Dissolution

by Richard Lee Byers

Chapter Twenty-Four

 

  Water dripping from the hem of his cloak, Pharaun found that the layout of the renegades' fortress wasn't quite so perplexing when he wasn't dodging hunters and suffering the brain-jangling aftereffects of a psionic assault. The empty, echoing rooms and corridors still seemed just as ominous, however, just as fitting an abode for wraiths and maledictions.

  The Mizzrym watched Welverin and the other warriors of House Freth to see if the place was unsettling them. It didn't look like it. Perhaps they were too brave. Or perhaps the fresh, butchered corpses littering the floor turned their thoughts from shadowy terrors to the commonplace violence that was their profession.

  They found the bodies, often cut in two or more pieces, lying here and there about the castle. Pharaun was astonished at the quantity. Apparently poor wounded Ryld had had a nice long homicidal run of it before the conspirators slew him. Perhaps it had even required Syrzan to do the job.

  In retrospect, Pharaun wondered why the alhoon hadn't joined the search for the escaped prisoners right from the start. Maybe giving the Call had temporarily depicted its strength.

  The Master of Sorcere led the soldiers into a long, spacious hall with a large dais at the far end. There, no doubt, a matron mother had held court and also dined, judging by the benches and trestle tables stacked in an alcove. Carved and painted spiders crawled everywhere, a sort of mask, Pharaun supposed, given that the former tenants of the keep had petitioned other deities in private. Sheets of genuine spiderweb veiled the artwork.

  Welverin said, "Look. "

  Pharaun turned his head, then caught his breath in surprise. Ryld Argith had just stepped from the mouth of a servants' passage midway up the left-hand wall.

  The weapons master's strides were even and sure despite his wounded leg. He was noticeably thinner, as if his body was burning fuel at a prodigious rate, and somehow he'd recovered Splitter.

  The soldiers aimed their crossbows.

  "No!" Pharaun said. Not yet, anyway.

  Ryld pivoted toward the newcomers and stalked forward. His eyes were intent yet somehow empty, his face, expressionless, and he seemed indifferent to the weapons leveled at his burly frame. One warrior muttered uneasily, as if he'd mistaken the Master of Melee-Magthere for a ghost. Pharaun knew better; he recognized a deep trance when he saw one. Evidently his friend had utilized some esoteric martial discipline to keep himself alive.

  "Ryld!" Pharaun said, "Well met! I knew you could defeat Houndaer and the rest of those buffoons. Otherwise I never would have left you. "

  The lie sounded thin even to the liar.

  Certainly it didn't impress Ryld. Perhaps in his altered statue of consciousness, he hadn't even heard it or recognized his fellow master, either. He just kept coming.

  "Wake up!" the wizard said. "It's me, Pharaun, your friend. I came back to rescue you. These boys hail from House Freth, and they're our allies. "

  Ryld took another gliding swordsman's advance, still directly toward the Master of Sorcere.

  I'm sorry, Pharaun thought, but this time you bring it on yourself. He drew breath to give the order to shoot, and shapes surged through the three tall arched doorways at the rear of the dais.

  In the lead capered several human-sized creatures wrapped in lengths of clattering chain. They were kytons, malign spirits whom mages could summon and control. Behind the devils strode the surviving conspirators, and Syrzan in its decaying robes.

  Ryld wheeled and oriented on the conspirators. The rogues shot a flight of whistling quarrels, and the Freth warriors responded in kind. The renegades had the advantage of their elevated platform, and the soldiers, of numerical superiority, but neither volley dropped more than a smattering of its targets. The combatants were too well armored, by metal, magic, or both.

  Eager to see if swords would serve where the darts had failed, the Freth soldiers howled a battle cry and charged. Most of them, anyway. In his deep, booming voice, Welverin ordered some of the troops back outside to findtheir way around to the entrances the traitors had used and attack them from the rear. Not a bad idea, but Pharaun thought the warriors had a good chance of getting lost instead Whirling loose lengths of chain, eight kytons, each a match for a dozen ordinary fighters, leaped down off the stage to meet the oncoming foe. The rogues remained on the platform with Syrzan, where they started reloading their crossbows with the obvious intention of shooting down into the melee.

  Pharaun decided he wouldn't allow that. He levitated above his comrades, thus obtaining a clear shot at the dais.

  He felt a twinge in the center of his forehead, but only for a second. As he'd expected, Syrzan had attacked first with a psionic thrust, not realizing its foe had warded himself against such effects with apposite talismans and spells.

  This time, the Mizzrym thought, you'll have to fightme charm to charm and spell to spell.

  To his surprise, he received an answer, a telepathic voice grating and buzzing inside his mind.

  So be it, mammal,the alhoon said. Either way, I'll have revenge on the wretch who condemned me to exile yet again.

  Even as he attended to Syrzan's threat, Pharaun was murmuring an incantation and manipulating a little steel tube. A bright pellet of flame hurtled from the open end, expanding into a skull-sized orb as it flew. It smashed into one of the renegades on the dais, rebounded, and struck another. It bounced and slashed back and forth across the platform, sowing a zigzag trail of sparks and afterimage in its wake, striking everyone. Before it winked out of existence, it killed a good many of the rogues or turned them into reeling, flailing living torches, whom their own allies had to slay lest they ignite them as well. Syrzan, however, was unaffected.

  Below his feet, Pharaun glimpsed the clash of stabbing, cutting blades and spinning chains. As they flailed at their adversaries, the kytons, who resembled oozing, festering corpses within their coiled armor of chains, altered their features. The devils had the capacity to take on the appearance of a deceased intimate from an enemy's past. Supposedly svirfneblin and their ilk found this deeply distressing, but it was only slightly discomfiting to representatives of a race that did not love.

  Ryld was at the forefront of the fighting, sweeping Splitter about with all his accustomed strength and skill. Pharaun was glad to see that his friend was only striking at the demons.

  Mouth tentacles writhing, bulbous eyes glaring, Syrzan lifted its three-fingered hands to conjure. Around it, many of the rogues who still survived jumped off the dais. Evidently they'd rather fight the Freth warriors on the floor than stand near the alhoon while Pharaun threw spells at it.

  The Master of Sorcere was surprised that so few of the traitors simply tried to run away. Certainly loyalty - that alien conceit - didn't hold them there. They must have known that with their schemes thwarted, their conspiracy revealed, they were outlaws, outcast from all they coveted and cherished. Perhaps their plight filled them with such rage that they prized vengeance above survival.

  As Syrzan wove magic, its dark elf counterpart was hastily doing the same. The lich finished first. A blaze of lightning, kin to those still twisting and forking through the open air outside, leaped from its parched, scaling hand, crackled entirely through Pharaun's torso, and burned a black spot on the ceiling.

  Pharaun's muscles clenched, and his hair lifted away from his head, but his protections averted any real harm. Indeed, the attack didn't even disrupt his own conjuring. On the final word, he thrust out his hand, releasing a wave of cold, fluttering shadows like ghostly bats.

  Screeching and chattering, the phantoms swooped and whirled about the alhoon, slashing at it with their claws. The mind flayer growled a word in some infernal tongue, and a jagged crack snaked up one of the walls. Pharaun's illusory minions vanished.

  The Mizzrym extracted five glass marbles from one of his pockets, rolled them dexterously in his palm, and rattled off a brief tercet. A quintet of luminous spheres appeared in the air and shot toward Syrz
an, attacking it with fire, sound, cold, acid, and lightning simultaneously. Surely at least one of those forces would pierce its defenses.

  Syrzan gave a rasping, clacking shriek and swept its hand through the air. In an instant, the orbs reversed their courses, streaking back at their source as fast as they'd sped away.

  Caught by surprise, Pharaun nonetheless attempted to dodge in the only manner possible. He restored his weight and dropped toward the floor like a stone. Two of the radiant projectiles streaked past him to explode against the ceiling. Two more simply vanished when they came into contact with hispiwafwi. The fifth ghosted into his chest.

  The loudest scream he'd ever heard shook his bones, jabbed agony through his ears, and smashed his thoughts to pieces. Stunned, he kept plummeting until he smashed down in the midst of the melee.

  For a moment he simply lay amidst scores of shifting, stamping feet, then his mind focused, and he realized he needed to get off the floor before somebody trampled him. He started to scramble up, and a swinging length of chain struck him on the temple.

  It was just a glancing blow, but it knocked him back down. A kyton loomed over him, whirling its flexible weapons around for another attack. The spirit had Sabal's face.

  Pharaun pointed his finger and rattled off a spell, realizing partway through that he couldn't hear himself - or anything else. Seconds before, the battle had been a hammering cacophony, but it had fallen silent.

  Luckily he didn't need to hear his voice to recite a spell. Power blazed from his fingertip into the devil's body. In a heartbeat, the kyton's flesh shriveled within its wrapping of chain. The links sliding and flopping around it, the fiend collapsed.

  A hand gripped Pharaun's shoulder and hauled him up. He turned and saw Welverin. The officer's mouth moved, but the wizard had no idea what he was saying. He shook his head and pointed to his ears, which, though useless, were far from numb. They throbbed and bled. His insides hurt as well, and the pain made him want to destroy Syrzan all the more.

  Pharaun levitated, only to find himself mere feet from something the illithilich must have conjured while its fellow mage was floundering about below. It was a huge, phosphorescent, disembodied illlthid head, with mouth tentacles longer than the drow was tall. The members writhing, the squidlike construct flew forward. Up close, it smelled fishy.

  Pharaun snatched a white leather glove and a chip of clear crystal from his cloak and commenced a spell. A tapered tentacle tip whipped around his forearm, tugged, and nearly spoiled the final manipulation, but he pulled free and completed the pass successfully.

  An immense hand made of ice appeared beside the mind flayers head. It wrapped its fingers around it, dug its talons in, and held the thing immobile.

  The only problem was that the phantom illithid head was still blocking Pharaun's view. He simultaneously wove a spell and bobbed lower until he saw Syrzan.

  On the final word of the incantation, white fire erupted from the alhoon's desiccated flesh . . . fire that died a second later. The magic should have transformed the undead wizard into an inanimate corpse, but the only effect had been to singe its shabby robe a little. Pharaun reflected that despite several attempts, he had yet to injure or even jostle his adversary. If the dark elf hadn't known better, he might have wondered if Syrzan was not in fact the better arcanist.

  Much as the Mizzrym disliked hand-to-hand combat, perhaps a change of tactics was in order. He snatched a delicate little bone, dissected from a petty demon he'd killed in a classroom demonstration, and started to conjure.

  Syrzan swung its arm and hurled a dozen flaming arrows. They missed, bumped off course by their target's protective enchantments. Pharaun completed his incantation and so inflicted a hundred stabbing pains upon himself.

  His body grew as large as an ogre's, and his hide thickened into scaly armor. His teeth lengthened into tusks, and his nails into talons, while long, curved horns erupted from his brow. A hairless tail sprouted from the base of his spine, and a whip appeared in his hand.

  The transformation only took a moment, and the discomfort was gone.

  With a beat of his leathery new wings, Pharaun hurled himself at his foe.

  The wizard raised his monstrous arms high and bellowed an incantation. Pharaun felt a surge of churning vertigo. The scene before him seemed to spin and twist, and despite himself, he veered off course. He smashed down on the dais, and time skipped. When he came to his senses, he'd reverted to his natural form and felt as weak and sick as Smylla Nathos.

  The lich was staring down at him.

  "What an idiot you were to return," Syrzan said. "You knew you were no match for me. "

  Pharaun realized he could hear again, albeit through a jangling in his ears. He wouldn't die deaf, for whatever that was worth.

  "Stop preening," said the Master of Sorcere. "You look ridiculous. This isn't your pathetic dream world. This is reality, where I'm a prince of a great city and you're just a sort of mollusk, and a dead, putrid one at that. "

  As he taunted the creature, he groped for the strength to cast a final spell. No doubt the attack would fail like all the others.

  So why, he thought, bother to attack? Try something else instead. Shaking with effort, he cast a spell off the side of the platform. Blue scintilla of power glittered briefly in the air.

  "You callme pathetic?" Syrzan sneered. "What was that supposed to be?"

  If you were wearing the ring you stole, Pharaun thought, you'd know, but I doubt it would fit on your bloated fingers.

  The alhoon hoisted him off the ground, then wrapped dry, flaking tentacles around his head.

  You're still going to serve me,Syrzan said directly into the mage's mind, holding up one gnarled finger to reveal the silver ring. When I devour your brain, I'll learn all your secrets.

  "Perhaps the infusion would even cure your stupidity," Pharaun wheezed, "but I fear we'll never know. Look around. "

  The lich turned, and he felt it jerk with surprise.

  The lens of illusion he'd formed in front of the dais made Syrzan look exactly like a certain witty Master of Sorcere, and Pharaun himself resemble yet another humble orc. Once the Mizzrym created it, he'd willed the hand of ice to release the illithid's head, and there came the construct, swooping straight at its originator.

  Syrzan threw Pharaun down and faced its creation. No doubt if left unmolested, it could have averted the construct somehow, but Pharaun found the strength for one more spell. His labored incantation shattered the floor of the dais, staggering the alhoon and breaking its concentration.

  The huge tentacles scooped Syrzan up and conveyed it to the maw behind them, whereupon the strangely shaped mouth began to suck and chew. The alhoon's own magic mangled him as Pharauns never had. The lich faded for a moment, then became opaque and solid again. It was trying to shift to another plane of existence but couldn't focus past the agony.

  After a time, the enormous head blinked out of existence. Its passing dumped inert chunks of mummified mind flayer on the floor.

  Pharaun's strength began to trickle back. He rummaged through the alhoon's stinking remains until he found his silver ring, then turned his magic on the renegades, though it wasn't really necessary. Ryld, Welverin, and their cohorts already had the upper hand.

  When the last rogue lay dead, the entranced Master of Melee-Magthere sat down cross-legged on the floor. His chin drooped down onto his chest, and he started to snore. Silver leg rattling as if a blow had loosened the components, Welverin limped over to check him and, Pharaun supposed, tend him as needed.

  The Mizzrym thought he ought to take a look as well but when he tried to stand, his head spun, and he had to flop back down.

  Triel stood on the balcony gazing down at the city below. It was virtually the same view she'd surveyed on the night of the slave uprising, the burning spectacle that showed her all Menzoberranzan was in turmoil.

  The fires were gone. In their place, cold pools of standing water dot
ted the streets and hindered traffic. The rain had flooded cellars and dungeons as well, and it would take time to get rid of it. No one had anticipated a downpour, not with miles of rock between the City of Spiders and the open sky, and in consequence, no builder had made much provision for drainage.

  Someone coughed a discreet little cough. Triel turned. Standing in the doorway, Gromph inclined his head.

  "Matron. "

  She felt a thrill of pleasure - relief, actually - at the sight of her brother, who'd come to her so quickly once she'd given him leave. She took care to mask the feeling.

  "Archmage," she said. "Join me. "

  "Of course. "

  Gromph walked somewhat stiffly toward the balustrade.

  In one corner of the terrace, Jeggred slouched on a chair too small for him and gnawed a raw haunch of rothe. He looked entirely engrossed in his snack, but Triel was confident he was watching her siblings progress. That was his task, after all, to ward her from all potential enemies, including her own kin. Especially her own kin.

  Gromph looked out at the city's domes and spires. Some had lost their luminescence, as if his rain had washed it away, and many had flowed and twisted in the fire's embrace, warping the spider carvings into crippled shapes or effacing them entirely. The wizard's mouth twisted.

  "It could have been worse," Triel said. "The stoneworkers can repair the damage. "

  "They have their work cut out for them, especially without slaves to help. "

  "We have some. A few undercreatures declined to revolt or were captured instead of slain. We'll drive them hard and buy and capture more. "

  "Still, does anyone remember precisely how every rampart and sculpture looked? Can anyone recreate Menzoberranzan exactly as it was? No. We're changed, scarred, and - "

  He winced and rubbed his chest.

  "Forgive me," the archmage continued. "I didn't come to lament but to perform my function as your advisor, to share my thoughts on how to meet the challenges to come. "

  Triel rested her hand atop the cool, polished stone of the rail and asked, "How do you see those challenges?"

  "It's obvious, isn't it? We've just experienced what promises to be the first in a series of calamities. By dint of observing you in combat, every Menzoberranyr with half a brain now knows you priestesses have lost your power. Rest assured, no matter what measures the Council takes, the word will spread beyond our borders. Perhaps some escaped thrall is proclaiming it even now. Soon, one or another enemy will march on us, or, if our luck is really bad, they might all unite in a grand alliance. "

  Triel swallowed. "None of our foes dares even to dream of taking Menzoberranzan. "

  "This Syrzan did. When its kin, and others, find out we've lost our divine magic, a significant fraction of our drow warriors, and virtually all our slave troops, it may inspire them to optimism. And they're not even the greatest threat. "

  "We ourselves are," Triel sighed.

  "Exactly. We always have our share of feuds and assassinations. Occasionally one House exterminates another outright, and that's as it should be. It's our way, it makes us strong. But we can't endure constant, flagrant warfare. That would be too much . . . chaos. It would tear Menzoberranzan to shreds. Up to now, fear of the Spider Queen and her clergy has kept the lid on, but it won't anymore. " He spat. "It's a pity our new heroes didn't die heroic deaths in their homeland's defense. "

  "You refer to Quenthel and the outcast Mizzrym?"

  "Who else? Do you imagine them any less ambitious than the rest of us? They championed the established order yesterday, but, inspired by the knowledge that many would rally to their banners, may themselves seek to topple it tomorrow. Quenthel may try to seize your throne, not in a hundred years but now. Pharaun may strike for the Robes of the Archmage - by the Six Hundred and Sixty-six Layers, he all but did, having spent no effort in finding me before scurrying to your side. What a disaster that would be! Aside from any personal inconvenience to you and me, the city in its weakened state can't withstand that sort of disruption. "

  "I suppose they could be planning just that," Triel said, frowning. "Perhaps we should have followed through and at least killed Master Pharaun. "

  "If we execute one of the saviors of Menzoberranzan - damn his miserable little hide - it would have made House Baenre look frightened and weak. " The archmage smiled a crooked smile. "Which we are, at the moment, but we don't dare give the appearance. "

  "What, then, do you recommend?"

  Below the balcony, a lizard hissed and wheels creaked as a cart rolled by.

  "Use them in a way that simultaneously benefits us and neutralizes the threat they represent," said Gromph. "Surely you and I agree that the present situation can't continue. We must find a way to restore the priesthood's magic. "

  Triel nodded, looking away from her battered city.

  "I propose that as a first step," the archmage continued, "we send agents to another city - likely Ched Nasad - to find out if their divines are similarly afflicted, and if so, whether they know why. You can assign Quenthel to lead the expedition. After all, it concerns Arach-Tinilith perhaps most of all. I'll be delighted to loan you the services of Master Pharaun. If the story I heard was correct, that weapons master friend of his should go as well, if for no other reason than it'll make Pharaun squirm. "

  "Ched Nasad . . . " Triel whispered.

  "The three of them ought to be more than capable of surviving a trek as far as Ched Nasad," continued Gromph, "and they can't very well try to overthrow us while they're leagues away from the city, can they? Who knows, perhaps Lolth will return before they do, and in any case, with time, their notoriety will fade. "

  His suggestion left Triel feeling a little sheepish. She hid it as best she could by pretending to consider his plan.

  "Faeryl Zauvirr proposed an expedition to Ched Nasad. She claimed to be concerned because the caravans have stopped. "

  Gromph cocked his head. "Really? Well, our representatives can sort that out as well. You know, it's good that the ambassador is already keen to go. She'll make a valuable addition and a more than adequate cover for the whole enterprise. "

  "Waerva told me Faeryl was a spy," said Triel, "and sought to depart the city in order to report our weakness to her confederates. So I forbade her to leave. "

  "What proof did Waerva offer?"

  "She told me she learned of Faeryl's treachery from one of her informants. "

  Gromph waited a moment as if expecting something more.

  "And that's it?" he asked at length. "With respect, Matron, may I point out that if you haven't spoken with the informer yourself, if you haven't probed the matter any further, then you really only have Waerva's word for it that the envoy is a traitor. "

  "I can't handle everything personally," Triel scowled. "That's why we have retainers in the first place. I have not entirely lost touch with my - ourinterests in Ched Nasad, though their explanations and excuses do wear thin. "

  "Of course, Matron," Gromph said quickly. "I quite understand. I have the same problem with my own retainers, and I only have Menzoberranzan's wizards to oversee, not an entire city. "

  "Why would Waerva lie?"

  "I don't know, but I've had some dealings with Faeryl Zauvirr. She never struck me as stupid enough to cross the Baenre. Waerva, on the other hand, is reckless and discontented enough for any game. Accordingly, I think it might be worthwhile to inquire into this matter ourselves. "

  Triel hesitated before saying, "That could prove difficult. Despite my orders, the Zauvirr tried to flee Menzoberranzan. I hired some agents of Bregan D'aerthe, led by Valas Hune - do you know him?"

  "I've heard the name mentioned," Gromph replied.

  "He would make a fair addition to your little band of explorers," Triel said. "He's known to be more than passingly familiar with the wilds of the Underdark - a guide of some accomplishment, in fact. "

  Gromph bowed his agreement.

  "Be
that as it may, it was Valas Hune I hired to fetch Faeryl back. He completed his task well, and I gave the ambassador to Jeggred. "

  The wizard rounded on the draegloth.

  "What's the prisoner's condition?" he asked the creature. "Is she alive?"

  "Yes," said Jeggred through a mouthful of bloody meat. "I was taking my time, to prove I can. But you can't have her. Mother gave her to me. She just told you. "

  Gromph stared up into the half-demon's eyes.

  "Nephew," he said, "I'm sore, frustrated, and in a foul mood generally. Right now I don't give a leaky sack of rat droppings whether you're a sacred being or not. Show some respect, lead me to this prisoner forthwith, or I'll blight you where you sit. "

  Clutching the rothe bone like a club, Jeggred sprang upward from his seat.

  Triel said, "Do as the archmage bade you. I wish it as well. "

  The draegloth lowered his makeshift weapon.

  "Yes, Mother," he sighed.