Ascendancy of the Last - Lisa Smedman [40]
Ignoring her, the ooze continued upward through the gaps in the rubble.
Realizing it was escaping, Cavatina sang a prayer that called down Eilistraee's wrath. Shadow-streaked moonlight punched down in a shaft all around her, throwing the tarry black ooze into sharp relief. The light should have reduced the ooze to a smoldering puddle. But the creature slithered on as before, as though it hadn't even noticed the attack.
Cavatina laboriously followed. She readied a second spell, but by the time it was ready, the ooze had flowed beyond the limits of her vision. Normally she would have been able to run twice as fast as an ooze could slither. But with her body rendered ethereal, Cavatina moved with an agonizing lassitude. Her voice was slow and deep, her hymns dirgelike. The heartbeat that pounded in her ears had a lethargic cadence.
Eilistraee's purpose in guiding her to this place was now clear. That burst of purple light had been a planar breach. A temporary one, brief as a flicker, but it had lasted long enough for one of Ghaunadaur's minions to squeeze through, into the Prime Material Plane.
Cavatina could guess, now, why Wendonai had tricked Qiluй into inscribing a symbol that would draw Ghaunadaur's drow worshipers to this spot. Through their prayers, the planar breach could be wrenched wide open-something that would allow Ghaunadaur's avatar to pass through it.
Qiluй must have known that a planar breach existed here. On all of Toril, it was the most likely of places for one to occur. What could Wendonai possibly have said to convince her that ushering Ghaunadaur's worshipers to this spot would pose no danger?
She tried to imagine the arguments he might have posed. Perhaps he'd convinced Qiluй that Ghaunadaur's avatar would be no match for her. She'd defeated it once before, after all. Or perhaps he'd told her that the slime god itself would come through the breach-that armed with the Crescent Blade she stood a chance of killing Ghaunadaur.
That argument, of course, was as thin as rotted cloth. The Crescent Blade's blessings specifically enabled it to kill by decapitation, and Ghaunadaur was a shapeless mass without a neck or a head. But perhaps Qiluй was so deeply in the demon's thrall that she wouldn't think of this.
Whatever the demon might be whispering in the high priestess's ear was a puzzle Cavatina couldn't solve just now. What she could do, however, was inspect the seals on the Pit to ensure that whatever oozes slipped through the flickering breach weren't a threat to the Promenade.
Chasing after the black ooze had left Cavatina with no clear sense of which way was up. Fortunately, there was a way to figure this out. She chose a direction at random and moved until the rubble ended. Beyond it was a wall of stone that had been fused to a glassy sheen by the outpouring of silver fire Qiluй had used to drive Ghaunadaur's avatar down the Pit. Turning her body so that this wall became "down," she walked along it.
After what seemed an eternity, her head bumped against what felt like a solid surface: the magical barrier that capped the Pit. It shone with a bright silver glow, blocking her way. The Promenade, she was thankful to see, was still safe from an incursion from below-by material and ethereal creatures alike.
She sang the hymn that would allow a priestess to enter the Promenade, and felt the barrier above her soften just enough to let her pass. She pushed her way up through it, into the cavern above.
Everything looked exactly as it should have. The floor was the usual smooth, raked field of