Resurrection   ::   Кемп Пол

The relative height of an ultroloth's fortress along Calaas's side indicated the owner's status within the Blood Rift's hierarchy.

Kexxon the Oinoloth's fortress, the Steel Keep, sat highest of all, perched among the red and black clouds at the very edge of Calaas's caldera. Corpsehaven sat only twenty or so leagues below the Steel Keep and only two or three leagues above the Obsidian Tower of Bubonis.

Inthracis knew that the day would come when he would face a challenge from Bubonis, when he would himself challenge Kexxon. For the hundredth time in the past twelve hours, he wondered if the time had come. The thought of throwing Kexxon's corpse down the Infinite Deep amused him. The Infinite Deep descended to the center of creation, and its rocky sides were so sheer, so unbroken by any shelf or ledge of significance, that when things fell there, they fell forever.

Without warning, darkness descended on the library, darkness so intense that even Inthracis's eyes could not penetrate it, though he could see in virtually all spectra. Sound quieted; the wind seemed to offer its wail as though from a great distance. Inthracis could hear the walls squirming in the darkness. His hearts beat faster.

He was under attack, he realized. But who would dare? Bubonis?

The words to a series of defensive spells rose to the front of Inthracis's mind and he whispered the syllables in rapid succession, all while weaving his fingers through the air in a series of intricate gestures. In the span of three breaths, he was warded with spells that would protect him against mental, magical, and physical attacks.

He slid from his cloak a metal wand that fired a stream of acid upon command. Then he levitated toward the high ceiling and listened.

The walls of Corpsehaven rustled with a wet susurration. Decayed hands reached down from the ceiling to paw his robes, as though seeking reassurance. Their touch gave him a momentary start. He heard nothing save his own soft breathing.

It occurred to him then that someone or something had managed to penetrate the intricate wards set about Corpsehaven without triggering any alarms. He knew of no one, not even

Kexxon himself, who could have done so.

Worry took hold of him. His grip on the wand tightened.

Within the darkness, a sudden heaviness manifested, a palpable presence of power. Inthracis's ears popped; his head throbbed; even the corpses in his walls uttered a cracked scream.

The darkness seemed to grow substantive, to caress him, its touch lighter than that of the corpses, more seductive but also more threatening.

Something was in his library.

Despite himself, Inthracis's three hearts hammered in his chest.

With sudden certainty, he realized that he shared the darkness with a divine power. Nothing else could have so easily invaded his fortress. Nothing else could have so terrified him.

Inthracis knew that he was overmatched. Fighting would be pointless. A god, or perhaps a goddess, had come for him.

He lowered himself to the floor. While it was not quite in him to abase himself, he managed to offer the darkness a stilted bow.

"Your respect is insincere," said a soft, oily male voice in High Drow.

At the sound of the voice, another irritated rustle ran through the corpses, another moan escaped their decayed lips.

"Their respect, however, is genuine," said the voice.

Inthracis did not recognize the speaker by voice, but given the word on the wind outside,

given the speaker's use of High Drow, Inthracis could infer the speaker's identity. He chose his next words with care.

"It is difficult to offer the proper respect when I do not know to whom I am speaking."

A chuckle. "I think you know who I am."

At that, the darkness lightened somewhat, enough that Inthracis's eyes could pierce it. Sound too returned, and the howl of the wind rose.

A masked male drow sat atop Inthracis's basalt table, legs dangling off the edge and not quite reaching the floor. Shadows alternately lightened and darkened around the drow's lithe form,

swallowing parts of him in blackness for one moment before coughing them back up to visibility the next. A short sword and dagger hung from his belt, and leather armor peeked out from under his tailored, high-collared cloak. Long white hair, highlighted with red, surrounded an angular,

vengeful face. He wore a haughty smile on his thin lips, but it did not reach the holes of his eyes,

which were visible even through his black mask.

Inthracis's eyes registered the arcane power emitted by the drow's blades, the armor, his very flesh. He recognized the avatar, and it was as he had suspected.

"Vhaeraun," he said, and was irritated that he did not quite keep the awe from his voice.

He looked upon Vhaeraun the Masked God-Lolth's son and Lolth's enemy. His hearts hammered still more, and his legs felt weak though he managed not to show it. In the flitting shadows around the drow, he saw that the avatar's hand was severed at the wrist. The stump seeped blood onto the table.

Inthracis did not care to contemplate how a god might have been so wounded. He also did not care to contemplate why Vhaeraun would be manifesting in Corpsehaven. Inthracis rarely had contact with drow, living or dead, mortal or divine. Drow souls did not typically end up in the

Blood Rift.

Vhaeraun hopped off the table and sniffed the air. His dark eyes narrowed.

"Even the air here stinks of spider," the god said.

To that, Inthracis said nothing. He dared not speak until he knew exactly what was happening.

A dozen possibilities danced through his mind, none of them desirable.

"I require a service, yugoloth." Vhaeraun said, and the whisper of his voice went hard.

Inthracis stiffened. Not a favor, not a request-a service. It was worse than he had feared. He ran his long forked tongue over his lip ridges while he tried to formulate a suitably vague response.

The darkness swallowed Vhaeraun, and in the next heartbeat the avatar stood behind

Inthracis, his breath hot in the ultroloth's upper left ear.

"Would you refuse me?" Vhaeraun asked, his soft words dripping menace.

"I would not, Masked Lord," Inthracis answered, though he would have if he could have.

While yugoloths were mercenaries, even they had their limits when it came to patrons. Inthracis had no desire to get involved in whatever divine conflict Vhaeraun may have been engaged in with his mother.

The next moment Vhaeraun was no longer behind him but across the room near one of

Inthracis's bookshelves. The corpses in the wall recoiled as much as their contorted forms allowed at the nearness of the god. Dead eyes stared out of the wall in horror.