Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,36

partially obscured by the fallen columns. But eventually she realized it was a triangle with a Y-shape superimposed on it.

She shivered. That ancient symbol hadn’t been used in milŹlennia. It had long since been replaced by the more common eye-within-double-circle. Yet Cavatina, like all of the Promenade’s priestesses, had been taught to recognize it.

The symbol of Ghaunadaur.

Cavatina knew, now, where the portal had delivered her: to a spot far below the Promenade. This was the temple that had lain in ruins for nearly six centuries, ever since Qilué and her childhood companions had defeated the Ancient One’s avatar. They’d driven it from the caverns that became the Promenade, consigning it to a deep shaft that had then been filled in with rubble and sealed with magic.

A shaft that led to the god’s domain.

“By all that dances!” she whispered. “I’m in the Pit!”

A moment later, a burst of bright purple light pulsed from the Y-shaped symbol, banishing shadows from the cracks in the broken stones covering the slab. With it came a sensation: It was as if something wet and slippery had just fouled Cavatina’s skin.

“Eilistraee, protect me!” she sang. “Shield me from the Ancient One!”

Eilistraee’s moonlight shone out from Cavatina’s pores, evaporating the slime, turning it to flakes of shadow that exploded from her body. The purple light was waning now, but even so, Cavatina backed away. Her sword pealed out a warning as something momentarily blocked the fading glow. Blinking away the spots from her eyes, Cavatina saw a tarry black blob atop the foundation slab. The ooze was faster than Cavatina. Before she could withdraw farther, it squeezed upward through cracks in the rubble and brushed against her weapon. She yanked her sword back—in what felt like slow motion—and was relieved to see that the blade was still whole. Though the ooze had “touched” it, the acid had failed to dissolve the metal.

Ignoring her, the ooze continued upward through the gaps in the rubble.

Realizing it was escaping, Cavatina sang a prayer that called down Eilistraee’s wrath. Shadow-streaked moonlight punched down in a shaft all around her, throwing the tarry black ooze into sharp relief. The light should have reduced the ooze to a smoldering puddle. But the creature slithered on as before, as though it hadn’t even noticed the attack.

Cavatina laboriously followed. She readied a second spell, but by the time it was ready, the ooze had flowed beyond the limits of her vision. Normally she would have been able to run twice as fast as an ooze could slither. But with her body rendered ethereal, Cavatina moved with an agonizing lassitude. Her voice was slow and deep, her hymns dirgelike. The heartbeat that pounded in her ears had a lethargic cadence.

Eilistraee’s purpose in guiding her to this place was now clear. That burst of purple light had been a planar breach. A temporary one, brief as a flicker, but it had lasted long enough for one of Ghaunadaur’s minions to squeeze through, into the Prime Material Plane.

Cavatina could guess, now, why Wendonai had tricked Qilué into inscribing a symbol that would draw Ghaunadaur’s drow worshipers to this spot. Through their prayers, the planar breach could be wrenched wide open—something that would allow Ghaunadaur’s avatar to pass through it.

Qilué must have known that a planar breach existed here. On all of Toril, it was the most likely of places for one to occur. What could Wendonai possibly have said to convince her that ushering Ghaunadaur’s worshipers to this spot would pose no danger?

She tried to imagine the arguments he might have posed. Perhaps he’d convinced Qilué that Ghaunadaur’s avatar would be no match for her. She’d defeated it once before, after all. Or perhaps he’d told her that the slime god itself would come through the breach—that armed with the Crescent Blade she stood a chance of killing Ghaunadaur.

That argument, of course, was as thin as rotted cloth. The Crescent Blade’s blessings specifically enabled it to kill by decapitation, and Ghaunadaur was a shapeless mass withŹout a neck or a head. But perhaps Qilué was so deeply in the demon’s thrall that she wouldn’t think of this.

Whatever the demon might be whispering in the high priestess’s ear was a puzzle Cavatina couldn’t solve just now. What she could do, however, was inspect the seals on the Pit to ensure that whatever oozes slipped through the flickering breach weren’t a threat to the Promenade.

Chasing after the black ooze had left Cavatina with no clear sense of which way was