This short story takes place in Menzoberranzan, (if I spelled it right) a long, long time before any of the R.A. Salvatore books take place, or any other forgotten realms book takes place, for that matter. I have no exact timeframe, but I would guess several thousand years before the birth of Matron Mother Beanre (if I spelled that right). In this world, Lolth is not yet the true god of the drow, but is instead 2nd to a great spider, known as Arathnid, who weaves a web of life around their world. In truth, Arathnid wanted to keep the Drow, in her eyes the greatest creation on any of the planes, free from the taint of other life, with the exeption of the spider, which held a special place in Arathnids heart.
The screams ripped from the throats of the Drow elves' being victimized were of agony and almost more then a person could bear, and remain sane. Then again, the overseers were not sane. Years and years of torturing innocent civilians as they shrieked and cried until they begged for death and mercy in the midst of their suffering had finally driven them from their understanding. As the smell of smoldering flesh and the terrible sounds of the thumbscrews doing their mindless duties assailed the senses of the court, a small trickle of laughter trickled down from the thrown. As soon as the queen stood the overseers stopped the torment of their victims, one of the many Drow elf sufferers had a hot iron ripped out of him, and they were immediately hurled to the ground before the rising figure.
The laughter grew to a raucous ecstasy that echoed across the grandest of all the Drow elf Queens throne rooms in the entire of the UnderDark. The lanterns underneath the floor cast all shadows the wrong way, bouncing them back and fourth until they all lay at the feet of the Queen. There they staid, groveling before her just as the many captives cringed at the feet of the overseers, their bodies and souls as broken as the Queen's sanity.
"Good," the shadow sneered, looking out of the shadows at the five hundred or so prisoners now prostrated before her. "My pets like food with some fight in it. I will enjoy watching your pathetic attempts to defend yourselves against their ravenous onslaught. I do believe that you have seen the executions before? Yes, grisly aren't they. I tend to enjoy them." The Queens deep maroon eyes glinted at the very thought of bloodshed. All of the Drow elves within the boundaries of the UnderDark idolize blood. The Queen's eyes, though, shining like dark pools of blood in torchlight, proved to all who could see that her rumored madness was not fable, but truth.
One of the five hundred stood from her stooped position, and began to exude an aura of defiance which had a substantial effect upon her comrades. Backs straightend under the snake headed whips, taking the blows with dignity, and the screams of those tied to the thumbscrews clamped their mouths shut. All knowing that the leader was about to speak. The woman had a long straight nose and white hair, but she had turned it in up in a bun behind here head. Her face was a bit chubby, but her muscular frame dispersed any images of her as a cushioned noble. You could see her comrades straighten their shoulders, and the moans of pain stopped. The overseers were confused, slowly they began to close in around the risen figure, but not before she had her say.
"What right have you to that throne?" her clear, high voice rang out. A beacon of hope for all the prisoners. "I can name ten other houses who have more right to that throne than you do! Ishhlen, of the House of Imbul, and Jerik, of the Western House, but it is neither of they who stands above me but you. A piece of gutter trash who has no more claim to that throne than a male would!"
The woman would have spoken more, but she was finally silenced by an overseer. The adamantine blade which was used to slit his throat was the same blade that had been forced thorough the ribs of Ishhlen by the queen before she was so, while Isshlen was preparing for sleep. The queen had also used that blade to pierce Jerik's medulla, the queen had slipped it into the back of her head right were the skull ends, stopping the woman's heart almost instantaneously.
The Queen had spent the last ten years of her rule slowly killing off her subjects and rivals for the throne with illusionary plots of revolt and rebellion and heresy. Most had been fed to the Queens 'pets,' spiders of monstrous size with an abundance of lethal poisons coursing through their veins, and when the larger spiders were done eating their fill of the twisted and mutilated carcass, their children would come. Tiny spiders they were, no bigger then flies, yet they would come by the thousands and tens of thousands. They would feast and feast and gorge themselves until their diminutive bodies were bloated to the size of one's hands. Such was the fate of all Drow elf who served the Queen.
As she returned to her throne for more of her wine, the torturing resumed in full force, flesh hissed, bones broke, and the howls of those in misery wafted about her head as if she listened to pleasant music from her minstrels. She sighed, satisfied, for she was lost in her own thoughts, conversing with whatever angels inside her twisted mind hid from the wrath of Arathnid. Arathnide was and is and will be the god of the Drow elf people. Her home, the web of life, holds the Drow elf's world together, keeps it from shattering like an orb of glass and letting the angelic demigod Kor'Saal from unleashing his holy warrior light bringers upon all that is good in the Underdark.
The light bringers lived on the higher plains, chanting their endless praise to the burning face of Kor'Saal. An effigy of burning power that cloaked their world in light at all times. No Drow elf queen had ever successfully staged a campaign in the burning lands above the Drow elf's ancestral home, the Underdark. The face had scorched the soldiers, most of whom had to retreat into the Underdark. Those who had stayed behind had been burned alive.
Make you no mistake though, angels do manage to slip through the Web of Life into the Underdark, where they begin their heinous works. Every day their are robbings and muggings, bombings, the remains of innocent citizens rot even now in the cellars of the savage and ruthless and insane within the Underdark. Death pulses like a heart beat through out it, every beat someone's last. Rumor of a brutish amphibian race raping and beating the Drow elf inhabitants spreads across the face of the public forums. The town criers have taken up the call and labeled this The Reign of the Anarchist. A fitting term, for the queen had and still has little regard for traditions and protocol, all of which must be followed if the people are to prosper and survive. However, good is kept at bay and restrained from devouring this world and wrapping it in holy light by the constant prayers and sacrifices of the Order of the Eternal Darkness, those priestess and clerics devote their lives to preserving the Web of Life and lending what strength they can offer to it's creator, the demonic spider queen, Arathnid.
Kieyvuh languished in his cell, wondering at the cause of his imprisonment. He had been there for many weeks and was beginning to worry for his sanity. He had slowly succumbed to the solitude of his cell and was mentally dying. He had tried to ply the bars apart with his mystic powers, but the alarm was quickly sounded and he was at once transported to a confine with a wizard guard. He knew little of the cause of his imprisonment, only that he had done something, something not necessarily wrong, and that as a chastisement he was to be used as the queen's form of amusement at some point in the near future.
This was not a pleasing thought. He had seen the executions before and, if he was executed, was not at all prepared to hold of the swarms of spiders that he would probably encounter, depending on what the queen would decide to do with him. He was left with as much chance of an escape as of Kor'Sall and his holy worrier light bringers going on an angelic crusade and smiting Arathnide as he spun the web which held their world together. Kieyvuh's vary soul shivered not only at the thought of Arathnid's death, but also at his impending doom within the queen's audience chamber as well as what would happen if someone found out the blasphemy which he had just thought and nearly spoken aloud.
Those he spoke or thought heresy and were discovered were dragged away into the bowels of the queens bastion. From there the screams would echo from within those accursed caverns for days at a time. Those who were tortured within those spider forsaken depths emerged in the form of monsters, a mass of burnt and mangled body parts, hardly fit to be entitled abominations, and yet alive. They were then taken to the High Temple of Arathnid, were the priestesses and their clerics would behead them, or whatever was left of their heads, slowly, inching the serrated knife blade back and forth across the rear of the heretics neck, progress measured in half inches, or less. The demonic spells of the clerics would keep the doomed Drow alive for hours on end, just long enough to see their body drop to the bloodied alter, and then they would die. The Priestesses would then skewer the mutilated appendix upon a spear and hang it from the city gates. Where it would rot and the remains be eaten by the spiders children. Kieyvuh would have preferred anything above such a fate, even a day in the queens audience chamber. As his mind wandered and his sanity began again to drift away from him, the key rattled in the far off first, second, third, and finally the eighth lock. His mystic senses also told him that the magical wards had momentarily been lowered.
When the door opened, he finally could examine himself and his condition in the light of another Dark Elf's body heat. He had no idea that he had grown so thin, but the lack of body fat allowed him to see his muscle. His night black flesh was corded and tough from having slept on the cold stone slab in his cell, and yet it possessed a certain sheen which gave him the aura of a hard past. His muscle's cascaded down from his long neck over his tall body. For a Drow elf of the house of Itheel, he was relatively short, but at seven feet tall, he would have been regarded as a midget in any of the other houses of the Underdark. His hair was as white as white could be and cascaded handsomely down his back, but it desperately needed cutting. He doubted that they would offer him the pleasure. His eyes were green with red where the whites of his eyes should be, Permanently tainted with infravision by his unendingly dark surroundings. They slashed through the darkness that was eternal in his home, allowing him to see with more and more clarity as the darkness spilled into his sect. He ran a long, four jointed finger along his ears. The right one was long and thin, stretching out behind his head, but never rising above it. His left ear was a mutilated stub, no more then four inches long behind his head, one of his captors had bitten it off so as to subdue the mage while he resisted capture.
He was roughly removed from his self inspection by the heavy footsteps of the ten foot tall, lance wielding Drow elf who had released him. The stack of armor motioned to him in a gesture which clearly stated 'follow, or be impaled upon my spear.' Kieyvuh did so, wondering why he had been taken away from his cell so early. He wasn't to be killed for another day at least, and the queen was a meticulous person. She would not like to have tomorrow's fun spoiled today, she would wait for tomorrow, and enjoy life as she had ordered it to come, the first time.
Kieyvuh was once again awakened from his mental wandering by the guard, who prodded Kieyvuh roughly with the spear hard enough to make him think the guard meant to run him through. He probably would have, given the chance. As well as the various limbs which poked through the bars in the cells surrounding him. Yet he did not, leading Kieyvuh to believe that years in this dark pit combined with the occupants constant pleas for death or mercy, (more commonly death,) had made a lasting affect upon the mans sanity, namely absence.
He knew that his life by now was most likely measured in hours, and he thought he had best make peace with his God now. He began to concentrate, focusing his mind and body into a state of self denial and self exclusion, banishing all but the reassuring visage of the Spider Queen from his mind. The many limbs and digits of the imprisoned brushed his body but did not disturb his meditation, for he had entered a trance of prayer to Arathnide, praying with a fervor only found in a Drow elf who goes to their doom. The pleas for mercy and help and water and death were everywhere, and they to went to Arathnide in the mages prayer. His prayer was long, and well received as far as he would ever know. Although he did pray for the prisoners that he walked past, as well as the Drow people, his home the Underdark, the everlasting darkness, the web of life, and for the strength of his creator, he prayed most fervently for escape. He knew their was no chance of it, but he prayed all the same. A long , powerful, prayer that would challenge a High Priestesses abilities.
Another prod from the spear butt in his right shoulder slowly turned him to the left, where, far ahead, he saw a flight of stairs. "At last!" he thought, it was the way out of this hellhole, up. He broke into a run and sprinted as fast as he could towards the stairs, and after merely ten yards he was knocked flat and all but senseless by the spear. The guard had thrown it like a javelin with the razor sharp point facing away from the smallish man on the floor, so as not to damage him. That would anger the queen greatly.
The guard walked over to Kieyvuh and picked him up so as to set him on his feet, but the mage promptly collapsed upon the floor again. Seeing this, the guard picked him up again and threw him over his shoulder. The ride from the exit to wherever their destination was not a pleasant one, although it did allow Kieyvuh to learn that he did not have one, but two guards. The first of them he was now being carried by, and none to gently either. The other, apparently the magic sentinel assigned to guard him after he had tried to pick the lock in his cell, was the complete opposite of the sentry which he now road upon like some sack of worthless goods.
He was a small Drow elf, a mere eight feet tall, but the two balls of fire floating around his head and the third of darkness proved that he was a specialized mage of some power. The orb of darkness which floated around his shoulders in a dignified oval pattern showed that he had past the basic levels of spellweaving, this alone enough to make him a fearsome opponent. The two orbs of fire, zooming uncontrollably about his head and torso, showed that she had specialized and become a master in the art of fiery spells. The combination of sights made Kieyvuh's bones tremor.
A twisted finger suddenly reached out of a cell and brushed the man. He stopped short, turned, and sent a dart of fire at the mutilated digit. The hand arced into the air, slowly sizzling and melting away unto the ground in a dribble of superheated blood and flesh and bone, Kieyvuh managed to guess through his daze that the effect that he had just seen happen to the thumb had likely happened to the rest of the cell's occupant as well.
As he was carted off to some godforsaken doom he was vaguely conscience of being happy for the man he had just seen incinerated. Their was no telling how long they had kept him in this terrible place, and their was also no telling how much the man had suffered in his years and possibly centuries here now that the body had been liquefied. No one would ever see his emaciated form or his gnarled and broken fingers. But none of that even mattered now, he, possibly she, was dead, and that was that. Kieyvuh knew that the Drow elf's soul had gone to strengthen the web of life, and even now engaged in battle with Kor'Saal and his light bringers, all for the glory of Arathnide.
Kieyvuh awoke and was dismayed to see that he was once again in a small room of chill stone. He soon lost consciousness again and was lost to sleep. He finally stirred from his deep slumber and started, he was no longer alone in his cell. He was sure that the woman who sat on the stone slab set into the wall, entitled 'bed,' had not been their when he had awoken before. She had propped herself up against the stone, but her head sagged against her chest, sleeping. Her elbow rested across her knee, and extended out in the direction of her foot, which was small and slender. She wore a plain brown skirt of leather which came quarter way down her thighs. There it ended, frayed and torn as if by it had been ripped apart.
Kieyvuh realized that whomever had taken her prisoner was probably the one who had torn her skirt, and then most likely dishonored her. Kieyvuh swore silently to himself to find and butcher the man who had done this to her, if he survived to. No man was to lay hand upon a women without her consent, or the priestess of Arathnide would remove his heart and keep him alive long enough to see it ripped apart by the spiders, dooming him to an eternal afterlife of wandering within the Underdark.
The woman was young, she had doubtless past one seventy, but could easily be mistaken for a fully grown women, but, if you studied her for a moment, was clearly not one yet. She had long ears, slender and beautiful, and they matched her fingers, which were curled out in front of her as if griping a sword. Her build was slim yet strong, corded sinews and toughened muscles that were deceptively small could be seen under her flesh, which was as hard and as smooth as adimantium. One could faintly make out her bottom two ribs, no more could be seen because of a corset covering her breasts, lower ribs, and back. Her form looked to be sculpted it was so beautiful, and the darkness which poured in through the window outlined her in an obsidian shadow. Her face could not be seen because of the angle at which she sat, but Kieyvuh could tell, just by looking at her, that she would be beautiful when he could finally set eyes upon her face.
He could not resist the temptation to see that face, for it would be beautiful. He knew that if he didn't, he would finally lose the battle for his sanity which he had been waging for so long against his solitude. Then he realized something, this woman would be his key! She would be his link to the outside world, and the explanation to the lock which would chain his sanity within him. She would be his friend, and the last one he would ever have.
He crept around to the side so that he could see her face, but could not because she had laid it against her chest, and her face was to her lap. He knew that if she awoke, she could call the guard and he would have his heart removed and fed to the spiders, but he needed to see her face. He leaned forward, bending upon one knee so that his hand could reach her small chin. He gently rested it in between his thumb and the side of his forefinger and he slowly raised her head into the darkness...
And was smashed against the wall of the cell with a death grip around his neck and head. The woman's' face was once again masked in shadow, this time an inch away from his face. He could tell by the low hiss coming from her clouded form that she was angry. She held a worriers stance, and the long and beautiful fingers of her right hand were ready to close about his throat just a little tighter, popping the arteries and shearing the skin in two, covering those beautiful fingers in Kieyvuh's precious life blood.
"Who are you, and what do you want with me?" the shadow queried out of the darkness. The voice was soft, yet there was an immeasurable amount of power behind it. It penetrated deep into Kieyvuh's mind in an unstoppable onslaught of relief, another voice! Finally I hear another Drow elf speak and finally I have someone who will listen.
"I am Kieyvuh, a mage of the house of Arnuul, and I wish merely to speak with your grace." The words came slowly, and when they did come they tasted funny in his mouth. His light, tenor voice resounded strangely off the walls. He had not spoken in months, probably years, and the only motion his mouth had ever had was that of chewing and swallowing. He wondered if she even understood him, if he had spoken the words rightly, but was answered soon enough when she replied.
"Bah, another mage, all mages are alike! It was a mage who brought me here and…" a pause, the truth dawned on both of them at the same time, her that she had lost her most valuable possession, and him that she had not known until now. The woman collapsed in a heap upon the bed, shocked that anyone would break such a fundamental law. Kieyvuh retreated to the other side of the cell, rubbing his neck and whishing that he could help her more then simply leaving her to deal with reality by herself. He could see tears dripping from her face, still shrouded in an impenetrable darkness, but he heard no sobs. He saw that she was strong of body and of spirit. It would be a shame to let such a strong woman go to waste in the Queens chamber.
"Please, am I dreaming? I cannot believe that…" she stumbled across the words, the mental slap of disbelief still stinging in her mind. The sobs continued, as did the unending silence that had fallen between them. Kieyvuh thought of what he could say to comfort her, but could think of nothing that would truly consol her. She was just as doomed as he was, she would likely die the same death that he would have to suffer through, and there was nothing he could do to help her escape. He knew nothing of her, and there was no way that he could see into her mind and touch that tender spot that would heal her wounds. Trying to help her Kieyvuh mumbled, and then spoke aloud,
"Please, m' lady…"
"Shut up, you fool! Shut up! Shut up, Shut up!" The outburst was accompanied by a burst of indiscernible movement. It was fast, faster then even Kieyvuh's magically enhanced senses could follow. Before he could react to her lightning quick strike, her hand was back at her side, attached to it the skin from the left side of Kieyvuh's jaw. The mage flinched, and gritted his teeth, but stood firm through the pain, pain which a true drow worrier would have barley noticed. The women took her seat, somehow keeping her face camouflaged by shadow.
Time passed. The woman, whoever she was, sat on the bed, the sobs raking her body like the claws of some wild beast. At last, the tears ceased to flow from her eyes, and she laid her head upon the cold stone slab. Kieyvuh heard, though barely perceptible, a whispered prayer to Arathnid. He guessed from the length of the prayer and the sense of power that seemed to emanate from her lips, that she was a priestess, obviously in the Spider Queens highest favor. After the prayer had ended, her breathing slowly measured itself into an unhurried rhythm. Kieyvuh watched, mesmerized. The slow cadence pulsed through his mind, bouncing off the inside of his skull and reverberating through out his entire body. It ricocheted off his flesh, and sent tremors throughout his arteries, finally causing the beat of his heart to change, and match her own. His eyelids began to drop and rise again with the pulsation of his body and soul. The beat was overpowering, it worked its way into the recess's of his reason, forcing it to calm and slow itself until finally, with everything keeping tempo, Kieyvuh slept, for the last time in his life.
The corridor was long, stretching on endlessly into the bowls of the Queen's fortress, twisting endlessly in, around, up, down, the height of Drow craftsmanship. The tunnel was finely chiseled, every inch in itself a work of art. The very stone was transformed into something more then beautiful, and yet all that it did was convey a massage of doom to all who read them. The walls, ceilings and floors were covered with runes which, when read, would be the rite of sacrifice. The runes, empowered by countless weavers of spells, whispered out their word, forming a hall of murmuring death.
Kieyvuh, once again being driven forward by a guard, walked down the hall with dignity, though he was bent and broken by the tentacle rods which they had whipped him with. The woman walked behind him, she straight, unlike the masculine form that shuffled before her. She too was guarded, but much more heavily. As opposed to the four guards afforded to a mage of great power, the woman was given ten, with an additional to wizards counter any magic which she might attempt to use.
If these were normal guards, that number would be understandable, after all, one magician can easily outmatch four guardsmen by simply shocking their armor, roasting the men within. However, these were the Queens personal escort, each one an easy match for twelve wizards. Their plate mail was chiseled with runes that would mirror any spell, deflecting it and any damage it might cause from the guardsmen, and sending it shooting back to its caster. There to demonstrate its full power. They were also incredible fighters, ready to kill any thing or any one at a split seconds notice. Their warstaffs, a massive halberd like weapon with a hammer instead of an axe head and a spiked cap on the bottom, weighed over six-hundred pounds, easily enough to crush through any armor, no matter how thick. And if this was not enough to deter a potential enemy from attacking, the two thousand pound suit of armor would stop any assault in seconds. To make them the finest warriors in all the Underdark though, the Queen had ordered them all magically strengthened, so that the could throw the warstaff with increadible speed and force, and so that they would be able to charge into battle at full speed and still have strength left to fight for days.
Clearly Kieyvuh, and the obviously more powerful female, were woefully outmatched, and any hopes that the mage had conjured up of escaping were quickly dashed. The forced three mile march from the cell to the Queens chamber, went unhindered.
Kieyvuh's life had a few more surprises left in it, and they did their job well. When the convoy finally reached it's destination, instead of turning to the left, which was into the Queens dormitory, the marched right past it, on to the right. There was only one place of importance that lay along this route, and that was the Temple of the Spider Queen, the most sacred of places in all the Underdark or the Surface World, for their was a recorded time when Lloth, Araathnids right hand, had appeared there long ago. The only reason that any Drow was ever taken here was for sacrifice to Araathnid. A long and costly affair, done only in the most needy of times. There was no known cause for such an expensive process, but the reason would be disclosed in time, so it was written in the ritual.
As Kieyvuh entered the temple, he was overwhelmed by the sense of awe that the sight inspired. The Temple was massive, beyond even Drow dimensions. It had a vaulted ceiling, and was well over a quarter mile long. The most incredible thing in the entire Temple though, even more so then the fifty carat diamonds lining the Queens throne, the fact that this entire place was queried out of solid rock, even more so the sheer beauty of the entire place, was the image. At the top of the Temple was a gigantic picture of a Drow, a beautiful Drow who slowly changed, transforming into the visage of a hideous spider, and changing back again.
"Lloth, this truly is a sacred place," he thought to himself, as the spider made its transition to the beautiful Drow female. It was a sacred place, and the ground upon which he walked was holy. He was so cowed by the image of Lolth that he completely failed to notice the reaction of his companion, who threw herself to the ground and began a powerful chant, but was disrupted by the guard next to hear. He roughly yanked her to her feet and led her to a large black block in the middle of the Temple, directly under the seductive smile of Lloth.
"Stop, she whishes the mage first." It was a raspy voice, scared and broken as if the voice box had been torn. The voice was accompanied by the appearance of a hunched old hag carrying a large ax. The hag couldn't be much older then three thousand, with most Drow not surviving beyond their one thousand five hundredth. She was ugly, hideous beyond recognition. The only thing which showed her for who she was and what her role was in this ceremony was the axe.
An ax is a rare sight in Drow society. Most executions are done by knife, and most fighting done with swords or warstaffs, with the occasional dirk. Axes are only used during the Ceremony of Rebirth, a time when a Drow is deliberately sacrificed to the Spider Queen in order to grant her strength. When the Spider Queen needs strength, something is wrong, desperately wrong. The one time when the Ceremony of Rebirth was ever used was when an entire section of the Web of Life collapsed upon itself, and Araathnid had to reseed an entire section of Web, the Drow have no idea how close they came to utter destruction.
Broken from his revalry, Kieyvuh was forced towards the block, none to willingly either. He soon understood, however that they wanted him intact, and so he struggled all the harder. He kicked and hit and screamed his denial of his fate at nothing, and only fell silent when he was slapped hard across the face. The guard did not live long enough to realize that he had damaged the sacrifice, and to realize that he was doomed. He head jumped from his shoulders and fell to the ground, leaving a wake of blood along the floor. The corpse dropped to its knees and toppled over backward, completely disregarded by its companions. Such was the way of the Drow.
It was the last Kieyvuh would ever see of his ancestral home, because of the black hood that was forced over his head. He felt himself shoved forward, stumbling and tripping his way over to the block. Rough hands grabbed him and forced him downward, into, onto the block.
"Why?" he suddenly cried out, and in answer the female crooked,
"Why? Why should I tell you, male! You are shriveled and weak, but if it will ease your passing, I will tell you why. Our God is dying, and we ourselves shall have to fight off all those who would destroy us."
He heard the old hag, her ax already stained with the blood of the guardsman, heave her weapon high above her head. Then, with a shout of religious ecstasy, she swung.
Her aim was perfect, and the axes' momentum did not stop until it had carried itself halfway through the block.
Now that you have read the story, I can tell you that the only reason Arathnid was dying was becuase Lolth had done something, I'm not quite sure what, to depose her and ascend to the position of primary God of the Drow.