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Halisstra heard Eilistraee calling to her heart, but she felt Lolth calling to her soul. It both appalled and delighted her.
    She was terrified.
    Yor'thae, said the nothingness.
    She closed her eyes and shook her head.
    "What do you want?" she whispered.
    She was distantly conscious of her body slowly sinking in the aether but did not care. She had forsworn Lolth-she had! She'd made herself a willing apostate. She had embraced Eilistraee's faith, sworn herself to the Dancing Goddess under the light of the moon on the surface of the World Above.
    But…
    But her conversion had occurred at the end of a sword's point. She had been implicitly threatened with death by the priestesses she had come to call sisters. Was it not all a sham then, driven by the need of a homeless drow priestess without access to her spells to find acceptance and a home somewhere, anywhere?
    No, she thought, and pressed her fingers hard against her brow as though she could drive them into her brain and pluck out that part of her that still longed for Lolth. Her conversion had not been forced. It had been willing, beautiful, soul opening…
    A hand, a steadying hand, closed gently on her bicep, stopped her descent, and pulled her around. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into the intense red eyes of Uluyara. The drow High Priestess of Eilistraee looked comfortable in her mail and forest green tunic. A sword hung from her hip, a war horn from her neck. A host of magical tokens-feathers, buttons, and pins-hung from her tabard. Her full mouth wore a look of genuine concern for Halisstra, but behind the concern, deep in her eyes, lurked something else-something Halisstra could not quite identify.
    "Are you all right?" Uluyara asked. She gave Halisstra a gentle shake. "Halisstra, are you all right?"
    Beside them, the parade of souls continued to stream past, so quickly they looked blurry. Black lightning split the aether neatly in two. Maelstroms churned. The voice whispered. Uluyara's white hair waved in the Astral wind. Her armor, weapons, and clothing appeared dull compared to the color of the souls. They all looked dull compared to Lolth's dead.
    Halisstra blinked, managed a nod, and said, "Yes. I'm just… troubled, from seeing Ryld."
    Uluyara's eyes showed understanding, though her hard expression held little sympathy. Halisstra knew that the death and afterlife of Ryld Argith little concerned Uluyara. The High Priestess was focused on their goal of finding and killing Lolth; nothing else mattered to her.
    Yor'thae, whispered the Astral.
    Hearing the word again, Halisstra felt her cheeks burn. She looked for a reaction from Uluyara, but the High Priestess showed nosign of having heard anything.
    "Did you not hear that?" Halisstra asked, fearful of the answer.
    Uluyara stiffened, cocked her head, and looked around warily. Her eyes came back to Halisstra.
    "Hear what?" she asked. "The souls? The lightning? There is nothing else."
    Before Halisstra could answer, Feliane floated beside Uluyara and put a gentle hand on Halisstra's mailed shoulder. The slight elf priestess wore a suit of fine mail and a small round helmet out of which her long brown hair streamed. A thinblade hung from her narrow hips. She looked like an armed child sent off to do battle. Was Eilistraee so desperate?
    "It is the murmur of the souls as they journey to their fate," Feliane said. She looked upon the dead and her round eyes were sorrowful. "Nothing more."
    Uluyara nodded agreement. The souls did mutter as they streamed past, a low, barely audible hum, but Halisstra knew the whisper of Yor'thae was something else, something audible only to her.
    "The damned of Lolth do not go quietly to their fate," Uluyara said, and unlike Feliane, Halisstra saw no sorrow in the High Priestess's red eyes. In her own way, Uluyara was as merciless a priestess as any servant of Lolth. "Perhaps they sense at the last the mistake they have made."
    Halisstra jerked her arm free of Uluyara and