Ascendency of the Last

by Lisa Smedman

  “I wonder why.”

  Horaldin shook his head. “I have no idea. I was hoping you might know. And that you’d tell me …” He hesitated, a pained look in his eyes. “Tell me what it all means.”

  Cavatina hesitated, trying to decide how much she should say. Horaldin was worthy of her trust. He’d gone against the direct orders of the high priestess by showing her this. He deserved a partial answer, at least.

  “Something’s … clouding the high priestess’s judgment. That’s why the battle-mistress summoned me to the Promenade. We think …” She swallowed hard. Should she be saying this? The answer to that question was clearly no, but Cavatina was inclined to listen to her gut. She might be drow, but she’d been born and raised in the World Above. She hadn’t been weaned on secrecy and subterfuge, but on blunt honesty.

  “We think it may be demonic—and that powerful magic will be needed to remedy the situation. When the time comes to act, we may need your help.”

  Horaldin nodded. “I see. Thank you. It’s the Crescent Blade, isn’t it?”

  Cavatina nodded. If it was obvious even to the druid, it wasn’t going to stay a secret very long. “Say nothing of this. We don’t want to start any rumors. It would—”

  “Yes. I see that too.” He glanced at the hole he’d made in the middle of the obsidian door. “We should be getting back, before anyone notices what we’ve done. I need to smooth the door over and hide any trace we’ve come this way.”

  “You go,” Cavatina said. She nodded at the wall. “I need to see where this portal leads.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather I wait for you?”

  “No. Go to Rylla and tell her about this. Tell her where I’ve gone—and that I’ll report back the moment I discover anything.”

  “If I seal the door, how will you escape this room?”

  Cavatina smiled. “Eilistraee’s blessings will see me safely home.”

  Horaldin nodded at last. “May she guide your steps,” he intoned. He hurried across the room and squeezed through the hole in the door. Cavatina heard him repeat his spell, and the door sealed itself shut.

  Cavatina prayed. “Eilistraee,” she sang softly. “Is this the path you wish me to follow?”

  A moment later, the goddess’s reply came. Not in words, but in a gentle yet firm tug on Cavatina’s hand—like a partner, inviting her to dance.

  Cavatina drew her singing sword, took a deep breath, and stepped through the portal.

  CHAPTER 4

  Q’arlynd adjusted the hang of his piwafwi and gave himself a final inspection. Directing the palm-sized mirror in its orbit with one finger, he checked to make sure his shoulder-length hair was tucked into the clip at the back of his neck and that the hood of his piwafwi draped neatly over his shoulders.

  The piwafwi, made from the blue-black fur of a displacer beast, shimmered slightly, hinting at the magic it contained. Atop it, hanging by a silver chain, was a pendant made from a clear crystal.

  A flick of his hand brought the mirror up to eye level. He peered into it as he inserted an earring into his pierced lobe. Carved from the egg tooth of an unhatched spider, the earring was insurance against assassination attempts. Not that anyone was likely to try poisoning him in the middle of a formal meeting, but it never hurt to be prepared.

  In the mirror, his forehead appeared unadorned. Yet the selu’kiira he’d wrested from Kraanfhaor’s Door was there Its constant pressure was similar to the pressing of a cool thumb against his skin. As a precaution, he kept the lorestone invisible. None but a Melarn could utilize its magic—anyone else who tried to wear it would wind up a feeblewit—but there might always be someone foolish or desperate enough to try.

  Much had changed in the seven years since the fall of Ched Nasad. He’d come a long way indeed from his days of grubbing in the ruins of that fallen city, little better than the slave of a rival House.

  Q’arlynd was master of his own school of wizardry now—a school just one short step away from being sanctioned as Sshamath’s eleventh official College. He’d truly made a new home for himself in this city of wizards. The only reminder of his former life was the House insignia he wore on his left wrist. Carved into the worn leather band’s adamantine oval was House Melarn’s symbol, a glyph shaped like a stick-figure person, arms bent and one leg raised.

  The symbol of the dancing goddess, Eilistraee.

  The goddess Q’arlynd had pledged himself to.

  Inspection complete, he tucked the mirror into the breast pocket of his shirt. He slowly turned to go, savoring his surroundings. The private study was filled with expensive furniture, all of it studded with chips of beljuril that twinkled with green light. A scroll shelf stood against one wall, its diamond-shaped niches filled floor to ceiling with texts both arcane and mundane. On the opposite wall, darkfire flames danced like crackling shadows inside the hearth. The study was warm, filled with wealth—and entirely Q’arlynd’s own. A level of luxury he hadn’t experienced for years.

  All thanks to the kiira on his forehead.

  As he departed, he reset the door’s lock with a whispered word. He doubted anyone would recognize the abjuration any time soon—the word was from the original language of the dark elves, a language much changed since the Descent. Like the other spells Q’arlynd had learned since “opening” Kraanfhaor’s Door, the abjuration was not written in any spellbook. It was contained solely within the kiira, alongside the memories of those who had worn the lorestone before him.

  As Q’arlynd strode down the corridor, students bowed. He gave each the briefest of nods. He’d deliberately delayed his departure, intending to teleport into the Stonestave just to prove that he could, despite the Faerzress that now surrounded the city.

  Voices murmured inside one of the lecture halls. He glanced into it as he passed and what he saw made him halt abruptly. Zarifar, one of his five apprentices, was staring at a pentagram that had been painted on the floor with dribbled candle wax. His right forefinger jerked back and forth as he traced its outline in the air. With his head bowed, face obscured by a fuzz of tightly kinked white hair, the tall, thin drow seemed oblivious to his inattentive students. He made no move to discipline them as they chatted and chuckled amongst themselves, completely ignoring their would-be instructor.

  A moment more, and the half a dozen students probably would have something to whisper at. Zarifar might be a brilliant geometer mage, but he was more likely to summon a monstrosity that would devour him than one that would obey him. Or recite the spell backward and send himself straight to the Abyss.

  Using his master ring, Q’arlynd linked minds with his apprentice. As he’d expected, Zarifar’s thoughts were deep in the pattern. He was imagining pentagrams within pentagrams while calculating the “golden ratio” of each in turn.

  Zarifar! Where is Piri? He’s supposed to be teaching this lesson.

  Zarifar startled, as if someone had just poked the tip of a dagger into his back. Two of the students snickered. Their faces paled to gray as Q’arlynd strode into the room.

  “Master Melarn,” they gasped, each falling to one knee.

  Q’arlynd ignored them—a worse punishment than reprimanding them, since it left them tensely anticipating what might come next. And when. Where is Piri, Zarifar?

  “Oh. Yes.” Zarifar blinked like a surface elf coming out of Reverie. “Down at the Cage, I think he said. He asked me to fill in for him until he got back.”

  Q’arlynd frowned. If Piri wanted spell components, he should have sent a student to fetch them. That he’d gone himself hinted that whatever he was purchasing was something others weren’t meant to learn about. The timing of the trip to the Breeder’s Guild was equally suspicious. Piri knew Q’arlynd was about to appear before the Conclave. There was no better moment for treachery.

  Q’arlynd’s jaw clenched. This wasn’t Piri’s first betrayal. Q’arlynd had already been forced, once before, to punish him as a result of his disloyalty. A kiira had later restored the apprentice
to life, in order for the spell that had stripped the death goddess of her name to be cast. Q’arlynd had wanted to dispense with the apprentice afterward, but the ancestors inside the kiira had suggested an alternative. They’d promised to strip Piri of those memories that made him dangerous and disloyal, while leaving the bulk of his magical learning intact. Until this moment, Q’arlynd had believed they’d delivered on their promise. The mind-stripped Piri had been both compliant and, seemingly, trustworthy.

  Now Q’arlynd wasn’t so sure.

  “This lesson is over,” he announced, waving a hand above the floor. The pentagram disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving the smell of melted candle wax behind. “Go.”

  The students scurried from the room.

  Q’arlynd closed his eyes and activated his master ring a second time. Piri came instantly into view; the apprentice hadn’t bothered to remove his ring. He’d probably assumed Q’arlynd would be much too busy to scry him. Piri stood next to a narrow column of stone: one of the posts in the shimmering walls of force that caged the deepspawn the Breeder’s Guild tended. His face and hands glinted with an oily, greenish tinge: the quasit demon, stretched skin-thin, that he’d bonded with, years ago. His hair stood up in stiff spikes, white and hard as bone. He held a wand in one hand, and stood back to back with another of Q’arlynd’s apprentices: Eldrinn, son of Master Seldszar, the master who would be nominating Q’arlynd’s school for admission to the Conclave in just a few moments’ time. Eldrinn also held a wand in his hand.

  “Mother’s blood,” Q’arlynd swore. “They’re dueling.”

  Little wonder his apprentices had chosen this moment for their duel. Q’arlynd had expressly forbidden mage duels in an effort to preserve the fragile harmony within his school. More often than not, duels led to serious injury. Sometimes death.

  The injury or death of a student or teacher was something most masters took in their stride. They encouraged backstabbing and betrayal among their apprentices, believing that it flensed the meat from the bone, allowing only the best to survive. Q’arlynd held a different view. Any student accepted into his school was warned that any debilitating attack or suspicious death would be traced to its root. And then that student would be expelled.

  The same rules applied to the five apprentices who served as the school’s teachers.

  Q’arlynd glanced at the water clock in the corner of the lecture hall. He was supposed to be appearing before the Conclave just a few moments from now. He tapped his foot impatiently, inclined to leave bad enough alone—until he noticed the femur that lay on the ground between the two apprentices as a dividing line.

  This was no mere grudge match. It was a duel to the death.

  Eldrinn had a determined look on his face, but his tight grip on the wand betrayed his tension. He was a mere boy, a half-drow with ash gray skin. He wore his usual spider-silk shirt and ornately embroidered piwafwi, but his waist-length hair was unbound. He’d either been tricked or goaded into leaving behind the contingency clip that could save him from whatever Piri’s wand hurled at him.

  The timing was too coincidental. The absence of seconds and a jabbuk duello to oversee the duel was equally telling. Someone must have manipulated Piri or Eldrinn into this. Someone powerful enough to have ensured that Master Seldszar wouldn’t divine, ahead of time, that his son was about to enter into a potentially fatal duel.

  If Eldrinn died, however—no, when Eldrinn died—Seldszar would learn of it immediately. Whoever had maneuvered the two apprentices into this would certainly see to that. Once alerted to his son’s death, it would take the master diviner less time to learn the circumstances than it took most males to draw breath. Then Q’arlynd’s school would suffer the consequences. Contrary to all that was natural, Seldszar actually cared for his son. He’d blame Q’arlynd for the boy’s death—and would point accusingly to Q’arlynd’s stubborn insistence on keeping the demon-skinned Piri at his school.

  Seldszar would likely revoke his nomination.

  Q’arlynd told himself not to panic. Eldrinn was a less experienced wizard than Piri, but he might just get a lucky shot in with his wand after the pair raised defenses.

  The water clock dripped. Q’arlynd was due before the Conclave this very moment. He’d have to leave his apprentices to their duel and hope that Eldrinn won.

  Just as he was about to end his scrying, however, Piri sneaked a glance down at his belt. Q’arlynd couldn’t see anything on the belt but an empty wand scabbard, but he’d learned long ago not to trust his eyes alone. He yanked the master ring off his finger and held it just behind the gem on his pendant, peering through both at the same time. The images he was seeing shrank, now filling the center of the ring, rather than looming large within Q’arlynd’s mind. He couldn’t make out details, but fortunately the object revealed by the gem’s magic was large: a thin iron hoop hanging from Piri’s belt. Q’arlynd recognized it at once as half of a ring gate.

  The gem also revealed a quasit demon, cloaked by invisibility, that hovered in the air near the spot Eldrinn would wind up in after marching ten paces. Its wings fluttering, a malicious smile on its green-skinned face, the quasit held the second ring gate in one warty hand.

  It was instantly clear to Q’arlynd what Piri planned. The demon-skinned apprentice was going to use the ring gates to attack Eldrinn from behind.

  “Ten paces,” Piri said over his shoulder. “Then turn, cast a single spell, and fire. Agreed?”

  Eldrinn nodded. “Agreed.”

  Q’arlynd gritted his teeth as he pushed the master ring back into place on his finger. Piri had left out one word from the ritual agreement. It should have been “Cast a single defensive spell.” Eldrinn had just agreed to a change in the rules that would cost him the initiative. Q’arlynd had to do something, and quickly. But what? Sshamath’s laws dictated that no outside party could influence the outcome of a duel; those who interfered in a lethal duel could be put to death themselves. But perhaps Q’arlynd could get away with merely delaying the duel.

  Piri’s foot lifted slightly. “Ten—”

  With a thought, Q’arlynd activated his ring. Both apprentices froze in place, each with his right foot slightly lifted from the floor.

  The water clock dripped. Now Q’arlynd was late.

  He teleported.

  He’d planned to make a formal entrance, but there was no time for that now. Instead he teleported directly to the heart of the Stonestave, to a spot just inside the great double doors of the Conclave’s meeting chamber. Unfortunately, someone was coming through the doors. The edge of a driftdisc crashed into Q’arlynd’s back, sending him staggering. He caught himself on the railing that enclosed the speaker’s sphere and saw to his dismay that several of the Conclave were frowning at him. Without apologizing for his tardiness or awkward entrance—any excuse he might give would be exploited as a weakness—he bowed to the speaker’s sphere: a ball of quicksilver suspended by magic at the center of the circular hall.

  He snuck a glance at the driftdisc as he rose. On it was a female he didn’t recognize. She was bald and well muscled—not seated cross-legged on the driftdisc as was normal, but crouched on it like a spider waiting to spring. She wore a black, short-sleeved, skin-tight tunic that hugged her torso and thighs, and ended at her knees. Not a single weapon or magical item was visible on her. Even so she exuded an aura of danger.

  One of the masters must have invited her to the Conclave. She would never have gotten past its guards and wards otherwise. Q’arlynd wondered what her business here could possibly be. He hoped it could wait until after the vote.

  Master Seldszar waved a hand at Q’arlynd. “Masters of the Conclave, I present Q’arlynd Melarn.” The Master of Divination beckoned Q’arlynd to stand next to his podium. Q’arlynd strode smoothly to that spot. Seldszar smiled benevolently at Q’arlynd through the crystals orbiting his head, but at the same time his nostrils flared slightly: a reprimand for Q’arlynd’s tardiness. In this hall, where all displays of em
otion were tightly constrained, it spoke louder than a shout. Aloud, Seldszar said, “As you all know, the reason we have convened is to discuss the promotion of an eleventh school to the rank of College, and the addition of another master to our conclave. As I gave notice in my sending, it now pleases me to nominate Master Q’arlynd’s School of Ancient Arcana for elevation to College.”

  “I second the nomination,” Master Urlryn said from across the room.

  So far, so good. The Master of the College of Conjuration and Summoning had made good on his promise, and he had good reason to. In return for second-speaking Q’arlynd’s nomination, the awarenesses inside the kiira on Q’arlynd’s forehead would assist Urlryn with an ongoing problem: the Faerzress that surrounded the city. It hampered divination and prevented mages from teleporting in and out of the city—something that had caused no end of embarrassment to Urlryn’s school.

  Urlryn might have the appearance of a slothful indulger, with his heavy jowls and soft, corpulent frame, but the mind behind those heavy-lidded eyes was as sharp as a dagger. He knew which side of the sava board to play if he wanted to restore his College to its former standing.

  As the female on the driftdisc moved to the podium occupied by Master Guldor, Q’arlynd quickly scried his two apprentices. Piri and Eldrinn were just as he’d left them, frozen back to back. He was thankful that the Cage occupied an infrequently visited corner of Sshamath. With luck, the Conclave’s debate would be brief, the vote would carry, and Q’arlynd would be able to teleport away before anyone noticed what he’d done to the duelists. With even more luck, he might talk his apprentices out of killing each other.

  As the driftdisc sighed to a stop beside the Master of the College of Mages, Guldor touched the gold ball that hovered in the air in front of him. The speaker’s sphere assumed the likeness of his face: a chin as pointed as his ears, and eyes that matched the slant of eyebrows that extended to meet the hair at his temples.

  “I too have a school I wish to nominate this day,” Guldor said, his voice seeming to come from the animated quicksilver head.