«And why should my aunt trust anyone who sends a male to do her work for her?» Eliss'pra said, staring disdainfully down her nose at Zammzt.

The drow priestess reclined imperiously upon an overstuffed couch that had been further padded with an assortment of plush fabrics, as much for decoration as comfort. Quorlana thought the slender dark elf should have looked oddly out of place in the richly appointed private lounge, dressed as she was in her finely crafted chain shirt and with her mace close at hand. Yet Eliss'pra somehow managed to appear as though she was counted among House Un-named's most exclusive clientele. Quorlana wrinkled her nose in distaste; she knew well which House Eliss'pra represented, and she found that the haughty drow reclining opposite her exhibited a little bit too much of her aunt's superior affectations.

Zammzt inclined his head slightly, acknowledging the other dark elf's concern.

«My mistress has given me certain. . gifts that she hopes express her complete and enthusiastic sincerity in this matter,» he said. «She also wishes me to inform you that there will be many more of them once the agreement is sealed. Perhaps that will assuage your own fears, as well,» he added with what he must have intended as a deferential smile, though Quorlana found it to be more feral than anything. Zammzt was not a handsome male at all.

«Your 'mistress, «Eliss'pra replied, avoiding both appellations and names, as the five of them gathered there had agreed at the outset, «is asking for a great deal from my aunt, indeed from each of the Houses represented here. Gifts are not nearly a generous enough token of trust. You must do better than that.»

«Yes,» Nadal chimed in, sitting just to Quorlana's right. «My grandmother will not even consider this alliance without some serious proof that House—«The drow male, dressed in a rather plain piwafwi, snapped his mouth shut in mid-word. His insignia proclaimed him as wizard member of the Disciples of Phelthong. He caught his breath and continued, «I mean your mistress—that your mistress is actually committing these funds you speak of.»

He seemed chagrinned that he had nearly divulged a name, but the male maintained his firm expression.

«He's right,» Dylsinae added from Quorlana's other side, her smooth, beautiful skin nearly glowing from the scented oils that she habitually slathered on herself. Her gauzy, hugging dress contrasted sharply with Eliss'pra's armor, reflecting her propensity for partaking in hedonistic pleasures. Her sister, the matron mother, was perhaps even more decadent. «None of those whom we represent will lift a finger until you give us some evidence that we aren't all putting our own heads on pikes. There are far more. . interesting. . pastimes to indulge in than rebellion,» Dylsinae finished, stretching languidly.

Quorlana wished she were not sitting quite so close to the harlot. The perfume of her oils was sickly sweet.

Despite her general distaste for the other four drow, Quorlana agreed with them on this matter, and she admitted as much to the group.

«If my mother were to ally our own House with you other four lesser Houses against our common enemies, she would need certain assurances that we would not be left by the rest of you to dangle as scapegoats the moment events turned difficult. I'm not at all certain such a thing exists.»

«Believe me,» Zammzt responded, circling to make eye contact with each of them in turn, «I understand your concerns and your reluctance. As I said, these gifts I have been ordered to bestow upon your Houses are but a small token of my mistress's commitment to this alliance.»

He reached inside his piwafwi and produced a scroll tube, and a rather ornate one, at that. After slipping a fat roll of parchment from the tube, he unfurled the scroll. Quorlana sat forward in her own chair, suddenly curious as to what the dark elf male might have.

Scanning the contents of his stack of curled parchment, Zammzt sorted them and began to circle the gathering, removing a set of pages and handing them to each co-conspirator in turn. When he handed Quorlana her sheaf, she took it from him gingerly, uncertain what kind of magical trap might be inlaid in the pages. She eyed them carefully, but her suspicions were dispelled; they were spells, not curses. He was offering them scrolls as gifts!

Quorlana felt elation rise up into her. Such a treasure was priceless in days of such uncertainty and unease. The Dark Mother's absence had put a strain on every priestess who worshiped her. Quorlana herself had not been able to weave her own divine magic in four ten-days, and she broke out into a sweat every time she thought on it. But with scrolls, the fear, the anxiety, the sense of hopelessness might be staved off, at least for a time.

It was only with the utmost effort that the drow priestess resisted the urge to read through the scrolls there and then. Forcing herself to remember whom she served, at least for the moment, she instead pocketed the parchment sheets inside her piwafwi and turned her attention back to the clandestine gathering in front of her.

«The only other proof strong enough to convince you of our sincerity would be moving forward with hiring the mercenaries,» Zammzt said, though none of the other dark elves seemed to be paying the least bit of attention to him.

Eliss'pra and Dylsinae were both wide-eyed with the same excitement Quorlana felt. Nadal, though not as personally thrilled—the spells were worthless to him as a wizard—could still recognize the value of the gifts.

«It should be obvious to each of you,» Zammzt continued, «that once our House approaches outsiders, there is no turning back. We would be completely committed, with or without your pledge of alliance. That, my charming companions, is putting the cart before the lizard,»

«Nonetheless,» Eliss'pra answered, still smiling as she gazed on the scrolls in her hands, «that is precisely what you must do If you wish to count my aunt among your allies.»

«Yes,» Dylsinae agreed.

Nadal nodded his concurrence.

«I think my mother would be willing to accept those terms. Especially after she sees these,» Quorlana voiced her assent, then gestured at the scrolls tucked away in herpiwajwi. «Most definitely if there are more where these came from.»

How in the Underdark do they have precious scrolls to spare? she wondered.

Zammzt frowned and said, «I am not promising anything. I very much doubt that I can convince her to agree to this, but if she is willing, I will procure the services of the mercenaries and bring you the proof.»

No one spoke. They were all one step away from the point of no return, and despite the fact that none of them were actually in a position to make the decision, they felt the weight of that decision just as heavily.

«Then we will meet again after you have hired the army,» Eliss'pra said, rising from her couch. «Until then, I don't wish to see any of you near me, not even on the same web street.»

Gripping her mace tightly, the drow priestess stalked out of the private lounge.

One by one, the others also departed, even Zammzt, until Quorlana was alone in the room.

Our time has come, the drow insisted silently. Lolth has issued a challenge. The great Houses of Ched Nasad will fall, and ours will rise up to take their place. Our time has come at last.

Aliisza was so used to the tanarukks' constant grunting, snarling, and slavering that she rarely heard it anymore, so the quiet that surrounded her as she strode alone along the dwarven thoroughfare was noticeable. Being out and about in ancient Ammarindar without an escort of the half-fiend, half-ore hordes was a refreshing change. Kaanyr rarely asked her to—she refused to say «let»—do anything without an armed escort anymore, so she had almost forgotten how pleasant solitude really was. Still, as much as she was enjoying her privacy, however brief it might be, she had a purpose, and it quickened her steps.

She moved to the end of a long and broad boulevard, which had been hewn by long-dead dwarves from the unmarred bedrock of the Underdark itself eons ago. Though she barely noticed it, the craftsmanship of the wide passageway was exquisite. Every angle was perfect, every column and cornice was thick and finely decorated with runes and stylized images of the stout folk. At the terminus of the boulevard, Aliisza entered a large chamber, which itself was large enough to have engulfed a small surface town. She turned into a side tunnel that would allow her to cut across several main passages and reach the avenue that would take her directly to Kaanyr's palace, deep in the center of the old city. It still surprised her how empty the city could be, even with all of the Sceptered One's Scourged Legions roaming around. She crossed the avenues and found the path she wanted, then hurried toward the palace.

A pair of tanarukk guards flanked the doorway into the throne room. The stocky, gray-green humanoids were hunched over as usual, their prominent tusks jutting forward defiantly from overly large lower jaws as they peered at her with their squinty red eyes. To Aliisza, it almost appeared that the two beasts were preparing to charge forward and ram her with their low, sloping foreheads. Aliisza knew that with her magic the scalelike ridges protruding from atop those foreheads were no threat to her, but still the creatures seemed uncertain of who she was, for they kept their battle-axes crossed before the opening as she approached. Finally, just before it seemed that she was actually going to have to slow her pace and say something— which would have made her very cross—the two coarse-haired, nearly naked beasts stepped aside and allowed her to enter without breaking her stride. She smiled to herself, wondering how much fun it would have been to flay them alive.

Passing through several outer chambers, Aliisza crossed the threshold into the throne room itself and spied the marquis cambion lounging on his throne, a great, hideous chair constructed of the bones of his enemies. Every time she saw the thing, she was reminded of how crass it was. She knew too many fiends who considered sitting atop a pile of bones to be some sort of symbol of power and glory, but in her opinion, it exhibited no class, no subtlety. It was Kaanyr Vhok's single biggest lack of vision.

Kaanyr had thrown one leg over the armrest of the throne and sat with his chin resting in his cupped hand, elbow against his knee. He was staring off into the upper reaches of the chamber, obviously thinking and oblivious to her.

Aliisza almost unconsciously began to saunter provocatively as she closed the distance between them, and yet she found that she was admiring his form as much as she hoped he was appreciating hers. His graying hair was roguishly disheveled and, combined with his swept-back ears, gave him the appearance of a maturing, if somewhat devil-may-care, half-elf. Aliisza crooked her mouth in a sly smile, thinking of him engaging in the many subterfuges he was so fond of, passing himself off on the surface world as a member of that fair race.