Страница 24 из 69
The door had no handle or hinges. More properly, it was a slab of stone. Yet Q'arlynd somehow knew it was a door. He touched its surface with his knuckles and spoke a simple, one-word spell: "Obsul!"
Nothing happened. Oddly, that was just what he'd expected.
A voice echoed down the corridor behind him, startling him. "Q'arlynd!"
Eldri
Q'arlynd heard footsteps hurrying toward him.
"Q'arlynd, are you there?" asked a different male voice.
He turned and saw Eldri
"Well, boys," she said in a voice that was husky from inhaling the smoke of her experiments. "You've found him. Can I get back to my potions, now?"
"In a moment, Alexa," Eldri
The others nodded.
Eldri
Q'arlynd opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "I really have no idea." He glanced down at himself. His body, at least, looked normal enough. Am I? he wondered.
Baltak stepped between them. "Why'd you teleport away?"
Q'arlynd simply stared at him. So that was how he got there. By teleporting.
Calm. He had to stay calm.
Piri sidled up to them. "You said something." He stared at the door, but his eyes kept sliding toward Q'arlynd's forehead. " 'I've got to put it back,' you said. Then you vanished."
Alexa stepped closer. "Put what back?"
Eldri
"I see," Q'arlynd said. He didn't, though. He understood that Eldri
Baltak circled Q'arlynd, eyeing him intently. He stopped in front of Q'arlynd and stared at his forehead, as if he were trying to bore a hole with his eyes and see inside it. Sparkles of faerie fire erupted from Baltak's own forehead. Q'arlynd felt Baltak's awareness push into his mind.
"What are you doing?" he asked, shoving the transmogrifist out.
"Where is it?" Baltak demanded.
"Where is what?"
"The kiira."
Alexa's eyes widened. "He's got a kiira?"
"Not any more," Baltak said.
Q'arlynd felt a chill run through him. Something was wrong. Very wrong. His stomach felt as though it were flopping like a landed blindfish.
"A kiira," he whispered. So that was what had done this to him. He'd obviously been foolish enough to try wearing a lorestone. Why?
Then he remembered Miverra's warning. In a tenday, perhaps even sooner, divination spells would become impossible and the College of Divination would fall. Q'arlynd needed his school to be recognized as a college before then. In order for that to happen, the experiments with the-with the kiira, he realized-had to be speeded up. The spells inside the-the kiira-had to be recovered, mastered, and…
A flash of memory came back: his hands, holding a lorestone.
By all the gods. He had put a kiira on his head.
He must have been crazy.
Alexa stepped closer and ran a hand over the carving on the door. "What is this place?" she asked. She craned her head to look up at the inscription. "Kraanfhaor. What's that? An ancient House name?"
"Not a House," Piri said softly. "A college."
Q'arlynd ran a hand through his hair. His fingers were trembling. He had no idea what Piri was talking about-but admitting that would make him seem a fool in front of the others. He assumed the tone of a master grilling a student. "Tell the others what you know about it, Piri."
"I read about this place in a text written by the surface elves. The entry was a short one. It said only that 'Kraanfhaor's Door' was supposedly the entrance to an ancient college of the same name, one that dated back mille
"Abyss take me," Baltak blurted. "We're in the ruins of Talthalaran?"
"Yes," Q'arlynd said, his mind racing. "Talthalaran."
That sounded right, somehow. It helped Q'arlynd-a little-to know where he was: somewhere under the High Moor. In Talthalaran. But how could he have teleported there? During his months spent searching that ruined city, he'd found one or two subterranean chambers that had survived the Dark Disaster, but none that looked like this. He was certain he'd never seen this place before. Except, perhaps, for the door…
He glanced at it again. No, he was wrong. He definitely hadn't seen it before.
Then how had he teleported there?
A terrible realization came to him then: he must have seen it before. Perhaps even been there before. The kiira had torn a hole in his memory, ripping chunks of it away like a hand clawing apart a fragile web.
Eldri
Q'arlynd was instantly wary, though he didn't understand why.
"I remember…" Eldri
"That's… possible," Q'arlynd admitted.
Eldri
Nervous sweat trickled down Q'arlynd's back. The boy had accused him, and the others were all staring. If Q'arlynd didn't come up with something quickly, everything would fall apart. The relationship he'd built with Eldri
Then it came to him. Drawing himself up, he spoke imperiously, like a matron mother addressing a boy. "You're alive, Eldri
The other mages were staring at Eldri
Q'arlynd acknowledged it with a nod, then turned to the others. "Did any of you see me put the kiira back?"
"You must have," Baltak said. "It's gone."