Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,66

be asking ourselves,” he told the others, “is why the gorgondy wine gave an image that didn’t precisely answer the question I posed. ‘Where was the spell cast that turned the dark elves into drow?’ was how I phrased it. The vision should have showed us what the area looks like now, not thousands of years ago.”

Urlryn frowned. “Are you suggesting the high mages stepped back in time?”

“It’s possible,” Seldszar said. “Gorgondy wine is a gnomish vintage, made using water drawn from a series of magical pools whose waters provide glimpses of the past. The pools are also rumored to have other enchantments. Their ripples, for example, are said to spontaneously form teleportation circles to the place being viewed—though it’s unclear whether the traveler arrives there in the present day, or slips into the past.”

Q’arlynd nodded. He already knew that much. Years ago, when listening in on Flinderspeld’s thoughts, his former slave had briefly thought about the pools. The svirfneblin had been pondering the very question Seldszar just posed—whether he could use the so-called Fountains of Memory to slip back to a time before Blingdenstone fell, and warn its residents of the impending attack. Flinderspeld had decided they couldn’t, for one, very obvious, reason.

“The pools couldn’t send a traveler into the past,” Q’arlynd said aloud. “If they did, the svirfneblin would have used them already, to do just that, and a number of the calamities that befell their race would never have happened. The fall of Blingdenstone, for example. If the pools do hold teleportaŹtion magic, they must be a gateway to the present.”

“Past or present—it doesn’t matter,” Urlryn said. He rocked his bulk forward on his cushion, not bothering to hide his excitement. “We can still use the pools to reach the spot where the temple stood. As long as they take us to the right spot, the magic can be undone!”

“Precisely!” Seldszar agreed. “There is, however, one probŹlem.” He glanced at the empty goblet. “Only the deep gnomes know where the pools lie—and they’re not telling.”

“Easily remedied,” Masoj said with a chuckle. He nodded at the decanter. “Detain the svirfneblin who sold you the wine. Slice the information out of him one finger at a time. Give him five chances to talk—ten, if he’s stubborn.”

Q’arlynd felt the kiira grow cool against his forehead. He heard his ancestors’ whispered disapproval. He interrupted. “No need for that, Master Masoj. A svirfneblin who owes me a favor knows the location of these pools. I’ll have the answer, soon enough.”

Urlryn snorted skeptically, and Masoj made a sour face. Seldszar, however, looked thoughtful. After a moment of staring at the crystals orbiting his head, he slowly nodded. “Do it. Ask him.”

Q’arlynd hadn’t mentioned the svirfneblin’s gender. Seldszar might have guessed it, of course. He’d have had an even chance of being right. Yet Q’arlynd doubted the diviner ever guessed—about anything.

Seldszar must have foreseen success.

Funny, how Eilistraee’s dance worked, Q’arlynd mused. After all these years, he would finally learn what had become of his former slave, Flinderspeld.

Halisstra walked around the throne, her fingers caressŹing its smooth black marble. The throne was carved in the shape of a spider, resting on its back. The head formed a foot stool; the cephalothorax, the seat; and the bulging abdomen, the backrest. Four legs served to support the chair, while the other four splayed out from either side of the seat and curved toward the ceiling. Between these stretched steel-thread webs festooned with tiny red spiders. Halisstra plucked a strand of web with the tip of her claw. The steel thread vibrated, shedding spiders like drops of blood and filling the audience chamber with a shrill note. The sound sent a visible shiver through the priestess who crawled behind Halisstra, never once lifting her glance from the flagstone floor.

“Beautiful,” Halisstra said. She closed her eyes to savor the way the note—chill as a draft from the grave—made the hair on her arms rise. Then she leaned down and curled her fingers in the priestess’s long white tresses. She yanked the smaller female into the air and whispered in her ear. “I am pleased with its song. You will be rewarded.”

The priestess, clad in a bodice-hugging black robe that would have vanished against her skin in the darkened room but for its hair-thin tracery of white lines, winced at the pain of being held aloft by her hair. “Your pleasure is my reward, Lady Penitent.”

Halisstra leaned closer, until the jaws protruding from her cheeks brushed the priestess’s neck. “And