Ascendancy of the Last зкp-3

by Lisa Smedman

  "Yes you were. There aren't many who can stand up to a demon's magical fear." Cavatina gently took the blast scepter from Meryl. "Stay here. Lock the door. Don't answer unless you're sure it's a priestess."

  "But how will I-?"

  "Get whoever knocks to sing a stanza of the Evensong."

  Meryl drew herself up and wiped away her tears. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. Go. You're needed elsewhere."

  Cavatina saluted the halfling with her sword, and hurried away down the corridors, to the residence's main entrance. As she drew closer to the open double doors, she heard shouting over the ring of the alarms. From the distance came a dull whumph that sounded like an explosion.

  She sang a protective hymn and stepped outside. Just ahead, a priestess herded a gaggle of lay worshipers away from the direction the explosion had come from. A half-elf and a drow staggered after them, carrying a body on a drift disc that no longer worked. Cavatina couldn't tell if the victim was male or female, as much of the body had dissolved. A Protector charged by in the opposite direction, singing sword pealing.

  She heard what sounded like a battle raging to the south, in the direction of the Stronghall. She hurried to the corridor that linked the cavern with that one. As she drew closer, she saw a figure running down the corridor. The floor behind him was covered in glittering sparks. These surged forward like a moving ankle-high carpet, contained within a gelatinous mass.

  An ooze-within the Promenade! How had it penetrated so deep into the temple? The Protectors should have thrown up a songwall to contain it.

  The running figure wore a purple robe with a leering black eye on the front of his tabard-Ghaunadaur's symbol. His anxious expression and frightened glances over one shoulder suggested he wasn't in control of the ooze. As it threatened to overtake him, he halted and raised his tentacle rod. He whipped it forward, lashing at the ooze with its tentacles. In that same instant, the monster bulged and squirted out a line of emberlike motes. Tentacles met glitterfire in a thundering explosion. Waves of heat and cold exploded out of the corridor.

  Qilue's scepter grew warm as it absorbed the heat. But it proved no protection against the cold. Cavatina drew in a lungful of icy air, and shivered. She marveled at what she'd just seen: Ghaunadaur's faithful, fighting each other?

  Before the fanatic could turn, she sang a hymn that rendered him rigid. He toppled. She ran to where he lay, intending to drag him out of harm's way and question him at sword point. The glittering ooze was faster however. It was about to engulf her fallen foe.

  She raised the scepter. "Eilistraee!" she cried. "Smite this abomination with your song!"

  A peal sounded from the scepter-louder, even, than the clanging alarms. Sound waves shimmered through the air, expanding into a cone that slammed into the ooze. The glittering monster was blown back like a yanked carpet folding upon itself. The ooze surged forward again, but Cavatina blasted it a second time, and a third. As the third soundburst struck, the ooze exploded, splattering golden sparks onto the wall. These glowed for a moment, then faded. A few smears of mucous-like goo, dotted with black soot, were all that remained of the ooze.

  The fanatic groaned. His robe smoldered in spots, and was damp with melted frost in other places. As he flopped over, Cavatina recognized him. Karas, in disguise! He must have been among the spies Qilue sent out.

  She dispelled her hymn and extended a hand. "What's going on, Karas?"

  The Nightshadow rose shakily to his feet. "I just came from Llurth Dreir," he shouted back over the clangor of alarms. "Qilue's orders: I brought Ghaunadaur's fanatics through a portal. I was to lead them into a trap, but oozes followed us."

  He yanked a black ring off his thumb and flung it aside, then kicked the rod after it. The rod rolled away, its limp tentacles flopping. He spoke a word, and his robe and tabard transformed into a close-fitting black shirt and trousers; his sash shimmered and became a mask. Tying it into place around his face seemed to calm him. All traces of the frustration he'd shown a moment ago disappeared.

  Cavatina shook her head in exasperation. "Couldn't you tell something was wrong with Qilue?" She had to shout to be heard over the clanging alarms. "With this 'plan' of hers? It didn't occur to you to question the logic of leading our enemies into the heart of the Promenade?"

  Karas met her eyes. "She's the high priestess. Through her, the Masked Lady commands-and I obey."

  "Did the fanatics enter the trap?"

  He hesitated. "I'm not sure. I didn't see what happened. The ooze chased me this way." He eased back a step, expecting a reprimand. Yet this wasn't his fault. He'd only done as Qilue had ordered.

  Four priestesses ran past, toward the fighting. As soon as they spotted Cavatina, their fearful expressions vanished. They shouted that fanatics, backed up by oozes, had invaded the Stronghall. Cavatina waved them on, saying she'd lend her sword to the battle in just a moment. Karas turned to follow the priestesses, but Cavatina caught his arm.

  "Karas," she said urgently, "Qilue was tricked. Her 'trap' is actually a portal-one that renders you ethereal. It leads to the bottom of the Pit. To a planar breach. That breach was intermittent when I saw it, but if the fanatics reach it, and open it fully, Ghaunadaur's avatar will be able to pass through."

  Karas's voice came out as a croak. "I don't understand. Why would the Masked Lor-Masked Lady permit-"

  "I don't have time to explain. What's important is that we prevent the fanatics from getting to that portal. We'll make for the ruined temple by different routes: I'll go south, through the Stronghall, and you circle around through the Cavern of Song. Eilistraee willing, at least one of us will reach the portal in time."

  Karas stood, unmoving. His mask wavered slightly; he must have been praying.

  "Let's move!"

  He swallowed, then bobbed his head in a nod.

  She watched long enough to make sure he was headed in the right direction, then sprinted down the corridor to the Stronghall. As she reached it, she saw a battle that could use her assistance. A priestess and three lay worshipers were fighting a jellylike mass of roiling shadow. Cavatina blasted it with the scepter as she ran by. Her attack drove it back, giving Eilistraee's faithful the moment's reprieve they needed to regroup. As she ran on, she heard them cheer her name behind her.

  Everywhere she looked, the faithful desperately fought tentacle-wielding fanatics and a host of Ghaunadaur's minions. Cavatina spotted an ooze that looked like an enormous puddle of blood, glowing with searing heat; another like congealed fog, chill as a wind from the grave. A third resembled a roiling cloud of snowflakes. Yet another flickered with a purple light that twisted into glowing symbols, deep within itself. The latter ooze spat out a snake from one puckered orifice, a centipede from another. Both animals glowed with a fiendish light that marked them as creatures summoned from the Abyss. Cavatina slashed at centipede and snake, killing both, and blasted the ooze itself with the scepter. The half-dozen lay worshipers who'd been retreating from the monster cried a prayer of thanksgiving.

  She had run almost the length of the Stronghall; the corridor leading to the ruined temple was just a short distance ahead. She pounded around the corner of a building, only to find the street blocked by a bone white ooze that had overwhelmed a Protector. The priestess lay, screaming, as the mass flowed onto the lower half of her body.

  Cavatina's eyes widened. It was Tash'kla-the Protector who had fought so valiantly beside her during the expedition to the Acropolis.

  She raised the scepter, but realized that its sound blast didn't discriminate between friend and foe. She sang a moonbeam into existence instead, and hurled it at the creature. The ooze shuddered as twined moonlight and shadow bored through it, carving a wound that bled sour-smelling clay. The ooze pulled back from the fallen Protector.

  It took Tash'kla's bones with it, reducing her legs to empty, bloody sacks of muscle and skin. Cavatina watched, horrified, as the ooze splintered the bones and squeezed the marrow out.

  Furious,
she attacked the ooze with the scepter. It took more than one blast to kill the thing. When the ooze at last exploded from the sonic attack, a bone splinter whizzed past Cavatina's ear. She didn't flinch. She moved to Tash'kla, kneeled, and touched her throat.

  No blood-pulse. Tash'kla was dead.

  Fortunately, the ooze hadn't consumed her utterly. Enough remained that Tash'kla might be resurrected-assuming anyone from the Promenade survived to revive her. In this cavern alone, there were so many oozes that Cavatina was starting to have doubts about how the battle would go.

  She wiped a splatter of ooze from her forehead with a shaking hand. Was this how it had been for Qilue, when she and her companions battled Ghaunadaur's avatar? Cavatina's sword was slippery with foul-smelling slime, and its song was a dirge. She tightened her grip on the weapon, grimly wondering where the high priestess was. Trapped within her own body by the demon-forced to watch as her cherished temple fell?

  No, Cavatina thought angrily. It wouldn't come to that. Eilistraee wouldn't permit it.

  She ran down the street, and at last reached the corridor she'd been making for. It turned out to be choked with the bodies of the fallen. Most were unrecognizable, reduced by acid to weeping mounds of reddish flesh, or blackened by searing heat to unrecognizable lumps. She gagged at the sour smell of spilled entrails and charred flesh and pressed on, slipping and sliding on the fouled stone.

  Just ahead, the tunnel widened into a cavern that overlooked the river before turning sharply right. This gave her two options: she could follow the tunnel, or the river. She ran to the edge of the cavern and peered out, toward the bridge that spanned the river.

  What she saw sent a shiver through her.

  Ooze after ooze, differentiated from each other only by color, flowed across the bridge to the main part of the Promenade. At first Cavatina thought they were coming from the caverns on the far side of the river, but as she watched, a bulge formed on one of the three stone columns that supported the ceiling at the far side of the bridge: another ooze. As it plopped to the ground, quivering, another slime bulged out of the column. It was as if the stone wept slimy tears.

  That column must be the portal Karas had led the fanatics through. She wondered how the Nightshadow fared-if he were any closer to the ruined temple than she was. No wonder he'd been so shaken; unleashing this horror on the Promenade would have driven anyone to tears.

  The voice of Erelda, Rylla's second in command, sounded in Cavatina's mind. Protectors! Fall back on the Cavern of Song. The oozes are converging upon it!

  Cavatina's heart pounded as she realized the implications. Oozes were near-mindless things, driven by basic instincts like hunger-or the need to draw closer to their god. She could think of only one reason for them to converge upon the Cavern of Song: to reach the Pit. Had the fanatics already succeeded in wrenching open the planar breach?

  The seals, Cavatina sent back. Are they still intact?

  Erelda's response came a moment later. The Mound is untouched. The seals are in place.

  Cavatina sighed in relief. There's a planar breach at the bottom of the Pit, she warned Erelda. If the seals are destroyed…

  They won't be. By sword or song, we'll do whatever it takes to prevent that.

  Cavatina heard a sound behind her: another ooze, headed her way. She debated which way to go. The tunnel she'd been following was the most direct route to the ruined temple, yet its narrowness would make it easy for the oozes to block her way.

  She decided to swim, instead.

  She sheathed her sword-she needed at least one hand free to swim-and dived into the water, the scepter held out in front of her. The shock of hitting cold water made her sputter as she surfaced, but a quick prayer blunted the worst of the cold. As the current moved her to the bridge, she sang a hymn that rendered her invisible. It wouldn't fool the oozes-they'd sense her footfalls the moment she climbed from the water. But it would conceal her from any fanatics who might be nearby.

  As if on cue, a drow tumbled out of the portal column. Even from this distance, Cavatina could see the eye symbol on the front of his tabard. As he stood, another of Ghaunadaur's fanatics emerged from the portal. Then a third, and a fourth. They stood in a group as the first one pointed downriver-away from Cavatina, and away from the ruined temple.

  The bridge loomed, cutting off her view. Cavatina swam to the wall on the far side of the river from the fanatics. Above her was a cavern mouth. At the back of that cavern, down a short corridor, was a door leading to the ruined temple. If she could drive the oozes back, using the blast scepter, she might reach it.

  She climbed.

  Halfway up, she glanced over her shoulder to see where the fanatics had gone. She couldn't spot them. She'd have to be wary, in case they'd crossed to this side of the bridge.

  As soon as she reached the ledge, she used the blast scepter to drive the oozes back from the cavern, then heaved herself up onto its acid-slick floor. Additional blasts from the scepter kept the oozes at bay. They retreated to the left and right, revealing the corridor that led to the ruined temple.

  Cavatina sprinted into it. The oozes closed ranks behind her, blocking the way back to the river. She blasted them over her shoulder with the scepter, forcing them back.

  The door to the ruined temple was closed. Cavatina pushed on it, praying it wasn't locked. When she at last forced it open, a rush of liquid flowed out. She leaped back, worried it might be more acid. The force of the liquid inside the room pushed the door shut. She glanced down. Her boots were still intact, and her feet didn't sting. The liquid probably wasn't acid.

  An ooze slid into the corridor behind her. She turned to blast it with the scepter.

  Nothing happened. She'd used it once too often, draining it of its magic.

  She slammed her shoulder into the door, opening it again. She braced it as a rush of water flowed out. Something carried by the flow bumped against her knees: a body.

  "By all that dances," Cavatina cried. "Rylla!"

  She dragged the battle-mistress's body into the room with her, and let what remained of the water push the door shut. As she threw the deadbolt, she heard the wet slap of the ooze striking the door. She dropped the depleted blast scepter down in the ankle-deep water and bent to examine the battle-mistress. Rylla's nose looked broken. Water dribbled from her open mouth as Cavatina lifted her. Rylla appeared to have drowned.

  Had her death been the fanatics' doing, or Qilue's?

  Cavatina lay Rylla down again and drew her sword. The weapon hummed softly, ready for battle. She looked around. The compulsion glyph Horaldin had inscribed on the wall was gone-had the portal been sealed, too? She sloshed to that corner of the room and sang a detection.

  The wall turned as thin as mist. The portal was still active.

  Had Qilue passed through it?

  Cavatina glanced at the chamber's second exit and saw a dull brown ooze squeezing its way through the cracks between the door and its frame. Karas wasn't likely to show up, and she doubted he'd get past it if he did. The other ooze, meanwhile, was squeezing its way around the door she'd bolted shut.

  There was only one way out now.

  Into the portal.

  Cavatina didn't want to leave Rylla behind. If her body was consumed by an ooze, the battle-mistress might never be resurrected. She grabbed Rylla with her free hand, dragged her body to the portal, and stepped through it.

  She emerged from the V-shaped curtain of shimmering silver into a jumble of misty-looking stone. She released Rylla-the battle-mistress's body could remain where it was, for now-and moved cautiously to the ruined temple, sword in hand. She expected to see Ghaunadaur's fanatics clustered around it, offering sacrifices. But as the foundation slab and its shattered columns hove into view, she saw no one. Had she reached it before the fanatics?

  She must have: the symbol wasn't glowing. The planar breach was inactive; the necessary sacrifices had not yet been made.

  Nor was there any sign of Qilue.


  Cavatina hesitated. What now?

  Stand guard, she decided. Stay here and cut down any fanatics who made it through the portal. They would be rendered ethereal, just as she was. She could kill them. As she moved to the ruined temple, looking for the best place to make her stand, its tumbled stones came into sharper focus. A glimmer of silver caught her eye. Another portal? No, it looked more like a…

  Symbol.

  For a time briefer than a blink, Cavatina experienced a moment of terrible clarity. Qilue hadn't lied: she had inscribed a symbol over Ghaunadaur's: a powerful, potent symbol scribed in mercury and diamond dust.

  A symbol of insanity.

  Cavatina's mind crumpled. She saw… She felt… That screaming! Make it stop! She dropped her sword and clapped her hands over her eyes. A bright purple glow penetrated the cracks between her fingers. The symbol! No, the symbol. Bright-it hurt her ears. Her skin felt wet. Slime. Foul taste. She spat it out. Upside down? Why was it above…? The purple glow should have waned, but didn't. The dancer's name would save… Cavatina opened her mouth, but confusion came out of her ears. A presence moved past her now. Green. Slimy.

  Evil.

  Purple smoke. The smoke stared at her. At her. An eye smiled.

  My sacrifice.

  "No!" Cavatina shrieked. She spun, tumbled, flailed. Clawed away, rolled, swam through rubble. Rock bubbles. She couldn't… her sword gone…

  She had…

  Failed.

  *****

  Leliana ran out the door of the High House and caught the arm of the nearest priestess. "Where's the battle-mistress? Have you seen Rylla?"

  The priestess shook her head. "No! Erelda's taken command."

  "What about the high priestess?"

  "Qilue?" Another head shake. "Haven't seen her either."

  Leliana stopped a lay worshiper who ran by, and a Nightshadow. Their answers were the same. Behind her, Cavatina left the High House and ran south, to the Stronghall. Everyone seemed to be headed there. From that direction, she heard sounds of battle.