on faith alone

The nearer they get to the surface, the worse Vizaeth feels. It starts as a nervous nausea behind lips pressed tight and silent and, as they rise through the depths, out of Her perfect darkness and sheltering stone, it spreads until it turns his limbs numb, disconnects his skin, stutters his heart. The moment he sights the cavemouth, he stops dead.

“No.”

He tries to declare it, but it comes out barely a whisper. The others move past him, and Master Do'Urden goes right up to the edge, where the light—the light, oh Lolth, the light—actually touches him.

Beyond that threshold lies the surface. Nothing above, all that’s sacred below, crawling with faeries and iblith—he can’t go out there, he’s not meant to go out there, none of them are meant to go out there. He takes a step back, then another and another; he has to get away from that silver glow, so bright it burns.

Master Zaurett’s cold hand lands on his shoulder.

“Not thinking of running out on us are you, apprentice Thaezyr?”

“We shouldn’t be here,” Vizaeth says. “This is heresy.”

“Do you call every raid heresy, too?”

Vizaeth shakes his head, digging his nails into his palms. That’s not the same. “I won’t go out there. I can’t.”

“You can and you will.” Zaurett takes his wrists, forcing him to unclench his fists. His hands are shaking. “You earned your place in this class—have you forgotten I was there to ensure you kept it? You will not let petty fear remove you from it now.”

He’s not afraid, he’s faithful. It’s insanity that none of the others feel this, that none of them are devout enough to know when they’re straying to places She doesn’t want them to go. Zaurett clasps his hands, stilling them.

“We do not fall to fear,” he says, and his onyx rings glow black as a quiet pulse of necromantic energy thumps from his fingertips. Vizaeth’s still-tangled Weave catches at it eagerly and he takes a sharp breath. “We command it.”

“Signal,” comes the call from the cave entrance, and Zaurett releases him.

Pharaun—who’s spent the entire journey up here ignoring Vizaeth as much as he has at Sorcere—gathers the class to him.

“Best behaviour, boys—and Viconia,” he says. “We’re going to be moving across some distance, but I assure you the path is extremely safe. Step lightly, and Master Zaurett—” his eyes flick over Vizaeth, the disdain in them sliding a knife between his ribs, “—if you could keep apprentice Thaezyr’s simpering to a minimum.”

Vizaeth’s teeth sink into his cheek. He deserves this. He knows he deserves it, it’s his own fault Pharaun hates him.

“Go eat a deathcap,” Zaurett snaps in retort.

The knife retreats a few blasphemous inches. He opens his mouth, but no words of defence come to his worthless tongue, and so in silence he follows Pharaun and the rest of the class out into the moonlight.

Loose stones skitter beneath his feet, then the softness of the short, bladed plant-life that covers the ground between the huge, dark stalks looming over them. He’s not stupid; he did the pre-reading, much as it made his stomach turn. Dirt. Grass. Trees. They have other names, specifics he doesn’t want to know. The less he knows of the surface, the less it can corrupt him.

A short way from the safety of the cave, Rhylfein falls into step alongside him, his presence conjuring a more familiar fear, one that makes Vizaeth’s heart stutter more than the surface light does. The promise to make him scream has not yet been fulfilled, but every time Vizaeth looks at him the lingering sparks in his veins all catch at once. He curls his fingers into his palms against the strange way they ache, painfully conscious of every inch of air between himself and apprentice Dyrr.

Up ahead there’s a shout, followed by Pharaun’s irritated voice.

“Apprentice Despana!”

A clearing opens before them, drenched in silver-bright dark. Viconia is already at its heart, clinging to a female clad in gold-accented black. A drop veil conceals her face, but given the way Viconia is carrying on, Vizaeth assumes this must be yet another of her wretched siblings. It’s not the bastard who stole Pharaun from him, at least—even if he’s lost Pharaun’s favour, he can’t bear the thought of him succumbing to Despana enchantments again, not when he can’t be there to fix it.

Another female and a male flank Viconia’s sister, and Vizaeth’s lip curls to see Maya Do’Urden, smiling coyly at the approaching group. She’s displayed to full manipulative effect in tight silver robes, her constructed beauty a stark contrast to the mutilated thing beside her. Burn scars twist the left side of the male’s face, and one arm is wholly gone. He’s made no attempt to hide his disfigurement; he wears his hood down, his hair braided back from his face, as though he wants everyone to see how ruined he is.

“We’re not running too far behind schedule, are we?” he asks.

“Punctual as ever, Master Bondalek,” Zaurett greets him. “My thanks to all of you for taking the time to help with this lesson.”

“I’m always happy to help young wizards find their feet,” Viconia’s sister purrs. “I do want to caution, Masters, that my husband is keeping an eye out for surface dwellers and other dangers. He’s lurking somewhere in the woods, though I couldn’t tell you where.”

“—or just a heretic.” Veryan’s whispered voice catches Vizaeth’s attention. He and Rhylfein are huddled together, far too close for his liking. “Some sects of the Masked Lord are generations old.”

Masked Lord—Vhaerun. That’s Vhaerun, the treacherous son. Vizaeth’s gut twists. “Wait, they’re not priests of Lolth?”

If Veryan’s annoyed at the interruption, Vizaeth can’t tell—his face is hidden behind a veil like the one Viconia’s sister wears, only his is thicker to better protect his blessed eyes.

“The male is an apostate,” he says quietly. “I’d hazard he’s a wild priest, from the colours. Viconia’s sister is a Masked Priestess—a high-ranking one, from the veil. The third—”

“Master Do’Urden’s sister.”

“—she’s a Sword Dancer.” Veryan gestures to the longsword hanging at her hip. “I’m not supposed to say much about this, but they’re priestesses of the Dark Maiden. She’s probably an apostate too, if she’s Master Do’Urden’s sister.”

What’s that supposed to mean? Nalfein is of a deposed House, certainly, but he’s still faithful. The Archmage wouldn’t let him near Sorcere if he wasn’t. Maya’s gaze slowly tracks over the gathered boys and their Masters, sizing them up. It’s not that surprising, Vizaeth supposes, that she would have whored herself to the Dark Maiden. When a House falls, it falls from Lolth’s favour as much as from Menzoberranzan’s—how much easier it must be to go running to whichever slut Goddess will have you, instead of putting in the work for the Spider Queen.

“Not everyone has to follow the Dark Mother,” Veryan says softly, and such blasphemous words from such sacred lips are like a slap in the face. Vizaeth opens his mouth to argue, but a sharp clap from Master Zaurett cuts short any attempt.

“Now that we have everything set up, we’ll be splitting into three groups for this lesson,” he begins, and proceeds to assign every apprentice a Master, an apostate, and a direction. Vizaeth waits for his name, half-hoping, half-dreading it will follow Pharaun’s—it follows Zaurett’s, and he should want to argue but he doesn’t. There’s only a sick relief that lodges like a sob in the back of his throat. He almost chokes it up in a laugh when Rhylfein’s name joins his—another sign, Mother? Another test?

Presently his test or sign or certain doom is preoccupied with the wild priest, Bondalek. Vizaeth wonders about the broken drow too, for if he’s garbed in honour of his god, Vizaeth doesn’t recognise which one it is. It’s certainly not Vhaerun. Blue, indigo and purple threads wind through his braids; his robes are black, but bright azure lines the sleeve hanging empty at his side.

“I wonder what happened to his arm,” Vizaeth says. Rhylfein starts, then quickly composes himself.

“He has burns on his face.”

“You think it was the same thing?”

“We could ask.”

“I’m not asking an apostate anything.”

“An ancient artefact exploded in his hand.” Maya’s voice intrudes behind them, and Vizaeth stiffens. “While a red dragon was breathing fire on it.”

“Why did a red dragon need to breathe fire on it?” Rhylfein asks.

“To destroy it,” she says, shrugging. “Some artefacts are very finicky about how you destroy them.”

That infuriating smile still curves her full lips, a silent taunt in the deceptive sweetness of her face. Vizaeth taps the rhythm of a devotional litany against his thigh—killing her would anger Nalfein, and perhaps ruin his chances of ever fixing his magic, but Lolth would exalt him for it, and maybe that would fix him all the same.

Maya says nothing further though, and moves on to the other apprentices assigned to their group, asking their names and basking in their open-mouthed adoration. With every flick of her hair they fall further under her spell—half of them are practically drooling.

“Harlot,” Vizaeth mutters.

“She’s toying with them, like Master Do’Urden does with the other Masters,” Rhylfein says. He's closer now; their arms are almost touching.

“It’s different.”

“I don’t think so.”

It’s cold in the open air, but warmth builds in him regardless when Rhylfein’s eyes meet his. Warning or blessing? How in the unholy Abyss is he supposed to know when all he feels is want?

Bony fingers tap his shoulder.

“Thaezyr!” Master Zaurett calls from the far side of the clearing. He beckons, the skeletal mage hand mimicking the motion. “Come see, quickly!”

With one last uncertain glance at Rhylfein, Vizaeth follows the mage hand to see what the necromancy Master wants to show him.

It’s a will’o’wisp. A ball of undead light wreathed in a flickering corpse-blue corona, drifting above the dark, wet ground.

“They lure the unwary,” Zaurett explains. “If you step out that way, you’ll find the land to be treacherous—a bog, most likely, given the terrain. Tell me, apprentice; from what source do these undead spring?”

“They’re formed from…” Vizaeth gnaws his lip as he searches his memory. “…spirits? Of those who died in misery?”

“Correct.”

Zaurett goes on to explain exactly how the formation works, and how the wisps propagate themselves. Vizaeth is only half-listening. The other groups have gone their separate ways now, and Pharaun with them. The shape of his absence is fainter than ever; there’s too much emptiness up here to get the full measure of it, the edges of the hurt blurring into the open expanse of the surface. If he remained up here, would it fade away entirely? Can you spread your pain so thin both you and it melt to nothing?

Would such dissolution be enough to make Pharaun love him again?

Mistaking his sorrow for further panic, Zaurett offers another distraction in sending him to search for spell components—spiderwebs, which he says ought to be plentiful up here. Vizaeth can’t find a single one. Has the moonlight made him blind, or do Her children sense the presence of so much heresy and desert this place?

He returns to Zaurett empty handed.

“Are there any surface materials for necromancy spells?” he asks. Perhaps the magic that made him will bring something more readily to hand.

“None we can safely gather,” Zaurett says. “Though we could find a simulacrum, if that interests you. To create undead, what do we need?”

The question is almost too easy. “Two clay pots—one of grave dirt, one of brackish water—and at least three pieces of onyx.”

“Excellently recalled. Do you remember what makes a given type of dirt grave dirt?”

“The decomposition of most living things produces a high concentration of phosphates,” Vizaeth says. “It’s that high concentration we draw energy from.”

“Precisely. So, if the ground is particularly boggy, with a lot of dead plant matter…” Zaurett flicks his hand out sharply at where they sighted the will’o’wisp, rings once more glowing black, and another spirit-orb rises from the mud. Vizaeth inhales, the comforting scent of death buzzing in the back of his throat.

“It’s close enough to count?”

Zaurett nods. “Your analytical skills have improved.”

Vizaeth bows his head to cover his delight at the praise. Being so far from home is no excuse to start acting like a faerie. “Only under your experienced guidance, Master Zaurett.”

“I’m always happy to help a young necromancer find their footing,” Zaurett says, and when Vizaeth looks up, the stoic Master bears a faint smile of his own.

A hollow knock cuts through the night. A few feet away, in the shadows of the trees ringing the clearing, stands a masked drow in dark leathers, a long blonde braid drawn over one shoulder and Viconia lurking at his side.

Vizaeth turns back to the bog, wholly uninterested in whatever she and yet another heretic have to say. He watches the wisps bob in the gloom as the two steal Master Zaurett from him, doing his best to block out Viconia’s whining. Something about Veryan and going back to the cave. He’d gladly go back to the cave—as interesting as seeing a real will’o’wisp is, he wants to go home. Back to the true dark, where his skin and his soul aren’t exposed.

“I should be looking after the other groups, Nia,” the masked drow says, cutting through Viconia's latest complaint. “Just go with Master Zaurett.”

As the heretic slips away to his duties, Zaurett motions Maya over, and the two confer in hushed voices; hopefully debating whether it’s better to send Viconia to the cave or to toss her into the bog to feed the wisps. She’s pouting like the child she is as she drags her sulking feet closer, and Vizaeth sneers.

“Nia?”

“My family calls me that,” she says coldly. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t.”

“Liar. You’ve hated me since the moment I arrived at Sorcere for no good reason.”

“You don’t belong at Sorcere, that’s reason enough,” Vizaeth says. “Though the fact that your family consists of whores and heretics—”

“Keep talking about my family like that and I’ll break your nose again,” she snarls.

“Like you’d bother without Master Mizzrym here to watch you do it.”

Viconia groans. “I can’t believe you’re still obsessing over him. Everyone knows what he did to you.”

No they don’t. They know the rumours about his grades and his magic, they know elaborate whisper-tales of what he does in Pharaun’s bed, but they don’t know the truth. They have no idea how much he’s bled, how close Pharaun really was to him before he ruined it. How much he’d give to have it back.

“Do you know what love means, Nia? It means test of faith—which you wouldn’t know the first thing about, since you’re as much of a faithless bitch as your sister.”

“You self-righteous little—you think him trying to get you thrown out of Sorcere was a test of faith?” Viconia shakes her head. “He’s not Lolth’s Chosen, he’s just a wizard, same as the rest of us.”

“He doesn’t need to be Her Chosen to choose me. You’re just jealous.”

“Jealous!” She barks a laugh. She sounds like a gnoll. “Why would I care that you’re fucking Master Mizzrym?”

“Because your brother is.”

“Rai fucks a lot of people.”

“So he doesn’t think Master Mizzrym is special?” Vizaeth spits out. Now to his tongue comes the defence it should have found earlier; who else will protect Pharaun if he doesn’t? Rai’gy Despana doesn’t deserve him, no-one does—only me, I’m the only one who cares, why don’t you still care!

“He isn’t,” Viconia insists. “He talks like my dad!”

“He sounds nothing like whatever concubine’s worthless seed spawned you.”

Her eyes flash with fury, but before she can make good on her threat to ruin his face again, someone grabs his head and cracks it into hers. Pain flares and he howls, rounding on his assailant with streaming eyes to find Maya Do’Urden, smug as only one of the Maiden’s sluts can be.

“How dare you!”

The whole clearing falls silent in the wake of his scream. His scalp burns—he’ll have to cut off his hair to get rid of her taint, has to go back to the Underdark with the Maiden’s stench on him; traitorous harlot, she has no right—

The tip of her sword lands high on the inside of his thigh. Vizaeth goes very, very still.

“I want you to appreciate that I do not pray to the Dark Mother,” she says, her voice as soft and deadly as any real priestess. “Because if one of my brothers ever spoke to a Mistress of Arach-Tinilith like that, they would not have a tongue. I dare. You do not have that luxury.”

One flick of her wrist and he’s dead or unmanned. Zaurett’s face holds nothing but indifference edged with irritation, and the rest of his classmates simply gawk in delight, their unvoiced laughter echoing in his head. His Weave churns, ready and willing to unravel if it means silencing all of them for good.

Master Zaurett sighs. “Come with me, apprentice Thaezyr.”

He leaves Maya with the other boys to keep them in line—though the empty-headed thralls are more likely to fawn over her cleavage than make trouble—and Vizaeth follows him from the clearing, his whole body tight with unspent rage. Rhylfein comes too, keeping between him and Viconia as a buffer against further outrage.

The buzz of insects and a shrieking cacophony of night-creatures accompanies them through the dark. Vizaeth’s head throbs and he winces, ignoring both the concerned look Rhylfein shoots his way and the shiver the touch of those eyes sends down his spine. He’s not Maya Do’Urden, to abandon true faith for the false kind that seduces with a comely smile and the promise of pleasure.

Except that he already has.

A sudden ache rolls down his back, where ribs meet spine. The place where, on Lothaphyon, eight red hairs are wrapped around her bones. He sneaks a glance at Rhylfein, and finds him staring boldly back. Vizaeth snaps his head away, cheeks burning.

The sooner they return below, the better.

Veryan is with the wild priest near the back of the cave. He’s gained a new cloak between now and when Vizaeth saw him last; dark green, heavy, collared with thick white fur. And maybe it's just the different light in the cave, but Bondalek's robes look new too, more grey than black now, decorated with gold.

He also has two hands, and that's no trick of the light.

“I thought he didn’t have a left arm,” Vizaeth says, as Zaurett lifts Veryan’s veil to examine him. Viconia jabs a bony elbow into his side.

“It’s not his actual arm. An artificer made it.”

Annoyingly, she’s right. The limb is dark and metallic, the faint moonlight catching on joint-edges.

“Who do you think it was?” Rhylfein asks, stepping between them again. His hand briefly brushes against Vizaeth’s, and the desire to bite Viconia’s throat out drops to an idle urge. “I don’t know of anyone in Sorcere who’d be good enough.”

“No-one in Sorcere would make something for an apostate,” Vizaeth says.

“Depends how much the apostate paid.”

“Or who they’re friends with,” Viconia adds under her breath.

“Is it true you lost it to a dragon?” Rhylfein raises his voice to get the wild priest’s attention. The undamaged half of Bondalek’s mouth curves in a near-smile.

“Along with most of my hair and Lolth’s favour.” He raises the false arm, displaying in full the elegance of its construction. Whichever artificer is responsible for it, Sorcere traitor or otherwise, they were certainly skilled. “Hair grew back; didn’t bother waiting on the other two. I only had this off so Mizzrym wouldn’t be nervous.”

As if Pharaun would fear a metal arm. Vizaeth starts to scoff, but Bondalek continues.

“My left hand had the tattoo used to activate my old holy symbol, and the artificer put the same glyph on my arm. He made the symbol too, after all.”

Old? That must mean it was Lolth’s, before he abandoned Her—how can it still work if She’s forsaken him?

“Activate?” Vizaeth asks.

From beneath his robes, Bondalek draws an encircled spider on a chain, adamantine with glinting chips of ruby for eyes. The edges are segmented, and inset in silver on its back is a High Drow glyph. Bondalek flips his metal hand over to show the same glyph inscribed on the back. He holds the spider out to Vizaeth.

“You can touch it. When I was still Yor’thae that may have caused issue, but I can promise Her protection rather lacks its former venom.”

The metal is cold, the power bound within humming just below the surface. A wave of security washes over Vizaeth when he touches it, as if he’s stepped into one of Her temples. Curiosity has him stretch out with his Weave—not enough to risk unravelling, he’s gotten that far at least with his lessons in realignment—and a blurry vision of a large, arachnid shape crosses his mind’s eye.

“It turns into a giant spider?”

“Far more powerful,” Bondalek says. “A retriever. I’m sure you’ve learned what that is.”

A sacred construct with the soul of a demon bound inside. Only those sworn to Lolth know the secret of their creation and command—this broken thing has lost Her favour, he doesn’t deserve to have this. Vizaeth’s grip tightens, and that’s when Bondalek takes the holy symbol away.

“You could come back to Her,” Vizaeth says. Bondalek huffs a laugh through his nose.

“Even if I wanted to, She would not have me.”

“You don’t want to?”

How can he be so close to a piece of Her power and still so lost? Can’t he feel Her love against his skin? She is not forgiving but She can be patient—if She didn’t want him at all, the symbol would burn him, crumble at his touch. If he doesn’t love Her any longer, why so selfishly cling to that which would better serve those who do?

“When you learn to think for yourself, you’ll understand.” Bondalek tucks the chain back beneath his robes. “The life I want is not one She would ever deign to grant me. If you are fortunate, perhaps you will not need to lose a limb to gain such insight.”

Vizaeth hesitates for only a breath before replying. “I have the life I want.”

Bondalek returns his attention to Veryan, in a manner that clearly marks Vizaeth as dismissed.

“I’m sure you think you do.”

The side of his head itches. The imprint of Maya’s hand lingers where she desecrated him, and the other side aches where it cracked against Viconia’s. He hopes hers aches the same. Worse. That when she takes reverie her brain bleeds into her skull and she never wakes up.

Vizaeth slumps further down the cave wall, knees drawn to his chest. Bondalek and Zaurett are still fussing over Veryan, as is Viconia, who’s knelt with her hands in his like she’s allowed to touch them. No-one has any respect tonight. No-one has any faith. All there is up here is heresy and lies and humiliation. At least Pharaun didn’t witness any of it this time. At least he hasn’t made things worse, even if he hasn’t made any effort to make them better.

Rhylfein drops into a sprawl beside him with a sigh. Here again, his red-headed trial, treacherous desire with heretical eyes and a comely smile. For all his prayers and all his pleading, Lolth remains as silent as ever. Apparently, She wishes him to work this out alone.

Why does he always have to do everything alone?

Rhylfein’s fingers nudge at his. Vizaeth tenses as they slide to fit between them, and can’t help but glance across the cave at Veryan and his attendant sympathisers.

“Like I give a fuck,” Rhylfein says, though he keeps his voice low. “You keep looking at me, Thaezyr.”

“You started it,” Vizaeth whispers back.

“Yeah,” Rhylfein says. “I guess I did.”

And, while no-one is paying two irrelevant boys any attention, Rhylfein kisses him.

Beneath the earth, there is an altar stained with his blood. There is a bed with the memory of his sweat clinging to the sheets. There is a room where he offered himself up, over and over and over again, where he worshipped a body more perfect than his could ever be, and hoped that it would change him. He took sacred hands inside him and holy lips to his and tore a man to pieces not in Her name but in Pharaun’s, and for all his great devotion he is not changed, he is not exalted, he is merely the same scarred and fearful flesh he has always been.

“You want me to stop?” Rhylfein murmurs against his lips.

He’s so tired of being afraid. Of misreading signs and waiting and wanting and worshipping things that don’t even care he exists.

“No,” Vizaeth says. “No, I don’t.”

He leans forward and, with the press of his mouth to Rhylfein’s, makes himself apostate.