Surfacing Ch. 22

"I can tell."

"Drider shit. I've had to kill a Sister or two who stepped over the line."

He smiled a very small bit. "Had to. Did not want to, certainly not to progress through the ranks. She was always facing you."

She glanced over and scowled at him. "You can stitch your lips shut now."

He fell silent but it was telling that he felt relaxed enough to drift off into a nap even before she did.

Maybe she was getting soft.

******

Varessa went with a straight invisibility spell to approach the Tower, for both her and Rausery. It was a delaying tactic at best, since at the moment she could not see how they could possibly explain Jaunda's behavior to the Prime and the Valsharess, and keep her Lead functional. Her best hope was to preserve Jaunda's life and body long enough for those twenty-one cycles to pass.

One by one, they were all being locked up...

Phaelous knew she was coming and assisted in using a back circle to avoid the attention of his students. He wasted no time and asked no questions, simply bringing them into his sanctuary and offering them a cup of taze.

"Not right now," she said, glancing to confirm with Rausery, who shrugged.

The oldest wizard nodded and began preparing a pot. "It is getting late enough but I will have to step out briefly to oversee the evening meal. They should not notice me missing it entirely, though I often retire early. Are you willing to wait here?"

"If we even need to stay that long," Rausery said.

"You will, Elder, I have less than a quarter mark." He carefully measured he carefully measured his dried herbs in a tiny cup, his attention focused on his hands. "I assume you would want to stay and witness everything we have to say?"

Rausery shifted her weight and folded her arms, nodding with the quiet sigh. "In that case, I'll have some taze."

"Certainly. Care to give me the very essence of your purpose here?"

Varessa frowned. "Actually, no. Once we begin discussing it, I do not want you to leave this room until we have a solution."

Phaelous was nonplussed. "Very well. You should know that Shyntre was moved from the Palace to the Sanctuary almost three cycles ago."

The sorceress visibly started. "Why?"

"Her Grace still doesn't know Her own strength when She is angry, I imagine." The Headmaster held his small pot beneath his water cask and opened the spigot, clear water streaming in to fill it. "She does not show it often but Her patience is much shorter during upheavals such as we've had recently."

"So what did She do to Shyntre?" Rausery asked bluntly.

Phaelous placed his pot on its stand and replaced the lid, touching it with three of his fingertips and murmuring a heating spell. "Injured his aura. Broke down his will yet a bit more, as She did to me at his age. Your son has not had the luxury of time, however, for I do not remember it being this fast. She cultivates the fear but not the devotion, which takes much more time to hone into the edge She needs in a new tool."

"Don't you know any specifics we can use?" Rausery asked while D'Shea contemplated what the sire of her son was trying to tell her.

The old wizard nodded. The pot steamed gently through its spout and Phaelous lifted the lid and poured his dried mixture inside, dabbing with a wooden stick before replacing the lid and leaving it to steep. "Our ever-present liaison has been entrusted with his care."

D'Shea clenched her fists and felt her chest constrict as if a python had wrapped around it. "No."

Phaelous glanced at her, hearing something in her voice. "I'm sorry, Varessa. It may take me a bit more time to discover what exactly she plans for him, but I promise that I will, if only you do not go to confront her quite yet. It will not help him, and I sense that you have something else on your platter that has a very delicate balance as well. You understand, don't you?"

The sorceress took a few breaths before she would answer him. "I do. But you will tell me everything that you discover about Shyntre, now and in the future."

He half-smiled. "Of course, my Elder. I am doing that now."

Phaelous poured him and Rausery each a cup and took the first few steaming drinks before he had to excuse himself to go to dinner. He left his cup half drunk and sitting on the bench next to the pot.

"Have what you want," he said as he draped a ceremonial scarf over his shoulders, indicating the taze pot. "It is best hot and fresh and I will likely make another one upon my return. You may time me to exactly three-quarters of a mark. I will be having dinner with my students, nothing more. No plotting, no spying, no side-errands."

Rausery smirked and shook her head with a slight eye roll but she glanced at D'Shea, figuring those words were mostly for her. To anyone else, would make no true difference whether he said that aloud or not, practically speaking, but the telling part for the sorceress was in how her own aura reacted to him a present. Every Drow learned to separate their words from the aura to help them lie; it was so natural and so assumed that it was never remarked upon. Phaelous, however, was intentionally letting her read his as he spoke.

Varessa had no reason to trust it, given their past and the reason for Shyntre's existence, but Phaelous was doing what he could to sooth her, reassure her without even touching her. The aged, calm voice blended with his powerful aura to feel like a magic-proof vest: present and reliable, protective and self-apparent in its purpose.

If she chose to believe him and be the one to wear that vest, she would reap the benefits of it with no need to share. But she hadn't chosen yet; he wasn't an object, and it was only his recently self-won freedom from his compulsion that caused the change now. That, and an even more recent divination.

But centuries-old habits were hard to break.

After the golden-haired Headmaster had left the two elders alone in his personal quarters - an action that would have been unthinkable if they were not all in the same boat with being free of their compulsions but keeping it secret - Rausery chuckled, side, and enjoyed another slurp from her cup before standing up and adding a warmer from the pot.

"The fire hasn't gone out, I see," she teased with a wink. "You live as long as him, gain as much, and I can see where it gets simpler."

Varessa frowned. "What gets simpler?"

"Pinning down what you really want." Rausery wandered about the room a bit, getting a closer look at things without touching them. "Think he is tired of the games as I am?"

The sorceress shrugged and folded her hands, crossing her legs. "You realize he has a way to listen in, either now or later."

"Sure. I don't care."

Rausery took another sip and looked over a somewhat messy workbench with some mysterious bottles and jars which seemed color-coded or otherwise identified with little marks that was no magical language she had ever seen. D'Shea knew only Phaelous would know what was inside all those; she had her own system, and no doubt so did the Queen.

"He's making a last play, and I don't think he expects to survive it."

D'Shea grimaced and rubbed her head. "Rausery, please."

"You hear the way he talked about what the Valsharess is doing Shyntre?" she continued, ignoring her. "He's been there, but he might not care to use his experience to help us if not for you."

The sorceress frowned at her and drummed her fingers on the arm rest. "If not for me."

"Oh, yeah." Rausery grinned before finishing off her cup and setting it down. "I thought you and Tarra were on at least neutral ground, you two worked so well in the past. But the way you reacted when he told you Tarra had the boy now? It couldn't be more plain that's somehow worse than where he was before, even before Phaelous said what he said. What changed?"

D'Shea had gripped the arm rest briefly but forced herself to let it go and relax herself again. She shook her head, but more to herself. She thought about what to say. "I sent you to Phaelous for him to break your compulsion. You're right that he does not expect to survive in doing that, but the knowledge we could gain of the Surface in return may keep you alive."

Rausery smirked, either feigning or truly not concerned about that right now, and waited for the sorceress to make a point.

"I knew he could help you because he did the same for me."

Her peer cocked an eyebrow. "I thought you broke your own compulsion by killing Wilsira."

D'Shea smiled a bit, but without amusement. "There were two. I broke the recent one."

Rausery nodded slowly, not taking her eyes off of D'Shea. "An older one placed by Tarra?"

"No, the Queen. The same as you, but specifically to make me vulnerable to her." She paused. "And Phaelous."

"I didn't realize they could do that," the Elder replied. "Mine was just: don't talk about this. Straight information control. Yours affected your...view of other Drow?"

D'Shea shrugged, trying to still the tremor in her middle and not let Rausery see the evidence of it. "Specific ones. As best I can tell, it is based on the strength of one's aura, and no, not easy to do. I do not believe I can do it, not yet, and it takes conditioning after a break in the aura. Certainly it is nothing the Noble Houses have ever used on each other, they do not have the regular contact necessary. It would not affect you or the Prime the same way at all. It can only be between Drow with similar magical strength, and that strength must be high in the first place."

"A 'top' mage's compulsion, eh? Weird. I always thought the game had to get more dangerous like that, the higher you climb." Rausery paused, and her expression actually grew in concern. "Oh. Shyntre."

D'Shea nodded without speaking at first, then drew in a slow breath, still trying to control herself and keep her thoughts from drifting toward Wilsirathon. "Being born more powerful than others doesn't mean you get to use it with impunity. No one will ever reach their full potential without being harnessed in some way."

Rausery shrugged and nodded in agreement. "Works that way pretty much everywhere. You get on top of one pile and there's a good chance you're staring across as someone else on top of a bigger pile."

The sorceress nodded.

"Is Phaelous telling us now with the thought that we can do something about it?"

"I don't know. I would wait to see what he else says. We are actually here to ask him about the other thing."

"Right."

From there they waited essentially in silence, taking advantage of a rare, short period where they could be left to their own thoughts. Rausery probably looked at every single thing in the room, stepping around slowly and placing her boots carefully; she did not pick up or move anything, but she checked out the private washroom as well which contained quite a few memories for D'Shea.

The sorceress-Elder, however, kept to her chair; she was already familiar with this place, it had not changed much, and she could even name the purpose of most of the strange items Rausery inspected. She turned inward, instead, allowing her mind to work as it worked best, thinking over and thinking better questions and hypotheses for what might be done about Jaunda and the Dragon.

She tried not to think about Shyntre. It was too soon and she did not know enough.

Phaelous returned on time, even a tiny bit early, and removed his ceremonial scarf to hang it up by the door before picking up his taze pot to dispose of the cold portion and the used, soggy flora through the waste cabinet on the wall. It was only for rubbish he did not mind being picked through down in the kitchen compost. He rinsed the pot and began his ritual over from the start.

"The students will fall asleep soon after returning to their rooms," he said quietly. "Any who try to stay in the libraries will feel compelled to leave and return to the rooms. The functional rooms have a Ward that will tell me if they are entered, but there are to be no chores until the waking cycle."

As the new taze steeped, Phaelous turned around to look between his Elders but resting on D'Shea. "My time is yours for the rest of the eve."

The sorceress looked at Rausery. "If you would go first. Tell him about the reports. Please."

The other Elder blinked in plain surprise but she caught the plural in the sentence and grinned. She hadn't yet told D'Shea what Vik and Halena had said, and the sorceress had not asked. Now she would listen at the same time that Phaelous did. It had to do with trying to read the Headmaster as much as seeing exactly what information Rausery would share when asked politely and knowing Varessa would not have exclusivity on that intelligence.

Varessa was trying to do things just a little differently than she had before, and she was trying to show it, even though her nerves wanted to rebel as much right now as they had the first time she and Rausery had shared damning information. She wished she could be as calm and accepting of the risks as Phaelous; but then again, he was expecting to die.

She would not.

"Two other Drow of mine met up with Jaunda in this last Illithid reconnaissance, you know that," Rausery began, standing for the moment as Phaelous took his seat with his cup and sipped. She watched him nod. "They planted the spy gem in less than a week of watching and then headed back."

Phaelous's eyebrows lifted a bit and he looked at D'Shea. "Observe anything interesting since, my Elder?"

D'Shea nodded. "Unawareness of being watched. Normal comings and goings through a fairly busy passageway between the hive nest and their slave field."

The old mage grinned a bit, the fine lines around his eyes much more apparent. "You recognize 'normal' already?"

She shrugged. "Walking is walking, Phaelous. Even for them."

"Walking with purpose," he added. "Working. Like you, perhaps."

"Perhaps."

"May I have a watch sometime, my Elder?"

D'Shea nodded. "After the priority is seen to."

"And that is?"

"Jaunda," Rausery answered for her, cutting right to their main purpose. "She and my two shadows ran into something else, but they refused to say what it was for twenty-one more cycles."

Phaelous's expression was eloquent and Rausery chuckled while D'Shea nodded.

"Yes, that was our reaction as well," the sorceress said with a wry slant to her mouth. "It seems they were given a command to wait one month before giving their full report, and this has overwhelmed any instinct of self-preservation."

"What do you mean, Elders?" the wizard asked.

"It is either the owner of the Ward we told you about, or an Illithid trick," Rausery said. "Before we report to the Prime and the Queen, because we have to, we want you to speak to Jaunda. She might have a compulsion you can break for us, or maybe it is something else. We need your opinion."

Phaelous looked pleased with that. "I see. Was any pain apparent?"

D'Shea shook her head. "Not immediately, though I have not yet pushed the boundaries for Jaunda. We do not have the time for trial and error in exploring this before my Lead might be placed directly before the Prime or Valsharess. I believe her that she will simply refuse to answer the questions, no matter what, and not only will it make Rausery and me appear ineffective in our task, but that will simply put Jaunda to death."

"Interesting," Phaelous said softly just before he buried his nose in his cup. His gold-flitted eyes drifted slightly as he thought on things that they couldn't see. "And it is the same for the two non-Sisters? No pain, and they can tell you exactly when they will speak about who they met?"

Rausery nodded, sharing a look with D'Shea. "One of them is really unsteady. I put her in the Cloister cells to wait for Jaunda, and now this."

Varessa didn't react to that - even though she hadn't known it - and waited for her wizard's response.

He had finished most of his cup when he set it down. "I will speak to them right now if you wish, I will tell you everything I can figure out."

"You come to the Cloister?" Rausery asked.

He nodded. "I think that would be best. Would I be able to speak with your two shadows as well?"

"I'll have to bring the one back in, but the other is already there, so why not?"

Varessa frowned at Rausery. "We have to make sure the Red Sisters are not aware you are bringing another male prisoner inside."

Phaelous smiled at Rausery, and D'Shea could tell he was in admiration. "A male shadow. That would be a good idea if you can bring him in. I will likely get different insight from him and the two together would tell us more. I will give you my every thought on how best to advise the Valsharess in this most unusual situation."

Rausery snorted softly. "Better wipe your chin, wizard, you're salivating."

He chuckled. "I express my most profound gratitude in advance for this opportunity that you give me, to probe something such as this before it is destroyed by a heavy hand."

D'Shea folded her arms across her breasts. "Before? We bring this to you with the purpose to avoid it being destroyed at all."

He bowed his head slowly to her. "And for your sake, I wholly share in that goal, my Elder."

"Are we ready to go then?" Rausery prodded, looking between the two magic users.

"Just allow me to collect a few things and we will go," Phaelous said as he got up from his chair and offered his hand to D'Shea to help her out of the low chair.

After a brief hesitation she accepted, but as her middle warmed suddenly and her breath stopped for a moment, she decided she was very glad to be wearing gloves.

******

Unlike the Sanctuary and the Palace, the Headmaster of the Tower had never had a way to simply appear inside the Sisters' Cloister without chancing a witness outside. That was entirely due to Elder D'Shea. They had plenty of ways to mask their movements, but they still had to walk.

*I have changed my mind,* D'Shea told the two of them by way of a magical missive. *We should not bring the male shadow into the Cloister to question him. I have a private cave not too far out, we should go there. You said he is already coming in, correct?*

*Yeah, and fine, probably not a bad idea,* Rausery responded. *Good thing you changed into basic boots, eh, wizard?*

*A good thing,* he agreed.

*Just don't trip on your robe.*

They moved as quickly as they could so as not to use up the entire eve, and Phaelous was likely using just a little more magic to maintain his endurance with the younger females. He did not complain, he did not speak when not spoken to, but he was the first to sit down upon reaching D'Shea's "private" cave. Looking around interestedly, Rausery saw signs of a bit of a testing ground and wondered how many Red Sisters her peer had brought here?

*Will he be much longer?* D'Shea.

Rausery shook her head. *Nope. He's young and fast and he's running like the Abyss is chasing them.*

*Them?*

*His handler.*

*What is that?*

*Like a Lead, second-in-command when I'm not there.*

*Which is often. Why do you trust this handler?*

Rausery smirked. *Reasons. Long history, and with centuries of opportunity to betray me.*

D'Shea frowned, glancing ever so briefly Phaelous. *Sooner or later, we all do. Even the one at the very top.*

*Especially those at the top,* Rausery corrected. *Foundation can be built a little different at the bottom and go up from there.*

The sorceress shook her head. *None scratch and fight harder than those with almost nothing to share between them.*

*How would you know, Noble? If that was true, those with everything they could ever want would have no reason to betray each other. Yet we do.*

Phaelous was included in the debate but did not add anything; he was smiling, though, and enjoying it.

D'Shea folded her arms and faced her peer. *Then what is your conclusion?*