"I wish I knew," Qilue said. She stared out across the city-not at the city itself, but at the horizon. The High Moor was still flat and featureless, but some color had returned. Here and there were splotches of green and fall-red: young trees that had grown these past three years. That's what she loved about the surface. Its beauty was ever-changing, not frozen like the cold stone of the Underdark.
"I asked Eilistraee the same question myself," Qilue continued. "What would she have me do? The goddess's answer, however, puzzled me. 'It will end where it began,' Eilistraee replied. 'The High Moor.'" She turned to Laeral. "What that prophecy means, I cannot say. I thought you might have some idea, sister."
Laeral stood for several moments, lost in thought. Endings. Beginnings. "The City of Hope is an obvious 'beginning,' " she said. "As for an 'ending,' Faertlemiir, Miyeritar's City of High Magic, once stood here millennia ago, until it was laid waste by the killing storm. But that's surely something you've already thought of."
Qilue nodded.
"I'm sorry, sister. I have no answer for you. But I will think long and hard on it. I'll contact you at once if anything occurs to me."
"Thank you."
"In the meantime," Laeral said, "I'm curious. Is that the Crescent Blade at your hip? Did it really slay a demigod, as the ballads say?"
Instead of smiling, as Laeral had hoped, Qilue's expression grew closed and hard. Her right hand strayed to the hilt. She turned slightly away from Laeral, as if protective of the weapon. As if she half-expected Laeral to take the sword from her.
Then, like clouds rolling away from the sun, Qilue's expression cleared. "It is, indeed." She drew the sword and laid the flat of the blade across her palm, offering it up for Laeral to see.
Laeral noted the break in the blade. "It's been broken. And… mended."
"Yes, praise Eilistraee." Qilue's eyes glittered. "In Lolth's domain, no less. One day, it will slay the Spider Queen."
Laeral nodded. As Qilue' slid the sword back into its scabbard, she noticed something. "Your wrist: there's a cut there."
Once again, the guarded look returned to Qilue's eye. "A scratch, sister. Nothing more."
"Why didn't it heal?" Irritation flared in Qilue's eyes. "It's just a scratch."
Had it been anyone else, Laeral wouldn't have worried. But this was Qilue. Such a tiny wound should have healed in less than the blink of an eye.
But it might not be the best time to pursue the question, she thought.
Qilue was proud-perhaps the proudest of the Seven Sisters-and had chosen a difficult path. And it looked as though the work of bringing the drow 'up into the light' was going to increase in difficulty by a thousandfold, perhaps even become impossible. She had every right to be on edge, to grow irritated when "trivial" matters like the scratch on her wrist were pointed out to her.
Except that a wound that Mystra's silver fire couldn't heal was anything but trivial.
"I'll keep an eye on the High Moor for you, sister," Laeral promised. "Let you know if anything unusual happens here. Any more 'endings' or 'beginnings.' I'll consult my scrying fonts. If I learn anything, I'll let you know immediately." She slipped a hand into the crook of Qilue's arm. "In the meantime, can I offer you food? Or wine?"
"No, thank you, sister. I must return to the Promenade as soon as possible."
Laeral gave her sister's arm a comforting squeeze. "The Faerzress?"
Qilue nodded. "The Faerzress." She plucked Laeral's hand from her arm. "Farewell." Then she teleported away.
Laeral stared for several moments at the spot Qilue had just occupied. Like all drow, Qilue was reluctant to show her emotions. Laeral could tell, however, that her sister was deeply troubled-and not just by the undoing of a lifetime's work. There was more going on; Laeral was certain of it.
But until Qilue confided in her, Laeral could do little to help.
CHAPTER 9
Mazeer lifted the bottle to her lips, inhaled, and swam forward a few more strokes. Her exhaled bubbles flattened against the roof just above her head. A Nightshadow swam immediately ahead of her, his feet fluttering the water. Ahead of him, the passage they were following narrowed to a crack that looked barely wide enough for a drow to squeeze into. The cleric paused there, sculling in place, and stared into the fissure, his face illuminated by the blue-green Faerzress that permeated the nearby stone. Mazeer took another suck on the bottle that trailed by a cord from her wrist, and swam up next to him.
Another dead end? she signed. The Nightshadow shook his head and his mask fluttered back and forth like wave-lapped seaweed. It leads down. His chest rose and fell as he breathed water.
Mazeer sucked another breath from her bottle. Bubbles continued to stream out of it as she lowered it, tickling her arm. This is pointless. We should go back. This place is a labyrinth.
It looks as though the crack widens, about a hundred paces below. What if it's the passage that leads to the Acropolis?
Mazeer peered down the narrow crack. She'd been uneasy about closed-in places ever since the time, as a novice wizard, she'd miscast a teleportation spell and wound up wedged inside one of the college's chimneys. Unable to climb out, unable to refresh her teleportation spell because her spell-book was inside her pack, mashed tight against her back, she'd remained stuck inside the chimney until she was faint with hunger and thirst and her clothes were soiled. Eventually, someone conjuring darkfire in the fireplace below had at last heard her hoarse screams for help.
She'd made a point, after that, of learning a spell that would reduce the size of her body. It helped, a little, to know she could use it to free herself if she did get stuck. Yet as she stared down into that long, narrow fissure the old fear made her shudder. She didn't want the Nightshadow above her, blocking the way out.
You go first, she signed. I'll follow.
The cleric nodded and edged sideways into the gap. He nodded at the wands sheathed at her wrists. Just don't be too long in following. If this leads to a monster's lair, I don't want to be fighting alone.
Mazeer laughed out the breath she'd just drawn from the bottle. 'Monsters' didn't scare her. Back at the college, she'd slain everything the teachers had summoned and thrown at her. Hordes of undead, however, were another matter entirely. Given a choice, she hoped the fissure would deadend in a monster's lair, and that one of the other search teams would have the dubious honor of finding the route to the Acropolis. Daffir had predicted that one of the pairs of searchers would find it, though he'd been woefully short on details. Nor had Khorl been much help in predicting what they might face along the way, despite his haughty pride. So much for the "best" the College of Divination could provide. Eilistraee's priestess had been right, Kiaransalee's followers weren't so crazy that they couldn't cast wards.
The cleric pushed away from the ceiling, forcing his body down the fissure. Mazeer waited until he was about a dozen paces below. She pinched the tiny pouch that hung at her throat, whispered a word that shrank her to half her normal size, and followed. To keep the panic at bay, she kept her head tilted back, her eyes on the opening above. Bubbles streamed up toward it each time she exhaled. Up toward freedom. Each push of her hands sent her farther away from it. Even though she had lots of elbow room and plenty of space between her diminished body and the walls of rock on either side, her heart was pounding by the time her foot touched the bottom of the shaft. Loose rock shifted underfoot with a dull clunk.
She tore her eyes away from the exit above and stared ahead. The Nightshadow hovered a few paces away, sculling water. He glared back at her. Quiet!