"Ghaunadaur, your faithful servant calls," Shi'drin intoned. "In your name, I feast." Then he transformed. His fingers melted into his hands, his arms trickled toward his body like melting candle wax, and his head turned into a blackened puddle on his shoulders. Soon all of him, including his robe and tabard, had turned to ooze. The black blob he'd become bulged against the lowest step of the dais, and flowed up to the altar.

The other priests formed two lines, stretching from the doorway to the dais. Karas, by careful maneuvering, placed himself as far from the altar as he could get, beside the chamber's only exit. He pretended to follow along as the priests muttered their devotions and swayed back and forth. He moved his lips in time with the rest, mumbling what he hoped would pass as a prayer.

Fortunately, Ghaunadaur's faithful had no set liturgy. Like the god they worshiped, their rituals were amorphous and ill-defined. Each priest praised the Ancient One in his own fashion. If any of the others noticed that Karas was uttering nonsense, it wouldn't matter. He just prayed that the Ancient One itself wasn't listening.

A few moments later, the first of the sacrifices staggered into the altar room: an orc, her eyes glazed, a dribble of the drug she'd been forced to drink drooling from her mouth. Even from a distance, Karas could smell its licorice-sweet scent. The tempo of the priests' mutterings increased, found a rhythm. "Onward. Oblivion. Onward."

With each word, the captured slave took a step forward, stumbling as if shoved by invisible hands between the two rows of priests. Compelled by their magic, the orc made her way, one halting step at a time, to the dais. At last she bumped her shins against it, fell forward, and cracked her head on the stone. She rose, her snout bloody. She levered herself up onto the first layer of the dais. Then the second. Then onto the altar stone itself.

The priests fell silent. With a wet, slurping sound, the black ooze that was Shi'drin slithered onto the altar. As it engulfed the orc, the glaze fell from her eyes. Her cry of anguish was cut short as her flesh sizzled. The stench of burned hair filled the room. For a heartbeat or two she struggled, then fell still. A pitted bone poked momentarily out of the black ooze, then got slurped back inside.

Now a second slave stumbled into the room, this one a male half-orc. Like the first sacrificial victim, he stank of the drug he'd been forced to consume. The priests began their chant anew, compelling him forward.

Sickened, Karas played along. "Onward. Oblivion. Onward."

One by one, eleven more captured slaves marched to the dais, climbed to the altar, and were consumed. Feeling faint, Karas wondered if the sacrifices were ever going to end. He vomited in his throat, and harshly swallowed the bile down again.

As the thirteenth captive was being dissolved, a sound like stone being slammed by a sledge rent the air. Instantly, the priests fell silent. Heads turned. Karas peered down his line and saw that a Y-shaped crack had opened in the altar stone and the altar had split into three pieces. Judging by the reactions of the priests, it was an auspicious omen. They seemed tense, anticipatory.

Karas didn't like the thought of that.

A greenish sludge oozed out of the. "The Great Devouring is at hand!"

"They have cracks and puddled on the upper level of the dais. It dribbled onto the lower level, then onto the floor. Karas watched it, his every muscle tense. When it reached his boot, he shifted his foot slightly. Its stench made his stomach lurch. But he couldn't very well flee, not with the others watching. He stood his ground, sweating, as the sticky green ooze flowed past his boots. He prayed it wouldn't dissolve the leather, burn through to his feet, and reveal him as a spy.

It didn't.

No more victims staggered through the curtain; the sacrifice seemed to be at an end. Yet the priests continued to sway and chant Ghaunadaur's name. Karas glanced at the curtain, wondering if he could slip away without anyone noticing. He decided not to risk it. Meanwhile, the green stuff kept oozing from the altar like blood from a wound. It was obviously a manifestation of Ghaunadaur. But what did it mean?

A moment later, one of the novices burst into the chamber. He threw himself onto the floor and wormed his way to the altar through the sludge, fouling his robes. "Masters!" he cried, his voice shrill with excitement. "The lake is in turmoil! It's turned a bright purple. A spawning has begun!"

The black blob on the altar flowed upward, assumed the shape of a drow, and morphed back into Shi'drin. The Eater's eyes grew wild with anticipation. "It is come!" he criedcome!" the other priests chanted. "His servants have come!" As one, they turned and rushed from the room.

As the other priests jostled each other in an apparent frenzy to be devoured by whatever was rising out of the lake, Karas hung back. He felt dizzy with fear. Llurthogl was spawning? Why now? Had Ghaunadaur sensed an enemy among his fanatics? Karas glanced nervously at the green ooze that fouled his boots, wondering if it was about to consume him.

Soon, Karas and the prostrated novice were the only ones left in the shrine.

"Go!" Karas shouted, his voice tight with strain. "Make your preparations!"

The novice heaved himself to his feet and ran from the room.

Karas wiped nervous sweat from his brow. Every instinct screamed at him to flee Llurth Dreir and never look back. There was an easy exit close at hand: the columns ringing the altar, with their teleportation runes. He reached into his pocket and found the lump of amber that had, at its heart, a crescent-shaped spark of moonlight. Touching the amber to any of the runes would alter its destination, linking it with one of the three columns in the Promenade that had, centuries ago, been ensorcelled by Ghaunadaur's cultists.

He struggled to make his decision. Should he abandon everything he and Valdar had worked so hard to set in place these past few tendays, or stay here and try to brazen it out? He had, until now, been able to fool the Ghaunadaurian priesthood-even in the heart of the Ancient One's shrine, even during a sacrifice. But during a spawning? The oozes and slimes boiling up out of the lake were mindless creatures that couldn't tell the difference between friend and foe, but that was of little comfort. It only meant that his disguise wouldn't save him, if one of them decided to consume him.

Karas swore. Until a few moments ago, it had all been going so well. All he'd needed to do was continue the facade, and wait for Qilue's signal. That would be his cue to reveal his "discovery"-a portal that had, "by the grace of Ghaunadaur," opened between one of the columns in their shrine and the Promenade. In a carefully choreographed dance, each of the other spies would do the same. One by one, at precisely timed intervals, they would usher their fanatics straight into the trap the high priestess had prepared. Qilue, meanwhile, would ensure the Protectors and other faithful kept well back, out of sight but ready to deal with the fanatics, should they stray from the designated path.

Qilue had explained that the Masked Lady herself had approved this plan. Valdar, when first told of it, had seen the Masked Lord's hand in it at once. Inviting Eilistraee's most resolute enemies into the heart of the Promenade, he told Karas, was something the goddess would never contemplate. Eilistraee was a goddess who fought with song and sword, not shadows and subterfuge. This plan was Vhaeraun's doing.

Karas had been convinced. He'd persuaded the high priestess to let him select the Nightshadows who would carry out "Eilistraee's" divine will, and ensured that Valdar was among them. When Qilue's call came, the hand-picked few would lead their Ghaunadaurians into the Promenade not in small, easily contained groups, but all at once-away from the trap. The temple would be overwhelmed, and the priestesses swept aside-while the Nightshadows sat out the battle in safety, downriver in Skullport. Later, when it was all over, they would re-assume their disguises and steer the fanatics into the trap Qilue had prepared, cleansing the temple a second time.