Sacrifice of the Widow lp-1

by Lisa Smedman

  The traitor's fingers flicked, and a tiny object leaped out of one of his pockets and into them. It was a chunk of amber, studded with silver dots. A spell component, Malvag realized, even as another bolt of lightning streaked toward him. It punched into Malvag's chest, blasting him off his feet. Something sharp ground into his back and he dully realized they were the points of crystals. He'd landed on his back on the cavern floor.

  Dazzled though his eyes were, he caught glimpses of what came next. Valdar fired another crossbow bolt, which struck home, punching into the wizard's shoulder. The wizard staggered but managed to hurl a spell back at Valdar. A hollow column of fire sprang up around the cleric, trapping him inside it. Instantly, Valdar's hair and clothing ignited. The roaring flames closed inward, then Valdar vanished. He reappeared behind the wizard, the flames extinguished, and drew his dagger in a cat-quick motion. Even as the wizard realized his danger and began to turn-sluggishly, the bolt's poison at last taking effect-Valdar slammed his dagger into him.

  The wizard's eyes flew open wide. He sagged to the ground, gasping, a ball of gum Arabic falling from his limp fingers. Valdar slit the wizard's throat, finishing the job. Dark blood sprayed from the wound, splattering the crystal floor.

  Valdar stepped back and murmured a prayer. A heartbeat later, his flesh mended. His clothing, however, remained charred.

  Malvag staggered to his feet. One wary eye on the dead wizard, he hurried to the drift disc. The scroll, praise Vhaeraun, was undamaged.

  The same could not be said of Urz. Malvag kneeled beside the other cleric and touched a hand to his neck. Urz's body felt cold and hard.

  He'd been turned to stone.

  Malvag felt the blood drain from his face as he realized the implications. Had Urz merely died, Malvag could have raised him from the dead. But there was only one thing that would allow the night's work to continue-a miracle.

  "Masked Lord, hear me," Malvag said, forcing the tremble from his voice as he prayed, trying to shove his anger aside so he could concentrate on the words of the prayer. He'd only heard it spoken once, and it was well above his abilities, but he had to try. If he didn't, all would be lost. "Send your dark energies into my hands, that they might perform a miracle. Aid me in restoring your fallen servant's flesh to its natural state."

  Malvag waited expectantly, his palms on Urz's stone-cold chest. Valdar stood behind him, watching, wiping his dagger clean on a charred corner of his shirt.

  "It's not working," he observed.

  Malvag's anger flared. "Shut up," he hissed.

  The other cleric raised his dagger, inspecting the hollow point that held the poison, then shoved it home in its sheath. "My apologies."

  Malvag tried again. He put both hands upon Urz's chest and pleaded with Vhaeraun to turn Urz's body back to living, breathing flesh.

  Nothing happened.

  Vhaeraun watched. Malvag could feel the god's presence just over his shoulder. He whispered yet another prayer, one that would allow him to touch the god's omniscience.

  "I need him," he pleaded. "Why won't you help me?"

  The answer was a whisper only Malvag could hear. You lack the skill.

  Malvag rocked back on his heels, stunned. That was it then. It was over. With only two of them remaining, the scroll couldn't be used. Malvag would have to wait fifty-seven years before the conditions would be right again-an eclipse wouldn't occur at midnight of the winter solstice until then.

  "Abyss take him!" he howled. Rising to his feet, he strode toward the traitor and gave his body a savage kick. Then he turned away, his hands balled into fists.

  As Malvag raged in silence, Valdar kneeled beside the traitor's body and removed the mask, revealing a male with a nose that canted to one side: a break, long since healed. He fingered the mask, spoke a prayer of detection, then nodded to himself.

  "What are you doing?" Malvag snarled.

  Valdar nodded at the body. "Looking for something that will tell us who he really was." He pointed at the mask. "That's no holy symbol, even though it does seem to hold a trapped soul." He tilted his head, musing aloud. "Is he one of Lolth's minions, perhaps?"

  "What does it matter?" Malvag screamed. "He's ruined everything. Without Urz, we can't proceed. High magic requires a minimum of three clerics, working together, to cast it."

  Valdar shrugged. He continued searching the body. His sleeves quickly became dark with blood. He pulled two rings out of a blood-wet shirt pocket and held them on the palm of one hand, poking at them with a fingertip. "Do we need three clerics to open the gate?" he asked slowly. "Or three spellcasters?"

  "What does it matter?" Malvag paced back and forth, trying to contain his fury. Unlike Valdar, he hadn't bothered to heal his wounds yet. His skin still felt hot and tight where the lightning bolts had struck his chest. It hurt to breathe.

  Valdar jingled the rings together on his palm. "These are master and slave rings," he said. He pointed at the body. "And he's a wizard. If it's three spellcasters that are needed to conjure the gate, we can force him to participate." He jingled the rings again. "With these."

  Malvag halted abruptly and whirled in place. His eyes met Valdar's. "Slave rings," he whispered.

  Valdar's eyes crinkled in a smile. "Yes."

  Malvag glanced at the drift disc where the prayer scroll waited. What Valdar was suggesting would be extremely difficult. Malvag would have to control the wizard's mouth while speaking the words of the prayer himself at the same time, but perhaps it could be done. He'd read the spell in silence enough times that he could have recited it aloud from rote.

  "Raise him from the dead," he told Valdar. "The instant the gate is open, and Vhaeraun passes through it, we'll kill the infiltrator. Permanently, this time."

  Qilue grasped the edges of her scrying font, staring down with intense concentration into the holy water that filled it. The wide alabaster bowl glowed like a harvest moon from the light that filled the room in which it stood-the silver fire that poured off Qilue's body like light from a torch. Qilue was barely aware of Jasmir, the moon elf priestess standing behind her. The scenes unfolding in the holy water that served as her window on the world beyond were deeply disturbing.

  "Send another six priestesses and two score warriors to the Chondalwood," Qilue commanded.

  The pale-skinned Jasmir whispered a sending, relaying the command. She was fully dressed for battle in leather armor whose spiral patterns matched the tattoos on her forearms. Her long white hair was in two braids, tightly bound into a bun at the back of her neck.

  Qilue stared into the scrying bowl, tense with anticipation. It was focused on the shrine in the Chondalwood, far to the southeast. There Eilistraee's priestesses fought a bloody battle against driders who had boiled up out of the Underdark without warning-just as they had in the Misty Forest last month. Even as Qilue watched, a drider knocked a priestess to the ground with a web and landed on her back, opening its spider fangs wide to bite.

  Qilue stabbed a finger down into the water and sang a note that was strident and shrill. The drider shook his head, disoriented. As it did, a sword came dancing through the air, slashing the monster nearly in half. A priestess ran into view behind it, and the sword returned to her hand. She kneeled on the snow-covered ground beside the first and tore away the webs, freeing her companion.

  Qilue didn't wait to see the rest. She shifted the scrying's focus to a frozen pool of water not far from the shrine itself. A moment later, its icy cap exploded upward as a priestess burst out of the shallow pool from below, sword in hand, the first of the reinforcements Qilue had just ordered to the Chondalwood.

  Qilue shifted the scrying rapidly from one location to the next, checking the other shrines. From the Moonwood to the Shaar, more than half of Eilistraee's holdings were under attack. Priestesses, backed up by lay worshipers, fought pitched battles at the Dancing Dell, in the Velarswood, the Gray Forest, the Yuirwood, the Forest of Shadows. Each battle involved creatures of the Underdark not normally found
on the surface: driders, fighting with webs, poison, and spells; neogi-creatures that looked like spiders with wormlike necks and tiny heads filled with needle-like teeth-using their magic to dominate those who fought them, turning Eilistraee's faithful against each other; and chitines, fighting with four weapons at once, one in each spindly hand. Through it all, spellgaunts dashed here and there, gobbling up magic. Their presence alone hinted at the authors of the highly coordinated attacks-the Selvetargtlin, yet none of Selvetarm's clerics could be seen.

  Where were they?

  "A dozen priestesses and a score of warriors to the Gray Forest," Qilue ordered.

  Jasmir dutifully repeated the order. She closed her eyes a moment, listening, then relayed the reply. "Iljrene can only send nine priestesses. That's the last of them, unless you want to start sending the Protectors."

  Qilue shook her head. "Keep the Protectors here," she ordered. "We'll need them if the Promenade is attacked." And that it would be attacked, she was certain. It was too glaring an omission, but when? And from which direction? Two Protectors, each armed with a singing sword, stood guard at every possible entrance, including the portals. Qilue scried each of those pairs of priestesses in turn, but all was quiet.

  She frowned. Should she really hold her best fighters back? A singing sword would certainly help tip the balance in any of the battles she'd just observed.

  A faint tapping sounded at the room's only door. Qilue looked up as Jasmir hurried to answer it. Iljrene would have used a sending to contact her, and a lay worshiper had no business here, not now. Before Qilue could caution Jasmir, the priestess opened the door.

  A feather zipped inside the room and fell at Qilue's feet. Its silver spine was bent nearly double and its vanes were split and fouled with spiderwebs and dust, but Qilue recognized it at once as the magical token she'd given Jub. She'd been wondering where the spy had gotten to, and by the looks of the webs sticking to the quill, he'd had some bad luck.

  Turning from her font, she bent and picked up the quill. She straightened the spine then touched the nib to the floor. She spoke the command word and watched as the quill slowly and laboriously scratched out its message in glowing silver letters on the dark stone floor.

  SELV.CLERICS ATTACKED THE MOON WOOD

  Yes, Qilue thought. She'd guessed that already. The attacks took place after the moon had risen, ensuring that the Moonspring could be used to send reinforcements.

  She nodded. Just as she'd suspected. But why sixty-six? And why hadn't the attack come yet?

  Qilue knew who her enemies were. Most likely the exiles, the renegade Selvetargtlin who were tossed out of Eryndlyn for "blaspheming" by worshiping Selvetarm in his own right instead of as a servant of Lolth.

  The quill was still scratching out its message. THEYR GOING TO JUMP ON THE TEMPLE, it wrote. Then it fell to the floor.

  Qilue stared down at the quill a moment more, as if willing it to continue, but the message was at an end. And it hadn't told her much. The feint Jub warned of was already in progress, and though Qilue had been forced to send troops to reinforce the shrines, she'd held back her Protectors-two dozen of her best warriors-to maintain the Promenade's defenses. The Protectors would be outnumbered three to one if sixty-six Selvetargtlin did attack, but each Protector was armed with a singing sword and powerful spells. Whatever direction the Selvetargtlin chose to attack from, they would be forced to fight their way in through a choke point that would allow Eilistraee's faithful to concentrate their spells. One or two Selvetargtlin might be able to battle their way inside the temple, but they wouldn't last long.

  Qilue turned her attention back to the scrying bowl. Shifting her awareness, she concentrated on Jub. For the past few days, her attempts to scry him had been blocked by something. She'd assumed that to be Daurgothoth's doing. The undead black dragon didn't appreciate anyone peering into his lair, but as the marketplace of the abandoned city came into focus, she began to wonder. Why, suddenly, was she able to scry the dracolich's lair? Had some protection suddenly fallen-or been removed?

  The water in the bowl rippled then stilled. Qilue looked down on a severed head. Jub's. It lay next to a foul-looking pool. What remained of the head was deeply pitted by acid.

  "Eilistraee have mercy," Qilue whispered.

  Jasmir peered over her shoulder. "Who was it?"

  "A lay worshiper. One who deserved better than that." There was no time to mourn Jub's loss. Later, when the crisis was at an end, she would send a priestess to recover what was left of Jub so that he could be resurrected.

  She pulled her focus back, noting the vast, empty cavern. The Selvetargtlin seemed to have abandoned it, but where were they?

  "Send a warning to each pair of Protectors," she ordered. "An attack by the Selvetargtlin is imminent."

  "Lady, I have already told Iljrene about the warning," Jasmir said, nodding down at the message on the floor. Her leaf-green eyes gleamed in anticipation of the battle to come. One slender hand rested on the hilt of her sword. Ready. "Iljrene is relaying it to the Protectors even as we speak." She glanced down at the floor, her brow furrowed. " 'Jump on the temple,'" she repeated. "Does that mean the attack will come from above?"

  Qilue shook her head, only half listening. The tide had finally turned in the Moonwood. The priestesses there were beating the chitines back. The battle in the Gray Forest was the same. The extra priestesses Qilue had sent had managed to drive the neogi off, and in the Shaar…

  Something moved against her hip. Her bag bulged and thrashed, as if an animal were trapped inside it and was trying to claw its way out. Qilue swore and tore the bag from her belt, tossing it to the ground. She started to sing a spell, but before she could complete it, a knife blade pierced the bag from within. The bag suddenly ruptured in a tremendous explosion of magical energy that sent the water in the font sloshing back and forth.

  Her ears still ringing from the blast, Qilue stared down at the spot where the magical bag had lain. The gem it had held was gone. No, not gone. Qilue kneeled and touched what felt like sharp-edged but sticky grit-the crumbled remains of the gem. Her fingers came away dotted with tiny flecks of blood.

  All at once, she understood what form of conjuration magic the gem had contained. It had been the focus of a teleportation spell. Whichever Selvetargtlin it had been attuned to had teleported into Qilue's magical pouch, realized something was wrong, and tried to cut his way free. Piercing the bag from within had ruptured the extradimensional space it enfolded-with disastrous results. The Selvetargtlin was as good as disintegrated.

  This was the jump Jub had warned her about. And the cleric who'd teleported into her pouch wasn't the only one making it. Sixty-five others would have made similar jumps. To other gems, like the one Thaleste had found. Gems that must have been somewhere close to the spot where Thaleste and Cavatina had encountered the aranea-the Selvetargtlin who had carried the gems inside the Promenade and died to protect that secret.

  "Lady Qilue," Jasmir asked, her voice tight with worry. "What is it?"

  Qilue didn't bother to answer. She whirled and grasped the sides of her scrying bowl. Images flashed through the holy water one after another: the caverns south of the Sargauth River, and the rooms in the ceiling above them. Nothing. All were empty.

  "Where?" she said, her voice tight. "Where?"

  Jasmir tensed. Her lips parted to frame a question. Closed again.

  Qilue shifted her attention to the Promenade itself. She made a sweep of the Hall of Healing, the priestess's cavern, the main living quarters, the garrison and armory, the Cavern of Song and the Moonspring. Nothing. Nothing.

  All empty. No Selvetargtlin.

  Where were they? One of the connecting corridors, perhaps?

  As a corridor near the river came into view, Qilue saw what she'd been dreading. Selvetargtlin dropped into that corridor through a hole in the ceiling and fanning out into adjoining passages like an erupting hill of termites. Half a dozen of them, led by a judicator, had already re
ached the Cavern of Song. As Qilue watched, horrified, they toppled the statue, revealing the hidden staircase that led to the Pit of Ghaunadaur and disappeared down it. The Selvetargtlin immediately behind the judicator carried an iron rod, its perfectly spherical head so dark that looking at it was like staring down the deepest well. Qilue recognized it at once as a rod of cancellation, its disjunctive magic capable of snuffing out even the most powerful of magic, including the seals on Ghaunadaur's Pit.

  Silver fire flared around Qilue as she used her magic to shout a warning to all of the Protectors at once.

  The Selvetargtlin have breached the southern corridors of the Promenade. All Protectors converge there at once! Iljrene, to me, at the Mound.

  Jasmir gasped. She, too, had heard the warning. Metal rasped as she drew her sword from its scabbard.

  "Ready, Lady!" she cried.

  Qilue touched the other priestess's shoulder. "I need you here. Continue scrying. Direct the Protectors to where they're most needed."

  Jasmir's shoulders slumped, but only for a moment. "Yes, Lady," she said briskly, turning her attention to the font.

  Qilue meanwhile sang a prayer that would send her to Eilistraee's mound.

  As Jasmir and the scrying room vanished from sight, Qilue wondered who would arrive at the Mound first. She and Iljrene-or the judicator and his Selvetargtlin.

  Still invisible, Cavatina bounded with long, graceful strides toward the spot where Selvetarm stood. As she moved into position, she squinted to protect her eyes from the strands of web that blew on the breeze. They turned invisible as they stuck to her, but she could feel them fluttering like streamers behind her as she loped toward the spot where the demigod stood. She didn't waste time trying to circle around behind Selvetarm. The demigod, even though his eyes were in the front of his drow head, could see in all directions at once, like a spider.