Annihilation (38 page)

Pharaun was interrupted before he could answer the draegloth’s unsubtle threat.

“How do we find the right one?” Danifae asked. “The right portal, I mean.”

Jeggred growled once and said, “There is only one entrance for each layer, but there are an infinite number of layers. We could be standing right next to the pit that will take us to the Demonweb Pits, or it could be a thousand miles or more in any direction … a million miles even.”

“Not likely, actually,” said Pharaun, “but thank you for the vote of confidence anyway, honored half-breed—” Danifae put a hand on Jeggred’s arm when the draegloth lurched for Pharaun at the sound of that word—“but I was guiding the ship, at least up until the very end there, and I was willing it not simply to take us to the Plain of Infinite Portals but to the one portal that would take us where we wanted to go. Even though we crashed, we must be close by it. The ship was moving us at least in its general direction before things went astray.”

“Well it’s good to know that you’re not entirely inept, Pharaun,” Quenthel said, her voice louder and oddly more confident than it had been in a long while, “but I will take it … take us, from here.”

Pharaun watched another ghostly orc step past him. It dropped into a deep back hole in the ground. There was no sound, nothing at all to signal that it had hit bottom or that anything had happened to it at all. It was gone.

“My first instinct,” Valas said, “would be to pick out a column of drow and follow them.”

“Do you see any drow?” Quenthel asked.

“No,” Danifae whispered.

The sound of her voice made Pharaun’s skin crawl. “So what do we do?” the draegloth asked. “Follow me,” the high priestess replied. “I’ll know the right pit when I see it.”

“How?” Pharaun asked.

Quenthel said, “I’ve passed through it before.”

The Mistress of Arach-Tinilith set out before any of them realized she meant to leave right away. Danifae and Jeggred watched her go then shared a look that made it obvious that neither of them believed the high priestess.

Valas followed her, as did Pharaun, albeit as reluctantly as Danifae and Jeggred.

Aliisza watched from a safe distance as the dark elves brushed themselves off and regrouped.

Have I underestimated you? she thought, watching Pharaun struggle to his feet.

She whispered, “Probably not,” to herself and mulled over her next move.

Kaanyr Vhok’s instructions were clear, even if they hadn’t included helping the drow get to the Abyss in the first place. She was supposed to watch them, so she would do that at least until she got bored.

Aliisza looked out over the Plain of Infinite Portals, the gateway to the Abyss, and sighed. It had been a very long time since she’d been home, and at first it looked the same. She watched the ship of chaos fall through a red sky she used to fly through as a girl, then crash on sand she once sculpted into monsters from faraway universes—monsters like solars, ki-rin, and humans. It looked the same, but it wasn’t—not quite.

Perhaps she had spent too much time with the goddess-obsessed dark elves, but Aliisza was sure there was something different about the Abyss, as if a piece of it were missing.

The feeling didn’t make sense, and it confused the alu-fiend
and made her uncomfortable, so she pushed it out of her mind.

Aliisza forced herself to smile even though she didn’t feel like smiling, as she followed the drow from a safe distance and invisible.

The alu-fiend wasn’t the only demonic creature that watched the drow just then. Another looked on from a similar far vantage point, cloaked in invisibility and other defensive spells. The creature seethed with hatred.

Floating in the air high above the Plain of Infinite Portals, the glabrezu touched the ruined stump of its legs and growled, “Soon, drow. Soon …”

Halisstra ran a finger along the warm, glowing edge of the Crescent Blade and marveled at its beauty. It was a magnificent weapon, and one she would never feel worthy of. Ryld should have drawn that blade, not her. Ryld would have known what to do with it.

The Melarn priestess felt the absence of her lover in a physically painful way. There was an emptiness in her chest that burned, that ached, that throbbed with uncertainty and longing, and a host of other emotions both alien and familiar.

“If you can’t do it,” Feliane whispered to her, “you need to tell me now. Now, before we go any farther.”

Halisstra looked up at Feliane and her eyesight blurred with tears.

“Tell me,” the Eilistraeen prodded.

Halisstra wiped her eyes and said, “I can do it.”

The elf priestess stared at her, waiting for Halisstra to go on.

Halisstra looked down at her tear-soaked hand with blurred vision. Her eyes were hot, her throat so tight it was painful. She hadn’t done much crying in her life and had certainly never cried over the fate of a male, a soldier … anyone.

I’ve changed, she thought. I am changing.

“He didn’t want me to,” Halisstra whispered.

“He wanted you to go back to the Underdark,” said Uluyara, “if not to Lolth.”

Halisstra looked up at the drow priestess. Uluyara stood in the doorway, framed by the blinding twilight behind her. She was dressed for battle, covered in tokens made of feathers, sticks, and shards of bone. Halisstra nodded, and Uluyara stepped in.

The drow priestess crossed to the bed that Halisstra had once shared with Ryld Argith and kneeled. She took Halisstra’s chin in one rough-fingered hand, holding her gently and forcing their eyes to meet.

“If they killed him,” Uluyara said, “it’s but another reason to do what you’ve been doing, another reason to leave them behind at least and defeat them forever if possible.”

“By killing Lolth?” asked Halisstra.

“Yes,” answered Feliane, who still stood leaning against the weed-covered wall, also dressed for battle and for a long journey.

“I need you to tell me something,” Halisstra asked, her eyes darting back and forth between the two women. “I need you to tell me that this is possible, I mean even remotely possible.”

Uluyara smiled and shrugged, but Feliane said, “It’s possible.”

Both Halisstra and Uluyara looked over at her.

“Anything is possible,” Feliane explained, “with the right tools and with a goddess on your side.”

“Eilistraee can’t go where we’re going,” Halisstra said, “not to the Demonweb Pits.”

“No, she can’t,” Uluyara agreed. “That’s why she’s sending us.”

“If we die there,” Halisstra asked Uluyara, who dropped her hand from the priestess’s chin, “what becomes of us?”

“We go to Eilistraee,” Uluyara replied.

Halisstra could hear the certainty in the drow’s reply and see it in her eyes.

“I don’t know that for sure,” Halisstra said.

“So,” said Feliane, “what do you know for sure?”

Halisstra looked at her and the elf returned the gaze with almost perfect stillness.

“I know …” Halisstra began even as she was thinking it through. “I know that Lolth abandoned me and was a cruel mistress who let our city, our way of life fall into ruin, perhaps simply to satisfy some whim. I know that her temple on the sixty-sixth layer is sealed and there are no departed souls there. I know that eternity is closed off to me, thanks to her.”

“What has changed?” asked Feliane.

Halisstra looked at Uluyara when she said, “Eilistraee.”

“Eilistraee hasn’t changed,” Uluyara whispered.

“No,” Halisstra agreed, “I have.”

Uluyara smiled, and so did Halisstra, then the Melarn priestess began to cry.

“I miss him,” she said through a sob.

Uluyara put a hand on Halisstra’s neck and drew her closer until their foreheads touched.

“Would you have been able to miss him,” asked Uluyara, “if you were still Halisstra Melarn, First Daughter of House Melarn of Ched Nasad, Priestess of Lolth? Would that ever have entered into your mind?”

“No,” Halisstra replied without hesitation.

“Then Eilistraee has touched you,” said Uluyara. “Eilistraee has blessed you.”

Halisstra looked up at Feliane and asked, “Do you believe that too?”

Feliane looked at her for the span of a few heartbeats then said, “I do. You wield the Crescent Blade, if for no other reason … but there are other reasons. Yes, I think Eilistraee has blessed you, indeed, and blessed us all with your presence.”

Halisstra nodded then looked to Uluyara. The other drow female nodded and hugged her. The embrace was a quick one, sisterly, warm, and reassuring.

“Well,” Halisstra said when the embrace ended, “I think we should begin. There’s a long road ahead for us and the most frightening opponent of all at the end of it: a goddess on her home plane.”

Uluyara stood, helping Halisstra up with her. Halisstra dressed for travel and for fighting as the other two had, but when she was done she felt heavy and stiff.

Gromph’s world had been reduced to a series of circles.

The antimagic field surrounded him in a circle of null space that would dissipate any spell that tried to pierce it and suppress any magical effect within it. The pain in his leg circled all the way around, where the interrupted regenerative effect of the ring had only partially reattached it, leaving a ragged, seeping wound all the way around the middle of his thigh. Past the outer edge of the antimagic field a tiny circle—a sphere really—of condensed magical fire orbited slowly around and around. It was Dyrr’s next explosive blast of fire, held in check, circling, waiting for the field to drop. The lichdrow was circling him too, and like his fireball, waiting.

Gromph sat on the cool rock floor of the ruined Bazaar trying
not to actually writhe in agony, concentrating on his breathing, and making himself think.

“How long can it last, Gromph?” the lichdrow taunted from well outside the antimagic field. “Not forever, I know. Not as long as my own would. Am I that frightening to you that you have to hide so, even in plain sight?”

Gromph didn’t bother answering. He wasn’t afraid of the lichdrow. In fact, he was more concerned with Nimor Imphraezl. The winged assassin had disappeared into the shadows, back into his natural element. He could be anywhere. Dyrr, a being literally held together by magic, would no more cross the threshold of the antimagic field than he would throw himself headlong into the Clawrift. Nimor, on the other hand, had likely lost most if not all of his magic in the disjunction anyway and needed no spell to cut with his claws.