Sacrifice of the Widow lp-1

by Lisa Smedman

  Sacrifice of the Widow

  ( Lady Penitent - 1 )

  Lisa Smedman

  Lisa Smedman

  Sacrifice of the Widow

  PRELUDE

  Two deities stared at each other across an immense gulf: a gate, forged between two domains. Lolth and Eilistraee, mother and daughter. Goddess of darkness and cruelty, goddess of kindness and light.

  Eilistraee stood in a forest, bathed in moonlight. Branches heavy with blue-white moonstones the size of apples twined in a bower above her head. The goddess was naked, her silvery white, ankle-length hair flowing over velvet-black skin like streams of liquid moonlight. Twin swords floated in the air, one at each hip. Their silver blades vibrated softly, their blended music like women's voices raised in wordless song. Eilistraee's face was proud and perfectly formed. Those few priestesses who had gazed directly upon it were only able to recall, in tear-choked voices, that it was beautiful beyond description. Her eyes were what these mortal women remembered best: irises that held a shifting hint of blue, the elusive glint found in moonstone.

  Lolth, goddess of spiders, sat on a black iron throne, its bulbous seat as bloated as an egg-filled abdomen and supported by eight segmented legs. Above her, shrieks of tortured souls filled a boiling black-and-purple sky. Lolth wore her drow form-just one of the eight aspects the goddess had fragmented into after ending her Silence. Her ebon skin was clothed in strand upon strand of spider silk that wove itself, at her shoulders, into her bone-white hair. Tiny red spiders spilled from her mouth as she spoke and dangled from her lower lip on hair-thin strands of webbing, swaying in the foul breeze. Her eyes blazed red with the reflected fires of the Demonweb Pits, but they were the only points of light on her body. Darkness seemed to fold itself about her like a cloak.

  Between the two goddesses, straddling the gate, was a sava board. Shaped like a web and formed from a living slab of wood that was both part of the World Tree and separate from it, the board floated at waist height, suspended by its own magic. The game being played upon it had been going on for as long as mortals drew breath. Hundreds of thousands of playing pieces covered the circular board, the vast majority of them Slaves. A few thousand were of higher merit: the Priestess, Wizard, and Warrior pieces.

  The usual arrangement of white pieces and black pieces did not hold in this game. All of Lolth's pieces were black as the ebon skin of a drow, as were the vast majority of Eilistraee's, yet the goddesses knew their pieces by feel. Each held a mortal soul.

  Lolth had been sitting in stillness for several turns, the result of her self-imposed Silence. During that time, Eilistraee had made tremendous gains. For the first time in many, many ages, she felt confident of victory, so when Lolth stirred and proposed the addition of an additional playing piece on each side, Eilistraee's interest was piqued.

  "What sort of piece?" she asked cautiously. Her mother was, above all else, treacherous.

  "The Mother."

  Eilistraee gave a sharp intake of breath. "We enter the game ourselves?"

  Lolth nodded. "A battle to the death. Winner take all, with Ao as witness to our wager." She gave her daughter a taunting smile. "Do you agree to those terms?"

  Eilistraee hesitated. She stared across the board, her face drawn with lines of pity, deep sorrow, and hope. This might end it, she thought. Once and for all time.

  "I agree."

  Lolth smiled. "Then let us begin." Her hands gave darkness and malice shape, creating a midnight-black spider-another of her eight aspects. She placed it on the board at the center of her House.

  Eilistraee shaped moonlight into a glowing likeness of herself and placed it at the center of her House. That done, she looked up-and saw something that startled her. Lolth was no longer alone. A familiar figure crouched to the right of her throne: an enormous spider with the head of a drow male-Lolth's champion, the demigod Selvetarm. He laid his sword and mace down and spun a likeness of himself. He placed it on the board beside Lolth's Mother piece.

  "Unfair!" Eilistraee cried.

  "Scared?" Lolth taunted. "Do you wish to capitulate?" She leaned forward, as if to gather up the pieces on the board.

  "Never," Eilistraee said. "I should have expected this of you. Play."

  Lolth reclined on her throne. She glanced at the board then casually moved a piece forward. A Slave, the hood of his piwafwi shadowing his face, a dagger held behind his back. Strands of webbing from Lolth's hand clung to the piece then tore free as she set it down, causing it to rock gently.

  Lolth sat lazily back on her throne, and said, "Your move."

  A furtive movement behind Lolth drew Eilistraee's eye. A figure lurked in the shadow of her throne. An exquisitely beautiful drow male, the lower half of his face hidden by a soft black mask: Eilistraee's brother Vhaeraun. Had he slipped a piece onto the board as well-and if so, on which side? He was as much Lolth's enemy as Eilistraee's.

  Perhaps he was just trying to distract her.

  Ignoring him, Eilistraee studied the sava board. She could see now why her brother might have wanted to pull her attention away from the game. Lolth had just made a foolish a move, one that left her Slave piece completely exposed. It could easily be taken by one of Eilistraee's Wizard pieces-a piece that had entered the game only recently. She lifted the Wizard from the board, weighing its strength and will in her hand. Then she moved it forward. She set it down, nudging Lolth's piece aside.

  "Wizard takes Slave," Eilistraee announced. With slender fingers, she removed Lolth's piece from the board. Her eyes widened as she took its measure and realized what it was. Not a Slave piece at all.

  Lolth sat forward, her eyes blazing. "What?" Her fists gripped the knobbed legs of her throne. "That's not where I placed…"

  She glanced behind her throne, but Vhaeraun was no longer there.

  Eilistraee hid her smile as Lolth turned back to the board, a deep frown creasing her forehead. Then, abruptly, the frown vanished. The Spider Queen laughed, a fresh gout of spiders cascading from her lips.

  "Poorly done, daughter," she said. "Your impulsive counter move has opened a path straight to the heart of your House."

  Lolth leaned forward, reaching for the Warrior piece Selvetarm had placed on the board. She moved it along the line that led to Eilistraee's Mother. Beside her, Selvetarm watched intently, eyes gloating above the weapons he held crossed against his spider body.

  "You lose," Lolth gloated. "Your life is forfeit and the drow are mine." Eyes blazing with triumph, she lowered the piece to. the board. "Warrior takes-"

  "Wait!" Eilistraee cried.

  She scooped up a pair of dice that sat at one edge of the sava board. Two perfect octahedrons of blackest obsidian, each with a glint of moonlight trapped within: a spark of Eilistraee's light within Lolth's dark heart. The dice were marked with a different number on each side. The one was the round dot of a spider, legs splayed.

  The dice rattled in Eilistraee's cupped hands like bones clattering together in a chilling wind. "One throw per game," she said. "I claim it now."

  Lolth paused, the drider-shaped Warrior piece nearly hidden by the webbing that laced her fingers. A look of unease flickered in her red eyes then disappeared.

  "An impossible throw," she smirked. "The odds against double spiders are as long as the Abyss is deep. Corellon is as likely to forgive our betrayal and call us home to Arvandor as you are to make that throw."

  Anger swirled in Eilistraee's blue eyes. "Our betrayal?" she spat. "It was your dark magic that twisted my arrow in mid-flight."

  Lolth arched an eyebrow. "Yet you accepted exile without protest. Why?"

  "I knew there would be some among the drow, despite your corruption, who could be drawn into my dan
ce."

  Lolth sank back into her throne, still holding the Warrior piece. She waved a disdainful hand, and strands of web fluttered in its wake.

  "Pretty words," she said with infinite scorn, "but it's time for the dance to end. Make your throw."

  Eilistraee held her cupped hands before her like a supplicant, gently rattling the dice inside them. She closed her eyes, extended her hands over the sava board, and let the dice fall.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Qilue leaned over the scrying font, waiting for images to coalesce in its depths. The font was of polished alabaster, its yellow-orange stone the color of a harvest moon. An inscription ran around the rim, carved in ancient Elvish characters reminiscent of the slashes left by swords. The water inside the font was pure, made holy through dance and song by the six drow priestesses who stood in a loose circle around Qilue, waiting. At the moment, however, all the water held was Qilue's own reflection, haloed by the full moon above.

  Her face was beautiful still, its ebon-black skin unwrinkled, though her world-weary eyes betrayed her age. Six centuries of life weighed heavily upon her shoulders, as did the responsibilities of attending to the goddess's many shrines. Qilue's hair had been silver since birth and glowed with the same sparkling radiance as her robe. A strand of it fell across her face, and she tucked it behind one delicately pointed ear.

  The other priestesses knew better than to interrupt her, despite their tense anticipation. They stood, still breathing heavily from their dance, naked bodies glistening with sweat. Waiting. Silent as the snow-dappled trees that hemmed this glade in the Ardeep Forest. It was winter, and late at night, yet the women were still too warm to shiver. The footprints left by their dance were a dark ring in the snow.

  Something stirred in the water within the font, something that broke the moon's reflection into swirling ripples.

  "It comes," Qilue breathed. "The vision rises."

  The priestesses tensed. One touched a hand to the holy symbol that hung at her throat while another whispered a prayer. Still another raised on tiptoe in an attempt to see into the font. This vision would be a rare thing. Only the combined powers of Eilistraee and Mystra could draw aside the dark veil that had shrouded the Demonweb Pits for the last few months.

  Within the font, an image formed: the face of a drow female, not beautiful, but of noble bearing. Her nose was slightly snubbed, her eyes a burning-coal red. She was dressed for battle in a chain mail tunic and a silver breastplate embossed with the sword-and-moon symbol of Eilistraee. A shield hung from one arm and she held a curved sword in her other hand: the Crescent Blade. With it, she hoped to kill a goddess.

  Halisstra hacked at something with the sword-something that didn't show up in the scrying. For a moment, Qilue thought that the font's water had been stirred by the breeze that sighed through the treetops. Then she realized that those were not ripples that obscured Halisstra's face, but shimmers of light on frozen water.

  Halisstra Melarn, Eilistraee's champion, was trapped under a bowl-shaped wall of ice.

  The tip of the Crescent Blade poked through the ice. Halisstra stared with horrified eyes at something just beyond the range of the scrying.

  "No!" she shouted.

  Five streaks of magical energy shot through the hole, slamming into her. She staggered back, gasping. After a moment, she recovered. With a look of resolve on her face, she began chopping at the ice, trying to free herself.

  Tension stiffened Qilue's body. If she did not find a way to intervene, all would be lost. Scrying magic was normally passive. It would channel simple detections or messages, but only imperfectly. She was one of the Chosen of Mystra, though, and the silver fire was hers to command. She let it build within her until it sparked from her hair and crackled the chill air around her, then she directed it downward with a finger. It streaked into the water, hissing toward its target. The hemisphere of ice enclosing Halisstra sparkled briefly, as if each crystal was a glinting mote.

  Halisstra's next sword blow shattered it.

  Halisstra burst from the collapsing ice, already running. She passed the body of a drow female whose throat had been slit. It was the priestess Uluyara. Dead.

  Qilue fought down the lump in her throat. Uluyara's part was done. She was with Eilistraee.

  Halisstra ran, shouting, toward a drow female who held a dripping adamantine knife in her right hand and a whip with five writhing serpent heads in her left. That would be Quenthel, leader of the expedition from Menzoberranzan, a high priestess of Lolth. She had turned her back on Halisstra and was walking disdainfully away. A male drow walked beside Quenthel, his once elegant clothes torn and travel-stained. He must be, Qilue decided, the wizard Pharaun.

  Halisstra had described for Uluyara each of the members of the expedition that had gone to Ched Nasad, and Uluyara had passed those descriptions on to Qilue. Quenthel and Pharaun had been mere names when Uluyara had come to the Promenade to discuss with Qilue what must be done, but they had become a threat that seemed very close at hand, despite the vast distance that lay between them and Qilue.

  "Stop, Baenre!" Halisstra shouted at their backs. "Face us and let's see which goddess is the stronger."

  The priestess and her male ignored Halisstra. They strode to a fissure in a high stone wall: the entrance to a tunnel. Translucent shapes-the moaning souls of the dead-flowed past them into the tunnel. As the souls entered it, their moans rose to howling shrieks. Quenthel spoke briefly with Pharaun, then stepped forward into the passage and was swallowed by the darkness.

  "Face us, coward," Halisstra shouted at the male.

  Pharaun spared her a brief, undecided glance. Then he too stepped forward into darkness and disappeared.

  Halisstra faltered to a halt at the mouth of the tunnel. The hand that gripped the Crescent Blade shook with anger.

  Qilue touched a finger to the water, above Halisstra's image. "Follow them, priestess," she instructed. "At the other end lies Lolth. Remember your quest."

  Halisstra didn't answer-if indeed she had heard. Something more immediate had captured her attention: a drow female with striking pale gray eyes who moved toward Halisstra, a morningstar held loosely in one hand. The female-it could only be Danifae, Halisstra's battle-captive-apologized to her mistress, an apology that was patently insincere to Qilue's ears. Yet Halisstra made no move to raise her weapon. Did she think that Danifae might yet be brought into the light?

  Qilue touched the water. "Do not trust her, Halisstra. Be wary."

  Halisstra made no reply.

  A third figure ambled into range of the scrying: a draegloth. Half demon and half drow, it had four arms, a snarling, bestial face and blood-matted mane of tangled off-white hair. It paid Danifae no attention; it clearly trusted her.

  Qilue's apprehension grew.

  Halisstra stood her ground as the draegloth loomed over her. Staring defiantly up into its eyes, she told it that its mistress had abandoned it.

  She raised the Crescent Blade and vowed, "I'll have your heart for killing Ryld Argith."

  Qilue watched, concerned that Halisstra was no longer paying attention to Danifae, despite the fact that the battle-captive was easing behind her. The spiked ball of Danifae's morningstar swung slightly as she lifted it.

  "Halisstra!" Qilue shouted, but the priestess didn't turn.

  Ordinary mortals could employ only two senses through a scrying, those of sight and hearing, but Qilue was no ordinary mortal. Gripping the edges of the font with both hands, she sank her awareness deep into its holy water then into the mind of Halisstra herself. It was a desperate gamble-so linked, Qilue might suffer whatever wounds Halisstra took-but the priestess had to be warned of the impending treachery. Somehow.

  Qilue gasped as her awareness blossomed inside Halisstra's body. All of Halisstra's senses were hers. Qilue could smell the harsh, hot wind that howled through the chasm behind her, could feel the aching chill of the souls that streamed past overhead, and she could smell the foul breath of the draegloth as
it sneered down at her.

  "My mistress has not abandoned me, heretic," the draegloth spat.

  From inside Halisstra's awareness, Qilue could see that the priestess was not alone. Some distance behind the draegloth stood a moon elf with pale skin and dark brown hair: Feliane, the other priestess who had accompanied Halisstra on her quest. Feliane panted, as if she'd just been in battle, but the thin-bladed sword in her hand was unbloodied. She moved toward the draegloth with faltering steps, hugging her ribs with her free arm, and wincing with each inhalation of breath.

  Danifae was fully behind Halisstra, and the priestess could no longer see her. Qilue fought to turn Halisstra's head in that direction, but Halisstra's attention remained wholly fixed on the draegloth. She trusted the woman-saw her not as a battle-captive seething with a thirst for revenge, but as an ally. A friend.

  Qilue shouted from inside Halisstra's head. "Halisstra! Behind you! Watch Danifae!"

  Too late. Qilue's awareness exploded into pain as Danifae's morningstar slammed into Halisstra's back, smashing the priestess to her hands and knees.

  Halisstra understood it all then. The pain of betrayal was even greater than the sharp ache of her shattered ribs. You could have warned me, Halisstra thought.

  The bitter rebuke was directed at Eilistraee, but it was Qilue who answered, I tried.

  Halisstra, at last hearing her, nodded weakly.

  Danifae's morningstar slammed into her back a second time, knocking her to the ground. She dimly heard Danifae give an order to the draegloth, then its bestial roar.

  Feliane answered with a battle song.

  Danifae's fingers twined in Halisstra's hair and yanked her head up.

  "Watch," Danifae said, her voice a harsh gloat.

  Qilue did, through Halisstra's eyes. Feliane wounded the draegloth, but the monster didn't even slow. He slammed Feliane to the ground and began tearing at the priestess's body with his fangs.