Blades slashed through the archmage’s own potent defensive enchantments, gashing him in a dozen places, though nowhere deep enough to kill. Gromph threw himself flat to duck beneath the disk of flying razors, blinking blood from his eyes as his golem crumbled into worthless black rock.
Dyrr shouted in triumph and leaped forward at the archmage, swinging his adamantine staff with startling speed and swiftness. Gromph yelped in surprise and rolled aside just in time to avoid a two-handed blow that split the marble flagstone right where he’d fallen.
“That does not befit mages of our station!” Gromph howled, scrambling to his feet.
Dyrr didn’t answer. Instead the lich leaped after him, clearing off whole tabletops and bookshelves with great two-handed sweeps of his staff.
Gromph shouted a spell that ripped the lich’s weapon from his grasp, hurling it across the room with such force that the adamantine rod stuck, quivering end first, in the chamber’s wall like a javelin thrown by a giant.
As Dyrr floundered for balance, Gromph took a moment to craft a potent spell defense, a shimmering globe that would completely negate the effects of all but the most powerful of spells. So fortified, he hunted quickly through the various incantations locked in his mind, seeking the most efficacious to employ against the Lord of Agrach Dyrr.
“Ah,” Dyrr remarked, studying the shimmering sphere. “An excellent defense, young Gromph, but not impervious to one of my skill.”
The lich muttered a word of awful power and scuttled forward, his skeletal talons outstretched. Seemingly unconcerned by Gromph’s defensive spell the lich plunged his hand through the dancing globe of color and grasped the archmage by one arm. Gromph shrieked in dismay as the power of the lich’s spell struck full upon him, blasting his defensive globe to motes of winking light and locking his every muscle into an absolute rigidity.
“Gromph Baenre, thou art encysted,” Dyrr intoned, his naked teeth gleamed against the great and terrible blackness within his skull.
The archmage had one long glimpse at the triumphant lich standing over him, then he started to fall. Gromph, unable to move, plummeted straight down through the floor, through the flickering rooms and chambers of Sorcere, through a vast distance into the yawning black rock below the tower, the city, the world. For one terrible instant Gromph felt himself at the bottom of a measureless well, staring up through uncounted miles of darkness at the pinprick figure of his nemesis above. The darkness fell in upon him and smothered him in its embrace.
In the archmage’s chambers in Sorcere, the lich Dyrr stood, looking down at the spot in the floor where he had condemned Gromph Baenre. Had he been a living mage Dyrr might have panted for breath, trembled with fatigue, or perhaps even collapsed from mortal wounds sustained in the fierce duel, but the dark magic binding his undead sinews and bones together was not subject to the weaknesses of the living.
“Bide there a time, young Gromph,” he said to the empty place. “I may find a use for you yet, perhaps in a century or two.”
He made a curt gesture and vanished from the conjury.
The great peals of a thunderclap echoed through the black stone passageways, a rumbling so deep and visceral that Halisstra could feel it more than hear it. She crouched in the shadow of a great stone arch and risked a quick glance across the great hall. On the far side, below the drow party, a handful of hulking monsters picked themselves up off the floor and sought cover. Several more lay still in the rubble and wreckage of the lower portion of the hall.
“That broke their rush,” Halisstra called out to her companions. “They’re regrouping, though.”
“Determined bastards,” Pharaun said.
The wizard sheltered behind a towering pillar of stone, grimacing with fatigue. Over the previous day and a half the company had marched at least thirty miles through the endless corridors of the Labyrinth, pursued at every turn by seemingly endless hordes of minotaurs and baphomet demons. On two occasions the dark elves had narrowly avoided fiendishly clever efforts to trap them by closing off the tunnels they were fleeing through.
“I have few spells of that sort left,” Pharaun said. “We need to find a place where I can rest and ready more spells.”
“You’ll rest when we all do, wizard,” Quenthel growled. The Baenre and her whip were splattered with gore, and her armor showed more than one ugly rent where a deadly blow had barely been turned. “We’re close to the Jaelre. We must be. Let’s move again before the minotaurs organize another charge.”
The other drow exchanged looks, but they pushed themselves to their feet and followed Quenthel and Valas into another passage. This ran for perhaps four hundred yards before opening into another great hall, this one featuring tall, fluted columns and a floor paved with well-fitted flagstones. Graceful, winding staircases rose up along the cavern walls to meet long, sheltered galleries where dim faerie fire burned, illuminating chambers that might once have been workshops, merchant houses, or simply the modest homes of soldiers and artisans.
“Drow work again,” Ryld observed. “And again, abandoned. You’re certain this is the place, Valas?”
The scout nodded wearily, his right hand clamped over a shallow but bloody wound on his left shoulder.
“I have been in this very cavern before,” he replied. “These are Jaelre dwellings. Up there a number of armorers lived, and over on that wall was an inn I stayed at. The palace of the Jaelre nobles lies just through the next passage.”
Quenthel leaped up a short, curving stairway and glanced into some kind of shop, its windows dark and empty. She swore and moved past several others, looking into each in turn before descending back to the floor of the main hall.
“If these are the Jaelre dwellings, then where in all the screaming hells are the Jaelre?” she demanded. “Did the accursed minotaurs slay them all?”
“I doubt it,” Halisstra said. “No battle was fought here—we would have seen the signs. Even if the minotaurs had carried off all the bodies over the years, there would be scorch marks, broken flagstones, the remnants of ruined weapons. I think the Jaelre left this place of their own accord.”
“How long ago was it that you were here, Valas?” asked Ryld.
“Almost fifty years,” the scout said. “Not that long ago, really. The Jaelre skirmished frequently with the minotaurs back then, and these caverns were guarded by both physical and magical defenses.” He studied the great chamber carefully. “Let me proceed ahead a little ways. I will see if I can find anything in the palace that might illuminate this riddle.”
“Should we all go?” Ryld asked.
“Best not. There is only one entrance to the palace, and we could be trapped inside if the minotaurs return in numbers. Remain outside, so that you can escape if you need to. I will return in shortly.”
The scout slipped off into the darkness, leaving the company in the abandoned hall.
“I think I agree with Mistress Melarn,” Ryld said. “It seems the Jaelre carried away everything of value and left this place.”
“A great deal of trouble for nothing, then,” Pharaun remarked. “If there’s anything so disappointing as fruitless toil and hardship, I’m not sure what it is.”
The company stood in silence a moment, each occupied with his own thoughts.
Halisstra ached with exhaustion, her legs as weak as water. She had avoided any serious injury, but on the other hand she had almost completely exhausted her reservoir of magical strength over the past few hours, wielding her bae’qeshel songs to confuse the attacking hordes, strengthen her companions, and staunch the worst of her companions’ wounds.
Jeggred, lurking at the rear of the band near the tunnel leading back to the previous room, broke the silence.
“If the mercenary does not return soon, we will be fighting again,” the draegloth said. “I do not hear the minotaurs behind us any longer, which means they’re probably circling around to come at us from another direction.”
“We’ve taught them not to come at
us down long, straight tunnels, I suppose,” Ryld observed. He studied the Jaelre cavern with a practiced eye. “Best not to let them catch us in the open like this. They might overwhelm us with sheer numbers.”
Danifae asked quietly, “What if this is a dead end?”
“It can’t be,” Quenthel said. “Somewhere in these caverns we’ll discover where it is the Jaelre have fled to, and we will follow. I have come too far to return to Menzoberranzan empty-handed.”
“That’s all very good,” Pharaun said. “However, I feel constrained to point out that we are exhausted and have almost used up our magical strength. Blundering through these halls and corridors until the minotaurs manage to trap and kill us is sheer stupidity. Why don’t we lie low in one of those artisan homes—say, in that gallery over there—and rest until we’re ready to continue? I believe I can conceal our presence from our pursuers.”
Quenthel’s eyes flashed with fire as she said, “We will rest when I see fit. Until then, we keep moving.”
“I do not believe you understand what I am saying—” Pharaun began, rising to his feet and speaking with short, clipped words.
“I do not believe you understand what I am commanding you to do!” Quenthel snapped. She whirled on the wizard and stepped close, her whips writhing in agitation. “You will cease your incessant questioning of my leadership.”
“When you begin to lead intelligently, I will,” Pharaun retorted, his calm demeanor finally cracking. “Now, listen—”
Jeggred rose with a feral snarl and grasped the wizard around the upper arms with his huge fighting claws, pulling him away from Quenthel and hurling him across the floor.
“Show some respect!” the draegloth thundered. “You address High Priestess Quenthel Baenre, Mistress of Arach-Tinilith, Mistress of the Academy, Mistress of Tier Breche, First Sister of House Baenre of Menzoberranzan . . . you insolent dog!”
Pharaun’s eyes flashed as he leaped to his feet. The facade of good humor fell from his face, leaving nothing but cold, perfect malice.
“Never lay a hand on me again,” he said in a deadly hiss.
His hands crooked at his sides, ready to shape awful spells against the draegloth, while Jeggred crouched and made ready to spring.
Quenthel shifted the grip on her scourge and paced closer as the serpent heads curled and darted, striking at the air in their agitation. Ryld set one hand on Splitter’s hilt and watched all three, his face an expressionless mask.
“This is madness,” Halisstra said as she backed away, pointing her crossbow at the floor. “We must cooperate if we want to get out of here alive.”
Quenthel opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to issue the order that would send Jeggred charging at the wizard regardless of the consequences, but at that moment Valas returned, trotting up to the company. The scout came to a halt, taking in the situation with a glance.
“What is going on here?” he asked carefully.
When no one answered, the Bregan D’aerthe looked at each of the company in turn.
“I cannot believe this. Have you not had your fill of fighting in the last forty hours? How can you even consider spending the last of your strength, your magic, your blood, slaughtering each other, when we’ve already fought our way across half of the damned Labyrinth?”
“We are in no mood to be harangued by you, mercenary,” said Quenthel. “Be silent.” She glared at Pharaun, and thrust her whip through her belt. “It serves no purpose to fight each other here.”
“Agreed,” said Pharaun—perhaps the tersest statement the loquacious mage had uttered in the time Halisstra had known him. From some unsuspected well of discipline the wizard mastered his anger and straightened, relaxing his hands. “I will not be handled like a common goblin, though. That I will not bear.”
“And I will not be taunted and baited at every turn,” Quenthel replied. She turned to Valas. “Master Hune, did you find anything in the palace?”
The scout glanced nervously at Quenthel and Pharaun, as did Halisstra and Danifae.
“In fact, I did,” he said. “In the main hall of the palace there is a large portal of some kind. Unless I misread the signs, a large number of people passed through it. I suspect House Jaelre lies somewhere on the other side, in some new abode.”
“Where does the portal lead?” Ryld asked.
Valas shrugged and said, “I have no idea, but there is certainly one way to find out.”
“Fine,” said Quenthel. “We will put your portal to the test at once, before the minotaurs and their demons return. In due time, anywhere will be better than here.”
She let one long glare linger on Pharaun, who finally had the good sense to avert his eyes in what would have to suffice for a bow.
Halisstra let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
chapter
ten
“Now this I did not expect,” remarked Pharaun.
The wizard sighed and sat down on a rock, allowing his pack to drop to the moss-covered ground. The company stood in the mouth of a low cavern looking up at a daylit forest, somewhere on the surface. The Jaelre portal lay a few hundred yards behind them in a damp, winding cavern that led to a large, steep-sided sinkhole with lichen-covered boulders and trickling rills of cold water splashing down from the hillside above.
The day was heavily overcast—in fact, a light rain was falling—and the clouds, coupled with the gloom of the forest, helped to ameliorate the insufferable brightness of the sun. It was not so harshly brilliant a day as they had seen in the cloudless desert of Anauroch a tenday past, but to eyes long accustomed to the utter lightlessness of the Underdark, the diffuse sunlight still seemed as harsh as the glare of a lightning stroke.
“Should we keep moving?” Ryld asked. He’d returned Splitter to its sheath, angled across his broad back, but he held a crossbow at the ready and squinted into the towering green trees. “It won’t take the minotaurs long to figure out where we went.”
“It doesn’t matter if they do,” Pharaun said. “The portal was keyed to function for drow alone. It’s nothing more than a wall of blank stone to our friends in the Labyrinth—a sensible precaution on the part of the Jaelre, I suppose, though had I been in their shoes I believe I would not have ruled out the possibility of attackers of my own race.”
“You’re certain of that?” Quenthel asked.
The wizard nodded and replied, “I was careful to examine the portal before we stepped through. Leaping blindly through portals is a bad habit, and should be reserved only for the gravest of situations, such as escaping imminent death in the destruction of a city. And, before anyone asks, we can still retrace our steps if we wish. The portal functions in both directions.”
“I am not in a hurry to return to the Labyrinth. Better the sunblasted surface than that,” Halisstra murmured.
She picked her way across the floor of the sinkhole, studying the forest overhead. The air was cool, and she noted that the trees nearby were mostly needleleafs of some kind, trees that did not lose their foliage in the wintertime, if she remembered correctly. A number of barren trees of a different sort stood in and among the evergreens, trees with slender white trunks and only a handful of ragged red and brown leaves clinging in an odd clump near the crown. Dead? she wondered. Or merely bare of leaves for the winter months? She’d read many accounts of the World Above, its peoples, its green plants and animals, its changing seasons, but there was a great difference between reading about something and experiencing it firsthand.
“Where on the surface are we?” Quenthel asked.
Valas stared hard at the trees for a long time, and craned his head up to squint at the dimly glowing patch of clouds that hid the sun. He turned in a slow circle to examine the hillside nearby. Finally he knelt and ran his fingers over the soft green mat of mosses clinging to the boulders in the cavern mouth.
“Northern Faerûn,” he said. “It’s early winter, as it should be. You can’t see the sun too well to judge its posi
tion in the sky, but I can certainly feel it, as I suspect we all do. We’re in the same general latitude as the lands above Menzoberranzan—not more than a few hundred miles either north or south, I think.”
“Somewhere in the High Forest, then?” Danifae asked.
“Possibly. I’m not sure the trees look right. I’ve traveled the surface lands near our city, and the foliage looks different from what I remember of the High Forest. We might be some ways distant from Menzoberranzan.”
“Excellent,” muttered Pharaun. “We trek through the Underdark to Ched Nasad, are forced through a portal to the surface hundreds of miles from home, then we trek back down into the Underdark through shadow and peril, only to pass through another portal that takes us back to the surface, perhaps even farther from home. One wonders if we might have simply marched here from Hlaungadath without our pleasant detour through the Plane of Shadow, the delightful hospitality of Gracklstugh, and our lovely little tour of the minotaur-infested Labyrinth.”
“Your spirits must be rebounding, Pharaun,” Ryld observed. “You’ve found your sarcasm again.”
“A sharper weapon than your sword, my friend, and just as devastating when properly employed,” the wizard said. He ran his hands over his torso and winced. “I feel half dead. Every time I turned around, some hulking bull-headed brute was trying to cleave me in two with an axe or pin me to the floor with a spear. Might I trouble you for one of your healing songs, dear lady?” he asked Halisstra.
“Do not repair his injuries,” Quenthel snapped. She still stood with one hand clamped around her torso, blood trickling between her fingers. “No one is mortally injured. Conserve your magic.”
“Now, that is precisely—” Pharaun began again, glaring at Quenthel and climbing to his feet.
“Stop it!” Halisstra snapped. “I have exhausted my songs of power, so it does not matter. When I have recovered my magical strength I will heal all who need it, because it is foolish to press on in our state. Until then, we will have to rely on mundane methods to address your injuries. Danifae, help me dress these wounds.”
R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, Insurrection, Condemnation Page 92