CHAPTER EIGHT
Q'arlynd watched from a distance as Leliana, Rowaan, and the other priestesses who had survived the drider attack stood under the tree and sang, completing their sacred observances for the six who had died at the judicator's hand. Normally, Rowaan had explained, the bodies of the faithful were lashed into a bier high in the treetops, but the judicator's magical attack had left nothing behind of those he had slain. The priestesses had been forced to make do with empty clothing and armor. These they had bundled and lain to rest in the bare branches of the trees to be washed by moonlight-'Eilistraee's tears.'
At the moment, however, the night sky was overcast. It wasn't moonlight that fell on the bundles in the treetops but snow. Q'arlynd had read about the stuff in books, but this was the first time he'd experienced it firsthand. It dusted his piwafwi like a thick layer of drifting spores-except that these 'spores' of frozen water were cold and melted on contact with the skin. They soaked right through his piwafwi and into his shirt, making him shiver.
He squinted as the wind blew snow into his eyes. Why he'd lingered to watch the singing, he couldn't say. He was still very much an outsider, despite having spoken the vows that had admitted him to Eilistraee's faith. Males weren't invited to join the sacred dances, nor could they lend their voices to the Evensong. Eilistraee granted magic to her priestesses only, and males could play but a supporting role, just as in Lolth's faith.
Like mother, like daughter, Q'arlynd supposed.
The song ended. The ritual was over. Q'arlynd waved at Rowaan, beckoning her over. She glanced at Leliana, who shrugged, then walked toward him, her boots crunching holes into the ankle-deep snow.
Q'arlynd bowed his head as she approached. 'Lady,' he said. 'May I ask a question?'
'Call me Rowaan. We're all equals, in Eilistraee's eyes.'
Hardly, Q'arlynd thought.
'What's your question?'
Q'arlynd took a deep breath. As a boy, he'd once asked this question of one of Lolth's priestesses and gotten a thorough whipping in reply, but he was curious to know what awaited him in the afterlife, having accepted Eilistraee as his patron deity. 'What was it like-being dead?'
Rowaan was silent for several moments. 'You want to know what awaits you in Eilistraee's domain.'
Q'arlynd nodded. 'Do you remember much of it?'
Rowaan smiled. 'A little. I realized I was dead when I found myself standing, alone, in a place that was featureless and gray: the Fugue Plain. There were others around me-other souls-but I couldn't see or touch them, just feel them. Then I heard a voice.' She blinked, her eyes shiny with tears. 'An indescribably beautiful voice. It was Eilistraee, singing to me. Calling me. A rift opened in the gray, and a shaft of moonlight shone through. I moved toward it, but just as I was about to touch the moonbeam and ascend to the goddess, it was gone. I woke up in the forest, alive. Chezzara had raised me from the dead before I could enter Eilistraee's domain.'
She shrugged and gave him a shy smile. 'So I really can't tell you what dancing with the goddess is like.'
'The shaft of moonlight,' Q'arlynd said. 'It just appeared?'
Rowaan nodded. 'Of course. When Eilistraee sang. It's the gateway to her domain.'
'Probably just as well you didn't go there.'
'I'm not sure I understand what you mean.'
'You might have been attacked and your soul consumed.'
Rowaan frowned. 'By what?'
Q'arlynd hesitated. 'Aren't there usually… some sort of creatures your soul has to fight its way past, or some other trial you must endure before passing into the goddess's presence?'
'Why would you think that?'
'Lolth's domain is filled with monsters that consume souls,' Q'arlynd explained. 'If your soul manages to avoid those, there's still the Pass of the Soulreaver to get through. From what the priestesses teach, it's the equivalent of being flayed alive. Only the toughest and most tenacious survive the passage to eventually stand by Lolth's side. The rest are annihilated.' He shrugged. 'I expected Eilistraee to at least throw up a wall of swords or something to whittle out the faithful from the dross, to select those who are truly worthy.'
Rowaan smiled. 'Eilistraee doesn't test her faithful. We test ourselves. It's what we do here on Toril, before our deaths, that matters.'
'What about those who convert to the faith?' Q'arlynd asked. 'What if, before they sought redemption, they did things that Eilistraee found abhorrent?'
Rowaan stared at him for several moments. Then she nodded. 'Ah. I see. You're worried that Eilistraee won't accept you.'
'Actually, I was thinking about Halisstra,' he lied.
Rowaan touched his arm, not really listening. 'It doesn't matter what you were before your redemption, which deity you worshiped. You belong to Eilistraee now.'
His heart nearly skipped a beat at that. Had Halisstra told the priestesses about his earlier, half-hearted 'conversion' to Vhaeraun's worship? Q'arlynd opened his mouth, intending to explain that the dalliances of his youth were just that-mere flirtations, the sort of thing any boy might make the mistake of getting caught up in. He paused before speaking, worried that anything he said might bring his more recent conversion into question. If he protested that he hadn't been serious back then, the priestesses might think him less than sincere with them, too-something that would be a mark against him, when he finally got to meet their high priestess.
Rowaan, perhaps sensing his unease, gently touched his arm. 'The Spider Queen has no hold upon you any more.'
Q'arlynd relaxed as he realized she'd been talking about Lolth, not Vhaeraun.
'I only paid Lolth lip service,' he said. 'I spoke the words, because her priestesses ordered me to, but I never gave the Spider Queen my heart.' He touched his chest as he said that, an earnest expression on his face.
Part of what he said was true. He certainly hadn't made the Spider Queen any promises, let alone claimed her as his patron deity. He'd never seen the point. For the living worshipers of Lolth, there was great reward-power and glory-but only if you were female. Males were told their reward would come after death, but from all Q'arlynd had heard, Lolth handed out only more suffering.
'You've left all that behind in the darkness,' Rowaan continued. 'You've come up into Eilistraee's light. As long as you've truly taken her song into your heart, you'll dance forever with the goddess.'
'Eternal reward,' Q'arlynd whispered, adding a touch of reverence to his voice. He needed to appear suitably awed, even though he knew what Rowaan was saying was too good to be true. 'But only, surely, for the souls of those who proved themselves worthy of it in life by aiding the goddess in some substantial way.'
'No,' Rowaan said, her voice firm. 'To Eilistraee, struggle and success are the same. It's the intent behind the act that truly counts.'
Q'arlynd stroked his chin, mulling that over. If what Rowaan said was true, Eilistraee offered eternal life to anyone who stuck to their vows of aiding the weak and working to convert other drow to the faith. It didn't matter if they actually succeeded in achieving those goals, only that they had tried.
It was an astonishing doctrine, one that contradicted everything Q'arlynd had learned in life thus far. From all that he'd observed and been taught, the gods demanded either everything or nothing of their faithful. Vhaeraun, for example, insisted on perfection from his followers. The slightest failure in following the Masked Lord's decree would earn his eternal wrath. Even those who had hitherto been the most devout of his followers could find themselves forever barred from his domain. Lolth, in contrast, reveled in chaos and didn't seem to care what her faithful did. Nor did she take much of a hand in the trials they faced after death, leaving that to the minions of her domain. Souls-from the lowest male lay worshiper to the highest female priestess-succeeded in making the passage across the Demonweb Pits by chance as much as anything.
In contrast, Eilistraee made demands of her followers but showed mercy to them, even when they failed.
Q'arlynd supposed that was a comforting thought to most, but to him the idea of a deity who weighed not just deeds but intentions was more than a little unnerving, and it seemed a little unfair. Vhaeraun's followers, as long as they produced results that were to their god's liking, could harbor whatever rebellious thoughts they liked in
