Author’s note: I wrote this in early 2003, changed bits around and only got to editing it into a readable fashion two years later. :) I won’t be continuing this story as such, but maybe, if my son lets me, I may write other episodes, not necessarily as a strict continuation.

This was a role-playing campaign I played with my husband as DM; he freely borrowed names from R. A. Salvatore. I’ve changed most of them, but Sinafay will have to stay Sinafay.

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the drow’s tale

1

I was born in the drow city of Maerimydra, a year after House Mar-Shinn ceased to exist.

From what I heard, it was not a great struggle. The annihilations of Houses rarely are. Mar-Shinn had attempted to overthrow House Din’aireth, but had failed miserably and utterly; all its noble family (or those among them who had not already fallen to the clerics and fighters of the triumphant house) were executed, its commoners distributed among the other Houses of Maerimydra, chiefly, to the House Din’aireth.

My mother, Geleea Zalazar, was a cleric of House Mar-Shinn. Had she been a noble, she would have died along with all the others, but since she was not, her life was spared, and she was taken into the ranks of the clerics of House Din’aireth. Matron Din’aireth probably was rather happy about that catch, too. Geleea had a daughter, Geryen, who was top of her class in the priestesses’ college of Arach-Tinilith and was likely to become a High Priestess. Still, Geleea thought it wise to make sure her station was secure. So she disposed of her husband, who had failed to give her any more children than the one, and married my father.

He had quite a reputation, since he’d had no fewer than three daughters with his former mate, even though he was yet rather young, barely into his third century. No doubt my mother hoped he would provide her with daughters to elevate her station. He did that—but, an unusual thing among drow, my mother gave birth to twins: my sister Melizee, and me.

OoOoO

While drow females may carry several children at a time, only the strongest of these usually is ever born. The wise among the surface elves take this as proof that drow are evil from the moment they are conceived; killing their siblings while still in the womb. I cannot agree or disagree. I sincerely do not know why both Melizee and I lived. It was as if the two of us had come to a silent agreement not to harm each other.

That attitude probably saved both our lives. Melizee and I were both small and appeared sickly to other drow—we both had yellow eyes at birth, causing nurses to think of some illness at first. Melizee’s darkened to bright orange later on, while mine remained the colour known as amber in the surface world, but both colours caused other drow children to think of us as easy prey. No nurse ever intervened if one of her charges killed another, and small as we were, we would not have stood a chance—had we been alone.

But we were not. After a while, it was known that to attack Melizee was to attack Jhael, and vice versa. We were not yet old enough to think about what we did or why we did it. Even years later, when we could have, we never asked each other why we had protected each others’ backs as children. Surface dwellers would probably be quick to apply the concept of love between siblings. I am not sure about that. All I know is that it enabled us both to survive in a world where three out of five children of common drow die before they reach the age of ten. I needed her, and she needed me. Few drow males grow up with the feeling of being needed.

I have a fair share of rather good memories from my childhood days, probably more than other drow, particularly male drow, in Maerimydra. Maybe I was even happy.

I was seventeen when Geryen graduated from Arach-Tinilith. I was afraid of the day when she would come home and become a part of our family again. I had only three years until I could go to Melee-Magthere, the fighter’s school, and I wished I could have gone the same day Geryen returned from the priest’s academy. My mother had hoped I could become a mage, but apart from the little tricks any drow learns to master before his tenth year, I did not display much talent for magic. Besides, I would have had to wait for seven more years before the mages’ school would take me, and I knew that I was strong for a drow male. My mother finally agreed. I think she realized that I would probably heap shame on the family if she sent me to Sorcere, when I might go more unnoticed in Melee-Magthere.

The day Geryen returned from Arach-Tinilith, my happy childhood ended. I was not allowed to talk to my twin sister anymore. Geryen took her under her protection, and I could feel her drifting further and further away from me. My mother let her be, and my father wouldn’t have dared to intervene. He was as afraid of Geryen as I was—she was a priestess, she was a female, she was exceptionally strong, and she was not any blood relative of his.

I don’t know how I was able to pass the three years until I could go to Melee-Magthere. Along with a few other boys, I learned a bit of swordsmanship with the House Weapons Master, who would be one of my instructors at the academy. He discovered that I was nimble as well as strong, and wanted me to learn to fight with a one-and-a-half handed sword, the way he did; but I preferred the twin blade style. The Weapons Master finally let me have my way. “If you can’t hit hard, at least you’ll hit often,” he used to say, and left it at that. The rest of my time I spent doing chores nobody else would do—feeding and caring for the human and goblin slaves, cleaning the floors, just to get away from Geryen.

The day before I was to go to Melee-Magthere, I finally saw my sister Melizee, again, and that day, we both learned our respective stations in the life of the drow of the Underdark.

I was hurrying home from another lesson with the Weapons Master, when I came across Melizee and Geryen, on their way to the house shrine. Melizee was carrying a ceremonial vessel that was nearly as big as she, probably at the instruction of my older sister. So engrossed was she in the important task of carrying the vessel that she didn’t see me in the narrow corridor, and she didn’t hear my shout of warning, bumping right into me and dropping the vessel, which shattered on the stone floor. I was petrified. Geryen had her whip out in an instant, and, which was worse, my mother had been nearby and now came at the sound of shattering pottery.

I tried to explain it hadn’t been my fault, but Geryen slapped me across the face, the blow knocking me to my knees. I remained kneeling, awaiting my punishment.

Maybe if I’d assumed responsibility for my sister’s fumble, things would have gone differently, but it was too late for that now. I winced as my mother’s whip snapped across my back, but after that first blow, there was a pause. I didn’t dare look up, but I heard Melizee’s voice, “No, mother, please.”

Elation was starting to build within me as I realized that Geryen had not managed to turn Melizee away from me, that she was still my twin sister, almost a part of me, and that she had the courage to speak for me in front of a high priestess. I waited, mutely, to hear what was happening, but nobody spoke. As I crouched there, hardly daring to hope that I might not be punished, my hopes were crushed by another whip-lash, much weaker and much less experienced this time.

My mother made sure that punishment did not stop until my sister had achieved some sort of proficiency with the whip. By the time I was told that I could leave, I was sobbing into my sleeves. I can’t say, today, which was worse—the pain in my back or the pain in my soul. Afterwards, I did not leave my room for a full day.

OoOoO

Melee-Magthere took my mind off things. As my back was still sore in the Great Melee, which took place at the beginning of the term to determine ranking among the new students, I was not as agile as I used to be, and finished twenty-fifth out of sixty-three—a rank I knew I did not deserve, and in the following years, I was determined to prove to the instructors that I was better than twenty-fifth. I was lucky, too. There was only one noble in my entire class—a skinny secondboy of House Hatch’net—who was not very adept with his longsword. But despite this deficiency, the instructors—one of whom was of house Hatch’net—made sure he was always ranked above the rest of us. That should have bothered me, for second place counted for nothing in my world, the world of the drow, I knew, but I did not much care. I was confident I would be able to fight a station in this world, maybe even a station that would bring honour to my family. By the end of my ten years in Melee-Magthere, I was usually ranked second of my class, with a few exceptions on which I finished third. I knew my skills would suffice to keep me alive against any goblins, deep gnomes, the hated surface elves, or orcs that I should meet. I only hoped they would also keep me alive against any drow that hoped to rival me.

OoOoO

After my short terms in Sorcere, to learn the basics—and limitations—of spellcasting, and in Arach-Tinilith, to learn obedience, I was graduated from Melee-Magthere second after Rekhan Hatch’net. Hatch’net was killed on his very first patrol in the Underdark, not by a vicious monster, but by a berserk goblin slave. I had been behind him when he had been killed, and had in turn struck down the goblin, but it had been to late for Hatch’net—I was first whipped for letting the leader of my patrol be killed, then I was put in his place. Thus was promotion in Maerimydra.

I fared better than Hatch’net. Under my command, my patrol wiped out a marauding group of duergar, who had ventured near the drow city. I lost a quarter of my patrol, but we in turn killed nearly a score of the grey dwarves. My prowess was brought to the attention of the Matron Mother of House Din’aireth, and when I was summoned by the Matron, my fears almost matched my hopes. I knew that I was either on the road to great success, which I had always dreamed about, or to a very speedy and ignominious death.

The Matron Mother awaited me, along with a few other nervous young males, two fighters and one mage, in her throne room. I kept my eyes on the floor and my mouth shut, as I had been taught for most of my life, except when I was being asked a direct question. I thought the interview was going rather well—until the Matron signalled her daughter, sitting to her right, to move up to me.

Out of reflex at the movement, I raised my head slightly, and when I found how beautiful she was, I kept it raised for slightly longer than I knew was good for me. Sinafay Din’aireth was tall and not quite as slender as was the norm with most drow females. I felt my cheeks heat and ducked my head again, but before my eyes left her face, I saw an amused sparkle in her purple eyes, and the corner of her mouth curved upwards ever so slightly. I was thoroughly confused. I was used to being punished or being ignored; I was not used to being smiled at. Melizee had smiled at me when we had both been smaller, but that seemed a lifetime ago.

Sinafay touched my forehead, and I lowered I knew she was trying to discern the truth of my responses to the Matron’s questions. My apprehensions returned in full when I was asked where my loyalties lay. If anything, I half-heartedly favoured Vheraun, not Lolth, and that alone might have been enough reason for her to punish me, if she was in a bad mood. I did not feel particularly indebted to my immediate family either, nor to any other drow in Maerimydra. My loyalty, I knew, lay with myself, but I dared not think about this for too long, for fear that Sinafay might be reading my thoughts. So I replied, “With the House of Din’aireth”, which seemed to satisfy both the Matron and Sinafay.

Three days later, I received a message that, as so many other things that had happened that week, brought great danger and great chances. I was to be a member of a surface raiding party—not one of those parties that entered the surface world by night, slew a few fairy elves and returned to the Underdark, but one that would remain on the surface, around the great forests of Cormanthor, to reclaim the lands the fairy elves had taken from my people millennia ago, and which were now being abandoned by the surface elves.

I was surprised to find that Sinafay was to be a part of the expedition. Less surprised was I to find that my own task would be to tend to the pack-lizard; but I told myself that even the lowliest surface raider would be far above most common fighters back in Maerimydra—if I ever returned there.

2

At first, it did not seem that I would. The leader of our party, apart from Sinafay, was a seasoned drow fighter called Terriz, whose prime concern in life soon turned out to be showing younger fighters their proper place. When our party was attacked in the corridors, and I rushed from my position at the back of the column to help the defenders, he slapped me across the face in rage that I had abandoned my post. For some reason, I could not shake the feeling that he would have done the same if I had stayed in my position as ordered.

We reached the surface three weeks later. It was night when we arrived, but it was not dark—a thin sliver of the moon, unbearably bright, illuminated the empty forest of Cormanthor. Even though the light was mostly caught by the gigantic trees, I could not bear to look up at it for more than two heartbeats, and I dreaded the sunrise, of which I had heard in Melee-Magthere.

Today, in retrospect, I wonder if Sinafay showed any emotion at the sight of the moon. I imagine she might have, knowing that we were all busy shielding our eyes and hurrying to get to the camp before the sun came, but back then, of course, that thought was far from my mind.

The commander of our camp was a male fighter who apparently outranked even Sinafay, although he was careful not to show any disrespect towards her. His name was Alak, and although he was short even for a drow, he was a vicious and almost burly swordsman.

Terriz probably told him of my “insolence” in the caverns as soon as they could have a quiet word together, for Alak treated me even worse than Terriz had, making me do any dangerous, useless, or unimportant tasks—preferably, a combination of as many of the three as possible. I know I should have kept quiet, remembered my rank, and accepted it all, letting my deeds (if any) speak for me, but Alak put me in a continuous state of helpless rage. I hated him with a vengeance, and I could see how much he enjoyed it.

I was on watch duty one night, when I saw someone creeping into our camp, as silently as a cat. “Halt!” I cried. “Who is there?”

I had my swords out within an instant as I saw a surface elf sitting in the undergrowth before me—then he did something with his hands which I could not see, and his features suddenly changed into those of a drow. “That’s of no concern to you,” he said brusquely. “I have business in the camp.”

My mind raced. His voice was that of someone used to being obeyed, but he had not told me who he was, so he could hardly expect me to let him walk through like that.

“I can’t let you pass unless you tell me your name and business,” I said stubbornly.

His red eyes flickered with anger as he surveyed me disdainfully. “Out of the way, boy,” he snarled. “I have business with Alak.” As he started towards the scattering of tents that was our camp, I stood uneasily, not wanting to leave him, and unable to leave my post. I felt even less inclined to stay him again. Feeling helpless once more, I slowly walked back to my post, but I had hardly reached it when I heard voices calling out to me.

“Jhael Zalazar,” one of the soldiers said. “Alak commands your presence.”

“But my watch,” I protested, stupidly.

“You’re dismissed,” the soldier answered. My legs felt like lead as I walked up to Alak’s command tent.

The stranger was seated in the tent, his smug grin in stark contrast to Alak’s furious face. “Light-blind, one-legged goblin!” he spat as soon as he saw me. “You denied a high-ranking messenger from Maerimydra entrance!”

Even though I knew I should have held my tongue, my own outrage won. “And how was I supposed to know that?” I retorted hotly. “He tried to sneak into the camp and refused to tell me who he was!”

Alak crossed the few feet of distance between us, his fist clenched to strike. I flinched, but did not try to evade the blow. I had been taught for all my life that evading blows just invited more.

My vision blurred as I stumbled backwards from the force of Alak’s punch, my jaw going numb.

“An emissary from Matron Chumav is under no obligation to answer to an insolent, yellow-eyed little goblin like you!” I heard him shout. House Chumav was the ruling House of Maerimydra. The floor was swimming, but somehow, I managed to pull myself upright again.

“I was doing my duty!” I replied around my swelling jaw, and felt his hand grab the front of my black leather brigandine, pulling me towards him. His eyes were burning.

“Get outside,” he hissed, spittle spraying my face. “By Lolth, I’ll do it myself. Get out and remove your armour.”

“And then what?” I heard myself reply, almost against my will and certainly against my better judgment.

He stared at me, and backhanded me across the face again.

I don’t know why I did not understand the meaning of his words. Perhaps I thought he was going to fight me. Perhaps I was hoping he was. I would have loved nothing more than to plunge my swords right into his vicious snarl.

But when he shoved me from the tent, towards a large tree that stood in the centre of the encampment, the camp gathering to see what was about to happen, he produced a knotted whip from his belt. I realized that a fight would have meant we were equals, but we were not. He was not a female, but he meant to demonstrate to me that he was as high above me as any priestess was. I saw Sinafay among the gathered drow, but I did not look at her long enough to see her expression. She did not step in. Drow males were expected to settle such matters of rank among themselves, without any guidance from priestesses.

Alak verily flayed me to within an inch of my life. I had been whipped countless times, but this was worse than any of them—the whole camp watching me being punished by a male, a male who hated me as much as I hated him, and whose fury guided each of his blows. I don’t know how long it took, only know that I dug my fingers into the rough tree bark and pressed my forehead against it, inexplicably taking a small amount of comfort from the sensation of something calm and alive beneath my skin.

Finally, after what had seemed like hours, it was over. I stood there, panting, and, as if through a red haze, I heard him stand back and say, “You can go with Sinafay.” Alak, too, was panting with the exertion.

While the spectators dissipated, I remained standing at the tree for a few moments, shaking, feeling warm blood running down my flanks, before I thought I could trust my legs to carry me to Sinafay’s tent. Over my head, I heard Alak shout to the priestess. “No healing magic for that one!”

Sinafay caught my arm and guided me to her tent, told me to lie down on a bed. I obeyed, gingerly easing down on my stomach, barely able to speak. I was hovering on the edge of consciousness, when I heard her chant softly, and I twisted on my belly to look up to her. “No magic,” I managed to get out, “you heard Alak…”

“Lie still,” was her answer, and she continued to chant.

I tried again. “Please—you know which of us will be punished if Alak finds out—”

“He won’t find out,” she replied, and that was the last time she interrupted her chant. I was in no condition to stop her, and not even my innate magic resistance was a match against the power of her healing spell. So I only lay still as her gentle hands touched my raw and bleeding back, and let myself relax a little as the pain abated.

It did not go away completely, so Alak wouldn’t know, but I was able to struggle upright and look at her. “Why did you do that?” I asked.

She sat on a stool beside the bed, smiling slightly. Again, that smile. “I need you to do something for me,” she said.

Immediately, my feeling of security and serenity was replaced by fear again. Whatever she wanted, I could not possibly hope to refuse a priestess.

I waited.

She lowered her head and put a cool finger under my chin, forcing me to look at her, which gave me even greater discomfort. One did not stare at a female, much less a priestess. But she held my gaze as she said, “Kill that ambassador. Tonight.”

My eyes widened, but instead of one hundred protests I would have loved to utter, I asked, “How?”

She smiled at my compliance, producing a small vial from her gown. “He needs to drink this,” she said. “All of it. Nobody will trace his death back to you… or to me.”

I wanted to ask, why? and, why me?, but I only nodded mutely.

“I want something that is in his possession,” Sinafay continued. “A little ring of gold. Kill him, and bring me the ring, and I shall return the favour sometime.”

I took a deep, steadying breath, and gave another nod. She smiled again, and her smile deepened as she moved closer to me, brushing a hand across my knee, my thigh, then my bare chest, then deeper again.

One does not refuse a priestess.

But I never regretted it either.

3

I slipped into the ambassador’s tent that night, under the cover of a spell of silence Sinafay had cast upon me. The ambassador was asleep, and his cry of alarm went unheard as I knelt on his chest, pinning his arms to his sides, and poured the liquid down his throat. He struggled hard, but in the end, he swallowed all of it. I recoiled in horror as his face began to contort, the skin flaking, first on his lips, then around his eyes, along his cheeks, his neck. I wanted to jump back, retreat to the farthest corner of the tent, but I dared not leave the dying drow, for fear that his screams might be heard if I removed my silence spell from him.

I took no pleasure at all in the ambassador’s death throes. As much as I tried to bring to my memory his smirk while Alak had whipped me, as much as I tried to imagine Alak’s features dissolving under the influence of that potion, I continued to feel only disgust. Finally, my victim ceased to struggle, and I dared to jump up from his body, to search his belongings.

I found the gold ring in a chest, and was very careful not to disturb anything else in his tent. Quietly as a shadow, I slipped out again, back to Sinafay, who rewarded me again that night.

OoOoO

Sinafay was true to her word. The potion she had had me administer to the ambassador had produced an effect similar to a rare illness, and nobody in the camp doubted her words as she proclaimed that he had died due to natural causes. I kept to my tent the following day and night, which was not remarkable either, as the whole camp knew I would not be able to do duty before my wounds had healed.

A few days afterwards, I was sent out again. There was to be a caravan of humans going through the forest by night—sparsely protected and laden with goods Alak thought we should rid them of, as well as their lives—and I was part of a dozen drow who were to go, under Terriz’s command. I was not delighted at the news, but I was determined to do my best—and I had a priestess owing me a favour to ease my sleep.

There was a gap in the trees where an overgrown path wound its way through the ancient forest. I was glad that it was night, for even the faint light of the stars hurt my eyes, and much worse was the moon. It had grown to a half circle now, fortunately hidden behind wisps of clouds.

I had not been on the surface long enough to realize how strange it was for a human caravan to cross a forest at night, or I might have noticed that something was wrong. But neither, apparently, had Terriz.

We took out the drivers the with crossbows, then dropped out of hiding as the caravan halted and humans were shouting in their tongue, which I could understand, since I’d heard it often from the slaves in Maerimydra.

Then the carts spewed forth armed men—two, four, eight, a dozen. My swords slashed out in every direction, but I had to realize we could not hope to overcome them. The only hope I saw was retreating, and I looked to Terriz for direction. Terriz, I have to grant him that much, was in the thick of battle, and he did never call for a retreat, the stupid fool. Within a split second, my options flashed past me: flee, and be put to death for cowardice, or try and help Terriz—or die trying.

With a yell, I rushed up in Terriz’s direction, who looked slightly surprised at seeing me displaying anything resembling courage. I managed to take down one of the men around me, tried to fight free of them to get to Terriz. When I realized I could not fight free, I tried to bolt for it.

I never reached him.

An axe caught me in the side, cutting deep, and I gasped as I tried to whirl and face my attacker, but then another blow hit me, a sword this time, slashing the small of my back. I went down, still groping for my one of my swords, but I could not reach it. I remember that sight before darkness came, my hand helplessly clawing at the earth for my weapon, lying three inches away, so far out of reach that it might as well have been back in Maerimydra.

OoOoO

When I woke, my first coherent thought was bewilderment at the realization that I had woken at all. I was lying on my stomach, and for less than a fleeting second, I thought I was still in Sinafay’s tent. Immediately after that, however, I felt soft, humid earth almost clogging up my nose and mouth, and panic of suffocating, survival instincts stronger than pain and exhaustion, cut in, causing me to try to struggle up. More dirt entered my mouth as I drew a shuddering breath, and I felt earth sliding off my back as I dug out of the shallow grave the humans had raised over me, thinking I was dead.

The next instant, I wished that I was. Bright, blinding pain exploded in my face, pain more intense than any other I felt at that instant. Even though I squeezed my eyes shut at once, the impossible brightness remained, burning into my eyelids, my face, my skin. Despite the fact that I was sorely wounded, my back burned by the sun where it had not been thoroughly covered by earth, and as blind as a bat in broad sunlight, I tried to crawl away, out of this terrible light. I had not yet seen any sunrise in the open; in the dense forest, under the cover of our tents, we had always waited out the setting of the sun. I knew the trees could not be far. They would provide very little shade, but even that seemed like salvation to me.

But then I froze as I heard a human voice, calling out in the common tongue of the surface: “There’s one still alive!”

I was not alone, and the ones who had destroyed our raiding party were still around. I was utterly helpless, and I stopped my desperate crawl for dark safety, dropping my face onto my arms and waiting for death.

True enough, I heard the ring of a weapon being drawn, and quick, heavy, human footsteps coming towards me. But instead of the blow that would end my life, I heard the human’s voice again.

“Don’t move, drow, if you value your worthless life!”

I didn’t move, since it would not have done me much good. Then, since my hearing was my only sense that was not affected in my present condition, I heard another set of footsteps behind me, this one heavier than the first, shuffling.

“Now, now, Tal,” I heard a voice that sounded deeper and gentler than the first. “Let’s not be rash.”

“Rash?” the human addressed as Tal replied, much closer now. Apparently, he had crouched beside me. “He’s a drow! The Zhentarim have done some good for once. Let’s finish what they didn’t.”

“He lives, while all the others died,” the other voice said. “The gods always have a purpose for what they do.”

“What do you mean?” the first man, Tal, said, his voice amazed. “You don’t mean to heal him, do you? If we let him live, he’ll return to his mates, one more drow to harass Mistledale.” The direction of the voice changed, as if the speaker was now regarding me closely. “And chances are that he’ll cut both our throats before he runs away,” he added.

I didn’t give any indication that I understood their conversation, not believing that anything I said would matter anyway. The strain of just lying there and listening had exhausted me. Unconsciousness beckoned, but I forced myself not to succumb to it yet.

Then the second, deeper voice spoke again. “We can’t kill a helpless and defenceless creature, even if he’s a drow. And we cannot leave him here to die. But we have to hurry—other drow might return, or even the Zhentarim. Can you carry him, Tal?”

Tal snorted. “Probably,” he said. “He doesn’t look as if he weighs that much.” Then he moved closer to my face again. “I’m warning you, drow,” he said between his teeth, speaking the name of my race as if it was an insult. “Any wrong move, any attempt at all to do anything but being carried, and I swear I’ll cut your throat. Do you understand?”

I made myself remain limp, my eyes squeezed shut, but made no offensive move either. I doubt that I could have. My only thought was that I was going to survive. I forced myself not to direct any thought beyond that one.

Tal need not have worried, for as soon as he lifted me up, unconsciousness claimed me again, and I embraced it, almost gratefully, as it took me beyond caring for anything.

OoOoO

The next time I woke, I was lying on my side, and the pain in my back was reduced to a dull, bearable pounding. I felt weak, and when I tried to move, I found that my hands were tied behind my back, and my feet were tightly bound as well. Fear returned to my heart. All I had heard of humans was that they were dumb, sometimes cunning, but not as terrible as surface elves. I did not know what was going to happen to me, or why the humans had even saved me.

Behind closed eyelids, I sensed that I lay in a darkened room. There was no wind, and, most certainly, not enough light to blind me again, although I could discern the presence of some faint light source—a torch or a candle. Certain that I would be able to, I opened my eyes.

I was in a small hut of some sort—dark except for a torch that was burning somewhere by my feet. I lay on the ground, on a heap of furs. Two yards away from me, blocking the entrance and the night sky outside, was the crouching form of a human. He was tall, probably about a head taller than I, and his light brown hair was not much darker than his skin. He, too, was dressed in furs and earthen colours, and as soon as he saw me move, his hands flew to the hilts of two short swords that lay at his side.

Without quite taking his eyes off me, he looked back over his shoulder. “He’s awake!” he called, once again in the common tongue. I recognized his voice as that of the man called Tal.

I lay still, watching him.

“Do you understand my language?” he asked.

I nodded.

“My promise holds,” he said, his face dark. “Any attempt to escape, and I’ll kill you.”

I nodded again, not doubting his words.

“Are you mute?” he grumbled. “Did they cut out your tongue?”

I shook my head, since I could not think of anything to say.

He gave a dry chuckle, and then the other man appeared in the entrance.

He, too, was tall, and heavy-set even for a human. The grey hair on his head and in his face told me that he was probably an old man—by human standards. He, too, was dressed in animal hides, and he had half a dozen little pouches and bags hanging from his belt. I recognized him as some sort of human magic-user. He regarded me with some caution, but even more curiosity. I wondered if it was that curiosity that had made him pick me up.

The old man knelt down beside me, blocking my view of Tal, and inspected my wounds. “Looking good,” he announced, apparently not at all worried that I might pose a danger to him. In all fairness, I did not. With my hands and feet bound, all I might have done was bite him.

The old man turned to Tal. “We can soon let him go. Maybe you could try again to heal him.”

Tal looked incredulous. “Ask Mielikki to bestow healing on a drow?” he asked, again in that tone that told me how much he despised the drow. “And waste even more healing magic on him?” I realized that some of their earlier attempts to heal me had probably failed because they had not been able to overcome my natural defences to magic, and I had not been able to lower them consciously. They must really have wasted quite a lot of spells on me, I thought suddenly. Why? Why had they done all this? What did they hope to gain?

“He’ll survive without it,” the old man said, “but I doubt he’d make it very far.”

“He’s not a deer whose broken leg you healed, and which will now hop off to its mates and graze!” Tal said.

The old man smiled, dozens of wrinkles creasing his face. “I’m aware of that,” he said. “We’ll have to blindfold him, and you can drop him off at some spot he’ll recognize. He won’t be able to find us again, and we probably won’t see him again.”

I grew more and more puzzled, the question why spinning in my head more and more persistently. I could not come up with an answer that even half satisfied me.

OoOoO

They let me go the following evening. Tal firmly tied a piece of cloth before my eyes, untied my feet, and led me through the forest, on such winding paths that I could not have remembered the way back to the clearing even if I had tried to. I heard the deep rumble of a large animal near us, sometimes closer, sometimes further away, but never leaving us.

At the roadside where he had found me, he left me, hurrying back into the forest, and when I had removed the cloth over my eyes, with the help of my shoulders and a low branch, I found a small knife beside me, which I used to cut through my bonds behind my back. My first thought was that Tal was still around, hoping to follow me to our encampment so they could assault us later, but after a while of standing there, listening and watching, I was certain that I was indeed alone.

I stood at the clearing where we had sprung the unsuccessful attack on the Zhentarim. I saw the many shallow graves in the moonlight, one of them empty.

It was that empty grave that finally drove realization home to me that I was still alive. That whatever had happened to me during the last few days had indeed happened.

4

I returned to our camp an hour before sunrise, without my armour, without weapons, but, to the drow’s utter amazement, alive. Alak was furious when I could not tell him what had happened. I had chosen not to reveal anything concerning Tal and the old man—mainly because it puzzled me too much to begin to explain, and all I said was that I’d got lost in the woods by day, unable to see or even think clearly, until my wounds had mostly healed. Alak finally believed me, even though it took Sinafay confirming the truth of my words when I claimed I had nearly been killed trying to fight through to Terriz.

Afterwards, Alak viewed me with some more caution. This pleased me to some degree, since it meant he did not call me a yellow-eyed goblin any more, but I knew that he was watching me. I had demonstrated that I was able to survive against impossible odds. He came to view me as a danger, and I knew I would have to tread very carefully.

At that time, I must have begun to entertain my first half-serious thoughts about overthrowing him. With Terriz gone, Alak’s death would have meant freedom for me, and maybe, with Sinafay’s help, I could even have put myself in his position. I decided to wait, and watch.

Alak took me along to a raid against a camp of hostile drow soon after that. I had been given a new sword and new armour after the Zhentarim had taken mine away, although the sword was heavier than I preferred. We were nearly a score, and the notion that we were about to encounter people of our own race made us very, very cautious. There was no reason for any pangs of guilt or doubt. A hostile house was as good as any other enemy, with the sole exception that fighting fellow drow was almost as dangerous as fighting the wicked surface elves, or so I had been told.

The moon was full. For all I cared, it might have been the sun shining down on me, and I could not bear to look up at its brightness. At least it did not leave me blind, and whenever we passed a spot of sparse vegetation, I kept my eyes on the ground.

To my dismay, our quarry turned out to be in a clearing. Approaching the spot, I heard faint singing, of many female voices, and nearly recoiled from what we were about to do. I could see that the other warriors around me were feeling the same. What kind of place was that, out in the open, under the full moon, with so many females—singing?

Alak seemed not perturbed in the least. He reminded us to be swift and without mercy, as we could not expect any either.

We came into their midst, weapons drawn, killing several of them even before they realized what was happening. Only a handful of them even tried to defend themselves, and all of them, a part of my mind registered, were naked. Those who survived our first assault turned and ran, and I heard Alak shout, “Pursue them! Let none of them escape!”

Glad for an excuse to leave the scene, and the brightness of the moon, I turned to run after a small group of females that were scattering into the forest. And scatter they did, and realizing I could not hope to catch all of them, I turned to pursue only one of them.

She was taller than I was, and knew the area better, and was slowly getting away from me. I sheathed my sword again, to give me more freedom of movement, and ran on, when I saw her stumble and disappear behind a thick bush.

I could not hear any signs of movement, so she was probably cowering behind it. It all made no sense to me. I was at a loss what I should do. Cautiously, I approached the shrub and rounded it. Behind it, I saw the gleam of her loose white hair, and stopped. The drow female before me stared at me for a few heartbeats, then she turned a ring on her finger. I recognized that ring. It was the one I had taken from the ambassador I had murdered. Just as the ambassador’s features had changed, the female’s now changed.

Sitting on the forest floor in the moonlight, stark naked and looking at me with her purple eyes, was Sinafay.

One did not stare at a female. I did not stare. I goggled.

Sinafay slowly rose, and even now, she smiled that smile again. “Now, my little amber-eyed lover,” she said in a low tone, “are you going to kill me?”

My weapon was still in its sheath, and I did not draw it now.

“What are you doing here?” I managed to ask.

She cast a woeful look back to the camp. There were still screams coming from there. “Serving my goddess,” she replied.

“Lolth?” I asked, incredulous, even though I knew it could not possibly be the Spider Queen that was being worshipped here.

“No,” she said. “Eilistraee.”

I had heard of that goddess—a renegade drow deity, worshipped by exiles and rogue drow.

“Who knows of this?” I asked.

“Nobody,” Sinafay answered. “The ambassador suspected, so he had to die.”

I realized that my own life was forfeit if I did not kill her. I had seen that she was a follower of Eilistraee.

I cannot really say why I did not do it. She probably would not even have tried to stop me. Exposing her as a rogue might even have won me Alak’s favour, but I dismissed the notion. Information was a valuable thing in the world of the drow, but once it was spilled, there was nothing to be gained by it. Killing her would not have bettered my standing with Alak, and a priestess owing me two favours was almost too good to be true.

I know those were my thoughts at that instant, my brain trying to convince me of what was practical. Even then, however, I know there must have been something else involved. I simply did not want to kill her.

“Go away,” I said to her, my voice low. “I won’t try to hold you.”

She slowly started to walk away. “That is two favours I owe you,” she said.

We both knew that to make good those favours, I would have to protect her true identity as fiercely as she.

OoOoO

Alak was not happy at all when I returned without any proof of a confirmed kill. Sinafay, I noted, had returned to our camp as if nothing had happened.

True to the drow principle to keep your allies close, but your enemies even closer, I was chosen along with just one other warrior for a secret mission with Alak a short while later. We were to make a stealth attack on a small camp nearby, but we were not yet told any details. Alak led us through the forest at night, to a small clearing between the trees.

Should I have recognized the huts? I do not know. When two humans emerged from them, I even doubt I realized it then. All humans were supposed to look the same, anyway.

Alak told us to charge, and rushed straight for the largest human, who was gesticulating, apparently preparing to cast a spell. To my right, I saw the other drow warrior stumble to a halt as a huge, massive and furred figure assailed him from the side. Maybe it was the sound of that creature that brought me around, the creature I had heard when Tal had guided me back through the forest, and that stopped me short the instant I was about to face off against Tal.

Alak was standing behind me, unable to move, as vines had crept up from the earth and were grappling his legs and arms. The same vines were springing up beneath my own feet now, too. Tal had both his short swords drawn and lunged at me, but I parried the blows without thinking.

“Get the druid!” I heard Alak shout. I did not know the word he used, but he was jerking his head towards the old man, who was spellcasting again. Alak had put away his scimitars and was producing a crossbow.

I could not fight free of the vines around my ankles, and I parried another of Tal’s blows. At that instant, he finally recognized me. I suppose that drow must look alike to humans, as well.

“You!” he spat, lunging at me again with a vengeance, and all I could do was to block his blows. Unable to move my feet, I had no hope at striking back. I did not try to explain. I don’t know what I should have explained.

Alak fired his crossbow, and I heard the druid grunt with pain. From my right, the growls of the animal were undiminished, but the drow warrior’s screams were getting weaker.

Then a light flashed up, right in front of Alak, and to me, it seemed brighter than a dozen suns. I cowered from that unbearable brightness, heard Alak’s death rattle, and as I covered my head with my arms, my sword lying forgotten, I knew that my eyes were not just blinded. I was blind.

For the second time, I waited for death at the hands of Tal. For the second time, it did not come. Tal, seeing that I was in no condition to do anything anymore, had quickly leapt to the old man’s side.

I heard them conversing in urgent tones, but over the roaring in my ears, I could not make out the words. Then I was jerked up roughly, and Tal was shouting, “You miserable little rat! You led them here!”

“No,” I managed to stammer, still pressing my arms over my face. “Alak led us! I didn’t know!”

“You’re lying!” Tal screamed, and I was certain he would have killed me if the druid hadn’t called out to him.

“Tal,” he wheezed, “leave him. He speaks the truth.” There was a pause in which he obviously had to gather new strength. “See if the other one is still alive. There is some poison at work, which I do not know.”

Tal left me once again, and I heard him walk over to Alak. “Dead,” he announced after a while, his voice flat. Then, after a few more seconds, he added, “And I can’t find any vials or flasks on him—any antidote he might have carried.”

“Maybe I can tell you something about it,” I offered almost timidly, although I knew very little about poisons. I preferred a more straightforward battle.

There was a pause, then the old man said, “Let him try.”

I felt the tip of Tal’s sword against my throat when I moved. No threat was necessary to make it clear to me that I was totally at his mercy.

He led me to the druid, and I said, shaking, “My eyes—”

The old man’s hand touched my face, and I could almost feel the power tingle in his fingers. Shaken as I was, I found it difficult to lower my resistance, but it didn’t matter, as the druid’s powers far surpassed my own, and then the pain in my eyes abruptly stopped. I blinked a few times, and found that my vision had returned. The druid lay before me, his hands clutching a wound in his side, and Tal was still standing beside me, the tip of his sword still poised against my throat.

I bowed down to inspect the wound, but even as I examined it, I realized there was nothing I could do. I could see—and smell—that there was poison at work, but of what kind, I had no idea. But my life depended on my finding a solution.

“I don’t know how to treat this,” I said, and, at Tal’s scowl, quickly added, “but we have a priestess in our camp. She is a healer. I could go and get her.”

Even as I said those words, they rang impossibly stupid in my ears. A drow male going to fetch a priestess to heal a human’s wound—it was ludicrous.

To my amazement, however, Tal and the druid did not seem to see it this way. Tal’s only concern, once again, was my trustworthiness.

“Why would you do that?” he demanded.

To tell the truth, I didn’t know myself. “The priestess serves Eilistraee, not Lolth,” I said, and saw his eyebrows rise. He did not seem to mind that this statement did not answer his question in any way, as it did not explain my own motives. But then, at the time, I found it was easier to explain Sinafay’s motives than my own.

5

They let me go again.

On the way back, a dozen thoughts whirled in my mind. First and foremost of them was that Alak was dead. With Sinafay’s help, I could try and put in my bid for power, for command of our camp. With a priestess behind me, nobody would dare to oppose me.

I thought of the two humans. My drow perception of the world insisted they were stupid beings, having let me go twice, on nothing else but my word that I would not harm them, or that I would return and bring help. Stupidity meant that my word was not binding.

But then I thought of Tal, who had been very cautious where I was concerned, and had not seemed stupid in the least. I thought of the power I had felt in the old man, and power was never stupid. I thought of his smiles, of the way he had treated me, guardedly, but always benignly.

I would assume power of the camp, and I would find a way to bring Sinafay out to the druid, to see I she could heal him.

I steeled myself as I walked into the camp, aware that it was the second time I returned as the sole survivor of a raiding party, in which my superiors had been killed. I needed only to survive long enough to see Sinafay, make sure she would back me, and I would have reached my goal.

I was halted at the entrance to the camp, and demanded to speak to the priestess, to reorganize the camp’s defences quickly. One of the guards who had stayed me smiled slyly. “You can tell the High Priestess herself, Yellow-eyes,” he said.

I felt my stomach knot. A High Priestess had arrived, but I did not yet give up my hopes. She was unlikely to stay, and if she put me in charge of the camp, nobody would challenge my position.

I actually believed that.

In the command tent that had formerly been Alak’s, I bowed low to the High Priestess—but, on a sudden inspiration, I bowed not quite as low as my station would have required. If I was to claim command of the camp, I thought I should not pose as a lowly warrior or lizard-driver. Matron Din’aireth had been amused by spirited behaviour. I hoped this High Priestess would also reward courage.

The snap of a snake-headed whip drove that hope from my mind. Six sets of magically animated jaws snapped at my armour, tore it away, and I involuntarily crouched lower, assuming the position I should have taken as soon as I entered the tent.

“Insolent male!” the High Priestess shrieked. “How can you dare to approach me like this?” Her whip lashed out again, and I flinched as I took the blow, but made myself straighten up when the snake heads receded. I should have realized the question was rhetorical, no answer was called for, but I never even realized how far I was walking down the path of my own destruction.

“High Priestess,” I answered, never raising my eyes, “Alak was killed in a raid, and I came back to assume responsibility of the camp.”

I cringed as snake teeth dug into my flesh again. The High Priestess was on her feet in a rustle of silken gown. “You dare to put yourself into the position of my son?” she shouted in a shrill voice.

I felt the ground dissolve under me. I had never known Alak was a son of a High Priestess of Lolth.

Her face appeared an inch before mine, and I frantically ducked my head to avoid her eyes.

“Give me one reason why I should spare your worthless life,” she hissed.

“I have information,” I managed to stammer.

“I am listening,” she replied.

My mind raced as I pondered whether betraying Sinafay’s secret would be enough to buy my life. But I had no choice. Nothing else I might do would have saved me.

“It’s about Sinafay Din’aireth,” I said, stalling for time.

I gasped as she lashed out at me with her snake-headed whip once again. “Speak!”

“She worships Eilistraee,” I whispered, and at that instant, I hated myself more than anything. I had betrayed her, the one dark elf who had treated me with any kindness since my childhood, and I had done it even though I must have known that it would not avail me anything.

For even as I said the words, I knew that they would not save my life. I was not of value to the High Priestess anymore.

Two guards grabbed my arms, and rid me of my weapons and my neck-purse carrying my house token that identified me as a member of House Din’aireth. My knees were weak with shock as they dragged me out of the tent, and I only half-heard the High Priestess’s shrieking voice, “Take him out and crucify him!”

I stumbled along blindly between the two guards, who walked me out of the encampment, a hundred yards into the forest, to a tree where I knew such punishments were carried out. The thought of escaping never even entered my mind. One of the guards roughly pushed me against the tree, starting to make preparations I dared not think about, while the other held my wrists behind my back.

Then, suddenly, I felt my hands being released. I stumbled against the tree, watching in disbelief as I saw the guard who had started to make preparations look up in alarm, as the other plunged a knife between his ribs.

I felt as immobile as I had tangled in the druid’s vines. The dying guard slumped to the ground, and the other turned to face me, his hands moving in front of him as he turned a ring on his finger. Sinafay stood before me.

I could not speak, and it was with exhaustion as well as hopelessness that I dropped to my knees before her. She had every right to kill me on the spot, after I had betrayed her secret to the High Priestess—and she had been standing right behind me when I had.

Her eyes took in the state I was in, my armour hanging in rags, the wounds where the snake-whip had hit me. She was not smiling now, but there was no condemnation in her face either. There was no emotion at all.

“Can you walk?” she asked quietly.

I nodded.

“Then go,” she said.

I summoned up all my courage. “They’ll be looking for you even now.”

“Yes. I shall go as well. There is a place a few days from here, where others of my order are hiding. I might reach it.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she shook her head. “I cannot take you with me, Jhael,” she said.

“I know,” I whispered. “I—I must ask a favour of you. — I know you don’t owe me any anymore,” I quickly added, when I saw her frown. “I’m not asking for myself. I met two humans in the forest. They healed me when the Zhentarim left me for dead. Alak wounded one of them with a poisoned bolt, and I told them I would get you to see if you could help him.”

Sinafay looked at me in wonder, and at that instant, I understood myself as little as she did.

“Did you buy your life by telling them I could heal it?” she asked. I didn’t reply.

She glanced across the forest for a few heartbeats, then she turned to me again. “I need to get back to the camp in disguise, and fetch a few possessions,” she said. “Go into the forest. There is a patch of thick shrubs that will protect us from the sun, and my spells will conceal us from prying eyes. We shall wait out the day there, and leave for your humans at dusk.”

She turned to go as soon as she had finished speaking, once again in the guise of a drow warrior. I crept to the shrub she had pointed out to me, feeling thoroughly miserable, even though I could not pinpoint the origin of my feelings. I was alive. Once again, I had somehow managed to escape with my life. I had become rather adept at that, but why did I feel so terrible?

Sinafay rejoined me just before the first rays of dawn reached us, bringing my sword along with a few things she had packed, and we spent the day in the small space under the shrubs, protected by her spells. I did not ask her for healing, nor did she offer any. She did not touch me at all that day.

6

Sinafay and I returned to the small clearing with the two huts near dawn the following night. The druid was still alive, probably thanks to Tal’s healing powers as well as his own. Sinafay was able to help him, not with her own healing magic, but with the help of a powerful potion she had brought from the camp.

While Sinafay tended the old man, Tal watching anxiously, I was largely ignored, for which I was grateful. Once, Tal stepped in to calm the large, furry animal that had already killed a drow warrior two days before, because it had started growling menacingly as it saw me, but the rest of the time, I sat alone, pondering what I should do next. For two days, Sinafay and I remained with Tal and the druid, until the old man was feeling better. I dreaded the moment when she would leave, since I knew I would have to make up my mind by that time.

Sinafay left on the third night after we had arrived, and before she went, she gave me a slight smile again—and then she gave me something else: the gold ring I had taken from Matron Chumav’s ambassador.

“I will have no need of it where I go,” she said, “and I think you might before too long.” I longed to ask her for advice on what to do, where to go, but I knew I would not receive an answer. I would have to find my own way, even if I did not have the slightest idea where it might lead me.

After Sinafay’s departure, I stayed with Tal and the druid for a few days, mainly because I still wanted to delay my final decision as to what I was going to do. To my amazement, both Tal and the druid—whose name, as I learned, was Jezzad—let me stay without pressing me. Even Tal started to treat me with more kindness now, and I learned a few things about the wild from them, which plants were edible, which animals were dangerous, and how they lived off the forest without harming it. I began to feel less uneasy about the great bear—for that was what the huge animal was—that came and went as it pleased, and that was called Paws by the two humans. Other animals frequented the clearing too, some with feathers, some with fur.

I was torn between liking this way of life and thinking that it was all wrong. As much as I enjoyed those days, I kept imagining myself forever in this place, and the thought frightened me. Moreover, Tal often stayed away all night, and I knew he was scouting on the drow that were dwelling nearby. Another drow attack was well possible, and I regarded them still as my people.

A few times, I thought about looking for Sinafay and the community of renegade drow whom she had gone to seek. But the idea of living with them, constantly in hiding, did not thrill me either. Moreover, I indulged in fantasies of myself dancing naked under a full moon, and decided that it was definitely not what I wanted. Obviously, I had no idea what the life of a renegade drow and follower of Eilistraee was like.

Every half-witted goblin would have realized by now who his enemies were, but I was still utterly blind to the obvious. Like a dog to its cruel master, I’d have to crawl back to the drow one final time before I finally saw them for what they really were.

After a week with the humans, I finally took my leave, saying I would try to find drow of other houses in the Cormanthor forest, and find a place with them. Jezzad looked sad, and Tal frowned at my decision, but I abided by it. I was still certain that I would not find a purpose in life unless among fellow drow, drow who kept their clothes on when the full moon approached.

I took the way to the south, the opposite direction from the camp where I had come from. Since I had made an enemy of a High Priestess, I would not be able to find a place with any drow from Maerimydra, but I knew there were others here.

I did not have to search for long. On the second night of my journey, I heard someone creeping through the forest, and hiding among the trees, I saw that it was a drow, a male and a commoner. He had not seen me, and I waited to watch his movements for a little while before I called out to him, “Who goes there?”

He whirled around to face me, and I stepped out of my hiding-place, crossing my arms across my chest to denote I was not hostile. “Who are you, and what is your house?” he demanded.

“I have no house,” I replied. “But whatever house will take me up gains a good swordsman.”

He looked me up and down, marking the absence of weapons and armour on me. I did the same, and saw that he was not as well-armed as most drow warriors either. But his appraisal of me seemed to have satisfied him, for he gave a nod. He did not tell me his name, but I had not told him mine either. I remained wary as I followed his lead further south, ready to run or fight if he was from Maerimydra and planned to lead me into a trap.

We rested during the day, and neither of us was very inclined to trust the other, so neither of us slept very much. Once or twice, I vaguely thought back to peaceful sleep back at the druid’s clearing.

Around midnight on the fourth day after I had left Tal and Jezzad, we arrived near a circular fence encircling a well-fortified camp. There was the sign of a spider over the gate of the camp, and when the gate itself swung open, I saw that there were about a dozen spiders walking in the camp freely—ranging from the size of my head to five to six feet in length. There was a large wooden building in the centre of the camp, and several smaller structures and trees. I realized that this was a camp of the spider-kissers—fanatic followers of Lolth, and suddenly, I began to doubt my decision again.

My travelling companion did not volunteer any information as I followed him into the encampment. From the largest hut at the centre, a few figures emerged and came towards us, led by a priestess covered in tokens and emblems depicting spiders. But the worst sight that my eyes met were two huge, bloated creatures, the likes of which I had never seen. Seven feet tall, their torsos and heads were those of drow—it was impossible to tell male from female—but from the waist down, their bodies resembled huge, black spiders. Several real, foot-long spiders scuttled along at the priestess’ feet, and I, my eyes on the floor, averted their eyes whenever they scurried through my field of vision, such as not to anger the priestess. And I did not dare to look at those horrible creatures again. I had never seen a drider, and I did not know yet how they came into being.

Standing behind my companion, I noticed that he was trembling, and from the corner of my eye, I could see that he was conversing with the priestess in the silent hand code of the drow. From my position, I understood very little, only that she seemed furious that he dared to come back—whatever it was that he had done—and that he was explaining frantically.

After a while, she walked around him to look at me, mustering me. She did not ask my name, or my House; apparently, my companion had already told her what I had said to him. I had feared that she would press the issue and have me reveal my name, but took some heart at the realization that she did not seem to care.

“You wish to join us?” she asked.

“Yes, priestess,” I replied, not looking at her. One of her spiders crawled across my foot, then up my leg. I stood very still and tried not to let my apprehension and revulsion show. I knew I was being tested, and I was resolved to pass this test. I was aware that this was my last chance to fight a station among the drow, and I must not let it pass.

I felt the spider crawl over my back and onto my shoulder, felt its hairy legs brush my neck. There was a slight clicking sound as the creature worked its pincers, and I did not dare to breathe until I felt it half-crawling, half-skidding down my back again, landing on the floor with a soft thud and scuttling back to its mistress.

My gaze still fixed to the floor, I saw the flash of teeth in the priestess’ ebony face as she grinned. “Good!” she said. “You shall stay as a member of this band, and serve Lolth. Is it your wish to serve the Spider Queen?”

I would have preferred anything to serving Lolth, but I had no choice. “I do,” I replied.

“Good!” she said again. Then she turned to the other priestesses who had exited the large hut and gestured to one of them, who produced two vials from her pouch.

The priestess who had appraised me looked back to the other ale and me. “Follow me,” she commanded us. “You shall have to convince me of your loyalty to the Spider Queen.” She led us to a small hut near the edge of the camp, under a huge, blackened tree, and quickly beckoned us inside. “Leave your weapons here for your return,” she said, and I complied, very reluctant to render myself so vulnerable and helpless.

She led us out again, and I saw two great spiders, larger than I, coming towards us. The priestess gave each of us one of the vials she had received from one of her subordinates. “Drink this,” she said. “It is part of your test.”

My every instinct screeched at me not to drink it, not to subject myself to the test, but I silenced them. Next to me, I saw my companion, still trembling, drink down his potion. The contents of the vial were no more than a swallow, but the taste was bitter. I wondered if it was spider poison, but even as I did, I felt my knees begin to wobble, my vision blurring. With a strangled sound, the male beside me slumped to the ground as his legs no longer supported him. I, too, felt cold sweat break out all over my body and I forced myself to remain standing as long as I could. Was this the test? If it was, I felt I could not stay on my feet for much longer. My knees shaking uncontrollably, I heard the priestess’ murmur of “remarkable,” then I, too, lost consciousness.

OoOoO

I felt woozy when I awoke. My head was still reeling, but I thought I surely must have passed the test—until I realized that I was hanging at least twenty feet high in the air, dangling from a branch of the black tree, my whole body tightly spun into sticky cobwebs.

Panicked, I looked around. My head was free, apart from a few strands that passed across my face, and I could move it partway. The cocoon started to spin slightly at my movements, giving me a clearer view of my surroundings. I had not noticed it earlier, but now I saw that there were half a dozen cocoons just like my own at the tree, and I saw heads sticking out of the tops. Some of the faces looked unconscious, one or two looked scared, but I gasped as I saw what was left of the drow that had led me here. His head was lolling to the side, but it seemed that there was no blood left underneath his skin. His eyes were empty sockets, the skin of his dry lips drawn back over his teeth in a horrible grimace of death.

There were spiders scuttling about everywhere in the tree.

So that was how I was supposed to serve Lolth, I thought, horrified. As food for her spiders.

In the continual gloom of the forest of Cormanthor, night and day were nearly the same for most beings, but a drow’s eyes could still discern the darkness of day and the pitch-blackness of night. It had been night when we had arrived, and I was night again now. One entire day must have passed.

My legs were tingling as circulation returned to them, and I strained in the cocoon, trying to get free, but in vain. The material was flexible enough to let me move, but the strands did not yield an inch. I kept trying to move my arms and legs, maybe rip part of the fabric, but I couldn’t.

At least I could not see any of the spiders coming dangerously close. A part of my mind still wondered if this was a test after all, and if there was a chance that I might be taken down and not end up as spider food.

Hours passed. I fell asleep at some point, awaking later, when I heard voices talking beneath the tree. The camp’s inhabitants hardly paid the tree a second glance when they passed, and I had not even considered calling for help. Apart from the fact that nobody would have helped a renegade such as myself, I still hoped that, by showing bravery, I might survive.

My hope was fuelled when the priestess spoke to one of the spiders, which scuttled up to one of the drow at the tree that was still alive. It’s pincers and hairy legs worked at the fastenings that tied the cocoon to the bough, and the priestess’ levitation spell caught the cocoon before it could fall to the ground. The priestess and her followers picked up the cocoon, freed the drow—a male—and took him to the large hut.

I continued staring at the hut, even if I could not see anything that was going on inside it. I was already starting to drop off to sleep again when I heard startling, piercing screams from the inside, and I jerked awake and stared into the darkness. My hopes for being freed and accepted into the camp ran lower again as I hung there, listening to those screams, and once more, strained every muscle in my body to break free. I did not know what I was going to do even if I managed to free myself and survive the twenty-foot-drop. All I knew was that I neither wanted to share the fate of the withered corpse hanging beside me, nor that of the hapless drow they had dragged into the hut.

The screams weakened after a while, enough for me to hear a chanting that had been drowned out completely before that. I recognized it as a ritual chant to Lolth, and started struggling again, and finally achieved a small victory when I found I could poke one finger through the fabric.

I quickly pretended to be unconscious when the door to the hut opened, and the priestess led her followers out. Through half-closed eyes, I saw that behind her came the two terrible drow-spider creatures, this time followed by a third. Bile rose in my throat as I saw its features. They were bloated and distorted, but just barely recognizable as those of the drow they had taken from the tree hours earlier. I managed to remain still until they disappeared from view, out of the camp, doubtlessly on a raid.

Doggedly, I continued to struggle, trying to widen the hole enough for two, then four fingers to fit through, until I could finally move my hand. I hadn’t eaten for almost forty hours, and soon felt dizzy from the strain, but I never stopped my efforts for more than a quarter hour. I needed to break free. Even if I broke my neck in the fall, that was a preferable fate to the one that awaited me in that hut.

7

It was completely dark once more, apart from the watchfires, when I heard voices at the camp entrance. At first, I assumed it was the priestess and her followers who had returned, but I soon noticed by the high-pitched shouts that something unusual was going on. Several warriors came running past the tree to the entrance, swords and crossbows at the ready, and I heard the sounds of fighting that broke out fifty yards away. Frantically, I thrust my hand through the hole in the cocoon again, and tore it upwards. The strands cut through my skin, but then they ripped apart, and I started to tear at the webs holding my other arm, until I had both of them free of the cocoon.

The fighting became louder at the entrance. There were the shouts of alarm from the drow, and I expected to hear voices from the attackers, but there were none. I hung there for a while, gathering the strength I would need to break free completely, when I finally heard sounds after all: animal sounds, low growls, as I had heard from Paws.

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Bears were attacking the camp. I had never heard of anything like that.

But it would not do to dwell on my bewilderment. I might be seen at any instant, and so I set to work again, twisting to rip the webs away from my legs, until I could reach the small knife I had in a sheath at my boot, the same one Tal had left me when he took me back through the forest. I hadn’t thought to leave it in the tent, and the priestess had not reminded me—indeed it would have been completely useless if it hadn’t been for the diversion the bears had created. I drew out the knife, and cut through the rest of the strands binding me, then tried to climb up the webs to the branch, and get off the tree.

But I found I did not have the strength to pull myself up. Two days without food, all but immobilized by the cocoon, had weakened me so much that all I could do was to brace myself as I cut through the strands tying the shreds of my cocoon to the tree.

I fell as a stone, and landed hard on the ground. There was pain in my foot, and it was all I could do to cling to consciousness, crouching on the ground until I managed to get up again.

I found myself staring into four pairs of eyes. A spider the size of a dog was crouching two yards away from me, ready to jump, and I groped for my knife to defend myself. Panic gripped me when I could not find it anywhere near, and I slowly tried to crawl backwards, away from the spider, way from the entrance, and towards the fence—and freedom.

The spider jumped.

I tried to duck away despite my injured foot, but knew I would not make it in time. The creature’s hairy body brushed the top of my hair as I ducked, but then I hard something whiz past me—much to small and fast for a hunting spider, and I felt my attacker being swept off me. I scrambled up and saw an arrow sticking out of the spider’s body.

Whirling, I looked back across my shoulder. On the fence, his bow in his hand and another arrow already nocked, stood Tal, peering into the darkness. I stared at him.

“Run, will you?” Tal shouted, another arrow flying past me as a second spider came running towards me. For a moment, I considered running to the hut to collect my weapons, but I dismissed the idea as I heard the scuttle of a multitude of legs in the dark. I scrambled up, and hobbled towards Tal, who was picking off another spider.

“Hurry!” the human shouted at me, his voice shrill. “There’s simply too many of them!”

I complied and ran, as best I could, when another sound cut into my ears: the groan of one of the drow on the tree, one of those who had still been alive. One of those whom awaited the fate of a drider.

“Shoot him,” I panted to Tal, as I scrambled up the fence.

Tal gave me a stare. “What?”

“Just do it!” I screamed at him, and Tal, bewildered but compelled by the urgency in my voice, nocked another arrow and let fly. The drow’s groans stopped.

“The others, too,” I gasped as I dragged myself over the top of the fence to perch beside him.

He cast me a sidelong glance. “No time,” he said. “Look!”

I followed his eyes and saw that half a dozen spiders, one of them almost as long as a horse, scuttling towards us, away from the fighting.

“Can you run?” Tal asked me.

Casting one glance at the horse-sized spider, I nodded.

Tal slung the bow over his shoulder and jumped down from the fence, then half-caught me as I, too, jumped, trying not to put too much my weight on my injured ankle. On the other side of the fence, I could hear a scratching noise—spiders’ legs seeking footholds in the wooden palisade.

Tal drew both his short swords as he turned to run, knowing that the spiders would catch up with us sooner or later, and that a fight would be inevitable. I thought of my sword lying back in the hut, longingly. We started to run west, which puzzled me, since I knew I had come from the north.

“Paws and some of his friends are causing a diversion at the camp entrance,” Tal explained to me. “We’ve got to draw the spiders away from them.”

“Jezzad?” I asked; I had barely enough breath to keep running.

“He’s not with us,” Tal answered, but then he spun at a clicking noise behind us. Three of the smaller spiders had closed in on us.

I stood beside him as I watched them coming closer, hop-skipping, drawing an arch around us to cut off retreat. I was still unarmed.

“Tal,” I begged. “Give me one of your swords.”

He looked me up and down, but finally, he did. I was unaccustomed to fighting with thrusting weapons, but I couldn't sit back and watch him fight alone. Tal drew a small dagger he’d worn at his belt, in order to still be able to fight two-handed.

The first spider jumped, and Tal ducked under it, whirled around and stabbed at the creature with the same movement, missing with the dagger, but hitting it with the short sword. He tore his weapon free immediately, leaving the spider to die, coiled on its back, legs twitching, as another scuttled up to him. I lunged at it, and severed three of its legs. The spider still tried to drag itself towards Tal, but he killed it effortlessly, moving to the next.

The third of the spiders that had caught up with us now jumped, too, and clung to my left shoulder. I tried to shake it off, momentarily forgetting that the short blade I wielded would have been much more appropriate to stab the creature than the longer swords I usually used. Tal looked behind me. “They’re coming!” he shouted at me, then added, “Don’t slash—thrust!” He killed the first of the newcomers, which had run up to us through the lower branches of the trees overhead, and had tried to drop onto him from above. I finally managed to thrust my sword into the body of the spider clinging to my shoulder, and it squealed as it tumbled to the ground. I noticed a stinging pain remaining in my shoulder, immediately replaced by numbness that began to spread down my arm.

Tal, meanwhile, had the fifth of the smaller spiders sitting on his back and trying to claw its way up to his unprotected neck, even as the large spider stood poised to spring, its last pair of legs whirring as it moved up and down.

I stumbled over to Tal, grabbed a few of the smaller spider’s legs and flung it off him. It landed in a bush, quickly scrambled to its legs again, and ran back towards me. Tal didn’t even turn; he had his gaze fixed on the large spider as it jumped, ducking under it as he thrust his sword and dagger upwards.

He managed to roll out from under the spider as it landed and turned to attack again. I could see that it was wounded, but Tal hadn’t killed it, probably not by far. His dagger still half-stuck out from the creature’s belly, but clattered to the floor a few feet away. I sidestepped as the last spider came towards me again, not jumping this time, as it was probably still a bit disorientated, and I pinned it to the ground and I brought the blade down on it. I didn’t wait for it to cease struggling, but tore the sword free to come to Tal’s aid.

The huge spider was jumping again, and this time, Tal did not get away from under it in time to evade the sharp claws at its front legs. I heard him gasp as they tore through the leg of his breeches, and through his tunic on his back. I came in, both hands clamped around my sword to steady my almost-numb sword arm, and plunged the blade to the hilts into the huge creature’s side. The spider screeched, and rolled, but of its own volition. Not even my thrust had managed to kill it.

I held on to the sword, still embedded in the monster’s body, and wanted to move out of the way, but my foot didn’t obey me. My ankle twisted, and I stumbled, still clinging to the sword hilt, and felt the blade snap with a ring.

The spider screeched again as my sword broke inside it, and one of its legs lashed out and caught me across the chest. It was not a deep gash, but I staggered, dropping the useless sword hilt I still held.

Tal had come to his feet again. “Get away!” he shouted as he came in, stabbing at the spider’s eyes from the side as it closed in on me again, and the creature whirled away from me to face this more dangerous threat.

He’d told me to run, had freed me of any obligation I might have had to aid him. He’d given me permission to escape, and leave him to die.

Almost against my will, I had got up and started to scramble a few feet away, when I saw his discarded dagger lying beside me, and I grasped it. He’d come after me, and he’d stepped in to save me, even though I’d virtually been trying to finally get myself killed at the hands of my own people.

I didn’t ask any more why he’d done it. It was enough for me that he had.

Paying no heed to the numbness in my shoulder or the pain in my ankle, I got back to my feet, just as the spider attacked Tal again. As he had done before, he waited for the moment when the spider was above him, and thrust his sword into its belly, then ducked away under it. As it had done before, the spider hit him with one of its clawed legs. I didn’t know how long they could have kept up this game, and which of the two would have walked away from it, but I didn’t want to find out. As Tal scrambled out from under the huge monster again, a new gash running across his side, I gathered all my strength to jump.

The spider must have seen me coming from the corners of some of its many eyes, but as it turned slightly towards me, that was its undoing. Provided with a clear target, I hacked at its eyes as hard as I could, driving the dagger into the creature’s skull, as deep as it would go, then jerked it out and thrust again.

The spider squealed, trying to scramble backwards, one of its thrashing legs opening another slash across my left arm, but I clung on mercilessly. Tal, who had managed to get his feet under him again, brought up his own sword and drove it into the spider’s belly, ripping open its hard shell. The spider skidded back a few more feet before it collapsed.

We sat there for a few long, ragged breaths, taking in each others’ conditions—both of us were covered in blood, ooze, and in my case, wisps of cobwebs.

Finally, Tal got up. “Come on, drow,” he said exhaustedly. Maybe it was the weariness in his voice that took away the edge he’d given to the word when we’d first met, but he did not speak it like an insult now. “I don’t dare hope that those six was all that pursued us.”

I nodded, and got up as well, although with considerably more difficulty. We stumbled along until I knew I couldn’t go any further without rest, and he told me to sit on a tree trunk, so he could look at my shoulder wound.

“Can you lower that magic resistance of yours?” he asked.

“I’ll try,” I said weakly. I had never consciously tried to lower it. In the few instances in my life when I’d received healing magic, it had been applied by priestesses who were powerful enough so they didn’t even have to bother with it.

He managed to heal me with his second attempt, enough for me to be able to go on. We walked in silence, until we reached a spot where an ancient oak tree lay, apparently blown down by some storm a long time ago, and that was now overgrown with moss and smaller herbs.

“Paws and I parted here,” Tal said softly. “He went to collect his friends. He’ll return here… if he can.”

We sat down on the felled oak, waiting, and still, neither of us spoke. My head was swirling with thoughts and questions, and yet, all I longed for was peace—within my own thoughts, more than anything else. I wanted to tell him so many things, wanted to ask him so many things. Above all, I wanted to tell him how sorry I was. Sorry for getting him into danger, sorry for breaking his sword, sorry for his bear friend that had been killed because I was such a goddamn stupid fool.

My own exhaustion finally managed to drown out most of the things that nagged at my mind.

We sat there for long hours, and finally, our eyes met, as we had to face what both of us had been trying to deny.

“Paws won’t come,” Tal stated, quietly.

I made no reply.

We remained sitting for a few more minutes, then Tal spoke again. “You came back when I told you to run.”

“Just as you came after me when I walked to my doom again,” I answered.

“It was Jezzad’s idea,” Tal amended. “He said it was better if someone kept an eye on you.” But he didn’t fool me; nobody had forced him to send Paws to cause a diversion and go in to rescue me. He’d done it out of a concept I had never known among the drow, except, perhaps, with my twin sister. Loyalty. Responsibility. Maybe even friendship.

I got up, and my elbow brushed against his dagger that was still tucked into my belt. I took it, and held it out to him.

“I’m sorry—about your sword,” I said, and as he took the dagger and sheathed it again, I knew I hadn’t fooled him either. I could not have begged his forgiveness for all I’d done to him, for all I’d cost him—yet.

But I knew that he had understood anyway.