"The cursed of the Spider," the creature said at last, its voice difficult to understand.

"The cursed of Lolth?" Quenthel asked, eyebrows raised. "You do not serve the Spider

Queen?"

Phlegm and drool leaked down the creature's face. Its forehead furrowed.

"The Spider hates me, but I feed on her souls. Eat many."

Quenthel relaxed her grip on the creature and looked to Danifae, then to Pharaun.

"This useless creature has nothing to tell us," she said. "Kill it, Master Mizzrym."

Pharaun did not hesitate. He caused his magical hand to squeeze, and squeeze. The creature screamed, bones cracked, and drool and blood exploded from its mouth.

"The Teeming will take you," it wailed, then it burst into a shower of gore.

"The Teeming?" Pharaun asked while he dispelled his magical hand and let the bloody pile fall to the ground.

Neither priestess responded to his question or seemed interested in the creature's threat, so he said, "It appears that the Spider Queen is not without a sense of irony. She rewards her followers for a lifetime of service by allowing them to be captured on the way to her and made food for whatever spun those webs."

Quenthel scoffed, eyeing him with contempt. The serpents of her whip lazily flicked their tongues at him.

"Master Mizzrym," Quenthel said. "You understand as little as most males. Faithful worship in life is not a guarantee of safety in death. This whole plane is a test for Lolth's dead. Surely even you can see that?"

Danifae looked at Quenthel and said, "Then does that not make this creature a servant of

Lolth after all, Mistress Quenthel?"

Silence fell. Quenthel seemed dumbfounded by the question.

Before the high priestess could reply, Danifae looked to Pharaun and said, "Lolth winnows the weak always, even among her dead. If a soul is weak or stupid, it is annihilated."

Pharaun shrugged and said, "How pleasing for her."

Quenthel whirled on him. "Pleasing indeed, wizard. Are you concerned for the safety of your own hide?"

At that, Jeggred smirked.

Pharaun almost laughed at the absurdity of the question. He was always concerned for his own hide.

Instead of answering Quenthel directly, he said, "One might think the Spider Queen would make an exception to her tests for the Yor'thae and her escort, at least."

"Exactly the contrary," Danifae said and tucked her hair behind her ears.

She held her hand before her face and watched a small red arachnid with overlarge mandibles crawl along her fingers. She kneeled and let it scurry safely onto a rock; only then did Pharaun see the pinprick of blood on her hand from where the spider had bitten her. She had not even winced.

Danifae rose and said, "Lolth subjects herself to the same laws to which she subjects her servants, mage." She eyed Quenthel with a sly smile. "Only the strong or the intelligent will survive. Only one who is both can be her Yor'thae."

Quenthel answered the former battle-captive's stare with an icy glance.

Returning her gaze to Pharaun, Danifae continued, "Were Lolth to select an unworthy priestess as her Yor'thae, no doubt something unfortunate would happen to the failed candidate.

And her escort."

Quenthel's whip was in her hand, the serpents fully awake.

"It is well that she will not choose wrongly then," Quenthel said.

The serpents of Quenthel's scourge rose up, and five sets of small red eyes fixed Danifae with a hateful glare. Quenthel cocked her head and nodded, as though the whips had spoken to her.

"Has she not yet chosen, then?" Danifae asked, all innocence.

Quenthel's eyes flashed, perhaps in anger at herself for such a poor choice of words. She walked toward Danifae and stomped on the red arachnid that Danifae had just released onto the rocks.

Danifae's eyes flashed surprise, and she took a backward step. Even Jeggred seemed aghast.

"To kill that cursed creature is no crime," Danifae blurted, indicating the twisted form on the ground, "but to kill a spider is blasphemy."

Quenthel scoffed, ground her boot against the stone, and said, "That was no spider. It only appeared to be one. That is how it survived. For a time, at least." She eyed Danifae with meaning and said, "Killing those things that pretend they are more than they are is consistent with Lolth's will."

Danifae's mouth tightened as she took the sense of Quenthel's insult. Without a word, she snapped up the hood of her cloak, turned, and walked away. Jeggred glared at Quenthel and stalked after Danifae.

Quenthel smiled at their backs and Pharaun could not help but wonder why she left Danifae alive-there would be no consequences for her murder. Danifae did not belong to any of the

Houses of Menzoberranzan, and Lolth reveled in internecine slaughter between her priestesses.

"Come," Quenthel said to him. "More obstacles await us before we reach the mountains."

And in those words, Pharaun heard Quenthel's explanation.

If indeed the whole of Lolth's plane was a test, as both priestesses had averred, then likely more challenges awaited, challenges that might require allies to overcome, even for Lolth's

Yor'thae. Quenthel did not kill Danifae for the simple reason that she might need her later.

He hurried after the Mistress. As he walked past where Quenthel had been standing, he caught sight of a small red arachnid that looked very similar to that which Quenthel had squashed.

Had she only pretended to squash it?

He could not be certain, but her words to Danifae sounded in his head: Killing things that pretend they are more than they are is consistent with Lolth's will.

Who is pretending? he wondered.

He pushed the question from his mind and followed after.

While Larikal and Geremis led the search for the lichdrow's phylactery, Yasraena decided that she would attempt to buy her House peace, or failing that, time.

She sat on the stone throne of her reception hall-a locale that Triel Baenre could easily pinpoint with a spell-and hoped that the Matron Mother of the First House would respond.

She gathered her thoughts, held her holy symbol in hand, and spoke the words to a sending.

The spell would allow her to speak and send to Triel Baenre a statement of not more than twenty-

five words. Defensive wards had no effect on a sending, mostly because the spell did nothing other than transmit the speech of the caster. It could carry no spells or words of power.

When she finished the casting, she spoke Triel's name to denote the recipient and recited her message.

"Matron Mother Baenre, Matron Mother Agrach Dyrr wishes to discuss situation. I am in

Dyrr reception hall. Scrying wards are lowered. Do same. Mutual clairaudience."

With that, Yasraena spoke the triggering word to lower the anti-scrying ward in the reception hall, and contacted Anival telepathically through the magical amulet at her breast.

Matron Mother? Anival answered.

Send one of the House wizards to my throne room, one skilled in divinations. Now.

Yes, Matron Mother, Anival answered, and the connection went silent.

While Yasraena waited from the House wizard to attend her, she cradled her holy symbol in her hand and recited the words to a minor spell that allowed her to see scrying effects. If and when Triel's House wizard placed a clairaudience sensor in Yasraena's throne room, Yasraena would know.

In less than a fifty-count, one of the House wizards, Ooraen, a recent graduate of Sorcere,

entered through the far archway of the reception hall. He made obeisance and hurried down the aisle to the throne.

"How may I serve you, Matron Mother?"

"You know how to cast a clairaudience divination, I presume?" she asked.

The wizard nodded.

"For the time, stand beside my throne and be silent. When I command it, you will cast the spell at the location I designate and leave me."