Qilue stared down at the tangled links of metal, the pitted remains of a chain mail tunic that had passed through the gut of a crawler. The mystery of the novice's sudden disappearance, it seemed, had been solved. There was no hope of raising Thaleste from the dead. Not even a scrap of bone remained, just a few pieces of chain mail and a misshapen lump of silver that had once been a holy pendant.
"Eilistraee's tears," Qilue murmured. "May they wash her soul clean."
Beside her, Iljrene repeated the blessing.
The temple's battle-mistress was a tiny woman, slender as a wand, with narrow features and highly arched eyebrows. Her voice was high-pitched, almost squeaky-like a child's. Her muscles, however, were whipcord strong, and her skill at arms was renowned. She had been entrusted with the Promenade's defenses and carried one of its cherished relics: one of the singing swords Qilue's companions had carried into battle against Ghaunadaur's avatar. She carried it, always, in the scabbard on her back.
"Why did you summon me?" Qilue asked. "The answer to our mystery seems straightforward enough. A carrion crawler consumed the novice and deposited her remains here."
"That's what the patrol that discovered this thought," Iljrene said, "until they sang a divination. When they saw what else was here, they didn't want to touch it. Try it yourself, and you'll see."
Qilue sang a brief prayer, passing her hand palm-down above the mangled bits of chain mail. An aura appeared around an oval lump that was buried within the mass. It glowed with a flickering purple light that was shot through with a tracery of black lines.
A flick of her finger levitated the object to eye level. She rotated her finger, turning the object around. The lines of magical force shifted back and forth across the face of the purple aura, one moment forming patterns that looked like a spiderweb, the next shaping themselves into something reminiscent of a grossly simplified Dethek rune. The aura, too, kept flickering, shifting back and forth between a benign sky-blue and a dark, evil-tainted purple. Qilue cast a spell that would analyze the dweomer, but pluck as she might at the strands of the Weave, the music the obsidian produced was a cacophony of tangled notes. She could tell that the gem held some sort of conjuration spell, but something blocked her from learning more. It was almost as if the magical item were being held in the hand of a spellcaster whose will was resisting her, though clearly that was not the case.
Qilue let her divination spell end. The magical lines of force it had revealed vanished. The object once again appeared no more than a polished oval of black obsidian.
"I've never seen anything like it," Iljrene said.
"Nor have I," Qilue said, "though it's clearly a form of gem magic-and many thousands of years old, judging by the ancient form of that rune."
"What word is it?"
"That depends on whether it was scribed by dwarves or gnomes. It's read as thrawen, but it could mean either 'throw' or 'twist.'"
Iljrene repeated the words softly. "Do you think it's some sort of trap?"
Qilue slowly shook her head. "I don't think so, or it would have gone off by now, unless it's triggered by touch." Gently, she levitated the stone back to the ground. Then she bent and studied the spot it had risen from, a hollow within the scraps of chain mail. "Has this been shifted?"
"No, Lady."
Qilue pointed. "You see that scrap on the spot where the stone was resting? It looks like a fragment of leather. I'll warrant Thaleste was carrying the stone in her pouch when she died. If so, she probably touched it-without setting off any trap." She straightened. "The question now is, where did the novice pick this up? Her body must have been inside the carrion crawler for some time. She could have found the gem anywhere."
That said, she pulled a soft leather pouch out of one of her pockets and laid it on the ground next to the stone. She nudged the stone into it with a flick of her dagger then drew the strings of the magical pouch shut.
"This isn't far from the spot where the aranea was killed," Iljrene observed. "Do you think the gem might be connected with the Selvetargtlin?"
"That's what I'm hoping Horaldin can tell us."
Eyes closed, the druid Horaldin held his hands over the stone Qilue had just tipped from her pouch. It lay on his workbench, a thick slab of clearstone that had been balanced on the tops of two enormous petrified mushrooms. Living mushrooms sprouted from the walls and ceiling of his quarters. The druid had somehow coaxed them to grow on solid stone.
Horaldin himself was pale as a mushroom, his moon elf skin practically glowing white. His blue-black hair was as tangled as lichen and hung to his waist. One of his slender-fingered hands moved stiffly. The priestesses had healed the mangled ruin the slavers had left it in, but the druid favored it still. Ever since his rescue from Skullport, he'd lived in the Promenade among the faithful. He worshiped the Leaflord still, but served Eilistraee equally faithfully.
After a moment, his eyes sprang open. "Your priestess did indeed touch the gem," he said. "She picked it up from a flat expanse of stone-a floor, by the sound of it, but I can't tell you where, exactly." He spoke softly, barely above a whisper-a habit formed over more than a century of living alone in the woods. "Not too long before the priestess touched it, the stone was handled by a spider-shifter. Before that, a drow with a 'leg' growing from the back of his head-I think the stone means a braid of hair-and a 'shining chest.' A polished breastplate, perhaps."
"A Selvetargtlin?" Qilue asked. Followers of the Spider Queen's champion were known for their single braids.
"Perhaps. The stone makes no such distinctions. Before the drow with the braid handled it, the stone lay under the belly of a large, winged, black creature for what sounds like many centuries. A dragon, I believe. One with a deep wound in its side that never healed. Long, long before that-several millennia, I'm guessing-the stone was shaped by small brown hands. The shaper had a gray beard, and pointed ears. That person smoothed the stone until it was round, and infused it with its magic. Before that, the stone was fractured from a larger piece of rock, quarried, and passed through many different hands before reaching the one who shaped it."
"Small brown hands and a beard," Qilue repeated. "A rock gnome?"
Horaldin inclined his head. "My guess also, Lady."
"What about the rune?" Qilue asked. "What spell does it trigger?"
Horaldin shrugged, spreading his hands. "That, I cannot tell you. The stone itself does not know what magic it contains, but its magic was altered by someone, either the dragon or the drow with the braid, perhaps by both. The stone is uncertain on that point. The threads of magic that wind through the stone-the spiderweb pattern your detection revealed-are linked to the dark elves still. It's tainted by fell magic-either Selvetarm's or Lolth's."
Qilue took a sharp breath. Traces of silver fire danced in her hair.
"Will you destroy it, Lady?" the druid asked.
Qilue considered the question. If she negated the stone's magic, she might never learn the answer to the riddle it posed. The aranea had obviously carried the gemstone into the caverns claimed by the Promenade and hidden it there, only for Thaleste, praise Eilistraee, to stumble upon it.
"I won't be destroying it quite yet," Qilue answered at last. "Not until I've learned what it does."
She levitated the stone back inside her pouch, thankful that whatever fell plans the aranea had been trying to carry out had been thwarted. Whatever the oval of black obsidian was, it could get up to no mischief while inside the magical bag's extradimensional space.
Buoyed by her magical boots, Cavatina floated through the rotting branches, trying to keep an eye both on the murky water below and the trees around her. She'd been fourteen days and nights on the hunt. The moon above had dwindled to a thin sliver, and the twinkling points of light that followed it through the sky were dim as guttering candles. The creature she'd been chasing had left Cormanthor and veered south into the flooded forest. The dead trees that stood in the swamp were fragile with rot, and their branches more often than not broke off in Cavatina's hands as she pulled herself along. Like the creature she hunted, Cavatina left an obvious trail, a path of dangling and broken branches and torn moss.
Yet another branch broke as Cavatina grabbed it, sending her spinning off in a direction she hadn't intended. She twisted, kicking off a tree trunk. The tree gave slightly then groaned to the side, picking up momentum as it tilted. As it fell, it snapped branches off the trees around it with loud cracks then crashed into the swamp below with a tremendous splash. Stinking water flew into the air, splattering Cavatina's armor and clothes.
Cavatina cursed. She couldn't have revealed her location better if she'd tried.
She hung motionless, waiting to see if the creature would double back after hearing the noise. It didn't, but something moved in the swamp below. A shape rose from the water beside the fallen tree. It looked like a mound of rotting vegetation, but it had whiplike "arms" that were twisted bundles of vines and "legs" that were gnarled and blackened roots. It waded away from the felled tree, its humped body twisting this way and that as if it were searching for something. After a few paces, it sank back into the swamp. When the ripples stilled, the only sign of it was a low mound and the vines that made up its arms, untwisted and spreading out over the water's surface like a net.
Cavatina was doubly glad for her magical boots. If she'd waded into the swamp, she would have had to battle her way past those plant-things. That was obviously what the creature she was hunting had intended.
Grabbing another branch, she pulled herself onward, ignoring the mosquitoes that swarmed around her face and arms. She needed both hands to move through the treetops, which meant that the singing sword was sheathed at her hip. Her holy symbol hung from a chain on her belt beside it, ready for spellcasting.
She passed a tree whose trunk was dotted with bright yellow mushrooms. A cloud of spores drifted down from several that had burst after being disturbed. The creature was just ahead.
Cavatina drew her sword and let herself drift to a halt. A fetid breeze stirred the moss that hung from the trees nearby. Through that tattered veil, she could see a faint green glow. It seemed to be coming from a spot on the surface of the swamp.
She whispered a prayer that would protect her from those with evil intent and added a second spell that would enable her to see through magical darkness and other illusions. Then she pulled the stopper out of her iron flask and let it hang from its chain. Sword in hand, she eased her way forward through the branches.
The greenish glow came from a stone platform that lay just under the surface of the water. Ripples spread away from a spot near the center of the platform, as if something had just disturbed the water there. Muck bobbed on the ripples, dappling the glow. The platform was perhaps twenty paces long, an oval whose edges were ringed with broken columns that jutted out of the water like rotten teeth. Steps, also glowing, curved to follow the contours of the platform, leading down from it on all sides into the murk.
All of this Cavatina took in at a glance. The platform created a gap in the flooded forest, a clear space devoid of trees-and devoid of the creature Cavatina hunted.
"Creature!" she shouted. "Show yourself!"
Mocking laughter drifted out of the dead trees on the other side of the clearing.
The creature was too far away for her to hurl a spell at it. Cavatina needed to flush it out of hiding. She pushed off from a tree and floated into the clearing, sword in hand, deliberately making herself a target.
The attack came swiftly. Darkness blossomed around her, momentarily cutting off the green glow below and the faint light from the sliver of moon above. A heartbeat later, the spell Cavatina had cast asserted itself and she could see again. Just in time, she swung her sword at the creature that hurtled toward her trailing a strand of web. The air filled with song as the weapon swept down.
The creature twisted in mid-leap, faster almost than the eye could follow. The sword struck it, but only a glancing blow against what felt like solid stone. The blow levered Cavatina in one direction, the creature in another. As they sailed away from each other to either side of the magical darkness, Cavatina got her first good look at the thing.
The creature was enormous, just as the House Jaelre male who had survived its attack had said, probably twice Cavatina's height. It looked like a powerfully muscled drow female, but with a hairy bulge emerging from each cheek, just under the eye, and eight legs the diameter of broomsticks jutting from its ribs. It was unclothed, with matted white hair whose ends seemed to stick to its shoulders and back.
"Quarthz'ress!" Cavatina shouted.
The iron flask began to glow. Bright silver light lanced across the magical darkness, striking the creature, but instead of impaling it and drawing it into the flask, the magical beam ricocheted off its glossy black skin like a ray of light glancing off a mirror.
That was it then. The creature was definitely not demonic. The flask would have trapped it if it was, or-and this a more disturbing thought-it was some form of demon that was immune to the flask's magic.
The creature landed on a tree trunk at the edge of the clearing. It sprang back at Cavatina, arms held wide as if inviting attack. Cavatina summoned a curtain of whirling blades around herself, but the creature paid them no heed. It sailed through them, laughing maniacally as they struck its body. Most glanced off with sounds like metal hitting stone, but a few slashed deep furrows in the creature's flesh. Then the creature was through the barrier, dripping blood-still very much alive.
It caught Cavatina by the leg and shouted something in harsh, grating words that she didn't recognize, spinning itself past her like a partner in a macabre dance. Cavatina felt a wrench, deep inside her body, as if an invisible hand had reached inside and squeezed her vitals. Intense pain nearly made her black out. Then red light flashed under her chain mail shirt, and the sensation was gone. She felt something as gritty as coarse crumbs of salt against her chest-the red periapt, crumbling, its magic overwhelmed.
She felt a tug on her foot-the creature, yanking off one of her boots. Then the creature sailed out through the barrier of blades, which once again slashed brutally into its body.
Cavatina fell.
The murky water did little to cushion her landing. She crashed down onto the submerged stone platform, scraping the skin of her knees and arms. She scrambled upright, the singing sword still in hand, and braced herself as best she could on the slippery stone. It felt as though she were standing on a thick layer of slime.
The creature crashed into a tree. Dropping Cavatina's boot, it clung to the branches and stared malevolently down at her. The blade barrier had wounded it, carving deep gouges in its stone-hard hide. Blood flowed down its body and dripped from its bare feet into the swamp below.
"Had enough?" Cavatina taunted, her sword held ready.
The creature held out a hand that had been sliced by the blades. Two fingers dangled from it by flaps of skin, dribbling blood. "Why do you hurt me?" it asked in a mournful voice. "I am one of you."
"You're no drow," Cavatina shot back, "and if you once were, you aren't any longer."
Out of the corner of her eye, Cavatina saw a mound of rotting vegetation begin to rise from the swamp: another of the monstrosities she'd spotted earlier. Invoking Eilistraee's name, she hurled a blast of bitter cold at the spot where it lurked, instantly freezing the water around it and holding it in place. A second blast she directed at the plant-creature itself. The water inside its body, frozen, expanding with a force sufficient to split it apart.
All the while, a portion of Cavatina's attention remained focused on the creature she'd been hunting. Its wounds were regenerating even as she watched. This would be a tough fight.
"I was drow," the creature continued, flexing its newly repaired fingers. "Now I am the Lady Penitent."
The title meant nothing to Cavatina. "What is it you do penance for?" she asked.
The creature watched as its fingers healed. When they were whole again, it flexed them then lowered its hand. "Everything," it said, "but most of all, my weakness."
"What weakness is that?"
The creature said nothing.
"Come down from the branches," Cavatina suggested. "Let's finish this."
The creature shook its head.
Cavatina knew what the creature was doing: stalling.
Already, Cavatina could feel the effects of the glowing platform. Her legs had started to tremble, and her very bones felt wobbly. The glowing stone's fell magic was affecting her. Even looking at the platform out of the corner of her eye made her feel slightly nauseous. Stepping off it, however, would mean floundering about in deep water that probably concealed more of those rot-creatures. She might be able to drive the monster who gloated down at her away with a spell, giving her time to recover her boot, but Qilue had ordered her to learn as much as she could about it, and a Darksong Knight followed orders. Cavatina whispered a restorative spell. Divine magic flooded into her, negating the effects of the glow.
The creature must have caught the quick look Cavatina had given the glowing green stone and heard her whispered prayer.
"That's right," it taunted. "It's made of sickstone. Appropriate, don't you think, for a temple to Moander?"
Cavatina knew the name well, despite the god's relative obscurity. Moander had been a deity of corruption and decay, a god who had been slain, not very many years ago, by a mere mortal-a bard named Finder. For whatever perverse reasons, Lolth had adopted Moander's name as one of her aliases, possibly to claim his human worshipers.
"Is that why you led me here?" Cavatina asked. "Is this spot now sacred to your goddess?"
"Which goddess is that?" the creature asked. It flicked a hand, sending a spray of tiny spiders into the air. "The Dark Mother, or…" she touched forefinger to forefinger and thumb to thumb to form a circle, "her daughter?" Webs flowed from her fingers like pulled taffy as she pulled her hands apart, laughing.
Cavatina's anger rose inside her like a banked fire. "You dare," she whispered.
She hurled her sword, snapping out a prayer as it flew through the air. Her aim was true. Guided by the goddess's magic, the singing sword plunged into the creature's chest, burying itself nearly hilt-deep. The creature let out a shriek and flailed its spider legs as Cavatina moved her hand through the air, yanking out the sword and preparing for a second thrust.
The creature glared down at Cavatina. "You can't kill me!" it raged. "Nothing can kill me. She keeps…" It coughed, doubling over, "sending…" another cough, one with bloody spittle, "me back."
That said, it sprang from its treetop perch with a leap that sent the dead tree crashing over backward. Cavatina tried to send her sword after it, but the creature was too fast. It scrambled away through the treetops and disappeared from sight.
Cavatina called her sword back into her hand and cast a second restorative spell upon herself. The sickstone on which she stood had once again sapped her strength. Then she waded to the spot where her boot floated. The water rose to her chest before she reached it, and she had an awkward moment of balancing on one foot in the muck while trying to pull the boot on. Foul-smelling water soaked her clothes and slimed her skin. When she at last levitated out of it, the stench clung to her clothing and armor. She cocked each leg, letting the water drain from her boots. Then she set off in pursuit of the creature.
She wouldn't make the same mistake twice-she'd make sure she kept her feet well away from its grasping hands.
The creature was easy to follow. Once again there was a clear trail of broken branches. That trail, however, led in a big circle, back to the ruined temple.
Cavatina kept well out of range of the sickly green glow. To her surprise, the creature did not. It stood on the submerged platform, still hunched over from the wound the singing sword had dealt it-a wound that should have been mortal, but which had already sealed itself shut, leaving only a faint gray scar behind. The creature moved about, as if restless. As Cavatina drew closer, she saw that its movements had a pattern.
"By all that's holy," Cavatina whispered. "It's dancing."
The creature spun and splashed, arms raised above its head, spider legs drumming against its chest in time with the dance. Once again, it blasphemed Eilistraee. Its drow hands formed the goddess's sacred circle above its head. Its eyes were closed, and it seemed oblivious to Cavatina's presence. A harsh song came from its lips. Several words were missing, others were roughly abbreviated, as if choked off in mid-syllable. The melody was subtly wrong, like a chord with one note a half-tone off, but even so, Cavatina recognized it.
Eilistraee's sacred Evensong.
Cavatina was outraged. "What are you doing?" she shouted.
The creature slowed. Lowered its hands. "Isn't it obvious?"
"You profane our holy song."
"I sing it as I learned it."
Cavatina blinked. "But you're not… You can't be one of Eilistraee's worshipers."
"I was."
Cavatina gripped her sword so hard her hand hurt. Mute with horror, she shook her head.
"Oh, yes," the creature said, its face lit from below by the sickly green glow. "I once danced in the sacred grove. I rose from the Cave of Rebirth, sang the song, and took up the sword."
Cavatina felt numb with shock. "You… were one of the Redeemed? A priestess?"
The creature nodded.
"But… but how…"
"I was weak. Lolth punished me. I was… transformed."
Cavatina allowed herself to drift a little lower, but she was careful not to get too close to the sickstone. The glow must have been affecting the creature. Its legs were visibly trembling, sending tiny ripples through the filthy water.
"And now you want to be a drow again?" Cavatina guessed.
The creature gave a bitter laugh. "If only it were that simple."
Cavatina lowered her sword-but only slightly. "Sing with me," she said. "Pray for Eilistraee's aid."
"I can't. Every time I try, my throat fills with spiders and I choke."
"A curse," Cavatina whispered. Part of her wondered if that wasn't a ruse to draw her closer, but the teachings of Eilistraee were clear. Mercy had to be extended to those who pleaded for it, and the creature, in its own unique way, was all but begging. Cavatina reluctantly extended her hand. "Curses can be removed. Let me-"
The creature reared back, water sloshing around its ankles. "Weren't you listening?" it howled. "This isn't just a curse, I've been permanently transformed. Nothing-nothing! — can redeem me now."
Cavatina's breath caught in her throat. Her eyes suddenly stung. She could feel the cursed priestess's anguish as if it were her own. She suddenly understood why the creature had left a trail for her to follow, why it hadn't simply fled. She wanted Cavatina to end its misery, and-Cavatina stared at the spot where the singing sword had pierced its chest, a spot where not even a scar remained-Cavatina had failed her.
As if hearing her thoughts, the creature looked up. "You're powerful," she said. "I can sense that about you. I thought you might have a spell that could end this, but you're as much of a disappointment as Eilistraee was."
"Don't say that," Cavatina gasped, shocked.
The creature laughed. "Why should I stay my tongue?" it mocked. "Will Eilistraee punish me? She's already punished me enough for my failure. She's abandoned me."
"No, she hasn't," Cavatina said fiercely. "As long as you hold her song in your heart, Eilistraee is with you still."
"No, she isn't," the creature spat back. "Once I was her champion. Now I'm her greatest disappointment. She abandoned me-and Lolth claimed me."
Cavatina stared down at the creature. The face was vaguely familiar, despite its elongated shape and bestial spider fangs. She tried to imagine the creature with hair that wasn't sticky and matted, with a body the size and proportion of a normal drow. It proved impossible.
"Who are you?"
"Isn't it obvious?" The creature gestured at the glowing green platform on which it stood. "I, too, once tried to kill a god, but unlike the bard who destroyed Moander, I failed."
Cavatina's eyes widened. "You're…"
"I was Halisstra Melarn."
Cavatina reeled. "But you were killed! At the very gates of the Demonweb Pits. Qilue saw it in her scrying."
Halisstra shrugged.
Questions tumbled from Cavatina's lips. "How did you survive? Where have you been? What happened?"
"I told you, Lolth punished me."
"But surely…" Cavatina paused. Shook her head. "It must have been Eilistraee who restored life to you after you were struck down. Why didn't you call upon Eilistraee's aid?"
Another shrug. "By then, I'd already lost my faith."
"You can still be redeemed," Cavatina insisted. "If you just-"
Halisstra gave a bitter laugh. "That's what Seyll said, and look where she wound up."
Cavatina felt a shiver pass through her. "What are you talking about?"
Halisstra stared up at her with eyes hollow as an empty pit. "Seyll sacrificed herself-she let her soul be consigned to oblivion. And for what?" Halisstra's eyes suddenly blazed. "Nothing! I failed."
Cavatina spoke softly, as to an injured child. "They asked too much of you. You were a novice priestess, and they asked you to slay a god."
Halisstra shuddered. Weakened by the sickstone, she sank to her knees on the glowing platform. Water rippled across its sickly green glow.
Cavatina extended her hand. "Come away from there. You've suffered enough."
Halisstra gave a heavy sigh. "I tried to serve Eilistraee. Even after I knew I'd failed her-after Lolth had her way with me and cast me aside-I tried to redeem myself. The Crescent Blade was broken, but I picked up the pieces and carried them to the temple that Feliane, Uluyara, and I had consecrated when we first entered the Demonweb Pits and laid them down inside it and watched as the sword mended itself together and-"
"What?" Cavatina shook her head. Halisstra was telling her too much, too fast. "Are you saying you created a temple sacred to Eilistraee within the Demonweb Pits?"
Halisstra nodded. There was a light in her eye.
"And that the Crescent Blade-a weapon capable of killing Lolth-still exists?" Cavatina asked.
Halisstra gave a trembling nod. Then a sly smile. "And it's somewhere that Lolth can't touch it. The temple we created is still standing, and the Crescent Blade is inside it."
Cavatina let out a long breath. She held up a hand. "Just a moment." She spoke Qilue's name, and an instant later felt the high priestess link minds with her. In a low whisper, Cavatina sent a message back to the Promenade.
"I found the creature. It's Halisstra Melarn, her body corrupted by Lolth. She said much that you should hear."
The reply was a moment in coming. Take her to the shrine in the Velarswood. Wait for me there.
Cavatina nodded. Qilue had sounded worried about something. Distracted. Cavatina wondered what new threat had arisen since she'd left the Promenade.
She extended a hand to the creature that had once been a priestess like herself. "Come," she told Halisstra. "Your chance for redemption may be at hand."
Szorak crept through the darkened forest, muttering to himself behind his mask. He didn't much care for the Lethyr, even though the thick canopy of intertwined branches above screened the moon's harsh light. Despite the magical ring that had turned his skin and clothing the exact color of the shadows he passed through and the boots that enabled him to move in utter silence, stilling even the crack of a dead branch underfoot, he still felt as if he was being watched.
Which he was. The very trees were alive. They whispered the whereabouts of all who entered the forest to its guardians.
Fortunately, his mission that dark night had nothing to do with either trees or druids. It wasn't a druid's soul Szorak was after, but that of a priestess.
As he drew closer to Eilistraee's shrine, the spell he'd cast a few moments before picked up the first of the wards: a dim glow coming from underneath a pile of dead leaves, several paces ahead. Szorak pulled out a rod of black iron and held it at the ready. Then he walked forward. As the ward was triggered, sparkles of frost-white light erupted on his skin, causing him to gasp from their cold. The wand, however, drew the bitter cold down into itself, and after a heartbeat, it was gone.
"Is that the best you can do, ladies?" Szorak muttered. "I expected something a little more lethal."
He continued forward, the rod held loosely in his hand. The pile of leaves exploded as a sword flew out of it. Szorak was barely able to bring his rod up in time. He smashed it against the sword in a desperate parry. Black iron met shining steel with a loud clank, and there was a silent explosion of magical energy. The sword tumbled to the ground, inert.
Szorak took a deep breath. He stared down at the two glyphs engraved in the blade. Both incorporated the word ogglin. Enemy. Even a magical disguise wouldn't have fooled them, and Szorak hadn't expected a two-glyph ward. Had he not parried the sword, he might have already been dead.
He chuckled. "That's almost worthy of Vhaeraun, ladies, except that our sword thrust would have come from behind."
His detection magic revealed other wards to the right and left. The sword must be one of several placed in a ring around the shrine's perimeter, but that ring had been broken.
Szorak stepped across the neutralized sword. Then he activated the secondary power of his ring, disguising himself. Though he could still feel the soft velvet of his mask against his cheeks and chin, to an observer his face would appear bare, his cheeks smooth and feminine. He would seem taller than he really was, his body more shapely, and his black cloak, shirt, and trousers would instead look like chain mail, covered by a breastplate bearing Eilistraee's moon and sword. The rod in his hand would appear to be a sword. Anyone touching him would instantly perceive that all was not as it seemed, but he fully intended that whoever got close enough for that wouldn't live for more than a heartbeat.
He walked on through the darkened woods. Up ahead, he could hear women singing and see shapes moving through the trees-Eilistraee's faithful, worshiping at their shrine. He veered away from that spot, looking instead for the place where the priestesses made their home. On a hunch, he whispered a prayer that would lead him to the nearest cave.
The cave turned out to be a slit in the hillside, screened by the flow of a stream that tumbled from above. The entrance, however, was protected by magic. Even from a distance, Szorak could feel its power. It produced a high, shrill note that grew in intensity the nearer he got to the cave. Try as he might, he could not get close enough to cancel it with his rod. Forcing himself in that direction made his ears pound until he thought they were going to burst.
He backed away, muttering dark curses. He would have to steal a soul from one of the dancers, instead. "A challenge, Masked Lord?" he muttered. His eyes gleamed. "I accept." He made his way back through the woods.
The shrine turned out to be a natural pillar of black rock, twice the height of a drow, carved with crescent moons. A sword hilt protruded from the top of it. The pillar had been bored through with holes, and the breeze passing through them created a sound like several flutes playing at once. The priestesses danced around the pillar in a loose circle, naked save for the belts that held their hunting horns and the holy symbols that hung around their necks. Each female had a sword which she held at arm's length as she twirled. Blade clashed against blade as the women spun together, then apart again, their swords trailing sparkles of silver light.
The dance might have been beautiful, had it not been a violation of the sacred order. Had Eilistraee not interfered, Vhaeraun might have united all of the dark elves under a single deity millennia ago, but Eilistraee had proved as greedy as Lolth and had stolen the females away from the Masked Lord's worship. She'd taught them to exclude males from her circle, to subjugate and revile them instead.
Vhaeraun's followers had learned a bitter lesson. Females could not be trusted.
Szorak watched long enough to determine that priestesses were joining and leaving the dance at what seemed to be random intervals. Though they danced in a group, there was no discernible pattern to their collective movements. Each female seemed to be following her own path. Satisfied, he altered his magical disguise, giving clothing the appearance of bare flesh. Then, holding his disguised rod like a sword, he danced into their midst.
The women, fooled by his disguise, made room for him. He kept to the fringes, both unwilling and unable to approach the holy pillar. It, like the cave where the women lived, was warded with magic that clenched his belly and made him feel as though he were about to vomit, but the rod in his hand dampened it enough to make it bearable. The excitement he felt at having penetrated their holy dance gave him a sharp thrill. Blood pounded through his body as he danced, leaving him flushed.
Spinning close to one of the dancing priestesses, he moved his rod like a sword. She, in turn, clanked her blade against it. The force of the blow numbed his fingers, but his rod, being metal, gave a convincing clang, meanwhile draining the sword of its magic. Quickly, he whispered a prayer.
Before the woman could spin away, he leaned in close to her ear and whispered a harsh command: "Follow."
It was a gamble. If the spell failed, he would have just given himself away as a male, since his voice remained undisguised, but the dice seemed to have rolled in his favor. There was no commotion behind him as he spun out of the dance and strode away into the forest. The priestess he had singled out followed wordlessly, meek as a rothe culled from the herd.
When they were some distance from the dance, he turned to face her. He was glad to see that she was drow and not one of those surface elves who stained their skin black. Killing one of those would be so much less satisfying.
She was still panting from the dance, her breasts rising and falling, her long white hair damp with sweat. She frowned slightly, a hint of confusion in her eyes as she stared at Szorak. Her sword hung loose in her hand.
"What do you want? Why have we left the dance?"
Szorak beckoned to her, leaning forward as if to whisper a confidence in her ear. He had to stand on tiptoe to do it; like most females, she was taller than he.
She leaned closer.
He touched her cheek, whispering the word that would trigger his spell. Dark magic leaped from his fingertips. As her body convulsed, he pressed his lips against hers, sucking her soul into his mask.
But the soultheft spell didn't work. Instead of being slain by his magic, the priestess still lived. She smashed a hand against his chest, shoving him backward. Then she swept her sword through the air in a slash that should have decapitated him, but Szorak's spell had done at least some damage. The priestess staggered as she swung her weapon, and he was able to duck just in time to avoid the blade. Muttering a curse, he sprang inside the arc of her next swing, shaking a weighted strangle cord out of his sleeve. He whipped it around her neck, twisting around behind her and catching it in his other hand. Then he leaped onto her back, wrapping his legs around her waist and levering his upper torso backwards to tighten the cord.
The strangle cord bit into the priestess's neck, preventing her from crying out or casting any spell that required prayer, but she was no fool. She hurled herself backward, smashing Szorak into a tree. The back of his head cracked against rough bark and he lost his grip on one end of the strangle cord. As the priestess wrenched herself away from him, he scrambled to his feet, yanking a poisoned dagger out of a wrist sheath. As he readied it for a throw, the priestess tried to call out, but her voice was still a half-strangled whisper from the cord that had scored a line across her throat. She started to reach for the hunting horn at her belt.
Before she could wrench it free, Szorak threw. His dagger buried itself in her throat. The venom that coated it finished the job his strangle cord had begun. The priestess stiffened, her sword trembling in her hands and her eyes rolling back in her head.
Szorak caught her as she fell. Once more, he pressed his mouth against hers and inhaled-and his mask drank in her soul. He pressed his body against hers, savoring the moment. Even through his clothes, her bare skin felt hot, slippery with sweat from their struggle and slick with blood from the wound in her throat. Fully aroused, Szorak fumbled with his trousers. He would take her, he decided fiercely. Just as the priestesses of Menzoberranzan had taken him, so many times when he was just a boy, to satisfy their dark and disgusting needs. Leering behind his mask, he savored the thrill of what he was about to do, mere steps away from Eilistraee's sacred grove. While the song of her oblivious faithful wafted through the trees, he would-
Something slid into his back, penetrating cloth and flesh, something cold and sharp. A sword blade. As pain rushed into the void it had pierced in his body, Szorak twisted his head, a shocked expression on his face. A priestess of Eilistraee loomed above him, her face obscured by the moonlight that haloed her hair in a fierce white blaze. For a moment, he thought he recognized her.
"Seyll?" he gasped.
If it was Seyll, she made no reply. Placing a foot on his back, the priestess yanked the sword free. The blood that coated it-Szorak's own blood-dribbled from its point into his blinking eyes.
Eilistraee, spitting in his face.
Then blackness claimed him.