Ascendancy of the Last - By Lisa Smedman Page 0,84

a silver crown. His hands moved in a complicated series of gestures, his twisting fingers teasing wisps of dark smoke out of eight guttering yellow candles. These had been set at the points of a complex eight-sided star that was painted on the floor in what looked like fresh blood. As Laeral watched, breathless, the streams of smoke twined together and thickened, taking on the shape of a monstrous demon with bat wings, horns, and cloven feet. A sword with a flame-shaped blade was strapped to the demon’s back, and crackled to life, its flames matchŹing the red blaze of his eyes. Soot, snorted from his nostrils, drifted onto the floor near his feet.

Who summons me? the demon growled.

Geirildin, Coronal of House Sethomiir. The wizard leaned forward on his throne. His hair, now bone white, was shot through with glints of red from the windows above. His eyes glittered. Kneel before your master.

The demon’s lip curled, yet he did as he was commanded. As he dropped to his knees, one cloven foot kicked over a candle. Its flame guttered and went out. The wizard-coronal tensed, and his hand tightened around a spider-shaped amulet that hung from his neck. The demon drew its foot back inside the eight-sided star, and the wizard relaxed again.

Your name, demon, he demanded.

The demon stared him in the eye and bared his jagged teeth in a feral smile.

Wendonai.

These are dark times, the wizard told the demon. Our enemies press us on every side. You will help us turn the tide, Wendonai. The brutal conquests of Aryvandaar must be halted, or we Ilythiiri shall all be slaughtered.

It will be my pleasure, Geirildin, the demon answered.

The vision ended. The jungle and ruins returned.

Laeral shivered as she realized what her vision had just revealed. This was where it had happened, nearly thirteen millennia ago—the event that had precipitated the descent of the dark elves of Ilythiir into madness and shadow. Qilué had spoken to Laeral of this before. She’d related enough of the early history of these dark elf ancestors of the drow for Laeral to understand what she’d just seen. According to everything her sister had read, the Ilythiiri had been a greedy people, bent on conquest and determined to achieve victory at any cost. Their noble Houses had embraced the corruption of the Abyss, in order to win the wars they’d waged with neighboring elven kingdoms. Yet Qilué questioned whether they had truly been as ruthless as the histories painted them—or whether they had instead been desperate victims. The vision seemed to hint at the latter. Whatever the coronal’s motivation might have been, the summoning Laeral had just witnessed had been his people’s downfall. Wendonai was the balor demon who had corrupted Qilué’s ancestors—the demon who now lurked inside the reforged Crescent Blade.

The demon whose taint Qilué was about to draw into herself.

And this was the spot where she was going to do it.

One detail of the vision had been especially unsettling. Laeral knew only a little about summoning—the very idea of deliberately unleashing a demon upon the world sickened her—but she could tell that something had gone amiss with the casting she’d just seen in her vision. The demon had displayed a great deal of control: first knocking over the candle—which the wizard had noticed—and then drawing his foot back in such a way as to scuff the lines painted on the floor.

Which the wizard hadn’t noticed.

Was there something Qilué had also missed? The plan she’d so cryptically outlined to Laeral seemed sound, on the surface. Qilué would draw in the demon’s taint, and then Laeral would cleanse it from Qilué with Mystra’s silver fire. To ensure the demon didn’t gain control of her sister’s body, Laeral would use a trick they’d once played on Elminster—a jest Qilué had made a cryptic reference to in her brief comŹmunication. Laeral would temporarily step outside of time, leaving Qilué frozen in the moment, ensuring that Laeral would get a chance to draw down the silver fire before the demon could try anything.

All good, in theory. But had this truly been her sister’s idea—or the demon’s? Qilué had admitted to being corrupted by Wendonai, but had assured Laeral that she was—at least, at the time of her most recent communication—fully in control of herself. But had she been? What if the demon was scheming to turn Mystra’s boon against them? What if the silver fire consumed not Wendonai, but Qilué herself? Her body would remain—it could not be destroyed