That gave Cavatina an idea. She sang a prayer that called a curtain of whirling blades into being between her and the monster.

"Come on," she taunted, holding them steady over her head. "Take a bite of these, why don't you?"

The spellgaunt hungrily eyed the whirling blades-each composed entirely of magical energy-then dropped from the ceiling. With a sweep of her hand, Cavatina sent the blades into its gaping mouth, even as she dodged aside. The spider stretched its mouth wide and gulped them down as it fell, heedless of the chunks of flesh being slashed from its face. Palps were severed, multifaceted eyes imploded as blades stabbed into them, and blood dribbled from the gaping wound its mouth had become, but still the frenzied spellgaunt, standing on the floor, gulped the blades down, whipping its head this way and that to pluck them from the air. As it ate, its abdomen distended and began to quiver.

Cavatina watched, holding her breath. The spellgaunt's body burst with a loud crack. Bloody chunks of chitin skittered across the floor, leaving smears of pale blue blood. The spider wavered on its spindly legs, then collapsed. It lay on the floor, its jaws weakly gnashing.

Cavatina picked up her sword. The spellgaunt raised its head groggily, empty eye sockets staring sightlessly in Cavatina's direction as it strained to reach the magical items she still carried. A ragged tongue slimed her boot with blood. Cavatina drew her foot away and turned Demonbane point downward. Then she thrust. Chitin crunched as the point pierced the spellgaunt's skull and scraped against the blade as she shoved it home. The monstrous spider quivered then collapsed, dead.

Cavatina put a foot on the monster's head and yanked her sword free. She held her palm over the blade, and a quick prayer confirmed what she already knew. The weapon had been completely drained of its magic. Demonbane had slain its last foe.

She wiped the sword clean on the hem of her tunic then thrust it back into its scabbard. It stuck, momentarily, as the teeth-dented section caught on the edge of the scabbard. Cavatina forced it down. She wouldn't be drawing it again.

She stared down at the dead spellgaunt. "Abyss take you," she growled. "That was my mother's sword." She gave the lifeless body a kick.

Only then did she stop to wonder what a spellgaunt was doing there. She knew little about the creatures, but she didn't think they were normally capable of turning themselves invisible.

Even so, it shouldn't have been able to enter the area undetected. It was a mere animal-albeit a magical one-bereft of either a good or evil aura, but it should have triggered the alarms. Most disturbing of all, it was one of Lolth's creatures.

That alone was cause for disturbing the temple's battle-mistress.

Cavatina sang a prayer that ended with Iljrene's name. When she had the battle-mistress's attention, she sent her silent message.

I found a spellgaunt in the caverns south of the river and west of the bridge. It triggered no alarms. I killed it.

Iljrene's voice came back at once. It sounded high and squeaky, just as it did in person. A spellgaunt couldn't bypass the alarms on its own; someone helped it get there. Begin a search. I'll send other patrols.

Cavatina immediately bent and inspected the spellgaunt's corpse. Something on its back sparkled: diamond dust. Iljrene was right. Someone had helped the spellgaunt to bypass the alarms, someone capable of casting a nondetection spell. Those abjurations lasted only so long. Whoever had worked their magic on the spellgaunt would be close by.

Cavatina remembered Thaleste, waiting below.

She strode over to the broken window and peered down, but there was no sign of Thaleste. Cavatina hoped the novice was hiding behind a pillar somewhere. She cast a sending to Thaleste.

Where are you? What do you see?

The answer was a moment in coming. There's another priestess down here. A dancer. I'm going over to talk to her.

Cavatina frowned. It wasn't yet time for the evening devotions, and even if it had been, a dancer shouldn't be there. Eilistraee's faithful danced naked, save for their holy symbols. While the area was well patrolled, it still had its dangers. Venturing into it unarmored would be a foolish thing to do. Losing oneself in a dance of devotion there would be more foolish, still.

A chill slid down Cavatina's spine as she realized what Thaleste might have just spotted. She sent a second, more urgent message.

Thaleste! That may be a yochlol in drow form! They have powerful enchantments. Get away from it!

No reply came.

Cursing, Cavatina leaped through the gap in the floor. Descending swiftly, she looked around for Thaleste. She spotted movement: Thaleste's legs, disappearing behind a column. Someone-or something-was dragging her away.

Cavatina cursed. She should never have left the novice on her own. She crossed the cavern floor in great bounding leaps, levitating slightly with each step. As she ran, she cast a protection on herself. She no longer had Demonbane, a weapon that would have sliced neatly through a yochlol, even were it to shift to gaseous form, but she did have her magical horn. She raised it and blew a blast, aiming it at the column ahead. A blare of noise crashed through the cavern, rattling the loose stones on the floor and shattering the fragments of clearstone that lay there. The sound wouldn't harm Thaleste-the magical horn had been attuned to do no damage to Eilistraee's faithful-but it would stun and deafen everything else in its path, leaving larger creatures bleeding from the ears and killing lesser creatures outright. A yochlol would probably just teleport out of the blast, but at least that would drive it away from Thaleste.

Releasing the horn, Cavatina wrenched her holy symbol from around her neck. Holding it aloft, she sang a prayer. A beam of light formed around the pendant then grew until it was the length of a bastard sword. The blade-shaped moonbeam crackled with magical energy as Cavatina held it aloft.

"Come out from behind there," she shouted. "I know what you are."

A naked drow female staggered out from behind the column, hands clapped over her ears and an anguished expression on her face. For a heartbeat, Cavatina still believed it to be a yochlol-a weak one that had been damaged by the blast. Then she saw the sword-shaped pendant hanging between the female's breasts. No servant of Lolth's would wear Eilistraee's holy symbol, even a false one. When the priestess stumbled and fell to her knees, but the rubble she landed on neither shifted nor made a sound, Cavatina realized the whole thing was an illusion. She glanced up to see a mass of web hurtling down at her.

"Eilistraee shield me!" she shouted.

The magical shield appeared above her just in time to send the web sloughing off to one side. Heaving the sticky mass behind her, Cavatina sprang into the air. She could finally see what she was dealing with: an aranea, a shape-shifting spider capable of assuming humanoid form. The aranea was in hybrid form, a drow female at first glance but with a strangely articulated jaw and black bristles growing out of her head in place of hair. She wore a blood-red robe that hung heavily due to its chain mail lining, but her legs were bare. Strands of webbing dangled from the bottom of the robe that was just long enough to cover the rounded bulge of her spiderlike hindquarters. She clung to the column of stone with bare feet and her bare right hand. Her left hand was encased in a gauntlet that had a dagger blade protruding from between the knuckles. A platinum disk hung around her neck on a chain. Cavatina knew what the medallion's symbol would be by the vestments the aranea wore. She was one of Selvetarm's faithful-a Selvetargtlin.

The blast from Cavatina's horn didn't seem to have hurt her at all. The aranea had probably already been out of range above it before it sounded.