Dissolution

by Richard Lee Byers

Chapter Twenty-Two

 

  Pharaun couldfloat down a thousand feet, or he could fall, relying onlevitation to slow his descent at the end. The latter course was dangerous. If he waited too long to counteract the pull of gravity, he would break bones or even pulp himself when he landed.

  Still, he chose to plummet, because of what he saw beneath him.

  He'd lost track of time inside the rogues' citadel, but it was plain that the Call had gone forth around the black death of Narbondel, when most dark elves had gone home for the night. With few drow about to contest them for possession of the streets, the undercreatures had erupted from their kennels to kill, loot, and destroy. Pharaun couldn't make out individuals, but he could see the mobs as great surging, formless masses like the living jellies that infested certain caverns, and he could certainly see the fires they were setting. He could smell the strange, foul smoke of burning stone, and he could hear the goblins shouting.

  Perhaps the embattled commoners looked to the noble Houses for succor. If so, they waited in vain. Sorcerous power flashed white and red from the windows and baileys of the stalactite castles as the nobles struggled with their own rebellious slave soldiers. For the time being, at least, the drow were pinned down, unable to brace the marauders outside their own walls.

  A house was growing larger and larger beneath Pharaun's boots. He made himself lighter than air but still slammed down hard. The impact knocked the wind and the sense out of him, and when his wits returned, he was bouncing upward again.

  Restoring a portion of his weight, he achieved a more graceful landing, flattened himself against the roof, and peered about. The goblins weren't running amok in his immediate vicinity - not yet - so he jumped down onto the street. Glad the Bazaar was just three blocks away, he dashed in that direction.

  He'd almost reached his destination when a motley assortment of scaly little kobolds, pig-faced orcs, and shaggy, hulking bugbears surged from an alley. So far, the revolt was going well for them. They'd manage to fay their hands on spears, swords, and axes, and bloody them, too.

  Pharaun ran even faster. A javelin flew past him, but the thralls didn't chase him. Evidently they were more interested in other prey.

  When the wizard reached the marketplace, he cursed, for the riot had arrived there ahead of him. Undercreatures were looting and burning the stalls, creating patches of dazzling glare. Some of the merchants had fled. Others attempted to defend their wares, unsuccessfully if they relied on goblin underlings for assistance.

  Pharaun skirted the edge of the Bazaar, witnessing scenes of carnage as he skulked along. Laughing, a goblin flogged his master's corpse with a scourge. A bugbear used her manacles to strangle a merchant. Trapped in a blazing stone pen, riding lizards hissed and scuttled back and forth in fear.

  The first stall Pharaun had hoped to find intact was burning merrily, and the second was crawling with gnolls, growling, whining, and barking as they pawed through the vendor's goods. The Master of Sorcere knew of only one more possibility on the perimeter of the Bazaar. Should that one be lost to him as well, he would either have to venture deeper into the burning, orc-infested maze of stalls or conceive another plan.

  Warty, bearded ogres overturned a twelve-wheeled wagon, dumping out the dark elves who'd been making a stand inside. A walking mushroom, taller than any of the brutes, and, with its slender, fluted stem, far more graceful, swung wide to avoid the little massacre.

  Pharaun slipped around the slaughter as well. A few more strides brought him to a scene that, after the carnage he'd just witnessed, seemed almost unreal. The westernmost portion of the marketplace was quiet. Some of the merchants had armed themselves and taken up positions outside their tents and kiosks, but they seemed calm and unafraid.

  Over the course of an adventurous life, Pharaun hadwitnessed the same phenomenon before. Under the proper circumstances, it was possible for folk to remain essentially oblivious to a pitched battle raging just a few yards away.

  The wizard ran on. Ahead, a luminous green circle scribed on the ground surrounded a commodious stall built of hardened fungus. A heavyset male stood in the doorway with an arbalest in his hand and a toad,

  his familiar, squatting on his shoulder. He wore a nightshirt, and his feet were bare. The merchant scowled when he spotted Pharaun.

  "Stay back," he said, his throaty voice even deeper than Ryld's.

  Pharaun halted, took a breath, and wound up coughing, thanks to the smoke fouling the air.

  "My dear master Blundyth, is that any way to greet a faithful customer?"

  "It's the way to greet the madman who attacked a patrol only yesterday. "

  That was right, Pharaun thought, it had been only yesterday. So much had happened since, it felt like a year.

  "My past indiscretions no longer matter," the Mizzrym said. "Do you have any notion what's going on?"

  "You mean the smoke and commotion over yonder?" Blundyth nodded to the cast. "I guess a merchant's eliminating the competition. It'snothing to do with me, though I'm ready if trouble spills this way. "

  "Would that were true," said Pharaun. "Alas, none of us is truly ready for tonight. Have you glanced up over the roof of your shop?"

  He pointed to the orange light presently flickering in the east.

  "The nobles are up to something," Blundyth said. "Maybe some of the Houses have joined forces to wipe out a common rival. Again, it's nothing to do with me. "

  "You're mistaken. All across the city, the undercreatures are rebelling. "

  Blundyth snorted, "Youare mad. "

  "Don't you or your neighbors own thralls?"

  "Of course. They're off somewhere. "

  "Indeed. Off preparing to cut your throats. "

  "Just go away, Master Mizzrym. " Blundyth shifted his grip on the staff and added, "We always got along. Don't make me hurt you. "

  "The orcs pose a considerable threat. I know how to oppose it, but I need your help. I still have credit here, don't I?"

  "I don't sell to outlaws. I don't want any trouble with the priestesses. "

  Pharaun looked Into the merchant's eyes and saw that he'd never convince him.

  "Too had. You'll regret this decision. In just a few minutes, most likely, but by then it will be too late. "

  The master turned and strode away, bur once he was out of Blundyth's sight, he circled back around. Creeping through the cramped spaces between the booths, he approached the burly drow's stall from the side. As he skulked along, he listened to hear if the undercreatures were coming closer, but he couldn't tell. He suspected that one of the cursed sound baffles was muffling the noise.

  At any rate, he reached the dimpled fungal structure without any orcs attacking him. He swept his hands through a mystic pass and whispered an incantation. The protective circle of light winked out of existence.

  Pharaun ran to the stall, floated upward, and swung himself onto the roof. The petrified fungus supported him like stone. Blundyth cursed and came stalking around the side of the stand, his crossbow at the ready. Pharaun thought he'd better make sure the merchant didn't get a chance to use it.

  The wizard jumped off the roof onto Blundyth's back. He knew he hadn't executed the move as nimbly as poor Ryld would have, but it worked. It slammed the merchant to his knees. The toad hopped away.

  Clinging to his victim, the master drove his dirk repeatedly into the big male's side. Sometimes the blade plunged deep, and sometimes it caught on a rib. Blundyth flailed and bucked for a while, couldn't break free, then tried to aim the arbalest back over his shoulder. Pharaun ducked away from it. Finally the merchant fell sideways, pinning his attacker's knife and hand beneath him.

  Pharaun dragged his hand free, but didn't bother with the dirk. He was about to procure a set of vastly superior weapons. He wiped his bloody fingers on Blundyth's clothing, then rose and headed for the entrance to the stall.

  Blundyth's neighbors watched him, but didn't interfere. As the dea
d male might have observed, his murder was nothing to do with them.

  The wizard's supply shop was as well-stocked as usual. Jars, bottles, and boxes stood on limestone shelves, and a greenish mirror glowed on a wooden stand in the corner. The air smelled of spices, herbs, bitter incense, and decay.

  Blundyth'spiwafwi lay carelessly draped across a chest, and it was the first item Pharaun appropriated. The cloak fit him like a tent, but it had the customary row upon row of hidden pockets. Next he examined the vials and drawers, finding the magical components that corresponded to the spells he had prepared. With every one he filched, he felt a little better, almost like a cripple regaining the use of his legs.

  As he worked his way across the room, he spotted a pair of boots sitting atop a little cupboard. They were plainly special in some way, for the maker had tooled runes into the leather. Without his silver ring, Pharaun lacked the ability to instantly discern what virtues they possessed, but playing a hunch, he decided to take the time to try them on.

  The boots squirmed, molding themselves to his feet, then quivered against his flesh like an animal eager to run. He took an experimental step, and the magical footwear kicked off on its own, augmenting the strength of his legs and propelling him all the way across the shop in a single bound.

  Not bad, he thought. Not as good as a flying carpet, but helpful nonetheless.

  He took a few more strides, getting the feel of the boots, then headed out. Just as he exited the shop, a howling, shrieking cacophony exploded out of the air. An instant later, a horde of undercreatures - orcs, mostly, with asprinkling of long-armed goblins - came charging out of the stands of stalls and kiosks to the east.

  Blundyth's neighbors gaped in utter astonishment. For some, the instant of consternation was fatal. The undercreatures swarmed over them like ants harvesting the carcass of a mouse.

  Some of the remaining merchants bolted. Others shot their hand crossbows, or conjured flashes of magic. One optimist sought to cow the rebels with threats, invective, and commands until a scrofulous orc, slopping the liquid out of a tin bucket, threw some of Syrzan's liquid fire on him. The incendiary ignited flesh as easily as stone.

  His great blanket of apiwafwiflapping around him, Pharaun ran. Each amplified stride bounced him off the ground, but thanks to the virtues of the magic boots, he alwayslanded softly.

  A pair of orcs glared at him and hefted their spears. He whispered an incantation, and a ragged blackness, the essence of death itself, danced among the undercreatures. They collapsed, already rotting.

  For the moment at least, Pharaun was in the clear. He raced on, while all around him, his city went down in blood and fire.

  "You must know some song, some magic, to track an enemy," Houndaer said.

  "If I did, I'd be singing it," Omraeth said curtly. "Now be quiet. If the masters hear us coming, they'll do their best to evade us. "

  "He's right," said Tsabrak, scuttling along on his eight segmented legs. "Shut up, or we'll never get this done. "

  Houndaer was wearing Ryld Argith's greatsword strapped across his back, and for an instant he fairly quivered with the urge to try it out on his companions. He wasn't used to such insolence, not from other males, and certainly not from a degraded creature like a drider.

  Yet he restrained himself, because he needed them. He prayed he'd be the one to catch up with the fugitives, who'd made him look a fool in the eyes of the other renegades, but he knew he couldn't kill both of them by himself.

  Tsabrak raised his hand and whispered, "Wait!"

  "What is it?" Houndaer asked.

  Instead of replying, the half-spider started taking deep breaths. His nostrils flared. He turned this way and that, then crouched down to sniff along the floor. His front legs bent, and his arachnid lower body tilted like a tray to bring his dark elf head down.

  "Did you pick up the scent?" Houndaer asked.

  He felt an upswelling of excitement, and made a conscious effort to quell it. He didn't doubt that Tsabrak smelled something pertinent, but over the course of the last hour, the brute, whose metamorphosis had evidently altered his perceptions, had picked up the trail several times only to lose it again.

  "Follow me," said Tsabrak,nocking an arrow.

  The drider led his companions to the arched entrance to a training hall, where target mannequins stood in shrouds of spiderweb and a tally board hung on the left-hand wall. Over the years, the chalk had lost most of its phosphorescence, but Houndaer could still read the score of a fencing bout in faintly gleaming ciphers.

  Peer as he might, however, he could see no sign of Masters Argith and Mizzrym. He gave Tsabrak a questioning and somewhat impatient glance. The drider responded by pointing at the floor.

  When a proud noble family had held the castle, a workman in their employ had painted the floor with pistes and dueling circles. Like the chalk, the magical enamel still radiated a trace of light. At one spot, a spatter of blood was occluding it.

  Houndaer's pulse ticked faster. He looked up at the drider and mouthed, "Where?"

  Tsabrak led them toward the tiers of seats on the right. The noble noticed for the first time that a space separated the sculpted calcite risers and the wall.

  Elsewhere in the castle, one hunter shouted to another.

  Relax, thought Houndaer. It's my kill.

  He held his breath as he and his underlings - for that they were, even if they, by virtue of belonging to the conspiracy, imagined otherwise - peeked around the edge of the steps. Master Argith was sitting cross-legged a few yards down the aisle.

  The Tuin'Tarl instantly pointed his crossbow. Indeed, he nearly pulled the trigger before he took in all the details of the scene. His former teacher sat motionless, his eyes shut. To all appearances, he was unconscious, or in any case oblivious to the advent of his foes. Master Mizzrym was nowhere to be seen.

  Ryld's passivity left Houndaer unsure as to the best course of action.

  Should he and his minions summarily dispatch the spy or seize the opportunity to take him prisoner? If the weapons master was dead, he couldn't tell them what had become of his partner.

  Thenthe noble realized that while he'd stood pondering the matter, Tsabrak had drawn back his bow string and sighted down the arrow. Houndaer lifted a hand to signal him to desist, then thought better of it. Master Argith was a superb warrior even by the standards of Melee-Magthere. That was why, when a student, the Tuin'Tarl had admired him so, and had been so eager to recruit him. Perhaps it would be wiser to kill him while they had the chance.

  Besides, Houndaer was reluctant to risk the vexation of giving Tsabrak an order and having it ignored.

  He lifted his hand crossbow. He and the drider took their time aiming, and why not? Ryld was still unaware of them.

  Tsabrak released the string, and Houndaer pulled the trigger. The shafts leaped at the still-motionless weapons master. The noble had no doubt the two missiles would suffice. They were flying true, and the heads were poisoned. It was strange and vaguely unsatisfying to dispatch a master of war so easily, as if it was vengeance on the cheap.

  Then, when surely it was too late to react, Ryld moved. He twitched himself out of the way of the crossbow quarrel and caught the hurtling arrow in his hand.

  Swiftly, yet somehow without the appearance of haste, the weapons master flowed to his feet and advanced. His bloody thigh didn't hinder him in the slightest. His face and eyes were empty, like those of a medium awaiting communion with the dead.

  His voice pitched deep, Omraeth sang a quick rhymed couplet. Power glittered through the air. Evidently the spell was supposed to afflict Ryld, but as far as Houndaer could observe, it didn't. The huge male just kept coming. Tsabrak loosed another arrow, and the teacher slapped it out of the air with his broadsword.

  Tsabrak and Houndaer dropped their bows and drew their swords. The drider spat poison on his blade. They'd engage Ryld while he was still in the cramped space behind the seats with no room t
o maneuver. Omraeth took up a position behind his comrades, where he could augment their efforts with bardic magic.

  Houndaer felt a pang of fright and willed the feeling away. He had nothing to fear. It was three against one, wasn't it, and the one had no mail. Indeed, by the look of him, he might not even have any wits.

  Except that then he proved he did. Ryld touched the vertical surface that was the back of the steps. He summoned darkness, blinding his foes.

  Houndaer hacked madly, and sensed Tsabrak doing the same. Darkness or no, when the spy lunged forward, they'd cut him to pieces. Their swords split nothing but air.

  After a few seconds, Omraeth shouted, "Come back this way! Now!"

  Houndaer and Tsabrak turned and blundered their way toward the sound of their comrade's voice. The drider's envenomed sword bumped the Tuin'Tarl's arm, but fortunately without sufficient force to penetrate his armor andpiwafwi.

  When Houndaer stumbled out of the murk, Master Argith was in the center of the salle. Under the cover of darkness, he'd made it to the top of the steps and bounded down the other side. He had a good chance of reaching the exit unchecked.

  He didn't take it, though. Standing in the center of one of the faintly luminous circles, he settled into a fighting stance. He hadn't scrambled over the steps to flee, rather to reach a battleground more to his liking.

  Houndaer swallowed away a dryness in his mouth. Ryld hadn't the sense to run? Well, good. Then they'd kill him.

  The noble and drider fanned out to come at the Master of Melee-Magthere from opposite sides. Omraeth hung back and commenced another song.

  Advancing to meet his adversaries, Master Argith glided through the first of three moves - parry, feint high, slash low - of one of the broadsword katas he'd taught Houndaer back on Tier Breche. The noble discerned an instant too late that the purpose was to distract attention from the crossbow in the weapons master's other hand. The dart plunged into Omraeth's throat, ending his song in an ugly gurgle and

  dissipating the charged heaviness of arcane force accumulating in the air. The spellsinger fell backward, and it was two to one.

  Houndaer told himself it didn't matter. Not when he was wielding Ryld's own greatsword, a weapon that could supposedly shear through anything, and Tsabrak's blade was dripping poison. They only needed to land one light little cut to incapacitate their foe.

  Ryld gave ground before them. Houndaer assumed he wanted to put his back against the wall, so neither of his opponents could get behind him, but with an agility astonishing in so massive a fighter, Ryld changed direction. In the blink of an eye, he was driving forward instead of back, plunging at the half-spider on his left.

  Startled, Houndaer faltered, then scrambled toward Ryld and the drider. It would take him a few heartbeats to close the distance.

  In that time, Ryld charged in on Tsabrak's right, the side opposite the creature's sword arm. A drider's spidery lower half was sufficiently massive that, like a mounted warrior, he had difficulty striking or parrying across his torso.

  Tsabrak slashed at the weapons master's head. The stroke was poorly aimed, and Ryld didn't bother to duck or parry, simply concentrated on his own attack.

  Tsabrak made a desperate effort to heave himself aside. Still, Ryld's broadsword crunched through the top of one of the drider's chitinous legs. Tsabrak cried out and lurched off-balance.

  Stepping, Ryld whirled his weapon around for what would surely be the coup de grace. Houndaer shouted a war cry, ran a final stride, and swung the greatsword. He wasn't in a proper stance, and the stroke was a clumsy one, but it sufficed to drive the weapons master back. Ryld knew better than anyone how deadly was that enormous blade.

  As soon as the stroke whizzed past, the master advanced with a thrust to the chest. Houndaer wrenched the greatsword around for a parry. It should have been impossible to bring such a huge weapon about so quickly, but it seemed to grow as light as a roll of parchment in his hands. Ryld's broadsword caught on one of the hooks just above the leather-girt ricasso.

  Ryld retreated, snatching his weapon free. Houndaer shifted the greatsword into a middle guard, and Tsabrak hobbled up beside him. The drider's face twisted in pain, and pungent fluid spattered rhythmically from his wound.

  Ryld continued to back away. The rogues spread out again, though not so widely as before. Tsabrak began to make a soft whining sound in the back of his throat.

  Then, seemingly without any windup, just a sudden extension of his arm, Ryld threw his sword. Though the weapon wasn't intended for such an action, it streaked through the air as straight and sure as an arrow. The point plunged into Tsabrak's chest.

  The drider's eyes widened. He coughed blood, then flopped forward at the waist, dropping his sword. His spider half, slower to die than the upper portion, continued to limp forward.

  It was all right, though, because Ryld had no melee weapon save for a dagger, which would surely be of little use against a blade as long as the greatsword. Houndaer rushed in to deliver the finishing stroke.

  "Tuin'Tarl!"he screamed.

  His face still as blank as a zombies, the weapons master dodged to the side.

  Houndaer turned, following the target, and saw that Ryld had ducked behind one of a row of wooden mannequins. Up close, the crudely carved dummies were oddly disquieting figures, smirking identical smiles despite their countless stigmata of dents and gashes.

  Ryld stood poised, waiting, andHoundaer discerned the spy's intent. When his adversary lunged around one side of the dummy, the master would circle in the opposite direction, thus maintaining a barrier between them.

  Houndaer saw no reason to play that game, not if his new sword was as keen as it was supposed to be. He brought the blade around in a low arc. It tore away the mannequin with scarcely a jolt, depriving Ryld of his pitiful protection.

  Unfortunately, the weapons master sprang forward at the very same instant, before Houndaer could pull the greatsword back for another cut. Ryld slashed at the noble's throat.

  Houndaer frantically wrenched himself back, interposing his weapon between himself and the spy, before recognizing that the cut had been more of a feint than anything else. Ryld had tricked him into assuming a completely defensive attitude, then seized the opportunity to dash past him. Houndaer cut at the master's back but only managed to tear his billowing cloak.

  The Tuin'Tarl gave chase, and Tsabrak, dying or dead but still mindlessly ambulatory, staggered into his path. Houndaer shouted in frustration and cut the drider down.

  When the hybrid fell, the noble could see what was happening behind him. Ryld had reached Tsabrak's fallen sword. Heedless of the venom drying on the blade, the teacher slipped his toe under the weapon, flipped it into the air, and caught it neatly by the hilt. His expression as unfathomable as ever, he came on guard and advanced.

  I can still kill him, Houndaer thought, I still have the reach on him.

  Aloud, he shouted, "Here! I've got one of the masters here!"

  Ryld stepped to the verge of the distance, then hovered there. Confident in his ability to defend, he wanted Houndaer to strike at him. A fencer couldn't attack without opening himself up.

  At first, the noble declined to oblige. He intended to wait his opponent out. Ryld beat his blade.

  The clanging impact startled a response out of him, but at least it was a composed attack. Feint to the chest, feint to the flank, cut low and hack the opponent's legs out from underneath him.

  Even as he flowed into the final count, he remembered Ryld teaching him the sequence, and sure enough, the instructor wasn't fooled. He parried the genuine low-line attack, then riposted to Houndaer's wrist. The broadsword bit through his gauntlet and into the flesh beneath.

  Ryld pulled his weapon free in a spatter of gore. He drove deeper, cutting at Houndaer's torso. The Tuin'Tarl floundered backward out of the distance, meanwhile heaving the greatsword back into a threatening position.

  His bloody wrist throbbed, and
the huge blade trembled. It was brutally hard to hold it up, its enchantments notwithstanding. He choked up on it, his weakened hand clutching the ricasso, but that only helped a little. He listened for the sound of another party of rogues rushing to his aid. He didn't hear it.

  "Well done, Master Argith!" Houndaer declared. "I declare myself beaten. I yield. "

  Ryld stalked forward, broadsword at the ready.

  "Please!" said the Tuin'Tarl. "We always got along, didn't we? I was one of your most dutiful students, and I can help you get out of here. "

  The teacher kept coming, and Houndaer saw that his face wasn't empty or expressionless after all. It might be devoid of emotion, but it revealed a preternatural, almost demonic concentration, focused entirely on slaughter.

  Houndaer saw his own inescapable death there, and, suffused with a strange calm, he lowered the greatsword. Ryld's blade sheared into his chest an instant later.

  The echoing metallic crash startled Quenthel. It was well that she'd spent a lifetime learning self control, for otherwise, she might have cried out in dismay.

  She and her squad were patrolling the temple. After the events of the past four nights it would have been mad to relax their vigilance, but as the hours had crept uneventfully by, her troops began to speculate that the siege was over. After all, it was supposed to be. The bone wand had supposedly turned the malignancy of the past night's sending back on she who cast the curse.

  Yet Quenthel had found she wasn't quite ready to share in the general optimism. Yes, she'd turned an attack back on its source, but that didn't necessarily mean her faceless enemy had succumbed to the demon's attentions. The spellcaster could have survived, and if so, she could keep right on dispatching her unearthly assassins.

  From the sound of it, another such had just broken in, and Quenthel didn't have another little bone wand.

  For a moment, the Baenre felt a surge of fear, perhaps even despair, and she swallowed it down.

  "Follow me," she snapped.

  Perhaps her subordinates would prove of some use for a change.

  Their tread silent in their enchanted boots, the priestesses trotted in the direction of the noise. Greenish torchlight splashed their shadows on the walls. Parchment rattled as one novice fumbled open a scroll. Female voices began to shout. Power reddened the air for an instant and brushed a gritty, pricking feeling across the priestesses' skin.

  "It's not a demon," said Yngoth, twisting up from the whip handle to place his eyes on a level with Quenthel's own. Her stride made his scaly wedge of a head bob up and down.

  "No?" she asked. "Has my enemy come to continue our duel in person?"

  She hoped so. Withher minions at her back, Quenthel would have a good chance of crushing the arrogant fool.

  But alas, it wasn't so. Her course led her to the entry hall with the spider statues. The poor battered valves hung breached and crooked once again. This time the culprit was a huge, disembodied, luminous hand, floating open with fingers up as if signaling someone to halt. A lanky male in a baggy cloak had taken shelter behind the translucent manifestation from the spears and arrows that several priestesses were sending his way.

  Quenthel sighed, because she knew the lunatic, and he couldn't possibly be her unknown foe. By all accounts, he'd been too busy down in the city the past few days.

  She gestured with the whip, terminating the barrage of missiles.

  "Master Mizzrym," she called. "You compound your crimes by breaking in where no male may come unbidden. "

  Pharaun bent low in obeisance. He looked winded, and, most peculiarly for such a notorious dandy, disheveled.

  "Mistress, I beg your pardon, but I must confer with you. Time is of the essence. "

  "I have little to say to you except to condemn you as the archmage should have done. "

  "Kill me if you must. " The giant hand winked out of existence and he continued, "Given my recent peccadilloes, I half expected it. But hear my message first. The undercreatures are rebelling. "

  Quenthel narrowed her eyes and asked, "The archmage sent you here with this news?"

  "Alas," the mage replied, "I was unable to locate him but knew this was something that must be brought to the attention of the most senior members of the Academy. I realize no one ever dreamed it could happen, but it has. Walk to the verge of the plateau with me, and you'll see. "

  The Baenre frowned. Pharaun's manner was too presumptuous by half, yet something in it commanded attention.

  "Very well," she said, "but if this is some sort of demented jest, you'll suffer for it. "

  "Mistress," Minolin said, "he may want to lead you into - "

  Quenthel silenced the fool with a cold stare, then turned back to Pharaun.

  "Lead on, Master of Sorcere. "

  In point of fact, the high priestess didn't have to walk all the way to the drop-off to tell that something was badly wrong in the city below. The wavering yellow glare of firelight and a foul smoky tang in the air alerted her as soon as she stepped outside the spider-shaped temple. Heedless of her dignity, she sprinted for the edge, and Pharaun scrambled to keep up with her.

  Below her, portions of Menzoberranzan - portions of thestone, how could that be? - were in flames. Impossibly, even the Great Mound of the Baenre sprouted a tuft of flame at its highest point, like a tassel on a hat. Once Quenthel's eyes adjusted to the dazzling brightness, she could vaguely make out the mobs rampaging through the streets and plazas.

  "You see," said Pharaun, "that's why I ran halfway across the city, dodging marauders at every turn, to reach you, my lady. If I may say so, the situation's even worse than it may look. By and large, the nobles haven't even begun reclaiming the streets. They're bogged down on their estates fighting their own household goblins. Therefore, I suggest you - "

  The mage was smart enough to stop talking at the sight of Quenthel's glare.

  "We will mobilize Tier Breche," she said. "Melee-Magthere and Arach-Tinilith can fight. Sorcere will divide its efforts between supporting us and extinguishing the fires. You will either find my brother Gromph or act in his stead. "

  Pharaun bowed low.

  Quenthel turned and saw that her priestesses and novices had followed her out onto the plateau. Something in their manner brought her up short.

  "Mistress," said long-eared Viconia Agrach Dyrr, one of the senior instructors, rather diffidently, "it makes perfect sense for Melee-Magthere and Sorcere to descend the stairs, but . . . "

  "But you ladies have lost your magic," Pharaun said.

  The sisters of the temple gaped at him.

  "You know?" Quenthel asked.

  "A good many males know," the mage replied, just a hint of impatience pecking through, "so there's no point in killing me for it. I'll explain it all later. " He turned back toward the rest of the clerics. "Holy Mothers and Sisters, while you may have lost your spells, you have scrolls, talismans, and the rest of the divine implements your order hoards. You can swing maces, if it comes to that. You can fight. "

  "But we've lost too many sisters," Viconia said to Quenthel. "The demons killed a couple, and you, Mistress, by summoning the spiders, slew more. We don't dare risk the rest. Someone must endure to preserve the lore and perform the rituals. "

  "That's far too optimistic," Pharaun said.

  Viconia scowled. "What is, boy?"

  "The assumption that, should you remain up here, annihilation will pass you by," the wizard replied. "It's more plausible to assume that if the orcs triumph below, they'll climb the stairs to continue their depredations up here. You profess devotion to Arach-Tinilith. Surely it would be more reverent to engage the undercreatures in the vault below and thus deny them the slightest opportunity to profane your shrines and altars. Similarly, it would be better strategy to fight alongside allies than to wait till they perish and you're left to struggle alone. "

  "You're glib, wizard," the Agrach Dyrr priestess sneered, "but you don't know our efforts are need
ed. Flame and glare, they're only goblins! I think you're just a scareling. "

  "Perhaps he is," Quenthel said, "but how dare we seek the Dark Mother's favor if we decline to defend her chosen city in its hour of need? Surely, then, we never would hear her voice again. "

  "Mistress," said Viconia, spreading her hands, "I know we can find a better way to please her than brawling with vermin in the street. "

  Quenthel lifted her hand crossbow and shot her lieutenant in the face. Viconia made a choking sound and stumbled backward, The poison was already blackening her face as she collapsed.

  "I thought I'd already demonstrated thatIrule here," the Baenre said. "Does anyone else wish to contest my orders?"

  "If so," Pharaun said, "she should be aware that I stand with the mistress, and I have the power to scour the lot of you from the face of the plateau. "

  Ignoring the boastful wizard, Quenthel surveyed her minions. It appeared that no one else had anything much to say.

  "Good," the Baenre said. "Let us rouse the tower and the pyramid. "