Halisstra sat in a window bench, alone in the apartment set aside for her, and plucked idly at the strings of her dragonbone lyre. She’d been confined to the room for two days, and she found herself growing more than a little weary of incarceration.
Whatever I manage to find in this whole venture, she promised herself, I will not be locked up again.
She had expected torture, magical compulsion, or worse during her interrogation, but Tzirik seemed to have taken her at her word. More than a few drow would have indulged themselves in the opportunity to torture a prisoner regardless of whether she was being truthful or not, leading Halisstra to wonder if Tzirik was waiting for word of Quenthel and the others before doing something that might anger them. Halisstra didn’t think the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith and her comrades had managed to cow the entire House, but it was entirely possible that their competence had persuaded Tzirik not to look for trouble without good cause.
She looked out the narrow, barred window. Dawn was fast approaching. The sky was already growing painfully bright in the east, though the sun had not yet risen. Halisstra could make out the endless green forest of Cormanthor, rolling away from her for mile after mile.
A knock at the door startled her, followed by the jingling of keys in the lock. She looked around and stood as Tzirik entered the room, dressed in a resplendent high-collared coat of red and black.
“Mistress Melarn,” he said, offering an indulgent bow, “your comrades have returned. If you’ll come with me, we shall see whether they had some good reason for abandoning you in the wilds of the World Above.”
Halisstra set down her lyre and asked, “Were they successful?”
“In fact, they were, which is why I intend to set you at your liberty now. Had they failed, I’d planned to use you as a hostage to compel them to try again.”
She snorted in amusement, and the priest escorted her from the room. He led her through the elegant pale halls and corridors of Minauthkeep. A pair of Jaelre warriors trailed them, dressed in cuirasses dyed a mottled green and brown, short swords at their hips. They came to a small chapel, decorated in the colors of Vhaeraun, and there they found Quenthel, Danifae, and the rest of the company waiting.
“I see you have survived the rigors of Myth Drannor and returned to tell the tale,” Tzirik said by way of a greeting. “As you see, it seems I have found something of yours, just as you have found something of mine.”
Halisstra studied the faces of her former companions as she appeared. Most showed some degree or another of surprise—a raised eyebrow, an exchange of glances. Ryld offered her a warm smile before dropping his gaze and shifting his feet nervously, while Danifae actually came forward to clasp her hand.
“Mistress Melarn,” she said. “We thought you lost.”
“I was,” Halisstra replied.
She was surprised to find how relieved she was to be back among her former companions—though they were interlopers from a rival city—and her scheming battle captive. Danifae might not have been Halisstra’s ornament anymore, but the binding spell was still there, making her the only ally Halisstra had left in the world.
“Where have you been?” Quenthel asked.
“I was subjected to several days worth of effort to convert me to the worship of Eilistraee, if you can believe such a thing,” Halisstra answered. “Lolth granted me an opportunity to slay two of the Eilistraeen clerics and escape.”
Though her heart glowed with dark pride at her accomplishment, Halisstra found herself feeling a bit disappointed by the results of her treachery. She was no stranger to the traitor’s dark art, but it seemed as if she had only managed to do what was expected of her.
“Undoubtedly the surface folk set you free to see what you were up to,” Quenthel said. “It’s an old trick.”
“So we thought, too,” Tzirik said. “However, we investigated Mistress Melarn’s story and found it to be true. It’s almost comical, the naïveté of our sisters in Eilistraee’s worship.” He paused and rubbed his hands together. “Be that as it may, Jezz informs me that you helped him recover the tome we needed.”
“We helped him?” Jeggred growled.
“His task was to bring back the book,” Tzirik replied, “not to battle the denizens of Myth Drannor.”
“You have your book,” Quenthel said. Ignoring Jeggred’s snarl, she folded her arms and fixed her eyes on Tzirik. “Are you ready to fulfill your end of the bargain?”
“I have already done so,” the priest replied. He glanced up at the bronze image high on the wall, and made a small genuflection. “Whether or not you returned alive, I intended to consult with the Masked Lord and find out for myself what takes Lolth from you. Your story made me quite curious.”
Quenthel virtually ground her teeth in frustration.
“What did you learn, then?” she managed.
Tzirik savored his knowledge, responding with a deliberate smirk as he paced away from the company and took a seat on a small dais that stood to one side of the chapel.
He steepled his fingers together and said, “In all essentials your story is true. Lolth does not grant her priestesses spells, nor does she reply to any entreaties.”
“We already knew as much,” Pharaun observed.
“But I did not,” the priest answered. “In any event, it seems that Lolth has, in some manner, barricaded herself within her infernal domain. She denies contact not only to her priestesses, but all other beings both mortal and divine, which would explain why the demons you conjured up to question about the Spider Queen’s doings were unable to assist you.”
The Menzoberranyr stood silent, considering Tzirik’s answer. Halisstra was puzzled, as well.
“Why would the goddess do this?” she wondered aloud.
“In the spirit of candor, I will admit that Vhaeraun either does not know or does not wish for me to know,” Tzirik said. He fixed his cold gaze on Halisstra.
“For the moment, divine capriciousness seems as good an explanation as any.”
“Is she . . . alive?” Ryld asked quietly. Quenthel and the other priestesses turned angry glares on the weapons master, but he ignored them and went on.
“What I mean to say is, would we know if she had been slain by another god, or sickened, or imprisoned against her will?”
“If only we were so lucky,” Tzirik said, laughing. “No, Lolth still lives, however you might define that for a goddess. As to whether she has sealed herself into the Demonweb Pits, or been sealed in by another power, Vhaeraun did not say.”
“When will this condition end?” Halisstra asked.
“Again, Vhaeraun either does not know or does not wish for me to know,” Tzirik said. “The better question might be, will it end? The answer to that is yes, it will end in time, but before you take too much comfort in that I must remind you that a goddess may have a very different sense of what we would consider to be a reasonable wait. The Masked Lord might have been referring to something that would happen tomorrow, next month, next year, or perhaps a hundred years from now.”
“We can’t wait that long,” Quenthel murmured. Her expression was distant, fixed on events in faraway Menzoberranzan. “A resolution must be reached soon.”
“Take up the worship of a more caring deity, then,” Tzirik replied. “If you’re interested, I would be happy to discourse at length on the virtues of the Masked Lord.”
Quenthel bristled, but held her tongue—a feat of remarkable self-control for the Baenre priestess.
“I decline,” she said. “Does the Masked Lord have any other advice for us, priest?”
“In fact, he does,” Tzirik replied. He shifted in his seat, leaning forward to convey his point to Quenthel. “These were the exact words he spoke to me, so take note of them. ‘The children of the Spider Queen should seek her for answers.’ ”
“But we have,” Halisstra cried. “All of us, but she does not hear us.”