Annihilation wotsq-5

by Филип Этанс

  "A god?" Pharaun finished for him, when he sensed Valas hesitating to draw the same conclusion. "Or in this case a goddess. Why not?"

  "What would you use something like that for?" asked Danifae.

  "War," Jeggred offered, though there was enough of a lilt in his voice to make it almost sound like a question. "It's a war machine."

  "It's a fortress," Quenthel said. There was a finality, a certainty in her voice that made the others turn to look at her. "It's… it was Lolth's own fortress. It once resembled a clockwork spider, and from within Lolth herself could traverse the Demonweb Pits, protected and armed with weapons the likes of which no drow has yet imagined."

  "I think. ." Danifae said. "I think I remember reading something about that but always thought it a fantasy, a bit of harmless heresy to thrill the uninitiated."

  "You know this for sure?" Pharaun asked Quenthel, though he could see in her face that she had no doubts.

  The high priestess looked the Master of Sorcere in the eye and said, "I've been inside it. I've seen it move. It was inside that spider fortress that I first came before the Spider Queen herself."

  Pharaun turned from Quenthel's gaze to look at the massive wreck again.

  "She seldom left its confines," Quenthel went on, her voice growing softer and softer as if she were receding over a great distance. "I don't think I ever saw her leave it, in fact, in all the years I…"

  Pharaun didn't turn back to look at the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith when he said, "We should go inside. If Lolth never left that fortress, perhaps she's still in there."

  "She isn't there," Quenthel said.

  "The mistress is right," said Danifae. "I can feel it—or, rather, I can't feel her."

  "She ight still be inside there," the wizard said, knowing that he was taking his life in his own hands again by suggesting the possibility—even though he was sure each one of them had at least briefly considered it. "Her body might be, anyway."

  No one said anything in response, but they did follow when Pharaun began the long walk to the fallen spider fortress.

  As minutes dragged, the walk grew increasingly difficult. Fatigue had long since made itself known, and though they occasionally stopped to eat and drink from the supplies that Valas had given each of them from his dimensional containers they were all hungry, thirsty, and ready to drop. That, coupled with an increasing denseness in debris and intervening walls of stone, web, bricks, or steel, reduced their speed to a quarter of what they hoped for.

  Still, the draegloth managed to get close to Pharaun's side. The mage was reasonably confident that the defenses he already had running would prevent the half-demon from taking him down before he could defend himself, so he didn't stop and challenge the draegloth.

  "You would like it," Jeggred whispered to Pharaun. The draegloth's whisper was as loud as a drow's normal volume, but still no one seemed to have heard him. "If Lolth is dead in there and all we find is a skeleton, you'd be happy. Admit it."

  "I admit nothing," the Master of Sorcere replied. "As a matter of policy, actually. Still, in this case I truly hope we don't find Lolth dead in there. If I did, what would you care anyway, draegloth? Would you run and tell your mistress on me? Which of your two mistresses would you tell first? Or would you even tell Quenthel at all? Honestly, Jeggred, you're acting as if you expect never to see Menzoberranzan again."

  "Am I?" the draegloth asked. He was fundamentally incapable of sarcasm. "How so?"

  "You're ignoring the wishes of Quenthel Baenre—" the wizard stressed that House name—"in favor of the whims of a servant. Here, in the very heart of Lolth's power."

  "Danifae is a servant no longer," the draegloth said. "I have seen many—"

  Fire.

  The word formed in Pharaun's mind even as his skin blistered and his clothing threatened to catch. The flames came at them in a wave, engulfing all five of them in blinding tongues of orange, red, and blue. Pharaun could hear his defensive spells crackling to hold out the heat, and though he was still burned, he survived it. Not all of the others were in as good shape, though, and Pharaun immediately searched his mind for a spell that would protect them all—and if not them all then Valas, Quenthel (she was the sister of the archmage, after all), Danifae, and Jeggred … in that order.

  He didn't have a chance to bring any spell to mind, though, before another wall of fire passed him, burning him even worse as it went.

  Foul, coughing laughter echoed down from above, and Pharaun looked up to see a vicious tanar'ri hanging, by dint of at least some simple magic, in midair above them. The thing was like some kind of mad, twisted bull, and it lacked feet.

  Pharaun recognized it at once, even as he was conjuring a sphere of Weave energy around himself to protect him from certain spells. The tanar'ri was a glabrezu, and it looked familiar.

  "The ice. ." Danifae suggested, her voice hissing through clenched teeth.

  Danifae and Quenthel bore shiny patches on their black skin. They had been burned worse than Pharaun but not quite enough to raise blisters. Quenthel drew the healing wand and lost no time passing it over her own skin.

  "I had it trapped in ice," said Pharaun, "and left it there."

  The mage glanced quickly around for Valas, but the scout was nowhere to be seen.

  "Typical demon," Quenthel mumbled. "Chewed its own legs off to get out of there."

  Jeggred roared with rage. Smoke rose from his singed fur in black-gray wisps.

  "You followed us all the way here, Belshazu?" the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith asked. "So we could kill you?"

  "Quite the opposite," said Jeggred's father.

  Halisstra Melarn was flying.

  Though that wasn't an entirely accurate description of what was happening to her, it was what all her senses told her. Below her stretched an eternity of gray nothing punctuated by swirling storms of color and distant chunks of drifting, turning rock as big around as a mile and as small as a single drow. Above her and to every side was precisely the same thing.

  She had recently visited the Astral Plane with the party of Menzoberranyr and her former battle-captive, but that had been a very different experience. At that time, under the care of a priest of Vhaeraun, she'd felt like a ghost being pulled along by a chain. Through the power of Eilistraee, however, she was actually in the Astral, not projected there, and there was nothing anchoring her to the plane of her birth.

  Halisstra Melarn felt more free than she'd ever felt before. Her lips turned up into an unashamed smile, and her heart raced. Her hair blew out behind her though there wasn't technically any wind. Her body responded to a mere thought in the aether medium of the Astral Plane, and she soared and swooped like a darkenbeast at play.

  The only restraint she felt was the need to keep close to her companions, Uluyara and Feliane. Halisstra could see that the surface elf and the drow priestess were enjoying their flight through the Astral as much as she was, and both of them shared her smile. Still, the gravity of the mission that brought them there was never far from their minds.

  Halisstra had risked everything and lost everything to be there. Ryld was surely dead, as dead as Ched Nasad, and any life she might ever have had in the Underdark was behind her. Ahead was uncertainty but acceptance. Ahead was risk but at least the potential for reward, where all she left behind was hopelessness.

  "There!" Uluyara called to her fellow travelers, breaking into Halisstra's thoughts. "Do you see?"

  Halisstra followed the other priestess's black-skinned finger, and found her body shifting in the «air» to begin flying in that same direction. Uluyara was indicating a long line of dull black shadows, and Halisstra had to blink several times before she began to understand what she was seeing. It was as if she were looking at a vast gray screen behind which, like actors in a shadow play, a line of drow were slowly drifting toward a common goal.

  "Approach them slowly," Feliane warned. "They may not even be able to sense our presence, but we don't know for sure, and there are so many
of them."

  "Who are they?" Halisstra asked, though even as the last word left her mouth she realized what she was seeing.

  "The damned," was Uluyara's whispered, heavy reply.

  "So many.." Halisstra whispered in the same stunned monotone.

  "All the drow who died while Lolth was silent, I would suppose," said Feliane. "Where are they going?"

  "Not to the Abyss," Uluyara replied.

  As they came closer and closer Halisstra couldn't help but pick out faces among the slowly drifting forms of the recently deceased. All of the dark elves appeared uniformly gray, as if they were merely charcoal renderings and not real drow. When she looked directly at one of them, a female probably too young for the Blooding, Halisstra could see right through her to the spinning rock that was passing behind.

  One of the shades noticed her and briefly made eye contact, but the departed soul didn't slow in its progress or make any move to speak to her.

  "Where are they going?" Halisstra asked, seeing first one, then another of the ghosts wearing a symbol of Lolth or other trinkets and heraldry that showed them as devotees of the Spider Queen. "If not the Abyss, if not to Lolth's domain, then where?"

  Hope leaped in Halisstra's chest. If the dead among her loyal followers weren't going to Lolth's side but were going somewhere, perhaps there was some hope for a follower of the Spider Queen besides oblivion.

  "Eilistraee's own spell," said Feliane, "was drawing us to the Abyss, and we weren't going this way."

  "When I was in the Demonweb Pits with the Baenre sister and the others," Halisstra recounted, "we saw no souls such as these. Quenthel remarked on their absence. The sixty-sixth layer held only hordes of feral demons, two warring gods, and a sealed-off temple."

  "Should we follow them?" Feliane asked Uluyara. "If they are Lolth's followers, they might be moving toward her, even if they aren't moving toward the Abyss."

  "Could Lolth have abandoned the Abyss itself?" Halisstra asked.

  Both Halisstra and Feliane looked to Uluyara for answers, but the drow priestess only shrugged.

  Halisstra willed herself closer to the line of souls and watched them go by, waiting for an older priestess to pass, someone who looked as if she might have some insight. As the dead filed past her, Halisstra saw mostly males, warriors obviously, and a few driders in the mix. From their costumes and heraldry, Halisstra could tell that the drow came from a number of cities spread across the length and breadth of the Underdark.

  Finally, a priestess approached whom she thought looked suitable, and Halisstra drifted closer still. She reached out her hand to touch the passing soul, when someone called to her.

  Halisstra,the voice said, echoing directly into her mind.

  Halisstra blinked and slapped her hands to her head. She was only dimly aware of Uluyara and Feliane asking after her condition.

  The sound of the psychic voice echoed in her skull, the gravity of it pushing all other thoughts away.

  "Ryld. . " she said through a jaw tight and quivering.

  I'm here, the Master of Melee-Magthere whispered into her consciousness.

  Halisstra opened her eyes and was face to face with the ghostly shadow of Ryld Argith. The drow warrior stood tall and proud in his shadowy armor, his hands at once reaching out for her and pushing her away. Tears burst from her eyes, blurring her vision of her lover's disembodied soul.

  I loved you, he said.

  Halisstra had been trying not to cry, but with those three words she broke into body-racking sobs that sent her drifting slowly away from him in the Astral aether. She wanted to say a hundred things to him, but her throat closed, her jaw clenched, and her head throbbed.

  I gave up everything for you, he said.

  "Ryld," Halisstra managed finally to say. "I can bring you—"

  He didn't so much say «no» as he imparted that feeling into her consciousness. Halisstra gasped for air.

  I go to Lolth now, said Ryld. I don't belong with Eilistraee, even if I belonged with you.

  "I didn't choose her over you, Ryld," Halisstra said, though she knew she was lying. "I would have turned away from her if you'd asked me to."

  Again, the feeling of "no."

  "I wanted you," she whispered.

  You had me, he said, for as long as you could.

  "Halisstra," Uluyara whispered into her ear. Halisstra realized that the other drow priestess was holding her arm. "Halisstra, ask him where he's going. Ask him where Lolth has gone."

  "He's going to her," Halisstra said to Uluyara, then to Ryld: "I love you."

  She blinked back her tears in time to see him smile and nod.

  "To Lolth?" asked Uluyara. "Where is she?"

  "That's why we're here now, isn't it?" Halisstra asked the slowly drifting soul of Ryld Argith. "Because we loved each other."

  Because we left our world behind, he said. Because we left ourselves there. You were able to create a new Halisstra, but I was not able to make a new Ryld. I'm here because I deserve to be. If not, the draegloth could never have beaten me.

  "And we would still be together," she said.

  Tell your friends, he said, that Lolth has taken the Demonweb Pits out of the Abyss. We have been waiting, some of us for months, to feel her pull us across the Astral to her, and only now are we compelled so.

  "Lolth," Halisstra said to the other priestesses, her voice tight with regret, anger, hate, and too much more to bear, "is bringing them home."

  "The Demonweb Pits is no longer part of the Abyss," Uluyara guessed.

  She's changing, Ryld said and his thoughts had the feel of a warning. She's changing everything.

  Halisstra felt Uluyara's grip on her arm tighten, and the priestess whispered to her, "Let him go. There is only one way to serve him now."

  "W-we can bring him. . bring him back," Halisstra stuttered, watching Ryld turn from her and drift slowly away with the other uncaring shades.

  "Not if he doesn't want to go back," Uluyara whispered, and the hand on her arm slipped into a snug embrace.

  Halisstra wrapped her arms around Uluyara and wept as Ryld dwindled from sight farther and farther along the line of the damned.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  "Welcome to the Abyss, corpse," the glabrezu said. His voice was a low, rolling growl. "Welcome to my home."

  "Belshazu," Quenthel said, her scourge in her hand, vipers writhing expectantly.

  The demon didn't look at her. Instead, he kept his burning eyes locked on Pharaun.

  "I'm going to rip your soul from your body, mage, and eat it raw then vomit it up so it drips all over your quivering corpse and soaks into your shriveling skin and runs into your gaping mouth so it knows that you're dead," the demon ranted.

  "Well," Pharaun replied, "if you say so."

  "You will die," Belshazu said to Pharaun, "in the shadow of your dead goddess's ruined fortress."

  The Master of Sorcere saw Jeggred step up next to him from the corner of his eye. The draegloth was growling almost as low and as thunderously as the glabrezu—the demon that happened to be his father.

  The glabrezu, its severed legs dripping dark blood onto the ancient battlefield, turned slowly to the draegloth and said, "When I'm done with the drow, son, you can join me—have your freedom from the dark elves at last."

  Jeggred drew in a breath, and Pharaun could tell he was ready to pounce, though the glabrezu was hovering well out of his reach.

  "Jeggred. ." Quenthel started but stopped when the draegloth whirled on her.

  "It's meat to me," Jeggred growled. "Just another tanar'ri scum. That thing is no parent of mine." He turned to the glabrezu. "Call me 'son' again, demon, and it'll still be on your lips when I rip off your head."

  "Fear not, draegloth," the demon replied with a feral grin. "Even if you were full-blood I wouldn't give you a second thought. For a half-breed I won't even bother killing you." Belshazu turned his attention back to Pharaun but spoke to the rest of them. "All I want is the summoner. Give
me the wizard, and you can go on to meet your Spider Queen."

  "Only him?" Quenthel asked.

  Pharaun looked at her, and she tried to avoid his gaze, keeping her attention on the hovering glabrezu.

  The demon glanced down at his severed legs and said, "The trick with the ice … I had to snip my own legs off." He held up one of his four arms, one of two that ended in a hideous, sharp pincer claw. "They won't grow back. At the very least, the whoreson owes me two legs. Give him to me now, and be on your way."

  "Everyone," Quenthel said, her voice faraway and bored, "step aside."

  The draegloth growled, and Valas appeared from behind a pile of broken bricks, shifting his feet in an uncharacteristically audible way. Pharaun looked at Quenthel, and she met his gaze evenly.

  "Are you serious?" the wizard asked.

  "Yes," Quenthel replied. "You summoned him, you bound him, you froze him in ice. The rest of this expedition is too important to waste fighting every monster we stumble across—not anymore anyway, and not to settle vendettas you bring upon yourself with your own simpleminded carelessness."

  "Pharaun summoned that demon on your command, Mistress," Valas reminded her, but she didn't acknowledge the scout at all.

  Pharaun looked at Belshazu, who was quietly laughing, obviously surprised that Pharaun's companions had so quickly and easily sold him out. The wizard scanned the glabrezu quickly and found that he was flying thanks to a thin platinum ring on the little finger of his left hand.

  "It's all right," Pharaun said. "All we're talking about here is one legless glabrezu. Go on ahead, and I'll catch up in a minute or so."

  The glabrezu roared and moved closer. Pharaun's first impulse was to run, his second to stand and swallow. He forced himself to do neither. Instead he prepared his first spell.

  Something drifted past Pharaun's face. He leaned back a bit to avoid it, but something else tapped him under the chin. Dust rose up from the ground all around him—and pebbles, shards of petrified bone, and little bits of twisted, rusted iron. He looked at the glabrezu, who was holding up one of his two proper hands, a knowing grin on his canine face.