inflicted had been slight indeed.
Thaleste touched the back of her neck with a shaking hand then stared at her fingers, obviously surprised to see no blood. She was still inexperienced enough to be astonished by the fact that another drow had come to her aid.
'Did we kill her?'
Cavatina hung her holy symbol around her neck. 'We did. Your sword thrust weakened her, and I finished the job.'
Thaleste smiled. A seed of confidence was in her eye, and over time, it would grow.
Cavatina whispered a prayer and sent, Iljrene, it was a Selvetargtlin. I killed her. We were wounded but have healed.
Iljrene's reply came at once: Well done, but keep alert. Where there's one Selvetargtlin, there's usually more.
Cavatina nodded, still troubled by the aranea's final words. The Selvetargtlin hadn't just been talking about the spellgaunt she'd somehow smuggled into the caverns surrounding the Promenade but about something else, something that had put an evil gleam of pleasure in her eyes even as she died.
She'd gone to her death secure in the knowledge that Selvetarm would reward her for whatever dark service she'd performed.
CHAPTER THREE
Q'arlynd pointed a finger at the jagged slab of rubble and whispered an incantation. The slab-a piece of calcified webbing that had once been part of the wall of House Ysh'nil-rose into the air, revealing a gap in the rubble beneath it.
He nodded at the svirfneblin who stood next to him. 'In you go.'
The deep gnome cocked his bald head to the side. His eyes, black as pebbles, studied the gap in the rubble. 'Looks unstable,' Flinderspeld said in a low, raspy voice.
Q'arlynd's nostrils flared in irritation. 'Of course it's unstable,' he snapped. 'The city didn't land in neat rows, like stacked blocks. It collapsed.'
'I'd feel better if it was shored up first.'
Q'arlynd moved his finger slightly, levitating the slab of rubble over the spot where Flinderspeld stood. He nodded meaningfully at it. 'You'll feel worse if I drop this on your head.'
The deep gnome shrugged. 'If you do, you'll have no one to go in after whatever radiated that magical aura you saw.'
Q'arlynd's eyes narrowed. He levitated the slab to one side and set it down, gently enough that the only noise it made was a slight grating of stone against stone. Then he held up his left hand and waggled his index finger-the one with the dull black ring on it, the ring whose only surviving counterpart was on Flinderspeld's own hand. 'Don't make me use this.'
The deep gnome glared. 'All right, all right. I'm going.' He clambered toward the hole, muttering under his breath.
Q'arlynd narrowed his eyes. He should discipline Flinderspeld, he knew, flay him and leave him staked out for lizards to feed on, but the deep gnome did have his uses. Like all those of his race, he showed up as little more than a blur-if at all-to anyone trying to scry him or otherwise locate him by magical means. It made Flinderspeld the perfect vehicle for carrying objects Q'arlynd didn't want found-the rings Q'arlynd had recently lifted from the body of the dead priestess, for example.
The deep gnome didn't realize he was being utilized in such a way, and he had no idea that the new clothing Q'arlynd kept bestowing upon him had items sewn inside it. He regarded these 'gifts' as kindness. He'd concluded that Q'arlynd must have purchased him out of some sense of compassion, after seeing the sorry state the slavers had reduced the deep gnome to. A notion that was laughable, really. Q'arlynd's heart was as dark as that of any drow.
'I see something!' Flinderspeld called out. 'It's a… dagger of some sort. It's silver with a thin blade, shaped more like a sword than a dagger really. It's strung on a chain like a pendant.'
Q'arlynd knew this, of course. He'd placed the priestess's pendant there himself for the detection spell to reveal.
'There's a much smaller sword next to it,' Flinderspeld continued. 'It's no longer than my finger. Another piece of jewelry, I think.'
'Bring both to me.'
As Flinderspeld began crawling back through the crevice, Q'arlynd heard rubble shift behind him. That would be Prellyn, the velvet-gloved fist of Matron Teh'Kinrellz. As he'd arranged, she'd 'spotted' him sneaking out of the Teh'Kinrellz stronghold earlier and had followed him here. Q'arlynd pretended to be startled by her approach.
'You've set up your own excavation, I see,' she said in a voice silky with menace. 'Find anything interesting?'
'Nothing.' He waved a hand dismissively. 'Just an empty hole.'
'Liar.'
Prellyn seized his chin and jerked his head up, forcing him to meet her eyes. Like most drow females, she stood head and shoulders taller than he. Red eyes smoldered under brows that pinched together in a perpetual frown. Her arms were more muscular than his own, her hands roughly calloused. The wrist-crossbow strapped to her forearm was loaded, its barbed point uncomfortably close to Q'arlynd's cheek. If he turned his head, it would gouge his eye.
'Still,' Prellyn whispered, 'I like a boy with some fire in his eye. A fire…' Her free hand drifted down between his legs, 'that kindles at my command.'
She kissed him. Hard. Q'arlynd felt himself responding to her touch. Her air of menace was as exhilarating as a freefall. She was going to take him. Now. And when she was done, she'd punish him for daring to scavenge on his own. Not with a whipping, like those doled out to common House boys, but with something far more subtle. A wounding spell, perhaps, one that would burn a thousand tiny spider bites into his flesh.
He hoped it was going to be worth it.
Prellyn forced Q'arlynd onto his back atop the rubble and straddled him. She ran a finger down his nose, lingering over the spot where it had been broken decades ago. Then she yanked open his shirt.
Aroused though he was, Q'arlynd had a more pressing need. Information.
Flinderspeld was hiding in the hole, unwilling to come out. He'd blurred himself and was all but invisible, though the ring he wore allowed Q'arlynd to overhear his every thought whenever his master wished. At the moment, Flinderspeld was mentally shaking his head at Q'arlynd's infatuation for Prellyn-a drow female he knew his master feared as much as he himself did. Flinderspeld also watched for a chance to slip away and hide the magical booty his master had just found.
Sometimes, Flinderspeld could be a little too efficient.
Q'arlynd seized control of his slave's body and forced Flinderspeld to drop his magical camouflage, crawl out of hiding, and attempt to sneak away.
Prellyn's attention was drawn to the deep gnome. She stood, leaving Q'arlynd forgotten on the rubble. Her eyes locked on the pendant.
'Give me that,' she ordered.
Q'arlynd made Flinderspeld hesitate. 'You heard her, slave,' Q'arlynd said in a harsh voice as he sat up. 'Give it to her!'
Flinderspeld looked at his master, confused. What was Q'arlynd up to? Normally the wizard expected him to lie low so he could keep whatever booty he'd found to himself.
Q'arlynd, growing impatient, gave a mental jerk. The deep gnome's hand shot forward. The pendant, which Flinderspeld held by its chain, swung back and forth like a pendulum.
Prellyn reached out to grab it then suddenly recoiled as if she'd been about to touch something smeared with contact poison.
