Resurrection

Feliane and Halisstra nodded, though Halisstra did not understand exactly what she meant.

Uluyara stepped back from their circle, removed her silver medallion from under her mail,

and spoke a prayer to Eilistraee. The wind swallowed her words, but when she was done, she joined her hands, pointed them at the stone of the tor as through they were a knife, and parted them.

The stone answered her gesture. Her magic turned the rock malleable, and she shaped it as though it were clay in her hands. Moving with precision, she used the spell to raise two walls from the flatness of the plateau. They met at a right angle and shielded them from the wind. She stepped forward and shaped them more carefully with her touch, smoothing them as best she could with her palms.

"Now you," Uluyara said to Feliane.

The elf smiled, nodded, and mirrored Uluyara's casting. She raised a third wall, and a fourth,

leaving a narrow archway in the middle of one to serve as the doorway.

"And you," Feliane said to Halisstra.

Halisstra spoke the prayer that allowed her to shape stone to her will. When she finished, her hands felt charged, as though they were attached to the earth. She moved them gently, as if she was a potter, thinning the walls and drawing the excess up into a flat roof to form a crude,

boxlike shelter.

She felt pleasure in working so closely with her fellow priestesses. They were creating. When priestesses of Lolth worked together, it was always to destroy, though Halisstra knew that sometimes-sometimes-destruction too brought pleasure.

When she finished her work, she and her fellow priestesses shared a smile. The wind whipped their hair into halos.

Inspired, Halisstra unsheathed the Crescent Blade and with its tip etched Eilistraee's symbol into the still-malleable stone above the open doorway.

"A temple to the Lady in the heart of Lolth's domain," Uluyara said, her voice defiant above the howling wind. "Well done, Halisstra Melarn."

Halisstra saw that the doubt that previously had clouded the expressions of her sisters was gone. Under their accepting gazes, the doubt in her own soul shrank until it was little more than a tiny seed in the center of her being, barely noticed.

At that exact instant, a knife stab of pain raced up Halisstra's leg. Her vision blurred. She grimaced and would have fallen had she not caught herself on Eilistraee's temple.

The spider poison.

Uluyara and Feliane crowded around her, concern in their expressions. Uluyara examined

Halisstra's wounds, found the blackened holes in her leg.

"Poison," Uluyara concluded.

"Let me," Feliane said and took Halisstra's hands in her own.

Feliane sang to the Dancing Goddess above the howl of the wind, and her song purged the poison from Halisstra's veins.

Halisstra felt as though something else might have been purged from her veins too. She thanked Feliane, who hugged her.

Afterward, the three priestesses of Eilistraee entered the temple they had raised. Uluyara quickly walked the interior, holding her holy symbol medallion and chanting the while.

When she was finished she looked at her two companions and said, "This is hallowed ground now, reclaimed from Lolth in the name of the Dark Maiden. At least for a time."

Halisstra could not help but smile. The interior of the temple did feel different, cleaner, purer.

Within its rough walls, she felt sure of herself for the first time in days.

All three priestesses sank to the floor, spent, their backs to the wall, their legs extended.

Exhaustion showed in both Uluyara's and Feliane's expressions. But elation too. They had reached the Demonweb Pits and survived the attack of a spider swarm.

After a few moments' respite, Uluyara healed them all of their minor cuts, scrapes, and bites.

Feliane conjured a meal of vegetable stew and fresh water into some small bowls she carried in her pack.

After the repast, Halisstra said to them, "We should take watch in shifts, just to be safe, while we wait. I doubt the spiders will dare the top of this spire in the wind, but we cannot be sure.

When things grow calmer below, we can continue on. I'll take first watch."

Uluyara nodded, shifted against the wall, and closed her eyes. She vented a sigh and soon was in Reverie. Feliane followed her quickly.

Both were seasoned warriors, Halisstra realized, taking rest wherever and whenever they could.

Halisstra quietly positioned herself near the open door. She drew the Crescent Blade, laid it across her thighs, and settled in for her watch.

Outside, the wind railed against the temple for the effrontery it was. In its angry wails,

Halisstra still heard it calling to Lolth's Chosen, but she knew-or at least she thought that she knew-that it was no longer calling to her.

"I'm coming for you," she softly promised. "Soon."

Being little more than nests of legs, the chwidencha charged forward with alarming rapidity.