Ричард Бейкер - Condemnation

They passed almost two full days in that manner, pausing only briefly for austere meals or to let the duergar captain rest. Coalhewer was extraordinarily cautious about showing any kind of light and made them build their cookfires in a small, secluded fire-box that shielded the flames from view.

“There’s too many things as are drawn by the light,” he muttered. “Even this much may be dangerous.”

After their third such meal, late on their second day of travel, Halisstra retired to the bow of the boat so that she could look out over the waters and not find herself staring at one or another of her companions. In the furious battle to escape Hlaungadath, and the walk through the Plane of Shadow, she had had little time to embrace and understand her new circumstances. Empty hours of listening to the soft murmur of water and the insectlike clicking and scraping of the boat’s skeletal engine had unfortunately failed to immerse her in activity, leaving her with the opportunity to replay the fall of Ched Nasad over and over again in her head.

What became of my House? she wondered. Did any of our servants and soldiers survive by escaping Ched Nasad? Are they together, and who leads them? Or did they all die amid the flame and ruin?

Matron Mother Melarn’s death left Halisstra as the head of the House—presuming that none of her younger cousins had managed to claim leadership. If one of them had, Halisstra was certain she could wrest it away from her kinswoman. She had always been the most favored of the Melarn daughters, the oldest, the strongest, and she knew her cousins could not deny her her birthright.

But it seemed very likely indeed that her birthright was nothing more than ash and rubble at the floor of Ched Nasad’s great chasm. Even if some part of her household had escaped, would she want to seek them out and join them in a miserable, squalid, and dangerous exile in the Underdark?

This was not how it was supposed to be, she thought. I was to ascend to my mother’s place in time, and wield the power that had been hers and her mother’s before her. The thousand strands of Ched Nasad would have met at my feet. My least desire I might have fulfilled with a word, a look, a simple frown. Instead, I am a rootless wanderer.

Why, Lolth? she cried out in her mind. Why? What offense did we give you? What weakness did we show?

Once Halisstra had heard the dark whispers of the Spider Queen in her heart, but that place was empty. Lolth chose not to answer. She did not even choose to punish Halisstra for the temerity of demanding an answer.

If Lolth had truly abandoned her, what would become of her if she followed her House down into death? All of her life, Halisstra had believed that her faithful service as a priestess and a bae’qeshel to the Queen of the Demonweb Pits would earn her a high place in Lolth’s domain after her death, but what would become of her now? Would her rootless spirit be interred with the other unfortunate souls no god claimed in the afterlife, fated to dissipate and die the real and eternal death in the gray voids reserved for the faithless? Halisstra shivered in horror. Lolth’s faith was hard, and weaklings had no place in it, but a priestess could expect that she would be rewarded in death for her service in life. If that was no longer true . . .

Danifae approached with sinuous grace and knelt beside her. She looked into Halisstra’s face boldly, and did not lower her eyes.

“Grief is a sweet wine, Mistress Melarn. If you drink but a little, you are tempted to drink more, and things are never improved by overindulging in either.”

Halisstra looked away to compose herself. She did not care to share her secret horror with Danifae.

“Grief is not enough of a word for what is in my heart,” she said. “I have thought of little else since we began this interminable voyage. Ched Nasad was more than a city, Danifae. It was a dream, a dark and glorious dream of the Spider Queen. Graceful castles, soaring webs, Houses full of wealth and pride and ambition, all burned to ashes in a few short hours. The city, its matrons and daughters, the beautiful web-spun palaces, all lost now, and for what reason?” She closed her eyes and battled the hot ache in the hollow of her breast. “The dwarves did not destroy us. We destroyed ourselves.”

“I will not mourn the passing of Ched Nasad,” Danifae said. Halisstra looked up sharply, cut more by the girl’s dispassionate tone than her words. “It was a city full of enemies, most of whom are dead, while others flee as paupers into the wilds of the Underdark. No, I will not mourn Ched Nasad. Who, besides the few Ched Nasadans who survive, will?”

Halisstra did not choose to answer. No one would grieve for a city of drow, not even other dark elves. That was the way of the drow. The strong endured, and the weak fell by the wayside, as the Spider Queen demanded. Danifae waited for a long time before she spoke again.

“Have you given thought to what we will do next?”

Halisstra glanced at her and said, “Our lot is already cast with the Menzoberranyr, is it not?”

“For today, yes, but tomorrow will your purposes and theirs coincide? What will you do if Lolth’s favor returns tomorrow? Where would you go?”

“Does it matter?” Halisstra said. “Return to Ched Nasad, I suppose, and gather together what survivors I can. It will be a hard task, more than I likely could hope to accomplish even in a lifetime, but with the Spider Queen’s blessing House Melarn may yet rise again.”

“Do you think Quenthel would permit such a thing?”

“Why should she care what I do with the rest of my life? Especially if I spend it raising a wretched fragment of a House over the smoking ruins of my city?”

Halisstra said bitterly.

Danifae merely spread her hands. Halisstra understood. What reason would a Baenre need to do anything at all, really? The Menzoberranyr might have been their saviors from the wreck of Ched Nasad, but at a word from Quenthel they might become their captors, or their killers. The girl glanced back to where the others meditated or stood their watches, and changed to signs, carefully hidden from the rest of the company.

Perhaps it might be wise to consider exactly how we can make ourselves indispensable to the Menzoberranyr, she motioned. The hour will come when we will no longer wish to rely on Quenthel Baenre’s benevolence, such as it is.

“Careful,” Halisstra cautioned.

She sat up straight and deliberately controlled her own impulse to look over her shoulder. Danifae had an uncanny instinct for manipulation, but if Quenthel suspected that Halisstra and Danifae planned to undermine her authority—or even impose limits on her freedom of action—Halisstra didn’t doubt that the Baenre would take quick and drastic steps to remove a perceived challenge. It is a dangerous thing you suggest, Danifae. Quenthel would not hesitate to kill a challenger, and if I were killed—

I would not survive, Danifae finished for her. I understand the conditions of my captivity quite well, Mistress Melarn. Still, inaction in the face of our danger is every bit as risky as what I am about to propose. Hear me out, and you can decide what you wish me to do.

Halisstra measured the girl, studying her perfect features, her alluring figure. She thought of the conversation between Quenthel and Danifae she had overheard in the catacombs of Hlaungadath. She could put a halt to Danifae’s scheming with a word, of course. She could even compel it through the magic of the locket—but then she wouldn’t know what Danifae plotted, would she?

“Very well,” she said. Tell me what you have in mind.

Gracklstugh, like Menzoberranzan, was a cavern city. Unlike the realm of the dark elves, the stalagmites harbored great stinking smelters and foundries, not the elegant castles of noble families. The air had an acrid reek, and the clamor of industry rang endlessly throughout the cavern—the roaring of fires, the metallic ringing of iron on iron, and the rush of polluted streams carrying away the wastes of the duergar forges. Unlike Menzoberranzan, lightless except for the delicate faerie fire applied to decorate drow palaces, Gracklstugh glowed with reflected firelight and the occasional harsh glare of white-hot metal splashing into molds. It was a singularly unlovely place, an affront to any highborn drow. Halisstra thought the place seemed like nothing less than the Hells’ own foundry.