Ascendancy of the Last - Lisa Smedman [24]
Horaldin touched his fingertips to the door's glassy surface, closed his eyes, and whispered.
Cavatina tapped one foot impatiently. She'd sought out Horaldin, intending to get him to repeat, word for word, his argument with Qiluй, in order to see if the high priestess had said anything telling. Instead of answering her questions directly, Horaldin had insisted on going somewhere "private" where they could talk. Now they were creeping about the Promenade like rogues with looted valuables in their pockets. Cavatina was starting to suspect it wasn't merely a quest for privacy that had caused Horaldin to lead her this way.
"Horaldin, please. Can't you just tell me what prompted your argument with-"
Horaldin's eyes sprang open. "Shh! Don't say her name! She'll hear you!"
Cavatina took a deep breath. "I wasn't about to do that. I was the one who reminded you not to speak her name aloud, remember?"
"I just hope she's not scrying us," Horaldin said.
That, Cavatina could agree with. Even though Qiluй wouldn't return to the Promenade for several days, after her inspection tour of the outlying shrines was complete, it wouldn't hurt to be careful. No matter where Qiluй went, she kept a scrying font close at hand.
The thought was even more disturbing when Cavatina admitted to herself that the high priestess was carrying around a sword that could contain a hidden demon.
Horaldin had closed his eyes again, and resumed his divination. Sweat beaded his temples. A wash of Faerzress played briefly on the wall beside him, giving an eerie bluish tint to his already sallow skin. The druid was a moon elf, and thus immune to the Faerzress, else his divination might have been interrupted. His wavy black hair hung in a rootlike tangle to his waist, and his fingers were as slender as spider legs. Not a pleasant combination, when you came right down to it. But the druid was utterly loyal to the temple, despite his continued reverence for the Leaflord. As Horaldin so eloquently put it, Eilistraee was the fruit of Arvandor, and Rillifane the guardian of the tree from which she had fallen. Eilistraee planted seeds of hope in the Underdark, and by the Leaflord's decree, Horaldin's destiny was to help nurture them.
"The door's been magically sealed," he told Cavatina. "By… her."
"Why would she do that?"
"To prevent me from showing you what's on the other side of it."
Cavatina's skin prickled with anticipation. She rested a hand on her sword hilt. "Can you open the door?"
"Not by normal means. Only the most powerful spellcaster could undo her magic. But there is another way.'" Horaldin held his hands in front of him, pressing them together back to back. He whispered a moment, and forced his hands apart. A hole appeared in the middle of the door and gradually widened, as if the obsidian had become as soft as clay and invisible hands were parting it. When the gap was wide enough, Horaldin eased a leg through the hole, ducked, and stepped through the door.
Cavatina followed.
The room beyond was oddly shaped: square, but with one corner that had been cut off diagonally by a wall similar, in its zigzag shape, to a folding screen. In the center of the zigzag wall was another obsidian door-the room's second exit. This odd configuration gave the room eight "walls"-a significant number. The drow who had inhabited the caverns on the far side of the Sargauth nearly a thousand years ago had once maintained a temple to the Spider Queen here. The temple had been obliterated when Ghaunadaur's cultists summoned the Ancient One's minions to the city-an act that had been the city's downfall.
Centuries of visitations by oozes and slimes had worn down the altar and statue that once stood here. Qiluй and her companions had finished the job, smashing what remained to dust and scouring the murals from the walls with holy water. Now all that remained was an empty room.
The former temple could have been a convenient shortcut from the western end of the bridge-located just a few paces beyond the second door-but the priestesses who patrolled the Promenade