The high priestess went on, 'If you accept willingly, you will be recompensed fairly in souls,
upon my return to Menzoberranzan.'
'If you return,' the demon said, and his face twisted in an expression that Pharaun took to be a tusked grin. The creature looked skyward and for the first time seemed to notice the line of souls floating high above them. He eyed them with a predatory gaze and licked his thick lips.
'Souls, you say,' he said, returning his gaze to Quenthel.
Quenthel cracked her whip and said, 'Souls, yes. But not those. Those belong to Lolth. You will be paid with others, after you have flown me to the base of the mountains thence, to the Pass of the Reaver.'
She pointed her whip in the direction of the far mountains, still hidden by night.
Pharaun cocked his head. He had never before heard Quenthel mention the name of their destination at the base of the mountains, though he had long suspected she knew what they would find there.
'You cannot attempt the pass and live,' the demon said.
Quenthel put her hands on her hips and said, 'I can and will. As will those who accompany me.'
The demon licked his lips, seeming to consider his options. Finally, he said, 'I am not a beast of burden, drowess.'
'No,' Quenthel replied, 'but you will bear Lolth's Chosen and be honored to do so.'
The demon's lips peeled back from oversized, yellowed canines. He turned his head to the side and spat a glob of stinking spittle onto the dirt. He crossed his arms over his huge chest and said, 'Perhaps you are the Chosen, priestess, but perhaps you are not. In either case, let the
Reaver claim you in his pass. But for the indignity you ask, my price shall be sixty-six souls.'
Pharaun raised his eyebrows. Sixty-six souls was a very modest demand. Quenthel had cowed the demon effectively.
'Done,' Quenthel agreed. 'Attempt to betray me and you die.'
'No betrayal, priestess,' said the demon in a low voice. 'I am looking forward to the feel of your soft flesh against mine. And when I return again to the blood pools of my home, I will think fondly of your soul being devoured by the Reaver.'
Quenthel sneered and her whips laughed.
'Let us leave now, priestess,' the demon said. 'I wish to return to the familiar gore of my home.'
'Not yet,' Quenthel said. She turned her back to the demon-a show of supreme confidence-
and watched as Danifae finally finished her own calling.
Danifae stood before her summoning circle, her arms outstretched, and called out a name:
'Vakuul!'
Power flared in Danifae's circle. The air tore open. A circular portal, outlined in blue light,
took shape. Through it, Pharaun could see only a swirling, thick blue mist. Some of the mist leaked from the portal and brought with it a cloying stink reminiscent of rotting mushrooms.
'Charistral,' observed the Nalfeshnee with unconcealed contempt.
Pharaun assumed the word to be the name of the Abyssal plane viewable through the portal.
'Vakuul!' Danifae called again.
A buzzing sounded. It grew louder, louder. .
'Chasme,' said Zerevimeel and somehow managed still more contempt.
Pharaun saw that Quenthel was smiling. The flylike chasme demons were a relatively weak type, weaker than the nalfeshnee. Either Danifae had deliberately underutilized her abilities or she simply could summon nothing more powerful.
A winged, insectoid form filled the portal. The blue mist vanished, and the portal closed,
leaving a buzzing chasme demon within the summoning circle.
Quenthel's smile vanished when she saw the creature. Pharaun drew in a sharp breath.
The chasme Danifae had summoned was the largest of the type that Pharaun had ever seen,
fully as large as four pack lizards.
'Big one,' Zerevimeel said.
'Silence,' Quenthel ordered, and her whips hissed at the demon. To Danifae, she called, 'Is calling the dregs from the bottom of the Abyss what passes for a summoning spell in Eryndlyn?'
Danifae did not turn to reply, but Pharaun read anger in her bunched back.
The chasme ignored Quenthel's taunt, and its compound eyes, each as big as Pharaun's two fists, swept the surroundings, lingering for a moment on Jeggred and the nalfeshnee. Its wings buzzed in agitation.
'Why have you disturbed Vakuul?' the chasme demanded of Danifae. Unlike Zerevimeel's baritone, the chasme's voice was high-pitched, interspersed with vibrations and buzzing.
In appearance, Vakuul reminded Pharaun of a giant black cavefly, the kind that troubled rothe and whose bite resulted in pus-filled wounds. The demon stood on six legs. The rear four looked insectoid, with hooks and hairs sprouting from the upper segments, while the front two resembled oversized drow arms, both of which ended in hands that jerked and clenched spasmodically. A huge double pair of wings, much larger than those of the nalfeshnee's, sprouted from the chasme's back and buzzed at intervals. Each time they did, a breeze that smelled of corpses wafted over Pharaun. The chasme's head and face sprouted like a tumor from its thorax,
and its face combined the features of a fly and a human to form a grotesque profile. Bony black ridges filled its otherwise toothless mouth, and a long horn jutted from where its nose should have been. Thickets of short, coarse black hair stuck out of the demon's body in irregular bunches.
Danifae stood before the demon and said, 'You are to bear me to the far mountains there and the pass at their base.'
The demon turned a circle, its movements jerking and insectoid, and looked in the direction
Danifae indicated.
It turned back to her and said, 'This is the Demonweb Pits.'
Its wings buzzed again in agitation.
'And I am a priestess of Lolth,' Danifae said, holding forth her holy symbol.
Jeggred stepped up beside Danifae, his eyes boring holes into the fly-demon. Big as it was,
the chasme's wings twittered. It rubbed its human hands together, the same way a fly sometimes rubbed together its front two legs.
'You ask for a service but make no mention of payment,' Vakuul said. 'What is to be
Vakuul's payment, priestess of Lolth?'
Quenthel watched intently, as did Pharaun. That would be a true indication of Danifae's power. The offer and acceptance of payment was a formality inherent to the casting, but the particulars of the bargain reflected the relative power of summoner and summoned. The higher the cost paid, the weaker the summoned believed the summoner to be. Could Danifae compel a favorable offer through threat, as had Quenthel?
Danifae eyed Quenthel before she took a step toward the chasme.
She entered the summoning circle, reached up, and ran her fingertips along the horn of the chasme's nose. The demon's wings buzzed uncontrollably. His mouth fell open, showing a long,
hollow tongue, wet with stinking saliva.
'I believe we will be able to come to some. . amicable arrangement,' Danifae purred.
A thick, dark fluid leaked from the chasme's mouth. The demon shifted his gaze past Danifae to Jeggred- himself the spawn of a drow-demon coupling-buzzed his wings, and leered at Danifae.
Something long, thin, and dripping slipped out of his thorax.
Pharaun found the scene grotesque but fascinating.
Danifae only smiled, wrapped her hand around the demon's horn, and said, 'I trust you find my offer appealing?'
'Most appealing, priestess,' the chasme answered. With his thick, yellow tongue, Vakuul licked the ridges that served as his teeth. 'I will carry you within my arms, carry you close. And afterward,' his wings buzzed with excitement, 'closer still.'
Danifae released the demon's horn and said, 'My draegloth must accompany us.'
The chasme's wings beat in agitation. His voice rose still higher. 'No, priestess, no. He is too big, his smell too foul. Just you.'
Jeggred said nothing, merely stared.
