Surfacing Ch. 17

"Something sourin' yer tongue?" he asked coyly.

I reached up to finally remove my blindfold before he could bring it up again, blinking slowly and feeling how gritty my eyes were as I rubbed them gently, which felt for a moment almost as good as sex. The lamp light in the room was incredibly low, so low that I was surprised a Surface dwarf could see at all though I wouldn't complain.

I was right that this was a living quarters not only with the desk, table, and chairs, but a stout, low bed with a few wool blankets and large storage chests nearby. It wasn't complicated or personal in its effects, nothing here was decorative, and my guess was that it could be abandoned at any time with no particular feeling of loss. Nonetheless, it was comfortable, even luxurious compared to the barracks back home.

"So...what was Mourn's last message?" I asked.

Talov shook his head. "Nope. Jus' tell me what happened when the ghost led you to the Ma'ab."

"Did Mourn say who the ghost was?"

He pulled on a braid in his beard. He was wearing fewer rings than the last time I'd seen him in Augran. "Not sure I understood that part. Who was she?"

"A former servant of Vo'Traj, a Ma'ab 'slum' necromancer of the lowest caste."

Talov waited. "And?"

"That's not enough?"

The dwarf smirked at my false ignorance but just waited.

"Gavin's mother."

The dwarf nodded; he had known that, the bastard. "Gavin had been a monk, right? He was born at a monastery." Another smoothing gesture on his beard. "So how did his mum make it that deep into enemy territory?"

I shrugged. "You said yourself Vo'Traj was traveling for decades with the army. At one point Ada must have run away from the camp and made it to a cloister of Manalara Men and convinced them to let her stay."

Talov's beard moved with his facial expression. "Ada."

"Yes."

"Know where that place is?"

"No."

"But Gavin would."

"It goes without saying. He may not say, however. He alluded once to poisoning the entire monastery before he left."

The dwarf grunted with another nod, not shocked or surprised or even seeming to judge the grey mage, hearing this. The next moment he blinked in recognition and smiled to show his teeth through his beard. "Ha! I heard of the lad before. Maybe ten years ago now. He's had a price on his head fer that little stunt, signed by th' Archbishop himself. Killed all but two or three of the floggin' bastards."

I felt a smile pulling at the corners of my mouth. "I guess no one can claim that reward now."

"Pity." He winked playfully. "So. The ghost mum led her son to her former mistress. Then?"

I began to recount Mourn's actions on our behalf negotiating, repeating what I remembered of the necro-mistress's words, I dutifully described the Hellhounds and undead when Talov asked, but he noticed when I grew more uneasy in my chair. Certainly I was aware that my heart was beating harder and I felt a sick bubble of nausea just beneath my lungs. I hated that it came unbidden.

"Then ye sensed something invisible stalkin' ye," Talov said, trying to lead me when I stopped. "Somethin' serving the bitch, and ye forced it to reveal itself. What was it?"

Mourn hadn't known about the demonbloods that the Valsharess was breeding until we'd linked that first time. I wasn't sure if he had told Talov or Krithannia at this point. The Guild leader had said he would share everything with his Lieutenant but Innathi inside the dagger; I just didn't know if he'd had the time to do so and Talov had already made it clear he had certain knowledge already and was testing my answers.

Was it any worse if I informed the dwarf about Draegloth myself? Was it any different revealing something integral about my City to this Guildmaster or the Guild Leader himself? Even if Mourn hadn't told Talov yet, he would...

"Yer shakin,' Sirana."

Only barely.

The dwarf was watching me like Tamuril's hawk. I did have trouble drawing my next breath, though; the air felt heavy going into my lungs.

"Tell me what you saw." His voice was firm but not hostile as he repeated himself. It reminded me a bit of D'Shea, the way he sat, reading my non-verbal cues as much as listening to my answers.

"It's called a Draegloth." I took another breath. "It's actually male. Half Drow, half demon of the Abyss."

Talov cloaked any reaction or judgment to that whatsoever. He merely nodded. "And why would a Ma'ab sorceress have control o' one of those?"

"Because she stole him from us. Captured him and his Drow Priestess on the Surface, about a century ago."

The Guildmaster let that set for a moment as he leaned back in his chair, pursing his lips. "Do they still have the Drow Priestess?"

"No. They killed her."

"Ye sure?"

"Yes."

Talov watched me. "Tell me why yer so certain."

I focused on another breath; the simplest answer was that Vesram had told me and his rage had been real. But I wasn't going to go with an emotional answer here. "If his mother was alive, the Ma'ab witch would not be able to command the Draegloth."

The dwarf smiled as if I'd given the right answer. "Ma'ab do have known practice in summonin' and bargainin' with demons. I take it Vo'Traj bound this half-blood to her?"

"Yes."

"And when ye'all killed her, what happened to him?"

"He was free," I said with a damnable quiver in my voice. "He ran."

Talov cocked a thick, iron grey eyebrow. "An' ye let him go? Or Mourn missed, maybe?"

I looked for my water glass, drained the last little bit and Talov refilled it again, still staring at me. My heart was continued to beat in my ears. There wasn't too much point in lying about events; once everyone was awake and talking, it would come out anyway.

"I told the others to let him escape," I said.

"Ah." Talov turned his own glass around in place twice on his desk, nodding. "Ye 'told' 'em. An' why did ye do that? Fer that matter, how did ye tell 'em?"

Now the tremble was bad enough that even I noticed; my stomach felt hard and clutching against my meal; there was a pain in my chest and my eyes were hot. Soon I was focusing all my will on keeping my breathing steady...and it wasn't working.

Shit.

I started to stand up. Talov anticipated it and stood before me to come around the desk, pressing down on my shoulder to push me back into the leather. He kneeled by the chair so he was looking up slightly at me, though he kept his hand on my shoulder. My two remaining spiders were starting to move in agitation, my body's panic soon to override my earlier command that Talov was an ally.

"Don't touch me..." I whispered.

He smoothly lifted his hand without argument, setting it on his knee in full view.

"Mourn said ye collapsed," Talov told me quietly, "and ye didn't or couldn't help against the Hellhounds or the Ma'ab witch, or any of it. He described it as some kind of shock. I'm old enough and seen enough by now to know that ye've run into one o' those 'Draegloth' before, and whatever happened wasn't pretty."

Fuck, I didn't want to hear that. I didn't want to remember, nor did I want everyone to know how useless I'd been. I didn't even know why I didn't allow Mourn and the others capture or even kill Vesram for me. If I hadn't interfered...

"Easy tah see ye were hurt, Sirana," the dwarf continued. "Was it the one in the crypt who did it?"

I shuddered and my throat hurt. I could only shake my head in the negative.

"It wasn't Vo'Traj's Draegloth that hurt ye?"

I shook my head again.

"Okay. How long ago was this? A year? More?"

*Less,* I signed, and his eyes glanced down to read my hand.

"Less than a year? Ye've been doing pretty well, then. Is he still alive?"

*No.*

"That's somethin.' Ye kill him?"

*No...*

"Have nightmares? Or wake up with yer face wet and ye don' know why?"

A couple of times. *...Yes.*

He nodded slowly. "Have ye wept when yer awake?"

I lifted my head and stared at him. I knew I was scowling, even as my lower lip trembled. His craggy, dwarven face was placid. He kept talking.

"I remember the first time I was there when the kid remembered somethin' from underground. Still not sure what triggered it, it wasn't obvious as a monster o' the Abyss. But I know yer kind do some mighty vicious things to each other down there, Elf. Some things are gonna stick, and when they do stick, ye gotta cleanse it before it rots or the buzzards come tah pick at ye while yer still kickin'. Or until ye off yerself."

I was holding tightly to the leather chair and realized my back hurt; I consciously tried to relax it. "What...is a 'buzzard'?"

Talov smiled. "Bird scavenger we got up here. Big, got a bald, wrinkly, red head, black feathers. It can see a wounded or rotting body from cloud-level. It circles for hours, a full day or more sometimes, jus' waitin' until yer too weak to defend yerself when it comes to prod and tear at ye. Got scavengers like this down below, don'tcha? An' some walk on two legs?"

I nodded and felt some of the tension leak from my back. This was making some sense to me. I could imagine the Surface buzzard quite clearly. I'd seen them high in the Sky before, I knew it—Rausery had called them "vultures"—but I had never witnessed what happened when they finally landed.

"Ye get me meaning, don'tcha, Sirana? Some Drow can't handle what sticks—'cause something always does. No matter how much you seen, there's always somethin' or someone worse. Always someone older or more clever."

He paused, so I nodded. I wasn't sure why I wanted to keep listening.

"An' those that rot get picked clean. Some make it quick fer themselves, some linger. But you ain't one o' those, Elf. Ye walked in tah the battle just now and walked back out with yer baby still in yer belly. You ain't gonna let buzzards pick at ye."

I nodded again. This appealed to me more than the "don't give up hope" offering from Isboern. What was that even supposed to mean?

"Now for the bad news," Talov said with a grunt as he got to his feet and moved to sit on his low desk, facing me. "The flashbacks like ye felt don' go away. It's like a survivor's mind creates a new shortcut to respond to a threat it never knew before. Something triggers that shortcut an' yer there again, even for a second, responding the same way as ye did then. That's what happened, isn't it? Ye were there again. Ye weren't in the crypt, ye were in the Underdark."

Maybe. Sort of. Yes, I was, but Vesram was also talking to some sliver of Kerse that he'd left inside me...and maybe he couldn't have done that if I hadn't made eye contact.

My eyes drifted to the side and Talov grunted in response. "I'm wrong? Or only partly right? Talk tah me, Sirana."

I didn't at first. I wasn't aching to tell him how it was. I got caught up thinking about going back, about how integral the Draegloth were to the Valsharess's power structure...and maybe I even saw why I'd been sent away immediately after "surviving." Was the Sisterhood going to tolerate inconvenient "flashbacks" like what happened in the crypt? No. How could I go back?

Jael, I knew quite intimately now, was afraid that she was stuck on the Surface. Thanks to the Godblood who changed what she was in an instant, if she wanted to continue living she believed she would have to watch me leave her behind. If she wanted to go back, it would be to make a quick death or slowly be picked apart by buzzards; she wouldn't get to choose which one unless she did something like the Hellhounds did. A suicide attack as a final vengeance.

The last I knew, she hadn't decided yet.

Maybe more of us died from that "rot" Talov was talking about than I ever thought. The Red Sisters didn't talk about those who were gone; they were just gone. Something got them. We were of the strongest wills in the City...but not unbreakable.

Certainly the novices like Jael and me were most vulnerable, and Kerse did more damage than I'd known.

I wondered about D'Shea and her self-released compulsion...her hatred of Wilsira which had definitely "stuck," and she was reminded every single time she became aware of Shyntre. Had she been trying to cleanse the rot so she didn't get picked apart? Or was it too late? Maybe I'd never know. I suddenly couldn't see going back and successfully hiding a "trigger" as big and obvious as Draegloth. I'd get eaten by vultures.

I may have to stay up here, with Jael, which might make her happy, and my baby would have to live up here, the first Baenar in over two thousand years to adapt to the Sun almost from birth. Maybe Gaelan could stay with us, too, if she ever healed from the Chaos taint. Maybe we'd join the Guild as assassins; what else were we skilled at? It wasn't a bad idea, maybe...

I was, of course, ignoring Musanlo and Innathi, who both wanted me to go back to the Underdark. Fuck them. What had happened in the crypt might never happen again if I stayed up here. There weren't any Draegloth up here... except one. Maybe the Guild could hunt him down for me, kill him like I should have let them do before.

It would mean that I'd have to leave Auslan down in darkness, and Shyntre would not see me return. When Auslan died, as he would eventually, the wizard might suffer and die as well, if he couldn't fight off the buzzards as well. I might dream about that...

No, I definitely would. I knew the Consort's name and he knew how to call to me from that other place. Whether I stayed up here, the Underdark would still call to me. Maybe I wouldn't survive either way.

I swallowed with a suddenly dry mouth and took another drink of water.

"The Guild can't let members keep workin' if they suppress their shit an' don't deal with it," Talov spoke, bringing me abruptly out of my thoughts.

"I'm not Guild," I said without thinking.

The old dwarf smirked in amusement. "Let me finish. We have a support system. Ye can imagine the boys like Reprisal probably have some triggers. Main thing is none are allowed to keep secrets, they all have to talk tah someone or they don' work. Isolation leads to rot. Some only need talk once in a blue moon, they have physical things they do that help or they have some deep devotion like the grey mage. Others do better with regular contact and confessions, but they all manage somehow.

"If they wanna stay Guild, they all learn how tah recognize that moment their body remembers, even if their brain doesn't. They learn how to channel it or dissipate it...but none o' them are allowed to hold it back. It's gotta come. Not even the damned Guild Leader holds it back, Elf. Ye get me?"

I didn't respond at first. That Talov seemed to be claiming to know Mourn's weaknesses...I supposed that didn't surprise me, but he was basically saying that talking about it somehow made it stable? It certainly made one vulnerable.

"Does Mourn seem weak tah you, Sirana?"

I looked up and blinked. "Hm?"

"His actions. What ye know 'bout him so far. Weak? Vulnerable?"

I shook my head. "No."

"How about thinking he has things that haunt him? That he's made mistakes."

I shrugged, looking down. I remembered his Aunt-Matron's murder; that still haunted him. He considered the theocracy of Manalar to be one giant mistake of his he'd been working for centuries to see end.

And it just did, today.

"Can ye believe that he has practiced over three centuries to channel those triggers to stay on his game? Think ye can grasp that concept, Drow? I bet some o' the more successful ones down below do somethin' like this, that's why they're on top. Ye see why the Guild can't allow nightmares tah be squashed?"

"No demons but you?" I asked with a wry tilt to my mouth as I looked up again.

Talov considered that and shrugged. "Guess that works. Difference is the Guild doesn't ever ignore the other demons, even if we can't allow them tah run our lives fer us. Yer still young, Sirana, I don't expect you tah know how, that's why I'm askin' that you talk. Just talk. Tell me somethin' what happened."

After a moment, I decided to try.

"I was...there again," I said softly. "Not in the crypt, but in the Underdark, like you said. I couldn't move, like I couldn't before."

"Ye were bound?"

"No...will-bending. He...commanded my body."

Talov narrowed his pale green eyes in thought, not aggression. "Can all Draegloth do that?"

"No. This one made a talisman keyed to me. He knew me."

"Knew ye how well? Was he a lover?"

I felt a small wave of nausea. "He...wanted to be. Sometimes he seemed to want to favor me over his own mother. That's...very unusual, and I think we normally kill them when that happens, but this time we didn't do it quickly enough. He only wanted me because he wanted to be free..."

"Cut the apron strings, eh?" the Guildmaster nodded. "Exploited a connection. Tying ye up with rope wouldn't make ye panic, but ye've been trained tah have a strong will, an' he broke that in yer head, changed ye from who you were before."

I was silent, not sure how the old dwarf could be so blunt and somehow not sound insulting or derisive.

"Did he laugh at ye, or show any regret?"

I blinked, almost flinched when I saw Kerse's face so close to mine as he leaned over me. "He said he was sorry..."

"But did whatever he was gonna do anyway."

I nodded.

"Didja ever think at any time that he wouldn't hurt ye?"

I felt a flare of hatred as I nodded. "Yes. He helped me, kept secrets from his mother for me. I...I did think...idiot..."

"Does no good tah blame yerself now," Talov said softly; he had his arms crossed loosely, relaxed and calm and helping to keep me more stable watching him. "But he's dead. Yer alive. How did ye survive, Sirana?"

"Jael," I answered. "Others...came to get me. Stopped the ritual and pulled me out."

"An' saved yer life." The Guildmaster looked surprised, but pleasantly so as he smiled the next moment. "That's why ye went intah Hell at Manalar, faced off with Witch Hunters and Grey creatures tah get her out? If yer still capable o' feeling that, Sirana, then yer gonna be okay. Ye know that, right?"

His swell of admiration caught me off guard and I tried not to squirm. He was doing that on purpose. He tilted his head at my expression.

"Unless yer pulling these dangerous stunts only long enough tah bear yer wee one before finding somethin' tah kill ye off?"

I jerked in surprise, gritting my teeth.

"Ya know. So yeh don' have to live with people thinkin' yer weak? That yer not the fighter ye used tah be, huddled on a crypt floor?"

"Coc'sha, Driekensau," I growled, aware that he was also doing this on purpose.

He laughed, and it was a deep, booming one. "Yer gonna cry, too. Whether ye like it or not, if ye really want tah keep goin', Sirana, yer gonna find a time yah cry at least once over what happened. Then yer gonna learn how tah channel those panic moments, let 'em flow out like so much dirty water. Mourn would help, ye know. Any time. He admires ye. Tells me yer not like the worse of the Baenar. Somethin' keeps ye from delving deep to be like them. Maybe you an' he had similar youths?"

My jaw hurt from how hard I was clenching it. "I don't know. What was his like?"

"I think he told ye already. I know even yer kind have to nurture yer children or your race would be gone already. They didn't believe he be a true child, lookin' at his body. They expected him to think and act like he was grown. He got adult training, adult tasks, adult punishments for failure, adult violations when it suited them. He wasn't what ye see now when he escaped an' came up here, I can tell ye that. I still have th' scars." He grunted a low laugh. "But he didn't want tah be like them, only what they'd taught him. Krithannia's patience was legendary. Still is. We showed him how it could be different."

Talov let me absorb this a bit before asking, "Can ye imagine it, Sirana? Even a bit?"