Ascendancy of the Last - Lisa Smedman [117]
"Go then. Don't waste time."
Q'arlynd bowed. He concentrated on the burl trees that housed the priestesses, spoke a word, and teleported. An instant later, he stood in a forest beside a massive tree. A thought sent him levitating to the nearest burl. As he rose, he saw its door was slightly open. Suddenly wary, he cast a protective spell. A flick of his fingers eased the door open from afar. He peered in and saw there was no one inside. The room within the hollowed-out burl looked as though it had recently been occupied, though: clothes hung from pegs, and the remains of a meal stood on the table, next to a half-full goblet. Wind blew through the branches above, making them creak and groan.
"Lady Rowaan?" he called. "Is anyone here?" He drifted upward, and knocked on the next door. It didn't open. He tried again at another door: again, no response. He descended and stood in thought a moment, before hurrying through the forest to the shrine itself.
The dozen sword-shaped columns of black obsidian were just as he remembered them. There was no blood on the circular platform of white stone, nor any other sign of struggle. Q'arlynd, however, couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. He touched one of the sword-columns. The polished stone felt cool under his fingertips. Shouldn't there have been a priestess here, guarding the shrine?
He felt the kiira tickling his memories. You took your sword oath here.
"Yes." Q'arlynd didn't have time for reminiscences. He hurried on through the forest, hoping to hear the sound of singing above the sighing branches. It was night, and the moon was up. Perhaps the priestesses were dancing in the glade.
They weren't.
The mist that had given the forest its name swirled around his ankles like flowing water, reminding him there was one place yet to look. The sacred pool, he thought. There was always someone standing guard there. That priestess would know where Rowaan and the others had gone.
As he headed to the pool, the wind shifted. It carried a new smell to his nostrils: a stench like sour vomit. Cautiously, he approached the sacred pool. His eyes widened as he saw the tangle of toppled and rotting trees that surrounded it. The mist above the pool was a sickly greenish yellow. A bubble rose from the depths of the pool and ruptured, splattering the bushes next to Q'arlynd. Leaves sizzled, turned black, and dribbled away.
"By all that's unholy," he swore. He suddenly remembered that each of the sacred pools was connected, via portals, with the Promenade's Moonspring Portal. Had all of Eilistraee's shrines fallen?
A gurgling sound warned that the pool was about to erupt again. Q'arlynd backed hurriedly away.
What now, he agonized.
Are you the last?
"The last what?"
The last of Eilistraee's faithful.
"Impossible!" he told the kiira. "The priestesses must be around… somewhere." The emptiness of the forest, however, cried otherwise. Had Rowaan and her priestesses rushed to defend the Promenade, only to be consumed by oozes? For all he knew, the faithful at each of the shrines could have suffered the same fate: all plunging blindly into their sacred pools in an attempt to reach the Promenade, only to be consumed by the oozes that fouled them.
It must be you, then. You will be the one to call down the miracle.
"Me?" Q'arlynd laughed aloud. "I'm a wizard, not a cleric."
You belong to Eilistraee.
Q'arlynd didn't like the sound of that. It sounded too much like slavery.
We will guide you through the ritual.
"Why not take over my body and evoke the miracle yourselves?"
The prayer must be directed by the will of a living worshiper-a conduit to the goddess.
Q'arlynd nervously stroked his chin. He didn't want to think of what might follow, were he to let the other masters down. "What if I can't do it? What if it doesn't work?"
If your heart is filled with light and your cause is true, we shall not fail.
Q'arlynd frowned slightly. Those words sounded familiar-like the text of some half-forgotten spell.