The Restless Shore (29 page)

“What is it?” Ghaelya asked breathlessly, her wide eyes fixed on the glowing cleft between two large rocks.

“Arasteht,” Chevat answered solemnly as he strode forward. “One of the Choir.”

Cautiously they followed the aranea through the rocks into a rounded area that glistened with smooth, wet bones and polished seashells. They formed intricate and beautiful patterns around a shallow pool of dark water, designs rising along the walls and meeting across the ceiling. Ghaelva gasped as she observed the walls, shaking her

head slightly at images of sea monsters and strange, watery letters that swirled into one another. Uthalion watched her curiously for a moment, but something else soon caught his attention.

On the far wall, the bone and shell patterns were obscured by a blanket of thick webbing that rose and fell as if with a soft breeze, except that there was no wind in the chamber. Something in the web twitched as they approached, a long-fingered hand bearing hooked claws and pale, mottled skin. Uthalion made out a manlike form, though any similarity to any man he’d ever seen ended at the general shape of the thing. Segmented legs protruded from the web at odd angles; the flesh was covered in dark bumps and spines like a crustacean. Thin, ropelike tentacles were tangled in silk, curling endlessly, weakly, in a futile attempt to escape.

At its head a pair of flexible mandibles pulled at the web while a sharp-angled jaw opened and closed behind them, gasping like a landed fish and hissing through protruding, spiny teeth. Where the creature’s eyes might have been was a ridged, chitinous coating streaked with blue markings.

“When they return, those that do, they usually come here first,” Chevat said. “This place has been here longer than any of my kind can remember. We call it the Temple; they call it—”

“The Deep…” Arasteht’s hoarse voice boomed through the chamber, echoing like the weak breath of a dying god yet resonating with a lilting undertone as gentle as a child’s song.

“Calm yourself!” Chevat cried, advancing closer to the hanging thing, reaching for something around his neck. “Or you shall be punished.”

Arasteht shuddered and twisted his head away, gnashing his teeth and flexing fingers that bent backward as well as forward. He remained silent.

“Why do you let him live?” Brindani asked, his eyes and voice a bit clearer after consuming Chevat’s potion. “Why do you not kill him, and be done with it?”

“For information, or at least whatever we can glean from his mutterings,” Chevat replied, crossing his arms and turning to glare at Ghaelya menacingly. “He warns us when the Choir, or their servants, are near… He told us that you were coming last night.”

“H-how could—?” Ghaelya stammered.

“How is not a factor that concerns me,” the aranea interrupted loudly. “I should think the why of it would be of far more importance.”

Uthalion stiffened, hearing the scratching approach of spidery legs from all sides. Jade eyes appeared in holes along the ceiling in groups, and others approached from behind the rocks they’d passed just moments ago. He cursed quietly, his hand edging to his sword as he realized Chevat’s intent. Though with all that had occurred, he could not blame the aranea.

“The twin…” Arasteht muttered, suddenly focused on the genasi. “The Prophet-…”

“Quiet!” Chevat yelled.

“She who would sing—” Brindani uttered and took a step backward, shaking his head and wiping his lips as if they’d betrayed him. He looked wide-eyed at the ceiling and walls, turning in a circle. “They’re coming!” he added in a rushed whisper.

“Who?” Uthalion asked, narrowing his eyes at the trembling half-elf. “Who’s coming?”

Distant buzzing shrieks echoed through the tunnels, followed by growl-like clicking and sounds of combat. Chevat snarled at the sound, his face twisting briefly to reveal his dual nature, his pointed chin splitting at the base like mandibles.

“More of those you fought on the surface,” Chevat answered ancrrilv. “The servants of the Choir.”

“The Flock,” Arasteht grumbled with a low chuckle like rocks rolling in a tin bucket. He faced Ghaelya, his mandibles rising as he spoke. “They see you little one… They love you…”

“Enough!” Uthalion yelled, drawing his sword and advancing on Chevat. “Get us out of here!”

Chevat bared his white teeth, double-sets of eyes protruding from his cheeks as he fumed and flinched as the sounds of fighting drew closer. Piercing screams rippled through the warrens, bounding off the walls like living things as Arasteht sighed loudly, licking his thin, drawn lips with a long tongue.

“If you want us dead, do it yourself, or give the order,” Vaasurri said. He drew his bone-blade though he did not level the weapon at Chevat. “But letting those things take Ghaelya will not solve the problems you have here!-“

“And letting you go will?” Chevat replied incredulously.

The sound of dozens of sharp, scampering legs joined the shrieks and screams from the tunnels.

“It’s a better chance than’sending your own into Tohrepur,” Uthalion answered, sensing a kindred warrior in the aranea, a leader pushed to the boundaries of strategy, and understanding the occasional necessity of such sacrifices. “If you kill us the Choir will only get stronger, push harder, take more of your people…”

“And if I let you go to them?”

“Then there is a chance!” Uthalion shouted and lowered his sword. “More than you’ll have with us dead.”

“Go to her… to the Lady!” Arasteht cooed, his voice growing stronger despite his apparent weakness, his tentacles reaching through the webbing for the genasi. The power in his words stole everyone’s attention, cajoling blades to be set aside, calming rising tempers, and obscuring the frantic struggles of spiders in the tunnels. Uthalion tried to fight back, paralyzed in the effort as Arasteht tore through a

section of web. “Go to the song… to the shore… to the bloom and the—”

A roar of rage overtook the malformed aranea’s powerful voice as a blur of movement charged past Uthalion. A flash of steel freed the man’s limbs, left him staggering, his heart pounding as he looked up to see Brindani’s sword buried in the throat of the monstrous singer.

11 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR) The Lash, Akanul

K.eening voices clashed with metallic clangs, drawing ever closer as Brindani twisted his blade through Arasteht’s flesh, growling savagely as tentacles wrapped around his arms and legs in a tightening embrace of death. The singer’s gurgling death rattle incited its battling servants, the Flock, to greater ferocity; their shrieks increased as they frantically fought to reach the bone-patterned chamber. Uthalion caught the shocked gaze of Chevat, his lips set in a thin line. He waited for the aranea’s decision, though Ghaelya spoke first.

“They can die,” the genasi said coldly to Chevat as Brindani fell away from Arasteht’s body, sweet-smelling blood dripping from his blade. “That’s two we’ve slain in as many days, and they have my sister, my twin. I do not intend to stop killing

them, or anything else that gets in my way, until I have her back.”

Chevat hesitated for only a moment, sparing one last glance at the dead body of Arasteht before turning to the back of the chamber, a fleetness in his step as he called over his shoulder.

“Come!”

Uthalion waved the others on, keeping a careful watch on the dark tunnels of the northern wall, convincing himself for a moment that he would stand strong if the white spiders broke through, that he would make the necessary sacrifice for his companions. There was some truth in the he, enough that he knew it was what he should do, but not enough to make him abandon fear for his own family—not enough to banish that part of him that still longed for the beguiling song out of the south.

He turned and ran just as the others disappeared into the shimmering shadows of a southern tunnel, the shrieks and scratching claws sounding dangerously close on their heels. Chevat’s voice echoed loudly from the lead, the language unknown to Uthalion, though the tone was as familiar as his own battle-tested sword. The aranea barked orders as they twisted and turned through narrow tunnels and crawl spaces, creating a shadowy flurry of activity in their wake.

Uthalion spied dark cloaks and jade eyes. Heavy-bodied spiders scrambled along the walls and crouched among the glowing roots overhead. Humanoid forms dived out of side passages, their bodies shifting with alarming speed. They landed more gracefully on eight legs than Uthalion mused he might have managed on two. They hissed as he passed, glaring before moving on, clearly not pleased with the newcomers’ presence, but loyally gathering to defend their warrens.

The light flashed and flickered constantly as the sounds of battle faded farther and farther behind them. The tunnels

slowly widened into ones less ornate than the web-lined artworks of the araneas entrance tunnels and more easily traversed by those unused to such shifting terrain. At length they came to a massive chamber scattered with thin shafts of glimmering light. An incline at the far end led to a loosely circular line of illumination, much like the trapdoor Chevat had led them through. It was a welcome sight for Uthalion’s impatience to be free of the spiders’ kingdom.

They rested at the base of a narrow tunnel leading out, listening to the passing of the Lightning Tide and waiting for Chevat’s word that it was safe to leave. Uthalion kept a sharp eye on the aranea, half-expecting any moment for the spiders’ leader to change his mind and seek to slay Ghaelya—it was, after all, a decision Uthalion would have considered had he been in the same position.

“What used to live there, in the Temple?” Ghaelya asked Chevat, breaking the silence. “Did your people ever discover?”

The aranea shook his head thoughtfully.

“Whatever it was, men died trying to possess it,” he said after a time. “The walls were decorated with their bones, their drowned bodies used for trifles, the abandoned artwork of a fickle creature that thought little of mortal lives or desires.”

Chevat’s words turned over and over in Uthalion’s mind, stirring an old memory that he couldn’t quite grasp. When he was young, his grandfather would tell him stories of fantastic beasts, of dragons and evil elves. Though no one story came to mind, he recalled having a long-standing fear of water before learning to swim years later. He looked to Ghaelya, remembering her voice echoing up to him from the bottom of the vine-tree lined pit.

Something in the water.

Uthalion blinked, turning away from the genasi and the flickering ring of light just beyond her at the tunnel’s edge,

suddenly unsure of which he had been truly focused on. With some effort he calmed his racing, muddled thoughts, though he was anxious to keep moving rather than sit and wait in the dark.

“Almost there,” he said under his breath, repeating the phrase for the strange sense of calm it brought him.

“I must admit,” Chevat said sternly, “I do not know if I have chosen wisely in this”

“Not all sacrifices involve blood,” Vaasurri replied.

“It’s always blood,” Brindani muttered as he cleaned his sword, not bothering to look up. “One way or another, always.”

The chamber’s dim light grew darker, and the thin ring at the tunnel’s end disappeared as if shadowed from the outside. Chevat crawled closer, listening and raising his head to sniff the air, nodding and gesturing for Ghaelya to approach.

“You must run to the southern foothills. They are not far,” he said quickly, his eyes darting to them alL “Climb until you are well beyond the lower level of blackened rocks, and the Tide shall not catch you. Tohrepur lies half a day’s journey from the top—just follow the cliffs.”

“Thank you, Chevat,” Ghaelya said.

“No,” the aranea replied. “I might have killed you myself. And by helping you, I daresay I may have done just that.”

The genasi merely nodded and crawled toward the trapdoor, followed by Vaasurri and Brindani. As Uthalion took the first handhold, Chevat placed a long-fingered hand on his arm.

“Those affected by the song do not return from Tohrepur as they once were,” the aranea said solemnly. “Do you hear the song, human?”

“No,” he answered, the lie slipping out before he could stop it, denying that his motives were anything but honor—

qKIa VintirrVi lia urI\nI1avarl if thoir njprfi trillv \iia mnHvps nt

all. Chevat slipped a leather pouch into his hand and closed his fingers around it tightly before letting go.

“Be swift,” the aranea said. “And if I happen to find you no longer yourself in the days to come, I shall slay you quickly.”

Before Uthalion could think of how to reply to such a statement, the aranea had dashed into the shadows, his legs lengthening and splitting behind him into the long, sharp-footed legs of a spider. Wind caressed Uthalion’s face, and he turned to the pale light outside, scrambling up the tunnel and out onto the stiff, warm grass of the Lash.

*******

Brindani staggered out into the light, wild-eyed and running through the gray. The foothills were just ahead, and he quickened his stride at the sight of them, desperate to reach them, to climb them, and to find the place of the song and dreams. He felt as though he were falling with each step, tumbling toward an end he knew deep down he should fear, and yet he could not resist the summons in his blood. Cool wind blew across his fevered skin like a breath of winter. The sweat on his brow felt like ice, and he ran faster.

He was dimly aware of the poisonous ache in his limbs. Though Chevat’s potion had done much to ease the pain, it left him drained and nauseous. He stumbled against the incline of the foothills, falling to his hands and knees in blackened soil that smelled of char. He craned his neck to the top of the rocky foothills above, grinning weakly as he stood, so close to the promise of the song, a promise of peace. His eyes widened as he panicked for a moment, looking around until he saw Ghaelya climbing the hill behind him. He watched her pass with a dazed expression, letting relief calm his anxiety.

“All will be well,” he muttered, his eyes fixed on the genasi. “All will be well.”