Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,64

what it feels like to pluck at the strands of the Weave, and play it like a harp.” He mimed playing an instruŹment, and lifted an eyebrow. The selu’kiira on his forehead turned visible.

Q’arlynd, watching Masoj, resisted the urge to smile when the other wizard’s pupils dilated. Seldszar was not only a master wizard, but a master manipulator. Masoj was reading between the lines, just as Seldszar had hoped. He obviŹously believed Seldszar had already dabbled in high magic. Judging by the way Masoj’s eyes slid sideways to Urlryn, he must have been wondering if the Master of Conjuration and Summoning also had a kiira. Ironically, Masoj didn’t once look at Q’arlynd—the only one of the four who actually had worked an arselu’tel’quess spell—not just once, but twice.

“Well now.” Masoj’s lips settled in a forced smile. “That should give those web-shrouded bitches pause, should they start thinking about taking out another of the Conclave.” One hand flipped upward, its fingers curled: the sign for a dead spider.

Q’arlynd joined the other masters in polite laughter.

“That’s settled, then.” Master Seldszar leaned forward and removed the decanter’s stopper. He poured some of the contents into the goblet. He flicked a finger, and one of his crystals left its orbit. It drifted above the center of the table and hung there, spinning slowly in place. He drank down the wine and set the empty goblet back on the table. His pupils narrowed to pinpricks.

“Where was the spell cast that turned the dark elves into drow?” he intoned, staring intently at the crystal.

Urlryn, Masoj, and Q’arlynd leaned forward expectantly. In a moment, the gnomish “vision wine” would do its work. Seldszar would tear aside the hazy screen the city’s Faerzress had imposed on his divinations and pinpoint the spot where the spell that would set the drow free must be cast.

Slowly, an image filled the crystal. At first, it was too small to make out. But as Q’arlynd stared at the crystal and concentrated, the vision filled his mind, obliterating the room in which he sat. It was as if he were a bird, looking down upon a clearing in a forest. Tiny figures—surface elves, but too distant to make out their individual features—moved back and forth across the clearing, entering and exiting a round building whose domed roof reflected flashes of sunlight. The dome, he saw as the image drew closer, was constructed of thousands of leaf-shaped shards of pale green glass that had been fitted together like a puzzle. They were held together not by strips of lead, but by the interwoven branches of trees whose trunks buttressed the building’s sides.

An awed female voice whispered from inside the lorestone: One of his temples.

Q’arlynd’s heart quickened. He didn’t need to ask which god the temple honored. The ancestor who had spoken had lived at a time when the Seldarine were still worshiped by the dark elves, and had paid homage to this one, in particular. Q’arlynd knew, without needing to ask, which god she was referring to: Corellon Larethian, First of the Seldarine.

Creator and protector of the elves, she added in a hushed, reverent voice.

The god who condemned us, another voice said harshly—a male voice, this time. Q’arlynd recognized it as belonging to one of his post-Descent ancestors.

Q’arlynd had drifted away from the vision while speaking to the ancestors; he saw it anew as a gauzy curtain, overlayŹing the room. The other three masters stared at the crystal in silence, their eyes squinted against the World Above’s harsh glare. All three wore slight frowns. They obviously didn’t recognize the building.

“It’s a temple to Corellon Larethian,” Q’arlynd told them. “In the forest of…”

He waited for his ancestor to supply the name, but there was only silence.

I never worshiped at that temple, the female said. I have no idea where it is situated.

Nor do I, the male added.

Like echoes rippling through a cavern, other voices folŹlowed: Neither do I. Nor do I. Nor I…

Q’arlynd felt his cheeks grow warm. He turned slightly to Seldszar. He hated to pressure the more senior master. Yet he had no choice.

Seldszar, however, didn’t acknowledge Q’arlynd’s cue. His eyes remained locked on the temple. “If it’s Corellon’s, that would explain the oak trees,” he observed.

Thirteen of them, the female voice said. One for each branch that supports the Creator.

Three fewer, after the Fall, the male added. They withered, without Corellon’s grace.

At first, Q’arlynd couldn’t understand what they were talking about. Then he remembered what he’d been taught during his short tenure