Ascendancy of the Last зкp-3

by Lisa Smedman

  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 around. 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 simple-minded. 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 hoots-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.

  Some of the columns had inscriptions on them: lines of text chiseled here and there like random graffiti. Cavatina peered closely at these but couldn't read them. No matter how hard she stared, the writing wouldn't come into focus. It blurred just enough to render it indecipherable. She tried to trace a line of it with her finger, but couldn't feel the outline. She might as well have been touching a wisp of shifting smoke.

  During her investigation, her body had drifted upward. She was high enough to see that the foundation of the building was carved with an enormous symbol. It took a moment to puzzle it out, as the lines were interrupted where the slab had shattered, and partially obscured by the fallen columns. But eventually she realized it was a triangle with a Y-shape superimposed on it.

  She shivered. That ancient symbol hadn't been used in millennia. It had long since been replaced by the more common eye-within-double-circle. Yet Cavatina, like all of the Promenade's priestesses, had been taught to recognize it.

  The symbol of Ghaunadaur.

  Cavatina knew, now, where the portal had delivered her: to a spot far below the Promenade. This was the temple that had lain in ruins for nearly six centuries, ever since Qilue and her childhood companions had defeated the Ancient One's avatar. They'd driven it from the caverns that became the Promenade, consigning it to a deep shaft that had then been filled in with rubble and sealed with magic.

  A shaft that led to the god's domain.

  "By all that dances!" she whispered. "I'm in the Pit!"

  A moment later, a burst of bright purple light pulsed from the Y-shaped symbol, banishing shadows from the cracks in the broken stones covering the slab. With it came a sensation: It was as if something wet and slippery had just fouled Cavatina's skin.

  "Eilistraee, protect me!" she sang. "Shield me from the Ancient One!"

  Eilistraee's moonlight shone out from Cavatina's pores, evaporating the slime, turning it to flakes of shadow that exploded from her body. The purple light was waning now, but even so, Cavatina backed away. Her sword pealed out a warning as something momentarily blocked the fading glow. Blinking away the spots from her eyes, Cavatina saw a tarry black blob atop the foundation slab. The ooze was faster than Cavatina. Before she could withdraw farther, it squeezed upward through cracks in the rubble and brushed against her weapon. She yanked her sword back-in what felt like slow motion-and was relieved to see that the blade was still whole. Though the ooze had "touched" it, the acid had failed to dissolve the metal.

  Ignoring her, the ooze continued upward through the gaps in the rubble.

  Realizing it was escaping, Cavatina sang a prayer that called down Eilistraee's wrath. Shadow-streaked moonlight punched down in a shaft all around her, throwing the tarry black ooze into sharp relief. The light should have reduced the ooze to a smoldering puddle. But the creature slithered on as before, as though it hadn't even noticed the attack.

  Cavatina laboriously followed. She readied a second spell, but by the time it was ready, the ooze had flowed beyond the limits of her vision. Normally she would have been able to run twice as fast as an ooze could slither. But with her body rendered ethereal, Cavatina moved with an agonizing lassitude. Her voice was slow and deep, her hymns dirgelike. The heartbeat that pounded in her ears had a lethargic cadence.

  Eilistraee's purpose in guiding her to this place was now clear. That burst of purple light had been a planar breach. A temporary one, brief as a flicker, but it had lasted long enough for one of Ghaunadaur's minions to squeeze through, into the Prime Material Plane.

  Cavatina could guess, now, why Wendonai had tricked Qilue into inscribing a symbol that would draw Ghaunadaur's drow worshipers to this spot. Through their prayers, the planar breach could be wrenched wide open-something that would allow Ghaunadaur's avatar to pass through it.

  Qilue must have known that a planar breach existed here. On all of Toril, it was the most likely of places for one to occur. What could Wendonai possibly have said to convince her that ushering Ghaunadaur's worshipers to this spot would pose no danger?

  She tried to imagine the arguments he might have posed. Perhaps he'd convinced Qilue that Ghaunadaur's avatar would be no match for her. She'd defeated it once before, after all. Or perhaps he'd told her that the slime god itself would come through the breach-that armed with the Crescent Blade she stood a chance
of killing Ghaunadaur.

  That argument, of course, was as thin as rotted cloth. The Crescent Blade's blessings specifically enabled it to kill by decapitation, and Ghaunadaur was a shapeless mass without a neck or a head. But perhaps Qilue was so deeply in the demon's thrall that she wouldn't think of this.

  Whatever the demon might be whispering in the high priestess's ear was a puzzle Cavatina couldn't solve just now. What she could do, however, was inspect the seals on the Pit to ensure that whatever oozes slipped through the flickering breach weren't a threat to the Promenade.

  Chasing after the black ooze had left Cavatina with no clear sense of which way was up. Fortunately, there was a way to figure this out. She chose a direction at random and moved until the rubble ended. Beyond it was a wall of stone that had been fused to a glassy sheen by the outpouring of silver fire Qilue had used to drive Ghaunadaur's avatar down the Pit. Turning her body so that this wall became "down," she walked along it.

  After what seemed an eternity, her head bumped against what felt like a solid surface: the magical barrier that capped the Pit. It shone with a bright silver glow, blocking her way. The Promenade, she was thankful to see, was still safe from an incursion from below-by material and ethereal creatures alike.