Was she a ghost? She didn't think so. Whatever this place was, it didn't look a thing like the Fugue Plane. Nor could she hear Eilistraee's welcoming song.
A curtain of bright silver shimmered behind her. It was about the size of a door and folded in a V that corresponded to the corner of the room she'd just stepped from. She touched it, and felt a crackling energy that slowed her fingers until it felt as if they were pressing on solid stone. The same thing occurred when she reached around the edge of the curtain and touched it from the other side. It appeared the portal only worked in one direction: from the Promenade to… here.
She glanced at her feet, and saw that she "stood" inside a chunk of stone. She felt a flat surface under the soles of her hoots-one that remained constant even when she lifted a foot and placed it on the edge of a rock. She couldn't feel the sharp edge of the stone, but she could step up "onto" it. And though she sensed which way "down" was, she couldn't feel it. When she leaned forward, it felt as if she still stood upright. Leaning backward produced the same result. Before she could stop herself, she was perpendicular to the silver curtain, which now hung above her head. Even so, she still felt a flat, solid surface beneath her feet. Dizzy and disoriented, she scrambled "upright" again.
What was this place?
She breathed-rapidly, due to her exertions. At least she was still alive. Her body felt solid enough. She slapped a hand against her breastplate and heard the thud it made-though the sound came to her ears an instant later than it should have. She could also hear the low hum of her singing sword. Her movements, however, seemed slow to her eyes. Every motion took twice as long as it should have. Yet she felt no impediment. Though she stood entombed in hundreds of chunks of broken stone, it wasn't these that slowed her down. When she stuck her fingers into a gap between the stones and wriggled them, they moved just as slowly as they did within the middle of a block of stone.
Short of dying and becoming a ghost-something she was certain hadn't happened-she knew of only one way to move through objects: by being rendered ethereal. She was loath to leave the portal, but standing next to it and staring wasn't going to tell her where she was-or how to get back to the Promenade. Still, it was her only landmark. She decided to keep the portal at her back, to move in a straight line away from it. She'd go as far as she could without losing sight of the V-shaped silver curtain, then repeat the process in a different direction if the first search proved fruitless.
She walked away cautiously, sword at the ready. It was difficult not to flinch as she moved through what appeared to be a wall of jagged rubble. Each time her head seemed about to strike a rock, she half-turned away. Eventually, she adjusted to the odd sensation of passing through objects that only looked solid-objects she couldn't touch or feel.
At about the thirty-pace mark, the portal behind her all but vanished. All she could see of it was the faintest shimmer of silver amid a gray blur of jumbled stone. About the same distance ahead of her, slightly lower than the spot where she "stood," she saw a dark purple shape. She couldn't make it out entirely-like everything else in this place, it looked as though it lay behind a pane of frosted clearstone-but it had the general shape of a broken column. A piece of masonry that might have once been the column's capitol lay nearby.
She glanced behind her. If she kept going, she might never find her way back to the portal. Then she realized how useless it was to her. She might as well leave it behind. The ruined column, on the other hand, might offer a clue as to where she was.
As she moved closer, she saw that the column had been carved from mottled purple stone. Other smashed pieces of column lay nearby, resting on a slab of the same purple rock that must once have been their foundation.
This was the ruin of an ancient building. One that appeared to have been smashed to pieces by a rockfall.
Carefully, she noted the shape and orientation of the broken column. She moved from it to the next closest chunk of the building, and then to the next. She'd expected the smashed building to be rectangular or circular, but the foundation slab had an irregular shape, with bulges around its circumference. The placement of the columns, judging by what remained of their bases, had been equally random. Even the columns looked odd. They weren't smooth cylinders, but tapered and bulged along their length, as if the masons hadn't been able to decide which thickness to make them. She tried to touch one, but her hand passed through it.
Some of the columns had inscriptions on them: lines of text chiseled here and there like random graffiti. Cavatina peered closely at these but couldn't read them. No matter how hard she stared, the writing wouldn't come into focus. It blurred just enough to render it indecipherable. She tried to trace a line of it with her finger, but couldn't feel the outline. She might as well have been touching a wisp of shifting smoke.
During her investigation, her body had drifted upward. She was high enough to see that the foundation of the building was carved with an enormous symbol. It took a moment to puzzle it out, as the lines were interrupted where the slab had shattered, and partially obscured by the fallen columns. But eventually she realized it was a triangle with a Y-shape superimposed on it.
She shivered. That ancient symbol hadn't been used in millennia. It had long since been replaced by the more common eye-within-double-circle. Yet Cavatina, like all of the Promenade's priestesses, had been taught to recognize it.
The symbol of Ghaunadaur.
Cavatina knew, now, where the portal had delivered her: to a spot far below the Promenade. This was the temple that had lain in ruins for nearly six centuries, ever since Qilue and her childhood companions had defeated the Ancient One's avatar. They'd driven it from the caverns that became the Promenade, consigning it to a deep shaft that had then been filled in with rubble and sealed with magic.
A shaft that led to the god's domain.
"By all that dances!" she whispered. "I'm in the Pit!"
A moment later, a burst of bright purple light pulsed from the Y-shaped symbol, banishing shadows from the cracks in the broken stones covering the slab. With it came a sensation: It was as if something wet and slippery had just fouled Cavatina's skin.
"Eilistraee, protect me!" she sang. "Shield me from the Ancient One!"
Eilistraee's moonlight shone out from Cavatina's pores, evaporating the slime, turning it to flakes of shadow that exploded from her body. The purple light was waning now, but even so, Cavatina backed away. Her sword pealed out a warning as something momentarily blocked the fading glow. Blinking away the spots from her eyes, Cavatina saw a tarry black blob atop the foundation slab. The ooze was faster than Cavatina. Before she could withdraw farther, it squeezed upward through cracks in the rubble and brushed against her weapon. She yanked her sword back-in what felt like slow motion-and was relieved to see that the blade was still whole. Though the ooze had "touched" it, the acid had failed to dissolve the metal.
Ignoring her, the ooze continued upward through the gaps in the rubble.
Realizing it was escaping, Cavatina sang a prayer that called down Eilistraee's wrath. Shadow-streaked moonlight punched down in a shaft all around her, throwing the tarry black ooze into sharp relief. The light should have reduced the ooze to a smoldering puddle. But the creature slithered on as before, as though it hadn't even noticed the attack.
Cavatina laboriously followed. She readied a second spell, but by the time it was ready, the ooze had flowed beyond the limits of her vision. Normally she would have been able to run twice as fast as an ooze could slither. But with her body rendered ethereal, Cavatina moved with an agonizing lassitude. Her voice was slow and deep, her hymns dirgelike. The heartbeat that pounded in her ears had a lethargic cadence.