Bladesinger - Keith Francis Strohm [87]
The druid had no idea how long she'd been a prisoner. She remembered the bridge, remembered the sting of spider venom, and the next thing she'd been aware of was the cold kiss of her steel shackles and the bitter voice of the hag whispering hateful secrets into her ear. At first Marissa's mind seemed numb and sluggish-as if wreathed in a chill gray fog that drained thought and speech. She fought off the sensation, realizing at the last moment that it was merely a spell cast by her captor.
That was when the pain began-physical and psychic assaults that left Marissa barely conscious. She cried out again and again to her god for some measure of mercy but received nothing but more agony.
It was all about the Staff of the Red Tree. The hag had made that clear from the first moment. Somehow the artifact resisted her attempts at mastery, and the monster assumed that Marissa held the key. Perhaps she did, the druid thought bitterly, for even now she could hear the voice of the staff, muted, like a distant whisper, calling to her in the depths of her mind. If Marissa held the key to the staff's power, she had no idea how to access it.
She hung in the darkness, weeping, waiting for the hag's next visit. She thought now and again of Taenaran and her friends battling for survival somewhere in the bowels of the earth below the citadel. She had no idea if they were still alive or if the hag's minions had slain them. She remembered, dimly, the promise of a conversation with Taenaran, a conversation that she had put off until the end of their journey. Endings, she thought bitterly, have a nasty habit of coming when you least expect them, yet Marissa still held out hope that she and Taen would see each other again. She hung by that thin silver thread of hope over the abyss of despair as surely as she hung by the steel chains that bound her.
She was surprised, therefore, by the voice that cut through her interior wrestling. "Do not think that anyone will come for you," the voice said. "You are alone."
At first Marissa expected to see the hag, green skin and misshapen face leering out of the darkness. It only took her a few moments, however, to realize that the voice sounded different, huskier than the hag's. Dim light filled the room. The druid blinked hard as the illumination aggravated her eyes. When she could focus, Marissa saw a brown-haired figure standing before her. At first her heart leaped at the sight of the stranger- until she caught sight of the ore rune hanging around the figure's neck. The stranger's scarred face and her flat, gray eyes confirmed what Marissa suspected-the half-orc standing before her was no sympathetic rescuer but rather a servant of the hag.
A servant, she thought, and something more.
Power emanated from this creature. Marissa could sense it-a darkness as deep as the Abyss filled her. If she served anyone, it certainly wasn't the hag. That thought sent fear knifing up her spine.
"You've caused Yulda quite a bit of trouble," the stranger said, "you and your friends."
She drew closer to Marissa, reached out a thickly muscled hand, and ran her fingers lightly down the druid's cheek. The captive half-elf tried to turn her head, but the stranger grabbed it harshly with her other hand. Marissa could feel the barbed points of steel claws pressing harshly into her head.
"You won't give up the secrets of your staff to the hag," her tormentor whispered. "I respect that." The half-orc released Marissa's head. "You will reveal them to me, or I promise you the torments I have prepared for you will make you beg for the hag's return."
Marissa closed her eyes for a moment and prayed desperately for strength. The voice of the staff rose in her mind. The whole of her journey in Rashemen flashed before her. The druid knelt once more beneath the trunk of the Red Tree, spoke face-to-face with the ancient telthor. The memory of that time eased her fears. She had seen