CHAPTER NINETEEN

AIRSPUR
THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

SOMEONE HAD KICKED HER IN THE HEAD, RILTANA thought, then dragged her, scratching and bumping, across broken rock. She tasted blood in her mouth.

She groaned and opened her eyes. Flickering, greenish light stung her eyes. She tried to rub her head, but a manacle clanked tight. Chains bound her wrists, securing her to the front of her cell. The memory of the cultists flanking her and beating her senseless came to her in blunt echoes communicated by her ribs, her back, and her aching head.

She was in a cage, one of a dozen or so around the periphery of a subterranean chamber. Some cells were sunk into the stone, others hung from the ceiling like aviaries. Many contained ill-used captives.

A man she didn’t recognize was manacled next to her. His clothing was mere tatters, his eyes were wide, and a constant babble of mumbles fell from his lips.

“Be quiet, you leech-licking lunatic,” she hissed. But the man wouldn’t shut up.

Beneath his mad stream-of-consciousness she detected a clicking, buzzing drone.

Riltana bent her head to a painful angle to see what was behind and below the cage.

The cell overlooked a cavity in the chamber’s center that was the source of the droning noise.

The cavity churned with insects! Bees, ants, moths, scorpions, and scurrying beetles. And cockroaches! She hated roaches. Especially ones as large as Chant’s cat, Fable. Fireflies, or something like them but with mandibles, pulsed with pale greenish radiance, bright enough to light the entire chamber.

Bones littered the pit’s edge, each one pocked as if scoured clean by thousands of insect mandibles.

You’ve got to be kidding me, Riltana thought, her gorge rising.

She jerked her gaze from the pit. Where were her friends? Oh pus in a bucket, where was Carmenere?

There! Two enclosures from her own cage. The earthsoul slumped from cuffs around her wrists, and her head rolled to one side. Someone had removed her armor and her weapons. She was smeared in dirt, blindfolded, and blood stained her forehead.

Fury built and then burned away her bowel-loosening fear. They’d hurt Carmenere! Someone was going to answer for that.

Her armor, with all of its concealed daggers, lock-picking wires, and other tools of her craft, was missing. But her captors had failed to remove her gloves. Which meant she would soon be free! But she had to get Carmenere out too. She had to be careful, and make sure no one saw her get free. Where had they stored her belongings—

“Tell us what you want!” echoed through the room. The voice was … it was Demascus!

She gazed left and saw the man two cages over. His dangled directly over the swarming pit. Manacles on the deva’s wrists and ankles suspended him spread-eagle in midair inside his cell. They’d left him only his smallclothes. She saw the tattoolike designs on his arms extended up his shoulders, then plunged down the center of his back, creating a design that looked an awful lot like a sword.

His eyes were covered. Whoever had covered his eyes obviously didn’t know the significance of the Veil of Wrath and Knowledge, because they’d used the Veil as the blindfold.

She couldn’t see Chant, but she decided to assume the human was in a nearby cell. Unless his bones numbered among those on the pit’s edge …

“Murmur!” yelled Demascus. “Answer me!”

A mixture of cries, prayers, and pleas for salvation, plus a particularly loud bout of gibberish from Riltana’s cellmate, was his response. No cultists, or that awful thing that had been Leheren, were obviously present.

She debated calling out to Demascus. His voice sounded fragile, as if he were on the edge of some kind of break. Acknowledgment from her that at least one of his friends remained alive would give him something to focus on … No. It would be stupid to draw attention to herself. If she could escape her cell without any of the cultists realizing it, then she might be able to release him too, after she saved Carmenere. He’d appreciate freedom better than a friendly voice in the dark.

Riltana rubbed her finger and thumb together and concentrated on her gloves. A yellow marble swelled into her grip. The Prisoner’s Stone, as she called it, which she’d stolen from an image of the primordial Karshimis. Relief made her giddy for a moment.

She whispered the phrase that had come to her in a dream, “Neither cage, nor chains, nor prison walls shall keep me from salvation’s light.”

The manacles slipped off with hardly a jangle. The bars beneath her feet parted like water, and she dropped lightly to the dirt beneath. Free!

The maddening drone from the pit vibrated through her; its edge was only a pace away from her boot tip. She retreated from the rim until her shoulder blades brushed the cavern wall. So far, so good. Nothing had reacted to her escape, and she still couldn’t see any cultists. A fierce grin touched her lips.

She stashed the Prisoner’s Stone back in glovespace, then raced for the exit tunnel.

Belongings from recently interred prisoners might be stowed near the captives in a guard chamber, she thought. When she’d been caught three years ago by the Airspur peacemakers, they’d had one. She hoped the cultists operated similarly.

Her cellmate began to scream, “Don’t leave me, Lady! Come back for me!”

That insane turd! No time to go back and quiet him.

She ducked into the exit tunnel. Torches set in black metal wall sconces wound down around a natural curve, providing light. A side chamber gaped just a few paces down it.

Ah ha! The guard chamber, had to be.

She padded forward and peeked in. The chamber’s flickering illumination came in through several arrow slits that looked back out onto the chamber of the pit. She’d missed seeing them earlier.

Lucky no cultists were here, she thought. They would’ve probably seen her drop out of her cell.

Riltana darted into the guard room. She pressed her eyes to the nearest aperture. Demascus, Carmenere—and there was Chant too—remained secure in their cages. Don’t worry, she silently promised. I’ll get you out.

Wooden trenchers scabbed with dried food tumbled from the stack on a high shelf. Several sealed casks of lamp oil hunkered along the opposite wall, competing for space with two larger barrels, both open, one filled with brackish water, the other with rancid stew. Three wide chests were pushed up against the wall beneath the slits.

Riltana flipped open the lid of the nearest chest.

Yes! She extricated her leather armor from the jumble. She slipped on the black one-piece and reveled in the comforting weight of her secreted daggers and tools. Even the snowflake-inscribed short sword she’d bought from Chant remained in its scabbard.

She recognized Carmenere’s bulky armor and her mace, and Demascus’s noble’s jacket. The other weapons, armor, and bits of equipment were probably theirs as well. Too much to carry in one trip.

She grasped a handle on the chest’s long side and pulled. The chest scraped along the ground easily enough, and the sound of metal on stone was drowned out by the pit.

Riltana checked to make certain the exit tunnel was still clear, then hauled the chest out of the guard chamber. She dragged it into the chamber of the pit until it was positioned beneath Carmenere’s dangling cell.

She closed the lid, stood on the top, and slid the bolt in the cell door. Not particularly well secured, she thought. She flipped up and into the cell, and set to work freeing the unconscious Carmenere from her manacles with her set of picks and wires.

“Lady! Lady! Lady!” screamed her insane cellmate over and over. She gritted her teeth and finished the job, promising to kick the crazy man until he stopped babbling.

Carmenere slid to the floor of the cell, still limp.

Riltana produced the curative draft she’d purchased from Chant. She gave the contents to the lolling silverstar.

The earthsoul opened her eyes. Riltana’s heart felt light as a feather in an updraft. She smiled down at her friend, but put a finger to the woman’s lips. Carmenere took a moment to take in her situation. She rubbed her wrists.

“I’ve come to save you,” Riltana whispered.

“Thank you,” replied the earthsoul. “Thanks for coming back for me.”

“As if I’d leave you!”

Carmenere smiled, and Riltana felt her heart become lost at sea all over again.

“Greetings, Scour,” came a voice ripped straight from Riltana’s nightmares.

Murmur was in the chamber!

It was standing at the edge of the pit, gazing into it as if the cavity were a reflecting pool. The strobing flickers of the firefly radiance gave the demon’s already ghastly silhouette a guttering, crawling texture.

A wave of fearful cries and whimpers swept the room.

Murmur said to the mass of scurrying bugs, “Can you hear me?”

Carmenere looked at Riltana. The woman didn’t dare speak, but the desperate question in the silverstar’s eyes was clear: What should we do?

Riltana draped a placating hand on Carmenere’s shoulder even as she tried to control her own howling fear.

The demon had failed to notice Riltana had gotten loose and into a different cell than the one she’d been put in. Or that someone had dragged a chest out of the guard room and positioned it beneath a hanging cage. If her luck held, maybe the thing would return whence it had come when it finished playing with the bugs in the floor. Please, she thought, just turn around and leave, and don’t look this way.

“Murmur!” yelled Demascus, as if to spite her hope not to draw the demon’s attention. “I can hear you! What do you want with me? How do you know me?”

That pig-straddling leech fondler! What was the deva doing? Not all of us get reincarnated when we do something stupid!

Murmur’s crystal-veined bulk turned so that its gaze fell on the deva. Its eyes swirled like whirlpools, light and dark red crystal, down to a vanishing point. Riltana shuddered, but the nightmarish regard flicked past her and Carmenere.

The demon undulated on a bed of scarlet tendrils, moving as lightly as a dream despite its bulk, until it was directly before Demascus’s cage.

Demascus craned his blindfolded gaze right and left, sniffing the air.

“I am here,” said Murmur, its voice a cavalcade of scurrying rats. “But you already know that, don’t you, foul entity?”

The deva jerked. He said, “My name is Demascus.”

“I recognize you whatever your name. I saw you outside the Motherhouse. You’ve hunted me across creation. You nearly managed to catch me unawares while I was still weak and awake only while my host dreamed. But I saw you first! Now look where your devotion to duty has gotten you: alone and soon to be food for the pit!”

Demascus’s chin dropped. He said, his voice low, “I don’t remember you. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Riltana looked away from the drama and squeezed Carmenere’s shoulder. She pointed at the cage where Chant was chained. She dropped her head to the silverstar’s ear and said in a bare whisper, “I’m going to free the pawnbroker while the demon-thing gloats. Be ready to run for the exit.”

“When?” Carmenere whispered back.

“You’ll know when. Your equipment is in the chest beneath this damned aviary.” Riltana slunk to the hatch, her eyes fastened on Murmur’s broad back. She was ready to freeze in place should the demon turn her way.

Murmur shouted to Demascus, “Don’t lie to me! You and your band disrupted the ritual and blasted us into oblivion. And now you’re here to tidy up loose ends.”

Riltana reached the edge of the cage, then leaped into the arms of the air. They bore her like a silent breath in an arc that grazed the cavern roof, then down. She alighted silently on the cage holding Chant. Her eyes darted back to check on the demon. It still hadn’t noticed her. Keep it talking, she thought.

The deva said, “I don’t know you. My first … clear memory is from a shrine west of Airspur. Dead Cabal members everywhere. But that’s not my first memory of Faerûn. I remember other things … Just not you. I didn’t come looking for you. If you know me, you must have drawn me here. Why?”

“A shrine west of Airspur?” said Murmur. As the demon spoke it stretched one rubbery limb until it touched the cage next to Demascus’s. “Surrounded by a ring of stone columns?”

“Yes,” said the deva.

Murmur’s elongating fingers slid the latch on the cage. It said, “I know that shrine well. I sent a group of servitors and nightmare scions there.”

Riltana quietly rolled off the top of Chant’s cage. The human inside was awake. His eyes darted between her and the demon. He knew enough to keep quiet.

“I found your cultists and monsters,” said Demascus. “They were all dead. Except for one hungry little biter I dispatched. Why did you send them to the shrine? I thought I’d been kidnapped as a sacrifice for some kind of demonic ritual …”

Murmur’s tarry limb snaked into the cell and wrapped around a boy. The boy’s head lolled. His eyes bulged in fear, and he uttered a guttural cry of distress.

The nightmare demon said, “One of my servitors told me of the place. So I sent them to collect a portion of the spiritual energy building there.”

“Spiritual energy?”

Murmur withdrew the boy and raised him over its head. The kid’s struggles became more frenzied, but the demon’s resilient grip held him without strain. What can I do? Riltana thought. If I show myself, the thing will just grab me too.

She swallowed and turned away from the scene. She threw the bolt of the pawnbroker’s cage, entered, and produced her wires and picks.

Chant’s eyes were glued to the tableau outside. With the twist and lift of a wire, she removed the first manacle. The pawnbroker flinched, and mouthed, “No!” A scream ripped her attention back to the chamber.

Murmur’s grip was empty … It had thrown the boy into the insect pit.

The volume of the swarming insects swelled. The sound of thousands of hungry mandibles, beating wasp wings, rustling carapaces, and scuttling spider legs drowned the sound of someone being consumed alive by insects. Oh gods!

Chant went for the exit, but was jerked to a stop by the manacle that remained around his wrist. His motion nearly knocked the wire from her hand. She hissed, “Don’t move, or we’ll be next!”

Murmur’s voice came, “Eat well, Scour.”

“What are you talking about?” said Demascus. His voice cracked and broke. Whatever front he had thrown up had obviously faltered with the boy’s life.

“You’ll discover that soon enough,” said the demon. “You, and everyone in this chamber, and perhaps everyone in the entire city of Airspur will become food for my slumbering sibling.”

She had to get the Hells out of there. Her hands shook, and she fumbled her first attempt at the human’s restraint.

“I … I see. Why is Scour asleep?”

“Because of you!” Murmur suddenly raged. It grasped Demascus’s cage and shook it like a terrier shakes a cornered rat.

Riltana removed Chant’s remaining manacle. She whispered, “All your stuff is in that chest beneath Carmenere’s cage. See it?”

The pawnbroker rubbed his wrists and nodded. He was pale and battered, but the human’s eyes were dark with determination. He muttered, “We’ll make this demon sorry for what it’s done.”

“No!” she breathed. “What we’re going to do is create a distraction! We free a passel of other prisoners, the ones that look like they still have some kick in them. Then, when Murmur’s busy chasing them down, we free Demascus, and we run from here like greased pig-snugglers!”

“I’ll help free the prisoners,” said Chant. “Then we’ll see.” The pawnbroker glided out of the cage as quietly as she herself could have managed, despite his bulging belly. She followed.

The demon had let go of Demascus’s dangling cell. The deva shook his head to clear it from the rough handling.

“Tell me one thing,” said Demascus, his voice even more strained. “You didn’t cause that spike of power at the shrine? You didn’t summon me with some sort of ritual?”

“No,” said Murmur. “Why would I be insane enough to call forth one of the few beings who ever bested me?”

“A servitor told you of the shrine?” said Demascus. “Who?”

Murmur grated, “I hardly bother to learn their names; they all become food in the end. It was … The one who liked to wear a hood. He told me of the spiritual spike, and how I might profit from it. Hold—I remember. My mind is improving apace with the molting finally complete.

“His name is Kalkan.”