There was enough room inside to stand. T'lar looked around. The black marble floor had a bowl-shaped depression at its center. A tracery of white veins threaded through the marble: hair-thin lines reminiscent of a tangled web. The walls were carved, three of them in glyphs she couldn't read that ran in narrow rows from ceiling to floor. The fourth wall bore a mural topped by a glyph T'lar did recognize: Araushnee. Lolth's original name.

This was clearly an ancient temple.

T'lar fell to one knee and turned her head, exposing her neck. "Dark Mother of all drow, your servant offers herself."

This ritual performed, she rose and studied the mural. It depicted an enormous spider with a drow face superimposed upon its abdomen. Eight drow arms radiated from its body. Each ended in a hand with eight fingers. Lines extended from each hand, linking the central figure to four pairs of smaller spiders, each with a face on its abdomen. The faces of the first pair were masked, while the second pair had gaunt, almost skeletal features and hollow eyes. The third pair had faces like melted wax, sagging and distorted, while the fourth pair had mouths open and spider arms lifted, as if they were singing the larger spider's praises. The eight lesser spiders dangled from the central figure's finger-webs like newly hatched spiderlings twisting in the wind.

The imagery was like nothing T'lar had ever seen before. It felt old, archaic. Not quite right. Yet strangely compelling. And Lolth had woven a path for her to this place. Why?

Using Nafay's dagger, she pricked each of her fingers. She pressed her fingertips against the abdomen of the large spider, leaving small dots of blood. "Hear me, Dark Mother. Show me your will."

She heard a muffled voice behind her: the wild elf, trying to say something against his gag. She turned and saw a fist-sized spider descending from the ceiling on a thread of silk. The spider was night black, with a red hourglass on its abdomen. As it descended, purple faerie fire blossomed in a flickering halo around its body. The wild elf threw himself to the side, rolling away from it.