Author's Note: Drow and spiders...it's not just a Lolth thing. Spider motifs are common in drow art, architecture and fashion. (Like Fereldens and dogs.)

15...The Hive

The drow entered the beholder hive without incident. Solaufein found this one similar to other hives he had ventured into, with many large caverns pierced by vertical shafts and joined together by irregular horizontal tunnels. The tunnels and the occasional narrow stairways or ladders were used by the slaves. Several silent kobold slaves peeped into the entrance hall where they waited but they ran away as soon as they were noticed.

"Should we follow?" Solaufein signed to Nathyrra.

"Not yet," she signed back. She stood calmly, apparently at her ease. Solaufein could tell he was not the only one in the group suppressing the fidgets. He had little experience with diplomatic visits. In Ust Natha, he and his people were only sent in after diplomacy was abandoned.

The party was kept waiting for quite a long time before a beholder deigned to notice them. It made a stately descent through the central shaft and hovered at an uncomfortable height overhead. Its central eye fixed upon Nathyrra when she strode forward. Its other eyestalks waved seemingly at random.

"I come from the Valsharess," Nathyrra snapped. "She will not be pleased when she hears of the discourtesy with which I have been treated."

The beholder's huge maw opened, showing many long sharp teeth. "The slaves were lax in apprising us of your presence," the beholder said. "The slaves will be punished."

"If your slaves are unreliable, you should see to our business yourself. I have a message for the Eye Tyrant."

"The slaves will show you to the chamber that has been prepared for your use. The slaves will show you to the ruins that lie below. You will destroy the spiders. You will find and destroy the threat. That has been promised."

"We will find the threat and destroy it," Nathyrra said.

"Afterwards, there will be an audience with Eye Tyrant Aru-tha. Afterwards. Not before."


"How good is your levitation?" Nathyrra asked. They both looked down into the deep pit that led to the ruins.

"I lost the ability during my time on the surface," Solaufein admitted.

Nathyrra gave him a startled look. "Lost it? Completely?"

"Without the faerzress of the Underdark, many of our abilities fade. You did not know this?"

"I have never been on the surface." She looked away for a moment. "My matron mother said we would wither and die under the sun. I assumed she lied."

"We don't wither but we do change. In some ways, we are diminished, I suppose. But there are compensations. I've developed a pretty good tolerance for bright light and my skin rarely burns in the sun as it once did."

"The Mother Seer lived on the surface many years and she is not weak," Nathyrra said.

"No."

"So this change that happens...it is a good thing?" She gave him a thoughtful look. "Yes. It is a good thing. It is what Eilistraee wants for our people."

"Yes," Solaufein said. "I will admit, though, that I miss being able to levitate. However, we can use the ropes of the slaves to descend and return."

"For this, yes. I was thinking about afterward."

"Afterward?"

"We may need to levitate when we attack the hive." Haelra and some of the other drow who huddled nearby froze in shock but Solaufein was not surprised. "You agree that we must destroy them," she added with a hint of a question.

"We do not have the resources to ally with the hive even if we wished. We cannot leave such powerful enemies behind us," he said. "So yes, I do agree. It may be enough to kill the Eye Tyrant, however. Her death will throw the hive in disarray and the others will scatter for safety." He wondered if he imagined the relief in her eyes. Killing the entire hive would not be a trivial task. It would, in fact, be difficult and dangerous.

"You have fought beholders before?" she asked.

"I have fought individual beholders many times. With a group of surfacers, I eradicated a hive near Ust Natha that was at least as large as this one."

"I saw many surfacer slaves in Ched Nasad," one of the scouts said. "Surfacers are weak against magic. How could they stand against beholders? How could they kill an entire hive? That seems unlikely." His tone stopped just short of calling Solaufein a liar.

"Yet so it happened," Solaufein said, irritated but trying to keep his voice pleasant. Later he would ask Haelra this fool's name. "Surfacers have powerful mages and priests, just as we do. They are rarely taken as slaves, however, so your ignorance is understandable."

"Too dangerous to capture and too dangerous to keep," Nathyrra said.

"Yes," Solaufein agreed. "Their mages had spells to protect us against the beholders' eye attacks. One of their warriors had a shield that reflected the eye beams back against the beholders, doing them great harm."

"Do you have another of these shields?" Haelra asked.

"Alas, no, it was unique," he said.

"But I know the protective spells," Nathyrra said. "We may find a device we can use against the beholders, but if not, our blades will do. We are drow. We are not weak against magic."

Nathyrra levitated down the hole while the rest of them scrambled down the crude rope ladder. Haelra had lived on the surface much longer than Solaufein. She had no confidence that her abilities had returned during her time in Lith My'athar, even though the faerzress was quite strong there. The others were commoners. Some of them could levitate short distances but none of them wished to risk the long drop.

They ended in a narrow cave. Its outlet was blocked with fresh webbing, thick and sticky. Nathyrra managed to burn it away with a spell but she frowned as she did so.

"I can already feel my spells weakening," she told Solaufein. "Something is down here all right. The Weave feels muffled."

"What are we going to do about the spiders?" Haelra asked. "We don't have to kill them, do we?" Some of the scouts gave Solaufein pleading eyes. He almost laughed. This was certainly different from traveling with surfacers.

"I have some bait to draw them off," Nathyrra said. "Let me call my familiar while I still have magic and she can carry the bait away from us."

Nathyrra held out her hand palm up and closed her eyes. There was a shimmer and then a hairy spider about the size of Solaufein's fist formed on her hand. Its main pair of eyes were large and lustrous and seemed to glow with intelligence. The spider climbed to Nathyrra's shoulder and slowly swiveled its head to take in each member of the party. It gave an excited little hop.

"This is G'eldafay," Nathyrra said proudly.

Haelra, who up to now had treated Nathyrra rather coolly, cooed and said, "She's adorable."

"She is, isn't she?" Nathyrra said. Solaufein had to admit the clever little spider was quite winsome. Nathyrra dug in her pack. Inside a rothe leather pouch were a number of dark pellets. She handed one to G'eldafay, who took it carefully between her pedipalps. "You know what to do," she told her familiar. "Lead them somewhere out of our way." The spider jumped to the ground and scuttled off down a corridor to their right. "Most spiders find the scent of the bait irresistible," Nathyrra told them. "It lasts for about a cycle."


The narrow cave led to another narrow cave and that led to a partially collapsed wall. They scrambled over and through a high crack in the wall and found themselves looking over a vast plaza, littered with rubble and the remains of what had once been buildings.

"If I had to guess, I'd say this was a Deep Imaskari city," Nathyrra said. "Or one of their outposts, perhaps. At any rate, it doesn't look like anyone lives here now."

"I thought the Imaskari died out long ago," Solaufein said.

Nathyrra shrugged. "These ruins look very old." She closed her eyes in concentration. "That way," she said. They walked past the broken bodies of beholders.

"Killed by spiders," he said.

"How do you know?" Haelra asked. "There might be something else down here."

"That one has a spider leg in its mouth," Solaufein said. "And look at the dust. Those beholders were dragged here. They were killed elsewhere."

"Yes," Nathyrra said. "Something incapacitated those beholders so the spiders could attack. Whatever it was, I want it."

Nathyrra led them over broken pavement and piles of stones that no longer bore much resemblance to the soaring buildings they'd no doubt once been. Near a ruined fountain, an obelisk still stood. The pillar was covered with runes and more were worked into the paving stones that ringed it.

"Here," she said. "This is the center of the dead magic zone."

The obelisk stood over twice Solaufein's height and appeared to be carved from stone.

"If this is the weapon, it's not very portable," he said. Nathyrra didn't answer. She circumambulated the pillar and studied the runes.

"Don't step on the runes," she warned when he approached. "Let us rest here awhile and I will study the runes. There is something..." She paused again and looked up at the markings above her head. "Give me some time to figure this out."

Solaufein called a rest break and set two of Imloth's scouts on watch. He wandered around in mild curiosity but the broken stones and general desolation could not hold his interest for long. Finally he climbed up on the remains of a wall and stretched out for a rest. From his high perch he had a view of most of the plaza. Nathyrra, unable to cast a mage light, had lit a torch and was busy scribbling notes in a small book. Her familiar wandered around her, sometimes climbing to her shoulder. Once he saw the spider playing with her hair. Nathyrra smiled at her. After an hour or so, as Solaufein found himself becoming sleepy, Haelra approached the obelisk.

"Stay off the runes," Nathyrra told her.

"Can you make sense of these?"

"I studied the Imaskari language long ago," Nathyrra said. "This obelisk was part of an ancient defense. Over here, look, these are the directions for how to activate the field. And obviously it has been activated. Perhaps by the approach of the beholders? This device, or rather the core that powers it, was brought here from the surface long ago."

"Fascinating, I'm sure." The cleric's voice was ironic.

"But it is fascinating," Nathyrra said. "If we can remove the core, think what a defense it could serve for Lith My'athar. Whenever we chose, the army of the Valsharess would be stripped of its magic."

"But so would we. I'm not sure how that helps us. We're still outnumbered."

"Yes, but we would expect the loss of magic and could compensate. Anything that takes our enemy by surprise can be turned to our advantage," Nathyrra said patiently.

"Like poison in a stew?"

"I thought that did not sit well with you," Nathyrra said.

"We follow Eilistraee," Haelra said. "Assassination is not our way, Nathyrra. Eilistraee teaches us joy and love, not hatred and revenge."

"I feel great joy when my enemies lie dead. I love it when my allies lie safe. No, do not give me that look. I know what you are saying. I am what I am, Haelra. The Seer understands that, if you do not." A pause. "If it helps, you may tell yourself that I do what I do so that you don't have to."

"All I'm saying is that perhaps there was another way."

"There's always another way. Some ways are better and some far worse. Maybe one day I'll go to the surface and put away my poisons and my blades. Maybe I'll dance under the moon. I might even learn to play the flute. For now, I will use the skills that I have to attain our goals."

Haelra nodded and stiffly walked away.

"I suppose you heard all that," Nathyrra said, without looking up at Solaufein. She stroked a slender finger along G'eldafay's carapace.

"I heard. Unobservant for her not to see me up here."

"She meant her words for your ears too."

"I would have expected her to be more grateful," Solaufein said. "That patrol outnumbered us. It could have been a difficult fight. We could have lost people. We cannot afford losses."

She gave a small snort. "Thank you for that. I had not thought Eilistraee's Chosen would be so pragmatic."

"There will be no peace for us except through victory."

"So it always is," she said. "Some, like Haelra, have been on the surface so long that they forget what we are. They wish to forget. It is a sort of blindness, I think."

"I have seen little of peace on the surface myself."

"Is it so? Perhaps, then, that is why Eilistraee brought you to us."

"I do not know, to be honest."

"Have you heard how I came to the Seer's camp?" She looked up then and met his eyes. "Surely someone has whispered the tale in your ear."

"No."

"They will. You know I was a Red Sister. An assassin. I was sent to kill the Seer. I posed as a convert to Eilistraee so I could infiltrate the camp. For some strange reason, that makes me less than trustworthy in the eyes of her followers." Her lips quirked. "Particularly Valen Shadowbreath. He never leaves the Seer's side if I am in the camp. Perhaps you've noticed?"

"He and I are not close."

"Of course. He doesn't trust you either. He doesn't trust anyone really. Not even himself, I suspect."

"What does that mean?"

"Oh, watch him," Nathyrra said. "You'll see. At any rate, my tale. I was called to the Dark Maiden's service almost against my will." Her lips tightened. "That's not quite what I meant but I certainly had no plans of becoming an Eilistraeen in truth. I had every intention of killing the Seer, like Sinvyl's good little pet and returning to revel in the rewards she promised me."

"Sinvyl?"

"The Valsharess. I studied Eilistraee's teachings in order to pose as one of her converts and I came to the Seer's camp, earnest and penitent. I was taken before the Seer. They didn't even search me for weapons. Trusting fools, I thought. Only later did I learn that was by the Seer's order. And then I met her."

"The Seer," Solaufein said. He remembered his first meeting with her.

"She looked at me. She knew why I had come. My subterfuge had been for nothing. I saw that in her eyes. She even knew my name. 'Nathyrra,' she said. 'You have come to us at last.' I drew my poisoned dagger." Nathyrra blinked. "She smiled at me, Solaufein. She smiled and held out her hand. 'Do what you must', she said."

Solaufein heard a tremor in her voice.

"I tried to step closer," Nathyrra said. "I couldn't. My hand was frozen. I couldn't strike her. And I knew the power hadn't come from her. It was Eilistraee's presence I felt." She gave a long shudder. "And I have served the Seer ever since. I am no expert in Eilistraee's ways like Haelra but I do know this. Eilistraee did not call me to Her service to sing and dance. She called me here to kill. It is my blade that She needs. And I suspect you are the same."

She didn't wait for a response but turned a shoulder, signifying the end of the conversation. She opened her book and returned to her study of the runes. Solaufein stretched out in what comfort he could find and waited.

Sometime later, a tiny click and a triumphant breath roused Solaufein to alertness. Nathyrra leaned into the obelisk. One of the runestones moved under her delicate fingers. From within, a bright light limned her figure. Squinting, she turned her face away. She took a cloth from her pack and wrapped her hand before she reached into the bright hole. She pulled out a glowing orb about the size of a large apple. With precision, she enunciated an unfamiliar phrase. The orb darkened.

"And I have magic again. Come here," Nathyrra said. Solaufein slithered off the wall and joined her. Up close, the orb looked like a slightly irregular glob of greenish glass. She wrapped it in her cloth and handed it to Solaufein. "I think you should keep this," she said. "Listen. These are the words of activation and deactivation." They sounded like nonsense to him. She had him repeat the words several times until the stone reliably lit and darkened by his command. "Can you remember that?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure how large the field of its effect is. We will have to experiment."

"Very large," Solaufein said. "Judging by what you experienced when we entered the cave."

"Yes, but I believe the runes on the obelisk amplified the power of the stone. I think it is enough to serve us against the Eye Tyrant. However, I do not know if the device's power is limited and we do not want to waste it. Put it safe in your pack. Don't worry," she said when she saw his expression. "I can still protect us with my spells should the device fail. You are still resolved to attack the Eye Tyrant?"

"Of course."

"If I can arrange a private audience with the Eye Tyrant-"

She and Solaufein both jerked their heads towards the cry of alarm from one of the lookouts.

"Light take it," Nathyrra swore. "Where did that thing come from?" She slapped her pack and grabbed her hand crossbow.

The bebilith stalked towards the lookout on huge hairy legs, standing so tall that its low-slung belly could have passed over his head, had he been fool enough to stand his ground. The drow ran towards the nearest cover. Unfortunately that drew the gigantic demonic arachnid towards the obelisk.

Its huge fangs dribbled a toxin that sizzled when it hit the ground. Its mouth opened sideways in anticipation of a meal. The other scouts, roused by the lookout's cry, stood in an open semicircle and like Nathyrra, opened fire with their hand bows. Solaufein wasn't convinced the creature could even feel the bolts through its thick hide. One of the men took out one of the creature's myriad of eyes. That just made it mad.

This appears hopeless, he thought.

"Nathyrra and I will draw it off," he shouted. "The rest of you, go up the rope!"

"We will?" she asked but none of the others argued. Nathyrra gave a breathy laugh and followed Solaufein. He shouted and waved his arms at the bebilith and when that didn't work, threw a chunk of stone. That still didn't stop the creature's pursuit of the lookout. Solaufein had to run right in front of the bebilith to finally catch its attention.

Then, of course, he had a new problem.

The other drow had all scrambled away. Solaufein ran flat out in a large circle around the plaza, scrambling over rubble and praying he didn't stumble. The bebelith chased after him. Its strides were slower than his but much, much longer.

"Can you outrun it?" Nathyrra shouted.

"Not for long! Will your bait work?"

"Not on a demon!"

"Can you banish it?" he yelled.

"No!"

"Can it climb?"

"Yes!"

"Crap!"

Solaufein heard her cast a spell. It must have been Haste for suddenly she sprinted past him, fast as a deer.

"Go for the rope," she cried. Panting, he did so. He joined the other drow and waited anxiously.

"You're insane," Nathyrra told him once she'd levitated up the narrow crack. "You thought you'd outrun a bebilith? In armor?" Luckily the bebilith was too large to fit through the shaft. As it shrieked in disappointment, they all retreated to the entrance chamber, with more speed than dignity. She and Solaufein were still catching their breath when a beholder drifted down into the room.

"You have completed the task?" it asked.

"Yes, indeed," Nathyrra said. "We are ready to complete the negotiations. We have something very special for your Eye Tyrant."

"Eye Tyrant Aru-Tha will be pleased to accept your offering."

Nathyrra gave a narrow-eyed smile.