“Why?” he cried, looking up at her. “What?”
“Do you think Asmodeus would approve of such idiocy? Love? There is no love. There is only lust.”
“But-”
“You disappoint me,” Sylora interrupted and started away, and Jestry pulled himself to his feet and scrambled after her. Again she stopped just as he neared, turning an even sharper stare over him.
“That is the truth we know!” Sylora said, and she poked her finger hard against his chest. “And in that truth, we are stronger. There is no love. Our enemies are weak because they delve into such nonsense. There is no love, only lust. There is no warmth, only heat. There is no friendship, only alliance. There is no community, only self. These are the tenets of your existence. These are the truths to which you gave yourself. Would you deny all of that because your loins itch?”
As she finished, she reached down and grabbed Jestry’s crotch hard and twisted. The man grimaced but held his ground.
“You desire me,” Sylora whispered, moving very close to the man’s face. She held her grip as she did, and twisted a bit more.
“You desire me,” she said again, more intently, and Jestry realized that there was a question in her tone. He nodded.
“You must have me,” she said. “You seek to possess me.”
Again he nodded.
“What I just gave to you with Arunika will only sate you temporarily,” she whispered. “And then you will need me again, even more, and you will beg me to show you even greater pleasure.”
Jestry was breathing too hard to respond.
Sylora let him go and shoved him back a step.
“I’m glad of that,” she said, suddenly calm. “And the promise of greater pleasures, pleasures beyond your imagination, is not a hollow one. I have a purpose for you, Jestry, and when you fulfill it, I’ll show to you a level of ecstasy that will probably kill you. You would like to die like that, wouldn’t you?”
Jestry found himself nodding before he even considered the implications of her promise.
“But woe to you if your death is not found in service to Asmodeus.”
“What do you mean?”
“The devil lord would frown on love, don’t you think?”
The words hit Jestry hard and he lowered his gaze with embarrassment. “Yes,” he admitted softly.
“There is no love, only lust,” Sylora instructed yet again. “Our enemies don’t understand that, and so they are soft.”
“The Netherese?” Jestry asked, looking up.
Sylora shook her head. “Not the Netherese. They, too, understand, and that’s why they are dangerous. Our other enemies-the humans, the dwarves, the elves, the halflings-they are weak.”
“But we’re human,” Jestry said before he could bite back the words.
“We have ascended, because we know the truth. And what is that truth, Jestry?”
The man swallowed hard because within Sylora’s words there loomed a clear threat should he fail this test.
“There is no love, only lust,” Jestry recited.
“But you said that you loved me.”
Jestry took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Only because I desire you. I’d tear off your clothes and throw you down before me!”
“You said that you loved me.”
“I’ve been taught that women wish to hear those words, so I said them that I might more fully possess you,” Jestry insisted. He tried to sound convincing, but knew the lie to be so obvious as to be ridiculous.
“And now that you know that I reject those words, and that I desire you in the same way as you do me?” Sylora teased, coming forward to stand very near to him again, letting him feel her hot breath on his neck and chin.
“I hunger for you even more,” Jestry said. He was glad that he’d paused long enough to consider his response before blurting it out, for he’d almost said that he “loved” her even more.
Sylora grabbed him roughly by the chin and tugged him closer. “Fear not, my champion, for I will feed you well.”
She moved as if to kiss him, but instead bit him hard on the lower lip, drawing blood.
8
Drizzt guided andahar as fast as he dared while trying to keep Dahlia steady. He’d slung her over the back of the unicorn, and had stopped no less than three times in the first twenty strides to make sure she was still breathing.
She was, but barely. One of her thighs had turned an ugly blue and spittle flowed from her lips.
Drizzt didn’t dare stop to more closely inspect her wound, though he figured it had to be on her lower leg. He spurred Andahar on, trying to figure out where to turn, or if he was even going in the right direction.
With the delays and indecision, and the futile attempts to ease Dahlia’s suffering, it was long past midday when Drizzt at last arrived at the farmhouse south of Luskan, where the dirty woman eked out a paltry existence with her five children. They weren’t hiding this time. The children and the woman came to the doorway and watched him slip down from Andahar and gently pull Dahlia off the unicorn’s back. He draped her across his shoulders and moved toward the doorway. The woman crossed her arms and wore a profound scowl.
“She dead?” the woman asked. Her expression went from sour to surprised when she looked upon Dahlia… because Dahlia’s hair and facial skin didn’t appear the same as she had when they came through there, Drizzt realized.
“Not dead, not dying,” Drizzt answered defiantly. “But she’s gravely ill-poisoned. I need to leave her here. I need you to watch over her while I return to Luskan.”
He moved to enter the doorway, but the woman didn’t immediately step aside. She stood there staring at him.
“Please, will you tend her?” Drizzt asked.
“I’m not knowing much about poison.”
“Just keep her as comfortable as you…” Drizzt started to explain, but the woman yelled past him suddenly, to her children.
“Go and fetch Ben the Brewer!” she ordered sharply. “And be quick!”
The children ran off down the dirt path.
“Ben the Brewer?” Drizzt asked.
“He has many herbs,” the woman replied.
“He can cure her?” Drizzt asked, and he was surprised by the desperation in his tone.
The farmer woman looked at him and scoffed, but finally stepped aside so he could bring her into the house. He lay Dahlia down gently on a bedroll and moved immediately to her boot, unstrapping it and pulling it off-or trying to, for her leg was thick with poison.
After some time and more than a little grease, Drizzt at last managed to get the boot off. Dahlia’s foot was horribly swollen and discolored, blue and red and yellow.
He winced and brought a hand up to his face to try to compose himself. The farmer woman moved past him and studied the foot. “Looks like the bite of a tundra viper,” she said.
“And Ben the Brewer can cure that?” Drizzt asked.
The woman cast him a pitiful glance and shook her head.
Drizzt took a deep breath. He couldn’t lose Dahlia. Not now. Not with the loss of Bruenor so raw, not with his sudden loneliness, the realization that all of his friends were gone. He fell back from the bed, surprised by that revelation, by how much he needed Dahlia, by how frightened he was that she, too, might leave him.
“This is no snakebite,” the farmer woman said, inspecting the single puncture in the bottom of Dahlia’s foot.
“A poisoned spike.”
“Then you should seek the one who coated the spike,” the woman said. “Few would play with such a mixture if they had no antidote, eh? Or get us a dose, aye, for we… you, will need the poison to counter the poison.”
Drizzt nodded and spent a long moment staring at Dahlia. Other than the angry leg, she looked quite serene, though very pale.
“I’ll return before the next dawn,” the drow pledged.
He started for the door, but even as he reached it the farmer woman cried out. Drizzt spun around to find her backing away from Dahlia, her hand over her open mouth, a look of horror on her face. The dark elf rushed to Dahlia, but found nothing amiss.