Resurrection (35 page)

The oaf finally learned some sense, the mage thought.

Pharaun could not even close his eyes. He could only watch the approaching wave and wait to be eaten alive. The bleeding was not killing him fast enough.

He watched the horde strip the flesh from one corpse after another. He knew then that his last sensory impression would not be Jeggred's stink. It would be pain.

Quenthel shot Danifae a hateful glare.

Staring up at the mammoth pyramid, Halisstra had an eerie sense of having done it all before. She looked through the temple's doors and saw that it appeared almost exactly as it had in her vision. Webs covered slanted walls. A processional of the drow-giant widow crossbreeds lined an aisle that led to a raised dais. Yochlols stood to either side, their misshapen, slimy bodies strangely elegant, their eight tentacle arms slack at their sides. The yochlols had no faces, but a single red eye glared out at the priestesses from near the top of their columnar, amorphous bodies.

Lolth sat atop the dais in the form of eight spiders, eight giant widows. The power exuded by her presence nearly knocked Halisstra to her knees. Webs extended from her bodies in all directions, reached to the walls, through the walls, and into the multiverse.

Her web covers all, Halisstra thought.

Beside her, Danifae and Quenthel stared in awe. All three abased themselves.

Lolth's voices rang in Halisstra's head, no doubt in all of their heads.

Enter, Yor'thae.

Almost as one, the priestesses rose and stepped over the threshold. Halisstra was not certain who had taken the first step.

Side by side, they walked the aisle. The abyssal widows shifted as they passed. Lolth's eight sets of eyes watched them approach. Halisstra could not take her gaze from the eyes. The largest of the eight spiders sat centermost. As it had in Halisstra's vision, it seemed strangely quiescent, as though waiting.

She realized that she was praying, whispering supplications under her breath with each step. Danifae and Quenthel were doing the same. All three held a hand on their respective holy symbols-their
different
holy symbols.

They reached the dais and stood, small and insignificant, before the eight bodies of their goddess. Each of the eight spiders was as large as Jeggred, with the eighth half-again as huge. Halisstra could not stop staring into the empty eyes of that eighth spider.

The eight embodiments of Lolth stared down at them, the ultimate predators. No flaw marred the carapaces of their glistening, black bodies. Each of the bodies' long, graceful legs ended in a spike as long as Halisstra's forearm. The black flecks of her eye clusters reflected what they saw, revealed nothing, and contained no mercy. Seven mandibles churned slowly in seven fanged mouths. The eighth stood still, waiting.

Lolth's eyes fell first on Danifae, then on Halisstra, on Quenthel.

Each of the priestesses fell to her knees in turn. Each bent her head and stared at the floor. None dared speak.

Sweat soaked Halisstra's body. Her breath was labored. She felt lightheaded.

Had Lolth chosen her? The thought both thrilled and repulsed her.

Only one of you will leave my tabernacle alive,
Lolth projected, her seven voices driven like spikes into Halisstra's temples.

Each of the priestesses looked sidelong at the others.

With fearsome suddenness, the eighth body of Lolth lurched into motion, lunging forward and taking Danifae in her mouth.

The battle-captive screamed once.

The Spider Queen lifted Danifae from the floor, impaled her on her fangs, and drank her dry. Blood and fluid leaked from the goddess's maw and pooled around Quenthel and Halisstra. Danifae's legs kicked spasmodically as she died. After feasting on her fluids, Lolth devoured her flesh and bones and cast her clothing and gear to the floor with a clatter.

The other seven spiders watched, as still as had been the eighth.

Halisstra thought she might pass out, so fast was she breathing. She felt Quenthel looking at her and turned her head to see. The Baenre priestess wore an ecstatic grin, even as she continued her supplications.

Only one of you will leave the tabernacle alive.

The eighth spider slid to her side until she stood over Halisstra. Halisstra could have counted the hairs on Lolth's legs. She squeezed shut her eyes and continued to pray. She realized that she still had Seyll's sword in her hand. The other seven spiders took a step forward, an eager step.

Halisstra clutched the blade so tightly it made her knuckles ache.

She awaited the touch of fangs. Long moments passed.

A cracking sound. Wet tearing. Lolth screamed in her head, the sound enough to flatten Halisstra and Quenthel to their bellies on the blood-soaked floor. With effort, she pulled herself to her hands and knees, opened her eyes, and looked up. She had to bear witness

Before her, the seven bodies of Lolth were tearing apart the eighth, feeding on their sister. With their own mandibles, Lolth's bodies sliced into the legs of their eighth sister. The eighth spasmed on the dais, shaking the webs, sending a quiver through the multiverse. Her exoskeleton cracked in a hundred places.

Behind Halisstra, the abyssal widows shuffled anxiously. The seven spiders stepped back, pieces of the eighth still hanging from their jaws. Two yochlols hurried forward to the torn body of the eighth. They slid atop the dais and wrapped their eight tentacles around the eighth's legs, her thorax, her abdomen. They began to split her apart, moving methodically from one leg to the other, to her thorax, her head.

Lolth screamed again-the sound of eight female voices. Dark liquid leaked from the cracks in the flesh of the eighth spider, ichor that drained to the floor around Halisstra and mixed with Danifae's blood. Pieces of Lolth's carapace fell way in chunks.

Halisstra lurched to her feet, horrified. What was happening? She fell back a step, staring wide eyed at her goddess. Quenthel too climbed to her feet and staggered back a step, uncertainty in her eyes.

A whisper ran through the ranks of the abyssal widows. The yochlols returned to their station beside the dais.

Lolth's carapace gave way with a wet crack and was still. Ichor poured from the arachnid body, soaking Halisstra's feet.

The tabernacle went silent.

Halisstra did not know what to say, what to do. Quenthel looked aghast.

Halisstra opened her mouth to speak and-

Movement on the dais, a stirring amidst the pile of hair, carapace, and gore.

With a lurch, the Spider Queen pulled her new form from the old, separating from the shell of her eighth body with an even louder wet, tearing sound. She stepped out of her divine molt and stood, wet and glistening before Halisstra and Quenthel.

Her shining black body was still that of a giant black widow, but instead of a spider's head and face, a drow form jutted from her thorax, a beautifully featured face, a full figured torso…

Danifae Yauntyrr.

Yor'thae.

The Eighth Face of the Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

Lolth was transformed.

Halisstra could not move, could not think.

Only one of you will leave here alive, Lolth had promised.

Halisstra fell to her knees and waited for death.

A tapping on his cheeks brought Gromph back to consciousness.

"Archmage," said a voice, Prath's voice. "Archmage, open your eyes."

Gromph blinked open his eyes and found himself staring up into the concerned face of Prath Baenre. Gromph was on the floor of his office, facing the ceiling.

Prath's youthful face split in a smile, and he said, "You appeared from nowhere, burned all over, and fell to the floor. You have been this way for over an hour. I was afraid to move you or to leave your side. I am pleased to see you alive, Archmage."

Gromph smiled, and his burned lips cracked.

The archmage said, "I share your sentiment, apprentice. But…?"

Prath only shook his head, still smiling.

The last thing Gromph remembered he had been trying to cast a teleportation spell to escape the explosion of the master ward. He had failed to get the spell cast in time, so how…

It struck him: His contingent evasion spell. He had forgotten about it in the rush of events, but the absorption of the dimensional lock by the master ward had allowed the evasion to function.

But only after his body had been "materially consumed by magical energy." And he had no ring to heal him. He'd left it on Larikal's body. "Now that you are awake, Archmage," Prath said, "I will send for a priestess."

Gromph shook his head, and the motion caused shooting pain along his neck.

"No." He didn't bother to explain his reasons. "No, apprentice." Gromph had an eerie sense of reliving previous events. He had been in much the same state not so long before, after his battle with the lichdrow, but it had been Nauzhror bent over his burnt body then.

Events had come full circle.

Prath looked down on him, ran his eyes over Gromph's body, and said, "You are badly burned, Archmage."

Gromph knew that well enough. His skin felt as stiff as leather. He didn't want to look at his hands. He didn't want to move, not for a long while.

He said, "Prath, I have healing salves in metal tins in the first dimensional shelf in the third drawer on the left side of my desk. Retrieve them."

Prath rose, and Gromph almost grabbed him.

"Wait!" he said instead. "What of House Agrach Dyrr?"

A soft rush of air announced the operation of
a teleportation spell.

Gromph would need to put his wards back into place. No one should have been able to teleport into his offices.

"Archmage!" exclaimed a voice.

Nauzhror.

Footsteps, then the pudgy Master of Sorcere appeared over the Archmage. Gromph saw him steel his expression when he looked upon his master's burns.

"You are alive," Nauzhror said. "I am pleased." Over his shoulder, he ordered, "Apprentice! Send for a priestess!"

Gromph shook his head. "He is retrieving healing salves from my desk, Master Nauzhror. I would just as soon be spared the attentions of another priestess of Lolth."

He tried to laugh, but it turned into a painful cough.

Nauzhror smiled and nodded in understanding.

"I assume the phylactery is destroyed?" the master asked Gromph.

The archmage managed a nod. "Destroyed," he said. "I was just asking Prath about House Agrach Dyrr."

Nauzhror nodded and said, "The temple was utterly consumed in the blast, Archmage, along with many of the House's forces. In the aftermath, House Xorlarrin breached the walls at last. It seemed as though House Agrach Dyrr would fall, annihilated by the Xorlarrin. But…"

"But?" Gromph prompted.

"But Matron Mother Baenre arrived with a contingent of Baenre troops and halted the assault. She met with Anival Dyrr, now apparently Matron Mother of House Agrach Dyrr, and it appears they reached an understanding. House Agrach Dyrr will survive as a vassal House to House Baenre."

Gromph smiled through his pain. Anival and House Agrach Dyrr would be beholden to Triel for centuries, essentially an extension of House Baenre. His sister once again had surprised him. He reminded himself never to underestimate her again.

"You have done the city a great service, Archmage," Nauzhror said.

"Indeed," Prath echoed, looking up from his search.

Gromph nodded. He knew that. But the healing would be long, for himself and the city. For a moment, he wondered what had happened to the duergar axe with which he had destroyed the phylactery and taken the lichdrow's soul. He had left it behind in the temple.

He put such thoughts from his mind. The lichdrow was destroyed for good.

He hoped.

"The healing salves, apprentice," he called to Prath.

Quenthel stared up into Lolth's face, into
Danifae's
face, and tried to control her anger, her disappointment, her shame.

Danifae Yauntyrr, a Houseless battle-captive, was Lolth's
Yor'thae.

Quenthel's rage burned so hot she could scarcely breathe. Her shame weighed so much she could hardly stand. Halisstra lay on her face beside Quenthel. The high priestess looked at her, looked at the eight bodies of Lolth, at Danifae's form sticking out of the body of the largest, and slowly, with great difficulty, put her head to the floor.

Quenthel might not have been the
Yor'thae
but she remained a loyal servant of Lolth.

When she looked up, she dared ask, "Why?"

Anger crept into her voice, and once it started, it poured out.

"Why bring me back from the dead?" she demanded. "Why make me Mistress of Arach-Tinilith if only to do… this?"

She thought back to the many times she could have killed Danifae outright and rebuked herself for her mistake. She had been a fool, an arrogant fool.

Lolth's eight bodies surged forward, with the eighth at their center. Quenthel thought she was going to die, but instead Danifae-
Lolth!
-reached forth with a drow hand and stroked Quenthel's hair, an inexplicably gentle gesture. When she spoke, her voice was eight voices, but Danifae's was loudest.