Extinction - Lisa Smedman [4]
She'd been a fool. Yet Halisstra could no more get the priestess's dying words out of her mind than she could get the smell of blood out or the armor she'd claimed.
Was this what guilt felt like: a lingering stench that wouldn't go away?
Angered by her own weakness, Halisstra shook the thought out of her head. Seyll had deserved to die. The priestess was stupid to have trusted a person who was not of her faith-even more foolish to trust a fellow drow.
Still, Halisstra thought, as she paused to let Ryld descend the stairs first, Seyll had been right about one thing. It would be nice not to always have to watch your back.
Ryld descended the stairs in silence, listening to the faint clink of Halisstra's chain mail and trying in vain to pull his mind away from the shapely legs he would see if he would just turn around. Where was his concentration? As a Master of Melee-Magthere, he ought to have more control, but Halisstra had ensnared him in a web of desire stronger than any Lolth's magic could spin.
At the bottom of the stairs, away from the chilling wind of the open bluff, Halisstra paused to finger a crescent shape that had been carved into the rock.
"This was a holy place, once," she said, looking over the scatter of broken columns that lay among the snow-shrouded trees.
Ryld scowled. In the World Above, vegetation covered everything like an enormous mold. He missed the clean rock walls of the caverns, empty of the smells of wet loam and leaf that choked his nose. He scuffed at the snow with his boot, uncovering a cracked marble floor.
"How can you tell?" he asked.
"The crescent moon-it's the symbol of Corellon Larethian. The elves who once lived in these woods must have worshiped here. Their priests probably climbed these stairs to work their magic under the moon."
Ryld squinted up at the ball of fire that hung in the sky.
"The moon's not as bright as the sun," he said, "at least."
"It casts a softer light," Halisstra replied. "I've heard that this is because the gods who claim it as their symbol are kinder to those who worship them-but I don't know if that's true."
Ryld stared for a while at the ruined masonry then said, "The gods of the surface elves can't be very strong. Corellon let this temple fall into disrepair, and Seyll's goddess was powerless to save her from you."
Halisstra nodded and replied, "That's true. Yet when Lolth tried to overthrow Corellon and establish a new coronal in his place all those millennia ago, she was defeated and forced to flee to the Abyss."
"The Academy teaches that the goddess left Arvandor willingly," Ryld said. Then he shrugged. "More of a strategic retreat."
"Perhaps," Halisstra mused. "Still, I can't help but think that what we saw in the Demonweb Pits-that black stone in the frozen image of Lolth's face-was a lock, a seal that made Lolth's own temple a prison. A prison fashioned by some other god's hand. Will Lolth eventually emerge from behind it-or will she remain trapped for eternity, her magic forever stilled?"
"That's what Quenthel means to discover," Ryld said.
"As do I," Halisstra answered. "But for different reasons. If Lolth is dead, or trapped in eternal Reverie, what point is there in following Quenthel's orders?"
"What point?" Ryld exclaimed. He was beginning to see the dangerous fork in the road down which Halisstra's musings had taken her. "Only this: spells or no spells, Quenthel Baenre is both Mistress of Arach-Tinilith and First Sister to the Matron Mother of House Baenre. Were I to defy Quenthel, I'd lose my position as Master of Melee-Magthere. The moment Menzoberranzan learned of my treachery, everyone in the Academy would have their daggers out and be thirsting for my blood."
Halisstra sighed