Ascendancy of the Last зкp-3

by Lisa Smedman

  Seldszar tapped his fingers together in a patter of applause. "Well done, my boy, well done." He nodded at the others. "You see why I chose to nominate him to the Conclave?"

  "We're still no further ahead," Masoj protested. "We already knew the casting was done at one of Corellon Larethian's temples."

  No, we didn't, Q'arlynd thought. But he held his tongue.

  Seldszar tapped the empty decanter. "The question we should be asking ourselves," he told the others, "is why the gorgondy wine gave an image that didn't precisely answer the question I posed. 'Where was the spell cast that turned the dark elves into drow?' was how I phrased it. The vision should have showed us what the area looks like now, not thousands of years ago."

  Urlryn frowned. "Are you suggesting the high mages stepped back in time?"

  "It's possible," Seldszar said. "Gorgondy wine is a gnomish vintage, made using water drawn from a series of magical pools whose waters provide glimpses of the past. The pools are also rumored to have other enchantments. Their ripples, for example, are said to spontaneously form teleportation circles to the place being viewed-though it's unclear whether the traveler arrives there in the present day, or slips into the past."

  Q'arlynd nodded. He already knew that much. Years ago, when listening in on Flinderspeld's thoughts, his former slave had briefly thought about the pools. The svirfneblin had been pondering the very question Seldszar just posed-whether he could use the so-called Fountains of Memory to slip back to a time before Blingdenstone fell, and warn its residents of the impending attack. Flinderspeld had decided they couldn't, for one, very obvious, reason.

  "The pools couldn't send a traveler into the past," Q'arlynd said aloud. "If they did, the svirfneblin would have used them already, to do just that, and a number of the calamities that befell their race would never have happened. The fall of Blingdenstone, for example. If the pools do hold teleportation magic, they must be a gateway to the present."

  "Past or present-it doesn't matter," Urlryn said. He rocked his bulk forward on his cushion, not bothering to hide his excitement. "We can still use the pools to reach the spot where the temple stood. As long as they take us to the right spot, the magic can be undone!"

  "Precisely!" Seldszar agreed. "There is, however, one problem." He glanced at the empty goblet. "Only the deep gnomes know where the pools lie-and they're not telling."

  "Easily remedied," Masoj said with a chuckle. He nodded at the decanter. "Detain the svirfneblin who sold you the wine. Slice the information out of him one finger at a time. Give him five chances to talk-ten, if he's stubborn."

  Q'arlynd felt the kiira grow cool against his forehead. He heard his ancestors' whispered disapproval. He interrupted. "No need for that, Master Masoj. A svirfneblin who owes me a favor knows the location of these pools. I'll have the answer, soon enough."

  Urlryn snorted skeptically, and Masoj made a sour face. Seldszar, however, looked thoughtful. After a moment of staring at the crystals orbiting his head, he slowly nodded. "Do it. Ask him."

  Q'arlynd hadn't mentioned the svirfneblin's gender. Seldszar might have guessed it, of course. He'd have had an even chance of being right. Yet Q'arlynd doubted the diviner ever guessed-about anything.

  Seldszar must have foreseen success.

  Funny, how Eilistraee's dance worked, Q'arlynd mused. After all these years, he would finally learn what had become of his former slave, Flinderspeld.

  *****

  Halisstra walked around the throne, her fingers caressing its smooth black marble. The throne was carved in the shape of a spider, resting on its back. The head formed a foot stool; the cephalothorax, the seat; and the bulging abdomen, the backrest. Four legs served to support the chair, while the other four splayed out from either side of the seat and curved toward the ceiling. Between these stretched steel-thread webs festooned with tiny red spiders. Halisstra plucked a strand of web with the tip of her claw. The steel thread vibrated, shedding spiders like drops of blood and filling the audience chamber with a shrill note. The sound sent a visible shiver through the priestess who crawled behind Halisstra, never once lifting her glance from the flagstone floor.

  "Beautiful," Halisstra said. She closed her eyes to savor the way the note-chill as a draft from the grave-made the hair on her arms rise. Then she leaned down and curled her fingers in the priestess's long white tresses. She yanked the smaller female into the air and whispered in her ear. "I am pleased with its song. You will be rewarded."

  The priestess, clad in a bodice-hugging black robe that would have vanished against her skin in the darkened room but for its hair-thin tracery of white lines, winced at the pain of being held aloft by her hair. "Your pleasure is my reward, Lady Penitent."

  Halisstra leaned closer, until the jaws protruding from her cheeks brushed the priestess's neck. "And your pain is my pleasure." She bit, just deep enough to puncture the skin. Then she opened her fingers and let the priestess drop. The priestess fell to her hands and knees, and grunted as the poison took hold, rendering her body rigid.

  Halisstra settled herself on the throne. The marble felt cool against her bare skin. She sang a breeze into existence and used it to set the webs vibrating. A thousand shrill notes encircled the throne, like the hum of fast-spinning blades.

  "Send in the first petitioner," she ordered.

  Unseen hands pushed a female out of the magical darkness that clouded the arched doorway: a priestess of Eilistraee.

  She staggered into the room. Her eyes had been seared blind, and her fingers broken. Her dark skin was welted from the beating administered by Halisstra's worshipers, and her lips were swollen and bloody. Yet even as she faltered to a halt, she drew herself erect with a remarkable inner strength.

  Halisstra despised her.

  "Kneel," she shouted. She wove magic into the word, turning it into a compulsion the priestess could not help but obey. The priestess fell to her knees as if smashed with a hammer. One broken hand lifted to her chest-to the spot where her holy symbol used to hang-then jerked away as it brushed against the obsidian spider that now hung from the silver chain. Her head, however, remained erect. "Eilish… tray… hee…"

  "Blasphemy!" Halisstra shrieked. "Do not utter that foul name in the presence of the Lady Penitent, or it will go harshly for you!"

  The priestess made a gurgling noise. She laughed! Halisstra sprang from her throne. "You… dare!" she hissed. She towered over the priestess, her spider jaws clacking in fury. The eight legs protruding from her chest arched open, ready to grab. Her jaws fairly ached with the desire to bite and rend.

  The priestess spat.

  Halisstra snarled and swept the priestess up to her mouth-then realized this was what Eilistraee's bitch wanted. A quick, clean death: to be delivered into the arms of her goddess. "I'm not going to give it to you," Halisstra muttered. She tossed the priestess aside, spun on her heel, and settled herself on the throne. She idly stroked the head of the female who still kneeled, paralyzed, beside the throne, properly subservient. The webs continued to shrill.

  She had an idea. "You will be redeemed," she told Eilistraee's priestess with a smile. "I give you a choice: the song or the spider."

  The priestess shook her head. "Nuh."

  Halisstra shrugged. "Very well then. I'll choose for you." She tapped her claw-tipped fingers against the arm of her throne, pretending to consider. In fact, she'd been lying when she'd offered the priestess a choice: the spider's venom was reserved for those truly worthy of it. "I think you'll choose… the song." She turned to the webs beside her and began to play.

  Magic jerked the priestess to her feet. Tugged by the compulsion Halisstra's bae'qeshel music wove, she staggered in a circle around the throne. Halisstra plucked faster, and the dancer's tempo increased. The priestess spun in a ragged pirouette, her arms flailing and broken fingers raised above her head as she circled the throne. Halisstra gave a gleeful peal of laughter and played on. And on. The priestess staggered and fell, but immediately rose to her knees a
nd continued her dance. Her knees left bloody smears on the flagstones.

  Halisstra watched, gloating. In a moment or two, it would be over. The priestess would crack and repent. She would shed Eilistraee's faith and cast the tattered skin aside. Embrace the pain, the sorrow, the self-loathing. Sacrifice herself to a force greater than herself. She would become a penitent, redeemed through sweat, blood, and suffering.

  Halisstra would break her.

  The priestess suddenly lunged at the throne. Halisstra reared back in alarm, but it wasn't an attack. The priestess flopped forward, bringing her neck down atop the web. Steel threads sliced into her neck. Hot, sticky blood sprayed as she fell limp across the arm of the throne like a loose heavy cloak, her head lolling on a near-severed neck

  The web strings fell silent.

  Halisstra hissed her fury. She yanked the priestess off the web, snapping a strand of it, and stared into the slack-jawed face. "You smile?" she screamed. "You fool! You will never, never be redeemed!" She hurled the body across the room.

  The kneeling priestess twitched; her paralysis was starting to wear off. Halisstra leaped off the throne and grabbed her minion, intending to tear her apart for her insolence-she hadn't been given permission to move, Abyss take her-but a whisper of song distracted her. It was coming from the webs on the throne. Halisstra cocked her head, listening. The voice belonged to T'lar, the assassin who'd been the first to accept penitence and redemption.

  Lady Penitent, the webs sang. News from Sshamath.

  Halisstra dropped the priestess and climbed back onto her throne. Sing on, she ordered. It had better be good news, she thought. She wasn't in the mood for more insolence.

  Streea'Valsharess Zauviir is dead. The temple is ours.

  Halisstra barked out a delighted laugh.

  There is something else you should know. There is a wizard in Sshamath who opposes us.

  "Hardly news," Halisstra laughed. "All of Sshamath's wizards are hostile."

  This one will bear watching. His name is Q'arlynd Melarn.

  Halisstra's breath caught. Her brother Q'arlynd, alive? "Impossible! He died in the collapse of Ched Nasad!"

  The webs fell silent for a moment. Halisstra frowned. "T'lar? Are you still there?"

  I do not believe the one who calls himself Q'arlynd Melarn to be an imposter, Lady Penitent, T'lar sang back. He told the Conclave he had a sister who was a bae'qeshel bard-a sister who died. He said her name was Halisstra Melarn.

  "Halisstra!" Halisstra howled. She broke into shrill laughter. "She's Halisstra no more. She's-" Suddenly realizing what she was saying, she snapped her mouth shut. Her spider legs drummed against her chest; She forced them still with an effort. "Describe this wizard," she ordered.

  T'lar did.

  The description fit. It was Q'arlynd. Halisstra shook her head, wondering how he'd managed to escape the golem. Not to mention getting crushed by the stones of a falling city.

  There is one thing more, Lady Penitent. Q'arlynd Melarn has taken Eilistraee as his patron.

  Halisstra's eyebrows rose. "He has? How dare he!"

  He refuses to repent.

  Halisstra's lips curled in a sneer.

  Lady? T'lar's voice asked. What is your will?

  Halisstra clenched her fists; her claws dug into flesh. "If he is Eilistraee's," she said slowly, "he must die. Kill him."

  It will be my pleasure.

  And his pain, Halisstra thought grimly. She laughed at her own joke.

  The webs in her throne vibrated, shaking off the last drops of the dead priestess's blood.

  CHAPTER 8

  Cavatina startled at Qilue's message. "A new high priestess?"

  Leliana's head lifted sharply. She'd been in Reverie, her sword across her knees and her head bowed. "What's happened? Has Eilistraee spoken to you?"

  "Not Eilistraee-Qilue." Cavatina repeated the sending she'd just received.

  "Was it Qilue?" Leliana looked nervously around. "Or another of the demon's tricks?"

  "I've no idea." Cavatina rubbed her forehead. Was it just her, or had the world grown heavier, of late? "I'm not certain about anything anymore."

  Leliana said nothing.

  Cavatina realized the other priestess had been looking for strength, for leadership-for the Slayer of Selvetarm to come up with a way out of here.

  Cavatina wished she could help. Yet there seemed little she could do. She squinted against the green glow that filled the chamber. The magical barrier resembled an overbright Faerzress; she supposed it might very well be. It was difficult to see through it, to the cavern's stone walls. If Cavatina had been a wizard or a druid, she might have bored a hole through that stone with magic, or transmuted the stone to mud. Then she and Leliana could have dug their way out with their bare hands, just like a-

  Cavatina gasped. That was it! They couldn't dig through solid stone, but there were creatures that could. She thought back to those Karas had listed when they'd planned their assault on the Acropolis. A purple worm would be too dangerous-it might swallow Leliana and Cavatina whole. An umber hulk was too volatile to control. Rather than dig, it would do its best to claw them to pieces. Delvers, however, were generally docile creatures. And-she smiled as her eye fell on the gilded pedestal-they were drawn to metal. Especially gold.

  None were creatures that prayers would ordinarily summon, but with Eilistraee's blessing-with a miracle-it might be possible. Cavatina squared her shoulders. There was only one way to find out if it were possible.

  She outlined her plan to Leliana. The other priestess nodded. "Do you really think it will work?"

  "Eilistraee grant that it does."

  They dragged the pedestal across the chamber and leaned it against the fused door. At Cavatina's nod, each lifted her holy symbol and walked in a slowly widening spiral, singing her prayer. Cavatina reached out with her mind to the celestial realm. Her mind's eye ranged over a host of creatures-lesser animals, elevated to celestial status, their bodies glinting with the metallic sheen that was the aura of all that was pure and good. None of them were the creature she sought.

  "Eilistraee," she sang. Her voice harmonized with Leliana's, their music in time with their shared footsteps. "Hear our prayer. Send us a willing servant, in our time of great need. Send us the creature we seek."

  A sharp, acidic odor filled the room. The priestesses leaped back, their nostrils flaring, as a creature materialized in a burst of silver gold light. A delver!

  Its fat, pear-shaped body nearly filled the chamber. Yellowish spittle drooled from its gaping mouth. Its two clublike arms were tipped with blunt black claws. Its head twisted back and forth as its single, glossy black eye swept the room. Then it surged at the pedestal, heaving itself up on its arms, the rest of its body following on a rippling underbelly. As it moved, it left an acid-singed patch of dead black moss in its wake.

  A thick stench filled the air. Cavatina's eyes teared, and her nose felt congested. On the far side of the room, Leliana wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. Her expression, however, was exultant. The delver was doing its work. The gold-plated pedestal disappeared into its maw with a grinding noise, as did a chunk of the door. One bite at a time, the delver chewed at the stone. Rock dust filled the air, and the floor trembled. A head-sized hole appeared in the door, revealing the corridor beyond. As the delver gouged deeper, the hole widened. Chunks of brittle rock fell to the floor like scattered crumbs, hissing and bubbling from caustic spittle.

  Suddenly the delver disappeared. The prayer that had sustained it had waned. Eilistraee's magic could hold a celestial on this plane only for so long.

  Cavatina strode forward. They'd done it! She crouched, ready to squeeze through the hole as soon as the rock stopped frothing. She heard a muffled peal: the alarms. She turned to Leliana. "Ghaunadaur's fanatics must be inside the Promenade already."

  Leliana listened. "Sounds like they've come well past the spot where Qilue planted her trap." She shook her head. "So much for them walking
into it 'meekly as rothe.' "

  Cavatina squeezed through the hole. Leliana followed. Together, they raced through the High House.

  As they hurried down a corridor, Cavatina noticed the door to Qilue's scrying room was open. She glanced inside and saw Meryl, standing beside a broken scrying font. The halfling was reaching for an object that lay on the wet floor: a metal cylinder as long as the halfling's arm, with a knob at either end. Qilue's blast scepter.

  Was it Meryl-or a dretch?

  Cavatina leaped into the room. Her sword flashed between Meryl's fingers and the floor, preventing the halfling-or dretch-from picking up the scepter. Meryl jumped back, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. Her mouth worked to form words, but none came out. She pointed at the scepter. "I couldn't… the font… the demon…"

  Cavatina glanced at where Meryl was looking. Bare, sickly-pale feet protruded from behind an overturned table: a dretch, lying prone and unmoving. A vial, its silver tarnished, lay on the floor nearby.

  "My mother's name," Cavatina demanded, her sword point against the halfling's chest. "What is it?"

  Puzzlement crowded out Meryl's fear. "Why… it's Jetel. Jetel Xarann."

  Cavatina lifted her sword. This was Meryl. She walked around the overturned table and ensured the dretch was dead.

  Leliana, who had run past, returned to the doorway. "What's wrong?"

  Cavatina waved her away. "It's under control. Go. Find Rylla. She'll need your help."

  Leliana nodded curtly and raced away.

  Cavatina knelt beside the halfling. She noted the tears spilling down Meryl's cheeks, and the bloody scratches on the little female's arms and hands. Cavatina patted her shoulder. "Good work, Meryl. You fought well."

  The halfling sniffed. She picked up the blast scepter and held it out to Cavatina. "I couldn't figure out how to work it. I had to use it like a club." Her lips trembled. "That thing… scared me so. I wasn't brave. Not like you."