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Belaeryth's Tale

The Matriarch was in one of her moods. Her voice rose stridently from distant halls, and servants scuttled along ahead of her, borne on the swell of her shouts and driven by fear. I did not run; no point to it. What today? A wrinkled robe? An imagined spot of dirt? A face which offended her?

Scream, then, high and shrill and final. Some unfortunate servant, likely male... well, his suffering was over. Lucky bastard. I exhaled slowly, forced myself to relax. She would be calling soon -- always wanted my expertise after a stressful morning.

"Belaeryth!" Ah, on cue. Demanding, wretched, evil hag...

"Coming!" How disgustingly cheerful I sounded. I pasted on a matching expression -- never a smile, drow do not smile, there are teeth involved -- and ran to my mistress' call. The Matriarch hated sloth, all but her own, and I had no wish to see the wrong end of her whip today.

The dead male was still in chambers when I arrived: only a slave, this time, and not one of the sons of the House. Amazing. The Matriarch bred like a lizard, in clutches... but she also killed her own like a spider. Out of five male children she'd borne, there remained two. Their scarcity afforded them some protection, these days... but her temper was uncertain, and her violence always lethal, and those last brothers were rarely in House. I saw her kill Amalicar, the third-son, with a three-headed barb-whip. He had taken hours to die from the poison and the blood-loss, and she watched the entire performance. The slave had died rapidly -- by the spreading pool of blood, in one blow, perhaps two. I did not turn him over to check.

"Ah, Belaeryth. You are slow." She sat at her dressing table, composed after murder, watching the door and waiting for me.

I knelt just over the threshold as was proper, and held my breath until she bade me rise. I never could tell when a blow might fall... the dead slave stretched in a graceless sprawl a mere foot away, reeking as the dead always do. His eyes were glazing over, their expression purely horrified. I felt a stab of pity for him -- pretty elf-boy with fair skin and lovely grey eyes... and barely into puberty, by the looks of him. He was new, and I did not know his name. Would not, now.

"Get up." I stood obediently, and kept my eyes down; I heard her moving toward me. As expected, she stopped beside me, and one of the poisonous black spiders ever crawling through her hair decided it might like a new playground. It made its oddly graceful way along her sleeve and onto my bare arm. The Matriarch watched, I felt her eyes -- always a test, to see if I would flinch, and the spider would bite me.

They never did. I held still enough that my ribs hurt, holding my lungs to almost no breath at all. The spider wandered along my skin aimlessly, then turned abruptly and made for the Matriarch's sleeve again. I did not really relax until it -- and she -- had stepped away.

"Attend me." What choice? I followed. Her bathing chamber was warm, heated by the natural spring that bubbled in the pool. She slid out of her robe, and expected me to catch it before it touched the chamber floor. A tall woman, in her prime, the Matriarch was beautiful, lush for a drow. I amused myself by imagining leprous sores all over her flesh as she arranged herself expectantly on the silk-draped bench. One hand waved negligently. "Well, girl, get to it."

I thanked the goddess -- quietly -- that the Matriarch required no other services of me. I pitied her consorts completely. I selected a jar of her favorite perfume oil -- a special creation of my own -- carefully slicked my hands, and began to work it into the smooth black skin on her back. The spiders avoided the oil -- fled actually, onto the bench -- hating an ingredient I'd added, odorless and colorless and totally deadly to them. That, too, was my creation, born of research in Arcanorum's concealing walls. The Matriarch had no idea, of course, or my hands would join my head in separation from my body. For the remainder of today, the spiders would also avoid her, which suited me fine. The Matriarch, of course, did not notice -- her eyes were closed, and she had relaxed under my hands.

She trusted me, stupid woman. I am the daughter of her late and unlamented sister, a bastard of said sister and her common drow lover. As often happens in the great Houses, sisters fight over House control... and equally often, the loser dies, and her line is extinguished in favor of her stronger, more ferocious sibling. My mother had died, and my father with her, and my Matriarch had taken me into her House, rather than waste me. Waste me indeed. I should have been the first daughter of a Matriarch; instead I acted as body servant for my Matriarch-aunt, and was denied all training in the priesthood of Ut'tu, so I could never compete with her. She thought me grateful for the gift of my life.

I heard someone in the other room, removing the slave's body. The Matriarch shifted, sighed as my fingers probed deeper into muscle. I did not miss a stroke, simply reached into my robe and pulled out the vial I stored there, and tipped a drop of the clear liquid between her shoulder blades. I did not touch that spot again -- she preferred other places for massage, in any case, and would not ask.

The servants whisper that my mother was weak, that she had cared for my father, and her obsession with him made her blind to her sister's machinations. Perhaps. Those same servants once tormented me, my mother's only offspring, to test my weakness. They fear me now. I am in training to be the House mage -- for our Matriarch in her wisdom believes that female mages are to trusted, while males are not, and when my training is complete she will kill my uncle who serves her now. He knows this, poor man -- he watches me with sick and hate-filled eyes. Matriarch sends me to the mage-college Arcanorum for my training; she has an idea that my uncle might kill me, if given opportunity to be my teacher.

She is both right, and a fool -- my masters in Arcanorum bear no particular love for her, and do not monitor my learning with her best interests at heart. They indulge my fascination with herbs and chemical powders, and I have some small renown for blending pleasant perfumes and incenses. The poisons... are my secret creation. Poisons are common among us, and many of us bear some immunity to them; but my poisons were not standard, always subtle, and would garner me either much praise or slow death if discovered. My masters think me harmless, really, broken and totally loyal to the Matriarch. They think nothing of the hours I spend in the laboratories, or in the library, researching. That is what mages do, after all.

The Matriarch shifted beneath me again, rolled onto her side. I stepped back from her, and went to wipe the oil from my fingers; kept my eyes on her the entire time too. Turn one's back on the Matriarch, take one's life in one's hands. I had, once, and bore a scar from my hairline to my collarbone for it.

Her garnet eyes blinked lazily. Massages always put her in a... sensuous mood. "Belaeryth -- send for Brynafein." She watched me closely, trying to read my expression, another challenge.

Not a blink from me; I passed her test. "As you wish." I bowed, backed from the room, and did not turn away from her until I cleared the main door to her chamber. Servants scrubbed at the blood stains on the marble, trying not to notice me as I passed.

Brynafein would be in the courtyard, now, at sword-practice. I stalked down the halls, and the servants and slaves shrank from my path, ducking their heads and never looking into my face. I am, however lowly, a House member -- they do not dare meet my eyes like an equal. That fact serves me well, for I could feel an expression on my face that would have spoken volumes to an observer.

As expected, I found Brynafein engaged in a vicious mock-battle with the second-son, Maeltin. I waited, patient as I did not have to be, until they finished. Maeltin favored me with a scowl, but Brynafein's eyes brightened when he saw me. Brightened -- then faded, as he realized why I had come. Nothing said -- he put aside his practice sword and followed me back into the House.

Once inside, I slowed enough that we could walk together -- forbidden, for a commoner to behave as equal with a noble, but we were not in public now, and the servants who did notice would say nothing. Everyone hates the Matriarch, and I have made no enemies here.

"She is in her chamber," I murmured. "Waiting for you."

A fine line appeared between his eyebrows. He knew why, of course. Brynafein is intelligent, and wise enough to know when protest would be fatal. He had no rights the Matriarch did not grant. And if she wanted... well, he would acquiesce. And until she tired of him, if she did, and if she let him live, afterwards, his body was not his own.

This was not the first time she had called for him. I wondered how he bore it.

"What's her mood?" He feigned accident, brushed his hand against my arm. Fine blade-scars laced his fingers like webs.

"She's killed a slave today." Let him draw the appropriate conclusions. And then, because he and I had been lovers, until her eye had fallen on him -- "Do not be here this evening. Find any excuse, but be absent."

He cocked his head, curious, and studied my face as no male should do. I did not reprimand him, as he knew I would not. "Where will you be?"

I met his eyes, willing volumes of information into them I dared not say. "Not here." And left it at that.

I left him at the Matriarch's door, dared a single fingertip and touched his cheek, just that once. Death to us both if she saw it -- she could have any male, and no woman in her House could gainsay her. And then I escaped the walls of the House, and fled to Arcanorum before the sounds of her sport could reach me. Perhaps I have my mother's weakness after all.

Only later did I recall the single spot between the Matriarch's shoulders that, if he touched it, would kill him, too... and by then it was too late for warnings.


* * *

Arcanorum is a great, brooding collection of stone and metal, shaped and held in place by spells. If even one of the spells fail, the entire place will collapse -- a defense, in case of attack by rival mages. But if Arcanorum falls, then our city does -- for without the magic of the mages to defend us, we would be lost to other drow and worse things that prowl the Dark.

I passed the gates without challenge, went immediately to my cell. A travel sack lay within, filled with my preparations for this day. The caravan left for the surface world at end-day... the poison would do its work by then, but I was counting on the chaos of a Matriarch's death to guard my passing. No one would look for me until it was far, far too late.

A last thing to bring with me: I went to the laboratory to collect my herbs and powders. I let myself into the great stone chamber; its walls were blackened and scorched by years of failed experiments. I lit a candle with a tiny magick -- only the mage-trained can really bear the brilliance of firelight in even the tiniest amounts. I would have been safer, perhaps, to work in darkness; but a single mistake as I collected the powders could be fatal later on.

Shelves of jars and bottles hung on the wall most distant from the experiment table. I went to it, selected the ones I wanted, and brought them to the table. Carefully I emptied the jars into little pouches -- small, fine-grained, made from single pieces of leather, and so leak-proof.

I heard the door behind me open, and cursed myself for a fool for not locking it... and again, a locked door might only bring questions.

A tall drow shape glided into the candle light: Snowdenaelikk, a senior student who shared the labs with me, an herbalist and surgeon. Her family was wealthy and merchant; they had traded with the surface folk for years, and her very undrow blue eyes testified to a past sharing beyond material goods. It was she who had taught me the surface tongue. Never, in the years I had known her, had I experienced any cruelty from her, though the opportunities had been ample for abuse, had she desired to inflict it. And it had been she who treated the barb-whip cut on my face and neck, her fingers that closed the wound with stitches so tiny the scar was nearly invisible.

Against my better judgment, I liked her.

She made no comment, just looked over my pouches and bottles. Then, casually, she joined me in filling them. She stopped me from taking the remainder of one herb. "You can get this readily Above," she murmured. "Leave us this much, at least."

She knew... I jumped back from the table, my hand reaching for my knife. I could not best her with spells, but I am small and quick with weapons. She regarded me with amusement, and made no move to cast or draw her own blade.

"Really, Belaeryth." Her dragonbat familiar hissed at me, sensing threat, and lashed its barbed tail warningly. "I'm no enemy. You should know that by now."

I did not put away the knife, said, instead, in the surface tongue, "You are a drow." We are, all of us, treacherous.

"So are you. So is your Matriarch." She shrugged again, this time impatiently. "I have little care for what you do, certainly not enough to tell anyone about what I've seen."

"They could question you." I shifted position, trying to measure distance to her and estimate the speed at which the familiar could strike at me. The barb on its tail was venomous. Snowdenaelikk still made no move to defend herself, crossed her arms over her chest, a clear signal she was not about to cast.

"They could. They'll be too busy looking for the assassin, though, I think." I started violently, and she smiled with no malice at all. "I knew from the moment she scarred you there would be a reckoning for her. That she didn't is only proof of her stupidly and unworthiness to rule a House. And that is what everyone else will think, too." Her weight shifted subtly, and her hands slipped loose to her sides. "Now put that damned dagger away before I lose my patience with you."

What to do? Die, that was what, if I attacked her now. Stupid, stupid, Belaeryth. I resheathed the blade, felt sick. Then, because she was watching me expectantly, I went back to the table to collect my things as if I believed her. I passed too close to the dragonbat for my comfort, but it didn't strike; I could feel its bright hot eyes on me.

"I am surprised you will not stay to take her place." Assassination is an acceptable form of succession. I could become Matriarch after my aunt, if I was clever enough to hold the House's loyalty behind me. I could be what my mother should have been.

"I am no priestess." Even as I said it, I knew that was not a permanent obstacle, and a poor excuse for running.

"You could be trained," she said, probing now and curious.

I stuffed the last pouch into my sack, turned and met her elven blue eyes with my very drow golden ones. "I want nothing from that House but my freedom, and that she would not grant me if she lived." And I realized that was truth, unadorned, from my mouth for the first time in my life.

Her eyebrows rose, pale slashes on a black face, and the faintest of smiles touched her mouth. "Well, then." She nodded to me gravely, a gesture of respect. "A drow female who does not want power from Ut'tu. I am in the presence of a rare creature," she said without any mockery at all.

I met her eyes for one moment, and nodded to her. "May the darkness protect you."

"May your enemies see only light."

I turned my back to her, a rare gesture of trust, and made my escape.

Абе, тва изобщо някой прочете ли го?

Не се обиждай, ама не съм го чел нито имам намерение да го чета.
Не ме питай защо мислия, че сам се досещаш.

Ми малко е доста дълго ... пък ме марзи , но може и да го прочета ..... ако н еумра преди това :РРР