Annihilation (24 page)

“Oh, now, why the long face?” Aliisza purred.

Her hand slipped along Pharaun’s waist, tickling him, but he didn’t move. She smiled and wrapped her arm around him, sliding her hand onto his back and moving closer and closer until her body pressed against his. She was warm—almost hot, and she smelled good. She felt better.

“Your journey is barely beginning,” the alu-fiend whispered into his ear. Her breath was so hot it nearly burned the side of his neck. “I almost envy you the sights you’ll see, the things you’ll experience. You will be in the presence of your goddess soon enough.”

“Will I like what I see?” he asked. “Will the experience be a fulfilling one? Will my goddess speak to me?”

Aliisza stiffened, but just for a second, then she wrapped one leg around him and nestled in. The force of her embrace turned them
slightly in the air. Pharaun glanced down at the ship of chaos and his companions, a hundred feet or more beneath them, oblivious to their presence there.

“Those are all things you’ll have to discover on your own,” she said.

“Then how can you be sure it’ll be something to envy?” he asked, his voice playful but forced, his attention returning to her. “I envy you the surprises,” she replied with a wink. “Have you been there?”

“To the Abyss?” she asked. “Not for a long time.”

“The Demonweb Pits?”

The alu-fiend withdrew enough to look him in the eye, smiled, and said, “No, I’ve never been to the Demonweb Pits. Have you?”

Pharaun shook his head. He could answer her but not when she was looking at him. He leaned into her, and she squeezed him tighter.

“I was there twice, I think,” he said into the soft warmth of her long neck.

“You think?”

“It was a long time ago,” Pharaun replied, “and it might have been a dream. There was the last time, when we were all there in astral form, but I thought you might have been there once in the flesh. You’re a demon. You can go there and …”

Pharaun stopped talking. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to say.

“Have you been to Menzoberranzan?” he asked instead.

Aliisza stiffened again and for a little bit longer, and he knew that she had.

“Will there be a city for us to return to?” he asked.

Aliisza shrugged. Pharaun could feel the gesture against his body.

“Answer me,” he pressed.

“Yes,” she said, “or no. It all depends on what you find in the Abyss and how soon Kaanyr and his new friends can break your matron mothers’ backs.”

Pharaun found himself laughing. He was exhausted again. The Lake of Shadows had a way of sapping his strength.

“Honestly, Pharaun,” she said, “you ask me questions as if I’m some sort of fortune teller or oracle … or goddess. I don’t know what’ll happen to you and your friends. No one, not even your Spider Queen I think, can predict what will happen from minute to minute in the mad chaos of the Abyss.”

Pharaun looked her in the eye and decided not to say the first few things that came into his mind.

“Have you thought about my coming with you?” Aliisza asked.

“Why would you help me pilot the ship?” he asked her, gently pushing her away. “We enjoy each other, but I can’t imagine you’re asking me to simply trust you. I’ll need an answer.”

Aliisza resisted playfully and flicked the tip of her tongue against his cheek.

“You’re pretty,” she teased.

“Not as pretty as you,” said Pharaun. “Answer me. Why would you help me find Lolth and help Vhok and the duergar lay siege to Menzoberranzan at the same time? You’re the enemy—the consort of the enemy, at least—of the city I call home. One might be tempted to choose sides.”

“Whatever for?” she asked. “When I’m with you, I like you best. When I’m with Kaanyr, he is everything to me. Either way, I’m amused.”

Pharaun found himself laughing again.

“I’ll assume that’s the best answer I’ll ever get from you,” he said, “or any other tanar’ri.”

Aliisza winked at him again.

As Pharaun let his hands explore her exquisite body, he said, “We should begin our lessons. Quenthel and the others are anxious to get underway.”

Aliisza responded to his touch with a sigh, then replied, “As soon as you wish, love. You know how to get there from here?”

“Through the Shadow Deep,” he said.

The alu-fiend nodded and said, “From there to the Plain of Infinite Portals—the gateway to the Abyss. There you’ll need to find precisely the right entrance. The place you seek—the Demonweb Pits—is the sixty-sixth layer. There are guardians there and lost souls and things maybe even you can’t imagine. You might actually like the Abyss, and you might not. Either way, it will change you.”

Pharaun sighed. She was probably right.

He really didn’t want to go.

Who is responsible?
Quenthel asked.

Oh, Mistress, Mistress
, K’Sothra answered. Of the five vipers in her scourge, K’Sothra was the least intelligent, but Quenthel listened anyway.
Mistress, it was you. You are responsible. It’s all your fault
.

Quenthel closed her eyes. The skin on her face felt tight, stretched too thin on her skull. Her head hurt. She touched the viper just below its head, and K’Sothra writhed playfully under her touch.

Was it really my fault?
the high priestess asked.
Could it be?

She drew her finger away from K’Sothra, found the next viper, and cupped her head in two fingers.

I came back when she sent me back, and I served her as best I could
, Quenthel sent to all five snakes.
I became the Mistress of
Arach-Tinilith, and the worship of Lolth was never stronger. Isn’t that what she sent me back to do?
There was no answer.

What will become of us all?
she asked Zinda.

The black-and-red-speckled snake twitched, flicked her tongue at Quenthel, and said,
That is also your responsibility, Mistress. What happens as a result of your having driven Lolth away from us will be washed away if only you can bring her back. If you can attract her good graces again, she will save us all. If not, we will be destroyed
.

Quenthel felt herself physically sag under the weight of that. Though she tried hard to muster all her training and natural fortitude, she wasn’t able to sit up straight. What weighed most heavily on her was the feeling that the snakes were right. It was her fault, and she was the only one who could fix it.

When will Lolth answer?
Quenthel asked, moving her fingers to Qorra.

The third viper had the most potent poison. Quenthel only let her strike when she wanted to kill, when she wanted to show no mercy at all.

Never
, Qorra hissed into the high priestess’s mind.
Lolth will never answer. Menzoberranzan, Arach-Tinilith, and your entire civilization are doomed without her, and she’s never coming back
.

Quenthel’s head spun. She was sitting on the deck of the ship of chaos but still felt as if she were about to fall over.

That isn’t necessarily true
, said Yngoth.

Quenthel had grown more and more dependent on Yngoth’s limitless wisdom. It was his voice that tended to reassure her, and to Quenthel he sounded most like a drow.

Why was I sent back?
she asked Yngoth.
Is this why? To find her?

When you were sent back
, the viper replied,
Lolth didn’t need to be found. Haven’t you thought all along that you were sent back to sit at the head of Arach-Tinilith? To hold that post for House Baenre
and preserve Lolth’s faith and Lolth’s favorite in the power structure of Menzoberranzan?

I’m not sure now
, the Mistress of the Academy admitted.

You were sent back for this
, Yngoth said.
Of course you were. You were sent back to become Mistress of Arach-Tinilith so that you would be the one they sent to find Lolth when the goddess chose to turn away. You were meant to be the savior of Menzoberranzan and perhaps even the savior of Lolth herself
.

Quenthel sagged a little further at that.

How can you be sure?
she asked.

I’m not sure
, replied Yngoth,
but it seems reasonable
.

Quenthel sighed.

It was Lolth’s plan all along that I go back there
, Quenthel asked,
to find her? How will I do that?

Get to the Abyss first
, replied Hsiv. The last of her vipers was never shy when it came to offering his mistress advice.
Go there first and you will be guided to Lolth by Lolth. You will know what to do
.

How do you know?
Quenthel asked.

I don’t
, Hsiv replied,
but do you have any choice?

Quenthel shook her head. She hadn’t had any choice in a very long time.

Valas looked around at the ragged drow who made up the expedition to the Abyss. They didn’t look very good. Aside from Danifae, who had more energy than Valas had ever seen, who seemed transformed by their trip to Sschindylryn, they were tired, ragged, temperamental, and unfocused.

“May I ask a practical question?”

Only Danifae looked at him. Quenthel was in a world of her own, deep in her own obviously troubled thoughts. The draegloth
was pacing, almost pouting if such a thing could be possible from a creature that was half drow, half demon. The wizard was nowhere to be found.

“Where has the wizard gone?” the scout asked.

Danifae pointed upward, and Valas followed her finger to see Pharaun slowly descending from the darkness above.

“Never fear, scout,” the wizard said as he finally settled on the deck, “I wouldn’t dream of abandoning this great expedition to rescue our mighty civilization from the brink of annihilation. We are nearly ready to begin, though there are a few more things I need to do.”

Valas stopped himself from sighing. The never-ending string of delays was wearing on them all—especially when they came with little or no explanation.

“You’re keeping us here,” the draegloth said, giving voice to what Valas was thinking—and what the others were likely thinking as well. “You don’t want to go.”

The Master of Sorcere turned on the draegloth and lifted an eyebrow.

“Indeed?” said Pharaun. “Well, in that case perhaps
you
can attune the third resonant of the Blood Helm to the planar frequency of the Shadow Fringe.”

There was a silence while the draegloth looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“No?” Pharaun went on. “I didn’t think so. That means you’re going to have to let me finish what I need to finish.”

The wizard looked around at the rest of them, and Valas shrugged, casually meeting his eyes.

“This is not some mushroom-stem raft,” Pharaun said to them all, “splashing about on Donigarten Lake. This vessel, if you haven’t noticed, is alive. It is a being of pure chaos. It has a certain intelligence. It has the innate ability to shift between the
planar walls from one reality to another. You don’t simply paddle something like this. You have to make it a part of you and in turn make yourself a part of it.”

He paused for effect then continued, “I am willing to do that—for the good of the expedition and for the pure curiosity of it. It’s a unique opportunity to explore some fabulously outré magic. What you must all remember is that if I don’t get it right, we could never make it out of this lake. Worse yet, we could find ourselves scuttled in the Shadow Deep or lost forever in the endless Abyss.”

The Master of Sorcere looked around as if he was waiting for an argument. None came—even from Jeggred, but he went on anyway, “This time it will be different—the Abyss, the journey there, everything. Last time we were projected across the Astral. We were ghosts there. This time we’ll actually
be
there. If we die in the Abyss, we don’t snap back into our bodies. There will be no silver cord. We will be real there, and if we die …”

Valas wondered why the wizard stopped. Perhaps Pharaun didn’t know what would happen if they died there. If you die in your own afterlife, is there an after-afterlife? Thinking about it gave Valas the beginnings of a nagging headache.