“I see. I’ll inform the patrols and the master armswoman at once,” said Arngam. The chill had left his voice, and he nodded at Icelin. “This is valuable information. You have our thanks.”
“You have my congratulations,” Icelin said tentatively, “on your upcoming wedding. I’m certain you’ll be very happy together.”
At the mention of the wedding, Ingara whirled on Arngam and jabbed an accusing finger at his chest. “What are you doing here, anyway?” she cried. “You know you’re not to set foot over this threshold before the wedding. You’d better be on a mission from Moradin himself, if you don’t want a beating.”
Arngam smiled fondly at his betrothed. “There’s my lovely one in all her fury. I heard you cry out. How could I not come to your aid?”
“And get a peek at your wedding-day gift,” Ingara said. “Don’t think I don’t know what’s really in your head.”
Arngam raised his hands in surrender. “Don’t worry, taerin, I haven’t seen a thing. I’ll leave you now-as long as you’re all right,” he added, sobering.
“I’m fine,” Ingara said. She leaned in and kissed her love on the cheek. “Go, and remember to tell the patrols.”
He nodded and left the forge. When they were alone, Ingara turned to the table and laid her hands over the cloth covering the axe. “Were they truly illusions?” she asked, not meeting Icelin’s eyes. “They did not taint this?”
“Illusions and common spiders,” Icelin said. “On a drow’s hand, the ring might have called out to more monstrous creatures of the Underdark to mix with the illusions. On my hand, no touch of the dark goddess’s magic reached those spiders. I’d have felt it.”
Ingara closed her eyes briefly and nodded. “Thank you.”
“Do you want us to leave you alone?” Ruen asked.
“No, I’m all right.” Ingara uncovered the axe and lifted it in her hands, as if to feel the reassuring weight, the reality of the weapon. “I started dreaming this design the night they brought Arngam and me to the city on our backs and out of our heads with fever,” she said. Her eyes clouded with the memory. “We were in the mines, inspecting the structure of one of the dead-end tunnels to see if we could dig through it and join it to the main passages. Giant spiders set upon us. We must have disturbed a nest-no one had been in that tunnel for months. The worst part was that I didn’t see the attack coming.”
Ingara shivered and touched her hair. “I felt one of them land on my back. The hair on its belly was soft, like warm fur. It wound into my hair and brushed against my neck-and then it bit me. I thought someone had put a fire in my veins.”
Icelin remembered the spider that had dropped on her from the cavern ceiling on their journey to the city. Pinned beneath its legs, she hadn’t had time to think about the horror of becoming the monster’s prey. She’d been too busy trying to escape.
But she would always remember those eyes staring at her, the black, soulless orbs that looked on her as food and nothing more.
“How did you escape?” Ruen asked.
“I didn’t,” Ingara said. “Arngam fought off as many as he could, while I writhed on the floor with cramps in my stomach like nothing I’d ever felt before. It was as if someone had taken hold of my insides and just kept twisting, twisting. Got so bad I could barely draw a breath. We’d have both died, but I screamed at Arngam to get away and bring back help. It was the only way. The spiders had enough time to work on me while he was gone.”
“You were awake for it?” Icelin said, horrified. “Merciful gods, had I been in your place, I would have gone mad.”
“Not quite,” Ingara said, lips twisting in a bitter smile. “A spider’s web, from the inside, smells like decay and something sharp and sweet that invades the lungs and makes a person lightheaded. Sometimes I still smell it, that scent-Arngam says I wash my hair more than any dwarf he’s ever seen, but he’s gentle with his teasing because he knows I’ll never really get all the smell out.
It’s too much in my head.”
“He’s a good man,” Ruen said. “He saved you from the spiders?”
“Aye, he brought a group back to rescue me, but it was still a nightmare of a fight.” Ingara put the axe down and began absently cleaning her tools and arranging them near the forge. The familiar rituals seemed to comfort her. “I hated him too, while I was in that web. Out of my head with pain and fever, I cursed Arngam horribly for leaving me, even though I was the one who told him to do it. I pray to the gods he never heard any of the things I said.”
“Even if he did, he knows you weren’t yourself,” Ruen said. “Pain and fear change a person. It’s no shame to you.”
“You sound like my sister.” Ingara smiled, chasing some of the shadows from her face. “Joya is always eager to forgive anybody any offense, bless her. In the end, Arngam got his share of poison too, ripping me out of that web, and the clerics spent days nursing us out of the fever. While I was lying in the grip of it, I started making the axe in my mind. If Arngam was able to forgive me for all that had happened, I knew we’d be good for each other. I took away my share of scars from that web, but some good came of it, too.”
She stared into the forge fire. “My thanks for your aid and for destroying the rings. I know you’ve not felt welcome, but we’re grateful you’re here. We need friends now more than ever. Father knows this. Obrin, for all his stubbornness, knows it too.”
“I don’t know how much help we’ll be able to provide,” Ruen said, echoing Icelin’s earlier thoughts. “We are only three people-two, and a cook,” he amended.
“The king disagrees,” Ingara said. “Joya’s told me a little of it, but King Mith Barak keeps his own counsel-and his own secrets-on some matters. He thinks you’re important.”
Why does that give me no comfort? Icelin didn’t voice the thought. “Speaking of the king, we should be going,” she said. “Ingara, are you sure you’re all right?”
“Once I begin my forge work, there’ll be no other thought in my head,” Ingara assured her. “Any more of those rings come my way they’ll go in the fire.”
The best place for them, Icelin thought. She wished Ingara could cast off her memories so easily.
“You’re quiet,” Ruen said as they made their way across the plaza to the king’s private chambers.
It must have been market day, for a handful of merchants had set up stalls in the plaza, and there were more dwarves about than Icelin had yet seen, though not nearly as many as there should have been on such an occasion. A handful of families milled about, buying supplies, but there was a subdued quality to their movements. Most spoke in low voices instead of the loud, boisterous shouts and curses Icelin expected from a busy marketplace.
“I thought you’d be pleased at the uncommon silence,” Icelin said. “I finally give you a moment’s peace, and you demand that I talk. Have you lost your wits, Morleth?”
“Not at all. It’s just that when you’re silent, I worry you’re plotting something,” Ruen said. “Since you’ll inevitably drag me into whatever scheme you’ve got brewing in your head, I thought it best to find out how great the danger is up front. I dislike surprises.”
“Poor Ruen, you’ve picked the wrong traveling companion,” Icelin said, laughing, but her humor couldn’t last, not under the weight of what she’d just witnessed. “I like the Blackhorns,” she said. “I’m afraid of what will happen to them … and us.”
“So am I.”
“I want the Arcane Script Sphere,” Icelin said, “but the price is high, and the battle the dwarves are facing is unimaginable. I wish …”
“You want to help them,” Ruen said. “I understand, but if the odds are as bad as Joya says, it’s likely Iltkazar is doomed no matter what aid we give the dwarves.”
“I can’t stand to see them lose everything,” Icelin said. Waterdeep was a long way away, but it still felt like her true home. If it were wiped off the face of Faerun, she would be heartbroken. It would be as if her great uncle had died all over again. “What if it was your village that were threatened, the place where you were born?” she said. “You’d return and defend it, wouldn’t you?”