Ascendancy of the Last

chapter 6

Kâras yanked the reins of his riding lizard to stop it from snapping at the tail of the mount in front. All around him, the twenty-six other priests who would ride out to the Gathering did the same. Their lizards, cramped together in the portico, were restless and aggressive as they waited for the drawbridge to fall.

A novice in oversized purple robes hurried into the portico, carrying a lacquered black tray. On it was a whiplike tentacle rod and the ring that controlled it. With eyes downcast, the boy halted next to Kâras and lifted the tray.

Kâras caught the eye of the priest on the mount next to him and feigned a greedy smile. “Mine?”

The priest—a greasy-haired, hollow-cheeked drow named Molvayas—smiled, revealing brown, stained teeth. “Yours. To replace the one you lost.”

The brownish red tentacles of the priest’s rod were coiled over one shoulder and around his chest; their suckers puckŹered the fabric of his tabard. They sucked and released the purple-encircled eye embroidered on the front of the tunic as if nursing from it. His shield bore the same symbol.

Kâras could feel the other priests watching him out of the corners of their eyes. This was a test. He reached for the ring: a band of black obsidian, set with an equally dark stone. The bitterly cold ring stuck to his sweat-damp fingers. He jammed it onto his left thumb and tore his fingers away. Cold shot through his thumb to the bone, turning the meat of his thumb a dull gray. With a thought, he adjusted its color back to black.

He held up his thumb and flexed it—a motion that would draw the others’ scrutiny away from his other hand as it surreptitiously brushed against the belt that cinched in his tabard: a belt that was actually his disguised holy symbol. Masked Lady, he silently prayed. Lend me strength.

Feeling returned to his thumb.

He grabbed the rod’s leather-bound handgrip. Finger-thick, rubbery tentacles uncoiled and animated as he lifted the rod from the tray. When he held it at arm’s length, the tentacles brushed back and forth against the slate floor, leaving streaks of frost in their wake. He flicked the rod, and a shiver ran through the tentacles. They snapped briefly to attention, then relaxed again and suckered the floor with faint wet pops.

“A fine weapon,” he said. “My thanks to House Philiom.”

“Gather well,” Molvayas said.

Kâras flicked the weapon a second time as he waited, and a third, pretending to admire the balance of its long metal shaft and the suppleness of its three black tentacles. At last he had to coil the weapon around his body, lest the others become suspicious. He suppressed his shudder at the touch of its tentacles against his skin.

Without warning, thuds sounded as the House boys on either side of the drawbridge slammed sledge hammers to release the pegs that held its counterweights. Chains rattled, and the drawbridge fell with a tremendous boom. En masse, the riding lizards surged forward, their riders urging them onward with hisses. The novice who’d handed Kâras the rod gasped as a lizard knocked him down. He screamed as scrabbling claws shredded his tabard and back into a bloody fringe. The screaming fell behind as Kâras’s riding lizard surged onto the drawbridge with the rest.

The sour smell of green slime rose to Kâras’s nostrils as his mount crossed the moat. Soon it was replaced by the fetid stench of the manure in House Philiom’s mushroom fields. The riders poured out of the black spire that was House Philiom’s keep, their riding lizards’ clawed feet sending up a splattering of mud that fouled the hems of their robes. Startled slaves rose from their mushroom picking to watch the mounts pass.

Kâras wheeled his lizard past the slave hovels, blinking away smoke from the smudge fires the slaves used to keep midges at bay. Soon the hovels fell behind. The riders emerged onto the wide expanse of silt that covered the floor of the low-ceilinged cavern. As their lizards scuttled forward in a blur of legs and claws, the priests gibbered the name of their god, spittle flying from their lips.

“Ghaunadaur who lurks, Ghaunadaur who sees, GhaunaŹdaur who devours.”

Kâras mouthed the refrain without giving voice to it. The harsh chirps and hisses of the lizards and the wet slap of clawed feet through mud masked his silence.

He marveled at the contrast. In other cities, merely speakŹing the Ancient One’s name aloud resulted in immediate retribution. Here in Llurth Dreir, it was a different story. Lolth’s temples had been scoured clean when an avatar of the Ancient One had risen from Llurthogl, consumed Lolth’s faithful, and descended again. Over the centuries since, there had been frequent “spawnings”—eruptions of oozes, slimes, and slugs—ensuring that Lolth’s clergy didn’t return. At the moment, thankfully, the lake was still and quiet. Its scum-covered surface lay undisturbed, apart from the occasional bubble of foul-smelling gas.

Kâras unwound the tentacles from his body and let them trail behind him as he rode. He wheeled his mount with the others as they turned to the black spire of rock that was House Abbylan’s keep. Slave hovels fringed the base of it. As the riders drew near the outermost of these shanties, figures scattered like spiders from a torn egg sac. Goblins, kobolds, and orcs—even a handful of pale-skinned humans—flailed through the mud in a panic. Beyond them, House Abbylan’s soldiers poured oil through slits in the keep, to prevent the attackers’ lizards from scaling its walls.

The priests rode the slaves down, lashing out with their whiplike rods. Slaves collapsed as the tentacles struck them, magic turning muscle to jelly, or loosing a spray of slime that blinded and maimed. Some of the slaves stood dazed and staring, their wits sucked out by the lashing rods. Others leaped, screaming, from tentacles that left bands of fire across their flesh.

Kâras lashed out with his rod, the unfamiliar weapon awkward in his grip. By mere chance, he struck a kobold with a tentacle The tiny reptilian squeaked in agony as its bones and cartilage turned as cold as ice, sending it into a stiff-limbed tumble.

Molvayas chanted a gurgling prayer. Rubbery black tenŹtacles, as tall as saplings, sprang from the mud in a long line that extended back to House Philiom’s keep. Like slaves pickŹing mushrooms, they plucked the fallen from the mud and passed them back, tentacle to tentacle, toward the keep.

The Gathering had begun.

A gong sounded from the top of the nearby keep. Low and shuddering, it boomed once, twice, thrice. House Abbylan’s drawbridge crashed down, sending up a spray of mud. Lizard-mounted riders—garbed in identical tabards, but with green robes instead of purple—raced from the keep.

“Consume them!” Molvayas cried.

Riders slammed spike-spurs into their mounts, sending them leaping at the enemy. Spells flew thick and fast between the slave hovels as the rival groups battled. A roiling wave of conjured slime smashed one of the huts flat and broke against the mount of one of House Philiom’s priests. The lizard convulsed, thrashing its tail in agony, but the priest went down laughing, his arms waving above his head as he sang his god’s name. A heartbeat later, a dark purple boil burst up through the slime, assumed the vague outline of a drow, and staggered on quivering legs toward the nearest enemy. It wrapped its “arms” around that rider’s mount. As the lizard collapsed, its body dissolving, another of House Philiom’s priests launched a spell that imploded the rider’s head.

Kâras spurred his mount between two of the slave hovels, seeking refuge. As soon as he reached a point where the others couldn’t see him, he reined his mount to a halt. He threw down his tentacle rod and whispered a prayer to the Masked Lady, healing his frost-burned thumb.

A hiss made him look up. He wasn’t the only one back there; Molvayas had followed him. The fanatic had heard Kâras’s prayer. He bared his stained teeth in a furious griŹmace. “Imposter!” he howled. His arm jerked up, flicking his tentacle rod back—ready to strike.

Kâras shot a poisoned bolt from his wristbow, but Molvayas whipped up his shield and gurgled a one-word prayer. The metal shield turned into a shimmering disk made up of droplets, which caused the bolt to dissolve instantly when it struck.

Molyvas smiled and flicked his whip.

“Masked Lady, cloak me!” Kâras cried as the tentacles flicked toward him. A sphere of darkness leavened with sparkles of moonlight sprang into being around him. The tentacles smacked into it and glanced aside—all but one, which brushed Kâras’s left knee, instantly deadening it. His leg muscles felt as though they’d turned to mush. He’d been leaning in that direction, and his left foot slipped out of the stirrup. He toppled sideways to the muddy ground, the weakŹened leg collapsing beneath him, his right foot still tangled in its stirrup, which had twisted up and over the saddle. The lizard, struck in the tail by a tentacle, twisted around to bite at its weakened, useless tail, dragging Kâras behind it.

Molvayas flicked the tentacles back, readying for a second strike. Kâras twisted to face his opponent. He spat out foul-tasting mud, pointed, and chanted a prayer. It should have immobilized Molvayas, but the Ghaunadaurian priest somehow shrugged it off. His arm whipped forward, and the tentacles lashed out a second time.

Kâras at last yanked his foot out of the stirrup. He tried to roll behind his mount, but wasn’t quick enough. Tentacles struck his shoulders and the back of his neck. His arms immeŹdiately numbed and fell limp at his sides. His head flopped forward on a loose-boned neck. Gasping, desperately trying to blink the mud from his eyes, he mumbled a prayer through numbed lips. “Masst Laybee, dribe him frum me …”

A foot squelched in the mud next to his ear. Kâras twisted around and saw Molvayas looming over him. The tentacles of his rod were coiled around his waist; the handle hung like a sheath at his side. As he chanted, a green tinge appeared around his hands. Slime trickled down to his wrist, then fell, hissing, into the mud next to Kâras’s ear. In the distance, Kâras heard the sounds of battle, and the squelch of his mount limping away.

“See him,” Molvayas chanted. “Devour him. Destroy him.”

Kâras steeled himself. He was ready. A moment more, and he would go to his god—and find out, at long last, if it really was the Lady of the Dance who wore the mask, or if the Shadow Lord wore her.

Molvayas bent down, his slimed fingers splayed. But before he could touch Kâras, a cord appeared around his neck and yanked him backward. A bolt of darkfire erupted out of his chest, burnŹing a smoking hole through the eye embroidered on his tabard.

Yet still the priest didn’t go down. He clawed at the strangle cord around his neck, choked out a word, and his neck softened to the consistency of jelly. The strangle cord slipped through it and was gone. His neck solid again, Molvayas twisted furiously to meet his opponent, his hands raised to cast a spell.

Kâras seized his chance. He flailed with his good leg, snapping it against the back of Molvayas’s knee. The priest staggered and toppled sideways, forced to check his fall with his hands. They slid into the foul-smelling mud. Snarling, he reached for his rod. But before the tentacles could uncoil from his body, a second bolt of darkfire caught him square in the mouth and exploded out of the back of his head, carrying bits of brain and skull with it. Molvayas fell over backward with a strangled cry. The rod’s tentacles suckled at his smoking remains for a moment, then fell still.

A green-robed drow with distinctive pink eyes stepped over the corpse and kneeled beside Kâras. His mud-splattered tabard bore Ghaunadaur’s unblinking eye, but the prayer he whispered as he touched Kâras’s weakened arms, neck and leg was to another god entirely. “Masked Lord,” he intoned, “heal him.”

Sensation and strength returned. With a shudder, Kâras sat up. “My thanks, Valdar. That was close.”

Valdar helped Kâras to his feet. “Not much of a ‘truce between Houses,’ is it?”

Kâras shook his head in agreement. “The fanatics’ vows don’t seem to count for much, when it’s time for a Gathering. Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn into full-scale war.”

“Have you heard anything yet? Has she been in touch?”

” ‘Soon,’ was what she said, the last time we spoke.” Kâras wiped mud from his face with a sleeve. “I pray she’s telling the truth. A tenday-plus-two is long enough. This is worse than Maerimydra.”

A kobold burst out of a nearby hovel, skidded to a stop as he spotted the two drow, and tried to duck back through the door. Valdar whirled and threw; his knife buried itself in the slave’s throat. A snap of his fingers brought the knife back to his hand, even as the kobold fell.

“May the Masked Lord grant that prayer,” he said as he wiped the blood from his blade with a white silk handkerŹchief. He tucked the weapon back into its wrist-sheath. “I’m certainly ready for her call. My bunch is slurping out of the palm of my hand. Ripe for Gathering, you might say.”

Kâras shook his head. Valdar actually seemed to be enjoyŹing this mission.

They paused to listen. The shouts and cries of battle conŹtinued. Over them came a distant gonging: the call for House Philiom’s priests to return to their keep. The larders were once again full, and the Gathering was at an end.

“Time for me to go,” Kâras said.

“Me too.” With a wink, Valdar vanished. One moment he stood next to Kâras; the next, he had teleported away, as silently as he’d come.

Kâras picked up his tentacle rod. He glanced around. His own lizard had curled against the wall of a hut to chew off what remained of its tail. But Molvayas’s mount was whole. Kâras ran over to it and sprang into the saddle. He drove his spurs into its flanks and hissed. The lizard scuttled away, climbing up and over the nearest hovel. As it descended the opposite wall, he heard shouts of triumph: the priests of House Abbylan had discovered Molvayas’s corpse.

Kâras rode away from the hovels, onto the field that sepaŹrated the two keeps. The House Philiom priests were just ahead, forming up their mounts. This done, they rode hard for their keep, following the line of bubbling black pools left behind by the tentacles’ return to the earth. Some of the priests were wounded and clung to their saddles. One sagged, then tumbled backward across his lizard’s tail. His body dragged for a moment, but then his foot slipped from the stirrup, and he fell away. The other riders ignored him and continued to ride.

Kâras rode with them. The priests of House Abbylan followed for a time, hurling spells at the retreating group, but soon gave up the chase. Eventually the priests of House Philiom reached their own, now empty fields. The slaves, rightfully fearing they might be gathered along with the slaves of House Abbylan, would have fled when the line of tentacles sprouted from the earth. Kâras rode past the hovels, to the keep, and over its drawbridge. When the last of House Philiom’s priests was inside, House boys sprang to the capŹstans and cranked the drawbridge shut.

Kâras dismounted. The surviving priests glanced around, taking stock. They’d lost five of their number, including Molvayas.

“Where’s Molvayas?” asked Shi’drin. He was their second-in-command, a stunted drow with a pustule-crusted face. “Did anyone see him fall?”

“I did,” Kâras answered. “One of House Abbylan’s priests killed him.” He flicked his rod, sending a shiver through its three black tentacles. “I dealt with him in turn.” He didn’t bother explaining why he was mounted on Molvayas’s lizard. Those who followed Ghaunadaur’s creed took what they needed, scorning those who were too weak to keep it.

Shi’drin nodded. He touched the eye on his tabard. “Ash to ash; mud to mud,” he intoned. “May the Ancient One consume what remains.”

The other priests—all but one, who had collapsed after dismounting and was being eaten by his lizard, bringing the total lost to six—touched their tabards. Kâras did the same, doing his best to ignore the wet rip of flesh and the gulps of the lizard as it bolted down the dead priest. He wanted desperately to escape to the solitude of the room he’d been assigned after he arrived on House Philiom’s doorstep, claiming to be from Skullport. He wanted to cleanse his body of mud, shroud himself in magical darkness and silence, block out the shrill screams that echoed constantly down the keep’s foul-smelling corridors, and pray. Pray for the strength to continue this blasphemous charade and see his mission through.

In each of the keeps of Llurth Drier, other Nightshadows were, no doubt, thinking the same. Their counterparts were stationed in distant Eryndlyn, and in Shadowport, and in the surface cities of Waterdeep, Bezantur, Calimport, and Westgate—everywhere Ghaunadaur’s foul cult festered.

Kâras wondered if the Nightshadows he and Valdar had chosen for this mission still lived. It had been a knife’s-edge thing, this day, for Kâras himself. By the Masked Lady’s grace, Valdar had been there to step in, but it would only be a matter of time before one of the Nightshadows was caught and revealed them all.

A boy took the reins of Kâras’s lizard. He climbed down from it and walked across the portico, edging his way through the crowd, to the exit. Before he reached it, a hand fell on his shoulder.

“You will be rewarded,” Shi’drin said in a low voice, his eyes gleaming. Then, louder, to all the priests, “Come! We will feed the altar this very cycle in celebration of our Gathering.” He pointed at the nearest House boy. “You! Spawn! Tell the boys to prepare the sacrifices.”

Kâras choked down his apprehension. He could tell by the look in Shi’drin’s eye that the priest realized he was somehow responsible for Molvayas’s death. Now one of two things would follow. Reward, for ensuring Shi’drin’s promoŹtion to Molvayas’s former role as the keep’s Eater of Filth. Or retribution.

Both might very well take the same form: sacrifice, on Ghaunadaur’s altar.

Yet Kâras could do nothing—not with a score of gleeful priests sweeping him along in their midst. Stinking of blood and sweat, babbling their joy at a successful Gathering, they hurried down the corridor to the shrine at the heart of the keep. Had Shi’drin not singled Kâras out, he might have slipped away, perhaps even feigned collapse and been left behind. But the new Eater strode just behind Kâras, prodding him forward.

They burst through a curtain of damp, rotted black silk into a room with walls, ceiling, and floor polished to the slickŹness of glass, A dozen columns of the same mottled purple stone, each carved with a rune, ringed an irregularly shaped dais that rose in two tiers. Atop the dais stood a lump of porous black stone: the altar itself. A gong hung above the dais, its bronze deeply pitted by the acid that condensed on it, trickled down its sides, and dripped onto the altar.

A purplish mist drifted through the chamber. As he passed through a patch of it, Kâras touched his disguised holy symbol and silently prayed for strength. The mist left a stinging film on his skin and clung to him like lingering dread. Just setting foot in the shrine took all of Kâras’s courage. The air was so foul he felt as if he were wading through liquid sewage. The closer he got to the altar, the worse it got. He was an intruder here, a person from another faith. At any moment he’d be exposed, consumed.

Then they’d be on him, like carrion crawlers on a corpse.

He shook his head furiously. If he didn’t get a hold of himself, he’d soon collapse in a gibbering heap on the floor. With a shaking hand, he gripped his disguised holy symbol. Masked Lady, he silently prayed, swallowing down his bile. See me through this. Help me to do your work. Shadow my doubts and cloak my fears.

The priests halted in a loose-knit group before the altar. Shi’drin stepped to the front, turned, and raised his hands. His fingernails were filthy, the sleeves of his robe soaked with slime and blood. He caught Kâras’s eye. For one terrible moment, Kâras thought Shi’drin might ask him to perform the sacrifice. Then Shi’drin closed his eyes.

“Ghaunadaur, your faithful servant calls,” Shi’drin intoned. “In your name, I feast.” Then he transformed. His fingers melted into his hands, his arms trickled toward his body like melting candle wax, and his head turned into a blackened puddle on his shoulders. Soon all of him, including his robe and tabard, had turned to ooze. The black blob he’d become bulged against the lowest step of the dais, and flowed up to the altar.

The other priests formed two lines, stretching from the doorway to the dais. Kâras, by careful maneuvering, placed himself as far from the altar as he could get, beside the chamŹber’s only exit. He pretended to follow along as the priests muttered their devotions and swayed back and forth. He moved his lips in time with the rest, mumbling what he hoped would pass as a prayer.

Fortunately, Ghaunadaur’s faithful had no set liturgy. Like the god they worshiped, their rituals were amorphous and ill-defined. Each priest praised the Ancient One in his own fashion. If any of the others noticed that Kâras was uttering nonsense, it wouldn’t matter. He just prayed that the Ancient One itself wasn’t listening.

A few moments later, the first of the sacrifices staggered into the altar room: an orc, her eyes glazed, a dribble of the drug she’d been forced to drink drooling from her mouth. Even from a distance, Kâras could smell its licorice-sweet scent. The tempo of the priests’ mutterings increased, found a rhythm. “Onward. Oblivion. Onward.”

With each word, the captured slave took a step forward, stumbling as if shoved by invisible hands between the two rows of priests. Compelled by their magic, the orc made her way, one halting step at a time, to the dais. At last she bumped her shins against it, fell forward, and cracked her head on the stone. She rose, her snout bloody. She levered herself up onto the first layer of the dais. Then the second. Then onto the altar stone itself.

The priests fell silent. With a wet, slurping sound, the black ooze that was Shi’drin slithered onto the altar. As it engulfed the orc, the glaze fell from her eyes. Her cry of anguish was cut short as her flesh sizzled. The stench of burned hair filled the room. For a heartbeat or two she struggled, then fell still. A pitted bone poked momentarily out of the black ooze, then got slurped back inside.

Now a second slave stumbled into the room, this one a male half-orc. Like the first sacrificial victim, he stank of the drug he’d been forced to consume. The priests began their chant anew, compelling him forward.

Sickened, Kâras played along. “Onward. Oblivion. Onward.”

One by one, eleven more captured slaves marched to the dais, climbed to the altar, and were consumed. Feeling faint, Kâras wondered if the sacrifices were ever going to end. He vomited in his throat, and harshly swallowed the bile down again.

As the thirteenth captive was being dissolved, a sound like stone being slammed by a sledge rent the air. Instantly, the priests fell silent. Heads turned. Kâras peered down his line and saw that a Y-shaped crack had opened in the altar stone and the altar had split into three pieces. Judging by the reactions of the priests, it was an auspicious omen. They seemed tense, anticipatory.

Kâras didn’t like the thought of that.

A greenish sludge oozed out of the. “The Great Devouring is at hand!”

“They have cracks and puddled on the upper level of the dais. It dribbled onto the lower level, then onto the floor. Kâras watched it, his every muscle tense. When it reached his boot, he shifted his foot slightly. Its stench made his stomach lurch. But he couldn’t very well flee, not with the others watching. He stood his ground, sweating, as the sticky green ooze flowed past his boots. He prayed it wouldn’t dissolve the leather, burn through to his feet, and reveal him as a spy.

It didn’t.

No more victims staggered through the curtain; the sacriŹfice seemed to be at an end. Yet the priests continued to sway and chant Ghaunadaur’s name. Kâras glanced at the curtain, wondering if he could slip away without anyone noticing. He decided not to risk it. Meanwhile, the green stuff kept oozing from the altar like blood from a wound. It was obviously a manifestation of Ghaunadaur. But what did it mean?

A moment later, one of the novices burst into the chamber. He threw himself onto the floor and wormed his way to the altar through the sludge, fouling his robes. “Masters!” he cried, his voice shrill with excitement. “The lake is in turmoil! It’s turned a bright purple. A spawning has begun!”

The black blob on the altar flowed upward, assumed the shape of a drow, and morphed back into Shi’drin. The Eater’s eyes grew wild with anticipation. “It is come!” he criedcome!” the other priests chanted. “His serŹvants have come!” As one, they turned and rushed from the room.

As the other priests jostled each other in an apparent frenzy to be devoured by whatever was rising out of the lake, Kâras hung back. He felt dizzy with fear. Llurthogl was spawning? Why now? Had Ghaunadaur sensed an enemy among his fanatics? Kâras glanced nervously at the green ooze that fouled his boots, wondering if it was about to consume him.

Soon, Kâras and the prostrated novice were the only ones left in the shrine.

“Go!” Kâras shouted, his voice tight with strain. “Make your preparations!”

The novice heaved himself to his feet and ran from the room.

Kâras wiped nervous sweat from his brow. Every instinct screamed at him to flee Llurth Dreir and never look back. There was an easy exit close at hand: the columns ringing the altar, with their teleportation runes. He reached into his pocket and found the lump of amber that had, at its heart, a crescent-shaped spark of moonlight. Touching the amber to any of the runes would alter its destination, linking it with one of the three columns in the Promenade that had, centuries ago, been ensorcelled by Ghaunadaur’s cultists.

He struggled to make his decision. Should he abandon everyŹthing he and Valdar had worked so hard to set in place these past few tendays, or stay here and try to brazen it out? He had, until now, been able to fool the Ghaunadaurian priesthood—even in the heart of the Ancient One’s shrine, even during a sacŹrifice. But during a spawning? The oozes and slimes boiling up out of the lake were mindless creatures that couldn’t tell the difference between friend and foe, but that was of little comfort. It only meant that his disguise wouldn’t save him, if one of them decided to consume him.

Kâras swore. Until a few moments ago, it had all been going so well. All he’d needed to do was continue the facade, and wait for Qilué’s signal. That would be his cue to reveal his “discovery”—a portal that had, “by the grace of Ghaunadaur,” opened between one of the columns in their shrine and the Promenade. In a carefully choreographed dance, each of the other spies would do the same. One by one, at precisely timed intervals, they would usher their fanatics straight into the trap the high priestess had prepared. Qilué, meanwhile, would ensure the Protectors and other faithful kept well back, out of sight but ready to deal with the fanatics, should they stray from the designated path.

Qilué had explained that the Masked Lady herself had approved this plan. Valdar, when first told of it, had seen the Masked Lord’s hand in it at once. Inviting Eilistraee’s most resolute enemies into the heart of the Promenade, he told Kâras, was something the goddess would never contemplate. Eilistraee was a goddess who fought with song and sword, not shadows and subterfuge. This plan was Vhaeraun’s doing.

Kâras had been convinced. He’d persuaded the high priestŹess to let him select the Nightshadows who would carry out “Eilistraee’s” divine will, and ensured that Valdar was among them. When Qilué’s call came, the hand-picked few would lead their Ghaunadaurians into the Promenade not in small, easily contained groups, but all at once—away from the trap. The temple would be overwhelmed, and the priestesses swept aside—while the Nightshadows sat out the battle in safety, downriver in Skullport. Later, when it was all over, they would re-assume their disguises and steer the fanatics into the trap Qilué had prepared, cleansing the temple a second time.

Once the Promenade was theirs, converts would be drawn from across Faerűn to a reinvigorated faith. And those of Eilistraee’s priestesses who managed to survive would reap the bitter fruit of their misplaced trust. The females would be the ones given a choice, this time around: to don Vhaeraun’s mask, and worship in silence and shadow, or to die by Vhaeraun’s sword.

That had been the plan-within-a-plan. And it had been a good one, needing only subterfuge and determination to see it through—until oozes and slimes had come boiling up out of the lake. Surely Vhaeraun didn’t intend to fill the Promenade with such filth! It would take an army to scour the temple clean, after that.

Masked… Lord, Kâras silently prayed, the honorific feelŹing out of place after nearly four years of praying to the Masked Lady. Your servant seeks counsel. Is it your will we continue?

No answer came.

Kâras stood, sweating. The future of his faith hung upon what happened next. Upon what he decided next.

As he hesitated near the doorway, listening to the shouts of excitement echoing through the keep, a voice sang into his mind. Qilué’s voice! Clear as a tolling bell, the high priestess called to her spies. It is time to begin the dance. Are you ready?

The timing of the message couldn’t be mere coincidence. The Masked Lord had to know what was happening, down here in Llurth Dreir. He obviously had confidence in Kâras—confidence enough to allow Qilué to set everything in motion, spawning or no.

Kâras squared his shoulders. The Masked Lord was depending upon him.

I stand ready, Lady Qilué, he thought back. Expect the first group in moments.

Begin, then. And may Eilistraee guide your steps. Her voice faded from his mind.

Kâras pulled the lump of amber from his pocket and walked to the nearest column, his feet slipping in the green sludge coating the floor. He had to force his body to move in that direction; the closer he got to the altar, the more difficult it became. He could feel the Ancient One’s presence, terrible and grim, evil beyond words. Forcing himself against it bent him almost double.

He lifted the amber to the column and waited. Ready.

He heard shouts, drawing nearer: Shi’drin’s voice, urging the others back to the altar room. Overlaying them was a sound that sent shivers down his spine—the sound of oozes sliding over stone.

Kâras pressed the amber to the column. A hole opened. “Quickly, brethren!” he cried. “Come and see! One of the colŹumns has opened. It will lead us to the Pit of Ghaunadaur!”





Qilué strode through the Cavern of Song, past the faithful who gave voice to Eilistraee’s eternal hymn. Those in her way took a quick step back as she passed, giving her room to pass by. One faltered in her hymn. Qilué strode on, not bothering to admonish her.

Qilué fumed. How had this happened? She’d been so careŹful! Yet somehow, Cavatina had figured out that a demon was inside the Crescent Blade—not only that, but which one. She should have expected that, from the Darksong Knight. She’d been foolish to think she could keep Wendonai hidden, especially from the one who had “killed” him.

She wished she could tell her priestesses that her strange behavior was just a charade, but she couldn’t—not without also telling Wendonai, since he could see and hear everything within range of the Crescent Blade, including her otherwise silent mental communications. Fortunately, by Mystra’s grace, he wasn’t privy to her thoughts.

Qilué! Wendonai bellowed. He’d learned, early on, that callŹing her name forced her to pay attention to him. The Darksong Knight knows. You should have slain her.

I make the decisions, demon. Not you.

Poor decisions. She’ll tell the others—if she hasn’t already.

No point in killing her, then, is there?

They’ll banish me—destroy the Crescent Blade.

Qilué almost wished someone would banish Wendonai. The cut on her wrist burned. The Crescent Blade felt heavy in her hand. She longed to have someone relieve her of this burden, yet she had to see this dance through to the end. The fate of hundreds of thousands of souls hung in the balance.

You might as well have killed those two priestesses, the demon continued. Sealed inside the shrine, they’ll die of thirst—a slow, lingering death, rather than a quick one. He paused, and she could imagine his sly grin. How very dhaerrow of you—something your ancestors would have appreciated.

Qilué made no comment. The two priestesses wouldn’t starve. Eilistraee would answer their prayers for sustenance.

What mattered was to contain the problem before it spread. Horaldin had been easy enough to silence, but Rylla would be more difficult. The battle-mistress either knew about Wendonai or suspected, judging by the way she’d been acting. It was unlikely she’d told anyone yet—she would have realŹized this would start a panic. More likely, she’d be preparing a banishment spell of her own.

If she succeeded, it would ruin everything.

Where was Rylla? Qilué had to find her. She realized that she should have kept the battle-mistress near her, instead of sending her away. She should have trusted her instincts.

Are you sure you didn’t already bear my taint? Wendonai asked mockingly, continuing their previous conversation. You certainly think like an Ilythiiri.

Watch your tongue, demon, or I’ll banish you myself.

And destroy the weapon that will kill Lolth? Without my essence sustaining it, the Crescent Blade will crumble to dust.

Be silent! She grasped her sheath and tried to shove the Crescent Blade into it, but felt the familiar resistance, like two lodestones pushing each other apart. She struggled against it, but the sword proved stronger. It sprang out of the sheath.

“Abyss take me!” Qilué swore—an oath she hadn’t used since her childhood.

The demon chuckled. Perhaps it will.

Qilué stalked on through the cavern. She could have sheathed the sword if she’d tried harder, but she needed Wendonai to think he was in control—and that she feared the weapon would fall apart, were he not within it. That wouldn’t happen, of course. Eilistraee’s blessings would sustain it, just as they always had.

Her statue was just ahead, tucked into an alcove in the Cavern of Song. Carved from black marble, it showed a youthful Qilué with singing sword held high, exulting in the defeat of Ghaunadaur’s avatar. The statue looked heavy and immovable—a false impression. In fact, it concealed the winding staircase that led down to the sealed Pit.

Qilué strode up to the halfling Protector who guarded it and stared down at her. “Is Battle-mistress Rylla below?”

Brindell shook her head.

“Has she passed this way recently?”

“No, Lady. Not since I took up station here.”

“Where is she?” Silver fire crackled through Qilué’s hair as her irritation flared.

Brindell took a step back. “Lady Qilué. What’s wrong? Is the Promenade under attack?”

“What are you talking about?” Qilué spat. She’d never realŹized, until just this moment, how ridiculous the halfling looked, with her ink-stained face and mop of copper-colored hair.

Brindell pointed a pudgy finger at the Crescent Blade. “There’s blood on your sword, Lady Qilué.”

“There is?” Qilué lifted the weapon. A thin line of red trickled down the blade. The cut on her wrist must have been bleeding; the bracer that served as sheath for her silver dagger must have rubbed it open again. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.” She glared down at Brindell. “Hold your post. Contact me—immediately—if you see Rylla.”

Brindell gulped. “Yes, Lady.”

Qilué strode away. She realized she’d been sharp with Brindell, but it was all part of the act. And it was drawing Wendonai in. She could feel it.

In recent months, she’d stepped up the tempo. Sometimes she “forgot,” until it was almost too late, to drink the holy water that held Wendonai at bay. This gave the balor the illusion he was gradually wearing down her defenses, one cloven-hoofed step at a time. Two steps forward, one back. One step forward, two back. All part of the dance that would lead him exactly where she wanted him.

A dangerous gamble—one that might cost her the Promenade. But a necessary one, if the dhaerrow were to be led back into the light.

The Crescent Blade would be the key.

Ironically, Wendonai had given her the idea, when he’d derided her crusade as “futile.” For each drow redeemed and brought up into Eilistraee’s light, he’d gloated, a dozen were born with his taint. For every step Qilué led the drow forward, Wendonai yanked them twelve steps back.

The balor’s taint ran constant and deep in the drow, in every one with even a drop of Ilythiiri blood in their veins. The only way they could be led out of this dark pall was through redemption—and redemption was something that took courage and strength. The very taint they needed to struggle against and overcome was what seduced most drow into choosing a less morally challenging, more “rewarding” path. They wound up, like flies, caught in Lolth’s vast web. Even if they somehow managed to escape or avoid this, more often than not it was only through seeking out alliances with other, even more loathsome deities, like Ghaunadaur.

Qilué had experienced this taint, herself. After her failure to attune the Crescent Blade and drive the evil from it, the cut on her wrist had allowed the demon to slowly worm its way into her. She had been on the verge of purging his taint—a simple matter of releasing Mystra’s silver fire within her body, rather than without—when she’d realized something. If she could somehow draw all of Wendonai’s taint into herself she would, in the process, remove it from every drow on Toril. Then she could burn herself clean in one blinding flash of silver fire. She could set the drow free to choose a better path—to be led into Eilistraee’s dance.

Qilué herself would likely be consumed in the process, her very soul reduced to ash by the incineration of so much evil, so much guilt, so much hatred. But the Crescent Blade would remain. Someone else—Cavatina, most likely—would carry on Eilistraee’s work. Be named high priestess in Qilué’s stead, take up the Crescent Blade, and kill Lolth.

Qilué sighed. She had the lancet she needed for the bloodŹing that was to come: the Crescent Blade. She even knew the one place, on all of Toril, where it could be done; Eilistraee had revealed its location to her. But she wasn’t quite ready, yet, to set her plan in motion. There always seemed to be something else that needed doing first. Q’arlynd, for example, was on the verge of attempting his casting, and would soon require her assistance. And within the Promenade itself, there were a dozen other things to tend to.

Like finding Rylla, and silencing her.

Perhaps, Qilué decided, she could flush the battle-mistress out. An “attack” by Ghaunadaur’s cultists should do just that.

She sang the word that would make her symbol visible. A second song dispelled the locks she’d placed on the doors of the chamber that held the glyph-inscribed portal. Then she sent out a silent message to her spies. It is time to begin the dance. Are you ready?

Their answers came like a spatter of rain, the words overlapping each other. Some of the Nightshadows sounded eager, others tense. Two didn’t answer at all. Perhaps they were dead. She prayed their souls had found their way to the Masked Lady’s domain. Kâras assured her he would be able to bring his group through. Qilué smiled. That should bring Rylla running.

Begin, then, she replied. And may Eilistraee guide your steps.

That done, Qilué turned down the corridor that would take her to the river—the corridor that wound past the Moonspring Portal. The Protector guarding the magical pool saluted as she passed.

“Have you seen Rylla?” Qilué asked.

“No, Lady.”

She’s lying.

Qilué whirled. “Liar! She used the portal, didn’t she?”

The Protector’s face paled to gray. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

Qilué felt the blood drain from her own face. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. “My apologies, priestess. I was answering a sending from someone else.”

It wasn’t much of an excuse, but it seemed to satisfy the Protector, who nodded and stiffly resumed her post.

Qilué kneeled and sang a scrying, passing her hand over the pool. She smiled as it revealed Rylla. Qilué’s smile vanŹished abruptly as she recognized the chamber Rylla was standing in. The battle-mistress hadn’t used the Moonspring Portal, after all. She was still within the Promenade—in the last place Qilué had expected to find her: the chamber that contained the trap for Ghaunadaur’s cultists!

Even as Qilué watched, the battle-mistress dispelled the symbol Horaldin had inscribed. Now she began a prayer—one that would seal the portal Qilué had so painstakingly created!

“No!” Qilué cried. She couldn’t let that happen. Not now, with the first wave of Ghaunadaur’s minions about to come through.

She sang a hymn that instantly conveyed her to the chamber along a beam of moonlight. Her boots slipped as she landed; the floor was ankle-deep in water. Rylla whirled, her prayer interrupted. “Qilué!” Is it you? she sent.

It would have been a clever ploy—had Wendonai not been able to listen in on Qilué’s private conversations.

She thinks I’m controlling you.

You’re not.

Not yet.

Be silent! Qilué shook her head. Rylla. She needed to concentrate on the battle-mistress. “Of course it’s me. What are you doing?” Rylla hadn’t tried to banish Wendonai yet. Perhaps she didn’t know.

“Making sure everything’s sealed up tight—as you ordered. There’s a portal in this room that shouldn’t be here.” She began her prayer anew.

“Stop that!” Qilué cried. She sang a note into the shout that fused Rylla’s fingers together, preventing her from completing the gesture that would seal the portal. “I created that portal. It leads to a trap. One that’s about to be sprung. Go and find Horaldin—I need him to recast his enchantment! Now!”

Rylla turned. She was terrified—Qilué could smell the other female’s fear—and her voice quavered. “Horaldin’s dead.”

She’s lying. Trying to confuse you.

“What?” Qilué rubbed her wrist. “No, he’s not. I just spoke to him.” In fact, she’d just placed a geas on him: one that would compel him not to communicate with anyone—not by speech, nor spell, nor written word—until she gave him leave. She’d sealed the geas by drawing a line across his throat. The instant he tried to speak, he’d be wracked by a fit of violent coughing.

Coughing blood.

Qilué blinked, startled. Where had that thought come from?

“You cut his throat,” Rylla said. “Decapitated him.” She glanced, pointedly, at the Crescent Blade.

Qilué’s eyes were drawn to the sword. To the blood on it.

She’s trying to trick you. That’s your blood. Your cut is leaking again.

Qilué lifted her arm.

Rylla tensed, her fused fingers gripping her holy symbol.

Qilué yanked her bracer up. She stared at the cut on her wrist. No—not a cut. A scar. Old and gray.

It wasn’t her blood on the blade.

You had to do it. You had no choice. He would have ruined everything!

“He would have ruined everything,” Qilué whispered. Her head was pounding. She felt a slight pressure against her calves and realized the water in the room was rising. Was the river overflowing? She glanced over her shoulder. No, the door behind her was shut. The water inside the chamber was expanding. And swiftly. As it topped her boots and spilled inside them, she felt sensation return to her feet. She hadn’t realized, until this moment, that they’d been numb, nearly dead. They’d felt heavy, lumpish, hard …

The water rose to Qilué’s knees. Her legs tingled.

Rylla moved closer, her feet swishing in the water. The battle-mistress’s eyes locked on Qilué’s. “Fight it,” she whisŹpered. “Pray. Drive Wendonai out.” She sang out a word that filled the air with moonlight and lunged forward, slamming into Qilué, who toppled backward into the water.

She’s trying to drown you! Wendonai howled.

Qilué nearly laughed at such an obvious lie. The water tasted pure and sweet on her lips. Rylla’s song, pealing out from above, landed like sparkling drops of rain upon the water’s surface. Qilué felt the battle-mistress’s hands around her wrist and realized Rylla was trying to force the Crescent Blade down, into the water.

Into the healing, holy water.

No! Wendonai shouted. That will destroy it! You’ll never kill Lolth!

His hand—Qilué’s hand—punched up. The sword hilt slammed into Rylla’s nose, knocking her backward and ripping her hands away from Qilué’s wrist. Qilué felt her body leap up and shout a word that instantly burned the water from her skin. A familiar, heavy deadness returned and her thoughts slowed. It felt as if each were forcing its way through thick, stinking mud. From the waist down, however, her body was still within the holy water—and still her own. She threw herself to her knees, and suddenly the water was level with her mouth. She gulped it down, and felt its holiness force the demon out of her. Back into the Crescent Blade.

Drink your fill, Wendonai gloated from the sword, which she held just above the surface. I’ve built up a resistance to it. I’ll be back inside you the moment you surface.

Another lie? Qilué suspected so, but she couldn’t be certain of anything. Not any more. How long had the demon been warping her perceptions? What other crimes against her faith had he used her to commit? She ducked lower, submerging her head, but holding the Crescent Blade above the surface.

Inside the holy water, she was safe. She tried to decide what to do. One swift tug, and the Crescent Blade would be underwater with her. That would banish Wendonai. But it would also banish her one chance to eradicate his taint from the drow.

Yet she could see that this idea had been a seed planted by Wendonai. The irony was that it was possible. There was indeed a prayer that Qilué could use to draw all of Wendonai’s taint inside her. And once his taint was within her, Mystra’s silver fire would indeed destroy it. But the flaw in this plan—the flaw Wendonai had blinded her to, until now—was that with so much of his taint inside her, Qilué would lose control. Permanently. The demon would rule her body, as completely as Lolth ruled the Demonweb Pits. Any silver fire she did manage to summon would be twisted to an evil purpose.

Qilué stared at her battle-mistress through the water. Rylla floated nearby, face down, blood drooling from her broken nose. No longer breathing. Later, once she’d decided what to do next, Qilué would revive her. For the moment, she was just thankful Wendonai hadn’t been able to swing the Crescent Blade. If it had severed Rylla’s neck, her soul would have been destroyed.

Just as Horaldin’s had been.

Qilué prayed that the Crescent Blade hadn’t completely severed the druid’s neck, that his soul had survived to join Rillifane under the great oak.

Qilué! Wendonai bellowed. I know you can hear me. What will you do now ? Banish me, and abandon any hope of saving your race?

What indeed? Mystra’s silver fire flickered in and out of Qilué’s nostrils. Though her head was submerged in water, her long tresses spreading like seaweed across the surface above, she felt no need to breathe. She had all the time in the world to consider the question—unless, of course, someŹone opened one of the doors to this chamber, letting the holy water spill out.

Her spies, for example. The first group of Ghaunadaur’s cultists would be arriving in the Promenade any moment, and heading this way.

She flicked a hand, resetting the locks.

She briefly considered telling the Nightshadows to abanŹdon the plan, destroy their ambers, and flee Ghaunadaur’s temples—then decided against it. Too much effort had been spent in putting them in place.

She considered her options. Had she inscribed an insanŹity symbol on the ruined temple—or was this another of Wendonai’s tricks? She decided that it really didn’t matter. If a symbol was in place, and the fanatics could be coerced into entering the portal, they would be turned into raving madmen who wouldn’t even remember what a temple to their god looked like, let alone what to do with it. And if the symbol didn’t exist, the fanatics would gain no benefit from a visit to the bottom of the Pit. If they somehow found their way back from the Ethereal Plane, they wouldn’t have learned anything new about the Promenade. The planar breach had existed for centuries, sputtering on like a guttering candle, ever since Ghaunadaur had been driven through it.

Even if the worst happened—if the fanatics, despite being ethereal, found a way to open the breach enough for an avatar to come through, it wouldn’t matter. The seals at the top of the Pit would ensure that the Ancient One’s avatar didn’t escape.

As she sat, thinking, the water surrounding her began to vibrate: the result of an alarm, close by, its clamor shrill enough to pass through stone. The timing was too close to be a coinciŹdence. Kâras must have brought his group through.

Confirmation came as three different priestesses shouted Qilué’s name at once, urgently reporting they’d spotted fanatics approaching the Promenade, from the far side of the bridge. That they were going to engage them until reinforceŹments arrived.

Qilué gave a mental command in reply, ordering them to allow the fanatics to cross the bridge, and not to engage them, but instead to set up defensive positions at least fifty paces back from the western side of the bridge. She wondered if they would heed her—how many of her priestesses, besides Cavatina, Leliana, and Rylla, now knew about Wendonai, and would be suspicious of her commands.

Kâras, she sent, where are you?

Far side of the bridge.

There’s bad news. The portal is still in place, but the enchantment glyph has been dispelled. You’re going to have to talk your fanatics into entering the trap—but not quite yet. The doors of the room are still sealed. I need a few moments more before I can unlock them. You’ll have to stall, once you’re across the bridge. Can you manage that?

I’ll try.

Qilué nodded. It was all she could ask of anyone. She sent a mental command to the rest of her spies. Nightshadows—the plan is postponed. Remain in position, and do not bring the cultists through until I contact you.

She broke contact, not bothering to wait for their acknowledgements. It was time to do something she should have done, long ago: destroy the Crescent Blade.

She started to draw the sword under the water, ignoring Wendonai’s screams of protest, his wild promises, his shouts that he wouldn’t die, that he’d have his vengeance—that even if he couldn’t personally revenge himself, then Lolth certainly would, since her powers were equal to—

Qilué abruptly halted, the blade only halfway submerged.

There was a way to purge Wendonai’s taint from the drow, she realized. She didn’t have to be the one who called down silver fire—it could be directed into her body from without. Any of her sisters could provide the lethal blast that would incinerate the demon’s taint.

Assuming, of course, one of them could be persuaded to do it.

Laeral, she decided. She’d already guessed something was wrong with the Crescent Blade and would take less convincing.

Qilué steeled herself. Was she really ready to bid farewell to the Promenade, her Protectors, her priestesses—everything she had worked for centuries to build? She had to. It would be the salvation of the drow. All of the drow. The dawn of a glorious new day. Out of the darkness, and into the light.

Qilué, however, wouldn’t survive to see it.

Tears blended with the water. Eilistraee, she silently sang. Is this your will?

The answer came not in words, but in a sign. A beam of braided moonlight and shadow lanced down into the water, directly in front of Qilué. She had only to touch it to be transŹported to the place she had just thought of—the place where the deed would be done.

Qilué nodded. Very well then.

Myroune, she sang.

Use of the truename would ensure that Wendonai wouldn’t know whom she was contacting. It would also ensure a prompt reply.

Her sister answered at once. Wasting no time, Qilué told Laeral where to meet her and what needed to be done—in carefully couched language that used references only Laeral would understand. All the while, she could feel Wendonai’s seething anger as the sword vibrated in her hand.

Laeral agreed to do as she asked, but with great reluctance. Do you truly wish this, Sister?

Eilistraee wishes it, Qilué replied. For the sake of the drow, it must be done.

I will meet you there. Laeral’s voice faded from her mind.

Now there was one last thing that needed to be done.

Qilué touched the mind of her Darksong Knight. Cavatina, she sent. Your suspicions were correct: Wendonai corrupted me. I am removing myself from the Promenade. I may not return. If I do not, you are to lead the ritual that will choose the next high priestess. You must also assist Q’arlynd with the casting he is preparing. May Eilistraee bless you, and guide your steps. Take up her sword and sing.

That said, Qilué unlocked the doors to the room with a flick of her hand. Then she reached out of the water to grasp the moonbeam, and teleported away.