“No!”
Gromph lifted his staff in both hands and shouted words of power. Beradax howled in agony as her mass of eyeballs flowed and humped into something quite different.
Afterward, Gromph descended to his office. He had an appointment with a different kind of agent.
As Pharaun Mizzrym and Ryld Argith strolled through the cool air, fresher than that pent up in Melee-Magthere, the latter looked about Tier Breche, realized he hadn’t bothered to set foot outside in days, and rather wondered why, for the view was as spectacular as ever.
Tier Breche, home to the Academy since that institution’s founding, was a large cavern where the labor of countless spellcasters, artisans, and slaves had turned enormous stalagmites and other masses of rocks into three extraordinary citadels. To the east rose pyramidal Melee-Magthere, where Ryld and others like him turned callow young drow into warriors. By the western wall stood the many-spired tower of Sorcere, where Pharaun and his colleagues taught wizardry, while to the north crouched the largest and most imposing school of all, Arach-Tinilith, a temple built in the eight-limbed shape of a spider. Inside, the priestesses of Lolth, goddess of arachnids, chaos, assassins, and the drow race, trained dark elf maidens to serve the deity in their turn.
And yet, magnificent as was Tier Breche, considered in the proper context, it was only a detail in a scene of far greater splendor. The Academy sat in a side cavern, a mere nook opening partway up the wall of a truly prodigious vault. The primary chamber was two miles wide and a thousand feet high, and filling all that space was Menzoberranzan.
On the cavern floor, castles, hewn like the Academy from natural protrusions of calcite, shone blue, green, and violet amid the darkness. The phosphorescent mansions served to delineate the plateau of Qu’ellarz’orl, where the Baenre and those Houses nearly as powerful made their homes; the West Wall district, where lesser but still well-established noble families schemed how to supplant the dwellers on Qu’ellarz’orl; and Narbondellyn, where parvenus plotted to replace the inhabitants of West Wall. Still other palaces, cut from stalactites, hung from the lofty ceiling.
The nobles of Menzoberranzan had set their homes glowing to display their immensity, their graceful lines, and the ornamentation sculpted about their walls. Most of the carvings featured spiders and webs, scarcely surprising, Ryld supposed, in a realm where Lolth was the only deity anyone worshiped, and her clergy ruled in the temporal sense as well as the spiritual one.
For some reason, Ryld found the persistence of the motif vaguely oppressive, so he shifted his attention to other details. If a drow had good eyes, he could make out the frigid depths of the lake called Donigarten at the narrow eastern end of the vault. Cattle-like beasts called rothé and the goblin slaves who herded them lived on an island in the center of the lake.
And there was Narbondel itself, of course. It was the only piece of unworked stone remaining on the cavern floor, a thick, irregular column extending all the way to the ceiling. At the start of every day, the Archmage of Menzoberranzan cast a spell into the base of it, heating it until the rock glowed. Since the radiance rose through the stone at a constant rate, its progress enabled the residents of the city to tell the time.
In their way, the Master of Melee-Magthere supposed, he and Pharaun were, if nowhere near as grand a sight as the vista before them, at least a peculiar one by virtue of the contrasts between them. With his slender build, graceful manner, foppish, elegant attire, and intricate coiffure, the Mizzrym mage epitomized what a sophisticated noble and wizard should be. Ryld, on the other hand was an oddity. He was huge for a member of his sex, bigger than many females, with a burly, broad-shouldered frame better suited to a brutish human than a dark elf. He compounded his strangeness by wearing a dwarven breastplate and vambraces in preference to light, supple mail. The armor sometimes caused others to eye him askance, but he’d found that it maximized his effectiveness as a warrior, and that, he’d always believed, was what really mattered.
Ryld and Pharaun walked to the edge of Tier Breche and sat down with their legs dangling over the sheer drop-off They were only a few yards from the head of the staircase that connected the Academy with the city below, and at the top of those steps, beside the twin pillars, a pair of sentries—last-year students of Melee-Magthere—stood watch. Ryld thought that he and Pharaun were distant enough for privacy if they kept their voices low.
Low, but not silent, curse it. Ever the sensualist, the mage sat savoring the panorama below him, obviously prolonging his contemplation well past the point where Ryld’s mouth had begun to tighten with impatience, and never mind that on the walk up, he’d admired the view himself.
“We drow don’t love one another, except in the carnal sense,” Pharaun remarked at last, “but I think one could almost love Menzoberranzan itself, don’t you? Or at least take a profound pride in it.”
Ryld shrugged. “If you say so.”
“You sound less than rhapsodic. Feeling morose again today?”
“I’m all right. Better, at least, now that I see you still alive.”
“You assumed Gromph had executed me? Does my offense seem so grievous, then? Have you never annihilated a single specimen of our tender young cadets?”
“That depends on how you look at it,” Ryld replied. “Combat training is inherently dangerous. Accidents happen, but no one has ever questioned that they were accidents occurring during the course of Melee-Magthere’s legitimate business. The goddess knows, I never lost seven in a single hour, two of them from Houses with seats on the Council. How does such a thing happen?”
“I needed seven assistants with a degree of magical expertise to help me perform the summoning ritual. Had I called upon full-fledged wizards, they would have joined the experiment as equal partners. They would have emerged from the ritual possessed of the same newly discovered secrets as myself, equally able to conjure and control the Sarthos demon. Naturally I wished to avoid such a sharing, so I opted to use apprentices instead.”
Pharaun grinned and continued, “In retrospect, I must admit that it may not have been a good idea. The fiend didn’t even require seven heartbeats to smash them all.”
An updraft wafted past Ryld’s face, carrying the constant murmur of the metropolis below. He caught its scent as well, a complex odor made of cooking smoke, incense, perfume, the stink of unwashed thralls, and a thousand other things.
“Why perform such a dangerous ritual in the first place?” he asked.
Pharaun smiled as if it was a silly question. Perhaps it was.
“To become more powerful, of course,” the wizard answered. “At present, I’m one of the thirty most puissant mages in the city. If I controlled the Sarthos demon, I’d be one of the five. Perhaps even the first, mightier than dreary old Gromph himself.”
“I see.”
Ambition was an essential part of the drow character, and Ryld sometimes envied Pharaun his still-passionate investment in the struggle for status. The warrior supposed that he himself had achieved the pinnacle of his ambitions when he became one of the lesser masters of Melee-Magthere, for certainly he, born a commoner, could never climb any higher. From that day forward, he’d stopped peering hungrily upward and concentrated on looking down, to guard against all those who wished to kill him in hopes of ascending to his position.
Pharaun was a Master of Sorcere as Ryld was a Master of Melee-Magthere, but perhaps, being of noble blood, Pharaun really did aspire to assassinate the formidable Gromph Baenre and seize his office. Even if he didn’t, wizards, by the nature of their intricate and clandestine art, maintained a rivalry that encompassed more than who was a master, who was chief wizard in a great House, and who was neither. They also cared about such things as who could know the most esoteric secrets, could conjure the deadliest specter, or see most clearly into the future. In fact, they cared so deeply that they occasionally sought to murder each other and plunder one another’s spellbooks even when such hostilities ran counter to the interests of their Hou
ses, severing an alliance or disrupting a negotiation.
“Now,” Pharaun said, reaching inside the elegant folds of his piwafwi and producing a silver flask, “I’ll have to turn my back on the Sarthos demon for a while. I hope the poor behemoth won’t be lonely without me.”
He unscrewed the bottle, took a sip, and passed the container to Ryld.
Ryld hoped the flask didn’t contain wine or an exotic liqueur. Pharaun was forever pressing such libations on him and insisting that he try to recognize all the elements that allegedly blended together to create the taste, even though Ryld had demonstrated time and again that his palate was incapable of such a dissection.
He drank and was pleased to find that for a change, the flask contained simple brandy, probably imported at some expense from the inhospitable world that lay like a rind atop the Underdark, baking in the excruciating sunlight. The liquor burned his mouth and kindled a warm glow in his stomach.
He handed the brandy back to Pharaun and said, “I assume Gromph told you to leave the entity alone.”
“In effect. He assigned me another task to occupy my time. Should I succeed, the archmage will forgive me my transgressions. Should I fail … well, I’ll hope for a nice beheading or garroting, but I’m not so unrealistic as to expect anything that quick.”
“What task?”
“A number of males have eloped from their families, and not to a merchant clan or Bregan D’aerthe either but to an unknown destination. I’m supposed to find them.”
Pharaun took another sip, then offered the flask again.
“What did they steal?” asked Ryld, waving off the drink.
Pharaun smiled and said, “That’s a good guess, but you’re wrong. As far as I know, no one walked off with anything important. You see, it isn’t just a few fellows from one particular House. It’s a bunch of them from any number of homes, noble and common alike.”
“All right, but so what? Why does the Archmage of Menzoberranzan care?”
“I don’t know. He offered some vague excuse of an explanation, but there’s something—several somethings, belike—that he’s not telling me.”
“That’s not going to make your job any easier.”
“How true. The old tyrant did condescend to say that he isn’t the only one interested in the fugitives’ whereabouts. The priestesses are equally concerned, but that emphatically did not make them want to join forces with Gromph. Matron Mother Baenre herself ordered him to drop the matter.”
“Matron Baenre,” said Ryld. “I like this less with every word you speak.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just because Triel Baenre rules all Menzoberranzan, and I’m about to flout her express wishes … Anyway, the archmage says he can no longer investigate the disappearances himself. Seems the ladies have their eyes on him, but, lucky me, I am not so burdened.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re going to find the missing males. If they fled the city, they could be anywhere in the Underdark by now.”
“Please,” said Pharaun with a grin, “you don’t have to try to cheer me up. Actually, I’m going to start looking in Eastmyr and the Braeryn. Apparently some of the runaways were last sighted in those déclassé vicinities, and perhaps they linger there still. Even if they do intend to depart Menzoberranzan, they may still be making preparations for the journey.”
“If they’ve already decamped,” Ryld said, “you might at least find a witness who can at tell you what tunnel they took. It’s a sensible plan, but I can think of another. It’s reckless to gamble your life when you don’t even understand the game. You could flee Menzoberranzan yourself. With your wizardry, you’re one of the few people capable of undertaking such a dangerous trek alone.”
“I could try,” Pharaun said, “but I suspect Gromph would track me down. Even if he didn’t, I would have lost my home and forfeited the rank I worked my whole life to earn. Would you give up being a master just to avoid a spot of danger?”
“No.”
“Then you understand my predicament. I imagine you’ve also figured out why I called on you today.”
“I think so.”
“Of course you have. Whatever it is that’s truly transpiring, my chances of survival improve if I have a comrade to watch my back.”
Ryld scowled. “You mean, a comrade willing to defy the express will of Matron Mother Baenre and risk running afoul of the Archmage of Menzoberranzan as well.”
“Quite, and by a happy coincidence you have the look of a drow in need of a break from his daily routine. You know you’re bored to death. It’s painful to watch you grouch your way through the day.”
Ryld pondered for a moment, then said, “All right. Maybe we’ll find out something we can turn to our advantage.”
“Thank you, my friend. I owe you.” Pharaun took a drink and held out the flask again. “Have the rest. There’s only a swallow left. We seem to have guzzled the whole pint in just a few minutes, though that scarcely seems possible, refined, genteel fellows that we—”
Something crackled and sizzled above their heads. Waves of pressure beat down on them. Ryld looked up, cursed, scrambled to his feet, and drew a dagger, meanwhile wishing he’d strapped on his weapons before stepping outside Melee-Magthere.
Pharaun rose in a more leisurely fashion.
“Well,” he said, “this is interesting.”
chapter
TWO
Scourge of vipers writhing in her hand, soft, thin gown whispering, Quenthel Baenre, Mistress of Arach-Tinilith, prowled about, glaring at the younger females standing huddled in the center of the candlelit, marble-paneled room. She always had a knack for striking fear into the hearts of those who displeased her, and these students were no exception. Some trembled or appeared to be biting back tears, and even the sullen, fractious ones refused to look her in the eye.
Enjoying their apprehension, Quenthel prolonged her silent inspection until it was surely on the verge of becoming unbearable, then she cracked the whip. Some of her startled pupils gasped and jumped.
As the five long black- and crimson-banded vipers that comprised the lashes of the whip rose twisting and probing from the adamantine handle, Quenthel said, “All your lives, your mothers have told you that when a student ascends to Tier Breche, she remains here, sequestered from the city below, for ten years. On the day you entered the Academy, I told you the same thing.”
She stalked up to one of the students trapped at the front of the group, Gaussra Kenafin, slightly plump and round-faced, with teeth as black as her skin. Responding to Quenthel’s unspoken will, the whip snakes explored the novice’s body, gliding over its contours, tongues flickering. The Mistress of Arach-Tinilith could see Gaussra straining mightily not to recoil for fear that it would provoke the reptiles into striking.
“So you did know,” Quenthel purred, “didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Gaussra gasped. “I’m sorry. Please, take the snakes away!”
“How impertinent of you. You and these others have forfeited the right to ask me for anything. You may kiss her.”
The last statement was addressed to the serpents, and they responded instantly, driving their long fangs into cheek, throat, shoulder, and breast. Gaussra collapsed—fully expecting to fall into a seizure, mouth foaming, her own blackened incisors chewing her purple tongue.
Shaking from the sting of the bites, Gaussra sat on the floor, very much alive; her terror was apparent, her humiliation complete.
“You will return to your House,” Quenthel said, relishing the look on Gaussra’s face as the true meaning of that statement sank in. “If you come that close to my scourge again, the vipers will allow their venom to flow.”
Quenthel stepped away from Gaussra, who scrambled to her feet and ran from the chamber.
“You all knew what was expected of you,” she said to the rest of the novices, “but you tried to sneak home anyway. In so doing, you have offered an affront to the Academy, to your own families, to Menzoberranzan, and to Lolth herself!�
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“We just wanted to go for a little while,” said Halavin Symryvvin, who seemed to carry half of her insignificant House’s paltry wealth in the form of the gaudy, gold ornaments hanging about her person. “We would have come back.”
“Liar!” shouted Quenthel, eliciting a flinch.
Rearing, the whip vipers echoed the cry.
“Liar!”
“Liar!”
“Liar!”
In other circumstances, Quenthel might have smiled, for she was proud of her weapon. Many priestesses possessed a whip of fangs, but hers was something special. The snakes were venomous and likewise possessed a demonic intelligence and the power of speech. It was the last magical tool she’d crafted before everything turned to dung.
“Oh, you would have returned,” she continued, “but only because your mothers would have sent you back or else killed you for shaming them. They have sense enough to cleave to the sacred traditions of Menzoberranzan even if their degenerate offspring do not.
“Your mothers wouldn’t mind if I slaughtered you, either. They’d thank me for wiping clean the honor of their Houses. But Lolth desires new priestesses, and, despite all appearances to the contrary, it is remotely possible that one or two of you are worthy to serve. Therefore I will give you one more chance. You won’t die today. Instead you will sever a finger from each of your hands and burn them before the altar of the goddess to beg her forgiveness. I’ll ring for a cleaver and a chopping block.”
Quenthel surveyed their stricken faces, enjoying the sickly, shrinking fear. She would enjoy watching the actual mutilations as well. The most amusing part might be when a novice had already cut one hand, and had to employ it, throbbing and streaming blood, to maim the other….
“No!”
Surprised by the outburst, Quenthel peered to see who had spoken. The mass of would-be truants obliged her by dividing in the center, opening a lane to the willowy female standing in the back. It was Drisinil Barrison Del’Armgo, she of the sharp nose and green eyes, whom Quenthel had from the first suspected of instigating the mass elopement. Somehow the long-legged novice had smuggled a sizable dagger, more of a short sword really, into the disciplinary session. She held it ready in a low guard.
Dissolution Page 2