Lisa Smedman - Ascendancy of the Last

Masoj shifted slightly, his bony knees creaking. "Let's get to the point, shall we? My vote wasn't enough. You require something else from me before I can claim my prize. What?"

Ah, Q'arlynd thought. The Master of Abjuration had been promised a kiira. Whether Masoj's bloodline was pure enough for him to claim it, however, remained to be seen.

"Yes, young Master Q'arlynd," Urlryn said. His voice dropped just enough on the title to imply scorn, without openly stating it. An act, for Masoj's benefit. Urlryn didn't want the Master of Abjuration to know how much hope he'd balanced on the knife's edge of this meeting. Urlryn's College had been greatly weakened by the augmented Faerzress- though not nearly as severely as the College of Divination. He nodded across the table at Seldszar. "Tell us what our combined centuries of study couldn't. How is the Faerzress to be unmade?"

"It isn't," Q'arlynd answered bluntly. "Sshamath's Faerzress will remain long after we four are dust. What we will do, instead, is remove ourselves from it. Sever the link between drow and Faerzress."

"All drow?" Urlryn asked-another scripted question.

Q'arlynd shook his head. He repeated what his ancestors had told him. "Not all. Those who worship the Spider Queen will derive no benefit from our casting."

He waited. This was the moment of revelation. Seldszar had been able to learn much about Masoj, but not his faith. If the Master of Abjuration worshiped Lolth, these careful negotiations would be for naught.

" 'Our' casting?" Masoj asked, lifting an eyebrow.

Q'arlynd touched the lorestone on his forehead. "I'll be present, though not actively participating. The ancestors of House Melarn will be on hand to provide advice, should you three have any questions."

We stand ready, they whispered.

Masoj nodded, but his attention was on the other two masters. "What spell am I to provide?"

Q'arlynd hid a sigh of relief. Masoj wasn't a spider kisser. "The casting is complex, requiring several participants," he explained. "The Colleges of Masters Seldszar and Urlryn will provide mages to cast the simpler abjurations: those that break enchantments and remove curses. I have also secured a promise of assistance from a priestess capable of evoking a miracle."

Masoj's eyebrow rose a little farther. He didn't ask which deity the priestess honored-that was easy enough for him to guess, thanks to Guldor's accusations at the Conclave. Q'arlynd wondered how Masoj would react when he actually met Qilue.

"What we need from you," Q'arlynd continued, "is your expertise in reversing magical imprisonments."

"Where is the abjuration to be cast?" Masoj asked.

"We don't know yet."

Masoj's nostrils flared slightly.

"But we will in a moment," Seldszar interjected. He nodded at the decanter. "A vision will reveal it presently. That's why I invited each of you here. One of us may recognize something the others do not."

That wasn't quite true, Q'arlynd reflected. Masoj wasn't nearly as well versed in ancient lore as the other two masters, and he wouldn't be that useful. Letting him observe the vision first hand, however, would give the impression that the others had nothing to hide.

Masoj folded his arms. "And if I refuse to participate?"

Seldszar lifted his hands, fingers poised. "Then you'll never learn what it feels like to pluck at the strands of the Weave, and play it like a harp." He mimed playing an instrument, and lifted an eyebrow. The selu'kiira on his forehead turned visible.

Q'arlynd, watching Masoj, resisted the urge to smile when the other wizard's pupils dilated. Seldszar was not only a master wizard, but a master manipulator. Masoj was reading between the lines, just as Seldszar had hoped. He obviously believed Seldszar had already dabbled in high magic. Judging by the way Masoj's eyes slid sideways to Urlryn, he must have been wondering if the Master of Conjuration and Summoning also had a kiira. Ironically, Masoj didn't once look at Q'arlynd-the only one of the four who actually had worked an arselu'tel'quess spell-not just once, but twice.

"Well now." Masoj's lips settled in a forced smile. "That should give those web-shrouded bitches pause, should they start thinking about taking out another of the Conclave." One hand flipped upward, its fingers curled: the sign for a dead spider.

Q'arlynd joined the other masters in polite laughter.

"That's settled, then." Master Seldszar leaned forward and removed the decanter's stopper. He poured some of the contents into the goblet. He flicked a finger, and one of his crystals left its orbit. It drifted above the center of the table and hung there, spinning slowly in place. He drank down the wine and set the empty goblet back on the table. His pupils narrowed to pinpricks.

"Where was the spell cast that turned the dark elves into drow?" he intoned, staring intently at the crystal.

Urlryn, Masoj, and Q'arlynd leaned forward expectantly. In a moment, the gnomish "vision wine" would do its work. Seldszar would tear aside the hazy screen the city's Faerzress had imposed on his divinations and pinpoint the spot where the spell that would set the drow free must be cast.

Slowly, an image filled the crystal. At first, it was too small to make out. But as Q'arlynd stared at the crystal and concentrated, the vision filled his mind, obliterating the room in which he sat. It was as if he were a bird, looking down upon a clearing in a forest. Tiny figures-surface elves, but too distant to make out their individual features-moved back and forth across the clearing, entering and exiting a round building whose domed roof reflected flashes of sunlight. The dome, he saw as the image drew closer, was constructed of thousands of leaf-shaped shards of pale green glass that had been fitted together like a puzzle. They were held together not by strips of lead, but by the interwoven branches of trees whose trunks buttressed the building's sides.

An awed female voice whispered from inside the lorestone: One of his temples.

Q'arlynd's heart quickened. He didn't need to ask which god the temple honored. The ancestor who had spoken had lived at a time when the Seldarine were still worshiped by the dark elves, and had paid homage to this one, in particular. Q'arlynd knew, without needing to ask, which god she was referring to: Corellon Larethian, First of the Seldarine.

Creator and protector of the elves, she added in a hushed, reverent voice.

The god who condemned us, another voice said harshly-a male voice, this time. Q'arlynd recognized it as belonging to one of his post-Descent ancestors.

Q'arlynd had drifted away from the vision while speaking to the ancestors; he saw it anew as a gauzy curtain, overlaying the room. The other three masters stared at the crystal in silence, their eyes squinted against the World Above's harsh glare. All three wore slight frowns. They obviously didn't recognize the building.

"It's a temple to Corellon Larethian," Q'arlynd told them. "In the forest of…"

He waited for his ancestor to supply the name, but there was only silence.

I never worshiped at that temple, the female said. I have no idea where it is situated.

Nor do I, the male added.

Like echoes rippling through a cavern, other voices followed: Neither do I. Nor do I. Nor I…

Q'arlynd felt his cheeks grow warm. He turned slightly to Seldszar. He hated to pressure the more senior master. Yet he had no choice.

Seldszar, however, didn't acknowledge Q'arlynd's cue. His eyes remained locked on the temple. "If it's Corellon's, that would explain the oak trees," he observed.

Thirteen of them, the female voice said. One for each branch that supports the Creator.

Three fewer, after the Fall, the male added. They withered, without Corellon's grace.

At first, Q'arlynd couldn't understand what they were talking about. Then he remembered what he'd been taught during his short tenure at Eilistraee's shrine in the Misty Forest. Corellon Larethian had, indeed, once ruled thirteen lesser Seldarine. Two betrayed him-Lolth and her son Vhaeraun-and a third allowed herself to be banished from Arvandor, together with her mother and brother, so the drow might one day find redemption: Eilistraee.