Lolth screamed again—the sound of eight female voices. Dark liquid leaked from the cracks in the flesh of the eighth spider, ichor that drained to the floor around Halisstra and mixed with Danifae’s blood. Pieces of Lolth’s carapace fell way in chunks.
Halisstra lurched to her feet, horrified. What was happening? She fell back a step, staring wide eyed at her goddess. Quenthel too climbed to her feet and staggered back a step, uncertainty in her eyes.
A whisper ran through the ranks of the abyssal widows. The yochlols returned to their station beside the dais.
Lolth’s carapace gave way with a wet crack and was still. Ichor poured from the arachnid body, soaking Halisstra’s feet.
The tabernacle went silent.
Halisstra did not know what to say, what to do. Quenthel looked aghast.
Halisstra opened her mouth to speak and—
Movement on the dais, a stirring amidst the pile of hair, carapace, and gore.
With a lurch, the Spider Queen pulled her new form from the old, separating from the shell of her eighth body with an even louder wet, tearing sound. She stepped out of her divine molt and stood, wet and glistening before Halisstra and Quenthel.
Her shining black body was still that of a giant black widow, but instead of a spider’s head and face, a drow form jutted from her thorax, a beautifully featured face, a full figured torso...
Danifae Yauntyrr.
Yor’thae.
The Eighth Face of the Queen of the Demonweb Pits.
Lolth was transformed.
Halisstra could not move, could not think.
Only one of you will leave here alive, Lolth had promised.
Halisstra fell to her knees and waited for death.
A tapping on his cheeks brought Gromph back to consciousness.
“Archmage,” said a voice, Prath’s voice. “Archmage, open your eyes.”
Gromph blinked open his eyes and found himself staring up into the concerned face of Prath Baenre. Gromph was on the floor of his office, facing the ceiling.
Prath’s youthful face split in a smile, and he said, “You appeared from nowhere, burned all over, and fell to the floor. You have been this way for over an hour. I was afraid to move you or to leave your side. I am pleased to see you alive, Archmage.”
Gromph smiled, and his burned lips cracked.
The archmage said, “I share your sentiment, apprentice. But...?”
Prath only shook his head, still smiling.
The last thing Gromph remembered he had been trying to cast a teleportation spell to escape the explosion of the master ward. He had failed to get the spell cast in time, so how...
It struck him: His contingent evasion spell. He had forgotten about it in the rush of events, but the absorption of the dimensional lock by the master ward had allowed the evasion to function.
But only after his body had been “materially consumed by magical energy.” And he had no ring to heal him. He’d left it on Larikal’s body. “Now that you are awake, Archmage,” Prath said, “I will send for a priestess.”
Gromph shook his head, and the motion caused shooting pain along his neck.
“No.” He didn’t bother to explain his reasons. “No, apprentice.” Gromph had an eerie sense of reliving previous events. He had been in much the same state not so long before, after his battle with the lichdrow, but it had been Nauzhror bent over his burnt body then.
Events had come full circle.
Prath looked down on him, ran his eyes over Gromph’s body, and said, “You are badly burned, Archmage.”
Gromph knew that well enough. His skin felt as stiff as leather. He didn’t want to look at his hands. He didn’t want to move, not for a long while.
He said, “Prath, I have healing salves in metal tins in the first dimensional shelf in the third drawer on the left side of my desk. Retrieve them.”
Prath rose, and Gromph almost grabbed him.
“Wait!” he said instead. “What of House Agrach Dyrr?”
A soft rush of air announced the operation of a teleportation spell.
Gromph would need to put his wards back into place. No one should have been able to teleport into his offices.
“Archmage!” exclaimed a voice.
Nauzhror.
Footsteps, then the pudgy Master of Sorcere appeared over the Archmage. Gromph saw him steel his expression when he looked upon his master’s burns.
“You are alive,” Nauzhror said. “I am pleased.” Over his shoulder, he ordered, “Apprentice! Send for a priestess!”
Gromph shook his head. “He is retrieving healing salves from my desk, Master Nauzhror. I would just as soon be spared the attentions of another priestess of Lolth.”
He tried to laugh, but it turned into a painful cough.
Nauzhror smiled and nodded in understanding.
“I assume the phylactery is destroyed?” the master asked Gromph.
The archmage managed a nod. “Destroyed,” he said. “I was just asking Prath about House Agrach Dyrr.”
Nauzhror nodded and said, “The temple was utterly consumed in the blast, Archmage, along with many of the House’s forces. In the aftermath, House Xorlarrin breached the walls at last. It seemed as though House Agrach Dyrr would fall, annihilated by the Xorlarrin. But...”
“But?” Gromph prompted.
“But Matron Mother Baenre arrived with a contingent of Baenre troops and halted the assault. She met with Anival Dyrr, now apparently Matron Mother of House Agrach Dyrr, and it appears they reached an understanding. House Agrach Dyrr will survive as a vassal House to House Baenre.”
Gromph smiled through his pain. Anival and House Agrach Dyrr would be beholden to Triel for centuries, essentially an extension of House Baenre. His sister once again had surprised him.
He reminded himself never to underestimate her again.
“You have done the city a great service, Archmage,” Nauzhror said.
“Indeed,” Prath echoed, looking up from his search.
Gromph nodded. He knew that. But the healing would be long, for himself and the city. For a moment, he wondered what had happened to the duergar axe with which he had destroyed the phylactery and taken the lichdrow’s soul. He had left it behind in the temple.
He put such thoughts from his mind. The lichdrow was destroyed for good.
He hoped.
“The healing salves, apprentice,” he called to Prath.
Quenthel stared up into Lolth’s face, into Danifae’s face, and tried to control her anger, her disappointment, her shame.
Danifae Yauntyrr, a Houseless battle-captive, was Lolth’s Yor’thae.
Quenthel’s rage burned so hot she could scarcely breathe. Her shame weighed so much she could hardly stand. Halisstra lay on her face beside Quenthel. The high priestess looked at her, looked at the eight bodies of Lolth, at Danifae’s form sticking out of the body of the largest, and slowly, with great difficulty, put her head to the floor.
Quenthel might not have been the Yor’thae but she remained a loyal servant of Lolth.
When she looked up, she dared ask, “Why?”
Anger crept into her voice, and once it started, it poured out.
“Why bring me back from the dead?” she demanded. “Why make me Mistress of Arach-Tinilith if only to do … this?”
She thought back to the many times she could have killed Danifae outright and rebuked herself for her mistake. She had been a fool, an arrogant fool.
Lolth’s eight bodies surged forward, with the eighth at their center. Quenthel thought she was going to die, but instead Danifae—Lolth!—reached forth with a drow hand and stroked Quenthel’s hair, an inexplicably gentle gesture. When she spoke, her voice was eight voices, but Danifae’s was loudest.