Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,83

and struck the statue. Half of the stone chips instantly disappeared, and the rest were transmuted to mud that fell like dirty rain onto the spot where it had stood.

Erelda gasped. Her throat tightened. The seal on the Pit—gone!

The rubble where the statue had stood glowed with a purple light. Tendrils of violet mist seeped out through cracks between the stones. A feeling like ice slid into Erelda’s gut as she realized what this meant. The breach at the bottom of the Pit had opened!

The rubble quivered. Something was rising upward through the Pit.

“Eilistraee!” she cried. She leaped over the deflated ooze and hurled herself, face down, atop the Mound. She couldn’t fuse the rubble—only Lady Qilué could do that with her silver fire—but she could sing into being a blessing that would hold back whatever was rising out of the Pit, for a time. “At this time of darkness, I call down your light. Make holy this—”

Her song slowed to a dirgelike moan as the purple mist filled her lungs. The cavern was thick with the stuff; she could no longer see the walls. A tentacle erupted out of the rubble next to her, as thick as her arm and glistening with slime. It knocked her tumbling. She turned—slowly, slowly—and saw the eye at the end of the tentacle open gummily, releasing beams of bright orange light that lanced through the purple smoke. One of these struck her sword, which vibrated as if it had just clanged against an opponent’s blade. Its song shrilled to a panic-filled wail, and the steel glowed red with heat.

Erelda grabbed the sword and struggled—slowly, slowly—to her feet, clinging grimly to her weapon. The leather wrapping the hilt smoked, and the tip of the blade grew white hot. Molten metal trickled down it, like wax from a candle, and dripped onto Erelda’s hand. She screamed and dropped the weapon. It fell silent.

Determined not to fail her goddess, she resumed her hymn.

A second tentacle emerged from the portal, beside the first. A second eye opened. Erelda’s mind raced at a speed her body couldn’t keep up with. Eilistraee aid me, she pleaded. It’s Ghaunadaur’s avatar! It’s escaping from the Pit!

She kept singing. Slowly. The hymn was almost complete. One final word…

A ray of orange light struck her in the forehead, filling her with a panic that exploded through her body like shards of ice. Her song turned into a scream. Then she crumpled in despair.

She’d failed. The Promenade was lost.

Laeral stood in the jungle, clad in a silk nightgown that offered scant protection against the night. She would have dressed, had there been time, but Qilué had demanded her immediate assistance. The urgent message had awoken Laeral from a sound sleep. She’d pulled on her slippers, swept up her magical necklace from her bedside table, fastened her wand belt around her waist, and cast a quick contingency that would blink her out of harm’s way should the Crescent Blade be turned on her. Then she’d teleported here, to the spot Qilué had so precisely described.

This place was evil. Laeral could feel it. Even though it was night, the air was sticky and hot. A faint sound grated at the edge of her hearing: a distant, wailing cry like the sound of women mourning. The trees here were black and twisted, their heavy branches devoid of leaves. A choking tangle of dead vines snaked between fallen masonry, the smell of their wilted flowers reminiscent of corpses ripening in the sun. The ground was uneven, with blocks of stone barely visible under a thick blanket of rotting, bug-infested loam. Laeral could sense a jungle cat observing her from the darkness, its eyes glinting. Though it was hungry, and she probably appeared easy prey, it didn’t approach. It slunk away into the jungle, its tail lashing.

What was this place? Laeral reached deep into herself and used a pinch of her own life-force to channel power to her spell. She rested her fingers on a block of masonry, and posed the question again—this time, with a whispered incantation. She tapped the fingers of her free hand to her closed eyelids. Show me, she commanded.

As she opened her eyes, a vision sprang into place around her. She stood not in a jungle-hemmed ruin, but in an audiŹence chamber with towering walls. Sunlight shone through stained-glass windows, painting everything it illuminated blood red. An elf with dark brown skin and thinning gray hair sat on the throne; wearing thread-of-gold robes and