At least Arach-Tinilith was the seat of her power. There, she could deploy a small army of retainers and a hoard of magical devices in her own defense, but those resources hadn’t helped her against the darkness, and she couldn’t help wondering how many hostile visitations a priestess in her condition could hope to survive.
chapter
eight
Greyanna’s henchmen came floating down around her. Two were warriors, one a wizard, and the third was another priestess. All wore the half masks of true seeing, giving them the deceptively foolish look of actors in a pantomime.
Pharaun tried to levitate, but the net was too heavy. He willed his animate rapier into existence. The steel ring vanished from his finger, and the long, slim sword materialized outside the net. The blade started slicing at the thick ropes, but to little effect. A rapier was a thrusting weapon and not suited to sawing. Tensing his muscles against the remorseless pressure of the tightening web, he turned the floating sword around to threaten his fellow representatives of House Mizzrym.
Greyanna laughed. “Is that one little bodkin supposed to hold us all at bay?”
“Possibly not,” said Pharaun, straining to work his fingers closer to one of his pockets. “That’s why I instructed it to kill you first.”
“Did you, now?”
His sister motioned her warriors forward. Twin brothers possessed of the same slightly yellowish hair and deeply cleft chin, they carried pale bone longbows slung over their backs in preference to the more common crossbows.
Greyanna herself remained on her mount and produced a scroll from within her piwafwi. Thanks to his remaining ring, Pharaun could see from the complex corona of magical force shining around the rolled parchment that it contained, among others, a spell to disrupt the other fellow’s magic. Perhaps she intended to use it to render the dancing rapier inert long enough for her minions to break or immobilize it.
The wretched ropes were digging into the wizard’s flesh like knives. He would hardly have been surprised if they drew blood. They were certainly cutting off his circulation and numbing his extremities. Trembling with effort, he shifted his fingers another inch.
“My companion is Ryld Argith,” he said, “a Master of MeleeMagthere. He’s never done anything to you, and you will place yourself in debt to the warriors of the pyramid by killing him.”
Entangled as he was, Pharaun couldn’t even turn his head to look at his friend anymore, but he could hear Ryld grunting and swearing and feel him shaking the net. The swordsman was plainly trying to free himself, but it seemed unlikely that even his extraordinary strength would be enough if he was unable to bring one of his blades to bear, and apparently such was the case.
“I’ve kept tabs on you through the years.” Greyanna said. “I know Master Argith is your most valued comrade. I don’t need him trying to liberate or avenge you. Our mother will handle Melee-Magthere.”
On further inspection, Pharaun observed that the subordinate priestess had readied a scroll as well. That struck him as vaguely odd, but he supposed this was hardly the time to ponder the possible significance.
The warriors were approaching steadily but warily, and not merely, he suspected, because of the hovering rapier. Greyanna could neutralize the weapon, but they feared that Pharaun would work some terrible magic that only required speech, not gestures or a focal object. He was sorry to disappoint them. He did have one or two such spells in his memory but none that could annihilate all five of these unpleasant folk at a single stroke, and he knew that once he conjured some devastating attack, they would abandon any intention of taking him alive for a demise by torture. They would strike back as fast and murderously as possible, and immobilized in the mesh, he would have little hope of defending against their efforts.
“Actually, you ought to think twice about harming either of us,” he said, hoping that further conversation would slow the fighters’ advance, even if only for a moment.
Greyanna chuckled. “Be assured, I’ve thought of it a thousand thousand times.”
“The archmage won’t like it.”
“I’m acting on behalf of the Council. I doubt he’ll deem it politic to retaliate . . . any more than Melee-Magthere will.”
“Well, Gromph won’t sign his name to your cadaver, but someday . . .”
Pharaun’s fingers finally jerked into the pocket and closed around a small but sturdy leather glove. With the net still tightening, it was just as hard to withdraw the article as it had been to reach it. He experimented to see if he could possibly fumble it through the proper mystical pass.
Such a cramped, tiny motion was neither easy nor natural for him. He was accustomed to conjure with a certain flair, making sweeping, dramatic gestures. Yet he had on occasion practiced making the signs as small as possible. It was good for his control and had a few times allowed him to cast a spell without an adversary realizing what he was about. So he had some hope of properly manipulating the glove. If only the web wasn’t so constrictive or his hand so dead and awkward.
“Excuse me,” Greyanna said, then suspended the conversation to read from her scroll.
It was of course divine magic, not arcane, and Pharaun didn’t recognize all the words. The effect, however, was unmistakable. The rapier jerked and fell to the ground with a clank. The masked wizard stepped forward and scooped it up. Pharaun was content at least with the fact that the rapier’s peculiar enchantment would make it impossible for Greyanna’s henchman to turn the weapon on him—at least not for an hour or so.
Pharaun recognized the mage, whose high, wide forehead and small, pointed chin were unmistakable. Pharaun had always thought they made the other mage’s head look like an egg. He was Relonor Vrinn, an able wizard and longtime Mizzrym retainer. He was still wearing his silk sash with the spell foci tucked inside and an eightpointed gold brooch securing it.
Scimitars in hand, the warriors approached the net. Judging from their smiles, they’d decided there was nothing to fear and were looking forward to beating the two prisoners unconscious.
Pharaun was not yet satisfied with his employment of the glove, but he was rather clearly out of time. He would just have to try the pass and see if it worked. He shifted the focus one more time, meanwhile reciting an incantation under his breath.
A giant hand, radiant and translucent, appeared beneath the net. The instantaneous addition of another object lodged inside jerked the mesh even tighter. Pharaun knew the jolt was coming, but he cried out anyway.
The pain only intensified when, responding to the wizard’s unspoken command, the hand hurtled twenty-five feet into the air, carrying the net and its prisoners along. For a moment, Pharaun feared he would black out, but the pressure eased. As he’d hoped, and despite the best sliding, bunching efforts of the web of ropes, his own weight was dragging him free. He shoved and thrashed to speed the process along.
When he was able, he looked over at Ryld. The hulking warrior was wrestling free of the net as well, though he lost hold of Splitter doing it. The greatsword fell point first, narrowly missed plunging through one of the Mizzrym warriors, and stuck pommel up in the smooth stone surface of the street.
“We have to fall,” said Ryld. “If we just float here, they’ll shoot and magic us to pieces.”
“Let’s go,” Pharaun replied.
The masters released their holds and plummeted. One of the soldiers hit Ryld with an arrow, but the missile failed to penetrate his armor. A ball of flame exploded in the air, but Relonor had aimed too high, and the blast only made his targets flinch. Pharaun used his House insignia to slow his descent just a little. He thought that otherwise he’d break his legs.
As a result, he saw Ryld—who possessed a similar levitating talisman, his bearing the sigil of Melee-Magthere—reach the ground a moment ahead of him. The Master of Melee-Magthere tucked into a ball, rolled, sprang up with short sword in hand, and lunged at the soldier who’d loosed the arrow. The masked male leaped backward, dropped his bow, and whipped his scimit
ar out of its scabbard again. While he was so engaged, Ryld yanked Splitter out of the ground.
Pharaun landed. Despite his attempt to cushion the impact, it slammed up his legs and sent him staggering. As he fought to recover his balance, he noticed Relonor swirling his hands in a star-shaped pattern.
As the Master of Sorcere lurched upright, the other mage completed his incantation. A long, angular reptilian thing sprang from the palms of the older drow’s outstretched hands as if they were the doorway to another world. Wreathed in flowing blue flame, the monster charged Pharaun.
Relonor was a gifted mage but no marvel as a tactician. In the excitement of the moment, he’d reflexively cast his favorite spell, and characteristically for a Mizzrym retainer, it was an illusion. He’d forgotten that his foe, born in the same House, might well recognize the sequence of mystic passes. Of course, even if Pharaun hadn’t, his silver ring would have shown him what sort of magic the other male was creating.
He ignored the phantasm and reached into a pocket to snatch a tiny crystal and commence a spell. He ignored the apparition even when it lunged so close he felt the imaginary but searing heat of its halo of flame.
An intense coldness, visible in the fan of drifting ice crystals it instantly created, exploded from his hand. It passed right through the reptile, dissipating the illusion in the process, and washed over Relonor. It painted him with rime, and he fell backward.
Pharaun grinned. Greyanna was a fool to accost him with so few retainers in her train. Didn’t she realize that two masters of Tier Breche were more than equal to the worst that she and her four dolts could do?
The foulwing flapped its batlike wings and hopped closer to the melee. As its legless body pounded down on the ground, Greyanna opened a leather bag and flung a handful of its contents into the air.
The falling motes flared with greenish light when they struck the ground. Each seethed and sparkled upward like a spore instantaneously growing into a fungus. In an instant, a number of animate skeletons stood upon the street. They carried a miscellany of weapons and shields but shared a common purpose. As one, they oriented on the masters and advanced.
Shifting back and forth, Ryld cut the undead creatures down. Pharaun took momentary shelter behind his friend, then the swordsman cried out, staggered, and dropped his guard. The skeletons surged forward, and the twins, who’d been hovering at the periphery of the fight, darted in as well.
Caught by surprise, Pharaun only just had time to conjure a dazzling, crackling fork of lightning. The power held the enemy back for a moment, and Ryld recovered his balance.
“All right?” asked the Master of Sorcere.
“Yes.” Ryld chopped a spear-wielding skeleton’s legs out from under it. “Something was trying to tamper with my mind, but it’s gone now.”
“It won’t stay gone unless I confront the spellcasters.”
Pharaun floated up into the air, beyond the skeletons’ reach, making sure he would have a clear shot at Greyanna and the others. In his absence, the creatures would likely be able to surround Ryld, but that couldn’t be helped.
Surveying the scene, he saw that Relonor was still lying motionless on his back. Positioned beyond the melee, Greyanna and her sister priestess were reading from scrolls.
For a moment, Pharaun’s thoughts exploded into a terrifying madness, but reason quickly reasserted itself. He sucked in a deep breath, trying to quell the residual fear, and a second assault wracked his body. He cried out, and the agony passed. Somehow he’d weathered both spells.
He threw a seething ball of lighting at Greyanna, but it winked out of existence halfway to the target, unmade by the priestess’s defenses. She and the other cleric employed their scrolls again.
A dazzling, searing beam of light erupted from Greyanna’s hand. It slashed across Pharaun’s face, and he closed his eyes just in time to keep it from blinding him. It was painful nonetheless, but his own defenses kept it from burning his face off.
The other priestess flailed at him with a sizzling bolt of lightning. As it was one of his own favorite forces to command, it hardly seemed fair. He stiffened with the shock for a moment or two, and the magic lost its grip on him.
He feared the spasm had cost him precious time. By the time it passed, he thought the priestesses were surely in the process of casting new spells, but when he looked at the lesser of the two she wasn’t creating any magic. She’d dropped her suddenly blank scroll on the ground and was rooting in her leather pouch, presumably for another means of magical attack.
Clasping a bit of coal and a tiny dried eyeball held in a little vial, Pharaun created an effect. Power sighed and rippled through the air, and a mass of darkness appeared around the female’s head, blinding her.
The wizard’s thoughts flew apart once more, then reassembled themselves. He rounded on Greyanna. She was still clutching her scroll, evidently still casting from it. He began to conjure, and she, evidently uncertain of the parchment’s power to protect her, tore open the bag.
It had occurred to Pharaun that the sack might have more spores in it, but he’d assumed they would produce more skeletons. This time, though, the glittering motes burst in midair, swelling into ugly little beasts resembling a cross between a bat and a mosquito.
The stirges swirled around him, jabbing at him with their proboscises, striving to drink his blood. They interfered with the motion of his hands and so spoiled his conjuration. He restored his weight and fell back to the ground, where Ryld, beset by clinking skeletons on all sides, beheaded one with a sudden cut. One of the twins edged toward him but balked when the big male pivoted in his direction.
Pharaun slammed down on the street. Trailing chattering stirges, he sprinted toward the fallen Relonor. A couple skeletons turned to hack at him, but most of them were too intent on killing Ryld to notice him. Up close, the things stank. Pharaun thought they must still have some scraps of rotting flesh about them somewhere.
Just as he reached the unconscious wizard, Greyanna’s foulwing landed on the other side of the body with a ground-shaking thump. Pharaun roared out a painfully loud magical shout, and the beast recoiled, carrying its rider with it.
Pharaun stooped, ripped the brooch off Relonor’s sash, turned, and ran. Greyanna screamed in rage. The foulwing roared its strange double roar, and two sets of jaws clashed shut behind the fleeing male.
A stirge’s proboscis jabbed him in the back, staggering him, but was unable to penetrate his piwafwi. Another spell rattled his mind but with no permanent ill effects. A skeleton appeared on his flank, swinging a notched, rusty axe at his head. Splitter flashed in an arc and smashed the undead thing into tiny pieces.
Pharaun caught hold of the hem of Ryld’s piwafwi and glanced around at Greyanna.
Her face a mask of fury, she tossed away her scroll, which was likely blank, and held her hands high to receive the long staff materializing from some extradimensional storage. He could see why she wanted the instrument. It blazed with mystic power, but it was also slow in attaining tangibility. Some chance interaction of the magical energies playing about the battleground was retarding its transition to the physical plane.
Why, then, didn’t she leave off summoning it and attack in some other manner? Why—
In a flash of inspiration, the answer came to him, and it was astonishing.
But he was scarcely in a place conducive to contemplation of his discovery, and it was time to remedy that. He peered at the brooch he’d taken from Relonor, found the trigger word implicit in the kaleidoscopic pattern shining around it, and spoke.
Greyanna regarded the open space in the middle of the ring of aimlessly milling skeletons, and the stirges swooping and wheeling above. A moment before, Pharaun and his hulking accomplice had been standing there, but they were gone. If her eyes had not deceived her, her brother had flashed her that old familiar mocking grin as he vanished. How dare he smirk at her like that when it was she who had driven him from House Mizzrym!
She regarded
her iron staff, taller than she was, square in crosssection, graven with hundreds of tiny runes, and warm as blood to the touch. The weapon had failed her. She trembled with the impulse to swing it over her head and smash it against the stone beneath her feet until it was defaced, deformed, and useless.
She didn’t, because she knew Pharaun’s escape was really her fault, not the staff’s. She should have summoned the weapon sooner. She should have been more aggressive with the sack. Damn this degrading and inexplicable season! Because of its vicissitudes, her mother had instructed her to play the miser with every personal resource, even though she was fighting for the welfare of House Mizzrym and all Menzoberranzan.
Well, she wouldn’t make the same mistake next time. It was her responsibility to look after her troops and return them to the castle. She dismounted, squared her shoulders, put on a calm, commanding expression, and proceeded with the business at hand.
Neither of the twins were hurt, and her cousin Aunrae merely needed the ball of darkness around her head dispelled. It was Relonor who concerned Greyanna, but fortunately the mage was still alive. A healing potion mended him sufficiently to stand, clutching his sash so it wouldn’t slip off and shrugging out of his ice-encrusted cloak.
While the twins helped Relonor hobble about and so restore his circulation, Aunrae came sidling up to Greyanna. To her cousin’s admittedly jaundiced eye, in Aunrae the usual Mizzrym tendency to leanness had run to a grotesque extreme. The younger female resembled a stick insect.
“My commiseration on your failure,” Aunrae said.
Her expression was grave, but she wasn’t really trying to hide the smile lurking underneath.
“I didn’t realize just how powerful Pharaun has become,” Greyanna admitted. “Before his exile, he was quite competent but nothing extraordinary. It was his cunning that made him so dangerous. I see that all the decades in Tier Breche have turned him into one of the most formidable wizards in the city. That complicates things, but I’ll manage.”
R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, Insurrection, Condemnation Page 12