Lisa Smedman - Storm of the Dead

Eldrinn nodded. He sat down, picked up his spellbook, and began leafing through it, as if hoping to find the answer there.

Baltak frowned at Q'arlynd. "What just happened?"

"The feeblemind spell," Q'arlynd explained smoothly. He was embarrassing Eldrinn, but it couldn't be helped. The others needed an explanation. "Eldrinn sometimes has… relapses. I was worried it might impair our concentration, but he's over it, now. We'll start again."

Baltak glared at Eldrinn, who was refusing to look up from his spellbook. "Maybe Eldrinn shouldn't be-"

Q'arlynd pressed the kiira into Baltak's hands. "Your hands are steadier. You do it."

Baltak grinned. He strode over to the chitine, pulled a cloth from his pocket, and used it to wipe away the oily film that covered the creature's forehead. "Problem solved," he said, tossing the cloth aside. He held up the kiira. "Let's do it."

"On my signal," Q'arlynd reminded them, lifting his hand. He waited while the others linked minds with him, and forced his way into the chitine's thoughts once more. At his signal, Baltak pressed the crystal to the creature's forehead-hard enough to hurt it-and stepped back.

A rush of images tumbled into Q'arlynd's mind, and through it, into the minds of the four wizards linked with him. The towers of a surface city. A brown-skinned face. A portion of a complex hand gesture. A stone door. A series of pages that flew through the chitine's mind as if they were blown by a howling storm, faster and fasterandfasterand…

Intense pain flared in Q'arlynd's temples as he was forcibly ejected from the chitine's mind. In the same instant he heard the clatter of chains. The chitine hung from its manacles, dead. A thin gray powder trickled out of its nostrils and drifted to the floor: the contents of its skull, instantly seared to ash.

Baltak shook his head. "Mother's blood. That hurt."

Eldrinn blinked rapidly, spellbook forgotten in his lap. Zarifar shivered. Piri pressed his back tightly to the wall and whispered a protective spell.

Q'arlynd's jaw clenched in frustration. The chitine was dead-just like the last test subject. He strode over to it and yanked the slave ring from its limp finger.

"Well?" he asked the others. "Did any of you manage to read those pages?"

Eldrinn and Piri shook their heads.

Baltak shrugged. "They went by too fast for me."

Zarifar fluttered his hands as if trying to recapture the pattern he'd seen. "Like… cave moths. Left… right…"

Eldrinn repeated the gesture they'd just seen, crossing the middle two fingers of his right hand and whipping his extended thumb in a tight circle. Q'arlynd watched expectantly. The boy had read a number of arcane texts, perhaps he recognized the spell it belonged to.

"Well?"

Eldrinn's hand fell. "Sorry. I've no idea what it means."

Q'arlynd gave a tight, frustrated nod.

"Those towers… were they in Talthalaran?" Baltak asked.

"They might have been," Q'arlynd said. "But that's not going to help us much. The city was blasted down to its foundations."

"Maybe we should search the ruins," Baltak said. "Perhaps there's another kiira in-"

"There isn't," Q'arlynd snapped. "But you're welcome to go look for yourself, if you like."

That shut Baltak up.

"That door," Zarifar said. "There were…" His voice trailed off. As usual, he didn't complete his thought. His forefinger traced a line through the air. "Patterns."

Q'arlynd sighed in frustration. This wasn't getting them anywhere.

"The door…" Eldrinn said softly. "I…"

Q'arlynd turned. The distant look was back in Eldrinn's eyes again. "Did you recognize it, Eldrinn? Have you seen it before?"

Eldrinn's eyes cleared. He jumped out of his chair and paced across the room. "I wish I knew!" As he passed the chitine, he halted and wrinkled his nose. "What's that smell?"

"Death," Q'arlynd answered. The chitine had voided its bowels when it died, and the room stank. He felt sorry for the creature, vicious little brute though it was. He reminded himself of the necessity of its sacrifice. At least the death he'd given it had been swift-quicker than it would have suffered at the hands of hunters or one of Lolth's priestesses.

"What's next?" Baltak asked. "Buy another slave and try again?"

Q'arlynd shook his head. "That will have to wait. Eldrinn and I will be departing soon. We'll be away for… a while."

Eldrinn nodded. "Father's orders. A trade mission to Sschindylryn, on behalf of the college."

Baltak nodded at the kiira. "But that's staying here, right? The rest of us can carry on, while you're gone."

"No," Q'arlynd replied. "In the College of Ancient Arcana, we work together. Or not at all."

Baltak shrugged but his eyes clung greedily to the kiira. "Fine. We wait until you get back."

Q'arlynd felt frustration build inside him. We can't wait! he wanted to shout. By then it might be too late! Yet he could hardly tell the others that. Only Eldrinn knew the extent of the looming crisis. He and Q'arlynd had been careful to keep it from the others, even when they were linked mind to mind. The boy wasn't stupid; if word got out that the College of Divination was teetering on the brink, someone just might be willing to give it an extra nudge.

Eldrinn stared at the dead chitine. "We're wasting our time with these lesser races. We need to try it on a drow instead."

"Good idea!" Baltak cried. "What about a battle-captive- someone no one really cares about?"

"What about the body?" Piri whispered from the back of the room. He pointed at Zarifar, who had wandered over to the chitine and was busy scuffing the toe of his boot through the ash at the chitine's feet, drawing in it. "Anyone who sees the corpse is going to wonder which spell burned its brains out so precisely."

"We'll disintegrate the body," Baltak said. "Or use quicklime."

"You're overlooking something," Q'arlynd said. "If the experiment succeeded, the battle-captive would learn the contents of the kiira at the same time we did-including, perhaps, a spell that might allow him to escape." He stared at the others. "We don't want to share our lorestone with anyone else just yet, do we?"

"I suppose you're right," Baltak grudgingly admitted.

"You completely missed my point," Eldrinn said.

Q'arlynd turned to him.

"I wasn't talking about battle-captives-I was talking about me. / could wear the kiira."

Q'arlynd's response was immediate. "No."

"It won't kill me. I know it. I have a… feeling about it. It's almost like…" Eldrinn stared at the lorestone. "A divination, or… something."

"Feeling or not," Q'arlynd said, "my answer is still no. It's too risky."

Eldrinn stood, fists on hips. "Why won't you let me try it, Q'arlynd? Are you worried that Father will find out?"

Q'arlynd nearly laughed. Eldrinn had, unwittingly, put his finger precisely on the problem. Q'arlynd already knew the lorestone wouldn't kill the boy. He had a pretty clear picture of what must have happened, that night on the High Moor. Eldrinn had run off when the monster had attacked the soldier he'd taken along as a bodyguard. Knowing that his own spells were too limited to deal with the monster, Eldrinn must have turned in desperation to the kiira and been unable to handle it. For some reason the lorestone hadn't blasted his brain to ash-Q'arlynd was still trying to figure that part out-but it had left the boy a feeblewit.

If Eldrinn tried the kiira a second time and was once again reduced to a drooling shell, Q'arlynd would be forced to explain how it had happened. Master Seldszar wasn't stupid; he'd guess that something other than the "magical predators" of the High Moor had scrambled the boy's mind, the first time around. He'd leave no mind unsifted until he found out what had really happened. The moment he learned of the kiira he'd claim it for his college, justifying its seizure as compensation for the coin it had cost him to cure the boy. Not once, but twice. And the foundation stone upon which Q'arlynd hoped to build his school would be gone.