AUTHOR'S NOTES: Yeah, it's been a while. Nearly a year and a half, actually (the time does fly). Anyhow, I'm putting up this chapter, and the two after it, because someone indicated they might enjoy it. This fic is discontinued; short of an act of gods these next three chapters will be the last. Apologies to everyone left hanging, and here's your warning.

Chapter Four: Running Amok

Selvetarm's eyes felt open, but when he tried to blink he realized they wouldn't close any further. When he realized he could open them instead, he immediately forbade himself from doing so.

So many called on him at once, and he thought he might be levitated by their voices, thought he saw the movement, but he felt nothing of the levitation. He fulfilled requests for spells without thought. He heard a good chunk of the rest of what they said, as well, but he couldn't seem to move a tongue to reply and wasn't particularly inclined to try harder.

Blood ebbed and flowed around him and he supposed he was in it now. He could see it around him and ahead and behind, a curving band, and he thought, This is Garagos's river, isn't it? Supposing he sees me, what do I say to him? assuming he could say anything.

Meaningless dreams. They would end when the sleep deepened, or if they didn't he wouldn't remember them which was the same as them ending wasn't it? If they wouldn't end it exactly as he would have liked then at least he could float, unfeeling, and that couldn't be so terrible all possibilities considered. He had to stop moving sometime, everything had to stop moving, and after that…

Eilistraee had tried to calm him, once. They sat in abstractions of forest clearings not in Arvandor never in Arvandor and she clasped his hands and asked him first to concentrate and then to relax but it wouldn't carry him away, or he wouldn't let it carry him, and she'd given him that look, the one that had always made his gut clench as if she'd driven his own sword through it, and he promised he would try harder and she said it wasn't needed, it was all right as it was, it was just - and he knew it was because there wasn't enough of elven in him for the Reverie, not true elven, and he said so and she said no it was quite all right because plenty of mortals and gods did perfectly well without it and it was just - well - it was just…

Shardax glanced around the shop. "It mostly seems to be around the Grand Temple, I gather," he volunteered. "That and the Houses."

"Seems and is." Drada adjusted her smock and made for her stock of crossbow bolts. "It's usual business, except no Selvetargtlin in for anything since. No obvious ones, but they do tend to be obvious. I suppose Micarlin would be mixed up in it, but she's long gone. Are you sure I can't interest you in shatterbolts?"

"Sorry. With what I've got planned, they'd go shattering beforeI'd got to use them. But I'll have an extra lot of prepped, and one of deadbolts if you've got them."

"If I've got? Oh, have I got. Zhaunil," she called to her brother. "Special. Deads."

Zhaunil nodded, but instead of heading into the back of the shop he only took a few paces before opening a crate and retrieving a carefully wrapped bundle. Shardax raised an eyebrow as he read the runes on the crate, and raised it further as he read those on the crates stacked below and around it. The Jhalavars seemed to have taken a good bit of their "special" merchandise into the front. He could see hand crossbows and ammunition attached to the belts around their smocks. "Can't be too careful, can you?"

"Can't be too careful," said Drada as Zhaunil reached them with the bundle. "We mightn't be Selvetargtlin ourselves, but we've demonstrated these things for years. We ought to know something of it."

Shardax already had the usual asking price in hand, along with that for his additional requests, and they quickly made the swap. The crossbow bolts were tucked into their designated sections - deadbolt, prepped, and magical - even the regular ones were set apart from the lot he'd picked up from a shop in the northeast. Drada seemed fairly sensible, as the westerners went, but she was still a westerner - and her one daughter was a priestess in the Temple Guard.

"It's not even the right month for an anniversary rampage," said Drada. "I have to wonder. I truly do."

"So do I," said Shardax, utterly sincere.

"Micarlin told me she'd seen the avatar, back then."

"Did she?"

"She did. Her and Ang Pharn's middle boy. She kept going on about it before they ran off to the Temple. They certainly didn't do that for love of the Spider Queen. Now what was his name?" she addressed Zhaunil. "Ang's middle."

"That'd be Lesaonar."

"Yes, Lesaonar."

"Almost made mage," said Zhaunil. "Nearest to it of her boys. Best focus." He sounded vaguely irritated at the thought. "I think he made cleric instead."

"One less place for that crafting magic of yours to go, ah?" As he recalled, Zhaunil prided himself on the magic he worked into the Jhalavars' merchandise - he'd developed several innovations on the process that would be no doubt fascinating to other crafting mages, and several times he'd been on the brink of throwing these innovations into Shardax's face. This atypical desire to share knowledge was the main thing from which he hung his memory of Zhaunil Jhalavar.

Drada laughed. "You're a sharp one. I always tell him, better value if nobody knows. He can charge for lessons once we're set up."

If this shop wasn't set up, Shardax didn't know what was. Time for a digression. "So this Lesaonar's in the Guard with her, then?" He couldn't see how useful the answer might be, but not every word of his could be in pursuit of useful information or else Drada would probably catch on and start charging by the question. Besides, it wasn't as though he minded conversation.

"Was. There was that business not long after…"

"Ah. That business."

"So, then," said Drada. "Who's that with you? A friend?"

Shardax stifled a groan. He'd almost managed to forget Phyx. "No."

"Ah." Her smile widened slightly. "I see." She probably didn't, but Shardax felt no need to point this out. "Well, I oughtn't be keeping you."

Phyx was still standing outside the Jhalavars' shop where Shardax had left him. Shardax wished he could deliver a telling-off, but Phyx didn't deserve one quite as much as Shardax would have liked. He'd left behind his knee-high galoshes - which would have been an obvious mark of an inhabitant of the oft-flooded southeast - not to mention made a passable effort at braiding up his long hair in a fashionable wizard's style, and put some kind of illusion on his too-pale eyes to make them appear a stronger red.

"We'd best be going now," he said. "Got what I came for," he continued unnecessarily.

Phyx nodded once.

Shardax lifted his hands and signed, Ghaunadaur got your tongue? Then he started walking, angling his pace to press gradually deeper into the western plateau. If only the mage's reason for silence was that he'd sacrificed his speech to his god. At least then Shardax could have drawn up some measure of amused pity.

Several steps later, Phyx spoke from behind him. "No."

Shardax shrugged and said nothing more. Talking to the follower of Ghaunadaur gave him the feeling of pitching coins into a bottomless pit. It was as though they'd chosen the most irritating "partner" they could for him. How was he to get anything done with this one hovering about?

It wouldn't matter, really, what he could or couldn't do. The higher-ups of both religious factions would be sending out their own, elite agents to gather the real information independently. They'd nod and smile at each other, point at the partnered operatives, and pretend it was something more valuable than a token gesture toward their alliance.

But just because it was meaningless didn't mean the consequences would be any less for Shardax if he botched.

He patted the most obvious of his hand crossbows. At least he might be able to take out some spider-kissers on the way.

If Paedriel turned his head just so, he could make out the body of the drow priestess sprawled on the floor in the flickering light of the braziers. The scalpel she'd been using at the time lay some distance away - she'd tried to stab the other drow with it, and that was where the other drow had tossed it after plucking it from his forearm. Rings were torn from her fingers, an amulet from around her neck, cloak from around her shoulders, the pockets emptied.

Then the other drow had tossed the body away as he'd tossed the scalpel, and walked out of the room with what he'd appropriated. He didn't seem to have noticed Paedriel.

There were worse places to be left. His limbs could rest somewhat while stretched out on the long table, and horizontal as he was the chains wouldn't bite at his wrists when he tired. She hadn't got that far into the session, so there wasn't so much blood. Neither was there so much outright agony, or the deceptively mild stinging that could abruptly transmute into fire underneath his skin with the errant twitch of a muscle. Not so much.

He wondered why he hadn't managed to die yet. Fine priest of Sehanine Moonbow he made if he was so scared of death that he stayed in this -

Forget that. Ignore that. He'd always been a dreamer, so they'd said. If those dreams kept him from peace in Arvandor for now, he should at least get them to bring him in between.

He turned his head back, focused on what he could make out of the ceiling. Sehanine help me…

Dream. Transcend. Wait, was that - not those ones, not those, he'd quite enough of drow already-

Footsteps.

Ignore them. Dream. Better yet, Reverie. He'd once expressed a pity for N'Tel'Quess because on top of everything they had four fewer waking hours a day than the People, and he'd been a fool.

"Look," in the language of the drow. "There's even a faerie laid out for you, princess, while you wait. I'll have to take these out, naturally, but I'm sure you can be creative."

An indecipherable mumble in reply. Footsteps away, and back several times as things were dragged out of the room. Darkness as the braziers went. Steps away a last time, and the door closed.

Silence, for a time, followed by a softer pacing around the table. The "princess," presumably.

"Oh," she said. "Tazaldyn missed this, looks like." Further silence. "I forget, you'll be blind." He felt something thin and smooth press against the palm of one hand, roll along it to the base of his shattered fingers; he guessed it was the scalpel again. "Can you feel it? No, that's a stupid question. You can't very well answer with that in your mouth; you probably don't know what I'm saying, and you're probably not even awake. You've probably walled yourself up into a corner of your mind. The Truth of the Seeker told me about cases like that."

Paedriel held still, eyes open in the dark, tongue pressed against the gag she'd reminded him of. It had been placed there to further deny him spells. Now it helped deny himself uncalled-for laughter.

Steps away. "Ah-" Shifting, voice lowered. "Insignia - where is it - ah." She raised her voice. "This was Mistress Myrahel. Fourth House. By the by, mine was third. Though it may not be much longer, what with the Truth of the Seeker and Wehlzyr…"

Abruptly, what must be the scalpel blade was pressed to his throat. "You want I should use this?" After several breaths, the blade went away again. "No, then I'd just be in here with two stinking corpses. I doubt Tazaldyn missed Mistress Myrahel like he missed this. I suppose I'm to look at her and… contemplate my fate, or some such thing. You can contemplate it along with me, if you like - I can't imagine yours is so much more pleasant."

If she knew he was conscious she'd likely gouge out his eyes in spite. Mustn't laugh… mustn't laugh…

"I wonder," she said, "if I had to drink her blood, would that help thirst, or is it too sticky? You wouldn't happen to know that, would you? Move if you know what I'm on about - do something."

He did nothing.

Paedriel only knew how close he'd come to Reverie when her whisper jolted him from it. "He was the one who was there, you see. And he was male, so I wasn't as afraid I was of Matron Renthrae. He was always there, and he was there then, talking to Wehlzyr's spirit and finding out what he'd been about. I'd been the one to come there. I'd come there thinking to help him… it fit at the time."

Another few rounds about the table, her speech continuing all the while. "I think I should have been more afraid of him."

You'd think they would have chosen a better time to go off, Shardax thought with not a small amount of bitterness as he observed a group in the kit of the Temple Guard. Say, back when their keepers had lost their venom. I suppose it's a good sign that they've figured it out at all, but leave it to spider-kissers to be so absolutely inconvenient. Years late, and the most fantastic opportunity in millennia short.

The pair worked their way toward the Grand Temple, skirting around the edges of street skirmishes that arose with increasing frequency. They'd yet to be spotted in an obvious way. There were plenty of fleers in the vicinity, including a considerable number who crept along the edges, and as long as they made out to be headed away from the Grand Temple, or at least trying to be, they seemed to be doing all right.

Cloaked in invisibility backed up by his piwafwi, Shardax edged along a nearby House's fence. Phyx, meanwhile, walked relatively openly, imbued with a spell that would allow him to keep track of Shardax as well as any other invisible creatures. Shardax had warned him not to keep too close of a track - invisibility was essentially useless if any watcher could conclude location by line of sight. He'd been further irritated by Phyx's offhand nod in response, and resolved that if he were caught as a result his dying act would be to outline the Ghaunadan in faerie fire.

Another lot came down the alley - five, Temple novices from the look of them. House insignias ranged from Xelvek, the seventeenth, all the way to a Vretenou in the lead. He knew House Vretenou mainly for the Matron's pet judicator - nobody with sense wanted a Vretenou job, not after what said pet did to the last spy he'd caught. The spy had been valuable enough to spend effort in resurrecting, but his soul expressly refused to leave Ellaniath and some of the most powerful clerics of the northeast shook their heads in resignation. Pledged reward for that particular Selvetargtlin's trapped soul climbed.

Lolth's servant bitches had only just been patting his head over the latest raid, and wouldn't they be regretting that now!

"Ginkacha," called one of the novices. "Mightn't we slow?" Most of the rest did in response. The Vretenou, meanwhile, continued to move, nearing Phyx, who had promptly changed direction on their appearance.

"Ginkacha!" yelped another.

Likely-Ginkacha ignored the others, addressing Phyx. "You!" Phyx turned, arms folded. "Where are we, male?"

Shardax readied a crossbow as he continued to edge along. Phyx, as expected, said nothing, but continued to walk backward at an impressive speed.

She walked after him just as quickly, the other novices trailing some distance behind her like young rothé. "I asked you a question, male."

Shardax decided then that she had to die. Granted, she was saying it to Phyx, but it was the principle of the matter. Deadbolts would be overkill, he decided, and selected one of Drada's prepped instead.

"Ginkacha." The Xelvek this time. "Dark Mother, it's not worth it. My House can't be that far. Matron -"

"Bother your Matron," said Ginkacha without turning around. "They've probably already overrun your excuse for a House. I'm going to mine. After I pay back this insolent commoner."

He found a good position a ways down the alley, lifted the crossbow, and took aim. Phyx was turning his head, sweeping the width of the alley; he gave no sign of seeing what Shardax was about.

"Is that so?" The Xelvek again, her outrage apparently breaking whatever hold she'd had on her tongue. "What with all of Vretenou's oh-so-powerful Selvetargtlin, it'll be overrun eight times over at least-"

Shardax fired the crossbow. His invisibility dissipated, but that mattered little at his current vantage. At the same time, Phyx finally opened his mouth and whispered, "Vanish." He promptly did just that. He'd stashed a wand in his piwafwi, Shardax guessed, or perhaps some other magical device.When properly positioned it would be a matter of moments to take hold of it and utter the command word.

The Vretenou opened her mouth and dropped. Two of the novices, including the Xelvek, fled down the alley. The remaining two stared about, drawing their weapons - dagger for one, mace for the other.

You do runners, he signed toward where he'd last seen Phyx. Then he set about reloading. One of them had cast an enhancer, while the other pulled out a wand that turned out to contain a divine spell of power normally verboten for students, but it was still over quickly.

He was slicing the Vretenou's throat when Phyx returned, visible and stuffing what looked to be one of the piwafwis into a small pouch at his belt; it was already more than halfway inside, and the top of the pouch was absurdly distended. Shardax managed to conceal his shock at the sight. He shouldn't be surprised, really - he hadn't exactly told of his own backup stash, nor was Phyx exactly talkative. The Xelvek novice walked alongside the mage, her eyes oddly placid. He signed, Charm spell?

Phyx nodded. Shardax shrugged and began the routine body frisk. If he wanted a souvenir to toss to Ghaunadaur that was his own problem.

"He's the one."

Shardax's head snapped up. Phyx had turned to the Xelvek, and continued to speak while indicating Shardax. "Go on." The Xelvek smiled and hurried toward him, nearly tripping over the body of one of her compatriots in the process.

He leapt up, delving for one of his hidden crossbows as he did. "What's your game?"

"No game," said the Xelvek. Her voice, too, was unnaturally light. "My friend said you could help me about what's happened to the Grand Temple, if I could tell you what I know. What are you doing there?"

"Nothing," Shardax said hurriedly, bringing out and folding his arms. "Gave me a start, is all." Behind her, Phyx had got in the rest of the piwafwi andwas unhurriedly sorting through the bodies. His face was obscured, but Shardax would have bet a dragon hoard he was smirking - assuming that he smiled like a normal drow.

She looked down at the Vretenou. "Oh. Good. I never liked her. What can I do for you?"

"You can start by telling me what you think I ought to know." At least it was conversation, of sorts.

As they left the bodies in the alley, he became aware of Phyx's gaze. It's not as though there's so much to be found out where we've been going, he found himself signing. May as well pick off some spider-kissers while we're here. As usual, Phyx hadn't said anything on the matter, but he couldn't help but feel as though the mage thought it with irksome force.

Supposing it does help the Selvetargtlin, he went on. What of it? They're a small lot all told and I'm fair sure they'll only be getting smaller. The Spider Bitch needs her followers taken down constantly - they're always spawning, and she's got enough whole cities already. It's a plague across the Underdark. Every bit helps.

Phyx smiled. Just as Shardax expected, it was a sort of drifting, off-kilter thing that matched his weak eyes - or would have, if those eyes had been showing their true colors. "Strange bedfellows."

Shardax could just imagine what they had for bedfellows in the southeast. "You're not getting anywhere near my bed, that's for certain."

The Ilythiiri burned forests.

Selvetarm didn't remember when he'd learned that - it might have been one of those things that a god of war just knew. He certainly hadn't seen them put torch or spell to wood, and his was not a name they had called, not so long ago. They would have called out to his father, or the Elder Eye, or her.

He had a form now as he scuttled, an anachronism, between the trees and took breath after breath of smoke. It wasn't as though it could kill him.

Others were being killed in the meantime. They called to him and they died and they waited on the Fugue Plane. There they'll stay, whispered a stray thought as it wisped past, until they lose patience and sign on with baatezu, or until Kelemvor loses patience and claps them into the Wall. He was somewhat surprised by this thought. He'd been aware, intellectually, of the god of death as well as those who'd preceded him, but she hadn't liked to be reminded and so he often forgot them in self-defense.

Perhaps she would manage to take them in - Kelemvor, came another thought, you had better feed them all to Kezef before you let her have them. But Kelemvor couldn't hear, and what did Selvetarm care what happened to the dead when he'd just sleep through it?

Zanassu, came close on a hundred voices from the Apostolaeum in Lost Ajhuutal. He balanced on the roof, on the great stone webbing between the minarets, circling round to the stone spider of a dome at its center. His blood dripped from open wounds but vanished before it struck anything. Zanassu? He sensed the worry of the aranea. They reached out for spells and they got them; they were not told the same things as the drow, no need for it, but they noticed something. And they ought to. The last of the Abyssal lord they called for was well and truly dead, ripped out and burned away in divine fire.

Kalannar, drop it. More past echoes - these from a time he'd lived. Drop it before it cuts something that can't be fixed-

Too late! screamed the priest. This can't be fixed! And the others were prying his hands open, shaking out the bloodstained fragments of his sword, and the priest screamed and screamed far louder than the cuts on his hands would warrant. Selvetarm -

Spider Queen, yowled a promising young soldier in the service of one of Eryndlyn's middling Houses. I didn't mean to, I thought it was in your service, I didn't think, have mercy on this stupid male - New legs forced themselves out from the soldier's sides now, and he rocked and wailed in the same spot where he'd lifted his head and proudly accepted the honor of serving as the avatar of her Champion.

Shut up, Selvetarm heard himself say. You've done nothing. This is nothing. No need to know that he hadn't expected this either. One of her contingencies, he supposed, just to make sure he wouldn't escape his present form by body-jumping.

He made good on his command himself, held the body with its mouth closed through the rest of the transformation, but the avatar's soul continued to flail and gibber. A drider for my blasphemy - oh Lolth - a drider, I'm a drider-

"I suppose he is right, now."

Ilztrysn looked over to Micarlin at her words. "Pardon?"

She leaned against a wall, looking upward, blood dripping from the ends of her freshly-treated braids. She was wiping more blood from her sword as she spoke. "Do you remember how they were all marching out of the city? Like they were going off raiding instead of going off into exile. He never told me anything of it - I swore I'd pay him back for that."

"I suppose I do remember," said Ilztrysn, once more checking his spell components in their pouches. Nervous habit, weakness he knew he should be rid of if he ever hoped to make judicator - that is, if anyone had a hope of making judicator now. "I remember that one lot went looking for them, right after the Silence, and they said-"

"That lot was idiots," said Micarlin. She used the term with a certain glee, which he supposed was understandable given how many times it had been applied and implied toward her. What female but an idiot would serve the servant over the goddess herself? "Tell him, Nadal."

Nadal was in position to watch the street, taking a drink in preparation for further spellsong and killing cries. "I met with Xandra when she got back," he said, lowering the waterskin, "and I got out of her that there weren't nearly enough bones to account for all of them. According to her, Brae - Mistr - Braekathra," he fumbled most uncharacteristically over the priestess's title or lack thereof, "decided the rest got themselves killed on the way."

"Dhairn," Micarlin put in. "Essra. Lesaonar. 'Got themselves killed,' she said."

Ilztrysn decided now was not the time to question her assessments of either Mistress Braekathra's sense or the exiled Selvetargtlin's collective combat ability.

"Once I've the power, I mean to sendto him," said Micarlin. She straightened, stowing away her cleaning rag. "But he did turn out right, didn't he, with all this?"

He listened to the shouting elsewhere on the Western Plateau - some of it drifting toward them. "It certainly looks that way." He signed, Should I try the wizard gambit?

Nadal signed back, May as well throw dice on it.

Ilztrysn proceeded to swap places with Micarlin, standing between her and Nadal; both of them drew their weapons. Ilztrysn, meanwhile, obscured the ornate hilt of his sword and summoned the image of a fumbling young mage - one barely competent at the craft, who only continued to pursue the arcane because it was supposed to be the path to power and joined the Temple Guard for much the same reason.

Imitation of that mage came easier than he would have liked, but holding it proving satisfyingly harder as whoever it was neared and calm swept outward from his center, preparing him for his burst of motion. He mouthed his battle cry - it might be taken for his reviewing the syllables of an unfamiliar spell. Selvetarm. Selvetarm.

Drider. Drider.

He went for another dream-walk around the Apostolaeum roof. He walked through the Forest of Mir. He walked the shifting paths of Undermountain, past dusty bones. He walked among the ruins of Dolblunde with its sixty-six and circled around to witness a sparring match. He walked along the catwalks of Skullport. He walked across the three plateaus of Eryndlyn, walked over fallen heretics - whose heretics? He thought he knew, but when he went to retrieve the answer he didn't find it, and when he looked at the bodies again their identifying marks warped  - half-masks to tentacle rods to blood-soaked braids and back roundabout, black to purple to red.

It's just a big drider really, declared one that wore a mask for the moment, and even more blood bubbled down its chin and crushed throat. A toy of the Bitch. We can take that. In the name of the Masked Lord -

They are her outcasts, said another, its own mangled fingers brushing against the obsidian sphere on a chain about its neck. All falls to the Elder Eye, eventually. These especially so.

The Dark Mother is great - and this one was quite inconsistent with the setting. It looked like it had been female, and its fingers curled around a spider amber. - for she finds use even for her disgraced children.

"You deluded -" In retrospect, he expended rather more profanity - not forgetting violence - on them than he ought to have bothered with. They were dreamforms, after all, even less alive than the Revenancer's zombies which at least existed.

Now here was one of the Revenancer herself, veils rustling, rings glinting. At least she never made me god of her driders, in all but name. The real goddess would be more likely to list all that had been done to her in its stead, along with what terrible retribution she'd eventually wreak in return, but this one pressed her ringed hand to her mouth and failed to suppress giggles of the same high pitch as her song and her shrieks. If it were in name they might have organized, and that would spoil it for her. This way she gets her mortals running about the Underdark spreading chaos, and she gets her own little god to toy with on a more direct level.

"Not now she doesn't!"

Oh, then may I presume you wear that form because you like it?

"Yes," he hissed. It was a dream, which helped somewhat, but he doubted his ultimate response would have been so different in reality. "And I don't any longer, so I shan't. Watch me."

She watched. Selvetarm thought of two arms, two legs, all that would go in between, molten metal and flowing water. He went over the images again and again, burning them into his mind in hopes it would carry on to his dream-body.

He assiduously didn't think of metal cooled and solidified into shackles, nor of frozen ice. He especially didn't think of driders.

Spider's legs dropped away like scabs from over scars, dissipating as his blood had on the roof of the Apostolaeum. He drew in a quick breath, almost breaking his focus, but managed to continue as a thousand little cracks appeared on the carapace. He could be patient when there was a need. He wasn't the Spider that Waits for nothing.

The carapace split, almost like a chrysalis - wrong creature for that, but… The chitin melted off, meeting the same fate as the falling legs. He reared upward somewhat awkwardly, arms lifted. Two arms. Two legs remained, shifting and filling out.

He should be snapping back by now - some variety in forms was permissible, but she made sure there was always carapace, legs, something obviously of a spider, and the form he could take that most resembled a drow called up so many undesirable associations -

Drider. Drider.

No, don't think of that!

- that most of the time he simply assumed the shape of a particularly large specimen, sometimes adjusting for a drow's head and perhaps arms to hold his weapons, and that worked as well as anything could have.

But the pieces of spider continued to fall away until there were no more to fall, and Selvetarm grinned at the sight. At least in a dream he could do this.

He grinned at the dream-Revenancer as well, but she'd turned her back. She sang, warping as the bodies had. The singing voice changed, rings and veils vanished. He was looking at someone else now.

…a convocation… return soon… do not worry… safe here…

"I don't want to be safe." As he spoke he heard the same words, outside somehow and garbled through an uncoordinated tongue. He repeated himself and again came the slurring voice. His own voice.

Not-the-Revenancer, the priests' ruined bodies, Eryndlyn blurred together. He no longer had the sensation of standing, and felt his closed eyes anew. The sounds from outside were even clearer now. He stilled his tongue, hoping in that way to delay it. Delay it, because there was no stopping it. They obviously hadn't listened to him, and in spite of his attempt at a threat Selvetarm knew their failure was more likely to hurt him than them.

The requests for spells continued - diminished somewhat, but not nearly enough to finish it in that way and he supposed there wouldn't be a finish there, now. They'd run amok as he'd told them, and as a group they lived. No point in putting it off any longer. He might as well see what Arvandor had in store for him.

Selvetarm opened his eyes.