Resurrection (2 page)

"Their
respect, however, is genuine," said the voice.

Inthracis did not recognize the speaker by voice, but given the word on the wind outside, given the speaker's use of High Drow, Inthracis could infer the speaker's identity. He chose his next words with care.

"It is difficult to offer the proper respect when I do not know to whom I am speaking."

A chuckle. "I think you know who I am."

At that, the darkness lightened somewhat, enough that Inthracis's eyes could pierce it. Sound too returned, and the howl of the wind rose.

A masked male drow sat atop Inthracis's basalt table, legs dangling off the edge and not quite reaching the floor. Shadows alternately lightened and darkened around the drow's lithe form, swallowing parts of him in blackness for one moment before coughing them back up to visibility the next. A short sword and dagger hung from his belt, and leather armor peeked out from under his tailored, high-collared cloak. Long white hair, highlighted with red, surrounded an angular, vengeful face. He wore a haughty smile on his thin lips, but it did not reach the holes of his eyes, which were visible even through his black mask.

Inthracis's eyes registered the arcane power emitted by the drow's blades, the armor, his very flesh. He recognized the avatar, and it was as he had suspected.

"Vhaeraun," he said, and was irritated that he did not quite keep the awe from his voice.

He looked upon Vhaeraun the Masked God-Lolth's son and Lolth's enemy. His hearts hammered still more, and his legs felt weak though he managed not to show it. In the flitting shadows around the drow, he saw that the avatar's hand was severed at the wrist. The stump seeped blood onto the table.

Inthracis did not care to contemplate how a god might have been so wounded. He also did not care to contemplate why Vhaeraun would be manifesting in Corpsehaven. Inthracis rarely had contact with drow, living or dead, mortal or divine. Drow souls did not typically end up in the Blood Rift.

Vhaeraun hopped off the table and sniffed the air. His dark eyes narrowed.

"Even the air
here
stinks of spider," the god said.

To that, Inthracis said nothing. He dared not speak until he knew exactly what was happening. A dozen possibilities danced through his mind, none of them desirable.

"I require a service, yugoloth." Vhaeraun said, and the whisper of his voice went hard.

Inthracis stiffened. Not a favor, not a request-a service. It was worse than he had feared. He ran his long forked tongue over his lip ridges while he tried to formulate a suitably vague response.

The darkness swallowed Vhaeraun, and in the next heartbeat the avatar stood behind Inthracis, his breath hot in the ultroloth's upper left ear.

"Would you refuse me?" Vhaeraun asked, his soft words dripping menace.

"I would not, Masked Lord," Inthracis answered, though he would have if he could have. While yugoloths
were
mercenaries, even they had their limits when it came to patrons. Inthracis had no desire to get involved in whatever divine conflict Vhaeraun may have been engaged in with his mother.

The next moment Vhaeraun was no longer behind him but across the room near one of Inthracis's bookshelves. The corpses in the wall recoiled as much as their contorted forms allowed at the nearness of the god. Dead eyes stared out of the wall in horror. Even those dead whose hands and arms formed the bookshelf tried to squirm back into the wall, and a score of priceless tomes clattered to the floor. Vhaeraun eyed them and tsked.

Inthracis wondered how his corpses perceived Vhaeraun's appearance. Surely not that of a drow male.

Vhaeraun looked up and said, "Listen." He cocked his head to the side and his eyes went hard. "Do you hear it?"

The wind outside rose and fell, carrying its message of Lolth's Chosen. The corpses near Vhaeraun moaned again.

Inthracis nodded. "I hear it, Masked Lord.
Yor'thae.
It says
Yor
-"

Vhaeraun hissed and held up a hand, silencing Inthracis. The eyes of the corpses in the walls went wide at the demonstration of divine pique.

"Once is enough, ultroloth," said Vhaeraun. "So you hear the word, but do you know its meaning?"

Inthracis nodded slowly, fear growing in his gut, but Vhaeraun went on as though he had answered in the negative.

"The
Yor'thae
is the chosen vessel of the Spider Bitch. And this, all this-" With alarming suddenness, the avatar again stood behind Inthracis, hissing angrily in his ear as the fortress shook once more-"is the effort of the Queen of the Demonweb Pits to summon her Chosen and transform herself."

Inthracis gulped, sensing the god's rage, sensing the danger he was in.

Vhaeraun reappeared in the shadows across the room, and Inthracis allowed himself a breath. Vhaeraun reached out with his good hand and ran his fingertips along the bodies in the wall. They squirmed, moaning anew. Vhaeraun's fingers came away glistening, and he smiled.

"What do you want of me, Masked Lord?" asked Inthracis, though he knew he would not like the answer.

In an instant, Vhaeraun stood before him, teeth bare, face hot with rage.

"What I want, you insignificant insect, is my mother's heart fed to demons and shat out for my amusement! What I want, you speck of a creature-" he brandished the stump of his wrist before Inthracis's face-"is Selvetarm's obsequious brain torn from his foul head so that I can use his empty skull as a piss pot."

Inthracis said nothing, merely stared, stood rigid, and held his breath. He was an instant from death. Even the corpses stood still and silent, as though too terrified even to moan.

Vhaeraun took a breath, visibly calmed himself, and offered Inthracis an insincere smile.

"But first things first, Inthracis the ultroloth. Let me be direct: there are three potential candidates for
Yor'thae.
See them now."

"Wait, Masked Lord-"

But Vhaeraun did not wait. The avatar closed his eyes, and pain knifed through Inthracis's brain. Through the pain an image of three drow females formed in his head, and three names: Quenthel Baenre, Halisstra Melarn, and Danifae Yauntyrr.

The pain subsided, though the image remained, burned into his brain with a divine brand.

Vhaeraun said, "Each of the three are trying to find their way to the city of the Spider whore. My mother is calling them, you see, drawing them to her, testing them as they come. One will be Chosen, one will be her-"

The wind howled anew, and another tremor shook the plane. The word
Yor'thae
sounded once more through the chamber.

"Yes," Vhaeraun said, and an irritated tic caused his eye to spasm. He focused on Inthracis and said, "What I require of you is that you kill all three of the candidates."

Once again, Vhaeraun was suddenly across the library, behind a large lectern.

Inthracis could do nothing else, so he nodded. Privately, he wondered why Vhaeraun could not kill the three drow mortals himself.

The answer occurred to Inthracis a moment after the question: since the so-called Time of Troubles, the Overgod had forbade the gods from directly affecting the existences of mortals. Thus, Vhaeraun needed an ally unbound by the Overgod's edict, a non-divine ally.

The mercenary in Inthracis started to overcome his fear. He saw opportunity and took it.

"And for me, Masked Lord?" he asked, with the proper amount of deference.

Vhaeraun vanished from behind the lectern to appear beside him. Inthracis looked straight ahead, not daring to face the god.

Whorls of shadows curled around them both, black snakes that slithered along Inthracis's leathery skin. Vhaeraun held his unwounded hand before Inthracis's face, and Inthracis saw that the arm was as incorporeal as a shadow up to the elbow. With a smile, Vhaeraun reached
into
Inthracis's body and clutched one of his three hearts. It stopped cold.

Agony raced through Inthracis; his breath caught, and his muscles spasmed. He arched his back, gritted his teeth, but dared not move farther or protest.

"For you?" Vhaeraun whispered in his ear. "For you this: my gratitude, something that is beyond price."

Vhaeraun clutched Inthracis's second heart, stopping it.

Inthracis's vision went blurry. He struggled to draw breath.

"Oh," Vhaeraun said, "and also the destruction of Kexxon and your ascendance to the position of Oinoloth and Archgeneral."

Hearing those words, Inthracis could not contain a grin.

Despite the agony, he managed to hiss, "You are most gracious, Masked Lord."

Still wearing the same smile, Vhaeraun set Inthracis's hearts again to beating with two flicks of his forefinger and withdrew his arm, which became instantly corporeal. Inthracis inhaled sharply, sagged, and kept his feet only through sheer pride.

After he had recovered himself, Inthracis located Vhaeraun-across the room at the desk again-and asked, "What size force is appropriate, my lord?"

"An army," replied Vhaeraun with a derisive wave. "Muster on the new Demonweb Pits, on the
Ereilir Vor,
the Plains of Soulfire. My mother is not
yet
sensate enough to muster her own forces to stop you."

Inthracis debated with himself before asking, "And what of Selvetarm, Masked Lord?"

Vhaeraun's face twisted in anger, and he said, "He will not trouble you. My mother has removed the Pits to their own location in the multiverse and sealed them against entry by the divine-
any
divine. Events there are beyond the reach of other gods, now. I cannot enter to destroy her, but neither can Selvetarm enter to protect her. Unless he has guessed at my ploy-" Vhaeraun's contemptuous tone indicated that he did not think Selvetarm could guess the sum of two and two-"you will face the mortals alone."

Inthracis dared one more question: "What will occur if the
Yor'thae
reaches the Spider Queen?"

Vhaeraun's eyes
narrowed. "Because they will not reach her," he replied, "the answer is irrelevant."

Inthracis said nothing but took Vhaeraun's reply to mean that even the god did not know what would occur. That did not bode well.

He bowed and said, "It is my pleas-"

Vhaeraun vanished without further words.

The red light of the Blood Rift refilled the room. Inthracis took several deep breaths. Even the corpses in the wall seemed relieved. All that remained of Vhaeraun's presence in the room was a smear of blood on the basalt table and lectern. Inthracis summoned an invisible servant armed with a cloth, caused it to absorb the blood, and teleported the cloth to his laboratory. He was certain he could use divine blood as a component for one spell or another. The exercise helped calm him.

He gathered himself and prepared to send word to his generals to sound a muster. Vhaeraun had said to assemble an army. Inthracis would use his best shock troops, the Black Horn Regiment.

Despite the underlying fear of what might occur should he fail Vhaeraun, the ultroloth felt a certain exhilaration. If he was successful, and if Vhaeraun kept his word-a large
if
-Kexxon would be destroyed and Inthracis would unseat him as the Archgeneral of the Blood Rift.

Even as those seductive thoughts coursed through his mind, a more sober voice advised caution. It occurred to him that all of Vhaeraun's scheming might have been in accordance with Lolth's plan. The Masked God had said that Lolth was testing her priestesses as she called them toward the Pits. Perhaps Inthracis and Vhaeraun would be doing nothing more than creating another challenge for the
Yor'thae
to overcome? Or perhaps Vhaeraun was mistaken and none of the three priestesses was to be the
Yor'thae
at all?

Perhaps, Inthracis thought and sighed.

Caught between one god and another, though, he knew he had no choice but to obey. He would do as Vhaeraun had demanded because to do otherwise would result in certain death. Or worse.

Outside, the wind howled its message.

One after another the souls streamed along in a procession as straight as that of marching soldiers. The orderliness of the line struck Halisstra as strangely incongruous for souls heading into the arms of a goddess who embodied chaos.

Formerly as drab as the gray aether in which they floated, Lolth's reawakening had sent a surge of power through the line of souls, through the Astral Plane, and perhaps through all of the other planes as well. The Spider Queen's stirring had painted the dead in hues reminiscent or life, had reawakened the souls even as Lolth had herself reawakened from her Silence. By reinfusing them with color and purpose, Lolth had marked each of the souls as irrevocably and irretrievably hers.

The words bobbed uncomfortably in Halisstra's consciousness: Irrevocably and irretrievably Lolth's…

Floating in the same gray aether, as anchorless as the souls drifting past, Halisstra looked at her slim black hands. On them, she saw the blood of the countless screaming victims she had sacrificed in Lolth's name. Did not their blood mark Halisstra as irretrievably Lolth's, the same as the souls around her? Wasn't her soul too colored, stained crimson?

She clenched her fists, and looked past the souls and out into the gray nothingness. The same hands that had murdered in Lolth's name were to
wield the Crescent Blade of Eilistraee. With it, Halisstra was to kill Lolth.

Kill Lolth. The thought excited her, repulsed her.

Halisstra saw her course clear before her, a path as straight as the line of souls, but she still felt lost. She
was
marked by a goddess, by two goddesses, and at the moment she was not certain whose mark she preferred.

The feeling shamed her.

She felt both Lolth and Eilistraee pulling at her, tugging her in opposite directions, stretching her as thin as parchment. Lolth's reawakening had roused in Halisstra something she had meant to leave for dead in the silver moonlight of the World Above, when she had given herself to the Dancing Goddess.

But it had not died, not really. Could it ever? Lolth's inexplicable pull on Halisstra remained, a troublesome, seductive memory of power, blood, and authority. Halisstra had only her infant faith in Eilistraee with which to shield herself from a lifetime of indoctrination. She did not know if it would be enough. She did not know if she
wanted
it to be enough.

She had spent her life in service to the Spider Queen-killing,
ruling
-and had turned her back on all of it in less than a fortnight. How could that have been a genuine conversion? She had been Houseless, her city destroyed, everything she knew gone. Turning to Eilistraee had been an impulse, almost flippant, and driven by fear of an uncertain future.

Hadn't it?

She did not know, and the uncertainty shook her.

Even while Eilistraeen prayers filled Halisstra's mind, she found herself looking longingly at the manifestations of Lolth's reawakened power that surged through the endless gray of the Astral.

After the Spider Queen's power had traversed the line of souls and revivified them, the Astral Plane itself had exploded in chaos. Maelstroms of colored energy formed here and there in the aether, churning vortexes of violence that spun rapid circles for a few heartbeats or a few hours and dissipated into glorious, acrid showers of sparks. Jagged bolts of black and red energy several leagues in length intermittently knifed across the void, ripped it into pieces for a moment, and raised the hairs on Halisstra's arms and head. Lolth's power fairly saturated the plane.

And it felt different than Halisstra remembered-more vital, but also somehow incomplete.

Halisstra found the flashing storms of power a tantalizing suggestion of the Spider Queen's might, a seductive reminder of different prayers, of a different kind of worship. Lolth's power was everywhere around her. Lolth herself seemed everywhere around her, knowing her, tempting her, whispering to her.

And always the whispers were the same:
Yor'thae.

The word was promise, threat, and imprecation all at once.

Halisstra did not know whether to smile or cry each time she heard the word sigh across the Astral winds. As a
bae'qeshel,
she was trained in lost lore and knew what the word meant. Its etymology came from two words in High Drow:
Yorn,
meaning "servant of the goddess"; and
Orthae,
meaning "sacred." The
Yor'thae
was Lolth's Chosen, her sacred servant, the vessel through which Lolth would… do something.

But Halisstra did not know what the something was. Though she knew the meaning of the word, she did not understand the word's meaning
for
her
or for Lolth. More uncertainty.

Halisstra knew the power of words-her
bae'qeshel
magic depended in part upon words for its power. And like a
bae'qeshel
spell-song, the whispered recitation of
Yor'thae
had enspelled her, had wormed its way into her soul and there planted the seed of doubt. She was at war with herself and struggling to stay whole.

She and the two priestesses of Eilistraee, Uluyara and Feliane, had been following the line of drow souls for what felt like an eternity. A trio of the living trailing an army of the dead, they propelled their bodies through the endless gray mist of the Astral Plane through the force of their will.

The aether appeared to extend forever in all directions, the gray emptiness broken only by the line of souls, occasional islands of floating, spinning rock, and the colorful, whirling maelstroms of Lolth's returned power. Swimming through emptiness, Halisstra felt her senses dulled by the uniformity. Time and again she had to fight down a sense of vertigo, though she couldn't tell whether its source was the infinite space under her feet or the internal struggle taking place in her soul.

"We must be getting closer to the portal," Uluyara said from behind her.

Halisstra didn't turn, only nodded.

With each passing moment, the three priestesses moved closer and closer to their goal, yet with each passing moment Halisstra also became less and less sure of herself and their cause. Hours before, Seyll, a former priestess of Eilistraee, had sacrificed her own soul to shield Halisstra from the infusion of power the reawakened Lolth had sent surging through the Astral aether. Seyll, a woman Halisstra had murdered in life, had chosen the annihilation of her own soul so that Halisstra could complete her charge to kill Lolth with the Crescent Blade of Eilistraee.

But Halisstra was beginning to think she was charged with something else too, something she could not yet see.

Yor'thae,
whispered the aether, and Halisstra's body went weak.

She began to suspect that Seyll had allowed herself to be annihilated not so much to protect Halisstra from something but to prevent Lolth's power from touching Halisstra and communicating something to her, something profound. Seyll had gone to oblivion in service to Eilistraee, not Halisstra.

She felt herself standing on the edge of a mystery, at the precise moment just before understanding dawned. If only Seyll had allowed Lolth's power to reach Halisstra she would have-

"No," she said. "No."

But the word sounded as empty as a void.

Halisstra's course had seemed so obvious when she had been staring into the steady crimson eyes of Seyll, when she had heard in the dead priestess's words the promise of hope and forgiveness through worship of Eilistraee, sentiments Lolth and her faithful would have deemed weak. But then Halisstra had encountered Ryld Argith's soul in the Astral. He had been standing in line with the rest of the dead, colorless, awaiting his eternal fate. She had stared into his dead eyes, listened to his listless words, and felt her certainty of purpose crumble. Old feelings had bubbled up from the bottom of her soul. She had wondered, she still wondered, what would happen to Ryld if she somehow did kill Lolth. Would he, like Seyll, be condemned to annihilation?

The thought of it made her chest tight. She would not condemn her lover to nothingness; she
could
not! But what then? The fact that she felt genuine love at all she owed to Eilistraee, and the Dark Maiden had charged her to kill Lolth, had put into her hands a weapon that prophecy said could do it.

But the proximity of Lolth's power quickened Halisstra, tempted her, spoke to her. Halisstra heard Eilistraee calling to her heart, but she felt Lolth calling to her soul. It both appalled and delighted her.

She was terrified.

Yor'thae,
said the nothingness.

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"What do you want?" she whispered.

She was distantly conscious of her body slowly sinking in the aether but did not care. She had forsworn Lolth-she had! She'd made herself a willing apostate. She had embraced Eilistraee's faith, sworn herself to the Dancing Goddess under the light of the moon on the surface of the World Above.

But…

But her conversion had occurred at the end of a sword's point. She had been implicitly threatened with death by the priestesses she had come to call sisters. Was it not all a sham then, driven by the need of a homeless drow priestess without access to her spells to find acceptance and a home somewhere,
anywhere?

No, she thought, and pressed her fingers hard against her brow as though she could drive them into her brain and pluck out that part of her that still longed for Lolth. Her conversion
had not
been forced. It had been willing, beautiful, soul opening…

A hand, a
steadying
hand, closed gently on her bicep, stopped her descent, and pulled her around. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into the intense red eyes of Uluyara. The drow High Priestess of Eilistraee looked comfortable in her mail and forest green tunic. A sword hung from her hip, a war horn from her neck. A host of magical tokens-feathers, buttons, and pins-hung from her tabard. Her full mouth wore a look of genuine concern for Halisstra, but behind the concern, deep in her eyes, lurked something else-something Halisstra could not quite identify.

"Are you all right?" Uluyara asked. She gave Halisstra a gentle shake. "Halisstra, are you all right?"

Beside them, the parade of souls continued to stream past, so quickly they looked blurry. Black lightning split the aether neatly in two. Maelstroms churned. The voice whispered. Uluyara's white hair waved in the Astral wind. Her armor, weapons, and clothing appeared dull compared to the color of the souls. They all looked dull compared to Lolth's dead.

Halisstra blinked, managed a nod, and said, "Yes. I'm just… troubled, from seeing Ryld."

Uluyara's eyes showed understanding, though her hard expression held little sympathy. Halisstra knew that the death and afterlife of Ryld Argith little concerned Uluyara. The High Priestess was focused on their goal of finding and killing Lolth; nothing else mattered to her.

Yor'thae,
whispered the Astral.

Hearing the word again, Halisstra felt her cheeks burn. She looked for a reaction from Uluyara, but the High Priestess showed no
sign of having heard anything.

"Did you not hear that?" Halisstra asked, fearful of the answer.

Uluyara stiffened, cocked her head, and looked around warily. Her eyes came back to Halisstra.

"Hear what?" she asked. "The souls? The lightning? There is nothing else."

Before Halisstra could answer, Feliane floated beside Uluyara and put a gentle hand on Halisstra's mailed shoulder. The slight elf priestess wore a suit of fine mail and a small round helmet out of which her long brown hair streamed. A thinblade hung from her narrow hips. She looked like an armed child sent off to do battle. Was Eilistraee so desperate?

"It is the murmur of the souls as they journey to their fate," Feliane said. She looked upon the dead and her round eyes were sorrowful. "Nothing more."

Uluyara nodded agreement. The souls did mutter as they streamed past, a low, barely audible hum, but Halisstra knew the whisper of
Yor'thae
was something else, something audible only to her.

"The damned of Lolth do not go quietly to their fate," Uluyara said, and unlike Feliane, Halisstra saw no sorrow in the High Priestess's red eyes. In her own way, Uluyara was as merciless a priestess as any servant of Lolth. "Perhaps they sense at the last the mistake they have made."

Halisstra jerked her arm free of Uluyara and glared into the priestess's eyes.

"I loved one of those damned," she said and could not keep the bitterness out of her voice.

Uluyara stiffened; her eyes flashed, but she said only, "I had forgotten. Forgive my insensitivity, sister."

Halisstra heard no sincerity in Uluyara's voice.

Feliane, her voice gentle, said, "Peace, sisters. We're all tired. You especially, Halisstra, since you carry so heavy a burden. Uluyara and I will help you bear it, but you must let us. Eilistraee too will help you bear it, but you must also let her." She paused before adding, "Do you believe that?"

Her grip on Halisstra's shoulder tightened.