"Tell me about yourself."

“Tell me about yourself,” Teysa said. As introductions went, it lacked a certain pizzazz, but Teysa had never been particularly good at meeting new people. She’d left that to Aliara.

By the look of Rakkec’s face, she’d struck out again. He stared up at her with his brow furrowing in confusion.

“I mean… we’ve barely met,” Teysa explained. “I just want to get to know you a bit better. If we’re going to be neighbors, that is.”

Neighbors. The word sounded ridiculously inadequate.

“Not much to tell, I guess. I lived in the City. Ironworks Lane, born and bred. My da was a miner before me, and my ma sold jewelry in the market. I had a sister, but she went to Temple Service.”

Teysa wasn’t sure what that meant, but the solemn tone in Rakkec’s voice suggested that inquiring too deeply in the details would not be welcome.

“I mean… why do you live down here?” Teysa asked. “Isn’t it lonely? All by yourself?”

Rakkec shrugged, as though he’d never considered the question. “It’s quiet. And I keep myself busy. Besides, I’m not all alone. Jez’ria comes down to visit sometimes. And to help me.”

“Help you?” Teysa looked around. “You mean, help you dig?”

Rakkec nodded. “Oh, yeah. She’s a wonder. Never tires, and I tell you, she can practically smell ore. I give her whatever I find and she smelts it right out.” He spoke in the calm, level tone of one professional recognizing another. “Plus, she brings me food, and sometimes we talk. So no, I’m not lonely.”

“But the other refugees,” Teysa said. “Surely you’d be more comfortable with them?”

She had an idea of what he was going to say, but she didn’t feel any better for having been right.

“Them?” Rakkec looked worried. “I don’t think they want me up and about there. They’re all highborn, you know, silver spoons and all that. I don’t think they’d be too happy with me mucking around in their caves.” He didn’t sound bitter at all, just resigned.

“That’s not right!” Teysa planted her hands on her hips. “You’re all one people, Rakkec. That was the point of the Revelation. All these divisions—rich and poor, master and ****—they’re just artificial. They’re ways of keeping you down. You don’t have to put up with that anymore.”

She’d expected him to be grateful, or at least to bashfully decline. She hadn’t expected him to laugh.

He clutched his sides, doubled over at the waist, wheezing. Tiny tears gleamed in the corners of his eyes. “Sorry, ma’am, sorry!” he said, gasping out his words between chuckles. “I don’t mean no offense! It’s just…” He wiped a hand across his eyes and looked up at her. He was clearly still fighting with his mouth, which kept wanting to turn up into a smile.

“It’s just, you’re not from around here, are you? In the Underneath, “keeping someone down” is a good thing. Down means riches, ma’am, down means gems and gold. Down is closer to the Mother Below. Hell’s bells, I wish someone had tried to keep me down when I lived in the City!”

Teysa was nonplussed. She tried to rally. “But surely you don’t like being treated as a second class citizen?”

“Second-class?” Rakkec wrinkled his nose. “Well sure, nobody likes that. But I’m a male, and I’m a miner, and I’ve got a dirty face and an empty wallet. I’m like… fourth or fifth class at best. At least I was. Here, we’re pretty much all second class, right?” He held out his hands with his palms held flat and parallel, like the rungs of a ladder. “First class: driders. Second class: everyone else. That about the size of it?”

Teysa opened her mouth to protest and shut it again. Whatever she said, Rakkec was basically right. The drow were here on sufferance.

He shrugged again and waved a hand in the manner of one dismissing that which was not important. “Besides, I don’t want to hang around with those bluebloods. Even if they would have me. Sure, back at the City they may have had fancy parties and legions of slaves—sorry, it’s servants now, mustn’t forget—but here, they’re all sleeping in spiderwebs and eating fungus jerky like me. And I bet none of their caves look half so grand as this.” He swept his arm to take in the gleaming constellation of gems on his ceiling and the flickering vein-lights in the walls. Teysa looked around and had to admit he had a point.

“But it’s not right that they look down on you,” Teysa protested. “It’s not fair. Lolth made that very clear. She wants all of Her children to live in harmony.”

“Right?” Rakkec shook his head. “Maybe it’s right and maybe it isn’t. Worrying about what’s right is somethin’ you do when you’re sure where your next meal is coming from. I never bothered too much about that stuff. And we are living in harmony! You see me picking fights with them? Or with anyone? Sometimes people get along best from a few caves away.”

That, to Teysa, was a rather cynical way of looking at things, but she had to admit that once again he had a point.

“Well, I don’t want to make you do anything you’re not comfortable with,” she said. “As long as you’re happy here, that’s all right, I suppose.”

“Happy?” Rakkec looked up at her, and for the first time a hint of annoyance appeared on his otherwise placid features. “Ma’am, my best friend is dead, and I’ve been chased out of my city to live in a cave with a bunch of gigantic spider-women, no offense meant. You all have got each other, and even those bluebloods you were just talkin’ about have each other, but all I’ve got in the world is me. And even a man who enjoys his solitude likes knowing someone has his back. So no, I’m not all that happy right now, but that’s been too much of my whole damn life, so I guess I can’t exactly start complaining about it now, can I?” By the end of his outburst, he was breathing hard. He looked down, abashed. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, o’course,” he added in a low mutter aimed directly at the ground.

“Rakkec…” Teysa felt herself at a loss. “I’m sorry to hear all that. Lolth wants—”

“Lolth doesn’t want much to do with me, I don’t think,” Rakkec said. “How many drow men do you know?”

Teysa paused and thought. There was Dom, the innkeeper at the Stone Egg—she spared a moment to wonder about him, and hoped he was safe. There were the guards she’d met during her investigation. Not friendly types at all. And beyond that…

“Not many,” she admitted. “But you’re all Lolth’s children, male and female alike.”

“So people keep telling me,” Rakkec said wearily. “Look, I ain’t trying to complain. We don’t have it so bad as some. I heard tell there’s dwarf holds where all the women have to grow beards to fit in. But in the City, the rules have always been pretty clear. Menfolk are for fighting, lifting, carrying, digging… you know, the mucky jobs. We don’t get the magic and we don’t wear the silver. And Lolth always seemed pretty much ok with that. There ain’t any male driders, are there?”

Teysa hesitated. Now that she came to think of it, she wasn’t sure. There certainly weren’t any in this warren. She’d never asked about others.

“So I’m happy about this Revelation, I really am. Working in the mines, you get to know some of the slaves. Poor wretches. And anything that knocks the bullies at the top off their high thrones is ok by me. But I just don’t think it’s got much to do with me, is all.”

For the first time since coming to meet Rakkec, Teysa was truly at a loss. Nothing he was saying was wrong, exactly, except for all of it together. Was he denying Lolth? Not exactly, no. Nor was he exactly defying Her, the way Lil’esh was. He just had more important things to think about.

Teysa couldn’t remember the last time she had considered anything to be more important than the will of her God. Even as a child, she’d been pious and attentive during prayers.

“Lolth loves you, you know,” she said. “She wants to help you. She wants to help everyone.” She knew she sounded like a missionary but couldn’t help herself. It was stupefying, incredible. To know that there was a Goddess—an actual divinity, a power of the heavens—out there who cared personally for you, who wanted to help you and protect you… and to dismiss that as unimportant? It boggled the mind.

“Really?” Perhaps there was just a hint of sarcasm in Rakkec’s voice. “Will She put in a shift in the mines with me?” He gave Teysa a wry smile. “I got this far in life without the Goddess’s hand on my shoulder. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for, I guess, bein’ created and stuff. And I heard Lolth made the Underneath. She did a right good job there.” He looked around, gazing lovingly at the gems in his ceiling.

“But Gods is like… like kings and queens and stuff, right? It’s important to have ‘em. You need someone at the top. But if the Empress came into my house and started tellin’ me where to put my furniture or whatever, I’d be a bit put off.”

Teysa bit back the first reply that came to mind. He had, she was loath to admit, a point. But so did she. “That’s fine,” she said, “but you have to care about the big things, too. Justice and truth and fairness and equality. Because, Rakkec, someone is going to care about those things, and you might not like the decisions they make. These big questions—how society is going to be run, what values it will hold—these decisions may seem too big for you to care about, but the opposite isn’t true. They care about you. If you never think bigger than your mine shaft, then sooner or later you’re going to step out and realize that someone who _does _changed your whole world around for you.”

“Someone like you?” Rakkec smiled up at her. “I think you’ve done a solid job so far. And besides, it’s a drift.”

“A what?” Teysa was momentarily wrongfooted.

“A drift. A mine shaft is vertical, you know, straight up an’ down. When you dig sideways off a shaft following a vein, that’s called a drift. Like this.” He waved an arm to encompass his room and the tunnel they’d come down.

Teysa wasn’t quite sure if he was having her on. He looked sincere enough. Then he winked at her, and she raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle.

“Fine,” she said. And then: “What did you mean, just now? About me?”

Rakkec waved a hand dismissively and looked away. “Aw, you know, I do pay attention, you know. When you came out from under the Temple, you were all anyone could talk about for weeks. Even in the miner bars. Rumors everywhere.”

“Really?” Now Teysa was intrigued. “What kinds of rumors?”

“Aw, the usual stuff. You know… some people said it was a priestess that found the Revelation, but most of ‘em agreed it was an outsider. A lot of people said it was a ****. They said that you killed the Empress. Or the High Priestess. Or both.”

“We didn’t kill either of them,” Teysa said. She thought of the High Priestess’s **** and shuddered. The sound of sobbing, echoing up out of a shaft into the earth…

“Well, it was all confusion, you understand. Me mate Kuller said he saw you fly right up out of the Basilica with bat wings, but Kuller’s a drunk. Still, there were stories. I heard you led a whole army of driders into the City through underground tunnels and conquered the place. That part probably wasn’t true, huh?”

“Did you see a whole army of driders in the streets of the City?” Teysa asked in her best deadpan.

“Nah, but you know, I was busy. I coulda missed something.” Rakkec threw up his hands. “It’s all myth-making, you know. I remember thinking something real important just happened, and we’re not gonna find out anything until later, once the powers-that-be have had the time to get their stories straight. That’s pretty much how it goes in the City.”

“That’s very cynical, Rakkec,” Teysa said.

He shrugged. “Tell me I’m wrong, though.”

She couldn’t. And somehow, hearing all this made her feel a bit better. There was something infinitely reassuring about Rakkec’s calm equanimity in the face of such upheaval. Everyone Teysa had interacted with in the past few months had been treating her adventures under the City as deadly important, a matter of existential crisis that needed constant managing. It was refreshing to talk to somebody who saw it as a bunch of fuss that was only vaguely related to himself.

She realized she hadn’t asked the most important question, the one she’d come down here to ask.

“What do you want, Rakkec?” she asked.

He slumped back in his seat and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Digging is nice,” he said. “I’m not one of those weird deep gnomes, you know, obsessed with gemstones and what not. It just feels good bendin’ your back to a task, you know? Sweating and working and then at the end of it you get something shiny. It feels satisfying. So I guess I want to be able to dig. That and, you know, food and shelter and stuff.”

“That’s it?” Teysa asked. “Really? You can’t think of more than that?”

“Wellll….” Rakkec narrowed his eyes. “I suppose…”

“What?” she asked, leaning in eagerly.

“I do wish Jez’ria would put a shirt on or something when she comes down here,” he admitted. His cheeks were blanching in the drow equivalent of a blush. “She’s nice enough, but she’s got jubblies the size o’ my head, you know, and seeing ‘em bounce when she’s working the ore is a little distracting. And it’s not like I can say anything to her.”

Teysa’s cheeks flushed hot. “That’s all?” she asked. “I figured you’d want, I don’t know, a new hammer or something. Or a nicer place to sleep.”

“Nah, my hammer’s fine,” Rakkec said, patting the haft with one hand. “Anyways, why d’you care so much? Why’d you come down here, anyways? Just to talk? Not saying I ain’t flattered, but I imagine you got more important things to be doing.”

“I just wanted to check in with you, that’s all,” Teysa said. “We haven’t really met. Formally, I mean.”

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Formally. You know, given all our givens,” Rakkec said. “And you really oughtn’t worry about me. I’m fine down here. If I have a problem, I’ll give you a holler.”

“All right,” Teysa said, not without ****. She let it go. She couldn’t get too hung up on one weird, reclusive drow.

She had places to be.