The Lady Penitent: A Forgotten Realms Omnibus by Lisa Smedman

Author:Lisa Smedman [Smedman, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780786957408
Google: G8YXkgEACAAJ
Publisher: WIZARDS OF THE COAST Incorporated
Published: 2011-04-14T23:00:00+00:00

Q’arlynd stood in the tunnel as the rest of the group departed. No one had spared him so much as a backward glance—not even Eldrinn, though Q’arlynd could tell by the set of the boy’s shoulders that he didn’t like leaving his mentor behind.

When the last footfall faded, Q’arlynd waited for a thousand-count, then tried to follow. He managed no more than half a dozen steps before his body refused to move farther. Straining against the compulsion only made his stomach cramp. He doubled over and vomited on the floor. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth clean.

He attempted to dispel the magic that compelled him to remain there, but without success. That was as he’d expected, but at least he’d tried.

“Abyss take those priestesses and their geas spells,” he muttered.

He fumed at being forced to stay behind. He was the only one with a vested interest in keeping Eldrinn alive. If the boy was killed …

No. That didn’t bear thinking about.

Q’arlynd wondered what his other apprentices were doing—how much progress, if any, they’d made in unlocking the door’s secrets. He eyed the glowing wall beside him. Scrying was supposedly impossible in this place, but he wouldn’t know that for certain until he tried. If the destination being scried was far enough from the source of the problem, the scrying just might work.

As a precaution—just in case any more of those enormous, undead heads came slithering along—he rendered himself invisible. He briefly considered which of his students to scry, then decided upon Baltak. The transmogrifist had been the most keen on the puzzle of Kraanfhaor’s Door; likely he was still there, studying it. Or, knowing Baltak, trying to bash it down with brute magical force.

Q’arlynd concentrated on Baltak and activated his ring. The result was like staring full on into the sun. A flash of violet light filled his vision, sending him reeling. Blinking, blinded, he groped at the wall beside him for support. Slowly—too slowly—the tunnel around him came back into view again. The pale blue light that suffused its walls pulsed in time with the ache that filled his head.

“Mother’s blood,” he swore, rubbing his temples. “That hurt.”

He stared ruefully at the faintly glowing rock beside him. At least he’d learned one thing. It didn’t matter where the subject was. If the caster was in the Deep Wastes, scrying was impossible. Even with a magical ring.

As long as the caster was drow, of course. Daffir hadn’t had any problems with his divinations.

As Q’arlynd blinked away the residual spots from his eyes, he heard a faint sound, down by the Moondeep. He immediately flattened against the wall and checked to make sure his invisibility held. It did.

The noise came again: a faint scrabbling. Something climbed up the rockfall, toward the tunnel. Q’arlynd reached inside a pocket of his piwafwi for a tiny glass orb, then stopped himself. Blinding himself by casting a distant-seeing spell was the last thing he needed just then. Instead he readied

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