Elnamerrna
Elendraspace, descending to the surface of Bala'bomen
Darkmonth 26th, 2459 EY
The Elnamerrna hove into sight of the surface of Bala'bomen out of the screaming blizzard. Her sails flapped erratically in the nearly hurricane-force winds of the ice planet. The vessel jerked, listed, and then managed to land—a landing that was half controlled and half crash. Her belly sank over twenty feet into wet snow that covered thick ice in Bala'bomen's darkness.
Screams had issued from within the vessel all along, but after she was down, these quickly quieted. Minutes later, Tyfelian came out onto upper weapon deck, eight spider legs clacking. Others came out after it, single file at first, but they quickly loosened up their formation.
The drider checked his clothing—he was heavily bundled against the cold. Then, he tentatively gained purchase upon the ship's hull and climbed down it. He crawled over the painted letters showing the ship's name, currently 'EINSFU 42', to the planet's surface, twin swords in hand. A jerk of his head summoned his companions, and they scrambled down a rope ladder.
The drider grimaced as his body pushed through the piled snow. He looked back at the others.
"That way," called Jaclyn's voice from one of the hoods. She pointed off in the appropriate direction. Her hood obscured what race she might be, and no one in this region of space would ever have guessed at her accent, Tyfelian noted with satisfaction.
The small group crunched across the snow-covered ice. The drider held point, looking intently into the whiteout. Soon enough, they walked around a hill and found their goal.
Here, the hill and five others beyond it formed a weak natural windbreak. The blinding effect of the blizzard eased a little in the kidney-shaped valley. The seven of them could see some of it at random as the wind, blowing around the hills, made short-lived gaps in the snowfall.
Five drow elves stood there, dressed as usual for their race, apparently oblivious to the deadly cold. They had their backs to a smaller hill near the center of the valley, near a cave entrance there. It wasn't easy to see them, because their drab clothing did not contrast much with the ground or the hill behind them—not in Bala'bomen's eternal twilight—and though the drider could see their capes fluttering in the breeze, they did not shiver.
"Magically protected against cold," he muttered to his friends. He gestured almost casually.
"Kill them."
A strange silence descended upon the area, and then a blazing, wide-area sizzle of attack magic hit the dark elves standing in the snow. They died quickly—variously burned, shocked, or put up in smoke by acid.
Satisfied, the drider walked across the ice with all the sure-footedness that a creature with eight legs should have. He crawled over the burned body of one of the drow—already cooled to below normal body temperature in the icy wind—and entered the cave.
The drider blinked with surprise. The natural passage beyond was not rocky—it was an ice cave. He noted right away that it was very well lighted for an underground area inhabited by drow. He and his companions could see rather well, though the greenish-blue light was unpleasant to the eye. Too harsh, even though it was not especially bright.
It seemed ghastly to the drider.
"Tyfelian, where's that light coming from?" asked Jalaysa's voice from the hood to the drider's right.
"I don't know, and I don't like it," Tyfelian lisped. Still, he made himself move forward into the ice tunnel.
The tunnel veered right less than fifty feet farther. Here, the drider cocked his head. His ears had caught something, a very faint noise.
"Did you hear that, Kiran?" the drider asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
A quiet nod from the human was all Tyfelian needed. He slipped forward, quiet as a star in Bala'bomen's murky sky, and found the chamber ahead of them in moments.
Calling it a 'wide spot in the tunnel,' would have been a better description, for this area showed some work, judging by the ice chips and extremely jagged walls. To the right, less work had been done; the wall was several feet from Kiran but still seemed tight.
To the left, however, it looked like someone had carved a large chamber in the ice, but then, curiously, had placed a huge cube of ice back into the area. They could see one edge; it formed a short, dead-end ice hallway at Tyfelian's left elbow. The edge looked dangerously sharp; the wary Tyfelian scuttled away from it a little.
"There's something in that ice cube," Tyfelian stated suddenly.
Kiran peered into it, squinting, but shook his head.
"I don't see anything."
"Tash?" Tyfelian hissed over his shoulder.
A pair of gloved hands weaved a spell to the beat of her voice. She chanted words of magic, but shook her head almost right away, frustrated.
"My magic can't go through that cube... or, rather, it does go... right past it," Tash explained. "It's like it's not there." She glared at the cube. "But this is where the pulses Jaclyn felt came from, I'm sure. We're just about at the center."
"She's right," Jaclyn's voice issued from her hood. "This is the right place."
The drider appraised the ice block, wondering how to get into it. Like the others, he could not see into the object very well, but he felt sure that he could discern at least one discrete shape frozen into it, and perhaps several more.
"I must be at a better angle to see inside it, if there is a better angle," Tyfelian commented. He thought, and then squeezed his bulk into the dead-end ice hallway. A human or elf would have had an easier time of that, but the larger size and shape of a drider made it hard going for Tyfelian. He made it a short distance down toward the dead-end, but he still could not see the entombed figures any better.
He thought he could make out more of them, however. Perhaps six, total, he thought.
"Melt this block," he called over his shoulder to the wizards.
Tash and Jalaysa cast their spells to melt ice. Tyfelian glanced at them, and while their heavy furs and hoods obscured what races they might be, as Jaclyn's did, he felt that an astute observer who did not know them would still have taken Jalaysa, at least, for an elf.
The drider frowned, wondering where that thought had come from. He knew Jalaysa was an elf. Shaking his head to clear it, he returned his attention to the wizards' spells and the effect.
The ice block did not melt. Nor did anything else happen at all.
Tyfelian pushed on it, but it did not budge.
"Strange," the drider muttered, but there was no further time for study. A commotion broke out in the main tunnel, followed by the scorching detonation of a fireball spell.
Cursing the pain, Tyfelian squeezed back out and unshouldered his bow as soon as he had room. Looking down the tunnel, he saw drow pressed up against the ice walls.
Tash and her apprentice—staying behind the fighters to avoid hits from darts that the drow hand crossbows fired—shot off their own attack spells. Theirs were electrical rather than fiery. Unlike the attacking drow, apparently, they realized that using fire attacks in a place made entirely of ice might not be such a good idea—at least, in the early stages of battle.
Tash's spell created a large gray cloud that stormed water and lightning bolts upon the dark elves, while her apprentice sent a roiling, bouncing ball of crackling electricity ricocheting back and forth between the walls.
Tyfelian and Kiran's bows hissed arrows into target after target, but they could use arrows only on targets they could see. The enemy wizard cast a fireball again, targeted behind Tyfelian and his team.
"At least he has that much sense," Tyfelian snarled, referring to the wizard down the tunnel. The drider gritted away the hurt. "He's trying to collapse the tunnel behind us, and not over himself."
"Must be another way out of here, then," Kiran replied.
"Jalaysa," Tyfelian called. When the elf lady turned, he went on to say, "Bury a fireball about ten feet behind them."
Jalaysa turned and cast.
Her fireball exploded, not where she'd intended, but much closer, for it had, against all odds, hit the invisible enemy wizard dead on target. Tyfelian saw his outline as the fireball went off in the tunnel. The flames billowed out both ways, scorching Tyfelian and his party, and sending the burning drow elves to the tunnel floor in desperate attempts to put themselves out. It was no good; Jalaysa's fireball was too fierce and they fell over to lie still, one by one.
The tunnel shook ominously, as though from an earthquake.
The enemy wizard, still invisible, countered with a different spell. This one was similar to but much more powerful than a fireball, and it severely hurt Tyfelian and his companions. Not just one, but four searing fireballs exploded in the ice corridor.
Worse, it made the tunnel groan and squeak with the sounds of melting, pressured ice. Tyfelian felt water pooling up around his spider legs.
Growing afraid, the drider swiveled his body and shot webbing into the area where the wizard had to be lurking, invisible. He missed, but he also clearly heard a rather foul curse word in Drowic.
Tash cast another spell. There was no visible effect—not exactly. The spell itself was not a flashy one, but it made the enemy wizard suddenly become visible.
Tyfelian and Kiran both shot at him. The drow was too quick and hit the floor, the flying arrows tearing a few hairs from his head, but they heard him curse again.
Kiran, keeping himself pressed up against the wall, lined up the wizard with his bow and fired. The arrow skimmed a shoulder but scored no effective hit.
The drow wizard scrambled for the T-intersection farther down the tunnel. He made it and ducked around the corner to his left. There, he turned and crooked his arm around the corner to unleash another fireball.
That fireball detonated, but seconds later, a barrage of energy darts, and one arrow from Tyfelian and one from Kiran, took the drow wizard down to join his fighters in death. He slumped to the ice floor, his left arm impaled by two arrows.
Burned, wet, and hurt, Tyfelian waved his companions to retreat. The tunnel shook constantly now, and he did not wish to remain. He ran, legs wading through cold water, back the way he and his friends had come.
When they made it back to the entrance, Tash spoke up.
"So much for rescuing someone in trouble," she complained, but she was more sad than anything else.
"We tried," Kiran consoled them all. "It wasn't our fault that some fool drow kept casting fireballs where nobody should."
Tyfelian looked back at the ice tunnel with a grimace.
"I'd like to go back, but it's too dangerous," he stated. "Perhaps another time, after it freezes up down there again... and if you feel any more telepathic pulses, Jaclyn," he added, glancing at her.
The face half-concealed under the hood nodded, though her expression went grim. It was never easy to just leave someone behind when he or she was imprisoned by an evil agency like the drow elves.
"In the meantime, there are more planets in Elendraspace to see," the drider said, sounding brighter. He crawled out of the cave opening and back out into Bala'bomen's eternal blizzard, returning to the ship whence he'd come.
Back in the ice tunnel, the water trickling down the walls stopped flowing as the whole area began to freeze once more. The pooled water on the floor turned to slush; tiny crystals formed within it as it slowly went back to its natural state on this world—frozen hard in the eternal night, eternal winter that was Bala'bomen.
The unseen, unknown observer who had correctly taken Jalaysa for an elf earlier did notice one permanent change, however.
A tiny crack had appeared in the ice block, on the side forming one wall of the dead-end hallway.
Like a fracture within glass, that crack spread. It ran upward, in the direction of the vague shape that Tyfelian had spotted in the block.
That shape moved. Had anyone been in the dead-end hallway, they might have heard a grunt, if he or she had sharp ears, as of someone making a tremendous effort.
A second crack split from the first.
The figure saw that and moved again.
The crack ran across a humanoid chest and then deeper within the cube, roughly across the center.
Another grunt resounded within the cube.
More cracks appeared, rapidly filling the entire volume of the cube. More figures—six total—began to move inside there, squirming, twisting, and trying to get out before the ice block froze up hard once more.
A squeal of ice heralded the explosion of fragments flying across the dead-end hallway as a limb smashed out of the binding block. It looked like a frostbitten human hand, wrist, and forearm, but in seconds after touching air it transformed.
It became a giant, red, reptilian claw, vaguely reminiscent of a dragon's forelimb.
That claw and the arm attached to it flailed wildly to shatter more and more ice. In a bare moment, the sharp edge that Tyfelian had noticed, and a third of the ice block, tipped over with a crash.
Now, two claws worked the super-frozen ice with desperate zeal. Ice scattered and chunks plopped into the still-freezing slush on the floor as the trapped figures kept hammering the stubborn block...
Elnamerrna
Elendraspace, leaving Bala'bomen
Darkmonth 26th, 2459 EY
The Elnamerrna rose from Bala'bomen's frozen face. The ship's departure caused a miniature avalanche of caked snow to fall from the hull. Even in the short time that Tyfelian and the others had been gone, the Silver Triop had been half-buried. Now, however, she climbed back up through Bala'bomen's stormy atmosphere and back into space.
On the bridge, Tash compared her view on the planetary locator to the captured map. Tyfelian stood beside the navigation desk with her, drawing a better map from both sources.
"The next planet toward the sun is Alkin'tarc, and it isn't too far away," Tash commented. "The planets in this shell had a conjunction a little over two years ago."
"Had a what?" Tyfelian asked, not knowing what the word meant.
"They were lined up in a row, all of them," Tash explained. "They're lined up again, fairly well, right now, except for Jivre'sargh," she pointed out, her finger indicating the painted circle, "closest to the sun... Zoethe is the sun's name."
Tyfelian glowered at the map.
"I'm wondering if that lineup didn't set off a jihad or something," he said darkly. "The mysterious assaults started about that time." He tamped a finger on the navigation desk.
"Trouble is, that doesn't sound like drow conduct to me."
"Nor to me," Tash agreed softly.
"But the drow we found don't worship Lolth," Kiran reminded from behind them in the first officer's seat. "Maybe these drow are different."
"Their planets line up, and they go on the warpath," Tyfelian shook his head uncertainly. "I'd believe that out of the Unhumans, but not the drow." He looked toward the front of the bridge but didn't really look at it. "Maybe something happened as a result of that lineup, though..." he trailed off, his speculation hitting a dead end.
"That could've been anything," Jaclyn noted.
Tyfelian nodded and changed the subject.
"Alkin'tarc?"
"The map doesn't say anything about what it's like there," Tash shrugged lightly. "Just that there are two stations in orbit around it—Orthae'lamthen and the Glory of Lolth. It doesn't say what they are."
"Glory of Lolth," Tyfelian echoed quietly. "Maybe it's a splinter group, then, if Lolth worshippers are the usual in Elendraspace."
He thought for a moment, and then turned back to Tash.
"We'll bypass Alkin'tarc and move on to Elendra'veldrin," he said at length. "I see no reason to go to either of the space stations, but we'll have a look at them if we can as we pass."
"Should we, though?" Kiran interjected again. "We've learned what we came to learn..." he pointed out gently.
Tyfelian laughed softly.
"I'm in no great hurry to get back to the war," he said lightly. "A week or so won't make any difference, and I want to explore this shell out. Just a feeling," he added thoughtfully.
On sudden realization, he glanced at Tash and pointed at the map.
"A week or so is all it'll take, right?" he asked, hoping for confirmation.
"If we don't try to go to Jivre'sargh, yes," Tash replied. "That would add another eleven days—that one is a fast runner, even for the planet closest to the sun. For us to visit the rest... mmm, yes, a week, or three days to be exact, and another three to leave. The crystal shell isn't very big, really—" she shrugged, "- less than twenty days to cross all of it. That's probably the reason why neither the scro nor the elves have ever found it. Since it's this small, its flowriver is fast but not strong."
Tyfelian nodded and took a breath to say something, but the voice horn interrupted him.
"Bridge, crow's nest," Trula's voice came forth.
"Bridge, Kiran," the paladin answered.
"We've got a patrol out there," she warned. "I see three ships that look like elf armadas, but they're dark colored. Five dark men-o'-war, too. They've changed course to approach us."
"Can you flash them a message?" Tyfelian asked, coming up the stairs to speak into the horn.
"Don't know. They're mighty far away yet," Trula said.
"Try it. Tell them that we're just passing through," Tyfelian told her.
"It's worth a try," he said to Kiran's doubtful look.
They waited out the moments that it took for Trula to use the lantern in the crow's nest to flash Tyfelian's message and wait for a reply, then her voice resumed.
"They advise us to stop at the Glory of Lolth Shipyards for trade," she said uncertainly.
Looks of surprise greeted this from around the bridge.
"Reply that's where we're going," Tyfelian said to the lookout, and then he shut off the voice horn, hoping that Trula would not call again. He doubted that anything should could report at this point would be good to hear.
"That is not normal for drow," Kiran said, somewhat astonished, but Tyfelian seemed to merely count his blessings and roll with it.
"Correction, Tash," he said to her. "It seems we will make a stop at Alkin'tarc after all."
Elnamerrna
Elendraspace, arriving at Alkin'tarc
Darkmonth 28th, 2459 EY
The Elnamerrna eased down from starspeed within sight of Alkin'tarc and Hajri aimed the spyglass at the nasty-looking planet.
"This is not a nice world, sir," he called to the bridge. "The spyglass tells me it is chilly, it has foul air, and no smart life."
"What about those space stations, Hajri?" Tyfelian called up.
"One to portside, one to starboard, compared to the planet," Hajri reported. "I would think the Glory of Lolth Shipyards would be to starboard, to judge by appearance, though both of them are covered with faerie fire, sir."
"Call the bearings for the shipyard to the helm," Tyfelian told him and shut off the horn on his end.
"This should be interesting," Jaclyn commented. "A drow space station... never thought I'd see one."
Tyfelian nodded, but Kiran looked very uncomfortable. The drider noticed this and looked at him sympathetically.
"You don't have to be there when we talk with them face to face," he offered. "It might be best if they saw only Tash, Alzja, and me, anyway—at first." He grimaced. "But I'll need you to supervise the loading of whatever we buy, later on."
"Thank you," Kiran said gratefully.
"How long 'til we dock, Melanerra?" he asked the cleric at the helm.
"Only a few minutes now," she replied.
Tyfelian moved from his spot and used a spider leg to push the captain's chair back into position.
"Tash, Alzja, you're with me."
Tyfelian led the two drow ladies across the cargo bay.
"Open the bay door, Kershaya," he called to the engineer. "Then wait outside the bay. They don't need to see you," he said to her as kindly as he could.
Kershaya looked at him with an oddly blank expression. Tyfelian got the idea that she didn't know how to feel about any of this.
Not sure that he knew how to feel about it, either, Tyfelian offered her a reassuring smile—made more sinister than he wanted it to be by his fangs—and walked away with Tash and Alzja.
Kershaya and two crewmen cranked on the windlass. The roof of the cargo bay lifted, like a mouth upside down. When it was open far enough, Kershaya locked it off and left the bay, pausing for the moment that it took for her to enlarge to her full normal size.
On the other side of the bay, Tyfelian, Alzja, and Tash stepped over onto the docking plank as quickly as they could, for they saw a drow dockworker approaching with five hobgoblins—presumably slaves, Tyfelian thought.
Movements from above caught his attention, and he looked up to see five purple elven armadas with domes on their backs, where landing platforms for flitters should have been.
"Gypsy moths," he thought, remembering a rumor about exactly that kind of ship that he had not believed when he'd heard it. They looked so menacing that Tyfelian suppressed a shudder and looked back to the approaching drow and the hobgoblins.
The drow, apparently a dockyard manager, looked surprised to see them enlarging from a few inches tall to their normal heights, but almost any drow was accustomed to magic far stranger than that, so he just shrugged it off and walked up to them.
"State your business," he said, looking almost bored.
Tyfelian managed to look around at the Glory of Lolth Station, which he thought looked quite beautiful with the endless faerie fire, even as he spoke.
"Resupply," he responded, deferentially but not exactly politely. "We need only food."
"What kind of food?"
Tyfelian blinked at the question, but he managed to respond without missing a beat.
"Most of my crew are humans."
The manager flickered his white eyebrows at that, but again shrugged it off. However, he seemed surprised that the drider—and a male drider at that—instead of one of the women, had spoken for the ship.
That didn't keep him from trying to make the shipyard a little extra money, however.
"Need a supply of waste blood for yourself?" he asked, looking pointedly at Tyfelian's spidery fangs. "Kobolds, say?"
"No, I have a good supply," Tyfelian responded, hiding his self-revulsion with effort. Driders did not eat; they drank blood exclusively.
"All right," the manager shrugged, visibly this time. "How much food?"
"Two months standard meals," Tyfelian lisped.
"One thousand gold coins," the manager said immediately. "We take Mercane money at face value, Elven Imperial Navy coin at half," he said distastefully, noting the ship's current name, "others, material value only."
"We have Mercane coinage," Tyfelian nodded, amused that these drow merchants were forced by economic reasons in space to accept EIN currency, albeit at reduced value.
"Very good," the manager said. "I'll have the goods sent; have the money ready, and then you're free to go."
Tyfelian didn't like that choice of words, but he chose to make no comment. He nodded again, brusquely, then turned around and went back to the Elnamerrna.
"Oh, we sell charts for three hundred gold coins if you'd like that tacked on," the manager called after him.
"Certainly," Tyfelian lisped over his shoulder, hiding his surprise.
Alzja and Tash turned to follow him, but the manager snagged Alzja's attention before she took a step.
"A drider is your captain?" he couldn't help asking, using drow sign language.
"What of it?" Alzja asked with a superior sniff. She walked away haughtily.
Tash gave the drow man a disgusted look and turned on her heel.
The two drow women caught each other's gazes as they stepped over the slight gap between the docking pier and the ship's cargo bay.
"He's our friend," they said to each other, but not with drow sign, nor verbally. They did not need to justify their loyalty, not to each other nor anyone else, but it felt good to express it, even for Alzja.
Tyfelian went into the bay slowly, and the two women fixed sympathetic gazes on his back as he shrank and they followed when he moved away.
He hadn't asked for what had happened to him.
Elnamerrna
Elendraspace, Glory of Lolth Shipyards
Darkmonth 28th, 2459 EY
Kiran watched the hobgoblin slaves, under the supervision of the dockyard manager, load crates into the Elnamerrna's cargo bay. He stayed as far away from them as protocol allowed, for he could sense their intense wickedness, especially that of the drow manager.
They loaded the food, and then the manager walked over to Kiran and handed him a map case.
"There's the chart," the drow said grumpily. Clearly, he considered it beneath him to even talk to a human, but the demands of his job left him no choice.
Kiran tucked the case into his belt, then addressed the manager.
"Will you take platinum coins?"
"Yes."
Kiran passed him a bag full of coins. The manager glanced into it and nodded.
"Good enough," he said huffily, and left with his workers.
Kiran relaxed visibly as they left. Autumn came up beside him.
"Good riddance, sir," she muttered.
"Agreed," the paladin replied, surprising her. "That boss is so vile, you could choke on his presence." Kiran couldn't suppress a look of total disgust in the manager's general direction, then he waved Autumn into step with him.
"Let's close the bay door. Tyfelian wants to leave here as soon as we're done, and I don't blame him."
"Neither do I, sir," Autumn said sincerely. "I really don't like that dock boss," she added as she and Kiran cranked the windlass, lowering the bay door. "Is he about usual for drow?"
"I guess so," Kiran shrugged. "I've never held a long conversation with any drow, except ours. They normally attack without question, and by surprise if they can." He kept to himself his comment that even Tash and Alzja were not long on charm. Tash was very professional and efficient, her personality pleasant enough but not magnetic, and Alzja was an arrogant, if good-intentioned, fop.
Tyfelian was the different one as far as Kiran was concerned, with a charismatic aura more characteristic of a politician than an adventurer. Tyfelian retained that aura even in the drider form inflicted upon him by the Spider Queen, a fact that Kiran found astounding.
The bay door dropped back down into place and several crewmen pulled on its latches. Ten huge hooks, five on either side, clamped down to secure the door.
"This is where Tyfelian says it might get tricky," Kiran confided to Autumn. "The drow might not want us to leave, for whatever distressing reasons they may have."
"They'd probably want the ship," Autumn noted.
"Likely," Kiran granted. "But we'll fight our way out if we must."
The paladin gave her a comforting smile and left the bay. He was enlarging back to his normal height when Tyfelian's voice came over all of the ship's voice horns.
"All hands, stand by at battle stations, Kiran to the bridge immediately. We're about to try to leave the shipyard."
Kiran smiled and hurried along.
Kiran entered the bridge by way of the portside door while Tyfelian was talking to Hajri on the voice horn.
"The shipyard still has not answered my request, sir," the lookout was saying.
"They're stalling," Tyfelian snarled. "Flash the request for clearance again, Hajri."
"Aye, sir."
Kiran got the gist of the conversation, so he just took his seat without comment, after handing Tash the chart that Tyfelian had bought.
"They finally answer, sir. We are cleared to depart."
"Damn Elendrans," Tyfelian muttered, calling them a name drawn from their crystal shell's name to set them apart from himself and the other drow on board. "Melanerra, get us out of here."
Melanerra willed the ship to rise, and the Elnamerrna backed away from the Glory of Lolth Shipyard.
"Bearing to course is eighty-four by three, against the shipyard and Alkin'tarc," Tash cued the helm.
"Sharp watch, Hajri. I don't trust them at all," Tyfelian called up.
"Aye, sir," Hajri said tensely.
Nothing happened, however. A short time later, Hajri reported that they had passed the planet entirely and had entered open space.
"That was too easy," Kiran said apprehensively. "Frankly, I expected an impound team to come back and try to confiscate the Elna, instead of workers with the food we bought."
Tyfelian frowned.
"I'm starting to wonder what's going here, too," he admitted. "The next planet in is Elendra'veldrin, isn't it, Tash?"
Tash looked at the new chart, a rather nice one, she noted.
"Yes, but there are several asteroids marked on this chart, too. Noteworthy, one would suppose."
Tyfelian, looking interested, slid down the stairs slowly and to the navigation desk to take a look.
He studied the chart for several moments, then shrugged.
"We've already passed these out here," he said, pointing at several whose orbits were outside Bala'bomen's, "but that one in close to the sun might substitute for Jivre'sargh on our tour," he said with mild humor.
"It is close to Zoethe, but I think we should be able to visit it, and with little loss of time. Maybe two days, if that," Tash said, pointing at it vaguely. "I don't know if the Elendrans have explored it. It doesn't even have a name, just a warning," she laughed.
Tyfelian looked at the symbol marked above the asteroid's painted location on the map. It was just a tiny drawing, but it was a variation of the drow symbol for 'danger' that Tyfelian knew in his native language. He did not, however, know how to tell what kind of danger about which this particular symbol warned the reader.
"What kind of danger?" he asked Tash, but already somewhat lost in her study of the chart, she didn't respond immediately.
"Tash?" he called softly.
"Hm?" she blurted, a little startled.
"What kind of danger does that symbol warn of? It's a navigational variant."
"Oh -," Tash sputtered. "It marks a battle site." She looked at the symbol more carefully. "A place that may still be dangerous even though the battle is over."
"Sounds interesting," Tyfelian said casually.
"Yes," Jaclyn put in dryly from the conference table. "Maybe that's just what they want us to think."
"A trap?" Tyfelian asked over his shoulder.
"Who knows, with the drow?" she replied, pointedly referring to them by their racial name and not by reference to the crystal shell's name.
"Granted," Tyfelian allowed. "If we go there, we'll have to be watchful."
"That's an understatement," Jaclyn muttered. "I'm worried that the farther we go into the shell, the worse things are going to get."
"If the situation starts looking like a spider's web, we'll turn back," Tyfelian lisped, straight-faced.
Kiran laughed quietly, and even Jaclyn eased down, her tension broken.
"Elendra'veldrin next," Tyfelian went on. "By the name of it, I doubt we'll land there, but I'd like to take a look anyway."
"What makes you think we won't?" Alzja asked, nonchalantly leaning on the banister at the top of the stairs to the command platform.
"It's probably the main planet here, by its name," Tyfelian replied. "If it is, then landing'd be as hazardous as an elf walking into the business district of a drow city, underground."
"In other words, suicide," Kiran stated.
"Right," Tyfelian said grimly, but his expression cleared moments later.
"How long?" he asked Tash.
"Two days," she said brightly, if distractedly. When Tyfelian moved away to climb the stairs past Alzja to his place, Tash enthusiastically went back to her study of the new map.
Elendran spider ship, tailing the Elnamerrna
Elendraspace, between the orbits of Alkin'tarc and Elendra'veldrin
Darkmonth 29th, 2459 EY or Zoethe's Night 12th, 3463 AS
"I don't give a damn who you are!" the robed woman screamed. By appearances, she was talking to nothing, or at best yelling at someone outside a portside window, but her apprentice knew better. She was talking to the Grand Admiral of the Nightwind Navy himself, he was almost certain.
"I will bring down the wrath of the Collizeromman Syndicate upon your precious Nightwind Navy, Admiral, if you do not comply. You don't have to tell me that you have a strike force already underway to destroy the silver ship. I already know it. Order them to stand down."
The apprentice smiled as he waited for her to speak again. Evidently, the Admiral was talking now; the telepathic contact was not audible except within his mistress's head.
"You cannot destroy Collizeromma and you know it!" she said after a long pause. "Besides, Admiral, you stand to gain a very great deal from my plan, if you cooperate," she went on in more persuasive tones.
Again a lengthy pause. The apprentice could only guess at what the Admiral was saying, though part of it became clear when his mistress spoke again.
"I assure you with all confidence, Admiral, the rewards will be magnificent, and they'll perhaps even come from the Spider Queen herself. Now, here is what you must do..."
Elnamerrna
Elendraspace, approaching Elendra'veldrin
Darkmonth 30th, 2459 EY
The Elnamerrna descended deep into Elendra'veldrin's atmosphere. Tyfelian and the others watched, mesmerized, as the scintillating colors of the drow architecture passed below them.
"The cities look like they're built on floating platforms," Kershaya commented, sitting on top of the forward ballista.
"They'd have to be," Tash said with wonder. "There's no land on this world. Just a huge ocean."
Kiran, beside her, noticed that she was not idle while sightseeing. She had divination magic in place, but she was not appreciating the scenery with it. They had seen the long-rumored 'gypsy moth' class drow armadas, and in considerable numbers, at the Glory of Lolth Shipyard. There were even more of them at Elendra'veldrin. None had turned from their courses to challenge the Elnamerrna during their flight toward the planet. That surprised Tyfelian, but it gave them a fair chance to perform real reconnaissance.
Tash was taking a good, long look at Elendra'veldrin's naval strength.
Tyfelian's gaze locked hard on Elendrafang, named by the chart as the capital city of the entire drow civilization in Elendraspace. The buildings, clearly built for defense but made beautiful by the faerie fire that covered every surface, seemed to go on forever. Tyfelian could only guess at Elendrafang's size; he roughly figured it to be at least fifty miles across, but it was an amorphous shape, built upon diamond-shaped platforms, rather than the square city blocks that humans or dwarves would have chosen. That design made any judgment of its size difficult without navigational measuring instruments.
The Elnamerrna finished the flyover and rose back through the planet's atmosphere. Tyfelian smiled, hoping that his ship had not been seen. The lack of any military response to their presence indicated that no one had spotted them, but Tyfelian found that hard to believe.
He said nothing to his crew, however, just let them file out of the weapon bay as the Silver Triop ascended into space once more. The last wisps of Elendra'veldrin's clouds slipped away and the view outside the bay settled onto Elendraspace's numerous, colorful stars.
Tyfelian stood there for some time, looking at the stars, visible despite the sunlight almost dead ahead—unsurprisingly for a drow crystal shell's primary, Zoethe was not very bright for a sun. The drider tried to sort out his feelings, wondering why he was wasting time delaying here when—Kiran's indirect hinting was technically correct—they should have been heading back to report, so they could get back to their usual order of business during the war.
He finally found an answer that, while unsatisfying, at least made logical sense—what would happen if they did turn back and report what they'd found at this point? Most likely nothing, Tyfelian figured, for the elves and the scro were both too busy fighting each other to send forces here to annihilate a mere irritant.
Both sides would instead order their fleets to avoid the area, he guessed. If so, that would force the drow to expand their campaign farther from Elendraspace if they wanted to continue it. Tyfelian figured that, for good or for evil, the war would be over before any such expansion reached the Inner Prime, but how many more ships, both elf and scro, would be preyed upon by these drow before the war ended? How many warriors would the Elendrans kill before the elves or the scro—whichever won the war—dispatched a strike force to Elendraspace to put an end to it? He did not want to have to live with such deaths on his conscience.
And, he had to consider, what if the winning side was in shambles after victory and couldn't do anything about the Elendrans? Privy to certain battle reports that he was not supposed to have seen, Tyfelian knew that the elves and the scro had hurt each other badly, and he expected the war to go on for at least another six months.
He did not place much confidence in the ability of either side to put the Elendrans in their place after the war. If he could find out everything possible about Elendraspace, the knowledge would help after the war, whether he reported it to the Grand Admiral of the Elven Imperial Navy or the Almighty Leader of Dukagsh.
Satisfied that he had reasoned out his purpose for continuing the exploration of Elendraspace, Tyfelian left the bay and went to the bridge. He felt that there was some other reason—intuitive, not rational—that he wanted to continue here, but a factual reason would do until he figured it out more fully.
He entered the bridge somewhat belatedly, but the reasonably relaxed feel of the command crew assured him that he had missed nothing.
Tash had something to say, however. Tyfelian felt that it was not any emergency, though, because she wore an expression of very mild amusement.
"As we get closer to the sun, the distances keep dropping," Tash began. "We can be at the next planet—Zekre'zun is its name—in just a few hours, but I'm not sure we want to."
"Why not?" Tyfelian asked mildly.
"Might be a waste of time," Tash said with the ghost of a chuckle. "It isn't a drow planet. Duergar world."
An amused sniff from Alzja, sitting at the table facing the back of the bridge, triggered similar reactions all around. Kiran put on an expression of long-suffering, while Tash just laughed, aloud this time. Jaclyn, however, wore an odd look of impulsive interest.
Tyfelian suppressed his own reaction, which was mild disdain, so he could listen to the perspectives of the others.
"I wouldn't mind getting a suit of drow chain armor," Jaclyn stated with relish.
"The gray dwarves don't usually make them for anyone but drow," Alzja said in quick retort, "at least where I came from. But you might be able to bribe one o' the dwarves to do it."
"It will take time, even for a dwarf, to make a suit," Kiran pointed out, "but during that time, we can be doing something else."
"If you're really that interested, we might be able to save time by going to the planet's so-called moon," Tash said noncommittally. "It's called 'the Forge,' and that's probably indicative," she finished with a giggle.
Tyfelian held his reserve, but in truth he was drawn into her laughter, as well.
"We'll go there and try it for you, Jaclyn," he announced.
An armorer's shop
Elendraspace, the Forge, orbiting Zekre'zun
Darkmonth 30th, 2459 EY or Zoethe's Night 13th, 3463 AS
"Nope, I ain't gonna do it," the duergar armorer stated, folding his arms across his scorched apron. "It's against the law t'make a suit for any that ain't a drow. Them drow'd tear my fingernails right off right afore they cut m'head off," he growled with an apprehensive look at Tyfelian, Alzja, and Tash, who stood behind Jaclyn in the armorer's outer office.
Jaclyn smiled charmingly. Had she been dealing with another human, that gesture may very well have worked; Jaclyn was in her early forties, but she had been very attractive in her younger days, and even now she showed few signs of advancing age.
It nearly worked anyway, she noticed. The gray dwarf weakened, but he did not give in to her request.
"If you did make one for a human, what would it cost?" she asked, both to keep the conversation going and to firm up an idea for a good bribe amount.
The duergar's eyes narrowed below his bald pate, but his head turned back and forth slowly as he started knocking numbers around in there.
"Oh, five thousand gold coins for materials, five thousand labor," he said at length, obviously making up the two identical prices.
Jaclyn pulled a large bag from her belt pouch and spilled its contents onto the duergar's steel desk.
He gasped. Precious gems glittered as Jaclyn shook the last of them out. They were not glass fakes—to the duergar's experienced eye, they were real stones, all quite beautiful and valuable. Rubies, sapphires, garnets, peridots, and assorted other types twinkled up at him.
"Will that be enough?" Jaclyn asked, knowing that the value of the gems, totaled, was over fifteen thousand gold coins.
The dwarf swayed, caught between making a risky venture in defiance of the law, and in making a considerable profit for fairly routine work.
"You won't tell, will ya?" he asked the drider and the two dark elves.
"No, we want her to have the suit," Tyfelian lisped. "And we made sure nobody saw us come in here."
With that, the gray dwarf's greed finally won out and he took the gems. His large hands swept them into his apron pocket.
"Done," he declared, "but it'll take me a week to make the suit."
Jaclyn nodded, knowing that Tyfelian could keep them busy for that long, but curiously the gray dwarf picked up a yardstick and moved over to Jaclyn.
"What are you doing?" she demanded apprehensively as he pressed the large ruler flat against her body in various spots.
"Takin' yer measures," the armorer replied. "Drow chain's gotta be made exact, or it won't fit."
The dwarf took her "measures" and wrote them down on a scrap of papyrus, but then he looked at them askance and then looked at Jaclyn, eyes widening.
"Damnation!" he roared. "Yer husband's one lucky man! You've got the measures of a drow queen! It just don't show through them fancy clothes ya wear!"
"I'm not married," Jaclyn said, an automatic response, but he didn't hear her, lost in muttering to himself. She did not repeat the sentence, thinking it just as well he had not heard that.
"We'll be back in a week or ten days," she called to him, raising her voice. "Do your best work—don't rush through."
Thrilled with the impressive profit, the gray dwarf nodded and bustled around, getting to work.
Tyfelian subtly hooked his fingers, bidding them to follow him out to the street, and they walked out of the shop, back into the smoggy air of the Forge. They paused for a moment for Tash to make them invisible as a favor to the duergar smith, but then they were away from the shop and she dismissed her spell.
Alzja assumed a miffed expression at the smell. The odor of burning was everywhere on the artificial moon, and the pollution was so bad that its hazy atmosphere envelope was visible from space. Alzja spared a disgusted look for the planet itself as they walked back to the Elnamerrna. It was mostly dry land covered with cities so huge they were visible from lunar orbit.
Zekre'zun's atmosphere was visible as well, for the same reason as the Forge's was.
Alzja wiped a hand over her nose delicately.
"Dwarves," she muttered. "All they do is burn and burn."
Tyfelian smiled in response but made no comment. He saw a fair number of drow about, in addition to the duergar, so he figured that the dwarves weren't the only ones around who were burning things. Drow smiths existed, too, though they were not renowned in the annals of any race's history for the quality of their products.
He tried to maintain a low profile, but a drider stood out in the streets of a duergar moon. He felt more than a little relief as they came into sight of the docks, but then his concern mounted again.
More than a few drow had gathered there, and they were all looking at the same thing—the Elnamerrna. Worse, they all wore expressions of that darkest of emotions—jealousy.
He wondered whether he should simply walk on board the ship with a large number of drow eyeing it with desire, but then he decided that it would be best to simply leave as soon as possible. On the return trip, he decided, they would not dock, but simply teleport to the armorer's shop to get Jaclyn's armor.
He walked right up to the Elnamerrna's pier. The air quality cleared as they passed into the ship's air envelope. It was protected by magic.
"Nice to breathe fresh air again," Alzja said, her mood obviously lightening.
Tyfelian walked his eight legs into the cargo bay hurriedly. Once there, he went straight the voice horn as soon as he had shrunken and called to the bridge.
"Depart as soon as we get clearance. I don't like the way some of the drow outside are looking at us," the drider ordered worriedly. "Set our course for that asteroid close to the sun."
"Calling for clearance now," Kiran replied from the bridge.
"I can't believe we've gotten this far into the shell without resistance," Jaclyn stated as they left the bay and paused for enlargement. "It's almost like someone's clearing the way for us."
"I agree," Tyfelian murmured. "I'm thinking it's almost like someone wants us to get to them... but I thought we had, back on Bala'bomen."
"No chance there," Jaclyn advised him. "After we left, I sent out a 'pulse' or two of my own to see if I could get a reaction. Nothing. I'm afraid whoever was trapped down there must've gotten killed when the place collapsed."
"If it collapsed," Tash said quietly. They had finished enlarging and now set off for the bridge.
"It did," Jaclyn assured her, though she was not happy about it. "I scried later."
They entered the bridge. Kiran, sitting in the captain's chair, chin in hand, looked over at them, and then rose to surrender the position. He considerately shoved the captain's chair aside so Tyfelian could get to the spot. Then he took his own seat.
"We're already underway," he reported. "I know about those drow outside—Hajri told me. I'm glad you came back when you did. Another ten minutes and they might have done something."
Tyfelian raised his eyebrows with a soft grunt, indicating general agreement, as he settled into his position. He thought that ten minutes might have been optimistic.
"The asteroid?" he asked Tash.
"The distances bottom out this close to the sun," Tash replied, "but it's a rogue, and pretty far away in its orbit right now. Still, we'll be there tomorrow."
Tyfelian smiled slightly. This was going well, he thought, but he still wondered who or what was making the progress so easy.
"We'll check it," he decided at length, "but when we're done, we'll get Jaclyn's armor and then leave the shell. We've learned what we need to report already, and we even have intelligence on their military," he said with satisfaction, sparing a quick smile for Tash. Although the results were daunting, even frightening, Tash had scried and written down very complete information on Elendraspace's overall space defenses and military strength.
"Really?" Kiran asked, looking at Tyfelian, but then he figured it out and looked at Tash.
Tash nodded grimly.
"Their forces are awesome," she said reluctantly. "They're enough to dish out a lot of trouble even to the elves."
"For that reason, after our business is done, we're leaving," Tyfelian said with intensity.
Kiran looked pleased by that response, especially after hearing Tash's report about the Elendran navy. Kiran's mind was good with tactical information, even better than Tyfelian's. Hence, he dreaded the thought of a war between Elendraspace and the Elven Imperial Navy (or the scro, if they won) after the war ended. This was for the same reasons that Tyfelian had mulled over earlier; they were equally obvious to him.
He turned and locked stares with the drider, and words were unnecessary. The Elendrans might have let them get this far, for some reason... but like a fly crashing into a web, were they merely becoming more and more entangled by the moment?
Would this particular spider let them out again?
