"Is that the best you can do, ladies?" Szorak muttered. "I expected something a little more lethal."

He continued forward, the rod held loosely in his hand. The pile of leaves exploded as a sword flew out of it. Szorak was barely able to bring his rod up in time. He smashed it against the sword in a desperate parry. Black iron met shining steel with a loud clank, and there was a silent explosion of magical energy. The sword tumbled to the ground, inert.

Szorak took a deep breath. He stared down at the two glyphs engraved in the blade. Both incorporated the word ogglin. Enemy. Even a magical disguise wouldn't have fooled them, and Szorak hadn't expected a two-glyph ward. Had he not parried the sword, he might have already been dead.

He chuckled. "That's almost worthy of Vhaeraun, ladies, except that our sword thrust would have come from behind."

His detection magic revealed other wards to the right and left. The sword must be one of several placed in a ring around the shrine's perimeter, but that ring had been broken.

Szorak stepped across the neutralized sword. Then he activated the secondary power of his ring, disguising himself. Though he could still feel the soft velvet of his mask against his cheeks and chin, to an observer his face would appear bare, his cheeks smooth and feminine. He would seem taller than he really was, his body more shapely, and his black cloak, shirt, and trousers would instead look like chain mail, covered by a breastplate bearing Eilistraee's moon and sword. The rod in his hand would appear to be a sword. Anyone touching him would instantly perceive that all was not as it seemed, but he fully intended that whoever got close enough for that wouldn't live for more than a heartbeat.

He walked on through the darkened woods. Up ahead, he could hear women singing and see shapes moving through the trees-Eilistraee's faithful, worshiping at their shrine. He veered away from that spot, looking instead for the place where the priestesses made their home. On a hunch, he whispered a prayer that would lead him to the nearest cave.

The cave turned out to be a slit in the hillside, screened by the flow of a stream that tumbled from above. The entrance, however, was protected by magic. Even from a distance, Szorak could feel its power. It produced a high, shrill note that grew in intensity the nearer he got to the cave. Try as he might, he could not get close enough to cancel it with his rod. Forcing himself in that direction made his ears pound until he thought they were going to burst.

He backed away, muttering dark curses. He would have to steal a soul from one of the dancers, instead. "A challenge, Masked Lord?" he muttered. His eyes gleamed. "I accept." He made his way back through the woods.

The shrine turned out to be a natural pillar of black rock, twice the height of a drow, carved with crescent moons. A sword hilt protruded from the top of it. The pillar had been bored through with holes, and the breeze passing through them created a sound like several flutes playing at once. The priestesses danced around the pillar in a loose circle, naked save for the belts that held their hunting horns and the holy symbols that hung around their necks. Each female had a sword which she held at arm's length as she twirled. Blade clashed against blade as the women spun together, then apart again, their swords trailing sparkles of silver light.

The dance might have been beautiful, had it not been a violation of the sacred order. Had Eilistraee not interfered, Vhaeraun might have united all of the dark elves under a single deity millennia ago, but Eilistraee had proved as greedy as Lolth and had stolen the females away from the Masked Lord's worship. She'd taught them to exclude males from her circle, to subjugate and revile them instead.

Vhaeraun's followers had learned a bitter lesson. Females could not be trusted.

Szorak watched long enough to determine that priestesses were joining and leaving the dance at what seemed to be random intervals. Though they danced in a group, there was no discernible pattern to their collective movements. Each female seemed to be following her own path. Satisfied, he altered his magical disguise, giving clothing the appearance of bare flesh. Then, holding his disguised rod like a sword, he danced into their midst.

The women, fooled by his disguise, made room for him. He kept to the fringes, both unwilling and unable to approach the holy pillar. It, like the cave where the women lived, was warded with magic that clenched his belly and made him feel as though he were about to vomit, but the rod in his hand dampened it enough to make it bearable. The excitement he felt at having penetrated their holy dance gave him a sharp thrill. Blood pounded through his body as he danced, leaving him flushed.

Spinning close to one of the dancing priestesses, he moved his rod like a sword. She, in turn, clanked her blade against it. The force of the blow numbed his fingers, but his rod, being metal, gave a convincing clang, meanwhile draining the sword of its magic. Quickly, he whispered a prayer.

Before the woman could spin away, he leaned in close to her ear and whispered a harsh command: "Follow."

It was a gamble. If the spell failed, he would have just given himself away as a male, since his voice remained undisguised, but the dice seemed to have rolled in his favor. There was no commotion behind him as he spun out of the dance and strode away into the forest. The priestess he had singled out followed wordlessly, meek as a rothe culled from the herd.

When they were some distance from the dance, he turned to face her. He was glad to see that she was drow and not one of those surface elves who stained their skin black. Killing one of those would be so much less satisfying.

She was still panting from the dance, her breasts rising and falling, her long white hair damp with sweat. She frowned slightly, a hint of confusion in her eyes as she stared at Szorak. Her sword hung loose in her hand.

"What do you want? Why have we left the dance?"

Szorak beckoned to her, leaning forward as if to whisper a confidence in her ear. He had to stand on tiptoe to do it; like most females, she was taller than he.

She leaned closer.

He touched her cheek, whispering the word that would trigger his spell. Dark magic leaped from his fingertips. As her body convulsed, he pressed his lips against hers, sucking her soul into his mask.

But the soultheft spell didn't work. Instead of being slain by his magic, the priestess still lived. She smashed a hand against his chest, shoving him backward. Then she swept her sword through the air in a slash that should have decapitated him, but Szorak's spell had done at least some damage. The priestess staggered as she swung her weapon, and he was able to duck just in time to avoid the blade. Muttering a curse, he sprang inside the arc of her next swing, shaking a weighted strangle cord out of his sleeve. He whipped it around her neck, twisting around behind her and catching it in his other hand. Then he leaped onto her back, wrapping his legs around her waist and levering his upper torso backwards to tighten the cord.

The strangle cord bit into the priestess's neck, preventing her from crying out or casting any spell that required prayer, but she was no fool. She hurled herself backward, smashing Szorak into a tree. The back of his head cracked against rough bark and he lost his grip on one end of the strangle cord. As the priestess wrenched herself away from him, he scrambled to his feet, yanking a poisoned dagger out of a wrist sheath. As he readied it for a throw, the priestess tried to call out, but her voice was still a half-strangled whisper from the cord that had scored a line across her throat. She started to reach for the hunting horn at her belt.

Before she could wrench it free, Szorak threw. His dagger buried itself in her throat. The venom that coated it finished the job his strangle cord had begun. The priestess stiffened, her sword trembling in her hands and her eyes rolling back in her head.