«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 Houses, 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 declasse 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.»
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 yo
u 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!»
«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. Quenthel reacted as would any dark elf in the same situation. She yearned to accept the challenge and kill the other female, felt the need like a sensual tension pressing for an explosive release. Either responding to her surge of emotion or else themselves vexed by Drisinil's temerity, the whip vipers reared and hissed. The problem was that, despite Quenthel's assertions to the contrary, the students were not altogether devoid of importance. They were the raw but valuable ore sent to the Academy to be refined and hammered into useful implements. No one would fret over a few amputated pinkies, but the matron mothers did expect that, for the most part, their children would survive their education, an assumption the idiot Mizzrym renegade had already called into question. True, Pharaun had only lost males, but still, by any sensible reckoning, he had used up the school's quota of allowable deaths for several years to come. At this juncture it would be a poor idea for Quenthel to kill any student, certainly a scion of the powerful Barrison Del'Armgo. Quenthel didn't want to stir up discord between the Academy and the noble Houses when Menzoberranzan already perched on the brink of dissolution. Besides, she was a bit concerned that the other failed runaways might take it into their heads to jump into the fight on their ringleader's side. Quenthel quieted the vipers with a thought, fixed Drisinil with her steeliest stare, and said, «Think.» «I have thought,» Drisinil retorted. «I've thought, why should we spend ten years of our lives cooped up on Tier Breche when there's nothing for us here?» «There is everything for you here,» said Quenthel, maintaining the pressure of her gaze. «This is where you learn to be all that a lady of Menzoberranzan must be.» «What? What am I learning?» «At the moment, patience and submission.» «That's not what I came for.» «Evidently not. Consider this, then. All the priestesses of Menzoberranzan are currently playing a game, and the object of the game is to convince others that nothing is amiss. If a student leaves Arach-Tinilith prematurely, as none has ever done since the founding of the city, that will seem peculiar, a hint that all is not as it ought to be.» «Perhaps I don't care about the game.» «Your mother does. She plays as diligently as the rest of us. Do you think she will welcome you home if you jeopardize her efforts?» Drisinil's emerald eyes blinked, the first sign that Quenthel's stare was unsettling her. «I … yes, certainly she would!» «You, a traitor to your House, your city, your sex, and the goddess herself?» «The goddess—» «Don't say it!» Quenthel snapped. «Or your life ends, and your soul is bound to torment forevermore. I speak not only as Mistress of Arach-Tinilith, but as a Baenre. You remember Baenre, Barrison Del'Armgo? We are the First House, and you, merely the Second. Even if you should succeed in departing Arach-Tmilith, even if your gross and uncouth dam should be so unwise as to accept you back into that hovel you Del'Armgo call a home, you will not survive the month. My sister Triel, Matron Mother Baenre, will personally attend to your destruction.»
It was no less than the truth. There was no love lost between the two Baenre sisters, but when it came to maintaining the supremacy of their House, they supported one another absolutely.
Drisinil swallowed and lowered her eyes a hair. «Mistress, I mean no disrespect. I just don't want to mutilate myself.» «But you will, novice, and without any further delay. You really have no other option. . and isn't it convenient, you already have a knife in your grasp.» Drisinil swallowed again, and, her dagger hand shaking a little, brought the blade into position to saw at her little finger. Quenthel thought the procedure might go easier if the novice walked a few steps and braced her pinkie atop the nearby table, but apparently she was taking «without any further delay» quite literally, and that was fine with the high priestess. In her imagination, she was already savoring the first slice when a blare like a sour note blasted from a hundred glaur horns split the air. For an instant, Quenthel faltered, not frightened but disoriented. She had been told what this ugly noise was but had expected never to actually hear it. To the best of her knowledge, no one ever had. The priestesses of Menzoberranzan enjoyed a complex relationship with the inhabitants of the Abyss. Some infernal entities were the knights or handmaidens of Lolth, and during worship were venerated as such, but on other occasions the clerics did not scruple to snare spirits with their summoning spells and compel them to do their bidding. Sometimes the creatures stalked the physical plane of their own volition, slaughtering any mortal who crossed their path, not excepting the drow, who were by some accounts their kindred. The founders of the Academy had shielded Tier Breche in g
eneral and Arach-Tinilith in particular with enchantments devised to keep out any spirit save those the occupants saw fit to welcome. Countless generations of priestesses had deemed those wards impregnable, but if the ear-splitting alarm told true, the barriers were falling one by one. The blare seemed to be coming from the south. The pleasures of chastisement forgotten, Quenthel ran in that direction past countless chapels, altars, and icons of Lolth in both her dark elf and spider forms; past the classrooms where the faculty gave instruction in dogma, ritual, divine magic, torture, sacrifice, and all the other arts the novices needed to learn. Their books, chalkboards, and whimpering, half-dissected slave victims forgotten, some of the teachers and students appeared on the brink of venturing out to investigate the alarm, while others still looked startled and confused. The blaring stopped. Either the demon had given up attempting to force its way in, or else it had breached every single ward. Quenthel suspected the latter was the case, and when the screaming started, she knew she was right. «Do you know what's breaking through?» she panted. «No,» hissed Yngoth, perhaps the wisest of the whip vipers. «The intruder has shielded itself from the Sight.» «Wonderful.» The echoing cries led Quenthel into a spacious candlelit hall filled with towering black marble sculptures of spiders, set there to make the temple's entryway as impressive as possible. The battered valves of the great adamantine double door in the curved south wall gaped crookedly, half off their hinges, affording a glimpse of the plateau outside. Several priestesses lay battered and insensible on the floor. For a moment, Quenthel couldn't make out what had caused the mess, then the culprit scuttled across her field of vision toward another hapless servant of Lolth. The intruder was a gigantic spider bearing a close resemblance to the gleaming black effigies around it, and upon seeing it, Quenthel scowled at an unfamiliar and unwelcome pang of doubt. On the one hand, the demon, if that was what it truly was, was attacking her pupils and staff, but on the other, it was a kind of spider, sacred to Lolth. Perhaps it was even her emissary, sent to punish the weak and heretical. Maybe Quenthel should simply step aside and permit it to continue its rampage. It sensed her somehow, turned, and rushed toward her as if it had been looking for her all along. Though many spiders possessed several eyes, this one, she observed, was exceptional beyond the point of deformity. The head behind the jagged mandibles was virtually nothing but a mass of bulging eyes, and a scatter of others opened here and there about the creatures shiny black bulb of a body.
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