Extinction

"Lolth help us," Nauzhror said in a strangled voice. "They've managed to get control of one of the constructs."

As the jade spider advanced, the drow fell back in confusion. One or two prostrated themselves before it?only to receive the same treatment as the first soldier.

The spider continued its relentless advance, and soon several drow lay in bloody heaps behind it. Within moments, the spider had carved a gap through both the mushroom forest and the troops?a gap the tanarukks were quick to exploit.

"Attack, curse you!" Triel cried as the enemy surged forward.

The drow soldiers were too far away to have heard her, but thankfully one of their officers?probably Andzrel, judging by the black armor and cloak?rallied them. They fell upon the tanarukks from either side and quickly closed the gap the spider had opened. But even as the enemy was driven back once more toward the cavern wall, the jade spider continued to advance. Leaving the struggling foes and the mushroom forest behind, it scaled the slope that led from Qu'ellarz'orl up to the House Baenre compound. It moved swiftly and in a few moments more was at the barrier.

It hesitated just outside the high fence that enclosed the compound as if contemplating the magic that flowed through the barrier's glowing silver strands, then it turned toward one of the stalagmites to which the fence was attached. As the House guard on the balconies above watched in confusion, the construct scaled the stone as easily as a living spider, climbing to a point just above the fence. It leaped down over the barrier, then began moving toward the center of the compound.

Triel's eyes narrowed as she saw where it was headed. The jade spider was making its way to House Baenre's central structure?the great domed temple of Lolth.

Wilara gasped as she, too, calculated the spider's course.

"They dare attack our temple?" the priestess cried.

Nauzhror, with a sidelong look at Triel, exploded with appropriate rage.

"The insolence!" the interim archmage fumed. "May Lolth's webs strangle them!"

His familiar?a fist-sized, hairy brown spider?scuttled from one of his shoulders to the other, disturbed by the mage's violent motion.

Triel pursed her lips, saying nothing. The temple might be the target, but an attack on it was not the enemy's chief aim. There was little a single jade spider?or even a dozen of them for that matter?could do to harm the building itself. Triel was sure that the incursion was intended to be a demonstration, made where all could see it, that Lolth had turned her face away from her chosen people. The spider would have to be stopped?but anyone doing so outside the doors of a building consecrated to Lolth would incur the goddess's wrath.

In ordinary times, at least.

Triel longed to cry out to Lolth, to plead for the goddess to tell her what to do, but she knew what the answer would be: silence. The Matron Mother of the First House was on her own?and if the jade spider wasn't stopped, Menzoberranzan's weakness would be plain for all to see. The males of House Baenre, fighting so valiantly to force the enemy back into the tu

That could not be.

"The enemy knows our weakness," Triel said in a tense voice. "They must believe that Lolth has fallen silent forever and hope to make it plain for all to see."

Beside her, Wilara stiffened. Then amazingly, she contradicted her matron mother.

"No," the priestess said, shaking her head and causing the long braid that hung down her back to ripple like a snake. "The goddess will answer. She must."

The vipers in Triel's whip hissed their a

"Lolth may awaken yet," she said, speaking as much to steady herself as for the lesser priestess's benefit. "My sister Quenthel has not yet given up, so neither should we. But in the meantime, we have to rely upon ourselves. And upon other forms of magic."

She turned to Nauzhror and asked, "Do you know the spell that will transform stone to flesh?"

"I do, Matron Mother," he answered, "but if we transform it to flesh, the statue will become a living spider. The problem remains. We just can't. . kill it."

"Quite so," Triel said. As she spoke, she unfastened one of the wand cases hanging from her belt. "But by the time we're finished, it won't be a spider." She drew out a slender iron wand, tipped with a chunk of amber whose depths held the remains of a desiccated moth. "As soon as you cast your spell, I'll polymorph it into something else?something large and dangerous enough to have torn a hole through our ranks. Something our troops won't have any problem attacking."

Nauzhror smiled and said, "A deceitful plan, Matron Mother. One worthy of Lolth herself."

Glancing down, Triel saw that the spider had nearly reached the temple.

"Quit fawning," she ordered. "Teleport us down there at once."

Nauzhror spoke the words of his spell, and an instant later the balcony seemed to lurch sideways as he and Triel squeezed between the dimensions. In the blink of an eye they were standing in front of the doors to the great temple. Two dozen House guards who had been milling about uncertainly a moment before gasped as their matron mother suddenly appeared before them. Some bowed, and others glanced between Triel and the jade spider that was rapidly approaching, its stone legs click-clicking as it scurried across the Nauzhror, his face paling to gray as the enormous stone spider rapidly closed the gap, began chanting a spell. He pointed a finger, from which an intense, narrow beam or red light sprang, but the trembling or his hand made the beam waver, causing it to miss the spider by several paces.

Triel grabbed Nauzhror's hand, steadying it. The beam co

The spider shifted into the form she held in her mind; a two-legged creature with powerful muscles, enormous claws and mandibles, and a rounded, insectoid head. Its body was covered in chitinous plates, and feelers sprouted from cracks near its head where the sections met. Startled by its sudden transformation, the creature stumbled to a halt, feelers waving frantically as its mandibles clacked shut.

"Matron Mother," Nauzhror gasped. "An umber hulk?"

"Convincing, isn't it?" Triel said with a wry smile. She turned to the dozen or so soldiers who stood gaping nearby and ordered, "Soldiers of House Baenre, you have been fooled by an illusion. Defend me!"

To a man, the soldiers leaped forward, swords in hand. The transformed statue fought back, its mandibles tearing one soldier in half and neatly scissoring the head off another. Then a lieutenant of the House guard?a small male with white hair plaited in two braids that were tucked behind his pointed ears?leaped directly into the path of the umber hulk. He wore no armor, and his only weapon was a small crossbow strapped to his left wrist. He aimed deliberately as the umber hulk staggered toward him?still uncertain of its footing with only two legs, instead of eight?and he fired.

The bolt struck the umber hulk in the throat, in a spot where two of its armor plates met. It buried itself to the fletching in soft flesh?then exploded with magical energy. Sparks raced in brilliant streaks across the umber hulk's body, then shot up its feelers, sizzling them like burned hair. The umber hulk faltered, then fell.

The lieutenant?whom Triel belatedly recognized as one of her nephews, a male named Vrellin?dropped to one knee in front of her.

"Matron Mother," he said, never once lifting his eyes. "I failed to recognize the threat. My life is yours,"