by Lisa Smedman
As always happened when Cavatina visited the Promenade, priestesses found an excuse to join whatever activity she was participating in. Moonrise—the time when most performed the Evensong devotion—was still some time away. Yet novices and higher-ranking priestesses alike were already slipping into the Cavern of Song in ones and twos. Cavatina nodded at each as she entered—but when a Nightshadow slid into the room, furtive as an assassin on the prowl, the hymn she sang died on her lips.
Though the Nightshadow was naked—he’d observed that doctrine, at least—his face was hidden behind his mask. The blade he carried wasn’t a sword but an assassin’s hollow-bladed dagger. He took up a place near the entrance—his back against the wall—and pointed his dagger at the spot where Eilistraee’s moonfire bloomed. Then he began to sing.
As he did, streaks of darkfire threaded their way into Eilistraee’s sacred light.
Throughout the cavern, eyes widened and voices faltered. Not once in the twenty-two years since the temple’s founding had a male participated in the sacred hymn within the Cavern of Song. Despite the admission of Vhaeraun’s clerics to Eilistraee’s faith, this tradition still held. Males could pass through the cavern—they had to in order to get from one wing of the Promenade to the next—but the Cavern of Song was the one place in all of Eilistraee’s many shrines that the old observances were retained.
But that long tradition had been broken.
Cavatina was appalled by the impudence of the male. The Nightshadows had been given another cavern elsewhere in the Promenade as a place where they might worship according to their traditions. The male should have gone there and honored the goddess in his own peculiar way, shrouded in darkness and silence.
Cavatina realized that the only voice in the cavern was the Nightshadow’s. The females had fallen silent. He alone sustained the hymn that had continued, unbroken, since the temple’s founding.
Cavatina swallowed—her mouth was suddenly very dry—and immediately began to sing. Her voice battled the Nightshadow’s as each attempted to drag the other into a range more suited to the singer’s gender. All at once, the other priestesses resumed the hymn, forcing the male to either find the harmony or falter.
Satisfied the song would be sustained without her assistance, Cavatina sheathed her sword and made her way across the cavern to the place where the Nightshadow stood. Aware that all eyes were upon her, she spoke with her hands as she approached him, so that all could “hear” her.
Males do not sing here, she signed with blunt, forceful movements of her fingers. The Cavern of Song is for priestesses only.
The Nightshadow continued to sing. His eyes slid toward her. They crinkled in a smile, puckering the scar next to his left eye.
Suddenly, Cavatina recognized him: the Nightshadow who had helped her battle the revenant in the Shilmista Forest. “Kâras!” she said aloud. “What—?”
His free hand answered the question she’d yet to complete. Lady Qilué summoned me to the Promenade. I’ll be joining your expedition.
“Then you’re under my command,” Cavatina said aloud. “And my first order is this: leave the Cavern of Song. At once.”
Kâras stopped singing in mid-stanza and lowered his dagger. He stared up at her, toying with the weapon as if testing its balance. “I’m not under your command,” he said slowly. “I’m to lead the Nightshadows. Ask me to leave the Cavern of Song, and I will. But I won’t take orders from you. I am a Black Moon, equivalent in rank to a Darksong Knight—the rank you still hold, Lady Cavatina.”
Cavatina stared down at him, her eyes blazing. How dare he? She’d see about this. “Qilué,” she said firmly.
A moment later the high priestess answered, mind to mind. Yes, Cavatina?
A male has entered the Cavern of Song, Cavatina thought back at her. The Nightshadow Kâras. He—
I sent him to find you, Qilué answered before Cavatina could finish. He has a wealth of knowledge of Kiaransalee’s cult. Listen to what he has to offer; you will need it.
Cavatina’s jaw clenched. Back in the forest, after Kâras had disappeared into the night, she’d chafed at missing an opportunity to hear more about Maerimydra. She should have been more careful about what she wished for. I’ll listen to him, but I don’t want him on the expedition. He’s … ill-suited to taking orders. He thinks he’s to command the Nightshadows; he’s actually got it into his head that he’s to join this expedition as my equal.
He is your equal, Qilué thought back. Female and male, moonlight and darkness, sword and stealth—working hand in hand to return the drow to the World Above, just as the goddess has decreed.
Cavatina winced. Before Eilistraee subsumed Vharaun’s worshipers, Qilué would have said “up into the light,” not, “to the World Above.” Cavatina resisted the urge to rub her temples. The thought of what the goddess had become pained her.
You and Kâras must work together, Qilué continued.
Cavatina’s jaw clenched. If that is your command, Lady Qilué, she answered, I will obey it.
It is.
The fact remains that males are not permitted to sing in the Cavern of Song, Cavatina shot back, still glaring at Kâras.
That, too, is something that must change. I will remedy it at once.
Cavatina was furious—but she was smart enough to know she needed to salvage the situation, and quickly. She spoke to Kâras in sign. I have spoken to Lady Qilué. You may sing with us. Stay or leave the cavern, as you please.
A moment later, several other priestesses cocked their heads slightly, listening. Cavatina heard the proclamation herself. Qilué told the faithful that Vhaeraun’s former clerics—those who had embraced their god in his new aspect of the Masked Lady—were welcome to join the holy chorus in the Cavern of Song.
Kâras slid his dagger back into its forearm sheath and inclined his head. Slightly. “I look forward to working with you on our expedition to the Acropolis, Lady Cavatina.”
Cavatina’s eyes narrowed. Two could play at this match. “As do I,” she parried, her voice cold as steel, “with you.”
CHAPTER 5
Q’arlynd watched as the slaves manacled the chitine to the experimentation chamber’s wall. Though the chitine wore the slave ring, it had a strong mind, highly resistant to enchantments. That might allow it to last a little longer than the other subjects, but strength of will made it difficult to handle; it kept shaking off Q’arlynd’s mental control.
The chitine was thin and barely as tall as Q’arlynd’s shoulder. In contrast, the gray-skinned grimlock slaves were taller than humans and powerfully muscled. Yet even they had a hard time forcing the chitine’s fourth arm into a manacle. The chitine’s oily skin made it difficult to grapple. Wrenching its arm free, it sank the hook in its palm into the shoulder of the larger grimlock, tearing a bloody gash. The grimlock yelped and slammed a fist into the chitine’s face, knocking its head back against the wall. The chitine sagged at the knees and slowly shook its head, its multifaceted eyes unfocused.
Q’arlynd clenched his fist around his master ring. “No more of that!” he snapped at the grimlocks. “I need it awake and undamaged.”
He forced the chitine to stand upright, and held its body still while the grimlocks completed their task. They were sightless creatures with only vestigial eyes. Though they couldn’t see Q’arlynd standing with his arms folded, they could hear his impatient foot tap and smell his irritation. Q’arlynd knew this would be his last chance to experiment on the kiira before being sent away.
The chitine at last secure, the grimlocks turned and bowed to their master. Each cocked an oversized ear in his direction, awaiting his command. Blood dribbled down the injured one’s arm and puddled on the floor.
“Go to the kitchen,” Q’arlynd ordered. “Have the cook wash out that wound and bind it. Then eat; there’s fresh meat for both of you.”
The grimlocks broke into wide grins. They bobbed their heads and hurried from the room, heads tipping this way and that as they
listened for the sounds of their footsteps echoing back off the walls.
Eldrinn sat in a corner of the room, watching, his spellbook lying open across his lap. Despite its ornately tooled leather cover and pages edged with gold, it held only a handful of minor spells. Eldrinn’s clothes were equally decorative. He wore an embroidered purple piwafwi over a white shirt and trousers that helped make his brownish skin seem darker than it was. His waist-length hair was neatly combed straight back from his high forehead and was bound in a silver clip that rested against the small of his back.
He shook his head. “Wash and bind the wound? You’re coddling those grimlocks. That wound will heal by itself.”
Q’arlynd gestured at their captive. “Look at the chitine’s hands; they’re filthy. The wound could fester. No sense in wasting a good slave.”
Eldrinn closed his spellbook and laid it on the table beside him, next to a wooden box. “There’s plenty more where they came from.”
“Slaves are expensive.”
“So what? We can afford a dozen of them.”
Q’arlynd sighed. The younger wizard had an intuitive grasp of magic that was well beyond his training and years, but what he knew about handling slaves wouldn’t have filled a bunghole. Loyalty had to be built, one brick at a time. It couldn’t be beaten into a slave. Whippings only produced fear and resentment—and a smoldering desire for revenge. Something Q’arlynd had learned early in life, as a boy in House Melarn.
Eldrinn, however, had grown up in Sshamath, the pampered and indulged son of the master of the city’s College of Divination. The closest he’d ever come to anything resembling a matron mother’s wrath was when he’d been teleported home by Q’arlynd a year and a half ago, mind-damaged and dragging behind him the powerful staff he’d “borrowed” from the master’s private study.
Seldszar Elpragh had paid for the expensive spell that had cured his son, then raged at the boy for going off, with only one soldier accompanying him, to indulge in “pointless poking about” in the ruins of the High Moor. He’d cut off Eldrinn’s stipend for a month—no real punishment. His son, he later admitted to Q’arlynd, was more valuable than any staff.
Q’arlynd had to agree, but for different reasons. Eldrinn not only had access to Master Seldszar’s deep coin purse, but also a residence of his own that was perfect for secluded experimentation. And his thirst for arcane knowledge and the power that came with it equaled Q’arlynd’s own. The boy acknowledged Q’arlynd as his superior in the Art and was keen to make good on the debt that he owed the older wizard for his rescue. He was almost pathetically grateful to Q’arlynd for being invited to participate in the experiments on the kiira Q’arlynd had “found” on the High Moor. Best of all, he had absolutely no recollection of ever having possessed the stone himself. All memories of his trip to the High Moor had been wiped from his mind, except for the odd muddled flash.
Which was precisely why Q’arlynd had encouraged the boy to participate in his experiments on the kiira, and why he kept Eldrinn by his side as much as possible. If Eldrinn suddenly remembered something about his expedition to the High Moor, Q’arlynd wanted to be the first to hear about it.
All he had to put up with in return were Eldrinn’s incessant comments on how he should discipline the slaves.
Q’arlynd walked over to the chitine and grabbed the creature by the hair. It opened its eyes and strained at its manacles, hissing. Baring its teeth and clicking its curved mandibles, it attempted, futilely, to bite Q’arlynd’s arm.
Q’arlynd examined the back of the creature’s head. “No real damage done.” He released the hair and stepped back.
“You should have whipped the grimlocks, just the same. Both of them.”
Q’arlynd ignored the younger male’s comment. He didn’t want to get caught up in another lengthy debate. Too much rested on this experiment. “What about the others? Are they on their way?”
Eldrinn closed his eyes and toyed with the copper ring Q’arlynd had given him. Faerie fire danced across his closed eyelids as he used the ring to view the others from afar. “Piri’s driftdisc is just passing the Web. Zarifar and Baltak are en route from the Quillspires; they should be right behind him.”
“Good.”
Eldrinn opened his eyes. “Could Alexa—?”
“No.”
“But she’s one of the most promising apprentices the College of Conjuration has. She created a sigil that—”
“We’ve been through this before,” Q’arlynd said. “No.” He knew why the boy wanted him to invite the female wizard to join their fledgling school: he was her consort. Which was exactly the reason Q’arlynd didn’t want her. He didn’t need her bedding any of the others, stirring up petty jealousies.
Eldrinn pouted but didn’t protest further.
Q’arlynd tapped his foot impatiently. As they waited for the others, he performed an exploratory thrust into the mind of the chitine, ignoring the faerie fire that sparked from his temples as he did so. The chitine’s mind was difficult to penetrate—and brutal to remain in, once he was inside.
Hate you, the creature raged back at him. Kill you, filthy drows. Hook open stomach, spill your feces. Kill—
Enough. Satisfied that he would be able to retain contact, Q’arlynd withdrew.
He stared at the creature, wondering why the wizards of Ched Nasad had ever bothered to create such a loathsome race. When Q’arlynd was a novice, chitines had been plentiful; the breeding pits of the Conservatory had been full of them. The masters used to set dozens free each year, to provide sport for the hunt. But now that Ched Nasad lay in ruins, chitines weren’t being bred any more. And those that had escaped were hunting drow.
The chitine was a living reminder of Ched Nasad’s former prowess at magic. As for Q’arlynd’s former home, it had fallen during Lolth’s Silence. Literally fallen to pieces, leaving only a rubble-choked cavern where a city of thirty thousand drow had once stood. The survivors were doing what they could to resurrect the city from the rubble, but even if they rebuilt everything from the rudest slave hovel to the grandest noble House, it would never be the same.
Q’arlynd’s House—House Melarn—was gone for good.
The college he was creating would fill that void, but unless today’s experiment succeeded, Q’arlynd’s dream might never come to fruition.
The hiss of a driftdisc halting in the hallway announced Piri’s arrival.
Piri entered the experimentation chamber with a quick sideways step, his back against the wall. His eyes darted around the room, as if searching for hidden threats. No matter how safe the venue, Piri always seemed overly cautious. How much of this was his own nature and how much was the result of the quasit demon he’d bonded with was hard to say.
The demon’s skin had replaced Piri’s own, giving his face and hands an oily, greenish tinge. The bonding made Piri quicker and tougher, and resistant to both fire and ice, but it gave his eyes—already too close together above a beakish nose—an unsettling glint. His hair, cut close, stood up in white tufts that would eventually fuse into spikes.
Piri claimed to have complete mastery over the demon he’d bonded with—quasits were among the lowliest of demonic creatures—but Q’arlynd wondered if the wizard wasn’t already regretting the bonding. Piri had been all too quick to abandon the College of Mages for Q’arlynd’s as-yet unproven school.
Perhaps Piri hadn’t been welcome at his former college, despite his skill in piecing together arcane texts. Q’arlynd, however, recognized his worth. From imperfect copies of the original spell, Piri had cobbled together a Ritual of Bonding—and made it work. That was proof enough of his skill.
Piri nodded without speaking at Q’arlynd and Eldrinn: two quick jerks of his head. Sparkles of purple crackled at his temples. Q’arlynd felt the brush of the other mage’s mind. To show he held no threats, he permitted Piri a quick glimpse of his surface thoughts.
Eldrinn stiffened and clenched the hand that wore the copper ring. He locke
d eyes with Piri, and faerie fire sparkled on both male’s foreheads: dark purple from Piri’s; blue-green from Eldrinn’s.
“Satisfied?” Eldrinn asked.
Relaxing only slightly, Piri retreated to a spot at the back of the chamber and folded his arms.
A moment later, Zarifar and Baltak arrived.
Zarifar was tall and thin, with tightly kinked hair—a rarity among the drow. It surrounded his head in a white fuzz that he never combed; tufts of it stood out like bits of coiled wire. Perpetually dreamy and unfocused, he bumped into the doorjamb as he entered the room, and blinked as though he’d just noticed where he was. When greeted, he nodded and mumbled a vague hello.
Q’arlynd didn’t need to dip into Zarifar’s mind to know what it would be filled with: intricate geometric designs, expressed in complex mathematical formulae that made Q’arlynd feel as simpleminded as a goblin struggling with the grammatical complexities of High Drowic.
Zarifar was a brilliant geometer mage, no doubt about it. Yet he wandered through daily life like a child. He hadn’t joined Q’arlynd’s school on his own. He had to be led by the hand into it.
The wizard who had done that was as different from Zarifar as light from shadow. Baltak lived entirely for his body; the transmogrifist was continually sculpting it in an effort to attain the perfect form. He wore tight-fitting pants that hugged his muscular legs, and a shirt he left unbuttoned to show off the exquisitely honed muscles of his chest and abdomen. Currently his “hair” consisted of yellowish feathers, lying flat against his head and neck and sprouting from the points of his ears. His bare feet were wide and flat, with curved black claws on the toes that clicked against the stone floor as he walked—another hallmark of the owlbear that was currently his favorite creature to transform into.
Baltak strode into the room, his presence immediately filling it. He punched Piri lightly on the shoulder, ignored the withering glare he got in return, and flipped shut Eldrinn’s spellbook. Fists on hips, he grinned at Q’arlynd with perfect white teeth. His deep voice boomed. “Well, looks like we’re all here. Let’s get this experiment rolling.”