AN: This was the most difficult thing I have ever written. It has taken me about six months to write it, in fits and starts and many, many, deletions and re-writes. I post it in the knowledge that it is far from perfect, but in the hope that you will enjoy it nonetheless. It came out so long—thirteen pages!—that I split it into two parts (that's why the chapter break is kind of abrupt—sorry!). Part 2 will be posted soon. We're on the downward side now, guys!

Part III:

Masks

Stars were falling deep in the darkness
as prayers rose softly, petals at dawn.
And as I listened, your voice seemed so clear,
so calmly you were calling your god

Elsewhere a snowfall, the first in the winter
covered the ground as the bells filled the air.
You in your robes sang, calling, calling, calling him.
In your heart, in your soul, did you find peace there?

In your heart, in your soul, did you find peace there?

Loreena McKennitt, "Full Circle"

Chapter Ten

Kâras wasn't sure why he volunteered to go with the scouting party, but it didn't take him long to realize he'd made a terrible mistake. Perhaps he had wanted to get away from Cavatina, whose accusations had exhausted what little patience he had for her. Or perhaps he had wanted to get away from Rowaan, whose comment on the difference between murder and execution had left him feeling unsettled.

Whatever his reasons, they weren't enough to justify his current aggravation. Rowaan had sent Ralinn and a priestess named Iliaraena to accompany him, and they met him outside the tower-tree. Kâras already knew Ralinn felt no fondness toward Nightshadows, but he was dismayed by Iliaraena's outright hatred.

She was not tall, overtopping Kâras by only a few inches, but she had a way of looking down her nose as though she were taller than Cavatina. After Ralinn introduced them, she looked down her nose at Kâras and said, "You'll take point, Nightshadow. Ralinn, bring up the rear."

Kâras supposed he should be grateful she didn't call him "boy." He stepped close to her, almost uncomfortably close, to make it clear she wasn't as tall as she thought she was. "As a wizard, Ralinn should be in the center," he said. "And as you're more familiar with the forest, you should take point."

Iliaraena narrowed her eyes at him. "If you think I'm turning my back on you, Nightshadow, you're wrong. You'll go in front—where I can keep an eye on you."

"Are you challenging my orders?" Kâras demanded. "As a Black Moon, I outrank you."

"Lady Rowaan—" Iliaraena began.

"Is not here right now," Kâras interrupted. "I am."

Iliaraena shot a glance at Ralinn, as though searching for support, but Ralinn had his eyes fixed diplomatically on the ground and said nothing. With a sneer of disgust, she turned on her heel and stalked off through the shrine. Ralinn followed after her, and Kâras brought up the rear, reflecting that he never thought he would miss Cavatina. The two of them might not see eye to eye on many things, but at least he could count on her to have his back in a fight. He had a feeling that if anything went wrong tonight, Iliaraena wouldn't lift a finger to help him—and he couldn't count on Ralinn to go against her orders. No, he was on his own, placing no trust in his companions and relying only on himself—just as he always had.

The thought was unexpectedly bitter.

Iliaraena led them several miles through the snowy forest, and Kâras was annoyed to see that she spent almost as much time looking suspiciously over her shoulder at him as she did watching where she was going. She finally stopped in a tiny hollow surrounded by ancient cedars, whose overhanging branches kept the ground beneath nearly free of snow and gave Kâras the comforting feeling of being underground.

"This is close to area the wild elves said the encampment was," she said, "but their directions cover a lot of ground. If we're to find it quickly, we'll need to split up. Ralinn, you go—"

Kâras cut across her. "Ralinn, do you have any spells of divination at your disposal?"

Ralinn glanced between them, and Kâras wondered what he would do. Would he chose Kâras, who, according to Eilistraee's claims of equality, should be in command? Or would he chose Iliaraena, bowing to a lifetime of obedience and subservience?

The moment stretched, and Iliaraena stirred impatiently. "Come, Ralinn," she said shortly. "We don't have time for this."

Ralinn's mouth thinned. "I have such a spell prepared," he said to Kâras.

"Use it," Kâras said. "The more time we spend wandering around the forest, the more likely we are to be spotted by their sentries."

"I'll need a little space."

Kâras and Iliaraena moved to opposite sides of the hollow. Starting in the center, Ralinn began to dance around the small open space, singing gently in time to his movements. He ended his dance facing northwest.

"There," he said, pointing. "They're somewhere along a straight line in this direction, but I can't tell you how far."

"That's better than we had," Kâras said. "I'll take point this time, since I'm quieter. You two keep your distance and try not to ruin our element of surprise."

He glanced at Iliaraena, wondering if she would challenge him again, but she merely looked irritated. Probably annoyed that my plan was better than hers, Kâras thought dryly. He took a moment to orient himself along Ralinn's line and started walking.

Moving silently through the trees was a challenge, and his progress was slow. Occasionally, he would catch a faint noise from behind him that might have been Iliaraena or Ralinn, but otherwise he might have been alone. At first it was a relief. The moon had not yet risen and the snowbound forest was dark and nearly silent. After spending so much time beneath the moon, in the company of singing and dancing females, it seemed peaceful. He quickly realized, however, that the quiet also left him alone with his thoughts.

He kept returning to the expression on Cavatina's face when he'd asked why the motives of Aden'ila's killer mattered. She had looked... disappointed, and he was annoyed to discover that her disappointment stung. There was no reason why he should care what she thought of him, and yet—he did care.

Even more frustrating, he didn't even know how he had disappointed her. Despite her many flaws, Cavatina was practical. Kâras would have expected her, of all the priestesses, to understand that results meant more than intentions. If the Nightshadow who killed Aden'ila—and Kâras had no doubt her killer was a Nightshadow—had known she was a spy, then he was right to kill her. If she had taken the Nightshadow against his will, and he had killed her in revenge...

It is the difference between murder and execution, Rowaan had said. In the Underdark, there was little difference between the two. One you concealed, the other you did in the open: the results were the same. Yet, as Kâras had been reminded several times during the past few days, this was not the Underdark, and Eilistraee's priestesses played by different rules than Lolth's did. Apparently, they valued intentions more than results. Kâras grimaced. He had always believed the followers of Eilistraee were weak and stupid. Nothing he had seen since he had been forced to join them had changed that belief.

He told himself that several times, but couldn't shake the feeling he was lying to himself.

It wasn't movement that caught his attention, but rather lack of movement. When the light breeze caused the trees to rustle and sway, Kâras spotted one patch of darkness, a dozen feet up the trunk of a fir, that did not move with the others. He crouched behind a screen of winter-bare bracken and studied the shadow until he was sure of what he was seeing. Then he slipped back the way he had come.

Kâras found Iliaraena first, creeping through the forest with reasonable stealth. He pressed himself against the side of a broad oak and waited for her to walk by. When he judged he was out of range of her sword, he stepped into the open and cleared his throat quietly.

Iliaraena whirled and drew her sword in one swift motion. The blade slashed uselessly at the air; safely out of reach, Kâras smirked behind his mask. He found he liked this trick much better when it was played by him, rather than on him.

Iliaraena did not seem to share his amusement. Her eyes widened when she recognized him, but quickly narrowed again in anger. She stalked forward, sword held in guard position, and Kâras gave ground before her. He dropped his hand to the hilt of his own sword, but did not draw it. He had little confidence in his ability to take her in a fair fight, but more importantly, this was neither the time nor the place for a battle.

"There's a spider-kisser raiding party less than a quarter of a mile away," Kâras said softly. "Do you really think this is a good idea?"

She bared her teeth at him. "I think it's a better idea than trusting you with our lives, Nightshadow." She spat the word like a curse.

Kâras almost laughed aloud. If he had been leading a scouting party of Nightshadows, he would have expected such a betrayal and planned for it. Although he had known he couldn't trust Iliaraena to watch his back, he hadn't believed she would actually turn on him. The irony of a Nightshadow being betrayed by one of the Chosen of Eilistraee was not lost on him.

Her eyes flicked past him. A moment later, Kâras caught the soft crunch of elven feet on snow from behind him. His instincts screamed at him to strike now, while Iliaraena was distracted and before Ralinn could cast a spell, but he forced himself to remain still. He didn't know which side Ralinn would chose—and a fight was something none of them could afford now.

If only he could make Iliaraena see that.

"What's going on here?" Ralinn demanded. Kâras didn't dare turn to look at him, but he could hear the incredulity in the wizard's voice.

"Nothing but a misunderstanding," Kâras said. He looked pointedly at Iliaraena. "Isn't that so?"

Iliaraena stared furiously at him, her breast rising and falling rapidly. After a long moment, she thrust her sword back into its sheath. "Just a misunderstanding," she said. She strode forward, as though intending to walk past him to join Ralinn, but at the last minute she stopped and grabbed Kâras's arm, dragging him toward her. "A misunderstanding," she hissed, "that I intend to resolve later."

Kâras met her angry gaze unflinchingly. He smiled behind his mask when her eyes widened in alarm. She looked down and saw the poisoned dagger Kâras held against her thigh, beneath the hem of her chain hauberk—she had felt the tip prick her through the material of her leggings, not quite hard enough to break the skin. Kâras waited until her eyes returned to his face and said, "I look forward to it. Until then—don't touch me."

She released him and stepped back quickly. Kâras let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and resisted the urge to rub his arm. He could still feel where her fingers had dug into his skin. Ralinn approached them cautiously.

"I take it you found something," he said to Kâras, as if the drama of the last few minutes had never happened.

"The first of their sentries. Getting inside their perimeter will be difficult; I'll have to go alone."

"We're just supposed to wait here and sit on our thumbs?" Iliaraena demanded.

"You can sit on whatever you want," Kâras said coldly. "Neither of you has any chance of slipping past those sentries undetected. If you try," he continued, seeing that Iliaraena was going to continue her protest, "you will get us all killed, and our entire mission will have been wasted."

Iliaraena subsided, though she looked mutinous.

Ralinn flicked a wary glance at her and asked, "How long should we wait?"

Before we give you up for dead, he meant. "An hour. But stay alert—if they catch me, they may assume I'm not alone and come searching for you."

As he slipped away, he thought he heard Iliaraena and Ralinn speaking sharply and offered a brief prayer to the Masked Lady that they would not follow him.

He found the sentry again easily and crouched behind the screen of brambles to study the surrounding trees. When he was certain there were no others nearby, he crept around the base of the sentry's tree, keeping the trunk between them. Staying in the deepest shadows, he picked his way through the undergrowth until he found the raiding party's camp.

Surface elves would have built their camp in an open clearing, but the drow had chosen a grove of fir trees whose green branches closed overhead like the roof of a cave. There was less undergrowth here, forcing Kâras to move even more cautiously. A handful of tents were scattered throughout the grove, and a dozen drow moved between them or sat quietly on the ground. The largest tent was pitched in the center of the grove, where several large trees created a sort of open cavern.

Kâras found a good vantage point between one of the tents and the wide trunk of a tree, and settled down to watch the camp. He counted one male wizard and nine male warriors, all wearing the same House insignia. Kâras didn't recognize it, but he didn't expect to: the nearest drow city was Eryndlyn, and he knew almost nothing about it. They all moved purposefully, but without hurry, as they readied weapons and armor. Kâras realized with a start that they must mean to attack tonight. His first instinct was to return to the shrine immediately and warn them of the danger, but he made himself wait; he needed to see who was leading the party.

After a while, two females emerged from the central tent. One, clearly the senior-ranking of the two, carried the snake-headed whip of a high priestess of Lolth. Just looking at the unholy weapon made the scars on Kâras's back ache. But it was what he needed to see; now he could make a full report.

He rose to leave—and froze when heard a commotion from the edge of the grove. A drow sprinted into the central clearing and called out, "Spies! We found a spy at the perimeter of the camp—"

The camp erupted into movement as drow grabbed weapons and pulled on armor. Kâras cursed Iliaraena. She must have grown impatient and tried to follow him.

The high priestess stood unmoving in the center of the controlled chaos, shouting, "Take her alive! I want to know what she knows."

Two drow burst out of the tent Kâras was hiding behind. If they looked straight ahead, kept their eyes on the sentry... but they turned to look where the sentry was pointing, and found themselves almost face-to-face with Kâras.

Kâras turned and ran. He heard the snap of two wrist-crossbows firing. One shot went wide; even this close, Kâras would seem to the soldiers little more than an indistinct shadow. The second shot grazed his neck, drawing a fiery line of pain across his skin. He immediately felt the burn of the poison the bolt had been coated with, but decades of handling dangerous substances had left him immune to all but the deadliest toxins.

He was less immune to the blades of the warrior who cut in front of him, wielding a long, slender sword and wicked-looking dagger. Kâras drew his short sword and blocked two rapid attacks that instantly had him back on his heels. There was no time to pray for protection; if he let his guard down for a moment he would die. He feinted low, and when the warrior dropped his blades to parry Kâras shot him in the neck with his wrist-crossbow. The bolt sank deep into his throat. The wound probably wouldn't kill him—but the poison would.

Though the brief skirmish lasted only a few seconds, they were seconds Kâras couldn't afford. He could see more drow flitting from trunk to trunk, surrounding him. It would take a miracle to escape—and while he knew his goddess could produce a miracle, he wasn't sure she would; in his experience, the gods helped those who helped themselves.

If the raiders killed him—or captured him, as the priestess had ordered—they would see he was a Nightshadow and realize their presence in the forest was no longer a secret. They would attack the shrine immediately and Cavatina and the others would be caught unprepared. He could see no way out. Unless...

He had only moments. With a thought, he transformed his clothes: silver lines spiderwebbed across his leather armor; his short sword, an elven-made blade he had picked up on the surface, altered subtly to resemble a drow blade; his mask became a spider-shaped pendant that hung from his neck on a short chain.

More bolts flew at him. Most missed, or were defeated by his armor, but a few struck him. Their poison seeped harmlessly into his blood, but he allowed himself to fall to the ground as though in a swoon. Through half-lidded eyes, Kâras watched several pairs of booted feet approach him. One kicked him in the ribs, testing if Kâras was as unconscious as he looked. The blow drove the air out of his lungs, but he had been expecting it and managed to do nothing more than groan and twitch feebly.

Satisfied, the raiders fell on him, stripping off his clothes, his weapons, even his disguised holy symbol. Kâras forced himself to remain limp and unresisting, though it was hard not to snatch at the spider pendant as they snapped the chain. Two soldiers grabbed his arms and dragged him into the relatively open space in front of the priestesses' tent, where they dropped him facedown on the ground. The trampled snow was cold against his naked skin.

"Bring me rope." The high priestess spoke from directly above him. Kâras barely suppressed a twitch of alarm; he hadn't realized she was so close. "String him up."

Someone wrestled his arms behind his back and bound his hands with a thin cord that cut into his wrists. Muted conversation followed; he thought they were trying to throw the long tail of the cord over a high branch. He had a heartbeat to realize what they were going to do before they pulled on the rope, forcing his arms straight up. If he continued his facade of unconsciousness, they would hoist him off the ground by his wrists, no doubt dislocating his shoulders in the process.

He scrambled to get his feet under him. The rope kept dragging him higher, until he was balanced on his toes, bent at the waist in an attempt to relieve the strain on his shoulders. The pose was already painful, and he'd only held it for a few seconds; he dreaded how it would feel after he'd held it for hours while being tortured.

And he had no doubt he would be tortured.