“I hope the matron will forgive you your ignorance,” Aunrae said. “You’ve wasted so much magic to no effect.”
The conjured skeletons and stirges began to wink out of existence, leaving a residue of magic energy. The air seemed to tingle and buzz, though if a person stopped and listened, it really wasn’t.
“Is that how you see it?” Greyanna asked.
Aunrae shrugged. “I’m just worried she’ll feel you bungled things, that your hatred of Pharaun made you blind and clumsy. She might even decide someone else is more deserving of the preeminence you currently possess. Of course, I hope not! You know I wish you well. My plan for my future has always been to support you and prosper as your aide.”
“Cousin, your words move me,” Greyanna said as she lifted the staff.
No one could heave such a long, heavy implement into a fighting position without giving the opponent an instant’s warning, so Aunrae was able to come on guard. It didn’t matter. Not bothering to unleash any of the magic within her weapon, wielding it like an ordinary quarterstaff, Greyanna bashed the mace from the younger priestess’s fingers, knocked her flat with a ringing blow to her armored shoulder, and dug the tip of the iron rod into her throat.
“I’d like to confer on one or two matters,” said Greyanna. “Do you have a moment?”
Aunrae made a liquid, strangling sound.
“Excellent. Listen and grow wise. Today’s little fracas was not in vain. It proved that Relonor can locate Pharaun with his divinations. Even more importantly, the battle enabled me to take our brother’s measure. When we track him down again, we’ll crush him. Now, do you see that I have this venture well in hand?”
Deprived of her voice, Aunrae nodded enthusiastically. Her chin bumped against the butt of the staff.
“What a sensible girl you are. You must also bear in mind that we aren’t hunting Pharaun simply for my own personal gratification. It’s for the benefit of all, including yourself. Therefore, this isn’t an ideal time to seek to discredit and supplant one of your betters. It’s a time for us to swallow our mutual distaste and work together until the threat is gone. Do you think you can remember that?”
Aunrae kept nodding. She was shaking, too, and her eyes were wide with terror. Small wonder; she must have been running short of breath. Still, she had the sense not to try to grab the staff and jerk it away from her neck. She knew what would happen if she tried.
Greyanna was tempted to make it happen anyway. Aunrae’s submission was a small pleasure beside the fierce satisfaction that would come from ramming the staff into the helpless female’s windpipe. The urge was a hot tightness in her hands and a throbbing in the scar across her face.
But she needed minions to catch the relative she truly hated, and, annoying as she was, Aunrae was game, and wielded magic with a certain facility. It would be more practical to murder her another day. Greyanna was sure she could manage it whenever she chose. Despite her ambitions, Aunrae was no threat. She lacked the intelligence.
Feeling a strange pang of nostalgia for Sabal, who had at least been a rival worth destroying, Greyanna lifted the staff away from her cousin’s throat.
“You will whisper no poison words in Mother’s ears,” the First Daughter of House Mizzrym said. “For the time being, you will leave off plotting against me or anyone else. You will devote your every thought to finding our truant brother. Otherwise, I’ll put an end to you.”
Ryld had never experienced instantaneous travel before. To his surprise, he was conscious of the instant of teleportation, and he found it rather unpleasant. It didn’t feel as if he were speeding through the world but as if the world were hurtling at and through him, albeit painlessly.
Then it was over. He’d unconsciously braced himself to compensate for the jolt of a sudden stop, and the absence of any such sensation rocked him on his feet.
By the time he recovered his balance, he knew more or less where he was. A whiff of dung told him. He looked around and confirmed the suspicion.
Pharaun had dropped the two of them in a disused sentry post on a natural balcony. The ledge overlooked Donigarten with its moss fields, grove of giant mushrooms, and fungus farms fertilized with night soil from the city. Hordes of orc and goblin slaves either tended the malodorous croplands or speared fish from rafts on the lake, while rothé lowed from the island in the center of the water. Overseers and an armed patrol wandered the fields to keep the thralls in line. Additional guards looked down from other high perches about the cavern wall.
Ryld knew Pharaun had transported them about as far as was possible. In the Realms that See the Sun, teleportation could carry folk around the world, but in the Underdark, the disruptive radiance of certain elements present in the rock limited the range to about half a mile—far enough to throw Greyanna and her pack off the scent.
Pharaun held the pilfered golden ornament up, inspecting it.
“It only holds one teleportation at a time,” he said after a moment. Even after all his exertions, he wasn’t panting as hard as he might have been; not bad for such a sybarite, thought Ryld as he set down his bloody greatsword. “It’s useless now, and I lost my dancing rapier, curse it, but I’m not too disconsol—”
Ryld grabbed Pharaun by the arm and flipped him, laying him down hard.
The wizard blinked, sat up, and brushed a strand of his sculpted hair back into place.
“If you’d told me you craved more fighting,” Pharaun said, “I could have left you behind with my kin.”
“The hunters, you mean,” Ryld growled, “who found us quickly.”
“Well, we asked a fair number of questions in a fair number of places. We even wanted someone to find us, just not that lot.” Pharaun stood back up and brushed at his garments, adding, “Now, I have something extraordinary to tell you.”
“Save it,” Ryld replied. “Back there in the net, when you and Greyanna were chatting, I got the strong impression that the priestesses weren’t just hunting some faceless agent. They knew from the start their target was you, and you knew they knew.”
Pharaun sighed. “I didn’t know the matrons would choose Greyanna to discourage our efforts. That was a somewhat disconcerting surprise. But the rest of it? Yes.”
“How?”
“Gromph has invisible glyphs scribed on the walls of his office. Invisible to most people, anyway. They protect him in various ways. One, a black sigil shaped a little like a bat, is supposed to keep scryers and spellcasters from eavesdropping on his private conversations, but when he and I spoke, it was drawn imperfectly. It still would have balked many a spy, but not someone with the resources and expertise of, oh, say, his sisters . . . or the Council.”
Ryld frowned. “Gromph botched it?”
“Of course not,” Pharaun snorted. “Do you think the Archmage of Menzoberranzan incompetent? He drew it precisely as he wanted it. He knew the high priestesses were trying to spy on him—they surely always have and doubtless always will—and he intended them to overhear.”
“He was setting you up.”
“Now you’re getting it. While the clerics stay busy seeking me, the decoy, my illustrious chief will undertake another, more discreet inquiry undisturbed, by performing divinations and interrogating demons, probably.”
“You knew, and you undertook the mission anyway.”
“Because knowing doesn’t change my fundamental circumstances. If I want to retain my rank and quite possibly my life, I still have to complete the task the archwizard set me, even though he was playing me for a fool, even with Greyanna striving to hinder the process.” Pharaun grinned and added, “Besides, where did all those runaways go, and why do the greatest folk in Menzoberranzan care? It’s a fascinating puzzle, even more so now that I’ve inferred a portion of the answer. Did I leave it unsolved, it would haunt me forevermore.”
“You played me for a fool,” said Ryld. “Granted, you warned me the priestesses might interfere with us, but you greatly understated the danger. You didn’t tel
l me you were marked before we even descended from Tier Breche. Why not? Did you think I’d refuse to accompany you?”
Most uncharacteristically, the glib wizard hesitated. Far below the shelf, a whip snapped and a goblin screamed.
“No,” said Pharaun eventually, “not really. I suppose it’s just that dark elves are jealous of their secrets. So are the nobly born. So are wizards. And I’m all three! Will you pardon me? It isn’t as if you’ve never kept a secret from me.”
“When?”
“During the first three years of our acquaintance, whenever we fraternized, you kept a dagger specially charmed for the killing of mages ever close to your hand. You suspected I was only seeking your company because one of your rivals in Melee-Magthere had engaged me to murder you as soon as the opportunity arose.”
“How did you discover that? Never mind, I suppose it was your silver ring. I didn’t know what it was back then. Anyway, that’s not the same kind of secret.”
“You’re right, it isn’t, and I regret my reticence but I do propose to make up for it by sharing the most astonishing confidence you’ve ever heard.”
Ryld stared into Pharaun’s eyes. “I’ll pardon you. With the understanding that if you withhold any other pertinent information, I’ll knock you over the head and deliver you to your bitch sister myself.”
“Point taken. Shall we sit?” Pharaun pointed to a bench hewn from the limestone wall at the back of the ledge. “My discourse may take a little time, and I daresay we could use a rest after our exertions.”
As he turned away from the molded rock rampart, Ryld noticed that the cracking of the whip had stopped. When he glanced down, two goblins were carrying the corpse of a third, hauling it somewhere to be chopped apart and the pieces turned to some useful purpose. Possibly chow for other thralls.
The fencing teacher sat down and removed a cloth, a whetstone, and a vial of oil from the pockets of his garments. He unfastened his short sword from his belt, pulled on the hilt, and made a little spitting sound of displeasure when the blade, which he had been forced to put away bloody, stuck in the scabbard. He yanked more forcefully, and it came free.
He looked over at Pharaun, who was regarding with him with a sort of quizzical exasperation.
“Talk,” the warrior said. “I can care for my gear and listen at the same time.”
“Is this how you attend to mind-boggling revelations? I suppose I’m lucky you don’t have to use the jakes. All right, here it is . . . Lolth is gone. Well, maybe not gone, but unavailable at least in the sense that it’s no longer possible for her Menzoberranyr clerics to receive spells from her.”
For a moment, Ryld thought he’d misheard the words. “I guess that’s a joke?” he asked. “I’m glad you didn’t make it while we were in the middle of a crowd. There’s no point compounding our crimes with blasphemy.”
“Blasphemy or not, it’s the truth.”
Rag in hand, Ryld scrubbed tacky blood off the short sword.
“What are you suggesting,” the weapons master asked, “another Time of Troubles? Could there be two such upheavals?”
Pharaun grinned and said, “Possibly, but I think not. When the gods were forced to inhabit the mortal world, the arcane forces we wizards command fluctuated unpredictably. One day, we could mold the world like clay. The next, we couldn’t turn ice to water. That isn’t happening now. My powers remain constant as ever, from which I tentatively infer this is not the Time of Troubles come again but a different sort of occurrence.”
“What sort?”
“Oh, am I supposed to know that already? I thought I was doing rather well to detect the occurrence at all.”
“Only if it’s really happening.”
Ryld inspected the point of the short stabbing blade, then took the hone to it. Bemused by Pharaun’s contention, he wondered how his canny friend could credit such a ludicrous idea.
“I want you to think back over the confrontation from which we just emerged,” said the Master of Sorcere. “Did you even once see Greyanna or the other priestess cast divine magic from her own mind and inner strength as opposed to off a scroll or out of some device?”
“I was fighting the skeletons.”
“You keep track of every foe on the battleground. I know you do. So, did you see them casting spells out of their own innate power?”
Ryld thought that of course he had . . . then realized he hadn’t.
“What does that suggest?” Pharaun asked. “They have no spells left in their heads, or only a few, which they’re hoarding desperately because they can’t solicit new ones from their goddess. Lolth has withdrawn her favor from Menzoberranzan, or . . . something.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Would she need a reason—or at any rate, one her mortal children can comprehend? She is a deity of chaos. Perhaps she’s testing us somehow, or else she’s angry and deems us unworthy of her patronage.
“Or, as I suggested before, the cause of her silence, if in fact she is mute when her clerics pray to her and not just uncooperative, may be something else altogether. Perhaps even another happenstance involving all the gods. Since we have only one faith and clergy in Menzoberranzan, it’s difficult to judge.”
“Wait,” Ryld said. He unstoppered his little bottle of oil. The sharp smell provided a welcome counterpoint to the moist stink of the dung fields. “I admit, I didn’t see Greyanna or any of the lesser priestesses working magic, but didn’t you yourself once tell me that in the turmoil of battle, it’s often easier and more reliable to cast your effects from a wand or parchment?”
“I suppose I did. Still, under normal circumstances, would you expect a pair of spellcasters to conjure every single manifestation that way? Just before our exit, I saw Greyanna groping in the ether for a weapon that was slow in coming to her hand. The sister I remember would have said to the Hells with it and dumped some other magic on our heads. That is, unless something had circumscribed her options.”
“I see what you mean,” Ryld conceded, “but when the clerics lost their powers in the Time of Troubles, it destabilized the balance of power among the noble Houses. Those who believed the change made them stronger in relative terms struck hard to supplant their rivals. As far as I can see, that isn’t happening now, just the usual level of controlled enmity.”
He laid the short sword aside and picked up Splitter.
Pharaun nodded and said, “You’ll recall that none of the Houses attempting to exploit the Time of Troubles ultimately profited thereby. To the contrary, the Baenre and others punished them for their temerity. Perhaps the matron mothers took the lesson to heart.”
“So instead of hatching schemes to topple one another, they . . . what? Enlisted every single priestess in a grand conspiracy to conceal their fall from grace? If your mad idea is right, that’s what they must have done.”
“Why is that implausible? Picture the day—a few tendays past?—when they lost the ability to draw power from their goddess. Clerics of Lolth routinely collaborate in magical rituals, so they would have discovered fairly quickly that they were all similarly afflicted. Apprised of the scope of the situation, Triel Baenre, possibly in hurried consultation with our esteemed Mistress Quenthel and the matrons of the Council, might well have decided to conceal the priesthood’s debility and sent the word round in time to keep anyone from blabbing.”
“The word would have to pass pretty damn quickly,” said Ryld, examining Splitter’s edge. As he’d expected, despite all the bone it had just bitten through, it was as preternaturally keen and free of notches and chips as ever.
“Oh, I don’t know,” the wizard said. “If you lost the strength of your arms, would you be eager to announce it, knowing the news would find its way to everyone who’d ever taken a dislike to you? Anyway, since this is the first we’ve learned of the problem, the deception obviously did organize in time.”
“Or else everything is as it always was, and the plot exists only in your imagination.”
> “Oh, it’s real. I’m sure Triel deemed the ruse necessary to make sure no visitor would discern Menzoberranzan’s sudden weakness.” He grinned and added, “And to fix it so we poor males wouldn’t swoon with terror upon learning that our betters had lost a measure of their ability to guide and protect us.”
“Well, it’s an amusing fancy.”
“Fire and glare, you’re a hard boy to convince, and I’ll be cursed if I know why. You’ve already lived through the Time of Troubles, the previous Matron Baenre’s death, and the defeat of Menzoberranzan by a gaggle of wretched dwarves. Why do you assume our world cannot have altered in some fundamental way when you’ve watched it change so many times before? Open your mind, and you’ll see my hypothesis makes sense of all that has puzzled us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Whatever they’re up to, how is it that for the past month an unusual number of males have dared to elope from their families? Because they somehow tumbled to the fact that a priestess’s wrath now constitutes less of a threat.”
“While the clerics,” said Ryld, catching the thread of the argument, “are eager to catch them because they want to know how the males know about the Silence, if we’re going to call it that. Hells, if all those males had the nerve to run away, maybe they even know more about the problem than the females do.”
“Conceivably,” said Pharaun. “The priestesses can’t rule it out until they strap a few of them to torture racks, can they? But they don’t want Gromph involved with capturing the rogues because . . . ?”
“They don’t want him to find out what the runaways know.”
“Very good, apprentice. We’ll make a logician of you yet.”
“Do you think the archmage already knows the divines have lost their magic?”
“I’d bet your left eye on it, but he’s in the same cart as the high priestesses. He posits that the fugitives might know even more.”
R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, Insurrection, Condemnation Page 13