“I don’t know. The enchantment is peculiar. I’ve never encountered anything quite like it. I can’t see through it, but I suspect we’re about to learn his intentions.”
“My brothers and sisters,” the Prophet said.
His voice sparked another round of cheering, and he waited for it to run its course.
“My brothers and sisters,” he repeated. “Since the founding of this city, the Menzoberranyr have held our peoples in bondage or in conditions equally degraded. They work us until we die of exhaustion. They torture and kill us on a whim. They condemn us to starve, sicken, and live in squalor.”
The audience growled its agreement.
“You witness our misery everywhere you look,” the hooded orator continued. “Yesterday, I walked through Manyfolk. I saw a hobgoblin girl-child, surely no older than five or six, trying to pick up a scrap of mushroom from the street. With her teeth! Her hands wouldn’t serve. Some drow had magically fused them together behind her back so she would live and die a cripple and a freak.”
The crowd snarled in outrage, even though their races commonly engaged in tortures equally cruel, albeit far less varied and imaginative.
“I walked through Narbondellyn,” the Prophet said. “I saw an orc, paralyzed in some manner, lying on the ground. A dark elf slit his chest, spread the flaps of skin, cut some ribs with a saw, and whistled his riding lizard over to feed on the still-living thrall’s organs. The drow told a companion that he gave the reptile one such meal every tenday to make it a faster racer.”
The audience howled its wrath. One female orc, transported with fury, gashed her cheeks and brow with a piece of broken glass.
The Prophet’s litany of atrocities ran on and on, and Ryld gradually felt a strange emotion overtaking him. He knew it couldn’t be guilt—no dark elf experienced that ridiculous condition—but perhaps it was a kind of shame, a disgust at the sheer waste and childishness manifest in Menzoberranzan’s abuse of its undercreatures and a desire to rectify the situation if he could.
The feeling was irrational, of course. The goblins and their kin existed only to serve the pleasure of the drow, and if you ruined one, you just caught or bought another. The weapons master gave his head a shake, clearing it, then turned to Pharaun.
Even through his orc mask, the wizard’s amusement was apparent.
“Resolved to mend your wicked ways?”
“I gather you feel the influence, too,” said Ryld. “What’s happening?”
“The Prophet has magic buttressing his oratory, again, in a sort of configuration I don’t quite understand.”
“Right, but what’s the point of all this bellyaching?”
“I assume he’ll get around to telling us.”
The speaker continued in the same vein a while longer, goading the crowd to the brink of hysteria.
At last he cried, “But it does not have to be that way!”
The undercreatures howled, and for a moment, until he pushed the feelings away, Ryld felt his magically induced disgust blaze up into savage bloodlust.
“We can be avenged! Repay every injury a thousandfold! Cast down the drow to be our slaves! We’ll wrap ourselves in silks and cloth-of-gold and make them run naked, feast on succulent viands and feed them garbage! We’ll sack Menzoberranzan, and afterward those of us who wish it will return to our own peoples laden with treasure, while the rest of us rule the cavern as our own!”
Not likely, thought Ryld. He turned to say as much to Pharaun, then blinked in surprise. The wizard looked as if he was taking this diatribe seriously.
“They’re just venting their resentment in the form of a fantasy,” the warrior whispered. “They’d never dare, and we’d crush them in a matter of minutes if they did.”
“So one would assume,” Pharaun replied. “Come on, I want a closer look.”
They started working their way forward through the agitated throng. Some of their fellow spectators plainly resented their shoving. Ryld had to toss one hobgoblin down onto the floor of the sunken arena, but no one seemed to think it odd that they wanted to get closer to the charismatic leader. Others were doing the same.
The Prophet continued his oration.
“I thank you for your work and your patience, which soon will reap their reward. Word of our revolt has reached every street and alley. We have warriors everywhere, and each understands what he is to do when he hears the Call. Meanwhile, the drow suspect nothing. Their arrogance makes them complacent. They won’t suspect until it’s too late, until the Call comes and we rise as one—until we burn them.”
Ryld and Pharaun had forced their way close enough to see the Prophet pick up a sandstone rod and anoint the end with an oil from a ceramic bottle. The rod burst into yellow, crackling flame as if it were made of dry wood, that exotic combustible product of the World Above. The master of Melee-Magthere squinted at the sudden flare of light.
“Eyes of the Goddess!” Pharaun exclaimed.
“It’s a neat trick,” Ryld said, “but surely nothing special by your standards.”
“Not the fire, those two bugbears standing behind the Prophet.”
“His bodyguards, I imagine. What of them?”
“They’re Tluth Melarn and one Alton the cobbler, two of our runaways. They’re wearing veils of illusion, too, but of a simpler nature. I can see past theirs.”
“Are you serious? What are drow, even rogues, doing aiding the instigator of a slave revolt?”
“Perhaps we’ll find out when we tail the Prophet and his entourage away from here.”
“I taught you how to use the fire pots,” the orator continued, “and my friends and I have brought plenty of them.” He gestured toward several hovering floatchests. “Take them and hide them until the day of reckoning.”
The bright notes of a brazen glaur horn blared through the air. For a moment, confused, Ryld thought “the Call”—whatever that was—had arrived, then a thrill of panic, or at least the memory of it, reminded him what the trumpet truly portended. Judging by the goblins’ babbling and frantic peering about, they knew, too.
“What is it?” Pharaun asked.
“You’re nobly born,” said Ryld, hearing a trace of an old bitterness in his voice. “Didn’t you ever go hunting through the Braeryn, slaying every wretch you could catch?”
The wizard smiled and said, “Now that you mention it, but it’s been a long time. It occurs to me that this is probably Greyanna’s doing. Not a bad tactic, really, even though it involves a lot of waste motion. Once I shielded us our hunters couldn’t pinpoint our location, but they knew our mission would bring us to the Braeryn so they organized a hunt for a party of nobles. The idea is that all the turmoil is likely to flush us out and send us scrambling frantically through the streets, at which point they’ll have a better chance of spotting us.”
“What’s more,” said Ryld, making sure his swords were loose in their scabbards, “your sister gives us the choice of retaining our veils of illusion and being harried by our own kind, or casting them off and facing the wrath of the undercreatures. Either way, someone might do her killing for her.”
The Prophet raised his hands for calm, and the undercreatures quieted a little.
“My friends, in a moment we will scatter as we must, for a little while longer, but before you go, take the fire pots. Once the danger is past, share the weapons and news of our gathering with all those who were unable to attend. Remember your part in the plan and wait for the Call. Now, go!”
Some of the rebels bolted without further delay, but at least half lingered long enough to take a jug or two from the hovering boxes.
One orc lost his footing in the press, then screamed as other goblinoids trampled him in their haste. Meanwhile, the Prophet and his bodyguards slipped out a door in the back wall.
“Shall we?” said Pharaun, striding after them.
“What of Greyanna and all the hunters?” asked Ryld.
“We’ll contend with them as necessary, but I’l
l be damned if I hide in a hole while two of the boys we worked so hard to find vanish into the night.”
The masters stalked out onto the street. The Braeryn already echoed with more trumpeting, the sporting cries of dark elves, and the screams of undercreatures.
The teachers shadowed the Prophet and the rogues for half a block. The trio moved briskly but without any trace of panic. Evidently they were confident of their ability to elude the hunters. Ryld wondered why.
Then the night gave him other things to think about.
He and Pharaun skulked by a house where several shouting goblins pounded on the granite front door. As was the common practice during a hunt, the inhabitants refused to admit them. They wouldn’t let in anyone but folk who actually lived there. Otherwise, a rush of terrified refugees flooding into the already crowded warren might trample or crush some of the residents—or the influx might make the house a more provocative target. It had happened before.
Finally Ryld heard the small, long-armed creatures turn away from the structure. They cried out, then broke into a run, their rapid footsteps drumming on the ground.
Ryld had no idea why the goblins were charging him and Pharaun. Perhaps the creatures had mistaken them for tenants of the house that had denied them entry and thus appropriate targets for revenge. Maybe they simply wanted to take their frustrations out on someone.
Not that it mattered. The brutes were no match for masters of Tier Breche. The dark elves would kill them in a trice.
Ryld drew Splitter from its scabbard and came on guard, meanwhile taking in his assailants’ pitiful makeshift weaponry and lack of armor. It was pathetic, really, so much so that the next few seconds would almost be a bore.
Two goblins spread out, trying to flank him. He stepped in and swung Splitter left, then right. The undercreatures fell, one dropping its crowbar to clang against the ground and the other keeping hold of its mallet.
The next two bat-eared creatures hesitated. They should have turned and run, because Ryld couldn’t stand and wait for them to ponder whether they still wanted to fight. The Prophet and the rogues were getting farther away by the second.
He stepped in and cut downward. A goblin, this one possessed of a short sword—a proper warrior’s weapon, and some martial training to go with it—lifted the weapon to parry. It didn’t matter. Splitter sheared right through its blade and streaked on into its torso.
Knife in hand, the fourth goblin dodged behind its foe. Sensing its location, Ryld kicked backward. His boot connected solidly, snapping bone, and when he turned the creature lay motionless on the ground, likely dead of a broken back.
Ryld turned to survey the battlefield. His eyes widened in shock and dismay.
Pharaun too was on the ground. Three goblins crouched over him on their bandy legs. One scabrous creature had blood on the iron spike that served it as a poniard.
Ryld bellowed a war cry, sprang at them, and struck them down before they could do any more damage. He kneeled beside his friend. Beneath the elegant piwafwi, Pharaun’s equally gorgeous robe had two punctures in it, and was dark and wet from breastbone to thighs.
“I heard them coming a moment after you did,” the wizard wheezed. “I didn’t turn around fast enough.”
“Don’t worry,” said Ryld. “It’s going to be all right.”
In reality, he wasn’t at all sure of that.
“The goblin thrust through the gap between the wings of my cloak. The little bastard hurt me when Greyanna and her followers couldn’t. Isn’t that silly?”
chapter
TWELVE
When Quenthel had decided she must don armor, she had performed the task as methodically as she did everything else. She’d put on a cunningly crafted adamantine gorget, a Baenre heirloom, beneath her chain mail and piwafwi, and it was likely that protective collar that saved her life.
Still, the unexpected impact on the nape of her neck knocked her forward and down onto one knee, and the edge of her enchanted buckler clanked against the floor.
For a moment, she was dazed. The whip vipers hissed and clamored to rouse her, their outburst clashing with the jumbled howling of the advancing chaos demon.
She felt something hanging down her back and bade the serpents pull it off. Hsiv reared over her shoulder, tugged the article out of the mail links and cloth with his jaws, and displayed it for her inspection. She recognized it from the armory. It was an enchanted quarrel sized for a two-hand arbalest, and if it, or one like it, so much as pricked a dark elf’s skin, it would almost certainly kill.
Quenthel thought her assailant had had just about enough time to reload. If so, the Baenre obviously couldn’t trust her cloak and mail to protect her—the first bolt had pierced them easily enough.
Though it meant turning her back on the demon, she wrenched herself around, remaining on one knee to make a smaller target, and did her best to cover herself with her tiny shield.
Just in time. A second quarrel cracked against the armor. A shadowy but recognizably female figure ducked back into an arched doorway, no doubt to ready her weapon again.
Trapped between two foes, Quenthel thought that if she didn’t eliminate one of them quickly, they were almost certainly going to kill her. Judging her sister dark elf the easier mark, she leveled a long, thin rod at her.
A glob of seething green vitriol materialized in the air before her, then shot toward her enemy. Quenthel could just see the edge of her opponent’s body in the recessed space, and that was what she aimed for. Even if she missed, the magic ought to slow the assassin down.
The green mass clipped her foe’s shoulder. It exploded, and the dark figure jumped. The stonework around her was covered in a sticky mass of something like glue. Quenthel smiled, but her foe, apparently unhindered by the entrapping magic, returned to the task of cocking the crossbow. Something, her innate drow resistance to hostile magic, perhaps, had shielded her from harm.
Quenthel glanced over her shoulder as she slipped the rod back into her belt. Though moving at a leisurely pace, the chaos demon had already traversed more than half of the lengthy gallery, and of course its speed could increase at any moment, just as every other aspect of its being altered unpredictably from one second to the next.
But if the Spider Queen favored Quenthel and the entity didn’t accelerate, she might have time for another strike at her foe of flesh and blood. Silently directing the vipers to keep an eye on the demon, she turned back, and read from a precious scroll.
When Quenthel pronounced the last syllable, the scroll disappeared in a puff of dust and a brilliant light filled the chamber. The dark elf in the doorway reeled and clutched blindly at the door frame. She touched the slowly-dripping mass of glue and snatched her fingers away, leaving skin behind.
Quenthel started to read another scroll as the air around her stirred, blowing one direction then another. Hot one second and cold the next, the gusts wafted countless smells, pleasant and foul alike. She took it for a sign that the demon had drawn very close, and the vipers’ warning confirmed it.
Still, she wanted to finish her lesser adversary off before the girl recovered her sight. She completed the spell, the exquisitely inked characters burning through the parchment like hot coals.
From the elbow down, the enemy female’s left arm rippled and swelled, becoming an enormous black spider with green markings on its bristling back. Still attached to the rest of her body, it lunged at her throat and plunged its mandibles in.
Quenthel spun around. Mauve with golden spots, then white, then half red and half blue, the demon loomed over her. Most of the time it looked flat, like a hole into some other luminous, turbulent universe, and an observer had only its inconstant outline from which to infer its shape. Over the course of a couple seconds, it seemed to become an enormous crab claw, a wagon complete with driver, and a whirling dust devil. The length of gallery behind it resembled a tunnel carved from melting rainbow-colored slush except for one little stretch. That section appeared unchange
d until Quenthel noticed that the carvings had flipped upside down.
The high priestess scrambled to her feet. As she rooted in her bag for another scroll, her scourge dangled from her wrist. The vipers writhed and twisted.
The chaos demon blinked from ochre to a pattern of black and white stripes, and from the form of a simple isosceles triangle to that of an ogre. Its cry currently a mix of roaring and cawing, it swung its newly acquired club.
Quenthel caught the blow on her buckler. To her surprise, she didn’t feel the slightest shock, but the shield turned blue, changed from round to rectangular, and became many times heavier than it had been before.
The unexpected weight dragged her down to the floor again. Resembling a cresting wave, the intruder flowed toward her. She yanked, but her shield arm was caught somehow and wouldn’t pull free of the straps.
Rippling from magenta to brown stippled with scarlet, the demon advanced to within inches of her foot. Quenthel’s boot evaporated into wisps of vapor, and pain stabbed through the extremity.
Finally her hand jerked out of its restraints, and she flung herself backward, rolling, her mail whispering against the floor.
When she’d put sufficient distance between herself and her foe, she rose, then faltered. For an instant, she couldn’t locate the fiend, and her mind struggled to make sense of the scene before her. Green and blue, shaped like an hourglass, the demon was gliding along the ceiling, not the floor. It was still pursuing her. The cursed thing was random in every respect save its doggedly murderous intent.
The entity’s howl ceased for a moment, then resumed with a peal of childish laughter. Quenthel snatched and unrolled a scroll, which abruptly turned into a rothé’s jawbone. The air took on a sooty tinge, and her next breath seared her lungs.
Choking, she stumbled back out of the cloud. She could breathe, though the stinging heat in her throat and chest persisted. She suspected that, had she inhaled any more of it, the taint might well have killed her. As it was, it had incapacitated and possibly slain the vipers, who hung inert from the butt of the whip.
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