Lisa Smedman - Sacrifice of the Widow

The wizard's eyes flew open wide. He sagged to the ground, gasping, a ball of gum Arabic falling from his limp fingers. Valdar slit the wizard's throat, finishing the job. Dark blood sprayed from the wound, splattering the crystal floor.

Valdar stepped back and murmured a prayer. A heartbeat later, his flesh mended. His clothing, however, remained charred.

Malvag staggered to his feet. One wary eye on the dead wizard, he hurried to the drift disc. The scroll, praise Vhaeraun, was undamaged.

The same could not be said of Urz. Malvag kneeled beside the other cleric and touched a hand to his neck. Urz's body felt cold and hard.

He'd been turned to stone.

Malvag felt the blood drain from his face as he realized the implications. Had Urz merely died, Malvag could have raised him from the dead. But there was only one thing that would allow the night's work to continue-a miracle.

"Masked Lord, hear me," Malvag said, forcing the tremble from his voice as he prayed, trying to shove his anger aside so he could concentrate on the words of the prayer. He'd only heard it spoken once, and it was well above his abilities, but he had to try. If he didn't, all would be lost. "Send your dark energies into my hands, that they might perform a miracle. Aid me in restoring your fallen servant's flesh to its natural state."

Malvag waited expectantly, his palms on Urz's stone-cold chest. Valdar stood behind him, watching, wiping his dagger clean on a charred corner of his shirt.

"It's not working," he observed.

Malvag's anger flared. "Shut up," he hissed.

The other cleric raised his dagger, inspecting the hollow point that held the poison, then shoved it home in its sheath. "My apologies."

Malvag tried again. He put both hands upon Urz's chest and pleaded with Vhaeraun to turn Urz's body back to living, breathing flesh.

Nothing happened.

Vhaeraun watched. Malvag could feel the god's presence just over his shoulder. He whispered yet another prayer, one that would allow him to touch the god's omniscience.

"I need him," he pleaded. "Why won't you help me?"

The answer was a whisper only Malvag could hear. You lack the skill.

Malvag rocked back on his heels, stunned. That was it then. It was over. With only two of them remaining, the scroll couldn't be used. Malvag would have to wait fifty-seven years before the conditions would be right again-an eclipse wouldn't occur at midnight of the winter solstice until then.

"Abyss take him!" he howled. Rising to his feet, he strode toward the traitor and gave his body a savage kick. Then he turned away, his hands balled into fists.

As Malvag raged in silence, Valdar kneeled beside the traitor's body and removed the mask, revealing a male with a nose that canted to one side: a break, long since healed. He fingered the mask, spoke a prayer of detection, then nodded to himself.

"What are you doing?" Malvag snarled.

Valdar nodded at the body. "Looking for something that will tell us who he really was." He pointed at the mask. "That's no holy symbol, even though it does seem to hold a trapped soul." He tilted his head, musing aloud. "Is he one of Lolth's minions, perhaps?"

"What does it matter?" Malvag screamed. "He's ruined everything. Without Urz, we can't proceed. High magic requires a minimum of three clerics, working together, to cast it."

Valdar shrugged. He continued searching the body. His sleeves quickly became dark with blood. He pulled two rings out of a blood-wet shirt pocket and held them on the palm of one hand, poking at them with a fingertip. "Do we need three clerics to open the gate?" he asked slowly. "Or three spellcasters?"

"What does it matter?" Malvag paced back and forth, trying to contain his fury. Unlike Valdar, he hadn't bothered to heal his wounds yet. His skin still felt hot and tight where the lightning bolts had struck his chest. It hurt to breathe.

Valdar jingled the rings together on his palm. "These are master and slave rings," he said. He pointed at the body. "And he's a wizard. If it's three spellcasters that are needed to conjure the gate, we can force him to participate." He jingled the rings again. "With these."

Malvag halted abruptly and whirled in place. His eyes met Valdar's. "Slave rings," he whispered.

Valdar's eyes crinkled in a smile. "Yes."

Malvag glanced at the drift disc where the prayer scroll waited. What Valdar was suggesting would be extremely difficult. Malvag would have to control the wizard's mouth while speaking the words of the prayer himself at the same time, but perhaps it could be done. He'd read the spell in silence enough times that he could have recited it aloud from rote.

"Raise him from the dead," he told Valdar. "The instant the gate is open, and Vhaeraun passes through it, we'll kill the infiltrator. Permanently, this time."

Qilue grasped the edges of her scrying font, staring down with intense concentration into the holy water that filled it. The wide alabaster bowl glowed like a harvest moon from the light that filled the room in which it stood-the silver fire that poured off Qilue's body like light from a torch. Qilue was barely aware of Jasmir, the moon elf priestess standing behind her. The scenes unfolding in the holy water that served as her window on the world beyond were deeply disturbing.

"Send another six priestesses and two score warriors to the Chondalwood," Qilue commanded.

The pale-skinned Jasmir whispered a sending, relaying the command. She was fully dressed for battle in leather armor whose spiral patterns matched the tattoos on her forearms. Her long white hair was in two braids, tightly bound into a bun at the back of her neck.

Qilue stared into the scrying bowl, tense with anticipation. It was focused on the shrine in the Chondalwood, far to the southeast. There Eilistraee's priestesses fought a bloody battle against driders who had boiled up out of the Underdark without warning-just as they had in the Misty Forest last month. Even as Qilue watched, a drider knocked a priestess to the ground with a web and landed on her back, opening its spider fangs wide to bite.

Qilue stabbed a finger down into the water and sang a note that was strident and shrill. The drider shook his head, disoriented. As it did, a sword came dancing through the air, slashing the monster nearly in half. A priestess ran into view behind it, and the sword returned to her hand. She kneeled on the snow-covered ground beside the first and tore away the webs, freeing her companion.

Qilue didn't wait to see the rest. She shifted the scrying's focus to a frozen pool of water not far from the shrine itself. A moment later, its icy cap exploded upward as a priestess burst out of the shallow pool from below, sword in hand, the first of the reinforcements Qilue had just ordered to the Chondalwood.

Qilue shifted the scrying rapidly from one location to the next, checking the other shrines. From the Moonwood to the Shaar, more than half of Eilistraee's holdings were under attack. Priestesses, backed up by lay worshipers, fought pitched battles at the Dancing Dell, in the Velarswood, the Gray Forest, the Yuirwood, the Forest of Shadows. Each battle involved creatures of the Underdark not normally found on the surface: driders, fighting with webs, poison, and spells; neogi-creatures that looked like spiders with wormlike necks and tiny heads filled with needle-like teeth-using their magic to dominate those who fought them, turning Eilistraee's faithful against each other; and chitines, fighting with four weapons at once, one in each spindly hand. Through it all, spellgaunts dashed here and there, gobbling up magic. Their presence alone hinted at the authors of the highly coordinated attacks-the Selvetargtlin, yet none of Selvetarm's clerics could be seen.

Where were they?

"A dozen priestesses and a score of warriors to the Gray Forest," Qilue ordered.