Nimor laughed at that.

"You have a talent for plain speaking, sir." Nimor glanced around at the other captains and officers in the pavilion and added, "I a.s.sume you've tallied which Houses are here, and how many troopsand of what typeeach has brought? The priestesses will want to know that, and it will be helpful for us all to have an idea of who's marching next to whom."

He could think of other uses for the information, of course, but there was no need to mention that, was there?

"Of course," Andzrel replied. He pointed at a table in the outer portion of the tent, where several Baenre officers studied maps and reports. "I'll need you to give those fellows the strength of your complement, the number of infantry and cavalry, and some information on your supply train, as well. After which I would like to ask you some questions about the route of our march and the place we expect to meet the duergar army. I understand you're familiar with the region, as well as the composition and tactics of the duergar force."

Nimor straightened his cuira.s.s and nodded earnestly.

"Certainly," he said. "I know them well."

Halisstra was roused from her dreams by the sound of her cell door opening. She glanced up, wondering if perhaps the time had come when the surface folk would simply put her to the blade.

"I have no more to say to your lord," she said, though the thought crossed her mind that selling out her comrades was preferable to death by torture, especially if she could gain her freedom in the exchange.

"Fine," a woman's voice replied. "I hope then that you will consent to speak with me."

A slender figure slipped through the open door, which was closed and locked behind her. Veiled in a long, dark cloak, the visitor paused to study Halisstra then she reached up with hands as black as coal and slipped back her hood to reveal a face of gleaming ebony, and eyes as red as blood.

"I am Seyll Auzkovyn," the drow said, "and I have come to give you my lady's message: 'A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow.' "

"A priestess of Eilistraee," Halisstra murmured. She had heard of the cult before, of course. The Spider Queen held nothing but scorn for the weak, idealistic faith of the Dark Maiden, whose worshipers dreamed of redemption and acceptance in the World Above. "Well, I did come in peace, and I do seem to have found my rightful place in this tidy little cell. I expect wonderful flowers bloom just beyond the bars of my window, and I am more than a little thankful that the thrice-cursed sun shines no deeper into my prison." She laughed bitterly. "Somehow the holy message of your silly little dancing G.o.ddess rings a little false today. Now go away, and let me get back to the important business of preparing myself for the inevitable tortures that await me when the so-called lord of this fetid dungheap of a village loses his patience with my intransigent ways."

"You sound like me, when I first heard Eilistraee's message," Seyll replied. She moved closer and sat on the floor beside Halisstra. "Like yourself, I was a priestess of the Spider Queen who found herself a captive of the surface folk. Though I've lived here for several years now, I still find the light of the sun overly harsh."

"Don't flatter yourself, apostate," snarled Halisstra. "I'm nothing like you."

"You might be surprised," Seyll continued calmly, her placid demeanor unchanged. "Have the Spider Queen's punishments ever struck you as needless or wasteful? Have you ever failed to nurture a friendship because you feared betrayal? Have you ever, perhaps, watched a child of your own body, your own heart, destroyed because she failed at a senseless test, only to tell yourself that she was too weak to live? Did you ever wonder if there was a point to the deliberate and calculated cruelty that poisons our entire race?"

"Of course there's a point," Halisstra replied. "We're surrounded on all sides by vicious enemies. If we didn't take steps to hone our people to their finest edge, we would become slavesno, worse yet, we would become rothe."

"And have Lolth's judgments in fact made you stronger?"

"Of course."

"Prove it, then. Offer an example." Seyll watched her, then leaned forward and said, "You remember countless tests and battles, naturally, but you can't prove that you were made stronger by them. You don't know what might have happened if you hadn't been subjected to those tortures."

"Simple semantics. Naturally I can't prove that things are other than they are."

Halisstra glared at the heretic, profoundly annoyed. She would have found the conversation irritating and irrelevant under the best of circ.u.mstances, but with her hands and feet chained together, slumped against the cold, hard wall of a stone cell with a painful shaft of sunlight slanting in, it was positively infuriating. Still, she had very little to occupy her mind otherwise, and there was a small chance that a display of enthusiasm for Seyll's faith might win her a parole of sorts. Lolth was completely intolerant of apostates, but to feign acceptance of another faith in order to win the freedom to betray the trust of one's captors . . . that was the sort of cleverness the Spider Queen admired. The trick, of course, was not to appear too eager, yet just uncertain enough that Seyll and her friends might come to hope for a true change in Halisstra's heart.

"You are annoying me," she said to Seyll. "Leave me alone."

"As you wish," Seyll said. She stood gracefully, and offered Halisstra a smile. "Consider what I've said, and ask yourself if there might be some truth to it. If your faith in Lolth is as strong as you think, surely it can withstand a little examination. May Eilistraee bless you and warm your heart."

She pulled her hood back over her head, and silently withdrew. Halisstra turned her own face away so Seyll couldn't see the cruel smile that twisted her features.

Rear guard, mused Ryld, seems to be the spot Quenthel saves for the person she deems least useful at the moment.

He paused to listen to the forest around him, seeking for any sound that might indicate an approaching enemy. He heard nothing but the steady patter of cold rain. Pharaun's fire-spiders had managed to set a smoky blaze in the woods behind them, but the rain had likely prevented the fires from burning too much of the forest. The weapons master glanced up into the sky, allowing the cold drops to splash on his face and noting the sullen silver glow behind the clouds.

At least the rain is washing out our trail, he thought.

After a hard march the previous night and lying low in a thick tangle of brush through a long, sunny day, they had resumed their hike in the evening only to meet a deluge soon after setting out. The forest floor was nothing but mud and slush.

Taking a moment to adjust his hood, Ryld set out again, trying hard not to hurry his steps too much. He would not be much of a rear guard if he closed up right behind the others, but on the other hand, the last thing he wanted to do was fall so far behind that he missed an innocent turn of the trail and wandered off alone into the endless woods. If Halisstra wasn't worth going back for, he was under no delusions as to what would happen if he managed to become separated from the rest of the company. He tramped on for quite some time, pausing every few dozen yards to listen and scan the forest.

Soon he became aware of the louder, more insistent sound of water in motiona swift forest stream, dark and wide, that sluiced through muddy banks covered in thorns and bracken. A large log had been felled to cross the stream, its upper surface sawn flat to form a reasonably secure bridge. Quenthel and the others waited there, silently watching their surroundings. Ryld noted the crossbows pointed in his direction, and the acute attentiveness of his companions. Clearly the running battle with the surface folk had taught his comrades to be wary of the woods.

"Hold your fire," he called softly. "It's Ryld."

"Master Argith," Quenthel said. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd lost the trail."

Ryld bowed to Quenthel and joined the others. He took a moment to sit on the stump of the log, fishing in the pockets of his cloak for a small flask of duergar brandy. Normally he wouldn't risk diluting his senses with alcohol, but hours of marching in cold rain had soaked his clothing and left him chilled to the bone. The liquor brought a hot glow to the middle of his body with one good mouthful.

"Is this your stream?" he asked Pharaun.

"Yes," the wizard said without hesitation. "Here, we cross and turn to the south, following the river upstream. House Jaelre is not more than a couple of miles away."

He pointed at Ryld with one finger and muttered a magical syllable. The flask rose up from the weapons master's hand and bobbed through the air to the wizard, who promptly helped himself to a healthy swallow.

"My thanks," said Pharaun. "The gray dwarves may be odious churls, but they distill a good brandy."

"Don't drink too much," Quenthel said. "The Jaelre are as likely to shoot us as look at us. I need you alert and sharp-witted, wizard. Master Argith, keep up close with the rest of us from this point on. I'm more worried about what lies before us now than behind."

"As you wish, Mistress," Ryld said.

He held out his hand to Pharaun, who took one more small swallow and tossed the flask back to Ryld. The weapons master stood, shouldered his pack, and led the way across the bridge. The surface of the log was slick and uneven, and doubtless would have been trouble for a clumsy dwarf or awkward human, but the dark elves negotiated the crossing with ease.

On the other side, they found the overgrown remnants of an old stone road, cracked and broken by the twisting roots of countless trees and hundreds of years of frosts and thaws. Smooth white stone, expertly joined, marked it as the work of the ancient surface elves who once inhabited the forest. Ryld was not so poorly educated that he had not heard of Cormanthor, the great forest empire of the surface elves, or the fallen glory of its legendary capital city of Myth Drannor. Other than the names, though, he knew very little of who the builders of the forest empire had been and what had befallen them.

Moving slowly and carefully, the company advanced in an open skirmish line, prepared to defend themselves against any attack. They followed the old road for more than a mile, just as Pharaun had said they would, and they came upon the wreckage of old walls and battlements ringing some ancient stronghold. Green vines wreathed the walls, thriving despite the winter season, but the wall was cracked and holed in a dozen places. A rusted iron gate lay across the road where it pierced the walls, a barrier that had long since fallen into uselessness. Beyond the walls, a small stony tor rose from the forest floor, crowned by a large pentagonal keep of white stone. At first Ryld thought the place was whole and intact, but as he studied it, he realized that the tower-tops were holed and that more than one of the flying b.u.t.tresses linking the outlying towers to the main body of the keep had collapsed with the years. Green vines knotted their roots in the riven stone, covering the ruins in a living blanket.

"Ruins," Jeggred growled in disgust. "Your insipid spells have failed you, wizardor you have deliberately led us astray. Are you in league with our treacherous scout, perhaps?"

"My spells do not fail," Pharaun replied. "This is the place. The Jaelre are here."

"Then where are they?" the draegloth snarled. "If you"

"Silence, both of you!" Valas snapped. He moved a few steps away from the gate, his footfalls as soft as those of a stalking leopard, an arrow lying across his bow. "This place is not as abandoned as it looks."

Ryld moved over to take shelter by a tottering old column of masonry, setting one hand on Splitter's hilt. Danifae and Pharaun did the same on the other side of the road, staring hard at the ruined keep. Quenthel, however, chose not to move at all.

Instead she stood confidently in the center of the path and called out, "You of House Jaelre! We wish to speak with your leaders at once!"

From a dozen places of concealment, stealthy shapes in dark cloaks that deceived the eye by mimicking the wearer's surroundings slowly stood, bows and wands pointed at the Menzoberranyr. One of the figures, a female carrying a double-ended sword, pushed back her hood and eyed the company with cold contempt.

"You are miserable spider-kissers," she hissed. "What do you have that the lords of House Jaelre could possibly want, other than your corpses feathered with our arrows?"

Quenthel bridled and allowed one hand to fall to her whip. The weapon writhed slowly, the serpent heads snapping their fangs in agitation.

"I am Quenthel Baenre, Mistress of Arach-Tinilith, and I do not bicker on doorsteps with common gate guards. Announce our arrival to your masters, so that we can get in out of this d.a.m.nable rain."

The Jaelre captain narrowed her eyes and motioned to her soldiers, who shifted position and made ready to fire. Valas shook his head and lowered his bow, stepping forward quickly with one hand in the air.

"Wait," he said. "If Tzirik the priest is still among you, tell him that Valas Hune is here. We have a proposition for him."

"I doubt our high priest will have much use for any proposal of yours," the guard captain said.

"If nothing else, he'll find out why we came a thousand miles from Menzoberranzan to speak to him," Valas replied.

The captain glared at Quenthel, then said, "Lower your weapons and wait there. Do not move, or my soldiers will fire, and there are more of us than you think."

Valas nodded once, and set his bow down on the ground. He glanced at the others, and took a seat on the edge of a crumbling old fountain. The rest followed suit, though Quenthel didn't demean herself by taking a seat. Instead she folded her arms and waited with imperious displeasure. Ryld glanced around the courtyard full of hostile warriors, and rubbed his head with a sigh.

Quenthel knows how to make an impression, eh? Pharaun gestured discretely.

Females, Ryld replied, just as discretely.

He carefully reached into his cloak and withdrew the brandy flask again.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

The most doleful torment of incarceration, reflected Halisstra, was boredom, pure and simple. Like most of her extraordinarily long-lived kind, the priestess hardly noticed the pa.s.sing of hours, days, even tendays when her mind was engaged. Yet, despite the wisdom and patience of her more than two hundred years, a few hours' confinement in a featureless stone cell seemed more onerous than months of the harsh discipline she endured in her youth.

The endless hours of the day crept by, a day in which her body longed to rest despite the painful glare of sunlight streaming in through that one cursed window. Meanwhile her thoughts veered wildly from praying for her comrades to return and rescue her to fomenting the most hideous and agonizing tortures she could imagine for each one for abandoning her to capture.

Eventually, she fell into Reverie, her mind empty of new schemes or old memories, and her awareness so dim and distant that she might have been sleeping in truth. Exhaustion had finally caught up with her, not just the sheer physical exhaustion of the long tendays of travel and peril through desert, shadow, Underdark, and forest, but a kind of mental fatigue rooted deeply in the grief she still carried for the loss of the House she was to one day rule. Halisstra might not have permitted herself to shed a tear for Ched Nasad, but the malignant truth of her plight had an odd way of surfacing in her thoughts, poisoning them with a cold, hopeless disbelief that was difficult to set aside. Long hours of imprisonment offered her the opportunity to exhume the hateful situation in its entirety and contemplate her loss of station, wealth, and security until her horrible fascination was in some way sated.

At dusk the guards brought her fresh food, a bowl of some bland but nourishing stew and another half loaf of bread. Halisstra found herself ravenously hungry, and she devoured the meal with little thought to the possibility of poison or drugs. Soon after she'd finished, the door to her cell was unlocked with a rusty sc.r.a.ping of iron, and Seyll Auzkovyn slipped inside again.

The priestess had shed her long, heavy cloak, and wore an elegant lady's riding outfit, an embroidered green jacket and knee-length skirt over a blouse of cream and high boots that matched the jacket. The sight of a drow priestess dressed as a n.o.ble surface elf struck Halisstra as jarringly incongruous.

"Did the surface lord dress you like that?" she sneered at the Eilistraee worshiper. "You seem almost a perfectly helpless gentlelady of the accursed sun elves in that outfit."

"How else should I dress?" Seyll replied. "I'm among friends here, and need not wear armor. Besides, I found that the skull and spider motifs of my previous wardrobe seemed to alarm the surface folk." She made a small gesture to the jailers outside, and the door was closed behind her. "Anyway,' she added, "there are no sun elves here."

"They're all the same to me," Halisstra said.

"When you know them better, you'll be able to tell their kindred easily enough."

"I have no wish to know them better."

"Are you so certain of that? There is always advantage in knowing one's enemies. . . especially if they need not be your enemies."

Seyll knelt easily on the floor beside Halisstra and composed herself. She was young, not much more than a hundred, and pretty enough in her own way, but her carriage was . . . wrong. Her eyes lacked the hungering ambition or the cold appraisal Halisstra was accustomed to seeing mirrored in the faces around her. One could easily mistake Seyll's patient expression for a sort of submissiveness, the lack of the will necessary to achieve, and yet there was a calm a.s.surance about her that hinted at strength held in check.

Halisstra's eyes fell to Seyll's hands, as the priestess smoothed her garments. They were strong, and callused like a weapons master's.

"I had the opportunity to examine the heraldry of your arms today, and study the devices. Melarn is a leading House of the city of Ched Nasad, is it not?"

"It was," Halisstra said.

She instantly regretted the slip. If the surface folk didn't know of Ched Nasad's fate, then she hardly needed to provide them with a gift of information. She had to set a price on anything she revealed.

"You were defeated in a House war?"

It was a reasonable guess on Seyll's part, as most drow Houses that vanished, lost status, or otherwise fell low usually did so because of the actions of other Houses.

"Not quite."

Seyll waited a long moment for Halisstra to elaborate, and when she did not, the Eilistraee priestess shifted tactics.

"Ched Nasad is a long way from Cormanthor. At least six or seven hundred miles, with the great desert of Anauroch and the phaerimm-haunted Buried Realms between here and there. Lord Dessaer is curious about the circ.u.mstances that would bring a high-ranking daughter of a powerful House of Ched Nasad into the lands of his people. To be honest, I am curious too."

"So this is to be the method of interrogation, then?" Halisstra said. "A sympathetic ear to garner the answers to questions asked in seeming friendship?"

"Some account of your purpose in Cormanthor must be made before Lord Dessaer will release you into my parole. If your business is as innocent as you say, you need not be imprisoned here."

"Release me?" Halisstra laughed long and quietly. "Ah, I see you have not lost your penchant for cruelty despite your apostasy, Auzkovyn. Did your surface friends ask you to play on a prisoner's hopes by offering freedom in exchange for cooperation, or did you suggest the tactic? Did you really think a single day in this accursed cell would reduce me to desperately grasping at phantom hopes?"

"The hopes I offer are not phantoms," Seyll said. "Tell us what you're doing here, show us that you're no enemy of the peaceful folk of Cormanthor, and you will have your liberty."

"You can't expect me to believe that."

"I am here, am I not?" Seyll answered. "Clearly some of our kind learn to live in peace with the surface folk."

"Of course you have nothing to fear among the surface folk," Halisstra retorted. "Your vapid, dancing G.o.ddess is too weak to threaten them."

"As I told you before, I was a priestess of Lolth when I was captured," Seyll said. She formed her hands into a gesture of supplication, a ceremonial pose Halisstra knew well. In the tongue of the abyssal planes where Lolth dwelt, Seyll mouthed the words of a high and secret prayer: " 'Great G.o.ddess, Mother of the Dark, grant me the blood of my enemies for drink and their living hearts for meat. Grant me the screams of their young for song, grant me the helplessness of their males for my satiation, grant me the wealth of their houses for my bed. By this unworthy sacrifice I honor you, Queen of Spiders, and beseech of you the strength to destroy my foes.' "

The infernal words seemed to crackle with dark power, each harsh syllable charged with an evil potency that spread through the cell like a slick of poison. Seyll made a drawing motion of her hand, showing the manner in which the knife was to be wielded, and settled back on her heels.

Shifting back to Elvish, she closed her eyes and said, "Many hapless souls died beneath my knife, yet I found redemption and peace here. Whether the same awaits you is a question I cannot answer, but I offer myself as proof that you can walk these lands in peace if you wish."

Halisstra stared at Seyll, almost as if seeing her for the first time. She had been about to condemn the priestess once more as a weak failure, a traitor to the one true drow G.o.ddess, but the words died on her lips. No one but a priestess of high station would have been taught that rite, yet Seyll had decided to turn her back on Lolth. Not only that, but she still lived, and seemed to have found some amount of contentment in her decision. Halisstra had of course been indoctrinated over years of training to regard heresy, apostasy, as the vilest sort of crime imaginable. Yet in her years of sacrifice and abas.e.m.e.nt before the Spider Queen's altar she had never before encountered a true apostate. Oh, she'd slandered some of her rivals with false accusations of turning away from the Spider Queen, but actually sitting in the presence of someone who had committed the ultimate betrayal of the G.o.ddess, andso far, at leastlived to tell the tale. . . .

"I want to challenge you to do something," Seyll said. "I believe you have the intelligence and the imagination for it, but we shall see. Imagine, for a moment, that you could live in a place where you can walk the streets without fearing an a.s.sa.s.sin's dagger in your back. Imagine that your friendsreal friendswant nothing more from you than the pleasure of your company, that your sisters cherish your accomplishments instead of resenting your successes, and your children are not murdered for an accidental failing. Imagine that your lovers seek you out for who you are, and not your station or influence. Imagine that your G.o.ddess asks you to celebrate her with your joy, not your terror."