Another shout from below drew his attention, but he ignored it.

Fascinated and horrified, Pharaun called upon the power of his Sorcere ring to allow him to see emanations of magic and invisible things. As he'd expected, the web glowed a soft red in his sight. The corporeal web possessed magical properties that allowed it to trap and hold incorporeal souls. He wondered at the arcane mechanism behind that spell when his augmented sight revealed an otherwise invisible creature crouched in the center of the web, near one of the bound souls. Except for the eight black eyes in the center of its face and the fangs poking out from under its lips, it appeared vaguely reminiscent of a drow whose body had been crossed with a spider and stretched thin on a torturer's rack to twice its normal length. It crouched, watching him, on the web strands, naked, its clutching fingers half as long as Pharaun's forearm. Patches of short, bristly hairs jutted in patches from its skin. Periodic tremors coursed along its body, as though it was wracked by pain. A horrid fluid leaked from its mouth. Spinneret holes opened in its legs.

I see you, Pharaun thought as he called to mind a spell.

He must have stared a moment too long. The creature realized that it had been seen. It opened its mouth and coursed over the web toward him. As it moved, a voice sounded in Pharaun's head,

a reasonable, persuasive voice augmented by magic.

Here is comfort, here is warmth. Come closer.

Pharaun felt the suggestion sink into his brain and pervert his will, but he resisted its pull and floated backward, incanting a spell the while.

The creature bounded forward, hissing. When it reached the end of the web, it spun a flip and turned its legs toward Pharaun. Web filaments shot from its spinnerets and hit Pharaun in the chest. He barely felt the impact on his flesh, but the webs seemed to reach through and into him.

His breath nearly left him. He felt himself separating in two, like curdled rothe milk. The web was pulling his soul from his body. The creature hissed again and began to pull.

More shouts from below. Quenthel's voice, angry.

Pharaun maintained his concentration-barely-and finished his spell in a whisper. The magic powered his voice, gave it strength, potency, and with it he uttered a single word of power.

The magic of the spell shredded the web strands attached to Pharaun and struck the creature like a hammer blow. The force blew it backward along its webs where it lay still.

The trapped souls struggled for freedom from the partially destroyed webs. The male drow nearest him managed to squirm himself free of the web. The soul did not so much as look at

Pharaun. Instead, he simply headed skyward to join the other souls on their way to Lolth.

"Thanks are unnecessary," Pharaun shot after him, in a voice more like his own.

Below him, Quenthel was still shouting.

Pharaun shook his head to clear it and checked his body to ensure that he had suffered no permanent damage. Satisfied that he had not, he removed a leather glove from his cloak and voiced another spell.

An enormous hand of magical force took shape before him. At his mental command, it retrieved the stunned body of the arachnoid creature and gripped it tightly, taking care to ensure that the hand's grip covered the creature's spinnerets. Pharaun voiced another spell, temporarily dispelling the creature's natural invisibility.

Pharaun descended, trophy in hand, so to speak. He did not spare even glance at the other trapped souls.

The moment his boots touched stone, an impatient Quenthel demanded, "What in the Nine

Hells were you doing?"

She had barely looked at the creature enwrapped in the huge fingers of his magical spell.

"Investigating, Mistress," Pharaun answered.

Before Quenthel could reply, Danifae threw back her hood and said, "I did not hear you ask for permission to investigate, male. Nor to kill one of Lolth's creatures."

Pharaun glared at Danifae and might have advanced on her had Jeggred not offered a threatening growl.

"I have not been in the habit of asking your permission, battle-captive. And this creature attacked me."

"Relearn your habits, Master Mizzrym," Danifae snapped, her eyes narrow and cold. "You are a resource of a priestess of Lolth, nothing more. Your disobedience borders on impudence and heresy."

To Pharaun's surprise, Quenthel said, "She is correct. The next time you divert our mission without my command, you will be punished. Lolth awaits her Yor'thae. We will not waste time with your trivial investigations."

As if to emphasize her point, the serpents extended to twice their ordinary length and flicked their tongues against Pharaun's flesh.

The Master of Sorcere swallowed his anger, stifled his pride, and set out to control the damage.

He offered Quenthel a bow and said, "Of course, Mistress. Forgive my presumption." To

Danifae, he said, "And I was not aware that you now spoke for the Mistress."

Quenthel's jaw clenched at that. She glared first at Pharaun, then at Danifae.

"No one speaks for me," Quenthel said, and Pharaun lowered his gaze.

Danifae said, "I seek only the Spider Queen's will, Mistress of Arach-Tinilith."

"As do I," Quenthel said, and turned away to study the route ahead.

When she did, Pharaun met Danifae's eyes. She offered him a small smile-no doubt she thought she had driven some wedge between Quenthel and Pharaun by pointing out that the mage had acted without the high priestess's permission. Her gaze promised Pharaun an ugly death should the wedge result in a wide enough gap.

Pharaun smiled back at her. He felt reasonably comfortable that he had mitigated the damage by suggesting that Danifae had acted presumptuously by speaking for Quenthel. And if blades came to blood, it would be Danifae who would suffer the ugly death.

The thought gave him a momentary start. Kill a priestess of Lolth? True, Danifae was

Houseless but she was still a priestess. Such a thing would not even have occurred to Pharaun before Lolth's Silence. He realized that while Lolth might have returned, her Silence had changed something fundamental about the relationship between male and female drow-for at least some males, priestesses would no longer seem so untouchable. Their weakness during the Silence,

albeit temporary, had removed some of the social controls that underlaid their rule. He wondered how that would play out in future years.

The creature held in his magical fist stirred and groaned. Pharaun's spell had left it only temporarily stunned.

"As is her wont," Pharaun said to Quenthel. "Mistress Danifae has misconstrued the situation.

I have not killed one of Lolth's creatures. I have merely brought it to you, Mistress, to do with as you wish. Perhaps to question it?"

Quenthel belted her whip and turned. Pharaun saw approval in her eyes. The serpents of the whip went slack. She eyed the creature closely for the first time then stepped forward, took its fanged jaw in her hand, and squeezed.

"Speak," she said to it. "What are you?"

"Be wary, Mistress," Pharaun warned. "It has the ability to implant a suggestion. That is how it lures souls to its web, offering them comfort."

Quenthel squeezed, and the creature wailed. Danifae smirked at its pain. Jeggred eyed it as if trying to determine how it might taste.

"If you attempt it," she said. "I will squeeze your head until it bursts."

"Not do," the creature whimpered in a high pitched voice. It spoke in an archaic form of Low

Drow. "Not do. Mistook him for a soul. But not a soul. Living."

Quenthel shook its head and asked again, "What are you?"

The creature attempted to shake its head but Quenthel's strength held it immobile. Spittle and hisses rained from between its lips.