...the Matron arrives

“That was it,” Teysa finished. “Tivya and the others are still here. For now. I don’t know how much longer they’ll last, but the warren needs them. If we can’t get more broodmothers… I don’t know what will happen.”

El’keth’s mouth was hanging open. She shut it and stammered for words. “All of that… I never knew, my mother never said…”

“It wasn’t your business,” Aliara put in. “It was ours. We dealt with it. But you know, things don’t improve overnight. Even with the best will in the world, sometimes things are just so broken you can’t put them back together. The best you can do is the best you can do, and that’s it.” She stood up. “You’ll be in charge of the broodmothers someday. Whatever remains of this lot, and the next generation. Remember that they’re people. When you don’t treat them like people… you get this.” She gestured at Tivya's cave. “Your people got a second chance. They’re lucky. Most people don’t. She didn’t.”

El’keth nodded grimly. “I understand, Aliara. I see why it was important for me to come down here. I will come back to see her.” She hesitated. "Will I scare her? Because of... of what I am?"

"I think she's a little beyond fear, El'keth," Teysa replied. "Just remember that she is a person. She deserves dignity, what little of it is left to her."

A heavy tread broke her concentration. She turned towards the entrance tunnel in time to see the Matron stoop under the overhanging roof and slide her massive abdomen into the cave. She loomed over them, looking from face to face. Seeing her next to El'keth only underlined her imposing presence. In the presence of her mother, a subtle change came over El'keth. Her back straightened, her features set themselves in a determined expression. The air of youthful naivete lifted off her. She looked like a squire in the presence of her knight-- one determined to prove herself worthy. Teysa remembered that expression well. She'd worn it enough herself while squiring in her Abbey days.

"How are they, Teyssssssssa?" the Matron asked. "My time is close. Are they all ready?"

Teysa hesitated, then nodded. "They are, Matron."

"Do hyou wisssssssh to remain for the ritual?" the Matron asked.

Teysa and Aliara looked at each other, then nodded as one. "Very well," the Matron said. "I have chosssssssen Rhuti. El'keth, fetch her for me."

El'keth looked shocked. "Me? I... why?"

"Do hyou question me?" The Matron planted her hands on her hips and glared down at her daughter. "Duty demandssss that hyou obey. I am ssssstill Matron, hyoung one." Her expression softened. "I cannot enter their roomssssss," she explained. "They are made too sssssmall. Thesssssse roomsssss are a sssssanctuary. I would not violate that."

For a moment, it seemed that El'keth would disobey, but then she nodded and scuttled into Rhuti's chamber. She returned a moment later with the woman cradled in her arms. Rhuti was a dwarf, with bushy red hair and tawny skin splotched with dark brown freckles. She spent most of her days lying motionless on her bed, but occasionally when Teysa arrived to feed her she would find pebbles piled up into pyramids throughout her cave. She left these alone, but Rhuti herself would demolish and move them from time to time, operating on some internal logic in the lightless cave of her mind. She was one of the oldest broodmothers, having been in the caves for more than a century, but dwarves were a long-lived and hearty folk. She might have decades left to her. The thought was not comforting.

El'keth laid Rhuti down on the floor of the cavern with reverential care. She folded the robe back from the dwarf's shoulders. Rhuti lay back and spread her legs in anticipation. Teysa's heart sank; Rhuti didn't fight, when the time came, but her numb acquiescence was somehow worse. It was as though she had forgotten any purpose her life might have once had besides breeding. At least she's not scared, Teysa told herself, but this too was a hollow comfort.

The Matron reared up overhead on four spindly limbs. She held her arms above her head and twisted them back and forth. Her hair was bound up in two curved horns, and as she tossed her head to and fro they jabbed and twisted at the air. The whole rite felt uncomfortably primal to Teysa; it reminded her of the unwholesome communion of demon-worshippers, the orgiastic rites of blood and sacrifice that she had been called upon to smite so many times.

"Lolth!" the Matron chanted. "Lolth, Mother of Spiderssssss! She Who Spinssss Below! World-Weaver! Look now on hYour faithful ssssssservant!" She clasped her hands and closed her eyes. "Blesssssss my union with hYour child Rhuti! May her womb bear fruit! And honor her ssssssacrifice, that new life be brought forth!"

Teysa felt a stone settle in the pit of her stomach. Rhuti stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Her mouth hung open slightly and a thin stream of drool ran from the corner. Occasionally she would twitch a limb like a sleeper caught in a nightmare.

A slit formed in the Matron's abdomen. The chitin around it peeled back to reveal a dripping, muscular length of flesh. Her ovipositor was dark purple and ridged with veins. Thick, greenish goo pulsed slowly from the tip and dripped onto the floor. Compared to Rhuti's short, compact body, it looked colossal; Teysa wondered how the dwarf would possibly survive being impaled that deeply by something that thick. Clearly, she had done it many times before, but it looked as though the tip of the ovipositor would burst out of her mouth.

The Matron reached down to part Rhuti's nether lips with two fingers, and the dwarf let out a gurgling moan. El'keth could not tear her eyes away. The expression on the young drider's face was halfway between horror and a strange avidity that made Teysa uncomfortable. She tried to tell herself that it was natural, that El'keth was just curious, and that her commitment to peace and respectful coexistence was stronger than her baser instincts. It was hard to imagine the sweet, slightly naive young drider as a merciless predator. Looking at her now, though... sometimes, it was so easy to see only the human half and ignore the vast spider abdomen, the eight segmented legs, even her glossy black eyes and the way her fingertips came to sharp points.

Teysa decided she had had enough. She turned on her heel and marched away, Aliara scurrying to keep up. Behind her, she heard a wet slurping noise, and the dwarf's moaning reached a more fevered pitch. Teysa paused, shuddered, then hunched her shoulders and strode away.

The closest cave was Tivya's and so she took shelter in there. Something, perhaps the noises from the cave outside or just the Matron's looming presence, had set her off. Her mumbling had taken on a fervent intensity, though it was as incomprehensible as ever. She had curled up on herself like an insect. When Teysa reached out to touch her, she flinched away and her voice rose in pitch.

Aliara sat down next to Teysa and stared at the elf. "You know, sometimes I just come down here to talk to her," she said. "She's a good listener."

Teysa gave her a quizzical look. She had never asked Aliara what she did in her private time. Teysa needed time to pray; Aliara, presumably, had her own personal errands.

"I sometimes feel like I should be able to understand her," Aliara said quietly. "The Elvish. I'm sure my mother could. I just never... I never learned much. And I've forgotten most of it. I don't have much chance to practice; I don't see many other elves down here. Well, except for the drow, but they don't really count." She balled up one fist. "I like to hear it, though. It sounds nice to my ears. No matter what she's saying." Her fingers opened and closed. Teysa could sense the tension rolling off her. "She reminds me of my mother, a little. Not that they look alike or anything. Just... my mother used to sing me to sleep, after my father left. She'd sing in Elvish. And tell me stories."

Teysa listened quietly. Aliara rarely mentioned her mother, and never her father. She guarded her past jealously. To hear her speak so frankly was a revelation. Teysa was afraid that if she spoke up at all, even in comfort, the moment would pass and Aliara would close up again.

"He was human, that's all I know. The traveling adventurer type. He saved her from some beast or something, they fell in love, her father offered him a place in the village... you know, the same old story. He stayed for a year or two. I don't know if they ever officially got married, but there was definitely an understanding. I was born pretty quickly after that. She was happy to stay at home, but he never wanted that kind of simple life. He tried anyways for her sake. And for mine, I guess. But when I was two or three he just... moved on. My mother was sad about it, of course, but I think she saw it coming. Anyways, she had plenty of help raising me. A few years after that... the drow came."

She was silent for such a long time that Teysa thought that the story was over, but just before she opened her mouth, Aliara started again.

"My mother didn't last too long in the pens. While she was alive, the other elves took care of us, but when she died they pushed me out. I don't blame them, not really. You stick with your own people down there. You can't afford not to. And I wasn't really an elf. Wasn't really a human, either. There aren't many of us half-breeds. Not one thing, and not the other... the drow knew what I was, and they liked to bring it up. They would joke about creating 'three-quarters elves.'" She shivered. "None of them dared, though. I think they thought of me as dirty. And the whole time I was down there, you know who I was maddest at?" She let out a short bark of laughter and smiled humorlessly. "My father. I kept thinking that if he had been there at the village, none of it would have happened. He'd have fought them off. Isn't that stupid? He may have been tough, but he was just one man. Who knows if he was even still alive by then?"

"When I escaped, I had this idea that I'd find him. I'd track him down and I'd tell him what happened to my mom and me. I had this persistent fantasy that he'd fall on his knees, weeping, and beg my forgiveness, and then I'd get to say 'no' and walk away. I wanted that more than anything. I wanted him to know what became of his wife and daughter." She shrugged. "I never found him, though. I mean, I didn't have much to go on. I didn't even know his name. My mother never spoke it after he left. Maybe she'd have told me when she was dying, but I didn't think to ask then. Anyways, that was all years and years ago. He's probably dead by now."

For the first time, her eyes fell on Teysa, and she seemed to wake up from whatever funk had been occupying her. "Anyways, now you know. I told Tivya this whole story a while ago. I didn't have to worry about her telling anyone else. But I trust you." Her face took on a sudden, pleading expression. "Please, Tey, don't tell anyone, ok? I don't like to think about this."

"I won't." Teysa folded her hands together over Aliara's. "I won't, Li, I promise. I'm so sorry--"

"Don't be. It's over. I had it better than some. Anyways, there are worse fates. Look at poor Tivya. At least I know where my mother is buried. Do you think Tivya has a child? A husband? A wife, maybe? Do they wonder where she is or if she's alive?"

Outside, Rhuti's thin voice raised in an ululating scream. Tivya clapped her hands over her ears and rolled onto her belly. Teysa grabbed Aliara's hand and squeezed it hard enough that the half-elf hissed through her teeth. There was a final wet sound, and then the clicking of talons on stone.

"Come on, Tey," Aliara said. "Let's go upstairs. We did our duty."

With a last look at Tivya, they stood and turned towards the door. El'keth stuck her face in through the curtain as they approached.

"Teysa! Aliara! My mother is--" she called, then noticed them. "Oh. My mother is finished. She wanted to thank you for everything you've done for the broodmothers." El'keth's face was slightly flushed and perspiration stood out on her forehead. She was speaking quickly, almost babbling. "She says that she hopes that this brood will be a strong one, and soon I will have a new sister."

Teysa nodded once. She didn't trust herself to speak. She stepped out into the central cave. The Matron was cradling Rhuti in her arms. The dwarf appeared to be asleep, and was wearing her robe again-- but her stomach was tremendously swollen, and the floor where she had been lying was covered in a puddle of green fluid. The Matron turned to Teysa and Aliara. "I am finissssshed," she said. "She ssssleepsssssss. El'keth, return her to her room."

El'keth nodded and lifted the **** dwarf out of her mother's arms. Before she could return her, though, footsteps echoed down the entrance tunnel. These weren't the clicking taps of a drider's legs-- they were the slap of sandals on stone. One of the drow trainees burst into the cave and skidded to a stop. She leaned over and fought for breath. Her eyes went from Teysa to the Matron and back again. "There's..." she began, wheezing. "There's..."

"Calm down, Fen'li," Teysa said. "What's going on?"

"An attack!" Fen'li croaked, and drew in a deep breath. "The warren is under attack!"