"There!" she cried, her voice wild and cracking. "There!"

Halisstra had just proved herself a traitor, but no matter. Even as she shouted, Cavatina's feet touched down on the demigod's shoulder. She landed between black, bristling hairs, feet braced in a position that put her at right angles to the neck. The Crescent Blade was already above Cavatina's head, raised for a killing blow. The blade swept down, screaming as it descended.

Die, Selvetarm!

Selvetarm's head twisted around. His body shifted, throwing Cavatina off balance. She tried to correct her swing as she staggered backward, but it was no use. The Crescent Blade slashed into Selvetarm's face, instead of his neck. It bit deep, turning his mouth into a bloody grimace and sending a tooth flying, but the wound healed in an instant.

Glaring with eyes that each had eight blood-red points for pupils, the demigod shouted a single word.

The word was unclean, twisted, foul, woven from the fell energies of the Demonweb Pits, and sticky as old sin. It slammed into Cavatina, sending her tumbling from the god's shoulder. She hurtled toward the ground, blinded, deafened, paralyzed. The Crescent Blade fell from her numbed fingers, and an instant later she slammed into the ground face-first. Her cheek cracked against rock with a force that sent stars exploding through her head, and her breastplate caved in like tin punched by a fist. Pain flared in her chest: broken ribs. Blood dribbled from her split lips. A fresh, sharp pain erupted in her back as something splattered onto it: acid dripping from the mace in Selvetarm's hand. Cavatina couldn't move, couldn't see, couldn't hear, but she could feel the ground below her tremble as the demigod's massive claws punched into it. Selvetarm was turning. She could feel him looming over her, staring down at her. His presence was a blot of evil, his shadow a pall that nearly suffocated her. A lesser, more rhythmic tremble in the ground was the iron fortress, drawing nearer.

Lolth, coming to gloat at what her Champion had just done.

Eilistraee, Cavatina pleaded silently, wishing she had the strength to speak the words aloud. Save me. Her fingers twitched slightly as she struggled against the paralysis that gripped her, tried to grope for the Crescent Blade. Spiders scuttled across her hand, a mocking tickle on her skin. Send me… a miracle.

A finger prodded her in the side. A muffled voice, speaking urgent words, came from above-Halisstra, also coming to gloat, taking a closer look at what her betrayal had wrought.

Her vision dimly returning, Cavatina could see the blurry figure of Halisstra, who gingerly lifted the Crescent Blade. She held the hilt between finger and thumb, as if picking up a disgusting piece of offal.

"Abyss take you," Cavatina groaned, finding her voice at last.

Above her, Selvetarm gave a booming laugh. "It already has," he hissed.

Then he lowered his head to deliver the killing bite.

CHAPTER TWELVE

So this is it, Q'arlynd thought.

He floated in a featureless gray void that was neither hot nor cold, damp nor dry, soft nor hard. It just… was. Endless. Eternal. Still.

"I'm dead."

The sound of his own voice startled him. So did something that materialized, suddenly, under his feet. Ground. Gray as the void he'd been floating in, and smooth as glass, it neither gave under his feet nor resisted them. Like the void, it just… was. Something to stand on.

He could sense his arms and hands, even though he couldn't see or feel them. He moved them against himself, trying to touch his body. They passed through where it should have been. It was like trying to grasp smoke, except that his hands, too, were made of smoke, gray smoke, without a ripple or an end point.

His body was gone. He was dead.

Panic nibbled at the corners of his mind like a ravenous mouse. If he allowed it to, it would consume his awareness, what little of him there was. He steeled himself, forcing himself to remain calm. He was dead, but he still was. His soul continued.

His mind, such as it was, held the logical facts that explained his situation. His soul, like those of all who died, had entered the Fugue Plain. He could see it starting to take shape around him. There: a distant horizon, a line of gray on gray. And there: the jagged spires of the City of Judgment. Restless forms-mere dots, from a vast distance-surrounded its soaring walls. Demons herded the shapeless gray forms before them, driving unclaimed souls into the city where they would be consumed.

Other presences hovered closer to Q'arlynd-the souls of others who, like him, had just died.

"Can you hear me?" he asked as one drifted by.

It made no reply, just sighed past him, leaving a sheen of tears in its wake.

Q'arlynd realized then that he was slowly drifting toward the city. The thought sent a chill through him, colder than any he had ever experienced. He looked wildly around for the moonbeam that Rowaan had described, listened intently for a scrap of song.

Nothing.

"Eilistraee!" he called. "Aren't you going to claim me? I took the sword oath. I'm one of yours, now. You're my patron deity!"

No reply.

Something prickled where Q'arlynd's forehead should have been. If he'd still had a body, he would have sworn it was nervous sweat. He drifted more rapidly toward the city, and already it was half again as close as it had been.

"Eilistraee!" he screamed.

Nothing.

The city walls drew nearer. He could make out individual demons, scourges in hand, arms raising and snapping forward as they drove the dead. Souls wailed as they streamed in through the gates of the City of Judgment.

Q'arlynd shuddered-a ripple that passed through him like an icy wind. Panic once again crowded in at his awareness. He looked wildly around for the servant of a deity-any deity-to claim him.

"Mystra?" he pleaded, desperately hoping that Qilue's other deity might have taken notice of him, even though he hadn't pledged himself to her.

Nothing.

The walls had drawn close enough that he could see the individual stones in them writhing against one another. Each stone a soul trapped for all eternity.

A demon turned to stare at him. It crooked a cracked red finger, beckoning him closer.

"Lolth?" Q'arlynd croaked, desperate. "Anyone?"

Come.

Q'arlynd whirled. He saw nothing, but the voice came again. A male voice.

Return. To the land of the living. Will you return?

He recognized the voice: Malvag's. Probably the last person he wanted to call him back from the dead, but anything was better than-

"Yes!" Q'arlynd screamed.

The Fugue Plain disappeared.

His body returned.

He lay on his back on a sharp, lumpy surface, his arms underneath him. His fingers were tightly pinched. It felt as though they'd been lashed together with wire. His throat ached and there was a faint taste of blood in his mouth. He spat.

Then he saw the two Nightshadows staring down at him, framed by the crystal-lined cavern, and realized where he was and what had just happened. He tried to hurl himself erect but only managed to flop over on his side.

His mouth froze. He was aware of a second presence inside his skull, the mind of the Nightshadow closest to him-Malvag, the cleric he had nearly killed with lightning bolts. Malvag's eyes gleamed as he stared mercilessly down at Q'arlynd. The Nightshadow shook his head slightly and raised a warning finger. Q'arlynd's master ring was on it. Malvag spoke directly to him, mind to mind.

No spells, slave.

Get out! Q'arlynd raged. The second ring must have been on one of his own fingers under the wire that bound them. Get out of my mind!

Malvag's eyes crinkled in a mirthless smile. Get up.