Sacrifice of the Widow: Lady Penitent, Book I

by Lisa Smedman

  “Small brown hands and a beard,” Qilué repeated. “A rock gnome?”

  Horaldin inclined his head. “My guess also, Lady.”

  “What about the rune?” Qilué asked. “What spell does it trigger?”

  Horaldin shrugged, spreading his hands. “That, I cannot tell you. The stone itself does not know what magic it contains, but its magic was altered by someone, either the dragon or the drow with the braid, perhaps by both. The stone is uncertain on that point. The threads of magic that wind through the stone—the spiderweb pattern your detection revealed—are linked to the dark elves still. It’s tainted by fell magic—either Selvetarm’s or Lolth’s.”

  Qilué took a sharp breath. Traces of silver fire danced in her hair.

  “Will you destroy it, Lady?” the druid asked.

  Qilué considered the question. If she negated the stone’s magic, she might never learn the answer to the riddle it posed. The aranea had obviously carried the gemstone into the caverns claimed by the Promenade and hidden it there, only for Thaleste, praise Eilistraee, to stumble upon it.

  “I won’t be destroying it quite yet,” Qilué answered at last. “Not until I’ve learned what it does.”

  She levitated the stone back inside her pouch, thankful that whatever fell plans the aranea had been trying to carry out had been thwarted. Whatever the oval of black obsidian was, it could get up to no mischief while inside the magical bag’s extradimensional space.

  Buoyed by her magical boots, Cavatina floated through the rotting branches, trying to keep an eye both on the murky water below and the trees around her. She’d been fourteen days and nights on the hunt. The moon above had dwindled to a thin sliver, and the twinkling points of light that followed it through the sky were dim as guttering candles. The creature she’d been chasing had left Cormanthor and veered south into the flooded forest. The dead trees that stood in the swamp were fragile with rot, and their branches more often than not broke off in Cavatina’s hands as she pulled herself along. Like the creature she hunted, Cavatina left an obvious trail, a path of dangling and broken branches and torn moss.

  Yet another branch broke as Cavatina grabbed it, sending her spinning off in a direction she hadn’t intended. She twisted, kicking off a tree trunk. The tree gave slightly then groaned to the side, picking up momentum as it tilted. As it fell, it snapped branches off the trees around it with loud cracks then crashed into the swamp below with a tremendous splash. Stinking water flew into the air, splattering Cavatina’s armor and clothes.

  Cavatina cursed. She couldn’t have revealed her location better if she’d tried.

  She hung motionless, waiting to see if the creature would double back after hearing the noise. It didn’t, but something moved in the swamp below. A shape rose from the water beside the fallen tree. It looked like a mound of rotting vegetation, but it had whiplike “arms” that were twisted bundles of vines and “legs” that were gnarled and blackened roots. It waded away from the felled tree, its humped body twisting this way and that as if it were searching for something. After a few paces, it sank back into the swamp. When the ripples stilled, the only sign of it was a low mound and the vines that made up its arms, untwisted and spreading out over the water’s surface like a net.

  Cavatina was doubly glad for her magical boots. If she’d waded into the swamp, she would have had to battle her way past those plant-things. That was obviously what the creature she was hunting had intended.

  Grabbing another branch, she pulled herself onward, ignoring the mosquitoes that swarmed around her face and arms. She needed both hands to move through the treetops, which meant that the singing sword was sheathed at her hip. Her holy symbol hung from a chain on her belt beside it, ready for spellcasting.

  She passed a tree whose trunk was dotted with bright yellow mushrooms. A cloud of spores drifted down from several that had burst after being disturbed. The creature was just ahead.

  Cavatina drew her sword and let herself drift to a halt. A fetid breeze stirred the moss that hung from the trees nearby. Through that tattered veil, she could see a faint green glow. It seemed to be coming from a spot on the surface of the swamp.

  She whispered a prayer that would protect her from those with evil intent and added a second spell that would enable her to see through magical darkness and other illusions. Then she pulled the stopper out of her iron flask and let it hang from its chain. Sword in hand, she eased her way forward through the branches.

  The greenish glow came from a stone platform that lay just under the surface of the water. Ripples spread away from a spot near the center of the platform, as if something had just disturbed the water there. Muck bobbed on the ripples, dappling the glow. The platform was perhaps twenty paces long, an oval whose edges were ringed with broken columns that jutted out of the water like rotten teeth. Steps, also glowing, curved to follow the contours of the platform, leading down from it on all sides into the murk.

  All of this Cavatina took in at a glance. The platform created a gap in the flooded forest, a clear space devoid of trees—and devoid of the creature Cavatina hunted.

  “Creature!” she shouted. “Show yourself!”

  Mocking laughter drifted out of the dead trees on the other side of the clearing.

  The creature was too far away for her to hurl a spell at it. Cavatina needed to flush it out of hiding. She pushed off from a tree and floated into the clearing, sword in hand, deliberately making herself a target.

  The attack came swiftly. Darkness blossomed around her, momentarily cutting off the green glow below and the faint light from the sliver of moon above. A heartbeat later, the spell Cavatina had cast asserted itself and she could see again. Just in time, she swung her sword at the creature that hurtled toward her trailing a strand of web. The air filled with song as the weapon swept down.

  The creature twisted in mid-leap, faster almost than the eye could follow. The sword struck it, but only a glancing blow against what felt like solid stone. The blow levered Cavatina in one direction, the creature in another. As they sailed away from each other to either side of the magical darkness, Cavatina got her first good look at the thing.

  The creature was enormous, just as the House Jaelre male who had survived its attack had said, probably twice Cavatina’s height. It looked like a powerfully muscled drow female, but with a hairy bulge emerging from each cheek, just under the eye, and eight legs the diameter of broomsticks jutting from its ribs. It was unclothed, with matted white hair whose ends seemed to stick to its shoulders and back.

  “Quarthz’ress!” Cavatina shouted.

  The iron flask began to glow. Bright silver light lanced across the magical darkness, striking the creature, but instead of impaling it and drawing it into the flask, the magical beam ricocheted off its glossy black skin like a ray of light glancing off a mirror.

  That was it then. The creature was definitely not demonic. The flask would have trapped it if it was, or—and this a more disturbing thought—it was some form of demon that was immune to the flask’s magic.

  The creature landed on a tree trunk at the edge of the clearing. It sprang back at Cavatina, arms held wide as if inviting attack. Cavatina summoned a curtain of whirling blades around herself, but the creature paid them no heed. It sailed through them, laughing maniacally as they struck its body. Most glanced off with sounds like metal hitting stone, but a few slashed deep furrows in the creature’s flesh. Then the creature was through the barrier, dripping blood—still very much alive.

  It caught Cavatina by the leg and shouted something in harsh, grating words that she didn’t recognize, spinning itself past her like a partner in a macabre dance. Cavatina felt a wrench, deep inside her body, as if an invisible hand had reached inside and squeezed her vitals. Intense pain nearly made her black out. Then red light flashed under her chain mail shirt, and the sensation was gone. She felt something as gritty as coarse crumbs of salt against her chest—the red periapt, crumbling, its magic overwhelmed.

&nb
sp; She felt a tug on her foot—the creature, yanking off one of her boots. Then the creature sailed out through the barrier of blades, which once again slashed brutally into its body.

  Cavatina fell.

  The murky water did little to cushion her landing. She crashed down onto the submerged stone platform, scraping the skin of her knees and arms. She scrambled upright, the singing sword still in hand, and braced herself as best she could on the slippery stone. It felt as though she were standing on a thick layer of slime.

  The creature crashed into a tree. Dropping Cavatina’s boot, it clung to the branches and stared malevolently down at her. The blade barrier had wounded it, carving deep gouges in its stone-hard hide. Blood flowed down its body and dripped from its bare feet into the swamp below.

  “Had enough?” Cavatina taunted, her sword held ready.

  The creature held out a hand that had been sliced by the blades. Two fingers dangled from it by flaps of skin, dribbling blood. “Why do you hurt me?” it asked in a mournful voice. “I am one of you.”

  “You’re no drow,” Cavatina shot back, “and if you once were, you aren’t any longer.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Cavatina saw a mound of rotting vegetation begin to rise from the swamp: another of the monstrosities she’d spotted earlier. Invoking Eilistraee’s name, she hurled a blast of bitter cold at the spot where it lurked, instantly freezing the water around it and holding it in place. A second blast she directed at the plant-creature itself. The water inside its body, frozen, expanding with a force sufficient to split it apart.

  All the while, a portion of Cavatina’s attention remained focused on the creature she’d been hunting. Its wounds were regenerating even as she watched. This would be a tough fight.

  “I was drow,” the creature continued, flexing its newly repaired fingers. “Now I am the Lady Penitent.”

  The title meant nothing to Cavatina. “What is it you do penance for?” she asked.

  The creature watched as its fingers healed. When they were whole again, it flexed them then lowered its hand. “Everything,” it said, “but most of all, my weakness.”

  “What weakness is that?”

  The creature said nothing.

  “Come down from the branches,” Cavatina suggested. “Let’s finish this.”

  The creature shook its head.

  Cavatina knew what the creature was doing: stalling. Already, Cavatina could feel the effects of the glowing platform. Her legs had started to tremble, and her very bones felt wobbly. The glowing stone’s fell magic was affecting her. Even looking at the platform out of the corner of her eye made her feel slightly nauseous. Stepping off it, however, would mean floundering about in deep water that probably concealed more of those rot-creatures. She might be able to drive the monster who gloated down at her away with a spell, giving her time to recover her boot, but Qilué had ordered her to learn as much as she could about it, and a Darksong Knight followed orders. Cavatina whispered a restorative spell. Divine magic flooded into her, negating the effects of the glow.

  The creature must have caught the quick look Cavatina had given the glowing green stone and heard her whispered prayer.

  “That’s right,” it taunted. “It’s made of sickstone. Appropriate, don’t you think, for a temple to Moander?”

  Cavatina knew the name well, despite the god’s relative obscurity. Moander had been a deity of corruption and decay, a god who had been slain, not very many years ago, by a mere mortal—a bard named Finder. For whatever perverse reasons, Lolth had adopted Moander’s name as one of her aliases, possibly to claim his human worshipers.

  “Is that why you led me here?” Cavatina asked. “Is this spot now sacred to your goddess?”

  “Which goddess is that?” the creature asked. It flicked a hand, sending a spray of tiny spiders into the air. “The Dark Mother, or …” she touched forefinger to forefinger and thumb to thumb to form a circle, “her daughter?” Webs flowed from her fingers like pulled taffy as she pulled her hands apart, laughing.

  Cavatina’s anger rose inside her like a banked fire. “You dare,” she whispered.

  She hurled her sword, snapping out a prayer as it flew through the air. Her aim was true. Guided by the goddess’s magic, the singing sword plunged into the creature’s chest, burying itself nearly hilt-deep. The creature let out a shriek and flailed its spider legs as Cavatina moved her hand through the air, yanking out the sword and preparing for a second thrust.

  The creature glared down at Cavatina. “You can’t kill me!” it raged. “Nothing can kill me. She keeps …” It coughed, doubling over, “sending …” another cough, one with bloody spittle, “me back.”

  That said, it sprang from its treetop perch with a leap that sent the dead tree crashing over backward. Cavatina tried to send her sword after it, but the creature was too fast. It scrambled away through the treetops and disappeared from sight.

  Cavatina called her sword back into her hand and cast a second restorative spell upon herself. The sickstone on which she stood had once again sapped her strength. Then she waded to the spot where her boot floated. The water rose to her chest before she reached it, and she had an awkward moment of balancing on one foot in the muck while trying to pull the boot on. Foul-smelling water soaked her clothes and slimed her skin. When she at last levitated out of it, the stench clung to her clothing and armor. She cocked each leg, letting the water drain from her boots. Then she set off in pursuit of the creature.

  She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice—she’d make sure she kept her feet well away from its grasping hands.

  The creature was easy to follow. Once again there was a clear trail of broken branches. That trail, however, led in a big circle, back to the ruined temple.

  Cavatina kept well out of range of the sickly green glow. To her surprise, the creature did not. It stood on the submerged platform, still hunched over from the wound the singing sword had dealt it—a wound that should have been mortal, but which had already sealed itself shut, leaving only a faint gray scar behind. The creature moved about, as if restless. As Cavatina drew closer, she saw that its movements had a pattern.

  “By all that’s holy,” Cavatina whispered.

  “It’s dancing.” The creature spun and splashed, arms raised above its head, spider legs drumming against its chest in time with the dance. Once again, it blasphemed Eilistraee. Its drow hands formed the goddess’s sacred circle above its head. Its eyes were closed, and it seemed oblivious to Cavatina’s presence. A harsh song came from its lips. Several words were missing, others were roughly abbreviated, as if choked off in mid-syllable. The melody was subtly wrong, like a chord with one note a half-tone off, but even so, Cavatina recognized it.

  Eilistraee’s sacred Evensong.

  Cavatina was outraged. “What are you doing?” she shouted.

  The creature slowed. Lowered its hands. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “You profane our holy song.”

  “I sing it as I learned it.”

  Cavatina blinked. “But you’re not … You can’t be one of Eilistraee’s worshipers.”

  “I was.”

  Cavatina gripped her sword so hard her hand hurt. Mute with horror, she shook her head.

  “Oh, yes,” the creature said, its face lit from below by the sickly green glow. “I once danced in the sacred grove. I rose from the Cave of Rebirth, sang the song, and took up the sword.”

  Cavatina felt numb with shock. “You … were one of the Redeemed? A priestess?”

  The creature nodded.

  “But … but how …”

  “I was weak. Lolth punished me. I was … transformed.”

  Cavatina allowed herself to drift a little lower, but she was careful not to get too close to the sickstone. The glow must have been affecting the creature. Its legs were visibly trembling, sending tiny ripples through the filthy water.

  “And now you want to be a drow again?” Cavatina guessed.

  The creature gave a bitt
er laugh. “If only it were that simple.”

  Cavatina lowered her sword—but only slightly. “Sing with me,” she said. “Pray for Eilistraee’s aid.”

  “I can’t. Every time I try, my throat fills with spiders and I choke.”

  “A curse,” Cavatina whispered. Part of her wondered if that wasn’t a ruse to draw her closer, but the teachings of Eilistraee were clear. Mercy had to be extended to those who pleaded for it, and the creature, in its own unique way, was all but begging. Cavatina reluctantly extended her hand. “Curses can be removed. Let me—”

  The creature reared back, water sloshing around its ankles. “Weren’t you listening?” it howled. “This isn’t just a curse, I’ve been permanently transformed. Nothing—nothing!—can redeem me now.”

  Cavatina’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes suddenly stung. She could feel the cursed priestess’s anguish as if it were her own. She suddenly understood why the creature had left a trail for her to follow, why it hadn’t simply fled. She wanted Cavatina to end its misery, and—Cavatina stared at the spot where the singing sword had pierced its chest, a spot where not even a scar remained—Cavatina had failed her.

  As if hearing her thoughts, the creature looked up. “You’re powerful,” she said. “I can sense that about you. I thought you might have a spell that could end this, but you’re as much of a disappointment as Eilistraee was.”

  “Don’t say that,” Cavatina gasped, shocked.

  The creature laughed. “Why should I stay my tongue?” it mocked. “Will Eilistraee punish me? She’s already punished me enough for my failure. She’s abandoned me.”