Chapter Eighteen
Billions of eye clusters burned holes into Inthracis's back. He felt their gazes through his robes like a thousandweight. The clicking of countless arachnid mandibles rang in his ears.
He could sense the nervousness in the regiment. The fiends shifted uneasily, stealing looks over their shoulders. Souls or no souls, they had not expected this.
Stand your ground, he projected to the nycaloth leaders.
He kept his back to the Infinite Web and Lolth's mobile city. Inthracis did not want to look again upon the unending abyss, the chaotic strands of the web that never ended, the grotesque undulation and metallic groans of Lolth's metropolis.
And the eyes.
Millions upon millions of spiders and other arachnids-including thousands of abyssal widows and hundreds of yochlols-thronged the far edge of the plains, looking toward the mountains,
toward the Pass of the Soulreaver, toward Inthracis and the regiment. Inthracis had never before seen a horde of such size, not even during the Blood Wars. It seemed that every arachnid in the
Demonweb Pits had gathered there, in a line before their goddess's city.
Several tense moments had passed before Inthracis felt certain that the throng would not attack. Apparently, they had gathered not to fight but to bear witness.
Still, the realization caused Inthracis concern. It meant that Lolth had planned for, or at least foreseen, Inthracis's involvement. He comforted himself with the reminder that Lolth was a demon, chaos embodied, and that she would not-could not, by her very nature- accept a predetermined outcome. Matters were still subject to chance.
Perhaps Inthracis's attack would facilitate the creation or emergence of the Yor'thae. Perhaps he would kill all three priestesses and Lolth herself would die. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
He considered reneging on his promise to Vhaeraun and returning to the Blood Rift, but he knew that the Masked God's vengeance would be swift. Perhaps Vhaeraun was watching him even then.
Inthracis resigned himself to play his part. If Lolth was going to allow him to attack the priestesses, then he would attack the priestesses. If she was not going to allow it, then he would not.
He showed none of his doubt to the regiment, of course. To them, he projected, If they were going to attack, it would already have come. Remain steady. It will not be long.
He patted Carnage and Slaughter, and they growled softly in response. They too seemed restless. He looked around and wondered how in all the planes he had allowed himself to become involved in the workings of the gods.
The Plains of Soulfire spread out around him, a cracked, broken plateau of rock that bridged the half-league between the mountains and the Infinite Web. Open tears in the rock spat sprays of arcane fire and blasts of acid into the sky. A thin haze of green gas cloaked the terrain, not enough to be opaque but enough to create wrinkles in Inthracis's perception.
Before him, the plains ended at the mountains. Behind him, the plains just. . stopped, as though wiped clean. And where they stopped, an infinite abyss yawned, a black, empty hole in reality that never ended. Spanning the abyss, and extending out to forever, was the Infinite Web of Lolth.
Inthracis did not turn, but he pictured the web in his mind: strands of silk, most of them fifty paces in diameter or more, stretched across the void forever.
Lolth's city sat amidst the strands, an architecturally chaotic metropolis that somehow appeared like an enormous spider, on equally enormous legs, crawling along an even more enormous web. Its glacial, groaning movement across the web vibrated even the hugest of the strands.
The city was a mammoth cluster of metal and webbing, with one web-cloaked structure piled on another, and no order, reason, or uniformity to the layout. Only the position of Lolth's pyramidal tabernacle made sense: it capped the city, glowing like a beacon with violet light.
Transformed souls stalked the city's walks, webs, and ways, damned insects in a hive. The glowing spirits of those not yet transformed into their eternal flesh flitted around the metropolis like frustrated fireflies.
Billions of spiders prowled strands of the Infinite Web around the city. Some lived in holes,
and tunnels bored into the strands. Others skittered along the surface. All of them fed upon the others. Only the strongest survived for very long.
Inthracis put the city out of his mind and focused on his task.
Before him rose the titanic peaks of jagged stone whose tops scraped the sky. Cracks and holes marred the sheer mountainsides, and millions more spiders crawled in and out of the openings.
The Pass of the Soulreaver, like a black mouth in the stone, parted its lips three spearcasts up the sheer side of the tallest of the mountains. A ledge jutted from the mountainside at the pass's opening, and only a single, twisting, rock-strewn path-a ramp, really-led down the steep mountainside.
The pass vomited souls. A steady line of glowing spirits streamed out of the opening and streaked into the air for Lolth's city. Few made it unharmed.
Curtains of magical energy rose from the cracks in the broken rock of the plains and engulfed the souls as they soared over. The ghosts burned everywhere in the sky, so numerous they looked like sparks cast off from a blazing fire. After squirming for a period of time that varied from a few heartbeats to a two-hundred count, the flames released the captive soul, and the spirit flew free toward Lolth's city. Inthracis assumed that the burning served as some kind of purgation.
To his nycaloth sergeants, Inthracis sent, Order up the troops. When the drow priestesses emerge from the Pass of the Soulreaver, we ambush them with spells as they exit. They will have no cover. That should force them down, and we can finish them here.
If the priestesses survived the initial onslaught of spells, they would have to walk or fly down the narrow path. Inthracis and his troops would attack them as they descended and be waiting for them if they reached the Plains of Soulfire.
The nycaloths, flying above the assembled host of mezzoloths, growled orders, and the latter shifted into formation. The regiment assembled into a roughly crescent moon shape at the base of the ramp leading down from the Pass of the Soulreaver. The barbed tips of their glaives shone with magic. The nycaloth commanders continued to circle the troops, eyeing the pass. Each bore a powerfully enchanted axe.
Inthracis stood near the rear of his forces, rods at his belt, canoloths at his side.
Given the audience gathered behind him, Inthracis assumed the priestesses would soon cross from the other side of the pass. He cast a series of defensive spells on his person and attuned his vision to see magic, invisible creatures, even ethereal forms. Nothing on the mountainside could escape his sight.
Soon, the Pass of the Soulreaver would spit out Lolth's priestesses. And when it did, Inthracis would be ready. He intended to give his audience something to watch.
Pharaun came back to himself on what he assumed to be the other side of the Pass of the
Soulreaver. The dark opening yawned behind him. Souls exited and flew over and past him. He thought of the Reaver, of the souls that would never leave the pass, and shuddered.
After being swallowed by the creature, he had felt nothing more, seen nothing more. He did not remember moving through the pass at all. Moments or hours had been lost to him. He recalled a whispered voice, vague screams, and agonizing pain, but the events were so distant in his memory that they might as well have happened to someone else.
The challenge of the pass is not for you, Quenthel had said. From you, the Reaver will take only a tithe.
A tithe.
He did feel somehow diminished in a way he could not quite articulate. He tried to conjure a witty observation but came up with nothing. Perhaps that in itself was reflective of his diminishment.
In his mind's eye, he saw the Reaver's chasmal maw, its insidious whispers. He could not help but wonder what Quenthel had experienced.
He lay on the rocky ground, on the other side of Lolth's mountains, facing the cloudy, gray sky. He saw no sun, though dim light illuminated the land. He felt as though he had traveled through the mountains to find himself on another world, another plane. He knew that where he lay at that moment was related to the land he had left
