Endless Night

Amala is alarmed at her desperation to find Carn as she hurries through the nightmare world of the Underdark.

16.

Endless Night

 

Amala did not wait for the Autumn Maid to finish its painfully slow descent to the ground.    With a rushed wave of thanks to the captain and crew, she leaped over the railing and dropped the last six feet.    Her dress nearly caused her to fall as she landed, and she cursed the geis for probably the hundredth time that day.    Above the Autumn Maid was The Phoenix, and she felt that she probably should have spoken to the Captain of the ship and learned more of Carn’s plans, but she knew where the cave entrance was and did not want to waste any more time.

Her urgent fear for the Bugbear still perplexed her, but she had no time to analyze it and instead just ran into the cave, holding her skirts like a chased milkmaid as she ran, much to her chagrin. 

 

She had gone only a few feet into the cave before she became aware of the presence of a group of red glowing eyes staring at her from the very back of the cave.   

Quickly she drew her swords and then advanced slowly.    To her amazement, they backed away from her, their eyes widening in fear, though they outnumbered her ten to one.

“Who are you?”  She demanded from them, speaking in Drow (which her father had taught all of his children, along with Aurei).

“Please, Matron, we flee from the destruction below.”  A scared female’s voice replied in the same language.

“I asked who are you?   Where are you from?”   She kept a stern voice, hoping to bluff them with her seeming confidence, just in case they were not as helpless as they sounded.

A Drow woman stepped forward, dressed in simple purple and red clothing, her head bowed and her hands outstretched to show she was unarmed, “Matron, I am Brea, a servant of House Ar’Rilla, from Hor’olorbb.   I was bid to lead those of the Household to the surface.”

“House Ar’Rilla?!”   Amala exclaimed, “Tell me of your Matron!”

“She is Matron Mother Alleania Ar’Rilla.”   Brea said cautiously.

“Did she tell you to come to the surface?”

“Yes, Matron.    We were told by Gallus, her servant, that there was an airship outside this cave, hovering high above in the air, which would welcome us aboard, as it was one of our Matron’s daughter’s ships.   But we heard a great noise when we came through the secret door, and were afraid to come out of the cave.”

Amala smiled, sheathing her swords, “That was the arrival of a second airship.    I am Amala Dullerm, daughter of Aurei and Eleazar Dullerm and granddaughter of your matron, Alleania.”

“We are your servants, Matron Amala.”   Brea bowed and those cowering behind her did also.

“What you were told is true " there are airships outside of this cave and both will welcome you.    But tell me - this Gallus you mentioned- how did he know this information about the ships?”

“One of your parents’ servants - a Bugbear- told him this.”

“Carn!”   Amala gently grabbed Brea by the shoulders, “I’ve been trying to reach him!    Did he go toward your home city?”

“I didn’t see him personally, Matron, but Gallus said that the Bugbear was heading to Hor’olorbb to assist your parents and Matron Mother Alleania.”

“How long ago was this?”   Amala pressed.

“I don’t know, Matron, but we were told this an hour ago by Gallus, and I believe that he told us not long after he met with the Bugbear and sent him on his way.”

“Where is Gallus now?”

“He waits by the teleportation ring.”

“How do I get to him?”

 

***

They gave Amala directions, and she led them to the mouth of the cave and then went out and flagged down both airships.    Though she hated to waste time, she did not want to leave the terrified Drow alone in the alien world of the surface without someone who could translate to the crews of the two ships.  

So she quickly gave orders that they were to take aboard the Drow from the caves and treat them kindly, but hold their position as long as they could.

Then, before the captains of the two airships could think of any questions to ask her, she went back into the cave and slipped through the secret door to find Gallus.

 

***

“Yes, Lady Amala, I saw him about two hours ago.”   Gallus told her after she had found him and explained who she was and for whom she was searching.

“Can you send me by this same teleportation system?”   She asked the Drow man.

“Yes, but please understand, Lady Amala, that when your trip ends, there will be no magic at the other end.    The Dragon is burning everything in sight and the air is far fouler there than it is here.”

“I understand, Gallus.    I need detailed directions on how to find the Ar’Rilla estate.”

 

Thankfully, Gallus was very capable of providing the directions and seemed very willing to accompany her, though he did finally admit with some frustration that he had orders to stay there and assist those returning from Helios Valley.    She was very uneasy by the way he looked so approvingly at her and she assumed he was flirting with her.   

This did little to ease her nerves, which were already frayed.

 

She didn’t waste any time upon receiving instructions on how to use the teleportation relay system.    The travel time seemed to her to never end, but finally, with a lurch, she fell out onto a relay ring platform and found that she could not breathe.

For a full minute, Amala coughed, gagged and gulped at the thick black smoky air.   Sinking down to her hands and knees, she finally found near the floor of the Highway passage, enough air to stop the coughing.    

She could dimly make out in the deep gloom of the passage, several bodies sprawled out nearby.   All of them were curled up as if they had been asphyxiated by the smoke.   

The Drow girl remembered a tale told to her by Sir Alvis about an assault he had led into a burning castle to rescue the daughter of a baron that had been abducted and held for ransom by the Necromancer’s Guild, years ago.    The castle bailey’s wooden roofing had been set on fire by the necromancers to cover their escape, and they had left the girl to die in the blaze.

Alvis had told Amala that one of his soldiers had instructed them to soak pieces of cloth in water and wrap it around their mouths and noses as filters.    It had worked and they had found and rescued the girl.   

She knew she could use some of the hem of her much-hated dress to wrap around her face, but she had left so quickly that she had not packed any canteens of water.

The Highway passage seemed free of any pools of water - as best as she could tell from her position near the floor.

She crawled on hands and knees over to the nearest corpse.

 

It had been a Drow soldier or guard, dressed in lightweight chainmail and an Elven cloak.    She felt around his belt and to her delight found a nearly full leather canteen under his body.   She wiggled it out and tore a strip off the bottom of her dress, then poured the contents of the Drow canteen over it.  

It wasn’t water but a cheap wine, yet it was so watered down that it would certainly suffice.    Amala wrapped the make-shift mask around her face and took the canteen with her.  

Slowly, she got to her feet, testing the effectiveness of her mask.

It wasn’t good at all, but it seemed to filter out enough of the smoke for her to manage to breathe through her nose without coughing nearly as much.    She didn’t know how long it would offer this limited protection, so she hurried forward through the hazy air.

Her eyes watered terribly, but she was still surprised at how clearly she could see in the near total darkness.  

There were little glimmers of lights from all around the walls and floor from some sort of natural luminescence which gave off enough light for her Dark Elven eyes to see quite clearly.    At least it would have been ‘quite clearly’ if it had not been for the toxic smoke in the air.

Amala stumbled forward and could hear the sounds of combat from somewhere ahead.    She came out into a large cavern where a Drow city had been built.   The cavern seemed huge and the battle seemed to be coming from within.    Ahead of her was a large pair of gates, thrown wide open and bodies of Drow men and women who had succumbed to the foul air were scattered around at a few places.

 

The city was alien and almost ghost-like as she rushed through the gates.     There was no living Drow to be seen, but from somewhere ahead, through the winding streets were definitely the sounds of a desperate fight.   It was in the same direction that Gallus had told her that House Ar’Rilla was to be found.

Her mask grew less and less effective and she finally stopped and quickly rummaged through the belongings of another suffocated Drow soldier - this one a woman- that lay in the middle of the street.   

Amala was startled to find that this woman had not actually died of suffocation as she had first thought upon seeing her, but it seemed instead from three dark-shafted arrows sticking out of her back.  

Her attackers were no where to be found, and when going through her equipment in a search for more water to wet her mask, she noticed that this fallen Drow lady had an unusual mask hanging around her neck.

It had certainly been quickly constructed, but she had placed what appeared to be a small hand-shaped piece of porous charcoal in between two pieces of cloth that smelled of wine vinegar, and then tied them together, before strapping them around her neck.   Perhaps she had fallen from her injuries before the air had grown foul enough for her to actually use it.

Amala was desperate to try anything, as the smoke was beginning to tickle her nose and throat again, so she quickly removed her mask and took the dead Drow’s mask.   Slipping it over her nose and mouth, she took a small breath.    It smelled strongly of vinegar, but to her delight, it seemed to filter the air quite well.    

 

Breathing more easily, she moved quickly through the nearly empty city, but found Gallus’ directions continued to take her in the general direction of the battle.   Amala drew her swords as she rounded the final corner.   The noble district of the city opened up before her eyes, just as Gallus had said.    A mass of Goblinoids, a few Ogres and even more Trolls were battling against a thin line of Drow defenders and their servants.    Neither side looked fit or healthy (except perhaps for the Trolls, who dwelt in such stench that the smoky air probably didn’t bother them).   Both sides had clothes and rags wrapped around their mouths and noses, and the sounds of terrible coughs, wheezing, or gasping equally mixed with the din of combat.

She saw her objective a few yards from the Drow line of defense.    The Ar’Rilla compound was tightly shut up, but she ran to the gate, waving her hands at the guards on the gatehouse wall.

 

“What do you want?” A muffled voice challenged her from the wall, “Go away!”

“I’m your Matron’s granddaughter, let me in!”   She replied, anticipating her words to not be enough.

But the gate quickly opened and several Drow guards with faces wrapped like mummies, beckoned for her to hurry through.   They looked around behind her as if expecting to see others.

“You’re alone?”   One Drow asked and she nodded.

Then she saw her father coming up to join them.    He too had wrapped his lower face in cloth and he coughed several times as he approached, but seemed to not recognize her.    She wasn’t surprised at this, for her dress, long hair as well as her own face covered with the mask, would not give him any clues to who she was.

She ran over to him, “Dad, it’s me; Amala.”

He shook his head in surprise, “Amala?   But your hair and you’re wearing a dress!   What has happened?   Carn arrived here a few hours ago and told us that the two of you had been separated from the others, but obviously something else has occurred that he didn’t mention.”

“Dad, there is no time to go into all of that!    I was cursed, or geised, I guess - I’ll explain it more later.   I’m trying to stop Carn from sacrificing himself!   He thinks he can defeat the demon controlling the dragon.   Have you talked any sense into him?”

“He begged me not to go with him, sweetheart.   He said that we’d know if he succeeded or failed, but he knew it would take his life.”

“And you believed that?!”   She asked, dumbfounded that her father would simply accept this.

“Amala, there was something strange about him; it was as if he wasn’t the same Bugbear as we knew before.    We’ve had another strange visitor here too.”   He quickly told her about Devin the Black’s arrival, “Devin claimed to be led divinely, and I suspect that Carn was being led in the same way.”

“But we’ve got to help him!”   She nearly screamed at her father, startled at her own sense of panic over Carn’s plight.

“He didn’t want to put you into danger.”

“It’s too late for that, Dad!   We’re all in danger!   I’ve got to find him!   Tell me what passage he took!”

“No, Amala, it’s too dangerous.”

Eleazar suddenly found the point of one of his daughter’s swords pressing against his neck.   He stared at her in extreme disbelief as her eyes burned a brilliant red.

“YOU TELL ME WHERE HE IS!” She screamed at him.   Never had he ever dreamed of such a reaction from her.   She was nearly hysterical in her determination.

“Alright” He said calmly, “But I’m going with you.”

“You should have gone with him instead!” She snapped, “If he is dead…”  

She blinked in surprise - she had just threatened her own father.   Her sword arm fell limp.

“Father… I-I’m sorry.   I don’t know what is happening to me!”

 

He embraced her and she tightly clung to him for a moment, her body trembling.

“It’s alright, sweetheart.”  He comforted.

“Please, Daddy, I don’t know why, but I HAVE to help him!   Please help me!”

“We’ll go after him, come on!”   He led her into the Drow estate and down a flight of stairs to a lower basement level.    Her mother and aunt Zeatt were there, tearing off strips of cloth with a little Drow girl and several house servants, to make breathing masks.

As soon as her father told her mother what he was going to do, she stood up and announced quite firmly, “I’m going with you.”

For once, Amala didn’t argue, as she found the presence of her parents comforting in this terrible place.

 

The little Drow girl seemed very upset with her announcement, but Aurei reassured her, and Zeatt took her into her lap to comfort her.

“Be careful.”  Zeatt told them, though all of them doubted that could be possible.  

Moments later Amala and her parents were passing through the secret door in hopes of rescuing Carn.

 

Reviews

[Elina]

"She had went only a few feet..." This should either be "She went..." or "She had gone..."
"...and whom she was searching." If you want to keep the "whom," than you'll want to change this to "...and for whom she was searching." Otherwise, I believe you can just leave it as "who." For some reason the "who vs whom" thing always gets me a tad confused.
"...through the secret door to hopefully rescue Carn." Perhaps "...door in hopes of rescuing Carn," ?