by Лиза Смедман
The flock dived en masse, and four more stirges plunged into her flesh. One bit deeply into her left arm, two into her right leg, and the fourth into her shoulder, beside the one that was already greedily sucking away. Halisstra killed two more with the sword?which, with the air rushing through the holes in its hilt, was making constant, discordant noises like a badly played flute. Halisstra, rapidly losing strength as the stirges drained her of blood, suddenly shivered as she realized she might very well die there. Lolth was no longer watching over her, blessing her with the magic she needed to drive the foul creatures away. The only darksong spell that would affect so many creatures at once required a musical instrument as its arcane focus?and she could hardly pluck out a tune on her lyre and fight at the same time.
Then she realized something. Perhaps there was another instrument she could use, closer to hand. .
Abandoning her attempts to strike the stirges?there were too many of them?Halisstra reversed Seyll's sword and brought its hilt to her lips. Closing her eyes, she blew into the hilt, fingering the holes so the rush of air escaped through a single hole. Even though she sagged to her knees as blood loss weakened her, she felt magic flow from her lips into the hilt of the sword and out through the hole in a piercing blast. Her own ears rang, then went numb as a single note?sweet, high, and impossibly strong?shattered the air. All around her, stirges tumbled from the air as a magic blast hit them. Those on her body wilted, hung for a moment, then slowly slipped free of her flesh, hitting the ground around her with soft thuds.
In the silence that followed, Halisstra could hear only the sound of her own breathing. Opening her eyes, she saw dozens of stirges lying on the ground, some of them still twitching. She picked up the closest one and squeezed it. Its blood?her blood?soaked her gloves as its body burst. Dropping it, she continued from one stirge to the next, killing them one by one. Then she pulled off her blood-soaked gloves and cast them aside.
Perhaps the surface was not a place of beauty, after all.
Then she realized that something had disturbed the stirges?something that was moving through the forest toward the bluff where she stood. Hunkering down, she crept back toward the stairs, looking for a place to hide.
Valas signaled for the party to stop when the tunnel, which had been twisting its way ever deeper toward the Underdark, opened into a jumble of broken stone that led down to a medium-sized cavern whose floor was hidden by a deep pool of water. Pharaun gave a low chuckle, breaking the silence.
"Perfect," he breathed.
Keep quiet, Valas chastised, but Pharaun only laughed.
"It's going to be loud enough in here in just a moment," the mage said with a wink. Then he called back to the others, who were higher in the tunnel, up beyond where Valas could see. "Mistress, I've found a spot that will do nicely. Get Jeggred ready."
Valas heard Quenthel ordering the draegloth to kneel and the sound of a drawn dagger. Pharaun, meanwhile, laid a hand on Valas's shoulder.
"Excuse me," he said. "I need to get by."
Valas still wasn't certain what the mage was doing, but he flattened obediently against the cold stone, allowing Pharaun to squeeze past him into the cavern. Pharaun reached into a pocket of his piwafwi and pulled out a tiny cone of glass. Rolling up his sleeve, he pointed the cone at the water at his feet.
"Chalthinsil!" he cried, his shout filling the cavern.
In that same instant, a cone of bitterly cold air erupted from the glass cone, filling the air with swirling frost. The magical cold struck the pool, instantly turning it to solid ice. Frost continued to roil in the air for a few moments more, coating the walls and ceiling of the cavern with sparkling white ice crystals. Then it vanished, leaving a chill in the air that made Valas shiver.
Pharaun tucked the cone of glass back into his piwafwi.
"Perfect," he said again, staring down at the expanse of ice. "Nice and smooth. Just the thing to draw on." Then he shouted back over his shoulder, "Quenthel. I'm ready."
Behind him, in the tunnel, Valas heard a hiss of anticipation from one of the vipers in Quenthel's whip. A moment later he smelled the tang of freshly spilled blood. Quenthel appeared at the entrance to the cavern, and passed a cup to Pharaun. The mage clambered down the slope, holding the cup so its contents wouldn't spill.
Quenthel and Danifae crowded in behind Valas to peer past him at the cavern. Quenthel snapped her fingers, and Jeggred stalked down the tunnel as well, panting clouds of foul-smelling breath into the ice-cold air. One of his massive fighting hands was clamped around a spot on the wrist of his smaller arm. Blood welled out between the clamped fingers and dripped onto the stone at his feet. A moment later, Ryld joined them, having at last given up his cautious watch over the tunnel behind them.
Pharaun was already out on the ice, moving across it in a skating slide. As the others watched, he pulled out a dagger and traced an enormous hexagonal star onto the surface, carving its lines deep, like troughs. When he was done, he stood a minute, looking for imperfections.
Quenthel frowned down at the mage. "Six sides?" she asked. "Why not a standard pentagram?"
Pharaun shrugged and said, "Anyone can summon a demon with a pentagram. I like to do things with a bit more panache." He moved around the diagram, dribbling the blood from the cup into one of the lines he'd cut in the ice. After a few moments, he raised a hand and beckoned. "Jeggred, come here."
After a quick glance at Quenthel?who nodded her permission?the draegloth loped down toward the pool, dislodging rocks that tumbled down the slope to skitter across the ice. He crossed the frozen surface to the mage and obediently opened his hand, releasing his bloody arm when Pharaun gestured for him to do so. Taking that arm, Pharaun held the cup under the slashed wrist. When it was once again full, he motioned for Jeggred to re-clamp the wound, then continued limning the diagram in blood.
The mage had to repeat the process twice more before the pattern was complete. Despite the loss of blood, the draegloth remained impassive throughout the procedure. When Pharaun at last dismissed him, Jeggred loped up the slope to join the others.
"Now," Pharaun said, cracking his fingers as he stretched, "for the difficult part."
From a pocket, he pulled a candle. He cut it into six pieces, trimming each back to expose the wick. He walked around the star, boring a hole at each of the points and pushing one of the candies into it. Then he stood back and snapped his fingers. Six flames sprang to life as the candles began to burn. Their meager heat magically spread through the blood that had frozen inside the troughs in the ice. The blood melted and began to circulate, pumping through the veins of the hexagram.
Valas squinted as the flickering yellow light disrupted his darkvision. The frosted walls of the cavern picked up the illumination and sparkled like a million tiny diamonds. The candles flickered, their flames guttering slightly to one side. Seeing that, Valas nodded. The cavern wasn't completely a dead end. There must have been some tiny fissure, hidden from view, through which air was circulating.
Standing with his hands extended over the hexagram, Pharaun began to chant. As his words echoed back and forth across the confined space, the candles burned at a terrific rate, melting down to puddles of wax against the ice. Yet still the wicks burned, and as soon as they touched the ice, the color of the flames turned a brilliant blue. The flame pulsed out along the lines of the symbol and, mixing with Jeggred's blood, turned a ghastly, glowing purple.
As Pharaun's chant rose to a crescendo the mage clapped his hands together over his head. The boom of thunder that resulted all but obliterated Valas's gasp and Jeggred's harsh grunt. For an instant, the frigid air in the cavern seemed to wrench itself in two. Through the split, Valas could see the roiling red-black clouds and furnace-hot flames of the Abyss. Then came a roar of utter rage and indignation as an enormous, humanoid figure hurtled through the portal between the planes, staggering as though it had been pushed by an invisible hand. Pharaun, facing it, backed up a step or two on the ice, then recovered
his composure.
"He's done it," Quenthel said.
"So he has," Danifae agreed, and she sounded impressed.
Valas realized that he was gripping his lucky coin amulet and quickly moved his hand to the hilt of his dagger, instead.
The demon?a glabrezu?was nearly three times as tall as a drow and powerfully muscled. It had four arms?two with hands, and two with enormous, snapping pincers?and a doglike head. Its body emitted a stench that smelled like putrid corpses roasting over a sulfur fire. Its skin was so utterly black it was difficult to see its features clearly, save for a truncated snout filled with gnashing yellow fangs and eyes that glowed with penetrating ntensity, as if all the fury of the Abyss swirled within their violet depths.
"You dare summon me?" it roared in a voice that filled the cavern, shaking loose small stones that tumbled down the slope onto the ice. "You dare!"
In what seemed a mockery of the gesture Pharaun had used to summon it, the demon flung its hands above its head. Intensely bright flame erupted between the outspread fingers, filling the cavern with a blinding light. Leering, the demon thrust its hands at Pharaun, sending the flame at him in a horizontal wave.
Instead of washing over Pharaun, the flame was contained by the lines of the hexagram. It licked along the veins of blood, roaring from point to point of the star in a dizzying blur, then gradually began to slow. Rather than melting the ice, the flame seemed to freeze in place. Then it shattered with a tinkling sound, like breaking crystal.
A corner of Pharaun's mouth twitched up into a half-smile.
"Are you quite finished, Belshazu?" he asked dryly.
The demon's eyes narrowed.
"You know my name," it said, its voice dropping to a deep rumble.
"We do," Quenthel said from behind Valas. "And unless you wish to be trapped inside that hexagram for all eternity, you will tell us where we can find a gate that leads from this realm to the Abyss. Tell us that, and the mage will dismiss you."
Belshazu grunted, then dropped to its knees and sniffed at the symbol that bound it. When the demon looked up, its eyes fastened on Jeggred.
"Draegloth blood," it growled. "So that was why the drow bitch mated with me. What was her name? Tral? Tull? No. . Triel." The demon spat a gob of foul-smelling phlegm onto the ice, then added, in a disdainful rumble, "That whore."
It stared past Pharaun at the group of drow above, its violet eyes burning with a terrible challenge that caused Valas to draw his kukris in readiness.
Jeggred returned the demon's growl. Tensing, he hunched into a crouch. Quenthel's hand darted to his back and clenched the draegloth's tangled mane. She jerked Jeggred back just as he was about to spring.
"Stay beside me," she commanded.
Jeggred complied.
Valas heaved a sigh of relief, glad the draegloth hadn't sprung forward to attack his father. Had Jeggred taken a single step across the symbol that had been wrought with his blood, the lines of magical force that bound the demon would have stretched?and snapped. Which was what the demon had obviously intended, all along.
Pharaun cleared his throat, and the demon returned its attention to him.
"Now then," the mage said. "We need to get to the Demonweb Pits. Where's the nearest gate to the Abyss?"
Belshazu bared yellowed fangs in a smile and stared down at Pharaun as if contemplating which of the wizard's limbs to tear from his body first.
"Right here, in this cavern," it rumbled. "Just beneath my feet. Let me show you."
Summoning its magical fire again, the demon directed the flame from its hands downward, onto the ice at its feet. Because the magic was not trying to cross the hexagram itself, the flame took effect. Enormous clouds of steam rose from the melting ice, obscuring the spot where the demon stood. A crater appeared beneath the demon's feet, and as melt water rushed to fill it, Belshazu plunged flaming hands into the water and set it aboil.
Pharaun was leaning forward, intensely curious to see the gate the demon had promised. He reached into a pocket of his piwafwi at the same time. Jeggred was still flexing his claws in barely suppressed anger at the insult to his mother. Danifae and Ryld stood closer to the tunnel entrance, and were talking in rapid sign. Their backs were turned to Valas, making it impossible for him to see what they were saying.
Beside him, Quenthel suddenly tensed.
"Pharaun, stop Belshazu!" she shouted. "He's trying to?"
Her order was lost in a furious hiss of steam and the loud bubbling of boiling water. Valas himself could only hear Quenthel because she stood right beside him. Then he saw what Quenthel was pointing to: the edge of the crater of knee-deep water Belshazu was standing in was crumbling back toward the line of the hexagram. At last awakening to the danger, Pharaun saw it too?but too late.
With a hissing roar, the line of flowing blood tumbled into the boiling water and was gone.
The hexagram was broken.
"Wizard?you are mine!"
Roaring his triumph, Belshazu waded through the boiling water toward Pharaun, eyes blazing violet fury at the mage who had so foolishly dared to attempt to bind him.
Chapter Four
Ryld pulled the bag of sand out of the pocket of his piwafwi and placed it on a ridge in the rock wall at the point where the tunnel forked, then carefully balanced a large stone on top of it. He pulled from his quiver one of the crossbow bolts Halisstra had taken from the surface elves and checked its barbed head for traces of poison. Seeing none, he used it to cut his palm. He smeared blood on the tunnel wall, then snapped the point off the bolt. As he placed the broken bolt on the tunnel floor, he glanced nervously back down the fork that led to the cavern, worried that someone might have heard the sound.
Silence. The noise had been slight, and no one was coming to investigate.
He balled his hand around a rag to staunch the flow of blood, then dropped it to the floor beside the broken crossbow bolt. Then he pulled his portable hole out of a pocket and flipped the folded piece of phase-spider silk open, laying it on the ground just below the sand-filled bag. Carefully, he loosened the bag's drawstrings until just a trickle of sand began to fall from it into the portable hole. Then he hurried back down the steeply sloping corridor to the cavern where the others were.
He'd been worried that Jeggred would smell the fresh blood on his palm, but the draegloth seemed to have been doing a little bloodletting of his own. It was Danifae who stared at him as he returned.
Ryld paid little attention as Pharaun summoned the demon, his mind instead focused on the silent count he'd begun after leaving the bag. He did glance down in alarm, however, when the demon told Pharaun there was a gate to the Abyss directly under the frozen pond. It was obviously a ploy of some kind, but Pharaun didn't question it. Instead, when the demon's hands flared with fire for the second time, Pharaun merely stood and watched, as if curious to see what the demon would do.
Ryld concentrated on his count: fifteen, fourteen, thirteen. . almost time.
"Listen," he said, touching Danifae's arm. "Do you hear that?"
Danifae gave him a suspicious look. Then, from farther up the tunnel, came the sound or a dislodged stone hitting the tunnel floor and rolling toward them. Danifae's eyes widened slightly.
"Someone is?"
Her words were cut off by a violent hiss of steam from the cavern below. Glancing down, Ryld saw that the demon was melting the ice. He opened his mouth to shout a warning?
?then he pursed his lips shut. The demon was Pharaun's problem.
Ryld shifted to sign language, in order to speak over the hissing roar of boiling water.
Whoever it is, I'm going to make them sorry they followed us. Tell Quenthel where I've gone.
You're running off after Halisstra, Danifae accused.
Ryld, startled, was surprised by her bluntness?and by the approval he saw in her eyes. Was she glad that her mistress would have someone to protect her, after all?
No, he told her, determined to keep up his bluff. I'll b
e back. As proof you can keep this.
He pulled the lesser of his two magical rings from his finger and passed it to Danifae, intentionally dropping it. The ring bounced off a rock and began to roll down the slope toward where the others stood. Danifae scrambled after it, trying to grab the ring before Quenthel or one of the others claimed it.
Ryld turned to hurry back the way they had come. He saw Valas shoot him a quick, questioning glance. Then Quenthel shouted a warning to Pharaun. An instant later a roar of triumph filled the cavern. The demon was free.
Ryld was already several paces away, climbing swiftly up the narrow tunnel that had led them to the cavern. Behind him he could hear more roaring, violent splashing, and terrified shouts. An explosive rush of cold air whooshed past him?the blast of a spell. There was no way to tell whether it was one of Pharaun's?or one cast by the demon. Then a male voice screamed in mortal agony. Pharaun's?
For a heartbeat or two, he actually considered turning around. Then he decided against it. Pharaun deserved to know what it felt like not to be able to count on a friend.
He climbed upward, ignoring the sounds of battle behind him until he reached the flattened bag, which he plucked from its ledge. He dropped it into the portable hole, then folded the hole shut. He'd shake it out later when he reached the surface. If the others survived the demon attack and came looking for him, there would be no clues to alert them to the trick he'd played.
Ryld pressed on, retracing the route they'd taken from the surface. He'd taken careful mental notes as they descended, pausing several times to turn around to view landmarks from the opposite direction.
He passed the place where they'd been forced to crawl over a jumble of rock because the ceiling had partially collapsed, then the long, narrow cavern where a trickle of water had encouraged a faintly glowing patch of lichen to grow. Next came the natural chimney that rose more than a hundred paces above and below to dead ends, with several narrow tunnels opening onto it.