Surfacing Ch. 33

Phaelous paused, staring at an indistinct spot on his desk. "I think that was when I knew I could be free, my will be my own. The thought frightened me for many years. Eventually..."

He had shaken his head. He was finished talking about that, Mourn thought.

"Largely as you watched Varessa suffer, wasn't it?" Rausery pushed him, and the Headmaster nodded.

"I couldn't act too soon, Elder. It would have been useless to her and Shyntre."

"We're glad you did not," Mourn had agreed. "How did the scroll come to you?"

"Peches trading odds and ends." Phaelous shrugged. "They scavenged it somewhere. It was dirty. Notably, it was made of strange material, I'm not exactly sure what, with an enchantment fixing the ink. Nothing we use down here."

"The scroll was from the Surface originally, you mean?" Rausery blinked.

"I believe so. I can't explain more than that."

"May I see it?" Mourn dared ask. "You may keep it. I assume you still have it, probably here."

The Headmaster was hesitant but eventually agreed, and Mourn had been right about its proximity. He watched as the wizard unfolded or dispelled no less than five layers of protection on that hiding place.

"It is fragile," Phaelous said, rubbing a specific oil upon his hands before handling and unrolling it on his desk, the material gently glowing and softening under his touch as it temporarily lost its brittle quality.

Mourn had stepped closer as Phaelous maintained physical contact with the scroll, his sensitive tongue drawing the protective essence across his tongue as he pulled a small shard of bloodstone from a pouch, closing it in his palm. His first guess, as he looked at the script and scented the wood pulp and cotton within the parchment, was that it was an old Noldor magical shorthand, but Krithannia would know for sure.

"May I?" he asked, showing Phaelous the bloodstone. "Just one view through my eyes. Your hands may stay where they are."

No better proof who was the custodian for this find.

"For whom?" the Headmaster asked in turn, his hands partly covering the script of the parchment as if to protect it.

"A scholar like yourself. An ally on the Surface. She has been my ally longer than Sirana has been alive. She searches for ancient links between her people and yours."

Phaelous could tell he was speaking the truth, and he could still read between the lines. "This...belonged to the Pale Elves once."

"What?!" Rausery and Jaunda were aghast.

"Possibly," Mourn clarified. "Why I would show it to her, should I get the opportunity."

"You're allied with a Pale Elf?" the Elder repeated, almost threatening.

"I am," Mourn said. "She is an exile. The same as me, the same as Sirana. This does not threaten anything we have agreed upon, Elder, nor does my Noldor ally search for this City. You have my Word."

The Headmaster had met the Elder's eyes and he nodded his agreement. "It is too late for isolation, Elder. You know this better than most. Change is coming."

Rausery growled in her throat from long habit but folded her arms after signing that she wouldn't interfere and Jaunda would follow her lead. Phaelous had allowed the Dragonblood to cast his own spell without disruption as well.

Now Mourn had a rare gift for his Guild partner in his possession, one which he hoped to give her himself.

The Sanctuary wasn't known for having their wide, dim hallways filled with guards at all times of the cycle, not even during the eve-sleep. Mourn discovered why as he chose to pad silently through them for as long as he could. The number of wards set was ridiculous and seemed to have no pattern. He came to the conclusion each one was from a particular Priestess who had set it for her own purposes; there was no inclusion or cohesion in this defense, not even at a time like this. Chaotic.

All the better for him. A single Priestess's ward posed no obstacle to him, he could walk through it without dispelling it or suffering its effects. One set by multiple Priestesses might have presented a more worrisome challenge. Coming into balance with his instincts and his surroundings, the Dragonblood followed the map in his mind.

The traitors' assassin hoped to have the opportunity to decide whether entering through Lelinahdara's front door was somehow better than risking the spyways, which Rausery confirmed were where they'd find Red Sisters generally not staying in one place, with the main entrances covered by a single Drider.

"Kill a Drider guard and I'm sure Auranka will know," Rausery had added, aloud and looking at the Headmaster's back.

He had nodded without turning around to read their hands in discussion. "Auranka can sense where her children are and if one is slain. She may not respond immediately. I do not believe it is quite as grievous to her as a Priestess losing her Draegloth, but nonetheless she will know."

"What of injury versus death?" Mourn asked. "Any difference?"

Phaelous nodded. "Yes. I've seen a Drider injured and Auranka didn't know it. She only senses when the twisted essence inside finally disappears. An injured Drider is only more dangerous in any case."

"Can they give her reports?" Mourn had asked. "Specific details?"

"They are not capable of that," Phaelous answered confidently. "They can barely understand they must eat on occasion. When they attack, it is hatred guiding them as they loathe more than anything else sentient beings who live without the same torment as them. Eating what they kill or spinning them up for later is an afterthought and they do not hunt or even seem to notice livestock or animals unaware of themselves.

"Auranka's will can direct them, keep them in check, or compel them to guard a specific place, but I've seen no evidence of intelligent communication between them in all my centuries studying them."

Mourn had sent those jewels of knowledge back to Jael when they'd later been distracted by the Noldor scroll; Phaelous did not seem to suspect it had been two spells, one on top of the other. No sense having the Headmaster observe everything magical that he did.

*Wow, okay. Everything good so far?* she'd asked in the seconds they had.

*Better than anticipated. Move ahead as planned. Get around the Drider. You may disable it and remain undiscovered, but do not kill it or you will be made much sooner than necessary.*

*So in other words, easy.* He could sense the cheekiness just before she signed off with, *Check.*

Mourn likely couldn't contact her or the others again directly until he had Lelinahdara within his control.

Too many scents to count came to him every moment, and he had to sort out the important ones quickly in an unfamiliar place.

The far greater number of female Drow who lived here and walked these hallways was evident in the collective scent and the tang which flowed across his tongue. Comparing it to Rausery's shadows and what he remembered while serving his former House, it was sharper. Not unpleasant in itself but it was missing the sweeter fragrance of the males which tended to round out the scent of Drow as he knew it, from his youngest years to this day.

The Draegloth, by comparison, were still alien to him even after these years; the hint of a male Drow was far muted by the choking, acrid fumes of the Abyss. Mourn had had the time to become accustomed to Vesram's specific scent as a non-threat, as that particular half-blood also recalled just enough of the cool touch of the Grey, through the Ma'ab and Gavin, to know that this part of him was genuine and hard-earned. Every other hint of the demonbloods within these walls made his spines want to stand straight up.

He expected the same from Driders, which he'd never truly smelled before, with an even greater intensity.

Once there would've been Consorts here as well, so he'd been told, but not enough of their scent lingered—at least on this floor—to even say for certain if they had ever been here.

Incense was everywhere but not refined or concentrated enough to be a current threat. He tasted magic and wards, caught whiffs of fermented liqueurs and clean silks and soaps. There was furniture of fiberstalk and stone; crafts of bronze and iron alongside gold and silver; candles of pock beetle wax, lit and unlit, tapestries woven of multiple threads yet still collecting cobwebs.

The places as a whole reminded him of his Aunt-Matron's quarters, which left him somber and wary. But unafraid.

Father Rennyn and Mother Xanalrae had helped him face a child's terror and confusion and learn to set it to rest as he became grown. No longer did it control his temper, trigger his rage when the irrational in him was convinced it could happen again, that another could make him feel that helpless ever again. It was and would always be within his own hands: whether he handed such power over him to another. If he did, it could no longer be excused with youth and inexperience.

Mourn's tongue discovered quickly that he would indeed need to use the spyways to get any closer. Lelinahdara's quarters were in the dead-end just around the corner and a Draegloth was standing guard outside her door.

Just one. The other one would be inside with her. Now, which one was her son?

Backtracking carefully, Mourn slipped into the storage room which contained the nearest entry into the spyway. It was a half-door beginning at an Elf's waist, leading to a chute one climbed into and up. He suspended another ward, disarmed another trap, not too difficult; more careful scenting and tasting the air just before he shifted the camouflaged door, every muscle held ready to leap or move or speak a Word if absolutely necessary, should anyone followed him into the storage room at this critical time.

No one entered, so he moved the stone to afford the smallest crack to let the air leak in. He drew it in carefully between his teeth, tasting for anything more than grit and a bit of dust.

There was more. Two female Drow. They wore a lot of dyed leather.

Mourn cursed in his head but had to admit this was what he would do. Leave the way sprinkled with possible warnings if known intruders were truly that clumsy, but otherwise put eyes at every possible entrance into an important figure's sleeping quarters and another set on the bed itself. With the second Draegloth presumably inside, they had that covered.

Now it was down to his skill versus the Red Sisters, and they could afford to make more noise than he could. At least there was still the element of surprise; they might be expecting something but they still didn't know when, where...or how.

Mourn left the crack open and withdrew a pellet, pushing it into the chute with his claw. He needed one of his thinnest daggers to reach in and rupture it, and as soon as he did, he spoke two Words in a rumble just too low to be heard by Drow and not loud enough to be made out by demonbloods. At most they might sense something odd in their back teeth.

"Wihsirm...Vepeks..."

White powder rose up in a blooming cloud from his pellet, carried by a silent breeze, and Mourn—holding his breath—sealed that crack in the door and waited. He listened carefully but could hear precious little through warded, thick stone such as this. When the danger of the powder had passed, he opened up the crack again.

No sounds of alarm; in fact, it was admirably quiet in there.

Finally... he caught the scrape of a scabbard and a boot against the floor just above his head. He heard the slide of cloth and leather against the wall as one toppled over. They had endured it longer than he'd expected, but then the effects of that powder were always so subtle. They might not have realized it was an attack. Less struggling, less noise.

Mourn finally crawled into the chute in a crouch—it was definitely not sized for him but he barely fit without his wings—then he stood up to look carefully over the edge. Two bodies on the floor; breathing. Unconscious.

"Natorki trekis," he breathed low again, blowing out into the passage where the gentle breeze would clear any lingering amount of the potent powder farther down the passage. He climbed in, crept closer.

Two Red Sisters; nothing distinct enough about them outside their uniform. Mourn patted them down lightly, checked their belongings and peeled back an eyelid to check their eye color using a soft light called to the tip of his finger. He was looking for something unique he might offer to help identify them to his allies later. They would be out for hours, and as possible allies of Rausery's, he didn't want to kill them.

Noting what he could and satisfied he had time, the assassin checked for a spy slit and sense-enhancement glyphs as Sirana had described even though, as Phaelous had just told him, these would certainly be different. This Priestess had been the one to help form the spyways with Elder D'Shea, and her quarters wouldn't be open to just any Red Sister striding through the spyways. That was worrisome, as she may also sense anything disturbing her space.

At first Mourn found nothing, but there would not have been two guards here if there was no way to at least see inside. Phaelous was certain there was an entry, too, that the Priestess sometimes used herself to enter her own quarters unseen; he just hadn't used it himself at any point.

"Call her Tarra, if you prefer to call her anything," the Headmaster had hinted back at the Tower. "It is all D'Shea will call her now."

The Guild Leader stayed and studied patiently, always aware of the regular breathing of the two females in here with him. At one point he had to focus past them, keep staring at the wall and wait for his peripheral vision to relax into view.

"Evnek..." he murmured.

Finally the glyphs appeared in a dim shimmer; he could also read them. Nothing for enhanced hearing or sight, as it had been for Sirana when she used them. Just "release/open" and "close/seal." They did have to be touched with no less than three points of contact. He could enter the room right now.

But he couldn't see inside before he did; he would be going in blind, not knowing if Tarra and her Draegloth were both there, if one was asleep and the other wasn't, if they plotted something late into the eve... It was unacceptable to make such an important move without knowing something.

If there was no spy slit now, he would have to make his own. It wouldn't be the first time he'd made stone transparent, if only for a short time. The key was in the preparation; if it wasn't the right time when he looked now, he'd wait and try again in a few minutes. Each time he looked would tell him something more.

No sense in delaying further. Once again, Words versus wards.

"Evnek'ssai."

The first glimpse inside showed the Priestess and her Draegloth both awake. She was reading by a low light at her desk and her companion looked bored. Mourn searched for the ankle-tufts that would identify which Draegloth this was. If he was Roshenanon's, he would be out like the Red Sisters; if he was Tarra's...he would be dead.

The beast was sitting on his ankles, his demonic legs bending backward from his mother's. He resembled a dog sitting at attention, and Mourn couldn't confirm he was this Priestess's son. Not yet.

His view faded, leaving only stone until he dared cast again. At least now when he heard small movement, he could be sure it was the demonblood changing position on the floor by the desk.

Mourn could be as patient as necessary, and he could not cast too close together without her sensing it, though the longer this took the more threat his squad would be under as they approached the Sanctuary.

Maybe they were looking for entry right now. He would call to them through the pearls when he had the Priestess, and they would meet high near the empty Draegloth floor. He realized he looked forward to seeing them again, even having promised to kiss the body he brought after releasing an ancient and dangerous spirit.

The green-eyed Priestess of Lolth would be the first and only one he touched willingly, he promised himself. It was required to fulfill his bargain. The rest of the Spider Queen servants would only come into contact with the weapons in his hands... All of them.

Mourn breathed slower, deeper as he felt his temperature rise. To balance the obscenely eager heat flooding his blood imagining this killing pleasure, the To'vah-krav also brought to mind the only two females of his mother's race he'd ever mated. In doing so, they had made him ready for this most recent transformation, this higher surge in his magic, just as his sire had told him centuries ago.

Sirana. Jael.

Mourn understood now what it might have been like for the elder of them, the first Drow he'd ever seen on the Surface, when she had told him inside the inn at Augran that she was thinking of two males back home. Thinking of them had centered her somehow, after Mourn had refused her warm and startlingly talented mouth on his member in spite of his own temptation. When she had been rightfully angry being teased then rejected.

He also believed he understood at last how thinking of Eallo or Jahn, or any of the others in her squad had centered Vian at her most volatile. After wondering for centuries if it could ever be so for him, he finally understood. Thinking of his two females right now—within the Priestesses' lair—centered him. It was a sign of balance for any leader, male or female, if they had someone outside of their own desires to bring them in check. Krithannia and Talov had been his earliest lessons in this, but now it was somehow different.

Sirana meeting one of her two males in the flesh after so long had not changed that knowledge earned inside of Mourn. The Consort Auslan was not a threat to these feelings; the non-aggressive male did not want to be a threat, he would not challenge another male for status. He only wanted to belong and be accepted in a pack of mutual protection, not unlike Vesram. It was an odd similarity, given the contrast in their appearances.

It remained to be seen whether the same would be true for the Dark Sister's mage. In spite of the memory of his Blade Song Grandmaster, in spite of the teachings of the Tilabil, Mourn did not know if he would have the discipline to bring both brothers up to the Surface to meet the Godblood if Shyntre were to kill Sirana's baby and chain her to the Abyss for eternity as a wholly new Underdark terror.

If this happened, Mourn could not believe then that anything in Shyntre could be saved, even by the Knight Captain. More than likely the only survivor in that scenario to reach the Surface would be the Consort, mad with grief from his loss for unknown years, with only the Mothers and Fathers of all Elves living among the Wilder able to give him any comfort.

Morixxyleth would give everything to avoid this outcome, and others that involved the death of the champion and her mates. Ideally, Shyntre would be neutralized, taken out of the equation and unable to harm anyone. Given victory and time and contact, Sirana's energy spent worrying for them both will be justified, and the Godblood's faith and trust to aid in their mission will be rewarded.

There was one outcome in which Mourn had far more influence: that neither he nor his Daratrix would die. Jael didn't know it for certain yet though she might sense it. She had not been tested but she would be very soon. Moving and fighting with him, bonded to him as she was, she would be very hard to keep down. If she needed his strength, she would receive it. Her small size meant nothing for her endurance and resilience, and it would surprise many opponents in the coming battle.

Then there was Gaelan... Like Graul before he bonded with a Dragonchild, she was on her own. Her gifts may yet prove her to be the most capable Red Sister of all. He had seen the potential when they had gone to his first cache, when he had guided her. Forget if anyone could keep her down; in the Underdark Gaelan would be very hard to hit at all.