attacker away. Her other hand groped for her sword. Then she recognized where she was. She stared up at Qilue, eyes wide.
'Lady,' she gasped. She sat up and rubbed her throat, then stared at her own hand, a wondering expression on her face. Her joy at finding herself alive again was obvious, but so too was a hint of sorrow-understandable, in a priestess who for the briefest moment had been dancing at Eilistraee's side. She looked up at Qilue. 'You called me back.'
Qilue spoke in a gentle voice. 'Your soul was stolen, but something caused it to be set free again. All is well now.' She paused. 'I called you back because we need to know what happened. Tell me what you remember. Everything that followed the assassin's attack.'
Nastasia swallowed. Winced. 'I was dead.'
'And then? Between that time and just now, when you found yourself dancing in Eilistraee's grove?'
Nastasia glanced off into an unseen distance. 'Darkness. Nothing.'
Inwardly, Qilue sighed. She'd hoped for more.
'And…' Nastasia frowned, thinking hard. 'There was a voice, the voice of the man who killed me.'
The four novices whispered anxiously to each other.
Qilue held up a hand. 'Silence.' She gently touched Nastasia's shoulder. 'Try to remember. What was he saying? Could you make out any words?'
Nastasia closed her eyes. Her frown deepened. She started to shake her head, but then her eyes sprang open in alarm.
'He plans to open a gate.' She looked up at Qilue, her face gray with worry. 'A gate to Eilistraee's domain, so that Vhaeraun can attack her. He's going to use our souls to fuel it.'
'No!' one of the lesser priestesses gasped. She turned to Qilue. 'Is it possible, Lady?'
'The Nightshadows are adept at conjuring,' Qilue said, 'but they would have to send one of their members into Eilistraee's domain in order to open a gate there, and no follower of the Masked Lord can enter Eilistraee's realm without her knowing it.'
Nastasia shook her head, eyes wide. 'They don't need to enter her domain. The assassin told them they could cast the spell from Toril, from a cavern in the Underdark that lies inside a powerful earth node. He told the other clerics he knew a ritual of high magic that would accomplish this.'
'Drow males?' Qilue's lips quirked into a smile. 'Casting high magic?'
Even as the others chuckled, reassured, Qilue wondered. If it was possible, what then?
Iljrene's spy had turned in a report-something about Vhaeraun's clerics and plans to 'open' something. That report had cut off in mid-sentence and Iljrene had been unable to contact her spy since, but he had provided one detail: a name. Malvag. Qilue suspected that Malvag and the assassin who had stolen Nastasia's soul were one and the same.
'Did you overhear any names?' she asked Nastasia.
The priestess closed her eyes, thinking. Then she nodded. 'House names,' she answered. 'Jaelre and Auzkovyn, and another name… Jezz. The assassin was angry with him. I think Jezz accused him of worshiping Lolth.'
Qilue nodded, then turned to the others. 'Whether Vhaeraun's faithful are capable of high magic or not,' she continued, 'this bodes ill for us.'
'But the assassin's dead, isn't he?' one of the priestesses asked. 'Isn't that what Eilistraee said?'
'That was her answer,' Qilue said.
'Then there's nothing to worry about. That puts an end to the scheme right there.'
Qilue gave the priestess a brief nod. She remained troubled, however. Malvag might indeed be dead, but the other clerics were obviously still carrying out his plan. Two nights before, one of Vhaeraun's faithful had been spotted trying to sneak into Eilistraee's temple in the Yuirwood. He had been driven off, but just the past night another attack had come, this time against the shrine in the Gray Forest. It had only been discovered that morning, when the murdered body of a priestess had been found.
As the four priestesses helped their revived companion to her feet, Qilue contacted the high priestess in the Gray Forest with a sending. The answer came a short time later in a whisper only Qilue could hear. It wasn't good news.
The priestess in the Gray Forest also had a square of darkness shrouding her lower face. Her soul, too, had been stolen.
Q'arlynd hurried through the woods, Flinderspeld jogging obediently behind. As they drew closer to the blare of horns, Q'arlynd could hear women shouting as well as the thrum of arrows in flight and the wet, chopping sound of weapons hitting flesh. Above and ahead, he could see dozens of figures hurtling through the treetops. One passed close enough for Q'arlynd to recognize it as a combination of spider and drow.
A drider? On the surface?
The creature spotted Q'arlynd. It hurled a dagger, but the weapon was deflected by Q'arlynd's protective spell and thunked into a nearby tree. The drider shrouded itself in a sphere of darkness as wide as the spreading branches of the tree. Before it could escape, however, Q'arlynd cast a spell, sending a pea-sized gout of fire streaking toward it. Heat bathed his face as it exploded, creating a fireball that filled the magical darkness. A heartbeat later, the blackened corpse of the drider tumbled from the tree, followed by burning branches.
Q'arlynd turned and plucked the drider's dagger from the tree. He handed it to Flinderspeld. 'Stay right here. Don't fight unless you're forced to.'
The gnome frowned. 'I thought you said 'we' would join the battle.'
Q'arlynd made a point of looking down at the deep gnome. Flinderspeld was tiny, barely half his height, the size of a child. 'You're too valuable to throw away in combat,' he told his slave. That said, he spoke the words to a glamor that rendered the deep gnome invisible. He drew his wand and strode toward the sounds of fighting.
The trees screened much of the battle, but it was well illuminated. Balls of silver-white light drifted through the trees, illuminating the scene with the brightness of several full moons, forcing the driders to squint. As he moved through the forest, Q'arlynd counted nearly three dozen of the creatures. The priestesses, many shielded by auras of protective magic, fought with sword and spell, singing as they attacked. Swords flew through the air as if guided by invisible hands, harrying the driders in the treetops.
The driders shifted position constantly, scuttling through the branches overhead and releasing arrows with deadly effect. One struck a priestess in the arm, a grazing wound, but she immediately reeled and fell. Poison. Another priestess rushed to her side and began a prayer, but a second drider dropped suddenly from a tree and landed on her back. As its fangs spread to bite, Q'arlynd blasted it with his wand. Jagged balls of ice smashed into the drider's chest, knocking it away from the priestess. The blows weren't enough to kill the thing, but the priestess finished the job, slashing with her sword in a backhand swing that decapitated the drider. As the head rolled toward Q'arlynd, he noted the pattern of fresh scars on its face which looked almost like a spiderweb. Odd.
The priestess looked to see who had come to her aid. Q'arlynd made a quick hand sign-ally-then bowed. The priestess nodded and went back to her healing spell.
Q'arlynd ran off to find more targets-making sure, whenever possible, that a priestess was on hand to observe him fighting. He battled the driders with blasts of ice, no longer caring if he depleted the magic of his wand. If the battle earned him a meeting with the high priestess, it would be worth it. He fought as well with the evocation spells he'd learned at the Conservatory. It felt good to be using his talents again. He blasted the driders with magic missiles or punched holes through them with jagged streaks of lightning. Once, when several priestesses were watching, he used the fur-wrapped rod that was that spell's material component to stitch a lightning bolt through four different targets, delighting in its flashy display of power.
At one point one of the driders-one also with a pattern of scars on its face-attempted to cast an enchantment on him. Q'arlynd had been trained to shield his mind, and he laughed aloud when the drider tried to implant a suggestion that he flee. He pummeled it with a blast from his wand and ran on, searching for Leliana and Rowaan.
He saw someone he thought was Leliana battling two driders, but when he got closer, he realized it was a different priestess entirely. She didn't seem to need his assistance. Q'arlynd watched, fascinated, as she released her sword, which sang as it flew through the air. As the weapon slashed at one of the driders, keeping it busy, she
