Storm of the Dead

CODA

Kiaransalee's dust-dry face creaked as she grimaced. She glared down at the masked Priestess piece Eilistraee had just moved. "You think you can flank me?" she cackled. "Think again."

With a shove of a bony hand, she pushed one of her own Priestess pieces forward to block the move. The piece wavered as she released it, twisting like a wisp of smoke. It looked as though a breath might blow it apart. And yet Eilistraee could sense, even from a distance, that it contained a will as solid and unshakable as stone.

Swiftly, Kiaransalee moved a second piece-a smaller Priestess, sculpted from putrid gray flesh-into a flanking position. Then she sat back on the marble tombstone that served as her chair, her bony, ring-bedecked fingers resting on her knees. She stared smugly at Lolth, gesturing at the piece she'd just blocked. "Your move. If your demon-Warrior attacks her other Priestess, she won't be able to counter it without losing this one."

Lolth made no comment. She waved a hand above the sava board, using the webs that trailed from it to brush away the mold that had fallen from Kiaransalee's tattered robe. As Lolth's hand moved toward her demonic Warrior piece, Kiaransalee cackled in anticipation. When Lolth instead picked up the Priestess piece with the spider legs protruding from its chest, and moved it to flank the pieces Kiaransalee had moved, the lichlike goddess's yellowed teeth snapped shut.

"What are you doing?" Kiaransalee cried. A withered finger stabbed at Eilistraee's Priestess piece, rocking it slightly. "You've just given that piece an escape!"

"How cunning of you, Kiaransalee, to point out the perfectly obvious," Lolth said. One white eyebrow arched. "And how stupid of you to think I would play on your side."

Eilistraee too was startled by Lolth's move. She searched for a trap in it, but saw none. Her Priestess piece could easily take Lolth's Warrior piece. Was this what Lolth had intended? Did the Spider Queen mean to deliberately sacrifice it, just as she had done with Selvetarm?

"Your move, daughter," Lolth said, leaning forward on her black iron throne. "We're waiting."

Eilistraee refused to be hurried. She scanned the board carefully, trying to decide if Lolth's move had been a feint. It didn't appear to be-and the opportunity it opened up was too good to ignore. She picked up her Priestess piece and moved it into the space the bat-winged piece occupied. "Priestess takes Warrior."

She lifted Lolth's piece from the board-and gasped as the heat of it seared her fingers. She dropped it. The Warrior piece tumbled toward the sava board, bat wings fluttering raggedly. An instant before it struck the board it erupted into a ball of flame. Consumed. Gone. Not so much as a speck of ash remained.

Eilistraee stared, astonished. The Warrior piece had not allowed her to set it to the side of the board, but had instead removed itself from the game. She'd underestimated its power. It was nearly equal to that of Lolth's Mother piece.

Was that why Lolth had sacrificed it?

Lolth toyed with a strand of web-tangled hair and watched Eilistraee, waiting for a reaction. Kiaransalee merely stared, her empty eyesockets revealing nothing. Eilistraee's fingertips still burned from the Warrior piece's touch, but the mask she wore hid the worried pinch of her lips. She placed her burned hand on one of the trees next to her, as if casually leaning upon it. A surreptitious brush of her fingertips against one of its moonstone fruits healed her fingertips. A slight red mark remained, however, on her wrist, where the base of the Warrior piece had touched it.

That was troubling. But there was still a game to be played.

A series of moves followed. Kiaransalee shoved her two Priestess pieces toward the piece Lolth had just moved, forcing it to retreat across the board. Eilistraee moved a Priestess piece forward, saw it taken by those Kiaransalee wielded. Lolth played a waiting game while Kiaransalee advanced. Eilistraee was forced to the defensive. Back and forth, the pieces moved across the sava board. Several of Eilistraee's Priestess pieces fell.

At long last, Kiaransalee made the move Eilistraee had been waiting for. The undead goddess moved a lesser Priestess piece out of the way, then pushed her Mother piece forward. From its new position, the Mother piece was poised to capture either the Priestess that had taken Lolth's demonic Warrior earlier, or the masked Priestess that had been the first of Eilistraee's pieces to move into Kiaransalee's House. If either of these pieces fell, it would open a path to the heart of Eilistraee's House.

The Goddess of Death gave a low chuckle, dry as dust. Her bones creaked as she sat smugly back on her tombstone. "Your move, Eilistraee," she said gloatingly. "Your last move."

Lolth nodded approvingly. "What a cunning web you've woven, Kiaransalee," she said in a voice as dry as Kiaransalee's own. "I can't see a single thing Eilistraee can do to counter it."

Kiaransalee missed the sarcasm. Eilistraee didn't. She saw the rise of her mother's eyebrow, the slight nod of her head.

"I make my own choices," Eilistraee told her coldly.

"That may be," Lolth smirked. "But you follow my lead. You always have, ever since Arvandor."

"Sacrifices are necessary, if the drow are to be saved."

During this exchange, Kiaransalee's expression sharpened. She leaned forward, her wrinkled forehead creasing in a tight frown. She turned her head back and forth, hollow eyesockets searching the board.

Eilistraee had to make her move. Now. Before the Goddess of Death spotted what was coming and found some new way to cheat.

Eilistraee scooped up the Wizard piece that had been standing at the very edge of the board and moved it. Swiftly, to the very heart of Kiaransalee's House. "Wizard takes Mother!" she sang, her voice a victory peal.

"No!" Kiaransalee rocked forward, her bony hands scrabbling at the board. She grabbed a Priestess piece, but it turned to mist that drifted away through her hands. She snatched at another piece, which likewise vanished. She tried desperately to move one piece after another, but they would no longer obey her commands.

"No!" she cried again, a long, fading wail. Her body began to crumple in on itself, curling and flaking apart like a rotting leaf.

"Yes," Eilistraee said firmly. She leaned forward and scooped Kiaransalee's Mother piece from the board. As the Goddess of Death shrank to a tiny, forlorn pile of tattered skin flakes, the Mother piece turned to ash in Eilistraee's hand. Eilistraee turned her hand palm-up, lifted her mask, and blew the ash away.

Kiaransalee was gone. Her domain lingered a moment longer. Then its tombstones cracked and crumbled, its graves sagged in and became empty hollows. As it disappeared, the domains of Eilistraee and Lolth came together to fill the gap. A single silver ring that had fallen from Kiaransalee's fingers rolled across the sava board, grew increasingly tarnished, then fell onto its side. Lolth leaned forward and touched it, and it crumbled to dust.

Once again, there were only two players. Mother and daughter, malice and mercy, darkness and moonlight-shadow-streaked moonlight from a moon half-waned, but moonlight, just the same.

Eilistraee stared at Lolth across the sava board.

"Your move."