Q'arlynd heard Zarifar counting. "… nine, ten, eleven."
"The miracle?" Q'arlynd breathed.
The miracle, his ancestors confirmed.
Q'arlynd felt something warm and wet strike his head. Drops pattered against the ground, and the dry earth drank them in. The others started as the raindrops struck them. Q'arlynd smiled to himself. They'd probably never felt rain before. Then a drop trickled down Q'arlynd's face, to his lips. He tasted blood.
Startled, he wrenched his head back-and saw that the rain was falling only on this spot. Falling, as if being poured, from that terrible wound where the moon had been. He suddenly shivered, worried he'd sung the prayer incorrectly. Done something wrong. Was this the Dark Disaster, all over again? The legends said the sky had wept blood…
He heard a pop of in-rushing air-Urlryn, teleporting away. Of the three masters, only Seldszar remained. He stared at Q'arlynd through those dark lenses. "Let him go. This no longer concerns him."
Q'arlynd nodded. He watched, fascinated, as the saplings grew tall as the Darkfire Pillars. The trees bent inward, their branches twining together to form a dome overhead.
"They're caging us in," Baltak growled.
"Should we teleport away?" Alexa asked.
Eldrinn turned to Seldszar. "Father?"
The Master of Divination patted the air. Wait.
Zarifar stared up at the sky. He raised a hand above his head, fingers and thumb curled to form half of the moon-symbol Q'arlynd had just made. "The pattern's changed," he said. "Just like the moon."
Q'arlynd realized the blood rain had stopped. All that remained were drips, falling from the intertwined oak trees above. He looked up through their branches and saw that Zarifar was right. The moon had returned. It hung in the sky, a slim crescent of white, surrounded by a glittering halo that flickered from blue, to green, to lavender…
"Just like faerie fire," Eldrinn breathed.
The boy stood just to Q'arlynd's right, but Q'arlynd couldn't see him. He wondered why Eldrinn had cloaked himself in magical darkness, but realized the final transformation had at last come about. He could barely see any of his apprentices. Nor could he see Seldszar clearly, or the oak trees that had regrown in the shape of the temple, nor the forest beyond them. Everything was dim, and dark, and indistinct.
"What's happened?" Alexa's voice asked. "I can't see you-any of you!"
"Show yourselves!" Baltak roared.
Q'arlynd concentrated, and pointed at Baltak, but nothing happened. The faerie fire that should have outlined his apprentice failed to materialize. Instead he used an evocation. A flicker of fire danced above his outstretched palm.
He stared, wonderingly, at what the wavering light revealed. His skin was no longer black. It had turned brown. And his hair, when he flicked the braid forward over his shoulder, wasn't white any more. It had turned a glossy black.
He was no longer a drow.
Judging by the way his apprentices were fumbling about, they'd all been transformed as well. He laughed, realizing now what had drawn him to them, and to Seldszar: They shared a common ancestry.
"What's happened?" Baltak shouted. "Tell me!"
Seldszar's voice came from the darkness to Q'arlynd's left. It sounded cool and unruffled. "Our casting was successful. We've broken our link with the Faerzress. Just as the ancestors promised. We've undone the Descent. We're dark elves again."
The two shapes that were Eldrinn and Alexa gasped. The larger shape on Q'arlynd's left that was Baltak growled softly.
"Out of the darkness and into the light," Q'arlynd said. He felt triumph-they'd just reversed the magic of the Descent! Yet he also felt a looming dread. By transforming, they'd also condemned themselves.
Not condemned, but freed.
He caught a glimpse of moonlight glinting off glass: the dark lenses Seldszar was wearing. He smiled, realizing they hadn't been intended to shield his eyes from the light of the World Above. They were magical lenses, like those the surface elves needed in order to see when they ventured into the Underdark.
"You knew this would happen," Q'arlynd told the other master. "Didn't you? You saw what was to come, in one of your visions."
"Not quite," Seldszar said with a chuckle. He touched his forehead. "They told me."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Q'arlynd cried.
We did, his ancestors answered. You agreed.
"Ease yourself, Q'arlynd." Seldszar said. "All is as was foretold."
"But we're blind!" Eldrinn blurted. "Helpless as surface elves. How can we possibly survive back in Sshamath?"
"We won't be returning there," Seldszar said. "Preparations have been made. The College of Divination is already relocating as we speak; the necessity of fueling our casting with magical items provided an excellent screen for getting out much of our wealth. We're going to start afresh on the surface, in the City of Hope. The College of Ancient Arcana will do the same. We'll be welcome, there. The sharn have promised me that."
Q'arlynd had no idea who the sharn were-but he had the feeling he was about to find out.
"What about the others?" Alexa asked. "In Sshamath… and elsewhere? Have all of the drow changed?"
Not all, the ancestors told Q'arlynd. Only those few without taint. Miyeritari, such as yourselves, and those who follow the dance. By Eilistraee's grace, they too will have transformed.
Q'arlynd glanced at his House insignia, then up at the changed moon. "Are you certain about that?"
Before his ancestors could answer, he heard the whisper of a thrown dagger. He grunted as it slammed into the back of his neck.
CHAPTER 13
Halisstra lifted the blood-smeared Crescent Blade so Eilistraee could see it. "Wendonai said you would come. He said you couldn't bear to lose your high priestess." She smirked. "He was right."
"I came for another reason," the goddess replied. "To offer you redemption. Your heart aches for it." She held out a hand. "Reach for it!"
Swift as a hunting spider, Halisstra struck. The Crescent Blade flashed, and fingertips fell. They pattered to the floor beside the decapitated Darksong Knight.
Eilistraee's eyes blazed red. A bolt of braided light and shadow burst from her forehead and slammed into Halisstra's chest, rocking Halisstra back. The pain was intense, but it lasted only a heartbeat. Halisstra shook it off and menaced the other goddess with her weapon.
Eilistraee, however, didn't press her attack. She squeezed her hand shut and sang. A nimbus of moonlight played around her fist, and the blood flow halted as her wounds sealed shut. When she opened her hand again, however, the fingers were shorter than they had been.
Once again, the hand extended. "Come. Rejoin my dance."
Halisstra swayed forward-then angrily shook off the enchantment the other goddess had tried to ensnare her with. This time, she told herself, she would be stronger. She wouldn't kneel, wouldn't grovel. Not like she had before Lolth.
"I don't need your redemption," she snapped. "I'm stronger than you."
In one sense, it was true. Though Eilistraee glowed with an unearthly light, Halisstra wasn't blinded by it. She didn't wince and fumble about like a mortal drow. And though the high priestess's body had enlarged when the goddess stepped into it, Halisstra still stood head and shoulders taller. Eilistraee was the weak one, not her. Halisstra was stronger, swifter, and armed with the Crescent Blade. The other goddess was frightened of her. She didn't dare attack Halisstra.
"You can't kill me," Halisstra taunted. "If you could, you would have done it already."