Surfacing Ch. 26

"Yet now she distrusts Tarra," the Valsharess said.

"By the strength of her own will, she breaks down the least genuine part of the compulsion first," Phaelous said.

"Genuine," the Queen repeated in a deadly murmur.

"It is easiest to convince someone of something they want anyway," he replied. "Your Highness already knows this quite well."

"So she will break Our compulsion."

"Not for some time, at least not until I die."

"The timing matters not. This should not be possible, unless you have committed treason, Phaelous."

"I have not, Your Majesty. You still feel Your touch on us both. But Varessa has always been gifted, and Your Highness's power is not absolute."

A magical blast from the Queen's hand had once outright killed a young Consort tainted by the Abyss. The one which struck Phaelous in the chest now knocked the wind out of him and left him unable to stand for several moments.

"That is the message... from the Dragon," he wheezed as soon as he could, rolling over onto his elbow and clutching his chest with a trembling hand as his heart struggled to continue beating. "You... do not have to wait for the Red Sister to speak to know this much."

The Valsharess stood up to approach Her Headmaster. "You say Jaunda has no value."

"Your Highness knows that's not true," Phaelous replied, his hair as pure gold as Hers, his face as wrinkled when he looked up at Her through his lowered brow. "The Lead Sister holds the second component. Her silence first shows Your vulnerability, the second will show Your strength. The Dragon wants to see if You will panic being shown vulnerability before he offers salvation."

She flexed the fingers of Her right hand as if She considered another blast. "Curious. Why do you suggest this?"

"Because this was Your Game long ago, You've but forgotten!" Phaelous caught his breath. "Before Wilsira and the Consorts, before You became obsessed with breeding the Nobles just so and Wilsira convinced You to take all the daughters away from the Sisterhood! Now You hardly leave the Palace. The Red Sisters do not want to become pregnant or tell You when they have, because of this fear of being planted immobile in the dirt until they drop their seed! It was not always this way!"

The Valsharess's chest rose and fell much more quickly than any but him had ever witnessed, and the Headmaster forced himself to his feet, taking a few steps away while keeping his hands visible and still. Her lips pursed, the Valsharess allowed him to continue speaking so he did.

"You knew then Your power had to renew itself through conflict," he said. "Now You do not engage Your People and You do not see what they've become, they are just breeding stock! That's why Your Majesty would put the only sorceress capable of wearing down Your compulsion in the dungeon simply because she may have a child in two years!"

"She would have died centuries ago had We known what she discovered," the Valsharess said.

"She was still pregnant at the time, and You would still have waited for Shyntre. Yet this changes nothing—Your Highness would also crush Her next wizard before She would cultivate the same devotion She has in me!"

For a moment the Queen's expression tightened to disbelief before She reconsidered. Phaelous saw it.

"Yes, my Queen. I am the only one who remembers what it was like before, even the Prime has willingly forgotten. I am the only one who would tell you what you don't want to hear, and I say this now: you cut off your own fingers, one at a time, because you are a Queen of Livestock now. We can't stop the Illithids if they attack in mass. We aren't prepared, we are herds and fields waiting to be swept aside and trampled, and your Dragon knows this!"

The Queen stared at her Consort, quivering subtly. "Tell Us again of your divination, of the Illithid attack."

He trembled more visibly than She did as the nausea followed the adrenalin. He took a breath. "Sirana will be the trigger. The changes within her mind will draw them."

She nodded. "Tell Us again it was a ritual of Lolth which gave one of Ours true psionic power."

"Lelinahdara opened the pathway using Lolth's ritual," he said. "It was an accident. Sirana has made it so."

"Tell Us again...about Auranka."

He obeyed. "The guardian spiders will be with Sirana. If Shyntre does what we plan, then D'Shea may be the one to seize control of the Driders through Sirana."

"May be," She repeated. "You are not certain."

"You know how divinations work, my Queen. But I am certain Varessa used Sirana's power once before to break her silence forced on her by Wilsira. I am certain this attack will happen long before Varessa has the opportunity to birth any child. You needn't keep her in the dungeon until that time, she should be out among us with her skills put to good use."

The Valsharess smirked, displeasure again crossing Her elder's face. "Then why impregnate her, Headmaster? If she could have helped Us more as a respected Elder than a liability in the short time we have." One corner of the Queen's mouth turned up, the smile turning more cruel. "Was it an impulse? A poor decision of passion? Even poorer planning?"

Phaelous swallowed. "Perhaps I needed my own guarantee she would be alive for the Illithid attack. And you are predictable on that account."

She chuckled, tawny eyes darkening some. "Not as predictable as you think. And you rely on changing Our mind about this."

"You only have to make up Your own mind, Highness, and decide what has priority. It would take but another compulsion to keep Varessa will not speak of the past, and she will not fight when she must help us survive the future. Please, do not keep her locked away for long."

Phaelous watched as the Queen turned away, folding Her long-sleeved arms before Her. She stared again at one of the tapestries across the room.

"Such interesting timing," She murmured again, refusing to make a decision on D'Shea's imminent fate. "Lethrix is awake. Your divination proves only part of Our Vision. Something more comes beyond the Illithids."

"But the Illithids come first, my Queen," Phaelous pressed. "Auranka's Driders will not simply let them win but we cannot rely on Lolth if You would be free of her."

"True. The Driders are the children of some very old sins."

*******

"I knew you had been treading a thin line for a while, Varessa," the Prime growled in her ear, deliberately pinching a nerve in her arm and not letting go as they moved through the spy-ways. "Now you crossed it."

"How, by catching?" D'Shea retorted. "Why is a Red Sister instantly demoted to an incubator until she drops, as if she has no other skills?"

The Prime spun her to face and back-handed her hard. "Not one more word. You know this is the way it is." She stepped forward, breathed onto D'Shea's skin as she spoke. "Your fucking inconsiderate stupidity has left me without an Elder and right now there is no one suitable to replace you. I warned you about disrupting things further with the Priesthood in disarray and the Nobles panicking over their petty rivalries. I even let you keep that damned Consort and kept it secret from Lolth's whores. This was supposed to be the opportunity for the Sisterhood to hold things together for the Valsharess, but now you've fucked that up."

"So send me to the Dragon as a light snack as was suggested!"

Another strike, the same side, and her face was going numb.

"D'Shea," Rausery said behind her, leading a silent Jaunda.

Just her name, but it helped. The sorceress calmed herself and tolerated the shooting pains up her arm as they moved again, until they exited the spy-way to enter the dungeon from a blind corner, completely bypassing the dungeon keepers. Prime and Elder Rausery one of two keys and gestured her straight forward, then pushed Varessa to the left, down a different corridor.

The smells and despair were just as pervasive here but walkways were a little drier and not so filled with constant moans and screaming. The rooms were smaller and more of them were empty as various Nobles had given birth to their tainted infants at last before being sent home without them.

The Prime opened a cell though D'Shea could not tell why she had chosen it, and they went inside. She expected the search, of course, and she expected her elder to make it very unpleasant.

"Cloak off," the Prime demanded.

D'Shea removed and threw it onto her new cot, and immediately the Prime took her by the back of her neck and pushed her toward the wall. The sorceress caught herself with her hands just before the Prime would have smashed her already-sore face against the stone, and her neck started to hurt with how hard the eldest was pushing.

"Leathers down, Varessa. You know the drill." Hot breath touched her ear, shaking a bit with anticipation as it escaped the Prime's throat.

"How long as it been, Prime?" D'Shea murmured, tugging at the ties at her hips—and she wasn't the only one.

The older Drow grunted an ugly laugh. "Decades. Truthfully, none of you do it for me anymore. Not unless the top ones are due a reminder in humility. Like now."

D'Shea pushed her pants down, exposing her bare ass to the Prime. "I notice you only seemed interested when someone fell pretty far down in your eyes. You don't carry your Feldeu everywhere anymore; I see you came prepared this time."

The Prime didn't answer until she had murmured her magical word to attach her new tool. "It isn't going in easy, Varessa. Arrogant fucking mage, bet you haven't deigned to take it up the ass in centuries."

D'Shea smirked but kept her mouth shut on that one as the blunt tip poked utterly dry at her back pucker. It had been less than two years. When Sirana wore the Feldeu, Kain had often taken control. D'Shea had learned a lot about the dwarf Sirana had killed—where he came from, how he saw his birth right—enough to have gotten the seed of that idea which had allowed her to "talk" to her subordinate through psionics, getting around Wilsira's compulsion. It had cost her a sore ass at the hands of her own novice, but it had been worth it.

Maybe this wouldn't have quite as much pay-off attached to it, but D'Shea remembered how to bend under pressure. She remembered.

*****

*Wait,* Rausery signed to Jaunda from a hand-span away after finishing her cavity search. *Just wait for us.*

The Lead nodded; she looked calm as she righted her leathers. Calm and trusting.

Locking the cell door with Jaunda inside, Rausery hurried down the corridor where the Prime had taken D'Shea. The sounds she heard were very familiar—though Varessa wasn't weak by any comparison, only the mute could take that in silence if a Red Sister wanted some noise. And the Red Sister in question was the first Red Sister there had ever been. Rausery was prepared for what she would see, and she already had a plan of action in mind.

"Fuck, ha! Can I join, Prime?" she asked with a big grin.

"You may...go second," the eldest answered, ramming her hips in viciously as she pressed D'Shea against the wall, forcing her onto her tip-toes.

On second glance, Rausery read that D'Shea wasn't trying to take in silence, and she wasn't in denial or making the damage worse. Yielding like water. Good for her.

"Nah, I meant I want her cunt at the same time," Rausery said, taking out her own Feldeu and tugging at her pants. "I want her facing me so she can watch."

The Prime chuckled, rammed home again then drew partly out as she gripped D'Shea around her waist and yanked her from the wall, keeping the sorceress on her toes and impaled on the Prime's cock.

"Might have to pull her leathers the rest of the way down around her ankles. Keep her boots on."

Rausery did so in after donning her own tool, taking advantage of the angle and being close to the ground to glob as much spit as she possibly could onto her glove and standing up to grip D'Shea's pussy as she leaned close to her peer's grimacing face.

"Always wanted to do this," she said, smearing her slimy glove around.

D'Shea gave her a silent comment in her expression: *Liar.*

She was right; the chemistry hadn't ever been there for this. Rausery had too much respect for the sorceress's command of the arcane and politics. How quickly the Valsharess and the Prime forgot as soon as a baby was involved.

"Feldeu goes in dry, Elder," the Prime grunted.

"Yep. Dry Feldeu. See?"

The Prime slapped it from around D'Shea's hip, because she could—like two snakes snapping at each other at the entrance of a burrow. She might've considered other details but she nearly lost her balance.

"Alright. Dive in."

Rausery opened her peer's thighs wider and lifted her up to take some of the strain off her legs; she read the relief on Varessa's face. At the same time, D'Shea grabbed hold of Rausery's shoulders and leaned toward her rather than leaning back against the Prime, though she was still sandwiched between them and it was a movement of about two fingerwidths. Her eyes were intense with pain and determination.

"So fuck me, you mewling sycophant," the sorceress hissed.

"Power shifts pretty quick, doesn't it, D'Shea?" Rausery responded, feeling the tip of her Feldeu press for the first time into her peer's wet, and incredibly tight, passage as the top Red Sisters double-teamed her. "So am I bigger than Phaelous?"

Rausery lifted D'Shea higher, taking more of the weight so that the Prime would have a tough time seeing over the sorceress's shoulder but would have an easier time thrusting into her ass. Kind of a double-edged sword, there. Or at least it probably felt like it.

"Aw, yeah," the Elder grunted, timing her thrusts where the Prime wouldn't be able to tell she was only pushing in half-way, but D'Shea could certainly tell. The sorceress kept watching her, waiting for some kind of communication.

*Still need you,* Rausery signed against her tense, naked thigh. *Will help. Shadows. Don't talk.*

D'Shea nodded once, covered well when she next gasped in pain.

"That's it, my arrogant mage, remember whom you serve," their Prime said.

*Pretty one,* Rausery signed.

D'Shea's elegant brows shifted in concern. She knew Rausery meant the Consort but she was still understandably distracted.

"Say it, Varessa."

* Must 'die.'*

D'Shea shook her head urgently. *No!*

*'Die!'*

"Say it, sorceress!"

*'Die,' out of Cloister!* Rausery signed in exasperation. *Shadows!*

"SAY IT!"

"PRIME!" D'Shea cried, her eyes tearing up but they also brightened in comprehension. "I-I understand!"

Got it. Finally.

"Give me that tongue," Rausery demanded hoarsely. "Give it to me."

She forced the sorceress into a deep kiss, finally having the chance to push the two message pellets from beneath her tongue and under D'Shea's before biting her lip to make her whimper, lifting her mouth next to bite her neck with a convincing growl of lust. Now here's hoping the sorceress didn't swallow them before the Prime was done.

Rausery stayed as long as the Prime did, not feeling the least bit awkward when she finally got off using D'Shea's wet sheath. It was as decent cum, but more importantly it gave her an excuse not to pick up where the Prime had left off.

"I'll be back, Varessa," the Prime said after removing her bloody torture tool. "You'll find out what the Valsharess has in store for you soon enough."

"Yes, Prime," she answered, but not meekly enough to make her eldest lose interest in blowing off some more steam on her later.

Full rations, no interrogations—and the Prime wasn't interrogating her. Torture, sure, but no questions, just punishment. The sorceress was a tough one, though. This fact and the Valsharess's orders would keep Rausery's plans safe for a while longer. The best Rausery might do in return was make that meeting with the Dragon seem like the only way to go. Somehow get D'Shea out of the dungeons.

But first she to get Auslan out of the Cloister.

******

Qivni needed to risk leaving the Consort alone and unprotected for as long as it took her to get some food for herself and him. There was no reason to think that a Sister was lurking around the corner just waiting to open to D'Shea's quarters; they all knew that door was off-limits.

"You will be fine as long as you don't panic and give yourself away," the Lead told him as she prepared to leave.

"Of course, Lead. I will not panic."

He wouldn't leave, either. Truly, where would he go? Shyntre might've tried to book it for the Tower, at least—even if it was a dumb plan—but Auslan literally had nowhere he could go where they wouldn't try to tear him apart.

She walked by one of the sparring rooms to catch a few Sisters wrestling, working off excess energy before they took to their rooms following a busy shift. Others down the hall were just warming up and they greeted her respectfully as they all got something to eat. The extra portion she took raised no eyebrows, and she caught up on a few details and expectations before excusing herself once again.

"Thank you, lead Qivni," he said modestly as he sat on the edge of D'Shea's chair to eat at her desk as she bid him. He set his bloodstone nearby.

She sat on the other side staring at him, able to smell him and study him up close. How did any male Drow get so fucking beautiful? The features were so captivating. She could believe it was the work of a Goddess here. Grandson of Lolth, indeed.

Auslan ate quickly, fully aware of her observing him and nervous about it, yet he still pulled it off with some kind of grace. It was a long meal and she wasn't very hungry.

She wondered what would happen if he simply offered to get it over with.

"So Jaunda got a piece," she said as he was nearly done. "Elder D'Shea, too? How many come here to get a little stress relief?"

He acted like he lost his appetite in an instant. He swallowed his last bite and set down his utensil, keeping his gaze on her hands rather than looking her in the face. "None, except Lead Jaunda."

"None? Not even D'Shea?"

"She does not want me that way, Lead, and Elder D'Shea has not forced me to service anyone."

"Why not? I still don't get what other value you have to her."

"It is not for me to say, Lead," he replied quietly.

Qivni found herself scowling. "Meaning Jaunda didn't force you to service her?"

He hesitated, looking confused. "I-I am not sure what happened."

"What, you just suddenly discovered you had a Feldeu in your mouth?"

"It has to do with the reason she was called before the Valsharess, Lead Qivni, but I am not allowed to say," he explained with a note of desperation.

She jittered her fork a bit. "Okay. I don't need to know, and I will just say it. How about you eat me out, without the Feldeu? Consorts are some of the best at that, right?"

His look of dismay and the fact that he immediately shook his head in denial set off an explosion of bitter heat in her gut. What right did he have to be so picky?

"Why not?!" she barked loud enough to make him flinch. "It's what you're trained to do! Who the fuck do you think you are drawing a line like that? You are at our mercy, you fucking Sanctuary whore! You have nowhere to go and you are worthless otherwise!"

His eyes started to glisten with tears as he put his hands in his lap; he was afraid of her and she expected him to fold right then. She might be willing to forgive him if he just did what she asked.

"You are right, Lead, and I am sorry," he agreed.

She started to calm down.

"I cannot tell you why I must draw a line, only that I must, and it comes from above me. No."

If she could have flipped the heavy fiberstalk desk, she would have.

"No," she repeated, standing up slowly, threateningly, and leaning forward with her palms on the desk. She glared hatefully at him. "Your kind... don't *get* to say no."