The colorful glimmer of faerie fire lit up the spires of Menzoberranzan as Tali sat silently on the upper terrace of her home and stared out over the city far below. In one hand she held a crystal glass of the heavily spiced green wine she favored, and with the other, she toyed with the ends of the cord that formed a belt for her dress. Her children were asleep, her husband away on surface business, she had dismissed the servants for the evening, and she found her thoughts returning to the questions that often plagued her.
She had just started to reflect upon her fears, and her doubts that she could do a good job of this 'goddess' thing, when a voice interrupted her worries. Disoriented, she glanced up, then around, and then realized that she was alone, and the voice was coming from far away, loud enough to echo over even her own thoughts. She shook her head to clear it, and was just about to dismiss it as a trick of the wind carrying noise from the city, when the voice came again. This time, she fell still and silent, and listened.
The voice, a man's voice, was strong, but tired and despairing, choked with injury, effort, and tears. "I am dying. There is no one near to help me. Lady, if there's any justice left in this world, please grant me the strength to show them one last fight and take some of them with me."
It was a prayer, she realized, from someplace far distant on the surface. It was still a very new thing to her; she hadn't yet found many true followers, and the whispers in her mind came few and far between. Still, it aroused her curiosity, so she set the wineglass aside on a low table and rose to her feet. She took only a moment to focus and determine the location of the voice, then simply vanished in a whisper of silk.
The dwindling daylight of the surface stung her eyes for a few seconds. She blinked away the pain and glanced around, amid a chorus of angry snarls. As her vision cleared, she found herself on a forested mountainside, facing five huge, feral, wolf-like beasts and their captive, who was held up by chains wound around a dead tree. Three of the gnolls advanced on her, lifting brutal weapons and grinning confidently and bestially, while the other two blocked her path to their prey.
Tali sighed and rolled her eyes. "Gnolls. It would have to be gnolls, wouldn't it?" she muttered, and advanced calmly toward them. As the three got close enough to strike, she raised one hand to them, palm facing them, and simply whispered, "Pain…" They paused, looking confused. She clenched her hand into a fist, and there was a violet flash that left all five of the creatures howling on the ground, clutching their skulls, weapons dropped and forgotten.
She stepped over the howling gnolls to inspect their mostly-unconscious hostage. Her brow furrowed as she found a Drow man, battered and bleeding from countless tooth and claw scrapes, chains wound around his wrists and body to hold him to the decaying tree. His long, pale hair was streaked with sweat, dirt, and blood, and one eye was swollen shut. His breathing was labored, and even to untrained eyes he was on the verge of death, but he still managed to raise his head and look at her.
With a single azure eye, clear and bright with pain, the Drow regarded Tali. He closed the eye and squeezed it shut for a moment, then opened it and looked at her again. In a labored whisper, he breathed, "Lyssariel…? Surely… I'm dead… then…"
Tali shook her head, as she slowly and carefully unwound the chains, and slipped an arm around the elf's waist to support him. "An old elven goddess of justice…" she mused aloud. "No one answers to that name anymore, I'm afraid," she murmured thoughtfully. "I guess that makes it my province now. My name is Talisantia. I've come to help you." As the chains fell away, she slid both arms around him and smiled faintly. "And you're not dead. Not yet. Nor will you be anytime soon, if I have anything to say about it."
The man's uninjured eye widened, and he stared up at her, awestruck. "Talisantia… you're… the spider-slayer… it's really true?" He slumped in her arms, then tried to hold himself up again. "You're one of us…" he breathed in wonder. "…you wear Drow skin…" He tried to laugh, bitterly, but a deep, wracking cough overtook him and left him wheezing as she held him. "I am shebali… I am nothing… an outcast… I have no family left, anywhere…"
Tali touched a finger to the Drow's lips to quiet him, and glanced around again to get her bearings. She had to get him away before the gnolls recovered, and she couldn't concentrate well enough to teleport safely back to the city with all that howling going on. Instead, she clutched him close, closed her eyes, and touched a fingertip to the recall stone that hung around her neck. The mountainside disappeared, replaced by the darkness of a small cavern.
As she let her vision adjust again, Tali laid the elf down gently on the stone floor and knelt beside him. She spoke quietly as a dim violet glow surrounded her hands, lighting up the tiny cave, and laid her hands on his chest. "I guess that's what they call me…" she said softly, and her eyes drifted closed as the light spread out to encompass the man's entire body. The wounds began to knit together, the swelling subsided from his eye, and his breathing eased. "Yes. It's true. I destroyed the Spider." She opened her eyes and smiled fondly down at him. "And you, my friend… you are not 'nothing'. Your call was strong. Your mind is strong. 'Nothing' wouldn't have been able to drown out even my own thoughts."
Finally, she sighed and drew her hands away, and the violet light faded away. The man struggled up to one elbow to look at her, blinking both eyes open. "You… you heard me?" he stammered disbelievingly. "You really heard me?" He blinked a few times more, then gingerly rubbed his eyes. "…but I've never… you're… you're beautiful…" His ears pinkened, and he tucked a few strands of hair behind one ear. "I… guess you hear that a lot… um…"
Tali laughed and tossed her hair back over her shoulder with a flip of her head, then sat down beside him, eased one bare knee under him, and rested his head on it. "Of course I heard you. You called for help. Mine may not have been the name you were calling, but I heard your call, and I answered." She tilted her head to one side and regarded him for a moment, her cheeks flushing warm. "I… well… thank you. I hear it, I suppose, but so rarely from anyone who truly means it. You're…" She grinned and looked away, then looked at him again. "You're really quite beautiful yourself. Tell me your name?" She shrugged, and reached down to stroke the fingertips of one hand through his hair, carefully working free the knots and brushing away the dirt and blood. "I could take it from you, but it's so much less invasive to just ask."
He grinned the brilliant, carefree grin of a man who assumed that he was dying and had nothing to worry about anymore, and laid his head comfortably on her knee. "If this is death…" he whispered,"…then it's no wonder that my brothers and sisters praised it so." He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then let it go and relaxed, but couldn't resist opening his eyes to look up at her again. "Tarlyn. Just Tarlyn."
"Well, Tarlyn," Tali murmured, "you're not dying." She smoothed his hair back from his forehead with one hand, and smiled fondly. "You're too strong to let go that easily." She raised her head and glanced around in the darkness, then raised a hand and whispered, "Light…" A dim white glow faded into being near the cavern's ceiling, casting a faint light over them both as she shook her hair down and smiled down at him again.
"Death is overrated, an old friend of mine used to say…" she said half to herself, then laughed bitterly. "I used to be nothing myself, you know. A long, long time ago. Shebali. Outcast. Rogue. Hunted. It's not an easy way to live." Her gaze became misty and faraway as she reflected for a moment before she continued. "But sometimes… sometimes, I think it was better that way. It was the only way one of us could learn to think for ourselves, instead of blindly swallowing what the matron mothers and the priestesses told us."
With a hiss of breath, Tarlyn stared up at her, blue eyes suddenly wide. "So it really was all lies?" he asked, the life abruptly returning to his voice. His brow furrowed, and he caught her eyes with his. "The whole thing… who was really running the show, in the end? Who did it serve?" He caught himself and bit his lip, not quite believing that he'd had the audacity to ask such a question of a goddess, but waited, holding his breath, for her answer.
Sadness darkened Tali's eyes for a moment, but an approving smile crossed her face, too. She'd finally found one of her own kind who was willing to question even her. "In the end…" She sighed and shook her head, sadly. "In the end… you want the truth, Tarlyn? In the end, the priestesses ran things for their own ends. In the end, Lolth had gone insane. In the end, she cared about nothing but pain and chaos. In the end, it was one big, stupid, never-ending power struggle." She laughed a sharp, bitter little laugh. "In the end, it was everyone for themselves."
Sitting up slowly, Tarlyn winced at the lingering soreness, but his eyes never left Tali's. He let his breath go in a rush, and simply nodded. "Thank you," he said softly and earnestly. "I couldn't imagine what kind of mind could have created a world such as that." He smiled crookedly. "I guess I was right after all."
He slid the straps of his ruined and gnoll-chewed pack off his shoulders, then began to paw through its remaining contents. "Tell me how it happened?" he asked hopefully as he searched. "If you have the time… I'll never know, and stories get twisted even by the best of intentions… I ask you, Lady… please… let me write it down." Finally, he fished out half of a travel journal. "Let the truth be kept, if only here in what's left of my journal…"
Tali raised an eyebrow, settled back against the stones, and tilted her head to one side, curiously. "How it happened?" she asked. "How what happened, exactly? The end of it all? How I got where I am?" She shrugged, grinned crookedly, and laughed. "Sure, if you're really all that interested. Sure, why not? This is a safe place, and I have all the time in the world…"
Tarlyn fished out his pen box, then settled himself with his back against the stone wall. "Everything," he said, blinking sadly at the tattered remains of his journal. "Tell me everything. I have nowhere to be."
Tali smiled, softly and fondly, and nodded. "Everything it is, then." She laughed softly, and settled on the floor, her own back against the wall, beside him. "Everything. Well, begin at the beginning, I suppose… It all started in Menzoberranzan – gods, I forget how many years ago anymore. It was seven hundred fifty years ago? Eight hundred? Something like that…"
[To Be Continued…]
She had just started to reflect upon her fears, and her doubts that she could do a good job of this 'goddess' thing, when a voice interrupted her worries. Disoriented, she glanced up, then around, and then realized that she was alone, and the voice was coming from far away, loud enough to echo over even her own thoughts. She shook her head to clear it, and was just about to dismiss it as a trick of the wind carrying noise from the city, when the voice came again. This time, she fell still and silent, and listened.
The voice, a man's voice, was strong, but tired and despairing, choked with injury, effort, and tears. "I am dying. There is no one near to help me. Lady, if there's any justice left in this world, please grant me the strength to show them one last fight and take some of them with me."
It was a prayer, she realized, from someplace far distant on the surface. It was still a very new thing to her; she hadn't yet found many true followers, and the whispers in her mind came few and far between. Still, it aroused her curiosity, so she set the wineglass aside on a low table and rose to her feet. She took only a moment to focus and determine the location of the voice, then simply vanished in a whisper of silk.
The dwindling daylight of the surface stung her eyes for a few seconds. She blinked away the pain and glanced around, amid a chorus of angry snarls. As her vision cleared, she found herself on a forested mountainside, facing five huge, feral, wolf-like beasts and their captive, who was held up by chains wound around a dead tree. Three of the gnolls advanced on her, lifting brutal weapons and grinning confidently and bestially, while the other two blocked her path to their prey.
Tali sighed and rolled her eyes. "Gnolls. It would have to be gnolls, wouldn't it?" she muttered, and advanced calmly toward them. As the three got close enough to strike, she raised one hand to them, palm facing them, and simply whispered, "Pain…" They paused, looking confused. She clenched her hand into a fist, and there was a violet flash that left all five of the creatures howling on the ground, clutching their skulls, weapons dropped and forgotten.
She stepped over the howling gnolls to inspect their mostly-unconscious hostage. Her brow furrowed as she found a Drow man, battered and bleeding from countless tooth and claw scrapes, chains wound around his wrists and body to hold him to the decaying tree. His long, pale hair was streaked with sweat, dirt, and blood, and one eye was swollen shut. His breathing was labored, and even to untrained eyes he was on the verge of death, but he still managed to raise his head and look at her.
With a single azure eye, clear and bright with pain, the Drow regarded Tali. He closed the eye and squeezed it shut for a moment, then opened it and looked at her again. In a labored whisper, he breathed, "Lyssariel…? Surely… I'm dead… then…"
Tali shook her head, as she slowly and carefully unwound the chains, and slipped an arm around the elf's waist to support him. "An old elven goddess of justice…" she mused aloud. "No one answers to that name anymore, I'm afraid," she murmured thoughtfully. "I guess that makes it my province now. My name is Talisantia. I've come to help you." As the chains fell away, she slid both arms around him and smiled faintly. "And you're not dead. Not yet. Nor will you be anytime soon, if I have anything to say about it."
The man's uninjured eye widened, and he stared up at her, awestruck. "Talisantia… you're… the spider-slayer… it's really true?" He slumped in her arms, then tried to hold himself up again. "You're one of us…" he breathed in wonder. "…you wear Drow skin…" He tried to laugh, bitterly, but a deep, wracking cough overtook him and left him wheezing as she held him. "I am shebali… I am nothing… an outcast… I have no family left, anywhere…"
Tali touched a finger to the Drow's lips to quiet him, and glanced around again to get her bearings. She had to get him away before the gnolls recovered, and she couldn't concentrate well enough to teleport safely back to the city with all that howling going on. Instead, she clutched him close, closed her eyes, and touched a fingertip to the recall stone that hung around her neck. The mountainside disappeared, replaced by the darkness of a small cavern.
As she let her vision adjust again, Tali laid the elf down gently on the stone floor and knelt beside him. She spoke quietly as a dim violet glow surrounded her hands, lighting up the tiny cave, and laid her hands on his chest. "I guess that's what they call me…" she said softly, and her eyes drifted closed as the light spread out to encompass the man's entire body. The wounds began to knit together, the swelling subsided from his eye, and his breathing eased. "Yes. It's true. I destroyed the Spider." She opened her eyes and smiled fondly down at him. "And you, my friend… you are not 'nothing'. Your call was strong. Your mind is strong. 'Nothing' wouldn't have been able to drown out even my own thoughts."
Finally, she sighed and drew her hands away, and the violet light faded away. The man struggled up to one elbow to look at her, blinking both eyes open. "You… you heard me?" he stammered disbelievingly. "You really heard me?" He blinked a few times more, then gingerly rubbed his eyes. "…but I've never… you're… you're beautiful…" His ears pinkened, and he tucked a few strands of hair behind one ear. "I… guess you hear that a lot… um…"
Tali laughed and tossed her hair back over her shoulder with a flip of her head, then sat down beside him, eased one bare knee under him, and rested his head on it. "Of course I heard you. You called for help. Mine may not have been the name you were calling, but I heard your call, and I answered." She tilted her head to one side and regarded him for a moment, her cheeks flushing warm. "I… well… thank you. I hear it, I suppose, but so rarely from anyone who truly means it. You're…" She grinned and looked away, then looked at him again. "You're really quite beautiful yourself. Tell me your name?" She shrugged, and reached down to stroke the fingertips of one hand through his hair, carefully working free the knots and brushing away the dirt and blood. "I could take it from you, but it's so much less invasive to just ask."
He grinned the brilliant, carefree grin of a man who assumed that he was dying and had nothing to worry about anymore, and laid his head comfortably on her knee. "If this is death…" he whispered,"…then it's no wonder that my brothers and sisters praised it so." He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then let it go and relaxed, but couldn't resist opening his eyes to look up at her again. "Tarlyn. Just Tarlyn."
"Well, Tarlyn," Tali murmured, "you're not dying." She smoothed his hair back from his forehead with one hand, and smiled fondly. "You're too strong to let go that easily." She raised her head and glanced around in the darkness, then raised a hand and whispered, "Light…" A dim white glow faded into being near the cavern's ceiling, casting a faint light over them both as she shook her hair down and smiled down at him again.
"Death is overrated, an old friend of mine used to say…" she said half to herself, then laughed bitterly. "I used to be nothing myself, you know. A long, long time ago. Shebali. Outcast. Rogue. Hunted. It's not an easy way to live." Her gaze became misty and faraway as she reflected for a moment before she continued. "But sometimes… sometimes, I think it was better that way. It was the only way one of us could learn to think for ourselves, instead of blindly swallowing what the matron mothers and the priestesses told us."
With a hiss of breath, Tarlyn stared up at her, blue eyes suddenly wide. "So it really was all lies?" he asked, the life abruptly returning to his voice. His brow furrowed, and he caught her eyes with his. "The whole thing… who was really running the show, in the end? Who did it serve?" He caught himself and bit his lip, not quite believing that he'd had the audacity to ask such a question of a goddess, but waited, holding his breath, for her answer.
Sadness darkened Tali's eyes for a moment, but an approving smile crossed her face, too. She'd finally found one of her own kind who was willing to question even her. "In the end…" She sighed and shook her head, sadly. "In the end… you want the truth, Tarlyn? In the end, the priestesses ran things for their own ends. In the end, Lolth had gone insane. In the end, she cared about nothing but pain and chaos. In the end, it was one big, stupid, never-ending power struggle." She laughed a sharp, bitter little laugh. "In the end, it was everyone for themselves."
Sitting up slowly, Tarlyn winced at the lingering soreness, but his eyes never left Tali's. He let his breath go in a rush, and simply nodded. "Thank you," he said softly and earnestly. "I couldn't imagine what kind of mind could have created a world such as that." He smiled crookedly. "I guess I was right after all."
He slid the straps of his ruined and gnoll-chewed pack off his shoulders, then began to paw through its remaining contents. "Tell me how it happened?" he asked hopefully as he searched. "If you have the time… I'll never know, and stories get twisted even by the best of intentions… I ask you, Lady… please… let me write it down." Finally, he fished out half of a travel journal. "Let the truth be kept, if only here in what's left of my journal…"
Tali raised an eyebrow, settled back against the stones, and tilted her head to one side, curiously. "How it happened?" she asked. "How what happened, exactly? The end of it all? How I got where I am?" She shrugged, grinned crookedly, and laughed. "Sure, if you're really all that interested. Sure, why not? This is a safe place, and I have all the time in the world…"
Tarlyn fished out his pen box, then settled himself with his back against the stone wall. "Everything," he said, blinking sadly at the tattered remains of his journal. "Tell me everything. I have nowhere to be."
Tali smiled, softly and fondly, and nodded. "Everything it is, then." She laughed softly, and settled on the floor, her own back against the wall, beside him. "Everything. Well, begin at the beginning, I suppose… It all started in Menzoberranzan – gods, I forget how many years ago anymore. It was seven hundred fifty years ago? Eight hundred? Something like that…"
[To Be Continued…]