Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,112
sacred moon. As he sang the final verse of the hymn, he raised his hands above his head to frame the moon in order to draw a miracle down from …
He gasped as he realized the moon wasn’t there. Had he miscalculated the time it would set? He shook his head, certain he hadn’t. The moon had been there, just a moment ago. High overhead and “half-masked” as the Nightshadows liked to say. And now it was gone.
It can’t be gone! his ancestor insisted.
Baltak, Eldrinn and Alexa mentally echoed her alarm. Zarifar, however, shook his head. He’s right; the pattern’s changed.
Ridiculous! Q’arlynd thought. There must be some other answer. Sweat trickled down his sides, under his robe. He felt Seldszar, Urlryn, and Masoj staring at him. Waiting for the miracle. Q’arlynd’s hands trembled above his head. “Negate the forcedome!” he shouted. “It’s blocking the moon. I need to see it!”
Urlryn barked out a transmutation and pointed. A thin green beam shot from his fingertip and struck the forcedome, disintegrating it. All three masters looked up, apparently unperturbed by a sight that would have turned cold the blood of any surface elf. The moon had indeed vanished. A dark hole, bereft even of stars, punctured the sky where it had been. Only Selűne’s Tears remained.
Eilistraee! his ancestor wailed.
“I… can’t continue,” Q’arlynd stammered. “Not with the moon gone.”
“What trickery is this?” Masoj said, his voice tight with suspicion. He wheeled on Seldszar and shook a bony finger. “I will expect payment, Master Seldszar. I performed my part of the bargain.”
“You shall have it,” Seldszar promised.
Masoj folded his arms, thrust his chin in the air, and teleported away.
Urlryn glared at Q’arlynd, his face darkening. “You were supposed to call down a miracle, not bore a hole in the ceiling!”
“That’s …” Q’arlynd bit his tongue against the urge to tell the ignorant Urlryn that it was sky above them, not stone. He heard his apprentices’ mental laughter. He shoved them out of his mind. “The disappearance of the moon wasn’t my …” He faltered as he caught sight of the adamantine oval that adorned his wristband.
The glyph was gone from his House insignia. Vanished, just like the moon.
Seldszar drifted closer and stared at him over his dark lenses. “I was led to believe we would succeed,” he said softly. From anyone else, it would have been a threat.
“Your visions predicted success?” Q’arlynd asked. He wet his lips. “Then why didn’t”
It will. But you must be willing to make the sacrifice.
“I don’t understand,” Q’arlynd protested aloud.
Trust in me, sang a female he hadn’t heard before. The voice was soft, distant, and echoing. Take the next step in the dance. Leap!
Q’arlynd could see it now. The future. The end to everything he’d ever known. One tiny step would take him theretake them all there.
He squeezed his eyes shut in terror. He felt the same way he had the first time he’d dared a free-fall from Ched Nasad’s streets. His heart pounded with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Memories flooded back and were absorbed by the lorestone on his forehead. The step off the edge. The plunge through space, wind tearing at his piwafwi. The wild laugh that had burst from his mouth. The sudden, dizzying jerk as his House insignia halted him just in time, preventing him from dashing his brains out on the cavern floor that had, a few heartbeats previously, been so far, far below.
So far…
“And yet so near,” he whispered.
He squared his shoulders. Opened his eyes. “I’ll do it.” He lifted his hands and completed the prayer.
Beside him, Seldszar smiled. Within the kiira, so did his ancestors.
“Something’s happening,” Baltak bellowed a moment later. He pointed. “There!”
“And there! And there, and there!” Zarifar cried.
Q’arlynd lowered his hands and looked around. A faint green glow that crackled and wavered like Faerzress formed a circle around the spot where they stood. The circle of light broke apart an instant later into several sections, each of which collapsed into a circle itself, then to a point. A sapling sprouted from the center of each, uncurled, and opened glowŹing green leaves.
Q’arlynd felt something warm and wet strike his head. Drops pattered against the ground, and the dry earth drank them in. The others started as the raindrops struck them. Q’arlynd smiled to himself. They’d probably never felt rain before. Then a drop trickled down Q’arlynd’s face, to his lips. He tasted blood.