The rain slashed sideways through Molleshire, cutting mercilessly at the infrequent clapboard houses, the dwarf-chiseled stone of the Nikmar Temple walls, and cloaks much warmer, thicker, and drier than that of Cyran the Untouched. As a particularly malicious blast of flesh-biting wind took his balance, the paladin was glad the stable door was finally shut and locked. No creature, he decided, should be exposed to this weather, particularly while wearing nine pounds of wet wool.

As if by divine providence, he noted pounding on the temple door. He was certain that beneath the hunched Cloak, a person was intent on making the racket that acted to muffle the constant blatter of rain against his helm.

"It's locked!" he yelled, holding up the keys he wore around his neck. "Allow me."

"I heard that the Nikmar Order of Term offers hospitality to all," came a woman's voice. Cyran could see pale skin and black tresses slicked down by the wind, but little else.

"Indeed it does, especially tonight," he shouted, nearly drowned out by the thunder. "Have you no horse?" The key turned, and water splattered against the stone foyer as the wind pushed them inside.

"Not with me," she called, shutting the door and bolting it behind them. Once inside, Cyran re-lit the half-snuffed candelabra, and got his first good look at her. The wet cloak tossed aside, she was dressed in sheer black leather culled from some reptile he couldn't identify, embroidered with intricate garnet-inlaid gold thread, wrapped in belts of silk. The woman's ears were unmistakably elven, pierced with dark diamond-ringed jewels he had never before seen, and her fingers were banded with emeralds, crystals, and rubies carved in the shape of a ring. Her eyes met his, and he thought for a moment that he might fall into them, for the irises were an inky void that seemed to fall away...

She was not, Cyran decided, from the farms.

"There's a fire... " he said.

"To be sure," she said in a voice that clung like warm honey. Only as she gathered up her cloaks did he suspect that she might have been referring to something other than a means to dry wool.

She sat on the hearth, briskly rubbing her hands together and toweling her bare arms off, pulling off her scaly boots and scraping their mud over the pit designed for such purpose. Cyran started a kettle, and brought out the good Dhenzian tea.

"Might I inquire if you are, well," he hesitated, not wishing to seem presumptuous, "royalty?"

"Oh, yes," she replied, drying her swanlike neck.

Cyran's mouth twitched into a smile as he placed his war helm on the hearth, briskly oiling it. He shook the water from his narrow brown beard and thinning, but not balding, hair. He had always wanted to host someone important. Ever since he'd broken from the roaming life the Nikmar Order favored, something was missing. Without a warhorse, it would never be the same again, but in those days, he'd fought armies of hobgoblins and was rewarded by the duchess herself, whose very presence had an aura that he couldn't quite define, a sense of authority that reminded him why he served.

"A comtesse?" he inquired.

"Queen."

Cyran sucked in a breath. "My lady, I'm afraid I don't have the finery to serve one such as yourself. The Order naturally frowns on such extravagances. I am Cyran the Untouched, Paladin of the Nikmar Order of Torm, and I implore you to be my guest."

She gave him a cute little-girl smile. "I'd like that very much. You do the reputation of considerate paladins proud."

"It is part of our vows," he assured her, pouring the water to make tea.

"It is nice getting away from home and finding such courtesy. As much as my subjects adore me, thoughtfulness is not among their virtues." She sipped the boiling tea, and Cyran tensed. It was awfully hot, but she didn't seem to mind. "They're always asking my favor, imploring me to aid them in times of need, casting spells to talk with me over great distances. I do what I can, but sometimes... you know?"

"Very well," the paladin said. "Venison, Majesty?"

"Please. But the flattery, it wears thin. They don't mean half the things they tell me. So I asked myself what would happen if I left for a week or two, without a retinue? Perhaps that would make them feel it in their hearts next time they needed me. Is that wrong?"

Cyran was in the kitchen, spearing a strip of meat he'd cut that afternoon. He could not place her speech, exactly. It had no discernible accent, but her expressions felt oddly on the ear. She was obviously comfortable with his presence, though her words were foreign.

"You need to remind them of your position," he agreed. "Are you warm, Majesty?"

"Deliciously."

"If they can't tend to their own troubles for a week, I don't think they deserve your grace." The knife skidded over his mail gauntlet, and he smirked. The heavy steel mesh he wore every day reminded him of his vigilance against evil, even in this lackluster year, It occurred to him that if this lady were in distress, perhaps he could convince another paladin to watch the temple while he assisted her.

He set the speared strips to roast. "If you would forgive my asking, Majesty, what are you Queen of?"

"Spiders. Excellent tea, Cyran. How is it made?"

"Dhenzian root, originally from Kara- Tur, but we added a jot of hirukan..." His words drained away.

"Is something wrong? You look rather uncomfortable."

He backed away slowly, chainmail rattling ever so slightly. It had been forged by the master smiths of Waterdeep, and blessed by the priests of Torm, but now it seemed very, very light and permeable.

"I must say that's a rare title, your Majesty, I have only heard it in conjunction with the nether elves who live in the burrows beneath the world."

"Of course. And their goddess Lolth," she said politely. "Might I have a chair?"

He tried to keep a smile. "Majesty... please, do not utter that name again in the temple. She's been known to come down and... well, carry off those who profane her. She likely will not, but nothing good can come of it. And offending a paladin is not something of which a queen should make a habit."

"Mmm." Cyran's anger swelled as she paid more attention to the drink than his words. Deliberately, he picked up the old teak chair and set it next to her, but kept his hand on it, and his mind on the blessed sword not six feet away, over the mantelpiece. Its power would make the flesh of Abyssal creatures permeable, if her words attracted dark attention. His grandfather had used it to such effect in the Battle of the Opened Earth.

"Oh, I won't lie to you, Cyran. But please, enlighten me on this goddess' habits. The woodsmen near here say never to argue theology with a Tormic paladin."

He tipped his head at the civil comment. "The Demon Queen of Spiders, when she deigns to take a two-legged form, appears as a dark elf bedecked in spiderwebs, with flowing white hair, obsidian skin, and amber eyes. Beautiful, but terrible. Evil. Those creatures... they make sacrifices to her," he prodded, "not just of riches and animals."

The elven woman stretched back languidly in the chair before leaning over her tea once again. Cyran watched the fire as he continued speaking. "The sacrifices are on the full moon, once a month, discernible in the caverns of Menzoherranzan by the radiant gleam of long candles. They burn a pinkish red, each spark symbolizing the drops of smoking blood she shed to form the drow, falling from her abdomen in the battle with Corellon Larethian. The candles take an entire twenty-eight days to burn."

"Though they are off by perhaps ten minutes a month."

The woman tossed her head to one side, and the rain of her black hair concealed much of her heart-shaped face. Her voice softened to a murmur. "And she never leaves her home, in the sixty-sixth layer of the Abyss -- the Web -- for she never cracks. She never tires of the chants petitioning her for aid. She never wants to talk to anyone, for she is too proud, too haughty, and too bloody immortal to get out of her fivehundred-foot spider-ship made of the souls of the wicked, and visit upon her constituents."

Those eyes turned to Cyran again. Something deep within them glowed, and he knew that deep in the darkness of those pupils, there was a flicker of red light, like a lava flame masked by ten thousand layers of black silk.

"And she absolutely never takes the form of a grey elf-maid to find out what those on the other side in the eternal war against the surface dwellers are thinking."

It took Cyran a good minute before he realized that she had cast no magic to freeze him in place or turn him to stone. He wasn't sure what held him still. The fear of a rabbit, praying a bear wouldn't notice it? Year upon year of training in discipline and control? The patience of Torm Himself?

"If this is not some kind of jest," Cyran hissed, for his throat had no moisture, "prepare yourself for battle."

"Please," Lolth waved a hand, corrupting the kind word. "The venison would burn, and my true form would wreck your furniture." Her eyes narrowed. "This rug, is it Cormyran?"

"I don't care about the furniture!"

"Oh," she said rather quietly. "What of dinner?"

"Don't even think about paralyzing some innocent farmboy and drinking his blood! The citizens here are under my charge, and I will not back down from --"

"I was referring to the venison," the unholy goddess said. "Maybe some wine. That isn't against your code, is it?"

With a swift motion, he leapt to the hearth and drew the sword with a scrape of steel on wood. It practically leapt for joy to he in his hands again, and whistled through the air like the shriek of a hawk.

"Ah-ah," Lotth said, waving a finger. "Attacking a guest in your home, does that not violate your vows?"

"I would give my life just to scar your cheek!"

"Before you try that, Cyran, there are a few things you should remember. The first is that I've done nothing, -- absolutely nothing -- here, except drink a little too much tea. I'm kind of a lush when it comes to warm drinks."

"You are evil! Drow slit the throats of children in your name!"

"Cyran, your theology is coming apart. I ask for warriors, perfectly responsible adults. You really should consider more important things ..."

He locked his hands on the hilt of the hand-and-a-half- sword, keeping his arms live, ready to snap the blade out like wringing a towel to give its edge maximum power. Perhaps she was trying to confuse him?

"Which is?"

"What makes you think you wilt even break my skin?"

Cyran knew his chances were low. The being before him was no orc, no vrock, not even a small dragon. But he had to banish cowardice before it crept upon him. He shouted the words as his safeguard. "Torm protects the righteous-"

"Cyran the Untouched, please, let me formally remind you of your position with your patron deity," she putted, holding her hands up to sparkle in the firelight, "just for a moment. May I?"

It was not so much fear that caused the paladin's silence, but a sudden wash of the absurd. She was asking his permission, with a voice that dripped not of sarcasm or hatred, but of... Courtesy? Dignity?

Class?

Cyran nodded, and Lolth gave a breathy murmur. "Consider yourself from Torm's position. Your servant Cyran calls for succor as he attacks a dinner guest. Probably not high on your list of targets -- not when there are perfectly evil behir in the hills. But you decide to aid him. What will it be? A little blessed flash of light, or enough power to slap an avatar to the ground?" she mimed, thinking before continuing.

"I know. How about relief from intense pain so your servant dies knowing he's given Lolth a wound? Hmm. 'Cyran the Untouched.' That sounds like a martyr's name. Yes, a name to inspire children to become paladins, but not someone who descends into the Abyss himself to hunt fiends. Not someone who really might... well... have a chance."

The paladin slowly lowered the blade. Lolth was the epitome of chaos and evil, he knew. The words could just be a distraction so that she could spring upon him.

"Cyran, is that a fair estimation?"

"I cannot trust a thing you say," he said. "Even were I to see through your lies, I would only come against the magic that cloaks them."

"What lies?" the Spider Queen asked. "Not everything I say is foulness and half-truths. I'm afraid you're going to have to go without your little spells and trust me." She gave a demonic grin, then "like you trust everyone else you let in from the road."

Cyran's head reeled. "But... you could slay me in my sleep!"

"And all of Molleshire, most of the forest, and... oh, the meat's sizzling!" She leaned over the hearth and turned the venison. "Cyran, I have stable girls who could do that for me. Honestly, I just want to stay awhile." Her eyes flicked over him. "A night. Perhaps tomorrow morning, if that's permissible."

The paladin crashed lifelessly into the chair behind her, putting his sword point into the wood floor. He had a sickening suspicion that the goddess meant it. "It is not," he said, tensing Again. He reversed his sword, showing her the metal-gauntlet sigil of Torm. "Does this even hurt?"

Lolth twitched her nose. "Um. I feet a sneeze coming on." She shook her head. "No. There. It's passed. Dinner's ready." Reaching into the flames, pulled out the sizzling skewers and dropped them on cheesecloth. "They're hot." Ignoring her own advice, she bit into one, and Cyran trembled as he watched her fangs pierce the flesh. The slice of deer quickly dissolved as her virulent poison broke it down, and in seconds the remaining portion was mush which she scooped up with a black metal spoon. Her slurps were soft and delicate.

"Why?" he said, harshly cutting the meat with his belt knife. "Of all the misbegotten curses that could have been laid upon me, why do you enter my temple?"

"Is that any way to treat a lady?"

"I..." A decade of conditioning spoke for him. "No, your Maj... " Cyran stopped again, horrified at what he almost called her.

"Apology accepted," she said cheerfully.

"But the cause... for your visit?"

"Between us?" Lolth whispered, looking around conspiratorially. "There's an annual sacrifice, in my name, in Menzoberranzan, right now. As the drow were preparing, I thought, 'Svirpati! What's the point of celebrating absolute freedom if I can't get away? This is my holiday."'

"You think those rites celebrate freedom?"

"I can't figure you paladins out," she continued, talking around the mush. "Vows, vigils, living-only-but-to-serve. No sense at all. I asked a priest about it, and he listed all these ordeals you go through. I thought, if they swear to honesty, why not ask one why he does it?...

"Why?" Cyran echoed, trying to reconcile emotions. "I suppose... I live but to serve -"

"You see, that sounds to me like a slave," she snapped. "A broken one. And Torm is not even standing here, holding the tentacle rod."

"He blesses those who-"

"I bless my people, too," she interrupted. Cyran was uncomfortably aware of the heat from the fire. "I'd even bless you if you'd worship me."

The paladin's face contorted. "I should have known the temptation would he coming."

Her face seemed a little sad. "I was just saying you don't have much of a point. Anybody's welcome to worship. It's the same with Torm, right? He'd adopt a drow who became huffy and turned from me, wouldn't he?"

The paladin scowled. "Huffy?"

"Pretentious. Self-righteous. Broomstick lodged in the nether aperture."

"Obeying law and order rather than bathing in blood is not huffy. It grants inner strength."

"Great," the Spider Queen declared, standing. "Explain it to me."

He tightened his grip on the sword.

"You will corrupt me."

Lolth raised her delicate elven eyebrows and gave a fanged grin. "Well, Cyran, honestly I haven't done that in ages, but if you insist... " Cyran remained impassionate, and she composed herself. "Relax. If your faith is so strong, there is no worry?"

Cyran slowly took off his chainmail gloves, pondering. He had always thought the test of a paladin would come in battle, but deep down, somewhere, he knew it lay in faith. A sword was just a piece of metal. This was something stronger.

This was a challenge meant for him, whether or not the dark goddess would admit it. War was the province of warriors; blind faith that of priests. It took a paladin of Torm to walk the path between them, to reason, and to teach.

He knew the unholy avatar would notice him rubbing the holy symbol on the pommel of the sword, but he did it anyway.

Cyran groomed his beard, having cleaned the mess from the kitchen. The little ritual of trimming it just so bolstered his confidence as he watched himself in the mirror. In the same way his chiseled features were matched with a neat coiffure, so everything he did would be orderly. Losing his temper could cost him everything.

He came downstairs and met Lolth by the fire. She was wearing the black and purple cloak again, and her boots had grown thigh-high. Her visage was untouched.

"Are you going to throw off that guise?"

"Why should I? It staves off suspicion and drives Corellon insane. He looks down from Olympus, playing guardian of the world, and he can never for the life of him figure out what I'm doing. Watch. Ten nights from now, this place will be swarming with elven priests looking for traitors to the surface or something. You ready for a ride?"

"In this storm?"

The goddess tore open the door, and the candles snuffed themselves shortly before the wrought iron candelabra pitched over. Cyran caught it, suddenly freezing as the gale spat rain at him. He could hardly keep his eyes open. As Lolth stepped outdoors, the rain suddenly stopped as something blocked it, creating a susurrus of beating water against a massive tarp, or perhaps an awning she had conjured from the air. Cyran followed. Little would surprise him now.

Except the red-scaled wall in front of him.

Glancing up, he noted that what kept the rain off was a wing. A large, yellowy-crimson batlike wing with veins as thick as his own wrist. Spiky black scales running along a great reptilian back. And then, the rest of the red dragon, marred only by a very large, polished, and quite fireproof saddle, which was being dried by a blast of super-heated air from one draconian nostril the diameter of Molleshire's well cover.

"Yes," he heard clearly above the din, "in this storm."

Unbelieving, Cyran put his hand on the hilt of his ancestral sword, reflexively trying to detect any malefic thoughts. His stomach jerked at the dragon's Abyssal nature. This thing had, no doubt, devastated entire city-states. He could feel the horrific power of dragon-fear, kept in check like a frozen waterfall above his head.

"I cannot," he declared. "I apologize, there can be no compromise in abhorrence."

"Your path binds your actions," Lolth called, walking up its extended claw to be spattered again when she reached the saddle. "Is it evil to ride a mount over town?"

"It is evil to consort with those that undoubtedly have slain hundreds."

The gale brought her words back. "Evil or merely the absence of good? Would you try to redeem Daelshak, the Wastrel of Infernae, or slay him? He doesn't like to talk!"

Cyran watched the dragon for a moment. It had perhaps twelve feet of flesh, bone, and mithril-hard scales before he could pierce its heart. The blade of his ancestral sword was thirty-eight inches.

He hated math.

Cyran slowly walked up the claw, feeling the heat coming through the dragon's scales and noted the steam rising among the raindrops. He sat heavily behind the goddess, his seat uncomfortably warm, the smell of her wet hair too close.

"No compromise?"

"Every moment I entertain you," he shouted, "is a moment that you do not destroy Molleshire."

The dragon's back lurched, and Cyran grabbed Lolth's waist. Somehow, she clung to the beast's mammoth back with her ankles, and stuck still as a post when he clenched so hard he thought he might faint. The launch took them above the bell tower in a single leap, and each wing-beat shook him up and down. He was glad he'd locked his hands together; with this little purchase, and the rain stinging his face at such a speed, any casual grip on a scale or saddle knob would have torn loose.

Lightning flashed, and suddenly Cyran could see again. They were headed through the clouds, across yards and yards of sheeting rain. Yet strangely he was more hot than cold, and the Spider Queen was holding his arms in a way that was almost comforting.

"We're going to bank," she yelled, and let out a sound that jammed Cyran's remaining thoughts.

"Whee?" he repeated. I'm riding on a dragonback into a lightning gale five hundred feet above the ground, holding on to the Queen of Abyssal Fiends and she just said "whee." They pitched to the side, and his world was suddenly filled with a frightening, irregular series of black lumps he barely recognized as treetops. In seconds, his left leg began to slip as they Pivoted, and soon he was riding side-saddle, still clinging to her immovable, soft waist. How could the dragon hold this kind of angle?

It flapped again, and climbed up, until there was nothing but cold and wet wherever Cyran looked, and when the silver light of the moon broke through, it stabbed his eyes painfully. They were above an enormous field of gray, the wind blowing across the dragon's neck in waves of hot and cold, but always dry.

"Guh," he commented.

"Having fun?" Lolth inquired, patting his leg as he corrected his perch.

"I... well... yes." Strangely, it was true. The goddess was chaotic as any of her kind, but he had a feeling she wouldn't let him die here. Not before their talk was done.

She turned her head, her eyes glowing a luminescent green. "Ever have fun back in your Or-der?" she sang teasingly.

"Of course," he replied, and her face darkened. "This is different than the horse races, to be sure, but we play our own games. And we go to the jousting lists, and the working songs have always cheered me, but that was... some time ago."

"I do this whenever I feel like it. And among my people, one's passion, one's pleasure rules over any edict. Where is the harm in that?"

"You aren't showing me the pain," he returned. "This Wastrel we ride, he eats more than cows."

"He eats whatever he wants, whenever he wants," Lolth smiled. "The wise respect his needs. The stupid and weak fulfill them, and thus we are strengthened."

"You have your own order," Cyran said tightly, "Are you as free as you claim?"

"An order you bowed to when confronted."

"But how often do I confront a goddess and her dragon?" he riposted.

The counter was quick. "Or anyone stronger than you. The principle is the same."

"So it is with law and kindness. The principle holds that there is an order. But it is not one we create. It is above all men."

"And where did this order and goodness come from, then?"

"Well, the gods, of course, when they saw-"

"So you bow to those stronger than you, your own gods!" she finished neatly. "What's the difference between your so-called good and our so-called evil? Your way simply limits choice. Can't you see?"

Cyran took a deep breath, his head clearing with the cool air. He was on extremely dangerous ground, for if his reasoning went much farther, it might remind Lolth of her own crimes. Might she feel guilty about the past war and fly into a rage now?

"Will you kill me if I say that this order is above god or goddess? That beneficence is absolute?"

Lolth ran her hands down his thighs and hooked them firmly under his knees. The paladin twitched, and she grinned wickedly.

"Not before you see what a dive is like."

The paladin collapsed into the chair by the hearth once again, piecing off his chainmail and tossing the parts into the barrel of sand he kept nearby. He could roll it about in a moment. Right now, he had to make sure his heart hadn't frozen in shock.

"Quite a dive, wasn't it?" Lolth called. "You see, our way of life is more fun than yours. What good are rules of kindness and aid to the weak if they gnaw at you every day like rot grubs blocked by the tourniquet?"

"It has its value."

"To spare others' suffering at the cost of your own? How unhealthy. What do you do when you have to help everyone? Die?" She stepped lightly in front of the smoldering fire and lay on the stone, heels in the air. The posture reminded Cyran oddly of a girl he had known hack in Vilgarten where he had grown up. Meganna, the golden-haired logger's daughter who had taken him to see the goslings hatching down by the pond, and for weeks afterward sat on a hillside in that very position, feeding the geese; one had started following her about the village, and was still there when he left for the Order.

He blinked as Lolth shook her hair at the fire, droplets of water hissing on the embers. How could he explain kindness at this hour?

"I'm afraid I remain rather mortal, ah...

He paused. "Queen Lolth." The title seemed amenable to her, "May I sleep on your question until dawn?"

"Of course. But dawn is far off. Are you so tired?"

Cyran leaned far back in the chair. "I still must sand and dry the chainmail tonight. It wouldn't do to rust." He wished, privately, that the blessings had been strong enough to repel water.

She pillowed her arms beneath her chin. "I could set you up with some excellent mithril-based or adamantine worked chainmail of drow manufacture. I could even make sure it doesn't rot in sunlight, if you want-"

"I will not accept gifts from you," Cyran said coldly. "As much as politeness might demand it, I cannot forget that you and all you serve are my enemy.

"You've never even fought us. How do you know what we are?"

"Even if you had goodly intentions, the abbots wouldn't stand for it."

Lolth walked behind him, putting her hands on his shoulders and gently kneading. "So they rule your comfort, too. I'm sorry." The knots of his strained shoulder muscles began to loosen, and she went after them mercilessly. "Just their opinion ties you down. Don't you feel like a prisoner, denied such little pleasures?" His flesh softened, and he slid lower in the chair. Her fingers probed behind his ears, and he suddenly felt... awkward.

"Um... could you please stop?"

"Why?" she putted. "You're enjoying it."

"Yes, but it makes me uncomfortable."

"It is merely a backrub which you well deserve. What's making you uncomfortable, I think, is the voices of all those paladins and abbots in your head saying the good things in life are wrong. Have you kissed a girl since you joined the Tormics?"

Cyran twitched, and his face heated.

"That's a no if I ever felt one," Lolth whispered, like ocean surf in the Underdark. "Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like?" Her breath caressed his ears she came closer. "Not a brotherly one, but something... " As she trailed off, her tongue touched the back of his neck. "... exploratory"'

"Queen," Cyran growled, "I know what you intend, and I cannot stand for it." He struggled. "This may beat your blood, but for me it is quite a serious business. I dedicated my life to Torm." Was that all he could find? "Part of that sacred agreement is that he grants me power to preserve and defend life, like my friends, my townsfolk, and my Order. In return, I abide by certain vows, important vows, and one of those forbids the affections of women."

"Even kissing?"

"Except on the hand, yes."

"But the priest said you were allowed to marry. Doesn't that imply you can do a lot more than just kiss?"

"Of course!" he snapped. "The bond of marriage legitimizes... well, it. But any temptation you offer will he refused, so I suggest you stop playing farm-girl games."

"This isn't temptation," she hissed, like steam escaping. "I am asking what you hink, as we agreed. It is You who keep talking about it incessantly. Do I tempt you simply by being so near? Do you think of every woman this way?"

"Certainly not. But you are a fiend of supernatural beauty. It is your nature."

"Oh, I doubt that," she said softly, and for the first time, her hair began to actually slide across his skin, winding around his throat and down his shirt. "Temptation is an art, you see, knowing what and when to suggest something."

"It is a game of power and manipulation."

"But how do you know if you don't try it?" Lolth said, giving a chuckle that vibrated his skin. "Hmm. Your sacred bond of marriage. It can be given by a foreign king on your long travels, can it not?"

Cyran was puzzled. "As part of our duties to hospitality, we respect the ways of other cultures and lands, and their royalty is as ours--"

"Oh," she whispered, and one alabaster hand crept around his torso. "Well, I'm afraid to go to bed without tempting you, so let me just fulfill one of your desires." He was tempted to jerk Out of the chair, but another arm had coiled about him. "I'm going to be in the bedroom next to yours, Cyran. I'm going to lock my door, but I'm going to give you the key. And I want you to know that though you aren't familiar with... the ways of love, I'll be there for you. Your first kiss will not be with a fumbling village girl," Cyran was blinded by a flash, and the hands on his shirt changed to Meganna's?

"Nor a certain duchess whom I know fantasizes about having dashing knights Court her." The hands changed again, shortening to those of a small-boned woman. The third time, they pooled over with purplish veins of black, rivulets of color running down and thickening in her arms until they were long-fingered and dusky.

In horror, Cyran stayed completely still. Years of theology had warned him of this, and she knew it. To look upon the unmasked form of a goddess would drive all but the greatest men to abject fear, or paralysis, or...

Or other emotions.

"For you, in that room, will wait the living avatar of a goddess with millennia of experience. And while thousands of faithful drow priestesses on thousands of worlds pray to her nightly just to get a mere flicker of her attention, she will lie there only to answer your questions and expend her power in any way you desire. And until dawn tomorrow, and only until then, you will be able to trust me completely with anything you wish to confess... or ask... or do. Just as you have trusted me in your house and on dragon-back. You may keep it as innocent as a single kiss on the hand if you like, young paladin. I want to see if you can."

Something hard brushed his earlobe, and he guessed from the warm, wet lip right next to it that it was her fang. It traced its way around the curve of his ear, and he shivered as it came down to rest on his neck, touching the artery.

"Because," she said in a voice as quiet as a falling cobweb, "I am a queen. I could marry us, and as is the drow elf way, I could annul it by morning with your consent." He felt more than heard her words as her breath stroked his skin. "And when you see that orange dawn over Molleshire, you can keep our secret, or you can boast about it to a band of bawdy warriors if you want, but I think you would mostly love to tell your great Torm that you did what you liked, without breaking... one... single... vow."

She moved, and Cyran did all he could to slam his eyes shut. He couldn't look at her as she walked by. Lolth had done something to him, for he heard the scrape of her bare feet pushing grains of dirt aside as she took three steps past him towards the stairs, and somehow even that was seductive.

Something struck his thigh, and he snatched at the object, desperate for any sensation but her. He cringed at the voice that tickled, like drops of cold blood on his skit).

"You have never seen it before tonight, but your so-called laws and good make you a prisoner," Lolth said. "In Your hands is the key to freedom. That, honored Cyran the Untouched, is temptation."

There was an agonizing rustle of silk, and a merciful slam of wood on wood. The metal grinding of the lock upstairs ended with a final, decisive click.

And Cyran tried very hard to convince himself that all he held was a piece of metal.

The light coming through the slats of the shuttered northern window was painful to Cyran's eyes, but he couldn't help but dimly realize that finally, it was over. The pounding on the door drove him back to full consciousness. As he sat up, he saw the concerned elven face of last night's visitor. She was coming down the stairs.

"Eee-aaa!" sounded a voice outside, all consonants blocked by the thick oak of the door and length of the hall.

"Are you all right? Are you going to get the door?"

"A moment," he said, gasping as the pain hit him again.

Lolth cocked her head. "What did you do to your hands?"

He reached out to balance himself, and gritted his teeth as she softly touched his palm and helped him stand. "I was weak," he gasped. "Don't touch me, it hurts." He jerked his hand back and hid it from her.

"Eeelah, a uu-uu-i-iyiiin.!" More crashing of the heavy knocker on the door.

"You weren't there last night," the Spider Queen said, and he thought he heard something strange in her voice. Something new. The pounding on the door intensified.

"No pity, goddess." Defiantly, he brought the burned, twisted skin up, swollen with bubbles where he had grasped the coals. He nearly fainted with the agony, but he clenched his wreck of a sword hand in front of those dark eyes, as he had been wanting to do for the last eight hours. The pink muscle exposed beneath his brown skin reminded him uncomfortably of the venison. "I put the key in the fire, and I fed it with wood, so whenever I reached for it... I did what was required."

"No," she said, a hand on his side and one reaching as if she were his mother, brushing back his hair, "it wasn't." There was no humor in her face any more. The eyes seemed only a flat black. Somehow, Cyran quailed. She was hurt, and it hadn't been satisfying at all. And even now, he cursed, she could be faking it to lure him into some further trap or corruption.

"I need to get the door. Witness the rewards of just service, Queen Lolth." He touched his right hand with his left, and thought of Torm. A great, kindly father whose blood could flow through his children's veins, sealing their wounds again and giving them relief when they most needed it. And as he felt Torm within and around him, Cyran's hand healed, the flesh squirming back to where it should be like live, cool butter.

He stalked to the door and opened it, half- expecting another divinity.

Instead, he was met by the face of Serul the tailor, and an armful of bleeding girl. The moon elf burst inside, his work apron spattered like a butcher's. He lay his daughter Fielle on the foyer slate, and Cyran saw with horror that the blood did not trickle from her, but pooted. The flamehaired child did not have long to live.

"Healer, thank every god there is! She's dying! There was a behir by the rocks where we dry our leather-" he choked. "Save her, please! Your blessings-"

Suddenly, everything fell away from Cyran, like he had been struck in the head with a mace. He had just used Torm's power.

His eyes fell on the Abyssal queen. "Your doing?"

"I... no... I swear it."

Serul yanked the undergarment the paladin wore. "I'll pray. What must I do?"

Years of training came back to him. "Uh, the bandages in the closet! Third shelf down!" He grabbed Fielle's doll-like hand and clenched it fiercely as he searched for wounds. Claws had raked down her forearms and collarbone, but it had not gotten her in its jaws or coils. He whipped out his dagger and cut her shirt away as Serul dashed back, and they fumbled with the vinegar-soaked bandages. He noticed an enormous dark bruise on her abdomen. The lower ribs... darkened with blood already?

"How long ago was this?"

"I don't know. Mallo is dead. And others. I ran with her. Five minutes? Fielle, metril n'tonset!" Cyran didn't follow the Elven, but he guessed its meaning. Don't leave us. Stay awake. The paladin could not find a pulse. He cracked open the never-Used jar of pepper poultice and smeared it on her tongue. The elven child twisted in pain, and he knew that her heart beat at least once. He wrapped every slash he could find.

"She's not breathing."

"I know!" He didn't dare shove on her chest or breathe into her mouth, not with So much damage. For a terrifying, quiet second, he stopped to think.

"Torm's light, paladin-" began Serul.

"Used!" he spat. "Only the higher orders are fit to receive more!" He turned back over his shoulder at Lolth. "Well?" he yelled. "Where are your offers now?"

"If she dies," the goddess said, "it is the way of things."

"You can help her!" he screamed. "What's wrong with you?" Exasperated, he wished the fiend dead, or at least perturbed. "If it thrills you to see an elf bleed, why aren't you cackling? Is it too rude?"

And for the first time since he had met her, Lolth was speechless.

"Who are you?" asked the elven tailor, seeing her for the first time.

Cyran ignored both of them, thinking. Half by inspiration and half by feel, he dashed to the hearth, and kicked at it, breaking open the brick that hid a holy prayer scroll. He unfurled it and practically dove back to Fielle. The bleeding might not be the worst of her troubles. Sometimes there were complications, poisons beneath the surface as the humors from one organ flowed into the blood, and her broken ribs might have caused such a shock. He read aloud in the archaic prayer language, and lay a hand on Fielle's frail breastbone. Balance, he prayed for, within the body, within her spirit, his soul.

Fielle gave a soft cry, and the paladin knew his gamble had succeeded. He put his ear down next to her heart, and heard it give several weak beats. Lying in her blood, he practically wept for joy.

Cyran stood weakly. It was all he could do until Torm's healing light could he applied the next day. The little elven girl would have to keep her blood inside her until then. And someone had to stop the behir.

"Thank you," sobbed Serul. "Thank you a thousand times. If there's anything I can do-"

"The monster," he said. "Where is it? What happened?"

Serul gulped back tears and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "By the stream. It swallowed Mallol And it's attacking everyone and-"

Cyran shot the goddess a glance. Serul, hypersensitive to his benefactor, turned to the queen. "Can she help?"

"I am leaving now," she said, and walked past the two of them, leaving boot-prints in the sticky mess.

"Not yet," said Cyran, following her out. He pulled the door shut, wincing in the strong sunlight, which didn't seem to bother Lolth at all. "You want to know why I despise you and your kind, Queen? Because of that. You could have given a soft breath and helped a little girl who would never do you harm, and yet you want to walk away because it isn't fun."

The goddess didn't turn around. He chased her through the sedge grass until he blocked her path.

"What, now you are above speaking to me? You enjoy being huffy?"

The Queen of Spiders paused before him. Cyran was sure he looked ridiculous in bloody underclothes in the middle of a dandelion patch, but he didn't care.

"Cyran," Lolth said again in that gentle voice of hers, "she is of the blood of Larethian. I fought a war at the beginning of time when that doublesexed, self-aggrandizing dolt treated me like a mortal child and humiliated me. He gave me no respect. Do not make the same mistake."

"You wanted to understand", Cyran hissed. "Don't you understand now? I serve for that. That look in his eyes when he said 'thank you.' That's something you and your cursed drow will never have the freedom to-"

And as her inky eyes bored into his, Cyran cut himself off, because he knew that no more needed to be said. He saw something, just a hint of it, twitch at the center of her eye, and the pink flush of skin in her cheeks, a precursor to a reaction he had seen in Meganna so long ago. When he told her he was leaving.

"That's it, isn't it?" he asked. "The endless war, the callousness, the torture of so many? You can't stop."

"I have to go," Lolth whispered.

"To be kind among the fiends... you'd have to trust them... "

"And you have to be silent."

"When you offered me last night... " he said, too incredulous to fear for his life.

"Swear to me you would die before saying so much as my name again, or I kill you where you stand", she recited pitilessly.

The sun blackened as if a great web had been drawn across it, and the air rippled with black tendrils forming the ring of a door. The grass swayed in the sucking breeze that pulled everything around through a portal that led to the deepest pit of all. A pit without end, its stink worming into his nostrils even upwind. It smelled of pus and tentacles and desiccated things, and the musty scent of great spiders and their droppings, and rivers of ichor from wounded things that bled eternally.

He held his hand to his heart. "Your Majesty," he whispered, "I swear on my honor as a Tormic paladin, I would die before speaking of our meeting."

The elven face melted away as she pounced on him, and he was too bedazzled by the flame of amber eyes to even think of resisting. Her lips forced his apart, and her tongue invaded his mouth and very soul. He could taste the poison, and as he reflexively swallowed, his heart palpitated. Lolth's fangs were pinning his tongue, so close to breaking the skin and ending it all, turning him into another drained corpse to join the millions of others who had fed her hunger. Cyran felt as if he had dived from the dragon's back and was accelerating into a venomous sun, convulsing as he rode the beams of light and fire. His muscles relaxed, and he stood only because she held him up.

If you speak, he knew more than heard, my poison will destroy you.

She let go, and blackness flowed over him as a chaotic blast of malefic energy twisted his insides worse than the poison. He vomited until he dry-heaved, rolling on the grass in pain.

Yet still, he stretched out an arm toward the Abyss, grasping air.

When he could see, and his body felt less like a swollen blister than a moderately healthy human, Cyran staggered to his feet, unsurprised at the enormous circle of blackened earth where no plant would grow again. He shook himself, and a key fell from his pant leg. His key.

It had changed. It was the black-green of drow adamantine, as ageless as the stars, with tiny dark crystals spelling out words in the common human tongue.

"For a prisoner," it read.

It took him until well after the behir was stain until he realized there was writing on the reverse side.

"From another."

about the author

Chris Hepler has yet to give in to temptation when visited by dark goddesses, but few of them hang out in Baltimore, so his sample size is hardly representative. He read "Queen of the Demonweb Pits" at the impressionable age of ten, and always rooted for the spider when watching Tarantula.