"Send another six priestesses and two score warriors to the Chondalwood," Qilue commanded.

The pale-skinned Jasmir whispered a sending, relaying the command. She was fully dressed for battle in leather armor whose spiral patterns matched the tattoos on her forearms. Her long white hair was in two braids, tightly bound into a bun at the back of her neck.

Qilue stared into the scrying bowl, tense with anticipation. It was focused on the shrine in the Chondalwood, far to the southeast. There Eilistraee's priestesses fought a bloody battle against driders who had boiled up out of the Underdark without warning-just as they had in the Misty Forest last month. Even as Qilue watched, a drider knocked a priestess to the ground with a web and landed on her back, opening its spider fangs wide to bite.

Qilue stabbed a finger down into the water and sang a note that was strident and shrill. The drider shook his head, disoriented. As it did, a sword came dancing through the air, slashing the monster nearly in half. A priestess ran into view behind it, and the sword returned to her hand. She kneeled on the snow-covered ground beside the first and tore away the webs, freeing her companion.

Qilue didn't wait to see the rest. She shifted the scrying's focus to a frozen pool of water not far from the shrine itself. A moment later, its icy cap exploded upward as a priestess burst out of the shallow pool from below, sword in hand, the first of the reinforcements Qilue had just ordered to the Chondalwood.

Qilue shifted the scrying rapidly from one location to the next, checking the other shrines. From the Moonwood to the Shaar, more than half of Eilistraee's holdings were under attack. Priestesses, backed up by lay worshipers, fought pitched battles at the Dancing Dell, in the Velarswood, the Gray Forest, the Yuirwood, the Forest of Shadows. Each battle involved creatures of the Underdark not normally found on the surface: driders, fighting with webs, poison, and spells; neogi-creatures that looked like spiders with wormlike necks and tiny heads filled with needle-like teeth-using their magic to dominate those who fought them, turning Eilistraee's faithful against each other; and chitines, fighting with four weapons at once, one in each spindly hand. Through it all, spellgaunts dashed here and there, gobbling up magic. Their presence alone hinted at the authors of the highly coordinated attacks-the Selvetargtlin, yet none of Selvetarm's clerics could be seen.

Where were they?

"A dozen priestesses and a score of warriors to the Gray Forest," Qilue ordered.

Jasmir dutifully repeated the order. She closed her eyes a moment, listening, then relayed the reply. "Iljrene can only send nine priestesses. That's the last of them, unless you want to start sending the Protectors."

Qilue shook her head. "Keep the Protectors here," she ordered. "We'll need them if the Promenade is attacked." And that it would be attacked, she was certain. It was too glaring an omission, but when? And from which direction? Two Protectors, each armed with a singing sword, stood guard at every possible entrance, including the portals. Qilue scried each of those pairs of priestesses in turn, but all was quiet.

She frowned. Should she really hold her best fighters back? A singing sword would certainly help tip the balance in any of the battles she'd just observed.

A faint tapping sounded at the room's only door. Qilue looked up as Jasmir hurried to answer it. Iljrene would have used a sending to contact her, and a lay worshiper had no business here, not now. Before Qilue could caution Jasmir, the priestess opened the door.

A feather zipped inside the room and fell at Qilue's feet. Its silver spine was bent nearly double and its vanes were split and fouled with spiderwebs and dust, but Qilue recognized it at once as the magical token she'd given Jub. She'd been wondering where the spy had gotten to, and by the looks of the webs sticking to the quill, he'd had some bad luck.

Turning from her font, she bent and picked up the quill. She straightened the spine then touched the nib to the floor. She spoke the command word and watched as the quill slowly and laboriously scratched out its message in glowing silver letters on the dark stone floor.

Yes, Qilue thought. She'd guessed that already. The attacks took place after the moon had risen, ensuring that the Moonspring could be used to send reinforcements.

She nodded. Just as she'd suspected. But why sixty-six? And why hadn't the attack come yet?

Qilue knew who her enemies were. Most likely the exiles, the renegade Selvetargtlin who were tossed out of Eryndlyn for "blaspheming" by worshiping Selvetarm in his own right instead of as a servant of Lolth.

The quill was still scratching out its message. THEYR GOING TO JUMP ON THE TEMPLE, it wrote. Then it fell to the floor.

Qilue stared down at the quill a moment more, as if willing it to continue, but the message was at an end. And it hadn't told her much. The feint Jub warned of was already in progress, and though Qilue had been forced to send troops to reinforce the shrines, she'd held back her Protectors-two dozen of her best warriors-to maintain the Promenade's defenses. The Protectors would be outnumbered three to one if sixty-six Selvetargtlin did attack, but each Protector was armed with a singing sword and powerful spells. Whatever direction the Selvetargtlin chose to attack from, they would be forced to fight their way in through a choke point that would allow Eilistraee's faithful to concentrate their spells. One or two Selvetargtlin might be able to battle their way inside the temple, but they wouldn't last long.

Qilue turned her attention back to the scrying bowl. Shifting her awareness, she concentrated on Jub. For the past few days, her attempts to scry him had been blocked by something. She'd assumed that to be Daurgothoth's doing. The undead black dragon didn't appreciate anyone peering into his lair, but as the marketplace of the abandoned city came into focus, she began to wonder. Why, suddenly, was she able to scry the dracolich's lair? Had some protection suddenly fallen-or been removed?

The water in the bowl rippled then stilled. Qilue looked down on a severed head. Jub's. It lay next to a foul-looking pool. What remained of the head was deeply pitted by acid.

"Eilistraee have mercy," Qilue whispered.

Jasmir peered over her shoulder. "Who was it?"

"A lay worshiper. One who deserved better than that." There was no time to mourn Jub's loss. Later, when the crisis was at an end, she would send a priestess to recover what was left of Jub so that he could be resurrected.

She pulled her focus back, noting the vast, empty cavern. The Selvetargtlin seemed to have abandoned it, but where were they?

"Send a warning to each pair of Protectors," she ordered. "An attack by the Selvetargtlin is imminent."

"Lady, I have already told Iljrene about the warning," Jasmir said, nodding down at the message on the floor. Her leaf-green eyes gleamed in anticipation of the battle to come. One slender hand rested on the hilt of her sword. Ready. "Iljrene is relaying it to the Protectors even as we speak." She glanced down at the floor, her brow furrowed. " 'Jump on the temple,'" she repeated. "Does that mean the attack will come from above?"