AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to the reviewers for "The Spider Queen's Second Chance" (this doesn't count as a review reply, does it?).

GENERAL WARNINGS: Language, semi-detailed violence and injury.

Traditional Gender Roles

The Masked Lord's Embrace

The Year of Wild Magic (DR 1372)

The doors of the audience chamber closed behind Shurdriira. Though she was in charge of covert operations and certainly trusted more in this case than Alystin's brother Merinid, who was elderboy and Weapons Master besides, it was the policy of House Zaphresz to keep knowledge of such episodes restricted to the female nobility as much as was feasible. Even the guards waited outside, ready to enter on a moment's notice. To compensate, the five other priestesses in the room were laden with an overkill of magical items.

Perhaps not so much overkill, all things considered.

Blood from Alystin's face left streaks on the floor when she lifted her head. "How could I?" she echoed once she gained her feet. Behind her back, unseen to the other priestesses, her hands curled about the appropriate sections of the rope Shurdriira had tied around her wrists and fingers. "There's a simple answer to that. I didn't. What could I have to gain?"

"Stupid girl," said Olorae. She stood beside the Matron as befitted the eldest daughter.

"To think we would believe that, now," said the Matron from her throne.

"You would have had plenty to gain," said Xune, who still stood before Alystin with her scourge of fangs at the ready. The fangs were bloody as well. "Or so one of weak faith would have thought."

"Weak faith…?" Alystin's own whip twisted on the floor, hissing faintly, fooled as the goddess who granted it had been fooled. She eyed it for a time, then looked up. "I suppose evidence would be expecting too much?"

"The evidence has already been presented," said Olorae. "Did you think your heresy would aid you in rising above your present station?"

Alystin tugged the rope slightly and was satisfied at its give. The Masked Lord bless Shurdriira. "Your so-called evidence comes from the babbling of a commoner you tell me was already caught. Need I note that my name was never mentioned during the… prior incident?" Though Elaugyrr told her, after she called him back from the shadowed realm of Ellaniath, that he hadn't even known about Merinid.

"You may not have turned at that time," said Xune. She was the Matron's second daughter, the one to expose the secondboy's religious practices ten years before, and her voice tended to shrill when she raised it - especially on the word "sacrilege." She'd said it again and again as she held down Elaugyrr's hand for Alystin to cut off his fingers, half-triumphant and half-fearful that their goddess would not consider House Zaphresz's quick purge of this deviation sufficient. The goddess considered it sufficient, while deviations elsewhere quietly multiplied.

"But given recent events," Xune continued, stepping back to her original position, "we might have expected the turning of foolish weaklings - weak in power and in faith."

Nedylene and Jhulae stood flanking Olorae and Xune as they in turn flanked the enthroned Matron of House Zaphresz. Nedylene was Alystin's younger sister, while Jhulae was Xune's daughter, so far the one female out of the two born in her generation. Both were novices, yet to reach fifty, and they'd been called back from their schooling, presumably to witness this as they had witnessed the last time. In lieu of a high priestess's whip, Nedylene clutched a ritual dagger and Jhulae had one of her heavier books. At Xune's words they grew even more tense.

Alystin heard the doors open behind her. The Matron, seeing what she did not, half-started from her throne. "And what brings you here, male?"

"Your pardon, Matron," said Merinid. Alystin turned around then, remembering to let go of the rope. He stood in the doorway, eyes lowered. Beside him, Olorae's son Seldszar's obvious efforts to stop his knees shaking only exacerbated the problem. Shadows from the lit braziers in the room seemed to flicker around them. "I was told you sent for us."

"I did no such thing. But since you are already here," the Matron snarled, "you may as well come in."

As Alystin looked back to the priestesses Olorae advanced, drawing her whip. "Do you think because you are Weapons Master you can intrude like - you ! You squeaking kobold -"

She looked back. Merinid walked further into the room with Seldszar in tow, the latter apparently debating whether it would be better to face his mother's wrath or to flee the House, the city of Guallidurth, and possibly the Underdark altogether. Would Merinid have told him? Seldszar was terrible at keeping secrets - but then, that would shortly no longer matter.

"Who do you claim spoke on my behalf?"

"Shurdriira said you wished my testimony regarding Kyorla Alystin's-"

The snakes of Olorae's whip snapped over his head. "She is no Kyorla." Alystin had stopped herself at that rank; it was high enough so that she wouldn't be considered a miserable disappointment in need of elimination, but there was no need for them to know just how much she presently held in check. "She is no priestess of Lolth." Olorae snapped them once more. Several strands of Merinid's hair, brushed upward by their passage, stood nearly on end. "She has no right to the title!"

"Well?" prompted the Matron. "The so-called testimony? Perhaps it will save you some grief." It wouldn't, Alystin knew from her tone. There would be a thrashing for Merinid and Seldszar no matter what they said, as a sort of proof of continued power.

It was good, then, that their power truly had deserted them.

"Only, it does seem strange, does it not, that any noble female would ever turn to such a god as Vhaeraun, third daughter or no…"

"It does seem - what?" The Matron shouted as Olorae lashed out again. Merinid barely dodged this one. "Just how do you know it was-"

Alystin half-expected the burst of light, but she still reeled backward with the rest of them, and almost screamed with them as well. Then she remembered her god-given protection and yanked at the rope. The seemingly-elaborate knotting came apart as Shurdriira had intended it, collapsing into loops. She tossed it to the floor in time to grab a blinded Olorae as she stumbled away. Merinid looked up now, the haze around him distinct in the intense glow that emanated from his drawn short sword. With his other hand, he pulled out a black half-mask she recognized as his holy symbol.

As he advanced, Alystin managed to knock the whip from Olorae's hand, joining Alystin's on the floor. Behind her, she could hear Nedylene and Jhulae shrieking, while the Matron and Xune cursed and shouted for the guards; below that was the sound of someone quietly chanting a spell next to her. Seldszar peered about through his own shielding haze, eyes wide in his drawn face, then drew his own rapier and lunged forward.

Something sliced the air as it passed Alystin's head and a third figure abruptly became visible beside her, holding a dart and another half-mask. His invisibility lost, Elaugyrr grinned as he pushed the mask into her free hand and made his way across the audience chamber. She shoved Olorae away for Merinid and Seldszar to deal with and turned toward the rest of the room. Jhulae had lifted her book before her face as an improvised shield. Nedylene was trying to do the same with her dagger. Xune fumbled at her belt, simultaneously clutching at the general area where Elaugyrr's acid arrow jutted from her robes. The Matron had managed to draw a wand and shout a command word.

Then it was all a jumble of chanting - hers as she dispelled the giant spider summoned by the wand, Merinid's as he called on Vhaeraun to enhance his strength and skill, Elaugyrr's as he sent out more acid arrows, the priestesses' as they read off scrolls once their eyesight returned. Mixed in were sounds from outside, as the guards encountered complications, followed by the entrance of more combatants after the guards were taken care of. The roar of divine and arcane fire. Gurgles, cut-off screams, and then -

"Don't kill me!"

Jhulae's voice, Alystin observed as she put a hand to her face and murmured a spell of healing, had distinct traces of her mother's shrill.

"Please. By the Dark Mo-" Nedylene apparently realized that might not be the best oath at the moment.

"We never - we never truly - please - if my aunt could, might we…" Jhulae trailed off.

"This I suppose we should have expected," said Merinid, dispelling the light. He was distinctly worse for wear, but not as badly wounded as she'd feared he would end up at some points.

Alystin looked toward where Nedylene and Jhulae had curled up on the floor. In a way, the late Xune was right. With Lolth gone it was natural that their faith would be tested. When their faith was found lacking, it set their survival instinct free to assert itself.

"They may not be as sharp as you," said Merinid, seeing her grimace, "but they might come around."

Shurdriira was one of those who had entered at some point. She proceeded to frisk Nedylene and Jhulae as Alystin and her brothers went over the bodies. More gradually edged in from their positions outside the door, carrying their wounded. Alystin looked to them for distraction from Merinid's chosen topic of conversation.

Once she had stabilized the first cases tentatively presented to her, her eye was drawn to one supported by a moving ring of his companions. As they shifted, she glimpsed a shattered ruin of a hand, stained bandages over the eyes. She waited for them to near her general area - no closer, as they were evidently trying to avoid her. "He is the one who-?"

"Yes," said one of them. "We fetched him out from the dungeon. He thought you'd be able to get out of it. And I suppose you did. He did not mean you ill," he said, the speed of his voice increasing exponentially. She had heard that quality often, but rarely applied on the behalf of someone other than the speaker. "Truly he didn't - he wasn't anything special, he wasn't used to this sort of-"

"He can live to tomorrow as is?"

Hands fluttered in the sign language. "He can."

"Then he can wait." She expected a stiffening, a muttering - What can you expect from a female? There were only a handful of females in the group, and none were in the ring around her betrayer. Instead there was general relaxation.

"Do you think you can pass?" Elaugyrr was in the process of tossing house insignias and platinum holy symbols onto a pile of regalia to be offered to Vhaeraun, which already included three extremely agitated snake whips.

Alystin picked up her own and held it at arm's length. "They might have had other proof. They probably did. They're certainly high-strung, what with the Spider Bitch's hopefully permanent nap-" Stifled squeak from Jhulae. Alystin ignored her. "But I doubt it's gotten so bad that they'd drag in high priestesses on the basis of information forcibly extracted from an already-condemned male. I'll have to use a spell to be certain."

Elaugyrr frowned. "I don't suppose you've any of the sort left for this cycle."

"I'm afraid not. Have we got any other spider-kissers to worry about?"

Shurdriira spoke while examining the scroll she'd just confiscated from Nedylene. "We activated the contingency plans once I told your brothers. The official line is that all this is the unexpected results of one of your usual third-daughter schemes. While I wouldn't say there is nothing to worry about - and we could hardly massacre everyone else in the House - anyone within these walls who might have contemplated vengeance on behalf of the late spider-kissers is now removed from the equation… with, of course, two exceptions. Done."

Merinid nodded back and pointed to several of the drow around the chamber, then indicated Nedylene and Jhulae, who Shurdriira yanked to their feet. "Take them someplace you can leave them. Not the dungeons," he added. "They'll not be maltreated, understood?" His fingers spelled out more, out of sight of the pair - We should not make more enemies than necessary. The soldiers nodded and formed a parody of an honor guard.

Once they were gone, he continued. "That still leaves whatever allies are on the outside. Not to mention those eager to take advantage of this sudden weakness. Should they discover whatever they found out here, or anything like it… even with the Masked Lord granting us spells, and the fortuitous absence of their goddess, the House stands no chance against all of Guallidurth combined."

"What says they will combine, though?" said Alystin. "What says they will not dissolve into squabbling over rituals and return their attentions to killing one another?"

Merinid shook his head. "Even if they go at it scattered, they will all try - not one of the factions will suffer heretics in the Temple City. At least one will be lucky eventually. I can't see that staying is an option."

"Ah. Yes. We leave the House, then?" The prospect pleased her as she thought it would have - then, to her consternation, Alystin realized she was frightened in an equal amount. She honestly hadn't imagined, with any semblance of realism, what she might do in the aftermath of some of her fonder fantasies.

"The House? Certainly." Merinid rubbed his hands along his holy symbol. "The city? Quite possibly. The Underdark altogether…? In any case, we need to make our escape good before they spend serious effort in making sure we don't. I'm hoping for another of your good Reveries, Alystin. In the meantime, we need to discuss matters with our surviving relations."

"We?"

"It couldn't hurt for them to be reminded that we are interested in balance," said Merinid, "not in simply turning the current system on its head."

After there had been a great deal of further talk that ended in pledges to request spells of divination and think about it afresh after taking Reverie, they sent for Nedylene and Jhulae. Elaugyrr used a remaining spell to create a series of telepathic links from Alystin to Merinid to Shurdriira to himself. This, he explained, gave them the ability to argue between themselves as necessary while still presenting a united front to their potential converts. Shurdriira left to continue her efforts securing the House, telling them she would report if necessary. Many of the others stayed to watch, and none of them were able to think up an adequate reason, just then, as to why they should leave. There was still a protective circle around the mangled one, who seemed only half-aware of his surroundings or else completely unaware and matching the occasional reaction with stimulus out of chance. The thinned look had left Seldszar's face for the most part, though his knees still hadn't stopped shaking.

As she passed through the doorway, Jhulae rubbed at her face as if wiping tears or testing a new bruise. When Nedylene entered she was nursing fingernail marks, visible with the sleeve of her robe pulled back from her arm. Merinid caught the eye of one of those in the "honor guard" and lifted an eyebrow.

It wasn't us, the soldier signed in response. They had some kind of disagreement.

Their injuries were soon forgotten or given token rubs as they peered - a sidewise slide toward Merinid with his donned half-mask and short sword resting across the tops of his knees, Alystin adjusting her own mask - and then, abandoning all pretense, Elaugyrr nonchalantly sorting the plundered magic.

Oh yes, Elaugyrr.

"I'm sure you've realized by now," Alystin said to them after she judged they'd stared long enough, "Vhaeraun granted me more power than I chose to reveal before this. Someone ten years dead and with his heart cut out would have been beyond the ability of what I pretended to be - but it wasn't beyond me."

In the private conversation they'd had before Elaugyrr's heart was cut out, Merinid had been rocking back and forth - a motion either to soothe his contained fury or to aggravate it. "Males oppressed and under attack must be aided," he muttered, quoting the tenets. His voice seemed to rock as well, or at least to shake. "In any circumstances. What path might we take that will not lead to an even harsher search for dissension? It would be suicide. Our god is not one who advocates suicide. Still, to stand by - and you tell me that he truly was one of ours -"

"He was one of ours." A spell of lie detection while he frantically protested his innocence was all she needed. "And he will be aided." She showed him the vial. It was of the type often used by wizards to preserve necromantic specimens and the like. She could not remember, now, whether the vial's former owner was Elaugyrr himself. That would have been a fair touch. "It is just that it must wait a while longer. I can sneak a small piece - a small piece is enough. Who keeps watch for the dead?"

For once, Merinid was surprised. And impressed - she could see it in his face. For all her lesser years, she'd had the advantage of spending them steeped in the workings of the divine - even if much of it was the wrong divinity. While Merinid was undoubtedly superior so far as stealth and combat, his progress with clerical spells was sluggish in spite of their clandestine efforts.

She slipped the vial back into its hidden pouch. "I only hope that they don't manage to kill each other before we avenge him."

"You mean before he avenges himself?"

"Before he avenges himself," she corrected, and they smiled.

It had taken some time, but this year, when Lolth turned away from the material plane, she took the opportunity.

"Why?"

The word was uttered simultaneously by Jhulae, Nedylene, and - to his obvious consternation - Seldszar, snapping Alystin from her mental wandering. They had all spun in her direction, followed shortly by everyone she could see and likely several she couldn't. Er. What?

Merinid replied through the link, saving her the embarrassment of asking aloud. I was telling them about Vhaeraun's tenets, you see, and correcting misconceptions as to the date of your suborning.

"But - why -" Jhulae swallowed and stepped backward, careful not to bump into Nedylene. "I don't see why - before… you know… before she stopped, then why?"

Alystin looked around her. She would wager most of those present didn't see either - they'd accepted it, but there had never been a sit-down-and-explain session, there had never been enough time or security.

Seldszar, with the look of one fastening a garrote around his own neck and wondering why he was doing it, said, "But… you're female. Um. Aren't you?"

"Unless the definition's been changed on me."

"Then what do you gain from following a god of male drow?"

Near everyone, it seemed, was here and listening - and the others could be told later. Now was good a time as any.

She gestured at those around her. "True enough. The majority of the Masked Lord's worshippers are male - being, after all, in the best position to see the reality. It's that much easier to see it, when you know that you deserve better than the lot you're assigned. Don't you deserve better than what you got?" she addressed the onlookers. "Isn't that why you're here?" General assent. Encouraged, she continued with rising fervor.

Insight, she told them, like idiocy, transcended bounds of gender. Sometimes females, too, could see while their fellows were blinded by promises of glory and superiority - over other races, over males of their own race, over females below them in station. Sometimes females, too, saw the pointlessness of all the constant infighting, the mad scrambling to cater to ever-changing divine whims, the wasteful killing, the arbitrary exaltation of one gender over the other.

You're starting to sound maudlin, Merinid observed. And you want to give those two some incentive. They might not agree with you on what the rest of us take for granted. Nobody wants to be called an idiot.

Idiots is all I can call them. They never asked questions, they've never been anything but spider-kissing drones, they have no spark-

And as I also said, they might come around. And he said something else much as he'd also said before, They can't all be as sharp as you are now.

Come now, sister, said Elaugyrr, as he grinned and drew several puzzled glances. Don't be jealous. Surely Vhaeraun can provide enough good Reveries for all three of you.

"And of course," she said, tempering her indignant tone, "sometimes females prefer a god who does not abandon them for no apparent reason, nor sort them according to how many older relatives they have still living. He pays mind to third daughters…" turning to Nedylene, "not to mention fourth daughters." Nedylene's eyes widened as she considered this. Is that enough incentive for you? "Now. We'll not have any whining about 'sacrilege'-" She thought her imitation of Xune's shrill was passable. "-or the like. If you change your mind… you can't leave, needless to say. And what would you do if we let you? Of course, you might well feel like taking your chances without the support of a House, or the spells the Spider Bitch used to grant you. But who knows - perhaps her precious chaos will take pity."

As she turned toward the pile of offerings Merinid said, "We will speak again later."

Later he would fill their ears with sweetness, coax them into reaching out and devoting themselves to a new god. Her brother, the one who had truly suffered under the rule of the Spider Bitch - her brother would be the gentle one, the patient one, the understanding one.

What, Merinid complained after they'd done with the sacrificial rituals and Alystin returned to her rooms, do I say to that?

Alystin paused in the middle of taking inventory of her magical equipment. She had half-forgotten the mind link. What do you say to what?

From Merinid's tone, it seemed he'd half-forgotten as well. Seldszar has been making further inquiries about the faith.

Good for him. And?

Oh - nothing, really.

She unrolled scroll after scroll and inspected each before returning them to their cases. Nothing, you say.

He began by asking what I meant by hoping you had a good Reverie.

Fair enough. So you told him?

I told him.

And then? Merinid?

Seldszar asked, Elaugyrr interjected, why you had "good Reveries" and Merinid didn't seem to, seeing as he had to hope for yours. He'd accepted the explanation as to why Vhaeraun accepts females at all, but this development threw him somewhat.

Considering his only basis for comparison, Alystin replied as she capped the last case and seated herself on the Reverie couch, that's to be expected, isn't it? Whoever heard of the Spider Bitch personally whispering in the ear of a male priest - that is, when she had them?

Yes, exactly. Pause. Merinid? What's keeping you? It can't be that hard to answer him.

It is hard when you don't know the answer.

Don't let that stop you, Elaugyrr advised. Say she can call back the dead from a piece of bone, while what you can manage is… what you can manage. Exact truth, as long as you don't say "because." It might be the truth, even so. Oh, and by the way, you're doing a good job of looking thoughtful while you stall. I do believe he believes it.

Eyes closed. Breath in, out. She sat here as she'd sat a cycle before. She sat here, and elsewhere her mother and her elder sisters rotted, waiting for her to pry their secrets from their reanimated tongues. She sat here, and she wore the mask without care as to who might catch her at it.

Say, said Elaugyrr, if you do have a good Reverie this cycle, why don't you ask?

As it was, it was an excellent Reverie. They sat across from one another in a facsimile of the Night Above, in a tall patch of surface foliage she remembered was called grass. The Masked Lord leaned forward to whisper, as was his habit. One arm swept his cloak into a flowing curtain halfway around Alystin's dreaming body. She could see stars through the cloak, as if it were a dark soft glass along with that part of his arm enfolded within. She listened to the gifts that he presented to her concerning their future plans and put away each piece of information for closer examination on waking, wondering all the while what it would be like to have him reach out with his other arm and bring the other half of the cloak around her as well. Like the holy day called the Embrace come early, Alystin imagined - like floating in the midst of a nest of shadows. Like that, but in some way increased.

"You are not angry?" she dared ask him.

"That," he said, "is a terribly general question. There are so very many things to be angry about, I can generally find one on a moment's notice. Am I angry at you, do you mean? Now why would that be?"

"I was going to still be able to pretend, if you wished it of me."

"You can still pretend if I wish it," he said. "It takes only a change of venue, or of identity."

She nodded and listened as he dropped hints. Males did not hint as such in Guallidurth; active pursuit was anathema. The general practice was to keep their heads down and wait to be ordered forward. Neither were there hints from her fellow worshippers; they respected her relevant position, but it was Merinid they were familiar with. Of course, a god would not have these difficulties. Early on she'd reveled in the novelty and laughed at the light-voiced intimations. He laughed with her.

After so many years they settled for grinning at each other, his eyes shining blue and declaring his mood twice over. Blue meant faerie blood, she read once. Or possibly human blood. According to that text, blue-eyed drow ought to be sacrificed immediately. The memory widened her grin.

Alystin couldn't imagine Lolth ever plying her nonexistent male priests with such things.

For some time after he was finished, she stayed silent. Then she asked the question. Rather, she asked if she might ask. Ever since it came to her in so many words from Seldszar by way of Merinid, it had waited discreetly in the background.

"You were always such a curious one." The blue had swirls of green in it now. "I suppose it is not such a great thing for one such as me to remember, but I do remember. You asked so many things, wondered so many things, though you were clever enough to learn not to ask aloud. But they never stopped you wondering, did they?"

"They never did." And she asked him the actual question.

"Ah, a fit of modesty," he said. "Why ought I not?"

"Do you say that to all your priestesses?"

She meant it as a jest, but he frowned before he smiled again, and this time the smile was different. "I have seen what happens when clerics go neglected."

"I am not about to wander away from you," she tried again.

His voice stayed light, his eyes blue. In spite of this, or because of it, her spine felt transmuted to ice. "No doubt you would have told the Spider Bitch that as well, had she bothered to visit."

Alystin's eyes in Reverie stayed open. She wished they would close. "I wouldn't mean it any more than Merinid."

"Your brother already knows what the best thing for him is. She never offered him anything beginning to rival what I offer, and we both know what she offered you was hardly an improvement…" His phantasmal hands rested on her shoulders. "But growing up that much closer under her gaze tends to skew rational thought. I'm sure you've observed that."

"Yes." She swallowed. "I have. Yes."

"Does that answer your question?"

"It does."

"Then…" His smile returned to its previous state, he continued his hints, and the chill left her. She laughed three more times before her Reverie ended. When it ended, she went to share with Merinid what Vhaeraun told her.

"It's a sensible thing to do when you think about it," she said, and he agreed.

END

CANONICAL NOTES: At the nebulous time of Demihuman Deities, over 99 percent of Vhaeraun's clergy is male, and the only female priests are double agents, or "Masked Traitors," in Lolth's clergy. There's no updated word on gender restrictions in Faiths and Pantheons .

Vhaeraun is known for involving himself on his worshippers' behalf. On top of this, he has been known to give Masked Traitors special attention - including passing them information in their dreams, though I admit taking some liberty with his exact modus operandi. In addition, "he often (falsely) hints he is willing-" (insert "to" here, presumably) "-grant immortality to worthy traitors or even elevate them to the role of his consort." So... yeah. A god with "drow males" in his portfolio has got to have some kind of reason for that. Here's hoping I haven't made a wreck of him.

I haven't got a good excuse this time for not using the available priestess in canon, except that she'd stick out like a sore thumb in a collection that's otherwise made up of "original" characters.

Well, thanks for reading this far. Please review and all that, if only to say what you think went wrong.