Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,108

what to do. Four years ago, she would have reveled in slaying an evil deity’s helpless faithful, but now she found the thought repugnant. She said a prayer for those inside, praying they might survive long enough to be cut down and freed by the priestesses Laeral would soon bring. “May you find redempŹtion,” she whispered, her fingers touching the cocoon in front of her.

She crept on through the tangle of webs, closer to the hill they covered. A tree near the base of the hill had fallen, its roots tearing a hole in the earth, and inside this gap lay an adamantine door. More webs dangled, like a curtain, in the empty doorframe. She slipped into a chamber with a depresŹsion in its black marble floor and blasphemous murals showing masked spiders. Drying blood was splattered everywhere. The metallic smell of it overwhelmed the stench of the cocooned corpses outside. The far wall held a mural of a spider with a drow head and a lesser spider dangling from each arm; the abdomen was a dark hole in the masonry. The harp music came from inside it.

Beyond the hole was a second, stone-walled chamber. Cavatina spoke Laeral’s name again and described what she saw. Nine corridors radiated from the second chamber. The harp music came from the one in the middle of the rear wall. More murals adorned the walls of this chamber, but they were obscured by webs and ruptured egg sacs. Movements on the floor caught her eye. Thousands of tiny red spiders, none of them bigger than a drop of blood, coursed back and forth, scurrying first in one direction, then another. They seemed to be moving in time with the music—scurrying, then stopping, then moving in another direction again as its tempo and melody changed.

Cavatina smiled grimly. She liked a challenge. She sprang through the hole and ran through the chamber, leaping graceŹfully from one clear patch of floor to the next in an improvised dance. The spiders thinned once she was inside the corridor, allowing her to slow her pace. After a short distance, the corŹridor opened onto a third chamber. Cavatina, still invisible, peered inside, battling the urge to pinch her nostrils shut against the sulfurous smell within: the stench of demon.

The room was larger than the first two, and circular. It was dominated by an enormous, black marble throne, carved in the shape of an upside-down spider. Halisstra sat atop it, her clawed fingers plucking hair-thin strands of steel that stretched, like harp strings, between the throne’s curled spider arms. The harsh twang of the music trembled through Cavatina’s body, leaving a sludge of fear in its wake. Instinctively, she reached for her singing sword to ward off the music’s effect. Her hand closed around a wooden hilt, reminding her that the singing sword was gone.

Halisstra had her back to Cavatina. She stared intently at something on the far side of the throne. Cavatina cauŹtiously circled the room, keeping near the wall. A crouching figure came into view. Half the size of the hulking Halisstra, the creature had dull white eyes and skin covered in boils. So misshapen was it that its gender was impossible to deterŹmine. At first, Cavatina’s mind insisted that this couldn’t be Qilué, that it was some blasphemous blend of drow and demon. But the “demon” held the Crescent Blade in its hands, and wore the amulet Laeral had described around its neck.

It was Qilué.

A lump rose in Cavatina’s throat as she beheld what the high priestess had become. Cavatina had been raised within Eilistraee’s faith. Her earliest memories were of her mother singing the high priestess’s praises. Centuries ago, as a girl, Qilué had rekindled Eilistraee’s faith from the ashes in which its spark had smoldered for millennia. She had conquered Ghaunadaur, established the Promenade over his Pit, and set up shrines across the length and breadth of Faerűn. But now the Promenade had fallen and Qilué had been reduced to… .

A tear trickled down Cavatina’s cheek. She wiped it away. This wasn’t the time for tears, but for action. It might not be her destiny to save Qilué, but she could take Halisstra down. Not permanently—unless Lolth had abandoned her, Halisstra wouldn’t die—but at least long enough for Laeral and the others to whisk Qilué out of this foul chamber and attempt an exorcism. Cavatina would likely die in the battle she was about to undertake; her communion with Eilistraee had hinted of this. But that