Yes, they speak to him first.

"This won't take a moment. Come on."

Ignoring Lil'esh's stammering, Aliara turned away down a side corridor. She'd traversed this path a few times in recent weeks, calling on its one inhabitant. The tunnel grew narrower, its edges smoother, less like a natural formation and more like masonry. It sloped downwards, too, at first so gently that it was barely perceptible but gradually growing steeper until it felt like they were descending a spiral staircase.

After a few minutes, the corridor sharply leveled out and opened up into a wide-mouthed cavern. Stalactites bearded the arched roof, as though the travelers were walking into the fang-fringed maw of some buried monster. The light up ahead had a reddish quality and flickered magmatically.

It was all an effect, of course. This was what Rakkec had called the "minehead," but the driders had dug it out first, and like the rest of the warren it bore the unmistakable signs of their artistry. As Aliara entered the cave, she looked to her right, the way she always did. The sight was as impressive this time as it had been every time before. That wall had been planed smooth as though by a colossal razor. Embedded in its surface, lines of liquid fire twisted and spiraled. Veins of the earth, Rakkec had called them. The Veins formed no pattern Aliara could detect; they ran wildly, curving into and across each other, sometimes straightening out before spiraling madly away in a frenzy of loops and whorls. They shimmered bright orange, the color of molten rock, but without the heat-- they were as cool to the touch as the surrounding stone. They looked like narrow glass pipes filled with magma, but as Rakkec had explained to her, they were a natural phenomenon, a sort of gemstone that captured and conducted magical energy. "You get them in areas with thaumically reactive ores," he'd said. "Sort of a byproduct, I guess. They're ordinary quartz, but they form themselves into primitive ley channels."

"They must be valuable," she'd said, tracing the pattern with her fingers.

"Worthless. As soon as you extract them from the living stone, they collapse into quartz dust. They're dead useful, though. You never worry about light when you've hit the Veins. And they're as good as a sign: DIG HERE."

The potent geomancy of the driders had turned this antechamber into a display room for the Veins. Aliara had seen them enough times that the initial thrill had worn off, but Lil'esh and her charges slowed and stopped as they passed beneath the stone teeth. Their jaws hung open at the sight of the Veins. As if reacting to the presence of people, the amber light pulsed like a beating heart. The glow washed over them, edging their faces in liquid gold before fading to a coppery-pink smear of sunset.

Aliara left the drow to admire the Veins and strode deeper into the cave. Rakkec made his home in a little cubicle just inside the vestibule. She often wondered why he chose to stay down here, so far from the warren’s other "guests." Even most of the driders avoided the minehead. Only Jez'ria came down here sometimes, and Kel'hya, who worked silver with her bare hands.

The answer had hit her one day while he was eagerly discussing the difference between moonsilver and truesilver. Rakkec just didn't have much in common with Aliara or the other drow. Lil'esh and her cohort were nobles, used to the rarefied atmosphere of court. Rakkec was out of his depth in any conversation that didn't involve mining and ore. He didn't have much in common with the driders, either, except Jez'ria, who worked the mine. So he stayed down here, where at least he'd have something to do.

At the time, the thought had made her very sad. Wasn't he lonely? Aliara couldn't imagine living alone, with nobody to talk to but rocks. But on those occasions when she'd visited him, he'd seemed strangely cheerful. He talked her ear off about geodes, fineness, tailings and highgrade, with an enthusiasm so childlike and genuine that she couldn't help but smile. He sounded like... well, to be honest, he sounded like Teysa when she talked about her God. But Aliara wasn't about to tell him so.

He was where she'd expected him to be: sitting on a flat stone with two metal buckets by his side. On his other side was a large wicker basket full of, to her eye, rocks. They were lumpen chunks about the size of a fist, all different colors and textures even to Aliara's untrained eye. Rakkec wore a jeweler's loupe on a leather band around his forehead—a gift from Jez'ria, she was almost certain—and bent over his basket of rocks with a look of intense concentration on his face. He was examining a lump of basalt the way a merchant might check over a suspicious coin. She half-expected him to bite it.

Not wanting to interrupt his concentration, she stood there for a while, waiting for him to notice her. She was so close that she could have reached out and picked his nose, but he showed no sign that he knew she was there. Finally, she could take no more. She coughed politely.

Rakkec jolted upright, so quickly that the stone shot out of his hand. It ricocheted off the ceiling and plunked into the leftmost bucket with a sound like a gong. He looked up at Aliara, and for a moment his face was grossly distorted, one eye blown up to Cyclopean proportions by the loupe. Then he pulled it off and he was just Rakkec again, with his narrow face and his thinning white hair.

"Uh, hey, Aliara," he said with a nervous chuckle. "You startled me."

"I noticed." Aliara looked towards the buckets. Each of them had about a half-dozen stones in them, but what earned a particular stone a place in one bucket or the other, she could not tell. "I hope I didn't break anything important."

"That? Oh, nah. Just feldspar. See, Jez'ria and I mapped out a few promising veins, so I had her sink a winze and grab a few samples for assay. It's mostly just pyrite and hematite, but there are promising hints of blackiron, and—”

"Rakkec!" Aliara didn't want to snap at him, but she knew from experience that once he got going about rocks, he was hard to stop. "That's great, but I've got something important to talk to you about."

"Oh. Ok." He stood up and pointed past her. "Does it have to do with those guys?"

Aliara looked over her shoulder. Lil'esh and her cadre of young drow were standing just inside the vestibule, staring at Rakkec. He stared back, and his face creased in worry. His expression now was very similar to the one he'd had when he first arrived. "Hullo," he murmured, and touched a hand to his forelock. One or two of the drow nodded respectfully at him, but the rest just stood and stared.

"This is Rakkec," Aliara said. She felt something more was called for. "He was, uh, also chased here by Lord Lockh. Rakkec, there's been a... a development." In brief terms, she laid out what had happened above, and what she had learned from the refugees. "We're going to be meeting to discuss our next steps. I thought you should join us."

Rakkec simply stared. He looked dumbfounded and a bit embarrassed. "That's... that's terrible, I'm so sorry to hear that, but if you'll pardon me for asking, what do you need me for?" He looked from face to face, his eyes wide, mouth hanging slightly open. "I mean, I want to help, I will if I can. I just don't know what to do."

Aliara had to admit he had a point. She could hear echoes of herself in him, too. What does this have to do with me? There was a certain allure to that way of thinking.

Instead, she said, "Well, they're your people. I thought you might want to be with them. Besides, we're going to be planning our strike back against Lockh. You know more about him than anyone else here. I'd like you at that meeting."

"I don't know much," he protested. "But fine. ****? I can get my head around that. Lead on." He stepped out of his little room and the drow parted before him like seabirds scuttling back ahead of the incoming tide. The contrast between them and him couldn't have been more stark. His face was lined, almost leathery in places; his clothing was simple a hard-wearing, a leather vest over a cotton tunic. Their skin was smooth, unblemished by labor and care, their clothing fine silk traced with silver thread. Even his hair was patchy and threadbare in comparison.

He looked from one face to the next in mute incomprehension. Aliara recognized that face. It was the carefully blank mask slaves wore when a noble buyer visited. Attracting attention from nobles could be very dangerous. They knew it, too. Aliara could see it in their faces: a flat neutrality, an attempt not to show the scorn they were feeling. Somewhere deep in her soul, an ember flared.

Then Rakkec surprised them all. He reached out and took one of Lil'esh's hands in both of his. She was so surprised that she didn't pull away, though she clearly wanted to. His fingers, thick and callused, completely enfolded her delicate hands.

"I'm sorry, milady. Sorry for what happened to your people, and sorry that I had a part in it. I'm sure your mother is with the Mother Below now. She'll look after her." His voice was sonorous and solemn, like a preacher delivering a homily.

Lil'esh flinched in surprise, but she still did not draw back her hand. "Thank-- thank you, Rakkec," she said, blinking fast. Aliara thought she caught a glimpse of moisture at the corner of Lil'esh's eye, but if so, it was gone in a heartbeat.

Whatever moment the two of them were sharing came to an end. Lil'esh gently withdrew her hand, and to her credit, she did not attempt to wipe it against her robe. Instead, she turned towards the door.

"Coming?" she asked.