Long after the Darksong Knight had departed, Halisstra returned to the hollow tree. It was dark by then, but the moon had not yet risen. When it did, the Darksong Knight would be back on Halisstra's trail again. The chase- me game would begin anew.
For the moment, however, there were other things Halisstra had to attend to, as commanded by her mistress. Capricious as always, Lolth had changed her mind. Vhaeraun's clerics were not to be killed, especially not the one Halisstra had just dispatched.
Halisstra could see from the footprints on the ground that Eilistraee's warrior-priestess had found the cocooned cleric. A hole had been cut in the cocoon over the dead man's mouth. That hardly surprised Halisstra. Mercy was one of the greatest weaknesses of Eilistraee's faithful. It hadn't done Vhaeraun's cleric any good, however. He was dead.
Then she spotted his holy symbol. It lay on the ground nearby, slashed in two. Halisstra nodded. Perhaps that was why Eilistraee's priestess had cut a hole in the cocoon, to retrieve the holy symbol and destroy it. The priestess might not be so merciful, after all.
The thought made Halisstra smile.
She clawed at the cocoon, shredding it. Her claws raked sharp lines across the dead cleric's scalp, torso, arms, and thighs as she ripped the strands of webbing from his body. Blood seeped sluggishly from these wounds. Eventually, the corpse tumbled out onto the ground. Halisstra bent over it, the fangs in her cheeks at first spreading wide then retracting back into the bulges in her jowls that housed them. She would give the cleric another sort of kiss.
His lips were cold and stiff. She pressed hers to them and whispered Lolth's name, forcing a prayer-breath into the dead man's lungs. Then she reared back, watching.
The cleric's eyes fluttered open and he exhaled a ragged breath, one that stank of spiders. For a moment, he stared blankly up at the cloud-dark sky, his pupils slowly dilating. Then he stared at the creature sitting on his chest.
And screamed.
Halisstra sprang off him, laughing, and vanished into the night.
CHAPTER SIX
Qilue brushed a strand of hair away from Nastasia's face. The dead priestess's body showed no signs of putrefaction, despite having lain in a treetop bier, exposed to the elements, for a tenday. The mark of Vhaeraun's assassin could still be seen, an indentation in the neck, left by a stranglecord. Her dark skin was chafed around this wound, and her open, staring eyes were so bloodshot they were more red than white.
The priestess was definitely dead, yet her body was uncorrupted. Even the smell of death was missing. This might have been construed as a sign from Eilistraee-save for the faint discoloration on the lower half of Nastasia's face which Qilue's detection spell had just revealed.
A discoloration in the shape of a mask.
Qilue turned to the four priestesses who had carried Nastasia's body into the Promenade's Hall of Healing. The novices from the shrine at Lake Sember shifted uneasily as Qilue examined the body, particularly at the revelation of a square of darkness shrouding Nastasia's cheeks and chin. Their hands twisted nervously on the leather-wrapped hilts of swords, or fingered the silver holy symbols that hung against their breastplates.
At last, one of them spoke. 'Vhaeraun's mark. What does it signify, Lady?'
Qilue's voice was grave. 'Nastasia is not dancing with Eilistraee in the sacred groves. Her soul has been stolen-it's trapped inside a Nightshadow's mask. They call it 'soultheft.''
Eyes widened. 'But why, Lady? What does he want with her soul?'
'I don't know.' Qilue lied, loath to elaborate. The novices were rattled enough. She didn't want them to panic. The Nightshadows typically used soultheft to revitalize the enchantments on a depleted magical item. In the process, the soul was consumed.
From the look of Nastasia's body, that hadn't happened yet. Her soul was, apparently, still trapped within the mask, her body not yet truly dead, but at any moment, the assassin who had stolen Nastasia's soul might annihilate it.
'You were right to bring her here,' Qilue told the priestesses. 'We must find the one who did this to her.'
'We tried a scrying, immediately after the attack. It didn't reveal-'
'This will.'
Lifting her arms, Qilue drew the moon's chill light down into the Hall of Healing. Pale radiance limned her body as she began her dance. Singing a hymn to the goddess, Qilue spun in place, faster and faster until her body became a blur. The moonlight that enveloped her waxed brighter, filling her with radiance. In another moment, she would know the direction of the assassin she sought. That done, she would teleport to another of the shrines and repeat the dance there. The point where the two lines crossed would pinpoint the assassin. Then she could strike.
The sudden, jerking halt of the spell's culmination, however, did not come. Eventually, the glow that surrounded Qilue waned then disappeared. She slowed, lowering her hand.
Her dance had revealed nothing. The assassin had either shielded himself with potent magic, fled to another plane, or died.
Eilistraee might know the answer.
Qilue began a second prayer. Invoking Eilistraee's name, she sent her awareness up into a shaft of moonlight to commune with her goddess. It would be a fleeting link, but it would serve. Radiance filled Qilue's mind as the link was forged.
She asked her first question of the goddess: 'Does the person who killed Nastasia live?'
Eilistraee's face-a thing of unearthly beauty that Qilue was unable to look upon without tears-turned slightly, from side to side. The answer, just as Qilue had anticipated, was no.
'Is his mask still with his body?'
The face nodded.
'Is Nastasia's soul still-?'
Wait.
The word startled Qilue. The goddess ordinarily answered a question asked in communion with a simple yes or no. On top of that, Eilistraee's voice sounded strange. The word had been layered with a deeper, rougher tone, one whose reverberations left an ache in Qilue's mind. She could still see Eilistraee's face, but it was more distant than it had been, dimmer than before. It unnerved her, but she did as instructed. She waited.
Another word came: No.
The communion ended.
Qilue shivered. What had just happened? Had it been Eilistraee who had answered, or… some other goddess? If another deity, why had Eilistraee permitted the intrusion? And what question had just been answered? Had the other deity-if indeed, it had been another deity who had spoken-been saying that the assassin did indeed still have his mask, or had the answer been for the question that Qilue had not quite completed?
The four priestesses were staring at her, waiting for answers. Qilue, badly rattled, took a breath to steady herself-and was surprised to smell the odor of decay. She looked down just in time to see the dark shadow that lay across the bottom half of Nastasia's face split down the middle, as if it had been sliced in two. Then it faded.
Hope shone into Qilue, bright as moonlight. She shoved aside the worries about whose voice had answered her.
'Eilistraee be praised!' she said. Something-perhaps the goddess herself-had just broken the soultheft's hold. Qilue immediately laid her hands on the corpse. 'Join me!' she cried to the lesser priestesses. 'A song to raise the dead.'
The other four were startled but swiftly joined Qilue in prayer. Together, their voices washed over the dead woman, calling her soul back to her body. The song ended on Qilue's sustained note, layered by the harmonies of the other four priestesses-and Nastasia's eyes sprang open. She immediately flailed with one arm, as if shoving an
