Annihilation (31 page)

She spoke entirely in movement, in the subtle nuance of gesture and rhythm, and it all seemed like a glorious dream.

Halisstra felt her body moving. The air swirled around her, cool and invigorating. In the movement she sensed the presence of Danifae. The subtle curve of her former servant’s hip turned in a way that suggested duplicity and with a grace that bespoke ambition. Danifae breathed discontentment and stepped into the Demonweb Pits.

Halisstra didn’t watch, she danced. She was there, though she had no idea where “there” was. There was no space, only the movement within it—the movement that was the voice of Eilistraee.

Danifae and Halisstra both stepped in time to a different song. They moved toward the same endpoint but for different reasons and were surrounded by the same chilling stillness. In the sway
of a shoulder, Eilistraee warned Halisstra not to trust Danifae but pushed her servant along the former battle-captive’s path. Halisstra would lead some of the way, and Danifae would lead some too. Both goddesses would push and pull them from the edges, sending them toward a place and a time that no sane drow could possibly imagine except in a goddess-birthed nightmare.

Halisstra felt herself move through a still, empty space, and she knew that space was the Demonweb Pits—the home plane of Lolth, bereft of souls, an empty afterlife with no hope and no future. Halisstra felt Danifae whirl through that same dead space with her and look at Halisstra with the same dull fear. There would be no service, no reward but oblivion, and Danifae would arrive at the same conclusions, be dragged to the same realization.

Danifae can be turned
, Halisstra danced.

Eilistraee hesitated.

It was with that wordless sense of uncertainty that the movement ceased. There was a solid, unmoving floor of sanded stone beneath her and dead gates all around. Halisstra rolled onto her back, wiped her face with her hands, and tried to steady her breathing. Sweat poured off her, and her body ached. She felt as if she’d been dancing for hours though she wasn’t sure she’d actually been dancing at all.

Halisstra looked around at the interior of the gatehouse, searching for Danifae. The former servant was nowhere to be found. Even Halisstra’s shouts went unanswered, so she wandered outside.

The cave’s dull light revealed a large and complex structure. Halisstra knew she was in Sschindylryn but knew little else about the city. Not sure if she was coloring the world through her own filtered perceptions, she felt that the air in the City of Portals was heavy with dissent and nascent violence. She’d sensed the same thing before—in Ched Nasad.

An image of Ryld came to her mind—not so much an image
but the memory of the way he moved with her and the touch of his night-black skin. She’d led him to Danifae, who had led Jeggred to them on Quenthel’s behalf. Quenthel knew that they—or at least Halisstra—had turned their backs on Lolth in favor of Eilistraee.

However, Ryld hadn’t actually done that. A male, and not particularly religious, the weapons master served Lolth because everyone around him did. Ryld, like all drow in Menzoberranzan was raised with the words of Lolth never far from his ears. Halisstra had been raised the same way, but she had the sheer force of will to step back and examine the reality of the situation as it continued to unfold.

Danifae had a choice too, and the realization of it hit Halisstra the moment Danifae stepped out of the suddenly blazing-purple archway. The gate had burst into life, revealing Danifae and momentarily blurring Halisstra’s vision.

Blinking, Halisstra stood and said, “Ryld?”

Danifae shrugged. It was a rude, dismissive gesture that set Halisstra’s teeth on edge. The Melarn priestess’s face flushed, her teeth clenched, but she did her best to swallow the anger at the same time pushing away memories of punishing her battle-captive, beating her, humiliating her, and breaking her.

“Where have you been?” Halisstra asked.

“With Mistress Quenthel,” Danifae replied. “They’re proceeding. I was sent back to retrieve Jeggred.”

“You know where the draegloth is?” asked Halisstra. “If you do, then you must know where Ryld is.”

“Jeggred was sent to kill him,” replied Danifae. “I told you that.”

“You did,” Halisstra said, “but …”

“You want to know if the weapons master has prevailed,” Danifae replied, “or if the draegloth is feeding even now.”

Halisstra swallowed in a parched throat and said, “Does he live? Has Ryld won?”

Danifae shrugged again.

“You can get me back to him,” Halisstra said. “Using these gates of yours, you can send me to his side.”

“Where Jeggred would shred you as well and eat you both in alternating bites,” said the former servant, “or, you can move forward as opposed to backward.”

“Forward? Backward? What is that supposed to mean?”

“The way I see it, Mistress Halisstra,” Danifae said, “you have two choices: Go to your lover’s side and die there, or go back to the surface temple and your new sisters in Eilistraee.”

Halisstra let out a breath and looked the ravishing dark elf up and down. Danifae smiled back, though the expression looked more like a sneer.

“They’re leaving,” Danifae pressed, “and they’re leaving soon. If you go back to the temple where I first contacted you, if you tell them that Quenthel and her crew are on their way to the Demonweb Pits in search of Lolth herself, the Eilistraeeans might have enough time to help.”

“To help? To help whom?” whispered Halisstra, then more loudly: “I should go back to the Eilistraeeans and tell them that we can follow Quenthel and the others to the Demonweb Pits. Would you stand by and watch that and not warn them … and not warn Lolth?”

“I’m still a servant,” said Danifae. “I can’t make the decision for you or ask you to trust me. I can give you no promises, no assurances, no guarantees about anything. For that, you’ll have to look to your goddess. Either way, I can send you wherever you want to go.”

She saw it. Only a flash, but there was the unmistakable look that had wrapped within it uncertainty, fear, embarrassment, and more.
Danifae was jealous in a very immature way that Halisstra was once again serving a deity who would answer the prayers of her faithful while Danifae still clung to the memory of a dead goddess.

“I have a choice?” Halisstra asked, slowly shaking her head.

“I can send you where you want to go,” Danifae repeated. “Tell me if you want to go back to your temple to organize the priestesses there, or—”

“Organize?” Halisstra interrupted.

Danifae was irritated, and Halisstra was momentarily taken aback by the reaction.

“Surely Eilistraee grants them spells still,” Danifae said. “They will be able to travel the planes without a ship of chaos. Eilistraee should be able to take you right to them.”

Halisstra watched her former servant’s face change again—saw that fear return.

“Or,” Danifae said, her voice deep and even, “you can go try to help your weapons master against the draegloth and die.”

Halisstra closed her eyes and thought, occasionally stopping to wonder at the fact that she was thinking about it at all.

“My heart,” Halisstra confided in Danifae, “wants me to go to Ryld, but my head tells me that my new sisters will want to know what you’ve told me and that they’ll want to go to the Demonweb Pits.”

“The time you have to gather them,” warned Danifae, “is drawing increasingly short.”

Halisstra clamped her mouth shut while her throat tightened.

“Choose,” Danifae pressed.

“The Velarswood,” Halisstra blurted out. A tear glimmered in the faerie light and traced a path down her deep black cheek. “Take me to the priestesses.”

Danifae smiled, nodded, and pointed toward a purple-glowing gate.

The two of them stared at each other while a few heartbeats went by. Danifae’s eyes darted back and forth between Halisstra’s as if they were reading something written across her pupils. Halisstra saw the hope in Danifae’s eyes.

“How bad is it?” Halisstra asked, her voice almost a whisper. “What has she sunk to?”

“She?” Danifae asked. “Quenthel?”

Halisstra nodded.

“She can go lower,” the former battle-captive said. “Come with me,” Halisstra said.

Danifae stood silently for a long time before she said, “You know I can’t. They won’t leave without Jeggred, and I have to bring him back.”

Halisstra nodded and said, “After he’s murdered Ryld.”

Danifae nodded and looked at the floor.

“We’ll see each other again, Danifae,” Halisstra said. “Of that I’m certain.”

“As am I, Mistress,” Danifae replied. “We will meet again in the shadow of the Spider Queen.”

“Eilistraee will be watching us both all the way,” Halisstra said as she crossed to the waiting portal. “She will be watching us both.”

Danifae nodded, and Halisstra stepped into the gate, abandoning Ryld to the draegloth, Danifae to the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith, and herself to the priestesses of the Velarswood.

“You seem as surprised as I am,” Gromph said to the lichdrow, “that your friend Nimor has sprouted wings.”

Dyrr didn’t answer, but his ember-red eyes drifted slowly to the winged assassin.

“Duergar,” Gromph went on, “a cambion and his tanarukks, and a drow assassin. Oh, but the drow assassin isn’t even a drow. You’ve allied yourself with everything but another dark elf. Well, you haven’t been a dark elf yourself for a very long time either, have you, Dyrr?”

If the lich was offended or affected in any way, he didn’t show it.

“He could be allied with a drow, though,” Nimor said. “We both could.”

“You actually think I’m going to join you?” Gromph asked. “No,” Nimor answered, “of course not, but I have to ask.”

“If I do,” Gromph persisted, “will you kill the lich?”

Dyrr raised an eyebrow, obviously interested to hear Nimor’s answer.

“To have the Archmage of Menzoberranzan himself turn on his own city,” Nimor said, “betray his own House, and overthrow the matriarchy with a wave of his hand? Would I kill the lichdrow? Certainly. I would kill him without the slightest moment’s hesitation.”

That brought a smile to Dyrr’s face, and Gromph couldn’t help but share it.

Nimor looked at the lichdrow, bowed, and said, “I would try, at least.”

The lich returned the bow.

“You’re not going to do any of those things, are you?” Nimor asked Gromph. “You won’t turn your back on Menzoberranzan, House Baenre, the matriarchy, or even Lolth, who has turned her back on you.”

“That’s all?” Gromph asked. “That’s all you plan to say to try to turn me? Ask a question then answer it yourself? Why are you here?”

“Don’t answer that, Nimor,” the lichdrow commanded, his tone
as imperious as ever. “He’s drawing tales out of you. He wants time to try to get away or to plan his attack.”

“Or,” Gromph cut in, “he may simply be curious. I know why my old friend Dyrr wants to kill me, and I can guess at the motivations of the duergar, the tanarukks, the illithids, and whatever else crawls out of the crevices and slime pools of the Dark Dominion, drawn to the stench of weakness. You, though, Nimor, are half drow and half dragon, aren’t you? Why you? Why here? Why me?”

“Why you?” Dyrr said, his voice dripping with scorn. “You have power, you simpleton. You have position. That makes you a target on a good day—and this isn’t a good day for Menzoberranzan.”

Gromph ignored the lich and said to Nimor, “My sister said the assassin she captured named you as an agent of the Jaezred Chaulssin.”

Nimor nodded and said, “I am the Anointed Blade.” Gromph didn’t know what that meant but gave no indication of that to Nimor or Dyrr.

“Ghost stories come true,” Gromph said.

“Our reputation precedes us,” replied Nimor.

“Chaulssin has been in ruin for a long time,” said Gromph.

“Her assassins survive,” Dyrr said.

His dragon half
, Nauzhror said into Gromph’s mind,
has been identified, Archmage. He is half-drow, half-shadow dragon. More than one generation, perhaps. An incipient species
.

“We have placed ourselves in city after city,” Nimor said, “all across the Underdark. We’ve been waiting.”

“And breeding,” Gromph said, “with shadow dragons?”

Nimor’s smile told Gromph how right Nauzhror had been.

“It’s over,” Dyrr said, and Gromph found it difficult to deny the finality in his voice. “All of it.”

“Not yet,” Gromph replied, and he started to cast a spell.

Nimor beat his batlike wings and shot up into the darkness. Dyrr followed, more slowly, wrapping himself in additional protective spells.

Gromph finished his spell and held his hands together. A line of blackness appeared between his palms and stretched to the length of a long sword blade. The line was perfectly two-dimensional, a rift in the structure of the planes.

Lifting into the air, the Archmage of Menzoberranzan threw his hands apart, and the blade followed him up. Using the force of his will, Gromph set the planar blade flying in front of him. Choosing a target was simple.

Nimor has to die first
, Prath suggested, though it was unnecessary.
The extent of his true abilities is the only unknown
.