Right

Teysa stepped confidently to the right. The path here was a curious mix of unworked stone and smooth surfaces. This area was still under construction. Leaving the broodmothers in the caves where they had suffered so terribly for so long seemed needlessly cruel to Teysa, so a new home had been readied for them. She thought that they appreciated it, but it was hard to tell for sure.

Up ahead the path terminated in a small, round cave. Silk curtains hung from the walls, covering the doors that led to the small nurseries where the remaining broodmothers lived. Teysa swallowed hard. She hated coming here, but she had made a promise, and she intended to keep it. This close, she could hear the noises they made: murmuring, quiet crying, a sigh that blew through the caverns like a lost breeze. She took a deep breath, steeled her resolve, and stepped into the nearest cell.

Inside, Tivya sat on the lip of her pool. Her room, like Teysa and Aliara's, had a geothermal spring in it. Sometimes, they would find her sitting by it, or lying sprawled with one leg dangling in the water. Teysa told herself that was progress. When she had first been cut down from the wall, Tivya curled into the fetal position and would not leave it for days at a time. Now she moved of her own volition, though her eyes still didn't focus and she could not feed or wash herself. She murmured constantly under her breath in a stream of broken Elvish so archaic that even Aliara couldn't understand it. Blonde curls tumbled down her back. Her hair was tangled and matted with dirt. It pained Teysa to see her in this state. She had never known Tivya when her mind was whole, but there was a nobility to her features and a quiet dignity in her voice. Maybe she was a warrior, once.

Her eyes grew wide when she saw El'keth, but she did not make any attempt to flee, nor did she cease her endless muttering. Teysa sat down on one side of her, Aliara on the other. El'keth hung back in the doorway and stared with big, frightened eyes.

"How are you today, Tivya?" Teysa asked. She spoke in a singsong, high-pitched voice, the voice one might use when talking to a child. "We just returned from the drow city. Things are really changing there."

Tivya didn't respond. She lay there, wrapped in a silk robe that was already mottled with stains. Her lips moved endlessly, spilling out a torrent of meaningless sounds that overlapped each other like the babbling of a mountain stream. "Tev. Darama. Mith manias tavad, kar darigny sun sho."

Teysa slid her arms under Tivya's shoulders and lifted her up. There was no weight to her at all; her limbs were atrophied, her cheeks hollow. She trembled like a baby bird in Teysa's hands. There's more strength in her than it seems, Teysa told herself. She still lives, when so many others died. She had no idea how old Tivya was, how long she had been in the breeding caves. She didn't want to know. She laid Tivya's shoulders in her lap and propped her head up against her belly. One hand brushed the golden hair out of Tivya's eyes. Gradually, her trembling subsided, but she kept up her ceaseless muttering.

Aliara rummaged around in her waist pouches and pulled out a bundle of silk. She unwrapped it to reveal a few chunks of whitish bread. "I got this for you, Tivya," she said. "Lyempis bread. From the surface. Do you want some?" She broke off a finger-sized pieces and held it to Tivya's lips. The elf acknowledge Aliara, but when the bread was placed on her tongue, she began to chew. Her movements were clumsy and she spilled a trail of crumbs down her front, but she managed to swallow all the same. Aliara fed her piece by piece, interrupting every so often to offer a sip of fresh water from her canteen. The whole time Tivya kept up her ceaseless, muffled litany.

When they had finished feeding her, Teysa began to pull Tivya's robe off. She struggled a little, though that might just have been her limbs complaining at being tugged into new positions. When she peeled the robe off, Teysa's nose wrinkled. "You need a bath, milady," she said, and scooped Tivya up in her arms, one around the shoulders and one under the knees. She had done this many times before, but this time, Tivya's arms flailed at Teysa's neck.

Teysa was so shocked that she nearly dropped her. As Tivya thrashed, her muttering broke down into inchoate moans. The elf's hands slapped and slid, scrambling for purchase, but eventually she managed to interlace her fingers behind Teysa's neck and clung tightly to her like a babe to its mother. Her moaning subsided into wheezing breaths. Teysa and Aliara exchanged a long, silent look.

Slowly, carefully, Teysa tipped her passenger down into the pool. Tivya slid in with a gentle sigh, letting go of Teysa's neck as she went. The water was deep enough to submerge her up to the neck. Perhaps out of some instinctive response, she spread her arms and bobbed to the surface. Her hair spread out around her like a golden halo.

A small stone shelf next to the pool held a pair of sponges and a small clay jar of soap. Teysa and Aliara each took a sponge, rolled up their sleeves, and began to scrub. Tivya floated passively between them. She was still murmuring, but her eyes were closed and the corners of her lips were turned up in a faint smile. Around her, the water darkened visibly, but she emerged sparkling and clean. Aliara fetched a fresh robe from the bundle at the foot of Tivya's bed and together they dressed her. Teysa tied up the waist cinch while Aliara brushed the knots out of Tivya's hair with an ivory-handled comb. The room was full of small amenities: most of them went unused by their broken occupants, but Teysa had insisted. Perhaps, given time and gentle treatment, these broodmothers could recover some of what they had lost. Even if they couldn't, it was important to treat them like people. And people needed things like clothes, a bed, a chamberpot... even if they only sometimes remembered how to use it.

Tivya seemed to be pleased by her bath and change of clothes. She sat on the edge of her cot and swayed back and forth. Abruptly, she turned to look at Teysa. For a moment, her emerald eyes seemed to focus, and the paladin stifled a gasp. She saw, just for a second, a person looking out at her... and then Tivya's stare went glassy again, and she resumed her babbling. "Inesso inshed, assa butu gravidi, Teysa. Vis lorashet, na sheddi..."

"What?" Teysa turned wildly from the elf to Aliara and back again. "What? Did she just... Aliara, did you hear that? She said my name!"

Aliara shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe she said hers. Tivya, Teysa... it's kind of similar, isn't it?"

"No! I know what I heard!" Teysa leaned in close. "Tivya? Can you hear me? Can you understand?" She searched the blank, slack face for any sign of introspection, any hint of life. Tivya just mumbled and muttered and stared at a point just past Teysa's ear.

Aliara came up behind Teysa and laid one hand on her shoulder. "Forget it, Tey," she said quietly. "It's not your fault. None of this is your fault. You're doing the best you can."

Teysa stared for a moment longer, then stood. "You're right," she sighed. "Let's go check on the others."

The next room held Oa'ko, a dusky-skinned human woman with broad hips and coarse black hair. She could stand and walk and eat on her own, but left to her own devices she wandered aimlessly around. When they entered, she was standing in the back of her room and staring at the wall, but she heard their footsteps and turned around. Her stare was terrifyingly intense. She crossed the space in three quick strides and stood inches from Teysa. "Where?" she asked, in a low and urgent voice. "Where? Where? Where? Where? Where?" It seemed to be the only word she could remember. Tears coursed down her cheeks as she begged for an answer Teysa couldn't give. "Where? Where? Where?"

They calmed her down by singing. There was an old song she used to sing, one of her former cavemates had told them-- she had sung it to her spiderlings, and to her fellow broodmothers when trapped on the wall. It was a simple song, and Teysa sung it now from memory.

Little child, baby dear

Be not sad, be of good cheer

The harvest's come, the moon is ripe

You will sleep with love tonight

Little by little, Oa'ko calmed down. Soon she was slumbering curled up like a cat at the foot of her bed. Teysa pulled a rough woolen blanket over her and tiptoed towards the door.

One by one, they visited all of the rooms. Six former broodmothers remained. Some were catatonic; others could take care of themselves, after a fashion, but whatever spark of life they once had had fled. To set them free would be to kill them. On her darker days, Teysa thought that perhaps that would be a kindness. What kind of life was this? She told herself that was not her choice. The broodmothers' lives, whatever meager scraps remained, were theirs.

El'keth followed her at a distance. She didn't date enter of the rooms. Instead, she hovered by the door, flinching in horror. When Teysa had finished in the last room she turned to see the doorway empty. El'keth was huddled in the central cave with her hands over her head. She looked up as Teysa emerged. Her eyes were wet with tears and she was breathing hard.

"Teysa..." she began. "That is... they are... oh, Teysa..."

"I know," said Teysa, her mouth set in a grim line. "It's pretty bad. We do our best."

"You got a good look?" Aliara asked. There was no venom in her voice, just exhaustion. "Did you see their faces? Remember their names? That was your mother's work. And your sisters'. They snatched them away and trussed them up in the darkness. The only time they felt another living being's touch was when they were being violated. Over and over again, until--"

"STOP!" El'keth shrieked. Her fists vibrated at her sides. "Aliara, please, stop, it's too much, it's too much, I can't, I can't..."

"Enough," Teysa said. "El'keth, we're not taunting you. We brought you down here for a reason. None of this is your fault. But when you forgive a sin, you have to see it and understand it. Otherwise, you're not forgiving, you're just forgetting. The driders can be forgiven for what you've done-- but you can't ever forget it, do you understand?"

"I understand." El'keth sniffed and rubbed her nose with one hand. "But what I don't understand is... why? Why are they so... so damaged? You freed them! You changed everything! Thousands of years of tradition, gone! I thought this was all fixed! You showed us the light, and we set the captives free. I thought that was the end of it."

To Teysa's ear she had never sounded younger than she did in that moment. She is so naive. How can I make her understand?

“I thought so, as well," Teysa began. "It was one of the first things I did when I got back…”