Ascendency of the Last

by Lisa Smedman

  He touched his mask to steady himself, and saw a hazy smudge: his hand, becoming visible. Hastily, he renewed his prayer, rendering himself invisible again.

  The eye completed its rotation. Then it “spoke” in a voice that slithered into Naxil’s mind like a damp, unwelcome slug.

  Clear the Pit.

  The fanatics closest to the Pit laid hands on the jumbled stone and chanted. The others touched their backs, and joined in the prayer. Chips of rock melted into mud. A stench like manure filled the cavern. The fanatics closest to the Pit made paddling motions with their hands. The mud churned. Foul-smelling steam boiled from it, rendering the air in the cavern hot and humid. The puddle of mud sagged, twisted like water down a drain, and revealed the top of a shaft with utterly smooth, glasslike walls.

  The captive next to Naxil—Jub, the half-orc—fainted, either succumbing to his wounds, or to fear. Other captives tried to pray to Eilistraee, but only managed a slurred mutter, thanks to the drug.

  The fanatics maintained their chant, and the mud continued to sink. With each passing moment, more fanatics descended the stairs and crowded into the cavern, lending their voices to the unholy chorus. Abruptly, the chant ended.

  A second command hissed out of the floating eye. Feed them to me, it ordered. Then it disappeared.

  Naxil tensed as the fanatic guarding the captives turned. “Forward,” he commanded.

  The fanatics parted, forming a corridor for the prisoners to walk through. “Ghaunadaur,” they chanted. “Consume them. Consign them to oblivion. Devour them.”

  Compelled by the command, Naxil stumbled with the others to the Pit. A captive tripped and fell off the edge. Her scream wailed away into the distance. Another leaped into the Pit of his own accord, crying Ghaunadaur’s name, causing Naxil’s lip to curl at his cowardice. The other captives wavered at the edge. The magical compulsion wasn’t quite strong enough to compel them to take their own lives.

  Naxil stared down into a seemingly bottomless well. He’d heard the Pit was nearly half a league deep. Far, far below, he saw a bright silver glow. He wondered if it were the planar breach Cavatina had warned them about.

  The fanatics closed in behind the captives. The push of a hand sent another of Eilistraee’s faithful into the Pit. Others swiftly followed. Soon only Naxil, still hidden by his invisibility, stood at the edge.

  Naxil listened to the captives’ screams as they fell. Tears streamed down his cheeks and soaked his mask. He closed his eyes, unwilling to see more. He took a step back—and realized, to his amazement, that he was no longer under the magical compulsion.

  Someone jostled him from behind: one of the fanatics, crowding forward. The fanatic started, glanced sideways at the spot where Naxil stood, and opened his mouth to shout. Naxil grabbed his robe and spun him off the edge. A flick of Naxil’s fingers triggered a cantrip; his voice shifted to the falling cultist and followed him as he fell. “Ghaunadaur! Consume me!”

  The other fanatics started. The face of the one who’d led the chanting purpled. He spun to face a green-robed cultist next to him. “Trucebreaker!” he howled. “What of your oath? Our Houses were to descend together to greet the Ancient One!”

  The other fanatic whirled. “House Abbylan did not sanction this. He leaped of his own accord!”

  As they argued, Naxil edged away from the Pit. Avoiding the fanatics was difficult, as the room was crowded. He wouldn’t be able to climb the stairs—not with fanatics still descending. He’d have to make his way to the nearest wall, press his back against it, and hope his invisibility held out.

  He decided to make his way to the spot where Jub lay, unconscious and forgotten. He twisted this way and that, slipping between the fanatics whenever an opportunity presented itself. Just as he reached the wall, a hand brushed against his shirt—and took hold of the fabric. He tried to wrench away, but the fanatic yanked him close.

  “Ally?” the fanatic breathed. Then he coughed.

  Naxil realized the “fanatic’s” hand was lingering against his mouth—hiding it, as a mask would.

  “Ally,” Naxil hissed back.

  The “fanatic” found Naxil’s hand and pressed a gold ring into it. Levitate, his fingers flicked.

  Naxil gave silent thanks to the Masked Lady for the boon as he shoved the ring onto his finger. He levitated just above the fanatics’ heads, his back against the ceiling, trying to stifle the urge to cough as he breathed the acid-tinged air. He wiped his stinging eyes with the back of his sleeve, lest any tears fall on their heads and give him away.

  Below him, the disguised Nightshadow eased into an indentation in the wall and cloaked himself in magical darkness. The fanatics, meanwhile, concluded their argument. They seemed to have come to some sort of agreement. The high priests called to their respective followers, and the fanatics lined up behind them, each with his hands on the shoulders of the one in front of him. Chanting Ghaunadaur’s name, they shuffled forward, into the Pit.

  At first, Naxil thought they were sacrificing themselves. The fanatics, however, didn’t plummet. They sank gently into the Pit, their descent slowed by magic.

  As the last of them disappeared into the Pit, a wind sucked the purple mist down after him, and the air cleared. The disguised Nightshadow stepped out of his darkness, crept to the Pit, and peered in. He cocked his head, as if listening to some distant sound. “The trap worked,” he said at last with a smile. “They’ve been driven insane. All of them.”

  Naxil descended to the floor, the invisibility gone. He moved to where the other Nightshadow stood. Echoing up out of the Pit, from far below, came the sound of voices. It sounded as if all of the fanatics were screaming or crying out at once, in a frenzied cacophony.

  Naxil began to tug the ring off his finger but the other Nightshadow gestured for him to keep it. Naxil nodded.

  “Thanks….”

  “Mazrol.”

  “I’m Naxil.”

  Mazrol glanced again at the Pit, and shuddered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They moved to the stairs. Naxil paused to check Jub. The half-orc was unconscious, with a nasty bump on the side of his head, but a prayer would rouse him.

  Mazrol looked impatient. “Have you seen Valdar?”

  “Who?”

  Mazrol’s expression turned wary. Naxil tensed. Something was wrong here. Instinct screamed at him that Mazrol had just become his enemy, yet that was ridiculous.

  Naxil touched Jub’s forehead and began his prayer. Out of the corner of his eye he saw motion near the Pit: the purple mist, rising again. A tendril of it swirled over the lip and crept across the floor, behind Mazrol. The other Nightshadow hadn’t noticed yet. He frowned down at Jub. “What are you doing?”

  Naxil didn’t answer. It ought to be obvious. He kept singing.

  Mazrol caught his arm. “Save your prayers.” He nodded at the staircase. “If any oozes come slithering down here, we’ll need them.”

  Naxil finished his prayer. “But Jub—”

  “Leave him. He’s not one of us.”

  Naxil rose—slowly—to his feet. “He’s one of Eilistraee’s.” Jub groaned, and rolled over. Naxil heard him cough weakly.

  Mazrol stared at Naxil a moment, as if taking his measure. “Eilistraee is dead,” he said, his eyes locked on Naxil’s. “The Masked Lord killed her. Everything the priestesses taught you was a lie.”

  Naxil’s jaw clenched. He’d heard there were males like this within the ranks of the faithful—Nightshadows who refused to let go of Vhaeraun. Naxil had never worshiped that god, having come to the Masked Lady’s faith only after the goddess’s transformation. It hadn’t been Vhaeraun who had led Naxil out of the misery of Menzoberranzan, but the Masked Lady. Eilistraee.

  Mazrol must have seen the flat disbelief in Naxil’s eyes. He gestured at the Pit behind him. “Would Eilistraee have allowed this?” he cried. “Would she have permitted us to open a back door to her enemies? She’s dead, Naxil. The Promenade is ours now—if we can h
old it.”

  Behind Mazrol, two blood red eyestalks rose above the lip of the Pit. The eyes opened and stared at the two Nightshadows through the swirling purple mist. Naxil would have quaked in terror, had he not already been sent reeling by what Mazrol had just told him. The other Nightshadow had taken a hand in the Promenade’s fall! So had others of the Masked Lady’s supposed faithful, by the sound of it. “Us,” Mazrol had said. The betrayal cut deeper than any dagger.

  Naxil prayed silently. Masked Lady, I am your sword, and your song. Temper me. Use my body as your instrument to lead this blasphemer to redemption. Keeping his voice utterly steady, he spoke his accusation aloud. “Traitor.”

  Mazrol lunged forward to stab Naxil, but Naxil, filled with the Masked Lady’s grace, twisted aside. Behind Mazrol, a barbed tentacle snaked up out of the pit, beside the eyestalks. It lashed out and slammed into Mazrol’s back, knocking him down. The Nightshadow screamed as the tentacle dragged him to the Pit.

  “The Masked Lady can save you!” Naxil cried, leaping forward in a futile attempt to grab Mazrol’s hand. “Pray to—”

  The tentacle yanked Mazrol out of sight.

  Jub sat up. His eyes fell on the spotted, tentacled, sluglike creature rising out of the Pit, and his jaw dropped open. The creature was blood red and enormous.

  “Run!” Naxil shouted. He grabbed Jub’s arm and yanked him to his feet. Together, they raced up the winding stairs. The stocky little fellow was quick to recover; the Masked Lady’s blessing and sheer terror likely had an equal hand in that. After a few steps, he shook off Naxil’s arm and climbed without further assistance. “What,” he puffed, “was that?”

  “I fear the worst,” Naxil gasped. “The slug … is one of … Ghaunadaur’s forms.”

  “That’s his avatar?”

  “It did … come out of … the Pit.”

  Jub cursed.

  Naxil heard a wet slithering behind them: the slug, squeezing up the staircase. Following them. He raced upward, Jub close on his heels. But when they finally reached the top of the stairs, a quivering gray ooze loomed. Naxil dodged to one side of it, Jub to the other.

  “This way!” Naxil called. He sprinted across the Cavern of Song, struggling to keep upright on the slippery floor. He cast a frantic glance over his shoulder, but Jub was nowhere to be seen. Naxil cursed and started to double back to search for him, but oozes blocked his path.

  Through a gap in their ranks he saw the slug squeezing its way out of the staircase. Six barbed tentacles waved in front of its face. Purple mist boiled around its slimy foot. The tentacles quested south, then north. Its decision made, it slithered toward Naxil. It squirted a stream of purple mist that swirled just short of him.

  The oozes parted, leaving a clear path for the slug to follow. Were there fanatics somewhere in the cavern, controlling them? Naxil glanced around, but saw no sign of Ghaunadaur’s cultists. The drow all seemed to have gone below, into the Pit.

  Naxil suddenly remembered he still wore the ring Mazrol had given him. He could escape by levitating! Yet when he glanced up, he saw the ceiling was coated in green slime. A patch of it landed with a splat at his feet; he barely dodged it in time. Levitating in mid-air, he’d be unable to dodge aside if more of it fell.

  “Masked Lady!” Naxil cried. “Guide me! How am I to escape?”

  Everywhere he looked, oozes blocked the exits. They sat, quivering, in front of the corridors that led to the Stronghall, the Hall of the Priestesses, and the Hall of the Faithful. The only unguarded exit was the northernmost tunnel—but the oozes slithering toward it would block it soon enough. Naxil ran in that direction, certain that it was Ghaunadaur’s avatar pursuing him. That was why the oozes and slimes were acting the way they did: they were obeying their master, letting the slug feed first. Naxil was keeping ahead of the avatar, but for how long? As he hurtled out of the cavern’s only clear exit, he wildly debated which way to go. South, to the Hall of the Priestesses, or north, to the Hall of Empty Arches? He heard a wet, slapping sound to the south: another of Ghaunadaur’s minions. That decided it. North.

  As he drew near the Hall of Empty Arches he slipped and fell, wrenching an ankle. He lurched to his feet—and nearly screamed at the pain. He started a restorative prayer, but before he could complete it, an eyestalk poked around the corner. Ghaunadaur’s avatar, closing in! A moment more, and it would catch him.

  Suddenly, Naxil had an inspiration. The ring: it was gold! Maybe it would activate one of the ancient portals. He staggered into the Hall of Empty Arches, between the first two partition walls. He slapped his hand against the first arch: nothing. Stupid—that was the portal he and Leliana had returned through, the one that led from the mine tunnels to here. And the next portal was even less of an option. It led, he’d heard, to an infinite maze that would forever trap anyone foolish enough to use it.

  Suddenly, he realized what he needed to do. He understood why the Masked Lady had helped him to escape being sacrificed in the Pit. She needed him—as bait. His frenzied run was the dance that would lead Ghaunadaur’s avatar into a trap. Naxil would die, but his reward would be to dance at the side of his deity forevermore.

  “Masked Lady!” he cried. “Lend me strength!”

  He staggered to the arch and reached out to touch it. Yet even as his fingertips touched stone, a tentacle smacked into his back and coiled around his torso. Naxil grunted in pain as barbs drove into his chest and back. The avatar tried to draw him away from the arch, but the pull of the portal was stronger. It wrenched Naxil inside, tugging the tentacle in with him.

  For the space of a heartbeat, Naxil thought this desperate ploy hadn’t worked. He dangled above a stone floor at the crossroads of half a dozen corridors, the taut tentacle preventing him from falling. Then the rest of Ghaunadaur’s sluglike body slid through the portal. The avatar landed on Naxil, flattening him under a rippling wave of slimy flesh.

  Despite the crushing weight that drove the air from his lungs, Naxil felt an immense sense of pride. He’d done it: lured Ghaunadaur’s avatar away from the Promenade.

  Masked Lady, he silently sang. I commend my soul to you. My dance is done.

  He died with his mask pressed against his face, hiding his smile, as the avatar slithered off into the endless maze.

  Q’arlynd glanced around. He’d teleported to the place Flinderspeld had described: a wide ledge, high on the side of a mountain. Glancing down at the forest spread out below like a distant green carpet, he could see why this place was so little known. A faint trail led up the lower slopes of the mountain. Q’arlynd spotted two figures walking along it, far below. The trail, however, stopped well below the bluff. From that point, it would take a riding lizard or a levitation spell to reach this spot.

  A breeze blew mist onto his skin, and he shivered. The sky was overcast, heavy with dark gray clouds. Thunder grumbled in the distance. He turned away from the view to observe the outermost of the “fountains.” Just as Flinderspeld had described, a stream of water flowed up the mountainside, arcing over the lip of the bluff to land, splashing, in the pool. From there, the water arced up and out of the pool, into a fissure in the bluff. From within the V-shaped cleft, Q’arlynd could hear the patter of the stream of water falling on the second pool. From there, Flinderspeld had said, the stream arced to the third pool, and then to the fourth and final of the Fountains of Memory: the one that looked deepest into the past.

  Flinderspeld had originally wanted to accompany Q’arlynd here, but later decided against it. The temptation to use the pools himself, he’d explained, would be too strong. “Even the good memories will hurt,” Flinderspeld had said.

  Q’arlynd understood. Like Flinderspeld, he came from a city that now lay in ruin. Looking back in time to a Ched Nasad that was whole, to a life irretrievably gone would be … painful.

  Yet for different reasons. Unlike Flinderspeld, Q’arlynd had no desire to return to the city of his childhood, even in reminiscence. Q’arlynd hadn’t loved Ched Nasad;
he’d loathed it. His memories of House Melarn’s haughty, scheming matron mother—the female who’d birthed him—were brutal. Her capricious cruelty and callous disregard for her children had set the tone for Q’arlynd’s siblings, a backstabbing brood of self-serving malcontents.

  Within the kiira, Q’arlynd’s ancestors stirred. Was there no one in your family that you cared for?

  Q’arlynd laughed. “Tellik,” he answered. And it was true. Q’arlynd had been close to his younger brother, for a time. As close as any two drow could be. Yet Q’arlynd had cast Tellik aside as quickly as a worn piwafwi, in order to avoid being killed alongside him after Matron Melarn learned that Tellik had taken up Vhaeraun’s mask.

  What about the others? his ancestors asked. Was there no one who showed mercy, when you needed it?

  Q’arlynd started to answer no, then realized that wasn’t quite right. “Halisstra,” he answered at last. He touched the bump on his nose, remembering the time she’d secretly healed him. If not for that, he would have been dead decades ago.

  Despite that act of kindness, Q’arlynd had continued to regard his sister as little more than a means of achieving his own goals. Only in recent years had he learned that people were more than mere playing pieces to be shoved about by those who were stronger and more cunning. Now he wondered what had become of Halisstra.

  Four years ago, Cavatina had reported to Qilué that Halisstra had been left behind in the Demonweb Pits, after helping the Darksong Knight to slay Selvetarm. Had Halisstra died there? The questions T’lar had asked seemed to indicate that she had. T’lar had said Halisstra “angered” the Lady Penitent—Lolth, obviously—and had been killed for it. Strangely, the assassin didn’t seem to understand why Lolth might have done this. T’lar obviously didn’t know Halisstra’s role in helping to slay the Spider Queen’s champion.