Forgotten Realms - The Lady Penitent - Ascendancy of the Last

by Lisa Smedman

  Though he could still hear the fountain tinkling, the surŹface of the pool stilled and became as flat as glass. An image appeared on its mirrorlike surface: Halisstra, dressed in armor, kneeling with two other females before a throne on which sat a massive black widow spider. Seven identical spiŹders crouched behind the throne, watching. The room’s crazily slanting walls and floor were constructed of iron. Cobwebs filled the gloomy corners.

  “Lolth’s iron fortress,” Q’arlynd whispered, his voice tight.

  He recognized the female to Halisstra’s left at once: the pout-lipped, scheming Danifae, battle-captive to Halisstra. The female on the other side of Halisstra also looked familŹiar. At first, Q’arlynd couldn’t place her. Then he remembered who she was: Quenthel Baenre, the high priestess from Menzoberranzan. The presence of Danifae and Quenthel in the vision could mean just one thing: the pool was showŹing Q’arlynd something that had happened seven years ago, during Lolth’s Silence.

  “That’s too early,” he said aloud. He reached for another flower, intending to try again, but his hand halted as he saw what happened next. In the vision, Lolth lunged from her throne to bite Danifae. The battle-captive screamed as her head and shoulders disappeared into Lolth’s mouth. Danifae’s legs spasmed, then stilled as the goddess conŹsumed her.

  For a brief moment, no one moved. Then the other seven spiders crept forward menacingly. Q’arlynd expected them to attack Quenthel or Halisstra, but instead they surrounded the spider that had eaten Danifae. They grasped it—and began to tear the body apart. Yochlols hurried into view and hastened the process, ripping chunks from the spider’s quivering body. All the while, Halisstra and Quenthel remained kneeling. Halisstra, Q’arlynd saw, had her eyes tightly shut. Her lips moved. Q’arlynd wondered if she were whispering Eilistraee’s name. His sister held a sword in her hand—a straight-bladed sword. It should have been the Crescent Blade, according to what Leliana had told him. Halisstra, she’d said, had taken the Crescent Blade into the Demonweb Pits to kill Lolth, during the Silence.

  Was that indeed the Crescent Blade, disguised by a glamor? If so, why hadn’t Halisstra used it, instead of kneeling meekly before Lolth’s throne? Had she lost her nerve, once in the godŹdess’s presence? That was easy to understand. Even viewing the Spider Queen at a distance—and removed in time—sent a hollow chill through Q’arlynd.

  The spiders and yochlols finished their grim task and stepped back. Within the remains of the spider they’d torn to pieces, a form stirred. Then it rose, revealing itself to be a spider with Danifae’s face.

  Was this the Lady Penitent? Was it Lolth, reborn?

  The Danifae-headed spider turned to Quenthel and spoke to her, but the patter of the fountain obscured the words. Quenthel’s face twisted with fury, but she bowed her head. Then she stood, turned, and departed.

  That left only Halisstra. She looked up at the Danifae-headed spider, said something, and tossed her sword to one side. She threw herself face-first on the floor. The Danifae-headed spider leaned over her, smiled, and sank her teeth into Halisstra’s neck.

  “No!” Q’arlynd cried, despite himself. He watched, fists balled, as the seven lesser spiders lurched forward and sank their fangs into his sister. When each had left a bloody puncture, the Danifae-headed spider lifted Halisstra’s limp body and twirled it round, spinning her into a cocoon. Q’arlynd, looking on, told himself that this couldn’t be Halisstra’s death he was watching. His sister had lived beyond the events he was viewing. She’d led Cavatina into the Demonweb Pits, three years after these events. She’d survived this.

  Q’arlynd wondered if he would have been strong enough to do the same.

  The Danifae-headed spider dropped the cocoon to the floor. For several long moments, nothing happened. Then something poked at the cocoon from within, and tore it open. Q’arlynd leaned forward, cheering his sister on as she defiantly tore at the sticky silken threads. “That’s it, Halisstra,” he urged. “Tear free. You can—”

  The words died in a croak as he saw what emerged from the tattered remnants of the cocoon. It wasn’t Halisstra in there, but a demonlike monster. The creature was twice the size Halisstra had been, with a hideously deformed face, spider jaws emerging from bulges on its cheeks, and eight spindly spider legs protruding from its chest.

  Q’arlynd reeled back from the pool in alarm as the creature turned in his direction. He caught only a momentary glance of its face, but it was enough. The demon-thing that had emerged from the cocoon was indeed Halisstra, transformed.

  “No,” he whispered. Yet there was no denying it. The creature he saw in the pool was the “monster” he’d seen emerging from the Moondeep Sea, during the expedition to the Acropolis of the death goddess. That had been only two years ago—after his sister had helped Cavatina kill Selvetarm. Had the Darksong Knight seen what Halisstra had become? Why hadn’t she told Q’arlynd this?

  He shook his head. T’lar had gotten it wrong. Halisstra hadn’t been killed by the Lady Penitent. She’d been transŹformed into something… demonic.

  “Eilistraee,” he whispered in a choked voice. “How could you have let this happen to one of your faithful?”

  He backed away, unwilling to see more. He felt rough stone against his back and realized he was inside the cleft in the rock. A spray of water arced past his shoulder, into the second of the Fountains of Memory. Mist from the spray struck his face, and trickled down his cheeks like tears.

  He wiped them away. His sister was lost, beyond redempŹtion. There was nothing he could do for her now. He needed to focus on the future, not the past.

  He turned away from the terrible vision, and entered the cleft in the rock.

  T’lar swung gracefully up onto the ledge. She was exhausted from her long climb. Her arms and legs shook, but she didn’t let that blunt her caution. She lifted the dark-lensed glasses that protected her eyes from the World Above’s harsh light, and looked cautiously around. Half a cycle had passed since she’d spotted her target on this ledge—the sun had set, and the moon had risen since then—but Q’arlynd might still be here. She couldn’t rely on invisibility alone to hide her. Not from a wizard.

  Taking care not to give her presence away by knocking a loose stone, she moved to one side of the cleft in the bluff. She slid her spider-pommeled dagger out of its sheath. She wouldn’t make the mistake of using the spike-spiders on Q’arlynd, this time; he was obviously immune to their poison. The same couldn’t be said, however, of the svirfneblin wine merchant she’d left dead on the trail below.

  She hummed the bae’qeshel tune that would ensure her invisibility was sustained, and eased into the cleft in the rock. Moments later, she cursed as she realized her target was no longer there. She’d been so close to catching him! Had he teleported away while she was climbing the bluff?

  Thunder grumbled overhead. Rain pattered down. The drops blended with the sweat on T’lar’s forehead and shaved scalp, and trickled down her body. She tasted salt on her lips. She squatted beside the innermost of the pools within the cleft. The stream that fed it was obviously magical; water didn’t flow up a cliff and arc from one pool to the next of its own accord. She eyed it thirstily. Was the water’s magic harmful or beneficial—or simply decorative? Would drinking from the pool kill her, or simply quench her thirst?

  The innermost pool was about three paces wide and no more than a couple of handspans deep. She could easily make out the bottom of it. There didn’t seem to be any fissures or gaps in the stone floor, yet the water flowed into the pool, but didn’t go anywhere. It simply… disappeared.

  Just a moment. Was that a flash of something, between the pattering raindrops? As she leaned closer, a palm-sized portion of the pool stilled. It was like looking through a tiny window: she caught a glimpse of a tree branch, then a mosaic made of oddly shaped pieces of green glass, then the back of a head with white hair and pointed ears. As the figure turned, T’lar recognized his face. Q’arlynd.

  She smiled. So that was what this p
lace was: a portal.

  She curled her fingers into a spider and kissed them. “Lolth be praised,” she said. The hunt hadn’t ended; it had just changed direction.

  She stepped into the pool and was teleported away.

  CHAPTER 12

  Laeral stared into her scrying mirror, her hands on either side of the gilded frame. “Where is Cavatina?” she asked anxiously. “Show me!”

  She could see the Darksong Knight, but only dimly. Cavatina’s body wavered within the mirror, indisŹtinct and ghostly. Her hair was wild, her expression anguished. She wore armor, but carried no weapon, while the tunic beneath her chain mail was stained and torn. Blood from a scalp wound had dried on her forehead. She moved, apparently aimlessly, through an utterly featureless, solid-gray landscape.

  Laeral’s hands tightened on the frame. Was Cavatina dead? A spirit wandering the Fugue Plain? If so, why hadn’t her goddess claimed her?

  The landscape behind Cavatina suddenly shifted, as if she’d just stepped out of shadow into light. She walked along a street now, her legs embedded in solid stone from the knee down. The corner of a building loomed ahead of her. She passed through it and continued on. All around her, the indistinct blurs of people hurried through the street, as none noticed her. A wall-mounted brazier, filled with glowing worms, threw shadows but cast no light on Cavatina. Its light passed, unimpeded, through the Darksong Knight.

  “She’s ethereal,” Laeral breathed. “But… Where?”

  Cavatina startled, and looked wildly around. She glanced up at something that was outside the mirror’s field of view. She “walked” upward, her body now parallel with the street below, to a metal cage that hung by a chain from a stout beam that spanned the street. A minotaur was inside the cage, gripping the iron bars. His face twisted with rage, and he repeatedly butted the inside of the cage with his massive horns.

  Laeral recognized the landmark at once. Cavatina was in Skullport!

  A short time later, Laeral stood outside the Deepfires Inn, wearing the disguise she habitually assumed while visiting Skullport: a plain, hooded cloak interwoven with protective dweomers and keep-watch magic. She’d teleported to Waterdeep, passed through the portal linking her former home with a cavern near Skullport, and hurried as quickly as she could through the Underdark city’s streets.

  She worried that she wouldn’t make it in time—that Cavatina would already be gone. As she approached the Deepfires Inn, she pulled a pinch of grave dust from a pocket, tossed it ahead of her, and spoke a divination. It revealed a man in shabby clothes, lurking outside the inn’s door. He started as he noticed Laeral looking at him, then slunk away through the foul-smelling muck that mired the street. Laeral swept her hand up, directing her spell at the minotaur’s cage—and sighed in relief as Cavatina became visible. The Darksong Knight “stood” in mid-air beside the cage, peering into it intently and shouting at the minotaur, who shouted back at her. The words they hurled at each other were inaudible, as the spell revealed things to the eyes only.

  Passersby craned their heads to look up at the spectacle. One nudged another with an elbow. Laeral picked out the words “Eilistraee” and “priestess” in his whispered comment. Ignoring them, Laeral spoke an incantation and made a twistŹing gesture. Cavatina’s body visibly solidified, and her shouts became audible as she was wrenched, fully, into the mateŹrial world. As she tumbled,. Laeral snapped out a word and pointed. Cavatina jerked to a halt a pace above the ground, and slowly drifted downward.

  She landed, and began writhing violently. Her fists pounded the paving stones, and her body twisted this way and that, as if she were dodging blows from an unseen opponent. “The symbol of slime!” she shouted. “Sacrifice the dance to make the eye stop! It’s looking at you! We can’t allow it to come or it’s lost the…”

  Laeral started. Cavatina was raving like a madwoman.

  Behind her, she heard a chuckle and a derisive comment. “.. . what they deserved. We won’t have to worry about the Promenade no more. It’s—”

  She whirled and glared at the speaker: a drow who, judging by the heavy manacles he carried in one hand, was a slaver. “What did you just say? What’s happened to the Promenade?”

  The drow laughed. “Ask your friend.” He mocked her with a bow and strode away.

  Laeral was tempted to send a bolt from her wand sizzling through him, but there were more urgent matters to deal with. She rushed to Cavatina’s side and tried to help the Darksong Knight to her feet, but Cavatina screamed and jerked away. Laeral pulled a pouch from her pocket, tipped out the preserved snake’s tongue it held, and clenched it in her fist. She touched her hand to her lips. “I can help you,”

  she told the Darksong Knight in a soothing voice. “Please follow me.”

  Calmed by magic, Cavatina followed Laeral through Skullport’s garbage-strewn streets. She mumbled as she walked. The odd word was intelligible—”slime” and “gate” and “battle”—but Laeral could make no sense of what Cavatina was muttering. It was clear, however, that some calamity had overtaken the Promenade. When Cavatina suddenly shouted the name “Ghaunadaur!” Laeral knew what had happened: another attack by the Ancient One’s fanatics. Of all the times Qilué might have chosen to draw Wendonai’s taint into herself, this must surely be the worst.

  Yet another indication that the time hadn’t been of Qilué’s choosing.

  Laeral’s destination was just ahead: the Sisters Three Waxworks. Kaitlyn and her sisters were friends of Laeral’s, devotees of Chauntea who posed as simple candle makers. They kept a stock of healing potions on hand, and were adept at restorative spells. Whatever madness afflicted Cavatina, they’d be able to cure it. Laeral opened the door of the shop and coaxed the Darksong Knight inside. “Enter,” she said, touching the fist that held the snake tongue to her lips as she spoke. “You’ll find peace, here.”

  Cavatina stumbled into the candlelit shop. Laeral closed the door on the gaggle of Skullport residents who’d tagged along after them, mocking the Darksong Knight by imitating her frenzied, uncoordinated motions. “Kaitlyn,” Laeral said to the woman behind the counter as she bolted the door shut. “My friend needs your help. She—”

  Cavatina screamed and flattened herself against a wall, knocking over a display of scented candles. An instant later, her terror switched to rage. She hurled herself at a candle that gutŹtered on the counter. “The ooze!” she screamed. Her fists pounded into the soft purple candle, splattering molten wax across the counter. “We have to stop the temple before the glow fills the river with the slime of the death and staunch the flow of blood!”

  Kaitlyn had been arranging a display of candles on a shelf when Laeral and Cavatina entered. The brown-haired woman’s mouth dropped open in surprise as Cavatina attacked her merchandise, but she sprang quickly into action. She whirled to grab a corked vial from a shelf behind her. “Hold spell!” she shouted. “While her mouth is open, if possible.”

  Laeral barked an enchantment that rendered Cavatina rigid, her mouth gaping in mid-shout. When the Darksong Knight toppled, Laeral caught her and eased her statue-stiff body to the ground. Kaitlyn uncorked the vial and poured the potion into Cavatina’s mouth. “Quickly now,” she said. “Dispel the hold, or she’ll choke.”

  Laeral did. She took a quick pace back as Cavatina’s body slackened, but the expected outburst didn’t come. Instead of raving and nailing, Cavatina held her head in her hands. “I failed,” she said in an anguished voice. “The Promenade is lost.”

  Laeral kneeled beside Cavatina and placed a hand on her shoulder. “What’s happened? Tell me.”

  As Cavatina spoke, Laeral’s heart sank. The Promenade, fallen to Ghaunadaur’s fanatics? His avatar, released from the Pit? “Oh, Qilué,” she said softly. “It’s worse even than you thought, sister.”

  Cavatina wrenched around to stare at Laeral. “Where is she? Where’s Qilué?”

  “In trouble,” Laeral said. “She needs your help.” As conŹcisely as she could, she told the Darks
ong Knight what Qilué had done to herself. Cavatina’s face paled at the news, but as she continued listening, she climbed to her feet and took a deep breath.

  “We’re going to need Qilué to rally the priestesses and retake the Promenade,” Cavatina said, her voice firmer now. She reached for her scabbard, realized it was empty, and looked around the shop. “Where am I? Is there a sword to be had?”

  Laeral glanced at Kaitlyn. The shopkeeper started to shake her head, then shrugged. “There’s my sword of mercy. Hardly a suitable weapon for slaying a demon. It’s ensorcelled so that it will not kill.”

  Cavatina held out a hand. “I’ll take it.”

  Laeral nodded to herself. With Qilué’s body housing the demon, they needed something that could subdue, rather than kill. She pulled a gem from her belt pouch. “This should pay for the sword,” she told Kaitlyn. She pressed the gem into the shopkeeper’s hands.

  Kaitlyn glanced down at it. “Too much,” she said. Then she smiled. “But I’ll keep it on deposit. Return the sword to me when you’re done.”

  She pulled the weapon from behind the counter. To Laeral’s surprise, the sword was made of wood. Judging by the way Cavatina hefted it, however, the weapon seemed to have the weight of a normal sword. Its magic shaped it exactly to the Darksong Knight’s scabbard as she sheathed it.

  Laeral caught Kaitlyn’s eye. “Not a word of what you just heard. To anyone.”

  Kaitlyn touched one of the clumps of fragrant herbs that hung from the rafters. “I swear it, by the Mother.”

  Laeral glanced outside, through a slit in the window shutŹter. The crowd that had followed them to the shop lingered, talking with animated gestures. “We’ll use the other exit, if you don’t mind, Kaitlyn.”

  The shopkeeper moved aside the curtain that separated the front and rear of her shop. “This way.”

  She led them down a hidden staircase, through a short tunnel, and up a ladder that led to the back room of a nearby shop. Laeral and Cavatina exited, and hurried through the streets to the portal that would return them to Waterdeep. On the way, they conferred in hushed voices about what was to be done.