Sacrifice of the Widow

by Lisa Smedman

  Qilué didn’t wait to see the rest. She shifted the scrying’s focus to a frozen pool of water not far from the shrine itself. A moment later, its icy cap exploded upward as a priestess burst out of the shallow pool from below, sword in hand, the first of the reinforcements Qilué had just ordered to the Chondalwood.

  Qilué shifted the scrying rapidly from one location to the next, checking the other shrines. From the Moonwood to the Shaar, more than half of Eilistraee’s holdings were under attack. Priestesses, backed up by lay worshipers, fought pitched battles at the Dancing Dell, in the Velarswood, the Gray Forest, the Yuirwood, the Forest of Shadows. Each battle involved creatures of the Underdark not normally found on the surface: driders, fighting with webs, poison, and spells; neogi—creatures that looked like spiders with wormlike necks and tiny heads filled with needle-like teeth—using their magic to dominate those who fought them, turning Eilistraee’s faithful against each other; and chitines, fighting with four weapons at once, one in each spindly hand. Through it all, spellgaunts dashed here and there, gobbling up magic. Their presence alone hinted at the authors of the highly coordinated attacks—the Selvetargtlin, yet none of Selvetarm’s clerics could be seen.

  Where were they?

  “A dozen priestesses and a score of warriors to the Gray Forest,” Qilué ordered.

  Jasmir dutifully repeated the order. She closed her eyes a moment, listening, then relayed the reply. “Iljrene can only send nine priestesses. That’s the last of them, unless you want to start sending the Protectors.”

  Qilué shook her head. “Keep the Protectors here,” she ordered. “We’ll need them if the Promenade is attacked.” And that it would be attacked, she was certain. It was too glaring an omission, but when? And from which direction? Two Protectors, each armed with a singing sword, stood guard at every possible entrance, including the portals. Qilué scried each of those pairs of priestesses in turn, but all was quiet.

  She frowned. Should she really hold her best fighters back? A singing sword would certainly help tip the balance in any of the battles she’d just observed.

  A faint tapping sounded at the room’s only door. Qilué looked up as Jasmir hurried to answer it. Iljrene would have used a sending to contact her, and a lay worshiper had no business here, not now. Before Qilué could caution Jasmir, the priestess opened the door.

  A feather zipped inside the room and fell at Qilué’s feet. Its silver spine was bent nearly double and its vanes were split and fouled with spiderwebs and dust, but Qilué recognized it at once as the magical token she’d given Jub. She’d been wondering where the spy had gotten to, and by the looks of the webs sticking to the quill, he’d had some bad luck.

  Turning from her font, she bent and picked up the quill. She straightened the spine then touched the nib to the floor. She spoke the command word and watched as the quill slowly and laboriously scratched out its message in glowing silver letters on the dark stone floor.

  SELV. CLERICS ATTACKED THE MOON WOOD WITH CHITTENS. BUT IT WAS JUST A FAINT.

  Yes, Qilué thought. She’d guessed that already. The attacks took place after the moon had risen, ensuring that the Moonspring could be used to send reinforcements.

  THEYR GOING TO ATTACK THE PROMENAD, TOO. 66 OF THEM. NOT SURE WHEN.

  She nodded. Just as she’d suspected. But why sixty-six? And why hadn’t the attack come yet?

  THEYR IN DOLBLUND, LIKE YOU THOT. I THINK THEY KILT A LOLTH PREESTIS THERE.

  Qilué knew who her enemies were. Most likely the exiles, the renegade Selvetargtlin who were tossed out of Eryndlyn for “blaspheming” by worshiping Selvetarm in his own right instead of as a servant of Lolth.

  The quill was still scratching out its message. THEYR GOING TO JUMP ON THE TEMPLE, it wrote. Then it fell to the floor.

  Qilué stared down at the quill a moment more, as if willing it to continue, but the message was at an end. And it hadn’t told her much. The feint Jub warned of was already in progress, and though Qilué had been forced to send troops to reinforce the shrines, she’d held back her Protectors—two dozen of her best warriors—to maintain the Promenade’s defenses. The Protectors would be outnumbered three to one if sixty-six Selvetargtlin did attack, but each Protector was armed with a singing sword and powerful spells. Whatever direction the Selvetargtlin chose to attack from, they would be forced to fight their way in through a choke point that would allow Eilistraee’s faithful to concentrate their spells. One or two Selvetargtlin might be able to battle their way inside the temple, but they wouldn’t last long.

  Qilué turned her attention back to the scrying bowl. Shifting her awareness, she concentrated on Jub. For the past few days, her attempts to scry him had been blocked by something. She’d assumed that to be Daurgothoth’s doing. The undead black dragon didn’t appreciate anyone peering into his lair, but as the marketplace of the abandoned city came into focus, she began to wonder. Why, suddenly, was she able to scry the dracolich’s lair? Had some protection suddenly fallen—or been removed?

  The water in the bowl rippled then stilled. Qilué looked down on a severed head. Jub’s. It lay next to a foul-looking pool. What remained of the head was deeply pitted by acid.

  “Eilistraee have mercy,” Qilué whispered.

  Jasmir peered over her shoulder. “Who was it?”

  “A lay worshiper. One who deserved better than that.” There was no time to mourn Jub’s loss. Later, when the crisis was at an end, she would send a priestess to recover what was left of Jub so that he could be resurrected.

  She pulled her focus back, noting the vast, empty cavern. The Selvetargtlin seemed to have abandoned it, but where were they?

  “Send a warning to each pair of Protectors,” she ordered. “An attack by the Selvetargtlin is imminent.”

  “Lady, I have already told Iljrene about the warning,” Jasmir said, nodding down at the message on the floor. Her leaf-green eyes gleamed in anticipation of the battle to come. One slender hand rested on the hilt of her sword. Ready. “Iljrene is relaying it to the Protectors even as we speak.” She glanced down at the floor, her brow furrowed. “‘Jump on the temple,’” she repeated. “Does that mean the attack will come from above?”

  Qilué shook her head, only half listening. The tide had finally turned in the Moonwood. The priestesses there were beating the chitines back. The battle in the Gray Forest was the same. The extra priestesses Qilué had sent had managed to drive the neogi off, and in the Shaar …

  Something moved against her hip. Her bag bulged and thrashed, as if an animal were trapped inside it and was trying to claw its way out. Qilué swore and tore the bag from her belt, tossing it to the ground. She started to sing a spell, but before she could complete it, a knife blade pierced the bag from within. The bag suddenly ruptured in a tremendous explosion of magical energy that sent the water in the font sloshing back and forth.

  Her ears still ringing from the blast, Qilué stared down at the spot where the magical bag had lain. The gem it had held was gone. No, not gone. Qilué kneeled and touched what felt like sharp-edged but sticky grit—the crumbled remains of the gem. Her fingers came away dotted with tiny flecks of blood.

  All at once, she understood what form of conjuration magic the gem had contained. It had been the focus of a teleportation spell. Whichever Selvetargtlin it had been attuned to had teleported into Qilué’s magical pouch, realized something was wrong, and tried to cut his way free. Piercing the bag from within had ruptured the extradimensional space it enfolded—with disastrous results. The Selvetargtlin was as good as disintegrated.

  This was the jump Jub had warned her about. And the cleric who’d teleported into her pouch wasn’t the only one making it. Sixty-five others would have made similar jumps. To other gems, like the one Thaleste had found. Gems that must have been somewhere close to the spot where Thaleste and Cavatina had encountered the aranea—the Selvetargtlin who had carried the gems inside the Promenade and died to protect that secret.

  “Lady Qilu
é,” Jasmir asked, her voice tight with worry.

  “What is it?”

  Qilué didn’t bother to answer. She whirled and grasped the sides of her scrying bowl. Images flashed through the holy water one after another: the caverns south of the Sargauth River, and the rooms in the ceiling above them. Nothing. All were empty.

  “Where?” she said, her voice tight. “Where?”

  Jasmir tensed. Her lips parted to frame a question. Closed again.

  Qilué shifted her attention to the Promenade itself. She made a sweep of the Hall of Healing, the priestess’s cavern, the main living quarters, the garrison and armory, the Cavern of Song and the Moonspring. Nothing. Nothing.

  All empty. No Selvetargtlin.

  Where were they? One of the connecting corridors, perhaps?

  As a corridor near the river came into view, Qilué saw what she’d been dreading. Selvetargtlin dropped into that corridor through a hole in the ceiling and fanning out into adjoining passages like an erupting hill of termites. Half a dozen of them, led by a judicator, had already reached the Cavern of Song. As Qilué watched, horrified, they toppled the statue, revealing the hidden staircase that led to the Pit of Ghaunadaur and disappeared down it. The Selvetargtlin immediately behind the judicator carried an iron rod, its perfectly spherical head so dark that looking at it was like staring down the deepest well. Qilué recognized it at once as a rod of cancellation, its disjunctive magic capable of snuffing out even the most powerful of magic, including the seals on Ghaunadaur’s Pit.

  Silver fire flared around Qilué as she used her magic to shout a warning to all of the Protectors at once.

  The Selvetargtlin have breached the southern corridors of the Promenade. All Protectors converge there at once! Iljrene, to me, at the Mound.

  Jasmir gasped. She, too, had heard the warning. Metal rasped as she drew her sword from its scabbard.

  “Ready, Lady!” she cried.

  Qilué touched the other priestess’s shoulder. “I need you here. Continue scrying. Direct the Protectors to where they’re most needed.”

  Jasmir’s shoulders slumped, but only for a moment. “Yes, Lady,” she said briskly, turning her attention to the font.

  Qilué meanwhile sang a prayer that would send her to Eilistraee’s mound.

  As Jasmir and the scrying room vanished from sight, Qilué wondered who would arrive at the Mound first. She and Iljrene—or the judicator and his Selvetargtlin.

  Still invisible, Cavatina bounded with long, graceful strides toward the spot where Selvetarm stood. As she moved into position, she squinted to protect her eyes from the strands of web that blew on the breeze. They turned invisible as they stuck to her, but she could feel them fluttering like streamers behind her as she loped toward the spot where the demigod stood. She didn’t waste time trying to circle around behind Selvetarm. The demigod, even though his eyes were in the front of his drow head, could see in all directions at once, like a spider.

  She had cast every protective spell on herself that she could, but offensive prayers would be useless. A mortal might succumb to her spells but never a demigod. With his vast powers, Selvetarm would instantly negate anything she threw at him. Worse yet, his fighting prowess was without equal. Selvetarm would see through any feint she might try, would read the slightest shift of her posture or grip and anticipate any thrust long before it came. His own moves would be impossibly swift and smooth, and no wonder. He had been birthed, after all, by Zandilar the Dancer, an elf deity equal in grace to Eilistraee herself.

  Cavatina was certain she would get only one swing. All she could do was trust in the power of the Crescent Blade and in the strength of her own sword arm.

  She should have been terrified as she made her way toward the hulking demigod. She wasn’t. Instead, a thrill of anticipation shivered through her. This was it—the penultimate hunt. She had devoted her life to that moment, honing her body until it was a weapon. Her senses were keen, her muscles taut. Even if she died, it would be glorious.

  “Eilistraee,” she breathed. “Help me strike true.”

  The words were mouthed only. No sound came from her lips. Her voice was muffled, like her footsteps, by the magical silence she had cloaked herself in, but it gave her satisfaction to speak. Cavatina wanted to believe that Eilistraee was watching, listening. “Dark Maiden,” she continued as she drew closer to the god—she was only a few paces away, and Selvetarm loomed over her, his head a black blot, haloed by the eight blood-red stars, “I do this for you.”

  And for yourself.

  The whisper from the sword momentarily distracted her. She missed her footing and her boot splashed down into a pool of stagnant water. No sound came from the resulting splash, but when Cavatina looked behind her, she saw ripples spreading across the surface of the pond and tiny spiders scurrying away from the lapping water. If Selvetarm glanced down, he would see it.

  The demigod’s attention, however, was firmly fixed on the distant horizon.

  Cavatina landed beside one of his legs, next to a claw that had been driven into solid rock as if the ground were putty. Gripping the Crescent Blade in both sweating palms, she squatted then launched herself into the air. As she rose to the level of the god’s bulbous body, the arc of her jump carrying her over the bent leg and past the point where abdomen and cephalothorax met, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She glanced in the direction in which Selvetarm stared and saw a pyramid of metal, red starlight glinting off the eight legs that held it aloft.

  Lolth’s fortress. And it was headed their way.

  Something else scuttled across the ground, between the fortress and the spot where Selvetarm stood. Cavatina at first thought it was a spider, but then realized it was a drow, scurrying along on hands and feet. As the drow rose and broke into an upright run, Cavatina recognized the eight legs that drummed against the ribcage like restless fingers. Halisstra. She pointed at Selvetarm and shouted.

  “There!” she cried, her voice wild and cracking. “There!”

  Halisstra had just proved herself a traitor, but no matter. Even as she shouted, Cavatina’s feet touched down on the demigod’s shoulder. She landed between black, bristling hairs, feet braced in a position that put her at right angles to the neck. The Crescent Blade was already above Cavatina’s head, raised for a killing blow. The blade swept down, screaming as it descended.

  Die, Selvetarm!

  Selvetarm’s head twisted around. His body shifted, throwing Cavatina off balance. She tried to correct her swing as she staggered backward, but it was no use. The Crescent Blade slashed into Selvetarm’s face, instead of his neck. It bit deep, turning his mouth into a bloody grimace and sending a tooth flying, but the wound healed in an instant.

  Glaring with eyes that each had eight blood-red points for pupils, the demigod shouted a single word.

  The word was unclean, twisted, foul, woven from the fell energies of the Demonweb Pits, and sticky as old sin. It slammed into Cavatina, sending her tumbling from the god’s shoulder. She hurtled toward the ground, blinded, deafened, paralyzed. The Crescent Blade fell from her numbed fingers, and an instant later she slammed into the ground face-first. Her cheek cracked against rock with a force that sent stars exploding through her head, and her breastplate caved in like tin punched by a fist. Pain flared in her chest: broken ribs. Blood dribbled from her split lips. A fresh, sharp pain erupted in her back as something splattered onto it: acid dripping from the mace in Selvetarm’s hand. Cavatina couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, but she could feel the ground below her tremble as the demigod’s massive claws punched into it. Selvetarm was turning. She could feel him looming over her, staring down at her. His presence was a blot of evil, his shadow a pall that nearly suffocated her. A lesser, more rhythmic tremble in the ground was the iron fortress, drawing nearer.

  Lolth, coming to gloat at what her Champion had just done.

  Eilistraee, Cavatina pleaded silently, wishing she had the strength to speak the words alou
d. Save me. Her fingers twitched slightly as she struggled against the paralysis that gripped her, tried to grope for the Crescent Blade. Spiders scuttled across her hand, a mocking tickle on her skin. Send me … a miracle.

  A finger prodded her in the side. A muffled voice, speaking urgent words, came from above—Halisstra, also coming to gloat, taking a closer look at what her betrayal had wrought.

  Her vision dimly returning, Cavatina could see the blurry figure of Halisstra, who gingerly lifted the Crescent Blade. She held the hilt between finger and thumb, as if picking up a disgusting piece of offal.

  “Abyss take you,” Cavatina groaned, finding her voice at last.

  Above her, Selvetarm gave a booming laugh. “It already has,” he hissed.

  Then he lowered his head to deliver the killing bite.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  So this is it, Q’arlynd thought.

  He floated in a featureless gray void that was neither hot nor cold, damp nor dry, soft nor hard. It just … was. Endless. Eternal. Still.

  “I’m dead.”

  The sound of his own voice startled him. So did something that materialized, suddenly, under his feet. Ground. Gray as the void he’d been floating in, and smooth as glass, it neither gave under his feet nor resisted them. Like the void, it just … was. Something to stand on.

  He could sense his arms and hands, even though he couldn’t see or feel them. He moved them against himself, trying to touch his body. They passed through where it should have been. It was like trying to grasp smoke, except that his hands, too, were made of smoke, gray smoke, without a ripple or an end point.

  His body was gone. He was dead.

  Panic nibbled at the corners of his mind like a ravenous mouse. If he allowed it to, it would consume his awareness, what little of him there was. He steeled himself, forcing himself to remain calm. He was dead, but he still was. His soul continued.