Ascendancy of the Last

chapter 13

Halisstra lifted the blood-smeared Crescent Blade so Eilistraee could see it. “Wendonai said you would come. He said you couldn’t bear to lose your high priestess.” She smirked. “He was right.”

“I came for another reason,” the goddess replied. “To offer you redemption. Your heart aches for it.” She held out a hand. “Reach for it!”

Swift as a hunting spider, Halisstra struck. The Crescent Blade flashed, and fingertips fell. They patŹtered to the floor beside the decapitated Darksong Knight.

Eilistraee’s eyes blazed red. A bolt of braided light and shadow burst from her forehead and slammed into Halisstra’s chest, rocking Halisstra back. The pain was intense, but it lasted only a heartbeat. Halisstra shook it off and menaced the other goddess with her weapon.

Eilistraee, however, didn’t press her attack. She squeezed her hand shut and sang. A nimbus of moonlight played around her fist, and the blood flow halted as her wounds sealed shut. When she opened her hand again, however, the fingers were shorter than they had been.

Once again, the hand extended. “Come. Rejoin my dance.”

Halisstra swayed forward—then angrily shook off the enchantment the other goddess had tried to ensnare her with. This time, she told herself, she would be stronger. She wouldn’t kneel, wouldn’t grovel. Not like she had before Lolth.

“I don’t need your redemption,” she snapped. “I’m stronger than you.”

In one sense, it was true. Though Eilistraee glowed with an unearthly light, Halisstra wasn’t blinded by it. She didn’t wince and fumble about like a mortal drow. And though the high priestess’s body had enlarged when the goddess stepped into it, Halisstra still stood head and shoulders taller. Eilistraee was the weak one, not her. Halisstra was stronger, swifter, and armed with the Crescent Blade. The other goddess was frightened of her. She didn’t dare attack Halisstra.

“You can’t kill me,” Halisstra taunted. “If you could, you would have done it already.”

“Are you certain of that?” A glint of blue danced in Eilistraee’s moonstone eyes. She pointed at Halisstra’s chest. “It looks as though Lolth is no longer healing you.”

Halisstra glanced down. It was true. Black, tarry blood seeped from the wound Eilistraee’s magic had bored—a wound that should have closed by now. That frightened her, more than she cared to admit. If she died, her soul would fly back to the Demonweb Pits. Back to Lolth’s cruel embrace.

“I don’t need Lolth!” Halisstra shouted. “I’m a demigod!”

“Then why do you pretend to be Lolth’s champion?” Eilistraee whirled, her hair lifting like a skirt. When it settled again, tiny knots were in it. Inside each, a tiny figure writhed. “That’s what these priestesses thought, wasn’t it? They worŹshiped you as Lolth’s champion, not as a goddess in your own right.” She whirled again, and the knots disappeared. “And now they’ve gone to face Lolth’s wrath.”

“That’s a lie!” Halisstra screamed. “They worshiped me! Through subservience to me, they’ll be reborn.”

Eilistraee’s voice was soft and mocking. “If you’re a demiŹgod, then why do you need the Crescent Blade?”

“To kill you,” Halisstra spat.

“Why haven’t you used it? What’s staying your hand?” Green-tinted eyes stared at her from behind the mask. “Could it be mercy?”

“Hardly that!” Halisstra laughed and brought the weapon to her lips. She licked Cavatina’s blood from it, and smiled. “I like to savor my victories. I notice you weren’t able to regenerŹate your fingers. I think I’ll cut you apart, a little at a time. Make you suffer, just like I did.”

Eilistraee didn’t react to the jibe. “You’re not Lolth’s,” she continued relentlessly. “You never were. You swore an oath to me. By song and sword. You bear my crescent on your knee.”

“That was another me!” Halisstra snapped. “The mortal I once was.”

Her knee, however, suddenly stung, as if freshly cut. She glanced down at the faded gray scar—the tiny nick Ryld’s sword had made, when she danced around the blade to fool Eilistraee’s priestesses. Ryld. The lover who had followed her into Eilistraee’s faith, only to die. She shook her head. She hadn’t thought of him in years.

“Do you remember my song?” Eilistraee asked.

Voices sang in Halisstra’s memory. Trust in your sisters; lend your voice to their song. By joining the circle, the weak are made strong.

Had there been voices singing that outside her temple, just a moment ago?

Halisstra glared at Eilistraee. “Lolth did claim me for a time, but no more. I’m not hers—and I’m not yours. You abandoned me in the Demonweb Pits. You stood and watched as Lolth degraded me, consumed me. You watched and did nothing!” She was surprised at the vehemence that boiled out of her. She hadn’t thought it would still sting. She gripped the Crescent Blade tightly, reminding herself that her mortal life was over. Done. She was Lolth’s plaything no longer. She’d never have to look upon that gloating, Danifae-faced goddess again.

Until she killed her.

“Yes,” Eilistraee said, softly as a sigh. “Kill Lolth. That’s what the Crescent Blade was forged to do. That’s what you were destined to do. You faltered, the first time….”

Halisstra snarled. She didn’t like to be reminded of that.

“But I’m giving you a second chance,” Eilistraee continued. “A chance to redeem yourself. When Lolth transformed you, she bound you with webs of hatred and guilt. But any web can be broken, if only you are strong enough. Take your revenge on the Spider Queen. Use the disguise she has unwittingly given you. Lolth will never credit you with the strength you truly have.”

“Strength?” Halisstra shrieked. She rubbed a throbbing temple with a callused hand.

“Yes, strength. Your penance has tempered you, made you strong as darkfire-forged adamantine. But now that penance is at an end.”

“My… penance?” Halisstra echoed hollowly. Her thoughts felt thick, snarled in web. How could Eilistraee possibly “end” anything? Lolth had been the one to twist her body, to break her spirit, to name her the Lady Penitent.

“Your penance began before that,” Eilistraee said softly. “The moment you broke my sacred sword, it began. But now it can end. Rejoin me.”

Could it? Halisstra wavered. Would Eilistraee truly take her back, after all she had done? Halisstra could feel the power of the goddess who stood before her. It radiated from Eilistraee, filling the chamber. Cleansing it. Turning a place of darkness and death into a place of moonlight and song.

The tiny spark that had been nickering, flear extinguished, deep inside Halisstra, longed to be fanned back to life. When that happened, her torment could end. She would be forgiven. Redeemed.

Eilistraee held out her hand. “Come,” she sang. “Take my hand. Accept my mercy. Rejoin the dance.”

Halisstra leaned close. She lowered the Crescent Blade. Extended her free hand …

She’s lying.

The whisper was thin, metallic. It came to Halisstra’s ears like the hum of a tuning fork, as the sword in her hand vibrated.

That’s not Eilistraee.

Halisstra gasped. A trick! She saw it. The voice was right: that wasn’t Eilistraee who stood before her. That wasn’t a hand reaching for her, but a spider. Only one goddess could have bored a hole in her chest that would not heal: Lolth. The Spider Queen had tricked her!

Screaming her rage, she slashed with the Crescent Blade.

The eyes above the mask widened. “Halisstra!” Eilistraee cried. “N—”

Steel met flesh and bit deep. The goddess’s neck parted. Her head tumbled from her shoulders and landed with a dull thump. Her body slowly twisted, then suddenly collapsed. Silver blood poured onto the floor from the severed stump of a neck. It covered the stone floor in a glittering silver wave, throwing dancing shadows across the walls, then faded to black.

Halisstra, panting, stared down at the headless corpse, her spider jaws twitching furiously. “I’m your Lady Penitent no more!” she screamed.

She felt a tickle on her chest. She glanced down, and saw that a spider had spun a web across the wound in her chest. It completed its web and yanked, drawing the edges shut. The ache that had resided there faded—as did the fainter sting in her knee. She turned her leg, inspecting it. The tiny, crescent-shaped scar was gone.

She heard a sharp crack. The Crescent Blade suddenly felt lighter in her hand. Its blade struck the floor with a clang that echoed like the tolling of a bell. A wisp of black seeped from the broken hilt, then whispered away.

Realization at last shoved its way into Halisstra’s web-shrouded mind. It wasn’t Lolth she’d just killed, but Eilistraee. And now that the Crescent Blade was broken—she stared at the hilt in her hand—she never would kill Lolth.

This had been what the Spider Queen had wanted, all along.

Halisstra sank to the floor, too stricken to speak.

Laughter echoed through the chamber, light as the footŹsteps of a running spider.


Leliana urgently waved the newcomers forward. Encircle the hill! she signed with her free hand. Join the song!

The priestesses and Nightshadows Laeral had teleported here hurried to comply. They shoved through the jungle underbrush, joining the ring of faithful. Leliana wiped sweat from her brow, nodded at Qilué’s human “sister,” and sang fervently. The ring of moonlight the hymn had brought into being brightened with each added voice. Slowly, relentlessly, it spread inward, as the healing and hallowing energy they evoked grew stronger. The taint of evil boiled away in a heatŹwave shimmer, the stench of rot and sulfur giving way to the clean tang of fresh water and growing leaves. In another moment, the mound itself would be hallowed ground, and the exorcism could begin.

Laeral hurried to Leliana’s side. “Is your casting nearly complete?”

Leliana nodded without halting her song. She held up a hand and counted down with her fingers. Five… four …

The newly arrived priestesses and Nightshadows joined the chorus, strengthening the circle. The spider webs draping the mound burst into silver flame, and burned away. Corpses tumbled out of their cocoons, charred flesh sizzling. The smoke rising from them twisted in the currents of the hallowing, and became the sweet smell of incense.

Three … two…

With her singing sword in hand, Leliana watched the openŹing in the side of the hill. Three chambers, Laeral had said: head, cephalothorax, and abdomen. Qilué was in the third.

One …

The hymn culminated in a single, sustained note—and ended.

Leliana strode forward, beckoning the others to follow. They would lend their song to her exorcism. Qilué would be saved—and the traitorous Halisstra killed.

A branch creaked above. Leliana looked up just in time to see a massive figure hurtling down at her. Nearly twice the size of a drow, it had four arms and a body made of black obsidian. It landed with a thud that shook the ground, and its feet punched holes in the soft soil. A golem!

Leliana leaped back as the golem slammed its hands together, barely missing her. She turned the leap into a spinŹning attack, slashing with her sword. The golem dodged, but not quickly enough. Pealing a battle cry, the sword slammed into one of its arms. Stone shattered, and the sword vibrated so violently that Leliana nearly dropped it.

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 of 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.

Lolth arched an eyebrow. “Well played, Daughter. You seem to have neutralized the threat. And without me even seeing your move. Your brother has taught you much in the art of sleight of hand—but it won’t save your Priestess.” She flicked a hand. “Do it. Sacrifice her.”

Still puzzling over Lolth’s choice, Eilistraee grasped the Priestess piece. As she removed it from the board, it spit into two parts with a crack like snapping bone. Sorrowfully, she let the head and body fall from her hand. They tumbled, then turned to mist.

Lolth immediately moved a demonic-looking Priestess piece into the vacant spot. She snapped her fingers, and her throne appeared. She lounged on it, staring across the sava board at Eilistraee. “Your move, daughter.”

Eilistraee was thankful for her mask; it hid her smile. Lolth had just made an impetuous move, one that left the piece she’d shifted open to attack. Eilistraee reached for the Priestess piece that held the curved sword, then noted the slight tightŹening of her opponent’s hands on the arms of her throne. The Spider Queen looked relaxed, but her fingers betrayed her tenŹsion. Why?

Eilistraee hesitated, her hand still on the piece, not yet moving it. She could see nothing amiss. The move looked secure. Yet something was bothering her…

There. That tickle at her wrist. Without being obvious, she shifted her focus slightly, looking at her hand, rather than the piece it held. Just above her palm, on the inside of her wrist, was a tiny red welt: the burn mark that had been left by the brief touch of Lolth’s demonic Warrior piece, just before it had vanished. Eilistraee’s Priestess piece—the one that held the curved blade—bore a corresponding mark: a tiny chip in its wrist.

A hole, bored deep—to its very soul.

Treachery! Yet that was only to be expected of the Spider Queen.

Eilistraee, however, also knew much of subterfuge, thanks to the mask she now wore. Another piece on the board bore a similar flaw: this one, in its knee. Eilistraee made the move Lolth was expecting, then feigned surprise and horror as the piece she’d just moved transformed into the Warrior piece and became Lolth’s. The Spider Queen seized it and moved it triumphantly to the heart of Eilistraee’s House, next to Eilistraee’s Mother piece.

“Victory!” she cried. “Move whatever piece you like, Daughter. The game will be lost! Your Mother piece has no moves open. With my next move, I’ll destroy it—and the drow will be mine!”

Eilistraee leaned forward, feigning a great sigh. She kept her eyes downcast, so Lolth wouldn’t see the glint of gold in their depths. She lifted her Mother piece and squeezed hard, destroying it. The cut on her wrist opened, and her blood flowed. A drop of it fell on the Warrior piece, sizzled briefly in the hot flames that wreathed it, then vanished.

Eilistraee disappeared.

*

Lolth looked wildly around. Eilistraee was gone! She laughed a shrill, giddy peal of delight. “You concede?” she cried. “At last, the drow are… ?”

Just a moment. Something was wrong. Eilistraee’s realm should have disappeared with her. Yet it remained, just on the other side of the board. Forest, moonstone fruits, stars… Everything was there, except for the moon. It had vanished from the sky, as if…

Yes, that was it. The moon wasn’t gone; it was just eclipsed. Still up in that sky, somewhere. Just as Eilistraee herself was still here … somewhere.

Lolth’s eye fell on the Warrior piece. A pass of her hand over it, palm down, confirmed her suspicions. She could feel the loathsome moonlight hidden within. The Warrior still looked as it had, but that was just a disguise. The piece was no longer hers.

Vhaeraun had, indeed, taught his sister well.

She could see now what Eilistraee’s plan had been. The demonic Warrior piece stood on a line that led directly back to Lolth’s Mother piece; one move would take the Mother out. But Lolth’s bestial Priestess would soon put a halt to that.

Lolth picked up the bestial Priestess piece. It struggled in her hand, resisting her. For a moment, it nearly succeeded. Then Lolth snuffed out the last spark of will it contained. She moved it beside the Warrior piece, and attacked.

The disguise fell away. Eilistraee’s Mother piece was revealed. It twisted wildly, like a madly pirouetting dancer, and let out a shrill cry that was almost a song. Then Lolth flicked a finger, tipping it over, and it stilled.

“Game,” she announced.

On the other side of the board, Eilistraee’s realm wavered. In another moment, it would disappear. Lolth touched her fingers together, then drew them slowly apart, spinning a web between her hands. She leaned forward, poised to ensnare the pieces that buzzed in frantic panic, like flies, on the board below.

“Not so fast, Araushnee,” a male voice said. The point of a long sword touched Lolth’s chest.

Startled, she looked up.

Eilistraee’s realm had not disappeared. Nor were her pieces forfeited. Her place had been taken by another deity who stared imperiously down at Lolth along the blade of the long sword: an androgynous elf with golden hair, wearing white robes, a sky blue cloak, and golden battle gauntlets. A crescent-moon amulet hung against his chest.

He flicked the long sword down. It sliced the web Lolth had been forming between her hands.

“How dare you!” the Spider Queen cried. “You’ve no busiŹness meddling here. You’re god of the surface elves—and these are drow!”

“Look again.”

She did. Rage swelled in her like a ripe egg sac as she saw what had happened. Eilistraee’s pieces had changed. They were no longer black, but brown. Lolth tried to seize one, but it neatly sidestepped out of reach.

Corellon Larethian laughed. “My move, I believe.”