Q'arlynd was master of his own school of wizardry now-a school just one short step away from being sanctioned as Sshamath's eleventh official College. He'd truly made a new home for himself in this city of wizards. The only reminder of his former life was the House insignia he wore on his left wrist. Carved into the worn leather band's adamantine oval was House Melarn's symbol, a glyph shaped like a stick-figure person, arms bent and one leg raised.

The symbol of the dancing goddess, Eilistraee.

The goddess Q'arlynd had pledged himself to.

Inspection complete, he tucked the mirror into the breast pocket of his shirt. He slowly turned to go, savoring his surroundings. The private study was filled with expensive furniture, all of it studded with chips of beljuril that twinkled with green light. A scroll shelf stood against one wall, its diamond-shaped niches filled floor to ceiling with texts both arcane and mundane. On the opposite wall, darkfire flames danced like crackling shadows inside the hearth. The study was warm, filled with wealth-and entirely Q'arlynd's own. A level of luxury he hadn't experienced for years.

All thanks to the kiira on his forehead.

As he departed, he reset the door's lock with a whispered word. He doubted anyone would recognize the abjuration any time soon-the word was from the original language of the dark elves, a language much changed since the Descent. Like the other spells Q'arlynd had learned since "opening" Kraanfhaor's Door, the abjuration was not written in any spellbook. It was contained solely within the kiira, alongside the memories of those who had worn the lorestone before him.

As Q'arlynd strode down the corridor, students bowed. He gave each the briefest of nods. He'd deliberately delayed his departure, intending to teleport into the Stonestave just to prove that he could, despite the Faerzress that now surrounded the city.

Voices murmured inside one of the lecture halls. He glanced into it as he passed and what he saw made him halt abruptly. Zarifar, one of his five apprentices, was staring at a pentagram that had been painted on the floor with dribbled candle wax. His right forefinger jerked back and forth as he traced its outline in the air. With his head bowed, face obscured by a fuzz of tightly kinked white hair, the tall, thin drow seemed oblivious to his inattentive students. He made no move to discipline them as they chatted and chuckled amongst themselves, completely ignoring their would-be instructor.

A moment more, and the half a dozen students probably would have something to whisper at. Zarifar might be a brilliant geometer mage, but he was more likely to summon a monstrosity that would devour him than one that would obey him. Or recite the spell backward and send himself straight to the Abyss.

Using his master ring, Q'arlynd linked minds with his apprentice. As he'd expected, Zarifar's thoughts were deep in the pattern. He was imagining pentagrams within pentagrams while calculating the "golden ratio" of each in turn.

Zarifar! Where is Piri? He's supposed to be teaching this lesson.

Zarifar startled, as if someone had just poked the tip of a dagger into his back. Two of the students snickered. Their faces paled to gray as Q'arlynd strode into the room.

"Master Melarn," they gasped, each falling to one knee.

Q'arlynd ignored them-a worse punishment than reprimanding them, since it left them tensely anticipating what might come next. And when. Where is Piri, Zarifar?

"Oh. Yes." Zarifar blinked like a surface elf coming out of Reverie. "Down at the Cage, I think he said. He asked me to fill in for him until he got back."

Q'arlynd frowned. If Piri wanted spell components, he should have sent a student to fetch them. That he'd gone himself hinted that whatever he was purchasing was something others weren't meant to learn about. The timing of the trip to the Breeder's Guild was equally suspicious. Piri knew Q'arlynd was about to appear before the Conclave. There was no better moment for treachery.

Q'arlynd's jaw clenched. This wasn't Piri's first betrayal. Q'arlynd had already been forced, once before, to punish him as a result of his disloyalty. A kiira had later restored the apprentice to life, in order for the spell that had stripped the death goddess of her name to be cast. Q'arlynd had wanted to dispense with the apprentice afterward, but the ancestors inside the kiira had suggested an alternative. They'd promised to strip Piri of those memories that made him dangerous and disloyal, while leaving the bulk of his magical learning intact. Until this moment, Q'arlynd had believed they'd delivered on their promise. The mind-stripped Piri had been both compliant and, seemingly, trustworthy.

Now Q'arlynd wasn't so sure.

"This lesson is over," he announced, waving a hand above the floor. The pentagram disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving the smell of melted candle wax behind. "Go."

The students scurried from the room.

Q'arlynd closed his eyes and activated his master ring a second time. Piri came instantly into view; the apprentice hadn't bothered to remove his ring. He'd probably assumed Q'arlynd would be much too busy to scry him. Piri stood next to a narrow column of stone: one of the posts in the shimmering walls of force that caged the deepspawn the Breeder's Guild tended. His face and hands glinted with an oily, greenish tinge: the quasit demon, stretched skin-thin, that he'd bonded with, years ago. His hair stood up in stiff spikes, white and hard as bone. He held a wand in one hand, and stood back to back with another of Q'arlynd's apprentices: Eldrinn, son of Master Seldszar, the master who would be nominating Q'arlynd's school for admission to the Conclave in just a few moments' time. Eldrinn also held a wand in his hand.

"Mother's blood," Q'arlynd swore. "They're dueling."

Little wonder his apprentices had chosen this moment for their duel. Q'arlynd had expressly forbidden mage duels in an effort to preserve the fragile harmony within his school. More often than not, duels led to serious injury. Sometimes death.

The injury or death of a student or teacher was something most masters took in their stride. They encouraged backstabbing and betrayal among their apprentices, believing that it flensed the meat from the bone, allowing only the best to survive. Q'arlynd held a different view. Any student accepted into his school was warned that any debilitating attack or suspicious death would be traced to its root. And then that student would be expelled.

The same rules applied to the five apprentices who served as the school's teachers.

Q'arlynd glanced at the water clock in the corner of the lecture hall. He was supposed to be appearing before the Conclave just a few moments from now. He tapped his foot impatiently, inclined to leave bad enough alone-until he noticed the femur that lay on the ground between the two apprentices as a dividing line.

This was no mere grudge match. It was a duel to the death.

Eldrinn had a determined look on his face, but his tight grip on the wand betrayed his tension. He was a mere boy, a half-drow with ash gray skin. He wore his usual spider-silk shirt and ornately embroidered piwafwi, but his waist-length hair was unbound. He'd either been tricked or goaded into leaving behind the contingency clip that could save him from whatever Piri's wand hurled at him.

The timing was too coincidental. The absence of seconds and a jabbuk duello to oversee the duel was equally telling. Someone must have manipulated Piri or Eldrinn into this. Someone powerful enough to have ensured that Master Seldszar wouldn't divine, ahead of time, that his son was about to enter into a potentially fatal duel.

If Eldrinn died, however-no, when Eldrinn died-Seldszar would learn of it immediately. Whoever had maneuvered the two apprentices into this would certainly see to that. Once alerted to his son's death, it would take the master diviner less time to learn the circumstances than it took most males to draw breath. Then Q'arlynd's school would suffer the consequences. Contrary to all that was natural, Seldszar actually cared for his son. He'd blame Q'arlynd for the boy's death-and would point accusingly to Q'arlynd's stubborn insistence on keeping the demon-skinned Piri at his school.