"There's a lot you never told them," Aliisza whispered to the Spider Queen.
If the goddess could hear her—and Aliisza had no reason to believe she could—Lolth didn't answer.
The alu-fiend absently scratched a doodle in the brown dust on the underside of the massive web strand onto which she clung: a bit of graffiti no eyes would ever see. Her mind was racing; she had a lot to think about.
Aliisza had abandoned Pharaun and the others, leaving them to crash into the Plain of Infinite Portals simply on a whim. It pleased her that Pharaun survived, but she didn't give the others a second thought. Still, Aliisza had made her choice, and it was an obvious one. She chose Kaanyr Vhok.
Though she knew she would go back to him, she also knew that she had helped Pharaun and his expedition along a bit more effectively than Vhok would have approved of. He might not have asked her to stop them, but he certainly hadn't asked her to help them. Aliisza knew the cambion well enough, though, to know that the more she came back with, the more forgiving he would be.
Pharaun and the other drow disappeared into the abandoned ruin, and Aliisza closed her eyes.
She was a tanar'ri and as such could move about the planes with a bit more ease than most. With a thought she was back in the Astral, floating free in the endless aether.
"You left the Abyss," Aliisza whispered to herself, though she addressed Lolth, "before you fell silent, so. ."
She didn't bother finishing the thought, only concentrated on a name: Lolth.
She closed her eyes again and let the name roll over and over again in her mind, and after a time, her body began to move. Any god's name has power, if you know how to use it.
When she opened her eyes she was surrounded by ghosts.
Translucent gray shades floated all around her, all of them with similar features: the pointed ears, almond-shaped eyes, and thin, aristocratic faces of the dark elves. There were a lot of them—a war's worth—and they were all headed across the Astral Plane toward the same destination.
Aliisza drifted in front of one of them, a strong-looking male dressed for battle, regal in his armor and helm.
"Can you hear me?" she asked the spirit. "Can you see me?"
The dead drow looked right at her and lifted an eyebrow. He stood stock still, but his body continued to drift through the endless expanse, unerringly falling sideways toward its final destination.
"My name is Aliisza," she said. "Do you know where you are?"
Yes,the drow answered directly into her mind. His mouth was open, but his lips didn't move. I can feel it. I'm dead. I died. I was killed.
"What is your name?"
I was Vilto'sat Shobalar, the soldier answered, but now I am nothing. My body rots away, my House forgets me, and I pass on. Are you here to torment me?
"I'm sorry?" the alu-fiend asked, confused by the drow spirit's sudden change of subject.
You're a demon, he said. Are you here to torment me? For my failure on the battlefield or simply to satisfy your cruel nature?
Aliisza's hackles rose, and she couldn't help but sneer at the dead drow. He had obviously mistaken her for a different sort of tanar'ri altogether, and she didn't find it flattering in the least.
"If I was here to torment you," she said, "you'd know it, mushroom farm."
Vilto'sat Shobalar turned away from her with a look of haughty contempt that was the only thing, apparently, dark elves took to the grave.
Aliisza moved on along the line of dead drow, and as she progressed in the direction of their travel, moving faster than the wandering souls, the density of the ghosts increased, as if they had been stacking up, one after another, for a long time. Finally, her curiosity getting the better of her, she stopped another drow spirit: a female dressed in finery that made the alu-fiend momentarily jealous.
"Lady," she said, sketching an overwrought bow that the dead dark elf seemed to find insulting, "may I speak with you briefly as you complete your journey?"
There's nothing you can do to torment me, demon, the shade said into Aliisza's mind, so move on and let me be dead in peace.
Aliisza hissed and almost reached out to grab the female by her throat then realized that her hands would pass through the priestess. The dead female would have no physical form again until she arrived at her final destination. The Astral Plane was only a way to get from one universe to another. There, the dead drow were incorporeal ghosts.
"I'm not here to torment you, bitch," Aliisza said, "but I will if you don't answer a question or two."
Lolth has turned her back on us, the priestess replied. What worse could you do?
"I could leave you in the Astral forever," Aliisza replied—a hollow threat, but the ghost didn't need to know that.
What do you want? the drow replied.
"Who are you," she asked, "and how long have you been here, awaiting Lolth's grace?"
I am Greyanna Mizzrym, the ghost replied—and Aliisza thought something about the name was oddly familiar. I have no idea how long I've been here, but I can feel myself moving. That only just started. Is Lolth ready to take us in? Has she sent you?
"Can you feel her?" Aliisza asked, ignoring he dark elf's questions. "Does she call you?"
The priestess looked away, as if listening for something, then she shook her head.
I'm moving toward something, Greyanna said. I can feel it, but I do not hear Lolth.
Aliisza turned to look in the direction the line of drow souls were moving. At the end of the very long line was a whirlpool of red and black—a gateway to the outer planes that was drawing the souls in.
"That's not the Abyss," Aliisza said.
It's home, whispered the bodiless soul of Greyanna Mizzrym. I can feel it. It is. It's the Demonweb Pits.
Aliisza's heart raced.
"The Demonweb Pits," the alu-fiend repeated, "but not the Abyss."
Aliisza stopped herself and hung in the gray expanse off to one side of the procession of dead drow.
"Well," Aliisza whispered to an unhearing Lolth, "moving up in the world, aren't we?"
The alu-fiend closed her eyes and concentrated on Kaanyr Vhok. She let her consciousness travel through the Astral and back to the cold, hard Underdark. There she found her lover's mind and dropped a message into it.
Something is happening with the Demonweb Pits, she sent. It's a plane unto itself now, and the gates are open. Lolth welcomes home the dead. She lives.
That was all she could say, and she hoped it would be warning enough. Aliisza could have shifted back to the Underdark in an instant and been by her lover's side, but she didn't. She wanted to stay where she was, though she didn't know why.
Nimor had given up trying to claw Gromph. Instead, he started to work on forcing the archmage to attack him, but the drow wouldn't oblige. The feeling Nimor had that Gromph somehow knew what he was thinking—maybe before he even thought it—grew stronger and stronger and made Nimor start to second-guess himself. It was no way to fight.
Nimor stepped back and so did Gromph. The assassin could see Dyrr slowly circling them both from a safe—some would say cowardly—distance. The assassin was about to speak when a familiar nettling buzzed in his skull.
Aliisza is in the Demonweb Pits, the voice of Kaanyr Vhok sounded in his head. Something is happening, and it will be bad for us all. I'm not waiting to find out how bad.
For the first time in a very, very long time, Nimor's blood ran cold.
Gromph twitched, almost gasped, and Nimor couldn't help but look at him. Their eyes locked, and an instant of understanding passed between them. Nimor stepped back, and Gromph nodded. The archmage still kept the ghostly battle-axe in front of him but didn't advance. He breathed heavily, sweat running down the sides of his face and matting his snow-white hair to his forehead.