Meryl feigned shock. "Me!" she blurted indignantly. "I never, ever, would contemplate such a thing. Not in a hundred lifetimes. A thousand. Yes, it's true; that was the gleam of silver you saw." She cracked the lid of the basket, giving Cavatina a peek. "But I'm taking these vials from the Hall of Healing to the High House, as you could plainly have seen from the direction I was headed." With a flourish, she snapped the lid shut.
Now Cavatina was supposed to apologize. That was the way the game was played. But her brief glimpse inside the basket puzzled her. Those vials were used to hold one thing, only. "Is that holy water?"
Meryl nodded.
Cavatina should have cracked another joke-to ask, perhaps, if Meryl's kitchen was infested with undead mice-but her customary bluntness kicked in at last. "What does a cook need with holy water?"
"They're for Qilue. She told me to make sure there's an ample supply on hand when she gets back from her inspection tour of the shrines. She's used up all she had."
"Why doesn't she bless her own water?"
"I've no idea. But I'd recommend against asking her. Qilue's been awfully short-tempered lately. A tenday ago, she got angry with Horaldin. I could hear her yelling at him, even from the kitchen. She told him to follow her orders or else. And yesterday she shouted at me for scalding the soup." The halfling made a face. "I never scald my soup."
"That's not like her."
"No." Meryl shrugged. "She's got a lot on her mind, I suppose." The halfling crooked a finger, beckoning Cavatina closer. Her voice dropped to a husky whisper. "Yesterday, just before Qilue left, someone turned a blindfish into a golden crab. According to what I heard, the Protector who set out after it was eaten by a scorpion. It's all nonsense, of course-that statue was so rusted it couldn't possibly have swallowed anyone, and Leliana will show up eventually-but worrisome nonsense just the same."
"I see." It was no use asking Meryl to clarify this garbled tale; the halfling tended to jumble everything together, and was forever seasoning the resulting hash with a hefty dash of imagination. Rylla would clarify whatever Meryl was trying to tell her. She would also shed light, no doubt, on why the high priestess didn't bless her own water-if indeed Meryl had gotten that part right.
"I'd best be on my way," Cavatina said. "The battle-mistress is expecting me."
Meryl nodded. She shifted the basket into the crook of her arm. "Eilistraee's blessings," she said, touching thumbs and forefingers. "Dance in moonlight, and joyous song."
Cavatina touched her breastplate, her fingers resting lightly on its embossed moon-and-sword. "Joyous song." She watched as the cook entered a side door and disappeared into the high priestess's house, then sighed and shook her head.
She was just turning to go when the door opened again: Meryl, leaving, the basket still under her arm. Something about the way the halfling exited struck Cavatina as odd, though it took a moment to figure out what it was. Meryl had stepped outside, glanced around, and drawn back slightly, as if fearful. Cavatina glanced behind herself-whatever had startled Meryl must have been right behind her, judging by the timing of the reaction-yet Cavatina saw nothing amiss.
She walked to the cook. "What is it, Meryl? Is something wrong?"
Meryl didn't reply. Without so much as a glance in Cavatina's direction, she hurried away.
Cavatina followed. "Meryl?"
The halfling sped up.
"Meryl!" Cavatina shouted. "Wait! I just want to ask you something."
Meryl broke into a run.
Several paces behind, Cavatina ran after the halfling, her sense of unease strong. Meryl had been holding the basket a moment ago; now it had vanished. Meryl ran with a peculiar loping gait: a jiggly step-wobble-step.
Cavatina sang a prayer. She expected to uncover a spy: a denizen of Skullport or, at worst, one of Lolth's priestesses. What her spell revealed shocked her. The creature cloaking itself in Meryl's image was squat and hairless, with rubbery gray skin, beady red eyes above a drool-slack mouth, and arms so long the knuckles dragged on the ground.
A dretch-a demonic creature of the Abyss!
And it had come from Qilue's residence.
The dretch bolted into the corridor leading to the Hall of Healing. Cavatina drew her sword and sprinted in after it. "Stop that halfling!" she shouted. "That's not Meryl-it's a demon!" Her sword pealed out its own alarm.
Other priestesses took up the chase, sprinting into the tunnel behind Cavatina. One blew her hunting horn. The blare filled the corridor, drowning out the hymn that wafted down a side tunnel from the Cavern of Song.
"Encircle it!" Cavatina shouted over her shoulder. "Double back through the Cavern of Song, and upriver through the northern tunnel. Box it in!"
Priestesses and lay worshipers scrambled to obey. Cavatina ran on, singing a sending. As the battle-mistress's mind touched hers, Cavatina shouted a warning to Rylla. Not in words-she needed her breath for running-but with a mental shout. A dretch disguised as Meryl is heading for the Empty Arches. It came from the High House. Search it for demons. See if Meryl lives.
Rylla's reply came a heartbeat after her oath. Wrath and blood! I'll send Protectors to the High House and meet you at the Hall of Empty Arches.
Cavatina rounded a corner. There should have been a guard just ahead, to ensure unwanted visitors to the Hall of Empty Arches didn't wander into the priestesses' quarters. Yet there was no guard in sight.
She caught a whiff of something that smelled like rotten eggs and saw a cloud of yellow-tinged fog in the room beyond. The guard-an ordinary foot soldier, armed with mace and shield-came staggering out of it, retching. "Dark Lady," she gasped. "I couldn't stop…"
Whatever she'd been trying to say was lost as she doubled over and vomited. One hand flailed behind her. That way, she signed.
Cavatina shouted a song of dispelling that tore the noxious fog to shreds. She ran into the hall, alert for the slightest sound. She could see only a fraction of the room. Floor-to-ceiling stone partitions, lined up down the middle of the chamber like pews in a temple, blocked most of it from sight.
She heard the peal of an unsheathed singing sword from the far side of the room, followed by the battle-mistress's shout. "Cavatina! I'm in position! Northeast corner."
"Southwest corner!" Cavatina shouted back. Priestesses crowded behind her. At least one was a Protector, and Cavatina could hear the battle song of a singing sword harmonizing with her own weapon. It turned out to be Chizra. She greeted Cavatina with a terse nod.
Cavatina ordered Chizra and four other priestesses into the room. They formed up, weapons ready, then at her signal strode from one side of the room to the other, each moving between two partition walls. With their swords sweeping the air in front of them, they sang prayers that would strip the dretch of any concealments. When they reached the far side of the hall, they sang out in unison. "All clear!"
"Cavatina!" Rylla called from the far corner of the room. "Could the dretch have turned aside and entered the Cavern of Song?"
"No," Cavatina shouted back. "I sang a true seeing. It definitely came this way."
The gray-faced guard, at last in control of her stomach, nodded in rueful agreement.
Cavatina ordered the nearest priestess to stand guard, in case the dretch doubled back. Then she hurried to the far corner of the room. The battle-mistress stood at the room's second exit, a distant look in her pale gray eyes, her lips moving soundlessly. She was obviously listening-and replying-to a report from a searcher elsewhere in the temple.