Lisa Smedman - Ascendancy of the Last

Evil.

Purple smoke. The smoke stared at her. At her. An eye smiled.

My sacrifice.

"No!" Cavatina shrieked. She spun, tumbled, flailed. Clawed away, rolled, swam through rubble. Rock bubbles. She couldn't… her sword gone…

She had…

Failed.

Leliana ran out the door of the High House and caught the arm of the nearest priestess. "Where's the battle-mistress? Have you seen Rylla?"

The priestess shook her head. "No! Erelda's taken command."

"What about the high priestess?"

"Qilue?" Another head shake. "Haven't seen her either."

Leliana stopped a lay worshiper who ran by, and a Nightshadow. Their answers were the same. Behind her, Cavatina left the High House and ran south, to the Stronghall. Everyone seemed to be headed there. From that direction, she heard sounds of battle.

Asking questions was futile. No one knew anything-except that the Promenade was under attack from the south by Ghaunadaur's fanatics: the demon's plan, put in motion. It was the second attack, the one from within, Leliana dreaded. Where was Qilue?

A lay worshiper ran by-with, of all things, a lute strung across her back.

"Hold it!" Leliana cried. "You there. Is that lute Rylla's?"

The novice halted and glanced over her shoulder at the instrument as if seeing it for the first time. "I-I don't know. I must have slung it over my shoulder when I helped carry the body to the Hall of Healing."

Leliana stiffened. "Whose body? Rylla's? Is she dead?"

"Whoever it was, she was wounded. Bad." She swallowed hard, then shuddered. "Her face…"

Leliana touched her holy symbol. If it was Rylla, and the battle-mistress could be healed, perhaps she might know where the high priestess was.

She sprinted down a corridor in the direction of the Hall of Healing. As she neared the Hall of Empty Arches, she passed Chizra, leading six lesser priestesses in the opposite direction. A seventh priestess remained on guard within the hall, a bundle of prayer scrolls tucked under one arm. She looked unhappy at being left behind. Leliana saluted her and ran on, following the corridor to the enormous hall that had been reclaimed in Eilistraee's name.

The Hall of Healing was choked with people. Lay worshipers bustled in with the wounded on makeshift stretchers. Priestesses moved from one injured person to the next. The revived rushed out again to rejoin the fight. At the far end of the room stood a golden statue of a pair of scales, balanced on a warhammer: a reminder of life's delicate balance, and the forces that could tip a soul toward death. Leliana looked for Rylla but didn't see her.

She questioned the head healer, who assured her the battle-mistress had not been among those they'd treated.

"Is she among the dead?"

"No time to check," the healer curtly replied. She bent over a burned male, a holy symbol in her hand. "Too busy." She touched his injuries, and prayed.

"Leliana!"

She whirled. Naxil! His face was a mottled gray-his flesh healed, but still discolored. His eyes were bright above his makeshift mask. He clasped her arms, and she returned his light squeeze.

"Have you seen the battle-mistress?" she asked him. "Or the high priestess?"

"Aren't they in the Stronghall directing the battle? That's where the oozes and slimes are coming from: out of the river. There's a lot of them, but by the Masked Lady's grace, we'll push them back again."

"Oozes and slimes?" she gasped. "But I thought it was supposed to be fanatics who came through the…"

She caught sight of a lay worshiper who had just entered the Hall of Healing. He peered about as if looking for someone. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood, yet he waved away the healers' offers of assistance. He was strikingly handsome. But that wasn't what had drawn Leliana's attention-it was the extremely rare color of his eyes: leaf green.

He had to be the male Cavatina had described-the one who'd sacrificed himself. The fanatics must have raised him from the dead. But how, if his body had been consumed? And what was he doing here, in the Hall of Healing?

She spotted a ring on his finger. A gold ring. That told her how he'd gotten into this part of the temple. He'd used the ring to pass through the magical barrier in the level she and Naxil had discovered below, then come through the portal to the Hall of Empty Arches. Leliana wondered if the priestess she'd seen there, just a moment ago, was still alive.

The fanatic completed his circuit of the hall and turned, heading back for the door.

Leliana jabbed Naxil's stomach with a finger. Green eyes, she signed between them. Enemy in disguise. You stall; I'll sing a truth song and question. Go.

Naxil bowed, hiding the drawing of a dagger. He moved away, concealing the weapon under his piwafwi.

As Naxil made his way to the disguised fanatic, Leliana flicked her sword in a circle-a small circle, near her boot; she didn't want to draw attention to her prayer. Naxil greeted the fanatic, but instead of engaging him in conversation as planned, Naxil turned and walked to the exit. Did he mean to draw the fanatic into the corridor, where it would be more difficult for him to escape?

Leliana strode to the side of the fanatic and matched his pace. As she walked, she shifted her sword so it was pointing at his feet, and loosed the magic she'd just sung into being. "I need help carrying the wounded," she told him. "Where are you headed?"

Leaf-green eyes met hers. A puddle of warmth filled her. The urge to smile at him overwhelmed her.

"To the Pit. I'm needed there." His eyes glistened. "Won't you show me the way?"

Anxious to please him, Leliana nodded. As she did, her sword sang a warning. It sliced through his enchantment, dousing the warmth inside her like a slap of ice water.

Powerful magic. If it hadn't been for her singing sword…

The fanatic tensed. He'd realized she knew what he was. Leliana leaped back and swung. Steel flashed toward his neck.

The fanatic jumped aside-but not quickly enough. Her sword took off an outflung hand. She expected a spray of blood. Green slime oozed out instead. Before he could rally, she thrust at his vitals. Her blade plunged into soft, quivering flesh that offered no resistance. She reversed direction and yanked the sword back, but the fanatic's body-now a bright green and only vaguely drow-shaped-bulged outward, engulfing her weapon. The bulge solidified, and the mass twisted, tearing the weapon from her hands.

"A ghaunadan!" she shouted as she danced back from him. She'd heard of these creatures, but never seen one. Most oozes were mindless things, but ghaunadans were intelligent beings-budded fragments of the Ancient One itself. Fragments that could temporarily assume drow form.

Shouts of alarm filled the Hall of Healing. Priestesses leaped to their feet, singing. The ghaunadan slapped one of them; she toppled, body rigid. Then a barrage of spells struck it at once. The ghaunadan reeled as moonblades sliced it, holy words slammed into it, and magical wounds sprang open in its quivering flesh. Within moments it had been reduced to a smoking pile of green-smeared clothing and a pair of boots that lay on the floor, suppurating ooze.

Leliana stared down at them, glad the ghaunadan was dead. Unfortunately, there wasn't any corpse left to question.

"He came through the portal in the Hall of Empty Arches," she warned the others. "We need to seal it, before more ghaunadans come through!"

Someone handed her singing sword back to her. Leliana took it and ran for the room's only door. She glanced up and down the corridor, looking for Naxil. The battle with the ghaunadan had taken only a moment, yet Naxil was nowhere in sight. Where had the ghaunadan's magical compulsion sent him? North, to the Hall of Empty Arches, or south, toward safety?