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Cavatina reached out and pinched his lips shut before he could complete his prayer. The man inside the cocoon thrashed wildly, but the only effect was a slight swaying of the bundle of sticky silk.

“There will be no prayers to Vhaeraun today,” she said, “not while a priestess of Eilistraee holds your lips shut.”

A muffled scream of rage came from the pinched lips. Cavatina held them so the corners of the upper lip could lift slightly. The man panted through these tiny holes like a horse that had just galloped a league.

“You’re going to die in a few moments,” Cavatina told him. “Your lips are already starting to turn gray. You’ll be with your god soon enough, but I wonder if you realize that all you’ve been taught is a lie. Vhaeraun may claim to be working for the overthrow of Lolth, but the truth is that he exists only at her sufferance. The independence that he claims is a lie.”

The head of the man inside the cocoon twitched slightly. Back and forth, a shake of the head. He refused to listen, to believe.

“Ellaniath is not a place of refuge, but a prison,” Cavatina continued. “Why else would it lie within Colothys, fourth layer of the plane of exile? You who strive to join the god there are as much slaves of the Spider Queen as Vhaeraun is. Of all the Dark Seldarine—Vhaeraun, Kiaransalee, and Selvetarm—only Eilistraee offers any hope of escape from the evil that Lolth spins, or any hope of true reward.”

She paused to let him consider that then added, “You don’t need to die. Eilistraee can banish the poison from your body, if only you will accept her. Renounce Vhaeraun, and embrace the only god who truly loves the drow race. You have already taken the first step in Eilistraee’s dance by climbing up to the surface realms. It’s not too late for redemption. If you answer is a truthful yes, I will know it.” She loosened his lips, just a little. “Will you embrace Eilistraee?”

His response was a sharp puff of air that sent a dribble of spittle down his chin—the best spit he could manage, under the circumstances.

Cavatina snorted. The answer was exactly what she expected. She’d been going through the motions, giving him the chance that was required by decree. Her obligation to him was at an end. She pinched his lips shut again, watching as they slowly paled. Sweat beaded on his lips, making them slippery, and his struggles became weaker and weaker.

When they at last ceased, Cavatina released the lips. She stared at the dead man as he twisted slowly inside his cocoon. Her mother would have commented that his was one more soul that might have been redeemed, but that was lost instead. Her mother, however, was dead. And that kind of thinking had killed her.

Cavatina reached down for the mask carefully, not really wanting to touch it. She’d heard rumors of such abominations. Vhaeraun’s faithful called the practice soultheft. Someone’s soul was trapped in that square of black cloth.

She laid the mask across the blade of her sword and sang a prayer of dispelling. The faint wailing that had been coming from the mask stilled. The scrap of cloth smoothed then hung limp. Cavatina let it slide from her sword then slashed as it fluttered to the ground, slicing the holy symbol neatly in two.

She walked away without looking back at either the scraps of cloth or the corpse in the slowly twisting cocoon.

She continued her hunt.

Long after the Darksong Knight had departed, Halisstra returned to the hollow tree. It was dark by then, but the moon had not yet risen. When it did, the Darksong Knight would be back on Halisstra’s trail again. The chase-me game would begin anew.

For the moment, however, there were other things Halisstra had to attend to, as commanded by her mistress. Capricious as always, Lolth had changed her mind. Vhaeraun’s clerics were not to be killed, especially not the one Halisstra had just dispatched.

Halisstra could see from the footprints on the ground that Eilistraee’s warrior-priestess had found the cocooned cleric. A hole had been cut in the cocoon over the dead man’s mouth. That hardly surprised