by Lisa Smedman
The priestess was definitely dead, yet her body was uncorrupted. Even the smell of death was missing. This might have been construed as a sign from Eilistraee-save for the faint discoloration on the lower half of Nastasia's face which Qilue's detection spell had just revealed.
A discoloration in the shape of a mask.
Qilue turned to the four priestesses who had carried Nastasia's body into the Promenade's Hall of Healing. The novices from the shrine at Lake Sember shifted uneasily as Qilue examined the body, particularly at the revelation of a square of darkness shrouding Nastasia's cheeks and chin. Their hands twisted nervously on the leather-wrapped hilts of swords, or fingered the silver holy symbols that hung against their breastplates.
At last, one of them spoke. "Vhaeraun's mark. What does it signify, Lady?"
Qilue's voice was grave. "Nastasia is not dancing with Eilistraee in the sacred groves. Her soul has been stolen-it's trapped inside a Nightshadow's mask. They call it 'soultheft.'"
Eyes widened. "But why, Lady? What does he want with her soul?"
"I don't know." Qilue lied, loath to elaborate. The novices were rattled enough. She didn't want them to panic. The Nightshadows typically used soultheft to revitalize the enchantments on a depleted magical item. In the process, the soul was consumed.
From the look of Nastasia's body, that hadn't happened yet. Her soul was, apparently, still trapped within the mask, her body not yet truly dead, but at any moment, the assassin who had stolen Nastasia's soul might annihilate it.
"You were right to bring her here," Qilue told the priestesses. "We must find the one who did this to her."
"We tried a scrying, immediately after the attack. It didn't reveal-"
"This will."
Lifting her arms, Qilue drew the moon's chill light down into the Hall of Healing. Pale radiance limned her body as she began her dance. Singing a hymn to the goddess, Qilue spun in place, faster and faster until her body became a blur. The moonlight that enveloped her waxed brighter, filling her with radiance. In another moment, she would know the direction of the assassin she sought. That done, she would teleport to another of the shrines and repeat the dance there. The point where the two lines crossed would pinpoint the assassin. Then she could strike.
The sudden, jerking halt of the spell's culmination, however, did not come. Eventually, the glow that surrounded Qilue waned then disappeared. She slowed, lowering her hand.
Her dance had revealed nothing. The assassin had either shielded himself with potent magic, fled to another plane, or died.
Eilistraee might know the answer.
Qilue began a second prayer. Invoking Eilistraee's name, she sent her awareness up into a shaft of moonlight to commune with her goddess. It would be a fleeting link, but it would serve. Radiance filled Qilue's mind as the link was forged.
She asked her first question of the goddess: "Does the person who killed Nastasia live?"
Eilistraee's face-a thing of unearthly beauty that Qilue was unable to look upon without tears-turned slightly, from side to side. The answer, just as Qilue had anticipated, was no.
"Is his mask still with his body?"
The face nodded.
"Is Nastasia's soul still-?"
Wait.
The word startled Qilue. The goddess ordinarily answered a question asked in communion with a simple yes or no. On top of that, Eilistraee's voice sounded strange. The word had been layered with a deeper, rougher tone, one whose reverberations left an ache in Qilue's mind. She could still see Eilistraee's face, but it was more distant than it had been, dimmer than before. It unnerved her, but she did as instructed. She waited.
Another word came: No.
The communion ended.
Qilue shivered. What had just happened? Had it been Eilistraee who had answered, or… some other goddess? If another deity, why had Eilistraee permitted the intrusion? And what question had just been answered? Had the other deity-if indeed, it had been another deity who had spoken-been saying that the assassin did indeed still have his mask, or had the answer been for the question that Qilue had not quite completed?
The four priestesses were staring at her, waiting for answers. Qilue, badly rattled, took a breath to steady herself-and was surprised to smell the odor of decay. She looked down just in time to see the dark shadow that lay across the bottom half of Nastasia's face split down the middle, as if it had been sliced in two. Then it faded.
Hope shone into Qilue, bright as moonlight. She shoved aside the worries about whose voice had answered her.
"Eilistraee be praised!" she said. Something-perhaps the goddess herself-had just broken the soultheft's hold. Qilue immediately laid her hands on the corpse. "Join me!" she cried to the lesser priestesses. "A song to raise the dead."
The other four were startled but swiftly joined Qilue in prayer. Together, their voices washed over the dead woman, calling her soul back to her body. The song ended on Qilue's sustained note, layered by the harmonies of the other four priestesses-and Nastasia's eyes sprang open. She immediately flailed with one arm, as if shoving an attacker away. Her other hand groped for her sword. Then she recognized where she was. She stared up at Qilue, eyes wide.
"Lady," she gasped. She sat up and rubbed her throat, then stared at her own hand, a wondering expression on her face. Her joy at finding herself alive again was obvious, but so too was a hint of sorrow-understandable, in a priestess who for the briefest moment had been dancing at Eilistraee's side. She looked up at Qilue. "You called me back."
Qilue spoke in a gentle voice. "Your soul was stolen, but something caused it to be set free again. All is well now." She paused. "I called you back because we need to know what happened. Tell me what you remember. Everything that followed the assassin's attack."
Nastasia swallowed. Winced. "I was dead."
"And then? Between that time and just now, when you found yourself dancing in Eilistraee's grove?"
Nastasia glanced off into an unseen distance. "Darkness. Nothing."
Inwardly, Qilue sighed. She'd hoped for more.
"And…" Nastasia frowned, thinking hard. "There was a voice, the voice of the man who killed me."
The four novices whispered anxiously to each other.
Qilue held up a hand. "Silence." She gently touched Nastasia's shoulder. "Try to remember. What was he saying? Could you make out any words?"
Nastasia closed her eyes. Her frown deepened. She started to shake her head, but then her eyes sprang open in alarm.
"He plans to open a gate." She looked up at Qilue, her face gray with worry. "A gate to Eilistraee's domain, so that Vhaeraun can attack her. He's going to use our souls to fuel it."
"No!" one of the lesser priestesses gasped. She turned to Qilue. "Is it possible, Lady?"
"The Nightshadows are adept at conjuring," Qilue said, "but they would have to send one of their members into Eilistraee's domain in order to open a gate there, and no follower of the Masked Lord can enter Eilistraee's realm without her knowing it."
Nastasia shook her head, eyes wide. "They don't need to enter her domain. The assassin told them they could cast the spell from Toril, from a cavern in the Underdark that lies inside a powerful earth node. He told the other clerics he knew a ritual of high magic that would accomplish this."
"Drow males?" Qilue's lips quirked into a smile. "Casting high magic?"
Even as the others chuckled, reassured, Qilue wondered. If it was possible, what then?
Iljrene's spy had turned in a report-something about Vhaeraun's clerics and plans to "open" something. That report had cut off in mid-sentence and Iljrene had been unable to contact her spy since, but he had provided one detail: a name. Malvag. Qilue suspected that Malvag and the assassin who had stolen Nastasia's soul were one and the same.
"Did you overhear any names?" she asked Nastasia.
The priestess closed her eyes, thinking. Then she nodded. "House names," she answered. "Jaelre and Auzkovyn, and another name… Jezz. The assassin was ang
ry with him. I think Jezz accused him of worshiping Lolth."
Qilue nodded, then turned to the others. "Whether Vhaeraun's faithful are capable of high magic or not," she continued, "this bodes ill for us."
"But the assassin's dead, isn't he?" one of the priestesses asked. "Isn't that what Eilistraee said?"
"That was her answer," Qilue said.
"Then there's nothing to worry about. That puts an end to the scheme right there."
Qilue gave the priestess a brief nod. She remained troubled, however. Malvag might indeed be dead, but the other clerics were obviously still carrying out his plan. Two nights before, one of Vhaeraun's faithful had been spotted trying to sneak into Eilistraee's temple in the Yuirwood. He had been driven off, but just the past night another attack had come, this time against the shrine in the Gray Forest. It had only been discovered that morning, when the murdered body of a priestess had been found.
As the four priestesses helped their revived companion to her feet, Qilue contacted the high priestess in the Gray Forest with a sending. The answer came a short time later in a whisper only Qilue could hear. It wasn't good news.
The priestess in the Gray Forest also had a square of darkness shrouding her lower face. Her soul, too, had been stolen.
Q'arlynd hurried through the woods, Flinderspeld jogging obediently behind. As they drew closer to the blare of horns, Q'arlynd could hear women shouting as well as the thrum of arrows in flight and the wet, chopping sound of weapons hitting flesh. Above and ahead, he could see dozens of figures hurtling through the treetops. One passed close enough for Q'arlynd to recognize it as a combination of spider and drow.
A drider? On the surface?
The creature spotted Q'arlynd. It hurled a dagger, but the weapon was deflected by Q'arlynd's protective spell and thunked into a nearby tree. The drider shrouded itself in a sphere of darkness as wide as the spreading branches of the tree. Before it could escape, however, Q'arlynd cast a spell, sending a pea-sized gout of fire streaking toward it. Heat bathed his face as it exploded, creating a fireball that filled the magical darkness. A heartbeat later, the blackened corpse of the drider tumbled from the tree, followed by burning branches.
Q'arlynd turned and plucked the drider's dagger from the tree. He handed it to Flinderspeld. "Stay right here. Don't fight unless you're forced to."
The gnome frowned. "I thought you said 'we' would join the battle."
Q'arlynd made a point of looking down at the deep gnome. Flinderspeld was tiny, barely half his height, the size of a child. "You're too valuable to throw away in combat," he told his slave. That said, he spoke the words to a glamor that rendered the deep gnome invisible. He drew his wand and strode toward the sounds of fighting.
The trees screened much of the battle, but it was well illuminated. Balls of silver-white light drifted through the trees, illuminating the scene with the brightness of several full moons, forcing the driders to squint. As he moved through the forest, Q'arlynd counted nearly three dozen of the creatures. The priestesses, many shielded by auras of protective magic, fought with sword and spell, singing as they attacked. Swords flew through the air as if guided by invisible hands, harrying the driders in the treetops.
The driders shifted position constantly, scuttling through the branches overhead and releasing arrows with deadly effect. One struck a priestess in the arm, a grazing wound, but she immediately reeled and fell. Poison. Another priestess rushed to her side and began a prayer, but a second drider dropped suddenly from a tree and landed on her back. As its fangs spread to bite, Q'arlynd blasted it with his wand. Jagged balls of ice smashed into the drider's chest, knocking it away from the priestess. The blows weren't enough to kill the thing, but the priestess finished the job, slashing with her sword in a backhand swing that decapitated the drider. As the head rolled toward Q'arlynd, he noted the pattern of fresh scars on its face which looked almost like a spiderweb. Odd.
The priestess looked to see who had come to her aid. Q'arlynd made a quick hand sign-ally-then bowed. The priestess nodded and went back to her healing spell.
Q'arlynd ran off to find more targets-making sure, whenever possible, that a priestess was on hand to observe him fighting. He battled the driders with blasts of ice, no longer caring if he depleted the magic of his wand. If the battle earned him a meeting with the high priestess, it would be worth it. He fought as well with the evocation spells he'd learned at the Conservatory. It felt good to be using his talents again. He blasted the driders with magic missiles or punched holes through them with jagged streaks of lightning. Once, when several priestesses were watching, he used the fur-wrapped rod that was that spell's material component to stitch a lightning bolt through four different targets, delighting in its flashy display of power.
At one point one of the driders-one also with a pattern of scars on its face-attempted to cast an enchantment on him. Q'arlynd had been trained to shield his mind, and he laughed aloud when the drider tried to implant a suggestion that he flee. He pummeled it with a blast from his wand and ran on, searching for Leliana and Rowaan.
He saw someone he thought was Leliana battling two driders, but when he got closer, he realized it was a different priestess entirely. She didn't seem to need his assistance. Q'arlynd watched, fascinated, as she released her sword, which sang as it flew through the air. As the weapon slashed at one of the driders, keeping it busy, she sang a prayer. Her hands swept down, calling a brilliant white light down from the night sky. It slammed into the second drider, knocking it to the ground. In the same instant, her sword stabbed the first drider through the heart. Then it flew back to the priestess's hand.
The streak of light had left Q'arlynd blinking. As his vision cleared, he realized the priestess faced yet another opponent-not a drider, but a drow, a male in armor as black and glossy as obsidian, holding a two-handed sword with an intricate basket hilt. The warrior's skin was covered in a tracery of fine white lines, similar to the scars Q'arlynd had seen on the driders' faces, except that the lines were glowing.
The warrior swung at the priestess, his blade hissing through the air. She dodged it-barely. The warrior whirled, his long white braid whipping through the air as he turned and slashed again. This blow the priestess tried to parry, but the warrior's sword sliced her blade off at the hilt. The priestess threw what remained aside and tried to cast a spell, but even as her lips shaped the first word of her prayer, the enormous black sword slashed straight down, cleaving through her body from head to groin. One half of the body toppled to the ground at once. The other half wavered a moment before falling. As Q'arlynd watched, both halves blackened then crumbled like soot. Soon all that was left was the woman's boots and armor, surrounded by a pool of rapidly blackening blood. This began to bubble, resolving itself into a foul slick of tiny spiders. The warrior dipped the point of his sword into them, and they scuttled up its blade. They disappeared into the steel, as if absorbed.
Q'arlynd realized he was just standing there, staring. Suddenly coming to his senses, he rendered himself invisible a heartbeat before the warrior turned.
The warrior stared in Q'arlynd's direction. He swung his sword in a slow arc until its point was aimed directly at Q'arlynd. The invisibility Q'arlynd had cloaked himself in vanished. He fumbled for his spell components, cursing his shaking hands. He was a battle mage, damn it. He'd faced down powerful enemies before. What in the Abyss was it about this warrior that made him so unnerving?
The eyes, Q'arlynd thought. Those pupils looked like spiders crawling around on the warrior's eyeballs. It felt as though they were about to scuttle straight into Q'arlynd's soul.
The warrior smiled.
Just as Q'arlynd finally found the spell components he'd been groping for, a drider called out to the warrior from overhead. "This way!" it shouted. "Another one that's too strong for us."
Shouldering the two-handed sword, the warrior strode away in the direction the drider had indicated, leaving Q'arlynd behind.
Q'arlynd closed
his eyes and shivered. The warrior had let him go.
Why?
It took Q'arlynd several moments to regain his composure. When he had, he continued through the forest-less brazenly this time, constantly glancing over his shoulder for any sign of the spider-eyed warrior. He'd almost forgotten that he'd been looking for Leliana when he suddenly spotted her just ahead. She was on her own, surrounded by three driders, all with scarred faces.
He reached into the pocket of his piwafwi then hesitated. No one else was around, and it looked as though Leliana would be fighting on her own. He decided to wait and see what happened. If the driders killed her, well and good. It would save him the trouble of doing something that a truth spell might later reveal.
He stepped back behind a tree, out of sight, and settled in to watch, arms folded across his chest.
Even though it was three against one, Leliana put up a good fight, but then a fourth drider pounced on her from above, dropping swiftly out of a cloud of darkness. The priestess smashed it aside with her sword, but one of the other three driders leaped forward and sank its fangs into her thigh, just below the hem of her chain mail. She cried out but didn't immediately fall-possibly she had some magical protection against poison. Then the drider tore its fangs free of her flesh. Blood sprayed from the wound, splashing a tree several paces away. The bite had opened an artery. Leliana crumpled, her face ashen gray.
That was it then. The driders had done the job for Q'arlynd, just as he'd hoped.
Three of the driders levitated away from the body and scurried off into the treetops. The fourth, however, lingered. From behind the tree, Q'arlynd aimed his fur-wrapped rod at the creature and spoke a word, hurling a lightning bolt at it. The drider never saw it coming. The bolt struck the back of its head, blasting it from the creature's body. Spider legs crumpled beneath a smoking corpse.