Lisa Smedman - Ascendancy of the Last

The oozes parted, leaving a clear path for the slug to follow. Were there fanatics somewhere in the cavern, controlling them? Naxil glanced around, but saw no sign of Ghaunadaur's cultists. The drow all seemed to have gone below, into the Pit.

Naxil suddenly remembered he still wore the ring Mazrol had given him. He could escape by levitating! Yet when he glanced up, he saw the ceiling was coated in green slime. A patch of it landed with a splat at his feet; he barely dodged it in time. Levitating in mid-air, he'd be unable to dodge aside if more of it fell.

"Masked Lady!" Naxil cried. "Guide me! How am I to escape?"

Everywhere he looked, oozes blocked the exits. They sat, quivering, in front of the corridors that led to the Stronghall, the Hall of the Priestesses, and the Hall of the Faithful. The only unguarded exit was the northernmost tunnel-but the oozes slithering toward it would block it soon enough. Naxil ran in that direction, certain that it was Ghaunadaur's avatar pursuing him. That was why the oozes and slimes were acting the way they did: they were obeying their master, letting the slug feed first. Naxil was keeping ahead of the avatar, but for how long? As he hurtled out of the cavern's only clear exit, he wildly debated which way to go. South, to the Hall of the Priestesses, or north, to the Hall of Empty Arches? He heard a wet, slapping sound to the south: another of Ghaunadaur's minions. That decided it. North.

As he drew near the Hall of Empty Arches he slipped and fell, wrenching an ankle. He lurched to his feet-and nearly screamed at the pain. He started a restorative prayer, but before he could complete it, an eyestalk poked around the corner. Ghaunadaur's avatar, closing in! A moment more, and it would catch him.

Suddenly, Naxil had an inspiration. The ring: it was gold! Maybe it would activate one of the ancient portals. He staggered into the Hall of Empty Arches, between the first two partition walls. He slapped his hand against the first arch: nothing. Stupid-that was the portal he and Leliana had returned through, the one that led from the mine tunnels to here. And the next portal was even less of an option. It led, he'd heard, to an infinite maze that would forever trap anyone foolish enough to use it.

Suddenly, he realized what he needed to do. He understood why the Masked Lady had helped him to escape being sacrificed in the Pit. She needed him-as bait. His frenzied run was the dance that would lead Ghaunadaur's avatar into a trap. Naxil would die, but his reward would be to dance at the side of his deity forevermore.

"Masked Lady!" he cried. "Lend me strength!"

He staggered to the arch and reached out to touch it. Yet even as his fingertips touched stone, a tentacle smacked into his back and coiled around his torso. Naxil grunted in pain as barbs drove into his chest and back. The avatar tried to draw him away from the arch, but the pull of the portal was stronger. It wrenched Naxil inside, tugging the tentacle in with him.

For the space of a heartbeat, Naxil thought this desperate ploy hadn't worked. He dangled above a stone floor at the crossroads of half a dozen corridors, the taut tentacle preventing him from falling. Then the rest of Ghaunadaur's sluglike body slid through the portal. The avatar landed on Naxil, flattening him under a rippling wave of slimy flesh.

Despite the crushing weight that drove the air from his lungs, Naxil felt an immense sense of pride. He'd done it: lured Ghaunadaur's avatar away from the Promenade.

Masked Lady, he silently sang. I commend my soul to you. My dance is done.

He died with his mask pressed against his face, hiding his smile, as the avatar slithered off into the endless maze.

Q'arlynd glanced around. He'd teleported to the place Flinderspeld had described: a wide ledge, high on the side of a mountain. Glancing down at the forest spread out below like a distant green carpet, he could see why this place was so little known. A faint trail led up the lower slopes of the mountain. Q'arlynd spotted two figures walking along it, far below. The trail, however, stopped well below the bluff. From that point, it would take a riding lizard or a levitation spell to reach this spot.

A breeze blew mist onto his skin, and he shivered. The sky was overcast, heavy with dark gray clouds. Thunder grumbled in the distance. He turned away from the view to observe the outermost of the "fountains." Just as Flinderspeld had described, a stream of water flowed up the mountainside, arcing over the lip of the bluff to land, splashing, in the pool.

From there, the water arced up and out of the pool, into a fissure in the bluff. From within the V-shaped cleft, Q'arlynd could hear the patter of the stream of water falling on the second pool. From there, Flinderspeld had said, the stream arced to the third pool, and then to the fourth and final of the Fountains of Memory: the one that looked deepest into the past.

Flinderspeld had originally wanted to accompany Q'arlynd here, but later decided against it. The temptation to use the pools himself, he'd explained, would be too strong. "Even the good memories will hurt," Flinderspeld had said.

Q'arlynd understood. Like Flinderspeld, he came from a city that now lay in ruin. Looking back in time to a Ched Nasad that was whole, to a life irretrievably gone would be… painful.

Yet for different reasons. Unlike Flinderspeld, Q'arlynd had no desire to return to the city of his childhood, even in reminiscence. Q'arlynd hadn't loved Ched Nasad; he'd loathed it. His memories of House Melarn's haughty, scheming matron mother-the female who'd birthed him-were brutal. Her capricious cruelty and callous disregard for her children had set the tone for Q'arlynd's siblings, a backstabbing brood of self-serving malcontents.

Within the kiira, Q'arlynd's ancestors stirred. Was there no one in your family that you cared for?

Q'arlynd laughed. "Tellik," he answered. And it was true. Q'arlynd had been close to his younger brother, for a time. As close as any two drow could be. Yet Q'arlynd had cast Tellik aside as quickly as a worn piwafwi, in order to avoid being killed alongside him after Matron Melarn learned that Tellik had taken up Vhaeraun's mask.

What about the others? his ancestors asked. Was there no one who showed mercy, when you needed it?

Q'arlynd started to answer no, then realized that wasn't quite right. "Halisstra," he answered at last. He touched the bump on his nose, remembering the time she'd secretly healed him. If not for that, he would have been dead decades ago.

Despite that act of kindness, Q'arlynd had continued to regard his sister as little more than a means of achieving his own goals. Only in recent years had he learned that people were more than mere playing pieces to be shoved about by those who were stronger and more cunning. Now he wondered what had become of Halisstra.

Four years ago, Cavatina had reported to Qilue that Halisstra had been left behind in the Demonweb Pits, after helping the Darksong Knight to slay Selvetarm. Had Halisstra died there? The questions T'lar had asked seemed to indicate that she had. T'lar had said Halisstra "angered" the Lady Penitent-Lolth, obviously-and had been killed for it. Strangely, the assassin didn't seem to understand why Lolth might have done this. T'lar obviously didn't know Halisstra's role in helping to slay the Spider Queen's champion.

Now Q'arlynd found himself pondering exactly how Halisstra had died. Guilt nibbled at him. He'd done nothing to aid in the search for Halisstra, just left it up to Qilue and her priestesses. He glanced down at the bracer he still wore on his wrist-at the symbol of House Melarn on his House insignia. The dancing stick figure also stood for Eilistraee. Would Q'arlynd meet his sister once more, in Eilistraee's domain, when he finally died? Or would Eilistraee fault him for abandoning Halisstra, just as he'd abandoned Tellik?