by Lisa Smedman
“But she’s not,” Wendonai said. “You and I both know it. Remember, I can hear your thoughts. A moment ago, you hoped to reach your holy symbol. Just before that, you fantasized about spitting Halisstra with your sword. You would strangle her with your own two hands and commit her soul to the Abyss forever—if only she could be killed.”
Halisstra, still cringing behind the demon, whimpered.
Cavatina said nothing. It was true. In its essence, if not in the exact details.
“Yes,” the demon hissed through a jagged row of fangs. “It is, isn’t it? There’s a dark side to you, Cavatina, lurking just below the surface. One you work hard to suppress. A hardness. An inflexibility, born of pride.”
Cavatina said nothing. She had every reason to be proud. Except, she thought ruefully, at this moment.
The demon leaned closer. “You cleave to the rules of your faith, but it’s difficult for you, at times. Your temper sometimes … slips out. You enjoy the hunt, the kill. A little too much.”
“I do as Eilistraee bids.”
“Yes, but I can sense something that underlies this. The thing that drove you into demon hunting in the first place. An anger.” The demon cocked his head. “Born of jealousy, perhaps? What could you, a Darksong Knight—the oh-so-proud slayer of Selvetarm—possibly be jealous of?”
Cavatina said nothing. She focused on her hatred of demons, of this demon in particular. She pushed everything else out of her mind. Shoved it into a dark corner, where Wendonai couldn’t possibly find it.
“Oh, is that it?” Wendonai exclaimed, the mock surprise out of place on his bestial, leering face. “All this … just because you weren’t redeemed?”
Behind him, Halisstra sat up. She leaned forward expectantly, staring at Cavatina.
“I am a priestess of Eilistraee,” Cavatina said slowly. “I took the sword oath, just like any other priestess—”
“Not just like them,” Wendonai said smoothly. “They were redeemed. You … merely took the oath.”
Cavatina bristled. The demon was playing with her, yanking out her deepest fears and tossing them at her feet. She didn’t have to take this. “I had no other patron deity before taking up Eilistraee’s sword. I was born into the faith. Unlike the others, I didn’t need to be redeemed. I had nothing to atone for.”
“Luckily for you,” Wendonai purred. “For, unlike the other priestesses, you could never, ever, have been redeemed.” He leaned closer, the wound in his abdomen dribbling blood. “And do you know why?”
Cavatina said nothing.
“You’re different from the other priestesses—in a way that’s much more fundamental than where you were born and what deities they were taught to praise before they turned to Eilistraee’s faith.” He sniffed. “I can smell it on you.”
Behind him, Halisstra’s eyes widened.
Cavatina could see that what the demon had just said meant something to Halisstra. But Cavatina couldn’t allow herself to become distracted by that. Not just then.
She glared up at Wendonai. “Your tricks won’t work on me, demon.”
“Tricks?” He chuckled, puffing the stench of sulfur into her face. “No trick, this. You …” he took a long, slow sniff of her body, moving his blunted muzzle from ankles to neck, lingering here and there, “… bear my taint.”
Cavatina laughed. “Of course I do.” She lifted a shoulder and used it to rub at the smear of tar Wendonai had left on her face earlier, with his tongue. “But a little holy water will take care of that.”
“Very amusing,” the demon replied. “But that wasn’t what I was referring to.” He rocked back on his heels. A fresh gout of blood slurped from his wound, and the bulging entrails shifted. With grimy fingers, he prodded them back inside the wound. Absently, as if it were a mere inconvenience. “How familiar are you with the history of your race?”
That took Cavatina by surprise. “What are you talking about?”
“The dark elves. Do you know how it was that they became dhaerow?”
He’d used the old word for it. The one that meant “traitor” in the language of the surface elves.
“You mean the Descent?”
Wendonai nodded.
“High magic, worked by the mages and clerics of the elves of Keltormir, Aryvandaar, and other elven enclaves, against the dark elves of ancient Ilythiir and their allies.”
“Yes, but why?”
Cavatina knew her history well. She’d taught it to novices many times when explaining why the drow were meant to return to the surface realms. “It was in retaliation for the destruction of Shantel Othreier—which the Ilythiiri attacked only because the empire had laid waste to Miyeritar. The Dark Disaster was brutal, and it had to be answered in kind.”
Wendonai’s eyes gleamed. “Spoken like a true drow!” he exclaimed. “But there is a portion of the story you don’t know, the reason Corellon Larethian consented to driving the dark elves below. The Ilythiiri, you see, were becoming a little too powerful. They had a divine ally. Lolth.”
Cavatina snorted. “The Ilythiiri’s worship of the Spider Queen is well documented, demon. Tell me something I don’t already know.”
Wendonai gave her a sly smile. “I was hoping you’d ask me to do that. Let me tell you this, then, priestess. Did you know who Lolth sent among the Ilythiiri to corrupt them?”
Cavatina didn’t, but she could guess.
“You are correct. Me. Slowly, over millennia, both before and after the Descent, I had my way with the Ilythiiri. It was …” he ran a black, sore-crusted tongue over his lips. “… delicious. And with each succeeding generation, with each new squalling dhaerow babe born in the thirteen millennia between then and now, my taint spread.”
Cavatina could see where the demon was headed. Wendonai was trying to convince her that she bore his taint, that it was the source of all of her faults. But it wasn’t. The odd angry outburst and a little—inflexibility, as he’d called it—didn’t add up to demonic taint.
“Oh, doesn’t it?” Wendonai said. “In your case, unfortunately for you, it does. I can smell it on you, remember?”
Halisstra had been listening intently the whole time, and as if she’d forgotten whom she was addressing, she said. “But you couldn’t smell it on me.”
“No,” Wendonai said flatly over his shoulder. “I couldn’t. You’re Miyeritari. Not a drop of Ilythiiri blood in you. Do you know what that makes you?”
Hope flickered tentatively to life in Halisstra’s eyes. Wendonai crushed it with a word: “Weak.”
He laughed—great, gobbling fits of mirth. Halisstra visibly crumpled under the onslaught.
Cavatina, for her part, had to agree with the demon. Halisstra was weak. If she hadn’t—
“Yes,” Wendonai breathed, his attention suddenly riveted on Cavatina. “That’s right. If she hadn’t been so weak, it wouldn’t have come to … this.” He plucked at the bonds around her wrists, lifting her hands slightly, then letting them fall. “But you’re not weak, Cavatina. You’re strong. Demonic blood flows in your veins. Embrace it.”
Cavatina shook her head, refusing to believe. The demon was lying. Twisting things around and trying to trick her.
“Eilistraee,” she whispered. “Help me to see the light.”
Wendonai shook his massive, horned head. “You just don’t give up, do you?” He feigned a sigh. “But think about this. Why is it that only some dhaerow can be redeemed? You’ve seen as much, with your own two eyes.”
He paused, and Cavatina could feel filthy mental fingers sifting through her mind. She tried to shove them out, but couldn’t.
“That Nightshadow in Cormanthor, for example,” Wendonai continued. “The one Halisstra cocooned in her web. You offered him a chance at redemption, and he just wouldn’t take it.”
No, he wouldn’t, Cavatina thought. And no matter what you say, I won’t apologize for sending him to his god.
“And there’s the irony,” Wendonai continued as if she’d spoken a
loud. “Had you let him live, the pair of you might have been worshiping side by side today.” He tapped a claw against his chin, as if thinking. “Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps that male was a descendant of the Ilythiiri, after all. That would explain his reluctance to convert. My taint has spread far and wide, after all. There were so few Miyeritari, after the Dark Disaster, and so very many Ilythiiri.” He smiled. “Which explains all of the difficulties Eilistraee has faced in acquiring converts, these past few millennia. Why so few petitioners have come forward, despite the long and tireless efforts of her priestesses. It’s so hard, these days, to find someone who can truly repent. To find a dhaerow who doesn’t bear my taint.”
“Lies,” Cavatina gritted.
“Are they?” Wendonai breathed. “Look deep into your own soul, Cavatina. Can you honestly say you are without malice, without anger? Where does your unquenchable thirst for vengeance come from? You sublimate it by hunting demons. But if there were no demons to slay, would you turn your anger on your fellow drow? Can you truthfully say you haven’t done so already? That fellow in the forest of Cormanthor, for one. The other Nightshadows—the ones who are now part of the faith. You hate them because they’ve truly embraced Eilistraee. Because they’re something you can never be. Redeemed. Pure. Without taint.”
Cavatina squeezed her fists so tight that fingernails dug into her palms. Her body was knotted tighter than the whip ends that bound her. It isn’t true, she thought. None of it. She was a priestess of Eilistraee. A Darksong Knight. As good, as loyal, as pure as any one of them.
“Then why,” Wendonai breathed into her ear, “has your goddess turned her face from you? Where is the miracle you were just praying for?”
Cavatina squeezed her eyes shut to hold back the tears. A miracle would come. It had to. Eilistraee would answer. Yet a tiny voice, deep within, whimpered that she wouldn’t. That Wendonai was right. That a seed of taint lay deep in Cavatina’s core, waiting to spread its tendrils through her like a weed. She’d succumbed to it, that time in the Darkwatch, when she’d hacked the dog to pieces. She’d shoved the evil back, forced it back into dormancy, but it lingered there still. Waiting to sprout up anew. And because of it, Eilistraee had abandoned her, just as she’d abandoned Halisstra. For all Cavatina’s attempts to conform to the tenets of her faith, she would never be worthy of Eilistraee.
“That’s right,” the demon panted, his breath hot in her ear. “You can never be redeemed. Never.”
Tears squeezed from Cavatina’s closed eyes and trickled down her salt-encrusted cheeks. “I can never be—”
Suddenly, she realized the flaw in the demon’s logic. If descendants of the Miyeritari were free of demonic taint, they didn’t need to be redeemed. Yet redemption existed. The ritual had to have been created for a reason, and the ritual itself gave the answer. Redemption required the penitent to look deep into herself, to confront the evil that lay within her very soul. To pry that evil—that taint—out of the darkness that enshrouded it and expose it to Eilistraee’s merciful light and—
Yes, daughter. Yes!
Cavatina couldn’t have said, in that moment, if it was the single voice of Eilistraee herself speaking or a chorus of voices. Thousands of souls, speaking with one heart. Priestess and lay worshiper, female and male, Dark Maiden and …
Nightshadow.
Cavatina blinked. If a Nightshadow could be among the redeemed, why couldn’t she?
Yes, the voice said again.
Cavatina could hear the deeper tones that underlay the word. Bass, baritone, soprano, and alto, all blended into the single voice that was the Masked Lady.
Cavatina wept openly. Relief flooded her. She no longer feared Wendonai’s taunting, or any physical cruelties he might inflict. In that moment, nothing but one simple fact mattered.
“I am redeemed!” she cried.
The demon reared back, his eyes blazing with fury. Then he threw back his head and howled.
In that instant, Halisstra lunged.
Q’arlynd, Eldrinn, Daffir, and Gilkriz followed the priestesses along the abandoned mineshaft. Leliana had ordered one priestess to wait at the spot where Cavatina had last been seen. Q’arlynd was thankful she’d stopped insisting that he go. That left four priestesses under her command. Each took a turn at scouting, ranging ahead of the others and returning to report their findings to Leliana with quick, concise hand signals. Leliana replied with the briefest of gestures, constantly cautioning silence. Each faint grunt, scuff of a foot, or creak of a leather pack brought a warning glare. The Faerzress probably wasn’t helping. Its sparkling blue glow threw everyone into silhouette.
Gilkriz walked just ahead of Q’arlynd and Eldrinn; Daffir trailed behind. Every few hundred paces, the diviner paused to close his eyes. Whenever he did, he leaned on his staff, bending forward until the wood touched his forehead.
What’s he doing? Q’arlynd signed.
Eldrinn glanced ahead at Gilkriz, making sure the conjurer wasn’t “listening” in. Making sure we don’t encounter any surprises, I guess.
Q’arlynd nodded. He’d made discreet enquiries about the staff after returning the feebleminded Eldrinn to Sshamath. He knew everything a staff of divination could do. If there were secret passageways, concealed by magic or mundane means, Daffir would spot them. He’d also be able to see, even with those weak human eyes of his, anything that was invisible or otherwise hidden by magic.
Q’arlynd might have been using his crystal to do the same, had he not been drow. Have you noticed? he signed to Eldrinn. Daffir keeps looking up at the ceiling.
I noticed. Eldrinn clambered over a fallen beam and waited while Q’arlynd did the same. The boy nodded down at the rotten timber. Maybe he expects another of these to fall. Let’s hope, when it does, it lands on Gilkriz. He shrugged. Though Daffir was wrong about the direction the threat came from, last time. Remember he said it was going to rise out of the lake?
The boy had that wrong, Q’arlynd thought. Daffir had said no such thing. The human had warned that something was approaching. Something big. And it had. He’d predicted not where it had come from, but where it would end up: in the lake. Dissolved to a slurry and washed away.
He’d seen into the future. A common enough accomplishment for a wizard who specialized in divination, but Q’arlynd was starting to wonder if it had been a spell that had been used. Daffir, he recalled, had pressed the staff’s diamond to his forehead in just the same way before making his prediction.
They ducked under a sagging beam. Q’arlynd brushed away the cobweb that snagged his hair and flicked a hand to get Eldrinn’s attention again. Your father’s staff. Does it hold magic that will reveal the future?
That wouldn’t surprise me. It would explain why the diamond is shaped like an hourglass.
Q’arlynd thought back to when he’d first met Eldrinn, out on the High Moor. Even feeblewitted, the boy had held on to the staff, rather than dropping it in the dust. Part of his spell-blasted mind had recognized it as valuable. As being important to his quest.
Q’arlynd caught the boy’s eye. Could the staff also reveal the past?
I … An odd expression contorted Eldrinn’s face—as if he had been about speak aloud but had suddenly forgotten what he was going to say. I suppose so, he signed at last.
Q’arlynd laughed aloud. Could the answer to the riddle of Kraanfhaor’s Door really be that simple?
Gilkriz glanced back at them.
So did the priestess just ahead of them, who flicked a warning. Quiet!
Q’arlynd signed a quick apology. Its insincerity was betrayed by his grin, but he didn’t care. Hundreds of kiira shimmered in his imagination. Thousands of them. He knew how Eldrinn had opened Kraanfhaor’s Door: by using his father’s staff to look back thousands of years to the time of ancient Miyeritar. The boy had watched one of the original dark elves open it.
Q’arlynd could do the same—all he needed was that staff.
What is it? Eldrinn asked.
Q’arlynd forced the grin from his face. I’ll tell you later.
A few moments later, he sneaked a glance behind him. The dark lenses that hid Daffir’s eyes made it almost impossible to read the human’s expression. What’s more, Daffir seemed as capable as any drow of hiding his thoughts. If he used his divinations to foresee Q’arlynd’s treachery and decided to pre-empt it, there would be little warning.
Q’arlynd would have to be careful when he made his move.
Very careful indeed.
CHAPTER 11
Halisstra watched as the demon worked its torments. Cavatina lay on her back, helpless and weeping, the antithesis of the proud Darksong Knight she’d once been. Wendonai was deep inside her mind, teasing out jagged scraps of shame and loathing. Flaying her, body and soul, until she lay weak and trembling before him.
Halisstra knew just how that felt.
The massive wound the demon had inflicted upon Halisstra earlier had healed itself, bones knitting and organs and flesh growing back until only a shadow of pain remained. She could breathe without the sharp lance of agony that had blotted out all else. Even the callus was gone from her hand; only a faint pucker remained.
She stared at Wendonai’s broad back, her eyes spitting hatred. She’d given him what he wanted: a plaything. She hadn’t been stupid enough to expect the demon to keep his promise—freedom would be denied her—but she had expected him to return her to Lolth. Wendonai had no further use for Halisstra, after all. Now that she had delivered the Darksong Knight to him, she was insignificant, a creature to be ignored.
That burned.
Still, it might be to her advantage. With Wendonai’s attention wholly focused on Cavatina, Halisstra might escape. She would use her bae’qeshel magic to render herself invisible and …
As soon as she thought that, she cringed. The demon would hear her thoughts!
She waited, wincing in anticipation of his blow. He couldn’t kill her. Not without Lolth’s complicity. But he could hurt her. Hurt her badly.
Wendonai did nothing. Still bending over the prostrate Cavatina, he continued to torment her, savoring her anguish.