Quenthel felt a pang of loss, but it only lasted a moment. Then she smiled.
Gromph sat before one of the enchanted windows in his hidden chamber. He’d crossed his feet atop a hassock and held a crystal goblet of black wine in his hand. He’d thrown the strangely carved ivory casements wide and supposed he must look like the soul of ease awaiting some pleasant entertainment.
Well, that was the hope, but despite himself the Archmage of Menzoberranzan was growing used to disappointment.
He hadn’t made any progress in finding the runaway males. His divinations were so oblique and contradictory as to be useless. Apparently some able spellcaster had forestalled his efforts. His genuine spies had turned up nothing, indeed, had managed to get themselves strangled in Eastmyr by parties unknown. The only satisfaction, if one could call it that, was that his decoy was still on the loose, still occupying the priestesses’ attention. Why Pharaun Mizzrym had deemed it expedient to slaughter a patrol from the Academy, though, was more than Gromph could comprehend.
The Baenre wizard hadn’t yet managed to kill Quenthel, either. For the past few nights, he’d dispatched his conjured minions, then settled before the window to watch them do his bidding. Impossibly, even stripped of her magic, his sister had disposed of the first three spirits and the traitors he’d inspired as well. Like some bungler in a farce, Gromph had only managed to account for a few lesser clerics with whom he had no quarrel, who would otherwise have gone on to contribute to the strength of Menzoberranzan and the House that controlled it. It was maddening!
This night, he prayed, would be different. Quenthel had turned out to be competent at disposing of spirits wearing some semblance of material form, but surely she would prove more vulnerable to an assailant that slipped imperceptibly into her mind.
The enchanted window afforded Gromph a view of the interior of Arach-Tinilith as if he were but a few feet away. He watched his sister and her squad encounter wretches whom the spirit had already overwhelmed with the infusion of an evil more profound than any mortal, even a dark elf, could readily bear. He looked for some sign that Quenthel was growing afraid. The indication would be subtle if she let it slip at all, but perhaps a brother would spot it.
He didn’t, and eventually Quenthel ordered her minions to evacuate the building and sat down to meditate.
The archmage frowned. Evidently the imperious bitch had figured out what was going on and had in a sense responded appropriately. But it shouldn’t matter. He’d withstood contact with the ultimate essence of evil, but he was the greatest wizard in the world and had taken precautions. Quenthel enjoyed neither advantage.
In time, a sublime cruelty twisted her features. Gromph exclaimed in triumph, for the netherspirit plainly had her in its grasp. Evidently she wasn’t going to drop dead of an aneurysm or commit suicide, but no matter: she was doomed. Her personality erased, consumed by the compulsion to degrade and destroy, she was bound to provoke someone into killing her.
Then she broke the skinny white wand in two, unleashing a magic that thrust the netherspirit out of her. Gromph, for all his knowledge, had never seen anything quite like it. Taking on just a hint of palpable form, his agent fled the scene.
The Baenre wizard bolted up in his chair and threw his goblet, smashing it against the wall. He cursed foully, and the malignancy in his words, hammering through the black lotus-scented air, made the greenish flames of the everlasting candles gutter.
Struggling for composure, he told himself it didn’t matter. He’d get her eventually. He’d throw entity after entity at her until . . .
But what had happened to the netherspirit? Constrained by Gromph’s command, it should have kept attacking until either it toppled the pillars of Quenthel’s reason or she destroyed it. Instead, it had run away.
The mistress’s unfamiliar magic had broken the binding—so much was clear—but where had the creature gone? Back to its own world? Probably, but something—a slight acceleration of his heartbeat or a subtle prickling on the back of his neck, perhaps— made Gromph want to check.
The casement responded to his will. Framed in that rectangular space, the netherspirit, still visible, perhaps as tangible as smoke, half flew, half bounded down one of the labyrinthine corridors of Sorcere. A defensive ward activated, piercing the intruder with crisscrossing shafts of yellow light, but it tore itself free and charged on. A blue-gowned master peered out the door of his sanctum, spotted the wraith, started to conjure, and the intruder stopped him with a sweep of a shadowy paw. The blow didn’t rock the wizard backward or leave a mark, but he fell like a block of stone.
Gromph surmised his erstwhile agent was coming after him. Either it was angry over its forced servitude, or Quenthel had done more than merely dissolve his control. She’d wrested it away from him and turned the entity into her own assassin.
Either way, the spirit represented a threat, and unfortunately, Gromph himself didn’t know its full capabilities. Still, he had no real reason for concern. His magic was more than a match for any such entity, especially in his stronghold.
He watched the netherspirit flow through the black marble door of his office like water through a sieve. It scrambled over the white bone desk and headed straight for the hidden access to his sanctum. Magic crackled purple and blue around it, but it burst through. It hurtled up the shaft.
Gromph smiled. He had the creature where he wanted it, for he’d created the passage with defense in mind. Simply by focusing his will, he destroyed it.
The shaft wasn’t made of matter. Still, a metallic crashing and grinding sounded through the hole in the middle of the floor as the artificial space folded in on itself. If the rebellious spirit screamed, its voice was lost among the din.
Gromph would have enjoyed hearing it squeal, but the important thing was that it was gone. Most likely, the collapse had crushed it to nothing, but even if not, it had surely ejected it, maimed and disoriented, in some remote halfworld. The crisis was over, and the archmage was left only with the annoyance of transporting himself in and out of his hideaway via spell until such time as he invested the six hours necessary to recreate the passage.
However, just to maintain the habit of caution that had balked a thousand enemies, he turned back to the window, then scowled.
The space still framed the spirit, and as far as Gromph could see, the shadowy thing was unharmed. Darting and wheeling through curtains of pale phosphorescence, it was casting about in the bent spaces surrounding the stronghold.
Gromph didn’t see how the creature could find him. Nothing could locate a refuge hidden in a haze of scrambled time, not without the tenant in some way guiding it in. Nonetheless, the wizard hurried into one of the protective golden pentacles adorning the marble floor.
An instant later, a different window burst inward, the casements flying from their hinges. The spirit flowed through, in the process resuming the form it had worn before Gromph transformed it into the semblance of a kind of demon. It somewhat resembled a wingless dragon with long, taurine horns sweeping from its head, which also possessed a single globular eye. The archmage couldn’t actually see the orb—it was one with the inky shadow of the spirit’s body—but he could feel its baleful regard.
Slightly anxious and uncertain, and all the angrier for it, Gromph shouted, “K’rarza’q! I named, summoned, and bound you, and I am your master. By the Prince Who Dreams in the Heart of the Void and by the Word of Naratyr, I command you to kneel!”
The netherspirit released a humid stink that somehow conveyed the essence of scornful laughter, then it bounded forward.
Very well, Gromph thought, have it your way.
He thrust the curved blade of his ritual dagger into his belly.
As he’d expected, the creature floundered in agony, but only for an instant. Anguish erupted in the archmage’s own stomach. He yanked the athame out of his flesh an instant before it would have dealt him an actual wound.
K’rarza’q lunged. Ignoring the residual pain in hi
s gut, Gromph recited a brief incantation and thrust out his arm. The air rang like a bell, and a little red ball of fire shot from his hand. It struck the creature and . . . nothing. The missile winked out of existence.
The entity reached the edge of the pentacle. A barrier of azure light sprang up and vanished with a tortured whine as the spirit drove though. The creature dipped its head and jerked it upward, ramming the tip of one of its horns into Gromph’s chest.
The spirit was entirely solid. If not for the Robes of the Archmage and his other protections, the long blade of shadow stuff would surely have impaled Gromph. As it was, it picked him up and tossed him across the room. In midair, he strained to throw off the numbing shock and activate the powers of levitation in his House insignia.
The power woke with a sort of sickening pang, but wake it did. He floated down as light as a wisp of spider silk, avoiding what might have been a bone-shattering fall.
As soon as he got his feet under him, he snatched a polished wooden wand from its sheath on his left hip, pointed it, and murmured the trigger word. A bubble of pungent brown acid swelled on the end, then hurtled at the spirit. It plunged into the being’s cyclopean mask, but apparently without inflicting any harm.
The spirit charged. Gromph stood in place until his foe was nearly on top of him, then he spoke a single word. A minor teleportation shifted him instantaneously to the other end of the circular room, behind his attacker’s back.
K’rarza’q skidded to a halt and cast about in confusion. Gromph had bought himself a few heartbeats, no more. He quickly dropped the wand of acid, snatched a spiral-cut staff of polished carnelian from its place on a rack of wizard’s tools, lifted it over his head, and began to chant. The rod possessed special virtues against beings from other levels of reality. Perhaps with it in his hand, he could finally drive a spell through his foe’s defenses.
The netherspirit heard his voice, turned, and hurtled toward him. This time it charged without moving its limbs, simply shifting over the distance with terrifying speed. Preserving the cadence and intonation as only a master wizard could, Gromph picked up the pace of his incantation. He very much wanted to finish before the creature closed with him again.
He succeeded, though only barely. K’rarza’q was nearly within arm’s reach when the magic blazed into existence. A lance of dazzling glare plunged into the netherspirit’s eye.
The reeking creature dropped to the floor, its substance unraveling into shapeless clumps and tatters. Gromph smiled, and a dozen strands of spirit-stuff reared up at him like the vipers in his cursed sister’s whip.
The archmage gripped the scarlet staff with both hands, just as a Master of Melee-Magthere had taught him centuries before, during the six months every student mage was obliged to spend in the warriors’ pyramid. Wielding the implement like a common spear, he thrust one end of it into what seemed to be K’rarza’q’s ragged, squirming core.
The netherspirit burst into inert flecks of gray-black slime. Gromph’s protective enchantments prevented any of the splatter from fouling his own person.
He felt a certain satisfaction at his victory, but it withered quickly because he hadn’t killed the object of his hatred, merely preserved himself from the result of another failed attempt, and in the process discovered he’d utterly failed to comprehend Quenthel’s resources and capacities.
What was that bone wand? Where had it come from, and how did it work? Had it merely broken his own control, or had it summarily placed his minion under his enemy’s dominance?
He glumly concluded that until he knew more, it would be foolish to continue attacking a foe seemingly capable of turning his own potent wizardry against him.
So he’d break off hostilities.
And, he thought, with a sudden pang of uneasiness, hope his sister didn’t guess who’d engineered her recent perils.
chapter
seventeen
All the undercreatures gawked when Pharaun and Ryld strolled into the cellar, and why not? The mage doubted this foul little drinking pit had ever seen such an elegant figure as himself, an aristocrat of graceful carriage, exquisite ornaments, dress, and coiffure . . . well, he hoped that, after some emergency adjustments, his hair was at least passable.
In any case, it was plain the goblins, orcs, and whatevers had little interest in aesthetic appreciation. They whispered, glowered, and fingered their weapons whenever they thought the two dark elves weren’t looking at them, and the fear and hate in the sweltering, low-ceilinged room were palpable. Pharaun supposed that considering what Greyanna and her hunters had wrought in the Braeryn the previous night, a measure of surliness was, if not good form, at least understandable.
He wondered how they’d react if they discovered his sister had slaughtered their fellows by the score merely to create an opportunity to kill him. Perhaps it was a question best left in the realm of the hypothetical.
Knowing that Ryld was watching his back, the Master of Sorcere sauntered to the bar and, with a sweep of his arm, scattered clattering coins across it. The currency was the usual miscellany encountered in Menzoberranzan—rounds, squares, triangles, rings, spiders, and octagons—half of it minted by the dozen or so greatest noble Houses and the rest imported from other lands in the Underdark and even the World Above. It was all silver, platinum, or gold, though, more precious metal than this squalid hole probably saw in a decade.
“Tonight,” Pharaun announced, “this company of boon companions drinks at my expense!”
The taverner, a squat orc with a twisted, oozing mouth and a mangy scalp, stared for a heartbeat or two, scooped up the coins, and began dipping some foul-smelling brew from a filthy tub. Cursing and threatening one another, the rest of the undercreatures shoved forward to get it. The wizard noted that no one thanked him.
After looking around for another moment, Pharaun spotted another dark elf slouched in a corner, evidently one of the wretches who’d sunk so low the goblinoids accepted him as one of their own.
“Come here, my friend,” the wizard beckoned.
The outcast flinched. “Me?”
“Yes. What’s your name?”
The fellow hesitated, then said, “Bruherd, once of House Duskryn.”
“Indeed, until your noble kin kicked you out. We have much in common, Bruherd, for I myself am outcast twice over. Now come advise me on a matter of vital importance.”
“I’m, uh, all right where I am.”
“I know you don’t mean to be unsociable,” said Pharaun, setting blue sparks dancing on his fingertips.
The Duskryn sighed, and, limping in a manner that betrayed some chronic pain, did as Pharaun had bade him. He was gaunt, and half a dozen boils studded his neck and jaw. He’d evidently parted with his piwafwi at some point during his decline, but he still wore a filthy robe that, the Mizzrym noted with mild surprise, had once been a wizard’s. With the aid of the silver ring, he could see that the dozens of pockets no longer held the slightest trace of magic.
“They may kill me for this,” Bruherd said, subtly indicating the goblins. “They only tolerate me because they believe me cut off from my own race.”
“I’ll pray for your welfare,” Pharaun said. “Meanwhile, what I need to know is this: Of all the libations laid up in our host’s no doubt vast and well-stocked cellar, which is the least vile?”
“Vile?” Bruherd’s lip twitched. “You get used to them.”
“One hopes not.”
Pharaun handed the other drow a gold, hammer-shaped coin minted in some dwarf enclave.
“Tell the barkeep you want the stuff that bubbles,” Bruherd advised.
“ ‘The stuff that bubbles.’ Charming. Clearly, I’ve fallen among connoisseurs.”
“It’ll do,” said Ryld, still unobtrusively studying the crowd. “The important thing is that we toast our victory.”
Pharaun waited a beat, then chuckled. “You’re supposed to ask him what he’s talking about,” he said to Bruherd, “thus affording us a grac
eful way to commence boasting of our triumph.”
The lip twitched again. “I don’t think much about victories or triumphs anymore.”
Pharaun shook his head. “So much bitterness in the world! It weighs on the heart. Would it cheer you to learn I’ve avenged us in some small measure?”
“Us?” Bruherd grunted.
Across the room, a scuffle erupted between a shaggy hobgoblin and a wolf-faced gnoll. As the combatants rolled about the floor, somebody tossed them a knife, apparently just out of curiosity as to which would manage to grab it first.
“Hark to the glad tidings,” said the Master of Sorcere. “I’m Pharaun Mizzrym, expelled first from the Seventh House and now Tier Breche, neither time for any rational cause. Incensed, I chose to take vengeance on the Academy. With the aid of my similarly disgruntled friend Master Argith, I destroyed a patrol in the Bazaar earlier today. You may have heard something about it.”
Bruherd stared. The kobold and goblins within earshot did the same.
“It’s true,” said Ryld.
“That was you?” Bruherd said. “And you’re bragging about it? Are you insane? They’ll hunt you down!”
Pharaun said, “They were trying anyway.” The entire cellar was falling quiet. “I’ve heard rumors of an agency that will spirit a drow boy away if he’s well and truly discontent with his lot in life, as I trust Ryld and I have shown we are.”
Bruherd said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well,” Pharaun said, “they probably have to think you can be of some use to them, and if you’ll forgive my saying so . . .”
He caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye, and turned just in time to see the taverner fall back in two pieces. Evidently he’d been in the process of climbing silently over the bar with a short sword in hand, and Ryld, sensing him, had pivoted and cut him. The drow warrior spun smoothly back around, Splitter at the ready.
R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, Insurrection, Condemnation Page 27
