Пол Кемп - Resurrection

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 on Lolth’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.”

Gromph smiled, and his burned lips cracked.

The archmage said, “I share your sentiment, apprentice. But...?”

Prath only shook his head, still smiling.

The last thing Gromph remembered he had been trying to cast a teleportation spell to escape the explosion of the master ward. He had failed to get the spell cast in time, so how...

It struck him: His contingent evasion spell. He had forgotten about it in the rush of events, but the absorption of the dimensional lock by the master ward had allowed the evasion to function.

But only after his body had been “materially consumed by magical energy.” And he had no ring to heal him. He’d left it on Larikal’s body. “Now that you are awake, Archmage,” Prath said, “I will send for a priestess.”

Gromph shook his head, and the motion caused shooting pain along his neck.

“No.” He didn’t bother to explain his reasons. “No, apprentice.” Gromph had an eerie sense of reliving previous events. He had been in much the same state not so long before, after his battle with the lichdrow, but it had been Nauzhror bent over his burnt body then.

Events had come full circle.

Prath looked down on him, ran his eyes over Gromph’s body, and said, “You are badly burned, Archmage.”

Gromph knew that well enough. His skin felt as stiff as leather. He didn’t want to look at his hands. He didn’t want to move, not for a long while.

He said, “Prath, I have healing salves in metal tins in the first dimensional shelf in the third drawer on the left side of my desk. Retrieve them.”

Prath rose, and Gromph almost grabbed him.

“Wait!” he said instead. “What of House Agrach Dyrr?”

A soft rush of air announced the operation of a teleportation spell.

Gromph would need to put his wards back into place. No one should have been able to teleport into his offices.

“Archmage!” exclaimed a voice.

Nauzhror.

Footsteps, then the pudgy Master of Sorcere appeared over the Archmage. Gromph saw him steel his expression when he looked upon his master’s burns.

“You are alive,” Nauzhror said. “I am pleased.” Over his shoulder, he ordered, “Apprentice! Send for a priestess!”

Gromph shook his head. “He is retrieving healing salves from my desk, Master Nauzhror. I would just as soon be spared the attentions of another priestess of Lolth.”

He tried to laugh, but it turned into a painful cough.

Nauzhror smiled and nodded in understanding.

“I assume the phylactery is destroyed?” the master asked Gromph.

The archmage managed a nod. “Destroyed,” he said. “I was just asking Prath about House Agrach Dyrr.”

Nauzhror nodded and said, “The temple was utterly consumed in the blast, Archmage, along with many of the House’s forces. In the aftermath, House Xorlarrin breached the walls at last. It seemed as though House Agrach Dyrr would fall, annihilated by the Xorlarrin. But...”

“But?” Gromph prompted.

“But Matron Mother Baenre arrived with a contingent of Baenre troops and halted the assault. She met with Anival Dyrr, now apparently Matron Mother of House Agrach Dyrr, and it appears they reached an understanding. House Agrach Dyrr will survive as a vassal House to House Baenre.”

Gromph smiled through his pain. Anival and House Agrach Dyrr would be beholden to Triel for centuries, essentially an extension of House Baenre. His sister once again had surprised him.

He reminded himself never to underestimate her again.

“You have done the city a great service, Archmage,” Nauzhror said.

“Indeed,” Prath echoed, looking up from his search.