R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, Insurrection, Condemnation (135 page)

She looked out the narrow, barred window. Dawn was fast approaching. The sky was already growing painfully bright in the east, though the sun had not yet risen. Halisstra could make out the endless green forest of Cormanthor, rolling away from her for mile after mile.

A knock at the door startled her, followed by the jingling of keys in the lock. She looked around and stood as Tzirik entered the room, dressed in a resplendent high-collared coat of red and black.

“Mistress Melarn,” he said, offering an indulgent bow, “your comrades have returned. If you’ll come with me, we shall see whether they had some good reason for abandoning you in the wilds of the World Above.”

Halisstra set down her lyre and asked, “Were they successful?” “In fact, they were, which is why I intend to set you at your liberty now. Had they failed, I’d planned to use you as a hostage to compel them to try again.”

She snorted in amusement, and the priest escorted her from the room. He led her through the elegant pale halls and corridors of Minauthkeep. A pair of Jaelre warriors trailed them, dressed in cuirasses dyed a mottled green and brown, short swords at their hips. They came to a small chapel, decorated in the colors of Vhaeraun, and there they found Quenthel, Danifae, and the rest of the company waiting.

“I see you have survived the rigors of Myth Drannor and returned to tell the tale,” Tzirik said by way of a greeting. “As you see, it seems I have found something of yours, just as you have found something of mine.”

Halisstra studied the faces of her former companions as she appeared. Most showed some degree or another of surprise—a raised eyebrow, an exchange of glances. Ryld offered her a warm smile before dropping his gaze and shifting his feet nervously, while Danifae actually came forward to clasp her hand.

“Mistress Melarn,” she said. “We thought you lost.” “I was,” Halisstra replied.

She was surprised to find how relieved she was to be back

among her former companions—though they were interlopers from a rival city—and her scheming battle captive. Danifae might not have been Halisstra’s ornament anymore, but the binding spell was still there, making her the only ally Halisstra had left in the world.

“Where have you been?” Quenthel asked.

“I was subjected to several days worth of effort to convert me to the worship of Eilistraee, if you can believe such a thing,” Halisstra answered. “Lolth granted me an opportunity to slay two of the Eilistraeen clerics and escape.”

Though her heart glowed with dark pride at her accomplishment, Halisstra found herself feeling a bit disappointed by the results of her treachery. She was no stranger to the traitor’s dark art, but it seemed as if she had only managed to do what was expected of her.

“Undoubtedly the surface folk set you free to see what you were up to,” Quenthel said. “It’s an old trick.”

“So we thought, too,” Tzirik said. “However, we investigated Mistress Melarn’s story and found it to be true. It’s almost comical, the naivete of our sisters in Eilistraee’s worship.” He paused and rubbed his hands together. “Be that as it may, Jezz informs me that you helped him recover the tome we needed.”

“We
helped
him?” Jeggred growled.

“His task was to bring back the book,” Tzirik replied, “not to battle the denizens of Myth Drannor.”

“You have your book,” Quenthel said. Ignoring Jeggred’s snarl, she folded her arms and fixed her eyes on Tzirik. “Are you ready to fulfill your end of the bargain?”

“I have already done so,” the priest replied. He glanced up at the bronze image high on the wall, and made a small genuflection. “Whether or not you returned alive, I intended to consult with the Masked Lord and find out for myself what takes Lolth from you. Your story made me quite curious.”

Quenthel virtually ground her teeth in frustration.

“What did you learn, then?” she managed.

Tzirik savored his knowledge, responding with a deliberate smirk as he paced away from the company and took a seat on a small dais that stood to one side of the chapel.

He steepled his fingers together and said, “In all essentials your story is true. Lolth does not grant her priestesses spells, nor does she reply to any entreaties.”

“We already knew as much,” Pharaun observed.

“But I did not,” the priest answered. “In any event, it seems that Lolth has, in some manner, barricaded herself within her infernal domain. She denies contact not only to her priestesses, but all other beings both mortal and divine, which would explain why the demons you conjured up to question about the Spider Queen’s doings were unable to assist you.”

The Menzoberranyr stood silent, considering Tzirik’s answer. Halisstra was puzzled, as well.

“Why would the goddess do this?” she wondered aloud.

“In the spirit of candor, I will admit that Vhaeraun either does not know or does not wish for me to know,” Tzirik said. He fixed his cold gaze on Halisstra. “For the moment, divine capriciousness seems as good an explanation as any.”

“Is she . . . alive?” Ryld asked quietly. Quenthel and the other priestesses turned angry glares on the weapons master, but he ignored them and went on. “What I mean to say is, would we know if she had been slain by another god, or sickened, or imprisoned against her will?”

“If only we were so lucky,” Tzirik said, laughing. “No, Lolth still lives, however you might define that for a goddess. As to whether she has sealed herself into the Demonweb Pits, or been sealed in by another power, Vhaeraun did not say.”

“When will this condition end?” Halisstra asked.

“Again, Vhaeraun either does not know or does not wish for me to know,” Tzirik said. “The better question might be, will it end? The answer to that is yes, it will end in time, but before you take too much comfort in that I must remind you that a goddess may have a very different sense of what we would consider to be a reasonable wait. The Masked Lord might have been referring to something that would happen tomorrow, next month, next year, or perhaps a hundred years from now.”

“We can’t wait that long,” Quenthel murmured. Her expression was distant, fixed on events in faraway Menzoberranzan. “A resolution must be reached soon.”

“Take up the worship of a more caring deity, then,” Tzirik replied. “If you’re interested, I would be happy to discourse at length on the virtues of the Masked Lord.”

Quenthel bristled, but held her tongue—a feat of remarkable self-control for the Baenre priestess.

“I decline,” she said. “Does the Masked Lord have any other advice for us, priest?”

“In fact, he does,” Tzirik replied. He shifted in his seat, leaning forward to convey his point to Quenthel. “These were the exact words he spoke to me, so take note of them. ‘The children of the Spider Queen should seek her for answers.’ ”

“But we have,” Halisstra cried. “All of us, but she does not hear us.”

“I don’t think that’s what he meant,” Danifae said. “I think Vhaeraun is suggesting that we won’t learn anything more unless we go to the Demonweb Pits ourselves, and beseech the goddess in person.”

Tzirik remained silent and watched the Menzoberranyr. Quenthel paced in a small circle, considering the idea.

“The Spider Queen requires a certain amount of initiative and self-reliance in her priestesses,” the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith said, “but she also demands obedience. To go before her in her divine abode in the expectation of answers . . . Lolth does not smile on such effrontery.”

Halisstra fell silent, thinking furiously over what Tzirik suggested. Ventures into other planes of existence were not unknown, of course. Pharaun’s spell had carried the company across the Plane of Shadow, after all, and there were many more universes that mortals armed with the right magic could reach, a multitude of heavens and hells, wonders and terrors beyond the confines of the physical world, but the notion of attempting such a journey without Lolth’s explicit invitation terrified Halisstra.

“The penalties for failing to understand the goddess’s will in this matter would be severe indeed,” Halisstra said.

“Have we not just heard the goddess’s will?” Danifae asked. “She led us to this place and this question through her silence, just as surely as if she had placed the commands directly in our hearts. She might be angered if we fail to do this.”

Halisstra was accustomed to a feeling of certainty when it came to interpreting the Spider Queen’s wishes. Before the divine silence had fallen over the priestesses of Lolth, she’d known the rare touch of the goddess’s whispers in her mind. It didn’t happen often, of course—she was only one priestess, and Lolth was served by uncounted thousands—but she knew what it felt like to understand to the depths of her soul what the Spider Queen wished, and how she could accomplish it. Halisstra felt nothing. Lolth’s will, evidently, was that she should figure it out for herself.

Halisstra glanced up, where the bronze mask of Vhaeraun hung over a black altar. The foreignness of the place seemed palpable, a tangible expression of everything she had lost. Instead of standing before the ancient altar in the proud temple of House Melarn, Lolth’s divine certitude thrumming in her very soul as she performed the rites of sacrifice and abasement the Spider Queen demanded, she stood alone, lost, an interloper in the temple of a pretender god, groping blindly for a hint of Lolth’s intentions for her.

She imagined standing before Lolth, her soul naked to her goddess, her eyes blasted by the sight of Lolth’s dark glory, her ears scoured by the sound of the Spider Queen’s sibilant voice. Perhaps it was effrontery to think that Lolth would erase her doubts, supply answers for her questions and a balm for her wounded heart, but Halisstra discovered that she did not care. If Lolth chose to discard her, to punish her, then she would, but then why had she destroyed Ched Nasad and House Melarn if not to bring Halisstra before her and receive her plea?

“I agree with Danifae,” she said at last. “I cannot see what the point of this has been, other than to summon us before the goddess’s throne. We will find our answers in her presence.”

Quenthel nodded slowly and said, “I read her will in the same way, sisters. We must go to the Demonweb Pits.”

Ryld and Valas exchanged worried looks.

“A sojourn to the sixty-sixth layer of the Abyss,” Pharaun observed. “Well, I have dreamed of the place. It would be interesting to see if the reality matches my dream from years ago, though I have to say, I do not relish the thought of meeting Lolth in person. She minced my soul to pieces when I had that vision. It took me months to recover.”

“Perhaps we should return to Menzoberranzan and report what we have learned before we consider anything rash?” Ryld asked, clearly alarmed by the prospect of descending into the infernal realms.

“Now that I understand the goddess’s will, I do not wish to delay in obeying it,” Quenthel said. “Pharaun can use his sending spell to apprise Gromph of our intentions.”

“More to the point,” Valas said, “how exactly does one get to the Demonweb Pits?”

“Worship Lolth all your life,” Quenthel replied, a dark look clouding her eyes, “then die.”

Halisstra glanced at the high priestess, then looked at the scout and said, “Were the goddess granting us our spells, we could do it easily enough. Without them, it is not so easy. Pharaun?”

The wizard wrung his hands.

“I will learn the proper spells at the first opportunity,” he said. “I suppose I will have to locate a wizard of some accomplishment who happens to know the right spells, and persuade him to share one with me.”

“That will not be necessary, Master Pharaun,” Tzirik said. He stood up from his seat and descended the dais, powerful and confident. “As it so happens, my god has not seen fit to deprive me of my spells. I have an interest in seeing for myself what transpires in Lolth’s domain. We can leave as soon as tonight, if you like.”

Company by company, the Army of the Black Spider marched proudly into the open cavern behind the Pillars of Woe. It was nothing compared to the vast cavern of Menzoberranzan, or the incomprehensible gulf of the Darklake, but the plain at the head of the gorge was still impressive, an asymmetrical space perhaps half a mile across, its ceiling rising a couple of hundred feet overhead. Innumerable columns supported its roof, and shelflike side caverns twisted away on all sides like highways beckoning in the dark.

Nimor surveyed the place from astride his war-lizard, watching as the great Houses of Menzoberranzan filed into the cavern, forming up in glittering squares beneath a dozen different banners. He’d had more than two days to reconnoiter the various crevices, caves, and passages leading to the open spot. The strategic value of the Pillars of Woe was obvious. Only one road lead south through a torturous canyon, yet several tunnels met where he’d led the drow, each leading into Menzoberranzan’s Dark Dominion.

“A good place for a battle,” he said, nodding to himself with satisfaction.

His mount, vicious and stupid beast that it was, still seemed to dully sense the impending conflict. It hissed and pawed at the pebble-strewn floor, its tail twitching in agitation.

Nimor waited near the center of the scout line holding the gap between the Pillars, at the head of a force of almost a hundred Agrach Dyrr riders. Those among his scout force who had any other House allegiance lay sprawled among the rocks and crevices of the gorge below, where Nimor and his men had slaughtered them soon after reaching the Pillars of Woe.

Nimor ached to go riding up to greet Mez’Barris Armgo, Andzrel Baenre, and the rest of the army’s priestesses and commanders. He could see their pavilion, already rising in the center of the cavern.

The difficulty with a betrayal spanning a whole battlefield, he thought, is that one simply can’t be everywhere at once to savor the moment in its entirety.

He noted a lean runner-lizard pelting from the command pavilion toward where his company waited.

“It seems I am wanted, lads,” he called to the Agrach Dyrr soldiers waiting behind him. “You know what to do. Wait for the signal. When it comes, hold nothing back.”

Nimor kicked his war-lizard into motion and rode back a short distance to meet the messenger. The rider was a young fellow in the livery of House Baenre—no doubt a favored nephew or cousin, given a relatively safe task in order to gain a blooding without too much risk. He wore no helmet, allowing his hair to stream out behind him like a mane. A bright red banner fluttered from a harness secured to his saddle.