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, over Lolth's host, over the Infinite Web, and up to the top of Lolth's city. The priestesses alit on the stone walkway that surrounded the pyramidal tabernacle and returned to flesh.

Quenthel shot Danifae a hateful glare.

Staring up at the mammoth pyramid, Halisstra had an eerie sense of having done it all before. She looked through the temple's doors and saw that it appeared almost exactly as it had in her vision. Webs covered slanted walls. A processional of the drow-giant widow crossbreeds lined an aisle that led to a raised dais. Yochlols stood to either side, their misshapen, slimy bodies strangely elegant, their eight tentacle arms slack at their sides. The yochlols had no faces, but a single red eye glared out at the priestesses from near the top of their columnar, amorphous bodies.

Lolth sat atop the dais in the form of eight spiders, eight giant widows. The power exuded by her presence nearly knocked Halisstra to her knees. Webs extended from her bodies in all directions, reached to the walls, through the walls, and into the multiverse.

Her web covers all, Halisstra thought.

Beside her, Danifae and Quenthel stared in awe. All three abased themselves.

Lolth's voices rang in Halisstra's head, no doubt in all of their heads.

Enter, Yor'thae.

Almost as one, the priestesses rose and stepped over the threshold. Halisstra was not certain who had taken the first step.

Side by side, they walked the aisle. The abyssal widows shifted as they passed. Lolth's eight sets of eyes watched them approach. Halisstra could not take her gaze from the eyes. The largest of the eight spiders sat centermost. As it had in Halisstra's vision, it seemed strangely quiescent, as though waiting.

She realized that she was praying, whispering supplications under her breath with each step. Danifae and Quenthel were doing the same. All three held a hand on their respective holy symbols-their different holy symbols.

They reached the dais and stood, small and insignificant, before the eight bodies of their goddess. Each of the eight spiders was as large as Jeggred, with the eighth half-again as huge. Halisstra could not stop staring into the empty eyes of that eighth spider.

The eight embodiments of Lolth stared down at them, the ultimate predators. No flaw marred the carapaces of their glistening, black bodies. Each of the bodies' long, graceful legs ended in a spike as long as Halisstra's forearm. The black flecks of her eye clusters reflected what they saw, revealed nothing, and contained no mercy. Seven mandibles churned slowly in seven fanged mouths. The eighth stood still, waiting.

Lolth's eyes fell first on Danifae, then on Halisstra, on Quenthel.

Each of the priestesses fell to her knees in turn. Each bent her head and stared at the floor. None dared speak.

Sweat soaked Halisstra's body. Her breath was labored. She felt lightheaded.

Had Lolth chosen her? The thought both thrilled and repulsed her.

Only one of you will leave my tabernacle alive, Lolth projected, her seven voices driven like spikes into Halisstra's temples.

Each of the priestesses looked sidelong at the others.

With fearsome suddenness, the eighth body of Lolth lurched into motion, lunging forward and taking Danifae in her mouth.

The battle-captive screamed once.

The Spider Queen lifted Danifae from the floor, impaled her on her fangs, and drank her dry. Blood and fluid leaked from the goddess's maw and pooled around Quenthel and Halisstra. Danifae's legs kicked spasmodically as she died. After feasting on her fluids, Lolth devoured her flesh and bones and cast her clothing and gear to the floor with a clatter.

The other seven spiders watched, as still as had been the eighth.

Halisstra thought she might pass out, so fast was she breathing. She felt Quenthel looking at her and turned her head to see. The Baenre priestess wore an ecstatic grin, even as she continued her supplications.

Only one of you will leave the tabernacle alive.

The eighth spider slid to her side until she stood over Halisstra. Halisstra could have counted the hairs onLolth's legs. She squeezed shut her eyes and continued to pray. She realized that she still had Seyll's sword in her hand. The other seven spiders took a step forward, an eager step.

Halisstra clutched the blade so tightly it made her knuckles ache.

She awaited the touch of fangs. Long moments passed.

A cracking sound. Wet tearing. Lolth screamed in her head, the sound enough to flatten Halisstra and Quenthel to their bellies on the blood-soaked floor. With effort, she pulled herself to her hands and knees, opened her eyes, and looked up. She had to bear witness Before her, the seven bodies of Lolth were tearing apart the eighth, feeding on their sister. With their own mandibles, Lolth's bodies sliced into the legs of their eighth sister. The eighth spasmed on the dais, shaking the webs, sending a quiver through the multiverse. Her exoskeleton cracked in a hundred places.

Behind Halisstra, the abyssal widows shuffled anxiously. The seven spiders stepped back, pieces of the eighth still hanging from their jaws. Two yochlols hurried forward to the torn body of the eighth. They slid atop the dais and wrapped their eight tentacles around the eighth's legs, her thorax, her abdomen. They began to split her apart, moving methodically from one leg to the other, to her thorax, her head.

Lolth screamed again-the sound of eight female voices. Dark liquid leaked from the cracks in the flesh of the eighth spider, ichor that drained to the floor around Halisstra and mixed with Danifae's blood. Pieces of Lolth's carapace fell way in chunks.

Halisstra lurched to her feet, horrified. What was happening? She fell back a step, staring wide eyed at her goddess. Quenthel too climbed to her feet and staggered back a step, uncertainty in her eyes.

A whisper ran through the ranks of the abyssal widows. The yochlols returned to their station beside the dais.

Lolth's carapace gave way with a wet crack and was still. Ichor poured from the arachnid body, soaking Halisstra's feet.

The tabernacle went silent.

Halisstra did not know what to say, what to do. Quenthel looked aghast.

Halisstra opened her mouth to speak and- Movement on the dais, a stirring amidst the pile of hair, carapace, and gore.

With a lurch, the Spider Queen pulled her new form from the old, separating from the shell of her eighth body with an even louder wet, tearing sound. She stepped out of her divine molt and stood, wet and glistening before Halisstra and Quenthel.

Her shining black body was still that of a giant black widow, but instead of a spider's head and face, a drow form jutted from her thorax, a beautifully featured face, a full figured torso. . . .

Danifae Yauntyrr.

Yor'thae.

The Eighth Face of the Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

Lolth was transformed.

Halisstra could not move, could not think.

Only one of you will leave here alive, Lolth had promised.

Halisstra fell to her knees and waited for death.

A tapping on his cheeks brought Gromph back to consciousness.

"Archmage," said a voice, Prath's voice. "Archmage, open your eyes."

Gromph blinked open his eyes and found himself staring up into the concerned face of Prath Baenre.

Gromph was on the floor of his office, facing the ceiling.

Prath's youthful face split in a smile, and he said, "You appeared from nowhere, burned all over, and fell to the floor. You have been this way for over an hour. I was afraid to move you or to leave your side. I am pleased to see you alive, Archmage."