preferred.
The feeling shamed her.
She felt both Lolth and Eilistraee pulling at her, tugging her in opposite directions, stretching her as thin as parchment. Lolth's reawakening had roused in Halisstra something she had meant to leave for dead in the silver moonlight of the World Above, when she had given herself to the
Dancing Goddess.
But it had not died, not really. Could it ever? Lolth's inexplicable pull on Halisstra remained, a troublesome, seductive memory of power, blood, and authority. Halisstra had only her infant faith in Eilistraee with which to shield herself from a lifetime of indoctrination. She did not know if it would be enough. She did not know if she wanted it to be enough.
She had spent her life in service to the Spider Queen-killing, ruling-and had turned her back on all of it in less than a fortnight. How could that have been a genuine conversion? She had been
Houseless, her city destroyed, everything she knew gone. Turning to Eilistraee had been an impulse, almost flippant, and driven by fear of an uncertain future.
Hadn't it?
She did not know, and the uncertainty shook her.
Even while Eilistraeen prayers filled Halisstra's mind, she found herself looking longingly at the manifestations of Lolth's reawakened power that surged through the endless gray of the
Astral.
After the Spider Queen's power had traversed the line of souls and revivified them, the Astral
Plane itself had exploded in chaos. Maelstroms of colored energy formed here and there in the aether, churning vortexes of violence that spun rapid circles for a few heartbeats or a few hours and dissipated into glorious, acrid showers of sparks. Jagged bolts of black and red energy several leagues in length intermittently knifed across the void, ripped it into pieces for a moment,
and raised the hairs on Halisstra's arms and head. Lolth's power fairly saturated the plane.
And it felt different than Halisstra remembered-more vital, but also somehow incomplete.
Halisstra found the flashing storms of power a tantalizing suggestion of the Spider Queen's might, a seductive reminder of different prayers, of a different kind of worship. Lolth's power was everywhere around her. Lolth herself seemed everywhere around her, knowing her, tempting her, whispering to her.
And always the whispers were the same: Yor'thae.
The word was promise, threat, and imprecation all at once.
Halisstra did not know whether to smile or cry each time she heard the word sigh across the
Astral winds. As a bae'qeshel, she was trained in lost lore and knew what the word meant. Its etymology came from two words in High Drow: Yorn, meaning 'servant of the goddess'; and
Orthae, meaning 'sacred.' The Yor'thae was Lolth's Chosen, her sacred servant, the vessel through which Lolth would … do something.
But Halisstra did not know what the something was. Though she knew the meaning of the word, she did not understand the word's meaning for her or for Lolth. More uncertainty.
Halisstra knew the power of words-her bae'qeshel magic depended in part upon words for its power. And like a bae'qeshel spell-song, the whispered recitation of Yor'thae had enspelled her, had wormed its way into her soul and there planted the seed of doubt. She was at war with herself and struggling to stay whole.
She and the two priestesses of Eilistraee, Uluyara and Feliane, had been following the line of drow souls for what felt like an eternity. A trio of the living trailing an army of the dead, they propelled their bodies through the endless gray mist of the Astral Plane through the force of their will.
The aether appeared to extend forever in all directions, the gray emptiness broken only by the line of souls, occasional islands of floating, spinning rock, and the colorful, whirling maelstroms of Lolth's returned power. Swimming through emptiness, Halisstra felt her senses dulled by the uniformity. Time and again she had to fight down a sense of vertigo, though she couldn't tell whether its source was the infinite space under her feet or the internal struggle taking place in her soul.
'We must be getting closer to the portal,' Uluyara said from behind her.
Halisstra didn't turn, only nodded.
With each passing moment, the three priestesses moved closer and closer to their goal, yet with each passing moment Halisstra also became less and less sure of herself and their cause.
Hours before, Seyll, a former priestess of Eilistraee, had sacrificed her own soul to shield
Halisstra from the infusion of power the reawakened Lolth had sent surging through the Astral aether. Seyll, a woman Halisstra had murdered in life, had chosen the annihilation of her own soul so that Halisstra could complete her charge to kill Lolth with the Crescent Blade of
Eilistraee.
But Halisstra was beginning to think she was charged with something else too, something she could not yet see.
Yor'thae, whispered the aether, and Halisstra's body went weak.
She began to suspect that Seyll had allowed herself to be annihilated not so much to protect
Halisstra from something but to prevent Lolth's power from touching Halisstra and communicating something to her, something profound. Seyll had gone to oblivion in service to
Eilistraee, not Halisstra.
She felt herself standing on the edge of a mystery, at the precise moment just before understanding dawned. If only Seyll had allowed Lolth's power to reach Halisstra she would have-
'No,' she said. 'No.'
But the word sounded as empty as a void.
Halisstra's course had seemed so obvious when she had been staring into the steady crimson eyes of Seyll, when she had heard in the dead priestess's words the promise of hope and forgiveness through worship of Eilistraee, sentiments Lolth and her faithful would have deemed weak. But then Halisstra had encountered Ryld Argith's soul in the Astral. He had been standing in line with the rest of the dead, colorless, awaiting his eternal fate. She had stared into his dead eyes, listened to his listless words, and felt her certainty of purpose crumble. Old feelings had bubbled up from the bottom of her soul. She had wondered, she still wondered, what would happen to Ryld if she somehow did kill Lolth. Would he, like Seyll, be condemned to annihilation?
The thought of it made her chest tight. She would not condemn her lover to nothingness; she could not! But what then? The fact that she felt genuine love at all she owed to Eilistraee, and the
Dark Maiden had charged her to kill Lolth, had put into her hands a weapon that prophecy said could do it.
But the proximity of Lolth's power quickened Halisstra, tempted her, spoke to her. Halisstra heard Eilistraee calling to her heart, but she felt Lolth calling to her soul. It both appalled and delighted her.
She was terrified.
Yor'thae, said the nothingness.
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
'What do you want?' she whispered.
She was distantly conscious of her body slowly sinking in the aether but did not care. She had forsworn Lolth-she had! She'd made herself a willing apostate. She had embraced Eilistraee's faith, sworn herself to the Dancing Goddess under the light of the moon on the surface of the
World Above.
But…
But her conversion had occurred at the end of a sword's point. She had been implicitly threatened with death by the priestesses she had come to call sisters. Was it not all a sham then,
driven by the need of a homeless drow priestess without access to her spells to find acceptance and a home somewhere, anywhere?
No, she thought, and pressed her fingers hard against her brow as though she could drive them into her brain and pluck out that part of her that still longed for Lolth. Her conversion had not been forced. It had been willing, beautiful, soul opening. .
