mistake I won't be repeating."

From the expression of pained dismay on Valen's face, he knew exactly why I'd called it a mistake. "A gnome steamship? Those exist here?"

"Yeah. They'd just lost their navigator. Seems he'd been trying to invent a pair of shoes that would take him to the crow's nest in one jump, only he added too much of the wrong powder, and boom! No more navigator."

Valen winced. "And you took his place?"

"'Fraid so. It was a long two months. There were a few times when I found myself thinking sharks weren't so bad, and a few hundred miles wasn't really that much of a swim."

He chuckled. "I think I know the feeling. There used to be a gnome inventor who had a workshop in the Hive. Sometimes, anyway."

"Sometimes?"

"It exploded on a semi-regular basis."

I pursed my lips. "Yeah. That sounds about right." I turned back to the map and tapped the crescent-shaped city on the western coast. "Luckily, nobody else blew up on that trip, and we safely put into port in Baldur's Gate. Nice city. Not huge-" Not by my standards, but then, by my standards, the cities here weren't even cities. "-but big enough to be interesting. There's a museum in the temple to Gond, called the Hall of Wonders. It's open to the public, as long as you sign a form stating that if you touch anything, whatever happens to you is your own damn fault." The technological wonders there hadn't been all that wondrous, but the museum tour had still been an interesting way to spend an afternoon. My fingers drifted south. "Athkatla's nice, too. You know what they say about Athkatla?"

Valen raised his eyebrows. "No. What?"

"It's like an efreeti whore – hot, filthy, and incredibly expensive."

A startled splutter, a laugh-half arrested, escaped him. He looked away, blushing. "I…think I understand."

I grinned at his expression. "They also call it the City of Coin. Fun place. Just about anything goes, though, so watch your back. The authorities won't." Luckily, I'd arrived on a merchant's caravan, and in exchange for my services as a guide, I'd gotten a few good pointers on what to do – and what not to do – in the City of Coin. My grin faded as a thought struck me. "I wouldn't go there, though, if I were you. Athkatla's bad for non-humans, and Calimport's worse."

"So what city would you go to, if you were me?"

"If I were you and I wanted to see a surface city?" I tapped the western edge of the Nether Mountains. "I'd try Silverymoon first. They pride themselves on their open-mindedness and won't turn away anybody, as long as you're not looking to steal anything or kill anyone. But you're not, so I'm sure they'd give you a chance."

Valen studied the map. His face was as unsmiling as ever, but his posture was as easy as I'd ever seen it, and his eyes were bright and intent. "Then I must go," he breathed. He looked up at me. "Is that where you are from? Silverymoon?"

I hesitated, then cursed myself for hesitating. "No. Although I've been there a couple of times. I spent a year or so in the Nether Mountains – that range you see to the east." The memory of Drogan made sadness well in my throat, choking my voice a little. "My teacher lived there. He was a retired Harper. Ran a school for adventurers."

"Was?"

"He died."

Valen's face softened a little. "Oh. I am sorry."

I swallowed. In my memory, I heard the crash of falling stone. "Thanks." My eyes moved east. My heart clenched. "And here's the Anauroch. Where Undrentide was."

The tiefling frowned and leaned a little closer to the map. "Was?"

"Still is, I suppose. It didn't disappear. It just crash-landed." Further east, then, and my voice got quieter. "And here's Myth Drannor. That's where Shaundakul lives."

Valen's voice was startled. "Lives? He physically dwells in this world?"

"Yeah." My fingers brushed the spot in the forests of Cormanthor where the ruined city lay. "Guess he likes this world as much as we do."

The tiefling raised his eyebrows. "You have an unusual god. Most prefer not to manifest on the Prime unless necessary."

I bowed my head a little. "Maybe he is a little unusual." Shaundakul definitely had strange ideas about who made for a good follower, that was for sure. "Anyway. I've never actually been to Myth Drannor. It got destroyed by a demon army a few hundred years ago. It's still pretty dangerous. One day, I'll make the trip."

I felt Valen's eyes on me. "From which I might conclude that you do not come from Myth Drannor, either."

I stared at the map. "No." Idly, I brushed my fingers over the parts of the map I'd never been to. I hoped the Valsharess didn't kill me. There was still so much left to see. "My usual stomping ground is the Sword Coast." My finger drew a rough circle around the area. "Here."

Valen inspected the area. "What is the biggest city in the region?"

My hand moved to the western coast and tapped a solitary mountain there, at the mouth of the Dessarin. "That'd be Waterdeep." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his mouth open, on the verge of another question. I winced and held up a hand to forestall him. "And no, I'm not from there, either. If that's what you were about to ask."

Valen was staring at me. I couldn't see what his tail was doing, but I couldn't hear it whisking against his calves, which implied that it had gone still. Not a good sign. I'd only ever seen that happen when he was really bothered by something. "Very well," he said slowly. "Where are you from, then?"

Outside, I kept my face still. Inside, I cursed. I should have just lied and told him I was from Waterdeep. I didn't know why I hadn't. I just felt tired all of the sudden. Keeping secrets was exhausting, especially from your friends, and I'd been doing that for a while now. Deeks had even yelled at me for it, and if I'd done something to make the happy-go-lucky little bard raise his voice at me then that was probably a good sign that whatever I'd done was a bad idea.

Four people in this world knew my secret, and one was dead. Teddy had deduced it. Drogan had pried it out of me. Xanos and Deekin knew, too, but they didn't really know. They didn't know how very different my old world was from theirs. They didn't know what it was like to be such a complete outsider, not even Xanos. They didn't get it.

Valen does, my treacherous brain whispered. He's even more of an outsider here than me. At least I look like a normal human.

He was watching me. His face had gone suspicious. And so soon after he'd decided he could maybe trust me, too. "Rebecca?"

I was tired. I was tired of lying, and tired of feeling alone even when I was surrounded by people, and anyway I probably knew more about Valen than he knew about me. Fair was fair, and trust worked both ways.

I took a long, bracing breath, as if I were about to dive into deep water. "All right." I hoped I wasn't about to make a terrible mistake. "All right. I'll tell you where my city is." I nodded at the table. "You see this map?"

Valen gave it a wary sidelong glance, then returned his eyes to me, his stare probing. "Yes."

I pointed. "Look at the map," I insisted. "Are you looking at it?"

I heard the telltale sound of a tail irritably whapping against a leg. Reluctantly, Valen looked. "Yes," he growled.

I nodded. "Okay. Good." Then I rolled up the map and tossed it over my shoulder. "In that case, you can stop looking."

Valen's head turned to follow the map's fall. Naked bewilderment was painted all over his face. "What-"

I took a deep breath and hugged my arms to my chest, mostly because I felt like my heart was about to burst right out of it. "My city's not on that map," I said. "Or any other map of this world, for that matter."

Valen's eyes had started to widen in realization. "Because…" he prompted slowly.

I had to pry my teeth apart to speak. They wanted to chatter. "Because it's not in this world." I met his electric blue eyes, now wide with shock, and offered him a sheepish grin. "Surprise?"