Annihilation

by Athans, Philip

  The demon’s hideous pincer broke through one of the fingers. When it came away from the hand, the black magic burst like a bubble and the finger was gone. Belshazu pushed at the quivering, dissipating hand with one severed leg and his all-too-intact arms. As Pharaun’s next spell began to form in the air above the demon, Belshazu fell out of the conjured hand and onto the wreckage-strewn ground.

  The demon roared at him, and it was all Pharaun could do to force himself to appear unaffected by the deafening, terrifying sound. Belshazu stood but didn’t look up—didn’t see the slab of stone assembling itself bit by bit in the thin air above him.

  “Tell me the truth.” Pharaun slid a loose strand of hair away from his eyes and asked, “Can you tell I haven’t washed my hair in over a tenday?”

  The glabrezu growled, roared again, and leaped into the air—

  —just as the wall of stone fell.

  The demon disappeared under it, and the ground shook. The wall cracked as it came to rest on the uneven surface. Belshazu lifted the several-ton slab off him just enough to turn his head and reveal burning eyes sunk in a bleeding, animal’s head.

  The look of the battered creature made Pharaun smile. The spell he’d had to move so far away from the others to cast safely came to his lips as the tanar’ri continued to slowly dig itself out from under the stone slab. When he completed the incantation, Pharaun opened his mouth wide and screamed.

  The sound came not from his lungs, throat, or mouth but from the Weave all around him and inside him. The sound rolled up, louder and louder, then shot out of him: a mad, keening shriek that smashed into the demon so hard it even blew the massive slab of stone into smoky vapor, then blew that smoke away into nothing. The sound crashed into the glabrezu, shaking him and spinning him into the air. Bruises exploded on Belshazu’s tough red hide, and his bones cracked loudly one by one. The demon couldn’t muster the breath necessary to scream, though Pharaun reveled in the obvious fact that he wanted to.

  Especially when pieces of him started coming off.

  Pharaun kept screaming, continued pushing air out of himself. The sound shredded the glabrezu, taking off skin, plates of exoskeleton, divots of fur, claws, fangs, eyes, then blood and entrails. The whole mess whirled in the air as if it were being stirred in a great invisible cooking pot, then all at once the spell—and the hideous shrieking scream—was gone, and the shredded remains of Belshazu fell in a heap on the battle-scarred ground. Blood continued to rain down in tapping spatters for a minute after the last big piece hit the ground.

  Pharaun sighed, pushed away his errant hair again, and stepped gingerly into the mess. He kicked pieces this way and that with the toe of one boot until his eyes settled on the thin platinum band. He bent and retrieved the ring, making some effort not to touch the tanar’ri’s blood.

  “You owed me a ring,” he said to the demon’s mute remains then slipped the ring on a finger and turned back to rejoin the drow who had been more than happy to let him face the glabrezu alone.

  “It looked big from a distance,” Pharaun said as he ran a hand along a cold, rusted metal rib. “It’s even bigger from the inside.”

  The Master of Sorcere looked up along the line of the gently curving steel beam and tried to guess how far above his head it ended—a hundred feet, maybe a hundred and fifty?

  “Why was this just left here for a thousand years?” asked Jeggred. The draegloth was sniffing the outer surface of the great spider fortress and seemed dissatisfied. “It should have been cleaned up. Wouldn’t the goddess want it cleared away?”

  “It hasn’t been here a thousand years,” Quenthel said. She was standing inside a huge tear in the side of the broken sphere, her arms crossed in front of her. “I told you all, I was here.”

  “How long ago?” asked Danifae.

  The high priestess looked at her with open contempt but answered, “Ten years.”

  “Ten years ago,” Pharaun asked, “was this thing intact and moving?”

  The Mistress of Arach-Tinilith nodded. “How were you here?” Danifae asked.

  Quenthel turned to Pharaun and said, “If there is anyone alive in here, could you sense them?”

  The wizard glanced at Danifae, who offered him a bored shrug.

  “There are spells,” he answered Quenthel, “that will do that, yes. Do you think we’ll find someone alive in here? Lolth herself, perhaps?”

  “If the Spider Queen is anywhere,” said the Baenre priestess, “she’ll be here. This is her palace. Still, I don’t sense her presence. I still can’t feel her here at all.”

  Pharaun nodded and looked around at the ruin again.

  “Far be it from me to argue, Mistress,” he said to Quenthel, “but I find it impossible to believe that this construct was in operation a mere ten years ago. I’ll admit I’ve never seen materials like this—steel beams big enough to hold up a building, a magical construct as big as House Baenre—but I’ve seen steel both old and new, and this steel has been laying out here for somewhat longer than ten years. I will accept that you’re reluctant to tell us how you came to be here a decade ago, but …”

  “But what?” Quenthel snarled.

  Pharaun stopped to think. The Mistress of Arach-Tinilith watched him the whole time, and finally he shrugged and shook his head. Quenthel turned and strode deeper into the wrecked spider fortress.

  Pharaun could feel someone looking at him, and he turned to see Valas lurking at the edge of a shadow. The scout was standing outside the wreck. Following Valas’s glances, Pharaun watched Danifae and Jeggred follow Quenthel into the ruin. When the three of them had disappeared into the maze of twisted metal, Valas stepped closer.

  “Do you really think she’s alive in there?” the scout asked.

  Pharaun shrugged and said, “At this point, my dear Valas, I’m willing to accept nearly anything. Time seems to have no meaning here—a different meaning anyway. Everything Quenthel says may be true, but then here we are at the very heart of Lolth’s domain, and where is she?”

  “Where are the souls of the dead?” asked the scout.

  “We should be swarmed by departed ancestors, shouldn’t we?” Pharaun agreed. “There should be all manner of creatures here: demons, driders, draegloths …” Pharaun paused to chuckle. “All manner of things that start with ‘d’ … but all there is is wreckage and ruins, calcified bone and rotting stone. It’s the stuff of an epic lament.”

  Valas stared into the darkness inside the spider fortress and sighed.

  “I don’t know my way around in there,” the scout said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why am I still here?”

  “You were hired,” Pharaun said. “House Baenre pays Bregan D’aerthe … everyone knows why you’re here.”

  “No, I said, why am I still here?” the scout asked. “I was hired as a guide to get this expedition through the Dark Domain, and I have done that.”

  “You have indeed,” Pharaun replied.

  “I never said I knew …” Valas started, but ended with a sigh.

  “You’re out of your element,” Pharaun said, “as are we all, but we could still certainly benefit from your skills.”

  “I could have helped you with the demon,” said the scout.

  “Quenthel wouldn’t allow it,” Pharaun replied.

  “You got us here,” Valas said, “and as far as I know, even with the ship destroyed, you’re the only one who can get them home, yet she risks you to prove a point that no one needs proven? Does that make sense to you at all?”

  Pharaun smiled and shook his head, sliding an errant strand of hair out of his face, then said, “I have been a thorn in the high priestess’s side since we stepped out of Menzoberranzan. I’ve lost track of the various different reasons why she might want to kill me, as I’ve stopped counting the reasons I’d like to see her dead, too. Still, perhaps she was confident that I could handle the demon on my own. I did, after all.”

  “There might have been a time when I’d have thought that
was good enough,” Valas went on, “but after all this, I can’t help thinking it’s just stupid, and potentially wasteful. Her behavior is erratic.”

  “I think we’re all a bit erratic,” Pharaun admitted, “but I agree in principle with what you’re saying. I think the snakes are whispering to her more and more. She’s lost control of both the draegloth and Danifae, has never had control of me, and knows that you’re only here because of House Baenre’s gold. We finally get to the Demonweb Pits and this is what we find? An ancient ruin? She should be insane. We all should be.”

  Valas thought about that for a while, and Pharaun waited for him to respond.

  “My contract is at an end,” the scout finally said.

  Pharaun nodded, shrugged, and said, “I will leave that for you to decide, but I have to admit I’d rather have you stay with us than leave. I can use spells, as the priestess asked, to find anything that might still live here, to find any latent sources of magic. If I’m the guide here, fine, but we could well need you again soon. Besides, can you even get back on your own?”

  The scout tipped his head up, raised an eyebrow, and gave the hint of a smile that faded before it was completely recognizable.

  “Well,” Pharaun said, “perhaps you can then. I’m going inside anyway, and if you’d like to join us, so be it. We can discuss why, if you’re capable of returning to Menzoberranzan on your own, you’re concerned that I might be the only one who can get you back and Quenthel’s tried again to kill me.”

  The scout bowed ever so slightly and held back a smile.

  “Why do you care, anyway?” Valas asked.

  “About what?”

  “All of this,” said the scout. “Lolth …”

  The scout nodded and Pharaun replied, “I’m curious. It’s a unique challenge for a spellcaster, and my hard-fought position in Menzoberranzan depends on the harder-fought position of my superior, who depends on the matriarchy for his power—his political power, anyway.”

  Valas nodded and Pharaun gestured toward the rip in the wall of the spider fortress.

  “After you?” Pharaun said.

  Valas walked past him, but his reluctance was plain in each forced step.

  Halisstra couldn’t move. She let herself hang in the æther, crying, holding her head in her hands, fending off both Uluyara and Feliane who were trying to comfort her. She could hear them repeating one reassurance after another and could feel them touching her, hugging her, wiping away her tears, but she didn’t care. She didn’t know what to do, and something was wrong with her.

  We brought you along too fast, a voice hummed in her head. It was a female voice, quiet but strong. I’m sorry.

  Halisstra blinked open her eyes and looked around for the source of the voice. Uluyara and Feliane had moved away from her—what would have been a few paces if they’d been standing on ground—and both of them stared with open mouths at an apparition floating only just within reach of Halisstra. It was the ghost of a drow female, resplendent in robes of flowing silk, all color drained from her, a wind that Halisstra couldn’t feel carrying her long white hair in a halo around her head and brushing her robes out behind her.

  “Seyll,” Halisstra whispered, the name almost sticking on her tongue.

  The shade, who was looking Halisstra directly in the eyes, nodded, and again the voice sounded in her head. Eilistraee has many gifts to offer our sisters from the World Below. Pain, unfortunately, is one of those gifts.

  “You can keep it,” Halisstra shot back, anger rising to replace the crushing remorse that the disembodied soul of Ryld Argith had left in its wake.

  Feliane and Uluyara reacted to her reply with puzzled expressions, and Halisstra realized they couldn’t hear Seyll.

  I know, the dead priestess replied. Believe me, I know what it’s like to experience these emotions all at once and for the first time. Your mind has been trained not to recognize them, but they’ve been there all along, waiting for you to find them and set them free. Freedom isn’t always easy. You’ve gone on a long journey within yourself to a place where the emotional consequences may be more painful, but the rewards will be greater than you’ve ever imagined.

  I don’t care, Halisstra thought back. I don’t want it. Right now, I’d go back to the Underdark if I could.

  Would you?

  In a second, Halisstra vowed. There when I was being manipulated I knew it and knew the ends to which I was being pushed. There I was a priestess and a noblewoman.

  And here? Seyll asked. What are you now?

  An assassin, Halisstra answered. I’m an assassin in the service of Eilistraee.

  What do you suppose is the difference between an assassin and a liberator?

  A liberator? Halisstra asked.

  When you kill Lolth, Seyll said, and you will kill her, you will set thousands free … millions.

  Dooming them to a life of despair and remorse?

  And love, contentment, trust, and happiness, Seyll replied.

  Halisstra paused to think about that, but her mind was blank. Her eyes burned, her jaw ached, and she felt heavy—so heavy she actually began to sink in the weightless æther of the Astral Plane.

  Feliane and Uluyara appeared on either side of her, holding her gently by the arms. Halisstra didn’t look at them or at the ghost of Seyll. Instead, she let her eyes wander up and down the long column of silent souls. The dead were returning to Lolth. Everything she had feared had not come to pass.

  “I could go back to her,” Halisstra said.

  She could feel both Feliane and Uluyara stiffen. From Seyll she felt a wave of disappointment mixed with fear.

  “If she would have you,” Feliane whispered.

  That stopped Halisstra. Had she passed a point of no return, one where Lolth would reject her or worse, punish her for the heresies she’d already committed? Would Eilistraee abandon her for even considering a return to the Spider Queen? Would she manage to work herself into a godless afterlife by her own indecision?

  No, Seyll whispered into her mind, obviously having sensed her thoughts. Eilistraee understands doubt and weakness and forgives both.

  “Do you understand, Halisstra,” Feliane said, “what Seyll has given up by coming here?”

  Halisstra shook her head in an effort to gently shake off the elf’s words.

  “She has abandoned Arvandor to come here,” Feliane continued. “Seyll has doomed herself to an eternity in the wild Astral, and she’s done it for you.”

  “Has she?” Halisstra asked, eyeing the ghost of Seyll, who floated there staring at her. “Or has she done that for Eilistraee? Did she come here on her own, or was she sent by a goddess who fears the loss of her assassin?”

  Yes, Seyll said. Yes to all those questions. I have come here on my own, for Eilistraee, to protect you from Lolth, to protect you from yourself, and to assure that you will do what you must do.

  “Why?” Halisstra asked. “Why now?”

  Because something is going to happen, Seyll replied.

  “Something is going to happen,” Uluyara repeated.

  Right now, Seyll asked, this very moment, do you want to go back to Lolth? If she poured her “grace” over you right now, would you accept it, accept her, and turn your back on Eilistraee?

  “I don’t know,” Halisstra answered.

  You must decide, said Seyll, and you must decide now.

  The apparition gestured behind her at the long row of disembodied souls. Something was different, and it took Halisstra a few seconds to realize what was happening. The line of souls disappeared into the gray distance, what might have been miles away. The colorless ghosts were changing, one after another as if a wave was passing through them. Color and life, even substance returned to each soul in turn, but only for a brief moment, then the effect passed to the next dead drow in line. As the color passed in and out of them they convulsed, twisting in the air more from pleasure than from pain. The wave drew closer and closer, scattering the line of drow in its wake.
r />   “She’s back,” Halisstra whispered.

  Seyll came closer to her, wrapping her ghostly body around Halisstra, who stiffened but didn’t push the apparition away.

  She is back, Seyll whispered into her mind. Soon her power will course though you. I can protect you, but you have to want me to. You have to want Eilistraee, not her. Not that demon. Please.

  “Please,” Uluyara whispered.

  Halisstra closed her eyes and tried to return Seyll’s ghostly embrace, but her arms closed over nothing.

  “Eilistraee,” Halisstra called, her voice breaking, “help me!”

  Seyll grew solid in her arms, and Halisstra felt the priestess’s body quiver. Seyll screamed, and Halisstra heard it both in her rattling ears and in her tortured mind.

  “Seyll,” Uluyara shouted over the sound of pure agony that was ripped from Seyll’s momentarily corporeal throat. “No …”

  Seyll’s body disappeared, and Halisstra’s arms wrapped around only herself. The scream echoed in her mind but left her ringing ears to the silence of the Astral Plane. She opened her eyes and saw Seyll floating in the gray nothing in front of her. The priestess’s body was twisted and broken, her face wracked with pain. She had grown more transparent, and was quickly fading away.

  “Seyll …” Halisstra whispered.

  The priestess looked her in the eyes one last time, and though it seemed to cause her a considerable amount of pain to do so, she smiled as she faded from sight.

  Halisstra felt her body sag even as she was infused with an energy and confidence unlike anything she’d felt before.

  “She’s gone,” Uluyara whispered.

  “She didn’t abandon only Arvandor,” Feliane said, her eyes wide with horror. “She let the power of Lolth pass into her.”

  “To protect me,” Halisstra whispered.

  “It killed her,” Feliane said. “She didn’t choose the Astral, she chose oblivion.”

  “The thing that I most feared myself,” said Halisstra. “It was oblivion that drove me to Eilistraee.”

  “She sacrificed herself,” Uluyara said.