Ascendency of the Last

by Lisa Smedman

  The priestess laughed. “Only for a moment, demon. And think on this: if T’lar uses that pretty little dagger of hers properly, being parted from your skin will only temporarily kill you. As long as you die here, you’ll re-manifest in the Abyss.” She gestured at his body. “Free of that annoying wizard, I might add.”

  The quasit met the high priestess’s eyes briefly, then let out a heavy, sulfurous sigh. “Fine,” it said petulantly. “I’ll let him do it.” Its eyes slid sideways to T’lar. “But she has to swear by the Spider Queen, that she’ll send me back clean. No skin.”

  T’lar smiled. “I swear it, by Lolth’s dark webs.”

  The demon nodded. It tightened its ring hand into a fist, closed its eyes, and puckered its forehead into a frown of concentration.

  The two drow waited. The silence stretched—long enough for the spider on the high priestess’s shoulders to scuttle to the ground and spin a trap-web in one corner of the room. At last the quasit’s eyes fluttered open. A high-pitched, tittering laugh burst from its lips.

  “He saw him, he saw him, he saw him!” the quasit squeaked. “He was talking to a svirfneblin.”

  T’lar leaned closer. “Where was he?”

  The quasit giggled. “Don’t know.”

  Anger hissed from T’lar’s lips.

  “But he heard where he’s going! The ‘Fountains of Memory’ he said.”

  T’lar glanced at the high priestess. Streea’Valsharess Zolond shrugged. It seemed she hadn’t heard of the place either.

  The quasit’s head twisted so it could see T’lar. “You have what you wanted. Skin the wizard off me. Send me back to the Abyss.”

  “Not yet.”

  “But you swore—”

  “Not until Q’arlynd Melarn is dead. Until then, you’re staying right where you are.”

  “Noooo!” the quasit howled.

  The hoop had almost slowed to a stop. T’lar reached out and gave it a nudge that sent it spinning again. “Yes.”

  Halisstra strode through the jungle, following the priestess. She’d slain the first priestess who had disturbed the penance ritual—the one who’d come bleating about the strange song the night twist tree was singing. The second priestess had been smarter. She’d taken the time to decipher the song, and reported it to her superior, rather than interrupting Halisstra. The superior, in turn, had waited until the ritual was over. Her eyes had widened in startled alarm when Halisstra sprang off the throne and caught her by the throat.

  “Wendonai?” Halisstra shouted. “Here?”

  Unfortunately, the priestess couldn’t answer. Halisstra had crushed her throat. The other faithful had balked at that, but a soothing song had drawn them back into Halisstra’s web, once more eager and grateful to serve her.

  The priestess who had deciphered the song pointed ahead through the jungle at a black, leafless tree growing out of the remains of a tumbled building. A mournful sound poured out of it, the sound of weeping and pleading. The sound of weakness.

  “Closer,” Halisstra ordered.

  The priestess didn’t hesitate. Despite the danger the tree’s song posed, she strode forward. After three steps, she crumpled to her knees, screaming. A moment later, the night twist’s magical attack washed over Halisstra. A phantasm loomed in her mind: the image of Lolth in hybrid form, a spider with Danifae’s face. You will never escape me, Lolth leered. You are not a demigod, but a mortal—and you are mine. The illusionary Lolth loomed over Halisstra, her bloated abdomen pulsing. Web oozed from her spinnerets. I will bind and break you, just as I did before. Your weakness will betray y—

  Halisstra sang out a loud, clear note that shattered the illusion like glass. A second song stilled the priestess’s screams. The smaller female scurried to Halisstra’s side, trembling, as Halisstra listened to the night twist’s song.

  The priestess had been correct. The tree was singing Wendonai’s name.

  Halisstra looked around. Moonlight, as bright as a hundred torches, illuminated the jungle. Just beyond the night twist was a clearing littered with tumbled masonry. A glint caught Halisstra’s eye—a faint light, like moonlight gleaming on metal. She walked toward it. Vines, animated by the night twist’s mournful song, twined around her legs, but Halisstra was too strong for them. She continued to the clearing, tearing them like fragile spider webs.

  The clearing looked empty. Yet the glint beckoned. Halisstra sang a melody that would reveal the invisible: nothing happened. She edged closer to the glint, alert for any sign of the demon. Wendonai could kill with the flick of a finger. Her memories of him crushing the life from her were still vivid. That time, Lolth’s magic had restored her. But Halisstra was no longer the Spider Queen’s pet plaything. If Wendonai broke her body a second time, Halisstra might die. Her soul would flutter back to Lolth, and the torment would begin anew.

  No, she told herself sternly. That wouldn’t happen. She was a demigod now. A mortal who had been raised to godhood by the worship of her faithful. Just like Sheverash, she’d been tempered by pain and suffering, and her soul had been hammered to the hardness of steel. She’d been reborn. She was free of Lolth, and the Spider Queen could no longer claim her.

  Even so, she moved cautiously.

  The glint hovered above a block of weathered stone. A faint odor wafted from it: the smell of diseased flesh. As Halisstra leaned closer, one of the spider legs protruding from her chest brushed against something. There was an invisible creature here!

  She sprang back from the block of stone, her spider legs drumming nervously against her chest. Then she remembered her priestess was watching. She moved forward again, and patted the invisible creature with her hands. It was more or less drow-shaped, and unmoving—frozen in a crouch and covered in a gritty dust that transferred onto Halisstra’s hands and sparkled in the moonlight. She patted the air above the invisible creature, where the gleam was, and hissed as something sharp sliced her hand. A more careful probing revealed a cool, flat surface: a curved sword blade, grooved with an inscription. Halfway down the blade, she felt a seam where the blade had been repaired.

  Halisstra’s lips parted in silent surprise. No! It couldn’t be!

  “Show me,” she hissed. “I command it!”

  She felt something twist, deep within her mind. By force of will, she clawed away the magical blinders that covered her eyes. The illusion of emptiness fell away, and the invisible creature was revealed. That was the Crescent Blade she’d felt—in the hands of a demon, no less!

  Or … was it a demon?

  The female had black skin and white hair long enough to reach the block of stone she squatted on. Her face, like Halisstra’s, looked vaguely drow. Her body was as loathsome as Halisstra’s own: hunchbacked, spotted with fungus-sized boils, and with grossly elongated limbs. The fingers gripping the Crescent Blade ended in clawlike nails, and her eyes were solid white. She was unmoving, utterly unresponsive to Halisstra’s touch; When Halisstra tried scoring her flesh with a claw, nothing happened. She didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. Just kept staring at something silver that lay on the stone in front of her.

  When she realized what it was, Halisstra gasped aloud. One of Eilistraee’s holy symbols! The other half of the holy symbol lay on the ground, a pace or two away. The blade had snapped in two—in exactly the same spot as the Crescent Blade had broken, all those years ago, when Halisstra had repudiated Eilistraee.

  A shiver coursed through her. She stared at the demonlike female. Was this another priestess who had renounced her faith? Another of those who had tried to return to Lolth’s sticky embrace, only to be forced into an agonizing penance?

  If so, what was she doing here, so close to Halisstra’s temple? What did it mean? Had Lolth placed this fallen priestess here? Had Wendonai?

  Halisstra snarled. There was no room in her temple for a second Lady Penitent. Halisstra wasn’t going to share her fawning faithful with anyone. She wrapped her spider legs around the demon-drow and tried to yank her from the block of st
one, but the female didn’t budge. It was as if her feet were glued in place. No matter. Halisstra leaned in close and bit. Instead of sinking into yielding flesh, however, her fangs scritched away. The surface of the demon-drow’s neck was hard and as slippery as ice. No matter how hard Halisstra bit down, she couldn’t sink her teeth into that flesh. She sang a dispelling and tried again, but the ensorcelment proved too strong to break.

  She sat back on her haunches, thinking. The female had to be under some sort of magical protection.

  Lolth’s?

  Behind Halisstra, the night twist continued its mournful song. Wendonai, it wailed. A hot, salty wind coursed through its branches, twisting them against one another. Black bark creaked, and the song shifted. It wasn’t the balor’s name the night twist was singing, but something else entirely: a message, stabbing at Halisstra’s heart.

  We … don’t … die …

  “Yes, we do,” Halisstra snarled. She understood, now, why the priestess had come here: to kill her. She must be a demon hunter, a Darksong Knight like Cavatina. Maybe this was Cavatina. Halisstra’s laugh skittered at the edge of sanity. “You’re not going to use the Crescent Blade on me!” She grabbed the female’s hands and tried to unbend her fingers. She would have the Crescent Blade—she must! Yet the fingers didn’t move. Nor could they be clawed away; Halisstra’s nails skidded harmlessly off them. She placed a foot on the female’s wrists, grabbed the sword’s crossguard, and tried to lever the Crescent Blade out of the fallen priestess’s hands. She strained until her muscles ached and sweat ran down her temples.

  “Let … go … of … it!”

  The priestess refused.

  “Abyss take you!” Halisstra snarled as she let go.

  A movement in the jungle caught her eye. She whirled, the spider jaws in her cheeks gnashing. The priestess who’d led her here! Halisstra had forgotten her. The spying, sneaking wretch had seen it all: Halisstra’s humiliation, her anger … her fear.

  Halisstra leaped to the spot where the priestess crouched, swept her up, and spun her around. Webs flew from Halisstra’s hands.

  The priestess didn’t resist. “Queen of Spiders, I commend unto you my soul,” she droned. “May I prove as worthy in death as I did in life.”

  “Have you learned nothing?” Halisstra screamed, outraged. “It isn’t Lolth you serve, but the Lady Penitent!”

  The priestess’s voice grew muffled under the layers of web. “May I sing Lolth’s praises through all eternity. May I dance upon her webs like a spider. May my soul return to her—”

  “Stop it!” Halisstra shrieked. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!” She flipped the web-bound priestess and caught her by the feet. Then she swung her through the air like a club. Flesh met steel with a dull thwack. The priestess’s head sailed away, parted from her body by the Crescent Blade.

  There. That shut her up.

  Halisstra hurled the body into the jungle. The night twist’s vines eagerly caught it and drew it to the trunk. Halisstra sneered. Plenty more, where that priestess came from. “Return to Lolth,” she taunted. “If you still can.”

  She turned back to the priestess who held the Crescent Blade—a little too quickly, still blinded by her rage. The female’s body rocked slightly, then toppled to one side.

  Halisstra started. She leaped on the fallen priestess and grabbed the Crescent Blade. But tug as she might, the priestess still clung to it.

  No matter. Halisstra picked up the demonic looking priestess and tucked her under one arm. There were songs Halisstra could sing, later, that would remove the sword from those hands. And then she would use the sword to kill the interloper.

  From there, who knew what might be possible? Perhaps Halisstra would finish what she’d started, so many years ago. Kill Lolth—and maybe Eilistraee too, while she was at it. Anything was within her grasp, now that the Crescent Blade had been returned to her.

  Shrieking with laughter, she hurried back to her temple.

  CHAPTER 11

  Naxil struggled to rise. He wasn’t held by ropes or chains—something he might have escaped—but by magic. The fanatics had bound him with words. “Follow,” they’d said, and he had. “Kneel,” they’d ordered, and he had. Now, “Drink.”

  He tried to wrench his head aside, but couldn’t. Compelled by magic, he gulped down the licorice-flavored drug the green-robed fanatic tipped into his mouth. As the drug took hold, the world slanted dizzily this way and that. Though his body hadn’t physically altered, it now felt like a puddle of molten wax, soft and compliant. A numbness settled on his mind, quieting the screaming voice within. He smiled. Drool trickled down his chin.

  Part of him knew there was nothing to smile about—and everything to scream about. He’d only joined the Masked Lady’s faith a year ago, but he’d lived in the Promenade long enough to appreciate the terrible stillness that had settled upon the Cavern of Song. The chorus of voices that had filled it with sacred music and moonlight since its founding had been extinguished, and it was no longer a holy place. Now it was blasphemed by oozes and slimes, and by the presence of Ghaunadaur’s fanatics. One of them—a stunted male in purple robes whose tentacle rod clung to his body like a leech—stared at the captives from a hovering driftdisc. He smiled gleefully as he savored their humiliation.

  Naxil would have choked the life from him, were it not for the magic that held him fast and the drug that sent the world spinning. He consoled himself with the knowledge he’d fought well, with dagger and spellsong. After shaking off the charm the green-eyed male had cast on him, he’d personally killed three of Ghaunadaur’s cultists. He’d danced from shadow to shadow, attacking from behind, avoiding the oozes and targeting their masters. He’d kept fighting long after realizing the battle was already lost. He’d prayed, then, that death would find him—that he’d make his way to the Masked Lady’s side and sit in her cool, calming shadow.

  In the end, despite those fervent prayers, despite his valiant struggles, he’d been captured, not killed. He bowed his head and said a silent prayer. Eilistraee grant that whatever happened next, it happened quickly.

  Dozens of other captives kneeled or lay nearby—most of them lay worshipers routed from the Hall of the Faithful after the bubbling ooze had bored through the songwalls. Naxil spotted Jub, the half-orc, and several others he knew by name. Those too badly wounded to walk had been left to die The remainder were forced, like Naxil, to drink. There was even a Protector in their ranks, her chain mail hanging in tatters and her singing sword gone. It wasn’t Leliana—Naxil had searched anxiously for her among the captives, but failed to spot her. He prayed she’d gone to Eilistraee’s grace via a quick death.

  Oozes slithered back and forth across the Cavern of Song, reducing the bodies of the fallen to puddles of sizzling flesh. The fanatic on the driftdisc, meanwhile, ordered the captives to their feet. “Follow,” he commanded.

  Together with the others, Naxil shuffled after the driftdisc. A second fanatic walked beside the line of captives lashing out with his whiplike rod at those who lagged. The amber-colored tentacles struck the moon elf next to Naxil, and she screamed as her skin burst into flame. Naxil tried to catch her, but the drug he’d been forced to drink made him stagger, and the words to his healing spell tangled together in his mind. The moon elf fell to the ground, her pale skin charred black. The reek of cooking meat filled the air.

  The fanatic raised his rod to lash Naxil. As his arm whipped forward, another fanatic caught it and said something to him. The first one’s aim was thrown off and just one tentacle struck Naxil’s shoulder. He gasped as its heat seared into his flesh. The intense pain gave him a moment of clarity, and he whispered a song. Flesh knitted together. His mind cleared fully as Eilistraee’s healing grace pushed the drug from his body. Yet the magical compulsion remained. Obedient as a soldier, he marched behind the driftdisc. He passed the fallen statue of Qilué—its face now reduced to a rounded blob by the slithering oozes—and descended into the spiral staircase the statue
had once hidden.

  Together with the other captives, he wound his way downward. The narrow staircase forced them into single file. Naxil heard the driftdisc scraping against stone up ahead, but couldn’t see it. Nor could he see the fanatic who brought up the rear. Now was his moment—while they weren’t watching. He sang a prayer, rendering himself invisible.

  They reached the bottom of the staircase and entered a cavern. Naxil knew of this place, but had never entered it: this was the cavern at the top of Eilistraee’s Mound. There should have been a dancing statue here, sealing the Pit, but Naxil couldn’t see it. A dozen fanatics formed a circle around the spot where it should have stood. A thick purple mist filled the cavern, blurring his view. Naxil smelled acid. His nostrils stung. He barely stifled a retch that might have given him away. The captives coughed weakly, their eyes tearing in the acid-tinged air.

  The fanatic leading the captives ordered them to stand against the wall. Naxil complied—slowly and heavily. The mist held a magic that slowed movement to a snail’s pace. He winced as fragments of stone crunched under his boots, and prayed the fanatics wouldn’t notice the dents his invisible feet made. He tried desperately to think of a way to break free.

  The fanatic on the driftdisc stepped off it and joined those who had circled around the spot where the statue should have been. His arms lifted, and the others drew breath. At his signal they chanted in an impossibly slow drone.

  The chanting intensified. The mist roiled. It swirled above the Pit, coalescing into a knot that became an eye, as large as a serving platter. The eye blinked open, emitting a dull orange light that illuminated the fanatic leading the chant. Immediately, he prostrated himself on the rubble. Slowly, the eye rotated, its sickly light washing over the fanatics one by one. Each fell to his knees in turn, crying out the Ancient One’s name.

  “Ghaunadaur, Ghaunadaur, Ghaunadaur …”

  Naxil stared, horrified. The puddle of orange-purple light didn’t quite extend to the captives. He knew, instinctively, that Ghaunadaur considered them unworthy, beneath even its contempt. Naxil’s stomach felt watery and weak, and his head swam even without the drug. Tears poured down his cheeks, soaking his mask. Beside him, the other captives wept softly.