Then, just as the kiira-dominated Q'arlynd from the past had done, the Q'arlynd of the future deliberately hid the sign he was tracing from sight.
"Why did you do that?" he exploded.
The vision ended.
His apprentices stared at him, waiting expectantly. For once, even Baltak said nothing.
Q'arlynd was still trying to make sense of what he'd just seen. Like the kiira, his future self didn't want anyone to see how he opened the door. But that meant that Q'arlynd himself couldn't see how it was done. Yet someone had to observe how it was done, or the door couldn't be opened.
Q'arlynd stroked his chin, thinking. An idea occurred to him-one that he almost instinctively rejected. Grudgingly, however, he realized it was the only course of action that might work. If he invited the others into his mind, let them watch the vision-Q'arlynd from the future open the door, perhaps one of them might able to recognize the sign from its first, preliminary motions.
He glanced around at his apprentices. At Baltak, his broad chest puffed with his own self-importance. Piri, slinking about in his demon skin. Eldrinn, chewing his lip, no doubt nervous about what his father was going to say about their having abandoned the expedition to the Acropolis. Alexa, standing next to the boy, taller than him by a head. And Zarifar, who stared dreamily at the door, not paying the slightest bit of attention to the others.
"I need your help," Q'arlynd said, each word a stone he had to force out. "Use your rings to join minds with me, everyone. Observe the vision I'm seeing. You're about to see me, in the immediate future, opening Kraanfhaor's Door. Pay close attention to my hand, we need to know what arcane sign is being made."
Eldrinn's eyebrows rose. "So that's how I did it."
"Yes."
The others glanced at the boy, a new respect in their eyes.
"Let's begin," Q'arlynd told them.
A moment later, he felt them slip into his mind, one by one. Thrusting their way in or stealing in on velvet slippers, as was their wont. Baltak had to elbow Zarifar to get the latter's attention, but at last the geometer mage was inside, too-for all the good that would do.
Q'arlynd drew the staff toward himself. "Show me," he commanded it. "Show me the future. Show me myself, opening the door."
As it had before, the vision unfolded. When it finished, Q'arlynd lowered the staff. "Well?"
His apprentices glanced sidelong at one another, stared at the ceiling, or scowled, thinking-all but Zarifar, who swayed back and forth, humming. Then Zarifar struck a pose. He pirouetted on one foot, one hand raised above his head.
Piri eased away, as if afraid Zarifar's madness might be contagious.
Q'arlynd grabbed Zarifar's wrist. "What are you doing?"
Zarifar tugged against the restraining hand as if he couldn't understand why he'd suddenly stopped twirling. "The pattern," he said. His raised fingers twitched. "I'm the pattern."
Alexa signed something to Eldrinn. Q'arlynd caught only the last word and the finger flick that made it a question:… feeblewit?
Q'arlynd sighed and let go of Zarifar's arm. Maybe Alexa was right. Something had stripped both his own and Eldrinn's minds of memories. It was possible that merely observing that last vision might have done the same to Zarifar.
Zarifar stopped dancing and grabbed Q'arlynd's left arm in both hands. "The pattern," he said again, his eyes bright and intense, all trace of their former dreaminess gone. He yanked Q'arlynd's hand up in front of his face and waved it back and forth. "The pattern!"
Q'arlynd scoffed. All he was looking at was his own raised hand and the leather wristband below it, which bore his House insignia.
"Yes," Zarifar breathed. "That pattern."
Belatedly, Q'arlynd realized the apprentice's mind was still touching his own.
Zarifar at last let go of his arm.
Q'arlynd realized his mouth was hanging open. He didn't care. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "That's what opened Kraanfhaor's Door?" He waggled his fingers, pretending to practice a gesture. Silently, he asked Zarifar a question: Have I got it right? The pattern is the glyph for House Melarn?
Zarifar nodded.
Q'arlynd had to fight hard to hide his smile.
The others might, in time, figure out the truth. Q'arlynd doubted it would matter. In his vision of Eldrinn opening the door-the vision he hadn't shared with them-Eldrinn had traced a different symbol on the door. A different House glyph, Q'arlynd surmised. Likely that of his own House.
Kraanfhaor's Door, he suspected, would open only to someone who knew how to use his own, very personal, knock.
Q'arlynd understood why he had hidden his hand from view. Why he would hide his hand from view.
"Right," he said. "Time to get this thing open."
He handed the staff to Eldrinn then turned, faced the door, and raised his hand.
CHAPTER 13
Halisstra stared at the ghost that floated a few paces away. The spirit stared back at her with hollow, haunted eyes. Behind the ghost, a drow female in gray robes and skullcap slipped quietly out through the door, exiting the ruined building.
The spirit's voice was a chill whisper. "You serve Lolth?"
Halisstra gave a feral grin. "I was the Lady Penitent. But no more. I'm dead."
"Dead?" The spirit laughed softly. "No. You live."
Halisstra blinked in surprise. She was alive? She glanced down at herself and saw her bruises fading, the slow knitting of the flesh she'd scraped in her tumble from the portal. The sight sent a chill through her. She hadn't died on the Negative Energy Plane. Lolth, once again, had forced her to live.
"No," she snarled in dismay.
The spirit drifted closer. "You wish to die?"
Halisstra took a step back. "Where am I?" She glanced around. "What is this place?"
"The Acropolis of Thanatos."
Halisstra noted the rings on those ghostly fingers. "You serve Kiaransalee."
"Yes."
Through the ghost's translucent body, Halisstra spotted a tiny spider on the wall behind the spirit. Her eyes widened. Lolth's sign-in Kiaransalee's stronghold. Halisstra hadn't arrived by chance. The Spider Queen had sent her.
A test!
Halisstra flexed her claws. Her eyes locked on the spirit. Before she could spring, however, a commotion erupted outside. Halisstra heard several female voices, singing a hymn, and a male voice, shouting an insult. The ghost started, let out a whispered curse, then slipped through a wall, disappearing.
Halisstra hurried to the doorway and peered out.
Five priestesses of Eilistraee stood in a circle, swords in hand. With them was a male wearing cloth-of-gold and a skullcap. They were surrounded by more than a dozen of Kiaransalee's priestesses. Gray-robed Crones bore down on them, cackling and chanting.
Halisstra hesitated. What did Lolth expect her to do? Slay the living? The dead? Both?
One of Eilistraee's priestesses-a halfling-burst from the circle, whirling a sling over her head. Halisstra had been spotted! That decided it. She leaped from the ruined building. She, too, could fight with song-with her bae'qeshel magic. But even as she began to sing, the halfling's stone thudded into her chest and smashed to pieces against her hardened skin. Silence enveloped her.
The halfling halted and fitted another stone to her sling. She didn't see the spirit-Crone rising out of the stone behind her. Another of Eilistraee's priestesses spotted it and rushed the spirit, sword raised. Before she could get close, the ghostly Crone opened her mouth in a wail Halisstra couldn't hear. Like stalks of scythed wheat, the priestesses of Eilistraee fell.
Halisstra snarled, envying them.
Now only the Crones remained. No matter. Halisstra would still do her best to prove herself. She lashed out with a fist, snapping the neck of a nearby Crone. She tore a second to pieces with her claws.