Ascendancy of the Last - Lisa Smedman [39]
At about the thirty-pace mark, the portal behind her all but vanished. All she could see of it was the faintest shimmer of silver amid a gray blur of jumbled stone. About the same distance ahead of her, slightly lower than the spot where she "stood," she saw a dark purple shape. She couldn't make it out entirely-like everything else in this place, it looked as though it lay behind a pane of frosted clearstone-but it had the general shape of a broken column. A piece of masonry that might have once been the column's capitol lay nearby.
She glanced behind her. If she kept going, she might never find her way back to the portal. Then she realized how useless it was to her. She might as well leave it behind. The ruined column, on the other hand, might offer a clue as to where she was.
As she moved closer, she saw that the column had been carved from mottled purple stone. Other smashed pieces of column lay nearby, resting on a slab of the same purple rock that must once have been their foundation.
This was the ruin of an ancient building. One that appeared to have been smashed to pieces by a rockfall.
Carefully, she noted the shape and orientation of the broken column. She moved from it to the next closest chunk of the building, and then to the next. She'd expected the smashed building to be rectangular or circular, but the foundation slab had an irregular shape, with bulges around its circumference. The placement of the columns, judging by what remained of their bases, had been equally random. Even the columns looked odd. They weren't smooth cylinders, but tapered and bulged along their length, as if the masons hadn't been able to decide which thickness to make them. She tried to touch one, but her hand passed through it.
Some of the columns had inscriptions on them: lines of text chiseled here and there like random graffiti. Cavatina peered closely at these but couldn't read them. No matter how hard she stared, the writing wouldn't come into focus. It blurred just enough to render it indecipherable. She tried to trace a line of it with her finger, but couldn't feel the outline. She might as well have been touching a wisp of shifting smoke.
During her investigation, her body had drifted upward. She was high enough to see that the foundation of the building was carved with an enormous symbol. It took a moment to puzzle it out, as the lines were interrupted where the slab had shattered, and partially obscured by the fallen columns. But eventually she realized it was a triangle with a Y-shape superimposed on it.
She shivered. That ancient symbol hadn't been used in millennia. It had long since been replaced by the more common eye-within-double-circle. Yet Cavatina, like all of the Promenade's priestesses, had been taught to recognize it.
The symbol of Ghaunadaur.
Cavatina knew, now, where the portal had delivered her: to a spot far below the Promenade. This was the temple that had lain in ruins for nearly six centuries, ever since Qiluй and her childhood companions had defeated the Ancient One's avatar. They'd driven it from the caverns that became the Promenade, consigning it to a deep shaft that had then been filled in with rubble and sealed with magic.
A shaft that led to the god's domain.
"By all that dances!" she whispered. "I'm in the Pit!"
A moment later, a burst of bright purple light pulsed from the Y-shaped symbol, banishing shadows from the cracks in the broken stones covering the slab. With it came a sensation: It was as if something wet and slippery had just fouled Cavatina's skin.
"Eilistraee, protect me!" she sang. "Shield me from the Ancient One!"
Eilistraee's moonlight shone out from Cavatina's pores, evaporating the slime, turning it to flakes of shadow that exploded from her body. The purple light was waning now, but even so, Cavatina backed away.