“Ready,” Halisstra acknowledged. She knew the spell they were to cast would create a short-lived connection to Eilistraee. The answers to the questions they would ask would be short and possibly cryptic. Such was the nature of direct communication between gods and mortals.
“I will offer the questions,” Halisstra said, and Feliane nodded without hesitation.
With that, they closed their eyes and began the spell. The spell required a prayer offered in song. Halisstra opened, Feliane joined, and soon they sang in time with one another, their voices as one. Power gathered, and windows opened between realities.
Propelled by the spell, their minds reached up and out, through the planes, to the otherworldly home of their goddess.
In the no-place created by the spell, Halisstra could not see, but she could feel—and feel with a vibrancy unlike anything she had previously experienced. Despite herself, she mentally cringed as she awaited contact with the mind of her goddess. She felt Feliane with her, also waiting.
A presence suffused the no-place, and Halisstra braced herself. When the contact came, when Halisstra’s mind met that of her goddess in a place-between-places, it was not at all what she had expected. Rather than the overwhelming spite and judgment she had felt when communing with Lolth, she instead felt a sense of overwhelming comfort, love, and acceptance. It was as if she was immersed in a warm, soothing bath.
Ask, daughters, said a voice in her mind.
The grace in the voice, the gentle love, brought tears to Halisstra’s eyes.
Lady, projected Halisstra. You know our purpose. Please tell us what Quenthel Baenre seeks and to where the nalfeshnee bears her.
Halisstra sensed approval of the question.
She seeks to become the vessel of my mother’s resurrection, replied the goddess. Without the Yor’thae, Lolth’s rebirth will be stillborn.
As the weight of that statement settled on Halisstra’s shoulders, Eilistraee continued, The demon carries Quenthel Baenre to the Pass of the Soulreaver beneath of the Mountains of Eyes. My mother waits on the other side.
An image of high peaks formed in Halisstra’s mind, dark spires that rose until they reached the roof of the sky. She had seen the mountains in the distance when first she had materialized on the Demonweb Pits. At the mountains’ base stood a dark opening, the sole means of passing through the range—the Pass of the Soulreaver. The name of the pass triggered some old memory in her, as though she had once read of it during her studies in House Melarn, but the particulars escaped her.
How long before she reaches the pass, Lady? asked Halisstra.
A pause, then, She will reach them before the tired sun of my mother rises anew.
The connection grew tenuous. The spell was soon to expire. Halisstra felt her goddess moving away from her. She tried to grab on, but Eilistraee slipped through her fingers.
Before the spell dissipated entirely, she mentally blurted, Does Danifae Yauntyrr still accompany Quenthel Baenre?
She sensed a hesitation and instantly regretted asking such a selfish question. Still, Eilistraee offered an answer, as though from far away, and the words gave Halisstra hope.
Yes. A pause, then, Doubt is her weapon, daughter.
The connection went quiet. Halisstra opened her eyes, found herself again clad in her cumbersome flesh, sitting across from Feliane. The elf ’s eyes too were rimed with tears.
“The Lady favored us,” Feliane whispered.
“She did,” Halisstra answered. “She did, indeed. If Lolth has no Chosen . . .”
“Then she will die,” Feliane finished.
Halisstra could only nod.
Spontaneously and at the same moment, the two sisters in faith stretched out their arms and embraced, lit with the afterglow of contact with the divine.
“We will succeed,” Feliane said, and to Halisstra it sounded more question than statement.
“We will,” Halisstra affirmed, though Eilistraee’s last words troubled her. For whom was doubt a weapon? Whose doubt? She had no answers.
In short order, Uluyara emerged from her trance, and Halisstra and Feliane related the substance of their communion.
Uluyara took it in with a nod, then said, “The Baenre is three leagues from here. Her route follows the souls. We’ll track her, find her, and kill her.”
“Her route leads to the mountains,” Feliane said. “To the Pass of the Soulreaver.”
“Then that is where we are going too,” said Halisstra. “We must reach it before the sun rises.”
They would once more ride the foul wind of the Demonweb Pits. Halisstra knew they would catch Quenthel and Danifae before they reached the Pass.
“We should assume that Baenre is accompanied by more than the nalfeshnee and Danifae,” Uluyara said. “The wizard, the draegloth, and the mercenary you told us about may yet travel with her.”
“Agreed,” Halisstra said.
As they prepared to set off, Halisstra thought of Danifae, hesitated, then said to Uluyara, “Danifae Yauntyrr said to me once that she had been called by Eilistraee. I would . . .” She trailed off. “She saved me once, from the draegloth. I would like to give her another chance to answer the Lady.”
Uluyara’s face showed incredulity. “Is not accompanying Quenthel Baenre answer enough?” she asked. Her face softened at Halisstra’s frown, and she reached out a hand as though to touch Halisstra, though she did not. “Halisstra Melarn, your guilt over your life before Eilistraee is affecting your judgment. I know the feeling well. But no one called by the Lady would travel with a priestess of Lolth. If Danifae is with the Baenre, then she is with the Baenre.”
Halisstra heard sense in Uluyara’s words, but she did not want to throw Danifae away so quickly.
“You may be mistaken,” Halisstra said. “Let us see what events bring. If she is to be a servant of the Lady, she will show it when she sees me.”
Feliane’s gaze shifted anxiously between them.
Uluyara’s brow furrowed. She started to speak, stopped, and finally said, “Let us not argue about this, not now. As you say, we will see what we will see. I will be pleased to be wrong.”
Halisstra stared at the high priestess a moment longer and decided to let the matter rest.
“Gather near me,” Halisstra said.
She sang the prayer that would again change them all to mist and let them ride the wind. When she finished the spell, their bodies metamorphosed into vapor. As it had before, Halisstra’s field of vision swelled and contracted in a way that made judging distances difficult. Still, she felt in control of her body. They rose from the spire, heading skyward toward the souls high above.
As they ascended into the cloud-roofed sky, Halisstra spared a glance back at the temple, on the tor they had claimed in Eilistraee’s name. She knew she would never see it again.
The three priestesses fell in amongst the souls, just three more insubstantial forms amidst the thousands. At Halisstra’s mental command, they increased their speed until they were streaking through the air faster than any of the shades, as fast as a bolt fired from a crossbow.
We have you, Quenthel Baenre, she thought. And we’re coming.
Deep in the bowels of Corpsehaven, Inthracis stood in an anteroom off to the side of his assembly hall, separated from the finest regiment of his army by ornate double doors. Like the rest of his keep, he had fashioned the doors from carved bone and sheets of flesh. Beyond them stood the five hundred mezzoloths and nycaloths of his elite Black Horn Regiment, all veterans of the Blood Wars. Nisviim had sounded the muster and the Regiment had answered. The nycaloth leaders had already briefed the troops on their assignment and worked them into a killing frenzy with promises of glory and payment of twenty soul-larvae each.
The troops beat the hafts of their glaives, tridents, and poleaxes against the floor, sending shivers through the walls and floors, giving Corpsehaven a pulse that temporarily overwhelmed the wind’s incessant howl. In time with the thumping, the troops shouted alou
d for their general, turning his name into an incantation.
“Inthracis! Inthracis! Inthracis!”
Inthracis smiled and let the excitement build.
Even through the tumult Inthracis could hear the roars of
the nycaloth sergeants. He pictured the assembly in his mind— row upon row of armed and armored yugoloths—and reveled in their adoration. Yugoloths were mercenaries to their core, and Inthracis had treated his army well over the millennia, rewarding them with glory, souls, treasure, and flesh. He had augmented their loyalty with subtle binding spells, quietly cast. He had built his army with care over the centuries, and its fearsome strength and unswerving loyalty had elevated him nearly to the top of the Blood Rift’s hierarchy. He had only to unseat Kexxon the Oinoloth and he would sit atop Calaas’s spire.
Vhaeraun had commanded Inthracis to bring an army to the Ereilir Vor, the Plains of Soulfire, in Lolth’s Demonweb Pits. Inthracis could not muster his entire army without leaving Corpsehaven unguarded, but he could do the next best thing—bring the Black Horn Regiment, and lead them himself. He would leave Nisviim, his arcanaloth lieutenant, in charge of the fortress until his return. Inthracis knew the bound arcanaloth would not betray him.
Besides, he was certain the Black Horn regiment would be enough—more than enough—to slaughter the three drow priestesses and whomever or whatever might accompany them. And when the three priestesses were dead, Vhaeraun might actually reward him.
“Inthracis! Inthracis!”
The rhythmic beat of weapon hafts on the floor grew louder, faster, building toward a crescendo. Beside Inthracis, snarling and drooling, stood Carnage and Slaughter, his canoloth pets. The rising volume of the chanting agitated the four-legged, houndlike yugoloths—both were dumb but quite powerful, quite loyal—and their long, barbed tongues lolled from the fanged sphincters of their mouths. Their claws dug into the floor, and both uttered low growls.
Inthracis reached up to pat them each on their huge, armored flanks.
“Be at ease,” he said and let arcane power creep into his voice.
The power of his magic eased their tension. The canoloths uttered satisfied murmurs and visibly relaxed.
For the sake of appearances, Inthracis had armored Carnage and Slaughter in their war gear—spiked plate barding covered the coarse, black fur of their wide backs and broad chests. He had even armored himself, though he would consider it a personal failing to be forced to engage in melee combat.
Still, the troops enjoyed seeing their general outfitted for war.
His light, magic-absorbing mail shirt and helm, both forged in one of Calaas’s furnaces from a magic-soaked ore unique to the Blood Rift, glimmered in the light of the anteroom’s yellow glowball. His spellblade, Arcane Razor, through which he could cast his spells and cut through the spells of others, hung at his belt from a scabbard made of barbed devil hide. An arsenal of metallic wands and three bone rods hung from a quiver at his thigh.
“Inthracis! Inthracis!”
As it had with the canoloths, the noise agitated the stacked corpses in the walls of Corpsehaven. Limbs squirmed, wide eyes stared, and flesh oozed. Hands reached from the walls as though to touch him, either out of excitement or perhaps out of a need for reassurance.
Carnage turned his huge head, casually ripped a grasping forearm from the wall, and devoured it, bone and all. Seeing his sibling feasting, Slaughter eyed the wall-corpses to see if another such tidbit might be forthcoming.
None were. Hands and arms retreated into the wall. Eyes stared out in semi-sentient fear.
Inthracis smiled at his pets, even as he ran his plan through his mind. He had been unable to scry any of the three priestesses—he did not know why—and Vhaeraun’s avatar had not shown himself again. Still, he dared not disobey the Masked Lord’s command.
Inthracis would use a simple spell to show the Black Horn Regiment where it was to go—the fiery, blasted heath of the Plains of Soulfire, in the shadow of Lolth’s city and the Infinite Web—and go they would. Inthracis knew the plains to be uninhabited but for the tortured souls that burned in the sky above them—and perhaps a few of Lolth’s eight-legged pets.
“Inthracis! Inthracis!”
The time had come.
Without another word, he threw open the doors and strode forward onto the high balcony that overlooked the assembly hall. The cheer that greeted him from below sent flakes of skin raining from the ceiling, shook the walls of Corpsehaven like one of the Blood Rift’s frequent earthquakes.
He looked down on the regiment. Rows of squat, beetle-like mezzoloths looked up at him with their red, compound eyes. They stood on two legs, using the other four to wield their polearms. Plates of armor draped their black carapaces. Their mandibles offered soft clicks. The larger nycaloths moved amongst them, calling for quiet. Muscles rippled under the green scales of the gargoylish nycaloths as they moved. Huge axes hung from their backs. Four clawed hands erupted from their muscular chests, and their sleek heads sported two horns, limned black, of course.
Inthracis raised his hands, and the multitude fell silent. Only the howl of the wind outside disturbed the moment. In its shriek, Inthracis still heard the echo of Lolth’s call, but softer: “Yor’thae.”
Inthracis ignored it, except to hope that the diminishment of the call indicated the diminishment of Lolth.
He willed a spell to amplify his voice. When he spoke, his softly uttered words sounded as loud and clear in the ears of his troops as if he had stood beside them.
“There are drow priestesses that we must kill,” he said. “And we must do it under the eyes of the Spider Queen herself.”
A ripple ran through the lines. All knew that something had been happening recently with Lolth.
Inthracis spoke the words to his spell and called up a towering image of the Ereilir Vor. A green mist hung over a pockmarked landscape. Pools of caustic fluid bubbled their stink into the air. Glowing souls burned in arcane fire in the sky.
Beyond the plains, Lolth’s city loomed, a great, crawling citadel of iron set among the Infinite Web. Millions of arachnids scurried along its strands.
Another ripple ran through the lines. No doubt some recognized the locale.
“That is where we will do battle,” he called. “And here is our prey.”
Drawing upon the mental image placed in his mind by Vhaeraun, he spoke aloud the words to another spell and caused an image of the three priestesses to take shape before the regiment.
“All three must die,” he said, “and an extra twenty-five souls from my cache to those who strike the killing blow.”
A roar answered him and he nodded.
The Black Horn Regiment was ready. If Vhaeraun was right, and one of the three drow priestesses was or was to be Lolth’s Yor’thae, then the Spider Queen’s Chosen would never reach her goddess’s side.
chapter
eleven
Day was drawing near. The nalfeshnee and chasme flew on. The mountains grew larger and larger in Pharaun’s sight. Though perhaps a league away, they stood so tall they looked like a wall of black rock that never ended. He knew that no one could ever go over them. There was only one way through—the Pass of the Soulreaver.
Souls streamed overhead, angling downward and flowing toward the base of the mountains. The nalfeshnee eyed the glowing souls hungrily as they passed, but his fear of Quenthel kept him from doing anything other than looking. The chasme continued to whine at the heaviness of his load.
As the mountains loomed closer and closer, Pharaun caught Quenthel looking back, not at him but at the horizon line. Pharaun turned to watch it too, expecting to see the light of the rising sun once again summon forth Lolth’s children for the Teeming.
The sun peeked over the edge of the world, casting its dim red light across the landscape. To Pharaun’s surprise, nothing happened. The light oozed over the rocks, holes, and pits, but no spiders came forth to greet it.
It appeared that the Teeming was over.
Strange, that so great a degree of violence could erupt and end with such suddenness. Pharaun had a peculiar sense that the Demonweb Pits was holding its breath, waiting for something.
When he turned back around, he found Quenthel staring at him. With exaggerated gestures, she signed, Be prepared when we land. But do nothing except at my command.
Pharaun nodded in understanding. The time for the confrontation had come at last.
He let himself lag a bit behind the chasme. There, he began surreptitiously to cast defensive spells that had no outward visible effect—he did not want some aura or emanation to alert Danifae and Jeggred to Quenthel’s intent. He sprinkled diamond dust over his flesh and turned his skin as strong as stone. He whispered sequential incantations that made his body resistant to fire, lightning, and acid.
The Master of Sorcere could not contain a smile as they flew. When they reached the mountains, Quenthel would kill Danifae, and Pharaun would kill Jeggred.
It is about time, he thought.
Halisstra, Feliane, and Uluyara streaked through the air, riding the wind. They flew amidst the river of souls, though Halisstra did not look any of the glowing spirits in the face. She was afraid she might encounter someone else she had known.
The mountains were visible ahead, a titanic wall of sheer stone. They looked like the fangs of an unimaginably huge beast. The flow of souls angled downward, heading toward the bottom of one of the mountains.
Behind them, the sun rose over the horizon. Halisstra looked earthward, expecting to see another day of violence, but it appeared as if the only violence that would happen on the Demonweb Pits that day would happen between drow.
Far ahead, Halisstra caught sight of two large forms descending toward the base of the tallest of mountains—demons, she saw.
Quenthel Baenre was there, she knew. So was Danifae.
Her heart began to race.
The souls swirled around the demons as they descended toward a hole in the mountains that could only be the Pass of the Soulreaver.
Halisstra and her fellow priestesses sped onward, slowly gaining.
R. A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Extinction, Annihilation, Resurrection Page 87
