translation-Breven had been adamant that the “three dark moons” interpretation was the correct one, and multiple scholars with far more knowledge and experience than the dwarf had agreed.
Then again, Sabira knew from personal experience that being certain didn’t always mean being right.
Something tickled her wrist, and she went to slap at it without thinking. Greddark grabbed her hand before the blow could connect and she looked down to see a swarm of tiny spiders crawling across her forearm. The multi-legged horde migrated over her arm, across her open palm and down her leg, congregating around the bandage on her thigh, where blood was beginning to seep through. It seemed for a moment as if the creatures were tasting her, and Sabira had to suppress a shudder of revulsion. She suddenly understood people who hated spiders much, much better.
The last stragglers were just disembarking from her boot when Xujil appeared at the mouth of the alleyway and quickly made his way to them.
“Come. I have found her.”
Tilde was being held in a small chapel away from the main temple complex where the majority of the city’s population had gathered for their observance of the Holy. Here, Xujil told them, she would undergo a cleansing ritual so that on the appointed day, she would be an acceptable offering for the Spinner. The sorceress would be attended by priestesses at designated times during the three days leading up to her sacrifice, but for the most part, she would be left alone. They had a chance to free her, if they moved quickly enough.
Two drow in ceremonial armor guarded the door, the crest on their black breastplates depicting a red-eyed, blade-footed guardian. Greddark took them out with two crossbow bolts to the forehead and they collapsed with a clatter.
Sabira hurried across the open courtyard and up the stairs, eyes alert for movement from the surrounding buildings, but all was still. She stepped over the body of one of the drow, noting the scars on his cheeks. Not so different from their Vulkoorim brethren after all, it seemed.
She pushed one of the doors open slightly and squeezed through, stepping quickly to the side to let her eyes adjust to the deeper gloom here and to avoid making herself a target. Greddark followed suit, moving to the other side of the door. Xujil came in last, and Greddark had to pull him out of the meager light coming through the open door.
Though she listened for long moments, she heard nothing but her own breathing and that of her companions. The chapel was deserted.
Except for the sanctuary.
Lit by torches that burned red, what appeared to be an altar carved from some black, iridescent metal and fashioned in the shape of a spider sat upon a raised dais. And on that altar lay a blonde, pale-skinned woman.
Tilde.
There was something wrong about the way the sorceress’s body lay, and Sabira approached cautiously, wondering if they were too late and Ned’s sister was already dead. She eschewed the main aisle, opting to walk along the church’s wall, beneath the overhanging balcony. Greddark again followed her lead, walking up the other side, his crossbow trained on Tilde while his eyes scanned the balcony above Sabira for movement. Xujil hesitated, then followed Sabira’s path as he, too, searched the balcony for any errant guards.
As she neared, reaching the chancel, Sabira realized abruptly what was wrong with Tilde, and she felt a moment of horror mixed with profound pity.
The sorceress had no legs.
Oh, Tilde. I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner.
Even as she thought it, Tilde reared up from the altar, its metal legs bucking with her movement.
And then Sabira realized she hadn’t even begun to comprehend the true horror for the situation, because Tilde wasn’t on the altar, she was the altar. Where her hips and legs had been before, the metal spider’s body now grew, melding with her flesh as if she had burst from her mother’s womb thus made.
Or her mother’s egg sac.
The sorceress wore a halter of black silk. A golden chain hung about her neck, the half of Ned’s medallion twinkling in the light, framed now by the bones of a tiny winged mammal. And in her abdomen, where her navel should be, a sphere carved from a large, flawless Khyber shard pulsed with blue-black light.
“Hello, Saba,” she said, smiling.
Welcome, Daughter of Stone and Sentinel.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Mol, Rhaan 2, 998 YK
Tarath Marad, Xen’drik.
Before Sabira could react, torches flared to life throughout the chapel. She looked back to see the balcony full of spider-armored drow, all with crossbows trained on her and Greddark. More drow filled the rows of pews and stepped up from the shadows of the sacristy.
“Xujil,” Tilde crooned, “my faithful servant. Come forth and receive your reward.”
The guide, who Sabira realized belatedly was no longer behind her, materialized in front of the sorceress, or spider, or whatever she was now.
“My lady,” he replied reverently, bowing low before her as Greddark spat out a string of virulent curses. Sabira understood the sentiment-she’d had her doubts about the drow, but he’d had rational, believable explanations for his actions at every turn and she’d had nothing to hang her suspicions on.
Which in retrospect should have been her first clue. No one was that logical all the time, especially not an elf.
Xujil turned to give Sabira a short, mocking bow as well.
“For the record, Marshal, I don’t really like you that much either.”
The drow’s sneering smile became a gaping, bloody hole as one of Tilde’s legs punched through the back of his skull and exited out his mouth in a spray of scarlet. The sorceress lifted the guide by his head, let him dangle there for a moment, and then tossed him to one side like trash.
“Xujil,” she said chidingly. “No one turns their back on me. Not anymore. Not ever.”
Sabira stared in stunned shock at the thing that had once been Ned’s sister. Tilde saw her expression and covered her mouth with one long-nailed hand, feigning shock.
“Oh, dear. Was I not supposed to do that? I know She only takes their hands when She’s displeased, but I think even Her patience would have been tested by this one, don’t you?”
“What happened to you?”
Tilde’s smile widened, and Sabira saw fangs.
“ She happened to me. I am so much more now than I was, more than I could ever have hoped to be on my own. And this is nothing compared to what I will become, soon.”
Sabira saw for the first time that Tilde’s eyes were no longer brown, like Ned’s. They were red, and hungry.
“But at what cost?” she asked, letting her revulsion leak into her voice, wondering if there was anything of Tilde left inside that strange hybrid body. Anything of Ned.
“Only my mortality. My humanity. Nothing I truly needed, and a small price to pay for what I’m getting in return.”
“And what’s that? A few extra legs and bad teeth?”
Tilde’s smile evaporated like tears in the desert.
“I have always hated you and that smart mouth of yours. It will be a pleasure to sacrifice you and your little friend when the time comes.”
“Ah. That’s the real price, isn’t it, Tilde? Bringing me here, with that little trick with the medallion? You knew I would come in his place.”
The sorceress shrugged, her eight segmented legs moving in perfect synchrony with her slim human shoulders.
