Sacrifice of the Widow: The Lady Penitent, Book I (26 page)

“Aid who, Lady Qilué?” one of the other priestesses asked.

Qilué, lost in thought, didn’t answer. If Q’arlynd was the Melarn who would aid Eilistraee, that meant Halisstra would betray the goddess. Cavatina knew how to take care of herself—she was skilled in hunting demons, and used to trickery—but even so, Qilué worried that she might have sent the Darksong Knight to her death. She steeled herself, telling herself it had to be done. Such sacrifices were necessary, if the drow were to be brought into Eilistraee’s light. In the meantime, the new development had to be dealt with.

She stared down at the faint square of black that shrouded Rowaan’s face. “Q’arlynd came directly from Ched Nasad, you say?”

Leliana nodded. “Through the portal in the ruins of Hlaungadath.”

“Let’s hope he tries to return the same way.”

Q’arlynd squatted in the tiny patch of shadow cast by the wall, squinting at the portal. An entire night he’d tried to activate it, and nothing had happened. He’d thought it would be a simple matter—a repetition of the phrase that had triggered its magic from the other side back in Ched Nasad, but though he’d read the Draconic characters precisely as written, the space inside the arch remained a blank stone wall. He might as well have knocked on it with his head, for all the good it had done.

In full daylight, the sun beating down overhead, the glare rendered him almost blind. He wondered, for the hundredth time, if he should just give up on the portal and make his way to the closest Underdark city instead. Eryndlyn lay somewhere beneath ancient Miyeritar. Perhaps one of its merchant Houses could use a battle mage to accompany their trading missions. It would be a big step down from his hopes, but it would at least be something.

A sudden noise made him startle. Another lamia? Quickly, he rendered himself invisible. As he rose to his feet, he reached inside his pouch for components for a fire spell. He waited, sulfur-gum in hand, as footsteps approached the doorway to the room in which he stood.

A shadow fell across the floor, a shadow with the outline of a drow. A
naked
drow—and female, too.

Q’arlynd almost laughed. How stupid did the lamias think he was? Still, he had to admire the detail they’d put into their illusion. Those curves were very enticing.

He pulled the quartz crystal from his pouch. With it, he’d be able to see through the lamia’s illusions—and pinpoint the creature so that he could incinerate it where it stood. As the shadow lengthened, he activated his insignia and rose into the air, out of the roofless building.

Below him, a drow female appeared to step into the room. Q’arlynd squinted through the crystal at her, expecting to see either the bare stone of the floor below the illusion—or a lamia, underneath a drow-shaped glamor. Instead he saw a female who was tall and beautiful, with silver hair and a proud bearing, like the matron mother of a noble House. She wore a gauzy silver robe that did little to hide the dark curves beneath. A sword hung from a scabbard on her belt, and she wore a bracer on her right forearm that served as a sheath for a dagger. In her left hand, she held a curious looking metal wand with a knob at either end. Eilistraee’s holy symbol hung from a chain
around her neck. She had a deeply lined face and somber expression, but despite her age she looked as fit as a female in her first century of life. Regardless of the obvious threat she posed—perhaps because of it—he found her intensely attractive. She was, quite simply, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

Q’arlynd lowered his crystal. The priestess was real. She must have been sent to find him, to kill him. He placed a foot atop the ruined wall and gently pushed off, at the same time taking aim with the sulfur-gum.

Without warning, his levitation ended, sending him crashing into the street below. He rose, gasping and spitting blood from a cut lip. As he did, the priestess turned and glanced out into the street. She stared straight at him—
seeing
him. His invisibility must also have ended.

“Q’arlynd?”

He flicked the pinch of sulfur-gum at her and shouted the words of his spell. The tiny ball streaked through the air, igniting in mid-flight. It struck the priestess on the shoulder, immediately expanding into a violent ball of searing fire. Much of it washed back onto Q’arlynd—something it shouldn’t have done.

He scrambled to his feet, his hair and skin singed from the blast, furiously blinking away the fiery afterimage that obscured his vision. He expected to see a charred body lying on the ground, but when his vision cleared the priestess was just standing there, completely unscathed. A nimbus of silver fire surrounded her naked body like a second skin, and her hair was one long, sparkling streak of silver. A candle-sized flame flickered at one end of the wand she held, and she raised it to her lips and blew it out.

“That wasn’t very nice,” she said in a dry voice.

Then she flicked a hand. A silver-white ray flashed from her fingertips to Q’arlynd, striking him in the chest. He
touched fingers to the spot where it had struck, but felt no wound. A second flick of the priestess’s fingers, and a wall of blades sprang up around Q’arlynd, completely enclosing him. They whizzed in a tight circle around him, giving him no space to move.

“If you try to attack me again,” she said, “I’ll tighten the ring.” She made a squeezing motion with her hand, and the curtain of whirling blades cinched closer.

Q’arlynd, however, had no intention of letting her slice him up. With one word, he could teleport away. He spoke that word—

Nothing happened. He stood in the same spot as before. The magical blades swirled around him, filling the air with a dangerous hum.

“Your spells won’t work,” the priestess told him. “You’re inside a field that negates magic.”

“Impossible,” Q’arlynd breathed. At the Conservatory, they’d taught that an antimagic field could only be cast by a wizard—on the wizard himself. It wasn’t something a priestess hurled at someone else from a distance.

He tried a dispelling, but the whirling blades remained. He tried a second spell, but the magical armor that would have protected him from the blades failed to appear. Not wanting to press his luck—the priestess was watching his every move—he refrained from further spellcasting. His chest was tight with tension.

“Who … are you?”

She smiled. “Someone you’ve been hoping to meet. Lady Qilué Veladorn, high priestess of Eilistraee and Chosen of Mystra.”

Q’arlynd’s breath caught. He was certain, deep in his gut, that the high priestess was going to kill him. That she hadn’t done so already was only because she wanted to question him. His best chance lay in appearing as compliant as possible in the hope that she would show lenience and kill him swiftly. He tried to crouch, in order
to prostrate himself on the ground and barely avoided a nasty gash on the forehead. He settled for a partial bow instead.

“Lady Qilué, my profound apologies for attacking you,” he said. “Had I known who you were, I never would have dared.”

She made no comment, just stood there as the silver sparkle gradually faded from her skin and hair. Q’arlynd kept his eyes firmly on the ground, staring at a patch of sand beside her feet.

“Leliana told me about last night’s attack,” Qilué said. “She says you made it possible for the Nightshadow to enter Rowaan’s room.”

Q’arlynd clenched his jaw. His stomach felt cold and hollow. Best to get this over with. He wondered where his soul would wind up once the priestess killed him. Probably in the Demonweb Pits, where Lolth’s demonic minions would ensure that he received endless torment for his fall from grace, brief though it had been.

“I did dispel the glyph on her door, it’s true,” he said slowly, “but not for the reason you think. I simply wanted to talk to Rowaan—to give her some information about the Nightshadows that I thought your priestesses might find useful. I changed my mind and spoke to Leliana instead.”

“Why?”

“Leliana’s a higher-ranking priestess. I thought she would offer me a greater reward.” He spread his hands—and winced, as a blade nicked his finger. “It’s as simple as that.”

“I believe you.”

Q’arlynd glanced up. “You do?” Hope flared in him like a bright flame.

Qilué smiled. She gestured, and the whirling curtain of blades that had surrounded him was gone. “I’ve come to ask a favor of you,” she said. “One favor. You can say
yes or no to it of your own accord, but if the answer is yes, I will place a geas on you that compels you to fulfill it. Do you understand?”

Q’arlynd nodded. He did indeed. He’d seen the effects of a geas firsthand long ago. One of Lolth’s priestesses had cast it upon a House boy, compelling him to clean her boots each night by licking them with his tongue. Then she’d walked through the filth of the lizard pens. The boy had refused to clean the boots—and had quickly sickened and died, the magic of the geas hollowing him out from within.

His lips parted—he’d been about to flippantly ask what would happen if he said no to her request—then he realized there was really only one answer to her question. “What task must I perform, Lady?”

“You were once a Nightshadow.”

“A petitioner, nothing more,” he said carefully. “I never wore the mask.”

“You attended their meetings.” She switched to silent speech.
You know their passwords
.

Ah, so that was what she wanted. A spy. “I know the ones they used in Ched Nasad, decades ago.”

Show me one
.

He demonstrated one for her: fists drawing apart—as if stretching an assassin’s cord—then suddenly flipping upside down, fingers curled, in the sign for a dead spider.

“Do you know what soultheft is?” Qilué asked.

Q’arlynd nodded. He had indeed heard of it. His brother had been stupid enough to boast that he’d one day kill a matron mother and steal her soul—preferably, their own mother. “It’s a powerful spell. Done using Vhaeraun’s mask, I understand, once the victim is dead.”

Qilué moved closer. “Do you think you could pass as a Nightshadow? Could you fool them into thinking you’re one of their own?”

He smiled, his eyes still respectfully on the ground. “I believe so, Lady.”

Qilué and lifted his chin with a finger. She stared into his eyes. “Will you?”

Q’arlynd was forced to meet her eyes. He saw enormous strength of will there but also something more, something that tempered this strength. He knew, suddenly and with certainty, that she’d meant it when she said she’d let him choose whether to perform this “favor” of hers. She wasn’t commanding him. She was
asking
him. A female, asking a male.

He didn’t even have to think about his reply. It was his chance to prove himself, to serve not just a powerful priestess but a powerful mage—one who was a Chosen of the goddess of magic. A rush of excitement filled him. If he’d been of a religious mind, he might have whispered a prayer of thanks. To … somebody.

“I am yours to command, Lady Qilué.”

“A favor,” she reminded him, her hand falling away from his face.

Q’arlynd smiled and cocked his head, a playful gesture. He was at ease, on familiar ground. “Of course. A favor. What is it?”

Qilué’s expression tightened. “Five nights ago, a Nightshadow attacked our shrine in the Forest of Lethyr. He was attempting to steal the soul of one of our priestesses.”

“He did not succeed?”

“No.”

The answer had been abrupt. There was more to the story than this, but whatever it was, Qilué wasn’t going to tell him.

“There have been other attacks on our priestesses,” she continued. “Other soulthefts.”

Q’arlynd listened in silence, thinking of Rowaan. He felt a twinge of something. Guilt, he supposed.

“The males committing them are led by a Nightshadow
named Malvag. They plan to use the soul-charged masks to open a gate between Vhaeraun’s domain and Eilistraee’s, so that Vhaeraun can slay our goddess.”

Q’arlynd whistled softly. “Is that possible? The gate, I mean. I’m sure Eilistraee can take care of herself.”

“To open such a gate, the Nightshadows would need to work high magic—something that requires complete cooperation between spellcasters and complete faith in one another.” Qilué gave a tight smile. “Can you honestly imagine Nightshadows
trusting
each other?”

Q’arlynd chuckled. “Hardly likely.”

“Even if they fail to conjure a gate, the attempt will consume the souls of the priestesses who were killed. I don’t want that to happen. I want the magic that’s binding their souls to the masks dispelled, and the priestesses freed—and that means stopping Malvag.”

“You want him killed?”

“If he can be.”

The “if” gave Q’arlynd pause, but only for a moment. He could guess what was coming. “You want me to impersonate the Nightshadow who was killed in the Forest of Lethyr.”

Qilué nodded. “We know his name: Szorak, of House Auzkovyn. He was one of three Nightshadows who joined Malvag’s scheme. He’s the only one from House Auzkovyn. The other two were from House Jaelre, and it’s doubtful they knew him well. Neither they nor Malvag himself have seen Szorak without his mask. You’re about Szorak’s height and build, and your eyes are the same color. We won’t need to use a glamor on you, and we know much about Szorak, since his sister was one who converted to our faith.”