Never had he come so close to hitting the ground.

Twisting his body upright, he gave a second mental command, one that would summon a driftdisc to carry him back to House Teh'Kinrellz. As he waited for it, something caught his eye. The body of a drow female lay on the rubble. A corpse in the fallen city was unremarkable in itself, but he hadn't heard of any recent quarrels, and the body looked fresh.

Very fresh.

He sank to the ground, landing gracefully. The back of the female's head looked like a hollow, broken cup.

Something had smashed it in. The patch of red that stained her hair and the rubble she lay on was still spreading.

Q'arlynd looked around warily, certain he'd just interrupted something, but he didn't see anyone nearby. Even a glance through his crystal revealed no invisible enemies lurking nearby. Tucking the magical quartz back into his pocket, he cast an incantation that revealed obvious magical items on the dead female-the sword in her scabbard, her boots, two rings on an outflung hand. Mediocre dweomers all.

As Q'arlynd stepped closer on shifting rubble, part of the mystery resolved itself. A chunk of calcified web, also bright with blood, lay near the corpse's feet.

"By the Dark Mother," he whispered. He looked up, trying to calculate the odds of the stone that had been dislodged by his foot falling in precisely the right spot to strike the female on the head. Lolth's work, surely.

He shook his head.

Kneeling on the unstable rubble, he rolled the body over to see if she wore a House insignia. She did not, but there was a silver chain around her neck that held a sword-shaped pendant with blunted edges. On the blade was engraved a circle on which a sword was superimposed-the holy symbol of Eilistraee.

The pendant emitted an aura of magic. Q'arlynd nearly left it where it. was, but the mystery of what a priestess of a forbidden faith was doing in Ched Nasad intrigued him. He broke the chain and slipped the pendant into a pocket. It would prove useful, should he ever need to cast doubt on someone's loyalties.