"You're wrong-- this isn't a real peace."

“You’re wrong,” Teysa said. Just saying the words was difficult. A tiny part of her pushed back. How can you say such a thing to the Goddess? it said. She is beautiful, perfect! You are a mortal! How dare you presume to correct her?

But it was true. “Lolth, You’re wrong. Your children are not living in harmony. This can’t be what you intended.”

Lolth did not look angry, merely puzzled. “No harmony?” she echoed. “What would you call this, then? Drow and drider, living side by side. Nobody is being killed. Nobody is being bred against her will. Look at how they are coming together to make these caves a home.”

“Ye-es,” Teysa said slowly. She supposed that, if you twisted your head around far enough, what the drow and driders shared now was a form of peace. But… “This isn’t exactly a stable situation! If two people are fighting, you can club them both **** and stop the fight, but you’re not actually solving anything.”

“Adversity forges strong bonds,” Lolth replied. “This will bring My children closer together. They will learn to trust each other, and that bond will remain after peace is restored.”

“You sound very sure of that, Goddess,” Teysa said. “Have You seen the future?”

“I cannot. Your fates are your own.”

Teysa sighed. “There are wounds here. Old wounds. There are things the drow do not know. They will find out sooner or later, and when they do, there may be blood.”

“Weren’t you the one who told Me about the value of forgiveness?” Lolth said. “You can spread that message to My children.”

“Why should they listen to me?” Teysa asked. “You’re their Goddess! Why do You need me to do your work for you?”

“What preserves mortals in the face of adversity, Teysa?” Lolth asked. “When they struggle and fail, when storms break and crops fail. What keeps them going?”

Teysa’s answer was automatic. The rote learning of her childhood returned, as fresh as if she’d left the Abbey only yesterday. “Faith,” she said.

“And so too with Gods. I have faith in you, Teysa. I see into your heart. You care about My children. You want to see them succeed. You will help them not because I order it, but because it is right.”

There was something infuriating in the Goddess’s calm tone, something self-satisfied. She might be right, Teysa reflected, but She doesn’t have to be so smug about it.

“I could leave,” she said. “Even now. The Matron has no hold on me.” She tried to say that part as though she believed it. “Where would you be then?”

“Disappointed.” Lolth’s serene expression didn’t change. “I need you, Teysa. Only you can spread My new gospel.”

“That’s not true!” Teysa struggled to control her frustration. “There are probably hundreds of priestesses who could have done it! I am not special, Goddess Lolth! I am nobody! I just happened to be the first person you talked to, so now you’ve decided I’m your prophet and only I will do? That’s ridiculous! Mish’li worked in secret, for years, to mitigate the worst horrors of the old church. What did she get out of it? Burned half to ****!”

“My poor child Mish’li,” Lolth said, and divine tears rolled down her reflected cheeks. Her sadness pushed against Teysa’s mind, dredging up images of Mish’li’s horribly burned face. Teysa shook her head to clear it.

“Will she live, Lolth? Can you tell me that at least?”

“I will preserve her if I can,” Lolth said. “The power that harmed her is inimical to Me, though. It is… difficult.”

“That’s another thing,” Teysa said. “You seem very sure that we’re going to win. All of your sermonizing about peace and harmony won’t mean anything if Lockh wipes us all out.”

“You will prevail against Lockh. I decree it.” Lolth smiled, a smile of total self-assurance.

“You decree it?” Something ignited inside Teysa. In her mind she heard Mish’li, gasping for breath through pus-soaked bandages. “Why put us through all this, then? Why not wave Your arm and send Lockh and his shadow magic back to whatever hell he crawled out of? People are dead, Goddess! People are suffering! This may be a game to You, but it’s our lives!”

“Oh, Teysa, do not misunderstand Me,” Lolth said. “The darkness behind Lockh is a real threat. As I told you, it seeks My destruction. I know that you will succeed, not by My divine will, but by the strength of your arm and the strength of your faith. I will lend you what help I can, but this is your battle to fight.”

“Why?” Teysa almost screamed. “It wants You, Goddess! Not us! Why is it our job to fight?!”

Lolth’s face clouded. For the first time, she looked troubled. “I would destroy this evil for you if I could, Teysa. The other powers of this realm will not allow Me to act directly. This… creature is not so constrained. Its power is more than mortal, but less than divine. It wants to hurt Me, and to do that it will turn My children against each other. It has no loyalty to the drow—it would see them all wiped out, but only after the driders are exterminated. It will kill you all just to make Me suffer.” There was fear in her voice, Teysa realized, real fear. To see a deity afraid was unsettling in the ****.

“What is it, then? Tell me!” Teysa said, trying to banish her unease. “Give us some clue! Something we can use to fight it! I know You know more than You’re telling me!”

“I cannot.” Lolth looked away, and the golden glow of her eyes momentarily dimmed to nothing. “Do not ask Me this, Teysa. I will give you strength and courage, as much as I have to give, but I cannot answer your questions.”

Teysa looked down and pinched the bridge of her nose. “What can You do, then, Goddess? What are you good for?” Her words came out testier than she’d anticipated, and she braced for an angry reaction, but Lolth merely stared at her in disbelief. It was quite possible nobody had ever spoken to Her that way before: not in defiance, but in exasperation.

She’s like a child, Teysa thought, and hoped desperately that the Goddess either could not or would not read her mind. She wants to help, She really does. But Her ideas are so simple, and She is so sure of them. There is no space for doubt in the mind of a Goddess. Everything is so straightforward to Her, and She cannot understand how anyone might misunderstand or disagree.

“I don’t know!” Lolth wailed. The surface of the water trembled and blitzed into droplets as though pummeled by crosswinds. “I want to help these people, Teysa! My children! I feel their suffering, like knives in my skin! I want to save them all! But I don’t know what to do! They are all so small, and I’m afraid that that slightest wrong move will crush them! I just want them to love each other the way I love them all! I just want things to be easy!”

Despite everything, Teysa felt a twinge of pity for the Goddess. It can’t have been easy for her, sitting there in the darkness, watching helplessly while her children went mad. She must have thought that if she could only talk to them, she could fix everything. Explain everything. Doesn’t always work out that easily, does it?

“I want the same thing you do, great Lolth,” Teysa said. “I want to see your people flourish. I want peace. But it’s not as simple as just waving a hand and declaring ‘be friends now.’ It will take time to build up trust. And people have a way of misunderstanding even the simplest messages. ‘Be kind to each other’ is a starting point, not a road map.”

Lolth’s reflection nodded. “I chose you well, Teysa,” she said. “You are wise. My children will need that wisdom in the days to come.”

“They need you, Goddess,” Teysa protested. “They need an example to follow. Right now, they need a miracle.”

Lolth looked pensive. Her golden eyes flickered like dying embers. The surface of the water rippled, lit from beneath by a pellucid blue glue. “I will consider this, Teysa,” she said.

Her image vanished, and the cave plunged back into shadow. Teysa shivered at the sudden chill. She looked around. Was it her imagination, or were the shadows longer than they had been? Were they creeping towards her? The hair on the back of her neck stood up.

“Lolth?” she asked. “Goddess, are you there?”

A cold wind answered her, a breath of carrion breeze. It carried a hint of mocking laughter, like a whisper at the edge of hearing.

“Lolth?” Teysa’s heart started to race. She reared backwards onto all eight limbs, balling up her fists, looking around frantically. The cave was empty, but the shadows were multiplying, growing together, climbing the walls to tower over her…

“Lolth!” she cried, and woke up.