Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,119

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