Spinner of Lies

CHAPTER NINETEEN

ITHIMIR ISLE

21 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

After all they’d gone through together, Chant could scarcely believe Demascus was dead.

The awkward isle protruded from the sea, waves washing against it with mindless regularity. The overcast sky painted everything the color of ash. What was it to the Sea of Fallen Stars, a body of water larger than many nations, that a lone deva had died beneath its surface in a mine collapse? Nothing.

Wasn’t a deva’s death merely a temporary setback? Demascus would return …

Not really, he thought. The person I know is gone. Someone would rise again and take the name Demascus, and probably wield the same implements. He just wouldn’t remember anything of what he’d accomplished and the friends he’d made in Akanul, except as isolated fragments. In a very real sense, the Demascus Chant had called friend was gone forever.

Flakes of paint came away from Green Siren’s railing and crumbled in his palms. Jaul seemed the only one oblivious to the island and unaffected by the death of Demascus; he alternated juggling his knives and throwing them at a mast when the crew wasn’t looking.

Riltana and Queen Arathane were with Chant at the railing, staring at the bleak island. They had spent fruitless hours digging, or trying to dig, but ultimately failing to make real headway, and finally everyone was forced to admit that Demascus was lost beyond recovery beneath the rock fall. After that, escaping the arambarium mine had required hours, as they traced their way out the same way they’d entered. At least the drow and all her minions had suffered the same fate as the deva, Chant hoped. He noticed that tears had made trails in the grime on the windsoul thief’s cheek.

Arathane, though, was still as a statue, majestic and deliberate. It was only the tightness in her neck and the slight quiver of her lip that betrayed her to Chant.

Recognizing the monarch’s sorrow finally broke the pawnbroker’s own reserve. Moisture gathered in his eyes. He dropped his face to his hands. “Demascus, you were a friend,” he whispered. “One of the few I made in this crazy world. Why’d you have to get yourself killed?”

The slap of water against the side of Green Siren was his only answer.

“Hey!” came Captain Thoster’s voice from aft. “What in Umberlee’s name is that?” The captain pointed at the island.

Chant strained to look. Was it Demascus? Had the deva burrowed his way free? At first he didn’t understand what he was seeing. A cloud rose from the island summit, like steam off a teakettle. He squinted. No, it wasn’t vapor-the cloud was composed of spiders. Hundreds of spiders. Each had deployed some kind of wavering filament. Caught by the wind, the strands pulled the creatures en masse into the sky.

The largest ones held ettercaps and undead miners in their eight-fold grips …

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Pretty obvious,” said Riltana. “The drow are evacuating the island.”

A larger shape climbed into the leaden air: A balloon spun of spider silk, shaped like a massive arachnid. Hanging beneath it on a forest of thin webs, and serving as the balloon’s ballast, was a cocoon the size of a small house. A silver sheen glinted dully through a thin section of the cocoon covering.

“That’s the arambarium mother lode,” said the queen. Her voice was weary with disbelief.

Riltana said, “They didn’t use the Demonweb to reach the island-they flew! Those rat-coddling leech-kissers!”

It took only a span of breaths for the soaring spiders and arachnid blimp to ascend into the cloud ceiling.

“Gone,” said Chant. He was having trouble thinking. The image wanted to push everything else out of his head.

“Will they wing directly over the Sea of Fallen Stars?” said Queen Arathane. “Or take a ship from Airspur? If the latter, we may still catch them.”

“Why would they take a ship when all they have to do is reach the mouth of the Demonweb?” asked Riltana.

The queen gave a curt nod. “Right. We could still conceivably stop them there …”

Arathane’s was staring at a stranger who’d walked up the deck to stand with them. A human woman in green gowns with eyes nearly as tumultuous as the queen’s. Her perfume preceded her: orange rind with a hint of something sharper. Chant wondered if Captain Thoster had other paying charters on his ship.

“I know you,” Arathane said to the woman. “You were outside Demascus’s home. You’re his householder? But that doesn’t make any sense …”

“I told you then I was not his householder. That hasn’t changed.”

“Then who are you?” the queen asked.

“My name is Madri. Listen-time is short,” the woman in green said. “If you want to save your friend, you have a splinter of a chance. But he’ll certainly pass from this life if you fritter away the time with pointless questions.”

“What?” said Chant. “Are you talking about Demascus? He’s alive? Who are you?”

“He was alive, but he’s buried in a tiny tomb of fallen stones. His air is going bad. If someone doesn’t get him out in the next hour, he’ll die.”

“You’re the ghost!” said Riltana suddenly. “The one who lured me into House Norjah, so you could steal that painting! I owe you payback for that deception.”

The woman in green shrugged. “You can try. But as you say, I’ve already lost my life. Though it might be interesting to find out the limits of my existence in this realm.”

A hundred questions occurred to Chant-what was Madri talking about? Was she a ghost, or wasn’t she?

But the queen spoke. “You were with Demascus?”

Madri nodded. “Moments ago. We shared a tender moment of reflection concerning times long gone.”

Arathane frowned.

Chant broke in. “There’s no way we can get back to the island in an hour, let alone dig him out. We already tried and failed.”

“Then he’s dead after all,” said Madri. “As I told him.”

“Wait,” said Riltana. “If you were just there, could you go back again?”

“I’ve said my good-byes.”

“Even if by going back, you could save him?”

Madri glared at the thief as if the windsoul had just uttered the most shocking profanity.

“When I … flicker between destinations, I am unable to carry another being with me. Anyway, I’ll not save the one who killed me.”

“Then why’re you here?” said Chant. “If it’s his death you want, you have a damn odd way of showing it.”

Madri shared her glare with him, too. When her eyes flashed at him, it was all he could do not to look away.

Riltana snapped her fingers. With a mage’s flourish, she produced a small yellow sphere. She held it out to Madri. “Give this to Demascus. Tell him to recite what’s inscribed on it. It might get him out. If it doesn’t work, tell him … Riltana says sorry.”

Madri looked at the marble as if it was a poisoned candy.

“Take it,” urged Queen Arathane, her voice regal with command. “Save Demascus.”

Madri scowled at the ruler of Akanul, but snatched the stone from Riltana. The ghost said, “I do this for me, not because you command it or because the rakshasa desires the opposite. If the future spirals into unknowable chaos, where no prophecy remains true, what do I care?”

“Rakshasa?” said Chant. “You mean Kalkan?” The pitch of his voice went up with surprise.

Madri ignored his question. “Demascus may follow directives, even those a child would think better of. I, though, will go my own way. And achieve my own ends. Although, if this does save him, tell him to look me up, won’t you? Tell him to come by the Copperhead and ask for me.”

Then Madri was gone.