It rankled a little, but Faeryl was more than willing to embrace the lie to avoid a return to the dungeon.
“Thank you, Matron,” she said. “Thank you with all my heart.”
Triel waved her hand, and a servant brought wine.
“Do you still want to go home?” the Baenre asked.
Pharaun had been summoned to a good many audiences in the course of his checkered career, and it had been his experience that no matter how urgent the occasion, one generally wound up parked in an antechamber for a while. Matron Baenre’s waiting area was considerably more lavish than most, and in ordinary circumstances, he would have amused himself by passing esthetic judgment on the décor. Instead he had to address another matter, for when he arrived, Ryld was sitting on a chair in the corner, half hidden behind a marble statue.
The carving depicted a beautiful female doing something unpleasant to a deep gnome, for the greater glory of the Dread Queen of Spiders, one assumed.
The Mizzrym hadn’t spoken to his friend since the slaughter of the renegades. He supposed the time had come. But first he paid his respects to Quenthel, who, much to her annoyance, was being kept waiting as well. The mage then bowed to a stern-faced drow male, looking ill at ease and out of place in rough outdoorsman’s clothes and ugly trinkets. Pharaun didn’t know him.
“Valas Hune,” the warrior said, “of Bregan D’aerthe.”
Pharaun introduced himself, then strolled toward the Master of Melee-Magthere.
“Ryld!” the wizard said. “Good afternoon! Have you any idea why the Council summoned us?”
The burly swordsman rose and said, “No.”
“To shower us with honors, one assumes. How are you?” “Alive.”
“I rejoice to hear it. I was concerned because I could tell that warrior’s trance strained even your constitution.”
For a moment, the two masters regarded one another in silence.
“My friend,” Pharaun said, having lowered his voice. “I truly regret what happened.”
“What you did was tactically sound,” said Ryld. “It was what any sensible drow would have done. I hold no grudge.”
The wizard looked into weapons master’s eyes and realized that for the first time, he couldn’t read him.
Perhaps Ryld meant what he was saying, but it was just as likely he was lying, lulling his betrayer’s suspicions to facilitate some eventual revenge. Thus, while Pharaun might continue to observe the forms of their long friendship, he could never trust his fellow master again.
For a moment he felt a pang of loss, but he quashed the sensation. Friendship and trust were for lesser races. They weakened a dark elf, and he was better off without them.
Pharaun gave Ryld an affectionate clap on the shoulder, just as he had a thousand times before.
When the tall doors opened, all eight Matrons of the Council sat enthroned and illuminated on an eight-tiered pyramid of a dais, with Triel of course set higher than the others, and a span of radiant marble webbing arching overhead. Quenthel stalked in proudly, ahead of Pharaun and the other males, and why not? She was Mistress of Arach-Tinilith and a Baenre.
Truth to tell, a miniscule part of her, a part she loathed and repudiated, hadn’t wanted to come in, because her unknown enemy was very likely in the room.
The matriarchs weren’t the only folk in the vicinity of the platform. A symbol of the goddess’s favor and a source of practical protection, Jeggred loomed behind Triel’s chair. Servants scurried about the steps to do the great ladies’ bidding. Gromph stood on the highest riser, a place of ultimate honor for a male.
When she, the mage, the weapons master, and the mercenary reached the foot of the dais, Triel began to praise them for their efforts against the illithilich and its pawns. At first the oration was pretty much what Quenthel had expected, but soon it took an unexpected turn.
She herself would lead an expedition to Ched Nasad to find out why no travelers came from that direction, and what the priestesses of the vassal city might know concerning the silence of Lolth. Ryld Argith, Pharaun Mizzrym, and Valas Hune would serve as her lieutenants, accompanying the ambassador, Faeryl Zauvirr.
Upon hearing the news, the hulking warrior in the dwarven breastplate simply inclined his head in acquiescence. The wizard grinned, and the scout smiled. At first the envoy, who was standing nearby, looked equally pleased.
Then Triel said, “Finally, dear sister, I lend you my own son Jeggred for your journey. A draegloth carries the blessing of the Dark Mother, and you may need his strength.”
For an instant, it looked as if Faeryl would protest, and Jeggred leered down at her. Plainly, something had once transpired between them, an unpleasantness that made the ambassador loathe and mistrust him.
Gromph shifted his weight as well and Quenthel thought he looked surprised, even a bit put out. Perhaps he hadn’t thought Triel had sense enough to want her own special agent on the mission, a minion devoted to her particular interests alone.
A thousand arguments against her being sent away at so uncertain a time for Menzoberranzan, the faith, House Baenre . . . came to Quenthel in a rush. Ultimately, however, she said nothing.
The assembly discussed the practicalities of their scheme for an hour or so, and Triel dismissed her newly appointed emissaries. Pharaun caught up with Quenthel in the antechamber. He bowed to her, and she waved her hand, giving him permission to speak.
“I assume, Mistress, that you know why they picked us?” he murmured.
“I understand better than you,” she said.
Pharaun arched an eyebrow and asked, “Indeed. Will you elucidate?”
She hesitated, but why not state at least the obvious? He had come to her, after all, when the slave revolt began. He was a true drow—ambitious and ruthless enough that she could always trust him to do what was to his advantage. Gromph had made him a decoy and a target, perhaps someday she would make him Archmage of Menzoberranzan.
“My brother and sister send us both forth because they fear our ambitions.”
“I daresay that’s very sensible of them,” Pharaun said. “Does this mean you undertake our errand reluctantly?”
“By no means. Whatever my siblings’ motives, the plan has merit, and I would go anywhere and do anything to restore my bond with Lolth and save Menzoberranzan; it is of course the same thing.”
In fact, she was eager to distance herself from them until such time as she recovered her magic, provided she could do it without a loss of status, and surprisingly, it seemed she could. The matter of the demonic assassins had still not been settled, too, and she wondered if her leaving the city would bring her unknown assailant into the open.
She looked her foppish companion up and down.
“What of you?” she asked the wizard. “You’re brave enough— I’ve seen the proof—but still, are you eager to march across the Underdark?”
“You mean, can an exquisite specimen such as myself bear to dispense with warm, scented baths, succulent meals, and delicate, freshly laundered attire?” Pharaun asked with a grin. “It will be excruciating, but under the circumstances, I’ll manage. I enjoy unraveling mysteries, particularly when I suspect I might enhance my personal power thereby.”
“Perhaps you will,” Quenthel said, “but I recommend you keep your hands off any prize your leader covets for herself.”
“Of course, Mistress, of course.”
The Master of Sorcere bowed low.
Pharaun cast a spell, then slipped through the closed door like a ghost. On the other side was a drab, stale-smelling little room. Wrapped in a blanket like an invalid, her scarred face a mask of bitterness, Greyanna sat in the only chair.
For an instant, she stared at him stupidly, then started to throw off the cover, presumably with the intent of jumping up. He lifted his hands as if to cast a spell, and the threat froze her in place.
“What a dreary habitation,” he said. “It was Sabal’s, wasn’t it, when her fortunes were at their nadir. Mother ha
s a good memory and a charming sense of irony as well.”
“And she’ll kill you, outcast, for breaking into the castle.”
“I always assumed so. That’s one reason I never paid you a visit hitherto. But our circumstances have changed. The Council needs me to help determine what’s become of the Spider Queen, and you, dear sib, are no longer a person of any importance. As Miz’ri’s demoted you for your repeated failures to kill me, I doubt she’ll make an issue of your extinction, even if she’s certain I’m responsible. She smiled at me this afternoon when I saw her in House Baenre, can you believe it? She must have decided she’d like me to resign from Sorcere and rejoin the family someday. Evidently she’s just realizing how powerful I’ve become in the decades since you chased me out the door.”
“I’m surprised you still want to kill me,” Greyanna said. “You’ve already defeated and ruined me. Death may prove a mercy.”
“I considered that, but I’m going on a journey into the unknown, a quest fraught with peril and adversity to be sure, and I need something special to hearten me, a memory fraught with spectacle and drama to cheer me on the trail.”
“I suppose I understand,” the priestess said, “but I wonder why it’s come to this. All these years, I’ve never truly understood the basis for our feud. If I’m to die, will you at least tell me why you chose Sabal over me? Was it fondness? Was it lust?”
“Neither,” Pharaun chuckled. “My choice had nothing whatever to do with personalities. How could it, when you twins were so alike? I threw in with Sabal simply because she was dangling from the bottom rung of the Mizzrym ladder. I thought it would be an amusing challenge to lift her to the top.”
“Thank you for explaining,” Greyanna said. “Now die.”
Pharaun’s own living rapier leaped from beneath the blanket. Obviously Greyanna had not only claimed the fallen weapon but figured out how to control it. No doubt she’d been wearing it in its steel-ring form when he entered the room. Knowing how he loved to talk, she’d lulled him with conversation and took him by surprise.
The long, thin-bladed sword hurtled across the room toward Pharaun’s chest. He frantically shifted to the side, and the point plunged into his left forearm instead. For a heartbeat, he couldn’t feel the puncture, and it flared with pain.
He had to immobilize the weapon or it would pull itself free and attack again. He grabbed hold of the blade with his right hand, and it sliced into his palm. A rapier was made for thrusting, but it had sharp edges even so. Sharp enough, anyway.
At the same instant, Greyanna cast off the blanket and snatched a mace from behind her chair. She jumped up and charged.
Pharaun narrowly dodged her first swing, then threw himself against her, ramming her with his shoulder. The impact knocked her stumbling backward.
It didn’t hurt her, though. She laughed and advanced on him again.
He knew why she was so exhilarated. She thought that with his left hand dangling at the end of a spastic arm and the right busy gripping the rapier, he wouldn’t be able to cast any appropriate spells to fend her off.
And she was right.
Edging away from Greyanna, his hand dripping blood, he let go of the living sword and started to conjure, rapidly as only a master could.
His sister rushed him. The rapier jerked itself out of his wound, hurting him anew. It pivoted in the air and aimed itself at his heart.
Five darts of azure force shot from his right hand into Greyanna’s body. She made a sighing sound and collapsed, her mace clanking against the floor.
At once the rapier became inert, and fell clattering to the floor.
He studied Greyanna, making sure she was truly dead, then examined his own wounds. They were unpleasant, but a healing potion or two would mend them.
“Thank you, sister,” he said, “for a most inspiring interlude. When I sally forth to save our beloved Menzoberranzan, it will be with a heart full of joy.”
She felt as if a bit of herself was sliding from her womb, and for a moment she felt diminished, as if she were giving too much away.
The regret was fleeting.
For in chaos, the one would become many, and the many would travel along diverse roads and to goals that seemed equally diverse but were, in effect, one and the same. In the end there would be one again, and it would be as it had been. This was rebirth more than birth; this was growth more than diminishment or separation.
This was as it had been through the millennia and how it must be for her to persevere through the ages to come.
She was vulnerable now—she knew that—and so many enemies would strike at her, given the chance. So many of her own minions would deign to replace her, given the chance.
But they, all of them, held their weapons in defense, she knew, or in aspirations of conquests that seemed grand but were, in the vast scale of time and space, tiny and inconsequential.
More than anything else, it was the understanding and appreciation of time and space, the foresight to view events as they might be seen a hundred years hence, a thousand years hence, that truly separated the deities from the mortals, the gods from the chattel. A moment of weakness in exchange for a millennium of surging power. . . .
So, in spite of her vulnerability, in spite of her weakness (which she hated above all else), she was filled with joy as another egg slid from her arachnid torso.
For the growing essence in the egg was her.
chapter
one
“And why should my aunt trust anyone who sends a male to do her work for her?” Eliss’pra said, staring disdainfully down her nose at Zammzt.
The drow priestess reclined imperiously upon an overstuffed couch that had been further padded with an assortment of plush fabrics, as much for decoration as comfort. Quorlana thought the slender dark elf should have looked oddly out of place in the richly appointed private lounge, dressed as she was in her finely crafted chain shirt and with her mace close at hand. Yet Eliss’pra somehow managed to appear as though she was counted among House Unnamed’s most exclusive clientele. Quorlana wrinkled her nose in distaste; she knew well which House Eliss’pra represented, and she found that the haughty drow reclining opposite her exhibited a little bit too much of her aunt’s superior affectations.
Zammzt inclined his head slightly, acknowledging the other dark elf ’s concern.
“My mistress has given me certain . . . gifts that she hopes express her complete and enthusiastic sincerity in this matter,” he said. “She also wishes me to inform you that there will be many more of them once the agreement is sealed. Perhaps that will assuage your own fears, as well,” he added with what he must have intended as a deferential smile, though Quorlana found it to be more feral than anything. Zammzt was not a handsome male at all.
“Your ‘mistress,’ ” Eliss’pra replied, avoiding both appellations and names, as the five of them gathered there had agreed at the outset, “is asking for a great deal from my aunt, indeed from each of the Houses represented here. Gifts are not nearly a generous enough token of trust. You must do better than that.”
“Yes,” Nadal chimed in, sitting just to Quorlana’s right. “My grandmother will not even consider this alliance without some serious proof that House—” The drow male, dressed in a rather plain piwafwi, snapped his mouth shut in mid-word. His insignia proclaimed him as wizard member of the Disciples of Phelthong. He caught his breath and continued, “I mean your mistress—that your mistress is actually committing these funds you speak of.”
He seemed chagrinned that he had nearly divulged a name, but the male maintained his firm expression.
“He’s right,” Dylsinae added from Quorlana’s other side, her smooth, beautiful skin nearly glowing from the scented oils that she habitually slathered on herself. Her gauzy, hugging dress contrasted sharply with Eliss’pra’s armor, reflecting her propensity for partaking in hedonistic pleasures. Her sister, the matron mother, was perhaps even more decadent. “None of those whom we represent will li
ft a finger until you give us some evidence that we aren’t all putting our own heads on pikes. There are far more . . . interesting . . . pastimes to indulge in than rebellion,” Dylsinae finished, stretching languidly.
Quorlana wished she were not sitting quite so close to the harlot. The perfume of her oils was sickly sweet.
Despite her general distaste for the other four drow, Quorlana agreed with them on this matter, and she admitted as much to the group.
“If my mother were to ally our own House with you other four lesser Houses against our common enemies, she would need certain assurances that we would not be left by the rest of you to dangle as scapegoats the moment events turned difficult. I’m not at all certain such a thing exists.”
“Believe me,” Zammzt responded, circling to make eye contact with each of them in turn, “I understand your concerns and your reluctance. As I said, these gifts I have been ordered to bestow upon your Houses are but a small token of my mistress’s commitment to this alliance.”
He reached inside his piwafwi and produced a scroll tube, and a rather ornate one, at that. After slipping a fat roll of parchment from the tube, he unfurled the scroll. Quorlana sat forward in her own chair, suddenly curious as to what the dark elf male might have.
Scanning the contents of his stack of curled parchment, Zammzt sorted them and began to circle the gathering, removing a set of pages and handing them to each co-conspirator in turn. When he handed Quorlana her sheaf, she took it from him gingerly, uncertain what kind of magical trap might be inlaid in the pages. She eyed them carefully, but her suspicions were dispelled; they were spells, not curses. He was offering them scrolls as gifts!
Quorlana felt elation rise up into her. Such a treasure was priceless in days of such uncertainty and unease. The Dark Mother’s absence had put a strain on every priestess who worshiped her. Quorlana herself had not been able to weave her own divine magic in four tendays, and she broke out into a sweat every time she thought on it. But with scrolls, the fear, the anxiety, the sense of hopelessness might be staved off, at least for a time.
R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, Insurrection, Condemnation Page 39
