Resurrection

Transformed souls stalked the city's walks, webs, and ways, damned insects in a hive. The glowing spirits of those not yet transformed into their eternal flesh flitted around the metropolis like frustrated fireflies.

Billions of spiders prowled strands of the Infinite Web around the city. Some lived in holes,

and tu

Inthracis put the city out of his mind and focused on his task.

Before him rose the titanic peaks of jagged stone whose tops scraped the sky. Cracks and holes marred the sheer mountainsides, and millions more spiders crawled in and out of the openings.

The Pass of the Soulreaver, like a black mouth in the stone, parted its lips three spearcasts up the sheer side of the tallest of the mountains. A ledge jutted from the mountainside at the pass's opening, and only a single, twisting, rock-strewn path-a ramp, really-led down the steep mountainside.

The pass vomited souls. A steady line of glowing spirits streamed out of the opening and streaked into the air for Lolth's city. Few made it unharmed.

Curtains of magical energy rose from the cracks in the broken rock of the plains and engulfed the souls as they soared over. The ghosts burned everywhere in the sky, so numerous they looked like sparks cast off from a blazing fire. After squirming for a period of time that varied from a few heartbeats to a two-hundred count, the flames released the captive soul, and the spirit flew free toward Lolth's city. Inthracis assumed that the burning served as some kind of purgation.

To his nycaloth sergeants, Inthracis sent, Order up the troops. When the drow priestesses emerge from the Pass of the Soulreaver, we ambush them with spells as they exit. They will have no cover. That should force them down, and we can finish them here.

If the priestesses survived the initial onslaught of spells, they would have to walk or fly down the narrow path. Inthracis and his troops would attack them as they descended and be waiting for them if they reached the Plains of Soulfire.

The nycaloths, flying above the assembled host of mezzoloths, growled orders, and the latter shifted into formation. The regiment assembled into a roughly crescent moon shape at the base of the ramp leading down from the Pass of the Soulreaver. The barbed tips of their glaives shone with magic. The nycaloth commanders continued to circle the troops, eyeing the pass. Each bore a powerfully enchanted axe.

Inthracis stood near the rear of his forces, rods at his belt, canoloths at his side.

Given the audience gathered behind him, Inthracis assumed the priestesses would soon cross from the other side of the pass. He cast a series of defensive spells on his person and attuned his vision to see magic, invisible creatures, even ethereal forms. Nothing on the mountainside could escape his sight.

Soon, the Pass of the Soulreaver would spit out Lolth's priestesses. And when it did, Inthracis would be ready. He intended to give his audience something to watch.

Pharaun came back to himself on what he assumed to be the other side of the Pass of the

Soulreaver. The dark opening yawned behind him. Souls exited and flew over and past him. He thought of the Reaver, of the souls that would never leave the pass, and shuddered.

After being swallowed by the creature, he had felt nothing more, seen nothing more. He did not remember moving through the pass at all. Moments or hours had been lost to him. He recalled a whispered voice, vague screams, and agonizing pain, but the events were so distant in his memory that they might as well have happened to someone else.

The challenge of the pass is not for you, Quenthel had said. From you, the Reaver will take only a tithe.

A tithe.

He did feel somehow diminished in a way he could not quite articulate. He tried to conjure a witty observation but came up with nothing. Perhaps that in itself was reflective of his diminishment.

In his mind's eye, he saw the Reaver's chasmal maw, its insidious whispers. He could not help but wonder what Quenthel had experienced.

He lay on the rocky ground, on the other side of Lolth's mountains, facing the cloudy, gray sky. He saw no sun, though dim light illuminated the land. He felt as though he had traveled through the mountains to find himself on another world, another plane. He knew that where he lay at that moment was related to the land he had left only in that Lolth ruled both, only in that the Pass of the Soulreaver co

He put his hand to his temple and found that small spiders crawled over him. He heard a sizzling, like cooking meat. He could not pinpoint the source. A soul flew over him, then another.

He turned his head and saw that Quenthel lay to his right, her eyes closed. Her face looked drawn. She held her holy symbol in her hand. Her body had returned to normal size.

He swallowed but found his throat dry. Dusting off the spiders, he sat up and-

To his left, Jeggred and Danifae lay unconscious. He stared for a moment before the reality struck him.

How had they ended up there, at that moment? They must have entered the pass well after

Pharaun and Quenthel.

He toyed with the idea of quietly killing Jeggred but swallowed the impulse. Quenthel had allowed him to live even after the draegloth had attacked her. Pharaun dared not act so presumptuously.

Frowning with frustration, he reached out and put a hand to Quenthel.

"Mistress," he hissed and shook her.

She frowned, mouthed something incomprehensible, but her eyes did not open.

Jeggred uttered a growl. The draegloth's fighting hands clenched into fists. Pharaun wondered for a moment about what Jeggred might have seen in his journey through the Pass of the

Soulreaver, then decided that such things were better left unknown.

He climbed to his feet and stood on wobbly legs.

Fire exploded all around him, soaking the ledge in light and heat. His magical protections shielded him from substantial damage from the flames, but the explosion blew the breath from his lungs, seared his exposed skin, and knocked him flat.

He sat up, blinking, looked to Quenthel, and saw that she too had come through the fireball relatively unharmed, partially because she had been prone. Unfortunately, Danifae and Jeggred too looked blackened but alive.

Another explosion rocked the ledge, then another. The heat was melting the rock. Smoke made Pharaun's eyes water. Crisped spiders fell from the heights like black snow.

What in the name of the Abyss is happening? he thought.

A lightning bolt ripped across the face of the ledge, shattering rock. Fragments of stone buried themselves in Pharaun's face, in Quenthel's hands, in Jeggred's flesh.

Quenthel's serpents came hissing to life, followed by their mistress.

From Pharaun's left, Jeggred too awoke fully, his i

For a long moment, the four of them stared at one another.

Another explosion rocked the mountainside.

"What's happening?" Jeggred growled, as he climbed to his feet.

Danifae stood and said to Quenthel, "It seems we've both passed the trial of the Soulreaver,

Mistress Quenthel."

Quenthel's serpents hissed at the former battle-captive.

"So it appears," Quenthel acknowledged.

Pharaun started to crawl toward the lip of the ledge, but before he reached it, an impenetrable cloud of white vapor cloaked the edge, and veins of superheated embers suffused it. Pharaun recognized the spell-an incendiary cloud. The embers sank into Pharaun's skin, burning their way through his protective spells.

Pharaun threw the hood of his enchanted piwafwi over his head. The embers still found his hands, and he gritted his teeth against the pain.