Ordinarily Iliira thought of herself as a rather graceful individual, even by the standards of elves, but at the moment her every stumbling step brought agony as she ran. She was, at least, able to turn as she did so, running sidewise as she drew up her shortbow and pointed her arrow, its poison- tipped head aimed straight for the blue dragon from where he stood atop the burning building. The smoke didn’t bother the dragon, and if the flames hurt, the dragon didn’t show it. Instead it’s head swiveled around, looking for the drow elf.
Eyes, she thought. I need to hit the eyes…really, any hit would likely do. Wyvern poison was nothing to laugh at, even by a dragon, surely. And Iliira had slain dragons before, as impossible a thought as that still was to her on most days. Her leather armor integrated the scales of a white dragon and a green dragon as proof. Now it was time to add blue…
She paused in her run for just a moment, and loosed her arrow. The blue dragon hadn’t seen her run from cover, didn’t know, if she could just take out its eyes…
The arrow flew straight, crossing the dozens of feet between her and the dragon as if in slow motion…and in the same slow motion, the dragon turned its head. Not much. Just a few inches, or what seemed like a few inches. But it was enough.
The arrow missed. It sailed past the dragon, never getting close, its green-glistening head not even making contact with the dragon’s scales. Iliira was already running again, but she heard a roar and laughter and the sound of a hurricane as the dragon took to the air once more. She rounded the corner of a burning building and dropped to her side, tucking up against the building, a part that wasn’t burning, as her shaking hands grabbed another of her poisoned arrows.
Iliira could do this. She could distract the dragon. She could be a target, she could draw the dragon away from the village, no one else would have to die…
The dragon soared in a lazy arc around the building, and its eyes instantly locked onto Iliira’s, head turning to face her as it drew in breath and its horn sparked with electricity. Iliira let out a shout, raising her bow and trying to nock another arrow –
The dragon exhaled, and very suddenly Iliira’s world was nothing but pain, imperceptibly starting in her outstretched arm holding her bow but traveling throughout her entire body. She couldn’t think, couldn’t even scream, as everything was just white-hot agony…
And then the agony – most of it – was gone, and Iliira rolled and stood, and then stumbled and fell, dropping her bow. The world around her was suddenly all in gray and black, and her every movement felt at once sluggish and too quick. She felt lighter…she felt like she had no weight at all, and yet in spite of that it felt like she was trying to move through molasses.
She struggled into a standing position, or started to, but the dragon was suddenly there, overhead. She hadn’t heard its approach, somehow, and it looked down at her…No, it looked past her. It looked at something else, something small and crumpled on the ground with smoke coming off it. The dragon spoke, but Iliira heard no words. It reached out and picked up the small, smoking thing…
Iliira saw black skin, and white hair, and red eyes open wide in shock. She saw the thing limply drop a bow, and an arrow left behind…
Iliira screamed, the only sound in this gray world, as she watched the dragon lift up her own body and fly upwards, into the sky. She stumbled and fell backwards in horror. “No!” she shrieked. “No! No! I’m not – that’s not – no! No!”
YES, a voice from everywhere countered, a voice that echoed like an empty tomb. And suddenly Iliira wasn’t alone anymore. There was no magical effect, no flash of light, no sound. There was simply a brown-robed figure, wearing a silver, expressionless mask, hands folded into his robes and staring down at Iliira.
Iliira knew him. Everyone in the Realms knew him. And his presence…and what she had seen…confirmed the worst. “I…I’m dead,” she choked out.
YOU ARE INDEED, answered Kelemvor, the God of Death. One hand came from his robe then, stretching out towards Iliira as the god of death knelt slightly. The hand was clad in a silver gauntlet that matched his mask. TAKE MY HAND.
Iliira stared at the hand, then turned away. She felt tears in her eyes as she closed them tightly…even though she knew she didn’t have eyes anymore. Not really. Or tears. Or…
ALL ACROSS THE REALMS, BEINGS DIE EVEN AS YOU SIT HERE, Kelemvor said. I HAVE A DUTY TO EACH ONE. YOU ARE ALL WORTH MY TIME, BUT MY TIME WITH EACH OF YOU IS LIMITED. TAKE MY HAND, ILIIRA II’ILMERIAS. ILIIRA, DAUGHTER OF KORBIN OF ULGOTH’S BEARD. ILIIRA QUICK-STEP, HERO OF GREENEST, DRAGON-SLAYER, FAITHFUL OF LADY TYMORA THE GODDESS OF GOOD LUCK. YOU FEAR DEATH, BUT THAT FEAR IS FOR NAUGHT, NOR SHOULD YOU FEAR ME.
Iliira looked out to the village. “The people here – ”
THE FATE OF THOSE HERE IS NO LONGER YOUR CONCERN, FOR YOU CAN NO LONGER AFFECT THEM. YOU HAVE DIED, ILIIRA. YOUR LIFE HAS ENDED. THIS WORLD IS NO LONGER YOUR PLACE. TAKE MY HAND, AND KNOW THAT I HAVE OFFERED IT THREE TIMES. THERE WILL NOT BE A FOURTH.
Iliira stared at the outstretched hand a moment more, before doing as Kelemvor asked, reaching out and taking his hand. She didn’t resist as he pulled her up, then turned around, pointing with his other hand. Before them, reality seemed to simply peel away, opening a tear in the very fabric of the universe. Then Kelemvor began striding forward, still holding Iliira’s hand. She followed him. She should have felt her heart racing, her skin crawling…but she felt none of those things as she trudged onwards, through the portal. Beyond, she found a city – a city of gray stone and simple architecture, a gray sky with no sun or moon overhead, and standing in its center a tower of transparent, dull crystal.
Once she was through, Kelemvor let go of her hand, and stepped backwards. Iliira turned to look as the God of Death again folded his hands into his robes, remaining behind in the world of the living as the portal closed. Somehow, Iliira knew why: he was still needed in that town. After all, the dragon was still there. More people were going to die. The God of Death was going to be very busy there indeed.
The dark elf felt her legs weaken, whatever strength they’d had giving out as she fell to her hands and knees. She realized she was sobbing, and did nothing to fight back the tears or her cries.
She had failed, failed utterly and completely. Everyone in the town that lay at the foot of Xonthal’s tower was going to die. Every man and woman and child, their lives snuffed out, all because Iliira couldn’t stop the dragon, couldn’t even draw the beast away from it, give them any time at all. It was her fault – her fault – and Iliira could do nothing, nothing but stay here and wait for them to come through, one by one, and beg their forgiveness…
She felt a presence beside her. Someone knelt down and put a hand on her shoulder. “There’s no use crying,” a feminine voice said. “Whatever happened, it’s over now.”
“No it isn’t!” Iliira exclaimed hysterically, pounding her fist into the stone beneath her. It should have hurt, but it didn’t. The dead didn’t feel pain. “There’s…there’s a town…a dragon…all those people…”
“You won’t even be able to see them,” the person beside her told Iliira, reaching down and putting a hand on one of Iliira’s own, stopping her from hitting the ground again. Iliira realized that the skin on that hand was as night-black as her own. “Tens of thousands of people die every day. The wards of the City of Judgement prevent most from ever interacting with each other in any way, unless Lord Kelemvor wills it. He doesn’t, usually. But he makes some exceptions, for neighbors, for close friends…or for family.”
Iliira blinked a few times at that. She looked to her side, wanting to see who was taking such an interest in her. She found herself looking at another drow, clad in simple brown robes with a hood, though it was down at the moment. The other dark elf’s hair was thick and worn long and loose, so that her pointed ears only barely poked out from their tresses. She had a somewhat sharper nose and thinner chin than Iliira…but the eyes. The eyes were red, the same dull red with flecks of pink as Iliira’s own, and shaped just like Iliira’s own, and in all ways looked like Iliira’s.
The drow looking at her smiled softly. “Hello, Iliira,” said Avaunya Ii’ilmerias, former Matron Mother of the House Ii’ilmerias, Third House of Sschindylryn.
Iliira’s mother.
---
Iliira sat at the table and stared down at the cup before her. Whatever was in it was dark red and steaming. It looked uncomfortably like blood. “Szata mushroom wine,” Avaunya said as she sipped from her own cup. “A personal favorite of mine, when I was alive. You can find anything in the City of Judgment for the right price.”
Iliira reached out, grasping the cup. She realized her hand was shaking as she did so, and had to grab the cup with both hands to keep from spilling any. She took a sip of its contents carefully. It was far thicker and more viscous than any wine Iliira had ever had, and its heat was certainly not something that Iliira had ever expected. But it was sweet, and a combination of its heat and fermentation produced a pleasant and familiar burn down Iliira’s throat as she drank more of it, then set it down.
The City of Judgement was a true city, Iliira had discovered as her mother had led her through it. It had blacksmiths, and inns, and tailors, and haberdasheries, and various other homes and shops. There was very little food or drink for sale – the dead did not generally need to eat or drink – but taverns such as the one Avaunya had led her to existed for the sake of satisfying the desire, at least.
Iliira looked back up to the drow who sat across from her. Avaunya, at least, looked just as nervous, her fingers idly spinning the cup of her own wine before her. “I did not expect to see you here so soon,” Avaunya said. “You were only…what? Twenty-seven?”
Iliira nodded numbly. “Y-yeah,” she managed to choke out.
Avaunya looked down to her own wine, breathing in deep and letting it out slowly. “Twenty- seven,” she said, nodding herself. “I was three hundred thirty-four when…when you were born.”
“When you died,” Iliira said. Her grip on her cup tightened, and she ground her teeth together.
Avaunya looked to Iliira, scowling. “I assure you I had no choice in the matter,” she stated, eyes narrowing. “If anything you would be to blame for that, wouldn’t you?”
Iliira scowled herself, looking away. What was she supposed to say? Sorry that birthing me caused you to bleed to death? Iliira’s father had never said outright that that was what had killed Avaunya, only that Iliira’s birth had been “too difficult” for the older drow…but there certainly weren’t a huge number of possibilities.
“I don’t blame you, though,” Avaunya said. Iliira heard her chuckling, and looked back to her. “Were I still a matron mother in the Underdark, I would almost applaud you. To kill a matron mother by your very birth…among our people you would have been natha rosin orbb – a born spider, chosen by Lolth, destined for greatness. Even your sister Ectanis, stupid though she was, would have known better than to do anything to you.”
“But I wasn’t born there,” Iliira countered. “I was born on the surface, in Ulgoth’s Beard. I was raised by humans.” She clenched her fists. “I’m not a drow. Not really.”
“Not at all,” Avaunya said nonchalantly, drinking from her cup again. “Race doesn’t matter much to the dead, I assure you.”
Iliira started again, and bought time by draining her cup dry, ignoring the burn. She took in a deep breath, and looked at Avaunya pointedly. “I don’t know you,” she said. “I don’t…I don’t know who you are. I barely know anything about you. You died twenty-seven years ago. I was raised by Korbin, I’m his daughter – not yours! You weren’t there, and it doesn’t matter how or why or anything!”
Iliira stood so that she could look down at Avaunya – not hard, she was taller than her mother by a good four inches. “I’m nothing like you! You lived over three hundred years and you were pure evil your entire life! Don’t even try and deny it! I know the stories about what drow are really like. I have to live with them because of you! Because of you and your stupid race, I have to be afraid to walk down a city street, have to hide my face!” There was a dark bile to her words as her voice rose higher and higher. “People run and hide from me! No one ever really trusts me no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try! I can’t even step into real sunlight without feeling like my eyes are on fire and my skin is boiling, because of you!”
The younger dark elf slammed a fist into the table, knocking over her szata wine, though she hardly noticed it. Iliira felt tears in her eyes as she fell back into her chair and buried face in her arms, down on the table. Surprisingly, no one in the tavern turned to look at the two of them. Perhaps these kinds of exchanges were common in the City of Judgment. “I just…j-just died trying to fight off a dragon, a dragon, trying to save a village…and I failed…and even if anyone gets away, if anyone lives…they’re not going to remember me. Remember me as anything other than a dark elf. Dad isn’t even going to kn-know how I d-died…o-or if he does f-find out, it’ll p-probably be ‘cause s-someone blamed me for the d-dragon showing up in the first place! And it’s your fault! N-no matter wh-what I do…”
Avaunya stared at Iliira’s sobbing form with a carefully neutral expression, taking several minutes to let Iliira’s tears flow as freely as they needed to right now. “If you are looking for an apology from me for having you,” she said, “you’re not going to get one. I do not regret having you, even if it cost me my life. You are right, Iliira. For most of my life I was evil. I was a blind servant of the Spider Queen. I thought only of the advancement of the House Ii’ilmerias, not even for the sake of the House, but for my own sake, my own power and glory.”
Iliira glared at Avaunya, wiping her eyes and nose with the scarf she always wore. “And what?” she spat. “You just changed during the last two years of your life?”
“Yes.”
“Bull!”
Avaunya rolled her eyes, and waved absently at the tavern. “Iliira, how is it that you have not yet wondered why I’m here, in the City of Judgment, instead of in a proper afterlife? Why does my spirit linger here and not move on, or be mortared into the Wall of the Faithless?”
Iliira grit her teeth, laying her head in her arms and looking away, at the wall of the tavern. “I don’t care,” she said.
“Then I’ll give you the short version,” Avaunya began anyway. “When your stupid, stupid half- sister Ectanis got House Ii’ilmerias destroyed, I asked – begged – Lolth for aid. I had prepared for the possibility of the House’s destruction and called upon Lolth to transport me to a safe-house where I could plot revenge. Instead, Lolth transported me to the surface world, in a forest clearing, in the middle of daylight. My armor and weapons crumbled to ash – ”
“And you wandered the forest, were found by elves who took pity on you when they realized you were pregnant with me, traveled with them for a bit, ended up in Ulgoth’s Beard, met Dad, died giving birth to me, yes,” Iliira interrupted. “I know.”
“No, you don’t know,” Avaunya insisted. “I maintained my faith in Lolth right until I gave birth to you. I thought it was all some kind of test from the Queen of Spiders. Maybe it was. But then I gave birth to you, and as I looked on you for the first time, as I heard your first cries…I realized in that moment everything that you just shouted at me.” She shook her head. “That you would not be raised as I was. That you could grow up without having to take a single life, without sublimating good judgment to the wills of a mad goddess. That the life in front of you would have pain and hardship, as all lives must…but that they would not be pain and hardship caused by the Spider Queen.”
Avaunya reached out, putting a hand on Iliira’s own again and squeezing it tightly. Both of them were dead, and yet somehow Iliira felt warmth. “Iliira, on the day of your birth, and on my deathbed, I renounced Lolth as my matron, renounced everything I had ever done in her name, for her treachery against me and my entire race, and so that the Queen of Spiders would never have any hold over your soul as she had held so long onto mine.”
Iliira looked back to Avaunya. “Just like that,” she deadpanned.
“No, of course not,” Avaunya said. “I became one the False, the souls who forsake their deity. Lod Kelemvor came for me and judged me. But the God of Death is fair. I argued that I did not abandon Lolth, that the Queen of Spiders abandoned me, and it simply took me awhile to realize this. I told him everything that I just said to you now. My life had been one of faith, but until the moment of your birth that faith had been blind and stupid – and after that revelation my death came too swiftly for me to claim a new deity as my own. And so, rather than punishing me for my infidelity, Lord Kelemvor set me to work here in the City of Judgment. My role is to guide the souls that come to the City to their destination, take them to the agents of their deities so that they can proceed on to their proper afterlife.”
Iliira blinked a few times at that, looking around. “Th…then why are we here?” She asked.
Avaunya gave a somewhat guilty shrug. “Properly speaking, Lord Kelemvor did not task me to take the souls directly to their destination.” She smiled again. “Is it so strange to you, that a mother might want to take this chance – perhaps the only chance she will ever get – to spend time with her daughter?”
Iliira blinked, feeling wetness in her eyes again. Tears were not in short supply to the dead, it seemed. Avaunya stood from her chair and came around the table, not letting go of Iliira’s hand as she stood her up and pulled her close, hugging the taller but younger elf tightly.
Iliira’s hands trembled as she reached around the older one, holding her, feeling her tear-stained cheek against Avaunya’s own. A sensation she’d never really felt before, a warmth from the other drow she’d never known and never thought she would, flooded her then. Her mother was holding her…something that had happened only once in Iliira’s life, only for a few brief minutes after her birth…it was a feeling, a primal need she hadn’t realized she’d missed until this moment.
Iliira grabbed on tightly to her mother, and never wanted to let go.
---
She had to eventually, of course. Now Avaunya and Iliira walked through the City of Judgment, the older drow still holding Iliira’s hand as they traveled its length and breadth. Avaunya had produced a staff from somewhere, an ashen-white stick with one tip looking like a skeletal hand clutching a lit lantern as Iliira’s mother guided her daughter through the City. Restless dead wandered everywhere, people bound to the City for one reason or another. Some would fade out of being as Iliira watched, while others seemed to grow brighter and stronger as Avaunya and Iliira walked close to them.
They spoke as they walked. Avaunya told Iliira about her time among the surface elves, and about her perspective on Korbin, what she had seen in Iliira’s adoptive human father. Iliira told her mother about her own life, meanwhile: growing up in Ulgoth’s Beard, then her time in Baldur’s Gate. Iliira had at first considered glossing over or lying about her profession there – a thief, a burglar of the Guild – but couldn’t bring herself to lie to her mother. Avaunya, for her part, hadn’t judged her at all. She was somewhat less pleased with Iliira’s descriptions of the past few months, how Iliira had been roped into trying to save the Sword Coast from the depredations of the Cult of the Dragon, or more properly how often Iliira risked her life while doing so – something that had ultimately cost Iliira that life.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I hadn’t,” Iliira tried to explain as Avaunya slowed, their route having taken them through nearly all of the City, it seemed to the younger elf. “I…I can’t just sit by when people need help…”
Avaunya nodded somewhat, and smiled. “You have a good soul, Iliira,” she said. “I can see it, you know. One of the perks of my role as psychopomp.”
Iliira smiled a little. “Aren’t I just a soul right now?” she asked.
Another one of her mother’s nonchalant shrugs followed. Iliira wondered if she shrugged like that. “After a fashion. And of course, our souls are what we make of them…” she reached out, tapping a finger to Iliira’s sternum, over her now silent heart. “But your soul shines brightly, Iliira. You are a good person. You were born a good person, and only reinforced that throughout your life. Bouts of kleptomania notwithstanding, of course.” She nodded. “It is good you weren’t born in the Underdark. A soul like yours would not have lasted long among our people. You would have had to blacken it, darken it, until all its light was quenched.”
Avaunya nodded to her left, and Iliira looked. She realized she was back where she had started when Kelemvor had led her to the City of Judgment, a portal yawning open before her. She looked to her mother. “Already?”
“For this? Yes.” Avaunya said. She closed her eyes, and the lantern at the end of her staff seemed to glow a little brighter. “A cleric stands over your body, Iliira. Through the power granted me by Lord Kelemvor, which cannot be fooled, I see that the cleric is named Cavinn Stormguard, faithful servant of Lord Helm, God of Guardians. He possess a soul empowered by Law and Good, and entreats you to return to your body that you might continue your service to the city of Waterdeep and your efforts to save the Sword Coast.” Avaunya’s eyes opened again. “You are being raised from the dead, Iliira. You have a chance to live again. You may refuse it. If you do, I will guide you to where a servant of Lady Tymora waits to bring you to the realm of the Goddess of Good Luck.” Her eyes narrowed somewhat. “However, on the way we will have a discussion about your choice.”
Iliira looked back to the portal, then to her mother. “I…but…”
Avaunya smiled. “We will see each other again, Iliira, one way or another. I will always be here, waiting. Though I expect to be waiting a good long while before then.”
Iliira pressed her lips tightly together, and nodded. She grasped her mother again, hugging her tightly. The other drow returned it wholeheartedly. “I…I love you, m-mom,” Iliira stuttered. “I just met you…never knew you…b-but…”
“I know,” Avaunya said. She kissed her daughter on the cheek. “Goodbye, Iliira.”
The hug lasted a moment more, then Avaunya released Iliira, stepping purposefully back and nodding once more. Iliira returned the gesture, steeling herself, then turned around and walked forward as purposefully as possible. She didn’t look back. She’d turn around if she did. Instead, she stepped through the portal…
---
Avaunya watched her daughter go, letting out a sigh of relief that she hadn’t realized she had been holding. It was strange. Twenty-seven years she had been dead. Her physical body didn’t even exist anymore, yet she still breathed, still enjoyed food and drink on occasion…still wept, far more than she ever had when she was alive. There were tears in her eyes right now, even.
There was a sudden presence beside her. THAT YOU WERE TO SWIFTLY CONDUCT THOSE SOULS IN YOUR CARE TO THEIR DESTINATION WAS IMPLICIT, AVAUNYA II’ILMERIAS, EVEN IF IT WAS NOT STATED OUTRIGHT, Kelemvor said.
Avaunya didn’t turn to look at the God of Death. “I regret nothing,” she said evenly. “I will not apologize, will not ask forgiveness. Not for this.”
There was a long moment of silence. THERE IS NOTHING TO FORGIVE, Kelemvor said at length. THE SOUL ARRIVED IN ITS PROPER PLACE. YOU FAITHFULLY CARRIED OUT YOUR DUTY. THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS IN THE END.
“Quite a bit more than that matters,” Avaunya said in a soft voice as she stood still, waiting for the next soul that needed her guidance, even as Kelemvor disappeared from her side – well, his physical presence, anyway. “Quite a bit more…”