Forgotten Realms - The Lady Penitent - Ascendancy of the Last

by Lisa Smedman

  A shout came from behind Leliana: Qilué’s sister, casting a spell. But whatever magic Laeral had just wrought had no visible effect on the golem. Avoiding Leliana’s sword thrusts, it vomited out a stream of sticky white silk that knocked Leliana to the ground and entangled at least a dozen of the priestesses and Nightshadows behind her. Laeral was the only one unaffected. She levitated as the web slid past her body and failed to take hold.

  Leliana heard thumps all around her: other four-armed golems, dropping from the branches above. Priestesses sang and shouted, swords clanged against stone, and drow cried out as obsidian fists pounded into flesh. The broken-armed golem lifted a foot to stomp Leliana, but she shifted just in time for it to miss her. A streak of raw magical energy whistled down from above—Laeral’s silver fire—and struck the golem’s head, exploding it. The headless body toppled like a fallen tree and bounced as it hit the ground, narrowly missing Leliana. She tried to rise, but the more she struggled, the more the strands of web adhered to her. “Eilistraee!” she cried, “grant me passage. Let me dance freely!”

  The web slid away. Leliana leaped to her feet. She heard pounding footsteps and the snap of branches breaking: another golem, running at her.

  “Go!” Laeral shouted from above as she yanked a wand out of its sheath. “Find Qilué!”

  Leliana plunged into the mound. Eilistraee’s moonlight filled it, scouring it clean. The stone walls were smooth and gleaming, the floor polished and clear. The only exit was a hole in the far wall—the perfect circle of the Dark Maiden’s moon. Leliana leaped through it, landing in a rolling somersault in the chamber beyond, and sprang to her feet. She saw nine corŹridors, just as Laeral had described. Voices echoed from the one in the middle of the far wall. As Leliana ran for it, she made out words. One female voice, deep and bestial, insisting that she was a demigod. Another, like a chorus of voices braided into one, singing in reply, offering redemption.

  The moonlight brightened as Leliana neared the chamber ahead. She halted just shy of its entrance, gaping. An enormous, demonic figure with spider legs protruding from its chest—Halisstra—stood next to a throne that looked like a spider with crumpled legs, holding the Crescent Blade in one misshapen hand. A headless body in priestess’s chain mail and breastplate that had to be Cavatina lay on the floor at Halisstra’s feet. Yet this wasn’t what had made Leliana stop and stare. These two lesser figures were eclipsed by a third: a drow female who stood at the center of the room. The female had the features and build of Qilué, but was suffused with a power greater even than the high priestess’s silver fire. Qilué, transformed, was radiant with moonlight, graceful as song, strong as the Weave itself. Her body, her voice, her every gesture had a beauty that made Leliana’s breath catch in her throat.

  “Eilistraee,” Leliana breathed. She took a step forward, but a note sounded in her mind. Wait, it commanded.

  Leliana halted. She listened as the goddess offered redempŹtion to the fallen priestess. Leliana had glimpsed Halisstra once before, briefly, atop the Acropolis, but it was still hard to believe a priestess could have been brought so low. Halisstra was raving, clearly maddened by the tortures Lolth had inflicted. Yet she leaned ever so slightly toward Eilistraee, like a self-conscious dancer about to take a first, hesitant step. She ached for the redemption Eilistraee was offering with outstretched hands.

  “Let her lead you,” Leliana breathed. She lifted her own hand, yearning to touch that of the goddess. Tears of pure joy poured down her cheeks. “Dance. Sing. Take her hand.”

  Suddenly, Halisstra’s posture changed. She cocked an ear, then howled in rage. The Crescent Blade flashed as it sliced through the moonlit air. It thudded into Eilistraee’s neck—a sound that struck Leliana like a physical blow. In one terrible, frozen moment that would sear itself into her memory forever, Leliana saw the goddess’ head tumble from her shoulders. The head landed with a thud, the goddess’ body crumpled, and the moonlight went out.

  Leliana fainted.

  Laeral blasted apart the final golem with her wand and shouted to those priestesses and Nightshadows who still remained on their feet. “Hurry! Leliana needs our help!”

  She spun to enter the mound—finally, the way was clear—but halted as she heard several of Eilistraee’s faithful cry out at once. They stood, staring up at the sky, stricken expressions on their faces. One of them pointed with a shaking hand. “The moon!”

  Laeral glanced up. The moon was gone. How? She shudŹdered, then pulled herself together. Qilué needed her. Too many precious moments had already been consumed by the battle with the golems.

  She leaped over the fallen golem, into the mound. She spoke Qilué’s truename under her breath. Perhaps, even in stasis, Qilué might hear it. “Ilindyl! I’m coming, sister!”

  Too dark; she couldn’t see. With a thought, she bathed her body in a sheen of silver light. As she passed through the second chamber, a demonic voice roared in triumph, up ahead. “I’m your Lady Penitent no more!”

  Laeral plunged into the tunnel leading to the third corriŹdor. Just ahead, she saw Leliana, crumpled on the floor. The priestess’s magical sword lay on the ground beside her body. From the chamber beyond came the sharp clank of metal on stone: another blade, being dropped to the floor?

  Laeral readied the components of a spell as she ran. “Stay strong, sister. I’m nearly there!”

  A demonic figure leaped to its feet as Laeral burst into the room: Halisstra. Snarling, squinting against the glare of Laeral’s silver fire, Halisstra hurled a broken sword hilt at Laeral, then leaped at her and spat out a deadly word. One clawed hand raked Laeral’s hip, tearing it open. Laeral felt the power of the magic word bore through her. A less powerful wizard would have instantly withered and died, but she was sustained by Mystra’s magic. The wound in her hip instantly healed. She slapped Halisstra with a hand, and shouted a transmutation. Halisstra ceased moving, her face frozen in an anguished snarl.

  Laeral hurried past her. She fell to her knees beside two corpses, each missing its head. One was Cavatina, the other, Qilué, her body no longer demonic. The amulet Laeral had given Qilué lay in a puddle of blood, next to her head. Laeral touched her fallen sister’s corpse. Already, the body was growŹing cool. “Oh, sister,” she mourned. “What have I done?”

  From behind her came a groan, and the scrape of metal on stone. Laeral whirled—but it was only Leliana, picking up her sword and staggering to her feet. The priestess walked with uncertain steps into the chamber. She shied around the time-frozen Halisstra, but never once looked in her direction. Her eyes, wide and horror-filled, were locked on Qilué’s headŹless corpse.

  “Eilistraee!” she keened.

  “Pray for her,” Laeral urged. “Bring her back.”

  “I can’t!”

  Anger made Laeral’s silver fire flare brighter. “Pull yourself together, priestess, and pray!”

  Leliana fumbled with the holy symbol hanging around her neck. She wrenched its chain over her head, and hurled the miniature sword down at Laeral’s feet. “I can’t!” she screamed.

  The holy symbol was deeply tarnished, black and brittle looking. And Leliana herself had changed. Her skin was brown; her hair, black.

  Laeral realized the priestess was crying. From the distance—somewhere outside the mound—she heard the sobs and wails of the other faithful.

  Laeral rose. “One of the others will have a holy symbol. You can—”

  “Don’t you understand?” Leliana shouted. “Eilistraee’s gone! She was inside Qilué when she was killed with the Crescent Blade. I saw Eilistraee die!”

  A shiver of horror coursed through Laeral. She understood—suddenly, and with frightening clarity—the omen she’d witnessed outside. A missing moon, a vanished goddess. That was terrible enough. But there was something that stuck even closer to home. She half-turned to her fallen sister. “You … can’t restore her to life.”

  “No.”

  Laeral clutched at straws. “Someone else then. A cleric o
f some other faith.”

  “No,” Leliana croaked. “No one can revive her. The Crescent Blade killed her. Halisstra hacked out her soul—and Eilistraee’s with it.”

  Laeral choked back a sob. Her beloved sister, gone. Laeral had always known that Qilué might die one day, but had been comforted by the knowledge that Qilué would dance at her goddess’s side. But now that goddess was gone, and Qilué’s soul destroyed.

  All this while, Leliana had been staring at the frozen Halisstra. Now she spat out the name of the fallen priestess like a curse. Slowly, as if it weighed as much as a boulder, she lifted her singing sword. It was utterly silent, its song forever stilled. She touched the point to Halisstra’s chest. “Your magic holds her?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  “Dispel it.”

  Eyes locked. Sorrow met grief. Laeral nodded, gestured, and spoke a word.

  Halisstra blinked.

  Leliana thrust her sword into Halisstra’s chest. Blood, stinking of the Abyss, flowed hot over her hand. A faint tremble coursed through the blade: Halisstra’s heart, beating one last time. The fallen priestess’s spider jaws twitched, and her mouth opened.

  “Eilistraee,” she gasped. “Forgive …”

  “She can’t forgive you,” Laeral said. “She’s dead.”

  Halisstra’s eyes clouded over, and she died.

  T’lar drifted toward the spot where the mages stood arguŹing with one another, her body a breath of wind. Now was her moment. The wizards were agitated by their inexplicable transformation, and were intent upon their argument. By the sound of it, only the one seated on the driftdisc still had his darkvision. Careful to keep out of his line of sight, T’lar reformed her body behind one of the stacks of boxes. She’d waited here a long time for her target to show, and had been forced to delay further when he’d returned with his apprenŹtices and three of Sshamath’s masters. But T’lar was as patient as a spider in its web, and her target was at long last presenting an opportunity for her to strike.

  Softly, she hummed the tune the Lady Penitent had taught her—the one that would allow her dagger to strike true. Then she readied herself. She hadn’t bothered to merely poison her blade, this time. Instead, she’d had the weapon cursed. The next person it killed would remain dead, despite any resurŹrections a cleric might attempt.

  T’lar adjusted her grip on the blade and focused on her breathing. A lesser assassin would have been forced to rise from her crouch to throw, but T’lar was one of the Velkyn Velve, and had dro’zress within her. She called upon it now, and felt it charge her body. In one smooth motion she stepped sideways through space and hurled her dagger. It whispered through the air, swift as an arrow, and buried itself in her target’s neck, right next to his hairclip.

  Her target collapsed. The other mages reacted with alarm. Even as they spun to search out the threat, T’lar sidestepped—only to find her target alive and well and standing directly in front of her—and holding her dagger in his hand.

  “Looking for this?” he asked.

  “How—?” T’lar grunted in pain. She looked down. The dagger was in her heart. She felt herself fall to the side, and heard the wizard’s voice from the distance, through a thick gray fog.

  “Contingency spell,” he said. “In the hairclip. A combinaŹtion of blink and illusion that…”

  His voice faded. So did all sensation. Gray mist swirled around her. She stood on a table-flat plain that bore no landŹmarks, save for a walled city in the distance. She was dead, she realized. She had failed the Lady Penitent. Her torment would be eternal.

  Some time later—a heartbeat? a year?—a form materialŹized next to her. Though she had no body, no life, T’lar sensed herself falling to her knees. “Lady Penitent,” she said, contrition choking her mind-voice. “I failed you. Q’arlynd Melarn lives.”

  Wild laughter burst from the Lady Penitent’s lips. “We’re all dead!” she howled. She whirled to shake a fist at the mist. “Do you hear that, Cavatina? Your goddess is dead. I tried to redeem myself, but too late!” The Lady Penitent sank to her knees in the swirling mist, sobbing like a broken slave.

  A shiver of fear lodged in T’lar’s soul. She rose and backed slowly away, but the weeping figure lashed out with a hand, catching her wrist. “Your goddess is dead!” she screamed. “The Lady Penitent is dead!”

  T’lar tore free of the Lady Penitent’s grip. What madness was this? A strand of silk drifted down from the sky to brush T’lar’s shoulder. She looked up, and saw a spider-headed female staring down at her. Lolth! Behind the goddess stood a balor demon, his bat wings wreathed in flame. Lolth’s true champion. T’lar understood that, now.

  Come, the goddess said. The web waits.

  T’lar grasped the thread of silk. Power surged through it, into her hand. The mist-filled landscape faded. Tugged by the thread, she rose into Lolth’s blackness. It surrounded her like a comforting black velvet shroud. At last she reached the eternal web that was the Demonweb Pits, leaving the piteous, false champion behind.

  Cavatina stood on a featureless plain, surrounded by gray mist. Somewhere in the distance, a female voice raged. She recognized it as Halisstra’s, but that didn’t matter. Not any more.

  She lifted her severed head to her shoulders, and felt the substance of her soul knit together again. She turned to the messengers who had come to convey her from the Fugue Plain. The two looked identical: elves, though she could not say what type. Beautiful, though she could not tell their gender. Each stood a little taller than she, and was clad in a shimŹmering white robe. Their names sprang, unbidden, into her mind: Lashrael and Felarathael.

  “Daughter!” Lashrael cried in a voice bubbling with laughter. “Your life’s journey has ended at last. Welcome home!” He clasped her arms and smiled.

  “The Protector sends his greetings,” Felarathael said in a slow, measured voice. The spirit half-turned, and gestured for her to follow. “Come.”

  “But…” Cavatina looked around. There should have been a beam of moonlight, piercing the mist. A song for her to follow. Or perhaps a pool of silent shadow for her to slip into. She pulled out of Lashrael’s embrace. “But I am Eilistraee’s.”

  “Alas!” Lashrael cried, his cheeks awash with tears. “Eilistraee is no more. She was slain—cut down, together with the high priestess, by the treacherous Lady Penitent.”

  Cavatina’s soul trembled. “No!” she gasped.

  “All part of the plan,” Felarathael said calmly. “There is no further need for Eilistraee. The willing were saved, the unwilling cast down. It is time for the dark elves to return to Arvandor.”

  “So many!” Lashrael cried, arms thrown open wide. “So many souls to gather! Where will we ever begin?”

  “With this one, Lashrael,” Felarathael said in a patient voice. “And then, on to the realm where the remainder of Eilistraee’s faithful dance.”

  Cavatina’s mind spun. Dark elves? As if in answer, a mirror of silver moonlight framed in a circle of shadow materialized between Felarathael’s hands. He held it up for her to see. She beheld herself as she might have been, had she survived. Brown skin, black hair, dark brown eyes. The mirror disappeared.

  “Hundreds of you, across the length and breadth of Faerűn, were transformed,” Felarathael explained. “Hundreds more, below ground. Even now, the mortals who serve our master are braving the Underdark, to guide their dark elf brethren back into the light.”

  “But what of Qilué?” she breathed.

  “Gone!” Lashrael cried. The spirit sank to a kneel, his hands thrust high. “Dead! Forever dead!”

  “Her soul was destroyed,” Felarathael said solemnly. “But before she died, she saved many. She cleansed the taint from hundreds of drow who might otherwise have been condemned.”

  “But the rest!” Lashrael wailed. “Thousands! Hundreds of thousands! No hope of redemption for them, with Eilistraee gone. Condemned to darkness and despair, forevermore!”

  “Another necessary
sacrifice,” Felarathael said without a trace of emotion. “Else the game would have been lost.”

  Lashrael rose and wiped away his tears. A smile replaced them—a smile as wide as the moon. “Now come, daughter. Felarathael and I have dallied here long enough. We’ve much work ahead, once we get you safely home.”

  “Home?” Cavatina asked.

  Felarathael waved a hand. The mist parted, revealing a lush forest. A crescent moon hung above the oak trees, next to a golden sun. In the foreground, butterflies danced in a glade festooned with wildflowers. A warm breeze carried the scent of grass, blossoms, and clear-flowing streams.

  “Arvandor,” Felarathael announced.

  “Arvandor,” Cavatina breathed.

  Each of the spirits held out a hand. She took them. Together they led her soul into the realm of the Seldarine.

  CODA

  Eilistraee startled. Lolth hadn’t chosen the piece she’d expected. The Spider Queen instead was pointing to a slightly less powerful Priestess piece that stood next to the one with the curved sword.

  Why?

  Lolth pointed a web-sticky finger. “The sacriŹfice,” she demanded. “Take that piece out, or forfeit the game.”

  “A moment, Mother,” Eilistraee said. She tipped her head. “Do you hear that?”

  The event she’d been waiting for had at last arrived. Her side of the sava board was a mess, her House riddled with holes Ghaunadaur had melted in the board. But the Priest pieces that had materialized with the Ancient One’s arrival no longer had an air of menace and purpose about them. Instead they were babbling, uncontrolled, wandering across the board of their own accord.

  A moment later, the ooze that had been melting Eilistraee’s side of the board dribbled away down a hole one of Eilistraee’s Priest pieces had just leaped into, abandoning its minions. The holes remained, but the rot’s spread had at last been halted.