Eilistraee was no better than Lolth. Worse, because she purported to be different.
'You could have warned me,' she managed, through the bloody mess of her lips.
Halisstra realized then, fully and finally, that she had embraced the weakness of Eilistraee's faith out of guilt. She had worshiped a weak goddess out of fear. She was pleased that she had learned wisdom before the end.
She was through with Eilistraee. The part of Halisstra that had worshiped the Dark Maiden was dead. The old Halisstra was resurrected.
'You are weak,' she said to Eilistraee.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, she took her lyre from her pack and sang a bae'qeshel song of healing through her torn lips. When the magic took effect, the pain in her face and head subsided, the punctures closed. She sang a second song, a third, until her body was once more whole.
But the spells did nothing to close the emptiness in her soul. She knew how she could fill it,
how she would fill it-she felt Lolth's pull stronger than ever. Since Lolth's Silence first began,
Halisstra's faith had moved like a pendulum between the Dark Maiden and the Spider Queen.
Like all pendulums, it must ultimately come to rest in its natural state.
She looked at the dark opening of the Pass of the Soulreaver. Souls flew in and vanished,
swallowed by the mountain. Halisstra knew what lay beyond it: Lolth.
And Danifae.
She was going to kill Danifae Yauntyrr, kill her without mercy. She pushed from her mind everything that she had learned from Eilistraee. She had no more room in her soul for sympathy,
understanding, forgiveness, or love. She had room for only one thing: hate. And hate would give her strength.
It was enough.
She consciously gave herself over to the seed of her former self that had long lain dormant within her. From that point on, she would behave as a drow should. From that point on, she would be as merciless a predator as a spider.
Halisstra looked down at her breastplate and saw there the symbol of Eilistraee inset into the metal. She used the Crescent Blade to pry it loose. It fell to the ground, and she crushed it under her boot as she walked toward Feliane.
The elf lay on the ground, a bloody pile of torn skin. Her eyes were open and staring. Her mouth moved, but no sound came forth save the labored wheeze of her failing breath. The draegloth had fed on the soft parts of her flesh.
Halisstra knelt over her former fellow priestess. Feliane's almond eyes, glassy with pain,
managed to focus on her. The elf's hand moved, as though to reach up and touch Halisstra.
Halisstra felt nothing. She was a hole.
'We are made anew each moment,' she said, recalling the elf's words to her atop one of
Lolth's tors.
Feliane's body shook with a sigh, as though in resignation.
Without another word, Halisstra put her hands to Feliane's throat and strangled the elf. It took only moments.
Praise Lolth, Halisstra almost said as she stood. Almost.
She walked toward the Pass of the Soulreaver amongst the flow of Lolth's dead, falling in with the rest of the damned.
Still occupying Larikal's stout body, Gromph pulled closed the temple doors and stripped off the priestess's chain mail hauberk, shield, and mace. They would interfere with his spellcasting.
Unencumbered, he channeled arcane power into his hands, placed them on the two door latches, and said, 'Hold.'
His magic passed into the bronze slabs. The spell would make the doors impossible to open without first dispelling his dweomer, a difficult task for any of Yasraena's House wizards. And the lichdrow's dimensional lock would prevent Yasraena and the Dyrr forces from using teleportation or similar magic to get into the temple. They would have no choice but to enter through the doors-which Gromph had since warded himself-or the windows.
The archmage turned, looked up, and examined the windows. Four of the half-ovals lined each wall of the nave, about halfway up the stone walls. They were large enough that a drow could easily pass through them. Gromph would have to seal them off.
From his robes, he withdrew a small piece of granite. With it in hand, he spoke the words to a spell and summoned a wall of stone. Its shape answered his mental command, and it formed up and melded with the stone of the temple wall, filling in the window openings in the process. He did the same with the windows on the other side.
The temple felt like a tomb.
The wall of stone would hold a skilled wizard or a determined attacker for only a short while,
though, so Gromph took from his robes another component, a pouch of diamond dust. Casting on first one side of the temple then the other, he reinforced the walls of stone with invisible walls of force. Yasraena and her wizards would have to bypass both to get in through a window.
'That should give me enough time,' he muttered in Larikal's voice and hoped he was right.
Gromph started up the aisle and stopped about halfway. The spider golem stood behind the altar, dark and forbidding. The pulsing master ward extended through Gromph and into the golem's thorax like an umbilical cord. They were connected, at least metaphorically.
Gromph knew golems. He had created several over the centuries. Mindless and composed of inorganic material, even the most ordinary of them were immune to virtually all forms of magical attack.
And the spider golem was no ordinary construct. Composed of smooth jet, it was the guardian of the lichdrow's phylactery. Gromph had no doubt that the lichdrow had augmented its immunities to magic. He knew that the spider golem could be destroyed only by physical attacks with enchanted weapons.
Unfortunately, Gromph was not a highly skilled fighter-his battle with Nimor had demonstrated that amply- but he nevertheless planned to chop the golem down with the duergar axe. He had spells that would assist his strength, speed, stamina, and aim, but still. .
At least it was Larikal's body that would suffer, he thought, but the realization gave him only small solace. He occupied the body, so he would feel the pain.
And he was growing weary of pain.
Gromph unbelted the axe and got comfortable with its heft. Eyeing the golem, he took a piece of cured lizard hide from his robes and cast a spell that sheathed his body in a field of force-
essentially a suit of magical armor. Next, he spoke the words to a spell that caused eight illusionary duplicates of himself to form around him. The images shifted and moved-it would be difficult for the golem to determine which was the real Gromph and which an illusion. He followed that with a spell that formed a shield- sized field of force before him that would deflect attacks. An illusory shield appeared before all of the duplicates.
Almost ready, he thought.
He took a specially prepared root from his robe, chewed it-the taste was sour-and articulated the words to a spell that sped his reflexes and movement.
He had one more spell to cast-one from his scroll-but after casting it, he would not be able to cast another until it had run its course. Most mages were loathe to use it. Gromph had no choice.
First, he had to awaken the golem.
He held the scroll ready in his hand, took a wand from his pocket, aimed it at the spider golem, and discharged a glowing green missile of magical energy. It struck the golem in its chest,
below the bulbous head. While it did no harm, the attack animated the construct.
The huge stone creature stirred. Light animated its eight eyes. Its pedipalps and legs stretched.
Gromph unrolled the scroll and read the words to one of the most powerful transmutations he knew. As the words poured from him, the magic took effect, bringing with it an understanding of how to use the duergar axe, an understanding of how to fight. Gromph felt his skin harden, his strength increase, his speed increase still more. A
