Valindra hissed and Jestry thought she might attack Arunika then and there. He resisted the urge to spring up to the woman’s defense, or to shout out in frustration against Sylora’s terrible decision to ever send Valindra on this mission. And why would Sylora have made such a wrong choice? Arunika was no threat. She was a friend, surely, and she didn’t need to be confronted by a powerful and insane lich.
“My friends will be sympathetic to your cause against the Netherese,” Arunika went on, calming Valindra before her agitation could truly bubble over. “Go and tell that to Sylora Salm. I’ll serve as go-between. She knows where to find me.”
As she finished, she glanced at Jestry and motioned to the door, clearly bidding him to be gone. He took no offense, but somehow he knew that Arunika wasn’t asking him to leave, she was telling him, and in no uncertain terms. He looked at Valindra then stumbled out into the night.
He dared pause at the door for just a moment, to hear Arunika talking softly to Valindra, assuring the lich that her friends would help—and Jestry got the distinct impression that Arunika spoke in personal, and not just general, terms.
Jestry rushed away, afraid of being caught eavesdropping, but he did catch one more word: “sovereignty.”
He didn’t know what it meant.
A long while passed before Valindra exited the house. From the porch, she directed the Ashmadai, then floated down behind them on their journey back to Sylora’s base. She clutched the skull gem and the scepter close to her heart, continually giving thanks to their magical powers. The scepter had sensed Arunika, and the skull gem had given her Dor’crae—and with him, the eyes to locate Arunika.
Arunika had hinted at that which Valindra most dearly wanted to find: a way to be rid of the demons of confusion haunting her mind.
Kimmuriel Oblodra had done much to help her, and he was but a mere drow psionicist. What was that against the power of one of the Sovereignty? If Kimmuriel’s powers could keep her from falling over the ledge, surely Arunika’s friend could bring her back from the brink.
Simply discussing the trouble with Arunika now allowed Valindra to keep her focus for a long, long time, all the way back to Sylora’s encampment.
All of the returning team walked those last strides with their mouths hanging open in awe. Sylora had been quite busy in the hours since they’d gone off to find Arunika. The treelike tower dominated the scene, sitting on the hill beside the cave opening, but that was only one part of the risen fortress. Two walls had been lifted from the ground, with several smaller towers and structures evident within.
It was a small city, created of black stone, and raised from the ground in a matter of hours.
Jestry had no reservations about the sight in front of him. He knew instinctively that it was Sylora’s creation. It carried the color, the texture, the smell of the Dread Ring, and was like some of the structures he’d left back in Thay.
As he neared the outer gate, he saw the guards—both Ashmadai and ash zombie servants. Up high and in the distance, he spotted Sylora herself, standing at the tall tower’s balcony, which, now that he considered it more closely, looked much like the stub of a broken branch.
“Go on, go on!” Valindra said, coming up past him.
“Sylora,” Jestry said, pointing up to the distant sorceress.
“Go on, go on!” Valindra said again, then muttered something along the lines of “how beautiful, how beautiful,” though Jestry wasn’t sure if she was speaking of the complex, the tower, or Sylora herself. Nor did it matter, he realized, and he shook all thought of the lich’s foolish rambling away and hurried to follow her into the compound and to the tower.
The entrance to the tower lay inside the cave, where a short stone stairwell in the side wall went up just a few steps to a black stone door.
The door opened magically for Valindra and Jestry, who entered the ground floor of the tower to find it complete with a stocked hearth, obsidian chairs, and a small table covered in furs and set with utensils.
Jestry and Valindra continued up the sweeping stair along the far wall of the circular room, climbing up above the hearth to another black stone door. He pushed through the door to find another chamber, this one only partially furnished, but clearly intended as Sylora’s workshop. The stair continued to wind around the room, going between the outer and an inner wall. The stairs turned here, crossing high above the room, leading to an open trapdoor. The door fed into a low chamber not quite at the third level of the tower, a room that opened out onto the balcony.
Sylora nodded down at the pair through the trapdoor, and motioned for Valindra to go up and join her and for Jestry to follow the other stairwell to the third level, Sylora’s private quarters.
“Well done, Lady,” Valindra greeted, her tone wistful. “So much like the Hosttower, it seems!”
“That was not my intent,” Sylora assured her. She motioned to the scepter. “Did it lead you well?”
“Oh, well!” Valindra exclaimed. “By Greeth … Ark-lem! Ark-lem!”
“Do tell,” Sylora prompted, and she heaved a great sigh, understanding well the meandering direction Valindra’s story would surely take.
It took some time, but Valindra did at last recount Arunika’s words. Then, dismissed by Sylora, the lich wandered the ten feet out along the broken branch balcony to the railing. With a mischievous glance back at Sylora, Valindra lifted herself over the railing and leaped out, floating down to the courtyard below.
“And what did you think of our new friend, Arunika?” Sylora asked when Valindra had gone.
Jestry, crouched in a small hollow just above her, was not surprised at the confirmation that Sylora was aware of his presence. The top entrance of the hollow had been left open, after all, presumably so that he could eavesdrop on Sylora’s conversation with Valindra.
Jestry pushed aside a black cloth, which appeared as part of the balcony wall, and dropped down beside the sorceress.
“An interesting woman,” he said, trying hard to keep the true level of his fascination out of his voice.
Sylora’s grin told Jestry that she recognized his true feelings all too well.
“She is not beautiful,” Jestry blurted, and thought himself incredibly inane.
“Seduced by a smile and a word,” Sylora replied in a mocking tone that showed she was hardly upset. “Young men are such easy prey.”
“No, my lady, my love …”
“Hold your tongue, Jestry,” the sorceress interrupted. “Or I’ll tear it out and hold it for you.” Despite the threat, and the fact that Sylora certainly could carry through with it, the timbre of her voice once more conveyed that she was more amused, even pitying, than upset. She walked out to the balcony rail. “You’re fond of her, then?”
“No, I mean, I did not—”
“Afraid of her?”
“Surely not!” he protested.
“Good, because you might well be in Arunika’s company quite a bit in the coming days,” Sylora explained. “That’s suitable to you?”
“I do as Sylora asks,” the Ashmadai obediently replied. “I do not question Sylora Salm.”
“Good, because I tell you this now and do not disappoint me in it: When you’re with Arunika, you’re to do her bidding. If she tells you to kill yourself, do so.”
Jestry swallowed hard, but nodded. Such was his duty as an Ashmadai.
“And if she wishes to couple with you, do so,” Sylora added.
Jestry swallowed harder, and tried not to nod too eagerly.
“Do you understand?”
“I do …” he started to say, but he couldn’t quite get past the words and wound up shaking his head and admitting, “No.”
Sylora laughed and reached up to gently stroke his face. “My poor, innocent warrior,” she said. “Do you fear that such an act with the likes of Arunika would make me jealous?”
Jestry thought he should say no, and thought he should say he feared to do exactly that, and thought he should blurt out that Arunika was nowhere near as beautiful as Sylora, of course, and that he could only truly love Sylora.
He thought a lot of things.
He said nothing.
She danced away from him then, to the edge of the balcony, where she leaped over, her magical cloak transforming her into the likeness of a giant crow, and she glided down to the courtyard on widespread wings.
Jestry found himself drawn to the railing, watching the woman alight, watching her transform again into the woman he had come to adore.
This was not going well. Evidently Barrabus had underestimated the scouting network of the Neverwinter enclave.
“I have friends in the region,” Barrabus said.
“Shadovar?” Jelvus Grinch asked.
Barrabus smiled innocently. He knew the question to be rhetorical. “My friends are enemies of the zealots who have infiltrated Neverwinter Wood. Is that not enough for you?”
Around him, the crowd stirred.
“We have reason to believe that these zealots, who facilitated the cataclysm that destroyed this fair city, are now building the most awful of necromantic facilities not far from your intended city. They’ve raised an army of the dead culled from the bodies of that cataclysm, and will send them to the”—he paused and glanced around at the rebuilding efforts—“inadequate walls you have constructed.”
“We’re not simple farmers,” one woman protested. “All here can raise a weapon and raise it well!”
That brought a cheer from all around, and Jelvus Grinch, widely considered the first citizen of Neverwinter, couldn’t help but puff out his chest a bit.
But if Barrabus was impressed, he didn’t show it.
“You will be overrun,” he stated flatly. “And even if some of you manage to escape, or somehow hold out, those who are killed will return as zombies to battle from the ranks of your enemies.”
That stole some of their bluster, to be sure.
“And you offer your services?” Jelvus Grinch said, and Barrabus nodded. “And those of the Shadovar, your kinfolk?”
“I’m no Shadovar.”
“But you’re allied—”
“For the time, perhaps. That’s none of your affair.”
“We have no love for the Empire of Netheril!”
“And they care not for you, or for your city,” Barrabus answered. “They have no designs here that concern you.”
“The Netherese were known prominently in Neverwinter before the cataclysm,” Jelvus argued. “Some have said that a Netherese noble dominated the Lord of Neverwinter in the waning days—”
“That was a long time ago.”
“And now they don’t care?” the woman in the crowd yelled.
“It’s only been ten years!” Jelvus Grinch added.
“Have you seen any Netherese within your walls?” asked Barrabus. “Have they made any advances against any of your citizens?”
“Then why are you here?” asked Jelvus. “If your allies have no designs on Neverwinter, then why do they care at all?”
