Corpses lay everywhere over the still Plains of Soulfire. Pharaun Mizzrym hung in the sky over the broken land, strangely motionless. Halisstra did not see Jeggred Baenre anywhere.
'She has chosen,' Danifae said as she rose to her feet.
Halisstra did the same.
A ripple went through Quenthel Baenre's body, though whether from ecstasy or fear, Halisstra could not tell.
Pharaun couldn't move or speak. He controlled his flight with his ring, which followed his mental urgings. Blood continued to pour down his sides from the wounds inflicted on him by the nycaloths.
He had heard Lolth's call, had seen her temple open, but none of that concerned him. If he did not get aid from one of Lolth's priestesses, and soon, he would die of blood loss.
He maneuvered his posture in the air so that he could see the ground. Movement from below drew his eye: Jeggred rose, staggering, from underneath a heap of mezzoloth corpses, his flesh bloody, one of his inner arms torn off at the elbow, one of his eyes little more than a bloody hole.
The draegloth looked not to Lolth's temple but back up the path toward the Pass of the
Soulreaver, to where the three priestesses stood.
Halisstra Melarn had followed them, somehow.
Quenthel, Danifae, and Halisstra stood high above the field of slaughter, staring up at Lolth's tabernacle. They reminded Pharaun of queens surveying their realm.
In the air around Pharaun, souls still burned in violet fire. After undergoing purgation for a time, they flew on to Lolth's city.
Pharaun knew that the priestesses too had undergone purgation. So had he. So, in his way, had
Jeggred.
He flew toward them, marveling that they did not kill each other.
Pharaun supposed that Lolth's call was bigger than their hate for each other. The Spider
Queen's voice controlled their conflict, just as her worship controlled the conflict endemic to drow society.
His vision blurred, but he fought back the oblivion of unconsciousness. He was weakening.
He wanted to call out to Quenthel but he could not speak. He flew toward the path.
The priestesses saw him coming. Halisstra retrieved a sword from the ground, but none of them moved to help. He set himself down before Quenthel.
Behind and below, he heard Jeggred loping up the ledge.
'Your male has returned,' Danifae said with a smirk, though Pharaun took satisfaction in her wince of pain.
'And yours is returning,' Quenthel said over her shoulder, meaning Jeggred.
The Baenre priestess studied Pharaun for a time, a peculiar look on her face. The Master of
Sorcere saw in Quenthel's expression that his life sat on a blade's edge.
'You can fly due to your ring but are otherwise immobile?' she asked.
Pharaun could not answer.
'A counterspell will do,' Quenthel said.
Pharaun would have breathed a sigh of relief, if he could have.
Quenthel incanted her spell, and when she finished, Pharaun still could not move.
A dark smile split the high priestess's face.
'No more flying,' she said.
He tested her words, mentally calling upon the ring to lift him. It did nothing.
The bitch had countered the magic in his ring!
'The goddess summons me, Master Mizzrym,' she said. 'You have served your purpose, as all males do. But now your soul belongs to her.'
Jeggred loped up, panting, bleeding, the ragged flesh of his arm stump seeping crimson.
'Mistress,' the draegloth said to Danifae and eyed Quenthel and Pharaun with undisguised hate.
Danifae looked at Jeggred, looked at Pharaun, looked out over the Plains of Soulfire.
'The goddess summons us, Quenthel Baenre,' she said to Quenthel. To Jeggred, she said,
'Carry Master Mizzrym down to the plains and leave him there. As Mistress Quenthel said, his soul belongs to the Spider Queen.'
Pharaun wanted to curse, to cast, to rail, but he could do nothing. His heart beat fast in his chest.
Jeggred did not question. He leered into Pharaun's face and reached out to take him in his fighting arms.
A surge went through the mage. The ultroloth had not dispelled Pharaun's contingency spell.
The moment the draegloth touched him, a magical fist would come into effect. Pharaun could control it mentally. He tensed, ready.
Jeggred cocked his head and pulled back.
'He said he would cast a contingency spell, so that if I touched him. . ' Jeggred trailed off,
staring at Pharaun.
Pharaun's heart sank. Why had the draegloth only just then decided to show some intelligence?
Danifae tsked. 'You've always been too obvious, Master Mizzrym,' she said and chanted a counterspell. When she finished, Pharaun's contingency spell dissipated.
'Now, Jeggred,' she said.
'Farewell, male,' Quenthel added, her voice devoid of any trace of emotion.
Jeggred gathered him up in his fighting arms and ran down the path. When he reached the plains, he manipulated Pharaun so that they were face to face.
'I would have preferred to kill you myself,' the draegloth said. 'What? No insulting response?'
The draegloth laughed, and his vile breath flew into Pharaun's face.
The Master of Sorcere could not believe that one of the last sensory impressions of his life would be to inhale Jeggred's wretched breath.
Jeggred loped a ways farther out and cast Pharaun to the rocky ground. He landed on his side,
staring at the Infinite Web, at Lolth's city, at the arachnid host gathered on the Plains of Soulfire.
From above and behind, he heard Danifae's voice: 'Save yourself if you can, Jeggred Baenre.
I am called to the tabernacle.'
With that, Pharaun heard the sound of spellcasting. After a few moments, each of the three priestesses flew over him, in the form of gray vapor. As fast as quarrels, as though racing, they sped to Lolth's presence at last.
As the priestesses vanished into the distance, the host of spiders at the far end of the plains began to stir. Pharaun was reminded of the Teeming, and the image disquieted him.
Without warning, the spiders surged forward. Pharaun watched them approach, a wall of eyes,
claws, legs, and fangs. Their coming sounded like the rush of water. They fed on the fallen as they moved, reducing flesh to bone in moments. He hoped that his wounds would bleed him out before they reached him.
Behind him, he heard Jeggred curse, followed by receding footsteps as the draegloth ran back up the path toward the Pass of the Soulreaver.
The oaf finally learned some sense, the mage thought.
Pharaun could not even close his eyes. He could only watch the approaching wave and wait to be eaten alive. The bleeding was not killing him fast enough.
He watched the horde strip the flesh from one corpse after another. He knew then that his last sensory impression would not be Jeggred's stink. It would be pain.
Chapter Twenty-two
Together but apart, Danifae, Halisstra, and Quenthel rode the wind over the Plains of Soulfire,
