"That's enough," Q'arlynd said. "You can stop now." He removed the ring from Flinderspeld's finger and pocketed it again. He whispered something, and glanced down at Flinderspeld, magic crackling faintly around his fingertips. "Ready?"

Flinderspeld gulped. Nodded. "Good-bye, Q'arlynd, and thanks. If you ever-"

Q'arlynd laughed. "Idiot," he said. "Don't say good-bye yet. I'll be accompanying you."

Q'arlynd's stomach lurched as he found himself plummeting in empty space. Flinderspeld howled in terror as the cavern floor rushed up to meet them. Q'arlynd tightened his hold on the deep gnome's shirt and activated his House insignia, halting their descent just before they hit the floor. He twisted upright and his feet found the floor.

The cavern was just as Flinderspeld had pictured it-a wide space with a leveled floor and a stalactite-studded ceiling. Crates, baskets, pack lizards, and camp gear filled it. The two dozen svirfneblin who were camped there leaped to their feet, shouting in alarm, as Q'arlynd and Flinderspeld materialized in front of them. One of them threw a dagger, which glanced off the protective shield Q'arlynd had surrounded himself with.

Flinderspeld held up his hands and shouted something in his own language, but the other deep gnomes only glared at him. Q'arlynd was probably making them nervous.

"Go on," he said, giving Flinderspeld a gentle shove forward. "Talk to them. I'm sure they'll come around eventually. They seem friendly enough."

Flinderspeld looked unconvinced.

Q'arlynd saw another of the deep gnomes load then crank a crossbow. He waved to his former slave. "Good luck!" Then he teleported away.

He returned, still laughing, to the forest. Now that had been a leap! He hadn't expected the ceiling to be so low. As remembered by Flinderspeld, the cavern had seemed huge.

He wondered if he'd ever see the deep gnome again. He hoped the other svirfneblin didn't kill his former slave, even though he realized that that would ensure the deep gnome would never betray him. He told himself there were practical reasons for setting Flinderspeld free. For one thing, if Q'arlynd was subjected to another truth spell, he would be able to honestly say that the deep gnome had gone willingly on his way and come to no harm. And if he ever needed the deep gnome to perform a service for him in the future, Flinderspeld's gratitude at having his life spared could be manipulated into a sense of obligation.

Even so, Q'arlynd was going to miss him.

Q'arlynd shoved the thought aside. It was no time for sentiment. He had to get on with the task at hand-meeting Qilue and winning a place for himself in her House.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Qilue stared down at the tangled links of metal, the pitted remains of a chain mail tunic that had passed through the gut of a crawler. The mystery of the novice's sudden disappearance, it seemed, had been solved. There was no hope of raising Thaleste from the dead. Not even a scrap of bone remained, just a few pieces of chain mail and a misshapen lump of silver that had once been a holy pendant.

"Eilistraee's tears," Qilue murmured. "May they wash her soul clean."

Beside her, Iljrene repeated the blessing.

The temple's battle-mistress was a tiny woman, slender as a wand, with narrow features and highly arched eyebrows. Her voice was high-pitched, almost squeaky-like a child's. Her muscles, however, were whipcord strong, and her skill at arms was renowned. She had been entrusted with the Promenade's defenses and carried one of its cherished relics: one of the singing swords Qilue's companions had carried into battle against Ghaunadaur's avatar. She carried it, always, in the scabbard on her back.

"Why did you summon me?" Qilue asked. "The answer to our mystery seems straightforward enough. A carrion crawler consumed the novice and deposited her remains here."

"That's what the patrol that discovered this thought," Iljrene said, "until they sang a divination. When they saw what else was here, they didn't want to touch it. Try it yourself, and you'll see."

Qilue sang a brief prayer, passing her hand palm-down above the mangled bits of chain mail. An aura appeared around an oval lump that was buried within the mass. It glowed with a flickering purple light that was shot through with a tracery of black lines.

A flick of her finger levitated the object to eye level. She rotated her finger, turning the object around. The lines of magical force shifted back and forth across the face of the purple aura, one moment forming patterns that looked like a spiderweb, the next shaping themselves into something reminiscent of a grossly simplified Dethek rune. The aura, too, kept flickering, shifting back and forth between a benign sky-blue and a dark, evil-tainted purple. Qilue cast a spell that would analyze the dweomer, but pluck as she might at the strands of the Weave, the music the obsidian produced was a cacophony of tangled notes. She could tell that the gem held some sort of conjuration spell, but something blocked her from learning more. It was almost as if the magical item were being held in the hand of a spellcaster whose will was resisting her, though clearly that was not the case.

Qilue let her divination spell end. The magical lines of force it had revealed vanished. The object once again appeared no more than a polished oval of black obsidian.

"I've never seen anything like it," Iljrene said.

"Nor have I," Qilue said, "though it's clearly a form of gem magic-and many thousands of years old, judging by the ancient form of that rune."

"What word is it?"

"That depends on whether it was scribed by dwarves or gnomes. It's read as thrawen, but it could mean either 'throw' or 'twist.'"

Iljrene repeated the words softly. "Do you think it's some sort of trap?"

Qilue slowly shook her head. "I don't think so, or it would have gone off by now, unless it's triggered by touch." Gently, she levitated the stone back to the ground. Then she bent and studied the spot it had risen from, a hollow within the scraps of chain mail. "Has this been shifted?"

"No, Lady."

Qilue pointed. "You see that scrap on the spot where the stone was resting? It looks like a fragment of leather. I'll warrant Thaleste was carrying the stone in her pouch when she died. If so, she probably touched it-without setting off any trap." She straightened. "The question now is, where did the novice pick this up? Her body must have been inside the carrion crawler for some time. She could have found the gem anywhere."

That said, she pulled a soft leather pouch out of one of her pockets and laid it on the ground next to the stone. She nudged the stone into it with a flick of her dagger then drew the strings of the magical pouch shut.

"This isn't far from the spot where the aranea was killed," Iljrene observed. "Do you think the gem might be connected with the Selvetargtlin?"

"That's what I'm hoping Horaldin can tell us."

Eyes closed, the druid Horaldin held his hands over the stone Qilue had just tipped from her pouch. It lay on his workbench, a thick slab of clearstone that had been balanced on the tops of two enormous petrified mushrooms. Living mushrooms sprouted from the walls and ceiling of his quarters. The druid had somehow coaxed them to grow on solid stone.

Horaldin himself was pale as a mushroom, his moon elf skin practically glowing white. His blue-black hair was as tangled as lichen and hung to his waist. One of his slender-fingered hands moved stiffly. The priestesses had healed the mangled ruin the slavers had left it in, but the druid favored it still. Ever since his rescue from Skullport, he'd lived in the Promenade among the faithful. He worshiped the Leaflord still, but served Eilistraee equally faithfully.