When Jax walked into Lloth’s temple Ari just shook her head

When Jax walked into Lloth’s temple Ari just shook her head. “Unimaginative… and stubborn drow: three. Creative drow: zero” she thought to herself. They had tried this exact same tactic on her twice already, all in an effort to break her spirit. Still, it was a break in the monotony of listening to the young priestesses drone on and on with their filthy prayers to the spider goddess.

Ari lifted her head and had to chuckle. This Jax was even further from what he really looked like than the other two had been. Besides, what would Jax be doing wearing the uniform of a Sakaran Watchman? This should be interesting.

“Ariessus! We’re here to rescue you!” her ‘brother’ said in an excited whisper as he slipped a pack from his shoulders.

“Oh really” Ari replied. “You and what army?”

Jax chuckled (which wasn’t something Ari expected and took her aback for a moment). “Me, your Seeker friends, the Dark Stalkers, the Army of House Amirsaqat, the Army of House Uraqwithai, and even a few detachments of Tamrin soldiers and a few Watch patrols. Most of them are here for House Aswadain, but I’m here for you.”

Reluctantly, Ari had to change the score. “Stubborn, unimaginative drow: three. Creative drow: one.” It took either a very clever or very insane drow to come up with a story about their own house being attacked.

“Really! How convenient that they should all decided to attack, just now, as I need rescuing. Come on, who are you? Hyssin again? Or maybe Venom’s newest boy toy? Clever story, I must say.”

Oh, this one was good. His look of surprise and puzzlement was exquisitely perfect. “But Ari… I…”

Jax stopped when he was interrupted – interrupted by a voice that made Ari’s heart skip a beat.

The priestess of Corelleon had to shut her eyes tight against the sudden tears. She had tried so hard to hide her thoughts and feelings about K’harn from the Aswadain. Apparently they had finally broken through. How dare they use the memory of her beloved against her like this! They were going to pay for this one day. Oh yes, they were going to pay.

When Ari opened her eyes back up she saw K’harn standing there, as expected. Again she had to admire whoever the illusionist was who was creating these images. Sane would have been proud of them.

But the sight of K’harn’s image cut Ari deeper than she thought it would. She had blocked her feeling of loneliness and isolation for so long they threatened to come boiling out, like a pot which had worked up too much pressure. “NO!” Ari told herself firmly. “I am NOT going to give them the pleasure of seeing me cry!”

K’harn’s image walked forward, shouldering Jax out of the way. She stood up on her hind paws. Ari was surprised to notice that K’harn actually stood taller than her now. The great cat’s image then leaned down until her nose touched Ari’s. Ari couldn’t help but inhale deeply. They even had K’harn’s scent exactly right.

Then something happened that caught Ari totally off guard. She began to feel something inside. A warm, soft glow that began to grow. Ari looked into K’harn’s eyes, daring for a second to believe. She had done something like this with K’harn on a few occasions before, when their link was so strong that they could send not only their thoughts, but their innermost feelings to each other. Could the drow fake that some how? Ari began to grow very confused.

As the glow in her chest grew, K’harn’s voice once again came into her head. <I knew this is how I would have to convince you. Your mind can be fooled, but your heart cannot. Open your heart to me, my Mistress. Feel my love! Could any in House Aswadain, or any that associated with them, feel this?>

The warmth in Ari’s chest suddenly exploded into a flame of emotion. Love, respect, loyalty, concern, even a touch of awe. They all flowed into and through Ariessus’s soul. As the walls of disbelief fell away Ari felt something else to – something buried deep within her Beloved’s soul. She discovered that the concern she felt had deeper currents, currents of fear, almost of panic. Ari realized that the separation had been more difficult on K’harn than it had been on her.

“Oh, K’harn! I’m so sorry!” Ari choked out, the tears beginning to fall.

K’harn licked her mistress on the face and began to purr. No words were needed. Words would only get in the way of the spiritual communication between the two. Ari laid her head against K’harn’s warm fur and dropped all her barriers.

“This is… ah… real sweet and all, but we do need to get out of here” Jax said a minute later.

Ari nodded as K’harn licked the tears from her face. “I’m sorry, Jax. They had used you to try and get to me already. Twice already.”

Jax just nodded as he began to dig around in his pack.

“I hope you have something in there to get me out of this rock.”

“Watch this” Jax replied, motioning with his head for K’harn to move away. He placed a small metal cage on the floor in front of Ariessus. “Valdaeron said to tell you he’s sorry about this, but it’s the only way to break the bonds quickly.”

Jax dropped what looked like a pearl into the center of the cage and then quickly backed away. Ari watched as the cage pulsed once, then twice. She wondered what was going to happen.

A wave of sheer agony slammed into Ariessus. It hurt so bad she couldn’t even cry out. Every fiber of her being felt like it was on fire. The sensation seemed to last an eternity, although it could have only been a few seconds. When it passed Ari felt as drained as she had ever felt in her whole life.

“Wha… what was that?” she managed to gasp out. Looking down she saw the cage still on the ground, the pearl inside of it glowing slightly as it spun in a circle.

“It creates a temporary anti-magic field. It nullifies the effect of that belt and the stone” Jax replied. “At least, that’s what it’s supposed to do” he muttered under his breath.

Ari’s brother then removed a strange item from his pack. It looked like a rod, about two feet long and six inches in diameter. “Now this isn’t supposed to hurt, but it will tickle” he said as he placed one end of the rod against the stone holding Ari’s right arm. He pressed a colored button on the device and it began to hum. Sure enough, Ari felt a tickle in her arm, all the way down to her bone. Jax moved the device up and down the length of the stone a few times, then pressed the button again. Putting the rod on the ground he pulled a small hammer from his belt. “Here goes nothing!”

Jax rapped against the stone over Ari’s arm with the hammer. To the amazement of both the stone fairly burst apart, falling away from Ari’s flesh and freeing her arm.

Jax smiled and shrugged. He then freed Ari’s other arm and legs in quick succession.

Ari stepped out of her prison and unceremoniously fell onto her face. Her legs and arms were completely numb.

“They thought of this too” Jax reassured her, uncorking a potion with a wide mouth and handing it to her. “You’re supposed to drink it quickly.”

Ari sighed, expecting the worse, then downed the potion as quickly as she could. Sure enough, cold fire ran out from her stomach to her limbs. Ari groaned as a thousand pinpricks hit her all at once. K’harn walked over and put her head down next to Ari to try and comfort her.

The pain lasted for almost a full minute before it began to subside. Ari found that she was breathless and shaking. But, she had to admit, she felt better… much better. She carefully got to her feet, pleased to have them respond this time.

As she stood Jax reached down into his pack again and pulled out several items. “Loaners from Valdaeron and the Stalkers” he told her as he handed her a set of bracers, a cloak, and a long sword with belt and sheath. “Val says to listen to the sword if it decides to talk to you.”

“Oh great,” Ari replied, “another talking sword. Well, hopefully I won’t need it. After all, I have my…”

Ari paused. She was about to say she had her spells, but she wasn’t really sure if she did. Her captivity had given her plenty of time to pray to her God, but had he been able to answer her as she languished as a prisoner in a temple dedicated to His most deadly foe? With a sigh of relief Ari felt the comforting presence of her spells. Although… why did some of them feel… different? Ari shook the thought off. Must be some lasting effect from being in the temple for so long.

“So, what’s the plan from here?” she asked, stroking K’harn.

“We wait here. I came in with the advance party. They went to bring down the gates while I came looking for you. The main force should be here any minute. My main job was to free you and get you into shape before they arrived. Looks like I succeeded!”

Ari reached out and put her hand on her brother’s face. “Jax, you don’t know how…”

Ari was interrupted by a loud explosion from outside the great doors at the rear of the chapel. “Perhaps we should hide, just in case those aren’t the friendlies” Jax suggested.

Nodding in agreement, Ari followed him to a small alcove about half way down the chapel. They waited there for several minutes, crouched behind the statue of some ancient drow hero, listening as the sounds of battle began to drift into the large hall.

“So this really is an all-out attack against Merra?”

Jax smiled slowly as he nodded. Ari winced slightly. That kind of smile was obviously not a product of happy thoughts. “Val said that Aswadain had overreached itself and that this was the perfect opportunity to take advantage of that.”

Ari just nodded, unsure as to what she thought about that. Then another thought occurred to her. “You said my friends were here?”

“They were supposed to be… or rather, they were supposed to help rescue you. But that all changed yesterday. Apparently some human king died, and one of his heirs is being held captive by house Zimrath. I didn’t catch all the details, but I guess your friends went to go rescue him while we broke you out.”

Ari was about to ask for more details when the great doors of the chapel burst open. Three drow came running into the room. Ari tensed as she recognized one of them as Merra’s oldest daughter, Costasi. “Lloth! Save us in our hour of need!” the evil young woman was shouting as she ran towards the altar. She skidded to a halt when she noticed that Ari was no longer there. She was beginning to slowly shake her head side to side when a lightning bolt caught her square in the back, hurling her broken body into the benches lining the central aisle.

Looking back towards the doorway Ari saw that the other two Aswadain drow had fallen already, and that drow wearing the colors of House Amirsaqut were flooding into the chapel. Ari’s eyes widened as she recognized the woman leading them – Mistress Vantani, the High Witch of Burj Da’iman. A rush of memories flew through Ari’s consciousness as she recognized her. Many, many years ago the High Witch had personally tutored her at Burj Da’iman, the school for mages in Sakar. For a while, Ari had planned on becoming a mage. After all, it was about the only way for a female in her position to avoid becoming a priestess of Lloth. But there was another reason for her attraction to the Burj as well – Mistress Vantani. Much of Ari’s early questioning about drow society had been influenced by conversations with the High Witch. The pair had spent many hours conversing about life in Sakar, and about what it meant to be a drow. Ari had often wondered if she would have become like the High Witch had her house not been destroyed – a drow unhappy with her people, but unwilling to leave them.

Ari followed Jax as her brother stepped out of the alcove. Seeing them the High Witch turned and walked over. “See, Jax, I told you that you would get the job done” she said as she approached. She then stopped in front of Ariessus, looking at her curiously. Ari had the distinct impression she was being weighed somehow. She drew herself up. She was no arch-mage, but she was High Priestess of Corelleon!

Mistress Vantani slowly smiled. “You have exceeded even my wildest dreams for you, young Ariessus. I am…”

The High Witch paused. With a start Ari saw tears forming in her eyes. Mistress Vantani unexpectedly set her staff aside and reached out, holding Ari’s face in her hands. Ari was unsure of what to think, especially when the High Witch began looking intently into her eyes.

Ari’s puzzlement only lasted a moment before she felt the answer come to her. She said a quick prayer of thanks, then reached up and took Mistress Vantani’s face in her own hands. “Yes. He has heard your prayers, and considers them among His most precious” she reassured her former mentor. Ari had a great idea. Why not bring Mistress Vantani to the surface with her? She smiled and was about to suggest her plan when another feeling from within clamped her mouth shut. She winced and looked at Vantani sadly. “He wishes for you to stay here, to continue in the work that you have been doing. While I have succeeded above the others, I am not the only one that you have touched.”

The High Witch nodded and removed her hands from Ari’s face so that she could wipe away a single tear. “I understand” she replied. “Thank you!”

“No, thank you! You have no idea what you did for me when I studied under you. You prepared me for the teachings which I was to later learn. I…”

Ari paused when Jax laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not like this with your surface friends, are you? If so, how do you ever get anything done?”

“He’s right,” Mistress Vantani said, stepping back and picking up her staff once again. “We need to get you to safety, and I have a certain Matron I’d just love to catch up with.”

Before Ari could reply the High Witch had turned and was quickly moving across the room. As she did so a drow wearing the uniform of a Dark Stalker stepped forward and nodded to Jax. “We’ve got the Airboat waiting outside.”

A small phalanx of guards formed around Ari as Jax escorted her out of the chapel and into the main courtyard of House Aswadain. Ari looked around in disgust at the scene of carnage laid out before her. There were at least a dozen dead drow laying in the courtyard. Walls and doorways were blasted apart and scorched by fell magics. Ari bowed her head, saying a quick prayer for the souls of any who may have died while involved in her rescue – no matter what their motivations had been.

Jax lead her over to what looked for all the world like a small sailboat without a sail. They climbed a short ladder and sat down near the bow. The other Dark Stalkers climbed in behind them. The boat then rose gracefully into the air and flew high over the city towards the water below.

Ari stood up and leaned over the side, making K’harn more than a little nervous. But she couldn’t pass up this chance to see the city of her birth from the air. It was beautiful. That was the only way to describe it. Beleg would have loved it.

The unexpected memory of her fiancé dampened Ari’s mood. They had tried to describe their homelands to each other, but Ari’s stories of a city underground were as foreign to Beleg as his of an icy land where the sun sometimes never set were to her. Sensing her mistress’s mood, K’harn rubbed up against her.

It only took a few minutes to descend to the water’s edge. Jax explained that they were to meet up with the Seekers in a covered dock/warehouse owned by House Amirsaqut. Then they would escape from the city on one of the bioships.

The boat finally set down outside the warehouse, but Ari’s companions were nowhere to be seen. The few Stalkers who had been left behind to guard the bioship hadn’t heard from them. Jax took Ari to an underground room where she was given a chance to wash up a little and put on some fresh clothes. As she moved around the room she realized that her friends had been here recently. She sensed them as much as she saw the little things they had left behind. Kat had been working on making arrows over against that wall. Sane had slept over there. Thengal had left one of his dozen or so whetstones on that table there.

A knock at the door heralded the return of her friends. Jax walked in. “They’ve returned. And I’ll be drowned if they don’t have that human heir they were sent to rescue.”

Ari smiled as she and K’harn hurried up the stairs to meet back up with her friends.

(The story to be continued in another post.)