afterlife only not

Afterlife


	Luanea heard the faint sound of dropping water.  Her mind swam.  She slowly opened her eyes, but it was dark all around her.  She slowly rose and squinted from a sitting position, and saw the faintest outline of black and white from her drow darkvision.  She started to climb to her feet when realization struck.  She was stark naked.  Her equipment was gone.  So was her sword.

	She crouched and looked around.  “Kyria?” she asked urgently.  “Kyria, are you there?  Verashon?”

	Silence.  She slowly rose to her feet and gave herself a quick pat-down.  “No injury,” she said.  She ran her hand over the section of leg on which the device had struck her, but there was nothing there.  “What… is this how a Cascade works?”

	She took a few hesitant steps forward and looked around.  The ceiling was un-touched rock, with natural stalactites every few feet.  The floor was smoother, and looked to her like many feet had worn them down.

	A long tunnel stretched out before and behind her.  The walls were the rippling walls of a cave, but flattened, with no jaggedness or cracks.  She took another few steps toward a distant light that shone past a bend in the tunnel, and heard the faint sound of voices.  She swallowed her nerves and bowed her head.

	“Lady Eilistraee, I beg your aid,” she whispered.  “I am lost.  I am alone here, bereft of preparation or kin.  Please, I ask you now, protect me.”

	To her infinite relief, she felt a swelling of warmth and peace in her heart.  She clasped her hands over her breast and looked up, daring to hope.  Luanea walked forward silently, feeling alone to longer.


	The silver energies of the Cascade were pushing through the floor now.  It was still solid, but the light was passing through the solid objects like it wasn’t even there.  The inside of the sphere was untouched, as if nothing were happening at all, but the rest of his party was gone.  Suivi wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and took a hesitant step forward.  The stone floors of the library made no sound as he tread closer, peering desperately into the ball of light.  It didn’t burn his eyes, despite its brightness.

	Inside, the Cascade sat there innoculously.  The silver energies of the colored panel projected outward, forming a perfect bubble.  He could find no way to turn it off from outside, or even from inside.

	“Where are the damn casters when you need them?” Suivi whispered bitterly.  He turned to the rows of rotten books; perhaps he could find one of help.  As he did so, the sphere began shrinking.  The Cascade made a faint whirring sound as it began to deactivate.  Suivi spun back around and stared, but his friends did not reappear.  The glow began to fade as the sphere slowly shrank away.  He looked around desperately, but inspiration eluded him.

	Suivi took a deep breath.  “Okay, then,” he whispered, and he leaped into the glow.


	Cavria rested her weary legs in the warm water of the tunnel she had found.  She snuggled down to her collarbone in the deep pool she was enjoying, and splayed her arms and legs out on the smooth stone beneath.  The young devil tilted her head back and rested on the shallow side of the pool, staring up at the dim ceiling above.  “This… is familiar,” she said dreamily.  She had appeared in the pool, naked and alone, but her fear had left her at once.  Her planar nature told her as clear as day where they were, as if the pool hadn’t been enough of a clue.  The light steam of the pool wafted back and forth on the breeze that blew through the tunnel.

	Cavria smiled and let the warm water relax her.  The others would be along, she knew.  This was a good place, and she meant to enjoy it properly.


	Doshellas slowly raised his tear-soaked face and looked at the woman before him.  He had dropped to his knees the moment he had arrived in this place, clasped his hands on the ground, and bowed his head low, before her gentle touch on his cheek raised his head to look upon her.  Despite her silent encouragement, he still felt felt too filthy to see his mistress.

	She smiled and put both hands on his cheeks.  This time, she spoke, and Doshellas’ mind nearly melted from the power in her voice.  “Oh, sweet boy, no,” she said.  She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone, but her words danced with mirth.  “No, no, bow you not, little Doshellas.  No guest in Svartalfheim need bend the knee.”

	“Lady Eilistraee,” Doshellas whimpered.

	“Yes, sweet child, it is I, but fear me not,” she said, and his heart leaped despite his shame.  “Oh, but the scars on your heart are deep, aren’t they?”  She released him and sat across from him, and patted the ground beside her.  “I had thought my words in the woods beyond the caravan stop had begun their healing, but they are worse than I knew.”  She held out her hands.

	Doshellas was shaking like a china set in an earthquake, but he managed to crawl over to her.  She took his hand, and in an instant, he was not and was again.  He had teleported before, but not like this; he had been on his knees, then he was resting beside her, with his head in her lap, eyes shut, facing up at the ceiling.  Her leg was warm and soft, her hand gently stroked his hair.  He didn’t dare open his eyes.

	“Rest, then, hunter,” his goddess whispered.  “Sleep, the sleep of the righteous and the healing.  I will be here when you wake, when you sleep again, and when you return to my home far in the future.  I will always be here, because you love me as much as I love you.”  She stroked his hair in a slow pattern, and he felt himself drifting away, despite it all.  Tears poured from beneath his shut eyelids, and he felt the divine glow that surrounded her dim.  “Sleep,” she whispered, and he did.


	Axio wobbled through the tunnels of an unfamiliar place.  He ran his hand over the wall as he slowly navigated, all but blind.  His divine vision gave him a sense of the place’s layout, but only a few feet in front of his face.  His darkvision was useless in a place with no light at all.

	His gear was gone, all save his magic armor.  He felt light without his weapons and pack, but he barely noticed.  The pain in his back was gone, but now we just felt weak.  His knees shook as he walked.  His head swam.

	“Ryaire, where am I?” Axio whispered.  “What is this place?”

	He paused as his senses revealed a shift in the terrain.  The ground fell away beneath him, descending out of his limited sight.  The walls spread farther apart, and he couldn’t sense a ceiling above.  All around him, though, he sensed movement.  He strained his ears, and he heard distant footsteps, passing farther from him.

	Axio drew in a deep breath and hed it, trying to compose himself.  He let it out in a long sigh.  “I hope we can get back before the horses starve,” he said sadly, and he started gingerly walking down the slope.


	Verashon knelt below rivers of fire.  He craned his head back and stared in awe as arcing lights of lava and flame soared past overhead, stretching far beyond his sight, into infinite space.  The ground was cool and smooth stone, just like home, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the sight overhead.

	“It is grand, is it not, my dear boy?” a soft voice asked behind him.

	Verashon managed to drag his eyes away from the sight long enough to confirm what his ears told him.  He’d have known that voice half-dead.  “Oh, Lady,” he whispered, and he prostrated himself on the ground before his goddess.

	Eilistraee laughed softly.  “Come, now, Verashon, rise,” she said.  Her tone was mirth without mocking.  He slowly stood, suddenly very conscious of his nakedness.  “You and your friends are scattered all across my realm.  Do you know how you came to be here?”

	Verashon desperately forced himself not to become aroused before his magnificently beautiful goddess.  “Er… no, my Lady, I… I think something went wrong with the activation of a Cascade of the Planes, but… I am no wizard…”  His voice trailed off, but she nodded.

	“Indeed.”  After a moment, she held out her hand.  “Come.”

	He reverently took it, and the flame faded away overhead as they seemed to pass through stone like water.  He came to a halt in a dark stone tunnel, and looked around.  “Is this… my Lady, are we in… am I dead?”

	She giggled again, and he felt like dancing.  “No, sweet child, though not as far from the mark as you’d think.  This is Svartalfheim, but you are quite alive.  Do you feel strength and power fill your limbs?”  He nodded.  “That is my home.  Here, we are all free, to be as Corellon made us.”  A soft glow rose from luminescent fungus overhead, and illuminated a broad, rocky tunnel that wound out of sight in both directions.

	“I… what happened, then, my Lady?” Verashon asked.  She released his hand, and faded away with a smile.

	“You’ll find out in a moment,” she promised, and she was gone.

	Verashon flexed the hand she had touched for a moment, then spun around as he heard somebody approach.  His tunnel fighter instincts told him they were close, and he had to push back the instinct to take a defensive stance.  Then, he saw the other person round the corner.

	Luanea gasped.  “Verashon!”

	Her husband nearly cannoned into her, and he swept her up in a hug.  “Luanea,” he said in desperate relief.  He felt tears well up.  “You’re alright.”

	“I’m alright,” Luanea affirmed.  Her eyes were leaking, too.  “Where are we?”

	“Svartalfheim, I just spoke to Eilistraee herself,” Verashon murmured.  He felt his wife’s hands tighten on his back.  “It’s true, she’s here.”  He buried his face in her neck and kissed her desperstely.  “I love you.  You’re okay.  We’re home.”

	“We’re home,” Luanea whispered.  They sank to the ground and against the smooth stone walls, still locked in their embrace.  “We’re here.”

	After a few moments of tender silence, Luanea looked up.  “Where are the others?”

	“I don’t know, I think they didn’t come through, except Kyria,” Verashon said.  He pulled his head back a bit and regarded his wife.  She was fine, and radiant as ever.  “You’re alright?”

	“The Cascade didn’t harm me, though I can’t find my things,” she said.  “Is it supposed to remove our garments?”

	Verashon shrugged.  He grinned as his wife wiggled her hips a bit to find a more comfortable position.  “I don’t mind.”

	Luanuea giggled as she felt his hardness against her stomach.  “Oh, randy?  Really?”

	“How could I not be?  Here, where we can and must be free,” Verashon murmured against her neck.  He ran one hand up behind her ear and lightly teased it, while the other traced its way down her thigh where her leg entwined with his.  “I desire you, perfect partner,” he whispered in Sylvan.  “Feel my need.”

	“Oh,” she murmured.  In truth, she did feel rather uninhibited in this place of absolute safety.  Of course, they were hardly a private and restrained couple under normal circumstances.  “Mmm… where did Eilistraee go?”

	“I know not, but she said she’d return.”  Verashon gently rolled his wife onto her back.  “Let us not waste time.”

	Luanea shivered in anticipation and took him into her arms again.  “Oh, you’ve convinced me,” she giggled.  They fell silent save sounds of exertion and joy as they made love in the comforting darkness of the tunnels.


	Kyria awoke slowly, and in great pain.  She rolled onto one flank and gasped as a lancing jolt of pain gripped her side.  “Oh, what happened?” she moaned.  She opened her eyes and saw nothing but darkness.  “What… where am I?”  She tried to sit up and couldn’t.  She felt below her waist, and her hand came back slick with blood.  Jolts of pain and pressure told her that her legs were still there, but she was hurt, badly.

	“Oh, no,” she managed.  She strained her eyes, but the tunnel was completely dark.  However, it wasn’t staying that way.  Small blotches of light appeared above and around her as some kind of creeping vine on the walls lit up, scattering unearthly blue and green light over the walls.  She managed to crawl on her flank over to the nearest wall and groped for purchase.  She saw how the light reflected on her skin and frowned – she had nothing with her.

	“Fucking Cascade must have been broken,” she grumbled.  She pulled herself into a sitting position and turned around.  She winced at the trail of blood she left behind.  “Fantastic.  I’m bleeding out.”  She squinted and looked around in the gradually brightening light.  The tunnel she was in seemed to run on forever in one direction, but there was another light rising in the other direction, and it lit a corner barely twenty feet away.

	With the extra light, she could see the wounds to her legs.  They were still there, but her clothing and equipment were gone, and her knees were both soaked with blood.  There was an open slash on one leg that looked like it had been scraped open with a rock, and lacerations on the soles of both feet.  She saw a skid of blood congealing on the ground next to where she had landed, and a splotch near where her head had been.  She gingerly probed the line of her skull, and felt the cold sting of a cut behind her left ear.

	“Damn it,” she muttered.  She took a deep breath and tried to move her knees again, then immediately thought better of it.  “Oh, ow FUCK that hurts, fuck it,” she grunted.  “Okay, Kyria, you’re in trouble.”  She looked over her head for any handholds, but there were none to be found.  She closed her eyes and paged through her mental spellbook, trying to think of any spells she had prepared for the day that had no material component and could help her escape wherever she was.

	“Prestidigitation, no… Mage Hand, no… shit, I need my spell components,” she mumbled.  The air around her was comfortably warm, but she shivered as a sensation of creeping cold filled her legs.  “Oh, no.”  She reached down and tried to rub some circulation into her ravaged limbs, but her skin was chilly to her own touch.  “Oh, no, no, no,” she whispered.

	She leaned back against the wall and let the tears flow.  “Eilistraee, if you’re listening, I am in so much trouble right now,” she whispered.  “I… I think I’ll be along to see you soon.  Please, listen for me, I’ll be singing your name.”

	A voice answered her from around the corner.  “Oh, I can hear you,” the voice said, and Kyria jolted against the wall.  She turned and stared as the light beyond the corner changed color and grew brighter.  Then, around the corner, walked a tall, willowy drow woman, with shimmering blue eyes, calf-length silver hair, and a mischievous smile.  She towered over Kyria, even if the wizard had been standing; she was at least nine feet tall, but seemed to shrink to a more normal height as she walked closer.

	“Eilistraee,” Kyria whispered.  “You… you’ve come for my soul.”

	“Not quite, little one, unless you want me to,” Eilistraee answered.  She knelt beside Kyria and took her hands.  The shakes and cold passed, replaced by a healthy warmth.  “Oh, you are hurt, aren’t you?  I don’t think this is right,” Eilistraee said.  “You must have been too close to the Cascade when it activated.”  She set a hand on Kyria’s cheek.  “You’ve come a long way, little traveler,” she said gently.  “Do you wish to rest or wake?”

	Kyria blinked sluggishly.  “W-what?”

	“This is Svartalfheim, my realm in Ysgard, and the place where your soul will go after death anyway,” Eilistraee explained.  She looked down at the sucking wounds on Kyria’s lower body.  “You’re close to coming here naturally, and with your soul’s balance, there’s nowhere else you’d go.  So… shall you live, and leave to finish your adventures on Toril, or would you like to die, and come to me properly?  You needn’t move an inch, you shall simply close your eyes and open them again.”

	Kyria shook her head.  “My Lady, no… I want… I don’t want to die yet,” she slurred.  “I’m worried about my friends…”

	Eilistraee smiled and leaned forward to kiss Kyria.  “Of course,” she whispered, and Kyria was healed.

	The young wizard slowly stood.  “I… I feel better,” she said.  She wept in awe.  “I’m better,” she repeated, and she nearly collapsed again.  “Thank you, thank you,” she sobbed.

	Eilistraee wrapped her arms around the little elf and hugged her tight.  “You’re welcome, daughter.  Come, stay a while, perhaps you will meet somebody you know,” she said playfully.  She released Kyria and took off at a run down the curving hall.  Kyria wiped tears away and followed with a beaming grin.


	Suivi stared at the wheel of lights overhead with a silent scream.  His eyes were wide and bloody, and his cheeks bled where his nails had cut into them when he had grabbed his head.  This was too much, too much for a mortal man or any other!

	He had come to a place with a great black coil of stone beneath his feet, or it felt like stone when he had collapsed on to it.  A great triple wheel orbited overhead, uncountable trillions of years away, and bursting with lights and colors and impossible patterns that were eating his sanity like fire eats paper.

	Suivi collapsed.  Blood soaked his hood and shirt as he convulsed on the strange material.  At last, all went mercifully dark.  Before his mind shut down, he saw a figure in a dark robe and cloak approach and extend a black hand for him.


	Cavria opened her eyes and waved as she saw somebody speed by the entrance to her tunnel.  “Hey, Kyria!” she called.

	Kyria skidded to a halt and doubled back at the sound of her friend’s voice.  “Cavria!” she exclaimed.  “You’re here too?”

	“I am!  Come join me!” Cavria said.  “These are healing pools, the whole elven afterlife is full of them.”

	Kyria looked indecisively at Eilistraee, who winked and gestured towards the other woman.  Kyria beamed and ran to her friend.  She sprang into the pool, sending water splashing up into Cavria’s face.

	Cavria spluttered and laughed, and Kyria did too.  Kyria whoofed out a breath as Cavria locked her in a bear hug.  “I’m glad you’re alright!  We saw you disappear!” Cavria said.

	“You did?  I was trying to de-attune the Cascade and I must have done something wrong,” Kyria said.  She scooted back on the floor of the pool and rose.  The water was only waist-deep on her, and she was short compared to Cavria.  “We’re in Svartalfheim!”

	“I guessed,” Cavria said.  “The air… felt like it, I guess.”  She immediately bowed low a glow that could only have come from a high Celestial approached around the corner.

	“Oh, Lady Eilistraee!” Kyria said.  “Cavria’s here too!  Cavria, this,” she started.

	“I know who she is, Kyria,” Cavria said.  Kyria sounded incongruously like a kid showing off how cool her mom was to her friends.  “Lady, thank you for bringing us to your home.”

	“Paladin.”  Eilistraee bade Cavria rise, and stood before her with a curious look on her youthful face.  “I bid you welcome, but I caution you: please do not stray far without your friend, because not all the petitioners in this place will react well to a fiend in their midst.”  Her face brightened.  “You are well spoken of by dear Luanea, however, and so you may make yourself at home until the time comes for you to leave.”

	“Oh!”  Cavria flinched as she suddenly realized something.  “My Lady, I do plead of you, I should return, clad and dressed, as soon as possible.  We left a wounded party member and several pack animals behind at the tower.”

	“Axiopistos?” Eilistraee asked.  Cavria nodded.  “I know of him.  As soon as he arrived, his gift lit up the Weave like few other things could.  And your beasts are well-cared for, they can survive a while without you.”

	“He came after us?” Cavria said, stunned.

	Eilistraee chuckled and moved to sit in the pool.  “Paladin, he saw a strange portal that had swallowed his friends.  What do you imagine he did?”

	“Follow us in afterwards, the hopeless fool,” Cavria sighed with a weary grin.  Of course he had.  She and Kyria sat.  Kyria eagerly scooted up beside her goddess, and Eilistraee and Cavria shared an instant’s rolled eyes glance.  Eilistraee lifted one arm, however, and Kyria immediately snuggled up beside her spiritual mistress.

	“Thank you for entreating with us so informally, your Ladyship,” Cavria said demurely.

	“I suppose you’re more used to the non-Seldarine deities, then,” Eilistraee chuckled.  “We lead by example.”

	“Yes, ma’am.  Ryaire, of course, my patroness,” Cavria said.

	Eilistraee nodded.  “Our friendship is… strained.  But she is of good spirit and intentions, and I have notified her of your arrival.”

	Cavria regarded the goddess across the pool from her carefully.  Ryaire’s presence had shaken the plane around her, and her emotions could roil the clouds overhead and darken the sky above it.  Were it not for the fey eyes and divine glow around her, Eilistraee could have passed for a normal drow woman, albeit one of captivating beauty and elegance.  That was just what her eyes were telling her, though.  Her fiendish and Paladin senses were telling her something else, something far more intimidating.  Inside the mortal outline across from her, she could see a vortex of power, one that made Ryaire seem like a mouse before a cat.

	She noticed, of course.  Cavria suspected that Eilistraee noticed everything in her realm.  Cavria bowed her head, but Eilistraee made a tiny, dismissive gesture, and Cavria sensed all was forgiven.  She sank down in the pool a bit and tried to still her nerves.

	Kyria could only sit still for so long.  She disentangled herself from her goddess and rose.  “Er, my Lady, may I explore a bit?  I’ll be back soon!” she insisted.

	Eilistraee nodded, and Kyria took off.  The sound of her wet feet on the floor faded after a few seconds, and Eilistraee chuckled as she settled back against the edge of the pool.  “She’s a child at heart, isn’t she?”

	“She is,” Cavria said.  She awkwardly cleared her throat.  “Er…”

	Eilistraee fixed her with a glare that froze the words in her mouth.  “Shall we talk a bit, Cavria?”

	Cavria managed a tiny smile.  “When I saw you in the woods outside the city… you smiled, and I thought we should be friends.”

	Eilistraee laughed.  “Oh, I would like that, especially to see the teeth-gnashing rage on Asmodeus’ and Lolth’s faces.  A devil and a good goddess, who do not even serve the same ends, befriending each other.”  She smiled over at Cavria.  “Yes, I saw in you a survivor.  I saw a woman after my own heart.”

	“Good.”

	“Yes, Cavria, let’s be friends,” Eilistraee chuckled.  “But friends don’t keep things from each other.”


	Suivi slowly opened his eyes.  The pain was gone, but his head spun madly.  He felt so dizzy that all he could do was close his eyes again.

	“Oh, he’s waking,” he heard a man’s voice say.

	“So he is.  Poor thing was all a mess when he came in,” a woman’s voice said.

	Suivi felt a hand rest on his shoulder.  “Mortal, relax,” the man’s voice said.  “Rest.  The dizziness will pass.”

	“Whrr ‘m I?” Suivi slurred.

	“In a good place, mortal.  The Mistress found you and brought you here.”  The woman patted him on his other shoulder.  “Sleep.  You are safe.”  Suivi heard her say something in another language, and then he was out cold.


	Axio came to a halt at the base of the ramp and looked around.  It was a bit brighter here, and warmer.  He heard the splashing of water and the voices of children around him, but the voices echoed oddly, as if there was something in the way of the noise.  “Hello?” he asked.

	He heard several children giggle.  “Look at him!  He’s so tall,” he heard some voice say.  It was very young, and sounded at once close and far away.  “How did he get here?”

	“Is he a planeswalker?” another voice asked.

	They were speaking Celestial and Elvish, a curious mix of both.  Axio cleared his throat and tried again in Celestial.  “Hello?  Who can see me?  I can’t see you,” he said.

	“Oh, he can speak!” a voice said, and there was some excitement nearby.  “Hello, tall guy.”

	“Hello.  Do you know where we are?” Axio asked.

	There were many giggles.  “We’re in the afterlife, silly,” the voice said.  “Can’t you tell?”

	Axio sighed.  He had been afraid of that.  “Which one?”

	“Svartalfheim!” the voice said, as if quite surprised.

	Axio’s shoulders slumped, despite the pain in his back.  “Oh, good.”  He still couldn’t see much, but now there was enough light around to allow him to see the faint outlines of great trees, rising in the darkness high above his sight.

	He could also now see his interlocutors.  Dozens of children, some dressed, most not, peered at him from behind the trees.  These were no ordinary children, though.  They looked like elves, but their bodies were strangely ethereal except when viewed directly.  He had seen thousands of petitioners in the Arbor, and none had looked like this.

	Axio reached down and tested the ground with his armored hand.  He had found a dry spot, in what he could now see was a great marsh of vast trees and shallow pools of water.  “Then, I dare ask,” he said wearily, “if I may sit and rest a while.  I am quite badly hurt.”

	“Sure.  Wait, hurt?” a new voice asked.  Axio gingerly knelt on the mossy dirt.  He heard little voices gasp.  “Oh, you’re an angel!”

	“No, I just look like one,” Axio said.  He half-closed his eyes.  This was a safe place to be lost.  “My young friends, can I just rest here a while?”

	He heard a babble of concerned ‘yes’ and ‘sure.’  He sat back on his haunches and leaned sideways against a mighty tree.  The soft glow from overhead didn’t cast shadows, it just pervaded the air around them with a faint aura.  Axio half-closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind to meditate.

	A soft, fuzzy object interrupted his meditation.  Axio opened his eyes to see one spiritual child, perhaps fifteen in elf years, who looked to be no more than four in human years, hesitantly deposit some kind of toy animal in his hands.  Axio stared for a moment, then grinned faintly.  He unclasped his gloves and set them aside, and rested one hand on the little lion toy.

	“Thanks,” he said softly.

	The kid nodded nervously, but still sat down beside him.  As if brought in by a beacon, a dozen more emerged from the woods all around him and sat around him, staring at his eyes, his wounds, his magic armor.

	Axio sighed and shut his eyes again, touched but in no mood to chat with his new friends.  He reached out with his aching soul, trying to find a link to his patroness.

	He didn’t have to look far.  He felt her reassuring strength connect with his mind with greater speed than usual.  Their bond was wordless while he was awake, but her concern rang loud through his mind.

	Axio prayed.  He didn’t speak, but he instead thought his concerns to her directly, about their displacement to the Outer Planes, about the wellbeing of his party, and about their quest.

	When he opened his eyes, he saw that the light overhead was growing dimmer, and the children were looking around themselves in excitement.  Axio looked around too, and saw a faint glow approach at ground level among the trees.  Several of the children petitioners scurried over and eagerly greeted the new visitor.

	Axio smiled faintly.  “Lady Eilistraee,” he murmured.

	The goddess smiled back and moved beside him, taking time to greet the little soulsa round her on the way.  When she reached him, she reached down and touched his shoulder, and he felt life and strength flow into his ravaged flesh.  “Hello, Chosen of Ryaire,” she said.  Her voice was as soothing as the waves outside his home on the rocks by the city.  She was so beautiful that Axio suddenly felt very small compared to her; it wasn’t a sensation he had felt before.  Her natural, unclothed radiance seemed to push back the ennui, from his wounds and exhaustion.

	“Thank you for allowing me in your home,” he said in Celestial.  “I’ve never been to Ysgard before.”

	“Indeed.  I did not invite you, but I am piecing together what happened to your party.”  Eilistraee sat beside him and ran her hand over the ground, and a pure spring emerged from the soil to trickle away into the trees.  The souls of the children circled around them or played in the water as they spoke.

	“What a coincidence.  Back home, I prevent children dying, and here I am surrounded by dead children,” Axio said, switching to Dwarvish to avoid upsetting the little ones.

	Eilistraee shrugged, sending her silver hair swaying.  “A coincidence it was, for your arrival here was random.  Verashon landed on the surface, a dangerous place indeed.  Suivi landed in a worse place, on the planal envelope.  He nearly broke from the sight of the planes unveiled, before I brought him inside to be healed.  He’ll be fine,” she added when Axio looked over in worry.

	“Good.”  Axio sighed as the last of the pain in his ravaged back faded away.  “Thank you, your Holiness.  This is… much better.”

	“Indeed.  What has become of your wings?” Eilistraee asked.

	Axio closed his eyes.  “A bugbear with a blade, or rather five at once.”

	“Hmm.  I am sorry,” Eilistraee said.  She rose to her feet and held out a hand.  “Please rise.”

	Axio took her hand and rose, and marveled at the feeling.  He had had physical contact with a god before, when he had taken the hand of Ryaire in his training in the Arbor, and he had felt her power then.  Ryaire was weak enough in the overall divine power hierarchy of the Outer Planes that she could move about her afterlife dimension in her true form.  Eilistraee was so powerful, he saw as he looked at her projection, that she couldn’t.  The physical form holding his hand was the barest, merest fraction of her power.  He wondered if the childrens’ souls around him could sense just how powerful she truly was.  Despite how gentle and delicate she seemed, he knew she could have blown his soul to scraps without conscious effort.

	Instead, she smiled happily and led him by the hand through the woods, speaking in her joyous, song-like tone.  Axio felt the tension in his shoulders fade and the stumps of his wings press back against his back as they walked slowly under the black canopy.  If ever he had the means to travel the planes, he resolved, he would come back here.  His hostess knew how to make a place calming, no question.


	Kyria ambled through the tunnels at random, humming happily to herself.  Her wizard mind was brimming with ideas about the situation, where she was, what she was doing, and the fact that she had just met her goddess, but the joy in her heart needed an outlet.  She couldn’t have sat still any longer.

	She rounded a corner and squealed in glee.  Seven spectral beings with a variety of musical instruments were merrily playing for a circle of over a hundred drow petitioners, who spun and twirled and danced to the music.  Kyria sprang into the circle and picked up the dance at once.  The petitioners around her didn’t react for an instant to her clearly-living body, they just made space for her and danced along.  Kyria blinked away tears of bliss and threw herself into the music, at home in a way she hadn’t been for decades.


	Cavria bowed her head demurely as the goddess across the pool from her fixed her with an interrogatory stare.  “As you command, your Holiness.”

	Eilistraee settled back against the side of the pool and splayed her arms across the rim of the rocky depression.  “I would know, daughter of the Arbor, why you continue to travel with your companions.”

	Cavria stared.  That had been the last thing she had expected.  “Er… well, I admit I don’t know what you mean, my Lady.”

	“Your companions are noble and skilled, but they do not have your desires at heart,” Eilistraee said calmly.  “You wish to hunt and banish yoru sisters, perhaps even erase them somehow.  That is not a concern that your friends deem as valuable as you do.”

	Cavria nodded.  “Correct, my Lady, they don’t.  I knew that would happen.  It’s fine.”

	“Is it?”

	“One came to us,” Cavria pointed out.  “I banished her.”

	“True.  Do you think you’ll get that lucky again?” Eilistraee asked.

	Cavria shook her head.  “No, my Lady, I doubt it.”

	Eilistraee looked at her.  Cavria shrank against the edge of the water.  “I… no, I won’t be able to pursue my clade with my friends, I know that, not right away” she said.  “But I love them.  They’re my friends, and Axio is the closest thing I have to family.”

	The dark goddess finally smiled again.  “Indeed.  That is as good an answer as any.”  She settled comfortably against the stone and peered over at her fiendish guest.  “How do you imagine it would go, were you to try to join another group?  Devil-hunters, for example?”

	Cavria looked down and sighed.  “I doubt they would accept me for what I am,” she admitted.

	Eilistraee nodded.  “I know the feeling,” she said, so faintly Cavria could barely hear her.  “Well, in any case, you have a goal.  How you pursue it is up to you.”

	“Yes.”  Cavria desperately searched for a different topic.  “Err… do you mind if I ask you, my Lady, what you meant about your, uh… your relationship with Ryaire being strained?”

	Eilistraee rolled her unearthly blue eyes.  “Oh, a jurisdictional dispute.  You needn’t trouble yourself.  Things are changing behind the scenes, these days.”

	“If you say so, my Lady,” Cavria said.  Eilistraee shook her head and rose.  She walked across the pool and settled down beside Cavria.  Cavria stared, wide-eyed, at the flickering outline of a woman beside her that contained a fiery sun’s worth of power.  Eilistraee wrapped an arm around Cavria’s shoulder.  Cavria flinched.  This was not how Luanea had described her goddess as behaving.

	“I see the wounds on your soul and flesh, as plain as day,” Eilistraee murmured.  Cavria felt her skin pucker as the faintest tendril of divine energy danced over her soul.  She hadn’t invited such proximity to Eilistraee, and now she couldn’t move.  “Would you heal?”

	“W-w-what?” Cavria stammered.  Adrenaline hammered through her body as she drew an inkling of the goddess’s words.

	Eilistraee traced one finger over the stitch scars on Cavria’s back.  “Your wings, your horns.  Fangs soon, a tail after, claws.  I have it within me to ensure that you never develop them.”

	“…What w-wo-would I become?” Cavria asked, her teeth chattering.

	“A drow, I think, or a dark elf… yes, a dark elf, one free of the taint of the Balor who cursed my folk so long ago,” Eilistraee said.  “No more immortality, but no more Hell-curse on your flesh.  You could do whatever you pleased.  You could lie with Axiopistos, or whomever else you wish.  You could bear children, you could grow old, you could dream safely.  You could die, and pass beyond tortured life to blissful death… or even enter the cycle of elf souls that circle through the multiverse forever, as my father’s whorshippers do.”  She took her arm from around Cavria’s back and rested it on her shoulder.  “Or come to me.  You could enter my service, and dance in joy forever in my tunnels, or the endless fields of Arvandor.  You could do as you wished.”

	Cavria felt temptation pulling at her.  Eilistraee’s power was the solution, she could tell.  She meant every word.  She wouldn’t have to be a creature of filthy sin any more.  She could be mortal, an elf.

	It took every scrap of her self-control and her presence of will to shake her head.  She was trembling.  Her voice shuddered as she tried to speak her answer.  “No, thank you,” she finally managed to squeak.  “My w-work isn’t done.”

	The contrast was remarkable.  As soon as the words left her lips, Eilistraee’s divine presence withdrew.  Cavria sucked in a breath, and the insignificant splinter of the goddess’ power that sat beside her rested a hand on her back.  “Oh, I didn’t wish to intimidate you,” Eilistraee said.  Cavria coughed and leaned away, trying to calm herself.  “Sorry.  I forgot you could see that.”

	“That… that was your true strength?” Cavria managed.

	“Some of it.”  Eilistraee took Cavria’s near hand and gave her an apologetic look.  “I didn’t want you to have to wait if you agreed to a species change.”

	“I…” Cavria took a long breath.  “It’s okay.  Anybody else wouldn’t have seen that, my Lady?”

	“No, they wouldn’t.  And please, call me Eilistraee.”  Eilistraee’s eyes were back to normal, and they sparkled with private mirth.  “Friends don’t use titles.”

	“Wow.”  Cavria managed to slow her pounding heart.  “I… okay.  Okay, thanks.”

	“Oh, I really shook you,” Eilistraee said.  “I apologize.”

	Cavria paused.  “You… actually.  Can I ask you something, Eilistraee?”

	“Yes.”

	Cavria steeled herself.  “I admit, I’m growing a bit disgusted with all this… divine interference business.  Why are Bane and Asmodeus allowed to interfere with the Prime when you aren’t?”  That was probably a safer question than one about her lack of personal space awareness.

	Eilistraee nodded.  Her silver mane glimmered in the dim light from the fungi in the tunnels outside.  “Oh, good question.  The truth is that there are deities who are allowed to interfere in the mortal world as much as they do, and sometimes far more.  If you meant me specifically, it’s because of how much power I reserve for other things.  Keeping Lolth at bay is easier, now that Ghaunadaur and Kiararansalee have abandoned her, and my brother Selvetarm opposes me no longer.  It still requires immense power, though, because she is stronger than I, by a great deal.”

	Cavria looked over at her.  Eilistraee had a thoughtful look on her youthful face, which Cavria could only see because of how close she was sitting.  “I guess I’m not too surprised, but… after that display, I find it hard to contemplate,” Cavria admitted.

	Her new friend chuckled softly.  “Cavria, as you grow in power, you will find that power is more subjective than you thought.  I can promise you that.”

	“How do you mean?”

	“I mean that there are forces in this world that eclipse me, Asmodeus, Bane, Ryaire, Ilmater, or any other deity with whom you have interacted,” Eilistraee explained.  “Not all are gods, not all dwell in these Outer Planes.”  She took Cavria’s hand again and met her eyes.

	Cavria didn’t flinch this time, to her own surprise.  “I admire you, did you know that?” Eilistraee asked, shocking the young devil.  “Never, in all the years that I have helped drow escape their nature and find joy and love, have I ever seen anybody struggle against their inherent nature like you.”

	Cavria colored.  “Oh, Eilistraee, please,” she said, looking down at the water.

	“I mean it.  I have seen millions turn their coats from Lolth, and kissed millions of souls to sleep, and none have had to fight as you do.”  Eilistraee cocked one silver brow and released Cavria’s hand.  “Do the others know of your true battle?  The extent to which you go to fight your actual nature?”

	Cavria paused.  “Er… Luanea and Axio suspect, I think,” she said.  “The others, I doubt it.  Maybe Solen… that’s it.”

	Eilistraee nodded.  “It’s about more than just abstinence.”

	“It is,” Cavria said with a grumpy sigh.  “I want sex all the time, it never ends.  But… there’s more.  I have dreams of corrupting people, twisting them to sin and betrayal.”  She squeezed the bridge of her nose.  “When I see people, just out and about, sometimes I see this… overlay of images and words in my mind, showing me exactly how to tempt them to sinning and going to the Hells.  It hurts, sometimes, it’s so obvious.  I haven’t reacted to it yet, Ryaire trained me well, but… it’s always there.”  She sighed heavily in the darkness and sank down to her chin in the healing pool.

	“After all your sisters are dead, perhaps you should come to me,” Eilistraee suggested.  “I would be delighted to re-craft you into something more kind of nature.  I know, you rejected it now, but when your mission ends, you deserve a chance at paradise.”

	Cavria closed her eyes and splashed water on her face to hide her tears.  “Yeah.  I really think I do.  It makes me weak, too.  Thinking I deserve a reward for doing what I should be doing.  It’s not very Paladin-like, huh?”

	“Oh, there are all sorts of Paladins these days, don’t beat yourself up over that,” the dark goddess said with a laugh.  She leaned over the partially-submerged High Succubus beside her and gave her a mischievous smile.  “But you know something?  I like you far too much to let you wallow in your own doubt.  So come back up here and let me make you an offer.”

	Cavria smiled and sat back up, wiping the water away.  “May I say something?”

	“You’d better.”

	“You’re an intimidatingly cheerful woman, for a goddess,” Cavria said.

	Eilistraee giggled.  “I believe my brother described it as being ‘aggressively optimistic,’” she said.

	“Luanea… er, don’t take this the wrong way, but Luanea described you as being a bit more… withdrawn, I suppose,” Cavria said carefully.

	Eilistraee nodded.  “To those who yet live, and can’t travel to meet me in person, I imagine so.  However, you know something?  I died, on the eve of the Spellplague’s worst moments.  I dwelled in silent pain, in the fabric of the Weave, until my friend Mystra awoke me and my brother and made us whole and disparate.”

	She noticed Cavria’s startled look.  “It’s not as uncommon as you’d think to see gods die,” she said.  “Coming back is a rarer feat.  My point is that I learned in death.  My followers who perished in that time…” she trailed off.  “Do you know what happens to those who venerate a dead god when they reach the end of their mortal lives?”

	Cavria shuddered.  Yes, she knew of the Wall and the City of Judgment, she knew of the demon hordes and the silver-tongued devils.  “Yes.”

	“Well, Corellon took pity on me, and he took the souls of my departed himself, to Arvandor.”  She smiled fondly.  “I don’t know whom, but somebody spoke on my behalf while they were there, and begged Corellon to have mercy on me when I returned.  How he knew I would return, I do not know.  Perhaps he was a chosen of Mystra, or a Planeswaker.  Well, my father listened.”

	Eilistraee’s projection of her infinite self drew her knees up to her chest and stared into the past.  Cavria watched, mesmerized.  She had never seen a divine being so vulnerable.  “When I returned, I flew into a panic over the fates of my worshippers.  Had they been deemed False, and condemned to serve Kelemvor forever?  When I learned that my father had taken them in and cared for them, I wept tears of relief for two days.  It rained on seven hundred worlds.”

	She looked over at Cavria.  “I decided, then and there, that I would never again be so distant from my followers that I would have to worry about that.  My brother and I parted on good terms, and my father had finally taken mercy on me, but my mortal worshippers were lost in life, even if they weren’t in death.”  Eilistraee rose from the water and climbed onto the dry land.  Cavria followed in silence.  “I resolved to visit my worshippers in every way I could, as often as I could, and take an active part in their lives.  Not to dictate their every action like my fool mother, but to show them how deeply I care for them.”  She hung her head.  “Then the laws changed.  The Tablets of Fate, which command we gods to our roles and tasks on Toril, commanded us to take a step back, and to leave things to our Chosen and our clergy.”

	“Like Luanea,” Cavria said.

	“Yes.”  Eilistraee took a long sigh and clasped her hands at the small of her back.  It didn’t suit her, Cavria thought.  “If I could, I would dance with my worshippers every day.  I would arrive at the culmination of every sacrifice ritual my mother enacts and spoil it, whisk the victims away to a safe, dark place.  Now, I am actually limited to even less active interference than I was allowed before I died.”

	Cavria was silent for a long moment.  “I understand, Eilistraee,” she finally said.

	Eilistraee turned, and Cavria froze.  She caught Cavria with her stare, and now she wasn’t bothering to conceal her power at all.  Cavria whimpered helplessly as the power of the Dark Maiden of the Seldarine transfixed her.  Inside Eiistraee’s glowing blue eyes, Cavria could see the infinite whorls and contours of Corellon’s blood and mystery.  Physcially, nothing had changed, but Cavria suddenly felt insignificant.  Before Ryaire, she had merely felt like she barely mattered, like she was a tiny spec of dirt on the plane of heaven.  Now, she was a mote of dust on the edge of a tornado.  She saw a hundred thousand worlds living and dying, a hundred thousand times.

	“Do you?” Eilistraee asked miserably.  “Do you really?  Do you see how much I love the dusky kindred, how much I want to take them to paradise and dance the eons away?  Do you see my desperate, terrified war with my mother?”

	Cavria could only nod.  Eilistraee blinked, and the moment passed.  “See?  This is part of why I like you,” the goddess said.  “You do understand; you didn’t just nod to be nice.”

	Cavria made a faint, non-committal noise.  Eilistraee took her hand and led her deeper ito the tunnels.  “Come, then.  I have a present I want to give you and your friends, and I don’t want to keep you waiting any longer.”

	Her mood swings were hard to keep up with.  Dark elves were supposedly all like that, not that that were many of those left.  Cavria cleared her throat and moved in her divine friend’s wake.  “Er… what might that be?” she asked.

	Eilistraee smiled.  “Oh, you’ll see.”

	“Where are my party members?”

	“Oh, around.  Kyria’s off having a dance with some petitioners, Luanea and Verashon are making love,” Eilistraee listed, ignoring Cavria’s startled look.  “Axio and I are having a philosophical discussion while playing cowherd with some children petitioners in the swamp, Doshellas is sleeping off my curing of his trauma, Suivi is resting under the care of my spiritual servants since he came through the Cascade too late.”

	The tunnel sloped down, and Cavria could see it grow wider.  “Is Doshellas hurt?” she asked.

	Eilistraee didn’t look back.  “Not freshly.  He’ll be just fine.  Come, there is much to discuss.”


	Axio sat perched on a boulder in the swamp and reflected on the surreality of his life.  He was enjoying a discussion about life and the benefits of interventionalism in divine debates, with a beautiful, naked, drow goddess, who was weaving together something made of gold lights in her hands while more than holding her own in the debate.  All around them ran hundreds of children’s souls, laughing and playing in the dark woods of the basement of the afterlife, while two bloody stumps of wings he didn’t want draped from his back.

	Eilistraee gave him a playful smile.  “Sir Axio, please, accept my thanks for putting on your thinking shoes.  It’s been ages since I had the privledge of hosting a Chosen of another deity.  This is delightful.”

	Axio blushed.  “Oh, of course.”

	“And thank you also for being able to discuss things so comfortably, despite the circumstances,” Eilistraee continued.  “Some mortals who are not of the elven-kind are so prudish about nudity, especially that of young ones.”

	Axio shrugged modestly.  “Given how many refugee children have passed through my temple, I’m quite used to it.  I’ve changed thousand of diapers and tucked hundreds into beds.”

	Eilistraee beamed.  “That’s adorable, sir knight.  Have you ever considered having children yourself?”  She looked down to her whatever she was weaving from gold as she waited for her answer.

	“Nothing would please me more, but I am realistic about the chances.”  Axio looked up at the empty darkness overhead.  “What were you saying about the new rules, though?”

	Eilistraee nodded glumly.  “The precepts of the Overgod, Ao, are no longer so permeated with exceptions that any of us may act as freely as we once did.  We have been given total control of our home planes, at least for now, but interference in the Primes and Paralells is now forbidden except in specific ways.”  She looked up and offered a graceful smile.  “That’s why I’m so pleased that you all have come to visit me, for a while.”

	Axio bowed his head.  “We are honored, I’m sure.”  He folded his hands in his lap.  “I wonder if you would entertain me with this, though.  Were any willing to stay?”

	Eilistraee shook her head.  “No, they were not.  Of course, I’ve not had a chance to ask poor Suivi.  His recovery will be painful.”

	“What?  He was hurt?”

	Eilistraee nodded.  The faint light from overhead and the light from her skin and eyes mingled to cast odd shadows over the water around them.  “He jumped into the Cascade after you were taken away by it.”

	Axio looked over at her, caught her knowing little smile, and felt a nugget of pride in his heart.  “He’s come a long way.”

	“You took a thief and made him a hero, Axio,” Eilistraee observed.  She grinned happily at him.  “Well done.  You shall make an excellent god.”

	Axio blushed again, feeling absurdly pleased with himself.  “Lady, stop.”

	Eilistraee giggled at his squirming discomfort.  “Oh, you’re just too pure.  Do you know the extent some have gone to for godhood?  And here you are, resenting it.”

	The Aasimar warrior cast his eyes to the ceiling.  “They generally seek godhood because they want it.  I was never asked.”

	“True.  True.  That doesn’t mean you won’t take to it.  Certainly, I didn’t seek it, but it was given to me.”  Eilistraee smiled into the distant past.  “I wonder, Axiopistos, do you know the tale of my betrayal?  For some reason, it is always assigned higher melodrama than I actually had to endure.”

	“I do, my Lady.”  Axio shuffled uncomfortably.  “For what it’s worth, I have always admired your refusal to allow grudges and racism to dictate the fate of the drow.”  It felt distinctly odd to be so candorous with a deity, but so far, Eilistraee was certainly more engaging than Ryaire was.  “You’ve been fighting for freedom… you know,” he trailed off.  “I’m glad our congregations are allies.”

	Her smile widened.  “Thank you.”

	Axio looked back down at her.  “Do you… can you estimate how long I have before I ascend to godhood?  And do I have to be dead for it to happen?”

	She thought about that.  “I see no reason why you would,” Eilistraee remarked.  “As for how long, I would say a few years.  Perhaps longer, if your adventuring career shortens.  Your skill grows quickly when constantly tested.”

	“I see.”  Axio looked at whatever she was weaving with her magic.  “I’m afraid.”

	“I understand.”  Eilistraee looked over the object she was making and tilted her head, then went back to work on it.  Tiny lines of golden light spun and coiled between her fingers and sunk into the strange fabric she was spinning from nothing.  “May I ask why?”

	“Philosophically.  I’m just not ready.”  Axio closed his eyes as he felt the prick of shame in his heart.  “I’m flawed.  Deeply.  Not in ways that my friends get to see.  I know, some gods are, but is that really a pattern I want to iterate?”

	Eilistraee smiled to herself as he kept talking.  “I… I hate.  I feel wrath and contempt.  I feel lust and shame.  How can I have followers… how can I tell mortals how to live if I can’t even always hold myself to the right standard?”

	Axio slid down from his rock, wincing in pain as his stums brushed the stone.  He landed on the dry ground between the two rocks and slowly paced back and forth.  Some of the children ran by, and he paused to let them pass before resuming.  “I just… I don’t know.  How can I rise to godhood and employ it well with my head such a mess?”

	“I’m glad you’re taking the time to think about these things,” Eilistraee remarked.

	“Thank you.”  Axio looked up at where she sat cross-legged on the rock, roughly at eye level.  She was intimidating, but so beautiful and innocent to the eye.  He wanted to trust her, to like her.  It was a powerful feeling.  He wondered how much of it was artificial.  “I was exposed to the taint of a devil, did you know?”

	She looked up at him.  “Wait, what?”

	“The High Succubus Prototype who assaulted me in the Mirabar inn.”  Axio sighed as he recalled the weeks of pain leading up to that desperate fight.  “I don’t know her true name.  She assaulted me, murdered a stewardess, tried to rape me.”

	Eilistraee’s hand went to her mouth.  “Oh, Axiopistos!  No, I hadn’t heard, I’m so sorry.”

	“It’s alright.”  He paused his pacing.  “Well, no, it isn’t, but she had been tainting me to sin for weeks before that.  I may… not be wholly cleansed of her taint.  I asked Ryaire, and she said I had t odo it myself, that she couldn’t do it.”

	Eilistraee scoffed.  “Sure, she can’t.  I can, easily.”

	Axio whipped around to stare.  “You… you can?  She said it wasn’t allowed of her.”

	The graceful goddess nodded.  “Of her, certainly.  Ao does not wish for lesser godlings and demigods to be able to simply overwrite the natural laws of the planes so easily, lest the balance be overturned by the abuse of divine power.  But I?  I am no mere lesser demigoddess as she is.”  She raised one hand, and it glowed with the light of the moon.  “Axio, if your soul is scarred by the taint of the Hells, I can fix that in a heartbeat.  Shall I?”

	Axio hesitated.  Pride demanded that he shoulder his burden alone.  Then logic reasserted itself.  “If… if it’s not an inconvenience,” he said bashfully.

	She smiled beatifically and gestured to him to join her on her rock.  “Come here, then, Axiopistos.”

	He stepped up the rock and sat beside her, and she set her project aside long enough caress his cheek.  At once, she shook her head.  “Ah, you’re well enough,” she said, and he leaned back as she explained.  “You were tainted, yes, but thuggishly.  Amateurishly.  She did no lasting harm.  You’ve healed already, probably weeks ago.”

	Axio sighed in relief.  “I see.  Thank you, my Lady.”

	“Of course.”  She resumed working on her project.  He peered at it.

	“May I ask what this is?”

	Eilistraee smiled down at the construct she was assembling in her lap.  “A gift for a weary traveler, who shall soon come to me for succor with a crippling problem.”

	“Oh.”  Axio shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, aware of how closely that paralleled the issue with his wings.  “Well… was there anything else you wished to discuss with me?”

	“I did interrupt your recitation of disqualifications for godhood,” Eilistraee said drily.  “Did you have more?”

	Axio coughed into his hand and slid back off the rock onto the dirt below.  “Er, yes, but I’ve chewed your ear long enough, my Lady.”

	“Nonsense.  You think I don’t care?” Eilistraee asked.  “Nothing you said is disqualifying.”

	He looked back over his armored shoulder at her.  She had her eyes on her work.  “My Lady, I can’t bring such prejudices and resentments into heaven,” Axio protested.

	“You think yourself prejudiced or resentful by the standards of the divine, Axiopistos?”  She cocked one silver eyebrow at him.  “Gruumsh has been trying to murder my father for thirty thousand years.  Shar and Selunê have been trying to kill each other for forty eight thousand years.  Asmodeus ate Azuth alive!” Eilistraee exclaimed.  “No, my gentle debate partner, you’re just fine.”

	He looked down at the dirt beneath his boots.  She continued.  “The Overgod may be a bit of a slacker, but he wouldn’t allow mortals to attain godhood if he didn’t want for it to happen.  Think of it, Paladin.  Are there truly no quarrels between the gods in your worldview?  What do gnomes and kobolds traditionally do to each other?”

	Axio grimaced.  “Kill each other on sight.”

	“What about orcs and hobgoblins, hmmm?  Drow and Duergar?”  She finally looked up at him again and smiled wryly.  “Compared to some of my celestial colleagues, Axiopistos, you are positively principled.”

	“Thank you.”  Axio frowned as a thought occurred to him.  “But, my Lady, what about my campaign against Bane and Loviatar?  Surely entering divinity with such a grudge would limit my ability to make impartial decisions.”

	“About what?  Your portolfio in godhood shall be defending those who defend children,” Eilistraee pointed out.  “There’s nothing in there about race, religion, or politics.”

	Axio ran his hand through his hair.  “Then why is Bane allowed to target children as he does?”

	“Because Ao doesn’t care to stop him, knowing mortals would do it.”  Eilistraee met Axio’s startled gaze.  “The hardest thing any god can do, Axiopistos, is nothing.  If there’s anything with which you would struggle in your new role, I think, it is that.”


	Verashon rolled up to a sitting position, panting like a dog.  Luanea stirred on the stone floor beside him, trying to find words.  He reached down and squeezed her hand as she set it on his leg.  “I know, beautiful,” he managed.

	“…Love you so much,” Luanea murmured.

	Verashon grinned exhaustedly as he helped his wife up beside him.  “Oh… hmm.  I wonder if she knew,” he said.

	“Huh?”

	“That this would happen.”  Verashon wrapped one arm around his wife’s shoulders and rested her against his chest.  She happily snuggled up against him and closed her eyes.  “That we would come here, even by accident.”

	“Did she summon us?” Luanea asked sleepily.

	“Who knows?  Maybe.”  Verashon rested his head on hers, and they sat in silence for a while.  “… Are we actually alone?” he finally asked.

	“There does seem to be a lack of other people around, alive or dead,” Luanea concurred.  She exhaled a bit sharper in her sleepy mirth.  “I wonder if she asked them to give us privacy.”

	“Hah.”  Verashon splayed a hand over his wife’s table-flat stomach.  “Luanea… thanks.”  She didn’t reply, so he continued.  “I was… just thinking about the night, in the woods… my conversion.  I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”

	She stayed silent.  After a moment, he looked over.  She was asleep.

	He chuckled, but he didn’t blame her.  He had worn her out, and that was after hours of battle and searching.  They were both powerfully assertive and passionate lovers, and something in this holy place seemed to replenish their emotional strength.  He wasn’t doing much better at keeping his eyes open.

	He gently lowered Luanea to the ground and set her hands at her sides.  As he prepared to lie beside her, though, he heard the faint sound of voices.

	Verashon tilted his head.  Sure enough, there was talking nearby.  He rose to his feet, confident that Luanea would be fine; there was no safer place in the multiverse for drow.

	He walked silently down the tunnels.  As he walked, he heard more talking, and it seemed to be growing farther away as he moved.  Then, he heard water, trickling slowly like a creek.  He came to a corner and looked around, and saw a great forest of dark trees, stretching away for hundreds of miles.  The souls of children darted about all around the trunks and roots, laughing and playing.  They splashed water from quick, ankle-depth creeks all around as they ran and shouted.

	Verashon grinned to himself and ducked back out of sight.  They were fine.  He started making his way back to his wife’s sleeping body when he heard his goddess’ unforgettable voice, speaking to another he didn’t recognize.  He walked a bit further and saw her divine form speaking to a petitioner, who bowed low and walked away after a few more words.  Eilistraee must have sensed Verashon’s approach, because she gestured him over with a playful wave.

	He paused – he was hardly clean from his liaison with his wife.  Eilistraee rolled her eyes, and suddenly he wasn’t just clean, he was back in his armor and weapons.  He flinched from the sudden sensation of his clothing against his skin.  He walked reverently over to his goddess and genuflected deeply.

	“Feeling a bit self-aware, sweetheart?” Eilistraee asked impishly.

	“Well, er…” he mumbled.

	She laughed and bade him rise.  “Oh, hush.”

	He did, and noted to his surprise that her eyes weren’t the color they were in the mural in the Temple of the Dark Dancer in Waterdeep.  “No, the artwork is slightly off,” she said drily, and he flinched again at the implied invasion of his thoughts.

	“Did… I say it out loud?” he asked gingerly.

	“No, but I’ve had hundreds of planeswalkers and petitioners come to me over the years and point it out, and they had the same look on their faces, young warrior,” Eilistraee said.  She spread her arms to take in the world around them.  “Regardless.  No voluntary planeswalker are you, yet here you stand, reverent and welcomed.”

	“I thank you, my Lady,” Verashon said.  He paused.  “I saw you, in the pool.  In the moon.”

	She smiled fondly.  “You did, my sweet boy, and I knew you loved me, even as you feared me.”

	“I do.”  He shifted his weapons on his back as he sensed how superfluous they were.  “May I ask a question, holy Maiden?”

	“You may.”

	Verashon thought back to his prophetic words.  “What did you mean that I would be a wall?”

	Eilistraee laughed, and Verashon felt like he was dancing.  “Oh, of course, Verashon,” she said through her laughter.  “I’m not used to having a chance to interact with my worshippers so directly.  I hate being cryptic to the mortals I love.”  Verashon privately marveled.  Even as he watched her, her appearance and her voice changed before his eyes.  Her voice lightened, her tone changed, even her vocabulary became less formal.  Her eyes didn’t change, but she suddenly seemed a bit older, less willowy, and maybe a bit shorter.  He had heard that different sects of her worshippers pictured her differently; perhaps he was seeing her as another would as they overcame the distance between them.

	“What I meant, Verashon, is that you will soon save the life of somebody I love dearly, and that you will protect them for me,” Eilistraee explained.  She smiled as the distant sound of music reached their ears.  “Ah, there’s Kyria and her new friends.  Come, walk with me.”  She turned to face the direction of the music, and Verashon dutifully followed down a tunnel he was sure had not been there before.  “I do not wish to give too many specifics in my words to you now; I wish to avoid a paradox.  You understand.”

	“Of course, my Lady, and thank you.”  Verashon fell silent as they walked.  The music grew louder around them, until a group came into view before them.  Verashon couldn’t help but nod along as he heard piping music from a group of petitioners and lesser fey at the center of a great ring of dancers.  He spotted Kyria, the only living being there, dancing with the others, laughing in joy.

	Dancers who spotted their divine viewer nodded respectfully without interrupting their dance.  Eilistraee beamed as she watched her faithful dead enjoy themselves.  Verashon watched in silence.  “This makes the horror of our struggle worthwhile, I think,” Eilistraee said quietly.

	“It does,” Verashon agreed.  “Such happiness is anathemic to… her,” he said, not wanting to invoke Lolth’s name in such a place.

	Eilistraee watched for a bit longer, before turning to Verashon and waving him onward.  She turned to join the dance, and the other dancers spun around her, welcoming her to their number without hesitation.  The joyful goddess twirled and danced, and the air rang with the music of the instruments and her glorious voice.  She sang along with the music, and whatever restraint had been left in Verashon was gone.  The exhaustion of his day melted off his spirit.  He dumped his equipment by the wall and sprang into the dancing circle.  Kyria caught his hands and twirled off him.  He surrendered his body to the primordial dance that all elvenkind know in their hearts, and all time could have been as seconds to his mind.


	Suivi slowly rose to a sitting position.  Two pairs of hands helped him rise.  He couldn’t make out more than that; his head was still swimming.

	“Thank you,” he whispered.  “Where did I go?”

	“A peaceful place, human,” the woman’s voice said.  She sounded clinical, but he heard an odd ripple in the sound, as if she were speaking with magic.  “This is Svartalfheim, in the plane of Ysgard.  You rest in the sacred light of Eilistraee.”

	Suivi slowly forced focus into his eyes.  He saw himself, dressed in his adventuring clothes and with his bag on the floor beside him.  He was sitting on a bed in a dark room, with two beautiful elves sitting beside him – dark elves, Kyria’s sort.  He tried to make the world stop spinning.  One, the female, reached forward and rested a hand on his shoulder, and the dizziness faded a bit more.

	“Be at ease.”  The male nodded gravely.  “You were in a bad way, mortal, beyond the bounds of the plane’s proper limit.  You saw too much.”

	Suivi tried to remember, but all he had was a sense of unquantifiable dread.  He tried to force himself to recall what had happened after he leaped into the Cascade, and nothing came.

	“Let me save you some trouble, Suivi Embersson,” the male said.  “Your memory has been taken.  The Dark Dancer brought you here, body and soul.  She has left you in our care while she makes arrangements for your safe passage.”  He rose, and Suivi noticed his complex armor.  He was wearing an intricate arrangement of fabric and metal.  It looked uncomfortable, but the elf seemed to be able to move in it without issue.  It folded and bent around two ridges on the back that looked like they slotted into something.

	Suivi mustered his wits to ask a question.  “May I ask who you are?”

	The female nodded.  “We are that we are, and have been always thus.  If names are needed, I am Ariel, this is Tomah.”

	Suivi felt his stomach clench a little.  “…Aasimon?”

	“We are.”  The woman rose too.  “Sleep now, traveler.  The Dark Maiden commends you to rest, that you may be healed fully when she comes to speak with you.”

	Both figures walked out through an archway in the stone structure where they had left him, and Suivi slowly lowered himself back down to the bed.  “What a bizarre few years I’m having,” he sighed.


	Axio pondered his hostess’ latest argument.  “I suppose I can, actually,” he said respectfully.  “A deity that doesn’t strive at all times to make their worshippers’ lives better isn’t doing their job properly.”

	“Properly, you say?” Eilistraee asked.  “How does the god of murder or syphilis do their job properly, by their worshippers?  The god of hatred, of decomposition, of arson?”

	“By protecting people from such things,” Axio insisted.  He and she were sitting side by side on a stone in the dark forest, speaking quietly so as not to disturb the children playing nearby.  “Why should a deity of an inherently destructive thing revel in it?”

	“Ah, but who volunteers for such things?” Eilistraee countered.  “Who wants to control something they hate?”

	Axio nodded to her point.  “Fair enough.”

	“It’s not without precedent, mind,” Eilistraee continued.  “Finder Wyvernspur defeated Moander, and took some of his portfolio, despite hating it.  I recall a Paladin became God of Temptation on another world on which I have a presence, long ago, and spent the rest of time hating himself.”

	Axio fell silent.  Eilistraee met his eyes.  “Is it better to have a god who does horrible things to the world and enjoys it, or a god who does horrible things to the world and can’t stop, even if they want to?”

	Her debate partner looked down.  “I don’t know.”

	“Don’t trouble yourself about it, not yet.  You have much to learn before you join out divine ranks,” Eilistraee said.  She set whatever she was making down and smiled in satisfaction.  “Done.”

	Axio looked over.  It was a cloak of some sort, but decorative-looking instead of the sort that kept out rain.  It shone in her hands, in gold, red, and platinum sheen that coiled around her fingers.

	“It’s beautiful,” he said.

	“Thank you.”  Eilistraee waved her hand, and it vanished.  “I hope its recipient enjoys it.”  She looked over at him from a few feet away.  “So, I know that there are many other things you wish to ask me.”

	“There are,” Axio admitted.

	She raised her eyebrows.  “But…”

	“But I worry about my friends, I worry about our agreement with the giants, and I worry about the bugbears coming back,” Axio sighed.  “And about the horses, left unattended.”

	“You worry a lot, Axiopistos,” she said.

	He nodded unhappily.  “I don’t like it, but I do.”

	She leaned over and pecked his cheek.  He flushed bright red again.  He had certainly not been expecting her to be so tactile, even knowing how much her followers were.  “You’re a good boy, Axiopistos.  Stop worrying about things you can’t control,” she advised him.  She looked up.  “Ah, Cavria.”

	Axio looked up to see Cavria approaching, and immediately felt his blush deepen.  She was naked, too.  Beside her, he saw a faint outline of his hostess vanishing.  Cavria saw the two of them and hurried over.

	“Hello, Axio,” she said.  She looked down abashedly.  “Er, Eilistraee, what happened to my belongings?  I never thought to ask.”

	Eilistraee laughed.  “I was wondering why none of you had asked!  You appeared here as the Cascade sensed you wished to appear.  Axio thinks of himself as a warrior first and foremost, so he came here clad as one.  My children think of themselves as free spirits of the fey, so they came unclad, and you, Cavria, think of yourself as a fiend of the flesh, so you arrived bedecked in nothing else.”

	Cavria sighed.  Eilistraee waved one elegant finger, and suddenly Cavria was wearing her damaged armor and clothing once more.  “Oh!  Oh, er, thank you,” she said.  She fingered her amulet self-consciously.  “Axio, how are you feeling?” she asked, just to fill the air.

	“Well.  Thank you,” he said.  He looked sadly over his shoulder.  “Her Ladyship has stopped the pain and bleeding.”

	“Good.”  Cavria hesitated, but her new friend patted the rock beside her, and Cavria climbed up beside them.

	“Oh, but your equipment did take a beating, didn’t it?” Eilistraee asked.

	Cavria ran a hand over the ragged metal.  “The tower was full of bugbears, and we weren’t expecting that,” she said glumly.  “I can get it fixed, though.”


	Doshellas awoke in blissful comfort.  All he could feel was the silent air around him and the warmth of a pair of arms embracing him.  He twitched as he sensed someone stroking his hair, but he didn’t rise.  The anxiety in his mind that he had borne since arriving at the tower was finally gone.  He had slept without dreaming, which was the only form of sleep a drow could truly enjoy.

	“Good morning, my son,” a voice murmured.  It rippled with power, power that made him feel very small and very young.  As he awoke further, he felt himself resting with her sitting behind him, and his head nestled against her bosom while her arms draped across his shoulders.  He had a faint sensation of coldness and buzzing in his head.

	“… Lady,” he murmured back.

	She continued stroking his hair as she spoke.  “I can’t take what was done to you, my son.  All I can do is take the agony away.”  He felt tears well up as he thought back to his desperate flight from his home, so long ago.  “No matter how many times I tell you I don’t blame you, no matter how often Luanea says it wasn’t your fault, you suffer still.”

	“I don’t know why,” he whispered.

	“It’s because you’re a good boy, Doshellas.  At some level, you think you deserved what was done,” she said.  He choked up a little, but she continued.  “But no.  No, nobody deserves that.  It is time for you to move on.  It is not enough for you to think that you need to forgive yourself, because you don’t.”  She squeezed his shoulder with her free hand.  “You behave as if you need to seek atonement, but you need atone for nothing.”

	Doshellas fell silent, waiting for her to continue, but she was done.  “What should I do?” he finally asked.
	“Stop.  Abandon your desire for redemption from a burden you never bore,” Eilistraee said.  She kissed the crown of his head.  “Whatever form your life takes, pursue it without the past weighing you down.  I have done what I can,” she said, and the buzzing faded.  “I can cure trauma and stress.  I can’t cure stubbornness.”

	He sighed heavily and reluctantly pulled away from her.  She released him and remained sitting as he turned to face her.

	His heart panged.  She had a look of sadness that didn’t suit her at all.  “Thank you, my Lady,” he said.

	She managed a sad little smile.  “You know what you have to do, don’t you?”

	“Yes… yes, I think so.”  He buried his head in his hands as the enormity of his choice dawned.  “But adventuring is all I know how to do.  Where do I go from here?”

	“Retirement is daunting for people who have been preparing for it all their lives, too, don’t you worry.”  She rose to her feet, and he quickly did as well.  “You could become a hunting guide, leading people from Waterdeep or Skullport about the wilderness.  You could lend your skill to a circle of druids, perhaps.  Or, of course,” she added with a loving smile, “you could serve me.  The Promenade and the Temple could always use more noble defenders.”

	He looked wistfully at her.  “I do love the outdoors…”

	“Have you ever heard of the place that mortals call Darkmaiden’s Leap?” she asked.

	Doshellas blinked.  “I… no, mistress.”

	“No woman is your mistress now, Doshellas,” she chided gently.  “And it is a sacred place in the High Forest, near Everlund.  It is near another, older holy place of mine called the Mouth of Song.  Both are connected to the Promenade by powerful magic, which my faithful can use to travel safely.”  She took his hand and guided him out of the near-perfect darkness of the cave into the larger tunnels beyond.  A few passing petitioners bowed respectfully before going on their way.

	Eilistraee continued as Doshellas listened.  “They are places of connectivity between myself and my mortal followers, and they are safe places where Malar and my fool mother hold no power.  Pilgrims may travel there and pray or dance in safety from Lolth’s demons.  However, they still require mortal defenders from mortal attackers, like all places in Toril.”  Her face grew dreamy as she recalled it.  “I took a dear daughter to Darkmaiden’s Leap long ago, during the Time of Troubles, and carried her here after her Last Dance.  Drow refugees from Menzobarranzan were watching, and pledged themselves to my service after watching the dance.”

	Doshellas nodded slowly as he realized her intent.  “You would have me be the shepherd of this place?”

	“If you can’t find peace in adventuring – and that is a rare thing indeed – then yes, my sweet boy, little would make me happier,” she said warmly.  “There, you can shelter others who need my love, and rest in my moonlight, far from your former owner or those who would bring you harm.”

	He teared up a bit as he heard her talk.  “Oh.  I… think I would like that, mist… my Lady.”

	She smiled to herself as she led him to his friends.  “Good.”


	As Luanea awoke, she felt alive and refreshed, as if she had slept in a feather bed for ten hours.  Estimating time underground was difficult, but her warrior’s senses told her it hadn’t even been an hour.  She sat up and looked around, but her husband was nowhere to be seen.  She rose to her feet and saw a pile of items folded neatly beside her that had not been there before.

	The priestess leaned over and quickly rifled through them.  They were items of clothing and jewelry, none of them hers.  She looked curiously at a few that seemed naggingly familiar, but couldn’t quite place them.

	She straightened up and looked around.  “Verashon?” she called.

	Nobody answered her.  She walked around a corner and saw nobody there, save another of the healing pools that dotted the tunnels of Svartalfheim.  Luanea quickly bathed herself of her mess and went back to the spot where she had lain, but saw nobody.

	She looked around.  “Verashon?  Kyria?  Anybody?”

	A faint glow from a nearby cave brightened at her words.  She looked around the corner and saw the faint outline of a silver mask floating in the air, with a generic elf woman’s face on it, and a few trailing threads hanging from the back.

	A cleric of Luanea’s education didn’t need to be told what it was.  “Oh, my,” she breathed.  “This… this was the Mask.”

	Another glow joined the first from behind her.  Luanea turned to see the projection of her goddess walk in and spot her.  “And there you are, my daughter,” Eilistraee said.  She walked beside Luanea and regarded the floating mask.  “You know this, then?  Good.”

	Luanea bowed low.  “Of course, my Lady.  This was the form you took to appear to us during your death.”

	Eilistraee nodded thoughtfully.  “My good friend Mystra made an allowance for this to occur, you know, my daughter.”

	“I do, my Lady,” Luanea said.  She felt so incongruous to stand beside her goddess and discuss things so casually.  “Is this the physical mask itself?”

	“No, no, but I made this to remind me of, that I might never forget my temporary demise,” Eilistraee said.  After a moment’s silent reflection, she turned to her cleric.  “You have questions, of course, my daughter?”

	Luanea bowed silently.  When she straightened again, she saw Eilistraee standing there with a raised eyebrow.  “Well?  Ask.  Do you know how rarely I am allowed to converse with my clergy so directly, these days?  Please, ask your questions.  Axiopistos, Cavria, and I have been having a full philosophical debate for the last hour.”

	Despite the gravity of the moment, Luanea laughed at the mental image.  Eilistraee beamed.  “Much better.  Tension and formality are for rituals and ceremonies, my dear child, not family gatherings.  Ask.”

	“Thank you, my Lady.”  Luanea looked back out of the glowing cave to the tunnels beyond.  “I… I imagine that there are things you cannot safely tell me about your will for me, my future,” she said.

	“Perceptive.”

	Luanea still felt a bit nervous, but she pushed onward regardless.  “I want so badly to know what you meant by my flesh bearing the seed of a new world,” Luanea admitted.  “I assume you mean my husband and I will conceieve a future hero, but… we haven’t been able to conceive.”

	Eilistraee nodded.  “No, you haven’t.  Not by my desire.  I promise, your difficulty will not last forever.  As for the fate of your child, or their number, I shall tell you nothing.  I am not Mystra.  Time and avoiding its entanglements is beyond me, and I do not wish, in my desire to preserve the future I have seen, to erase it instead.”  She walked up beside her priestess and playfully poked her stomach.  “But if you’re as good at shepherding children as you are those who need me, my daughter, you’ll do just fine.”

	Luanea bit her lip and recoiled.  “My Lady, you honor me.”

	“Have you been counting how many you have brought to my light, Luanea?  I have.  Eight.  Eight souls, rescued from being flies in the web of Lolth,” Eilistraee said.  “Eight souls, and your husband twelve more, and Kyria and Doshellas one each.  Twenty-two souls, saved from pointless, ugly suffering.”  She embraced her cleric and hugged her tight.  “If it were allowed me, my daughter, I would bring you here to dance with me every night, in gratitude for your years of work,” she said softly.

	Luanea felt a tear slip past her eyelid and returned the hug.  “My Lady,” she breathed.

	Eilistraee kissed her cheek and stood back, holding Luanea’s hands.  “I wish for nothing more, nothing more at all, than to be able to bypass the rules of the Second Sundering,” she said, “and walk the surface of every world that needs me.  I can’t.  Until then, I must rely on you, my daughters, and my Chosen to spread my message.”

	Luanea bowed over her hands.  “Forever.”

	“I know.  If I had ten more clerics like you, Toril would improve substantially.”  Eilistraee released her cleric’s hands, and a slab of rock rose to block the cave entrance.  Luanea blinked in surprise as the mask vanished.  In its place, she saw a floating circle of what looked like yarn or thick string, floating in the air in the shape of a glass-less mirror.  “Now, if I may, I wish to talk a bit with you, my daughter Luanea,” Eilistraee said, and Luanea watched in awe as she seemed to change before her eyes.  Eilistraee was suddenly taller, more muscled, her hair shorter, her eyes dimmer but more intense.

	“Of course,” Luanea said.  “I am at your eternal service.”

	“Mmm… no, I never ask my clerics to keep fighting for me after death,” Eilistraee said teasingly.  “But I appreciate the gesture.”  She sat and bade her daughter do the same, side-by-side, facing the loop of fabric.  “Now.  As much as I would love for you to stay here for a few years and enjoy the paradise I have built, there is work to be done.”

	“What would you have me do?” Luanea asked.

	The image of an island appeared, hovering inside the yarn circle.  “Let us speak of strategy, my daughter, and the war that never ended,” Eilistraee said firmly.