"By all that dances," Cavatina breathed. "This looks like Halisstra's handiwork!"
Was Halisstra still alive? After betraying Cavatina to the demon Wendonai, she had reappeared briefly atop the Acropolis, then vanished without a trace. That had been two years ago. No one had been able to learn where she had disappeared to-not even Qilue.
A sound within the cocoon next to Cavatina drew her attention. Over the discordant music coming from within the mound, she made out a muffled female voice: a word or two of song, then a struggling gasp, then another faint note of song. She was debating whether to tear the cocoon open when another of the cocoons turned slightly, revealing a partially rotten hand protruding through a gap in its side. A spider-shaped ring adorned one of the death-stiffened fingers: Lolth's symbol.
Cavatina sang a divination. A dim purple glow leaked out of the cocoons that were still twitching: the aura of evil. Cavatina's eyes narrowed. Did each contain one of Lolth's faithful? Had Halisstra turned against the Spider Queen?
The answers, Cavatina was certain, would lie within the mound.
She spoke Laeral's name, and whispered what she'd just seen. As she did, she stared at the cocoons, debating what to do. Four years ago, she would have reveled in slaying an evil deity's helpless faithful, but now she found the thought repugnant. She said a prayer for those inside, praying they might survive long enough to be cut down and freed by the priestesses Laeral would soon bring. "May you find redemption," she whispered, her fingers touching the cocoon in front of her.
She crept on through the tangle of webs, closer to the hill they covered. A tree near the base of the hill had fallen, its roots tearing a hole in the earth, and inside this gap lay an adamantine door. More webs dangled, like a curtain, in the empty doorframe. She slipped into a chamber with a depression in its black marble floor and blasphemous murals showing masked spiders. Drying blood was splattered everywhere. The metallic smell of it overwhelmed the stench of the cocooned corpses outside. The far wall held a mural of a spider with a drow head and a lesser spider dangling from each arm; the abdomen was a dark hole in the masonry. The harp music came from inside it.
Beyond the hole was a second, stone-walled chamber. Cavatina spoke Laeral's name again and described what she saw. Nine corridors radiated from the second chamber. The harp music came from the one in the middle of the rear wall. More murals adorned the walls of this chamber, but they were obscured by webs and ruptured egg sacs. Movements on the floor caught her eye. Thousands of tiny red spiders, none of them bigger than a drop of blood, coursed back and forth, scurrying first in one direction, then another. They seemed to be moving in time with the music-scurrying, then stopping, then moving in another direction again as its tempo and melody changed.
Cavatina smiled grimly. She liked a challenge. She sprang through the hole and ran through the chamber, leaping gracefully from one clear patch of floor to the next in an improvised dance. The spiders thinned once she was inside the corridor, allowing her to slow her pace. After a short distance, the corridor opened onto a third chamber. Cavatina, still invisible, peered inside, battling the urge to pinch her nostrils shut against the sulfurous smell within: the stench of demon.
The room was larger than the first two, and circular. It was dominated by an enormous, black marble throne, carved in the shape of an upside-down spider. Halisstra sat atop it, her clawed fingers plucking hair-thin strands of steel that stretched, like harp strings, between the throne's curled spider arms. The harsh twang of the music trembled through Cavatina's body, leaving a sludge of fear in its wake. Instinctively, she reached for her singing sword to ward off the music's effect. Her hand closed around a wooden hilt, reminding her that the singing sword was gone.
Halisstra had her back to Cavatina. She stared intently at something on the far side of the throne. Cavatina cautiously circled the room, keeping near the wall. A crouching figure came into view. Half the size of the hulking Halisstra, the creature had dull white eyes and skin covered in boils. So misshapen was it that its gender was impossible to determine. At first, Cavatina's mind insisted that this couldn't be Qilue, that it was some blasphemous blend of drow and demon. But the "demon" held the Crescent Blade in its hands, and wore the amulet Laeral had described around its neck.
It was Qilue.
A lump rose in Cavatina's throat as she beheld what the high priestess had become. Cavatina had been raised within Eilistraee's faith. Her earliest memories were of her mother singing the high priestess's praises. Centuries ago, as a girl, Qilue had rekindled Eilistraee's faith from the ashes in which its spark had smoldered for millennia. She had conquered Ghaunadaur, established the Promenade over his Pit, and set up shrines across the length and breadth of Faerun. But now the Promenade had fallen and Qilue had been reduced to…
A tear trickled down Cavatina's cheek. She wiped it away. This wasn't the time for tears, but for action. It might not be her destiny to save Qilue, but she could take Halisstra down. Not permanently-unless Lolth had abandoned her, Halisstra wouldn't die-but at least long enough for Laeral and the others to whisk Qilue out of this foul chamber and attempt an exorcism. Cavatina would likely die in the battle she was about to undertake; her communion with Eilistraee had hinted of this. But that didn't matter. After the horrors she'd experienced during the fall of the Promenade, she was ready to dance at the goddess's side.
Halisstra seemed to have at last remembered whatever song she'd been attempting to play. Her clawed fingers settled into a rhythm, and the music became more melodic. Slowly, lest she make any noise, Cavatina drew the wooden sword. The fact that it didn't kill no longer mattered, since Halisstra couldn't die, anyway. It felt better to have a sword in her hand, even if it was only a wooden one. As the weapon cleared its sheath, Cavatina began the prayer that would send a bolt of twined moonlight and shadow through Halisstra's heart.
Halisstra ended her melody with a single, shrill note. The Crescent Blade suddenly shrank and transformed, becoming an assassin's strangle cord. Halisstra leaped down from her throne. As she reached for the transformed weapon, Cavatina unleashed her spell. Her moonbolt bored into Halisstra's broad back, sending her staggering.
Halisstra whirled, her face twisted with rage. Her eyes widened as she spotted the now-visible Cavatina. As Cavatina sang a second moonbolt into existence, Halisstra yanked the assassin's cord from Qilue's hands and flicked it upward. The weapon transformed back into a sword once more. She raised it above her head with a manic grin. "Yours," she said, her eyes wild, "will be the first soul reaped. Cast aside your feeble goddess, and pay homage to the Lady Penitent!"
Cavatina hurled her second moonbolt. It slammed into Halisstra's chest, sending her staggering. Cavatina leaped in close, thrusting with the wooden sword. Halisstra grunted as the point of it entered her body.
"Surrender," Cavatina told her, "and I'll show mercy."
"Never," Halisstra hissed. She leaped back, unwounded- the wooden sword penetrated flesh, but left no mark-and lashed out with the Crescent Blade. Cavatina instinctively parried-and suddenly was holding nothing but a wooden hilt. Furious, Cavatina dropped it and danced back, resolving to give her opponent no further chances. She sang a circle of blades into existence, and they whirred around her like a disturbed nest of steel-sharp bees. Qilue was directly in their path, but by the grace of Eilistraee she remained unharmed; the magical blades glanced harmlessly off her time-frozen body.