A Land Far Away

Deep beneath the surface of the world, in a cavern no human had ever seen or set foot in, hundreds of desperate drow made a final stand against an evil even they could not tolerate. Sheyreiza Valakasha, Matron of House Valakasha, was one of the leaders of this desperate band. In the chambers of the city’s ruling council she, her murder team and her elite guard fought against the onslaught of the demon-lord Wendonai. In the chamber with her were the remnants of the last three houses still loyal to Lolth; Auvryndar, Claddath and Valakasha. Together the matrons, priestesses, assassins and warriors of these three houses barred the gates and erected barricades to protect the workings of the wizards in the heart of the chamber.

There, in the heart, the Lich Araundor was leading the arch mages of House Valakasha and Auvryndar in the construction of something which had no right to exist and which had never existed before – a drow mythal. The mere thought of creating such a thing was an act of such arcane hubris that under normal circumstances any Matron of the city would see a wizard proposing such an idea flayed for his audacity. But these were not normal circumstances.

Lolth was silent. Or rather, she was muted. And the demon-lord Wendonai was quite literally at the gates. Wendonai and his followers from the traitor houses of Melarn and Despana, were summoning hordes of demons from the abyss. Though initially outnumbered and outmatched, and indeed out fought in the first battles of the war, the never-ending tide of demons washing out of the black oceans of the netherworld were starting to drown Sheyreiza and the other beleaguered defenders. The mythal, if it worked, would bar any planar travel to or from Wendonai’s stronghold in Nasadra castle. The flow of demonic troops would be staunched, hopefully long enough for Sheyreiza and her allies to crush the traitors.

But the enemy was not unaware. Wendonai had his spies and his divinations and his wiles and he knew full well what Lolth’s faithful were trying to do in their desperation. And desperate or not, he saw the risk. And so he struck. All of his might was launched in a furious assault upon the gates of the council chambers of Ched Nasad, and it was there that the city’s fate would be decided once and for all.

***************

“On the left!” Sheyreiza shouted over the din. “They’re coming in on the left!” The demon-lord’s minions had breached the outer gates and were surging up one flank of the wide hallway. Swords clashed on shields and abyssal scales. Arcane fire exploded amidst the melee and salvoes of divine magic of every conceivable sort arced over stone barricades, boiling blood and blasting flesh from bone. Sheyreiza loosed a quarrel and then tossed her spent crossbow aside. She drew forth her morningstar, Lolth’s Blessing, and waded into the melee on the left flank. A skull was crushed beneath her weapon and then another and another. The attack faded. “Reinforce!” She cried. “Get the barricade up again!”

Behind her the mages and the lich were working furiously. “We need more time, sister.” Celuldor growled angrily. Celuldor was her arch-mage and her half-brother, and often, her most trusted advisor.

“We have what time we have.” She replied pragmatically. “Praise be to Lolth for that.” Celuldor shot her an evil look at the mention of the Goddess’s name, but wisely said nothing.

“Lolth will see us through.” Said Matron Shyntlara Auvryndar with finality. “Lolth will see us victorious.” Matron Shyntlara was Sheyreiza’s birth-mother and had once been her matron mother. She was also the leading Matron of the loyalist faction in the civil war, and thus the leader of this desperate defense.

“As you say, honored Matron.” Sheyreiza and Celuldor both replied in unison. Shyntlara was also Celuldor’s birth-mother, and he had long served as her wizard until Celuldor followed Sheyreiza to the new house, House Valakasha.

“Here they come again!” Came the cry from the front. At the nearest barricade Sheyreiza’s followers, Faerylene and Khazin, readied more bolts and spells as did their ally Yazaghar Claddath and his kin.

The new assault was more vicious than any of the previous ones; the attackers were suicidal in their bravery, and they were backed by demons and wraiths. The defenders were bolstered by their own undead and their own desperation and so the fight was a bloody, chaotic one.

Darkness fell upon Sheyreiza and she fought blindly, something she was adept at doing. The defenders near her fell or fell back as she danced with them. Suddenly, there was no one left to fight. Was the rush beaten back?

A flame in the darkness answered her question. It moved towards her, towering and broad. Wendonai was giving battle at last. His enormous, fiery sword destroyed everything in its path as he carved his way towards the dark mythal. “You are finished!” He bellowed. “Finished for all time! This city is mine!” Fear finally gripped the hearts of Sheyreiza’s followers as they came face to face with the demon-lord himself. They fell back against the walls, some dropping their weapons, others weeping. Even Sheyreiza felt her eyes welling up with tears, but she would not yield one foot of ground. She had not thought that her people would ever be over come like this, that they would become slaves to such a degenerate beast as Wendonai, but if that was the fate that Lolth had spun for them, so be it. She gripped her morningstar tightly, and looked to her mother. They would face the beast together, as they had before, and they would go to Lolth together.

But her mother was not there. Shyntlara was gone. All that stood between Wendonai and the wizards with their proto-mythal now was Sheyreiza. And Sheyreiza knew that as brave and skilled as she was, she was not enough.
“Again you defy me.” Wendonai chuckled, his deep, rumbling voice like an avalanche of hate and misery. “But this is the last time.”

Sheyreiza had no pithy reply or words of wisdom. All she had left was faith. “Praise be to Lolth!” She yelled, raising her morningstar. She charged forward and attacked. Wendonai laughed and casually parried her blow.

“Your city is mine. You are mine.” The beast taunted. Sheyreiza ignored him and attacked again. Finding her courage, Faerylene drew her sword and joined Sheyreiza's desperate assault.

“No.” Answered a female voice from out of nowhere. “No, this city is mine.”

Wendonai batted back Sheyreiza’s futile attacks and turned to face the new voice. From the darkness came a massive shape, a spider-creature but not a spider. A drider, but not a drider. It had the body and face and arms of a beautiful drow, but the lower body and 8 legs of a giant spider easily twenty or more feet around. The body and the face were familiar to Sheyreiza but it took a moment for her to recognize them – it was Shyntlara, her birth-mother. But at the same time, it was not Shyntlara.

It was Lolth.

Shyntlara had been reincarnated, if that was the right word, as the Goddess herself. Lolth had chosen which of her champions would be the Yorthae. It was Shyntlara.

“NO!” Wendonai screamed with anger hot enough to melt stone. “NO!”

“Yes.” Lolth replied with poison laughter.

“Then die, bitch!” Wendonai leapt forward, his flaming sword held high. Shyntlara-Lolth backpedaled quickly, dodging attacks with impossible agility and speed. Wendonai did not relent, but Lolth was faster. She began to strike back. His growls and shouts and rages were punctuated with her laughter, her taunting and her snarling. Demon-Lord fought goddess and the chamber was torn asunder. Sheyreiza fell back to the wall and watched her mother-Goddess wrestle with Wendonai.

It should have been an orgasmic moment, the climactic triumph of the loyalists over the traitors, but something was wrong. Sheyreiza heard laughter, and not from the Goddess or the demon-lord. She turned away from the epic duel and saw that Celuldor and the other wizards aiding the lich were unmoving, as if frozen. Near the mythal, the lich Araundor was cackling madly. The dark mythal was beginning to glow with an inner light, or more accurately, an inner darkness. “Its done.” The lich muttered gleefully to himself. “Its done!” He yelled as his muttering turned to full raving laughter.

Sheyreiza started towards him as the mythal’s darkness began to expand. Behind her, the Goddess was throwing Wendonai down, defeating him in what should have been his moment of triumph, but that duel, no matter how epic, was not now what would decide the fate of the city. Sheyreiza raised her morningstar and charged. She did not know what the Lich was doing, she did not know what he had done or what was happening but her instincts told her to strike now, before it was too late, and Sheyreiza listened to her instincts. Her morningstar arced above her head. She screamed her battle cry and the lich turned to face her, a wicked, mad laugh on still on his lips. Behind them, Faerylene and the others were only now turning their attention away from the Goddess and towards the real threat.

And then the world exploded.

*****************

Sheyreiza awoke with a start. She was in a bed. With sheets, though those sheets were damp with her sweat. The room was bright. Too bright. She had not shut both layers of curtains all the way before she went to reverie. She shielded her eyes with her hands, rose from the bed and walked to the curtains. The two layers of curtains were meant to keep out what little light seeped in between the boards of the shutters that blocked the window – Sheyreiza was not fond of any light in her room. Through the gaps in the shutters she could see that the sun was just starting to set on Selgaunt. The humans were going to and fro, heading home from the markets or the wharfs, trying to get behind their stout wooden doors before the dark swallowed the light. Humans walked the streets of Selgaunt after dark of course, but they did so at their own risk. There were a great many evils in the alleys of Sembia after the sun went down, and those who did not return from nightly forays were mourned, but also used as cautionary tales to the rest. The smart, the proper, the wise and the law abiding did not treat the night-time streets of Selgaunt, or at least, not lightly or alone.

Sheyreiza knew because this was where she lived now. Selgaunt. It was a surface pit of a city filled with thousands of short-lived iblith with cow’s milk on their breath and garlic coming out of their pores. They were hairy, they did not bathe, and their appreciation for art extended solely to the pornographic or offensive. Their understanding of the arcane would not get them past the entrance exams of Ched Nasad’s college of sorcery and their attention to the divine consisted primarily of worshipping their coin-goddess, Waukeen, or one of their plethora of thief-gods. The soul of the city was trade, and the blood was gold. And that meant it was not only home to iblith, it was home to merchants and thieves and craftsman and all manner of lesser caste creatures who were slaves to the false power of commerce. It was better, Sheyreiza supposed, than an orc stronghold, though at least the orcs had proper deities and did not bow to coinage. But then, the orcs destroyed all that was beautiful and Sheyreiza could not tolerate that. Better to live here, even if the human’s only reason for not destroying art was because they thought they might get some gold for it.

The iblith of Selgaunt had two things to recommend them to Sheyreiza, however. First, they hated elf-kind. That extended to drow, most likely, but she could live with that. Their hatred of elf-kind kept the city from developing a large population of darthiir, and her surface enemies would have a much harder time finding her or attacking her here. The second thing that commended these folk to Sheyreiza was their fear of the dark – something all humans had it seemed, as they could not see in the dark as well as a drow, or even as well as an orc, goblin, dwarf or even elf.

That thought amused her as she watched the humans rushing to get home before the sunset, or gathering in groups to brave the Copper Alleys. All things considered, the muggers in the alleys, the creatures in the sewers, even the gangs in their hide-outs, were but pale evils. But the people of Selgaunt were right to fear the dark, twisted back alleys of their city - there were many evils in those alleys, not the least of which was Sheyreiza herself.

She pulled the drapes closed and set to washing. The terror of the nightmare returned to her briefly. It was the same nightmare she usually had; the end of Ched Nasad. The mythal had exploded, or activated, or done whatever it did, but whatever that was, it caused the complete collapse of the city. Lolth had spared Sheyreiza though, and some of her followers. They were the few loyal enough to the Goddess to warrant her largesse. The rest of the city, even those who were not among the traitors, had been condemned to death by the Spider Queen. Indeed, in the aftermath, Sheyreiza realized it was not the traitors who most angered the Dark Mother, it was the houses that did not even take a side. Ched Nasad was gone. Totally gone. Shyntlara, or Lolth, had saved but a handful of its inhabitants. The rest she sent to the Demonweb to answer for their crimes.

That had been a long time ago. Ten years ago, in fact, or there abouts. Sheyreiza had led a small band of survivors to Menzoberranzan and to House Faen Tlabbar. The Tlabbar adopted them, but things did not work out despite Sheyreiza leading the drow of Faen Tlabbar to victory in a war against the kuo-toa. Within a few years Sheyreiza found herself banished from the city of spiders for slaying the Matron of House Agrach Dyrr. Sheyreiza would have been slain for her transgression, but the Matron of Agrach Dyrr had let her house be infiltrated and used by iblith. Then came the fallen-angel Kriel and his infernal curse. And that was when Sheyreiza met the Dark Prince, Graz’zt.

She shook her head as she washed her face. She remembered so little. She remembered meeting the Dark Prince’s envoy, more than once in fact. She remembered her first days in Graz’zt’s city, her apartment there she shared with Faerylene. And she remembered being Graz’zt’s consort. But then, then the memories stopped. What had happened? To escape Kriel’s curse she had agreed to slay an avatar of Dagon and then serve Graz’zt for a century. She remembered slaying the avatar, a battle that left mental and emotional scars on Faerylene to this very day, but then ... what happened? One day she awoke in her apartment in Graz’zt’s city and her service was done. A century of service. But ... here, in Abeir-Toril, barely any time had passed at all.

What had happened? What did he do to her? And perhaps more importantly, what had she done?

She had no memory of it.

She finished washing her face and got dressed. She had to meet with iblith crime lords tonight. They had sought her out, to partner with her in taking over the underworld of this stinking, rotten city. Sheyreiza could not possibly care less about taking over Selgaunt’s criminal underworld, but she did care about not getting killed, and she cared about finding out what had happened to her and what she had forgotten. And so she had to maintain a life here. She walked through the chamber. Such odd architecture this place had. Someone told her it was “kozakuran”, some other form of iblith human with darker skin and narrower eyes. The nice thing about the kozakurans was that they did not harbor ill-feelings towards drow. Sheyreiza pondered this and her nightmares as she strode the empty halls of her new mansion. It was not Castle Valakasha, but it was not the dungeons of the Battlehammer dwarves either. It would do. But at the moment, it was almost completely devoid of furniture. She had to rectify that. So many things to get done.

She wrapped a silken sash around her waist and slipped a scabbarded sword through it. Not just any sword, she reminded herself, but Reftael’s sword, the one taken by Ghenni’salla Tlabbar after Ghenni’salla quelled Reftael’s rebellion in Mantol Derith. And now taken by Sheyreiza after she enslaved Ghenni to watch over her castles on the dark-lake. Sheyreiza briefly wondered if her castles on the dark lake still stood. She supposed that some day she should go back and check on them, but until she figured out what happened with Graz’zt and her days as his consort, she did not want to risk being among her own people. For now, Selgaunt was her home.

Quietly she slipped out the side door of her mansion and made her way through deepening shadows towards the taverns of the Alley. The sun was set and it was now Sheyreiza's city, at least until the sun came up again.

Of Gods and Badgers

[Author's note: My thanks to Jodyhamilton, Stephenhamilton and Electryc for the fun. Also, the very last part of this had to occur offscreen because our DM had to go, but here it is.]

“Have you ever ridden before?” Asked Rife. The large, muscular, well-armored human was sitting comfortably astride an even larger, more muscular black warhorse. Nearby, the necromancer Malchiron was mounting a smaller grey-white pony. Squinting tightly against the sunlight, Sheyreiza could barely see either man but she could see the third horse. It was large and black like Rife’s, and it was patiently awaiting her.

“Yes.” She answered finally. “But never a horse. My last mount was a draco-lich and before that, a bebilith.” Neither Rife nor Malchiron showed much surprise; Sheyreiza had lamented her lost mounts more than once before.

“If you can ride those, you can ride a horse.” Rife said confidently. “Just mount from the left side.”

She approached the dark warhorse tentatively. Seeing her hesitation, Malchiron dismounted and offered Sheyreiza his pony. Naturally the Princess balked; the idea of her riding an inferior mount to these human males was absolutely unacceptable. Malchiron took no offense at having his offer rebuffed; instead, he walked over and showed Sheyreiza the reigns. She took them in hand, put a foot in the stirrup and then swung herself up into the saddle. That was easy, she thought. Easier than she had feared anyway.

Rife gave her a curt nod, turned his horse north and headed down the road. Malchiron mounted up and quickly followed. Sheyreiza watched them closely and did as they did. It worked. Her horse went where she guided, stopped when she wanted, and ran as she needed. While Rife and Malchiron traveled sedately down the road, Sheyreiza walked, trotted and galloped back and forth across the hillocks and fields. She had to admit, it was fun and she found herself laughing as she brought the horse to a gallop. The mundane animal was nothing compared to Shurtallistryl, the great black wyrm and dracolich she had ridden into battle during Ched Nasad’s civil war, but riding sure beat walking.

The mounted threesome headed north to rendezvous with more allies. A caravan had been ambushed and cargo precious to Rife and Malchiron had been stolen. Their mission now was to find and retrieve said cargo; Sheyreiza was merely along for the ride, as it were.

An hour into the ride Sheyreiza saw that the road neared a big, beautiful shade tree that offered some respite from the bright sun above. She veered her horse close to it; even a moment in shade was better than nothing. But she was not the only one who thought the shade tree inviting; a squat, bristling badger lay near the base of the tree’s trunk. As Sheyreiza’s horse neared, the badger hissed out a warning and charged forward at the invading horse. Sheyreiza’s mount bucked and she flew off the back, landing in the muddy road on her ass.

The horse trotted over to the far side of the road, away from the angry badger. For a moment, Sheyreiza was completely stunned. What happened? She looked about for more enemies, for other enemies, for anything. But there was only the hissing badger. She had been laid low by an oversized rodent. Embarrassed, she felt her face flush hot with blood. Quickly she stood and drew her sword, but the badger was not intimidated. As she stepped towards it, the badger actually attacked. Its teeth could never hope to pierce the mithril armor Sheyreiza wore, but the futility of the situation did not phase the creature in the slightest. Powerless or not, tiny or not, the badger was not going to back down.

Sheyreiza ran the animal through with her blade. To the beast’s credit, it still did not back down. It died hissing and biting, fighting to the last. But die it did. After it stopped moving, Sheyreiza drew her blade out of its back and kicked the creature out of spite.

Wiping her blade clean, Sheyreiza turned to look at Rife and Malchiron. Both men had brought their mounts to a halt and both were looking back at her. More importantly both were smart enough not to say a single thing, or utter a single laugh. Sheyreiza was not accustomed to this sort of humiliation, and had they uttered a word about it, she would have sacrificed both of them for her pride. But such bloodletting was not needed. The two men waited, silently, for Sheyreiza to mount back up. When she had, the threesome continued north as if nothing had ever happened.

**************************

A few hours after midnight Sheyreiza stood in a cavern before an altar to Shevaresh, the Black Archer. A statue of the hateful, murderous god stood behind the altar, as if on watch. Sheyreiza’s blade was drawn, and dripping with the blood of dozens of elves. She and the humans had found the camp of the Shevaresh worshippers and had slain most of them. A few survivors managed to run off deep into the woods, but perhaps two dozen others were not so fortunate.

Sheyreiza set her sword against the altar and withdrew a dark, sticky bundle from her satchel. She set the bundle atop the altar stone and began unwrapping it. The bundle was a ruined elven cloak, soaked through with blood, and inside it were the hearts of the elves Sheyreiza had slain. Sheyreiza did not defile the elve’s bodies – she left them for the elves to perform their funerary rites – but she did extract their hearts with her sacrificial dagger.

Now she laid out three of the hearts upon the Black Archer’s stone, and she began a prayer to Lolth. Her voice grew louder as she chanted through each verse, thanking Lolth for her strength and cunning while offering the Spider Queen the blood, hearts and lives of her enemies. As Sheyreiza’s prayer reached its climax, her voice rising to a terrible crescendo, she called upon the unholy fire of the abyss to desecrate the Archer’s altar. A column of green flame engulfed the altar, and where the heart’s blood had flowed cracks formed, deepened and widened until the stone was shattered.

In the moment of silence that followed the end of Sheyreiza’s prayer and the destruction of the altar, a single tear of blood formed in the stone eye of the statue of Shevaresh. Triumph filled Sheyreiza’s heart. A mere mortal, she had nevertheless caused the god pain.

“How now, black archer?” She asked tauntingly. “Where are your followers now? What fate have you led them to? Do you not realize you are the greatest triumph the Spider Queen ever achieved? Who has spread more hate and murder amongst the darthiiri than you, black archer? Who sews more chaos and death among the seldarine? You are the greatest tool against the Betrayer that my Goddess ever devised, fool!”

As Sheyreiza was yelling at the statue, the cavern began to shake. Dust, then rocks fell from the ceiling. Cracks opened in the walls and along the floor.

“We need to get out of here!” One of the humans said quickly. Sheyreiza knew he was right. She left off her taunting and fled behind Rife and Chiron. Soon, they had escaped the elves’ secret grotto and were back on the road, headed south towards the city.

**********

It was a little after dawn when Sheyreiza saw the shade tree again. She was not longing for shade so much yet; the sun had yet to rise very far in the sky. But the tree reminded her of the badger. The badger that had humiliated her; hurt her. A badger was nothing compared to a Matron of the drow, a Princess of the Demonweb. But it had brought her low anyway. And for its trouble, for its bravery and tenacity and resolve, Sheyreiza had killed it in her embarrassed fury.

She looked back north, towards the elves’ grotto where the altar to Shevaresh had been. How long would it be before the Black Archer got back up on his feet? How long before he drew his sword?

The corpse of badger lay near the base of the tree where Sheyreiza had kicked it. That small, insignificant animal had embarrassed her and hurt her. It had fought bravely and tenaciously to the bitter end – but it had died just the same. She looked at the body for awhile thinking about this. Death was inevitable of course. Even the gods died. Many would say that how one died was as important as how one lived. Those people would applaud the badger and its fight to the death for what it considered its own. But there were those who would point out that dead is dead, and that the dead know nothing of honor or respect. They are just dead, their souls gone to whatever goddess or god they worshipped.

Sheyreiza drew her sword and saluted the dead badger. Returning her sword to its sheath she looked skyward and wondered if the Black Archer would one day give her the same honor. She doubted it. But that was his problem, not hers – when the time came, like the badger, she would already be dead.