Chapter Three: Furious Ironies

Drizzt and Guenhwyvar resumed their journey toward the cave entrance that would take them back into the bowels of Toril. Drizzt tried not to ponder the implications of what Serenaed had just revealed, even as he kept a lookout for more trouble along the way. Although it was not entirely out of the question that the witch had concocted a lie to save her own skin, Drizzt trusted his instincts.

Her eyes had told the truth, even if her mouth had not done so in full.

Guenhwyvar bumped against his side before trotting ahead. The ranger noted the slackness in the panther's muscles. The magical entity could not remain on the physical plane much longer, he knew. That made it all the more reason to hurry. He wanted her with him at least until he entered the cave. When he saw that Guen had gone about thirty yards, he kicked into a sprint. Enhanced by the magical bracers on his ankles, he bypassed his furry companion so suddenly that the cat spun a complete circuit, as if wondering whether some grave new danger had arrived on the scene. Once it was clear that there was not, Guenhwyvar roared a challenge to her long-time friend and accelerated to maximum speed. Drizzt gritted his teeth and pushed the capacity of the bracers beyond what he had done in many years.

The result was a shifting stalemate, with the drow edging ahead of the panther, and vice versa, every so often.

* * * * *

The demon-witch pulled herself from the weeds in which she'd fallen and had almost perished. She could not believe what had just occurred. Even with all the power her Mistress had granted her, she had just barely managed to come through the ordeal with her life -- a situation that might not endure much longer.

She felt a familiar throbbing at the core of her being, a discordant twang in the universal harmonies connected with her sould, like an iron chord of webbing to which she was permanently attached would be disturbed by the approach of its host. Something sinister was moving toward the physical plane with terrifying speed, and without any mortal wizard to provide a gateway! Serenaed's breath came in shallow puffs as the sensation increased, her crimson eyes dilating to amber as she whipped her head this way and that. A sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach told her the identity of the encroaching being long before it made its first steps through the Weave and into the mortal realm. Now the words she had spoken to Drizzt Do'Urden were a dead weight upon her breasts; the number of truths revealed outnumbering the necessary lies could prove her death sentence, after all. She panicked, thinking to take to the sky and hide among the dark clouds that had amassed in the east.

Faster than thought, a spider's leg the size of a javelin drove through her spine and burst through her rib cage, a fountain of ichor painting the night air and the grass around her. She gasped in shock, though only a faint rush of air issued from her throat. A hissing voice, as from a vivid nightmare, suffused her brain with what she realized would be the last words she would ever hear in this world.

"You should never have told the renegade drow about the fate of the moon elves," the voice rasped. "The Lycanthropic Curse is the gauntlet we need to seize the Realms by the genitalia! Now you have gone and revealed your true nature prematurely, simply because Drizzt elected to deviate from the path, when you already knew his intentions were travel straight away to find his father's tome in the land of my mother's chosen people. Drizzt would not have discovered anything from our minion, had you kept your distance from the start.

"Your life on this plane of existence is forefeit, therefore," the hissing continued in the fading consciousness of Serenaed. "The terms of your banishment will be decided by my sons when you arrive at the Blood Gates. For such is the punishment for betrayal, especially this early in the game!"

Serenaed made one last effort to scream. But the implosion of her physical body wiped out the sound before it ever surfaced. Stepping fully through the void created by her wrath between the Prime Material Plane and the six-hundredth layer of the Abyss, the Drider Princess breathed in the chill wind as though drinking from the Eternal Fountain of Lust. Eight beaming red eyes glared out from the flawless onyx that was her forehead as she studied the landscape. She could not remain for long.

Already she could feel the rising anger of the Higher Ones for having breached the gap between realities. She spat a silent curse against the name Drizzt Do'Urden. Perhaps that one was indeed blessed by the Spider Queen, Lethryl supposed. Even in death, it seemed that Lloth was having one more laugh at all the furious ironies spawned by this particularly troublesome drow. The Drider Princess narrowed all eight of her eyes, a feral grin spreading across her ebon-skinned features.

"See you soon, Drizzt," she hissed into the wind, before plunging back into the void.