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It will be a ainst oddess that Mez&039;Barris is lost souard her response with half her House army destroyed, and I will have some time to consider what must be done before I have to confront Mez&039;Barris, Lolth willing

Then again, she thought, as left of the Council, anyway? Faen Tlabbar, the Third House, was in the hands of an untried girl, and Yasraena Dyrr was not likely to present herself at the next , was she? She and all her filthy House were barricaded in their castle, await-ing the arrival of their duergar allies, and apparently quite prepared to stand a siege

That left Zeerith Q&039;Xorlarrin, Miz&039;ri Mizzrym, and Prid&039;eesoth Tuin as the only matron mothers she need concern herself with

To distract herself from the unpleasant prospect ahead, Triel turned to face Andzrel and Zal&039;therra More than anything, she longed to punish the weaponsher army into a dis-astrous ambush, but as far as she could tell, Andzrel&039;s skill and Zal&039;therra&039;s decisiveness had most likely extricated the Ar Menzoberranzan&039;s arar now?" she asked

"About three miles south of us," replied Andzrel "House Mizzryh I&039;ve sent almost a hundred of our own soldiers to stiffen the defense" Triel understood what Andzrel really meant - he&039;d put Baenre soldiers beside the Mizzryrach Dyrr had engineered didn&039;t take place "The Scoured Legion advances through another passage to our east, cir-cling around us We don&039;t dare try to et by us"

"It would only take a hundred soldiers to hold this tunnel against almost any force, wouldn&039;t it?" Triel asked

"Yes, but the duergar have enough izards in their ranks, and siege engines in their train, that they wouldn&039;t be halted for long by a rear-guard action"

"Try it anyway," Triel grated "Use slave troops, and leave enough officers behind to make sure they don&039;t break and run We need tiuards are for"

Andzrel didn&039;t argue the point, and Triel paced away to gather her thoughts Drow rebels, slave revolts, duergar are, and tanarukk hordes - it was hard to see how et much worse Where could she even start to address any of these probleht of the city&039;s as-sear, and allow the tanarukks to sweep past?

"How did this happen?" she ue with our city&039;s enemies," Zal&039;therra replied "They contrived tothe Pillars of Woe against the gray dwarves, they led us into a trap They must be obliterated for their treachery"

"I was not speaking to you," Triel growled, and this tih she knew Zal&039;therra was not to blame for the disastrous battle, she had to strike out at so her to her heels despite the fact that Zal&039;therra towered alhed her by thirty pounds

"You must come to expect treachery, you simpleminded fool!" Triel snarled "Why were there no Baenre officers a our scouts? Why did you take no steps to verify the reports the Agrach Dyrr fed to you? If you had exercised even the most minimal amount of caution, our army would not be in tatters"

Zal&039;therra shrank back, saying, "Matron Mother, we all approved of Andzrel&039;s plans - "

"Andzrel is aweapon,Zal&039;therra Our House army is aweapon Yours is the hand that ainst our enement and make decisions, to use your head andthink! "

Triel whirled away to keep herself froain If she did, she didn&039;t think she&039;d be able to stop, and like it or not Zal&039;therra was probably theof her cousins Triel wouldn&039;t be around forever, and she needed to give thought to leaving House Baenre with at least a few competent priestesses in the event that the day came when she would have to have her sisters ed, her eyes ith fear, "I apol-ogize for irl, and a Baenre should never offer one," the ive you the opportunity to de portion of uard"

Triel gestured toward the south There was an excellent chance that she was sending her cousin to her death, but she needed to know if Zal&039;therra had the wits and the resolve to become a leader of House Baenre, and if she found a way to survive the assignht consider perht for every step they take toward Menzober-ranzan," Triel added "Your survival depends on your success If you aban-don this tunnel before three days pass, I will have you crucified"

Zal&039;therra bowed, and hurried off Triel turned back to the weapons master

"Understand that I do not hold you blameless, either," she said in a low voice "You were the author of our grand strategy, and I coht of House Baenre&039;s power and prestige to your battle plan, which has led us to a disaster the likes of which we have not seen since Mithral Hall In any other circury centipedes with your tendons slashed for your failure, butthese are unusual times, and there exists the sy ain"

"Yes, Matron Mother," Andzrel said, bowing low

"So," she continued, "where do we stop the duergar and their allies?"

Without hesitation, the weapons master replied, "We do not, Matron Mother Given the losses we have already suffered, I advise withdrawing back to Menzoberranzan and preparing for a siege"

"I do not like that option," Triel snapped "It reeks of defeat, and the longer an army sits on our doorstep, the more likely it is that they&039;ll be re-inforced by the arrival of some other enemy, such as the beholders or the mind flayers"

"That is possible, of course," Andzrel said, his voice carefully neutral, "but the gray dwarves will not find it easy to e around Menzoberranzan, a hundred ar can wait us out for more than a few months, and I doubt they have the numbers to take the city by storar set their siege, and see what kind of a threat we&039;re really facing It would provide us the opportunity to crush House Agrach Dyrr in the ar in battle again?" Triel rasped

"No, Matron Mother, but I will not advise a course of action that haz-ards the city on a battle for which we are not prepared, not unless we have no other choice We are not yet at that point" He paused, then added, "We can always gather our strength within the city and sally in force in only a few days, if we see the need or the opportunity"

Triel weighed the weapons master&039;s advice

"I will return to Menzoberranzan and set the matter before the Council," she said at last, "but, until you&039;re ordered otherwise, continue your with-drawal I will have our captains in the city e

Halisstra opened her eyes and found herself drifting in an endless silver sea Soft gray clouds e dark streaks twisted violently through the sky, anchored in ends so distant she couldn&039;t perceive the rolled between a child&039;s fingertips She glanced doondering what supported her, and saw nothing but e pearly sky beneath her feet and all around her

She drew in a sudden breath, surprised by the sight, and felt her lungs fill with so sweeter and perhaps a littleon the stuff she seemed perfectly acclih her limbs as she found herself mes-merized by the simple act of respiration

Halisstra raised her hand to her face in an unconscious desire to shield her eyes, and she noticed that her eyesight was preternaturally keen Each link of her es boldly de-fined, the leather of her gloves glea with discrete layers of oils and stains

Words failed her

"You have not ventured here before, Mistress Melarn?" said Tzirik from somewhere behind her

Halisstra craned her neck back to look for him, but in response the entire vista see into her view the floating forms of her coht,floated was better - a dozen yards froe of a knife, his cloak rippling softly in a breeze Halisstra could not feel He spoke softly, yet his voice car-ried with a marvelous clarity and precision that made it seem that he stood within arm&039;s reach

"I would have expected a priestess of your stature to be familiar with the astral real of what to expect, but I have never had the occa-sion to journey to other planes," she replied "My knowledge of this place is onlytheoretical"

She noted that each of her coible and real, as Tzirik himself From some spot she could not easily perceive - somewhere in the middle of their backs, or perhaps the napes of their necks - sprang a slender, gleaht

Halisstra reached around behind her head and felt her own cord The warers brushed it, a powerful jolt quivered through her torso as if she&039;d just plucked the heartstring of her own soul She jerked her hand back, and resolved not to try to touch her cord again

"Your silver cord," Tzirik explained "A nigh indestructible bond that ties your soul to its rightful home: your body, back in Minauthkeep" The priest offered a cruel ss that can part an astral traveler&039;s cord, but if so did, that traveler would be destroyed in an instant"

Halisstra watched as Ryld felt for his own cord and touched it His eyes widened and he snatched his hand back just as swiftly as she had with-drawn her own

"How long do these things get?" the weapons ith," Tzirik said "Don&039;t worry, they fade to intangibility within a foot or two of your skin, so you won&039;t be tripping over your own cord In fact, it has the habit of keeping itself out of your way, quite without a thought on your part"

Halisstra glanced around the coled to adjust themselves to their new environ to tread water Quenthel held herself as stiff as a blade, her liuidly, her long white hair strea with dark alanced around, studying their sur-roundings, and nodded

"This is so of a timeless place," he said, "but tiin our journey Follow me, and stay close You s have a way of vanishing in the , ar silently behind hio, but so the desire to keep the priest close by, she found herself leaping forith such alacrity that her next impulse was to yelp out loud, if only to herself, "Stop!"

And she did, so quickly and with so perfect an end to motion that her mind told her shemust lurch forward, as if she had tried to stop too suddenly froed to throw herself into a violent circle before she stopped co trouble

Danifae scowled prettily as she tried to o anywhere at all, and Ryld and Valas had so to trust theoddess!" Quenthel growled, watching theo"

"With all due respect, Mistress, where is it that we should desire to go?" Valas asked as he disentangled hi the priest," the Baenre replied "He cast the spell, so he will be able to find the portal leading into the Demonweb Pits It ely here"

With that, Quenthel moved off in pursuit of Tzirik

Halisstra closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and concentrated on trailing the priest at a comfortable distance She closed up quickly and smoothly, and this tih the rest of the coether easily as they becaeness of the Astral Plane Halisstra indulged herself by experi herself horizontally so that she felt like she flew like a bird through the pearly void, then trying to face her direction of travel so that she felt as if she alking swiftly without s

As it turned out, it didn&039;t reallyas hernear her coan to seep into her understand-ing She was only a spirit, weightless, perfect, yet she was in a place where spirits becaible Somewhere beyond the endless pearly expanse that ods, a thousand infinite concepts of ex-istence where the divine beings who ruledover the fate of all Faerun - of all the worlds, for that matter - had their abodes She could spend a hun-dred drow lifeti the domains that touched on the astral sea, and not even coht nificant, and she pushed it from her mind Lolth had not called her to the Demonweb Pits for her to be overawed by the silver void of the Astral Plane She had called Halis-stra and the others to stand before her, capable and confident, to profess their faith and adoration For what other purpose could the goddess have done all that she had done by withdrawing her power fro the fall of Ched Nasad, by causing the endless toils and tribu-lations that had assailed the First Daughter of House Melarn?

There is a purpose, Halisstra told herself, a purpose that will beand do not falter

The Queen of the De us a little farther