Q'arlynd tucked the glass rod back in his pouch and ran a hand through his shoulder-length white hair, combing it back from his forehead. When he'd passed this way three months ago with the priestesses of Eilistraee, neither Leliana or Rowaan had mentioned creatures like it. They'd warned that the High Moor was home to orcs and hobgoblins, as well as the occasional troll, but they hadn't said anything about four-legged predators that could talk.

Though perhaps "talk" wasn't the word for it, exactly. The creature had uttered the same phrases over and over, sometimes in fragments, as if repeating something it had heard. Q'arlynd suspected it was imitating the panicked voice of someone shouting for a companion who, it would seem, had left that individual behind to become the creature's next meal.

Q'arlynd decided to see if his guess was correct. He drew his dagger and sliced open the monster's belly. He had to pinch his nose shut as he worked-whatever the creature was, its flesh oozed an oil that stank. A moment later, his guess was confirmed. A severed foot spilled out of the creature's stomach with the rest of its recent meal. Not yet fully digested, the foot had skin as black as Q'arlynd's own.

The creature had eaten a drow, and not too long ago. Someone else had been out on the moor that night.

One of Eilistraee's priestesses, en route to the Misty Forest with a petitioner? The foot offered no answers: it might have belonged to a male or a female. Q'arlynd hoped it wasn't Rowaan or Leliana who'd been eaten-that it hadn't been one of them who had been calling for the missing Eldrinn. Q'arlynd hadn't seen them since his impulsive departure from the Promenade. He'd spent all of his time on the High Moor since then, searching-aside from brief teleportations away to raid surface towns for supplies.

He glanced back at the foundation he'd been inspecting for the past three nights. It was identical to the ruined foundation he'd seen during his trip across the moor with Rowaan and Leliana three months ago. Like that other ruin, this one was also the base of a wizard's tower; it had the same arcane symbol on the floor. Q'arlynd had decided that it must have once been a teleportation circle. The amber that had filled the grooves in the floor had been destroyed millennia ago, when the killing storms had been unleashed on ancient Miyeritar, turning it into the blasted wasteland that was the High Moor.

Q'arlynd sighed. Two months of searching through the ruins of Talthalaran for even so much as a magical trinket, but without success. He'd searched the first ruined tower thoroughly, working outward from its foundation in a careful spiral, but found nothing. No secret passages leading below to hidden treasure troves of ancient wizards. This second tower, on what had been the outskirts of the city, had looked just as promising but was proving equally unfruitful.

He reminded himself that it had taken Malvag nearly a century to find the scroll that had opened a gate between two rival gods' realms. Yet Q'arlynd couldn't help but believe he'd come full circle. He'd learned much-that a male could seize power on his own terms, rather than by standing in the shadow of a powerful female-but where had that gotten him? Scavenging in the ruins, just as he'd been doing before he left Ched Nasad. The difference, of course, was that now he scavenged for himself, and not for a noble House that regarded him as little better than a common lackey. At first, this sense of independence had sustained him, but the end result was the same. Though he might be able to keep everything he found, the sum total of what he'd found, so far, was nothing.

Q'arlynd had, of course, known full well that there would be little left to pick from the bones of the ancient city; it had not only been blasted flat by the Dark Disaster, but had lain in ruins for more than eleven thousand years. Yet he'd been hopeful-and vain enough to think that only he had spotted the symbols in the ruined towers' foundations which marked them as belonging to wizards. He realized that others would have been drawn to that spot, too. Come to think of it, the foot he'd just found might have belonged to a fellow wizard, a rival in the scavenging game.

There was one sliver of hope. Eldrinn, whoever he-or she-might be, had probably run off, judging by the words the surface creature had mimicked. But the body of Eldrinn's companion, minus its foot, likely still lay on the moor. If that companion had unearthed anything and been abandoned in a hurry by Eldrinn, those spoils might still be with the body.

Q'arlynd wiped his dagger clean and sheathed it. He didn't have much skill at tracking, especially up on the surface, but the dead creature's feet were cloven, like those of a demon-sharp enough to leave a recognizable pattern.

He followed the creature's trail. In places where grass grew it had left a swath of crushed stems. In other spots, it had knocked stones loose from the crumbling foundations. The drifting mist caused Q'arlynd to lose the trail once or twice, but he persevered and eventually spotted what he'd been looking for: a drow's body, missing the lower portion of one leg. It was a male. The stomach had been chewed open and intestines were strewn across the ground. Flies droned into the air at Q'arlynd's approach, buzzing about in lazy circles, then settled again.

The dead drow was large for a male-nearly as tall and well muscled as a female. He wore an adamantine chain mail shirt-the creature had dragged it away from the stomach to feed-and a simple bowl-shaped helmet. The white hair that splayed out from it was crusted with blood. The back of the helm was gone, snipped neatly away. So too was a large part of the scalp beneath. The monster had bitten right through the metal, perhaps knocking the male down before he could use the sword that lay on the ground near his feet. He'd managed to fire his wristbow, though: the bolt had torn a furrow in the ground, a few paces away.

Q'arlynd shook his head. The fellow should have spent more time aiming and less time shouting after his companion.

He passed his hands over the body and whispered an incantation. A weak aura sprang into being around the piwafwi, a stronger one around the sword. Both items were of drow manufacture.

Q'arlynd rummaged through the dead male's pack. It contained nothing of interest. Just a half-eaten loaf of spore-bread, a flask of wine, and the usual gear a House soldier carried: whetstone, spare boots, extra gut for his wristbow, and a vial of sleep-poison for the bolts. The male's clothes were of a plain cut, and he wore no insignia: a commoner, then, despite the magical sword.

Q'arlynd's stomach growled, reminding him that he'd gone the night without eating. He'd tried hunting after his latest batch of supplies ran out, but the few birds and rodents he'd managed to blast with his magical missiles had been bony and unappetizing. Right then, even sporebread looked good.

He ate the loaf, washing it down with wine. When he finished, he circled the area, looking for the tracks of the companion who'd fled. The ground was a confusion of mashed grass. It looked as though the pair had camped there for a day or two. Footprints led off in several directions-and back again. Nothing was immediately obvious as a trail someone might have had made while fleeing.

Q'arlynd sighed. "'Where are you,' indeed?" he repeated. It was possible, he supposed, that the dead male's companion had used magic to escape. Or that he'd bolted down a hole into the Underdark.

If there was an entrance to the Underdark nearby, it was well hidden-possibly concealed by magic. Q'arlynd had an answer for that. He pulled out his quartz crystal and held it up to his eyes. He turned slowly, searching the nearby ground. Anything magically hidden would…

Wait a moment. What was that, off in the distance? It looked like another drow. Another male, judging by the figure's height and build. He was standing several hundred paces away, leaning on a staff and staring at the ground.