Extinction

She spotted Uluyara, hunting horn still raised to pursed lips, but she could see none of the other priestesses. Nor could she hear them. Lowering the horn, Uluyara pointed at the far side of the clearing, then she backed slowly into the woods. Tree branches closed after her like curtains.

Halisstra stared in the direction in which Uluyara had pointed, but she saw only forest.

She turned to where Feliane should have been and began to ask, "What do I. ."

Her voice trailed off as she discovered that Feliane, too, was nowhere to be seen. There was nothing behind Halisstra but tree branches, sighing against one another in the wind. As it blew across the clearing from the direction in which Uluyara had pointed, the breeze carried a familiar, musky smell.

Whirling back to face the clearing, Halisstra raised her sword?and not an instant too soon. In front of her crouched an enormous spider, easily half again as tall as she was. Its body was a mottled gray and black?perfect camouflage in the moonlight-dappled wood. Glossy black eyes reflected the moon as the creature reared up, jaws dripping venom.

For the space of a heartbeat Halisstra stared up at the spider, uncertainty making her sword waver. Years of subservience to Lolth screamed at her to throw her weapon to the ground, to grovel before the holy creature and selflessly offer unto it whatever Lolth would claim.

"A hungry spider must feed," was one of the first things she had been taught after being accepted as a novice at Lolth's temple. "Give yourself to it joyfully, for in the end Lolth will consume us all. Better to suffer the torments of the flesh now than to face the wrath of the goddess later."

Lolth would surely have punished a priestess?especially one who had spurned her as Halisstra had?for so grave a transgression. But Lolth was dead. Or at the very least, not watching.

The moonlight reflected in the spider's eyes reminded Halisstra of one thing more: Eilistraee was watching. Or at the very least, she might have been. Halisstra smiled grimly, suddenly realizing why Uluyara and Feliane had disappeared.

The spider was her trial.

As the spider lunged down at her, Halisstra swung her sword with all her strength. Flashing in the moonlight, the sword described a clean arc, its blade exactly in line with the spider's bulging eyes. But instead of connecting with the meaty thunk Halisstra had expected, the sword continued to whistle through the air until it slammed into the ground. The spider had suddenly disappeared. Thrown off balance, Halisstra pitched forward. She managed to land on her knees and one hand by dropping the hunting horn. An instant later the spider reappeared?directly above her.

Halisstra rolled onto her back, swinging the sword into an upright position as she did, then she thrust upward at the belly of the spider. Just as it had done the first time, it disappeared.

"Goddess help me," Halisstra groaned. "A phase spider."

There was no way to predict where the spider would appear next?but at least for the moment, it was safely in the Ethereal.

Halisstra rolled violently to one side across the snowy ground, praying that she'd chosen correctly?that the spider was moving in the other direction, its ethereal legs passing right through her.

Halisstra's guess had been a lucky one. The phase spider re-entered the material plane a pace or two away, allowing her the briefest instant in which to spring to her feet. Then it rushed forward again.

Grimly, Halisstra turned to meet it, knowing that she was in a fight she could not win?not even with Seyll's magic sword. All the spider had to do was wait her out, slipping into ethereal form each time she attacked, then skittering invisibly away to reappear somewhere else a moment later. One of those times Halisstra would guess wrong and it would wind up behind her. Unseen, it would inject its deadly poison and take its time as it sucked her dry.

There was, however, one thing she could fall back on: her bae'qeshel magic. Her voice shaking slightly, she chanted a song. It should have charmed the spider, rooting it to the spot in fascination, but nothing happened. The spider appeared, attacked, then disappeared again, forcing Halisstra to constantly whirl and defend herself with her sword. She cursed her luck, under her breath. Had she mispronounced a word?or were phase spiders simply resistant to the form of enchantment she'd attempted?

Dodging the spider once more she slipped on a patch of snowy ground and fell. The spider stepped on her sword, forcing Halisstra to release the weapon and roll to the side to avoid its jaws. When the spider disappeared once more, she sprang to her feet and snatched the songsword up again. To her dismay, she saw that the tip of the blade had been snapped off, rendering the blade useless as a thrusting weapon. But perhaps there was still hope.