Ascendency of the Last

by Lisa Smedman

  The gap was too wide to jump. She decided they’d risked enough for one day. Time to get out of here and report what they’d discovered.

  “Touch my back,” she whispered to Naxil. “We’re leaving.”

  He did so, and she sang a hymn of return, but the sudden lurch of slipping sideways through the dimensions didn’t come. The prayer should have conveyed them both to the Misty Forest shrine: her designated sanctuary. It didn’t.

  Naxil waited. His eyes held a silent question.

  Leliana shook her head. “Trobriand must have warded his sanctum against teleportation. I’ll try something else. Keep watch.”

  She stepped away from Naxil, sheathed her sword, and hummed a wordless prayer. With one hand touching her holy symbol, she turned slowly. Which way? she asked silently. Which way is the Promenade? She concentrated on its most prominent feature: the statue of Eilistraee that had been erected at the site of Qilué’s victory over Ghaunadaur.

  The magic took hold, halting her. Her extended hand jerked straight up.

  “By all that dances,” she exclaimed. “The Promenade is directly above us!”

  Leliana nodded to herself. That explained how the tunnel ahead had cracked open deep enough to reach lava. Both it and the other, smaller cracks must have resulted from the powerful earthquake that had rocked Undermountain four years ago, a few months before the Selvetargtlin attack on the Promenade. If Eilistraee’s statue was above this spot, the rubble-filled shaft leading to the Pit of Ghaunadaur would be somewhere nearby. It too would have been affected by the earthquake. The walls of the shaft must have cracked open wide enough for the gray ooze to slither out.

  Leliana whispered her thanks to Eilistraee for setting her feet on this dance. She and Naxil had gathered important information this day, information the high priestess would want to hear. The oozes Qilué and her companions had driven from Undermountain and sealed in the Pit centuries ago were once again on the loose.

  Leliana lowered her hand. The good news was that she and Naxil were still somewhere within Undermountain. Assuming this cavern system wasn’t completely isolated—a dead end—they might yet be able find their way back to the Promenade. She prayed again. “Eilistraee,” she whispered. “Show me the path. Lead me back to the Promenade.”

  She felt a sense of rightness coming from the direction they’d been headed, a sense of wrongness behind her. She led Naxil around the corner, closer to the lava-filled crack. “The way back lies on the other side of that gap. Can you climb past it?”

  Naxil moved ahead to inspect the wall. He whispered a prayer that would protect him from the hot stone and jammed his fingers into a crack in the wall. He braced his foot on a slight ledge and eased himself up. The ledge immediately crumbled, and his fingers slipped out. He moved to a second spot and tried again, but with the same result. He turned and shook his head. “We can’t climb past it. The stone isn’t strong enough.”

  Leliana held up her hand and indicated her gold ring. “We’ll use levitation magic to get across. I’ll go first, then throw my ring to you.”

  He nodded.

  Leliana sang a hymn that would shield her from the worst of the heat. She ran forward and activated the ring just before reaching the crevice. She drifted over the gap, supported by the ring’s magic. Heat rose in waves, enveloping her body. She glanced down and saw glowing lava deep in the crevice. A puddle of something golden floated atop it. She thrust a hand against the ceiling, halting herself, and peered down through the shimmering heat waves. She’d been right. That was the construct.

  Before she could push herself onward, a wave of dizziness swept over her. It was as if she’d just spun wildly in place. “But I didn’t,” she said aloud. “I was … the glow. Red lava gas flow dizzy down …” She drifted downward, away from the ceiling.

  Naxil flicked a sign in silent speech. Leliana couldn’t make sense of it.

  “Leliana!” he shouted aloud. “Your sword!” Leliana frowned. Why was the lip of the crevice rising up to hide Naxil, and why was he shouting about swords? There was nothing here to fight. She shook her head violently, trying to clear it. The sudden movement spun her in place, which only made her dizzier. “Up float dizzy I think I’m …”

  The ring responded to her command, lifting her out of the crevice until her head and shoulders pressed against the ceiling. Despite her protective spell, the stone felt hot. She shoved herself away and drifted down again. No—that wasn’t right, either! She tried to catch the lip of the crevice, but couldn’t reach it. She caught a glimpse of gold on her finger. Oh yes, her ring. Levitate. Up. The words, however, came out all wrong: “Floating chimney down.”

  She descended.

  “Down … no, up.” She rose. Her head cracked the ceiling.

  “Mistress!” Naxil shouted.

  Naxil sounded … What was the word?

  “Worried!” Leliana shouted, laughing with delight at having gotten the word correct.

  It was hot bobbing around above the crevice. Really hot. Sweat trickled down her face. A tiny corner of her mind shouted that she should be doing something before her protective spell ran out. That thought was lost in the swirl of confusion that jumbled her thoughts like … like …

  Naxil ran forward to the edge of the crevice and leaned over it, one hand extended. Did he want her to give him something? He made urgent gestures that reminded her of Jub pulling on his net.

  “Hand over handover handoverhand …” Leliana sang. She knew she was babbling. Knew she should … sing a prayer or … something.

  A bubble of glowing lava rose in the crevice. It oozed upward until it was no more than a pace below her boots.

  Ooze.

  The word was important.

  Leliana gritted her teeth and fought the confusion that bubbled through her mind. She managed to coordinate her motions enough to thrust out a hand, and she felt Naxil grasp it. He pulled her up and out, tried and failed to force her feet to the floor, then gave up and fumbled at her hand. What was he doing—trying to steal her ring?

  The lava reached the top of the crevice and started to flow out of it, onto the floor.

  “We’ve got to hurry,” he said in an urgent voice. “Go back the way we came. The lava’s rising.” He forced her hand around the hilt of her sword and yanked the weapon from its scabbard.

  The sword pealed. The magical confusion fell away.

  “That’s not lava!” Leliana shouted, as realization dawned. “It’s an ooze. Filled with molten fire and capable of enchantments.” She negated the ring’s magic and found her feet. She was furious with herself. If she’d been holding her singing sword when she crossed the crevice, this never would have happened.

  “How do we fight it?” Naxil asked.

  “Let me handle it. Keep behind me.”

  As Naxil danced back, the ooze cast an enchantment. Leliana felt it as a wave of exhaustion. Just as her eyes closed, the singing sword pealed loud and long, jolting her awake. She heard a sigh behind her, then a thump: Naxil, collapsing on the floor. She glanced back, praying he was still alive. There was no time to check, however.

  The ooze surged out of the crevice in slow, rippling waves. It was enormous, twice as wide as Leliana was tall. It moved across the floor like molten iron, folding upon itself in wrinkles as it flowed forward. Its skin was a thick, clear membrane, cracked in places. Liquid fire dribbled from the cracks.

  She lifted her sword. “You don’t frighten me,” she said aloud. The ooze was a mindless thing, and wouldn’t understand, but saying it helped steady her.

  The ooze bulged, forming an appendage.

  Leliana chanted a prayer and released her sword. Borne by magic, it flew at the ooze and slashed at the expanding bulge. Magical steel met glowing fire and sliced neatly through it. The creature blazed like a bellows-driven fire as a portion of its “limb” fell away. Molten fire flowed from the wound, puddling on the cavern floor. Even protected by her spell, Leliana felt its heat as her chain mail warmed t
o an almost unbearable temperature. Sweat trickled down her body in rivulets, and into her eyes. Her singing sword glowed with heat; she was glad she wasn’t holding it.

  The creature flicked its severed appendage. Tiny drops of molten fire flew through the air, splattering Leliana. She gasped as they stung her arms and face. Like the acid burns, these she could heal with Eilistraee’s blessing. Eventually. For now, she’d have to ignore the pain as best she could.

  Then the ooze bulged in a second attack.

  Leliana ducked just in time. Her sword parried, lopping off the second appendage—but not quickly enough. It slapped against Naxil’s prone form, even as her sword severed it.

  Naxil awoke, screaming.

  Leliana swore. She pressed home the fight, menacing the ooze with her sword. As it drew back, she glanced anxiously at the screaming Naxil. What she saw made her shudder. Splatters of molten rock streaked his chest where the ooze had struck him, and were burning through his leather armor. Despite his magical protection, the molten rock had already charred deep ruts in the armor—and was burning down into his skin.

  “Hang on, Naxil!” she cried. “Just a few moments more.”

  Leliana thrust at the ooze with her sword, worrying the creature and forcing it back to the crevice. Molten fire dribbled from each puncture.

  Her piwafwi had been smoldering since the droplets of lava had struck it. Now the fabric ignited. Cursing, she slapped out the tiny flames. Then she smiled, as an idea struck her.

  Keeping the ooze at a distance with her animated sword, she yanked off her smoldering piwafwi. She rushed the ooze, gritting out a prayer, and hurled the piwafwi onto it. As the garment landed on the ooze and burst into flame, she completed her spell.

  “Eilistraee, aid me! Lend these flames the moon’s chill light.”

  The flames dancing across the burning piwafwi turned from fire red to ice blue. The bitterly cold flames burned into the creature, punching a cold, dark hole in it. The ooze shrank back on itself and withdrew into the crevice.

  The blue flames flickered out. The ooze rallied, rising again.

  This time, Leliana shucked off her chain mail and cast it aside. She yanked her padded tunic over her head, hurled it onto the ooze, and repeated her prayer. Cracks radiated outward across the body of the ooze as the ice flames “burned” into it. The ooze tried to extend an appendage, but its skin cracked apart, and the limb fell to the floor. It shattered, with the chunks dulling like nearly extinguished coals.

  One more time. That would finish it.

  Naxil was no longer screaming.

  Leliana yanked off her shirt and hurled it onto the ooze. “Eilistraee!” she shouted as her hand swept down for the third time. The flames burning the shirt turned from red to blue, and the ooze roared in anguish.

  Then it exploded.

  Chunks of cooling ooze flew off in all directions. One slammed into Leliana’s shoulder, knocking her off her feet. Pain flared in her elbows as she struck the floor.

  She rolled over as the smell of scorched hair filled her nostrils. And something more: burning flesh.

  Naxil groaned. Low and deep.

  She scrambled to his side. He lay face down. Leliana rolled him over, tore open his armor, and examined his chest. The burns there were so deep his flesh had been charred black; he’d need restorative magic to heal them. She tore his smoldering mask from his face and cast it aside. As she did this, she felt heat radiating from his face—it seemed to be flowing out of his nostrils and mouth. Something was happening to him. Something odd. Even those parts of his body that hadn’t been directly struck by the creature were affected. Something pulsed under his skin, leaving tiny blisters that formed a tracery across his skin, like veins.

  Those were his veins. They were glowing. Hot as fire.

  Terrified, Leliana began a healing prayer. Before she could finish it, Naxil’s veins erupted. Liquid fire oozed from the furrows, charring the surrounding flesh. More liquid fire oozed from his nostrils. A faint, sizzling noise filled the air: Naxil’s eyes, cooking in their sockets.

  “Eilistraee! Aid him!” Leliana cried, one hand on Naxil’s forehead, the other extended to the place where the moon would be in the realms above.

  Twined light and shadow swept down into the cavern, into Leliana, and on into Naxil. Elistraee’s healing energy played about the body of the grievously wounded Nightshadow like a sparkle of ice in the moonlight, halting the burning within. As his body cooled, his veins lost their fiery glow. The trickles of liquid fire coming from his nostrils crusted over and fell away, and the burns in his body closed over. He was left, however, with terrible scars—and eyes that could no longer see. That was something Leliana couldn’t repair here; it would have to wait until they got back to the temple.

  “Thank … you,” he gasped.

  “Don’t thank me,” Leliana told him, wishing she could have intervened sooner—before he’d lost his eyes. “It’s Eilistraee who saved your life.” She touched his arm. “Can you stand?”

  “I think so.”

  She helped him to his feet. He was remarkably steady, considering what he’d just been through. He moved with a certainty that suggested he’d been trained in blind fighting. He cocked his head, listening, as Leliana retrieved her singing sword. It lay next to the ooze’s crusted remains. Even through the leather-wrapped hilt, the weapon felt hot. She noted the warp the creature’s heat had left in the blade. It would no longer fit in her scabbard.

  “What now?” Naxil asked.

  “We press on,” Leliana told him. She described for him what he couldn’t see. “The ooze retreated back into the crevice before it died, and it’s formed a natural bridge across the gap. As soon as it’s cool enough, we can cross.”

  He nodded and touched his face. “My mask?”

  “Burned.”

  His hand fell away. He turned his head, but she saw his stricken look just the same.

  She took his hand and placed it on her shoulder. “We need to get moving,” she said softly. “Get back to the Promenade and report what we’ve seen down here.”

  “The oozes,” Naxil said grimly. “Ghaunadaur’s minions. They’re escaping from the Pit.”

  Leliana shuddered. “Let’s pray the Ancient One isn’t next.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Cavatina made her way through the Hall of the Priestesses, a cavern filled with a soft blue-white light emanating from lichens on its ceiling and walls. Glowballs—off-white hemispheres that waxed and waned with the moon’s cycles—studded the buildings. The combined illumination made the cavern as bright as a moonlit night in the World Above.

  The buildings she passed—originally part of a Netherese outpost in the Underdark—had lain buried in rubble for seventeen centuries before Qilué and her companions excavated them and made them part of the Promenade. Constructed in terraced layers like a series of blocks stacked largest to smallest, the buildings were four stories high. Much of their original decoration had been smashed when the magic supporting the ceiling had dissipated at the time of Netheril’s fall, but here and there Cavatina saw the grooves of what had once been a fluted column, or fragments of the friezes that had once adorned every wall.

  Nearly two and a half decades of labor by Eilistraee’s faithful had restored the buildings to a usable state, here and elsewhere in the Promenade. Now each bore the goddess’s symbol above its front door: a silver long sword, set point-upright against the circle of a full moon haloed with streaks of white.

  Priestesses and lay worshipers alike strode the streets, the former on their way to services in the Cavern of Song, the latter hurrying about their errands. Most of the priestesses were drow; only a handful were drawn from the elven races of the World Above. But the lay worshipers came from a multitude of races. Many had been rescued from the holds of slave ships, or from the flesh markets of Skullport. Each had turned, in gratitude, to the Dark Maiden’s faith. The other priestesses saluted Cavatina, while the lay worshipers bowed low. Awed whisper
s followed in her wake.

  Cavatina spotted a familiar face: Meryl, Qilué’s halfling cook. The little female with the mop of tangled gray hair padded along on bare feet to the high priestess’s house, a basket tucked under one arm. Cavatina altered course so their paths would cross.

  Meryl’s wrinkled face creased in a grin as she spotted the Darksong Knight. “Hello, Cavatina! It’s been a while.”

  Cavatina arched an eyebrow. “‘Cavatina?’” she echoed. “Not, ‘Most Esteemed Darksong Knight, Slayer of Selvetarm?’” she continued in a teasing voice.

  Meryl laughed and waved a hand. “Yes, yes, that too. It’s just hard to remember, sometimes. I still see, when I look at you, the babe Jetel danced with in her arms. Though”—she craned her neck, looking up—“you get taller and skinnier each time I see you. You’re thin as a sword blade. You really should eat more.”

  Cavatina smiled. Though the halfling was a mere lay worshiper, Meryl never—ever—used formal titles. She even addressed Lady Qilué by her first name.

  “So what brings you to the Promenade?” Meryl continued. “Slain any demons lately? How are things in the Chondalwood? Are the elves still prevailing?”

  Cavatina held up her hands, as if overwhelmed by the barrage of questions. Meryl seldom asked only one her tongue ran faster than her feet, more often than not. “Rylla’s summons. Three yochlols. Good. And yes.”

  Meryl’s head bobbed in a series of nods. She shifted her basket, and Cavatina heard metal clink inside it.

  “Don’t tell me you’re stealing the silverware again,” Cavatina teased. The jibe wouldn’t sting Meryl, who prided herself on her stout-hearted loyalty. She’d been Qilué’s cook for decades, and personally tasted every ingredient for poison before using it. A simple prayer of detection would have accomplished the same result, but Meryl insisted on putting her life on the line. If poison took her, she said, she’d go to Eilistraee’s realm happy and content—and with a full stomach.