ground where leaves had been disturbed by something heavy landing on them, a broken branch where the creature had passed through the treetops…
Several times the trail had gone cold, and she'd had to turn to the trees for answers. Each time, the creature had turned out to be only a short distance away. In one case, the creature had doubled back on its own trail-almost as if it knew Cavatina was following and wanted to be found.
As if it wanted to lead Cavatina into an ambush.
Cavatina smiled. So be it. She'd faced that tactic before. Demons were masters of guile, but Cavatina had decades of experience hunting them. She kept an eye on the ground around her, as well as the branches above, expecting an attack at any moment. None came, however.
Once again, the trail ended.
It was time to ask her guides for assistance. Selecting a massive cedar whose spreading branches touched those of the trees surrounding it, she stripped off a glove and touched her bare palm to the trunk, letting the plain wooden band on her finger make contact with the cracked red bark. She whispered the ring's command word and felt its magic alter her senses. Her blood seemed to slow to a sap-trickle in her ears as they became attuned to the creak of branch against branch, the green-tinged whisper of scale-like leaves, the slow groan of the ever-growing trunk. She felt her vocal chords lengthen and roughen. Tilting back her head, she spoke in a voice that matched the sound of the cedar, a slow, creaking groan.
The tree considered her question. Its upper branches bobbed in the equivalent of a slow nod. It had indeed felt a creature like the one she described scuttle through its branches, but that creature had been moving fast and was long gone.
Cavatina asked a second question of the tree. The cedar considered its answer. It started to sway a negative reply then paused. A shiver ran out through its branches, shaking loose droplets of water that splattered the leaves at Cavatina's feet. The shiver also stirred the branches of the trees next to it and was repeated a moment later by these trees. Cavatina's question was passed on in a leafy whisper, in an ever-widening circle that rippled across the forest canopy. For several moments, there was only silence, as the cedar Cavatina was touching waited for their reply. Then that reply came rustling back. An elm tree reported a cocoonlike sack hanging from it, still sticky-freshly woven. It was hanging in a tree that a creature, exactly like the one Cavatina had described, had just scuttled away from.
'Where?' Cavatina asked, her voice a low drone.
Above her, a branch shifted. Splayed fingers of green pointed.
Cavatina smiled. The wind, praise Eilistraee, was blowing in exactly the right direction. She thanked the cedar then sprang into the air. As she rose through the branches, she drew her sword and prayed. Eilistraee granted her request, rendering her invisible. Slowly, she drifted over the treetops, blown by the wind.
She had to renew her invisibility twice before she spotted an oval of dirty white, twisting slightly in the breeze. The elm from which it hung stood close to an enormous hollow tree trunk-the perfect place for a creature to lay in ambush.
Too perfect.
Cavatina cast a detection spell on the hollow trunk and received the result she'd expected: there was nothing evil inside it. She widened her search, surveying the surrounding forest, turning in a mid-air dance and sweeping her sword around in a circle. Nothing. The air sang a song that was sweet and pure, with no taint of evil.
The creature was gone.
Wait-a faint note of discordance came from the cocoon itself. For a moment, Cavatina wondered if the creature had been even more clever than she'd thought, if it had sealed itself inside one of its own cocoons as a surprise for its stalker, but the aura Cavatina's prayer had detected was weak, almost gone.
She landed beside the cocoon. Whoever was inside it was still alive. Barely. She could see the victim struggling, weakly, inside the sticky strands. Something bulged-an elbow? A faint gasping sounded from inside the tight binding of silk, someone struggling to breathe.
Cavatina flicked her sword, slicing the cocoon open over the spot where a face would be. Her sword point caught on something, yanking it out of the hole. A black mask. It fluttered to the ground and lay still, but it held her attention, much more than the ragged gasps coming from the other side of the hole she'd cut in the cocoon. Something about that scrap of black fabric was wrong-something far more disturbing than the fact that it was a holy symbol of a god who was one of Eilistraee's chief enemies.
The mask was somehow alive. Cavatina could sense it, screaming at her. Just at the edge of her hearing, like a note that could shatter crystal.
She would deal with it in a moment. For now, there was the victim inside the cocoon. His eyes were still sealed shut by a thick layer of sticky silk, but his mouth was working. His lips were drawn back in agony, revealing a single gold tooth. From between gritted teeth he gasped out a blasphemous prayer, begging the Masked Lord to heal him, to banish poison from his body.
Cavatina reached out and pinched his lips shut before he could complete his prayer. The man inside the cocoon thrashed wildly, but the only effect was a slight swaying of the bundle of sticky silk.
'There will be no prayers to Vhaeraun today,' she said, 'not while a priestess of Eilistraee holds your lips shut.'
A muffled scream of rage came from the pinched lips. Cavatina held them so the corners of the upper lip could lift slightly. The man panted through these tiny holes like a horse that had just galloped a league.
'You're going to die in a few moments,' Cavatina told him. 'Your lips are already starting to turn gray. You'll be with your god soon enough, but I wonder if you realize that all you've been taught is a lie. Vhaeraun may claim to be working for the overthrow of Lolth, but the truth is that he exists only at her sufferance. The independence that he claims is a lie.'
The head of the man inside the cocoon twitched slightly. Back and forth, a shake of the head. He refused to listen, to believe.
'Ellaniath is not a place of refuge, but a prison,' Cavatina continued. 'Why else would it lie within Colothys, fourth layer of the plane of exile? You who strive to join the god there are as much slaves of the Spider Queen as Vhaeraun is. Of all the Dark Seldarine-Vhaeraun, Kiaransalee, and Selvetarm-only Eilistraee offers any hope of escape from the evil that Lolth spins, or any hope of true reward.'
She paused to let him consider that then added, 'You don't need to die. Eilistraee can banish the poison from your body, if only you will accept her. Renounce Vhaeraun, and embrace the only god who truly loves the drow race. You have already taken the first step in Eilistraee's dance by climbing up to the surface realms. It's not too late for redemption. If you answer is a truthful yes, I will know it.' She loosened his lips, just a little. 'Will you embrace Eilistraee?'
His response was a sharp puff of air that sent a dribble of spittle down his chin-the best spit he could manage, under the circumstances.
Cavatina snorted. The answer was exactly what she expected. She'd been going through the motions, giving him the chance that was required by decree. Her obligation to him was at an end. She pinched his lips shut again, watching as they slowly paled. Sweat beaded on his lips, making them slippery, and his struggles became weaker and weaker.
When they at last ceased, Cavatina released the lips.
She stared at the dead man as he twisted slowly inside his cocoon. Her mother would have commented that his was one more soul that might have been redeemed, but that was lost instead. Her mother, however, was dead. And that kind of thinking had killed her.
Cavatina reached down for the mask carefully, not really wanting to touch it. She'd heard rumors of such abominations. Vhaeraun's faithful called the practice soultheft. Someone's soul was trapped in that square of black cloth.
She laid the mask across the blade of her sword and sang a prayer of dispelling. The faint wailing that had been coming from the mask stilled. The scrap of cloth smoothed then hung limp. Cavatina let it slide from her sword then slashed as it fluttered to the ground, slicing the holy symbol neatly in two.
She walked away without looking back at either the scraps of cloth or the corpse in the slowly twisting cocoon.
She continued her hunt.
