She felt both Lolth and Eilistraee pulling at her, tugging her in opposite directions, stretching her as thin as parchment. Lolth's reawakening had roused in Halisstra something she had meant to leave for dead in the silver moonlight of the World Above, when she had given herself to the Dancing Goddess.
But it had not died, not really. Could it ever? Lolth's inexplicable pull on Halisstra remained, a troublesome, seductive memory of power, blood, and authority. Halisstra had only her infant faith in Eilistraee with which to shield herself from a lifetime of indoctrination. She did not know if it would be enough. She did not know if she wanted it to be enough.
She had spent her life in service to the Spider Queenkilling, rulingand had turned her back on all of it in less than a fortnight. How could that have been a genuine conversion? She had been Houseless, her city destroyed, everything she knew gone. Turning to Eilistraee had been an impulse, almost flippant, and driven by fear of an uncertain future.
Hadn't it?
She did not know, and the uncertainty shook her.
Even while Eilistraeen prayers filled Halisstra's mind, she found herself looking longingly at the manifestations of Lolth's reawakened power that surged through the endless gray of the Astral.
After the Spider Queen's power had traversed the line of souls and revivified them, the Astral Plane itself had exploded in chaos. Maelstroms of colored energy formed here and there in the aether, churning vortexes of violence that spun rapid circles for a few heartbeats or a few hours and dissipated into glorious, acrid showers of sparks. Jagged bolts of black and red energy several leagues in length intermittently knifed across the void, ripped it into pieces for a moment, and raised the hairs on Halisstra's arms and head. Lolth's power fairly saturated the plane.
And it felt different than Halisstra rememberedmore vital, but also somehow incomplete.
Halisstra found the flashing storms of power a tantalizing suggestion of the Spider Queen's might, a seductive reminder of different prayers, of a different kind of worship. Lolth's power was everywhere around her. Lolth herself seemed everywhere around her, knowing her, tempting her, whispering to her. And always the whispers were the same Yor'thae.
The word was promise, threat, and imprecation all at once.
Halisstra did not know whether to smile or cry each time she heard the word sigh across the Astral winds. As a bae'qeshel, she was trained in lost lore and knew what the word meant. Its etymology came from two words in High Drow Yorn, meaning "servant of the goddess"; and Orthae, meaning "sacred." The Yor'thae was Lolth's Chosen, her sacred servant, the vessel through which Lolth would ... do something.
But Halisstra did not know what the something was. Though she knew the meaning of the word, she did not understand the word's meaning for her or for Lolth. More uncertainty.
Halisstra knew the power of wordsher bae'qeshel magic depended in part upon words for its power. And like a bae'qeshel spell-song, the whispered recitation of Yor'thae had enspelled her, had wormed its way into her soul and there planted the seed of doubt. She was at war with herself and struggling to stay whole.
She and the two priestesses of Eilistraee, Uluyara and Feliane, had been following the line of drow souls for what felt like an eternity. A trio of the living trailing an army of the dead, they propelled their bodies through the endless gray mist of the Astral Plane through the force of their will.
The aether appeared to extend forever in all directions, the gray emptiness broken only by the line of souls, occasional islands of floating, spinning rock, and the colorful, whirling maelstroms of Lolth's returned power. Swimming through emptiness, Halisstra felt her senses dulled by the uniformity. Time and again she had to fight down a sense of vertigo, though she couldn't tell whether its source was the infinite space under her feet or the internal struggle taking place in her soul.
"We must be getting closer to the portal," Uluyara said from behind her.
Halisstra didn't turn, only nodded.
With each passing moment, the three priestesses moved closer and closer to their goal, yet with each passing moment Halisstra also became less and less sure of herself and their cause. Hours before, Seyll, a former priestess of Eilistraee, had sacrificed her own soul to shield Halisstra from the infusion of power the reawakened Lolth had sent surging through the Astral aether. Seyll, a woman Halisstra had murdered in life,