Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,113

wrenched his head back—and saw that the rain was falling only on this spot. Falling, as if being poured, from that terrible wound where the moon had been. He suddenly shivered, worried he’d sung the prayer incorrectly. Done something wrong. Was this the Dark Disaster, all over again? The legends said the sky had wept blood… .

He heard a pop of in-rushing air—Urlryn, teleporting away. Of the three masters, only Seldszar remained. He stared at Q’arlynd through those dark lenses. “Let him go. This no longer concerns him.”

Q’arlynd nodded. He watched, fascinated, as the saplings grew tall as the Darkfire Pillars. The trees bent inward, their branches twining together to form a dome overhead.

“They’re caging us in,” Baltak growled.

“Should we teleport away?” Alexa asked.

Eldrinn turned to Seldszar. “Father?”

The Master of Divination patted the air. Wait.

Zarifar stared up at the sky. He raised a hand above his head, fingers and thumb curled to form half of the moon-symbol Q’arlynd had just made. “The pattern’s changed,” he said. “Just like the moon.”

Q’arlynd realized the blood rain had stopped. All that remained were drips, falling from the intertwined oak trees above. He looked up through their branches and saw that Zarifar was right. The moon had returned. It hung in the sky, a slim crescent of white, surrounded by a glittering halo that flickered from blue, to green, to lavender …

“Just like faerie fire,” Eldrinn breathed.

The boy stood just to Q’arlynd’s right, but Q’arlynd couldn’t see him. He wondered why Eldrinn had cloaked himself in magical darkness, but realized the final transŹformation had at last come about. He could barely see any of his apprentices. Nor could he see Seldszar clearly, or the oak trees that had regrown in the shape of the temple, nor the forest beyond them. Everything was dim, and dark, and indistinct.

“What’s happened?” Alexa’s voice asked. “I can’t see you—any of you!”

“Show yourselves!” Baltak roared.

Q’arlynd concentrated, and pointed at Baltak, but nothing happened. The faerie fire that should have outlined his apprenŹtice failed to materialize. Instead he used an evocation. A flicker of fire danced above his outstretched palm.

He stared, wonderingly, at what the wavering light revealed. His skin was no longer black. It had turned brown. And his hair, when he flicked the braid forward over his shoulŹder, wasn’t white any more. It had turned a glossy black.

He was no longer a drow.

Judging by the way his apprentices were fumbling about, they’d all been transformed as well. He laughed, realizing now what had drawn him to them, and to Seldszar: They shared a common ancestry.

“What’s happened?” Baltak shouted. “Tell me!”

Seldszar’s voice came from the darkness to Q’arlynd’s left. It sounded cool and unruffled. “Our casting was successful. We’ve broken our link with the Faerzress. Just as the ancestors promŹised. We’ve undone the Descent. We’re dark elves again.”

The two shapes that were Eldrinn and Alexa gasped. The larger shape on Q’arlynd’s left that was Baltak growled softly.

“Out of the darkness and into the light,” Q’arlynd said. He felt triumph—they’d just reversed the magic of the Descent! Yet he also felt a looming dread. By transforming, they’d also condemned themselves.

Not condemned, but freed.

He caught a glimpse of moonlight glinting off glass: the dark lenses Seldszar was wearing. He smiled, realizing they hadn’t been intended to shield his eyes from the light of the World Above. They were magical lenses, like those the surŹface elves needed in order to see when they ventured into the Underdark.

“You knew this would happen,” Q’arlynd told the other master. “Didn’t you? You saw what was to come, in one of your visions.”

“Not quite,” Seldszar said with a chuckle. He touched his forehead. “They told me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Q’arlynd cried.

We did, his ancestors answered. You agreed.

“Ease yourself, Q’arlynd.” Seldszar said. “All is as was foretold.”

“But we’re blind!” Eldrinn blurted. “Helpless as surface elves. How can we possibly survive back in Sshamath?”

“We won’t be returning there,” Seldszar said. “Preparations have been made. The College of Divination is already relocating as we speak; the necessity of fueling our casting with magical items provided an excellent screen for getting out much of our wealth. We’re going to start afresh on the surface, in the City of Hope. The College of Ancient Arcana will do the same. We’ll be welcome, there. The sharn have promised me that.”

Q’arlynd had no idea who the sharn were—but he had the feeling he was about to find out.

“What about the others?” Alexa asked. “In Sshamath … and elsewhere? Have all of the