The minions of the Demon Queen molded Lolth a throne from the flayed bodies of her victims. She shifted her weight. One or two of the furnishings were not quite dead, and Lolth idly threw a spell intended to keep it that way. She took the skull of the local high priest and poured herself a drink, regarding the fallen city with a sigh.
Bodies were being dragged from the still-burning city to the gates where frost imps froze them for storage. Hundreds of survivors had been herded into great lines beside the city walls. Relaxing with her drink, Lolth raised one brow as she saw Morag slithering along beside the prisoners and diligently counting heads.
Lolth gave a weary sigh and said, "Morag, you drabble-tail! What are you doing?"
"Accounting, Magnificence." The tanar'ri wrote upon pages made from human skin.
A human lunged out of the line of prisoners, armed with a jagged piece of iron. He threw himself straight at Morag's back. One idle flick of Morag's tail caught her attacker and slammed him against the nearby wall. Disgusted, Morag changed an entry in her files.
Annoyed by the display, Lolth leaned one elbow upon her squirming throne.
"Morag? Why, pray tell, are you counting cadavers?"
"I am tallying our stocks, Magnificence." The secretary stabbed at her parchments with her pen. "A little mathematics will tell us how long our stores will last."
Lolth sighed. "Morag, these wretches are to feed my teeming hordes. Now what is the one dominant characteristic of a teeming horde?"
Morag raised one elegant brow. "The smell, Magnificence?"
"No. They teem, Morag! They breed, they die, they subdivide like germs! They do not have fixed numbers and little record sheets!" The demon queen folded up her arms. "This is chaos, Morag! Chaos is expressive, adaptable, and incalculable! Sometimes you can be so… so baatezu!"
Morag folded up her notes. "Magnificence, we need to know how long the troops can be fed."
"We are attacking another city tomorrow, Morag. Then another and another. That's the way a conquest works. Eventually the entire population of the Flanaess will be our slaves and cattle through all eternity." Lolth slurped from her skull cup. "Improvise once in a while, Morag! I do. It's called genius."
Morag muttered something sour that the goddess failed to catch. Lolth sniffed and turned her eerie, flame-filled eyes upon her secretary. "Morag, are you wearing perfume?"
"I am wearing scent, Magnificence. Black lotus."
"How absurd. Whatever for?"
"I am meeting someone, Magnificence. An incubus."
Lolth looked at her secretary in mocking amazement. "An incubus! You?" The demon queen tried not to laugh. "Whatever do you do together?"
"We read." Stung, Morag sensed Lolth's laughter. "He happens to be highly intellectual!"
Wiping a mock tear from her eyes, Lolth tried to keep her face straight. "Oh, Morag, I always wondered why we never bothered having a court jester." The goddess's voice rang like a choir as she sighed in mirth. "Go slither off to your chores. Tell the commanders I will see them immediately. We need to start shuffling more troops onto this delightful little world."
The secretary thrashed her coils. Proud and angry, Morag jammed her notebooks beneath her arms. As she moved away, Lolth's mocking voice called after her. "Morag? Where did our cadaverous friend trot off to?"
"He left, Magnificence." Morag dropped her voice to a mutter. "About the time you plumped your mammalian arse on that chair."
Cocking a sharp eye at Morag, Lolth reached for another drink. "Excellent. Another little plan coming to glorious fruition!" The demon queen raised her skull-cup to her secretary. "Off you go! If you need me, my mammalian arse and I shall be right here."
Seething, Morag slid off through the bodies, blood, and rubble.