Quenthel lashed out with her whip at Danifae. The battle-captive dodged aside but too slow. The serpents tore into the flesh of her arm and injected their venom. The poison had little effect-the battle captive must have been protected against poison-but Quenthel took satisfaction in the bloodshed. So too did the whip serpents, who laughed and hissed.

Danifae gritted her teeth and charged, swinging her morningstar for Quenthel's head. Quenthel took a step back, parried the blow with her shield, and answered with her whip. The serpents bounced off of Danifae's mail. Danifae spread her grip on the morningstar and drove the haft under Quenthel's shield and into her abdomen.

The blow stole Quenthel's breath, and she backed off. Danifae bounded forward- And screamed in pain.

A blade erupted from the right side of her chest, spraying Quenthel with blood. Danifae's shocked eyes opened as wide as coins and stared down at the arm's span of steel jutting from her chest.

Standing behind Danifae, her invisibility spell terminated by her attack, stood a drow female. Hate so contorted her face that it took Quenthel a moment to recognize her.

It was Halisstra Melarn.

The traitor priestess put her mouth to Danifae's ear and whispered, "Good-bye, battle-captive."

Pharaun knew he was vulnerable-his protective spells had been countered-but he could do little about it. And the wounds from the nycaloths continued to leak blood, much more than Pharaun would have expected for the relatively minor wounds. He could do little about that too, and the blood loss was causing him to grow weaker. He could not afford a prolonged spell duel.

He and the ultroloth circled at a distance, eyeing each other. The slaughter went on below. The bellows of the klurichir rang through the air. The seething of the swarm sounded like the waves of the Darksea.

The ultroloth began to incant, his fingers tracing an intricate gesture through the air. Pharaun answered with his own spell.

The ultroloth finished first, and a black beam streaked from his outstretched fingertips. Pharaun swerved but too slowly. The beam hit him in the arm.

Negative energy soaked him and siphoned off his soul. His lungs froze for an instant. His body wentweak. His mind clouded. The spell wiped half a dozen of his most powerful spells from his mind.

He struggled to maintain enough coherence to continue his own incantation. Blinking, dazed, he spat out the arcane words. When he managed the final syllable, he waved a weakened hand at the ultroloth, and a green field of energy enshrouded the creature.

It did not harm the yugoloth wizard, Pharaun knew. Instead, it merely prevented the ultroloth from teleporting or otherwise using magic to travel. It was a strange spell to cast, but the mage had an idea.

While the ultroloth puzzled over the spell his dark elf opponent had cast, Pharaun fought through the numbness and pulled a tiny ball of bat guano and a pinch of powdered quartz from his piwafwi. He would need to cast two more spells in rapid succession for the stratagem to work. He held the guano between thumb and forefinger and spoke the words.

The ultroloth drew his blade and slashed at the green field that enveloped him. Pharaun assumed the blade must have the ability to absorb or dispel magical effects that it touched.

The blade met Pharaun's magic, cut a visible slash in the energy field, and set the whole to vibrating.

But it did not fail. Pharaun breathed a sigh of relief and finished the first of his two spells. The ball of guano transformed into a small bead of fire. He pointed a finger at the ultroloth and started his second spell.

The bead followed his finger and streaked away. It stopped right in front of the ultroloth without exploding. There it spun, building energy.

The ultroloth knew the bead for what it was-a fireball with a delayed blast. The creature moved his long-fingered hands through the gestures that would effect his own spell, possibly to counter the fireball.

Hurrying, Pharaun cast the quartz powder into the air and rushed through his second spell. He completed it at the same moment the ultroloth completed his.

Pharaun's dweomer encapsulated both the ultroloth and the bead within a sphere of force. At the same time, the ultroloth's spell-not a counter to the fireball; perhaps he thought his wards would protect him-caused a field of black energy to flare around the drow wizard. The magic gripped Pharaun's body and held it rigid. He could not move even his little finger, though his ring still allowed him to fly. He was a floating statue.

The two stared at each other across the battlefield, the dark elf immobile and vulnerable, the ultroloth trapped and unable to teleport out.

Pharaun started a mental count: Four . . . three . . .

The bead near the ultroloth spun faster, glowed brighter.

The ultroloth understood his danger and frantically cut at the wall of force with his blade. The weapon's edge slashed a tear in the dome but not large enough for the creature to slip through.

The bead spun faster, began to hum. The ultroloth cut another slash, crosswise, and tried to squirm out.

Two . . . one . . .

The ultroloth's squeezed his head and shoulders out of the globe of force as Pharaun's bead blossomed into fire.

A momentary inferno burned within the globe. A tongue of flame shot from the slash in the sphere's side, engulfed the ultroloth's head, and extended twenty paces into the sky.

From the battlefield below, a cry of shock went up from the yugoloths.

Within the sphere, the explosion turned back upon itself time and again. Pharaun did not doubt that the ultroloth had been shielded against fire and heat, but no wards could protect against the firestorm in the globe. The heat devoured the yugoloth wizard's body, charred his head and shoulders into blackened cinders.

When the fire abated a moment later, a curled and blackened husk lay halfway in, halfway out of the sphere. Nothing more remained of the ultroloth.

Pharaun would have smiled if only he could move.

Chapter Twenty-one

Halisstra twisted Seyll's sword in Danifae's arched back, and the former battle-captive gasped with pain.

Halisstra took satisfaction in each of Danifae's bubbling, labored breaths. Behind Danifae, Quenthel Baenre looked on with surprise. Halisstra ignored her. She had eyes only for her battle-captive. The high priestess was irrelevant.

Danifae's morningstar fell from her hand.

"Mistress . . . Melarn," she said, her voice soft.

Halisstra decided that she wanted to look Danifae in the face before she died. She released her grip on Seyll's sword and allowed her former battle-captive to turn around.

One third of Seyll's blade jutted like a bloody pennon from the side of Danifae's chest. Danifae's beautiful gray eyes stared out of an incongruously gentle expression. She looked upon Halisstra and smiled a mouthful of blood-stained teeth.

"Do not call me Mistress ever again," Halisstra said.

Danifae's full lips twisted with pain. She raised a hand as though to touch Halisstra's face. The effort caused her to wince.

"Halisstra," she said, each word divided by a pained breath. "I'm . . . sorry."

It took a moment for Halisstra to understand the words. When she did, tears welled in her eyes; she could not stop them. In a rush, she thought of all that she and Danifae had shared, the secrets, the ambitions. They had been through so much together, had come to know each other so well through the Binding. She surprised herself by regretting what it all had finally come to.

"Sorry?" Halisstra said, and her voice broke. "Sorry? It never should have come to this!"

Danifae nodded. Blood seeped around the blade sticking out of her body. Halisstra had missed her heart.

"I know," Danifae said, still holding out her hand.

Despite herself, Halisstra started to raise her own hand but stopped.

"I missed you, Mistress," Danifae said.

Halisstra blinked away tears and finally took Danifae's hand.

"I missed you t-"

As quick as an adder, Danifae grabbed Halisstra with her other arm and yanked her close, impaling her on the point of her own blade.

Halisstra gasped as the steel penetrated first her mail then her flesh. She felt the point scrape against her ribs and exit her back. Warm blood soaked her piwafwi.

She should have known. She should have known.

Her eyes looked over Danifae's shoulder to Quenthel.

The Baenre priestess smiled, gloating, whip in hand.

Danifae wrapped her arms around Halisstra and squeezed her tight. Pain knifed through Halisstra.

"I am sorry for nothing," Danifae hissed in her ear.

Halisstra fought through the pain and returned Danifae's embrace, just as hard.

Both of them gasped with agony.

Their bodies were melded, joined by steel. Their blood flowed as one. A Binding of a different sort once again united them.

Halisstra rested her head on Danifae's shoulder, a strangely soft gesture.

"I hate you," she whispered.

Danifae reached up and stroked Halisstra's hair, something she had done countless nights before.

"I know," Danifae answered.

Halisstra loved her too, despite it all.

"I know," Danifae said again, and her embrace softened.

Halisstra could bear no more. With a grunt, she pushed Danifae away, screaming as the blade exited her flesh. The effort knocked them off balance, and both sprawled to the ground, Danifae still stuck through with steel. They both sat on Lolth's ground, bleeding and gasping.

Quenthel Baenre eyed them both.

"Here is where it ends," she said, and advanced on Danifae. The whips of her serpent glared.

A hiss and sizzling sound turned Halisstra's head, turned Quenthel's head, turned the heads of the whip vipers.

Nycaloths appeared around them, teleporting in from the battlefield below. One, three, eight, a dozen-the smallest of them towered over even Quenthel. Their muscles rippled under their scaled skin.Each bore a rune-inscribed axe. Their muzzles twisted into snarls.

Desperation contorted Quenthel's face. She looked at the nycaloths, at Danifae, at Halisstra. Halisstra could see the indecision in her eyes. It resolved into an expression of utter hate.

"It is not you," the Baenre priestess said to Danifae, her voice shrill.

She ignored the danger of the nycaloths and raised the whip high for a killing strike when high atop the grotesque heap of Lolth's city the double doors to the Spider Queen's tabernacle flew open. Rays of violet light poured from the temple doors.

For Halisstra, time seemed to stop. Motion ceased. Every being within sight of Lolth's city-yugoloths, drow, demons, and draegloth-stayed their hands. All eyes turned toward the unending web, toward the Spider Queen's city.

A ripple ran through the arachnid host gathered at the far edge of the plains, an anticipatory shuffling.

The sound of their motion reminded Halisstra of the downpour of rain she had heard while in the World Above.

Her heart hammered; her breath came fast. She clutched the broken Crescent Blade in her fist so tightly she feared her skin would split. She barely felt her wound. Danifae lay a few paces from her, facing the city, eyes wide, breathing shallow, her cloak soaked with blood. A whispered prayer of healing, a powerful one, leaked from the battle-captive's lips. Seyll's sword slid from her flesh, and the wound closed. Halisstra echoed the prayer and closed her own wound.

Quenthel didn't notice either of them. She stood and stared back at Lolth's city, frozen, her whip still held high for a strike.

Souls hung sizzling in the air over the Plains of Soulfire, writhing in agony, bleeding weakness from their eternal forms.

A sudden breeze picked up, blowing outward from the tabernacle. It turned to a gust, to a screaming gale, and in its scream Lolth's voice spoke, the sound that of multiple voices, the seven voices of Halisstra's vision: "Yor'thae."

Around them, the nycaloths shared a look. Halisstra saw the fear in their eyes, the uncertainty.

Without warning, they blinked out, teleporting back from whence they came. The retreat spread rapidly to the rest of the surviving army, and they too fled. The klurichir, its flesh torn and one of its pincers severed, nevertheless gathered another mouthful of mezzoloths and blinked out himself. The swarm of spiders dissipated, and the creatures made their way back to their mountain dens. The undead mezzoloths animated by the ultroloth fell to the ground, as inert as the soil.

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.