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, overlaying 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 followed: 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 at Eilistraee's shrine in the Misty Forest. Corellon Larethian had, indeed, once ruled thirteen lesser Seldarine. Two betrayed him-Lolth and her son Vhaeraun-and a third allowed herself to be banished from Arvandor, together with her mother and brother, so the drow might one day find redemption: Eilistraee.
That number grew to eleven, during the time I trod the Underdark, the male voice said. The Black Archer's priests slew several of our House.
Q'arlynd's ancestor supplied the name of the god who had found favor in Corellon's court: Shevarash the Black Archer, the once-mortal surface elf who had vowed never to rest, smile, or laugh, until the last drow was slain. A slaughter Corellon condoned-despite the fact that its victims included Eilistraee's drow faithful, even though they had rejected the wanton cruelty of their race.
Q'arlynd snorted. So much for the surface elves' high ideals.
He realized the other masters were staring at him. They too had withdrawn from the vision. The crystal that had provided the vision left its spot above the table and resumed its orbit around Seldszar's head.
Q'arlynd cleared his throat. He repeated what his ancestors had just told him. "You'll have noted there were thirteen oak trees supporting the dome," he told the other masters. "A significant number. The vision showed us a temple that was built at a time when Lolth, Vhaeraun, and Eilistraee were still counted among the Seldarine."
"But that was thirty millennia ago-before the first Crown War!" Urlryn blurted.
"Indeed." Seldszar wet his dry lips. "The vision tasted of dust."
"Surely the temple no longer stands," Urlryn continued.
Masoj waved a bony hand. "As long as the abjuration is cast in the same spot, it won't matter if the temple's fallen."
"You miss my point," Urlryn said. "Without knowing what the spot currently looks like, we can't teleport to it. Even the most experienced teleportation mage couldn't find it." He nodded in Q'arlynd's direction.
Q'arlynd inclined his head, proud that the other master was acknowledging his expertise in that field.
Masoj stared pointedly at Seldszar, "Do you know where the temple stood? Does your lorestone?"
Seldszar sat quietly a moment, communing with his kiira. "No," he said at last. He stared pointedly at Q'arlynd's kiira.
"My ancestors…" Q'arlynd swallowed nervously. "They, ah, didn't recognize the forest."
It would be somewhere in Aryvandaar, the female voice said. Or Keltormir.
"But it's somewhere in the lands that were once home to ancient Aryvandaar, or Keltormir," he repeated aloud. A memory sprang into his mind. He stared, through the eyes of one of his long-dead ancestors, at a map spread on a table. Kingdoms were labeled, in a flowing hand: Aryvandaar, Illefarn, Miyeritar, Shantel Othreier, Keltormir, Thearnytaar, Eiellur, Syopiir, Orishaar, and Ilythiir. He knew where Miyeritar was-today that portion of the World Above was known as the High Moor. Aryvandaar, he saw, lay just north of it, while Keltormir was well to the south of that.
Q'arlynd described what he'd just seen.
"That's hardly very helpful," Masoj said.
"At least it's better than 'somewhere on the surface,'" Urlryn countered. "That's the best most drow can do, when it comes to ancient geography."
Q'arlynd stroked his chin, thinking hard, as Masoj and Urlryn traded glares. Something niggled at him. At last he worked out what it was. "There's something that's bothering me," he told them. "Sages date the Descent to just over eleven thousand years ago. Yet Master Seldszar's vision showed us a temple that had to have been built at least thirty thousand years ago. That's a difference of nineteen thousand years."
Urlryn shrugged. "A mythal could have sustained the temple for that long."
"That's indeed possible," Q'arlynd agreed. "But if the temple was still standing at the time of the Descent, why didn't my ancestors recognize it? Some of them are dark elves-one of them worshiped Corellon Larethian." He paused. "I think she didn't recognize the temple because it was gone before her time. Smothered by the forest, perhaps. But the site must have remained holy, at least until the time of the Descent. I think that's why the high mages whose magic invoked the Descent chose the spot: because no one, save them, knew where it was."
Seldszar tapped his fingers together in a patter of applause. "Well done, my boy, well done." He nodded at the others. "You see why I chose to nominate him to the Conclave?"
"We're still no further ahead," Masoj protested. "We already knew the casting was done at one of Corellon Larethian's temples."
No, we didn't, Q'arlynd thought. But he held his tongue.
Seldszar tapped the empty decanter. "The question we should 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."