Laughing, Halisstra stepped into the pool. The salt mummy was gone save for a rapidly dissolving lump that had been its head. Its jaw was still working; the callus in Halisstra's palm pulsed in time with its words. Follow…

She waded to the center of the pool. Near her feet, she spotted a faint sparkle of pale blue light that looked like faerie fire. She touched it with a foot and felt an emptiness, a hollow, waiting to swallow her. As the first of the priestesses of Eilistraee burst out of the woods, singing a spell that sent her sword dancing through the air, Halisstra sneered. A flick of her hand cast a web that tangled the sword in mid-flight.

Then she plunged headfirst into the reeking water, and into the portal that opened beneath her.

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 a scrap of fur pierced by a shard of glass-components for a spell that would hurl lightning-then he steeled himself to confront whatever hideous undead monstrosity appeared next.

He nearly laughed when he saw the creature that had unnerved him so: a small black rat, its fur glistening wetly. It scurried into the tunnel where Q'arlynd hid, then jerked to a halt, whiskers twitching.

"What's there? What is it? Where is it?" the rat squeaked.

Q'arlynd's eyebrows rose in surprise. The rat was speaking High Drowic. Moving quietly, Q'arlynd pulled his quartz out of a pocket and peered through it, but the crystal clouded with violet faerie fire. Hoping that the creature in front of him was just as it seemed-a wet black rat-he lowered his crystal.

Just as Q'arlynd was debating whether to speak to it, the rat spoke again. "Karas? Is it you?"

The rat moved closer to Q'arlynd, sniffed the ground beside his still-invisible feet, and gave a startled squeak. "Not him!" it said. "Not him! Not him!" It ran away down the tunnel, in the direction Eldrinn and the others had gone.

Interesting.

After the rat was gone, Q'arlynd listened for a time. The Moondeep lay in silence, its waters still against its shores. The only sounds were the occasional drip of water from the handful of stalactites that clung to the cavern's wide ceiling and a faint, crackling hiss, nearly imperceptible, from the Faerzress that infused the rock next to him.

He moved to the mouth of the tunnel and stared across the vast cavern that held the Moondeep Sea. The moon had set some time ago, its reflection vanishing from the dark surface of the water. Only a handful of the Tears of Selune remained. One by one, those too vanished.

Q'arlynd was well and truly alone.

He stroked his chin. Cavatina had told him to wait there until moonrise. It had been couched as a suggestion, but her hand had brushed against her holy symbol as she spoke; that must have been when the geas was cast. If he was stuck there until the next moonrise, he might as well use the time wisely. A second experiment was in order. Qilue had, very pointedly, mentioned his skill at teleportation. Perhaps she hoped that he'd still be able to manage it, even there. That was certainly worth finding out.

He drew a deep breath-preparing himself, as he would for a freefall from one of Ched Nasad's ruined streets. He chose a spot just a few paces away, in the center of the tunnel. Concentrating on it, he spoke the words of his spell.

He slammed into a wall face-first. Pain flared in his nose-it felt like he'd broken it a second time-and warm blood slid from his nostrils. Bruised, embarrassed, he pushed himself roughly away from the wall. The Faerzress was, he noted, glowing more brightly than it had a moment before. A faint violet smudge had appeared on the pale blue, in the spot where his body had struck the wall. It looked, he thought wryly, like the dent his body would have made had it struck a soft patch of ground from a great height. He could even see the imprint of one outflung hand.

He watched as the violet glow slowly faded. A moment later, the Faerzress was back to its usual, pale-blue color.

Q'arlynd wiped his nose gingerly. That was enough experimentation for one night, he decided. He'd been lucky. His nose had indeed been re-broken, but at least the rest of his body was in one piece. He could have wound up a frayed, bloody mess after the teleportation mishap.

He sighed. It would be a long, tiresome wait for moonrise, but with the first glint of moonlight on the underground sea, he'd be out of there.

He unfastened his belt and settled into a crosslegged position on the floor. He laid the belt across his knees and passed a hand over it, dispelling the magic that concealed the writing on the broad band of leather. His spells were written in a script so tiny it was almost impossible to read-he normally relied upon the crystal to magnify them-but the words were still crisp. The dunking in water hadn't blurred them.