Ascendency of the Last

by Lisa Smedman

  “Mother’s blood,” Q’arlynd swore. This monster was a fast one.

  Suddenly he recalled what his masters at the Conservatory had taught him about these creatures, so many years ago: deepspawn were capable of listening in on thoughts. For someone who could cast spells to shield his mind, this wasn’t a problem. But Q’arlynd had trained as a battle mage. He had dozens of lethal spells at his fingertips, still more that would shield his body. But none that would hide the contents of his mind.

  The deepspawn retreated fully behind the wall of force. It waved a tentacle at Q’arlynd, taunting him. The other two tentacles continued to cling tightly to Eldrinn and to something invisible: Piri’s quasit. Even as Q’arlynd watched, Eldrinn stopped struggling, and slumped. His wand fell from his fingers and clattered to the ground.

  Q’arlynd had to think of something, and quickly. If he didn’t, the deepspawn would kill Eldrinn—assuming it hadn’t already done so. And now that the monster had withdrawn behind the walls of its cage, Q’arlynd would only be able to target it through the hole. He edged to the side, trying to get into position to do that, but the deepspawn read his mind and moved away.

  Come out from behind the wall, coward, he thought at it. Let’s see if you can catch a lightning bolt in your tentacles.

  Q’arlynd moved to the spot where his other apprentice lay, bent down, and touched his fingers to Piri’s throat. Blood pulsed beneath the skin. Piri, at least, was still alive. As Q’arlynd straightened, his foot nudged something that scraped across the ground. Something metal. He looked down, but didn’t see anything there.

  Then he realized what it must be: Piri’s ring gate!

  Q’arlynd hurled himself at the ground. As he did so, the tentacle holding the quasit flicked forward, trying to toss the demon away. This time, Q’arlynd was faster. Before the deepspawn could release the quasit, Q’arlynd landed, chest down, on the spot where the ring gate lay. As he made contact with it, he shouted an incantation. The mirror in his shirt pocket shattered, fueling his spell. Energy rushed out of it, as fast as light. It erupted out of the second ring gate, into the deepspawn. Intense silver light played over the tentacled monster, altering the very substance of its body. When the light vanished, so too did the creature’s natural coloration. A heartbeat before, the deepspawn had been a living, breathing thing. Now it was transformed into clear, solid glass.

  Its body, no longer suspended by magic, crashed to the ground. Tentacles shattered.

  Q’arlynd stood and brushed himself off. Tinkling bits of mirror fell from the ruin of his shirt pocket. “Bet you didn’t expect that one,” he said dryly. Then he hurried forward. He stepped carefully through the rent in the wall of force and felt its powerful energies lift the hair on his arms and scalp. When he was underneath the transformed deepspawn, he reached up and grabbed the tentacle that held Eldrinn, and wrenched on it. As it snapped, the boy tumbled to the ground. Eldrinn groaned, low and deep—a sound that was music to Q’arlynd’s ears. The boy was still alive!

  Q’arlynd scooped up Eldrinn’s wand. It was of a type he didn’t recognize: solid white, with an inscription in Espruar, the script of the surface elves, spiraling around it. Q’arlynd didn’t have time to solve the puzzle the wand presented, however. In a few moments his spell would lapse, and the deepspawn would revert back to flesh. Even missing its tentacles, it would be a formidable foe.

  He touched Eldrinn and teleported away.

  They materialized within the private hospice of the College of Divination. Q’arlynd barked out an abbreviated explanation to the startled attendant. Instead of springing to his cabinet of potions, however, the elderly apothecary shifted Eldrinn’s sleeve, revealing a vial that was tied to the boy’s forearm. “Why didn’t you use this?” He yanked out the vial and uncorked it. “It’s just as potent as anything I have here.”

  “It is?”

  “I ought to know. It’s one of my best.”

  Q’arlynd shook his head at yet another mystery he didn’t have time to solve. Eldrinn had obviously been given the potion by the apothecary, but how had the boy expected to consume it in the middle of a duel?

  “Is there more of that?” Q’arlynd asked.

  The apothecary nodded at his cabinet as he parted Eldrinn’s lips and dribbled the potion into the boy’s mouth. “In there. Why?”

  “Get it ready,” Q’arlynd said. “There’s another of my apprentices who might need it, once I’ve finished with him.” Then he teleported away.

  He returned to the Cage in time to see a member of the Breeder’s Guild rushing to the spot where the wall of force had been breached. The fellow skidded to a halt, reached into a pouch at his hip, and held up a pinch of something. Crushed gemstone dusted his dark fingers. He hurled the dust at the breach in the wall and chanted an incantation—but abruptly halted when he noticed the transformed deepspawn, its clear glass body all but invisible behind the shimmering wall.

  “Hey! What did you do to our breeding stock?”

  “A transmutation,” Q’arlynd shouted back. “I suggest you complete your spell. The transmutation’s only temporary.”

  The guild member hesitated, as if wanting to challenge Q’arlynd further, but decided against it. He waved his hands and chanted, hurriedly completing his repair.

  Q’arlynd picked up Piri’s wand, touched his apprentice, and teleported away. This time, the destination was his private study. He’d have to placate the Breeder’s Guild—they’d demand compensation for the damage to their deepspawn—but that could wait. He patted down Piri’s pockets, looking for the ring the apprentice had removed earlier. He found it—the compulsion built into the rings was too strong for his apprentices to rid themselves of the rings entirely—and slipped the ring into his own pocket. As he waited for Piri to recover, he examined the apprentice’s wand. It was made of ebony, inlaid with chips of red agate: a fire wand. A wise choice for a duel, given Piri’s demon skin. If the wand’s blast had been deflected back at Piri, the fire would have sloughed off his body like water off a slate roof.

  Eventually, Piri groaned and rolled onto his back. His eyes opened, then widened as he took in his surroundings—and the fact that Q’arlynd was pointing Eldrinn’s wand at him. Suddenly, they blazed red as forge-heated steel. Twin beams of red streaked out of Piri’s eyes at Q’arlynd—only to bounce off the magical protection Q’arlynd already had in place. The heat beams ricocheted off the master’s magical shield and scored deep burn marks on the ceiling instead.

  Q’arlynd stared down the length of slim white wood at his apprentice. “I don’t know what this wand does,” he told Piri. “But I’m curious to find out. How about you?”

  Piri shook his head. Though his green-tinged face seemed devoid of expression, his wide eyes gave him away. He was afraid of the wand in Q’arlynd’s hand. Deathly afraid.

  Q’arlynd dug Piri’s ring out of his pocket and held it where the apprentice could see it. “Let’s have a talk. Mind to mind. I want to know why you and Eldrinn were dueling. Let me look into your thoughts, then maybe I won’t use this wand on you.”

  “No!” Piri blurted. But at the same time, his fingers twitched. Do it.

  Q’arlynd forced the ring onto Piri’s finger, then shoved his way into the apprentice’s mind. What he found there made him nod. Piri’s thoughts weren’t the only ones fluttering through the apprentice’s brain. Q’arlynd detected a second presence in there, one that spoke in a high, tittering voice.

  The quasit demon Piri had bonded with hadn’t been content to remain inside the skin the apprentice now wore. It was also whispering around inside Piri’s skull. Piri was either listening to it—or being controlled by it. Thanks to the ring, Q’arlynd could read its thoughts.

  The quasit had goaded Piri into seducing Alexa, the only female among Q’arlynd’s five apprentices. The demon had also ensured that Eldrinn, her consort, learned of the tryst. Despite his anger, Eldrinn wasn’t stupid enough to have challenged Piri; it had been the other way arou
nd. In the end, Eldrinn had been forced to accept the challenge. To have done anything else would have meant forever being subservient to the other apprentice.

  The demon’s motivation in all this was simple—and simpleminded. Power shared between four apprentices was better than power shared between five. It had hoped to eliminate Q’arlynd’s apprentices, one by one, and thus claw its way to the top.

  Even now, Piri was struggling against the demon’s influence—and failing. He’d rallied enough to agree to wear the ring, but was suffering for it now, as the quasit flayed his mind from within.

  And why not? The quasit had nothing to lose. Not now. Q’arlynd knew, by reading its thoughts, which wand Eldrinn had selected for the duel. A wand of banishment, created by a moon elf cleric. A wand capable of sending the quasit back to the Abyss.

  Eldrinn had been clever. Flensed of the demon skin, Piri would suffer greatly. Perhaps even die. But there was healing magic that would enable him to live—the magic within the vial Eldrinn had carried. Eldrinn had gambled that he’d be quick enough, and lucky enough, to preserve Piri’s life after killing his real foe in the duel: the demon.

  From the floor, the apprentice glared up at Q’arlynd with demon red eyes. His lip twitched in a snarl. “I’ll have my revenge,” the quasit said aloud, forcing Piri’s voice into a high, brittle twang.

  “I don’t think so,” Q’arlynd said. He took a deep breath. He didn’t want to do this, but he had to. Even if it killed Piri.

  Q’arlynd retreated from Piri’s mind and activated the wand.

  Piri screamed—his own voice, this time—as the demon skin wrenched itself from his body. Blood seeped from Piri’s body as fat, muscles, and ligaments were suddenly exposed. Q’arlynd leaned forward to teleport Piri to the apothecary, but before he could touch him the apprentice’s body disappeared. Q’arlynd’s fingers brushed blood-soaked carpet instead of weeping flesh.

  Q’arlynd started. Had the quasit yanked Piri into the Abyss after it?

  He attempted to scry his apprentice, but when he tried to call a vision through the ring, none came. Where was Piri? Even if the apprentice were dead, Q’arlynd should have been able to scry him—unless the ring had been removed from Piri’s finger.

  Q’arlynd closed his eyes and sent his awareness into the lorestone. Ancestors, he asked. Is there any other way I might find him? A chorus of voices answered from within the kiira. None held out any hope.

  Perhaps he could ask Master Seldszar to attempt a scrying. But then he discarded the notion. Even if he teleported to the Conclave’s chamber this instant and somehow managed to convey what he needed without mentioning the duel and raising Seldszar’s ire, it would probably already be too late.

  Piri would, most likely, already be dead.

  Q’arlynd stared at the blood-soaked carpet a moment longer, then sighed. There had been no way to predict what had just happened, he told himself. He’d done everything he could to save his apprentice. The guilt he felt was a sign of weakness.

  Something a master of a College couldn’t afford.

  Not weakness, a female voice whispered from the lorestone. Compassion. Q’arlynd gave a mental shove, forcing his ancestor away. Sometimes the lorestone felt a little too close for comfort. Especially after what he’d just seen in Piri’s mind.

  He walked to the cabinet, opened a drawer, and placed Eldrinn’s wand inside it. As he closed the drawer, a voice whispered into his ear. “Congratulations, Master Q’arlynd. The College of Ancient Arcana is officially recognized.”

  It was Seldszar, communicating by magic. The diviner’s voice sounded clearly in the room. He was no doubt scrying on Q’arlynd and casting the spell through a font. This, despite the study’s magical protections. It had to be a deliberate intrusion, designed to remind Q’arlynd who the more powerful mage was.

  “My thanks,” Q’arlynd answered. Steeling himself, he prepared to tell Seldszar about the duel. “Your son—”

  “Yes. The duel,” the voice answered. “I just learned of it. I’ll take my pound of flesh from you later, for permitting Eldrinn to indulge in such foolishness. But just now, there’s work to be done. Urlryn demands a solution to the problem of the Faerzress.” He paused. “As do I.”

  Q’arlynd bowed. “You’ll have your solution,” he promised. It was the truth—or at least, true enough to have passed any other divination Seldszar might have just cast. The memories of Q’arlynd’s ancestors, stored all these centuries within the kiira, did indeed hold the key to severing the bond that high magic had wrought between the drow and Faerzress. His ancestors not only knew what spells had been cast, but how to undo them.

  The only thing they didn’t know was precisely where those spells had to be cast, in order for the bond to be undone. Nor had Seldszar’s divinations been able to solve the problem. But with luck—and the aid of a shipment that was on its way to Q’arlynd, even now, from distant Silverymoon—they would uncover that missing puzzle piece.

  Q’arlynd hoped he was right. If he failed to deliver, Seldszar wasn’t going to be happy with him.

  CHAPTER 5

  Cavatina gaped at the strange landscape the portal had transported her to. It was as if she’d stepped into the heart of a huge mound of rubble. All around her, jagged pieces of gray stone crowded close on every side—except that the “stone” was blurred and indistinct, and had no substance. When she swept her sword in front of her, the blade passed right through the stones, and when she took a step forward she slid through the rubble like a ghost.

  Was she a ghost? She didn’t think so. Whatever this place was, it didn’t look a thing like the Fugue Plane. Nor could she hear Eilistraee’s welcoming song.

  A curtain of bright silver shimmered behind her. It was about the size of a door and folded in a V that corresponded to the corner of the room she’d just stepped from. She touched it, and felt a crackling energy that slowed her fingers until it felt as if they were pressing on solid stone. The same thing occurred when she reached around the edge of the curtain and touched it from the other side. It appeared the portal only worked in one direction: from the Promenade to … here.

  She glanced at her feet, and saw that she “stood” inside a chunk of stone. She felt a flat surface under the soles of her boots—one that remained constant even when she lifted a foot and placed it on the edge of a rock. She couldn’t feel the sharp edge of the stone, but she could step up “onto” it. And though she sensed which way “down” was, she couldn’t feel it. When she leaned forward, it felt as if she still stood upright. Leaning backward produced the same result. Before she could stop herself, she was perpendicular to the silver curtain, which now hung above her head. Even so, she still felt a flat, solid surface beneath her feet. Dizzy and disoriented, she scrambled “upright” again.

  What was this place?

  She breathed—rapidly, due to her exertions. At least she was still alive. Her body felt solid enough. She slapped a hand against her breastplate and heard the thud it made—though the sound came to her ears an instant later than it should have. She could also hear the low hum of her singing sword. Her movements, however, seemed slow to her eyes. Every motion took twice as long as it should have. Yet she felt no impediment. Though she stood entombed in hundreds of chunks of broken stone, it wasn’t these that slowed her down. When she stuck her fingers into a gap between the stones and wriggled them, they moved just as slowly as they did within the middle of a block of stone.

  Short of dying and becoming a ghost—something she was certain hadn’t happened—she knew of only one way to move through objects: by being rendered ethereal. She was loath to leave the portal, but standing next to it and staring wasn’t going to tell her where she was—or how to get back to the Promenade. Still, it was her only landmark. She decided to keep the portal at her back, to move in a straight line away from it. She’d go as far as she could without losing sight of the V-shaped silver curtain, then repeat the process in a different direction if the first search proved
fruitless.

  She walked away cautiously, sword at the ready. It was difficult not to flinch as she moved through what appeared to be a wall of jagged rubble. Each time her head seemed about to strike a rock, she half-turned away. Eventually, she adjusted to the odd sensation of passing through objects that only looked solid—objects she couldn’t touch or feel.

  At about the thirty-pace mark, the portal behind her all but vanished. All she could see of it was the faintest shimmer of silver amid a gray blur of jumbled stone. About the same distance ahead of her, slightly lower than the spot where she “stood,” she saw a dark purple shape. She couldn’t make it out entirely—like everything else in this place, it looked as though it lay behind a pane of frosted clearstone—but it had the general shape of a broken column. A piece of masonry that might have once been the column’s capitol lay nearby.

  She glanced behind her. If she kept going, she might never find her way back to the portal. Then she realized how useless it was to her. She might as well leave it behind. The ruined column, on the other hand, might offer a clue as to where she was.

  As she moved closer, she saw that the column had been carved from mottled purple stone. Other smashed pieces of column lay nearby, resting on a slab of the same purple rock that must once have been their foundation.

  This was the ruin of an ancient building. One that appeared to have been smashed to pieces by a rockfall.

  Carefully, she noted the shape and orientation of the broken column. She moved from it to the next closest chunk of the building, and then to the next. She’d expected the smashed building to be rectangular or circular, but the foundation slab had an irregular shape, with bulges around its circumference. The placement of the columns, judging by what remained of their bases, had been equally random. Even the columns looked odd. They weren’t smooth cylinders, but tapered and bulged along their length, as if the masons hadn’t been able to decide which thickness to make them. She tried to touch one, but her hand passed through it.