Siblings
Part VIII.I: The Endgame: The Game of Kings, I
1
"Eirene. Eirene, Irene, Eirene— The old man named you for peace, sister, did he not?"
"If the elves be believed, he named me to be shattered," the dwarf replied sourly, handing the man the steaming chocolate from Cespenar's tray.
He took it from her. "And the dwarves?"
Imoen, behind them, laughed as she notched another arrow. "Are you trying to be prophetic again, brother?"
They had stopped by Adratha's cottage at Sarevok's insistence; and so, now the murderer and the murdered were sitting on the threshold of the ashen hut, exchanging the first honest words since they had both been alive; meanwhile, in the garden, Imoen passed time shooting targets with her own sister-victim. She sighed, transiently. "I wish Edwin were here," she said.
"Edwin?" Illasera asked, putting another ice-tipped arrow on the string of her dark bow.
"You didn't know him. He was a wizard and a pyromaniac. But he helped me a lot, in the end. Father destroyed him, here."
"Ouch," her sister said. Then, she considered for a moment. "You could try, you know. Perhaps you are strong enough already."
"I doubt it." She would not admit that aloud, but she had tried; and failed. She turned to the cottage threshold again. "What are you two talking about there?"
Her brother frowned. "Why the question, sister? You already guessed at the answer."
She lowered her bow and narrowed her eyes. "You were trying to be prophetic, brother!"
"He was asking me whether Gorion gave me any other hints or instructions about the Alaundo prophecies," Irene interrupted coolly. "Unfortunately, as I was just explaining, Gorion really did believe in keeping us both in ignorance for as long as possible."
"It could have been the correct thing," Imoen said, furrowing her nose. "This could have been the reason why we were able to ward off Father for so long. Sarevok, do tell Irene that you have no right and no goal in trying to drive a wedge between my sister and her foster father, so long after both of them are dead. To your sword."
Her brother frowned. "I don't," he said, exasperated. "I merely wish that we had any other information."
The dark huntress, looking at him, laughed. "I can't believe that you are the man Mother and I spent four years looking for," she said. "You are completely broken. Where were you hiding?"
The man gave her a look of cool amusement. "Tethered to my soul inside the mind of a dying wizard," he said. "Chocolate, sister? You remind me of myself from before I was first captured and tortured into sanity. I'm sure we will find many topics in common."
Irene and Imoen exchanged looks of their own. "Are you two going to be coming by more frequently from now on?" Irene asked, with deep interest. "Only I was almost getting used to the solitude."
Imoen sighed. "I think it's going to be getting more and more crowded, Irene. Hopefully. As long as we survive. You know, we are going into a drow city next."
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"She wanted you to have this."
The offering was a fine spider-net of silver mithril inset with protective ioun stones, silver and light grey and pale green and dusty rose— "They are sensitive to thought; they oughtn't limit your field of vision," Demin explained; then, "Those are you colours, are they not?"
"Yes, they are," Imoen said, taking the thing and hiding it.
"And for you," the priestess turned to her brother, "A bow, to remember the day you saved a city of the elves."
Sarevok started. "The bow is my sister's weapon," he said. "Besides which, I, priestess, am in the habit of losing my gifts."
She looked at him harshly. "You would do well to try learning something new, Son of Murder," she said. "Even as a human, you don't strike me as too old to learn a new trick."
"Not while we are in travel, I presume," Imoen interjected. "At home, perhaps."
Demin did not tear her eyes away from her brother. "The Heartseeker will serve you well," she insisted.
Imoen wanted to laugh. Cutthroat, Lifestealer, Soultaker, Heartseeker: who chose these names?
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Coran had let himself be returned from the voyage to Arvandor; the work of Hanali Celanil's messenger on Faerûn was not yet complete. "Go to the Radiant Heart," she told him, "and to the Coronet, to Aran Linvail. Tell them that I have retrieved my brother, and to proceed with the plan. Sarevok and I will—take a brief walk-around. Tell them we will meet them, and the siblings, on the way."
Once the rogue was gone, riding Penny, she turned back to the priestess; and Elhan, himself likewise resurrected. "We need a means to infiltrate Ust Natha," she said. "The drow are your enemy. If anyone, you elves should have a way in, we think."
The priestess eyed them both with some small suspicion; then, looked at Elhan; in the end, inevitably, agreed. "Adalon," she said.
"Adalon?" Sarevok asked, pleasantly.
Elhan took over. "She is a silver dragon; she nests nearby, in a cave, guarding peace between the Surface and the Dark."
"Guarding peace?" Imoen started. "Then why did she let the drow pass through in the first place?"
Demin shook her head. "Do not ask us that, Imoen. It is for Adalon to tell."
She was about to speak up, when, "Sister—" beside her, Sarevok considered, "We will accept your answer for now, priestess. Riddle me this instead. Raamilat's attack left you weak and bleeding, and the wizard himself finished the task. Why did your estranged cousins abandon the attack instead of pressing the advantage?"
Elhan smiled grimly. "A good question, human; if I resent the phrasing. The answer is that the Exile betrayed them as well."
"From what Adalon did tell us," Demin added, "As soon as Irenicus captured the Queen, Ust Natha was shaken by an explosion. With the palace gates closed, their home at risk, Ardulace Despana dead, the Dark had no choice but to withdraw."
"—And what happened to the eggs?"
Demin looked him in the eye. "What eggs, Son of Murder?"
They would not tell them much more, neither Elhan nor she; only how to enter Adalon's cave; and so, that explanation over, Imoen took one last look at the elves; one last look at the broken city; one confirmatory look at her brother; and then, they were gone.
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The familiars, they left with Irene; they were yet to play a role in the final struggle, of that she was sure in that odd manner of perception that was half-guessing and half-prophecy; but for now, after four years of separation, the animals deserved their privacy. And the Underdark was no place for cats, or eagles.
"I wonder what Demin thinks Adalon can do for us, brother," she said, considering. Demin had agreed to perform burial rites for Xan and Kivan as well; even in the absence of bodies.
"I wonder what Adalon expects us to do in return, sister," Sarevok rejoined. "The wizard stole her eggs and held them hostage to assure her compliance, you know... Shall we?"
The inside of the cave was pleasant and dry; and small, and furnished in fashion half-human and half-elven; and suffused with the scent of rain— The figure was a moon elf's.
"Mistress Adalon?" Imoen asked, quietly.
The quicksilver eyes in the palest skin under the white hair thawed; in the barest minimum. "Welcome to my lair, dragon-slayers," the silver dragon, Adalon, said, in the deep voice of a thousand underwater bells; to their surprised faces, she elaborated, "I can smell the stench of Firkraag and Nizidramanii'yt on you. If not yet one other."
"Thaxll'ssillyia was a shadow when we fought him," Imoen remarked.
"And the other two?" Adalon demanded.
Her brother, with folded hands, looked at the dragon, askew, amused. "Your enemies, were they not?" he inquired of her. "Obviously, it is grossly impolite when mere humans slay dragons. Whatever colour or alignment. It may teach the brief-lived to be uppity."
"Console yourself by the fact that we are not only humans, Mistress," Imoen agreed. "But— Demin sent us, Adalon. You know why we are here."
The dragon barely failed to ignore her. "Yes," she acknowledged. "I intend to enter Ust Natha. You will be my bodyguards and servants."
"How?" Sarevok asked, at the same time as Imoen, "Why?"
They exchanged looks, golden and brown; eventually, she took the first turn. "With all due respect, Mistress Adalon," she said, "Why us? Surely Demin informed you that we are, for many reasons, not the best travelling companions?"
The quicksilver eyes met hers. "Yes," Adalon replied softly. "The choice is, obviously, no more mine than it is yours."
Suddenly, she understood. "So they survived? Your children? And they are with Sendai?"
The dragon in elven body nodded; Sarevok took interest. "What do you think she—" Suddenly, his eyes narrowed. "How many of them does she have in her possession?" he asked, quite alarmed.
"How many survive, I do not know," the deep, inhuman voice replied. "Seven, when the Exile took them from me."
The man smiled, unpleasantly. "Well, we shouldn't let the sister have all the fun to herself— Back to my question, Mistress Adalon. How?"
"How?" She before them eyed the pair of humans closely, giving them just the exact length of time as needed to digest the implications of her prior information, "How? This is how. I shall cast a spell of change on you... on us. You will wear drow bodies, speak the drow language and know the drow customs and way of life as if you had been born to them."
"Oloth plynn dos," Imoen hissed, suddenly, painfully.
"The darkness will even shroud your divinity, provided you are not too vulgar with it," Adalon finished calmly.
The brother among the pair looked at his sister and laughed. "Medeu." He turned to the dragon. "Take us, Adalon haath. We will come."
Adalon still looked at him, unamused and unimpressed, as she started to chant the spell of change.
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Four days later, a group of three weary drow travellers stood in front of the adamantine gates of the main outpost of Ust Natha.
"Who is there!" they heard from the gates. "You are drow, but the scheduled patrols this day have already returned! Identify yourselves and speak your purpose! Intruders without cause will be killed where they stand!"
The two drow in the back were obviously followers and servants; they looked like siblings. The female was a powerful woman with obsidian skin, long white hair, red eyes, pointed ears and full lips; the male, barely taller than his sister, was slender and athletic; his eyes were also red, and the hair by his ears was drawn out in long sideburns. They were armed with little else but longswords and crossbows; the male was also a wizard.
The leader was of a different calibre. Dressed in a full plate mail, with a flail and a shield, proud in her house insignia under her piwafwi cloak, she had silver hair and silver eyes. The guard, who was a male, had the instant and horrible feeling that she was a favoured daughter; especially when she spoke, in a powerful and arrogant voice:
"I am Veldrin, from Ched Nasad, here to join Sendai's army. Let me pass, iblith, or face my wrath."
