Sacrifice of the Widow: The Lady Penitent, Book I (21 page)

She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice—she’d make sure she kept her feet well away from its grasping hands.

The creature was easy to follow. Once again there was a clear trail of broken branches. That trail, however, led in a big circle, back to the ruined temple.

Cavatina kept well out of range of the sickly green glow. To her surprise, the creature did not. It stood on the submerged platform, still hunched over from the wound the singing sword had dealt it—a wound that should have been
mortal, but which had already sealed itself shut, leaving only a faint gray scar behind. The creature moved about, as if restless. As Cavatina drew closer, she saw that its movements had a pattern.

“By all that’s holy,” Cavatina whispered.

“It’s
dancing.”
The creature spun and splashed, arms raised above its head, spider legs drumming against its chest in time with the dance. Once again, it blasphemed Eilistraee. Its drow hands formed the goddess’s sacred circle above its head. Its eyes were closed, and it seemed oblivious to Cavatina’s presence. A harsh song came from its lips. Several words were missing, others were roughly abbreviated, as if choked off in mid-syllable. The melody was subtly wrong, like a chord with one note a half-tone off, but even so, Cavatina recognized it.

Eilistraee’s sacred Evensong.

Cavatina was outraged. “What are you
doing?”
she shouted.

The creature slowed. Lowered its hands. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“You profane our holy song.”

“I sing it as I learned it.”

Cavatina blinked. “But you’re not … You
can’t
be one of Eilistraee’s worshipers.”

“I was.”

Cavatina gripped her sword so hard her hand hurt. Mute with horror, she shook her head.

“Oh, yes,” the creature said, its face lit from below by the sickly green glow. “I once danced in the sacred grove. I rose from the Cave of Rebirth, sang the song, and took up the sword.”

Cavatina felt numb with shock. “You … were one of the Redeemed? A
priestess?”

The creature nodded.

“But … but how …”

“I was weak. Lolth punished me. I was … transformed.”

Cavatina allowed herself to drift a little lower, but she was careful not to get too close to the sickstone. The glow must have been affecting the creature. Its legs were visibly trembling, sending tiny ripples through the filthy water.

“And now you want to be a drow again?” Cavatina guessed.

The creature gave a bitter laugh. “If only it were that simple.”

Cavatina lowered her sword—but only slightly. “Sing with me,” she said. “Pray for Eilistraee’s aid.”

“I can’t. Every time I try, my throat fills with spiders and I choke.”

“A curse,” Cavatina whispered. Part of her wondered if that wasn’t a ruse to draw her closer, but the teachings of Eilistraee were clear. Mercy had to be extended to those who pleaded for it, and the creature, in its own unique way, was all but begging. Cavatina reluctantly extended her hand. “Curses can be removed. Let me—”

The creature reared back, water sloshing around its ankles. “Weren’t you
listening?”
it howled. “This isn’t just a curse, I’ve been permanently transformed. Nothing—
nothing
!—can redeem me now.”

Cavatina’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes suddenly stung. She could feel the cursed priestess’s anguish as if it were her own. She suddenly understood why the creature had left a trail for her to follow, why it hadn’t simply fled. She wanted Cavatina to end its misery, and—Cavatina stared at the spot where the singing sword had pierced its chest, a spot where not even a scar remained—Cavatina had failed her.

As if hearing her thoughts, the creature looked up. “You’re powerful,” she said. “I can sense that about you. I thought you might have a spell that could end this, but you’re as much of a disappointment as Eilistraee was.”

“Don’t say that,” Cavatina gasped, shocked.

The creature laughed. “Why should I stay my tongue?” it
mocked. “Will Eilistraee
punish
me? She’s already punished me enough for my failure. She’s abandoned me.”

“No, she hasn’t,” Cavatina said fiercely. “As long as you hold her song in your heart, Eilistraee is with you still.”

“No, she isn’t,” the creature spat back. “Once I was her champion. Now I’m her greatest disappointment. She abandoned me—and Lolth claimed me.”

Cavatina stared down at the creature. The face was vaguely familiar, despite its elongated shape and bestial spider fangs. She tried to imagine the creature with hair that wasn’t sticky and matted, with a body the size and proportion of a normal drow. It proved impossible.

“Who
are
you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” The creature gestured at the glowing green platform on which it stood. “I, too, once tried to kill a god, but unlike the bard who destroyed Moander, I failed.”

Cavatina’s eyes widened. “You’re …”

“I
was
Halisstra Melarn.”

Cavatina reeled. “But you were killed! At the very gates of the Demonweb Pits. Qilué saw it in her scrying.”

Halisstra shrugged.

Questions tumbled from Cavatina’s lips. “How did you survive? Where have you been? What
happened?”

“I told you, Lolth punished me.”

“But surely …” Cavatina paused. Shook her head. “It must have been Eilistraee who restored life to you after you were struck down. Why didn’t you call upon Eilistraee’s aid?”

Another shrug. “By then, I’d already lost my faith.”

“You can still be redeemed,” Cavatina insisted. “If you just—”

Halisstra gave a bitter laugh. “That’s what Seyll said, and look where she wound up.”

Cavatina felt a shiver pass through her. “What are you talking about?”

Halisstra stared up at her with eyes hollow as an empty pit. “Seyll sacrificed herself—she let her soul be consigned to oblivion. And for what?” Halisstra’s eyes suddenly blazed. “Nothing! I
failed.”

Cavatina spoke softly, as to an injured child. “They asked too much of you. You were a novice priestess, and they asked you to slay a god.”

Halisstra shuddered. Weakened by the sickstone, she sank to her knees on the glowing platform. Water rippled across its sickly green glow.

Cavatina extended her hand. “Come away from there. You’ve suffered enough.”

Halisstra gave a heavy sigh. “I
tried
to serve Eilistraee. Even after I knew I’d failed her—after Lolth had her way with me and cast me aside—I tried to redeem myself. The Crescent Blade was broken, but I picked up the pieces and carried them to the temple that Feliane, Uluyara, and I had consecrated when we first entered the Demonweb Pits and laid them down inside it and watched as the sword mended itself together and—”

“What?” Cavatina shook her head. Halisstra was telling her too much, too fast. “Are you saying you created a temple sacred to Eilistraee within the Demonweb Pits?”

Halisstra nodded. There was a light in her eye.

“And that the Crescent Blade—a weapon capable of killing Lolth—still exists?” Cavatina asked.

Halisstra gave a trembling nod. Then a sly smile. “And it’s somewhere that Lolth can’t touch it. The temple we created is still standing, and the Crescent Blade is inside it.”

Cavatina let out a long breath. She held up a hand. “Just a moment.” She spoke Qilué’s name, and an instant later felt the high priestess link minds with her. In a low whisper, Cavatina sent a message back to the Promenade.

“I found the creature. It’s Halisstra Melarn, her body corrupted by Lolth. She said much that you should hear.”

The reply was a moment in coming.
Take her to the shrine in the Velarswood. Wait for me there
.

Cavatina nodded. Qilué had sounded worried about something. Distracted. Cavatina wondered what new threat had arisen since she’d left the Promenade.

She extended a hand to the creature that had once been a priestess like herself. “Come,” she told Halisstra. “Your chance for redemption may be at hand.”

Szorak crept through the darkened forest, muttering to himself behind his mask. He didn’t much care for the Lethyr, even though the thick canopy of intertwined branches above screened the moon’s harsh light. Despite the magical ring that had turned his skin and clothing the exact color of the shadows he passed through and the boots that enabled him to move in utter silence, stilling even the crack of a dead branch underfoot, he still felt as if he was being watched.

Which he was. The very trees were alive. They whispered the whereabouts of all who entered the forest to its guardians.

Fortunately, his mission that dark night had nothing to do with either trees or druids. It wasn’t a druid’s soul Szorak was after, but that of a priestess.

As he drew closer to Eilistraee’s shrine, the spell he’d cast a few moments before picked up the first of the wards: a dim glow coming from underneath a pile of dead leaves, several paces ahead. Szorak pulled out a rod of black iron and held it at the ready. Then he walked forward. As the ward was triggered, sparkles of frost-white light erupted on his skin, causing him to gasp from their cold. The wand, however, drew the bitter cold down into itself, and after a heartbeat, it was gone.

“Is that the best you can do, ladies?” Szorak muttered.
“I expected something a little more lethal.”

He continued forward, the rod held loosely in his hand. The pile of leaves exploded as a sword flew out of it. Szorak was barely able to bring his rod up in time. He smashed it against the sword in a desperate parry. Black iron met shining steel with a loud
clank
, and there was a silent explosion of magical energy. The sword tumbled to the ground, inert.

Szorak took a deep breath. He stared down at the two glyphs engraved in the blade. Both incorporated the word
ogglin
. Enemy. Even a magical disguise wouldn’t have fooled them, and Szorak hadn’t expected a two-glyph ward. Had he not parried the sword, he might have already been dead.

He chuckled. “That’s almost worthy of Vhaeraun, ladies, except that
our
sword thrust would have come from behind.”

His detection magic revealed other wards to the right and left. The sword must be one of several placed in a ring around the shrine’s perimeter, but that ring had been broken.

Szorak stepped across the neutralized sword. Then he activated the secondary power of his ring, disguising himself. Though he could still feel the soft velvet of his mask against his cheeks and chin, to an observer his face would appear bare, his cheeks smooth and feminine. He would seem taller than he really was, his body more shapely, and his black cloak, shirt, and trousers would instead look like chain mail, covered by a breastplate bearing Eilistraee’s moon and sword. The rod in his hand would appear to be a sword. Anyone touching him would instantly perceive that all was not as it seemed, but he fully intended that whoever got close enough for that wouldn’t live for more than a heartbeat.

He walked on through the darkened woods. Up ahead, he could hear women singing and see shapes moving
through the trees—Eilistraee’s faithful, worshiping at their shrine. He veered away from that spot, looking instead for the place where the priestesses made their home. On a hunch, he whispered a prayer that would lead him to the nearest cave.

The cave turned out to be a slit in the hillside, screened by the flow of a stream that tumbled from above. The entrance, however, was protected by magic. Even from a distance, Szorak could feel its power. It produced a high, shrill note that grew in intensity the nearer he got to the cave. Try as he might, he could not get close enough to cancel it with his rod. Forcing himself in that direction made his ears pound until he thought they were going to burst.

He backed away, muttering dark curses. He would have to steal a soul from one of the dancers, instead. “A challenge, Masked Lord?” he muttered. His eyes gleamed. “I accept.” He made his way back through the woods.

The shrine turned out to be a natural pillar of black rock, twice the height of a drow, carved with crescent moons. A sword hilt protruded from the top of it. The pillar had been bored through with holes, and the breeze passing through them created a sound like several flutes playing at once. The priestesses danced around the pillar in a loose circle, naked save for the belts that held their hunting horns and the holy symbols that hung around their necks. Each female had a sword which she held at arm’s length as she twirled. Blade clashed against blade as the women spun together, then apart again, their swords trailing sparkles of silver light.

The dance might have been beautiful, had it not been a violation of the sacred order. Had Eilistraee not interfered, Vhaeraun might have united all of the darkelves under a single deity millennia ago, but Eilistraee had proved as greedy as Lolth and had stolen the females away from the Masked Lord’s worship. She’d taught them
to exclude males from her circle, to subjugate and revile them instead.

Vhaeraun’s followers had learned a bitter lesson. Females could not be trusted.

Szorak watched long enough to determine that priestesses were joining and leaving the dance at what seemed to be random intervals. Though they danced in a group, there was no discernable pattern to their collective movements. Each female seemed to be following her own path. Satisfied, he altered his magical disguise, giving clothing the appearance of bare flesh. Then, holding his disguised rod like a sword, he danced into their midst.