Storm of the Dead - Lisa Smedman [47]
That would, of course, be impossible where Q'arlynd was going-but they needn't know that.
He held up a finger in a gesture reminiscent of a lecturing master. "Remember this: if any of us does find the key, I want him to inform the others immediately. When the time comes to open the door, we're going to do it together."
Heads dutifully nodded.
Q'arlynd knew better than to trust them, however. They'd only worn their rings a short time, and they weren't used to working as a team yet. One or more of them would probably try opening the door on his own-or her own-while he and Eldrinn were gone. Q'arlynd doubted they would succeed, though. Eldrinn, he suspected, was the key.
And Q'arlynd intended to keep that key securely in his pocket.
CHAPTER 6
Urlryn Khalazza strode through the scriptorium door-literally strode through it, as if the heavy wooden door were a mere illusion. The scribe at the table closest to the door gave a start and lost control of his quill, but the others kept at their copywork, forefingers twitching as they magically directed quills that scribbled rapidly on parchment.
Seldszar glanced past the tiny spheres that circled his head, noting the door. For several moments, it held an outline of Urlryn, limned in crackling indigo. Then the faerie fire faded.
"Master Urlryn," he said. "Thank you for responding so swiftly to my invitation."
The master of the College of Conjuration and Summoning nodded. He was a large male, broad-shouldered for a drow, with a stomach that strained the ties of his vest, the visible result of his love of excessively rich, conjured feasts. His college insignia hung against his chest on a mithral chain: a golden goblet, ensorcelled to expand and fill with wine whenever he raised it to his wide lips. Though Urlryn's thinning hair and drooping jowls gave the impression of age and sloth, he was amply protected. Trotting at his side-invisible to the scribes but clear to Seldszar's eye-was a vicious phantasmal dog. It eyed Seldszar warily, lips twitching and hackles raised. At the slightest hint of a threat to its master, it would attack.
Urlryn halted in front of Seldszar and stared meaningfully at the faerie fire that sparked from the other master's forehead. "You wish to discuss our mutual problem?"
"Indeed I do." Seldszar spoke while staring at the spheres. Though the faerie fire posed irritating interruptions to his view of them, his observations continued. He'd shifted their focus to his own college and the mages therein. "I've learned something interesting about the… disruption."
Urlryn cleared his throat in warning and tipped his head at the nearest scribes.
"Indeed," Seldszar told him. "Pointed ears and private business." He hissed, releasing a spell. Heads thunked onto wooden tables as the scribes fell forward, unconscious. An inkwell clattered to the floor, leaving a splash of dark blue ink. The quills continued scribbling a moment more, then collapsed onto their parchments.
"Have your sages come up with any answers yet?" Urlryn asked.
Seldszar glanced briefly at the sphere that showed his college's most learned wizards arguing vociferously around a table. "No. But I recently received a visitor who claims to know who's causing this plague of faerie fire-though she was vague on the details. That visitor was a priestess of Eilistraee, from the Promenade. She blames Kiaransalee's cult. Something they are doing in a temple far to the northeast is augmenting Faerzress throughout the Underdark-including ours."
"I see."
For several moments, neither wizard spoke. The only sound came from a water clock that hung from the scriptorium's ceiling. Drops fell steadily from a tiny hole in the bottom of the cut-glass bowl into a pan below with dull, metallic thunks. The clock was a thing of the World Above, calibrated to mark the quarters of the day and night, so of little practical use in the Underdark-until then. Like the water sinking almost imperceptibly lower in the bowl, time was running out.
"I, too, received a visitor,"