Sacrifice of the Widow: The Lady Penitent, Book I (2 page)

Within the font, an image formed: the face of a drow female, not beautiful, but of noble bearing. Her nose was slightly snubbed, her eyes a burning-coal red. She was dressed for battle in a chain mail tunic and a silver breastplate embossed with the sword-and-moon symbol of Eilistraee. A shield hung from one arm and she held a curved sword in her other hand: the Crescent Blade. With it, she hoped to kill a goddess.

Halisstra hacked at something with the sword—something that didn’t show up in the scrying. For a moment, Qilué thought that the font’s water had been stirred by the breeze that sighed through the treetops. Then she realized that those were not ripples that obscured Halisstra’s face, but shimmers of light on frozen water.

Halisstra Melarn, Eilistraee’s champion, was trapped under a bowl-shaped wall of ice.

The tip of the Crescent Blade poked through the ice. Halisstra stared with horrified eyes at something just beyond the range of the scrying.

“No!” she shouted.

Five streaks of magical energy shot through the hole, slamming into her. She staggered back, gasping. After a moment, she recovered. With a look of resolve on her face, she began chopping at the ice, trying to free herself.

Tension stiffened Qilué’s body. If she did not find a way to intervene, all would be lost. Scrying magic was normally passive. It would channel simple detections or messages, but only imperfectly. She was one of the Chosen of Mystra, though, and the silver fire was hers to command. She let it build within her until it sparked from her hair and crackled the chill air around her, then she directed it downward with a finger. It streaked into the water, hissing toward its target. The hemisphere of ice enclosing Halisstra sparkled briefly, as if each crystal was a glinting mote.

Halisstra’s next sword blow shattered it.

Halisstra burst from the collapsing ice, already running. She passed the body of a drow female whose throat had been slit. It was the priestess Uluyara. Dead.

Qilué fought down the lump in her throat. Uluyara’s part was done. She was with Eilistraee.

Halisstra ran, shouting, toward a drow female who held a dripping adamantine knife in her right hand and a whip with five writhing serpent heads in her left. That would be Quenthel, leader of the expedition from Menzoberranzan, a high priestess of Lolth. She had turned her back on Halisstra and was walking disdainfully away. A male drow walked beside Quenthel, his once elegant clothes torn and travel-stained. He must be, Qilué decided, the wizard Pharaun.

Halisstra had described for Uluyara each of the
members of the expedition that had gone to Ched Nasad, and Uluyara had passed those descriptions on to Qilué. Quenthel and Pharaun had been mere names when Uluyara had come to the Promenade to discuss with Qilué what must be done, but they had become a threat that seemed very close at hand, despite the vast distance that lay between them and Qilué.

“Stop, Baenre!” Halisstra shouted at their backs. “Face us and let’s see which goddess is the stronger.”

The priestess and her male ignored Halisstra. They strode to a fissure in a high stone wall: the entrance to a tunnel. Translucent shapes—the moaning souls of the dead—flowed past them into the tunnel. As the souls entered it, their moans rose to howling shrieks. Quenthel spoke briefly with Pharaun, then stepped forward into the passage and was swallowed by the darkness.

“Face us, coward,” Halisstra shouted at the male.

Pharaun spared her a brief, undecided glance. Then he too stepped forward into darkness and disappeared.

Halisstra faltered to a halt at the mouth of the tunnel. The hand that gripped the Crescent Blade shook with anger.

Qilué touched a finger to the water, above Halisstra’s image. “Follow them, priestess,” she instructed. “At the other end lies Lolth. Remember your quest.”

Halisstra didn’t answer—if indeed she had heard. Something more immediate had captured her attention: a drow female with striking pale gray eyes who moved toward Halisstra, a morningstar held loosely in one hand. The female—it could only be Danifae, Halisstra’s battle-captive—apologized to her mistress, an apology that was patently insincere to Qilué’s ears. Yet Halisstra made no move to raise her weapon. Did she think that Danifae might yet be brought into the light?

Qilué touched the water. “Do not trust her, Halisstra. Be wary.”

Halisstra made no reply.

A third figure ambled into range of the scrying: a draegloth. Half demon and half drow, it had four arms, a snarling, bestial face and blood-matted mane of tangled off-white hair. It paid Danifae no attention; it clearly trusted her.

Qilué’s apprehension grew.

Halisstra stood her ground as the draegloth loomed over her. Staring defiantly up into its eyes, she told it that its mistress had abandoned it.

She raised the Crescent Blade and vowed, “I’ll have your heart for killing Ryld Argith.”

Qilué watched, concerned that Halisstra was no longer paying attention to Danifae, despite the fact that the battle-captive was easing behind her. The spiked ball of Danifae’s morningstar swung slightly as she lifted it.

“Halisstra!” Qilué shouted, but the priestess didn’t turn.

Ordinary mortals could employ only two senses through a scrying, those of sight and hearing, but Qilué was no ordinary mortal. Gripping the edges of the font with both hands, she sank her awareness deep into its holy water then into the mind of Halisstra herself. It was a desperate gamble—so linked, Qilué might suffer whatever wounds Halisstra took—but the priestess had to be warned of the impending treachery. Somehow.

Qilué gasped as her awareness blossomed inside Halisstra’s body. All of Halisstra’s senses were hers. Qilué could smell the harsh, hot wind that howled through the chasm behind her, could feel the aching chill of the souls that streamed past overhead, and she could smell the foul breath of the draegloth as it sneered down at her.

“My mistress has not abandoned me, heretic,” the draegloth spat.

From inside Halisstra’s awareness, Qilué could see that the priestess was not alone. Some distance behind
the draegloth stood a moon elf with pale skin and dark brown hair: Feliane, the other priestess who had accompanied Halisstra on her quest. Feliane panted, as if she’d just been in battle, but the thin-bladed sword in her hand was unbloodied. She moved toward the draegloth with faltering steps, hugging her ribs with her free arm, and wincing with each inhalation of breath.

Danifae was fully behind Halisstra, and the priestess could no longer see her. Qilué fought to turn Halisstra’s head in that direction, but Halisstra’s attention remained wholly fixed on the draegloth. She trusted the woman—saw her not as a battle-captive seething with a thirst for revenge, but as an ally. A friend.

Qilué shouted from inside Halisstra’s head. “Halisstra! Behind you! Watch Danifae!”

Too late. Qilué’s awareness exploded into pain as Danifae’s morningstar slammed into Halisstra’s back, smashing the priestess to her hands and knees.

Halisstra understood it all then. The pain of betrayal was even greater than the sharp ache of her shattered ribs.

You could have warned me
, Halisstra thought.

The bitter rebuke was directed at Eilistraee, but it was Qilué who answered,
I tried
.

Halisstra, at last hearing her, nodded weakly.

Danifae’s morningstar slammed into her back a second time, knocking her to the ground. She dimly heard Danifae give an order to the draegloth, then its bestial roar.

Feliane answered with a battle song.

Danifae’s fingers twined in Halisstra’s hair and yanked her head up.

“Watch,” Danifae said, her voice a harsh gloat.

Qilué did, through Halisstra’s eyes. Feliane wounded the draegloth, but the monster didn’t even slow. He slammed Feliane to the ground and began tearing at the priestess’s body with his fangs.

Feliane screamed as her stomach was torn open.
Halisstra’s vision blurred with tears.

Another gone to Eilistraee. Only Halisstra was left, and her mind was filled with despair and doubt.

“Have faith, Halisstra!” Qilué cried. “Eilistraee will—”

Danifae slammed a fist into Halisstra’s temple. Sparks of pain exploded inside Qilué’s mind as well, disrupting her awareness. She fought to cling to it as Halisstra coughed, weakly, blood dribbling from her lips. Halisstra turned her head slightly, looking up at Danifae. The other drow swung her morningstar in a lazy arc, her face ugly with cruel mirth.

Halisstra’s despair brimmed over.
I am not worthy
, she thought.
I have failed
.

“No!” Qilué shouted. “You—”

Too late. She lost the connection. Her awareness was back in her own body, and she stared into the font. Perhaps it was not too late. She summoned silver fire and stabbed a finger into the water, unleashing a beam of pure white flame. Instead of blasting Danifae, however, the magical flame skipped off the surface of the holy water like a stone and ricocheted into the night.

The water in the font rippled, obscuring the scrying. Qilué could see movement—fragmentary glimpses of what was going on. A flash of silver: the Crescent Blade, picked up by Danifae and tossed contemptuously aside. The head of a morningstar, swinging in a deadly arc. Halisstra’s eyes, brimming with tears. Danifae’s face, twisted with hatred as she spat. Sound was likewise garbled. Halisstra’s voice, faintly whispering, “Why?” Danifae’s voice, haughty and triumphant: “… weak.”

Qilué thrust a hand at the moon, clutching desperately for some other magic that could be channeled through the scrying.

“Eilistraee!” she cried. “Hear me! Your Chosen needs your aid!”

Behind her, the six lesser priestesses shot uneasy glances
at one another. They crowded closer, prayers tumbling from their lips. “Eilistraee,” they crooned. Swaying, they placed their hands on Qilué’s shoulders, lending power to her prayer. Silver fire built once more around Qilué, brighter than before, but slowly. Too slowly.

The ripples in the font cleared. Words bubbled up from its depths. Danifae’s voice, gloating.

“Good-bye, Halisstra.”

Then the whistle of a descending morningstar.

Qilué heard a dull
crunch
, a sound like wet wood splintering. She looked down and saw collapsed bone and blood where Halisstra’s face had been.

“No!” she cried as the image slowly faded from the font.

She plunged a hand into the water as if trying to pluck Halisstra from it. Holy water slopped over the edges of the font, trickling down its smooth stone sides like a flood of tears. Qilué channeled everything she had into one last spell and felt the water grow as warm as blood. Eilistraee had granted her the power to heal the most grievous of wounds with a touch. Even if Halisstra had slipped beyond life’s door, Qilué could resurrect her with a word, but could the spell reach her? Would it have any effect in the domain of Eilistraee’s greatest enemy?

It might. Lolth was silent, after all, her priestesses bereft of their power. That was why Halisstra had been sent on this quest, except that
something
had turned Qilué’s last spell, and the souls streaming into the darkened tunnel had been moving towards … something.

The font was quiet and still. Images no longer filled it. Qilué lifted her dripping hand from the water.

One of the priestesses leaned closer, stared down into the font’s blank depths. “Mistress Qilué,” she whispered—mistakenly addressing her, in a moment of extreme tension, as a drow of the Underdark would address her matron. “Is she … dead? Is all lost?”

The other priestesses held their breath, waiting for Qilué’s reply.

Qilué glanced up at the moon. Eilistraee’s moon. Selûne shone brightly, not yet diminished, the Tears of Selûne twinkling in its wake.

“There is still hope,” she told them. “There is always hope.”

She needed to believe that, yet deep in her heart was a sliver of doubt.

Qilué stood beside the font for the rest of the night. The other priestesses crowded around her for a time, and she answered their nervous questions as soothingly as she could. When at last they fell silent, she sought to touch the mind of Eilistraee.

In a moonlit glade, deep in a forest that needed only the moon’s light to thrive and grow, she found her goddess. Eilistraee was a drow-shaped glimmer of unspeakably beautiful radiance. Qilué touched that with her mind. She needed no lips to frame her question. The goddess poured moonlight into her heart, throwing the words that were scribed upon it into sharp relief. She answered in a voice that flowed like liquid silver.

“House Melarn will aid me yet.”

Qilué sighed her relief. All was not lost. Not yet. If Eilistraee had indeed heard Qilué’s prayer and revived Halisstra, there was still a chance that the Melarn priestess would slay Lolth.

“And House Melarn will betray me.”

The glow that was the goddess flickered and grew dim.

Qilué started. Her awareness was back in her body again. She stood in the forest beside the font, the connection with her goddess at an end. The priestesses who had aided in her scrying were seated on the ground, clothed. Snow dusted their hair and shoulders. More snow fell and the sun was rising, a blood-red smudge against the clouds
to the east. Much time had passed since Qilué had slipped into communion with Eilistraee, and the hand that gripped the edge of the font was covered in snow. She shook it off and shivered.

Something was wrong. She could feel it in the sick hollow that had opened in her stomach. Turning to the font, she cast a second scrying. Far easier than the first had been, its target was on Toril, at least, not in some deep hollow of the Abyss. The target was the matron mother of one of the noble Houses of Menzoberranzan—a priestess of Lolth. Qilué leaned closer and saw that the drow was wielding magic.

Sensing Qilué scrying her, Lolth’s priestess stared a challenge at her observer. Wild laughter, joyous and cruel, bubbled from the font as she began a magical attack.

Qilué had seen enough. She ended the scrying.

One of the priestesses of Eilistraee who had waited with Qilué rose to her feet. “Lady Qilué?” she asked. She sounded nervous, uncertain. “Is something wrong?”