Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,26

bad enough alone—until he noticed the femur that lay on the ground between the two apprentices as a dividŹing line.

This was no mere grudge match. It was a duel to the death.

Eldrinn had a determined look on his face, but his tight grip on the wand betrayed his tension. He was a mere boy, a half-drow with ash gray skin. He wore his usual spider-silk shirt and ornately embroidered piwafwi, but his waist-length hair was unbound. He’d either been tricked or goaded into leaving behind the contingency clip that could save him from whatever Piri’s wand hurled at him.

The timing was too coincidental. The absence of seconds and a jabbuk duello to oversee the duel was equally telling. Someone must have manipulated Piri or Eldrinn into this. Someone powerful enough to have ensured that Master Seldszar wouldn’t divine, ahead of time, that his son was about to enter into a potentially fatal duel.

If Eldrinn died, however—no, when Eldrinn died—Seldszar would learn of it immediately. Whoever had maneuvered the two apprentices into this would certainly see to that. Once alerted to his son’s death, it would take the master diviner less time to learn the circumstances than it took most males to draw breath. Then Q’arlynd’s school would suffer the conŹsequences. Contrary to all that was natural, Seldszar actually cared for his son. He’d blame Q’arlynd for the boy’s death—and would point accusingly to Q’arlynd’s stubborn insistence on keeping the demon-skinned Piri at his school.

Seldszar would likely revoke his nomination.

Q’arlynd told himself not to panic. Eldrinn was a less experienced wizard than Piri, but he might just get a lucky shot in with his wand after the pair raised defenses.

The water clock dripped. Q’arlynd was due before the Conclave this very moment. He’d have to leave his apprentices to their duel and hope that Eldrinn won.

Just as he was about to end his scrying, however, Piri sneaked a glance down at his belt. Q’arlynd couldn’t see anyŹthing on the belt but an empty wand scabbard, but he’d learned long ago not to trust his eyes alone. He yanked the master ring off his finger and held it just behind the gem on his pendant, peering through both at the same time. The images he was seeing shrank, now filling the center of the ring, rather than looming large within Q’arlynd’s mind. He couldn’t make out details, but fortunately the object revealed by the gem’s magic was large: a thin iron hoop hanging from Piri’s belt. Q’arlynd recognized it at once as half of a ring gate.

The gem also revealed a quasit demon, cloaked by invisŹibility, that hovered in the air near the spot Eldrinn would wind up in after marching ten paces. Its wings fluttering, a malicious smile on its green-skinned face, the quasit held the second ring gate in one warty hand.

It was instantly clear to Q’arlynd what Piri planned. The demon-skinned apprentice was going to use the ring gates to attack Eldrinn from behind.

“Ten paces,” Piri said over his shoulder. “Then turn, cast a single spell, and fire. Agreed?”

Eldrinn nodded. “Agreed.”

Q’arlynd gritted his teeth as he pushed the master ring back into place on his finger. Piri had left out one word from the ritual agreement. It should have been “Cast a single defensive spell.” Eldrinn had just agreed to a change in the rules that would cost him the initiative. Q’arlynd had to do something, and quickly. But what? Sshamath’s laws dictated that no outside party could influence the outcome of a duel; those who interfered in a lethal duel could be put to death themselves. But perhaps Q’arlynd could get away with merely delaying the duel.

Piri’s foot lifted slightly. “Ten—”

With a thought, Q’arlynd activated his ring. Both apprenŹtices froze in place, each with his right foot slightly lifted from the floor.

The water clock dripped. Now Q’arlynd was late.

He teleported.

He’d planned to make a formal entrance, but there was no time for that now. Instead he teleported directly to the heart of the Stonestave, to a spot just inside the great double doors of the Conclave’s meeting chamber. Unfortunately, someone was coming through the doors. The edge of a driftdisc crashed into Q’arlynd’s back, sending him staggering. He caught himself on the railing that enclosed the speaker’s sphere and saw to his dismay that several of the Conclave were frowning at him. Without apologizing for his tardiness or awkward entrance—any excuse he might give would be exploited as a weakness—he bowed to the speaker’s sphere: a ball of