Lolth smiled. A spider the size of a bead of sweat crawled across her upper lip, then disappeared into the crack between her parted teeth. "Yes, indeed," she breathed. "Why not?"
"With Ao as witness," Eilistraee added. "And under the same terms that we agreed to. A contest to the death. Winner take all."
Kiaransalee's voice issued from the crack between realms. "To the death," she chortled.
The crack widened, revealing the goddess and her realm.
Kiaransalee was horrible to look at, gruesome as any mortal lich. Her coal-dark skin stretched tight over a near-skeletal face, and her hair was lusterless as bleached bone. The rotted silks that hung from her wasted body had faded to gray, mottled with mold. A multitude of silver rings hung loose on her bony fingers. She sat cross-legged on a slab of marble: a tombstone whose inscription had been obscured by moss. A field studded with other gravestones stretched behind it, under an ice-white sky.
Kiaransalee pulled a maggot from her flesh and shaped its soft, dough-like mass into a Mother piece, giving it the form she wore when appearing before her worshipers: that of a beautiful drow female. As it darkened to black, she placed it on the sava board, then swept an arm in a scythelike motion. A host of lesser pieces appeared in the crook of her arm: skeletal Slaves, slavering ghoul Warriors, lich-like Wizards, and Priestess pieces in black robes with hooded cowls. These she sprinkled across the board, letting them fall like a scattering of ashes over an open grave.
"My move!" she cried. Leaping from her tombstone, she shoved two pieces forward at once, neatly flanking the Priestess piece Eilistraee had planned to use, leaving it with only one avenue of escape: one that would force it to move against the Warrior sooner than Eilistraee had planned.
Eilistraee turned her eyes to the space above the sava board. "You permit this?" she raged.
Ao was silent.
Lolth laughed. "She is playing against both of us at once, daughter. Two moves seems only fair."
Eilistraee's mask hid the thin line of her lips.
Lolth leaned forward. "My turn, now." Deliberately, savoring Eilistraee's growing unease, she picked up the demonic Warrior piece. She held it up for Eilistraee to see, then slid it in front of the Priestess, cutting off her line of escape.
Eilistraee fumed. If her Priestess piece went down, a host of other pieces would follow. Lolth's Warrior, once again animate and blazing with unholy glee, was poised to cut a swath right through them.
Was there no move she could make to prevent this?
Her gaze fell on a piece that stood well outside her House. Half off the board, it appeared to have been taken out of play. But in truth, it had not yet been removed. If her opponents made the moves she expected, the path between it and one of Kiaransalee's most important pieces would soon be clear.
Several of Eilistraee's own pieces would have to be sacrificed along the way. But if it worked, the result would be worth it.
She moved a Priestess forward-a piece that wore Vhaeraun's mask. It was a less than perfect move, one that would probably be easily countered. But it would buy her time. If she were lucky, it would serve as a distraction for the move she planned to make-the one that would end this game.
CHAPTER 1
"Where are you going?"
At the sound of the voice, Q'arlynd froze. The words had come from a distance, carried on the wind. They held a note of alarm, even panic. Warily, he looked around but saw nothing. The moon was a mere sliver, but it provided ample light for his drow eyes. The moor stretched flat in all directions. The low jumbles of stone that dotted it-the ruins of ancient Talthalaran-offered little concealment, except to someone lying prone. The shifting mists were another matter. Even with summer approaching, they rose from the ground every night.
"Where are you going?"
There it was again, but from a slightly different direction. It sounded like the same voice: high and squeaky, not recognizably female or male, with a strange gulp between each word. Like the words were hiccupped out.
Q'arlynd reached into his belt pouch and drew out a pinch of gum arabic. As he rolled it between his fingers, he spoke the words of a spell. His body shimmered and vanished. He teleported away from the spot where he'd stood, materializing a good hundred paces from the foundation of the ruined tower he'd just searched.
"Stand and fight, you coward!" the voice gulped.
"I will," Q'arlynd breathed, unfastening the ties on his wand sheath. "If you just show yourself."
The wind shifted, wafting a foul odor from the direction of the voice.
"Stand and…"
The voice came closer.
"Coward!"
Closer still.
"Stand and fight, you. Fight you."
Almost there…
"Coward!"
There! It wasn't a drow, but a surface creature-one Q'arlynd had never seen before. Fast as a hunting lizard, it hurtled out of the mist toward him. It was enormous, its torso almost twice as long as Q'arlynd was tall. It had four legs that ended in hooves, a body covered with short brown hair, and a tufted tail that lashed behind it as it charged. Its wedge-shaped head had triangular, erect ears, and eyes that glowed a dull red. Drool streamed from its panting mouth. Despite Q'arlynd's invisibility, the creature charged straight for him. Into the wind. It must have picked up his scent.
Q'arlynd leaped into the air and was borne upward by his House insignia. Its magic would hold him above the monster while he blasted it from a safe distance.
The creature was fast, with powerful legs. It sprang after Q'arlynd with a leap that would have made a hunting spider envious. By scent alone it found him; jagged teeth clamped onto the hem of Q'arlynd's cloak. The creature hung for a moment, eyes blazing, dragging Q'arlynd down with it. Then the cloak tore, sending Q'arlynd tumbling upward. The creature fell to the ground, a now-visible chunk of the cloak in its teeth.
It spat the material out, then circled below Q'arlynd, nostrils flaring as it tried to pinpoint his scent. Q'arlynd wondered how it could smell anything over its own stench. The monster stank like a catch of blindfish left to rot.
He drew a fur-wrapped rod of glass from his pouch and aimed it at the creature. As magical energy crackled to life at its tip in a haze of purple sparks, the creature halted, cocked its head to the side, and gulped out more words.
"Where? Are you? Eldrinn?"
Q'arlynd completed his spell. Lightning streaked into the creature and blasted it. The beast staggered and twisted its head back to stare at the blackened, oozing wound in its flank. Then it glanced up at Q'arlynd, who was no longer invisible. Though staggering on its feet, it still snarled.
"Take a good look," Q'arlynd said as he sighted along the rod a second time. "It'll be your last."
A second streak of lightning smashed the creature onto its side. It quivered for a moment, legs stiff and trembling, then collapsed.
Still levitating, Q'arlynd reached into his pouch for a piece of leather stiffened with beeswax. Touching it to his chest, he cloaked himself in invisible armor. Only then did he drift to the ground. He stood, braced and ready, half expecting another of the creatures to come hurtling at him out of the mist, but all was quiet. At last he walked to the fallen creature and nudged it with his boot. It was dead.
Q'arlynd tucked the glass rod back in his pouch and ran a hand through his shoulder-length white hair, combing it back from his forehead. When he'd passed this way three months ago with the priestesses of Eilistraee, neither Leliana or Rowaan had mentioned creatures like it. They'd warned that the High Moor was home to orcs and hobgoblins, as well as the occasional troll, but they hadn't said anything about four-legged predators that could talk.