Sacrifice of the Widow: The Lady Penitent, Book I (12 page)

Interesting. He committed the spot to memory, in case he wanted to return later. One never knew what secrets an old ruin might hold.

Leliana noticed him glancing at the ruined tower.

Q’arlynd gave her a bright smile and cocked his head. “Are those circles natural formations?” he asked. “Can they be found everywhere on the surface, or just here?” It was a deliberately foolish question, much like the ones he’d previously pestered the priestesses with: what a forest was, why water fell from the sky, and if the moon and sun always rose and set in the same place, or whether they sometimes reversed their course. He’d known the answers to all of those questions already, of course. It might have been his first time away from the Underdark, but he had read about the World Above and its strange phenomena. Years of dealing with the females of Ched Nasad, however, had taught him caution. “Handsome but dumb” males tended to be forgotten when plots were being hatched. The smart ones became targets. He’d learned that by watching his brothers die one by one.

It was Rowaan who answered him. “They’re the bases of ruined towers,” she explained. “A city once stood here. Millennia ago, in the time before the Descent—”

Leliana halted abruptly. “Enough,” she told Rowaan. She turned to Q’arlynd, irritation plain on her face, and spoke directly to him. “If you want to know where we are, just ask. I’m tired of your oblique questions.”

“All right, then,” Q’arlynd said. “Where are we?”

“Talthalaran.”

The name wasn’t one Q’arlynd recognized—though it sounded a little like the formal term for a council of matron mothers. Curiosity warred with the need to continue to feign ignorance. Curiosity won.

“Was Talthalaran … the name of an ancient city?” he asked.

“Yes,” Rowaan said. “One of the cities of Miyeritar.”

“Miyeritar,” Q’arlynd whispered, too surprised to purge the awe from his voice.

He stared across the moor with a new appreciation. Millennia ago, that dark elf empire had been scoured clean. It had rained acid, the legends said. Lightning bolts had smashed the cities of Miyeritar to the ground, and the thunderclaps that followed had shattered what remained like invisible hammer blows. Tens of thousands had died, and roaring winds had carried their remains high into the skies, shredding the corpses like rotten cloth. When it was all over, only bare, blood-soaked earth remained.

Such had been the magic the high mages of Aryvandaar had wrought.

Q’arlynd would have given anything to have seen it.

From a safe distance, of course.

Flinderspeld, listening all the while, stood scratching his bald head. “What’s Miyeritar?” he asked.

Q’arlynd often permitted such questions from the deep gnome. Since the city’s fall, there had been few others he could converse with. He enlightened his slave.

“It’s a kingdom that existed at the time of the Crown Wars. Fourteen thousand years ago, during the Third Crown War, it was destroyed by Aryvandaar—a nation of surface elves—in a magical storm of unbelievable proportions. They say—” He broke off suddenly, aware that Leliana was staring at him.

He gave her a wistful shrug. “I’m a wizard. They taught us about Miyeritar at the Conservatory in Ched Nasad.”

“But not about ordinary rain?” she scoffed. “It sounds like a strangely lopsided education.”

Q’arlynd gave an embarrassed shrug.

“If you studied Miyeritar, then you know that we were all ‘surface elves’ once,” she continued.

Flinderspeld turned to her. “Drow lived on the surface?”

“Dark elves,” Leliana told him, “not yet
dhaerrow
. Not yet drow.”

“Your point being?” Q’arlynd asked.

“That we came from the surface and must return to it. The drow are not naturally creatures of the Underdark.”

Q’arlynd pointed at her eyes. “Then how do you explain darkvision?”

“Adaptation,” Leliana. “Our race developed it slowly, over many generations, after being driven below.”

“In Ched Nasad, we were taught that darkvision was a gift, bestowed upon us by Lolth during the Descent,” Q’arlynd said, “that drow were meant to live in the Underdark.”

Leliana folded her arms across her chest. Q’arlynd could tell that, like him, she enjoyed the debate. “Then why do our eyes adapt, over time, to the light of the surface realms?” she countered. “And if darkvision is a gift from Lolth, then why am I—and the other drow who worship Eilistraee, Lolth’s chief rival—still capable of seeing in complete darkness?”

“Because Lolth—” Q’arlynd abruptly checked what he’d been about to say, not because he didn’t have an argument to counter what Leliana had just said, but because he realized what she was doing. Drawing him out. Probing. Trying to get a sense of whether he truly desired to convert to Eilistraee’s faith.

Of course, he had no intention of doing so, unless there was something in it for him.

Flinderspeld had moved closer during the debate. He stood beside Q’arlynd, head cocked. “Lots of races that don’t worship Lolth have darkvision,” he commented. He held up his gloved fingers and began counting them off. “Svirfneblin, duergar—”

Q’arlynd nearly laughed out loud. Flinderspeld had just provided the perfect distraction. Whirling, he grabbed his slave by the cloak, feigning anger at the deep gnome
having taken Leliana’s side in the debate. “Keep silent, you!” he ordered, flicking a finger at the gnome.

A bolt of magical energy—a small one, painful rather than harmful—crackled out of his gloved fingertip. It barely touched the skin of Flinderspeld’s wide forehead—Q’arlynd wasn’t about to damage a valuable slave—but Flinderspeld gave a loud howl of pain. He’d feigned it so many times he was getting good at it. For a moment, Q’arlynd thought his slave had actually been stung by the bolt.

Their act deflected Leliana’s attention, but not in the way Q’arlynd had planned. Steel hissed as her sword left its scabbard. Before Q’arlynd could blink, the point of the weapon was at his throat. Leliana’s voice was hard as steel.

“Don’t do that again. This gnome,” she said, pointing down at Flinderspeld, “is under the goddess’s protection.”

Q’arlynd swallowed. Steel pricked the bulge in his throat as it moved. He gave Leliana his best mournful look, blinked long-lashed eyes, then glanced down at the sword-token that hung on a cord around his neck.

“As am I, surely?” he suggested sweetly.

Leliana removed the blade from his throat. “As are you,” she agreed, sheathing her sword. “But remember this: whatever your previous relationship with the deep gnome was below, here under Eilistraee’s bright moon, we are all equals. There are no slaves, no matron mothers … and no masters.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Or did Milass’ni neglect to tell you that?”

“Of course not,” Q’arlynd said, instantly realizing that Leliana must be talking about the priestess the falling stone had killed. “The instructions she gave were quite clear. It’s just that old habits are hard to break.” He bowed deeply, holding the submissive posture for longer than was necessary.

When he rose, he saw two things he didn’t like. A wary expression in Leliana’s eye.

And Flinderspeld, staring thoughtfully at Leliana, his stubby thumb idly rubbing the bulge the slave ring made under his glove.

Thaleste shivered as she climbed the column. She needed both hands to grip the notches in the stone, which had meant sheathing her sword, not that she was very proficient with the weapon, of course. Lady Cavatina had been kind enough to pretend that Thaleste’s feeble jab had made a difference during the battle with the aranea, but the novice knew otherwise. Even so, it would have made her feel slightly better to have a weapon in her hand.

She pulled herself through the hole at the top of the column, into the room above. A short passageway led from it to the chamber where Lady Cavatina had fought the spellgaunt. Drawing her sword—and wincing at the loud rasp the blade made as it left the sheath—Thaleste edged along that passage. It was dark and silent. Iljrene and the others had already made a sweep through the rooms and declared them clear. Even so, Thaleste’s mouth was dry and her heart pounded. The caverns were never completely free of monsters, despite the constant patrols. Anything could have been lurking in the chamber ahead.

The room, however, turned out to be empty, aside from the purplish smears of blood the spellgaunt had left behind. Its body and web had been burned. All that remained was a charred spot on the floor next to the gaping hole that had been a window.

Thaleste stood, studying the pattern of soot on the walls. She could see that the smoke had billowed upward, then mushroomed out and down again, eventually forcing its way out through the side passages and the hole in the floor. It had also concentrated behind one of the pedestals
close to the dais, leaving a faint spiral pattern.

Thaleste smiled. She’d just found what she’d been looking for. Now she was going to be able to prove to the others that being timid had its uses. She’d learned a thing or two, over the years, by creeping through the corridors of her manor. An audience chamber always had at least one secret door that a matron mother could slip away through in times of crisis.
That
was how the aranea and its spellgaunt had slipped past the priestess’s defenses, through a back door that none of the priestesses knew existed. Thaleste had found it. No longer would she be pitied as the novice who flinched at shadows and flailed around with a sword. She’d just proven her worth, or rather, she was about to.

The pedestal had to be the key. The bust that stood on it had parted lips and a hollowed-out mouth. Peering into it, Thaleste spotted the mechanism inside. It would, no doubt, be protected by a needle trap. The poison had probably dried to dust long ago, but Thaleste wasn’t about to take chances. If the aranea had gone that way, she might have refreshed the supply.

Thaleste drew her dagger and slid its blade into the statue’s mouth, triggering the mechanism. The pedestal shifted, rotating on its base. She sheathed her dagger and spun the pedestal farther. A section of wall behind slid open with a loud grinding of stone on stone.

Thaleste silently cheered. She’d done it! She stared into the passage beyond the door, wondering if she should go any farther. She wished she knew the prayer that would have allowed her to report her discovery to Battle-mistress Iljrene immediately, but that spell was beyond her, and what if she was wrong, and the passage led nowhere? That would give the other priestesses even more reason to doubt Thaleste’s capabilities. Even if the passage did lead somewhere, calling Iljrene in too soon would only mean that Thaleste’s discovery would be overshadowed. Iljrene
might not deliberately claim the honor that came from finding the answer to the mystery, but it would accrue to the battle-mistress just the same.

Thaleste squared her shoulders. She was a priestess of Eilistraee. By song and sword, she’d see it through herself.

As soon as she released the pedestal, the door started to slide shut. Thaleste caught the pedestal and stood a moment, wondering if she should prop the door open then decided she’d rather have a wall at her back. If she left the door open, some creature might follow her inside. Besides, the door had a handle on the inside of it, carved into the stone. It obviously could be opened from inside. Releasing the pedestal, she stepped through the door and let it shut behind her.

The passageway extended for quite some distance—north, as far as Thaleste could reckon—sloping gently up then down again. At its highest point, she heard a distant murmur of water. She pressed her ear to the wall then to the floor. The sound came from below. The passage, she guessed, must arch over the Sargauth.

At last the corridor ended in a blank stone wall. Peering closely at it, Thaleste could see a rectangular crack, thin as a hair: another hidden door. To her right was a spiral staircase, carved into the stone, that led downward from that point. Deciding to leave the door for later, she descended the staircase instead, counting the steps as she went. The walls became damp—she must have been level with the river—but still the stairway kept spiraling downward. She looked around as she descended, searching for traces of web that would confirm that the aranea and spellgaunt had come that way. There were none.

Thaleste’s foot slipped, and she nearly fell. Looking down, she saw that the steps no longer had square edges. They were rounded, as if from heavy wear. Just around the bend, the staircase ended in a large, open space, a cavern
whose floor was utterly smooth, as if an ooze had flowed over it, polishing it clean.

Thaleste stood for several moments, breathing rapidly. What if there
was
an ooze down here? The drow who had built the city above her had worshiped Ghaunadaur. The lonely hole might hold one of his altars. It might even be an entrance to the Pit itself.

Her legs felt weak and wobbly. Her stomach was churning. Every instinct screamed at her to turn and flee back the way she’d come, but giving up would be even worse than never having tried at all.

In a quavering voice, she sang a prayer that would protect her against evil. It helped bolster her courage a little. Then she crept down the last few stairs and peeked into the room.