Between the fighting and the running and the narrow escapes, the shadow knight had had quite a day. Though she’d proven to possess the stalwart soul that every Teir’Dal strove to perfect, at the end of the day she discovered something about herself she’d never known before.

Dreketh was violently seasick.

Shortly after receiving a boisterous recrimination by the captain regarding her conduct in boarding his vessel, the dark elf unloaded the contents of her stomach over the railing and into the turbulent waves below.

Wincing at the hideous sounds of her retching companion, Laera Nellynwae sat with her back against the railing, doing her best to do the proud shadow knight the courtesy of not making a spectacle of her infirmity.

“You know, I can cure you of this,” she said, offering her druid magic.

Dreketh slid weakly down the railing next to Laera, her skin taking on a positively blue-green hue.

“I’d rather vomit. I told you,” she said, her voice heavy. “I don’t want anything to do with the touch of your unworthy power. I’ll be fine.”

Laera shook her head at the stubbornness of the Teir'Dal. Even something as simple as a curing spell to alleviate even a small portion of her discomfort was bitterly refused. The wood elf had to wonder if all dark elves were like this, or if Dreketh was simply trying to prove something. Taking in the shadow knight’s miserable appearance, she figured it had to be the latter. An entire race of Drekeths would be too impractical.

The druid idly fidgeted with her hands in her lap.

“I haven’t, um…” she started out weakly. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you for jumping to my defense back there. After the way I treated you, I didn’t expect you to care what happened to me.”

The shadow knight let out a small grunt in response.

Laera decided to ignore Dreketh’s usual callousness.

“Would it bother you if I asked you a question?” she asked delicately.

The dark elf placed a weary hand to her forehead, struggling to maintain control over her innards.

“If I said 'yes,'” would it make any difference?” she replied with a sigh.

“What made you decide to get involved?” Laera asked, undaunted. “You’ve made it abundantly clear you care nothing for me or my race or my beliefs. You take every opportunity to spit scathing remarks at me. You condescend, and you make every excuse to shoot down my ideas with disdain. I mean… it’s your very religion to hate me and everything I stand for. I don’t understand what made you jump in like that back at the tavern.”

The dark elf cast Laera a look through the slits of her eyelids. Seeing that the druid was speaking in earnest, she closed her eyes again and let her hand drop to rest in her own lap, mirroring the druid’s solemn disposition.

“The Pact clearly states-”

“The Pact has nothing to do with what happened, and you know it,” the resolute druid interrupted. “You might be honor-bound to protect my life, but the Pact says nothing about protecting my virtue. My life was in no real danger, so I have to ask myself, ‘Why would she bother? What made her get so worked up over some human with groping hands in a tavern full of people?’ Can you explain that for me? Because the Pact surely doesn’t.”

The dark elf curled her thin lips, pressing them together and wetting them with her tongue as she considered how best to word her response.

“You’re a virgin,” she said with a half tilt of her head.

“And that means what to you?” Laera asked quizzically. “As far as I can tell, the Teir’Dal place no value on abstinence.”

“True,” the dark elf conceded bluntly. “If anything, the females of my kind are encouraged to procreate as soon as they’re able. It provides more followers to serve the will of Innoruuk, and it helps replace the Teir’Dal lives that are constantly lost at the hands of the light dwellers.”

The wood elf attended Dreketh’s words with interest.

“So, what is it?”

The shadow knight opened her mouth irritably, trying to search for the words she was loath to speak. It was apparent to the druid that the topic she’d touched on was a sensitive one.

“It’s… not something we discuss openly,” the dark elf said with hesitation. “Especially not with light dwellers. We get enough disdain from the light races as it is without giving them even more ammunition to ridicule us and our ways.”

“Well…” Laera mused. “We have some pretty strange habits ourselves in Kelethin. How bad could it be? I mean, we all have strange customs that other races have trouble accepting.”

“You don’t understand, woodie,” Dreketh shot the wood elf a severe look. “It is the most sacred ritual in the life of a Teir’Dal female when she’s…‘introduced’ to the childbearing sect. We don’t even talk about it openly amongst ourselves.”

The soft-spoken druid was taken aback.

“I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

“No, of course you didn’t,” the dark elf cut off the wood elf’s explanation with a sneer. “That’s what I’m talking about. You wouldn’t even know the proper way to behave even if I did tell you about it.”

Laera’s shoulders slumped against the ship’s railing. With a squint, the wood elf looked up at the sun shining in the western sky as it drew near the horizon. With all that had taken place in the past weeks, she still couldn’t seem to get past the dark elf’s airtight defenses. She was quickly coming to learn that the very nature of the Teir’Dal precluded it by design. From what she could gather, even among themselves, the dark elves rarely built what she would term “friendships” that weren’t founded in some sort of goal for the benefit of their race or their god.

Sneaking a peek at her afflicted companion, Laera couldn’t suppress a pang of sorrow for her. As a dark elf, she would likely never know many joys of life—joys the druid took to heart and enjoyed to their fullest. Simple pleasure, such as the enjoyment of the sun’s rays on her face, was a concept completely alien—even irritating—to Dreketh. She imagined it wasn’t much different than the rigorous training she underwent during her final days in Kelethin, only to a Teir’Dal it was a lifestyle and not just a temporary cramming session.

As she watched her companion’s pained expression in fending off the seasickness, Laera decided she was going to make a concerted effort to show the dark elf that there were things to be enjoyed in life before it could be truly lived.

The only question was how. Dreketh’s cynical and sarcastic repartee had a way of keeping people at bay more effectively than dragon’s breath. What Laera needed was to find a crack in the fortified wall with which the shadow knight surrounded herself. In order to do that, she really needed to understand her companion more, and somehow divine her way of thinking.

The idea of climbing inside the head of a Teir’Dal made the wood elf shiver. The malignant race did things that were abhorrent to any other civilized people. Everything from brainwashing their youth to outright cannibalism had been rumored to be integral parts of their society. Laera cast herself back to her brief visit to Neriak, remembering the common-looking shops and other buildings nestled inside the cavern they called home. She recalled how the Temple of Innoruuk appeared so ordinary—not at all like her preconceptions. Could it have been possible her preconceptions were exaggerated?

Once again, the wood elf glanced over at her partner. The truth was, she was stuck with this dark elf as her traveling companion—perhaps for a very long time. It could literally be months or even years before the Pact was satisfied and they parted ways to return to their individual lives. Until then, if Laera didn’t make some sort of reconciliation with Dreketh, it had the potential of being a very long and wearisome time span, regardless of how long it took. The very lament Laera was according the dark elf could very well be applied to herself if she allowed things to continue the way they were going.

“I’d… like to learn,” she heard her own voice say timidly.

Dreketh turned to face the wood elf.

“What?” she asked unknowingly. Apparently the dark elf had been lost in her own thoughts.

“I would like to learn the proper etiquette from you,” Laera clarified. “If you’re willing to teach me, that is.”

Dreketh’s blank look turned mildly suspicious.

“Why?”

The wood elf swallowed.

“Well, who knows how long we’re going to be together? We’re not going to have many people to talk to during this time besides each other. So, I thought if I could learn more of your ways, I wouldn’t annoy you so much.”

The dark elf’s expression returned to its former blank look. Laera cast Dreketh a sheepish glance before turning her gaze back down to her fidgeting hands in her lap.

A wood elf asking about the social customs of the Teir’Dal? Dreketh couldn’t believe her ears. What could a member of an ineffectual, self-indulgent and generally carefree race hope to gain from such a thing? A part of her said she wanted the information to gain an advantage over a race that had been a longtime blood-rival. It would be so like a light dweller to take advantage of the Pact and try to usurp whatever useful knowledge she could take back to her superiors in Kelethin. Though, what advantage a simple ritual would provide the forces of Tunare was beyond the dark elf.

When it came right down to it, in her condition, Dreketh wouldn’t have cared if Laera asked for the combination to the royal vault. She was in no mood to argue with the druid, and sitting alone only intensified her misery. Perhaps talking would take her mind off the perpetual listing of the ship on the ocean waters. And as Laera pointed out, nobody else was around to volunteer in that regard.

Very well, Dreketh thought to herself grimly. If the wood elf wanted a taste of what it was like to be Teir’Dal, then so be it. If nothing else, maybe it would get her to back off.

“Okay,” she said quietly.

“Really?” Laera asked, a look of mild disbelief in her eyes.

“Sure, what harm could it do?” Dreketh shrugged.

Seeing an odd mixture of eagerness and hesitation in the druid’s eyes, the shadow knight began to unfasten the heavy armor she wore. Cautiously, Laera reached out to assist the dark elf by unfastening the buckles on the shoulder nearest her.

“The gesture is simple, really,” Dreketh spoke as they both worked to divest her of her armor. “It’s an ancient custom… well, ancient by Teir’Dal standards, at least. It’s probably young compared to the customs of the other elf races.” She busily stashed pieces of her armor into the backpack lying on the deck next to her. “Anyway, it’s an ancient and very solemn ritual swearing total confidentiality and respect to the other person’s… well…‘confession’ is the closest word in the common tongue.”

“It’s not an oath sworn to Innoruuk, is it?” The druid’s brow furrowed cautiously.

“No, no. Nothing like that,” Dreketh assured her. “This is a personal oath that any follower of any god can make, so long as it’s sincere.” The dark elf placed the last piece of her armor into her pack. Her task complete, she now wore nothing more than her ordinary red and black halter-top, aside from the uncomfortable bronze leggings she considered too bothersome to remove right now. “Though, I’ve never heard of a follower of Tunare taking it. It’s spoken in the Teir’Dal tongue.”

“Okay,” the wood elf turned to sit cross-legged across from the dark elf, who did the same. “What do I do?”

“First remove your armor as I have done,” Dreketh started out. “Wearing protective gear is normally seen as a shield to sincerity, so isn’t worn during the oath unless taken on the battlefield.”

“Well…” Laera blushed self-consciously.

“What?” Dreketh asked, immediately suspicious.

Laera glanced around at the crew of human men surrounding them on deck, each dutifully going about their jobs. Several were within earshot, so the wood elf leaned in to speak confidentially to her companion.

“I’m not wearing anything underneath the tunic,” she whispered. “Its lining was designed not to need an undershirt.”

Dreketh glanced down at the druid’s leather top curiously, having never heard of such a thing before.

“Oh?” she said, lacking any other words to say.

Laera nodded with a half-wince across her reddening face as she sat straight up again.

“Well, it isn’t critical, really,” the dark elf said, shrugging. “What’s most important is that the sincerity of the heart reflects the sincerity of the words. To break this oath means a loss of face that is nearly impossible to regain. Many Teir’Dal have entered self-imposed exile or even death rather than face the shame of their transgression of mistrust.”

The wood elf nodded in understanding, her face gravely serious as she listened.

“Okay,” Dreketh shifted slightly to settle herself better in the leggings she wore. “Place your hand against your shoulders like this.” The dark elf crossed her forearms to place her palms against her chest, fingers together, her thumbs just below each of her collarbones.

Laera imitated her companion’s example, watching the dark elf’s actions closely.

“Does one arm have to rest on top of the other?” she asked, trying her best not to make any mistakes.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dreketh answered. “What does matter is that your palms stay firmly in place while you close your eyes. Do it now. In this position with your arms crossed and your hands in plain view, well away from any weapon, you are rendered helpless. It’s a display of trust you make to the person who is about to place their trust in you. If they doubt your sincerity, they have the liberty to kill you where you are.”

Laera’s eyes flared open to find Dreketh raising a serious eyebrow.

“That is why this ritual is never made lightly. It is only performed under circumstances of the utmost significance, where trust must be absolute.”

The wood elf blinked silently as she pondered the shadow knight’s words.

“Now, close your eyes again,” Dreketh said reassuringly. “You know you’re safe in my hands because of the Pact. But keep in mind that under normal circumstances, if I doubted you one inch, you could very well be feeling the tip of my blade as it pierced through you.”

Swallowing nervously, Laera obediently closed her eyes and imagined what it would feel like if she were doing this before anyone not already sworn to defend her life with their own.

“Now repeat after me,” she heard the dark elf say. “Neitsh vell ra’chan vellin sar.”

The wood elf tilted her head curiously, her eyes still closed.

“What’s that mean?”

“Loosely, it translates to ‘mine honor shown, thy honor served,’” Dreketh explained. “Say it with me now. I’ll go more slowly.”

Together, dark elf and wood elf, shadow knight and druid recited the ancient words of the Teir’Dal in solemn ceremony. Many of the sailors nearby stopped their work to stare curiously at them. Several of the passengers looked up from whatever occupied them, shocked at the sight of the two young women sitting across from each other in what appeared to be mutual meditation of sorts—two elf females who reflected each other in stark contrast, both physically and spiritually. On one side sat a dark elf with night blue skin and stark white hair. On the other sat a wood elf with light tan skin and dark auburn hair.

The occupants on board the Golden Maiden that day were witness to an exhibition few others on Norrath would ever see—the sight of two mortal enemies with centuries of anger, pain and blood between them coming together in a display of mutual trust.

Laera whispered out the corner of her mouth, “Now what?”

“Well, I didn’t kill you,” the dark elf responded glibly. “It must mean that I now trust you with an answer to your question.”

“Oh, no. You don’t have to-” the wood elf stopped in mid-sentence as she opened her eyes to see Dreketh’s cold azure gaze staring back at her. Laera realized that the Teir’Dal was very serious about the ritual they just performed together.

“I give you now my full confidence by virtue of the Vellin Sar, wood elf,” the shadow knight said in a calm, measured tone.

Laera’s heart pounded strongly of its own accord, and she couldn’t fathom why. Instead, she watched and listened as the dark elf made her solemn confession.

When Dreketh spoke, it was with a heavy voice.

“The source of my rage in the tavern, and the reason I place so high a value on your virtue is because mine was stolen from me.”

Once the initial shock of her words eased from the wood elf’s face, Dreketh proceeded to explain.

“Deep in Neriak’s Third Gate is a place—an alehouse called ‘The Maiden’s Fancy.’ On the surface, the name might seem harmless enough, and the décor inside reflects that as well. To most people of Norrath, it would look nothing more conspicuous than any of the hundreds of other taverns dotting the landscape. Contrary to all appearances, what lies underneath the light spirit and comfortable furnishing is something far less… agreeable.

“Along the back wall of the tavern is an unassuming wooden door, guarded by an enormous troll dressed head to toe in steel armor. Behind the door lies a passage leading down to the basement where the alehouse makes its real money. Down below, young women are paid to entertain the male patrons. This includes waiting tables, serving drinks and dancing provocatively on the bar top as they remove what scant clothes they’re prone to wear.”

Laera, having been born and raised in the comparatively uninhibited society of wood elves, shook her head uncomprehendingly.

“I’m not sure I understand. Is that illegal in Neriak?” she asked.

“No,” the dark elf replied. “But it isn’t the sort of place that makes its customers popular in social circles. Mostly because of the back rooms.”

The wood elf gave Dreketh a peculiar, naïve look.

“You see, part of what the young women get paid for involves satisfying the customer…in bed,” the dark elf explained.

Laera blinked once slowly, her mouth closed.

“I see.”

“One night, I came looking for a fellow initiate in the necromancer’s guild who had been missing for that evening’s study period. Our tutor that day suspected that the boy had been sneaking off to the Maiden’s Fancy of late, and ordered me to go fetch him.

“It was early in my term as initiate. I was young…unprepared for what I was about to see once I entered that room. Stunned, I simply stood there gawking at the mature, half-naked females gyrating on the bar for the appreciation of the audience. I stood mesmerized at what I saw, having long forgotten the reason I had come there as I stood gaping like some dumbfounded deviant.”

The dark elf paused to ponderously rub her upper lip with the length of her index finger.

“As I stood there, I must have caught the attention of one of the patrons. Apparently he thought I was an employee of the bar, because he flashed what appeared to be a handful of platinum before my eyes. In reality it was only five coins, but until that moment I’d never seen so much money. And here was this elder offering it to me!

“I didn’t understand. I was young. Innocent. I had no idea what he intended. I reached up and foolishly took the offered money. I remember being so elated. How could I not be? I’d struck it rich, after all!

“The man said something about there being even more waiting in a room down the hallway he was leading me toward. Of course, I went with him, not once stopping to question his generosity or motives. I had the blind ignorance to believe it was because he thought I was pretty.”

Dreketh let out a self-demeaning chuckle that disappeared quickly, replaced by her normally dour nature magnified tenfold.

“As it turns out, I guess I was right, in a way. I didn’t realize its portents until he closed and locked the door to the room. Like a dolt, I asked him where the money was.

“‘First things first,’ he said. Without another word, he began touching me and undoing my apprentice robe. I told him to stop, but he ignored me. By the time he had pulled my robe down off my shoulders, I became frantic. I didn’t know what he was doing or why. All I knew was that I wanted him to stop and let me out of that room.

“I fought. I pleaded for him to leave me alone, but apparently he had specific tastes,” the dark elf emphasized her word’s bitterly. “He liked women who struggled. In trying to waylay his efforts, I was unwittingly egging him on.

“The entire time he was having his pleasure, through the fear and pain of what he was doing to me, I held those five coins balled up tightly in my fist. Five platinum!” Dreketh slammed her fist furiously against the railing next to her. “Five platinum for what should have been the most important experience of my life! I sold my virtue for five damned platinum!”

Dreketh spoke as if the wood elf wasn’t even there.

“After it was over, he got up and tossed my robe on top of me. He made some off-handed remark as he left—I don’t remember what it was, exactly. Once the door closed behind him, I looked down to find the sheets covered in blood. My blood.”

The shadow knight paused to swallow.

“Frightened at the sight, I didn’t know what to do. So I pulled my apprentice robe back over my head and started to leave. That’s when I saw the stack of even more money on the nightstand next to the bed. It reminded me that I still held those coins in my hand. Glancing down, I opened my palm to look at them. They gleamed prettily in the candlelight of the room, shiny as though they’d just been minted.

“With a cry, I threw them against the wall with all my strength, cursing a word I probably shouldn’t have been using at that age. With a ringing clatter, the coins bounced all over the room.” Dreketh held up her right hand palm, slowly spreading her fingers wide. “When I looked back down into my hand, I could see the imprints the coins made against my skin. It even felt like they were still there! I rubbed my palm furiously against my robe, but the marks wouldn’t go away.

“I realized that no matter what I did from that point on, they would always be there…” The dark elf’s words became choked up as she tried to speak. Her brow furrowed bitterly as she fought to compose herself. When she continued, her words came out forced and angry. “No matter what happened, something I had when I entered that damned room was gone forever. Taken from me by that bastard who was out for a romp to unload his filthy loins.”

The aggrieved shadow knight quickly swiped at her nose with one hand.

“Later on, I found out he was an ambassador. A high ranking official who was about to be admitted to the court as magistrate.” Dreketh’s face turned into a pained scowl. “I know there was no way I would be able to find justice. Not with him. Not under those circumstances. After all, I took the coins.” She looked into her palm again, her voice sullen.

“What was worse, the ritual was now forfeit. My ritual that would dedicate my seed to Innoruuk. By its nature, the sacred rite can only be performed on a virginal female as she experiences her first encounter—normally performed by the male most closely trusted by her. It is an intense and very emotional ceremony, and a divine rite-of-passage for young women just entering childbearing age.”

The dark elf became glassy-eyed, her features ponderous. Laera found herself wondering who Dreketh’s most closely trusted male would have been.

“But there is only one first time,” the shadow knight continued grimly. “Because of what happened in that room and on that bed, I was robbed of something that was rightfully mine. In my life, I will never be able to perform that most divine of sacraments. Never!” Dreketh confronted Laera sitting across from her and raised her voice accusingly. “You can’t possibly understand what that night cost me—what that meant to me! No light dweller could!”

The tender-hearted wood elf’s eyes misted over. At last she began to see what Dreketh meant. No, she couldn’t understand. But she could plainly see the sorrow and despair it caused her companion. She could see it in Dreketh’s eyes and hear it in her voice. At that moment, any casual feelings Laera had about the devotion of the followers of other gods vanished at witnessing the dark elf’s anguish.

Knowing full well that any words she could say at that moment would seem paltry and insignificant to her feelings, the wood elf reached out her arms to take Dreketh in a comforting embrace.

Her advance was halted abruptly by a cuffing motion with the back of the shadow knight’s arm.

“I’m all right,” she said rebukingly. “Just… I’m fine.”

The wood elf sat back with a hurt look. Glancing around, she noticed the sun had just set across the watery horizon in the distance without her noticing it. All the crewmen and passengers had long since retired below deck to the galley for the ship’s evening meal.

“Well,” the dark elf concluded, her tone intentionally cold and purposeful. “You asked, and there you have it. Maybe next time I’ll entertain you with the story of how your people hacked and pummeled my mother to death while she was being held to the ground. That will be a really tragic story for you to sap yourself over.”

The seething hatred and resentment she heard in the dark elf’s biting voice made Laera wince as though she’d been dealt a physical blow. Standing with a fluid grace, Dreketh marched off toward the stairwell that led down into the bowels of the ship, leaving the distraught druid to her stunned bewilderment at being introduced to life as a Teir’Dal.

Chapter 12 - The Necromancer