Ascendancy of the Last

CHAPTER 9

Karas ran into the Cavern of Song. Two priestesses still sang the sacred hymn, their swords pointed at the ceiling, toward the spot where the moon passed through the night skies of the World Above. Their voices, however, were lost in the general commotion.

The cavern was filled with people. Priestesses and soldiers ran south and east to the battle, while lay worshipers, too young or weak to fight, struggled in the opposite direction, to shelter in their living quarters in the Hall of the Faithful. The Protector Erelda, fully armored in chain mail and breastplate, stood next to the statue of Qilue, shouting orders. The statue had been moved aside to reveal a staircase that spiraled deep below. Another Protector disappeared down it, sword pealing.

The ruined temple lay due south of here. The quickest route to it would be the one Cavatina had suggested: take the corridor past the Moonspring Portal, and strike south. Karas didn't go that way, however. He knew it would be impassable-too many of Ghaunadaur's minions would block his path. His had been the first group of fanatics to come through the portal in the column south of the river. Scores of oozes, slugs, and slimes would have poured through since then.

He had no idea how many of the other Nightshadows had made it through the column-portal. Karas himself had been forced north, away from the river. He'd only managed to extricate himself from his fanatics after they entered the Stronghall. When he finally had managed to slip away from them, a fiery ooze had driven him farther north still. And then he'd run into Cavatina and learned about the planar breach.

Was nothing going to go as he'd hoped this night?

He elbowed his way through the crowd, to a narrow tunnel that snaked southeast from the Cavern of Song. One of the priestesses shouted at him to stop, that this corridor had been evacuated and was about to be sealed, but he ignored her. He entered it, leaving the commotion behind. He followed its twists and turns, squinting against the occasional glare of flickering Faerzress, trying to remember-and avoid-the side tunnels that branched off into dead-end caverns.

There! He recognized the cavern up ahead. He was going the right way. A short distance beyond the cavern, he came to a spot where the corridor branched: one arm veered north, then east, to the ruined temple; the other bore south, then turned west to Skullport. He halted at the juncture, faced with a difficult decision. Skullport, and safety? Or make for the ruined temple and try to prevent the fanatics from releasing Ghaunadaur's avatar?

He kept going over what Cavatina had told him. "Qilue was tricked," she'd said. By the Masked Lord, he'd assumed. But why would Vhaeraun want the fanatics to release Ghaunadaur's avatar? That made no sense. Capturing the Promenade from within would have been an enormous coup for the Masked Lord, one that would rekindle the faith. If the temple fell to Ghaunadaur's avatar, the Nightshadows might never reclaim it. The wealth of its Stronghall, the Promenade's strategic position within the Underdark, its prestige-all would be lost.

Perhaps-loath as Karas was to think this-it was Vhaeraun who had been tricked. Or rather, outmaneuvered by Ghaunadaur. The Ancient One must have learned of the Masked Lord's plans, and taken advantage of them. And Karas had been the one who had set this in motion.

He stood, racked by indecision. Should he try to undo what had been done? He was ill prepared for a prolonged battle against multiple foes. He had his dagger, a few magical trinkets, and his prayers. Cavatina, slayer of Selvetarm, was much better suited to make a stand in front of the portal and prevent the fanatics from passing through it. Yet what if the Darksong Knight didn't even reach the ruined temple? She might have slain a demigod, but that didn't ensure she would always be triumphant. It had been a near thing for her, atop the Acropolis. She'd only survived that battle with his help.

"Masked Lord," Karas prayed. "Is it your will the breach be opened? Have you-" He hesitated, then forced himself to say it. "Have you allied yourself with the Ancient One?"

This time, the god answered. Not in words, but in the distant peal of a hunting horn. That alone wouldn't have convinced Karas; it might have been one of the priestesses, signaling the others. But as the horn sounded, a rectangle of darkness with two eyeholes appeared in the air a short distance away, within the tunnel leading to the ruined temple. The bottom of this "mask" fluttered, as if the mouth behind it were lending its breath to the hunting horn's peal. Dots of angry red blazed where the eyes would have been.

That decided it. Karas wouldn't run. He'd fight.

Just as he turned in that direction, a fanatic ran out of the tunnel Karas had been making for. Karas whipped up his dagger-but checked his throw as he recognized pink eyes.

"Valdas!" he cried. "You made it through!"

Valdas halted at the spot where the three tunnels converged. He was still disguised in the green robes and eye-embossed tabard of House Abbylan. His face was bare. He nodded at the other tunnels behind Karas. "Can we reach Skullport through that?"

"Yes, but-"

"Good. Let's get going. The tunnel behind me is choked with oozes."

Karas heard the wet slap of an ooze on stone, from somewhere behind Valdar. Would it be possible to get by it and reach the ruined temple? He pointed in the direction Valdar had just come. "We need to go back and stop the fanatics from entering Qilue's trap, or they'll summon Ghaunadaur's avatar to the Promenade."

"They will?" Valdar's pink eyes glittered. He laughed. "That's perfect! It will take care of whatever priestesses the oozes and slimes miss."

"But we'll lose the temple," Karas protested. "We need it as a base to rebuild our faith."

"We don't need it. From here, we move on-and keep moving. Infiltrate Ghaunadaur's temple in Skullport, and persuade the fanatics there to summon an avatar. Scour that city clean. Then we'll do the same in Eryndlyn. After that, we'll lure Ghaunadaur through one of the portals of Sschindylryn, and then-"

"But…" Karas felt his face grow cold, under his mask. "Our target is the matriarchies and their temples. Ghaunadaur's avatar will devour everyone-male and female alike. Who's going to be left to convert if-"

Valdar leaned closer. Karas could smell the sweat that clung to his dark skin. "I want to kill those spider-kissing bitches. Make them pay. Any male who didn't have the guts to tie on the mask before now deserves to die with them."

"I see," Karas said. And he did. Valdar was insane. He didn't want to build-only destroy. It didn't matter to Valdar that he'd entered into what amounted to an unholy alliance with Ghaunadaur's fanatics. Nor did he care what ultimately became of the drow. Whatever had happened in that crystal-lined cavern on the night that Eilistraee's and Vhaeraun's realms joined had twisted Valdar, made him blind to the consequences of his actions. He'd yanked the mask up over Karas's eyes as well. Until now.

The wet hiss of something slithering on stone drew nearer. A chill seeped out of the tunnel behind Valdar.

"You're right," Karas lied. "We'd better get moving." He pointed at the right-hand corridor. "That's the way to Skullport."

Valdar turned to the tunnel. "Lead the-"

Karas lunged-but Valdar leaped aside. Karas's dagger struck nothing but air.

"So that's how it is," Valdar said in a soft, lethal voice. He drew his own dagger-a black-bladed weapon that Karas didn't remember him having before. "Let's finish it, then-that little dance we began three years ago."

Karas shifted his weight, as if readying for a lunge.

Valdar's other arm whipped up. The wide sleeve of his robe fell back, and his wristbow twanged. Karas shouted a holy word and flicked his hand. The bolt glanced off the invisible shield the Masked Lord had just bestowed and shattered on the wall behind him.

Valdar lunged. Karas met it with a lunge of his own that drew blood from the other male's hand. Their blades clashed, bright steel sliding past black metal. Valdar flicked a hand at Karas and spat a word, but Karas twisted aside. Whatever spell Valdar had been trying to catch him with missed its mark.

Karas feinted and hurled a prayer back at Valdar. It should have left Valdar shaken and open to attack, yet it had no visible effect. Was that their mutual deity, preventing them from harming one another with their prayers? Or was Valdar's will simply too strong to be overcome by Karas's spell?

They rushed each other. A blade whispered past Karas's ear, nicking it. The point of his own dagger snagged Valdar's robe. They danced apart.

As they circled, Karas saw movement in the tunnel behind Valdar: a patch of roiling darkness, momentarily backlit by a temporary ripple of Faerzress. It looked like an enormous blob of shadow, smooth and bulging. Karas's pulse quickened as it flowed into the room. Shadow and ooze, together? Was its presence a sign that he'd guessed wrong? Perhaps the Masked Lord had indeed aligned himself with Ghaunadaur. Killing Valdar might have been the wrong choice.

"Ooze!" Karas shouted. "Behind you."

Valdar laughed. His fingers flicked. A flicker of light danced at the edge of Karas's peripheral vision: a forceblade, forged from moonlight and shadow. It streaked toward Karas-only to slam into his magical shield and explode in a halo of moonlight. Yet in the instant that Karas's attention was diverted, Valdar's other hand whipped forward. Karas felt a blow like a dull punch, then an ache. He looked down: Valdar's black blade had buried itself hilt-deep in Karas's gut.

Valdar started to gloat-only to grunt in pain as the shadow-ooze engulfed his legs, knocking him prone. His face paled to gray, and his eyes widened. He struggled in vain to free himself as the shadow-ooze flowed slowly up his body. "It… You weren't…"

"Bluffing?" Karas edged back, one hand pressed to the blood-slippery shirt where Valdar's dagger had punched home. He knew better than to draw the blade out. It would only do more damage. "No."

He stepped back again, keeping out of range of the bulging shadow-ooze. He sang a prayer to the Masked Lord that should have squeezed the dagger from his gut and stitched the puncture shut.

Nothing happened.

"No use," Valdar gasped. "It's a life stealer."

Worried now, Karas tried to yank the dagger free. It didn't budge. A cold centered in his midriff, and he felt his life spiral down into the blade.

Valdar lay on the floor, the ooze covering all but his shoulders and head. The magic sustaining his disguise bled away, revealing his mask. He tried once more to crawl-painfully, slowly-as the ooze sucked him fully into itself.

"You were wrong," Karas told the vanished Valdar. His voice quavered-and not just from the drain of the magical blade. Yet he kept speaking, if only to convince himself. Blackness crowded the edges of his vision. It wouldn't be long now before he'd go to the Masked Lord's embrace. He gestured weakly at the ooze. "This wasn't… what the Masked Lord… wanted."

The last of Karas's life-force drained away, conveyed by the magical blade to the great Void. He collapsed. His mask fluttered as his last breath left his lungs. Then it settled against his face. Masked Lord, he prayed as he died. Draw me into your eternal Night.

His awareness shifted. He stood on a vast gray plain, neither in light nor in shadow. Beside him was another awareness: Valdar. Oddly, Karas bore the other Nightshadow no ill will.

A voice called to them: a voice that was neither male nor female, but both. A moment later, it became a pool of utter silence. Then song, then silence. Opposites, twined together, yet somehow harmonious.

Side by side, the awarenesses that were Karas and Valdar drifted to the place where the song-silence was coming from. It caught them like leaves and swirled them up toward itself. They drifted in front of an enormous face. Moonlight bathed the face's upper half in shining radiance; the lower half was shadowed in utter blackness. A glint of blue danced across eyes the color of moonstones.

Masked Lord, Karas asked. Is it you?

A feminine laugh rustled the mask.

Masked… Lady? he ventured.

The chuckle deepened, became male.

Hands moved to the blackness that was the deity's mask. Fingers gripped its edges. Karas tensed, and felt the eager anticipation of the awareness that was Valdar.

The mask lifted.

Karas wept.

So did Valdar-and as he did, Karas saw into the other Nightshadow's heart.

The emotions that had prompted their tears were as different as moonlight from shadow.

"Seal those corridors!" Erelda shouted.

She pointed with her sword. Priestesses scrambled to the tunnels leading north, east, and south from the Cavern of Song, raised their holy symbols, and sang. Shimmering barriers, bright as moonlight but steeled with black shadow, sprang into being and sealed the tunnels. These would offer a temporary reprieve. Eilistraee's faithful could pass through, but the barriers would hold the fanatics and their minions at bay.

For a time.

Erelda ran a hand through her sweat-damp hair. The Stronghall had fallen. The Hall of the Priestesses would likely be next. The handful of priestesses and lay worshipers staggering back from that cavern were badly wounded, and most had lost both swords and shields. According to the sending she'd just received, a few priestesses held out in the Hall of Healing, but it had been cut off by a flow of oozes from both the north and the south. The healers were on their own now.

The winding maze of tunnels to the south of the Cavern of Song was rapidly filling with oozes. What had that Nightshadow been thinking, when he ignored the Protector's warning and hurried into them? With oozes choking the Sargauth, she had to assume that the handful of Protectors who'd been patrolling the opposite side of the river were lost. The lay worshipers, meanwhile, crowded fearfully into the Hall of the Faithful. If oozes came bubbling up out of the breach Cavatina had reported and broke through the seals to reach the Cavern of Song, at least the lay worshipers would be out of harm's way.

For the moment, the Cavern of Song was secure. That was a starting point. But they needed to retake the rest of the Promenade, or they'd be trapped here. The Moonspring Portal was on the other side of the shimmering barriers Erelda had just ordered into place. That would be their first objective. They'd fight their way to it, and clear it of the oozes that fouled it. Then reinforcements from the shrines could get through.

"Lady Qilue," she called. "Where are you? The Promenade needs your sword and silver fire. Please answer!"

Nothing. Where was the high priestess? For that matter, where was Rylla? No one had seen either of them since the battle began. If things didn't turn around soon, they were going to lose the temple; she could feel it. The shrines would survive, but without the Promenade it would be a gutted faith. Anger flared. Eilistraee! You can't allow this to happen!

Outwardly, however, Erelda was steel. She directed the last of the wounded to the Hall of the Faithful, and ordered its two northernmost entrances magically sealed with a plug of stone. If the oozes did break through from the north, her Protectors, priestesses, and foot soldiers could fall back through the Cavern of Song without having to defend these entrances. This done, she redeployed her forces, assigning two novices to keep the holy song going at all times, to ensure that Eilistraee's shimmering moonfire still danced through the cavern. She strode from one defender to the next, offering encouragement to her depleted forces.

This was a test, she told herself. A test of her faith. She needed to believe they would triumph. Just as Qilue had let belief sustain her, centuries ago. The Promenade's defenders would rally and drive Ghaunadaur's minions back.

A scream came from the corridor leading to the Moonspring Portal. Erelda turned in time to see a novice and a soldier stagger through the magical barrier. Their arms were melting into slime, their fingers dripping away. A priestess rushed forward to aid them. But before she reached them, they collapsed, screaming, into a bubbling mass of ooze.

The magical barrier wavered as a multicolored sheen that glistened like a soap bubble spread across it. The stone on either side of the tunnel rippled, as if viewed through a heat shimmer. So did the floor and the ceiling. Just behind the barrier, something enormous bubbled forward. A portion of it bulged against the barrier and popped, breaking a hole.

"Defenders!" Erelda shouted, her sword pealing in her hand as she pointed with it. "A breach. An ooze is-"

The floor in front of the tunnel rippled. The walls slumped. The defenders closest to that entrance shouted as their feet sank into mud, slowing their charge. The ooze bulged through the songwall, rupturing it, and a swirling, stinking fog roiled into the room. Priestesses collapsed, choking, as it engulfed them.

A Protector ran forward on a prayer-wrought moonbridge, her singing sword pealing a challenge. She hurled a bolt of twined moonlight and shadow at the monstrous ooze. It bored through the creature, popping several of its bulging membranes. But then a wave of energy rippled from the ooze and rushed back along the moonbridge in a wave of chaotic color. The Protector tried to leap from the bridge, but the energy reached her before she could spring. She disappeared. For a heartbeat, a rent remained in the place where she had just stood. A cacophony of sounds, colors, and smells poured out of it, flickering between sensations faster than the eye could blink. Then the rent sealed shut.

"By all that's holy," Erelda whispered. "Where did it just send her?"

The ooze was fully inside the Cavern of Song now. It looked like a collection of multicolored, inflated sacs, glued together with shimmering slime. These popped as the prayers the priestesses hurled ruptured them, then reformed. Triumphant shouts came from behind the creature. The instant it was fully inside the cavern, half a dozen fanatics came howling in after it, their tentacle whips flailing. A Protector cut one of them down even as he leaped into the cavern, her singing sword pealing victoriously, but the fanatic beside him shouted a prayer. Green slime flowed from his fingers and turned into a wave that smashed into the Protector, knocking her down. When it subsided, she was gone.

The ooze, meanwhile, pushed its shimmering wave of chaotic energy ahead of it. One of the novices maintaining the sacred psalm was engulfed by the energy and vanished, screaming. The other, a pale-skinned moon elf, quavered on. The few lay worshipers remaining in the cavern either fled, screaming, or raised their arms in desperate prayer.

"Defenders!" Erelda cried. "To me!" She sang a blessing, and a ripple of shadow-dappled moonlight pooled around her, bathing the defenders closest to her in its pure, cleansing light. The blessing would anchor them, and prevent the bubbling ooze from tossing any more of them into whatever hostile realms it had hurled the others.

One of the defenders couldn't reach Erelda in time, and went down under a fanatic's lash. The priestess next to Erelda retaliated with a holy song that crumpled the fanatic where he stood. Erelda herself fended off an attack by a ghaunadan who transformed himself into a walking purple ooze when she tried to cut him in two. She finished him with a prayer that flung him into a wall, splattering him to pieces.

A ragged cheer went up from the priestesses around her, and she realized her foe had been the last of the fanatics. Yet the bubbling ooze remained. Thankfully, it was smaller, reduced in size by the priestess's attacks. "Praise Eilistraee," Erelda gasped. "We will hold the temple."

She realized she could hear herself speak. For the first time in decades, the sacred song had faltered. "The Evensong!" she shouted. The priestesses next to her took up the hymn. With her sword raised, Erelda stepped forward to finish off the ooze.

The world flip-flopped. Up became down. Erelda tumbled, flailing, to the ceiling, together with the handful of defenders who had been standing next to her. She slammed into stone, and saw stars. She scrambled upright-the floor of the cavern reeled dizzily over her head-and realized the ooze had somehow distorted the natural laws of reality. She hurled a bolt of moonlight and shadow "up" at the ooze, but it didn't stop the thing. The ooze slithered over the statue of Qilue, fouling it. Then it disappeared down the staircase leading to the top of the Pit.

Erelda and the others fell. Erelda's wrist snapped as she landed, and pain flared. She rose, cradling the arm against her chest, and sang a hymn of healing. Without looking to see how the others fared, she clambered over the slime-fouled statue and ran to the staircase, shaking feeling back into her hand.

She ran down the spiral stairs two steps at a time, one hand on the inside wall to steady herself, the other tightly gripping her sword. She slipped, scrambled, sometimes tumbled down the steps, which glistened with the multicolored slime left by the creature as it squeezed its way down the narrow staircase. Always the monster was just around the bend. Just out of sight.

Gasping, Erelda at last reached the bottom of the staircase. She slipped on the final steps and tumbled into a cavern. Its floor was a bumpy field of broken stone: the fragments of the walls Qilue had collapsed to fill the Pit. The Protector who'd been stationed at the top of the Mound was gone. The ooze was just ahead, bubbling toward the statue of Eilistraee. The statue, made up of tiny chips of magic-suspended stone, was no longer moving. It would have halted its dance when the sacred song faltered. That it hadn't resumed its slow pirouette was a grim sign. Hadn't anyone survived above?

Erelda leaped, her sword flashing. It sliced through the ooze, severing one glistening sac after another. The ooze deflated-but as it did, a rush of multicolored energy rippled outward from it and struck the statue. Half of the stone chips instantly disappeared, and the rest were transmuted to mud that fell like dirty rain onto the spot where it had stood.

Erelda gasped. Her throat tightened. The seal on the Pit-gone!

The rubble where the statue had stood glowed with a purple light. Tendrils of violet mist seeped out through cracks between the stones. A feeling like ice slid into Erelda's gut as she realized what this meant. The breach at the bottom of the Pit had opened!

The rubble quivered. Something was rising upward through the Pit.

"Eilistraee!" she cried. She leaped over the deflated ooze and hurled herself, face down, atop the Mound. She couldn't fuse the rubble-only Lady Qilue could do that with her silver fire-but she could sing into being a blessing that would hold back whatever was rising out of the Pit, for a time. "At this time of darkness, I call down your light. Make holy this-"

Her song slowed to a dirgelike moan as the purple mist filled her lungs. The cavern was thick with the stuff; she could no longer see the walls. A tentacle erupted out of the rubble next to her, as thick as her arm and glistening with slime. It knocked her tumbling. She turned-slowly, slowly-and saw the eye at the end of the tentacle open gummily, releasing beams of bright orange light that lanced through the purple smoke. One of these struck her sword, which vibrated as if it had just clanged against an opponent's blade. Its song shrilled to a panic-filled wail, and the steel glowed red with heat.

Erelda grabbed the sword and struggled-slowly, slowly-to her feet, clinging grimly to her weapon. The leather wrapping the hilt smoked, and the tip of the blade grew white hot. Molten metal trickled down it, like wax from a candle, and dripped onto Erelda's hand. She screamed and dropped the weapon. It fell silent.

Determined not to fail her goddess, she resumed her hymn.

A second tentacle emerged from the portal, beside the first. A second eye opened. Erelda's mind raced at a speed her body couldn't keep up with. Eilistraee aid me, she pleaded. It's Ghaunadaur's avatar! It's escaping from the Pit!

She kept singing. Slowly. The hymn was almost complete. One final word…

A ray of orange light struck her in the forehead, filling her with a panic that exploded through her body like shards of ice. Her song turned into a scream. Then she crumpled in despair.

She'd failed. The Promenade was lost.

Laeral stood in the jungle, clad in a silk nightgown that offered scant protection against the night. She would have dressed, had there been time, but Qilue had demanded her immediate assistance. The urgent message had awoken Laeral from a sound sleep. She'd pulled on her slippers, swept up her magical necklace from her bedside table, fastened her wand belt around her waist, and cast a quick contingency that would blink her out of harm's way should the Crescent Blade be turned on her. Then she'd teleported here, to the spot Qilue had so precisely described.

This place was evil. Laeral could feel it. Even though it was night, the air was sticky and hot. A faint sound grated at the edge of her hearing: a distant, wailing cry like the sound of women mourning. The trees here were black and twisted, their heavy branches devoid of leaves. A choking tangle of dead vines snaked between fallen masonry, the smell of their wilted flowers reminiscent of corpses ripening in the sun. The ground was uneven, with blocks of stone barely visible under a thick blanket of rotting, bug-infested loam. Laeral could sense a jungle cat observing her from the darkness, its eyes glinting. Though it was hungry, and she probably appeared easy prey, it didn't approach. It slunk away into the jungle, its tail lashing.

What was this place? Laeral reached deep into herself and used a pinch of her own life-force to channel power to her spell. She rested her fingers on a block of masonry, and posed the question again-this time, with a whispered incantation. She tapped the fingers of her free hand to her closed eyelids. Show me, she commanded.

As she opened her eyes, a vision sprang into place around her. She stood not in a jungle-hemmed ruin, but in an audience chamber with towering walls. Sunlight shone through stained-glass windows, painting everything it illuminated blood red. An elf with dark brown skin and thinning gray hair sat on the throne; wearing thread-of-gold robes and a silver crown. His hands moved in a complicated series of gestures, his twisting fingers teasing wisps of dark smoke out of eight guttering yellow candles. These had been set at the points of a complex eight-sided star that was painted on the floor in what looked like fresh blood. As Laeral watched, breathless, the streams of smoke twined together and thickened, taking on the shape of a monstrous demon with bat wings, horns, and cloven feet. A sword with a flame-shaped blade was strapped to the demon's back, and crackled to life, its flames matching the red blaze of his eyes. Soot, snorted from his nostrils, drifted onto the floor near his feet.

Who summons me? the demon growled.

Geirildin, Coronal of House Sethomiir. The wizard leaned forward on his throne. His hair, now bone white, was shot through with glints of red from the windows above. His eyes glittered. Kneel before your master.

The demon's lip curled, yet he did as he was commanded. As he dropped to his knees, one cloven foot kicked over a candle. Its flame guttered and went out. The wizard-coronal tensed, and his hand tightened around a spider-shaped amulet that hung from his neck. The demon drew its foot back inside the eight-sided star, and the wizard relaxed again.

Your name, demon, he demanded.

The demon stared him in the eye and bared his jagged teeth in a feral smile.

Wendonai.

These are dark times, the wizard told the demon. Our enemies press us on every side. You will help us turn the tide, Wendonai. The brutal conquests of Aryvandaar must be halted, or we Ilythiiri shall all be slaughtered.

It will be my pleasure, Geirildin, the demon answered.

The vision ended. The jungle and ruins returned.

Laeral shivered as she realized what her vision had just revealed. This was where it had happened, nearly thirteen millennia ago-the event that had precipitated the descent of the dark elves of Ilythiir into madness and shadow. Qilue had spoken to Laeral of this before. She'd related enough of the early history of these dark elf ancestors of the drow for Laeral to understand what she'd just seen. According to everything her sister had read, the Ilythiiri had been a greedy people, bent on conquest and determined to achieve victory at any cost. Their noble Houses had embraced the corruption of the Abyss, in order to win the wars they'd waged with neighboring elven kingdoms. Yet Qilue questioned whether they had truly been as ruthless as the histories painted them-or whether they had instead been desperate victims. The vision seemed to hint at the latter. Whatever the coronal's motivation might have been, the summoning Laeral had just witnessed had been his people's downfall. Wendonai was the balor demon who had corrupted Qilue's ancestors-the demon who now lurked inside the reforged Crescent Blade.

The demon whose taint Qilue was about to draw into herself.

And this was the spot where she was going to do it.

One detail of the vision had been especially unsettling. Laeral knew only a little about summoning-the very idea of deliberately unleashing a demon upon the world sickened her-but she could tell that something had gone amiss with the casting she'd just seen in her vision. The demon had displayed a great deal of control: first knocking over the candle-which the wizard had noticed-and then drawing his foot back in such a way as to scuff the lines painted on the floor.

Which the wizard hadn't noticed.

Was there something Qilue had also missed? The plan she'd so cryptically outlined to Laeral seemed sound, on the surface. Qilue would draw in the demon's taint, and then Laeral would cleanse it from Qilue with Mystra's silver fire. To ensure the demon didn't gain control of her sister's body, Laeral would use a trick they'd once played on Elminster-a jest Qilue had made a cryptic reference to in her brief communication. Laeral would temporarily step outside of time, leaving Qilue frozen in the moment, ensuring that Laeral would get a chance to draw down the silver fire before the demon could try anything.

All good, in theory. But had this truly been her sister's idea-or the demon's? Qilue had admitted to being corrupted by Wendonai, but had assured Laeral that she was-at least, at the time of her most recent communication-fully in control of herself. But had she been? What if the demon was scheming to turn Mystra's boon against them? What if the silver fire consumed not Wendonai, but Qilue herself? Her body would remain-it could not be destroyed by mundane or magical means-but whose mind would it house?

If Laeral were a priestess, she might have asked for guidance from a greater power. But she was a mage, with only her own instincts to go by. And her instincts screamed caution.

A thread of moonlight through the bare branches above announced Qilue's imminent arrival. Laeral braced herself. An instant later, Qilue appeared. She landed in a crouch atop the block of weathered stone that had been the seat of the throne, the Crescent Blade held high above her head. Her robe was soaking wet, her ankle-length hair plastered against her black skin.

The sisters' eyes met: Qilue's, clear and determined; Laeral's, brimming with concern.

"Sister," Laeral whispered. "I…"

"May Eilistraee forgive me," Qilue said in a flat voice. Then, before Laeral could stop her, Qilue yanked the holy symbol from her neck and threw it down. The Crescent Blade swept up, and down in a deadly arc. Steel struck silver with a dull clank, slicing the holy symbol in two.

"It begins!" Qilue cried.

She chanted-words that twisted her lips and forced a spray of red through her teeth as she gritted them out. Her features changed. Her back hunched, her face erupted in boils, and her eyes clouded to a dull white. The fingers gripping the Crescent Blade elongated and grew thick, horny nails. A foul smell rose from her skin.

All this, in the blink of an eye.

Laeral reeled as she realized what her sister was doing. Qilue had cast aside Eilistraee's redemption, and was warping her very soul in order to invite the demon in. Laeral could feel the evil crackle past as it rushed at Qilue. It chilled, then burned. It whipped both sisters' hair into twisted knots, fouled Laeral's nightgown, and forced its soot into her lungs, making her cough. It shrilled past her ears with a mocking, high-pitched tittering.

No! Laeral thought. All the drow on Toril weren't worth this!

"Temfuto!" she screamed, halting time for all but her.

Silence. Sudden stillness. Her sister's transformation, halted. The very air, frozen. A falling leaf, checked in mid-descent. Laeral stepped past it-quickly, quickly, before her spell ended-and touched her hands to her sister's head. Qilue's scalp felt as hot as the Abyss beneath her ice white hair.

Silver fire wreathed Laeral's hands in a sparkling radiance. She readied herself to send it raging into Qilue the instant the time-halting spell ended, in order to burn the taint from her sister's body. But what then? Qilue had drawn some of the demon's taint inside her, but not all. Though Laeral's silver fire would burn much of it away, a portion would remain inside the Crescent Blade, which Qilue still held in her hands. If the sword had been lying on the ground, Laeral could have easily cast a disjunction to strip it of its magic, once Qilue herself had been cleansed. But with it locked tight in Qilue's grasp, the demon could slide back up the trickle of blood that connected steel and flesh. Qilue was an open vessel, bereft now of the blessings that had formerly protected her. The demon would slide into her as quickly as a sword into an oiled sheath. Faster, perhaps, than Laeral could react.

Laeral trembled with indecision. She had to decide. Now!

Then it came to her.

A snap of her fingers transmuted the soot that grimed her sister into a dusting of crushed diamond, emerald, ruby, and sapphire. With her hands still on Qilue's hair, Laeral watched the leaf, waiting…

The leaf quivered. Time resumed its flow. Laeral cast her spell.

The leaf landed, and the rush of taint died away in an angry howl. Qilue remained motionless, the gem dust in her hair sparkling in the moonlight. She, alone, remained frozen in time, held fast by Laeral's transmutation.

Laeral hardly recognized the twisted thing Qilue had become.

"Oh, sister," she breathed. "What have you done?"

She didn't need to ask why Qilue had done it. She knew the answer. Qilue loved the drow with all her heart. She'd sought their salvation with every thought, with every word, with every deed. And this had nearly been her downfall.

Nearly.

Laeral, however, had just bought her sister a little time. Even if Laeral herself didn't know how to help Qilue, there was someone who did. Someone whose knowledge of demons-whose expertise in hunting them down, banishing them, permanently destroying both the demon and its lingering taint-far surpassed Laeral's own. The Darksong Knight, Cavatina. Laeral would take Qilue someplace safe, then fetch Cavatina.

Laeral touched her sister and spoke a conjuration, but something prevented her from teleporting away. It was as if Qilue were a lodestone, pulling in the opposite direction from the one Laeral wanted to go. Laeral wrapped her arms around her sister and tried to physically move her, but Qilue's feet refused to lift from the block of stone.

Suddenly, she remembered her vision and the ancient wizard's binding spell. The binding must have taken hold of Qilue, as soon as the demon's taint shifted inside her. Laeral knew a powerful abjuration that could break the binding, but casting it would also end the spell that was holding Qilue in stasis.

She stood, desperately thinking. A binding, she knew, could be undone not just by a spell, but also by repeating a phrase, a gesture, or by meeting other, very specific conditions set by the original spellcaster. She went over the vision in her mind, but it offered no clues. In time-and with a great deal of study-she might find that key.

She stared at her frozen sister. Time was certainly something Qilue had.

Unless someone came along in the meantime and cast a disjunction spell.

Laeral squared her shoulders. If Qilue couldn't be brought to the Darksong Knight, she decided, then Cavatina would just have to be brought here instead. That meant Laeral would have to leave her sister. In the meantime, she had to guarantee Qilue's safety. She hung her necklace around Qilue's neck to ensure that enemies couldn't scry her. Then she cloaked her sister in a glamor that would further conceal her.

"I'll be gone just a short time, sister," Laeral said, stroking the frozen hair, even though she knew Qilue couldn't hear or feel her. "I'll come back with Cavatina. She'll know what to do."

Her promise made, she teleported away.

The night deepened. The moon moved in the sky. Shadows lengthened.

So did a hair-thin strand of web.

A spider descended from a branch above, and landed on gem-dusted hair. It crawled down an ebon cheek and across parted lips.

It began to spin its web.