"Wait!" he told his master. "I won't tell anyone!"
Q'arlynd frowned. "You won't tell anyone what?"
Flinderspeld swallowed nervously. "You must have read my mind," he whispered. "You know I was there, watching, when you let those driders kill Leliana."
"Ah. That." Q'arlynd spread his hands. "There were four of them, and my magic was almost depleted," he said smoothly. "I couldn't possibly have killed them all. I knew another of the priestesses would come along, sooner or later, to revive Leliana, but I wasn't sure if they'd do the same for me. I couldn't run the risk of being killed." The expression of regret he adopted looked genuine, and Flinderspeld wondered if he might have been wrong about what he saw after all.
"Now give me your hand," Q'arlynd ordered.
Flinderspeld did, wondering what was coming next.
Q'arlynd batted the hand aside. "Not that one, fool. Your left hand."
When Flinderspeld hesitated, Q'arlynd bent down and grabbed it, then yanked off the glove. The wizard spoke a few words in the drow language then pulled the ring from Flinderspeld's index finger.
The slave ring.
Off.
Flinderspeld gasped. "What are… Why did…?"
The wizard flipped the ring into the air, caught it, then tucked it away into a pocket of his piwafwi. "I'm one of Eilistraee's faithful, now," he said. "That's what we do. 'Treat everyone with kindness.' "
"But…"
Q'arlynd sighed and spread his hands. "All right, so I have an ulterior motive. Consider this: I'm going to remain on the surface, at least for a time, among Eilistraee's priestesses. If I keep you with me, you're certain to stumble across another priestess who can remove curses. The ring was coming off your finger sooner or later-and if a priestess removed it, the ring's magic would be forever negated." He patted the pocket into which he'd slipped the ring. "This way, I hang onto my property, or," he quirked an eyebrow, "part of it, at least."
"I see," Flinderspeld said, and he was starting to.
Q'arlynd liked to pretend he was as cruel and heartless as any drow, but his actions too often were at odds with his words. It wouldn't have been hard for the wizard to keep Flinderspeld firmly in tow and prevent him from asking the priestesses for help.
Q'arlynd stood with his hands on his hips. "Now I'm going to make sure that you don't tell anyone what you saw."
Flinderspeld blanched. "You're not going to blast me as I walk away, are you?"
Q'arlynd snorted. "Why would I want to kill you? You're valuable property."
"I'm your property no more."
"That's true." Q'arlynd said. He stroked his chin. "What I'm going to do is send you away. Somewhere far from here, ideally-somewhere Eilistraee's priestesses are not. You can choose wherever you'd like to go. Just name the place, and I'll teleport you there."
Flinderspeld's jaw dropped. He searched his master's face, looking for some clue as to whether the offer was genuine. "Really?"
Q'arlynd's lips twisted. "Really."
Flinderspeld scratched his bare scalp, thinking. Despite all of the times he'd fantasized about escape, he'd never quite settled that question. "I don't know where I'd like to go," he answered truthfully. "Blingdenstone's destroyed- there's even less left of it than of Ched Nasad. Perhaps one of the lesser svirfneblin settlements-if there's a guild that will have me."
Q'arlynd nodded. "I understand. You have no home, no House. Nothing." He gave an overly harsh laugh, probably intended to sound cruel. "All you have is-"
The wizard halted abruptly and glanced away.
Flinderspeld looked up into his former master's face, suddenly realizing what Q'arlynd was trying to say. The drow wizard had actually grown fond of him over the past three years. They shared a common bond, after all-home and family, destroyed. Q'arlynd was going to miss Flinderspeld.
Perhaps, he thought, they weren't so different after all. Flinderspeld himself had remained hidden while Q'arlynd had battled his way through the woods thick with driders. For a few moments, when he'd lost sight of Q'arlynd, he'd hoped that his master was dead.
Flinderspeld shrugged. "You weren't such a bad master," he told the wizard. "Any other drow would have killed me for my 'insolence' long ago."
Q'arlynd snorted. "Don't remind me of my faults." His voice hardened. "Choose where you want to go. Quickly, before I change my mind and decide to blast you after all."
"All right," Flinderspeld said. "How about Silverymoon? Our city maintained a trading post there."
"Fine."
"Have you ever been to Silverymoon?"
Q'arlynd smiled. "Never."
Flinderspeld didn't like the sound of that. "Then how will you teleport me there? Don't you need to have visited the city yourself?" He wet his lips nervously. "I heard that if a teleportation misses its target, a person could get 'scrambled,' maybe even die."
Q'arlynd reached into the pocket where he'd placed the slave ring. "If you're afraid of a little jump, then perhaps I should rescind my offer."
"No, no!" Flinderspeld said quickly. "I'll go. It just sounds… dangerous."
"It is," Q'arlynd said. "That's what makes it so much fun." He pulled out the slave ring and held it out. "I want you to put this on again."
Flinderspeld frowned. Had Q'arlynd been teasing him? Was this all some sort of elaborate joke?
"You only need to wear it for a moment," Q'arlynd said impatiently. "Just long enough for me to observe your thoughts while you visualize a specific location in Silverymoon, one I can teleport to. I need to be able to 'see' it in order to target my spell."
After a moment's hesitation, Flinderspeld held out his hand. "There's a cavern, close to the surface, under the main marketplace. That's where the svirfneblin merchants camp when they visit the city."
"Good." Q'arlynd dropped the ring into Flinderspeld's palm. "Visualize it, in as much detail as you can."
Flinderspeld slipped on the ring and scrunched his eyes shut. He pictured the cavern as he'd last seen it, carefully picturing every rock and cranny. After several moments, the wizard tapped him on the head.
"That's enough," Q'arlynd said. "You can stop now." He removed the ring from Flinderspeld's finger and pocketed it again. He whispered something, and glanced down at Flinderspeld, magic crackling faintly around his fingertips. "Ready?"
Flinderspeld gulped. Nodded. "Good-bye, Q'arlynd, and thanks. If you ever-"
Q'arlynd laughed. "Idiot," he said. "Don't say good-bye yet. I'll be accompanying you."
Q'arlynd's stomach lurched as he found himself plummeting in empty space. Flinderspeld howled in terror as the cavern floor rushed up to meet them. Q'arlynd tightened his hold on the deep gnome's shirt and activated his House insignia, halting their descent just before they hit the floor. He twisted upright and his feet found the floor.
The cavern was just as Flinderspeld had pictured it-a wide space with a leveled floor and a stalactite-studded ceiling. Crates, baskets, pack lizards, and camp gear filled it. The two dozen svirfneblin who were camped there leaped to their feet, shouting in alarm, as Q'arlynd and Flinderspeld materialized in front of them. One of them threw a dagger, which glanced off the protective shield Q'arlynd had surrounded himself with.
Flinderspeld held up his hands and shouted something in his own language, but the other deep gnomes only glared at him. Q'arlynd was probably making them nervous.
"Go on," he said, giving Flinderspeld a gentle shove forward. "Talk to them. I'm sure they'll come around eventually. They seem friendly enough."
Flinderspeld looked unconvinced.
Q'arlynd saw another of the deep gnomes load then crank a crossbow. He waved to his former slave. "Good luck!" Then he teleported away.
He returned, still laughing, to the forest. Now that had been a leap! He hadn't expected the ceiling to be so low. As remembered by Flinderspeld, the cavern had seemed huge.