She strode over to the broken window and peered down, but there was no sign of Thaleste. Cavatina hoped the novice was hiding behind a pillar somewhere. She cast a sending to Thaleste.
Where are you? What do you see?
The answer was a moment in coming. There's another priestess down here. A dancer. I'm going over to talk to her.
Cavatina frowned. It wasn't yet time for the evening devotions, and even if it had been, a dancer shouldn't be there. Eilistraee's faithful danced naked, save for their holy symbols. While the area was well patrolled, it still had its dangers. Venturing into it unarmored would be a foolish thing to do. Losing oneself in a dance of devotion there would be more foolish, still.
A chill slid down Cavatina's spine as she realized what Thaleste might have just spotted. She sent a second, more urgent message.
Thaleste! That may be a yochlol in drow form! They have powerful enchantments. Get away from it!
No reply came.
Cursing, Cavatina leaped through the gap in the floor. Descending swiftly, she looked around for Thaleste. She spotted movement: Thaleste's legs, disappearing behind a column. Someone-or something-was dragging her away.
Cavatina cursed. She should never have left the novice on her own. She crossed the cavern floor in great bounding leaps, levitating slightly with each step. As she ran, she cast a protection on herself. She no longer had Demonbane, a weapon that would have sliced neatly through a yochlol, even were it to shift to gaseous form, but she did have her magical horn. She raised it and blew a blast, aiming it at the column ahead. A blare of noise crashed through the cavern, rattling the loose stones on the floor and shattering the fragments of clearstone that lay there. The sound wouldn't harm Thaleste-the magical horn had been attuned to do no damage to Eilistraee's faithful-but it would stun and deafen everything else in its path, leaving larger creatures bleeding from the ears and killing lesser creatures outright. A yochlol would probably just teleport out of the blast, but at least that would drive it away from Thaleste.
Releasing the horn, Cavatina wrenched her holy symbol from around her neck. Holding it aloft, she sang a prayer. A beam of light formed around the pendant then grew until it was the length of a bastard sword. The blade-shaped moonbeam crackled with magical energy as Cavatina held it aloft.
'Come out from behind there,' she shouted. 'I know what you are.'
A naked drow female staggered out from behind the column, hands clapped over her ears and an anguished expression on her face. For a heartbeat, Cavatina still believed it to be a yochlol-a weak one that had been damaged by the blast. Then she saw the sword-shaped pendant hanging between the female's breasts. No servant of Lolth's would wear Eilistraee's holy symbol, even a false one. When the priestess stumbled and fell to her knees, but the rubble she landed on neither shifted nor made a sound, Cavatina realized the whole thing was an illusion. She glanced up to see a mass of web hurtling down at her.
'Eilistraee shield me!' she shouted.
The magical shield appeared above her just in time to send the web sloughing off to one side. Heaving the sticky mass behind her, Cavatina sprang into the air. She could finally see what she was dealing with: an aranea, a shape-shifting spider capable of assuming humanoid form. The aranea was in hybrid form, a drow female at first glance but with a strangely articulated jaw and black bristles growing out of her head in place of hair. She wore a blood-red robe that hung heavily due to its chain mail lining, but her legs were bare. Strands of webbing dangled from the bottom of the robe that was just long enough to cover the rounded bulge of her spiderlike hindquarters. She clung to the column of stone with bare feet and her bare right hand. Her left hand was encased in a gauntlet that had a dagger blade protruding from between the knuckles. A platinum disk hung around her neck on a chain. Cavatina knew what the medallion's symbol would be by the vestments the aranea wore. She was one of Selvetarm's faithful-a Selvetargtlin.
The blast from Cavatina's horn didn't seem to have hurt her at all. The aranea had probably already been out of range above it before it sounded.
All that flashed through Cavatina's mind in an instant, followed by cold rage that the enemy had penetrated the caverns surrounding Eilistraee's temple. The aranea shouted. A pleasant humming filled Cavatina's head, but it was gone an instant later. Whatever spell the aranea had cast was too weak to affect the Darksong Knight.
Cavatina countered with one of her own, a song of smiting. The aranea reeled as it struck her, eyes rolling back in her head, but she recovered in time to leap away from the column as Cavatina came at her with the moonblade.
The aranea landed on the floor of the cavern, and Cavatina followed. She feinted with the moonblade, thrust, but the Selvetargtlin was too skilled to fall for such tactics. Suddenly she was inside Cavatina's guard, the stench of her spider musk filling the Darksong Knight's nostrils. Cavatina twisted to the side, anticipating a slash from the gauntlet blade as she shoved the enemy to arm's length once more, but the aranea instead thrust her fingers out stiffly.
'Selvetarm!' she screamed.
Blades erupted from the aranea's hands, legs, face, and scalp-even her clothing. Hundreds of them, slender and deadly. Still screaming Selvetarm's name, she flung herself at Cavatina.
It was a suicidal move. Cavatina thrust her moonblade at the aranea's chest. Any other sword might have been turned or at least slowed by the chain mail lining of the cleric's blood-red robe, but the moonblade was a thing of pure magic, like the blade barrier Cavatina had summoned earlier. It slid through the chain mail like a hot knife through soft wax, and Cavatina's hand and arm were wet with blood. Even though the thrust was to the heart, the aranea had enough fight left in her to slam her arms together, driving the spike-thin blades in through the holes in Cavatina's chain mail. Cavatina gasped in agony as they pierced her sides.
The aranea sagged against Cavatina but still did not die. Hot purple blood sprayed Cavatina's chest and face as the Selvetargtlin, her eyes rolling wildly, twisted her left arm, trying to bring her gauntlet blade to bear. The blade only managed to graze Cavatina's right cheek, but the wound throbbed as if boiling oil had been poured into it. A foul smell rose from the cut, and Cavatina could feel herself weakening with each pulse of her heart. The periapt around her neck absorbed the initial injury-the cut itself-but there was something more.
The aranea had used magic to envenom her.
Furious, she thrust the aranea away from her, screaming out as the blades tore free of her flesh. The moonblade in Cavatina's hand flared silver-white as the aranea's blood sloughed off it.
Selvetarm's priestess fell to the ground and lay there, blood bubbling from her lips. 'You're too late,' she said in a voice choked with blood and insane laughter. 'It's already done.'
A bloody hand trembled toward the holy symbol that hung at the aranea's neck. Cavatina, in agony from her many wounds and with blood running down her sides in rivulets, realized that the Selvetargtlin was trying to cast one last spell. She slashed down with her moonblade at the aranea's wrist, severing its hand. Blood rushed from the stump like water from a broken pipe. The aranea trembled then lay still.
Cavatina had just started to turn away when the body exploded, pelting her with a rain of bloody flesh and slivers of bone. She ducked then glanced at the spot where the aranea had fallen. All that lay there was a blood- soaked robe, empty and loose on the cavern floor. The largest piece of the body was the size of a fingernail.
There was no time to contemplate what had just happened. Blood loss had made Cavatina weak, and her legs felt ready to collapse at any moment. Calling upon her goddess, she sang a healing spell. Eilistraee's moonlight illuminated her body, knitting flesh and replenishing the blood she'd lost. The shallow cut on Cavatina's cheek, however, remained. It would close in time, but for a while the Selvetargtlin's dark magic would deny it the benefits of magical healing.
There was no time to worry about that, though. Cavatina hurried around the column, looking for Thaleste.
The novice lay face-down on the cavern floor, buried under a thick tangle of spiderweb. Tearing the sticky mass away, Cavatina saw a bloody puncture in the back of Cavatina's neck: a bite. The aranea's venom wasn't usually fatal-it typically sapped the strength, rather than killing outright-but in some instances it could kill. Dropping to her knees, Cavatina laid her palm across the wound and sang a prayer of healing. Under her touch, the wound closed. A second prayer drove the remaining toxins from the novice's body.
Groaning, Thaleste sat up. Cavatina placed a hand on her shoulder, steadying her. It was only then that she noticed the novice's sword lying beside her. Its tip was blooded, but just barely-whatever wound the weapon had
