Viperhand

EPILOGUE

Deep below the bowels of the seething volcano, the surviving Ancient Ones waited out the storm. And while they waited, tormented by hatred and rage, they planned their vengeance — a vengeance that would wrack the world for long ages, until the last of them had outlived their shame and their failure.

The conclave no longer consisted of the sleek, handsome figures of the dark elves. Instead, those who lived now turned in revulsion from each other, but everywhere they looked, their eyes were confronted by the inescapable repulsiveness of their new appearance.

The driders huddled in misery, terrified of the trembling mountain but still mighty, still full of rage. Now the spidery forms began to move, creeping from the tunnels of lava and smoke and ash toward the smoldering surface of the world above. Each of them walked upon eight fur-covered legs. A bloated, heavy abdomen suspended from the torso of each, and only the upper body bore a superficial resemblance to the elves they once had been.

One of these, the one that led the way back to the world, had a spider body of purest white, like a bleached insect that had never known the light of the sun.