Ascendancy of the Last - Lisa Smedman [36]
"Is there more of that?" Q'arlynd asked.
The apothecary nodded at his cabinet as he parted Eldrinn's lips and dribbled the potion into the boy's mouth. "In there. Why?"
"Get it ready," Q'arlynd said. "There's another of my apprentices who might need it, once I've finished with him." Then he teleported away.
He returned to the Cage in time to see a member of the Breeder's Guild rushing to the spot where the wall of force had been breached. The fellow skidded to a halt, reached into a pouch at his hip, and held up a pinch of something. Crushed gemstone dusted his dark fingers. He hurled the dust at the breach in the wall and chanted an incantation-but abruptly halted when he noticed the transformed deepspawn, its clear glass body all but invisible behind the shimmering wall.
"Hey! What did you do to our breeding stock?"
"A transmutation," Q'arlynd shouted back. "I suggest you complete your spell. The transmutation's only temporary."
The guild member hesitated, as if wanting to challenge Q'arlynd further, but decided against it. He waved his hands and chanted, hurriedly completing his repair.
Q'arlynd picked up Piri's wand, touched his apprentice, and teleported away. This time, the destination was his private study. He'd have to placate the Breeder's Guild-they'd demand compensation for the damage to their deepspawn-but that could wait. He patted down Piri's pockets, looking for the ring the apprentice had removed earlier. He found it-the compulsion built into the rings was too strong for his apprentices to rid themselves of the rings entirely-and slipped the ring into his own pocket. As he waited for Piri to recover, he examined the apprentice's wand. It was made of ebony, inlaid with chips of red agate: a fire wand. A wise choice for a duel, given Piri's demon skin. If the wand's blast had been deflected back at Piri, the fire would have sloughed off his body like water off a slate roof.
Eventually, Piri groaned and rolled onto his back. His eyes opened, then widened as he took in his surroundings-and the fact that Q'arlynd was pointing Eldrinn's wand at him. Suddenly, they blazed red as forge-heated steel. Twin beams of red streaked out of Piri's eyes at Q'arlynd-only to bounce off the magical protection Q'arlynd already had in place. The heat beams ricocheted off the master's magical shield and scored deep burn marks on the ceiling instead.
Q'arlynd stared down the length of slim white wood at his apprentice. "I don't know what this wand does," he told Piri. "But I'm curious to find out. How about you?"
Piri shook his head. Though his green-tinged face seemed devoid of expression, his wide eyes gave him away. He was afraid of the wand in Q'arlynd's hand. Deathly afraid.
Q'arlynd dug Piri's ring out of his pocket and held it where the apprentice could see it. "Let's have a talk. Mind to mind. I want to know why you and Eldrinn were dueling. Let me look into your thoughts, then maybe I won't use this wand on you."
"No!" Piri blurted. But at the same time, his fingers twitched. Do it.
Q'arlynd forced the ring onto Piri's finger, then shoved his way into the apprentice's mind. What he found there made him nod. Piri's thoughts weren't the only ones fluttering through the apprentice's brain. Q'arlynd detected a second presence in there, one that spoke in a high, tittering voice.
The quasit demon Piri had bonded with hadn't been content to remain inside the skin the apprentice now wore. It was also whispering around inside Piri's skull. Piri was either listening to it-or being controlled by it. Thanks to the ring, Q'arlynd could read its thoughts.
The quasit had goaded Piri into seducing Alexa, the only female among Q'arlynd's five apprentices. The demon had also ensured that Eldrinn, her consort, learned of the tryst. Despite his anger, Eldrinn wasn't stupid enough to have challenged Piri; it had been the other way around. In the end, Eldrinn had been forced to accept the challenge. To have done anything else would have meant forever being subservient