"Masked Lady, aid me!" he cried. "Slay the fiend!"
He thrust his free hand forward. A bolt of intertwined shadow and moonlight shot from his palm and struck Halisstra in the face. A blaze of white light filled one eye, a pall of darkness the other. Pain flared in her temples. Then Lolth's restorative magic asserted itself, and Halisstra could see again.
The Nightshadow was gone. A blare of noise came from close by in the woods: the hunting horn. A moment later, answering blares came from the direction of Eilistraee's shrine.
Halisstra snarled. She yearned to race through the woods after that Nightshadow and rip out his heart and squeeze it to bloody mush before it even stopped beating, but that would do little good. The damage was already done. A host of priestesses would be there in mere moments, intent on their hunt.
She smashed a fist into a nearby tree, splintering its bark. The tree groaned and fell across the pool, sending up a spray of water. Halisstra ground her teeth in frustration. She'd hoped the pool would lead her to Cavatina. A stupid idea. Now all she could do was flee or fight.
Pain pulsed through her palm-the demon's claw, shifting like a maggot under her skin. A word hissed into her ear like a trickle of hot sand. Wait.
Halisstra blinked in surprise. "Wendonai?"
A crack sounded nearby-a sharp sound, like rock splitting in a fire. A hot wind stirred the branches next to Halisstra. Grit tickled her skin and blew into her eyes.
"Wendonai," she said. With certainty, this time.
She tensed as something stepped out of the forest. It looked like a mummified drow, with skin that glinted in the moonlight as though it had been dusted with rock salt. Its eyes were an outgrowth of salt-crystal, their orbs replaced with jagged prisms. The thing clawed its way toward the pool, tearing at the vegetation that impeded it. Leaves withered and died on the branches it touched.
With jerking steps, the salt mummy moved past Halisstra and stumbled into the pool. When it was barely as deep as its ankles, its feet and lower limbs started to dissolve. Moaning, it collapsed to its knees and thrashed about in the water. Holes opened in its skin where the water splashed it, and pieces of its salt-impregnated flesh fell away.
The blare of horns drew nearer as the hunters closed in. The pool shrank as the salt mummy thrashed about in it. A crust of salt ringed the pool and the smell of brine filled the air. The plants that rimmed the pool withered.
Halisstra touched a hand to what remained of the water. This time, the callus in her palm didn't burn. Instead it drew in the water, lapping it up with the eagerness of a thirst-crazed dog.
Laughing, Halisstra stepped into the pool. The salt mummy was gone save for a rapidly dissolving lump that had been its head. Its jaw was still working; the callus in Halisstra's palm pulsed in time with its words. Follow…
She waded to the center of the pool. Near her feet, she spotted a faint sparkle of pale blue light that looked like faerie fire. She touched it with a foot and felt an emptiness, a hollow, waiting to swallow her. As the first of the priestesses of Eilistraee burst out of the woods, singing a spell that sent her sword dancing through the air, Halisstra sneered. A flick of her hand cast a web that tangled the sword in mid-flight.
Then she plunged headfirst into the reeking water, and into the portal that opened beneath her.
Q'arlynd stood in the tunnel as the rest of the group departed. No one had spared him so much as a backward glance-not even Eldrinn, though Q'arlynd could tell by the set of the boy's shoulders that he didn't like leaving his mentor behind.
When the last footfall faded, Q'arlynd waited for a thousand-count, then tried to follow. He managed no more than half a dozen steps before his body refused to move farther. Straining against the compulsion only made his stomach cramp. He doubled over and vomited on the floor. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth clean.
He attempted to dispel the magic that compelled him to remain there, but without success. That was as he'd expected, but at least he'd tried.
"Abyss take those priestesses and their geas spells," he muttered.
He fumed at being forced to stay behind. He was the only one with a vested interest in keeping Eldrinn alive. If the boy was killed…
No. That didn't bear thinking about.
Q'arlynd wondered what his other apprentices were doing-how much progress, if any, they'd made in unlocking the door's secrets. He eyed the glowing wall beside him. Scrying was supposedly impossible in this place, but he wouldn't know that for certain until he tried. If the destination being scried was far enough from the source of the problem, the scrying just might work.
As a precaution-just in case any more of those enormous, undead heads came slithering along-he rendered himself invisible. He briefly considered which of his students to scry, then decided upon Baltak. The transmogrifist had been the most keen on the puzzle of Kraanfhaor's Door; likely he was still there, studying it. Or, knowing Baltak, trying to bash it down with brute magical force.
Q'arlynd concentrated on Baltak and activated his ring. The result was like staring full on into the sun. A flash of violet light filled his vision, sending him reeling. Blinking, blinded, he groped at the wall beside him for support. Slowly-too slowly-the tunnel around him came back into view again. The pale blue light that suffused its walls pulsed in time with the ache that filled his head.
"Mother's blood," he swore, rubbing his temples. "That hurt."
He stared ruefully at the faintly glowing rock beside him. At least he'd learned one thing. It didn't matter where the subject was. If the caster was in the Deep Wastes, scrying was impossible. Even with a magical ring.
As long as the caster was drow, of course. Daffir hadn't had any problems with his divinations.
As Q'arlynd blinked away the residual spots from his eyes, he heard a faint sound, down by the Moondeep. He immediately flattened against the wall and checked to make sure his invisibility held. It did.
The noise came again: a faint scrabbling. Something climbed up the rockfall, toward the tunnel. Q'arlynd reached inside a pocket of his piwafwi for a tiny glass orb, then stopped himself. Blinding himself by casting a distant-seeing spell was the last thing he needed just then. Instead he readied a scrap of fur pierced by a shard of glass-components for a spell that would hurl lightning-then he steeled himself to confront whatever hideous undead monstrosity appeared next.
He nearly laughed when he saw the creature that had unnerved him so: a small black rat, its fur glistening wetly. It scurried into the tunnel where Q'arlynd hid, then jerked to a halt, whiskers twitching.
"What's there? What is it? Where is it?" the rat squeaked.
Q'arlynd's eyebrows rose in surprise. The rat was speaking High Drowic. Moving quietly, Q'arlynd pulled his quartz out of a pocket and peered through it, but the crystal clouded with violet faerie fire. Hoping that the creature in front of him was just as it seemed-a wet black rat-he lowered his crystal.
Just as Q'arlynd was debating whether to speak to it, the rat spoke again. "Karas? Is it you?"
The rat moved closer to Q'arlynd, sniffed the ground beside his still-invisible feet, and gave a startled squeak. "Not him!" it said. "Not him! Not him!" It ran away down the tunnel, in the direction Eldrinn and the others had gone.
Interesting.
After the rat was gone, Q'arlynd listened for a time. The Moondeep lay in silence, its waters still against its shores. The only sounds were the occasional drip of water from the handful of stalactites that clung to the cavern's wide ceiling and a faint, crackling hiss, nearly imperceptible, from the Faerzress that infused the rock next to him.