Sacrifice of the Widow_ Lady Penitent - Lisa Smedman [10]
The novice obliged Cavatina by smiling. Her posture, however, was tense. Her eyes kept straying to the dark holes in the cavern ceiling above. Understandable, Cavatina thought. It was Thaleste’s first patrol south of the Sargauth River. The novice had trained for two years but had yet to blood her sword. She’d spent all that time within the safe confines of the Promenade—the name Eilistraee’s faithful had given the temple that lay on the other side of the river. Cavatina could hear the low gurgle of the Sargauth still, but the comforting sounds of the Cavern of Song lay far behind.
She pointed to a spot on the floor. “You see this smooth patch?” she asked.
The novice nodded.
“A slime passed this way, long ago, but it, along with the rest of the minions of the god of oozes and slimes, was driven into the Pit of Ghaunadaur. Which is …?” she prompted.
The novice spoke solemnly. “The pit in which the Ancient One was imprisoned by Eilistraee’s Chosen, Qilué, First Lady of the Dance. She built Eilistraee’s Mound to mark the spot where Ghaunadaur was defeated.”
“Where his avatar was defeated, Thaleste,” Cavatina corrected. “Ghaunadaur himself still lurks in his domain. That is why we patrol these dark halls—why we have built our temple here. We must ensure that his avatar never rises again.”
Thaleste nodded nervously.
Cavatina smiled. “It’s been a long time since anything oozed through these halls,” she reassured the novice. “About six hundred years.”
Another nervous nod.
Cavatina sighed to herself. Novices were not, as a rule, allowed to venture into truly dangerous areas, even with a seasoned Darksong Knight accompanying them. There was little there for Thaleste to fret about. The purpose of the patrol was simply to check the defensive glyphs and symbols that had recently been set there and report any that needed to be restored.
They continued on through the cavern, a novice in simple leather armor, and a warrior-priestess in a mithral chain mail shirt, her steel breastplate embossed with her goddess’s symbols. Each female had a sword sheathed at her hip, next to a dagger. The Darksong Knight carried a hunting horn as well, slung from a strap that crossed one shoulder. Both priestesses were drow, their ebon skin blending with the darkness, their white hair and eyebrows standing out in stark contrast.
Cavatina, despite her vastly higher station, was still in her first century of life. Barely adult, by drow standards. The daughter of a Sword Dancer, she had her mother’s lean, wiry build. She was tall, even for a drow female. Most of the other priestesses came only to her shoulder. Only Qilué herself was taller. During Cavatina’s youth, there had been innumerable teasing about her being long and narrow as a sword blade but blunt as a maul when it came to speaking her mind.
Thaleste, on the other hand, was well into middle age, her body soft after decades of sloth. She had come to Eilistraee’s faith only recently after a life of pampered luxury in one of the noble Houses of Menzoberranzan. Her motive for leaving that city had been far from holy. She’d angered her matron and barely survived the poison that had been slipped into her wine. She had been headed for Skullport for some poison of her own when she’d taken a wrong turn and blundered into the Promenade—a fork in life’s path she later understood to be the unseen hand of Eilistraee.
Thaleste had gone from being a lazy, self-indulgent viper to a fervent worshiper who had embraced the goddess wholeheartedly, once she understood what the worship of Eilistraee truly meant. When that enlightenment had come, she’d wept openly, something a drow of the Underdark never did. She later confided in Cavatina that it had been the first time in two and a half centuries that she’d allowed herself to feel.
Cavatina had heard it many times before. She’d been born