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 teleportation 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 problem." 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 caressing 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 your pain is my pleasure." She bit, just deep enough to puncture the skin. Then she opened her fingers and let the priestess drop. The priestess fell to her hands and knees, and grunted as the poison took hold, rendering her body rigid.
Halisstra settled herself on the throne. The marble felt cool against her bare skin. She sang a breeze into existence and used it to set the webs vibrating. A thousand shrill notes encircled the throne, like the hum of fast-spinning blades.
"Send in the first petitioner," she ordered.
Unseen hands pushed a female out of the magical darkness that clouded the arched doorway: a priestess of Eilistraee.
She staggered into the room. Her eyes had been seared blind, and her fingers broken. Her dark skin was welted from the beating administered by Halisstra's worshipers, and her lips were swollen and bloody. Yet even as she faltered to a halt, she drew herself erect with a remarkable inner strength.
Halisstra despised her.
"Kneel," she shouted. She wove magic into the word, turning it into a compulsion the priestess could not help but obey. The priestess fell to her knees as if smashed with a hammer. One broken hand lifted to her chest-to the spot where her holy symbol used to hang-then jerked away as it brushed against the obsidian spider that now hung from the silver chain. Her head, however, remained erect. "Eilish… tray… hee…"
"Blasphemy!" Halisstra shrieked. "Do not utter that foul name in the presence of the Lady Penitent, or it will go harshly for you!"
The priestess made a gurgling noise. She laughed! Halisstra sprang from her throne. "You… dare!" she hissed. She towered over the priestess, her spider jaws clacking in fury. The eight legs protruding from her chest arched open, ready to grab. Her jaws fairly ached with the desire to bite and rend.
The priestess spat.
Halisstra snarled and swept the priestess up to her mouth-then realized this was what Eilistraee's bitch wanted. A quick, clean death: to be delivered into the arms of her goddess. "I'm not going to give it to you," Halisstra muttered. She tossed the priestess aside, spun on her heel, and settled herself on the throne. She idly stroked the head of the female who still kneeled, paralyzed, beside the throne, properly subservient. The webs continued to shrill.
She had an idea. "You will be redeemed," she told Eilistraee's priestess with a smile. "I give you a choice: the song or the spider."
The priestess shook her head. "Nuh."
Halisstra shrugged. "Very well then. I'll choose for you." She tapped her claw-tipped fingers against the arm of her throne, pretending to consider. In fact, she'd been lying when she'd offered the priestess a choice: the spider's venom was reserved for those truly worthy of it. "I think you'll choose… the song." She turned to the webs beside her and began to play.
Magic jerked the priestess to her feet. Tugged by the compulsion Halisstra's bae'qeshel music wove, she staggered in a circle around the throne. Halisstra plucked faster, and the dancer's tempo increased. The priestess spun in a ragged pirouette, her arms flailing and broken fingers raised above her head as she circled the throne. Halisstra gave a gleeful peal of laughter and played on. And on. The priestess staggered and fell, but immediately rose to her knees and continued her dance. Her knees left bloody smears on the flagstones.