Sacrifice of the Widow_ Lady Penitent - Lisa Smedman [99]
A loud hissing sound brought her to her senses. Halting abruptly, she peered outside the temple and saw splatters of rain hitting the stone. Where they landed, the stone began to bubble. Foul-smelling steam rose and pock marks formed.
Acidic rain.
Halisstra stared up at the sky, rain streaming down her face and soaking her matted hair. If the acid stung her bare skin, she showed no sign. “A storm is coming,” she said. She glanced down. “We need shelter.”
Cavatina gestured at the temple. “Eilistraee will shield us.”
Halisstra shook her head. “Not me.” She glanced down again then sprang away from the edge of the cliff, out into space.
Cavatina rushed to the exit, but the acidic rain blowing in through the open doorway drove her back. She sang a prayer of protection and forced her way against the wind to the edge of the spire of rock. She stared down but saw no sign of her guide.
“Halisstra!” she called, but her voice was snatched away by the rising wind.
Acidic rain bounced away from her skin, hair and clothes without touching them, repelled by her spell. Its magic would protect her—but only for a time. She needed to get back under shelter herself, but as she turned back toward the temple, she heard a sharp crack. A large split appeared in its front wall, beside the arch. Rain streamed off the roof in rivulets, eroding the crack further. Even as Cavatina watched, it widened. Then, with a terrific groaning sound, the structure gave way. The roof fell in, and the walls crumbled. Soon all that remained was a shapeless blob, atop which rested a single, jagged chunk of solid stone, bearing Eilistraee’s symbol.
The temple was no more. It had stood only as long as it needed to, by the grace of Eilistraee. With the Crescent Blade recovered, Cavatina was on her own.
She ran to the edge of the cliff and leaped, letting her boots carry her gently downward. As she descended, she contacted Halisstra with a spell. When the storm is over, meet me at the portal, she sent.
Halisstra’s reply came a moment later. A thin, drawn-out wail. I can’t! Lolth calls.
Cavatina repeated her spell. I can help you resist her. Tell me where you are.
She felt Halisstra’s mind brush hers, but there was no reply, just a low, half-mad gurgle of laughter.
Something came hurtling up at her from the base of the spire: two creatures that glowed with a faint, greenish-yellow light, legs trailing behind them. Cavatina recognized them in an instant. They were myrlochar—“soul spiders”—deadly foes capable of stealing a victim’s life essence and adding it to their own, and they could levitate just as skillfully as Cavatina could.
She halted in mid-descent and hurled a spell down at them. Two brilliant white shafts of Eilistraee’s holy moonlight flashed down, each striking one of the myrlochars and instantly charring it to a flaming husk. They tumbled, legs snapping off as they fell, and landed with twin thuds on the ground below.
Cavatina almost laughed. Was that the best Lolth could send against her? She renewed the spell that prevented the acidic rain from harming her and landed beside the still-smoking husks of the soul spiders.
As if in answer to her silent challenge, the weather changed. The rain stopped and small, hard balls of stone began to fall from the sky. As they tapped off Cavatina’s metal armor, she saw that they were tiny spiders. She tried to grind one underfoot, but it was like a pebble under the sole of her boot. She realized they must be petrified, like the spire of rock behind her.
More petrified spiders fell, larger ones. Soon they were the size of grapes, then eggs. They pelted down in a bruising hail. Cavatina sang a prayer, creating a shield-shaped disk of energy above her head. Most of the spider-hail bounced off it, careening