The younger mage glanced sidelong at the other two diviners. "I can't, Q'arlynd. Father ordered me to-"
"Eldrinn comes with us, and you stay," Cavatina told Q'arlynd. "That's final."
She saw Q'arlynd's jaw tense, but he was quick to hide his anger. His face was expressionless as he bowed. "As you command, Lady Cavatina."
CHAPTER 8
Halisstra picked at the callus on her palm as she squatted on a ridge above the opening in the forest. At the center of the clearing, the dark waters of a pool reflected the stars above. Soon these pinpricks of light would be joined by the reflection of the rising moon. Then Halisstra would strike.
Two priestesses stood watch over the Shilmista Forest pool. Each wore chainmail and a mithral breastplate embossed with Eilistraee's moon and sword and had a hunting horn slung at her hip. One walked back and forth at the far side of the pool, her sword blade lightly resting on her shoulder. The other stood in a more formal guard position a few steps deeper into the forest, her two-handed sword held point-up in front of her as if ready for inspection. Both were drow, capable of seeing equally well in moonlight and shadow.
Though both watched the surrounding forest carefully, Halisstra observed something interesting. Neither paid much attention to the ridge where she hid. A quick bae'qeshel song revealed why: a third guard stood directly below Halisstra on the near side of the pool, cloaked in invisibility. He was clad all in black and wore Vhaeraun's mask. A brace of throwing daggers was strapped to his chest, and a hand crossbow was on one wrist.
Halisstra was twice the size of any one of the drow below and more powerful than the three of them combined. She could easily rend them with her claws or dispatch them with venomous bites. But she could not take down three at once, even with magic. One would certainly sound the alarm before they all died. To use the portal pool, Halisstra needed time to puzzle out its mysteries. She needed to kill all three guards swiftly and silently. But how?
She picked at her hand. The callus constantly burned, the pain secondary only to the throb of the punctures that Lolth's handmaidens had inflicted-punctures that would never heal. These were constant reminders of Halisstra's servitude to the goddess Lolth-and to Lolth's demonic minion.
"Wendonai," Halisstra breathed. Her lips twisted with the word. She hated the demon almost as much as she hated herself. She needed to deliver Cavatina to him. To free herself, and even more importantly, to prove herself to Lolth. The priestesses and cleric, below, were boulders that blocked that tunnel.
A warm breeze shivered through the leaves next to her, carrying with it a strange scent. None of the three below reacted to it, yet Halisstra's heightened senses detected it at once. A strange combination of sweetness and putridity, it smelled like perfume sprinkled on rotten meat. She'd smelled it once before, while roaming the Demonweb Pits.
She sniffed again to be sure.
Dread blossoms? Here, on Toril?
The breeze stilled.
"Wendonai," Halisstra whispered again-with a smile.
She crept away from the ridge and sprang into the tree-tops. Scuttling through them like a spider, leaving a trail of webs in her wake, she headed in the direction the scent had come from. It took her a while to locate its source, but eventually she spotted a dead moose. The massive creature lay on its side, legs thrust out stiffly. Lodged in its flesh were half a dozen dread blossoms. Their stalks pulsed as they extracted the last of the animal's blood. Gold and black pollen drifted out of the cup-shaped crimson flowers, dusting both the dead animal and the forest floor on which it lay.
Halisstra clambered down from the tree branch and squatted a few paces away from the carcass. The dread blossoms yanked their stems out of the dead animal. Chunks of flesh clung like dirt to the tendrils surrounding the lance-sharp point of each stalk. Swift as hummingbirds, the flowers twisted in mid-air, petals fluttering. Then they zipped to the spot where Halisstra waited.
They circled above her like swarming bees, loosing their pollen. It drifted down onto Halisstra's head, shoulders, and arms, fouling her web-sticky hair and clogging her nostrils. She breathed deep, savoring the nausea produced by the sickly sweet odor. The pollen tingled, and numbed her skin, but failed to paralyze her.
She threw her arms wide and froze, inviting attack. A dread blossom hummed away from the rest then reversed itself. It slammed into her stomach point-first with the force of a thrown lance. But instead of penetrating, the stalk splintered on her stone-hard skin. The dread blossom fell to the ground, limp.
Halisstra pouted. She'd hoped it would at least sting.
She loped away through the forest, the five remaining dread blossoms humming in her wake. They were mindless things, drawn by body heat and motion; the destruction of the first dread blossom was not something they had registered. They would keep trying to paralyze her until they ran out of pollen-or until they sensed another, easier target.
Halisstra led them back the way she had come. As she neared the ridge, she slowed to a walk. She stopped at the edge of the ridge and rendered herself invisible.
She smiled as first one dread blossom zipped away over the edge, then another. When the last of them vanished, she crept forward and peered down.
The dread blossoms circled just above the pool, dusting its surface with their pollen. The two priestesses stood below, already rendered motionless by the dread blossoms. One of them was pointing up, head thrown back and mouth open. The other was frozen in her on-guard position; she'd neither seen nor heard the dread blossoms coming. The Nightshadow, however, was nowhere to be seen. Halisstra repeated the bae'qeshel melody that had revealed him the first time, but saw no trace of him.
The dread blossoms plunged down in attack. One of them sank its tendril directly into the throat of the priestess whose head was upturned, and another slammed into the thigh of the second priestess. Halisstra watched the remaining three dread blossoms carefully. None of them veered from their course. All three sank into one or another of the priestesses and began feeding.
Halisstra sprang from the ridge, drifted down on a strand of spider silk, and landed beside the pool. She expected the Nightshadow to return at any moment, but no attack came. As she watched, first one of the priestesses toppled, then the other. The first landed with a splash in the pool. Blood trickled from the point in her throat where the dread blossom had attached itself, and a murky red stain rippled across the pool. Reflected pinpricks of light-the Tears of Selune-danced in its wake.
Still no attack from the Nightshadow.
Satisfied he had fled, Halisstra bit her tongue and spat a gob of blood and spittle into the pond. She stirred it with her finger and sang softly. Webs trailed through the water from her fingers as she worked her magic.
"Cavatina," she breathed. "Show me Cavatina."
The water remained unchanged. The only thing Halisstra's fingers stirred up was mud.
Halisstra swore and yanked her fingers from the water. She had gambled that Cavatina would have journeyed on from the Promenade through its portal, which in turn was linked to this one. Halisstra's scrying should have shown the next link: Cavatina's destination. Yet nothing had been revealed.
Halisstra stared at the spreading ripples. Perhaps Cavatina had warded herself against magical intrusions. Or perhaps she held too much of Eilistraee's grace. Halisstra's hand ached after its immersion in the water, the callus on her palm was throbbing like-
Something slammed into the back of her neck, rocking her forward. Snarling, Halisstra clawed at her hair, yanking a shattered wristbow bolt from it. A second bolt plunged into her back, just below her left shoulder.
She whirled. The Nightshadow stood just a few paces away, next to one of the fallen priestesses. The dead female's hunting horn was in his hand. His eyes bulged as he saw Halisstra turn, the shattered wristbow bolt in her hand.