Resurrection (31 page)

It took Gromph a moment to determine what had happened. He cast a series of divinations to confirm his suspicions. When he saw the results, he almost laughed.

The lichdrow's defenses never ended. And it appeared he would have his revenge, after all.

The master ward had reset the wards behind Gromph not to prevent a second intruder from entering but to provide a power source for its real purpose. The destruction of the phylactery had triggered the lichdrow's final spell, a cyclic reaction that fed on the reset wards.

Power would race back along the vein of the master ward, absorbing the energy of all of the wards in its path. When it reached the start of the spell network, it would rebound back to its place of origin-the location of the phylactery, the temple-bringing with it all of the pent-up power of the absorbed wards.

The explosion would be enormous, perhaps large enough to
level the entire stalagmite fortress complex of House Agrach Dyrr.

Gromph could not flee. The dimensional lock prevented magical travel, and he could never get out on foot in time.

The lichdrow had ensured that he would not go alone into oblivion.

"Well done," Gromph said to the axe, though he knew the lichdrow could not hear him.

The archmage smiled at the symmetry. He had destroyed the lichdrow's body by breaking and exploding his staff of power. The lichdrow would destroy Gromph's body by breaking and exploding all of House Agrach Dyrr.

There was nothing else for it. Gromph's timestop spell was about to end. He decided that he would rather die in his own body than that of some Dyrr priestess. He decided too that he would die amused. The battle of spells and wits, of moves and countermoves, had been as good as any
sava
game he'd ever played.

He spoke the words to a minor transmutation and transformed Larikal's body to look more like his own-shorter, slimmer, with shorter hair and sharper features. The likeness was rough but probably good enough.

Despite his timestop spell, he sensed the master ward collecting power.

With an exercise of will, he returned his soul to the ocular, forcing Larikal back into her own form. Once inside the gem, he quickly moved back into his own shrunken, invisible body. He came back to himself outside the temple, small and unseen, awaiting his death.

Yasraena blinked in surprise but managed to hold onto the thread of her spell. For a moment, Gromph Baenre had appeared cloaked in an illusion as her daughter Larikal, but the illusion had expired, and the Archmage of Menzoberranzan stood revealed.

The vrocks streaked in, biting with their beaks and tearing with their claws. The archmage appeared disoriented, reaching for weapons at his waist that did not exist, lashing out with fists rather than spells. His screams sounded like those of a woman. He found the axe he had used to destroy the lichdrow's phylactery and swung it awkwardly at the circling vrocks.

Yasraena continued her spell. She would annihilate the archmage. A bottomless ocean of pent up anger flowed into the casting, powering it-rage at Gromph for his deception, rage at the lichdrow for the foolish, short-sighted plotting that had brought her House down.

Another tremor nearly shook her from the window perch, but still she continued the chant. Flecks of stone rained from the temple dome. Glass cracked. The entirety of House Agrach Dyrr was shaking.

She saw it then.

With a sense of certainty that opened a hole in her stomach, she knew that House Agrach Dyrr was destroyed. The archmage had destroyed the phylactery, and the fool lichdrow had triggered some retaliative magic that would bring the entire complex down.

No matter, she thought. She would kill the archmage. Matron Mother Yasraena would die with at least that satisfaction.

The words poured out of her, and power gathered with every syllable. The vrocks continued to attack, harrying Gromph from either side. He comported himself well with the axe. He fought back the vrocks and looked up at Yasraena. His expression went wide-eyed.

He shouted something but she could not hear it over the shaking temple, over the boom of her own voice.

She finished the spell, pointed her holy symbol at the archmage, and let its energy take root in his body. She knew he would be warded, but she also knew his wards would fail him. She had put all of her power into the spell. No one could resist it.

Still staring at her, the archmage began to shake. His entire body quaked as much as the temple and the rest of the fortress. Sounds poured from his mouth but Yasraena could not understand them. The vrocks backed off, unsure of what had occurred. Yasraena touched her House brooch and used its levitation magic to lower herself to the shaking temple floor. She wanted to watch Gromph die up close.

"You are but a male, Archmage," she said. "And I will watch you did before Lolth claims me."

The magic took deeper root. Gromph struggled to say something to her but could not control his body. His tongue flopped between his lips. He gagged, bit down on his tongue, and sprayed spit and blood. A horrible gargling noise escaped his lips as his body began to shrink in on itself.

For a moment, as the body collapsed, Yasraena saw Gromph's features contort to reveal…

"Larikal?" Yasraena rushed forward and took the archmage's imploding body in her hands. "Larikal!"

She could see the archmage-no, her
daughter
-trying to nod through her spasms. The quaking grew more and more intense.

Yasraena could not stop the spell. It was too late.

Mother,
Larikal croaked through the connection of their telepathic amulets.

Yasraena could not respond before her daughter's mental voice became a prolonged scream, then turned into an incoherent, pain-riddled gobbling. With a wet, tearing sound, her body folded in on itself over and over and over again until it was nothing more than a densely packed ball of flesh at Yasraena's feet.

Yasraena stared down at her daughter's remains and clenched her fists in rage. The archmage had deceived her again.

Above her, the dome began to crack. She stared up and looked into Lolth's eyes.

Blood-spattered and gasping for breath, Halisstra stood on the landing outside the doors of Lolth's pyramidal tabernacle. To her left and right lay the corpses of Danifae and Quenthel. Halisstra had killed them both, cut them nearly to shreds with the Crescent Blade. In her rage, she had left Danifae little more than a pile of bloody, shapeless flesh.

She had stopped them both from entering the tabernacle. Neither would be Lolth's
Yor'thae.

She unstrapped her shield and cast it to the stone landing. The rattle sounded loud in the silence. Except for the occasional sigh of the violet fires on the Planes of Soulfire behind and below her, the entirety of the Demonweb Pits seemed to be holding its breath. Even Lolth's wind had died down.

She looked up at the massive, pyramidal structure before her-Lolth's tabernacle, composed of black metal and acrawl with spiders. At its base, the towering double doors stood open and beckoning. Violet light leaked from within. Halisstra saw arachnid silhouettes in the light-huge, predatory forms.

Now she would do what she had come to do.

She paused.

What had she come to do?

She shook her head-her thoughts were confused-and stepped across the threshold.

Webs covered the slanting walls of the temple's interior, their collective pattern suggestive of something disquieting but indiscernible. Spiders of all shapes and sizes skittered through the webs.

Columns dotted the structure, slender spires fashioned of hardened, twisted web strands. She could not see the source of the violet light.

At the far end of the web-strewn temple, standing on a raised dais of polished, black granite, stood the eight bodies of the Spider Queen.

Seeing her former patron goddess in the flesh, Halisstra found it difficult to breathe.

Lolth was in her arachnid forms and appeared as eight giant widows, graceful and deadly-one goddess, eight aspects.

Seven of the widows crawled over each other, hissed at each other, as though fighting for position. But all of them stood behind the eighth, the largest, who sat quiescent in her web. The eyes of the eighth impaled her.

A yochlol stood to either side of the dais, their forms like melted wax, their waving arms like ropes.

Creatures that Halisstra had never before seen lined a processional directly between Halisstra and Lolth. Their tall, graceful forms-nude drow females sprouting long spider legs from their torsos-loomed over Halisstra. Halisstra felt their eyes on her too, and the weight of their expectations. She marveled at the grace of their forms.

"I am not the one!" she shouted, and the webs swallowed her voice.

The eighth spider stirred.

A rustle ran through the ranks of the temple.

As one, the drow-spider creatures responded, "But you could be. The eighth awaits the
Yor'thae."

"No!" she answered.

They hissed and bared their teeth, revealing a spider's fangs.

The eight bodies of Lolth clicked as one, and the widows fell silent.

They cocked their beautiful heads, listening to their goddess.

Halisstra brandished the Crescent Blade, drew in a deep breath, and took another step into the temple.

The doors swung closed behind her with a boom. She stopped for a moment, uncertain, trapped, alone. She looked down the aisle at Lolth and somehow found a reserve of courage.

"I will face you for what you have done to me," she said.

The widows rustled. The yochlols waved their ropy arms.

You have done it to yourself,
Lolth answered in Halisstra's mind.

The goddess's voice-
voices,
for Halisstra heard seven distinct tones in the words-nearly drove Halisstra to her knees.

Holding the Crescent Blade in both sweating hands, her knuckles white, Halisstra took another step, then another. The blade shimmered in her grasp, its crimson fire a counterpoint to the temple's violet light. Halisstra might have no longer served the Dark Maiden, but Eilistraee's sword still wanted to do the work for which it was designed.

The strange drow-spiders eyed her as she walked between them but made no move to stop her. They shifted uneasily with each step that she took nearer to Lolth's forms.

Halisstra was shaking, her legs felt leaden, but she kept moving.

Seven sets of mandibles churned as Halisstra got closer. The eighth body of Lolth stood still, waiting. Halisstra stepped to the base of the dais, before the bodies of Lolth, and looked into the emotionless eye-cluster of the eighth spider.

She saw herself reflected in those black orbs and did not care for how she appeared. Her heart pounded in her breast, so hard it surely must burst.

Sweating, gritting her teeth, she lifted the Crescent Blade high.

Lolth's voices, soft, reasonable, and persuasive, sounded in Halisstra's mind.

Why have you come, daughter?
Lolth asked.

I'm not your daughter,
Halisstra answered.
And I've come to kill you.

She tightened her grip on the Crescent Blade. Its light shone in Lolth's eight eyes, reminding Halisstra of the satellites in the sky of the Demonweb Pits that had watched her from on high.

The yochlol to Lolth's sides slithered toward Halisstra, but Lolth's forms stopped them with a wave of their pedipalps.

You could not even if you willed it,
Lolth said.
But I see your heart, daughter, and I know that you do not will it.

Halisstra hesitated, the Crimson Blade poised to strike.

It is not me that you wish to kill, child,
said Lolth.
I
am what I am and you have always known that. I kill, I feed, and in that killing and feeding I am made stronger. Why does your own nature trouble you so? My daughter's worship ill-suited you. Why do you fear to admit what you want?

The Crescent Blade shook in Halisstra's hand. Tears welled in her eyes. She realized it then.

It was not Lolth that she wanted to kill. She wanted to kill the uncertainty, the dichotomy in her soul that had spawned her weakness. She knew it lingered there still, a guilty, fearful hole. She had raised a temple to Eilistraee in the Demonweb Pits, had slain countless spiders holy to Lolth, had wielded the Dark Maiden's own blade. Her final rejection of Eilistraee was inadequate penance.

She loved Lolth, longed for the Spider Queen, or at least the power that Lolth brought. That was what she wanted to kill-the longing-but she could not, not without killing herself and who she was.

Embrace what you are, child,
Lolth said in a chorus of seven voices.

But it was eight sets of mandibles that opened wide.

He could sense the nervousness in the regiment. The fiends shifted uneasily, stealing looks over their shoulders. Souls or no souls, they had not expected this.

Stand your ground,
he projected to the nycaloth leaders.

He kept his back to the Infinite Web and Lolth's mobile city. Inthracis did not want to look again upon the unending abyss, the chaotic strands of the web that never ended, the grotesque undulation and metallic groans of Lolth's metropolis.

And the eyes.

Millions upon millions of spiders and other arachnids-including thousands of abyssal widows and hundreds of yochlols-thronged the far edge of the plains, looking toward the mountains, toward the Pass of the Soulreaver, toward Inthracis and the regiment. Inthracis had never before seen a horde of such size, not even during the Blood Wars. It seemed that every arachnid in the Demonweb Pits had gathered there, in a line before their goddess's city.

Several tense moments had passed before Inthracis felt certain that the throng would not attack. Apparently, they had gathered not to fight but to bear witness.

Still, the realization caused Inthracis concern. It meant that Lolth had planned for, or at least foreseen, Inthracis's involvement. He comforted himself with the reminder that Lolth was a demon, chaos embodied, and that she would not-
could
not, by her very nature- accept a predetermined outcome. Matters were still subject to chance.

Perhaps Inthracis's attack would facilitate the creation or emergence of the
Yor'thae.
Perhaps he would kill all three priestesses and Lolth herself would die. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

He considered reneging on his promise to Vhaeraun and returning to the Blood Rift, but he knew that the Masked God's vengeance would be swift. Perhaps Vhaeraun was watching him even then.

Inthracis resigned himself to play his part. If Lolth was going to allow him to attack the priestesses, then he would attack the priestesses. If she was not going to allow it, then he would not.

He showed none of his doubt to the regiment, of course. To them, he projected,
If they were going to attack, it would already have come. Remain steady. It will not be long.

He patted Carnage and Slaughter, and they growled softly in response. They too seemed restless. He looked around and wondered how in all the planes he had allowed himself to become involved in the workings of the gods.

The Plains of Soulfire spread out around him, a cracked, broken plateau of rock that bridged the half-league between the mountains and the Infinite Web. Open tears in the rock spat sprays of arcane fire and blasts of acid into the sky. A thin haze of green gas cloaked the terrain, not enough to be opaque but enough to create wrinkles in Inthracis's perception.

Before him, the plains ended at the mountains. Behind him, the plains just… stopped, as though wiped clean. And where they stopped, an infinite abyss yawned, a black, empty hole in reality that never ended. Spanning the abyss, and extending out to forever, was the Infinite Web of Lolth.

Inthracis did not turn, but he pictured the web in his mind: strands of silk, most of them fifty paces in diameter or more, stretched across the void forever.

Lolth's city sat amidst the strands, an architecturally chaotic metropolis that somehow appeared like an enormous spider, on equally enormous legs, crawling along an even more enormous web. Its glacial, groaning movement across the web vibrated even the hugest of the strands.

The city was a mammoth cluster of metal and webbing, with one web-cloaked structure piled on another, and no order, reason, or uniformity to the layout. Only the position of Lolth's pyramidal tabernacle made sense: it capped the city, glowing like a beacon with violet light. Transformed souls stalked the city's walks, webs, and ways, damned insects in a hive. The glowing spirits of those not yet transformed into their eternal flesh flitted around the metropolis like frustrated fireflies.

Billions of spiders prowled strands of the Infinite Web around the city. Some lived in holes, and tunnels bored into the strands. Others skittered along the surface. All of them fed upon the others. Only the strongest survived for very long.

Inthracis put the city out of his mind and focused on his task.

Before him rose the titanic peaks of jagged stone whose tops scraped the sky. Cracks and holes marred the sheer mountainsides, and millions more spiders crawled in and out of the openings.

The Pass of the Soulreaver, like a black mouth in the stone, parted its lips three spearcasts up the sheer side of the tallest of the mountains. A ledge jutted from the mountainside at the pass's opening, and only a single, twisting, rock-strewn path-a ramp, really-led down the steep mountainside.

The pass vomited souls. A steady line of glowing spirits streamed out of the opening and streaked into the air for Lolth's city. Few made it unharmed.

Curtains of magical energy rose from the cracks in the broken rock of the plains and engulfed the souls as they soared over. The ghosts burned everywhere in the sky, so numerous they looked like sparks cast off from a blazing fire. After squirming for a period of time that varied from a few heartbeats to a two-hundred count, the flames released the captive soul, and the spirit flew free toward Lolth's city. Inthracis assumed that the burning served as some kind of purgation.

To his nycaloth sergeants, Inthracis sent,
Order up the troops. When the drow priestesses emerge from the Pass of the Soulreaver, we ambush them with spells as they exit. They will have no cover. That should force them down, and we can finish them here.

If the priestesses survived the initial onslaught of spells, they would have to walk or fly down the narrow path. Inthracis and his troops would attack them as they descended and be waiting for them if they reached the Plains of Soulfire.

The nycaloths, flying above the assembled host of mezzoloths, growled orders, and the latter shifted into formation. The regiment assembled into a roughly crescent moon shape at the base of the ramp leading down from the Pass of the Soulreaver. The barbed tips of their glaives shone with magic. The nycaloth commanders continued to circle the troops, eyeing the pass. Each bore a powerfully enchanted axe.

Inthracis stood near the rear of his forces, rods at his belt, canoloths at his side.

Given the audience gathered behind him, Inthracis assumed the priestesses would soon cross from the other side of the pass. He cast a series of defensive spells on his person and attuned his vision to see magic, invisible creatures, even ethereal forms. Nothing on the mountainside could escape his sight.

Soon, the Pass of the Soulreaver would spit out Lolth's priestesses. And when it did, Inthracis would be ready. He intended to give his audience something to watch.

Pharaun came back to himself on what he assumed to be the other side of the Pass of the Soulreaver. The dark opening yawned behind him. Souls exited and flew over and past him. He thought of the Reaver, of the souls that would never leave the pass, and shuddered.

After being swallowed by the creature, he had felt nothing more, seen nothing more. He did not remember moving through the pass at all. Moments or hours had been lost to him. He recalled a whispered voice, vague screams, and agonizing pain, but the events were so distant in his memory that they might as well have happened to someone else.

The challenge of the pass is not for you, Quenthel had said. From you, the Reaver will take only a tithe.

A tithe.

He did feel somehow diminished in a way he could not quite articulate. He tried to conjure a witty observation but came up with nothing. Perhaps that in itself was reflective of his diminishment.

In his mind's eye, he saw the Reaver's chasmal maw, its insidious whispers. He could not help but wonder what Quenthel had experienced.

He lay on the rocky ground, on the other side of Lolth's mountains, facing the cloudy, gray sky. He saw no sun, though dim light illuminated the land. He felt as though he had traveled through the mountains to find himself on another world, another plane. He knew that where he lay at that moment was related to the land he had left only in that Lolth ruled both, only in that the Pass of the Soulreaver connected them.

He put his hand to his temple and found that small spiders crawled over him. He heard a sizzling, like cooking meat. He could not pinpoint the source. A soul flew over him, then another.

He turned his head and saw that Quenthel lay to his right, her eyes closed. Her face looked drawn. She held her holy symbol in her hand. Her body had returned to normal size.

He swallowed but found his throat dry. Dusting off the spiders, he sat up and-

To his left, Jeggred and Danifae lay unconscious. He stared for a moment before the reality struck him.

How had they ended up there, at that moment? They must have entered the pass well after Pharaun and Quenthel.

He toyed with the idea of quietly killing Jeggred but swallowed the impulse. Quenthel had allowed him to live even after the draegloth had attacked her. Pharaun dared not act so presumptuously.

Frowning with frustration, he reached out and put a hand to Quenthel.

"Mistress," he hissed and shook her.

She frowned, mouthed something incomprehensible, but her eyes did not open.

Jeggred uttered a growl. The draegloth's fighting hands clenched into fists. Pharaun wondered for a moment about what Jeggred might have seen in his journey through the Pass of the Soulreaver, then decided that such things were better left unknown.

He climbed to his feet and stood on wobbly legs.

Fire exploded all around him, soaking the ledge in light and heat. His magical protections shielded him from substantial damage from the flames, but the explosion blew the breath from his lungs, seared his exposed skin, and knocked him flat.

He sat up, blinking, looked to Quenthel, and saw that she too had come through the fireball relatively unharmed, partially because she had been prone. Unfortunately, Danifae and Jeggred too looked blackened but alive.

Another explosion rocked the ledge, then another. The heat was melting the rock. Smoke made Pharaun's eyes water. Crisped spiders fell from the heights like black snow.

What in the name of the Abyss is happening? he thought.

A lightning bolt ripped across the face of the ledge, shattering rock. Fragments of stone buried themselves in Pharaun's face, in Quenthel's hands, in Jeggred's flesh.

Quenthel's serpents came hissing to life, followed by their mistress.

From Pharaun's left, Jeggred too awoke fully, his inner hands brushing away the stone shards stuck in his flesh. Danifae propped herself up on one of arm and looked around, dazed.

For a long moment, the four of them stared at one another.

Another explosion rocked the mountainside.

"What's happening?" Jeggred growled, as he climbed to his feet.

Danifae stood and said to Quenthel, "It seems we've both passed the
trial of the Soulreaver, Mistress Quenthel."

Quenthel's serpents hissed at the former battle-captive.

"So it appears," Quenthel acknowledged.

Pharaun started to crawl toward the lip of the ledge, but before he reached it, an impenetrable cloud of white vapor cloaked the edge, and veins of superheated embers suffused it. Pharaun recognized the spell-an incendiary cloud. The embers sank into Pharaun's skin, burning their way through his protective spells.

Pharaun threw the hood of his enchanted
piwafwi
over his head. The embers still found his hands, and he gritted his teeth against the pain.

The stink of burning flesh and hair filled his nostrils.

Jeggred roared with pain. The priestesses grunted against the burning.

Pharaun could not see through the fiery mist more than an armspan in front of him.

A second lightning bolt split the fog, rocked the ledge, and sent Pharaun crashing into the mountainside. The embers swirled in the explosion, rooting for exposed flesh.

"Dispel the cloud, Mistress!" Pharaun shouted and did not care which of the priestesses heeded him. "I will give us cover."

From his left and right he heard both Danifae and Quenthel chanting spells. Their voices sounded as one, eerily disembodied in the burning cloud. Jeggred growled low, the pained, angry rumble of a wounded animal.

Pharaun waited until the priestesses were well into their spell before beginning his own. He took a pinch of diamond dust from his
piwafwi
and rushed through the gestures and words to a spell that would raise a sphere of magical force around them. He could not tell exactly where Quenthel stood-the explosions had sent both of them careening about the ledge-so he worded the spell to make the sphere as large as possible.

The priestesses finished their spells simultaneously, and one or both of the counterspells dispelled the magical cloud. One moment the cloud was there, the next it was gone.

Both priestesses were brandishing their holy symbols on opposite sides of the ledge. Jeggred crouched in a huddle near Danifae, his arms encircling her protectively, his mane and skin still smoking.