The Scepter of the Sands (Book 3 of the Vicelord Chronicles)

Memnon, Calimshan

(4th of Alturiak, 1380 Dalereckoning)

Even after he’d set up a portal to a small, two-story manse situated on the outskirts of Memnon, having collected over two dozen soldiers for his personal retinue, Amon still held the enchanted bead tightly in his right hand, fingers crushed against it. It’d remained inert for hours now, but a sequence of pulses transmitted from its twin in Pasha Ormat’s estate had conveyed more than enough. Adir was in Memnon. Ormat was providing lodging, soon to transport his guest to a secondary site. Amon had two days to organize an ambush here, and as soon as the portal closed behind him he was already laying down protective and concealing wards in preparation for their arrival.

Viridian light poured from his fingertips, swirling across the walls of the entry hall and forming intricate networks of runes. To dampen spells, disperse fields of magic, and finally, prevent teleportation in or out once activated. Adir would find no easy escape when he arrived.

He also had made inquiries in how to defeat manifestations of psionimancy. Vala’s powers would be to no avail either. Satisfied, he ordered his soldiers to board up the windows, and sat himself down before the door, conjuring a bottle of fine brandy. Inhaling its bouquet, he drank right from the bottle, expectant.

Two days, and he would have his satisfaction.

Her journey back to Memnon, pending a short jaunt below, would be far more gradual than her arrival from it. Lacking portal magic, her dimensional door, a derivative of the Nomad Discipline, could transport her many bowshots and she could cast it many times without tiring, but even with her newfound prowess it had its limitations.

And her pregnancy was taxing her. Kneeling down in a copse on the outskirts of Waterdeep, Vala sighed, leaning against a tree for support. Its branches sheltered her from the worst of the midday sun, and she’d adapted remarkably in her time with Adir to suffer it. She could clearly make out the city walls from here, as well as the coastline. The brightness ached, but distantly, at least out of direct exposure, unlike before, in which everything beyond arm’s length had appeared coated in a white miasma painful to even look at.

Daring a short period of rest, she bunched her piwafwi about the side of her head, using it like a pillow, and acclimated to her surroundings. Even in the shade, she felt the sun’s warmth saturating her, pooling in her lower belly. Smiling, Vala closed her eyes, concentrating only on that warmth, the smell of earth and saltwater, a faint breeze brushing against her skin.

Receding further into herself, she no longer felt the wind, or the sun, or anything for that matter. The golden stalks of wheat became countless celestial bodies in an endless expanse. All that surrounded her was strictly of her. Except for the anomaly.

Perceiving its boundaries, Vala felt herself draw in a sharp intake of breath, perhaps duplicated by her body as it rested, perhaps not. Suddenly she understood that what she saw wasn’t explicitly a sphere, drawing in all around it. Seemingly fed from what it’d taken already, it appeared to have shifted position dramatically since she’d last seen it, somehow...away from the center. Complying with the theme of the rest of what was, it looked like a red star, orbiting a twin that was bright blue, smaller but more dense, and she knew immediately that this blue star was explicitly hers. But this second one...

“Nobody?” she asked, assuming it to be a manifestation of her bestial alter-ego, which had been created during her time wandering the Underdark alone as a child. Without it, she would never have survived...

But with it, had she really survived? An outcast, a thief, too afraid of her own anger to dare a connection to another living thing?

There was no answer to either of her questions, but she was relieved that the anomaly wasn’t drawing from her anymore. It appeared to be in cohesion with the core of her being, that small blue star.

For now.

Something drew her attention back to her body, and she startled awake just in time to see a Human that had crept up to her, garbed in roughspun and reeking of sweat and saltwater. He recoiled, cursing, pulling a knife from his belt.

“Damn Drow!” he snapped, backing away, “What-”

Having no patience, Vala assumed her ectoplasm form, a duplicate body that unmoored her actual one in the astral realm. Thus protected from his attacks, she rose to her feet and readied her things, against his protests.

“I don’t have the energy for explaining myself to some shithead porter. A momentary rest was too much to ask for I guess...” she said coolly, then willed a dimensional door to manifest beside her, and pulled herself in. Now right on the periphery of the coast, she invoked another ability of the Nomad Discipline; one that rendered the ground in a three-by-three meter space beneath her feet temporarily intangible. Levitating downward, Vala closed her eyes, willing her infravision to activate. The Underdark often resisted normal methods of teleportation, so lacking a stable portal this would suffice to bring her to Skullport.

“Hope you’re still up for an audience, Kimmuriel.” she muttered to herself, as the realm above became a distant thing, “Because I don’t think I can handle you on my own like this.”

Adir conquered the trials of each of the Nine Hells, slaying or outwitting their guardians and opening their realms for the teleportation spell. He’d also breached the Green Fields, and actively sought Arvandor, the elven afterlife. Maybe he could scheme his way there when his luck eventually ran out... Alas, he knew he could only transport himself or another person one at a time, given his current reserves of strength. Likewise, he couldn’t open a portal that would admit extraplanar beings into Toril, so the “pour devils into Ahriman’s bedchambers” was unlikely to be a possibility.

Pity, he thought, for the image of his once king wrestling with a pit lord in his underclothes brought a smile to his face. Dauntless, he sought out his next conquest while his body rested in preparation for his transfer to a safer location.

Skullport seemed no different than when she’d last seen it, all murk, rot, rust, and misery. A great cavern on which grew dwellings like fungus, connected by intricate rope and netting systems chaotic and hazardous enough to have been conceived by Lady Lloth herself.

Lines of shackled slaves were drawn by cruel taskmasters, and every time a scourge broke upon them it took a little more of her willpower not to reveal herself and show their tormentors exactly where they stood in the measure of strength. She found the safehouse easily enough; her days spent under Kimmuriel’s tutelage had involved being transported between it and the promenade’s own holding daily. It had been a risky, and costly, endeavor for her sisters to make.

Frowning, for she’d never been able to repay them for their kindness and regretted it dearly, Vala willed herself intangible, and passed through its walls, taking a seat in the parlor. There were a few Bregan D’aerthe mercenaries inside, and they tensed at her approach. Unmindful, she pulled a platter of mushrooms from a rack, and treated herself. Earthy, a little too much salt. Dry. She could kill for a platter of grapefruit at that moment.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t sense me coming.” She snapped, seemingly at thin air, “We’re past that point by now, right?”

Frowning, Kimmuriel Oblodra, a distant relative, she now knew, manifested by telepathic projection opposite her.

“You’ve proven capable to detecting and neutralizing my tracers.” he noted dryly, “After the period of time where your mind was shielded from me completely.”

Motioning to her choker, Vala grinned, “Couldn’t use my powers, but it shielded me from other Psions as well. I almost kind of miss the feeling.”

Nodding, he took note of the rest of her clothing as she shed her piwafwi and laid it over the back of her chair, then her expanding belly, appearing not at all amused.

“You’ve taken well to surface customs.”

“That’s a polite way of putting it.”

Blinking, Kimmuriel was otherwise inscrutable. She decided not to test his patience, “I’ve come to purchase Bregan D’aerthe’s services.”

“With what?”

“Trade contacts in Almraiven. Access to magical artifacts. And some gold, to sweeten the pot.”

“Not interested.”

“Please.” Vala teased him, “I heard about what you did in Calimshan, with Enteri and the Shard. Taking a whole castle...with a giant red crystal sticking out of it. Hah! And they say Drow subtlety is a thing of the past.”

If her jest fazed him, he certainly didn’t show it, so she waxed serious, “I know you’re not looking for conquest. Just a foothold, the better to open trade between the surface and the Underdark. I’m fine with it. My husband is fine with it. From what I can tell the sisterhood is too. Why not add one more city to your list of prospects?”

“And what exactly do you want of Bregan D’aethre?”

“For now...nothing.” Vala replied, “I won’t know the specifics of our plan until it’s about ready to set in motion. The gist; one target, one base of operations. Quick, and quiet. Lots of wizardly magic. Weather manipulation. Complicated. And an artifact; a small gem. Protective magic. Powerful protective magic. Interested?”

Kimmuriel didn’t reply immediately, so that meant he wasn’t about to dismiss it out of hand. “Before you noticed my intrusion and locked me out, I happened to notice that you didn’t register as one mind anymore, but two. I’m not certain how to interpret it.”

“Me neither.”

He tried to hide it, but having been in his head, she recognized the look; Kimmuriel was uneasy. He’d never been entirely sure what to make of her; a half-blood, but also a half-blood likely of his family line, now confirmed, and a born prodigy. For a moment in their sparring, he’d nearly slain her outright, fearing her powers.

And her powers had grown considerably.

“What the people could accomplish with the haste of the lesser races.” he said distantly, “With such brief lives, you accomplish so much in so little time. I almost envy you.”

He dared another glance at her belly, then, “I will consider your task, with an additional consideration; if that is a female-child, and if it is of greater concentration of elven blood, you will rear her to be a Matron Mother.”

“Another contact? This time in Menzoberranzan?” Vala asked, immediately following his line of reasoning.

Kimmuriel shook his head, “In a sense. But more importantly; the restoration of House Oblodra. With power like yours, passed onto one of purer blood...”

“Good to know you still think so highly of me.” she replied rudely, “I’ll keep you posted. Go ahead and send another of those mind links. I won’t block it this time.”

Tensing as she felt her relative’s mental prodding, Vala let just enough of his psionic energies settle to establish a link, shutting him out of her inner faculties.

“I’ll need to return to Memnon for the present. My husband and retinue will be moved shortly.”

“You think there will be trouble?”

“I know it.”

Kimmuriel smirked, just a little, “You have a little of us in you, at least. Maybe I can work with that. Just don’t expect me to tolerate a Faerie in my midst.”

“I would not indulge to so test your hospitality.” Vala replied snidely, then became more serious, “There’s some things I learned about House Oblodra.”

“Does it pertain to anything presently relevant?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then leave it be.”

Stiffening, Vala nodded, then excused herself. It would be a tiring sojourn back to Adir, and she needed to hurry. As she left the periphery of the slaver port, Vala again influenced the stone above her and made it temporarily insubstantial, forming a narrow shaft that would lead her to the surface.

How long she ascended, Vala couldn’t say. It certainly felt longer than the trip down.

“I’m just anxious to complete the journey.” she assured herself, “And my concentration is nearing its limit.”

Soon she would have to meditate to restore herself. Hopefully in a location in which she could remain unmolested. Just as she considered her next meal, a sudden wave of disorientation washed over her. Her levitation wavered unsteadily.

“Damn the Underdark and its peculiarities.” she cursed, quickening her ascent, then cursing again as the shaft ended abruptly, and certainly not in the windswept plains surrounding Waterdeep. Instead, she found herself in a cavern city comparable in size to Menzoberranzan but more crudely fashioned from shale and connected with rope bridges and causeways. Unlike Skullport, these avenues were clearly, carefully organized with rigid, inhuman precision. A pale viridian light emanated from stalagmites and stalactites treated with some unknown substance, just bright enough to disrupt her infravision and to illuminate the dark clad beings surrounding her in a semicircle. Soulless, milky white eyes bored into her from hideous, octopus-like faces with draping tentacles. One was a step closer than the others, and from it a distantly familiar presence entered her mind.

“Hu’um.” Vala replied, concealing as best she could her surprise and uneasiness, inclining her head respectfully, “What can I do for you?”

"You could not resist.” his bubbly, otherworldly voice echoed within her, ”This can be an easy process.”

Just as the violent torrent of psionic energies washed over her, Vala erected the Iron Tower defensive technique in her mind. The sudden and merciless assault left her body wavering, and she registered distantly that she’d fallen to her knees. Knowing well that she couldn’t last long like this, she targeted her former mentor and attacked with a concentrated telepathic spike to disrupt his concentration, then hopefully his bodily functions, only to have it rebound off his own carefully prepared defenses.

Toshisha, her psicrystal whipblade, materialized in her hand, and thrust with intelligence and purpose. Expecting her foes to be intangible, she gambled and passed its tip into the astral plane. Hu’um was indeed on the astral plane, and it struck true, but his position spatially wasn’t as it appeared. What should have impaled him through the chest instead lodged in his arm. The skin under his lidless eyes crinkled, but he gave no other indication of discomfort, coating Toshisha in an additional layer of psicrystal, immobilizing it. Her hand, likewise, became immobilized, the crystal terminating just at elbow level.

These was no foothold to gain; he’d prepared this ambush well, and his retinue overpowered her within a twenty count before she could do more than crack his wall of defense. Again and again, the Illithid face tentacles lurched up, emitting an audible whump and conical blasts of disorienting telepathic energy, and soon she found herself in a prone position, then not aware of anything at all.

Recoiling, Hu’um held a hand to its head, resisting the painful spikes of a migraine left behind by the half-breed’s attacks. She’d grown in power so quickly...even hopelessly outnumbered and outmaneuvered she’d managed a formidable defense. Had the altercation lasted seconds more it’s life at least might have been imperiled. Its arm ached, but a minor power repaired the damage.

"Bind her.” it ordered its apprentices, ”Bring her to the agreed upon location.”

This would be a worthwhile endeavor; it’d felt the stirrings, as had the Elder Brain. The Adversary, the First Adversary, had finally chosen a benefactor. She was the one. She had to be. Ilsensine would finally have its herald among the Drow, and Hu’um would be richly rewarded in altering her to serve the interests of its people.