Holy Opposites 49

	“So how do we know which one to hit?” a striking young elf asked from beside Luanea.  She was a dark elf, not a drow, so she was one either one of those lucky drow who had been freed from their ancestral curse by the tumult of the era following Khelben Blackstaff’s and Eilistraee’s deaths, or she was one of their children.  If Cavria was any judge, it was the latter.  She was clearly more relaxed than the elegant and graceful Luanea.  She was sitting cross-legged on top of a large box in the corner and leaning back on her hands, looking down at the group with a carefree smile.  She was also, insofar as Cavria could see from her chair, clad in really not much more than a few patches of cloth and a diaphanous cloak.  She was clearly very familiar with Axio, though, as the moment she had seen him, she had launched herself into his arms with a whoop and he had lifted her clean off the ground to spin her.  When Axio had set her down, the bubbly elf had introduced herself as Kryia’ardras Do’slie, descended from the long-annihilated Menzobarranzan House Slie.  A traveling caravan of gnomes and humans had raised her in the north reach of Calimshan territory before she had heard Eilistraee’s call.

	Cavria felt honest surprise at playful tone of her voice and provocative clothing.  True, Eilistraeeans made a point of reflecting the joyful love of their mistress, but she was behaving like a frisky teenager, not a priestess.  Kyria’ardras – Kyria to her friends, she had gaily announced – had paced around the room until finding a place to perch.  She noticed Cavria’s attention and cocked one black eyebrow, but Cavria quickly looked away.

	“The runes which activate more often will have a different arcane imprint in the stone, so Embersson tells me,” Axio said.  “He thinks we’ll be ready to go in two days, at the least, four at the most.”

	“I’ll be ready,” Doshellas said softly from his chair in the corner.  He was most comfortable in the shaded parts of the room, Cavria and Axio had both noted, and his clothing barely showed off his physique.  His past as a slave had clearly burned some discomforts into his mind.

	Luanea was holding court from a comfortable chair in the center of the room.  Two drow babies were fast asleep in a large crib in one of the two corners not occupied by Doshellas and Kryia.  A pair of drow in late adolescence were tending to them while the rest of the group sat about.  “We’ll all be ready,” she assured Axio.  “Unfortunately, from the rest of the team, only Kyria was able to make it back in time.”

	Axio nodded.  “That should be enough people, if we’re careful.  Thank you.”

	“It means a lot to us that we can rely on your for help,” Cavria put in.  “While so many of the Ilmateri and Ryairan clergy and allies are fighting the main body of the cult in the south, we’re so dreadfully short-staffed.”

	Kyria rapped her fingers on the edge of box behind her.  “Glad to help.  Axio’s a friend,” she said cheerfully.  “That, and, ugh, this cult is disgusting.  And if we get even half the haul you guys found last time, hey, we’re set for years!”

	“I can’t promise that,” Axio cautioned her.  “But of course you will be entitled to half the treasure we find.  Two sixths will go to us, and one sixth to Embersson.”

	“The spy gets a share?” Doshellas said disgustedly.

	“He had defected to us of his own free will, and I have… excoriated his hesitation,” Axio said flatly.  “If he turns on us, I crush his head with my bare hands.  If not, he gets a share and travel to Cormyr.  That was the arrangement.  Any objections?”

	The others looked unhappy, but nobody spoke.

	“Good.  Luanea, my friend, I now must ask you.  A few of the children we saved are drow, and were taken by the Baneites from their families in the Underdark.”  Axio leaned forward and rested his chin on his fist.  “My friend, I’m torn,” he said quietly.  “These children are innocent, they haven’t been brainwashed.  Some can’t even describe their parents well enough for us to even find them.  What should we do?”

	Luanea sighed.  Kyria’s lip twitched.  “I don’t know,” Luanea said sadly.  “Bring them to me, and my sisters will care for them for now.  If there are too many, we may need to spirit them off to a place of hiding in a more populous region, with more of my people hiding in the forests.”

	“Are there no forest-dwelling populations nearby?” Cavria asked.  “With two major temples in one city?”

	“Nope,” Kyria said.  “Not for a few day’s hard march.”

	Axio tsked.  “I’ll bring them by.”

	“So where do we meet when we have the locations?” Kyria asked.

	“The Temple of Ryaire,” Axio said.  “We’ll come and find everybody.”


	Kyria followed the pair outside, oblivious to or uncaring of the appreciative looks the construction crews were giving her.  “Hey, so, Axio,” she asked, “what’s with the eyes?”

	Axio reflexively put a hand to his face.  “Yes… my eyes are transforming,” he said quietly.  “Solen and Ryaire have explained it as a sort of metamorphosis.  I’m coming to resemble… well, for lack of a better term, resemble an angel.”

	“Wow.  Why?” Kyria asked.

	Cavria frowned.  It was a very personal question.  Axio answered anyway, without hesitation.  “Because I am becoming an exarch,” he said, very faintly.  “In death, I’ll be Ryaire’s left hand.”

	Kyria’s black eyes bugged out.  “Really?” she breathlessly asked.

	“Yes.  But, you know, it’s not something I wish to trumpet, you know?” he asked.  “Please keep it quiet.”

	Kyria nodded.  “My lips are sealed,” she said, making the classic gesture across her face.  Her deep brown skin shone in the brilliant light through the angled windows overhead.  Just like Luanea, she was the vision of perfect health.

	“Kyria,” Cavria asked, “what sort of warrior are you?  Are you a Paladin, like us?”

	“Nope, I’m a Wizard,” she said.  “I can more than keep up in a fight, though,” she added cheerfully.

	“Good.  Well, then, we’ll see you soon,” Cavria said.  To her surprise, the other woman leaned forward for a quick hug and kiss on both Ryairans before bouncing back into the closed-off room, despite Cavria’s ugly costume.

	“I can see why you like hanging around this place, Axio,” Cavria said cheekily.  “You get a lot of hugs from pretty girls.”

	Axio sighed tolerantly.  One of the construction workers snickered.  Both Paladins started walking back to their own temple.

	“So does the worship of Eilistraee just naturally attract perky, beautiful women?” Cavria quipped.

	“Yes, actually,” Axio said.  “It’s kind of what they do.  There’s also some rules against male priests of Eilistraee left, though those are fading.”

	“Oh.  Really?  I didn’t know,” Cavria admitted.  “I was kidding.”

	“There are nearly as many male worshippers, just not many male clergy,” Axio explained.  “It’s partly a drow affectation, but Eilistraee also prefers female clergy for some reason.  I don’t feel it’s my place to ask.”


	The back garden of the temple was full of children when Axio arrived to find the drow kids.  Several rushed up to hug him when he arrived, and he scooped several up in his arms with a huge smile.  “Well, look who’s up!” he said, greeting several by name.  “Everybody feeling better?”

	Most voices said yes, though a few children on the corner bench said nothing.  Cavria moved quietly around the edge of the open garden to sit next to the vegetables.  It was a wonderful, if sad, feeling to watch the souls she had saved recovering in this place of tranquility.  It reminded her of the pit in the middle of the Arbor, watching the children play and scramble over the garden.

	With her amulet on, her appearance was inherently unappealing to each child in a different way; not many of them wandered over, but two did.  A gnome boy and a human girl sat down on either side of her.

	For a while, neither spoke, but eventually, the gnome found his courage.  “Were you the one with wings?” he asked faintly.  He couldn’t look at her directly, she noted, and she felt a surge of protective rage when she saw the huge, deep scars on his knees.  He had tried to kick his way out of the cell and been savagely beaten for it.

	“Yes,” Cavria said.

	“They’re gone?” he mumbled.

	“Well, yes.  They were in the way,” Cavria said, feeling a flash of phantom pain from her back as she did so.  She did miss the feeling of flying, but a room full of ghastly children staring at her in fear had burned the desire to keep her new body parts right out of her mind.

	“Okay.”  The boy looked down at his feet.  Donations from the city’s residents had paid for simple sandals for the kids, and clean clothes.  Cavria suspected it was more than some children had ever owned.  Several had the missing teeth and scuffed joints of orphans and urchins.  “What are you?”

	Cavria had sworn to herself not to lie to others who asked her directly, but she couldn’t bear to frighten the little boy any more than she already had.  “I’m a Paladin, my friend,” she said.

	He looked up at her and immediately whimpered.  Cavria’s eyes widened.  “What?  What’s wrong?”

	He slowly backed up from the bench, visibly shaking in fear.  Cavria stood; she was suddenly sweating.  “What?” she demanded.  Was he able to see her fiendish eyes?