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Q'arlynd choked the laughter off by mentally slamming the creature's jaw shut. That, at least, he could control.
Eldri
Q'arlynd broke his mental co
"What is it, Eldri
An intense frown creased Eldri
Q'arlynd watched him a moment more, decided the boy wasn't lying, and let his spell dissipate. He plucked the kiira from Eldri
Eldri
Baltak frowned at Q'arlynd. "What just happened?"
"The feeblemind spell," Q'arlynd explained smoothly. He was embarrassing Eldri
Baltak glared at Eldri
Q'arlynd pressed the kiira into Baltak's hands. "Your hands are steadier. You do it."
Baltak gri
"On my signal," Q'arlynd reminded them, lifting his hand. He waited while the others linked minds with him, and forced his way into the chitine's thoughts once more. At his signal, Baltak pressed the crystal to the creature's forehead-hard enough to hurt it-and stepped back.
A rush of images tumbled into Q'arlynd's mind, and through it, into the minds of the four wizards linked with him. The towers of a surface city. A brown-ski
Intense pain flared in Q'arlynd's temples as he was forcibly ejected from the chitine's mind. In the same instant he heard the clatter of chains. The chitine hung from its manacles, dead. A thin gray powder trickled out of its nostrils and drifted to the floor: the contents of its skull, instantly seared to ash.
Baltak shook his head. "Mother's blood. That hurt."
Eldri
Q'arlynd's jaw clenched in frustration. The chitine was dead-just like the last test subject. He strode over to it and yanked the slave ring from its limp finger.
"Well?" he asked the others. "Did any of you manage to read those pages?"
Eldri
Baltak shrugged. "They went by too fast for me."
Zarifar fluttered his hands as if trying to recapture the pattern he'd seen. "Like… cave moths. Left… right…"
Eldri
"Well?"
Eldri
Q'arlynd gave a tight, frustrated nod.
"Those towers… were they in Talthalaran?" Baltak asked.
"They might have been," Q'arlynd said. "But that's not going to help us much. The city was blasted down to its foundations."
"Maybe we should search the ruins," Baltak said. "Perhaps there's another kiira in-"
"There isn't," Q'arlynd snapped. "But you're welcome to go look for yourself, if you like."
That shut Baltak up.
"That door," Zarifar said. "There were…" His voice trailed off. As usual, he didn't complete his thought. His forefinger traced a line through the air. "Patterns."
Q'arlynd sighed in frustration. This wasn't getting them anywhere.
"The door…" Eldri
Q'arlynd turned. The distant look was back in Eldri
Eldri
"Death," Q'arlynd answered. The chitine had voided its bowels when it died, and the room stank. He felt sorry for the creature, vicious little brute though it was. He reminded himself of the necessity of its sacrifice. At least the death he'd given it had been swift-quicker than it would have suffered at the hands of hunters or one of Lolth's priestesses.
"What's next?" Baltak asked. "Buy another slave and try again?"
Q'arlynd shook his head. "That will have to wait. Eldri
Eldri
Baltak nodded at the kiira. "But that's staying here, right? The rest of us can carry on, while you're gone."
"No," Q'arlynd replied. "In the College of Ancient Arcana, we work together. Or not at all."
Baltak shrugged but his eyes clung greedily to the kiira. "Fine. We wait until you get back."
Q'arlynd felt frustration build inside him. We can't wait! he wanted to shout. By then it might be too late! Yet he could hardly tell the others that. Only Eldri
Eldri
"Good idea!" Baltak cried. "What about a battle-captive- someone no one really cares about?"
"What about the body?" Piri whispered from the back of the room. He pointed at Zarifar, who had wandered over to the chitine and was busy scuffing the toe of his boot through the ash at the chitine's feet, drawing in it. "Anyone who sees the corpse is going to wonder which spell burned its brains out so precisely."
"We'll disintegrate the body," Baltak said. "Or use quicklime."
"You're overlooking something," Q'arlynd said. "If the experiment succeeded, the battle-captive would learn the contents of the kiira at the same time we did-including, perhaps, a spell that might allow him to escape." He stared at the others. "We don't want to share our lorestone with anyone else just yet, do we?"
"I suppose you're right," Baltak grudgingly admitted.
"You completely missed my point," Eldri
Q'arlynd turned to him.
"I wasn't talking about battle-captives-I was talking about me. / could wear the kiira."
Q'arlynd's response was immediate. "No."
"It won't kill me. I know it. I have a… feeling about it. It's almost like…" Eldri
"Feeling or not," Q'arlynd said, "my answer is still no. It's too risky."
Eldri