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.

Pharaun found it mildly amusing that a giant fly-demon found Jeggred too foul for transport. A cutting quip seemed in order, but he restrained himself.

Danifae smiled and put her hand on Vakuul's head. The chasme's wings beat fast as she ran her fingers along the bristles of the demon's hair.

"You cannot begin to comprehend what I am prepared to do for you," she said, low and husky, "if you but do this for me and my servant."

The thing protruding from the creature's thorax managed to squirm out just a little farther.

"Both then," the chasme said, drooling from his open mouth. "Come. Come, now."

Danifae turned and gestured Jeggred forward.

"Come, Jeggred," she said, even while signing to the draegloth: When we arrive at the mountains, tear off anything that is sticking out of it, then kill it.

Jeggred smiled at the demon and stalked forward.

When Danifae turned back around to face the chasme, she again wore a seductive smile.

Pharaun could not help but admire her. The woman was not as powerful as Quenthel-that was clear-but she was as skilled a manipulator as Pharaun had ever encountered. Pharaun thought back to his encounter with Jeggred in the chwidencha tunnel. Pharaun had said that Danifae was manipulating the draegloth; Jeggred had answered that Danifae was instead manipulating Pharaun and Quenthel.

Pharaun began to suspect that both were likely true. Where Quenthel was raw power, Danifae was skillful subtlety. Both women were dangerous. He was coming to believe that either could be the Yor'thae, or perhaps neither. In truth, he did not care, as long as he came out of it with his life and his position.

Danifae looked back to Quenthel and Pharaun and said, "To the mountains then, Mistress Quenthel?"

Quenthel nodded, her face a mask of impassivity that poorly hid her anger.

Jeggred took the smiling Danifae in his arms, and the chasme wrapped both of them in his legs. Vakuul's wings beat so fast that they became a barely visible blur.

"Heavy," the demon said, in his whining voice but managed to get off the ground. "So heavy."Quenthel turned to the nalfeshnee and allowed him to scoop her up in his huge arms. His wings too began to beat, and somehow those absurd little appendages bore his huge bulk aloft.

"Follow, wizard," Quenthel called.

Pharaun sighed, called on the power of his ring, and took flight behind them.

They soared high over the Demonweb Pits, flying into the teeth of the wind. They stayed below the souls but above the highest of the tors. The nalfeshnee cradled Quenthel against his mammoth chest. Her hair whipped in the wind. The chasme held Jeggred and Danifae close.

The creature pawed at Danifae as best he could while they flew.

Despite their respective loads, the demons moved at speed, and Pharaun struggled to keep up. He could hear nothing over the roar of the wind other than the muted buzz of the chasme's wings. Rain pelted his face.

Taking flight allowed them to avoid the difficulties of the harsh terrain, and they devoured the leagues quickly. On foot, they would have had a five or six day trek to the mountains. Flying at the rate they were, Pharaun expected to reach the mountains around daybreak, perhaps a bit after.

He surveyed the plane below him as he flew. From above, the surface of the Pits looked like diseased skin-blistered, scarred, pockmarked. Lakes of acid dotted the ground, spider carcasses lay everywhere, and great crevasses split the landscape like scars.

He looked ahead toward the mountains but they remained invisible in the darkness. He could see the glowing souls, though, flying toward the mountains' base, toward the Pass of the Reaver.

He replayed the demon's words in his mind: You cannot attempt the pass and live, Zerevimeel had said. Then, I will think fondly of your soul being devoured by the Reaver.

Pharaun decided that he would rather keep his soul than not, but he still flew on.

Chapter Ten

The night was hours old, and still Halisstra had not disturbed her sisters' Reverie. She knew she should.

They ought to have used the night to travel, in case the slaughter renewed with the dawn, but Halisstra knew her sisters needed rest. They would have little opportunity for it after they left their makeshift temple atop the tor. Besides, Halisstra wanted them to have a few more hours of peace, alone with her faith. They soon would have little opportunity for that too.

She sat near the edge of the tor praying to the Dark Maiden for the strength to face the challenges ahead.

Above her, swirling vortices of colored energy still dotted the sky. With each passing moment, one or another of the vortices ejected a glowing soul into the air. With each moment, a worshiper of the Spider Queen died somewhere in the multiverse and the soul found its way to the Demonweb Pits. The process was as regular as a clockwork. Halisstra watched it happen time and again, and each time the newly arrived soul fell into the never-ending line of spirits floating toward their dark goddess, their eternal fate.

It would go on that way until the multiverse ended.

Unless Lolth died.

She watched the souls moving methodically toward their doom and wondered if Danifae was among them. With the Binding between them severed, Halisstra would not have sensed Danifae's death. She fervently hoped that her former battle-captive still lived.

Thinking of Danifae sent a surge of hope and fear through Halisstra. Danifae had told her once, as they stood together in some ruins in the World Above, that she had felt Eilistraee's call. The battle-captive had spoken those words when she had come to warn Halisstra that Quenthel had sent Jeggred to kill Ryld.

Danifae had warned her.

There was a kinship between them, Halisstra knew, something born in the Binding that once had joined them as master and slave. She knew that Danifae could be redeemed. And since Halisstra had given herself fully to the Lady of the Dance, she would be able to help Danifae along the path of redemption-as long as she wasn't already dead.

An overwhelming sense of regret tightened Halisstra's chest, regret for a life ill-spent inflicting pain and engaging in petty tyrannies. She had wasted centuries on hate. Tears threatened, but she fought them back with a stubborn shake of her head.

The wind gusted, sliced through her prayer, cut through the song-spider webs, and called out for the Yor'thae.

The word no longer held any magic for Halisstra. She felt no pull.

She looked up at the eight stars that seemed so much like the eyes of Lolth and vowed, "No one will answer your call."

Halisstra didn't know what Lolth intended for her Yor'thae, and she didn't care. She guessed that killing the Yor'thae would hurt Lolth, possibly weaken her. And she knew that Lolth's Chosen could be only one person: Quenthel Baenre.

"I'll kill your Chosen, then I will kill you," she whispered.

The wind died down again, as though quieted by her promise.

Halisstra looked out over the blasted landscape of Lolth's realm, over the piles of torn spider parts and carcasses. She wondered where Quenthel was at that moment. She suspected that the Baenre priestess was already in the Demonweb Pits, making her way to Lolth, just another of the damned drawn to the Spider Queen.

"I'm right behind you, Baenre," she whispered.

She sat for a time in silence, alone with her goddess, staring up at the infinite stream of spirits floating to Lolth. After a while, she took out Seyll's songsword, put its flute-hilt to her lips, and played a soft dirge, an honorarium for the lost souls above her. The notes carried over the barren landscape, beautiful to her ears.

If the souls heard her, they made no sign.

The wind rose, as though to overwhelm her song, but Halisstra played on. Though she knew it was not possible, she hoped that somewhere, somehow, Seyll heard her song and understood.

When she finished, she sheathed Seyll's blade and stood. Looking into the sky, she held forth her hand, palm up, and curled her fingers-making the symbol of a dead spider, blasphemous to Lolth.

She could not help but smile.

"This is for you too," she said.

On impulse, she shed her armor and shield, drew the Crescent Blade, and danced. High atop a ruined toron Lolth's blasted plane, Halisstra Melarn whirled, spun, stabbed, and leaped. Except for the wail of the wind, there was no sound to which she could move, so she danced to a rhythm that pounded only in her head. Joy filled her, more and more with each step, with each turn. She became one with the weapon, one with Eilistraee. She was sweating Lolth from her skin, shedding her own past with each gasping, joyous breath.

Her hair whipped behind and around her. She could not stop grinning. The Crescent Blade felt no heavier in her grasp than a blade of grass, the tiny green plant that covered much of the World Above. The weapon whistled through the air, creating its own tune, playing its own song.

Halisstra danced until sweat soaked her and her breath came hard. When she finally finished, exhausted and elated, she collapsed, the ground on her back. Grace filled her. She felt she'd been purified, worthy at last to wield the Crescent Blade.

Thank you, Lady, she thought to Eilistraee and smiled when a cloud temporarily blotted out Lolth's eight stars.

She lay there for a time, doing nothing more than reveling in her freedom.

Sometime later she rose, walked back near the edge of the tor, and re-donned her armor. As she was strapping Seyll's blade to her back, a hand closed on her shoulder, momentarily giving her a start.

"Feliane," she said, turning to face the kind, almond eyes of the surface elf.

Feliane smiled warmly. "You did not wake me for a watch. I slept through the day. How late into the night is it?"

"The night is several hours old," Halisstra said, securing Seyll's blade in its scabbard. "We should awaken Uluyara."

Feliane nodded. She said, "It was your laughter that awakened me."

"I'm sorry," Halisstra replied. She was not aware that she had been laughing aloud.

"Don't be," Feliane replied. "It allowed me to watch you dance."

To her surprise, Halisstra felt no embarrassment.

"It was beautiful," Feliane said with a smile. "I saw the Lady in it, as clearly as I've ever seen her in anything."

Halisstra didn't know how to reply, so she dropped her eyes and said only, "Thank you."

"You have come far in only a short while," Feliane said, stepping past her to look down on the tor.

Halisstra nodded. She had indeed.

"May I ask you something?" Feliane asked.

"Of course," Halisstra said, and something in Feliane's tone caused Halisstra's heart to race.

Feliane asked, "What drew you to the worship of Lolth in the first place? The faith is ... hateful, ugly.

But I can see that you are none of those things."

Halisstra's heart thumped in her chest. She wasn't sure why the question affected her so. A tiny seed in the center of her being stirred, but no immediate answer came to her.

She thought for a moment and finally answered, "You give me too much credit, Feliane. I was hateful.

And ugly. Nothing drew me to Lolth. Nothing had to. I was raised to worship her, and I enjoyed the benefits associated with my station. I was petty and small, so awash in spite that it never occurred to me that there might be another way. Until I met you and Uluyara and saw the sun. I owe you both much for that. I owe the Lady much for that."

Feliane nodded, took her hand, and squeezed it. The elf said, "May I ask something else?"

Halisstra nodded. She would hold nothing back from her sister in faith.

Feliane took a breath before asking, "Did you ever think that what you did in her name was . . . evil?"

Halisstra consciously decided not to hear an accusation in the question. Feliane's face held no judgment, merely curiosity. Halisstra struggled to articulate a response.

"No," she answered at last. "I'm ashamed now to say it, but no. Faith in the Spider Queen brought power, Feliane. In Ched Nasad, power was the difference between those who ruled and those who served, those who lived and those who died. It's not an excuse," she said, seeing Feliane's expression grow clouded, "just an explanation. What I did then, what I was, it shames me now."

Staring thoughtfully into the darkness, Feliane nodded. The silence stretched.

Finally, the elf said, "Thank you for sharing yourself with me, Halisstra. And do not be ashamed of what you were. We are made anew each moment. It is never too late to change."

Halisstra smiled. "I like that very much, Feliane. It gives me hope that someone else I know might be redeemed."

Feliane smiled back.

They stood quietly for a moment, listening to the wind."We should awaken Uluyara and start moving," Halisstra said.