"I'll send word to her. Tell her you're coming and-what's happened to you."
"No!" Halisstra cried. "Cavatina will feel immense guilt at having abandoned me. She'll refuse to come."
"Not Lady Cavatina. She has more honor than that."
"You don't know her. Not the way I do. You haven't seen what she's capable of. I…" Halisstra paused, trying to call tears to her eyes. It didn't work. "I have. Nearly two years ago, in the Demonweb Pits." She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. "Abandoned."
That emotion, at least, was easy enough for Halisstra. All she had to do was think of Eilistraee's betrayal. The Lady of the Dance had indeed turned away from Halisstra, leaving her to face Lolth alone on that first journey to the Demonweb Pits during Lolth's Silence. No matter what excuses Qilue might give, that fact remained.
And just look what had come of it.
"But Lady Cavatina returned to the Demonweb Pits after slaying Selvetarm," the priestess exclaimed. "She must have gone there to search for you, before sealing the portal."
Halisstra widened her eyes in feigned shock. "Cavatina sealed the portal? I thought that was Lolth's doing!" She shook her head in mock disbelief. "So that's why my first escape attempt failed. Cavatina betrayed my faith in her." She glared. "Cavatina should apologize to me. She owes me at least that much."
The enchantment she'd placed on Shoshara was strong; Halisstra could see the pity in the other female's eyes-and the rising anger at Cavatina's "betrayal" of Halisstra. Shoshara believed Halisstra's story. Every word of it.
"You said you have the magic to contact Cavatina?" Halisstra asked.
Shoshara nodded, much to Halisstra's relief.
"With a sending song?"
Another nod.
"Will you call her back to the Shilmista? I want to hear from Cavatina's own lips that she didn't just abandon me. But please, make up some other reason for calling her back. Don't tell Cavatina I'm here. I want to see how she reacts when she sees me, and give her the chance to explain herself. If I'm wrong about her, I wouldn't want to embarrass her or… anger her." Shoshara took a deep breath, then made her decision. "I'll do it."
The priestess sang a brief melody and stared off into the darkened woods, as if looking across a great distance. For several moments, she was silent. She frowned slightly, then nodded. "Lady Cavatina cannot come to the Shilmista. Not now. Lady Qilue is sending her away on an urgent mission. One that must preclude all else."
"Where?" Halisstra hissed. "Where is she being sent?"
Her outburst startled Shoshara. The priestess blinked. "I asked, but she wouldn't…" Her eyes strayed to the prone cleric. Then they widened. "Glorst!" she gasped. She gaped at Halisstra, eyes wide. "You-"
The charm had broken.
Halisstra lashed out, slapping the priestess's face so hard her fingers left a mark. "Die!" she shouted.
Without so much as a cry, Shoshara crumpled atop the body of her consort.
Halisstra stared down at them, her mouth twisted in a grimace of disgust. "Weak!" she spat at the priestess. "You're weak!" Her voice rose to a shriek. "Just look at what you've done!"
She yanked the priestess's body into her arms and bit it savagely on the face, throat, and arms. Again. And again. It was a bloody ruin when she at last threw the priestess down. Panting, she shook her head, clearing it. When her breathing slowed again, she bent and-very deliberately, this time-inflicted several bites on the already cooling body of the male.
She drew the priestess's sword and placed it where it might have fallen, had it tumbled from Shoshara's dead hand, and shrouded both bodies with web. Halisstra couldn't mimic a spider's digestive juices, but she could strew web about the bushes, as if it had been shot from above by spinnerets.
Halisstra was angry at herself-angry for not having first asked where the portal to the Promenade was. But she could hazard a guess. During her time at the Velarswood shrine, she'd observed priestesses, recently arrived from the Promenade, who were dripping wet. There had been a pool near that shrine, innocent looking, yet always heavily guarded from moonrise to moonset. She'd seen a similar pool in the Shilmista Forest.
She squinted through the branches at the night sky and smiled.
Eilistraee's moon would light the way to her prey.
Cavatina squinted as she swam upward through the ice-cold water. The surface of the lake, bright with the light of the full moon, rippled above. They'd portaled in deep; the surface was farther above her than she'd expected. Already her lungs strained from the lack of air. When she broke the surface, she gasped in a long, grateful breath.
Treading water, she twisted around. The Moondeep Sea glowed with moonlight-bright enough to illuminate the ceiling, nearly two hundred paces above.
A head broke the surface next to her: Karas. His mask was plastered against his mouth; a shake of his head freed it. "You should have… warned us… the portal was… so deep," he gasped.
Cavatina thought the same thing-of Qilue.
"Watch for the others," she told Karas. "If any don't make it, we'll have to revive them."
That said, she levitated. A quick glance around revealed no imminent threats. Aside from the disturbance caused by the portal, the Moondeep Sea was quiet and still. She'd been wrong about it being moonlight illuminating the ceiling. Everywhere she looked, the stone that made up the cavern was infused with a faint glow. It shimmered with a pale blue light that was almost white: the largest Faerzress she a ever seen.
She counted heads as the Protectors and Nightshadows broke the surface, one by one. Some used prayers to stand upon the moonlit ripples, and others hovered just below the surface, breathing water, then rose and sprayed water from their nostrils in fine sheets.
Two of the wizards sputtered up without any visible magical aid: Q'arlynd and the young mage from the College of Divination. A short distance from them, the female conjurer rose to the surface in a swell of water, the cupped hands of an elemental she must have summoned. As it was subsumed into the lake, a whirlpool dimpled the surface directly below. The human wizard with the staff rose out of it, bone dry, and levitated beside her.
The other wizards used equally creative methods to exit the depths. One climbed out of the lake as if scaling an invisible ladder, while another rose to the surface sucking on a blue, blown-glass bottle that didn't look as if it could possibly contain enough air to sustain her. The wizard in the gold skullcap tossed a tiny wooden box away from himself as he broke the surface, and it unfolded into a small wooden boat. He climbed, dripping, into it, and with a flick of his hand magically set its oars to sculling.
Everyone was accounted for. Those who hadn't risen from the water by magical means were treading water. Cavatina glanced around to get her bearings, then pointed at the spot where they were to meet the svirfneblin: a tunnel, bored into the cavern, with a beachlike mound of rubble in the lake below. Fortunately, it wasn't too far away.
That tunnel, she signed to the others. Make for it.
With a mental command, she lowered herself until she hung horizontally above the lake. Then she "swam" forward, immersing only her hands. When she reached the base of the rockfall, she drew her singing sword and climbed the slope. Her boots let her spring lightly from one foothold to the next. Pausing at the top, she peered into the mine tunnel. It should have been gloomy, but instead, its walls were illuminated with the faint, flickering light of the Faerzress.