Sacrifice of the Widow: Lady Penitent, Book I

by Lisa Smedman

  “This one,” she said, craning her neck up. “The temple’s on top.”

  “Show me.”

  Halisstra climbed, her bare hands and feet sticking to the rock like those of a spider. Cavatina sprang into the air, levitating beside her. As she neared the top, she saw a structure perched on top of the flat expanse of stone. It was a simple box of a building little bigger than a shed: four square walls, a roof, and a single arched doorway in which fluttered a tattered blanket that served as an improvised door. The walls were deeply pitted, as if from acid, but one section of stone above the arch was untouched. On it was a crude carving of a sword atop a circle that represented the full moon—Eilistraee’s symbol. Seeing it, Cavatina felt a comforting warmth. That much of Halisstra’s story, at least, had been true. Together with Feliane and Uluyara she had raised a temple to Eilistraee, shaping it by magic out of stone—in the heart of the Demonweb Pits.

  Cavatina landed in front of the building and sang a song of praise. As she finished the divination spell, the symbol on the building began to glow. The temple was still consecrated—though dark streaks of evil were worming their way into its stone walls.

  Halisstra had not yet clambered onto the top of the spire. She hung at its edge, wincing and turning her head away from the building, as if it pained her to look at it.

  Cavatina gestured at the temple. “The Crescent Blade is inside?”

  Halisstra nodded. Her matted hair, stuck to her shoulders, did not move. “On the floor.”

  Cavatina moved to the entrance and used her sword to move the fluttering blanket aside. She could see something that glinted inside the temple against the back wall—a sword with a curved blade. The blanket fell, and the wind caught it, blowing it to the back of the room. It landed on the curved sword, covering it.

  Cavatina glanced up, making sure nothing was lurking on the inside ceiling, then back at where Halisstra clung to the top of the spire, only her head and shoulders visible above the edge. The fangs that protruded from Halisstra’s cheeks were twitching. Her eyes were wide with anticipation and her drow mouth hung open slightly, panting. Her whispered hiss came to Cavatina on the wind: “Yes.”

  One eye still on Halisstra, Cavatina eased into the room. The temple was small, barely four paces across. Its interior had an odd feeling about it, sacred and calm, yet balanced on the edge of turmoil. Cavatina felt as though she were walking across a pane of clearstone waiting for it to crack.

  She flicked away the blanket with the tip of her sword and stared down at the weapon that lay on the floor. Words had been inlaid in silver along its curved blade. They were in the language of the drow and thus easily read. A portion of one word was missing, at a spot where the upper and lower halves of the blade had been fused back together. The silver in that spot had melted away. The script read:

  Be your heart filled with light

  and your cause be true,

  I shall n—fail you.

  A divination spell showed that the sword still held its magic. Cavatina stared down at it in awe.

  “The Crescent Blade,” she whispered.

  Forged centuries ago from “moon metal,” it had a blade so keen it could cut through stone or even metal. It was a weapon said to be capable of severing the neck of any creature—even a god.

  Cavatina sheathed her singing sword and reached down for the Crescent Blade. As her hand closed around the leather-wrapped hilt, she felt a rush of power surge up her arm. Holding the weapon in both hands, she spun like a sword dancer, savoring the perfect balance of the blade. With it, she would be the penultimate hunter. Her foes would fall like wheat before a scythe. “Eilistraee!” she cried. Still spinning, she threw back her head and laughed.

  A loud hissing sound brought her to her senses. Halting abruptly, she peered outside the temple and saw splatters of rain hitting the stone. Where they landed, the stone began to bubble. Foul-smelling steam rose and pock marks formed.

  Acidic rain.

  Halisstra stared up at the sky, rain streaming down her face and soaking her matted hair. If the acid stung her bare skin, she showed no sign. “A storm is coming,” she said. She glanced down. “We need shelter.”

  Cavatina gestured at the temple. “Eilistraee will shield us.”

  Halisstra shook her head. “Not me.” She glanced down again then sprang away from the edge of the cliff, out into space.

  Cavatina rushed to the exit, but the acidic rain blowing in through the open doorway drove her back. She sang a prayer of protection and forced her way against the wind to the edge of the spire of rock. She stared down but saw no sign of her guide.

  “Halisstra!” she called, but her voice was snatched away by the rising wind.

  Acidic rain bounced away from her skin, hair and clothes without touching them, repelled by her spell. Its magic would protect her—but only for a time. She needed to get back under shelter herself, but as she turned back toward the temple, she heard a sharp crack. A large split appeared in its front wall, beside the arch. Rain streamed off the roof in rivulets, eroding the crack further. Even as Cavatina watched, it widened. Then, with a terrific groaning sound, the structure gave way. The roof fell in, and the walls crumbled. Soon all that remained was a shapeless blob, atop which rested a single, jagged chunk of solid stone, bearing Eilistraee’s symbol.

  The temple was no more. It had stood only as long as it needed to, by the grace of Eilistraee. With the Crescent Blade recovered, Cavatina was on her own.

  She ran to the edge of the cliff and leaped, letting her boots carry her gently downward. As she descended, she contacted Halisstra with a spell. When the storm is over, meet me at the portal, she sent.

  Halisstra’s reply came a moment later. A thin, drawn-out wail. I can’t! Lolth calls.

  Cavatina repeated her spell. I can help you resist her. Tell me where you are.

  She felt Halisstra’s mind brush hers, but there was no reply, just a low, half-mad gurgle of laughter.

  Something came hurtling up at her from the base of the spire: two creatures that glowed with a faint, greenish-yellow light, legs trailing behind them. Cavatina recognized them in an instant. They were myrlochar—“soul spiders”—deadly foes capable of stealing a victim’s life essence and adding it to their own, and they could levitate just as skillfully as Cavatina could.

  She halted in mid-descent and hurled a spell down at them. Two brilliant white shafts of Eilistraee’s holy moonlight flashed down, each striking one of the myrlochars and instantly charring it to a flaming husk. They tumbled, legs snapping off as they fell, and landed with twin thuds on the ground below.

  Cavatina almost laughed. Was that the best Lolth could send against her? She renewed the spell that prevented the acidic rain from harming her and landed beside the still-smoking husks of the soul spiders.

  As if in answer to her silent challenge, the weather changed. The rain stopped and small, hard balls of stone began to fall from the sky. As they tapped off Cavatina’s metal armor, she saw that they were tiny spiders. She tried to grind one underfoot, but it was like a pebble under the sole of her boot. She realized they must be petrified, like the spire of rock behind her.

  More petrified spiders fell, larger ones. Soon they were the size of grapes, then eggs. They pelted down in a bruising hail. Cavatina sang a prayer, creating a shield-shaped disk of energy above her head. Most of the spider-hail bounced off it, careening away to either side, but some of the missiles came through and struck her head and shoulders.

  Just ahead was a wide crack in another of the spires of rock—a natural cavern. Cavatina ran into it, escaping the hail. She skidded to a halt as she saw that the cavern was already occupied. A drow female, bloody and bruised, lay against one wall. When she stirred, Cavatina recognized her as Uluyara, one of the priestesses who had accompanied Halisstra into the Demonweb Pits. She was alive, but just barely.

  “Behind … you!” Uluyara croaked, staring past Cavatina at something outside in the storm.

  C
avatina was half-turning when the singing sword blasted away the veil the false drow had used to cloud her mind. She whirled, the Crescent Blade still in her hand, and found herself facing a yochlol instead of Uluyara. The demon had assumed its natural form, a shapeless heap of reeking flesh, and it towered above her. A single red eye glared out at her from the center of eight writhing tentacles. The limbs lashed forward, at least half of them scoring hits on Cavatina’s arms, shoulders, and chest. They inflicted only minor wounds, but their tugs threw Cavatina off balance. She lashed out with the Crescent Blade and managed to strike one of the tentacles, cutting clean through it. The severed appendage struck a wall and flopped to the ground, leaking gore.

  The yochlol screeched, and all was in darkness. Cavatina countered it with a prayer that would enable her to see again and slashed with the Crescent Blade, trying to find her foe, but her blade swept through empty space. The yochlol had either recognized her as a Darksong Knight and teleported away or …

  As Cavatina’s spell pierced the magical darkness, she saw a roiling cloud of yellowish vapor. The yochlol had assumed gaseous form. The stench punched into Cavatina’s stomach like a greasy fist. Fighting the urge to double over and vomit, she sang a healing word. The nausea passed, but the demon changed form again, assuming the shape of a large spider. It leaped toward her, fangs distended to bite.

  Cavatina met it in mid-leap with an overhand swing. The yochlol had no neck to sever—in spider form its head and thorax were fused—but the Crescent Blade did its job. The blade struck the creature at the midpoint of its cluster of eyes, slicing cleanly through cephalothorax and abdomen, cutting each in two. Hot, stinking ooze splattered Cavatina from forehead to feet as the two halves of the body sailed past on either side, landing behind her.

  She blinked and spat the foul taste out of her mouth. Demon blood dribbled down the blade onto her hand and dripped onto the floor. “That’s some sword,” she said softly, hefting the Crescent Blade appreciatively.

  Who are you?

  Cavatina blinked. Was that a voice she’d just heard? Another yochlol, announcing its presence? She whirled in place, the Crescent Blade ready in her hand. The spell that had allowed her to see through the yochlol’s magical darkness was still in effect and showed nothing out of the ordinary. She was alone in the cavern.

  Alone with the Crescent Blade.

  You’re not the one.

  Cavatina stared at the weapon. “Is …” She paused, feeling foolish. “Is that you talking, sword?” She’d heard of weapons with an intelligence of their own but had never owned one.

  The sword—if indeed it was the sword that had spoken—made no reply.

  Cavatina heard something stirring deeper in the cavern and suspected it was another yochlol. The place might well have been home to an entire brood of demons. Though she’d like nothing better than to slay them, one by one, Qilué’s orders had been strict. Cavatina was to recover the Crescent Blade from the Demonweb Pits and return with it promptly, not linger in Lolth’s domain, where it might be damaged or lost. There would be demons aplenty to kill, another day.

  Cavatina glanced outside. The hail of spiders had stopped. She stepped out of the cavern, still holding the Crescent Blade. The singing sword would have been a better weapon to be carrying if she encountered more yochlol, but practicality took precedence. The Crescent Blade was too curved to fit in her scabbard. She had to carry it.

  She headed back toward the portal, once again using her magical boots to cross the ground in long, graceful leaps. As she did, she peered between the spires of rock, trying to see where Halisstra had gone. She also attempted to send a message to Halisstra, but the sending met with silence. Perhaps Halisstra had already used the portal to return to the Prime Material Plane. Once she was through it, a sending wouldn’t necessarily reach her.

  Even if Halisstra hadn’t reached the portal yet, Cavatina was certain the former priestess could take care of herself. Halisstra had survived, by her own account, for two years in Lolth’s domain. She was as adapted to survive there as any demon—her immunity to the acidic rain had proved that.

  As Cavatina passed the last of the spires, she saw something in the distance that sent a chill through her: a spider so enormous that she could make out the details of it, even from so far away. Its body was crowned with a drow head, and it reared back on six of its eight legs. The two front legs held weapons that glinted a dull red in the ruddy starlight, a straight steel sword and a thicker knob-headed mace.

  By his weapons alone, Cavatina would have recognized him. It was Selvetarm himself, champion of Lolth, and no mere avatar—not at home in the Demonweb Pits—but the demigod himself.

  Cavatina whispered a fervent prayer as she drifted to the ground. Her heart pounding furiously, she stood, utterly motionless, as Selvetarm turned. It took all of her willpower not to cringe as the demigod’s gaze swept over her. Would Eilistraee hide her from sight? Could she, from a demigod in his own domain? Selvetarm had the power to see the invisible—and would immediately spot Cavatina if he so much as suspected anyone was there. She only started breathing again when the head turned away once more.

  Her relief at not being spotted drained away as she realized where Selvetarm was standing almost exactly on the spot where the portal was, and he wasn’t moving.

  Cavatina had been feeling certain she could defeat anything Lolth could toss at her, but suddenly things had become complicated. To escape the Demonweb Pits, she was going to have to fight her way past a demigod.

  You can do it.

  Cavatina blinked. Had that been the sword talking—or her own pride?

  Her grip tightened on the Crescent Blade. She could do it. The weapon in her hands had been forged for exactly that purpose, to kill deities.

  Yes, the sword whispered.

  Cavatina smiled grimly and thought, what a hunt this is going to be!

  If she succeeded in killing Selvetarm, her name would be praised forevermore from the Promenade to the smallest shrine.

  And a demigod’s head would be her trophy.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Malvag waited impatiently in the cavern. It was difficult to keep from pacing back and forth, though his surroundings helped. It was peaceful there. Dark. Separate. Silent. The only sounds were the thud-thud, thud-thud of his heart and the soft exhalations of his breath. The darkstone crystals that lined the walls created a void of utter blackness around him, drinking in even the darkfire that danced like a shadow across the skin of his right hand, yet the shadows weren’t quite enough to calm him.

  It was the night of the winter solstice—the longest night of the year—and midnight was rapidly approaching. The moment he’d been waiting for was almost at hand. In just a little while, Urz, Valdar, and Szorak would arrive with their soul-impregnated masks, and the conjuration could begin.

  At midnight, according to the astrologers, Toril’s shadow would fall fully across the moon, completely eclipsing it. The darkest hour of the longest night of the year would begin with Eilistraee’s holiest of symbols completely enshrouded in shadow.

  Malvag stared down at a drift disc, no larger than a dinner plate, that floated in the air before him at waist level. On it was a treasure he’d spent the better part of a century searching for, a prayer scroll from ancient Ilythiir. It was made of silver foil, tarnished to a mottled black and crumbling at the edges after ten thousand years of lying in the blasted ruins of an ancient temple. Delicate as a dried leaf, it had deep creases from being crushed flat by the tumbled masonry that had helped to preserve it, yet the words that had been written on it in Old Espruar by the high clerics of vanished Ilythiir could still be discerned.

  Malvag moved his index finger above them, silently reading with the aid of the darkfire. When the time came, he and whichever of the Nightshadows had been successful in their soulthefts would read them aloud, activating the scroll’s magic.

  Malvag savored the irony of what was to come. The scroll had been intended to open a
gate between Lolth’s domain and Arvandor, so the Spider Queen could mount a second attack on the Seldarine. It had never been used, however—probably because it had been created in the final years of the Fourth Crown War, just before the ssri Tel’Quessir had been transformed into drow and driven below.

  Instead it would be used by Lolth’s enemies to make their god stronger. After killing Eilistraee, Vhaeraun would secretly assume that goddess’s portfolio and add her worshipers to his ranks. All of the drow in the Night Above—male and female—would come under one god. Strengthened by their worship, Vhaeraun would mount an attack on Lolth herself, and the reign of the Spider Queen would, at long last, be at an end.

  The thought sent a thrill through Malvag.

  It was tempered by the memory of the demonic creature that had first bound him then revived him. He shuddered. When the demon-thing had attacked him, he’d assumed it had been sent by Lolth, but after it had revived him, he hadn’t been so sure. He’d later decided that it must be a thing of Selvetarm, but the Selvetargtlin had denied that, which left him wondering if the creature was Lolth’s after all. The Spider Queen could certainly want Malvag to live so that his work could continue and Eilistraee be killed, no doubt about that, but the thought of Lolth meddling in what should have been purely Vhaeraun’s vengeance made Malvag uneasy.

  He pushed the thought aside. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted, not when so much rested on his shoulders. He would need all of his concentration to invoke the scroll’s powers.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, drinking in the invisible energies that rippled back and forth in the enclosed space. The cavern couldn’t sustain life for long. The air already smelled slightly stale. For one night, at least, it would suffice, and that one night was all that mattered.