His course steady, his own courage unfailing, he finally reached the shores of Nexal's lakes.
And here he witnessed the source of the True World's terror.
Halloran sensed Erixitl's arms around him, and he clung to her with all the strength of his mindless terror. Around them the world came to pieces. Chaos reigned.
He didn't wonder why they weren't burned to ashes immediately. He saw fire in the form of red, liquid rock, exploding upward and outward in a wave of certain death. But that wave washed around them, and he knew only that Erix was in his arms, that the two of them were together, and it seemed certain they would die that way.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Hal tried to block out the nightmare around them, but he could not. Still he saw glowing crimson liquid splashing, he saw the summit of the huge mountain as it crumbled and collapsed around them. Rain poured into the cavern, creating a hissing inferno of steam, shattering rock and boiling away the instant it reached the ground.
Slowly the horrors around him seemed to fade, and he knew only that he held the woman he loved. He loved her more than he had ever thought he could love, and he desperately wanted to soothe the trembling he could feel in her body.
"Are you… alive?" asked Erix some time later. He wondered at first whether he had dreamed her voice.
"I… don't know," he replied honestly. "I think so, but I don't know how."
"I do," she replied, still dreamily nuzzling her face into the hollow of his neck. "It is the will of Qotal."
Halloran looked around them at the inferno of flame and molten rock and explosive gases. For the first time, he realized that they hadn't remained immobile during the eruption. Instead, they floated with the force of the blast, riding gently in the shelter of the…
What did protect them? He noticed that they watched the fiery chaos through a spiderweb-like grid. Looking closer, he recognized a pattern of feathers and down, creating a globe only large enough to hold the two of them.
"My cloak," explained Erix, still speaking as if she were dazed. "It is truly the gift of Qotal, and so it protects us, holding the fires of Zaltec at bay." Indeed, the Cloak of One Plume encircled them both, protecting them from the inferno yet showing them the full, horrifying devastation wrought by the gods.
"Is this the god – Zaltec?" Hal asked, gesturing to the fiery maelstrom.
"It is Zaltec, and more. This I see now, from a very high place." As Erix spoke, Hal noticed that they had indeed begun to rise above the explosion, floating dreamily in their soft, transparent cocoon, overlooking the god-wracked valley of Nexal so terribly far below.
"I see Zaltec meeting Helm in the struggle for mastery, and both of them threaten to destroy each other. But more, I see a spidery presence, the dark god of the Ancient Ones-"
"Lolth!" interjected Halloran. "Spider queen of darkness! You see her, too?'
"Yes. It is her rage that causes the mountain to explode. She is furious with her children, the drow. They have foresaken her in the quest for earthly rewards, turning to the worship of Zaltec."
Erixitl turned to look at Halloran, and the expression in her eyes seemed very far away. "Erix? What's wrong? You're here, with me!" He spoke loudly, with force, and slowly her eyes focused.
"Yes, I know. Hold me." She was quiet for a long time then as they drifted through the sky.
The cocoon of pluma seemed to float like a bubble on a light spring breeze. Even through the black of the night, they could see ruin wracked upon the city below. Lava flowed into the cool waters of the lakes, erupting in mountainous pillars of steam. The rain stilt fell, but it was a black, heavy rain, and it seemed to punish those under its downpour.
Below, in Nexal, they could see many thousands of people fleeing in panic from the confines of the doomed city. They saw the causeway, hours earlier the scene of savage battle, now the avenue for countless thousands of terrified Mazticans. As the two of them watched, drifting safely overhead, a steaming wave rose from the lake. Hissing and bubbling, it swept over one of the causeways, carrying the panicked humans away.
Convulsions wracked the earth upon which the city rested, and most of its great buildings tumbled into ruins. Only the Great Pyramid stood, and as Hal and Erix drifted past, high above it, they saw long, serpentine cracks run up the sides of the structure. The three temples atop the pyramid swayed, finally crumbling.
Then the whole great edifice, mightiest of the centers of the True World, twisted and broke and finally collapsed into rubble.
The palace walls buckled and crumbled around the terrified mare. Storm reared in panic, her hooves kicking the cracked adobe. The courtyard where Poshtil had kept the horse abruptly twisted, a great section sinking away. Wild lake waters surged into the opening.
With a maddened spring, Storm hurled herself across the open water, but her leap fell short. Splashing into the turbulence, she kicked free of the tumbling stone, desperately swimming toward the open waters of the lake.
The city surged, exploded, and died, but the horse pressed forward, uncaring of the surrounding chaos. Pressing through widening canals, snorting and kicking in fear, she finally reached the deep waters of Lake Azul. Deepest of the four lakes and farthest from the exploding mountain, its waters had not yet suffered the worst effects of the convulsions.
With strong strokes, the roan struggled through the waves until she reached the far northern shore. With a toss of her water-soaked head, she scrambled onto the shore and immediately galloped toward the wilds of northern Maztica.
The surviving drow sensed the imminence of disaster and teleported from the Highcave to refuge in caverns deep within the mountain. They escaped seconds before the lair – caldron, Darkfyre, and all – dissolved in an explosive convulsion of heat and pressure.
Zatal erupted, spewing lava, ash, smoke, and volcanic stone into the sky. Sizzling rivers of molten rock flooded down the slopes of the mountain, while chunks of the peak tumbled through the sky, wheeling gracefully before plummeting to earth. Steam billowed upward as a hissing black cloud of ash spread across the valley.
With the release of the volcano, like the popping cork of a bottle, Lolth's power surged into the True World. As the gods of the humans wrestled below, she laid her dark curse across the land.
That curse settled first upon the drow, huddled deep within the bowels of their exploding mountain. Most of them had reached temporary, imagined safety in their subterranean lairs, but even here the curse of Lolth crept toward them. Like a dark fog, her spidery essence slipped into the lairs, punishing her children for their dedication to a god of humans. She cast her curse upon the dark elves, and they changed forever.
Crying out in agony and horror, the drow thrashed and writhed, their bodies wracked by the all-consuming vengeance of their dark goddess. The sleek elven shapes grew grotesque and bloated, trailing great, immobile abdomens as their lower limbs withered and fell away. From these abdomens sprouted legs – eight legs each – that were covered with coarse fur. Dark elven heads and torsos – and minds – remained, so that they could know their disgrace. But the grotesque and hateful bodies would belong to them as long as they lived.
In horror, the drow regarded each other, no longer slim, handsome figures. Lolth had visited upon them the ultimate punishment, and the repulsive, spidery forms of the Ancient Ones would serve as a constant, painful reminder of their deity's vengeance.
For they became driders, outcast spider beasts of the drow.
But Lolth's vengeance was not merely directed at her wayward followers. Her power reached the cult of the Viperhand, since that order had flowed from the bidding of the drow. And its members were marked by the crimson brand.