Dagger and Crystal

"Let him dry off before you offer him a job, woman!" Frida shot Lumea a scolding glance. "What's yer name? And if ye don't mind me asking, what in the blazin' Pits are ye?"

Ten years earlier, and I would have brushed her question off with a "none of yer business, dwarf," but my time with Shannon had mellowed me somewhat. Not that I had completely come to grips with who I was, but I wasn't ashamed of it any more. So I told her, and before I knew it, Frida, Lumea and a colorful cast of on-again, off-again acquaintances zig-zagged across the area known as the Borderlands, where the human realm and the old Elven kingdoms met, doing everything from monster exterminations to caravan guarding.

* * * *

"And I still don't know why I dreamed what I dreamed," I told Shilana. She looked as tired as I felt even after sleeping through into the afternoon when she had returned from her Watch duties. The hot tea and the fried eggs she had brought helped to rouse me though.

"One school of thought posits that dreams are a window into our subconscious, where your mind plays out all the things you bottle up during your waking hours," she said, sipping at her own cup. "Others, especially those leaning towards the supernatural, think that dreams are omens. Dreaming about loved ones while something bad happens to them, that sort of thing. Did you love that Frida woman?"

"Love would be a bit much. We had been friends. Close, yes, but not 'sharing bedrolls' close."

"Well, there's also my school of thought. I could well and truly live without them. Don't worry too much. The waking world is bad enough as it is." She put down her cup. "How about we visit some friends of mine, find out how we can deal with that Handmaiden problem once and for all?"

* * * *

The sounds of battle were clearly audible, even through the wooden door and over the noises of the busy street we were in. Shilana didn't hesitate, she whispered a few strange syllables and a shimmering force field sprang into existence around her. She raised her hands, the ominous azure glow emanating from them was bright, even in full daylight and she motioned for me to open the door for her.

Dagger in hand, I pressed myself against the rough brick wall of the small house and took the door handle. Of course it was locked, but you don't work as a mercenary for any amount of time without picking up some less than reputable skills. Using my dagger and a lockpick from my boot, I had the door open in a matter of moments. Shilana pushed past me, the electricity suffusing her body arcing in painful jolts between us.

I followed suit and stopped on the threshold. Before me was a small kitchen, fragrant herbs hanging from the ceiling beams. To my left, a stairwell led to the upper floor of the house, and on that stairwell, naked, stood two drow women, jet black skin glistening with sweat. Both held weapons and both looked rather sheepishly at us. The one on the upper landing was about as tall as me. She had amazing blue eyes and wore her icy white hair in a short, practical ponytail. A thin necklace with a simple silver disc hung between her ample breasts and she had a short sword in one hand. Further down the stairs, the second dark elf had been fending off her assailant with a long curved knife and a frying pan. She was on the petite side of things, with small, firm breasts and a boyish bum. Her hair, done in a thick braid, reached easily down to the cleft of her behind. She too wore a simple silver disc pendant around her neck.

Shilana hissed in exasperation. "Mind telling me what in the Blazing Pits you're doing?"

Both dark elves blushed furiously and the smaller one asked "Did Mr. Sharp-Blade complain again?"

Shilana angrily shook her head. "We happened to come by and it sounded like your kin might have found you. I was worried, Arach!"

The smaller one, Arach, dropped both her weapons and swept Shilana into an exuberant embrace, raining a flurry of kisses onto my mother's face. "Awww, that's so sweet of you, Shi!" To my surprise, Shilana fought back only half-heartedly, until the taller Drow pulled Arach off her.

"That's the reason we were sparring in the first place. Home defense and fighting in very close quarters and all that," the tall one explained before hugging Shilana fondly.

"And using improvised weapons!" Arach added, picking both her dagger and pan off the floor, giving me a nice view of her shaved nethers. She straightened back up and shot me a curious look over her shoulder which turned into a grim scowl.

"What?" I asked, falling into a defensive stance.

"You look too much like Hael'quira to be a coincidence," Arach hissed. Shilana intercepted her before she could launch herself on me.

"Stop. He means no harm. Arach, Tear, this is Declan. This is my son."

The pan clattered to the floor.

* * * *

Washed and dressed in long, flowing robes made from a silvery thread, Tear and Arach joined us at their kitchen table. I've had my run-ins with dark elves before and they all had ended in brutal bloodshed but these two were different. There was no malice, no shred of evil in them and I found myself relaxing. Shilana, obviously well acquainted with them both, seemed more at ease than I had ever seen her since we met. And then the questioning began.

They were polite, but insatiably curious, especially concerning my past. Since we were here to find a way of dealing with Xandrith, I gave them the short version of my life's story and instead steered the conversation towards the worship of the Chaos Queen and Handmaidens in particular.

"You think this Xandrith is the same one we saw when Hael'quira's camp went up in flames?" Arach asked Shilana.

"From what Declan told me it seems very likely. She was very particular in her choice of words."

"And in her punishment," I cut in. Just thinking about it made my butt hurt. "Any idea how we could find her?"

"Oh, absolutely," Tear said. "Both Arach and I, before abandoning her, had been anointed priestesses of the Chaos Queen. We know." She rose and paced the kitchen.

"The easiest way to make a Handmaiden appear is a blood sacrifice. Find a drow male, strap him to an altar and cut his heart out while praising the Chaos Queen. She will reward the presiding priestess with the appearance of a Handmaiden."

Shilana shuddered in her seat. "I remember."

"That does not guarantee the appearance of a specific Handmaiden, though," Arach mused, tapping her chin. "For that you'd need a proper summons."

Tear nodded. "And the favor of the Chaos Queen. We've cheated our way into a Blood Oath but I doubt we could achieve a summons. We'd also need that Handmaiden's truename. Deceit and misdirection are chief tenets of the Chaos Queen so I doubt 'Xandrith' is that being's real name."

"So, let's get Gheeran and hope for the best," Arach laughed.

"I will not sacrifice a friend," Tear protested. "There has to be something we've missed."

I cleared my throat. Both dark elves looked at me, eyebrows cocked.

"I don't know if it's of any significance but Xandrith has marked me with something."

Tear snapped her fingers. "Oh, that bitch. A brand on your right shoulder?"

"What are you talking about, love?" Arach asked.

"Yes. It won't stop itching. What is it?"

"Let me see it, please." Tear stopped her pacing behind my back. I shrugged and pulled off my cloak and shirt.

"Admit it, you just want to see his hot body," Arach teased then whistled appreciatively. "You've been through a lot, huh?"

I opened my mouth to reply but flinched instead. Tear's fingertips gently outlined the brand on my shoulder.

"You have been marked with the Queen's Eye," Tear said. "In essence, it allows the caster to look over your shoulder, at everything you do." She sounded worried. "You brought her right to us."

"All the more reason to kill her," Shilana said, cracking her fingers. "Are you saying this is a permanent, magical link between Declan and Xandrith?"

Tear sat down again, wringing her hands. "Yes, why?"

"Because she just handed me a way to pull her to us."

* * * *

"It is so unlike them to just run," Leo said, his voice echoing in the stone-walled corridor. The tunnel had a distinct downward slant and the smell of salt water was thick in the air.

"I think they want to throw Xandrith off their trail." Shilana, a gently glowing orb of light hovering on her palm, walked beside me. "I can't blame them. You know what dark elves do to those that betray their Queen."

Leo nodded. "Arach told me, in grisly detail. I would have liked them with us nonetheless. They know how to deal with such a monstrosity and their healing magic is always welcome."

"The three of us will manage," Shilana assured him. "Why do you think I've spent the last few nights at my workbench instead of in your arms, hatchling?"

My eyes went to the huge maul Leo carried effortlessly over a shoulder. It had been an impressive weapon before but now it glowed in an eldritch blue with crackling runes etched into the hammer head. My sword had been similarly treated and I had a quiver full of demon-slayer arrows.

"Where are we going exactly?" I asked, no one in particular. We had been walking through the underbelly of Storm Harbour for the last hour, with Leo finding his way through the dizzying network of sewer tunnels, catacombs and now what looked like ancient hallways.

"Handmaidens, according to the notes my friend Davec had sent, are a kind of demon," Shilana patiently explained. "As such, it can only be truly destroyed on its home plane. When it is summoned into our world, it forms a temporary body which it can shape and discard at will. Many daring adventurers have thought a demon vanquished when all they did was destroy its host body and send its soul back to the Pits."

"Only for it to come back a few years later and kill them in revenge. That's where the saying 'a grudge like a demon' comes from," Leo added.

Understanding dawned. "You mean..."

"We're opening a gate into the Burning Pits. We go through, summon this Xandrith and kill her for good," Shilana explained.

"Since demon worship and summoning is illegal in Storm Harbour, we're sort of leaving the city." Leo said, opening a rotting metal door. "Here we are."

The hall in front of us was huge and oddly shaped. I counted eight walls and an eight-sided dome overhead, held up by octagonal pillars. The floor receded in three steps, forming some kind of bowl, with an elaborate mosaic at the center.

"What is this place?" I whispered in awe. The hairs on my arms stood on end and I shivered. There was a palpable energy permeating this very place.

"This is all that remained of an ancient wizard academy, built long before the Storm Lords founded Storm Harbour," Leo explained. "Voron told me about it. She suspected the ancient wards could still be working. So even if we should unwittingly unleash demons into this world they would only get this far."

"This is amazing," Shilana breathed, running her hand over a side of a pillar. Then her eyes fell onto the mosaic in the room's center. "A casting circle. And it's still in working order. Much better than having to draw my own."

"What can we do to help?" I asked her.

"Just wait. And please don't get in my way."

Leo and I hung back while Shilana went to work. She pulled pouches and pots from a satchel she had brought with her and meticulously retraced the notched grooves of the casting circle with pastes and powders, a slow process which took more than an hour. When she was done, she produced a small silver bowl and a sharp knife.

Shilana waved us over. "The next part is unpleasant but necessary. We need to attune the circle to the three of us so that we can find our way back out of the Pits. I really have no desire to remain there longer than absolutely necessary."

"How do you know all this?" Leo asked while removing his plate gauntlet.

"I read a lot. After our encounter with the medusa, I realized how little I really knew. Sure, I had a firm grasp on battle magic but anything else?" She shook her head in annoyance. "I don't want to be unprepared ever again."

She held out the bowl and the knife to me. Grimacing, I pricked myself and let some blood dribble into the vessel. Leo came next then Shilana. She mixed the blood with herbs and a silvery liquid before adding the mixture into a small indentation in the middle of the circle. The whole, ten-feet diameter casting circle flared, just once, and I could feel the energies reverberating between the pillars. Leo, replacing his gauntlet, looked on in fascination.

"What happens next?" I asked in hushed tones.

"Opening the portal," Shilana muttered, pulling a scroll case from her satchel. With a flourish she unrolled a weathered piece of parchment and, turning towards the circle, began to read. At first, nothing happened. Her voice took on an otherworldly quality, echoing much farther than the size of the room we were in would allow. Then an oval outline appeared, as if someone was drawing a glowing knife through the darkness. Hot winds lashed from the outline, buffeting Shilana's hair and robes with eldritch force. Her voice rose, to be heard over the infernal howling of the winds, she raised her arms over her head and, with one final exclamation, she brought her hands to her sides in a ripping motion and the outline exploded in a burst of dirty reds and oranges.

It took a moment for me to realize I wasn't looking at a burning disc. No. I was looking into somewhere else, a place made up of barely hardened lava and fiery rivers.

"Can we actually go there without being burned to a crisp?" I asked her.

"Gather round," she ordered. "Keeping the portal open is draining enough. No questions." She grabbed our wrists and snarled some harsh words. A soft buzzing emanated from her along with waves of soothing, golden radiance. "We should be relatively heat-proof for the next few hours. But please try not to take a lava bath, understood? Let's go already."

Still holding our wrists she pulled us forwards and, together, we left this world and stepped into another.

And what a strange place it was. We arrived on slanted plains of glowing rocks, broken up by bubbling lava flows wide enough to be a serious problem. The sky was lit by fireballs arcing through a demonic crimson haze. Some flew peacefully, others detonated with ear-shattering noise against floating things in the heavens which I recognized as massive rock formations. No. Mountains. Whole mountains. Some volcanic, some simple, monumental clumps of stone.

"Will you look at this?" Leo gasped, pointing to the left. I turned my head and winced. I had stared straight into the sun and my sensitive eyes screamed in pain. Shadowing my face with a hand, I slowly opened them again and looked again. No. It wasn't a sun. Rather, it appeared to be an immense, impossible to measure sea of boiling matter. From it, the fireballs emerged, hurled on their devastating trajectory.

"I guess in normal terms, this would be 'down,'" Shilana said, pointing at the boiling mass to the side. "But this is another dimension entirely. Our concepts of gravity, time or even space might not apply here."

"As long as we can fight normally," Leo said. He sounded out of breath already. I couldn't really blame him. The heat, despite Shilana's enchantment, was oppressive. I only wore light padding under my chain shirt but sweated profusely already. Wearing a fully enclosed plate armor, with helmet no less, must be excruciating!

"That shouldn't be a problem," Shilana said. She looked at my shoulder and frowned.

"What?"

"I can see the strand of magic binding Xandrith to you," she said with a vicious grin. "Are you ready?"

"No," both Leo and I said in unison. "But we have to, I guess," I added.

"Damn right." With that, she again cast a spell, this time from memory. Translucent gauntlets made from supernatural energy formed around her hands then floated to my shoulder. There was a murderous, pulling sensation, as if someone tried to yank my shoulder blade from my body without bothering to cut me open first, and a furious shriek echoing over the infernal plains.

Suddenly she was there, naked, with eight spider legs jutting from her shapely back. No monstrous phallus today, but she was much larger than the last time I had seen her, easily fifteen feet tall. And I understood. This was her true form, in all its demonic glory. Her copper hair whipped from side to side in a life of its own and her glowing, crimson eyes lanced into each of us, taking our measure.

"I admire your guts, mortals," Xandrith purred, her talons clicking against each other as she advanced. "You should have brought those traitor whores with you so that I could sacrifice all of you in one go. Now I'll have to track them down again. But doing so will be a nice diversion."

"I am Leo, Fist of Justice-" the paladin began but Xandrith cut his challenge short by charging him. Eight taloned legs battered against his armor but they glanced off the shaped metal.

A lance of incandescent energy hit Xandrith from the side causing her to stagger away from Leo.

"I am your opponent, you monster," Shilana called. She too was a fearsome sight, all of her storm gems burning in all-consuming white. "Hands off my paladin!"

"You want to play, little girl?" Xandrith hissed. She made a complicated gesture with a hand and Shilana's eyes glazed over. Xandrith tossed her head back and shrieked with laughter. "Now go. Kill that hunk of metal!"

I saw the fight on Shilana's face. Under the soot and sweat, her jaw worked and her eyes blazed, but slowly, resisting every inch, her arms came up. The storm gems in her hands pulsed and another murderous lightning bolt arced from her fingertips, blasting Leo clean off his feet.

Despite the infernal heat, cold dread poured down my spine. Just like that, the tide of battle had turned. What had started out as a three versus one fight had tipped, to a demon versus me. And even with my enchanted weapons, with the demon slayer arrows, what chance would I have against a being which could turn a mighty spell-caster like my mother against her lover with a snap of her fingers?

All instincts screamed at me, forcing me to flee this hopeless battle. But that was not how I had been raised. Xandrith was much too absorbed watching Leo who tried to keep Shilana at bay without killing her, a feat made nearly impossible by the arcs of lightning scorching his armor.

I raised my bow, nocked an arrow and aimed at Xandrith's back. I hardly knew these two but Shilana at least was family. Sure, she left me to die but could I blame her? I would possibly have done the same after being raped by the likes of Xandrith and whoever else. I let fly.

Trailing a softly glowing streamer of faint blue, the arrow jumped from my bow and hit Xandrith squarely between her shoulders. Blue flames erupted from the impact but the damage seemed much less severe than I had hoped. In fact, she seemed more angry than hurt when she spun around, her talons slicing through the air with a menacing whistle.

"You should have waited your turn, Declan. But seeing that you're eager to die, let me accommodate your wish." She didn't rush me, no, she advanced slowly, menacingly. I gnashed my teeth and fired three more arrows, hitting her left breast twice. The third arrow glanced off a spider leg, chipping the chitin.

"You were slated for a quick death. But it has to wait," she hissed, a dire promise in her crimson eyes. "Before you die, you will feel suffering which will make our last tryst feel like a lover's night."

Only a few steps separated us now. I could feel the air move as she angrily whipped her talons my way. I dropped the bow and drew the sword. Not waiting for her to make the first move, I lunged at her. Four of her spider legs crossed in front of her body, deflecting the thrust.