Lisa Smedman - Sacrifice of the Widow

Q'arlynd spoke a word and rendered himself invisible. He removed his belt, laid it across his knees by feel, and placed the magical crystal on the inside of the broad strip of leather close by the buckle. Though the rest of the belt remained invisible, the section of it that was immediately under the crystal became visible. On it were words written in tiny glyphs: Q'arlynd's spells. Holding the belt close to his eyes so he could read the script, he moved the crystal slowly across the belt, committing his "spellbook" to memory again.

Halfway through, he paused and looked up. Flinderspeld had been talking with the two priestesses as they waited for their end-of-night meal to cook, but he had gone to lean toward Leliana in a conspiratorial pose, one shoulder twisted slightly forward.

Q'arlynd attempted to listen in on Flinderspeld's thoughts, but the link wouldn't come. His eyes narrowed. The deep gnome was certainly close enough for Q'arlynd's rings to have worked their magic upon him. The priestesses' must have done something to block the link. That was something Q'arlynd would have to deal with in future, but for the time being he let them think they had their privacy. He had other means, honed over a lifetime of peering around corners and into locked rooms. He cast a spell that would allow him to observe and listen from a distance.

Flinderspeld had removed his gloves. Leliana held his hand and studied the slave ring on his finger.

"… remove it," she was saying. "When we reach the shrine, I'll ask Vlashiri to do it. She knows the prayer you need."

Q'arlynd nodded to himself. Such treachery was to be expected, especially of slaves. Nevertheless, it irritated him. The ring on Flinderspeld's finger was the last of Q'arlynd's slave rings. The other four that had formed a set with his master ring had been buried-together with the bodies of the slaves who had worn them-when Ched Nasad collapsed. Q'arlynd would not let the last slave ring be taken from him as well.

Leliana dropped Flinderspeld's hand and leaned closer to the other priestess. Her voice dropped to a low whisper that Flinderspeld wouldn't be able to hear but that Q'arlynd's magic conveyed quite nicely.

"I'm going to have a word with this 'master' of his. He's not acting much like a petitioner, if you ask me."

Rowaan looked startled. "But he bears a sword-token," she whispered back.

Leliana looked unimpressed. "So what?" she hissed. "Our tokens have fallen into the wrong hands before. You heard him when I said the name of the priestess who went to Ched Nasad was Milass'ni-he didn't correct me."

Rowaan shrugged. "Some people simply aren't good with names."

"He's not that stupid. He's a wizard, and the academies don't accept dullards."

Flinderspeld had risen to his feet as the priestesses whispered together. He backed out of the circle of firelight slowly, trying not to draw attention to himself. He eased down into a crouch and started to blur…

Leliana whirled to face him. "Hold it right there!" She'd drawn her sword, and it was in her fist. Ready.

Q'arlynd scrambled to his feet, one hand darting to his pocket for a spell component.

Flinderspeld halted. He returned to normal again, paler by several shades.

"You're going to answer some questions, too," Leliana told him.

Q'arlynd paused, component in hand. It looked as though Leliana wasn't about to hack his slave in two after all. She just wanted some answers, and if all went well, Flinderspeld would tell her exactly what she hoped to hear. Q'arlynd put the spell component away.

Instead of questioning the deep gnome, however, Leliana did the unexpected. She spun her sword above her head it in a tight circle until it hummed through the air. Then she halted the blade over Flinderspeld's head.

"Tell me how your master came to have Eilistraee's token," she demanded.

Q'arlynd cursed. Leliana had obviously just cast a spell on his slave, and Q'arlynd could guess what its effects would be. As Flinderspeld opened his mouth to answer, Q'arlynd once again tried to slip into his slave's mind. Finally, it worked. Whatever magical shield the priestesses had placed between the two rings had lapsed. Q'arlynd heard Flinderspeld mentally rehearsing the story he'd been coached with before they'd stepped through the portal. Flinderspeld was about to say that he'd seen a priestess of Eilistraee give his master the token, but the words never made it from mind to mouth. The deep gnome instead began to babble something else entirely.

"We found the token in the rubble. My master told me to say-"

Furious, Q'arlynd seized hold of his slave's body. Flinderspeld's jaw snapped shut so quickly his teeth nipped his tongue. Q'arlynd forced the deep gnome's face into a smile, preventing him from wincing at the pain that flared in his tongue.

"To tellanyone… that… he… foundthetoken. The… priestess… toldhimshe… didn't… wantanyoneto… know… she… hadcometo… Ch-Ch-Ched… Nas-Nas…"

Q'arlynd frowned. Why was he being so difficult? Even with a truth spell in effect, he should have been able to control Flinderspeld, yet the words staggered out of the deep gnome's mouth one moment, spilled out in a rush the next. All the while, Flinderspeld's mind screamed like a shrieker, desperately fighting Q'arlynd's hold on his body while trying to blurt out the truth.

Rowaan stared at Flinderspeld, her mouth open. Leliana was quicker on the uptake. "The wizard's controlling him," she hissed at her companion. "He must be close by. Find him."

Rowaan touched her pendant, whispering the words of a prayer.

Q'arlynd withdrew from Flinderspeld's mind. The deep gnome continued babbling the rest of his answer to Leliana's question, but Q'arlynd was no longer concerned with what Flinderspeld might be telling the priestesses. The damage had been done, and if Leliana worked her truth-compelling magic on Q'arlynd and learned what he'd done, things would only get worse. The killing of a fellow priestess-even by accident-was something no drow female would forgive.

Q'arlynd's hopes of meeting Qilue had just burned up as quickly as a torch-touched web. It was time to end his little jaunt through the World Above and return to Ched Nasad.

But not without his slave.

Who, strangely enough, stood stock still, instead of backing slowly away as he usually did when trouble reared its head.

Q'arlynd cursed, realizing that Flinderspeld must be magically held. Q'arlynd paused just long enough to fasten his belt around his waist then teleported to the deep gnome's side. A second, quick teleport would-

"There!" Rowaan shouted, pointing straight at him across the crackling fire.

Rowaan's spell had allowed her to spot him, but it didn't matter. Q'arlynd slapped his invisible hand down on his slave's head and spoke the word that would teleport the pair of them to-

Q'arlynd felt his body stiffen. Unbalanced, he toppled over. He landed heavily on the ground next to Flinderspeld, narrowly missing winding up with his face in the fire. The earthy smell of fallen leaves filled his nostrils.

He heard Rowaan chanting. Suddenly, he could see his nose again. His invisibility had been dispelled.

Leliana rolled him over. She poked his shoulder with the point of her sword, notching a shallow wound in his flesh. If he'd been able to, Q'arlynd would have yelped.

Leliana smiled. "You're wondering what just happened."

Indeed he was.

Leliana flipped up the back of Flinderspeld's vest and pointed at something: a glyph, drawn on the inside of it. Q'arlynd didn't recognize the glyph, even though it was written using the drow script. It must have been sacred to Eilistraee.

"Rowaan got the idea from watching you reading your belt," Leliana told him.

Q'arlynd's eyelids were still working, so he gave an involuntary blink of surprise. He barged his way into Flinderspeld's thoughts. The deep gnome was the only one who knew where Q'arlynd kept his travel "spellbook," but Flinderspeld gave the equivalent of a mental head shake. He hadn't told the priestesses.