Lisa Smedman - Sacrifice of the Widow

Q'arlynd blinked. Rowaan had obviously just said something he wasn't meant to hear. It almost sounded as if the priestesses were expecting the Nightshadows to strike.

"But Q'arlynd is one of us now," Rowaan protested. "He-"

"Is not a priestess," Leliana said. "He's a powerful wizard, yes, but he's…"

She didn't have to finish the sentence. Q'arlynd could do it for her. A male.

He bowed his head, silently acknowledging Leliana's superiority. Whether one worshiped Lolth or Eilistraee, it was all the same. A priestess was a priestess.

Female.

But females, in his experience, often had a weakness for a handsome face, something Q'arlynd might just be able to use to his advantage. He smiled at Rowaan-the seemingly apologetic smile of a male who knew his place in the world but just couldn't help wanting more. She gave the slightest of nods in return.

Rowaan, he was certain, trusted him.

He could use that.

Qilue stared with a mixture of pity and wariness at the creature that squatted before her. Little remained of the drow Halisstra Melarn had once been. Lolth had expanded Halisstra's body to twice its size, enhancing it with wiry muscle and giving her face an elongated, bestial appearance. The spider legs protruding from her ribs and the fangs scissoring out of those bulges on her cheeks made her monstrous indeed, but despite her size and power, Halisstra's eyes hinted that something still remained of the priestess she had once been. Qilue saw a yearning there, a faint spark of hope nearly lost amidst the anguish and rage.

They stood in the forest, Qilue wrapped in protective silver moonfire, Halisstra with a palpable taint surrounding her. Qilue had come armed with a singing sword, silver dagger, and her magical bracer in addition to her spells, but so far there had been no treachery. Halisstra had clearly been claimed by Lolth, but if this was a trap it had yet to be sprung.

Cavatina stood a few steps behind Halisstra, sword in hand. Moonlight glinted off her armor. "Repeat what you told me about the temple," she prompted. "Describe it for Qilue."

Halisstra bared pointed teeth in what Qilue supposed was meant to be a smile. "It stands on top of a tall spire of rock. Feliane, Uluyara, and I shaped it with our prayers from the stone of the Demonweb Pits. It's intact and is sacred ground still. Lolth's creatures cannot enter it."

"Including Halisstra," Cavatina added.

Halisstra bowed her head.

"Yet you were able to place the Crescent Blade inside this temple?" Qilue asked. She wanted to hear this part of the story again to see if there were any inconsistencies.

Halisstra nodded. "From a distance, yes. I tossed the broken pieces of the sword through the doorway. I had thought only to put the pieces somewhere safe, so that the weapon might later be recovered and repaired, but the temple must have worked some kind of magic on the sword. As I watched, blade and hilt slid toward one another and joined. Eilistraee's sacred moonlight filled the temple, and the sword glowed white. The light blinded me for a time. When I could see again, I looked into the temple and saw the sword lying on the floor, reforged."

It seemed strange to Qilue that Lolth had allowed that to happen within her own domain, stranger still that the temple to Eilistraee remained intact. The Spider Queen was known to permit spaces sacred to other deities to exist within her realm-the Demonweb Pits housed portions of the domains of Vhaeraun, Kiaransalee, and Ghaunadaur, after all-but they were deities who had allied with Lolth during her revolt against the Seldarine. Eilistraee was Lolth's enemy. A temple to her within the Demonweb Pits should have been an unbearable burr upon the Spider Queen's throne. Lolth was either suffering the temple to exist for some reason of her own, or-Qilue grimly smiled-she had been weakened by her Silence to the point where Eilistraee might, at long last, vanquish her.

Or Halisstra was lying about the existence of a temple.

"Tell me again how the Crescent Blade came to be broken," Qilue said.

"After Danifae treacherously attacked me, I lay injured for a time. When I regained consciousness-miraculously, still alive-Uluyara and Feliane were dead. Danifae and the draegloth had disappeared. I realized they must have entered the Pass of the Soulreaver and knew I had to follow. I entered the pass and battled the monsters Lolth sent against me. I fought well, but just as I neared the exit, a misplaced thrust wedged my sword in a crack in the rock. When I tried to wrench it free, the blade snapped. I had fought my way through the pass, only to stand at the very doorstep of Lolth's fortress with a broken weapon."

Halisstra paused, her spider fangs quivering. After a moment, she composed herself.

"I still had Seyll's sword," she continued, "so I carried on. I fought Danifae and Quenthel, but in the middle of that battle we were drawn into Lolth's city, to her very throne. Lolth had awakened from her Silence. I tried to fight the goddess herself, but without the Crescent Blade…" A shudder ran through her body. "I had no hope. Lolth was too powerful. She forced the three of us to kneel before her. Danifae, she killed and consumed. She was the most worthy, in Lolth's eyes, and the goddess wanted to add her substance to her own. Quenthel she spared and sent back to Arach-Tinilith, where she serves the Spider Queen still. I was deemed unworthy for having renounced my faith to embrace Eilistraee. For this, Lolth said, I would do eternal penance. She seized me and bit me." Halisstra touched the puncture marks on her neck. "Eight times she sank her teeth into my flesh. Then she spun me into a cocoon. When I emerged, I was… like this."

Qilue nodded. "What happened then?"

"I made my way out of Lolth's fortress. It was filled with yochlols, but they made no move to stop me. I stumbled away across the plain, back to the Pass of the Soulreaver. I recovered the pieces of the Crescent Blade and entered the pass. This time, nothing attacked me. I made my way to Eilistraee's temple and placed the sword inside."

"Tell her how you escaped from the Demonweb Pits," Cavatina prompted. "It was a very clever tactic."

Qilue shot the Darksong Knight a look. Thus far, Qilue herself had offered neither praise nor criticism of anything Halisstra had said. Qilue wished that she had been able to come more swiftly to the Velarswood. Halisstra had obviously told her story more than once to Cavatina, something that would have allowed Halisstra to smooth out any wrinkles in the tale. Normally, Qilue would have used a spell to tell what parts of the story rang true and which were lies or embroideries, woven onto a slim thread of truth, but whatever hold Lolth had on the tragic creature that Halisstra had become was strong. Even Qilue's magic could not penetrate it.

Qilue wondered what Lolth was trying to hide.

"I escaped by observing Selvetarm," Halisstra continued. "By following him, I learned where one of the portals that leads from Lolth's domain was located. It was guarded by a songspider, a creature whose webs create music that can enslave or even kill. This barrier would have barred my way, had I not been schooled in bae'queshel. I used that magic to play the strands of the web like a lyre, plucking it open. The portal led back to this plane, to a place east of Lake Sember."

"Halisstra can show us where it is," Cavatina said, her eyes gleaming, "and lead us to the temple in the Demonweb Pits. The Crescent Blade-"

Qilue held up a hand for silence. She didn't like the look in Halisstra's eye. A former priestess she might be, but her eyes held a gleam as malicious as Lolth's own. Her desire to return to the Demonweb Pits was just a little too strong.

Yet the pain and desperation that Qilue could sense in Halisstra seemed real enough. Part of her, at least, still yearned for a second chance at redemption, but because Halisstra could not die, she would, for all eternity, be in bondage to the Spider Queen, unless the sticky webs with which Lolth held her could somehow be broken.