by Lisa Smedman
A ragged cheer went up from the priestesses around her, and she realized her foe had been the last of the fanatics. Yet the bubbling ooze remained. Thankfully, it was smaller, reduced in size by the priestess's attacks. "Praise Eilistraee," Erelda gasped. "We will hold the temple."
She realized she could hear herself speak. For the first time in decades, the sacred song had faltered. "The Evensong!" she shouted. The priestesses next to her took up the hymn. With her sword raised, Erelda stepped forward to finish off the ooze.
The world flip-flopped. Up became down. Erelda tumbled, flailing, to the ceiling, together with the handful of defenders who had been standing next to her. She slammed into stone, and saw stars. She scrambled upright-the floor of the cavern reeled dizzily over her head-and realized the ooze had somehow distorted the natural laws of reality. She hurled a bolt of moonlight and shadow "up" at the ooze, but it didn't stop the thing. The ooze slithered over the statue of Qilue, fouling it. Then it disappeared down the staircase leading to the top of the Pit.
Erelda and the others fell. Erelda's wrist snapped as she landed, and pain flared. She rose, cradling the arm against her chest, and sang a hymn of healing. Without looking to see how the others fared, she clambered over the slime-fouled statue and ran to the staircase, shaking feeling back into her hand.
She ran down the spiral stairs two steps at a time, one hand on the inside wall to steady herself, the other tightly gripping her sword. She slipped, scrambled, sometimes tumbled down the steps, which glistened with the multicolored slime left by the creature as it squeezed its way down the narrow staircase. Always the monster was just around the bend. Just out of sight.
Gasping, Erelda at last reached the bottom of the staircase. She slipped on the final steps and tumbled into a cavern. Its floor was a bumpy field of broken stone: the fragments of the walls Qilue had collapsed to fill the Pit. The Protector who'd been stationed at the top of the Mound was gone. The ooze was just ahead, bubbling toward the statue of Eilistraee. The statue, made up of tiny chips of magic-suspended stone, was no longer moving. It would have halted its dance when the sacred song faltered. That it hadn't resumed its slow pirouette was a grim sign. Hadn't anyone survived above?
Erelda leaped, her sword flashing. It sliced through the ooze, severing one glistening sac after another. The ooze deflated-but as it did, a rush of multicolored energy rippled outward from it and struck the statue. Half of the stone chips instantly disappeared, and the rest were transmuted to mud that fell like dirty rain onto the spot where it had stood.
Erelda gasped. Her throat tightened. The seal on the Pit-gone!
The rubble where the statue had stood glowed with a purple light. Tendrils of violet mist seeped out through cracks between the stones. A feeling like ice slid into Erelda's gut as she realized what this meant. The breach at the bottom of the Pit had opened!
The rubble quivered. Something was rising upward through the Pit.
"Eilistraee!" she cried. She leaped over the deflated ooze and hurled herself, face down, atop the Mound. She couldn't fuse the rubble-only Lady Qilue could do that with her silver fire-but she could sing into being a blessing that would hold back whatever was rising out of the Pit, for a time. "At this time of darkness, I call down your light. Make holy this-"
Her song slowed to a dirgelike moan as the purple mist filled her lungs. The cavern was thick with the stuff; she could no longer see the walls. A tentacle erupted out of the rubble next to her, as thick as her arm and glistening with slime. It knocked her tumbling. She turned-slowly, slowly-and saw the eye at the end of the tentacle open gummily, releasing beams of bright orange light that lanced through the purple smoke. One of these struck her sword, which vibrated as if it had just clanged against an opponent's blade. Its song shrilled to a panic-filled wail, and the steel glowed red with heat.
Erelda grabbed the sword and struggled-slowly, slowly-to her feet, clinging grimly to her weapon. The leather wrapping the hilt smoked, and the tip of the blade grew white hot. Molten metal trickled down it, like wax from a candle, and dripped onto Erelda's hand. She screamed and dropped the weapon. It fell silent.
Determined not to fail her goddess, she resumed her hymn.
A second tentacle emerged from the portal, beside the first. A second eye opened. Erelda's mind raced at a speed her body couldn't keep up with. Eilistraee aid me, she pleaded. It's Ghaunadaur's avatar! It's escaping from the Pit!
She kept singing. Slowly. The hymn was almost complete. One final word…
A ray of orange light struck her in the forehead, filling her with a panic that exploded through her body like shards of ice. Her song turned into a scream. Then she crumpled in despair.
She'd failed. The Promenade was lost.
*****
Laeral stood in the jungle, clad in a silk nightgown that offered scant protection against the night. She would have dressed, had there been time, but Qilue had demanded her immediate assistance. The urgent message had awoken Laeral from a sound sleep. She'd pulled on her slippers, swept up her magical necklace from her bedside table, fastened her wand belt around her waist, and cast a quick contingency that would blink her out of harm's way should the Crescent Blade be turned on her. Then she'd teleported here, to the spot Qilue had so precisely described.
This place was evil. Laeral could feel it. Even though it was night, the air was sticky and hot. A faint sound grated at the edge of her hearing: a distant, wailing cry like the sound of women mourning. The trees here were black and twisted, their heavy branches devoid of leaves. A choking tangle of dead vines snaked between fallen masonry, the smell of their wilted flowers reminiscent of corpses ripening in the sun. The ground was uneven, with blocks of stone barely visible under a thick blanket of rotting, bug-infested loam. Laeral could sense a jungle cat observing her from the darkness, its eyes glinting. Though it was hungry, and she probably appeared easy prey, it didn't approach. It slunk away into the jungle, its tail lashing.
What was this place? Laeral reached deep into herself and used a pinch of her own life-force to channel power to her spell. She rested her fingers on a block of masonry, and posed the question again-this time, with a whispered incantation. She tapped the fingers of her free hand to her closed eyelids. Show me, she commanded.
As she opened her eyes, a vision sprang into place around her. She stood not in a jungle-hemmed ruin, but in an audience chamber with towering walls. Sunlight shone through stained-glass windows, painting everything it illuminated blood red. An elf with dark brown skin and thinning gray hair sat on the throne; wearing thread-of-gold robes and a silver crown. His hands moved in a complicated series of gestures, his twisting fingers teasing wisps of dark smoke out of eight guttering yellow candles. These had been set at the points of a complex eight-sided star that was painted on the floor in what looked like fresh blood. As Laeral watched, breathless, the streams of smoke twined together and thickened, taking on the shape of a monstrous demon with bat wings, horns, and cloven feet. A sword with a flame-shaped blade was strapped to the demon's back, and crackled to life, its flames matching the red blaze of his eyes. Soot, snorted from his nostrils, drifted onto the floor near his feet.
Who summons me? the demon growled.
Geirildin, Coronal of House Sethomiir. The wizard leaned forward on his throne. His hair, now bone white, was shot through with glints of red from the windows above. His eyes glittered. Kneel before your master.
The demon's lip curled, yet he did as he was commanded. As he dropped to his knees, one cloven foot kicked over a candle. Its flame guttered and went out. The wizard-coronal tensed, and his hand tightened around a spider-shaped amulet that hung from his neck. The demon drew its foot back inside the eight-sided star, and the wizard relaxed again.
Your name, demon, he demanded.
The demon stared him in the eye and bared his jagged teeth in a feral smile.
Wendonai.
These are dark times, the wizard told the demon. Our enemies press us on every sid
e. You will help us turn the tide, Wendonai. The brutal conquests of Aryvandaar must be halted, or we Ilythiiri shall all be slaughtered.
It will be my pleasure, Geirildin, the demon answered.
The vision ended. The jungle and ruins returned.
Laeral shivered as she realized what her vision had just revealed. This was where it had happened, nearly thirteen millennia ago-the event that had precipitated the descent of the dark elves of Ilythiir into madness and shadow. Qilue had spoken to Laeral of this before. She'd related enough of the early history of these dark elf ancestors of the drow for Laeral to understand what she'd just seen. According to everything her sister had read, the Ilythiiri had been a greedy people, bent on conquest and determined to achieve victory at any cost. Their noble Houses had embraced the corruption of the Abyss, in order to win the wars they'd waged with neighboring elven kingdoms. Yet Qilue questioned whether they had truly been as ruthless as the histories painted them-or whether they had instead been desperate victims. The vision seemed to hint at the latter. Whatever the coronal's motivation might have been, the summoning Laeral had just witnessed had been his people's downfall. Wendonai was the balor demon who had corrupted Qilue's ancestors-the demon who now lurked inside the reforged Crescent Blade.
The demon whose taint Qilue was about to draw into herself.
And this was the spot where she was going to do it.
One detail of the vision had been especially unsettling. Laeral knew only a little about summoning-the very idea of deliberately unleashing a demon upon the world sickened her-but she could tell that something had gone amiss with the casting she'd just seen in her vision. The demon had displayed a great deal of control: first knocking over the candle-which the wizard had noticed-and then drawing his foot back in such a way as to scuff the lines painted on the floor.
Which the wizard hadn't noticed.
Was there something Qilue had also missed? The plan she'd so cryptically outlined to Laeral seemed sound, on the surface. Qilue would draw in the demon's taint, and then Laeral would cleanse it from Qilue with Mystra's silver fire. To ensure the demon didn't gain control of her sister's body, Laeral would use a trick they'd once played on Elminster-a jest Qilue had made a cryptic reference to in her brief communication. Laeral would temporarily step outside of time, leaving Qilue frozen in the moment, ensuring that Laeral would get a chance to draw down the silver fire before the demon could try anything.
All good, in theory. But had this truly been her sister's idea-or the demon's? Qilue had admitted to being corrupted by Wendonai, but had assured Laeral that she was-at least, at the time of her most recent communication-fully in control of herself. But had she been? What if the demon was scheming to turn Mystra's boon against them? What if the silver fire consumed not Wendonai, but Qilue herself? Her body would remain-it could not be destroyed by mundane or magical means-but whose mind would it house?
If Laeral were a priestess, she might have asked for guidance from a greater power. But she was a mage, with only her own instincts to go by. And her instincts screamed caution.
A thread of moonlight through the bare branches above announced Qilue's imminent arrival. Laeral braced herself. An instant later, Qilue appeared. She landed in a crouch atop the block of weathered stone that had been the seat of the throne, the Crescent Blade held high above her head. Her robe was soaking wet, her ankle-length hair plastered against her black skin.
The sisters' eyes met: Qilue's, clear and determined; Laeral's, brimming with concern.
"Sister," Laeral whispered. "I…"
"May Eilistraee forgive me," Qilue said in a flat voice. Then, before Laeral could stop her, Qilue yanked the holy symbol from her neck and threw it down. The Crescent Blade swept up, and down in a deadly arc. Steel struck silver with a dull clank, slicing the holy symbol in two.
"It begins!" Qilue cried.
She chanted-words that twisted her lips and forced a spray of red through her teeth as she gritted them out. Her features changed. Her back hunched, her face erupted in boils, and her eyes clouded to a dull white. The fingers gripping the Crescent Blade elongated and grew thick, horny nails. A foul smell rose from her skin.
All this, in the blink of an eye.
Laeral reeled as she realized what her sister was doing. Qilue had cast aside Eilistraee's redemption, and was warping her very soul in order to invite the demon in. Laeral could feel the evil crackle past as it rushed at Qilue. It chilled, then burned. It whipped both sisters' hair into twisted knots, fouled Laeral's nightgown, and forced its soot into her lungs, making her cough. It shrilled past her ears with a mocking, high-pitched tittering.
No! Laeral thought. All the drow on Toril weren't worth this!
"Temfuto!" she screamed, halting time for all but her.
Silence. Sudden stillness. Her sister's transformation, halted. The very air, frozen. A falling leaf, checked in mid-descent. Laeral stepped past it-quickly, quickly, before her spell ended-and touched her hands to her sister's head. Qilue's scalp felt as hot as the Abyss beneath her ice white hair.
Silver fire wreathed Laeral's hands in a sparkling radiance. She readied herself to send it raging into Qilue the instant the time-halting spell ended, in order to burn the taint from her sister's body. But what then? Qilue had drawn some of the demon's taint inside her, but not all. Though Laeral's silver fire would burn much of it away, a portion would remain inside the Crescent Blade, which Qilue still held in her hands. If the sword had been lying on the ground, Laeral could have easily cast a disjunction to strip it of its magic, once Qilue herself had been cleansed. But with it locked tight in Qilue's grasp, the demon could slide back up the trickle of blood that connected steel and flesh. Qilue was an open vessel, bereft now of the blessings that had formerly protected her. The demon would slide into her as quickly as a sword into an oiled sheath. Faster, perhaps, than Laeral could react.
Laeral trembled with indecision. She had to decide. Now!
Then it came to her.
A snap of her fingers transmuted the soot that grimed her sister into a dusting of crushed diamond, emerald, ruby, and sapphire. With her hands still on Qilue's hair, Laeral watched the leaf, waiting…
The leaf quivered. Time resumed its flow. Laeral cast her spell.
The leaf landed, and the rush of taint died away in an angry howl. Qilue remained motionless, the gem dust in her hair sparkling in the moonlight. She, alone, remained frozen in time, held fast by Laeral's transmutation.
Laeral hardly recognized the twisted thing Qilue had become.
"Oh, sister," she breathed. "What have you done?"
She didn't need to ask why Qilue had done it. She knew the answer. Qilue loved the drow with all her heart. She'd sought their salvation with every thought, with every word, with every deed. And this had nearly been her downfall.
Nearly.
Laeral, however, had just bought her sister a little time. Even if Laeral herself didn't know how to help Qilue, there was someone who did. Someone whose knowledge of demons-whose expertise in hunting them down, banishing them, permanently destroying both the demon and its lingering taint-far surpassed Laeral's own. The Darksong Knight, Cavatina. Laeral would take Qilue someplace safe, then fetch Cavatina.
Laeral touched her sister and spoke a conjuration, but something prevented her from teleporting away. It was as if Qilue were a lodestone, pulling in the opposite direction from the one Laeral wanted to go. Laeral wrapped her arms around her sister and tried to physically move her, but Qilue's feet refused to lift from the block of stone.
Suddenly, she remembered her vision and the ancient wizard's binding spell. The binding must have taken hold of Qilue, as soon as the demon's taint shifted inside her. Laeral knew a powerful abjuration that could break the binding, but casting it would also end the spell that was holding Qilue in stasis.
She stood, desperately thinking. A binding, she knew, could be undone not just by a spell, but also by repeating a phrase, a gesture, or by meeting other,
very specific conditions set by the original spellcaster. She went over the vision in her mind, but it offered no clues. In time-and with a great deal of study-she might find that key.
She stared at her frozen sister. Time was certainly something Qilue had.
Unless someone came along in the meantime and cast a disjunction spell.
Laeral squared her shoulders. If Qilue couldn't be brought to the Darksong Knight, she decided, then Cavatina would just have to be brought here instead. That meant Laeral would have to leave her sister. In the meantime, she had to guarantee Qilue's safety. She hung her necklace around Qilue's neck to ensure that enemies couldn't scry her. Then she cloaked her sister in a glamor that would further conceal her.
"I'll be gone just a short time, sister," Laeral said, stroking the frozen hair, even though she knew Qilue couldn't hear or feel her. "I'll come back with Cavatina. She'll know what to do."
Her promise made, she teleported away.
The night deepened. The moon moved in the sky. Shadows lengthened.
So did a hair-thin strand of web.
A spider descended from a branch above, and landed on gem-dusted hair. It crawled down an ebon cheek and across parted lips.
It began to spin its web.
CHAPTER 10
Q'arlynd strode down the cobblestoned street, ignoring the stares. Alehouse patrons halted their conversations and gaped, a gnomish musician cranking a hurdybox faltered in mid-song, and pale-skinned elves gave him sidelong glances as they passed, their hands near their swords. Alarmed whispers swirled in Q'arlynd's wake-the word "drow" followed by low-voiced, hostile comments.
The air was uncomfortably hot, the sunlight blinding. The buildings on either side-tall, white-limed, and red-shuttered-were smooth and square, utterly unlike the fluted stalagmites and columns of Sshamath. Here and there, patches of welcome shade pooled under massive oaks whose branches held aloft the elaborate dwelling places of the surface elves. Yet these momentary respites were nothing compared to the cool, constant darkness of the Underdark. Q'arlynd's eyes lingered on the gnomish burrows down among the tree roots, and the heavy stone arches that led to the underhalls of the dwarves-not that those races would react with any less apprehension to a drow than the rest of Silverymoon's inhabitants.