Ascendancy of the Last - Lisa Smedman [35]
The deepspawn retreated fully behind the wall of force. It waved a tentacle at Q'arlynd, taunting him. The other two tentacles continued to cling tightly to Eldrinn and to something invisible: Piri's quasit. Even as Q'arlynd watched, Eldrinn stopped struggling, and slumped. His wand fell from his fingers and clattered to the ground.
Q'arlynd had to think of something, and quickly. If he didn't, the deepspawn would kill Eldrinn-assuming it hadn't already done so. And now that the monster had withdrawn behind the walls of its cage, Q'arlynd would only be able to target it through the hole. He edged to the side, trying to get into position to do that, but the deepspawn read his mind and moved away.
Come out from behind the wall, coward, he thought at it. Let's see if you can catch a lightning bolt in your tentacles.
Q'arlynd moved to the spot where his other apprentice lay, bent down, and touched his fingers to Piri's throat. Blood pulsed beneath the skin. Piri, at least, was still alive. As Q'arlynd straightened, his foot nudged something that scraped across the ground. Something metal. He looked down, but didn't see anything there.
Then he realized what it must be: Piri's ring gate!
Q'arlynd hurled himself at the ground. As he did so, the tentacle holding the quasit flicked forward, trying to toss the demon away. This time, Q'arlynd was faster. Before the deepspawn could release the quasit, Q'arlynd landed, chest down, on the spot where the ring gate lay. As he made contact with it, he shouted an incantation. The mirror in his shirt pocket shattered, fueling his spell. Energy rushed out of it, as fast as light. It erupted out of the second ring gate, into the deepspawn. Intense silver light played over the tentacled monster, altering the very substance of its body. When the light vanished, so too did the creature's natural coloration. A heartbeat before, the deepspawn had been a living, breathing thing. Now it was transformed into clear, solid glass.
Its body, no longer suspended by magic, crashed to the ground. Tentacles shattered.
Q'arlynd stood and brushed himself off. Tinkling bits of mirror fell from the ruin of his shirt pocket. "Bet you didn't expect that one," he said dryly. Then he hurried forward. He stepped carefully through the rent in the wall of force and felt its powerful energies lift the hair on his arms and scalp. When he was underneath the transformed deepspawn, he reached up and grabbed the tentacle that held Eldrinn, and wrenched on it. As it snapped, the boy tumbled to the ground. Eldrinn groaned, low and deep-a sound that was music to Q'arlynd's ears. The boy was still alive!
Q'arlynd scooped up Eldrinn's wand. It was of a type he didn't recognize: solid white, with an inscription in Espruar, the script of the surface elves, spiraling around it. Q'arlynd didn't have time to solve the puzzle the wand presented, however. In a few moments his spell would lapse, and the deepspawn would revert back to flesh. Even missing its tentacles, it would be a formidable foe.
He touched Eldrinn and teleported away.
They materialized within the private hospice of the College of Divination. Q'arlynd barked out an abbreviated explanation to the startled attendant. Instead of springing to his cabinet of potions, however, the elderly apothecary shifted Eldrinn's sleeve, revealing a vial that was tied to the boy's forearm. "Why didn't you use this?" He yanked out the vial and uncorked it. "It's just as potent as anything I have here."
"It is?"
"I ought to know. It's one of my best."
Q'arlynd shook his head at yet another mystery he didn't have time to solve. Eldrinn had obviously been given the potion by the apothecary, but how