She paused, uncertain. What was the name of that goddess again?
Cavatina glanced around at the milling, gray-robed females. She remembered what they called themselves- Crones-and that they served a goddess of death. But try as she might, Cavatina couldn't remember that goddess's name.
A skull slammed into Cavatina's shoulder, nearly knocking her to the ground. She staggered to her holy symbol and fell to her knees beside it. One hand pressing against the miniature sword, she prayed.
"Eilistraee," she said through thickened lips. "Heal me."
Eilistraee's grace flowed into Cavatina. Her wounds closed. She was not as strong as she might be, but at least she could stand. She dragged Karas into the lee of a nearby wall, out of the rain of skulls. Then she swung around to face the voidstone.
The sphere still hung above the ruined temple, but it was no longer expanding. The skulls that struck it vanished, instantly obliterated. The undead legions inside the sphere shouted and pounded against its walls, but could not escape. All the while, the Crones milled about between the fallen undead like club-stunned rothe. Shuffling. Uncertain. A handful of those that still lived were down, knocked to the ground by the rain of falling skulls. For several moments more, the ghastly rain continued. When it at last ended, a dirgelike moan filled the air. The Crones, mourning.
The crowd had thinned enough so that Cavatina could see the bodies of the fallen Protectors and the wizards Daffir and Gilkriz. Leliana lay among them, too, her singing sword beside her.
Cavatina walked to it and picked it up.
As she raised it, the weapon sang out a strident peal. To Eilistraee. To victory.
"Qilue!" she called.
A moment later, the high priestesses's mind touched hers. Cavatina! Where are you?
Swiftly, Cavatina described what had just happened. "Lady Qilue, was it your doing?"
No. I wasn't the one who killed… her.
Cavatina noted the hesitation in Qilue's mental voice. "What happened, then?"
I can't answer that. But now is the moment to strike. We need to deal with the surviving Crones-swiftly-before the effect is undone.
Cavatina glanced around at the milling Crones. Their faces, no longer contorted with the madness of their faith, looked lost, tired, and sad. One of them touched Cavatina's arm and looked pleadingly into her eyes, as if seeking an answer to a question she didn't know how to ask.
Cavatina shrugged her off. "Should we offer them redemption?" she asked Qilue. "There may be some who-"
Qilue's mental voice lashed out like a whip. No. Kill them.
"But-"
Eilistraee demands their deaths. They cannot be redeemed. Kill them.
Cavatina lifted her weapon. That had been an order. And a Darksong Knight did as her high priestess commanded. Cavatina told herself that the Crones had sown the seeds of their own destruction by choosing to worship… whatever evil goddess had just been slain. Cavatina was merely the scythe that fulfilled that grim harvest.
Lips pressed together in a grim line, she swung her weapon. Right, left, cutting down Crones. Easy as reaping wheat.
The remaining Crones didn't even put up a fight. Sword blow by sword blow, they fell.
Cavatina led fully three dozen priestesses-reinforcements from the Promenade-in song. They stood in a wide circle around the shattered ruin that had been Kiaransalee's temple, swords pointed at the voidstone. As they sang, healing energy flowed up their blades and across the space between their metal and the sphere. Brighter even than a full moon, the raw positive energy spun the voidstone around, grinding it down like a pebble in a stream.
Eight Nightshadows worked with the priestesses. They were less skilled in summoning the healing energies of the Prime Material Plane, but they had a role nonetheless. Their chant-whispered from behind their masks-would ensure that after the voidstone had been destroyed, any link with the Negative Energy Plane would be sealed.
Elsewhere on the island, other Protectors chased down the few undead that had survived Kiaransalee's fall. As for those priestesses and Nightshadows who had fallen in the earlier battles, their bodies were even then being carried back to the Moondeep Sea. They would be returned to the Promenade and resurrected, Eilistraee willing. So too would Daffir and Gilkriz, if possible. If not, their bodies would be returned to Sshamath for burial. The same would hold true for Mazeer, once her body was found.
Karas was healed. He stood to Cavatina's immediate right. It no longer galled her to see a Nightshadow participating in one of Eilistraee's sacred rituals. Since her redemption, that anger had dissipated. She understood, then, how a Nightshadow might feel after carrying out an assassination: exactly as Cavatina had felt after Qilue ordered her to kill the remaining Crones.
The voidstone shrank to the size of a boulder, a melon, a fist, a pea. Then, with a boom that was swallowed the instant it sounded, it disappeared. The priestesses lowered their swords and fell silent, and the Nightshadows dropped their hands.
"Lady Qilue," Cavatina called. "It is done. The voidstone is destroyed. But…" She glanced down at her feet and saw that the stone still glowed as brightly as before. "But the Faerzress hasn't diminished."
I can see that.
"It's reached the Promenade?"
It has.
"Lady, should we try to-?"
Nothing more can be done. Return to the Promenade.
And that was it. The entirety of the high priestess's message. No praise for what Cavatina and her expedition had accomplished, no further comment. Just that curt order.
"Is something wrong?" Karas asked.
Cavatina realized she was letting her worry show. "I don't know. Lady Qilue didn't seem…" She closed her mouth, declining to say more. Karas had proven himself, but confiding her fears to him didn't feel appropriate, even though he shared her command. "We're done here. We're to return to the Promenade-promptly. Qilue probably has another mission for us."
"The Masked Lady's will be done," Karas murmured. His eyes, however, didn't match his tone. There was a gleam to them that made Cavatina wary.
He started to turn away, but Cavatina planted herself in his path. "What is it, Karas?" she demanded. "What are you thinking?"
He hesitated. Then shrugged. "Only that Lady Qilue is growing more like a Nightshadow each day. She's playing her sava pieces very close to her chest. I find that… amusing."
Cavatina took a deep breath. Karas was up to his old tricks again. Trying to provoke her into an argument. "I don't," she answered flatly. "But it's the way things are now. We're all going to have to get used to it. Make the best of our new partners and continue the dance as best we can."
Karas's eyebrows rose slightly. "Out of the light, into the shadows-back and forth, as the Masked Lady wills it."
"Yes."
Their eyes met, locked, then, as if at some unspoken command, both turned away.
Q'arlynd strode into the dining hall, surprised that Seldszar had agreed to meet with him at a time that would interrupt the master's supper. Judging by the extra place that had been laid at the table, Seldszar was expecting someone else to join him. Q'arlynd would have to come quickly to the point before that person arrived.
The elder wizard set down his fork and stared up at Q'arlynd through the crystal spheres that orbited his head. If he noted the invisible kiira affixed to Q'arlynd's forehead, he gave no sign. "You wanted to speak to me?"
Q'arlynd bowed. "I wanted to compliment you, Master Seldszar, on solving the problem of the faerie fire."
Master Seldszar frowned. "There is work yet to be done. The Faerzress that has sprung up outside our city presents new challenges."