Depths of Madness (18 page)

“What’s wrong with it?” asked Slip. “Is it—dead?”

“Paralyzed,” Davoren said softly.

“How do you know?” the halfling asked.

The warlock scowled.

The fiendish lizard’s eyes blinked, both sets of lids slicking over soft surfaces. The paralysis was fading, Liet realized. Then the beast recovered the use of its tongue, and it wasted no time using it. The words the creature spat were deep and violent, their texture broken and jagged. And though none but Taslin seemed to understand its words, the tone was clear enough.

“What tongue’s that?” Slip asked.

“Infernal, wormling,” said Davoren. “So garbled I cannot understand a word.”

“That’s because it’s Abyssal,” corrected Twilight.

As Davoren glared, bested, Slip brightened. “How many tongues do you speak?” she asked the elf.

“Irrelevant,” the warlock snapped. “What’s he saying?”

Twilight looked to Slip first. “Many enough,” she said. Then she turned to Davoren. “And it’s a she.”

The warlock started to retort, but shut his mouth. Liet understood and agreed—he really didn’t care to know how Twilight could tell.

“The same words over and over: Takt der shar, “Twilight pronounced, her silky voice curling perversely around the fiendish tongue. “The Mad Sham.” Taslin shrugged.

Hearing the words, the fiendish lizard spat at Twilight and said something dark and unfathomably vile. Liet saw his companions fall to the ground, writhing and moaning. Gargan and Twilight sank to one knee. Taslin fell as though dead. Slip blinked, then clasped her hands to her ears and sank to her knees. Only the warlock remained standing, staring hard at Liet, to whom the word was mere profanity.

Why did it not harm him? Was this some inner power, as with the wight?

The fiendish lizard didn’t finish the phrase, though, choking off in the middle. It was as though the very words stopped its heart. The creature died with a dry rattle.

“I suppose that solves that problem,” was all Davoren said.

Liet ran to Twilight and helped her up. The elf looked at him, uncertain of something. Then her eyes widened. “A sharn,” she said. Liet could feel her shiver in his arms.

“Its master, I expect,” Davoren said. Leave it to the warlock to know some of the darkest secrets of the Realms. “The madness of demons fits a creature born of chaos.”

“Chaos?” Liet asked. “What—?”

“There are certain forces in this world you should not know about,” Twilight said. “That no sane mortal would want to know about.”

“But you do,” Liet argued.

She conceded that with a nod. “A race that was old when the elves were young,” said Twilight. “Mighty spellweavers before Corellon’s tears conceived the first elves—children of the primal chaos that came before the gods themselves.”

Her voice took on a mystical quality, as though she recounted the memories of a pleasant childhood or a beautiful, half-forgotten summer. Liet could almost fall asleep into dark dreams, listening to that lovely, haunting voice.

“Sharn is simply what men call them, though in truth that is only a fantasy. They are an ancient, mighty race, but not one

that most would deal with lightly—not even gods.” Her eyes darkened, and Liet heard a second meaning. “Which would be wise. A creature born of such disorder cannot be trusted.” Liet Sagrin shivered, and not just with fear.

Why do you follow me?” Twilight asked later as she clicked open a lock. “I told you to stay with the others. You have a habit of disobedience.”

“Why do we camp at a crossroads?” Liet asked. The heavy door sighed when Twilight pressed on it. She gestured, and Liet helped her push it open. The door growled in protest but opened. The plain chamber within was empty but for refuse—shattered wood chips, broken ceramics, worn statuettes—and ancient dust. Footprints, distinctly those of a lizard’s feet, traced a path through the chamber to an open portal across the room, but the prints were old. She wished she were a tracker, and might have known how old.

She pulled a torch from her pack. Liet grinned until she shoved it at him. No reason she had to carry it—she had darksight.

“I asked you first,” she said. “I’m sure ‘tis the same answer.” “Guaranteed escape route?” Twilight asked simply. “I thought you only, ah, appreciated the concept,” he said sheepishly. “Of a crossroads, I mean. That’s not—you know— the same answer, or anything.”

“Well, we all derive our chuckles in some manner,” Twilight said. “I enjoy frustrating young lads much, much more.”

Liet let that one go. “But your reason doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Camping at a crossroads, that is. Foes can come from any direction, even from behind.”

“Yes, but they would have to be quite organized to come at us from all three,” she said. “Something I have a feeling might be beyond the average demon-touched.”

“What of hiding?” Liet rubbed at his hidden arms, nervous.

“I’ve always ascribed to the ‘fleeing’ school of thought, rather than the ‘hiding,’ ” Twilight said. “If someone’s searching as determinedly as I’m used to being searched for, hiding doesn’t do any good.” She left it at that.

“I see.” Liet looked around the dusty chamber, straining his eyes in the flickering torchlight. “Where are we, anyway?”

Though the place was empty of creatures, shelves, books, or anything besides the rubble along the walls, Twilight could detect traces of the magic that must have been used there. She imagined it must have been a library or laboratory, long defaced by lizardfolk, smashed by golems, or worse.

“Wizard’s sanctum,” said Twilight. “Long abandoned.”

“How can you be—?”

“I’m sure,” she said. “There’s nothing here. Go back. I’ll be along shortly.”

Twilight inspected the yawning doorway. A series of runes lightly etched into the stone radiated magic. A stone barrier had once existed there, but it had long ago become rubble, though the ward remained. Likely, thanks were owed to the lizards. Beyond, the corridor stretched into empty darkness.

Twilight was disappointed, to be honest. After a day spent avoiding battle like a scourge, she dearly wished for the opportunity to bloody Betrayal. The companions hadn’t engaged any of the roving lizardmen in the tunnels—it would have been a waste of resources. And they could ill afford to stumble upon a golem, so they’d been very cautious.

She looked again at the portal wards. Twilight considered dealing with them, but thought better of it. Any foe coming the other way would trigger them—no purpose making ambush easier for one’s enemies. She could always disarm them the next day.

Twilight wondered if they would go this way, anyway.

During their exploration, she had found two unblocked passages—tunnels that went east and north from their resting chamber, both of which led up. One ended in an old, dust-covered stairs ascending—the same stairs that had led her to the wizard’s sanctum. The other stopped at a trapdoor above, with the remains of an old ladder.

Typical, Twilight thought. To search an entire labyrinth for days on end for a way out, only to find not one but two exits in close proximity. It seemed like something he would do to her.

“Come to think of it,” she whispered. “You probably did, eh, N’tanathil?”

“Huh?”

“Pay it no—” Twilight turned. “You’re still here.” “Aye, indeed,” said Liet, leaning against the wall. Twilight bit her lip.

She crossed back to the entrance of the chamber and stalked down the corridor to their camp—or more accurately, to the place where she had chosen to rest. She would take Reverie—or the human sleep, as would likely be the case—ten paces up the passage from the others, around a corner. Here, she could find the privacy she craved. Unless, of course, the boy insisted on following her.

Which he did. When she stopped, he stopped as well. Liet’s face told Twilight he wanted to speak, but an awkward silence hung between them.

She decided to break the tension. “Is there some way I can assist you?” She was unable—and unwilling—to keep the suggestiveness out of her tone.

“N-nothing like that,” Liet said. “I just wanted to know what—”

“N’tanathil is, in the trade tongue, my old ‘uncle nemesis,’ ” said Twilight. “And believe me, if you knew the dastard like I do, you’d agree with the sentiment.” She stripped off her glove and began unlacing her boots. “But you didn’t come to debate the subtleties of linguistics, I would guess. So what is it?”

Liet turned as she doffed her boots and went to work on her

breeches’ strings. Her tendency to eschew modesty made him nervous, just as Twilight intended.

“I was just thinking,” he said. “About Taslin.”

“Pining for a lady, and not me? I’m shocked.” She gave a grand sigh and put a hand to her forehead.

Liet whirled angrily. “No, no, ‘tis not like…” His eyes widened at both her loosened clothes and her words, and he gaped.

Twilight finally snickered. “Well, boy,” she said. “Speak, if you will.”

Liet swallowed. ” ‘Tis about Asson. He… ‘Twas he that persuaded us to come back for you. I wanted to, but I didn’t have the courage to stand up to Davoren—not really, not without Asson. But that old man…”

Twilight wondered if that was the truth.

Soothed by the cold stone beneath her bare feet, she spoke without looking at Liet. “Don’t take it so hard,” she said as she unlaced her blouse. “We all fear death. Old Bones is a hard one to face—and an atrocious dancer besides.”

After giving her an odd look—probably wondering what she could possibly mean—Liet turned halfway. “No, ‘twas not that, either,” he said. “I…” He paused and fidgeted. “My apologies. I should go.” He started down the tunnel, heading toward the others.

Now it was Twilight’s turn to gaze oddly. His words said one thing, his actions a second, and his eyes a third. She caught a glimmer in his face, as though through a crack in armor. Twilight’s perception cut right through his humble, self-deprecating exterior, and what she found there startled and excited her.

He understood.

Twilight had always been too direct for her own good. “You really would have died for us.”

The words caught Liet as surely as a hand on his arm. He stopped and turned. She expected him to look shocked, but he didn’t blink.

“Nay,” he said simply. “Not… not for her.”

Oh, no.

Twilight smiled slightly and stepped toward him. She could feel her heart in her throat. She let the collar of her silk blouse slip, revealing one pale, smooth shoulder. “For me?” she asked. “You’d have died for me?”

Liet fidgeted. Sweat appeared on his brow, and she heard his racing heartbeat and heavy breathing. On some level, Twilight knew she was being somewhat pitiful—he was such a boy—but she found his feelings deeply flattering. Twilight felt her own pulse pick up—an experience she knew all too well and loathed just the same.

Stop yourself, wench, she thought. Don’t do this.

“Speak,” she said, stepping forward. “Don’t lie. I’ll know.” They were almost touching when Twilight stopped and looked into Liet’s face. “Would you die for me?”

Silence hung between them for a long breath. Twilight read the youth’s tells—every twitch of his cheek, the way his eyes purposefully avoided her, the shifting of his weight—while Liet paused. She could see his battle—a war of will against instinct. One told him to flee, another told him to catch up Twilight’s lithe form in his arms and crush her to him.

Twilight wondered idly which she embodied: instinct or will. She almost always preferred the latter, but it was so rarely the case.

“Aye.” Liet looked in her eyes, unflinching. “Aye, I would,” he said.

She knew then that this was a victory over every—admittedly good—instinct that told Liet to flee, and she loved that, almost venerated it. Twilight was ever a creature who worshiped her own destruction.

“Oh, damn,” she said to herself.

With a flick of her wrist and a foot behind his ankle, she had Liet falling to the ground in a breath. This time, she was not about to beat him. Instead, she pressed her lithe body into his young, muscular frame. He made startled sounds, but she silenced him with a long, all-consuming kiss.

By the time she pulled away, leaving his tongue free to move,

it was obvious Liet had forgotten whatever it was he’d been about to say. He looked at her without thought, blissful, innocent.

Twilight went for his tunic, but Liet stopped her with a wince. She remembered his scarred arms, but she decided it didn’t matter. She went for the breeches instead.

“Uh, ‘Light…” he started, but she kissed him again to shut his mouth. It worked.

“I should warn you,” Twilight said candidly as she tore at his laces. “You’ve got some boots to fill. I’ve known—”

Liet put his fingers to her lips. “Nay,” he said, eyes soft, vulnerable.

Twilight stopped. She realized the tale would hurt him, but that was who she was. So many men, so many times. Didn’t he see?

Of course he didn’t see. No one had—no one but…

Damn you, Erevan, Twilight swore inwardly. You and Neveren and Liken, and all your lackeys—even Nym. I don’t need you—I don’t need any of you. Not anyone!

” ‘Light? Are you… well?”

Twilight looked into mismatched eyes full of hope and fear. She realized that this boy had never known a lover, but it didn’t matter. He was ready to accept her, banish their loneliness—but at the same time, he was terrified of her. Or terrified for her?

“You’re scared.” She brushed his cheek with the back of her fingers.

“N-no…” Liet’s body shook.

“You should be,” Twilight said. “But not for the reason you think.”

Liet’s face broke into a tentative smile. It was the most beautiful thing she remembered seeing in a long, long time.

Oh no, she thought, just before will became instinct again and she devoured him. Twilight crushed his lips and levered her wiry body to keep his pinned.

“Now you have one more answer to give,” she said between furious kisses. With each one, she thought the same word: damn, damn, damn. “And I want the truth.”

Liet nodded frantically, his eyes terrified.

Leaning in close, Twilight ran her raven hair across his cheek, tickling his skin with its softness. “Silk?” she asked, “or…” she seized his ear and bit down just hard enough to secure a gasp. “Teeth?”