Resurrection

"Oh," Vhaeraun said, "and also the destruction of Kexxon and your ascendance to the position of Oinoloth and Archgeneral."

Hearing those words, Inthracis could not contain a grin.

Despite the agony, he managed to hiss, "You are most gracious, Masked Lord."

Still wearing the same smile, Vhaeraun set Inthracis's hearts again to beating with two flicks of his forefinger and withdrew his arm, which became instantly corporeal. Inthracis inhaled sharply, sagged, and kept his feet only through sheer pride.

After he had recovered himself, Inthracis located Vhaeraun-across the room at the desk again-

and asked, "What size force is appropriate, my lord?"

"An army," replied Vhaeraun with a derisive wave. "Muster on the new Demonweb Pits, on the Ereilir Vor, the Plains of Soulfire. My mother is not yet sensate enough to muster her own forces to stop you."

Inthracis debated with himself before asking, "And what of Selvetarm, Masked Lord?"

Vhaeraun's face twisted in anger, and he said, "He will not trouble you. My mother has removed the Pits to their own location in the multiverse and sealed them against entry by the divine-any divine. Events there are beyond the reach of other gods, now. I cannot enter to destroy her, but neither can Selvetarm enter to protect her. Unless he has guessed at my ploy-"

Vhaeraun's contemptuous tone indicated that he did not think Selvetarm could guess the sum of two and two-"you will face the mortals alone."

Inthracis dared one more question: "What will occur if the Yor'thae reaches the Spider

Queen?"

Vhaeraun's eyes narrowed. "Because they will not reach her," he replied, "the answer is irrelevant."

Inthracis said nothing but took Vhaeraun's reply to mean that even the god did not know what would occur. That did not bode well.

He bowed and said, "It is my pleas-"

Vhaeraun vanished without further words.

The red light of the Blood Rift refilled the room. Inthracis took several deep breaths. Even the corpses in the wall seemed relieved. All that remained of Vhaeraun's presence in the room was a smear of blood on the basalt table and lectern. Inthracis summoned an invisible servant armed with a cloth, caused it to absorb the blood, and teleported the cloth to his laboratory. He was certain he could use divine blood as a component for one spell or another. The exercise helped calm him.

He gathered himself and prepared to send word to his generals to sound a muster. Vhaeraun had said to assemble an army. Inthracis would use his best shock troops, the Black Horn

Regiment.

Despite the underlying fear of what might occur should he fail Vhaeraun, the ultroloth felt a certain exhilaration. If he was successful, and if Vhaeraun kept his word-a large if-Kexxon would be destroyed and Inthracis would unseat him as the Archgeneral of the Blood Rift.

Even as those seductive thoughts coursed through his mind, a more sober voice advised caution. It occurred to him that all of Vhaeraun's scheming might have been in accordance with

Lolth's plan. The Masked God had said that Lolth was testing her priestesses as she called them toward the Pits. Perhaps Inthracis and Vhaeraun would be doing nothing more than creating another challenge for the Yor'thae to overcome? Or perhaps Vhaeraun was mistaken and none of the three priestesses was to be the Yor'thae at all?

Perhaps, Inthracis thought and sighed.

Caught between one god and another, though, he knew he had no choice but to obey. He would do as Vhaeraun had demanded because to do otherwise would result in certain death. Or worse.

Outside, the wind howled its message.

Chapter Two

An unbroken line of drow souls extended before and behind Halisstra as far as she could see,

a ribbon of Lolth's dead stretching across the infinite, featureless gray aether of the Astral Plane.

With Lolth's power apparently returned, the souls were at last free to float toward the Spider

Queen's plane, where they would spend eternity.

One after another the souls streamed along in a procession as straight as that of marching soldiers. The orderliness of the line struck Halisstra as strangely incongruous for souls heading into the arms of a goddess who embodied chaos.

Formerly as drab as the gray aether in which they floated, Lolth's reawakening had sent a surge of power through the line of souls, through the Astral Plane, and perhaps through all of the other planes as well. The Spider Queen's stirring had painted the dead in hues reminiscent or life,

had reawakened the souls even as Lolth had herself reawakened from her Silence. By reinfusing them with color and purpose, Lolth had marked each of the souls as irrevocably and irretrievably hers.

The words bobbed uncomfortably in Halisstra's consciousness: Irrevocably and irretrievably

Lolth's. .