Dissolution

by Byers, Richard Lee

  Below the Mizzrym, some of the warriors were readying their crossbows. Others began to levitate. By rushing him, they’d drawn even with the game merchant’s tent, and Ryld burst from underneath it. Half an hour earlier, he’d purchased a scimitar to use in this particular battle, but it was Splitter, rendered visible by his touch, that he currently clasped in his hands. He must have decided that, since Gelroos had already called out Pharaun’s name, it would be pointless to try to conceal his own identity.

  The greatsword leaped back and forth, each stroke dropping a foe to the ground. Bellowing for his minions to turn and face the new threat, Ryld’s fellow instructor tried to shove his way toward him.

  Stone, liquid as magma, flowed upward from the ground into the elemental’s body. Most of the rock served to grow the creature bigger and taller, but some of it accumulated in the palm of its hand, forming a spiky sphere that it no doubt intended to hurl at Pharaun.

  The wizard snatched a tiny vial of water from one of his pockets. Brandishing it, he chanted. He felt the walls of the cosmos attenuating, and for a moment, sensed an infinite number of Pharauns conjuring in adjacent realities, receding away from him like reflections in a mirror, growing subtly less and less like himself with each step.

  A pulse of scarlet light struck him in the chest. Gelroos must have conjured it. The blaze of pain was extraordinary. Pharaun strained to complete the last word of power and final mystic pass without a fumble.

  He wasn’t sure he’d succeeded until a vacancy, a gap not in matter but in the medium that underlies it, opened under the elemental’s feet. The creature cocked back its arm to throw, and the animating force fell out of the body it had created for itself and down the hole. The wound in the fabric of the world contracted and sealed itself. Rumbling and thudding, the huge stone form fell apart.

  Pharaun took stock of himself. It didn’t look as if the red light had done more than scrape and prick his skin. He grinned down at Gelroos.

  “Not quite, colleague.”

  “This time,” the younger wizard said through gritted teeth.

  He started casting, and Pharaun did the same.

  Force crackled around the outcast Mizzrym but failed to bite into his flesh. His own magic, launched from the same round little mirror he used to check his appearance, made the air surrounding Gelroos tinkle like chiming crystals. The junior wizard screamed, and in the blink of an eye he was transformed into an inert figure made of cool, smooth glass.

  Metal rang below Pharaun’s feet. He looked down. Ryld appeared as if he might be having a difficult time of it, but a conjured barrage of ice, flung into the midst of the surviving students, turned the tide. Ryld cut down his fellow Master of Melee-Magthere, whirled to do the same to a young spearman, and the fight was over.

  Pharaun surveyed the battlefield. Though burned and incapacitated, some of the warriors-in-training were still alive, but that was all right. The important thing had always been to murder his fellow instructors. That was what would impress the rogues.

  He floated back down to earth. “That wasn’t too difficult. Looking back, it’s a pity we didn’t slaughter Greyanna and her allies in the same fashion.”

  Ryld grunted, pulled up the hem of a fallen fighter’s cloak, and wiped the blood from Splitter.

  “Can you shatter Gelroos before we decamp?” Pharaun asked. “Otherwise, he’ll eventually revert to flesh and blood.”

  “If you like.”

  Ryld hefted his blade.

  chapter

  FIFTEEN

  Wrapped in a plain, dark piwafwi, the cowl drawn over her head, Quenthel tramped south across the city. The experience was strange, unique in her personal experience. She was on foot, not mounted on a lizard or enthroned on a floating stone disk. She was alone, not accompanied by a column of guards and servants, and most strangely of all, no one paid her any real attention. Oh, slaves scurried out of her path, and males offered her a cursory show of respect, but no one feared her or cringed in awe of her. Indeed, she herself had to offer obeisance to the noble females she encountered along the way, lest their soldiers chastise her for insolence.

  It was galling, unsettling, and somehow tempting as well. In her most private thoughts, she’d imagined herself simply running away from the implacable foe who worked so assiduously to kill her. It might be the only way she could survive. If she opted to flee this minute, she was already off to a good start. She’d managed to slip away from Tier Breche with no one, she hoped, the wiser.

  Flight was a cowardly notion, though, unworthy of a Baenre, and it angered her when she entertained it even for a moment. Until the attacks began, she never had before. She turned a corner, and Qu’ellarz’orl, came into view. Her destination was nigh, and she focused her thoughts on the task at hand.

  Sneaking away from the Academy had been a little complicated. First, she’d had to surreptitiously lay hands on nondescript outerwear that would allow her to pass for a commoner. Such a piwafwi certainly hadn’t existed among her own garments, all of which were costly and bejeweled, but she’d found it among the effects of one of the kitchen staff. After disposing of the cook lest the missing garment be reported, she had to exit Arach-Tinilith without anyone realizing it was her, including her own watchful sentries. Finally, she needed to skulk to the edge of the plateau and float down to the cavern floor below without the guards at the top of the staircase noticing.

  She’d managed it, though, and she was confident of her ability to sneak back into the Academy, even after the plateau had been put on a state of heightened security.

  A road ran up the eminence that was Qu’ellarz’orl to the castles of Menzoberranzan’s greatest families. It wasn’t off limits to commoners. Merchants and supplicants used it all the time, but they were subject to search and interrogation by House Baenre patrols.

  Quenthel started up the twisting road and made it better than halfway to the top before she heard the distinctive grunt and hiss of a riding lizard. She scurried off the path into the forest of giant, phosphorescent mushrooms, where she crouched behind a particularly massive specimen.

  The patrol, a mounted officer and a dozen foot soldiers, marched by without so much as glancing her way. Hiding from her own troops was another bizarre, almost surreal experience.

  When the warriors passed, she hurried on up the slope. In another minute, she reached the top of the rise. Before her rose the most opulent fortresses in the city. At the easternmost end of the expanse, House Baenre towered on the highest ground of all, dwarfing every other structure.

  She turned her steps toward the tall, slender spire known as Spelltower Xorlarrin, residence of the Fifth House. Bands of shimmering faerie fire striped the iron walls.

  She climbed the steep steps to the gate under the watchful eyes of the sentries on the battlements. Had she not already known it, their vigilance would have shown that she could maintain complete anonymity no longer.

  Still, she’d do the best she could.

  When a sentry armed with spear and long sword strode over to ask her business, she said, “I’m going to show you something remarkable. Don’t let your amazement show.”

  He looked skeptical. He lived in the Spelltower, after all, and had seen his share of marvels.

  “All right, ma’am. Show me, if you will.”

  She twitched open her piwafwi, giving him a glimpse of the Baenre House insignia hanging at her throat.

  His eyes widened, but otherwise, he did a fair job of doing as she’d bade him.

  “How may I serve you?” he asked softly, the slightest quaver in his voice.

  “I want to enter the tower without anyone paying the least attention to me, and I want to talk to your matron alone.”

  “Please, come with me.”

  The guard led her through the gate and into a confusion of service passages such as every castle possessed. The corridors eventually brought them into a nicely appointed room with comfortable-looking sandstone chairs, a carnelian-and-obsidian sava set
awaiting a pair of players, and frescos of some of Lolth’s attendant demons adorning the walls.

  Her escort departed in search of his mistress, leaving Quenthel to prowl restlessly about the room. Finally the door opened, and Zeerith Q’Zorlarrin slipped through. Her features were plain and nondescript, but she was notable for a dignified bearing and composure that rarely failed her even in the most extreme situations. For a matron, her costume was rather plain and austere.

  The two princesses saluted one another, then Zeerith ushered her guest to a seat.

  “When Antatlab told me you’d come without a single guard, I wondered if he’d gone mad,” the matron remarked.

  “Can I trust him not to gossip about my visit?”

  “He’s discreet enough. Now, may I ask why I’m so unexpectedly enjoying the honor of your company?”

  Quenthel related the events of the past three nights.

  “If I still possessed my magic,” she concluded. “I could deal with this matter easily, but as things stand … I need help.”

  The words galled her, but they had to be said.

  “Why have you sought it here?” Zeerith asked.

  “The Xorlarrins have always supported the Baenre and profited thereby. Try as I might, I can’t think of a compelling reason you’d want me dead, and your House boasts many of the best wizards in Menzoberranzan. So, if I must trust someone, you’re a good chance. Will you aid me, Matron?”

  Zeerith took her time replying. Quenthel knew the other female was cold-bloodedly pondering whether to help, deny, or betray her. Where did the greatest advantage lie?

  “Your plight is an outrage,” the Xorlarrin said at last, “an affront to all priestesses. Of course I’ll aid you. For ten thousand talents of gold, and your support when my clan’s dispute with House Agrach Dyrr becomes public knowledge.”

  “What dispute?”

  “The one I’ll be stirring up in a tenday or two. Do we have a bargain?”

  Quenthel’s mouth tightened. If she’d come to the Spelltower in the full panoply of a Baenre princess, Zeerith would have thought twice about making conditions, but by arriving incognito the mistress had shown her desperation and in so doing, shifted the transaction to another level.

  “Yes,” she growled, “I agree.”

  “I thank you for your generosity. What do you require?”

  “Every night,” said Quenthel, “a new demon comes to kill me, and I fend it off as best I can. If this goes on, a night will come when the entity kills me instead. I need to do more. I need to end the siege, and it’s my hope your mages know a way. I confess I don’t. I’ve ransacked every vault, chest, and drawer in Arach-Tinilith and found nothing that will serve.”

  “So that’s why you came in secret. You want a weapon, and you don’t want your foe to know about it. Otherwise, he might take countermeasures.”

  “Correct.”

  Zeerith rose. “We’ll ask Horroodissomoth. He can do it if anyone can, and he’ll keep his mouth shut after.”

  She opened the door and directed Antatlab, who’d been standing watch outside, to go and fetch her patron and House wizard.

  Horroodissomoth arrived shortly thereafter. Quenthel felt a little twinge of disgust, for the mage was the antithesis of the typical vital dark elf male. His features were lined and wrinkled, and his posture, bent. Rumor had it that his appearance of decrepitude had resulted not from extreme age but rather some dangerous magical experimentation.

  Moving stiffly, all but creaking audibly, Horroodissomoth tendered obeisance then, at Zeerith’s invitation, settled in a chair to listen to a reprise of Quenthel’s story. At first the wizard’s demeanor was impassive, perhaps even utterly disinterested, but a light came into his rheumy eyes when he realized she was asking him to solve a magical problem.

  “Hmm,” he said, “hmm. I think I might have something that will help. In a way, I regret giving it to you, because as far as I know, it’s unique. Even we Xorlarrins don’t know how to make another. But on the other hand, I’ve always been curious to see if it actually works.”

  Gossip whispered that at some point in the distant past, the females of House Ousstyl had interbred with humans. Naturally the contemporary Ousstyls denied it and would do their meager best to punish anyone they suspected of passing the rumor. Still, as Faeryl gazed across the table at Talindra Ousstyl, Matron Mother of the Fifty-second House, she could readily believe it. Talindra was tall and, for a dark elf, extraordinarily rawboned. Her jaw was too square, and her ears, insufficiently pointed. Most telling of all was the scatter of empty plates before her. She’d annihilated every morsel of her seven-course supper with a lesser being’s insatiable voracity.

  Talindra finished with a juicy belch.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Of course,” Faeryl said. She thought she heard a thump issuing from elsewhere in the ambassadorial residence. Inwardly, she flinched but Talindra didn’t seem to notice the sound.

  “Well,” the matron said, “that was tasty, but I believe you invited my brood to supper and spirited me away to this private room, because you wanted to talk of something more important than cuisine.”

  Faeryl smiled and said, “You’ve found me out, and I have a confession to make. I don’t always devote myself to the interests of Ched Nasad as a whole. Occasionally I work solely to advance the fortunes of House Zauvirr.”

  “How could it be otherwise?” Talindra said, raising her golden cup. “Family, always. Family over all.”

  Faeryl joined the other noble in the toast. She’d always enjoyed the sweet dessert wine, but this time it tasted too sweet, almost sickeningly so. She supposed her nerves were to blame.

  The envoy set down her drink and said, “Let us discuss how our two families might be of service to one another. In Ched Nasad, we Zauvirr are allied with House Mylyl. For the immediate future, we must remain so. Yet it’s also time for the Mylyls to begin their decline, for their wealth and influence to start passing into our hands. You see the problem.”

  Talindra grinned and said, “You want to attack the Mylyls without them realizing who’s to blame.”

  “So why not do it through an intermediary?”

  Elsewhere, someone let out a thin, little wail. Faeryl tensed, but once again, her guest failed to react. Fortunately, the sounds of pain were reasonably common in dark elf dwellings.

  “You want me to lend you some of my males,” the matron said, “to make the long, dangerous journey to Ched Nasad to raid and kill for you. It makes sense. The Mylyls would have no idea who they are, nor that they’re working for you. But what do I get out of it? Why—?”

  A warrior threw open the door, strode to Talindra’s side, and raised a steel baton.

  The matron was too quick for him. Surging up in her chair, she knocked him cold with a punch to the jaw, drew a long knife from her belt, and pivoted toward Faeryl.

  The ambassador snatched up Mother’s Kiss, which had been lying under the table all the while. She sprang up, swung the basalt-headed warhammer in an arc and balked the oncoming Talindra for an instant.

  For the next few seconds, the two nobles battled, neither able to score; then Talindra used her free hand to clasp a round medallion pinned to her bodice. Red light shone from between her fingers.

  If the matron had the capacity to throw a spell, that changed the complexion of the fight considerably. Faeryl needed to end it quickly, perhaps before the first magical effect manifested. She charged her opponent, striking at her head in an all-out attack.

  It was a reckless move, and she suffered the consequences. The knife point jabbed painfully into her ribs. Luckily, it failed to penetrate the mail she wore beneath her silken gown. Mother’s Kiss slammed into the Menzoberranyr’s head and dashed her to the ground. Her hand slipped away from the amulet, and the glow faded.

  An instant later, a second guard burst into the room.

  “We’ve secured them all, my lady.”

  The warrior was a rugged-looking male with
a chipped incisor and a broken nose, whom she had on occasion summoned to her bed.

  “Good,” Faeryl replied. “How many did you have to kill?”

  “Only one, but we could slaughter the rest. If I may say so, it seems more sensible and less bother than tying them up.”

  “It does, but I came here to promote good relations between Menzoberranzan and Ched Nasad. Even though some schemer has rendered my efforts futile, I won’t exacerbate the situation by committing any more outrages than necessary. You soldiers will do as I bade you. Strip the Ousstyls, gag them, and tie them up.”

  Talindra groaned and groped feebly for her knife. Impressed that the matron was still conscious to any degree at all after the blow she’d suffered, Faeryl kicked the blade out of her reach.

  “You can’t do this,” Talindra croaked, “not to House Ousstyl. We are mighty and never forget at affront.”

  Tense as she was, Faeryl smiled. The matron’s arrogance was woefully misplaced. The Ousstyls were so insignificant they hadn’t even known the ambassador had lost the good will of Triel Baenre. Otherwise, they would never have accepted an invitation to feast with such a pariah.

  Faeryl bashed Talindra again, this time rendering her entirely insensible, then she roamed through the castle, exhorting her minions to make haste. Soon all were wearing the clothing of the Ousstyls. For the first time, Faeryl was grateful that her household was relatively small. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have had enough pilfered garments to go around.

  She and her lieutenants sported the finery of the Ousstyl dignitaries, while the common soldiers had donned piwafwis and mail, and carried the arms of Talindra’s bodyguards.

  The outlanders stowed provisions beneath their mantles. The quantity was insufficient, for they couldn’t conceal all that much. With luck, they’d be able to hunt and forage on the trail. They headed for the mansion’s enclosed stable, where Talindra had left her driftdisc.