Dissolution

by Richard Lee Byers

Chapter Five

 

  Ryld sipped his chilled, tart wine with a sense of satisfaction, secure in the knowledge that the game, though technically still in progress, was already won. In three more moves, his onyx wizard and orc would trap and mate his opponent's carnelian mother.

  As usual, he had accomplished his victory without recourse to the dice. Truth to tell, those clattering ivory cubes with the magically warmed images incised on the faces were the one aspect ofsava he didn't like. They interjected blind luck into what should be a contest of pure cunning.

  Ryld's adversary, a scrawny young merchant clansman with an uncouth habit of letting drops of liquor slide from the corners of his mouth as he guzzled, had thrown the dice early on and gloated when chance allowed him to eliminate one of the older male's priestesses.

  Shoulders hunched, brow sweaty, he stared at the board as if the fate of his soul were being decided

  thereupon. A truly competent player would have recognized almost instantly that there was only one move he could make. Indeed, he would have foreseen the inevitable mate just three moves hence and resigned.

  Mindful of his true purpose for visiting the Jewel Box, Ryld, doing his best to sound only casually interested, took up the thread of the conversation that he and the slightly tipsy trader had been carrying on in fits and starts.

  "Did your cousin give you any warning that he was going to run away?"

  "No," the clansman answered curtly. "Why would he?We despised each other. Now shut up! You're trying to break my concentration. "

  Ryld sighed and settled back in his spindly, flimsy-looking limestone chair. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed something that made him sit up straighter, double-check the precise position of Splitter leaning against. the wall, and stealthily loosen his short sword in its oiled sheath on his belt.

  He himself didn't quite know what had alerted him. These weren't the first circle of revelers he'd watched rise from their seats and draw their weapons, either to play at fencing or to settle a quarrel that had nothing at all to do with the hooded male defeating all comers atsava. Indeed, within the confines of the Jewel Box, blades rasped from their scabbards with a certain regularity. Superficially, this new quartet was no different, but somehow Ryld knew that they were. Sure enough, they stalked straight toward him and his oblivious opponent through the fragrant haze of incense. Other patrons, likewise sensing the swordsmen's intent, made haste to clear the way.

  A blade with a glowing redness - an imprisoned spirit perhaps - oozing inside the adamantine, flicked in a horizontal sweep at the tabletop. Ryld caught the weapon and pushed it away before it could upset the sava pieces or his neatly stacked winnings. The long sword was as sharp as only an enchanted weapon could be, but he managed the grab without cutting his hand. Finally startled from his reverie, the scrawny boy looked wildly about.

  "May we help you?" asked Ryld.

  "We've been listening to you," said the owner of the long sword.

  Though not so big as Ryld, he was nonetheless husky and tall for a drow male, and the points of his prominent ears seemed to reach above the top of his head like a bat's. He was the best dressed and plainly the leader of the foursome, even though his broad, sullen face bore the mottled bruises of a beating. The weapons master assumed that some noble female must have seen fit to give the male a pummeling. His companions would think none the less of him for that.

  Especially since, Ryld noted, two of them were hurt as well, moving a trifle stiffly or slightly favoring one leg. Perhaps they were all kinsmen, and one of the priestesses in their House had gone on a regular tear.

  "You've been asking a lot of questions about runaways," the swordsman continued in a threatening drawl.

  "Have I?" Ryldreplied.

  He reflected that it was too bad the three musicians had left the stage a few minutes back. He doubted that anyone had managed to eavesdrop on his conversations while the longhorn was shrilling away.

  The other male scowled and asked, "Why?"

  "Just making conversation. Do you know something about the rogues?"

  "No, but I know that in the Jewel Box we don't like it when people are too curious. We don't like them hunting runaways. We don't like them listening to every private thing we say and reporting back to the Mothers. "

  "I'm not a spy. "

  Maybe he was, but he had no intention of confessing it to this fool.

  "Ha!" the swordsman scoffed. "If you were, you wouldn't admit it. "

  "Be that as it may, I suggest you and your friends return to your table and let this boy and I finish our game. "

  The male with the red sword swelled like an inflated bladder on the verge of bursting. "You'retrying to dismiss me like a servant? Do you have any idea who I am?"

  "Of course, Tathlyn Godeep. I trained you. Do you remember me?"

  Ryld pushed back his cowl, exposing his hitherto shadowed features.

  Tathlyn and his friends goggled at their former teacher as if he had just revealed himself to be some ancient and legendary dragon.

  "I see you do. So I'll bid you good day. "

  Tathlyn looked as if he was groping for a comment that would allow him to terminate this confrontation with his dignity intact, but the onlookers started to laugh. His fear less compelling than his pride, he screwed the sneer back onto his face.

  "Yes," he said, his voice raised to cut through the laughter, "I know you, Master Argith, but you don't know me, not the person I have become. Today I am the weapons master of House Godeep. "

  House Godeep was one of the petty Houses of Narbondellyn, whose frantic rivalries on the very bottom rungs of the ladder of status were almost beneath the notice of the nobles farther up. Ryld doubted the Godeeps would rise much higher with Tathlyn leading their warriors. During his training, the boy had learned to swing a sword with reasonable skill, but he had always demonstrated extraordinary recklessness and general poor judgment when placed in command of a squad.

  "Congratulations," said Ryld.

  "Perhaps if you'd known I would rise to such an eminence, you wouldn't have taken such delight in smashing myknuckles and beating my shoulder to pulp. "

  "I didn't do it for sport. It was to teach you to close the outside line and to stand up straight. I tried simply telling you to make the adjustments, but you didn't heed me. "

  "Now," Ryld continued, "I've explained I have no intention of tattling to the matrons about anything I might happen to learn in this place. Is my word good enough for you? If so, we should have no quarrel. "

  "That's what you say. "

  "Lad - excuse me . . . Weapons Master, pause, breathe, and reflect. I sense you're feeling angry over your aches and bruises. Perhaps you want to take it out on someone, but I'm not the person who administered the beating. "

  Tathlyn stood silent for an instant, then he said, "No, you're not, and I suppose all the punishment during training was for my own good. No hard feelings, Weapons Master. Enjoy your match. "

  He started to turn away, then whirled back around. The point of the red long sword streaked at Ryld's neck.

  Before the four companions had even reached thesava table, Ryld had inconspicuously centered his weight and planted his feet in a manner that would allow him to get out of his chair quickly. He simultaneously sprang up and brushed the blade aside with a sweep of his arm, but he didn't strike it at quite the proper angle. The wicked edge of the red sword drew a little blood.

  Ryld realized that this was his first real fight in the better part of a year. He'd intended to go out with one of the companies patrolling Bauthwaf, slaughter himself a few of the predators that were always wandering in from the caverns farther out, but somehow he had never bestirred himself to do it.

  That was no problem. He had no fear that he was rusty. It was just that, looking back, he was surprised at his lack of motivation.

  All these thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant and without slowing his reaction
s in the slightest.

  Tathlyn jumped back out of reach, but one of his companions was lunging at Ryld. It looked like they all intended to fight, which probably meant they were all the weapons master's kin and subordinates. Otherwise, one or more of them might have stayed out of the quarrel.

  Ryld twitched himself out of the way of his attacker's wild head cut, drew his leaf-bladed short sword, and thrust. The onrushing Godeep's momentum, Ryld's strength and skill,and the magical keenness of his point served to bury the weapon deep in the crook of his assailant's fighting arm. Though not his favored weapon, the short sword - enchanted to wound even incorporeal spirits - was a fine blade. Blood started from the puncture, and, staggering, the Godeep dropped hisfalchion. It would actually have been easier to kill the dolt than merely incapacitate him, but Ryld was on a secret mission, and outright homicide was far more likely to attract attention than a simple tavern brawl.

  Tathlyn and his other two friends saw their chance and rushed in. Ryld knew that he didn't have time to pull the embedded short sword out of his victim's flesh. If he tried, his other enemies would have him. He cloaked the wounded Godeep in a ragged bulb of darkness and shoved him at the others.

  Ryld couldn't see through the obscuring field any more than his adversaries could, but, peering around the edges of it, he saw the wounded Godeep reel into his fellows and stagger them, startle them, too, with the sudden, unexpected impediment to their sight. That gave the weapons master the time he needed to whirl, take in the obstructive clutter of furniture and gawkingsava players before him, and leap up onto the table where his own game sat waiting. His racing feet annihilated the snare he'd so cunningly laid for the merchant, hurling the pieces rattling across the board and onto the floor.

  He jumped down on the other side, grabbed Splitter, and spun back around to face his enemies. In one smooth blur ofmotion, he yanked this most trusted of all his weapons from its scabbard and came on guard. Despite its hugeness, the greatsword was so perfectly balanced that it felt as light as a dagger in his grasp.

  He noticed that the noncombatants in the taproom had begun shouting encouragement and insults at the fighters. A couple quick-thinking gamblers were giving odds.

  Ryld's three remaining adversaries manhandled their shadow-shrouded kinsman out of their way and stalked forward, manifestly hoping to pin the fencing teacher against the wall. The one on the left hung back a bit,none too eager, but he didn't look as if he'd actually turn and run unless Tathlyn told him to, or else he saw the weapons master himself go down under Splitter's razor edge.

  Ryld had no intention of letting himself be trapped. He moved away from the wall the same way he'd moved up to it, springing onto the table and charging across.

  When he reached the far edge, he discovered a rapier poised to skewer him in the vitals when he plunged off. The Godeep on the other end of the blade - the bolder of Tathlyn's two kinsmen - was quick, and he'd conceived a pretty good tactic. Ryld's impetus was such that he probably wouldn't have been able to stop himself from hurtling right onto the Godeep's point.

  But he could whirl Splitter through a sweeping low-line parry. The greatsword clanked into the other male's lighter blade and snapped the last six inches off.

  Ryld jumped down almost on top of the rapier fighter, so close it would require a moment to bring Splitter's blade to bear, a moment that the other Godeeps might turn to good advantage. Instead, the weapons master bashed the greatsword's heavy steel ball of a pommel into the center of the rapier-wielder's forehead. The impact thudded, and the male fell backward.

  Something clacked hard but harmlessly against Ryld's breastplate. He glanced down and saw that one of the spectators, someone who'd bet on his opponents, perhaps, had shot a hand crossbow at him - but the weapons master didn't have time to look for the culprit. He had to pivot to fend off his fellow swordsmen.

  Predictably, Tathlyn was in the lead. Ryld cut at the weapons master's head, and his erstwhile student instantly backpedaled, retreating just far enough to avoid the stroke. He'd learned good footwork somewhere along the way, better than Ryld remembered.

  Slipping in and out of the distance, Tathlyn feinted and invited, putting on a show. Meanwhile, the other Godeep, the wary one, circled, trying to get behind Ryld.

  The weapons master allowed the boy to creep part way round to his flank, then he sprang at Tathlyn and cut wildly, seemingly off-balance and overcommited to the attack.

  The other Godeep had Ryld's back, at a moment when the teacher looked entirely incapable of turning and defending. Reluctant or not, the boy couldn't pass up such an opportunity. He charged.

  Ryld whirled, bringing Splitter around in a sweeping horizontal stroke. The greatsword with its superior lengthstruck one step before the Godeep would have initiated his own attack. Thanks to Ryld's deftness, the huge, preternaturally sharp blade merely gashed the boy's wrist instead of lopping off his hand. The

  petty noble dropped his broadsword, then had the bad judgment toreach for his dagger. The weapons master slashed his leg, tumbling him to the floor.

  Ryld knew that by spinning to attack the one Godeep, he had given his back to Tathlyn, who was surely driving in to kill him. The teacher whirled back around. Sure enough, Tathlyn had rushed into the distance and was cutting at his head. Ryld parried with Splitter's edge, hoping to snap the Godeep weapons master's long sword as he had the rapier. The crimson blade struck the greatsword on the forte, just above the parrying hook, rang, and rebounded, still in one piece. It was made of good metal, Ryld thought, well forged, with strengthening enchantments woven in.

  But its virtues alone couldn't save its master. Ryld feinted low to draw the red sword down, then cut high. Splitter sliced Tathlyn's brow, and blood poured into the Godeep weapons master's eyes. He reeled backward.

  Ryld could tell that none of his adversaries had any fight left in them. He turned once more, surveying the room. Whoever had shot him, the fellow had prudently put his hand crossbow away.

  "Nicely done," said Pharaun, lounging, goblet in hand, by the bar.

  "How long have you been there?" Ryld replied, walking to retrieve his short sword. Its victim had pulled it free and left it on the floor. "You could have helped me. "

  "I was too busy wagering on you. " The wizard held out his purse, and grumbling losers dropped coins into it. "I knew you wouldn't need help against a couple drunks. "

  Ryld grunted, wiped his weapons on a handy bar rag, and asked, "Do you want that red sword? It's a good weapon. Maybe a Godeep family heirloom. "

  Pharaun grinned. "Which would mean they acquired it when, last tenday? No, thank you anyway, but what would a spellcaster do with it? Besides, I wouldn't want the weight to stretch and chafe my clothes. "

  "Suit yourself. "

  The Master of Sorcere sauntered up to Ryld, then spoke far more softly. "Are you about ready to go? I'd just as soon take my leave before Nym wanders downstairs. "

  Ryld wondered what mischief his friend had committed. "Almost," he said. "Give Nym something to pay for the cleanup. "

  The warrior walked to thesavatables, retrieved Splitter's scabbard and his own winnings, then looked around for the trader. The boy had made a hasty withdrawal from the table the instant the fight began, but he hadn't gone far. Most every drow had a taste for blood sport.

  Ryld tossed him a gold coin with the Baenre emblem stamped on it. "Here are your winnings. "

  The young merchant looked puzzled. Perhaps the drink was to blame.

  "If a player disturbs the arrangement of the board, he loses," Ryld explained. "It's in the rules. "

  "It was gratifying to come upstairs and observe you handling our confidential inquiries with your usual light touch," Pharaun said.

  He paused to let a floatchest, attended by a dark elf merchant and six hulking bugbear slaves, drift across the lane. The stone box looked like a sarcophagus. Maybe it was. In the Bazaar, a shopper could purchase nearly anything, including cadavers
and mummies once embalmed with strange spices and laid to rest with mystic rites. Indeed, such wares were available either whole or by the desiccated piece.

  "It wasn't my fault," Ryld replied. "I did nothing to provoke that fight. " He hesitated. "Well, perhaps I was a bit brusque when the Godeeps first stalked up to the table. "

  "You? Never!"

  "Spare me your japes. Why do we have to question people anyway?" The Masterof Melee-Magthere ducked beneath the corner of a low-hanging rothe-hide awning and added, "You ought to be able to look in a scrying pool and find the runaways. "

  Pharaun smiled. "Where would be the fun in that? Now seriously, why did the Godeeps take exception to your no doubt impeccably subtle questions in the first place? Were they in league with the rogues?"

  "I don't think they knew anything. I think they were merely sympathetic to the idea of eloping and generally in a foul mood. It looked as if one of the females in House Godeep had disciplinedthem with her fists or a cudgel, and they only needed an excuse to try and take their resentment out on someone. "

  "This hypothetical priestess beat the Houseweapons mastersas if he were a thrall, or at best, the least useful of her male kin? Doesn't that strike you as odd?"

  "Now that you mention it, somewhat. "

  "The Jewel Box was unusually crowded today as well. "

  Pharaun noticed a blindfolded orc juggling daggers for the amusement of the crowd and paused for a moment to watch the show. Ryld heaved a sigh, signaling his impatience at the interruption in their deliberations.

  The wizard counted five sharp knives, which the slave's scarred hands caught and tossed with flawless accuracy. A laudable performance, even if it lacked a certain elan. Pharaun tossed a coin to the orc's owner, then strolled on. Ryld tramped along beside him.

  "So," said the weapons master, "Tathlyn gets a thrashing, the brothel enjoys a glut of patrons, and you see a connection. What?"

  "What if all those boys endured a beating, or at least some sort of unpleasantness, at the hands of their female relations? What if that's the reason they flocked to their sad little sanctuary, to lie low, lick their wounds, and kick around one of Nym's captives in their turn?"

  Ryld frowned, pondering the notion. "You're guessing that priestesses in a diversity of Houses have grown more harsh and unreasonable. Obviously, that could provoke a spate of runaway males, but what could make the dispositions of all those priestesses curdle in unison?"

  "I have a hunch that when we figure that our, well be getting somewhere. "

  The two masters circled around a colossal snail pulling a dozen-wheeled cart. The creature's mouth opened into an O and Pharaun - who had once only narrowly survived an encounter with such a giant mollusk in the wild - nearly sacrificed his dignity by flinching, even though he knew this particular specimen had undoubtedly been divested of its abilityto spew a caustic sludge. Sure enough, nothing flew from the draft creature's maw except a few clear, harmless droplets. The wagoner lashed the hostile snail with his long-handled whip.

  "What did you learn downstairs?" asked Ryld.

  "Nothing, really," said Pharaun, "nothing we hadn't already inferred. Still, I was able to oblige an old comrade. That was pleasant in its own way. "

  "If neither of us discovered anything substantial, our visit to the Jewel Box was a waste of time. "

  "Not a bit of it. The bloodshed perked you up, didn't it? You've pretty much been smiling ever since. "

  "Don't be ridiculous. I admit it was an interesting littlescuffle . . . "

  Ryld began to recount the battle one action at a time, with comprehensive analysis of the alternative options and underlying strategy. Pharaun nodded and did his best to look interested.

  Triel, Matron Mother of House Baenre and a diminutive ebony doll of a dark elf, marched briskly down the corridor, covering ground rapidly despite her short stride. Eight feet tall, his two goatlike legs more nimble even than most drow's, Jeggred had no difficulty keeping up with his mother. The scurrying, frazzled drow secretary, though, looked as if she was in imminent danger of dropping her armload of parchment.

  When Triel heard voices conversing a few yards ahead, she wanted to move faster still. Only a sense that a female in her august position ought not to compromise her dignity by running held the impulse in check.

  "I think it's a test," said one soft female voice.

  "I worry it's a sign of disfavor," answered the other,a hair deeper and a bit nasal. "Perhaps we've done something to offend - "

  Triel and her companions rounded a corner. There before them loitered a pair of her cousins. Their mouths fell open when they saw her.

  Triel looked up at her son's face, which, with its slightly elongated muzzle, mouthful of long, pointed fangs, slanted eyes, and pointed ears, seemed a blend of drow and wolf. That wordless glance sufficed to convey her will.

  Jeggred pounced, his long, coarse mane streaming out behind him. With each of his huge, clawed fighting hands, he grabbed a cousin by the throat and hoisted her up against the calcite wall. His two smaller, drow-like hands flexed as if they too wished to get in on the violence.

  Perhaps they did.

  Triel had conceived a child in a ritual coupling with the glabrezu demon Belshazu. The result was Jeggred, a half-fiend known as a draegloth, a precious gift of the Spider Queen. His mother was quite prepared to believe that cruelty and bloodlust burned in every mote and particle of his being. Only his reflexive subservience, tendered not because Triel had borne him but because she was first among the priestesses of Lolth, kept him from immediately slaughtering his prisoners, or, indeed, pretty much anyone else with whom he came incontact.

  Occasionally Triel's lack of height was an advantage. It didn't feel awkward or claustrophobic to step inside the circle of Jeggred's two longer arms and stand before the cousins. Up close, she could smell the sweat of their fear just as easily as she could hear the little choking sounds they were making or the thuds as their heels bumped against the carved surface behind them.

  "I forbade you to speak of the situation in public," she snarled.

  The cousin on the left started making more noise, a tortured gargling. Perhaps she was trying to say that she and the other one had been alone.

  "This is a public part of the castle," Triel said. "Anyone, anymale might have come along and overheard you. "

  She swung her whip of fangs, aiming low to ensure she didn't accidentally lash Jeggred's hands or arms. The five writhing adders gashed their targets but not enough to satisfy their mistress. She struck again and again. Her anger rose and rose until it became a kind of rapture, a sweet simplicity in which nothing existed but the cousins' thrashing, the smell and feel of their blood spattering her face, and the pleasant exertion of her snapping arm.

  She never knew what brought her out of that joyous condition. Perhaps it was simply that she was winded, but when she came to her senses, the two babblers were dangling limp and silent in Jeggred's grip.

  Both the draegloth and the scribe were smiling. They'd thoroughly enjoyed the cousins' excruciating torture, but there were things still to be done, and she'd wasted time losing her temper.

  Which was bad. Matron Mother Baenre, de facto ruler of the entire city of Menzoberranzan, should be able to govern herself as well.

  Triel's emotional volatility was of comparatively recent origin. She'd been calm and competent all the while she served as Mistress of Arach-Tinilith. That role, arguably second only to her mother's in prestige, had suited her well, and she'd never aspired to anything more.

  Nor had she truly believed that more was even possible. Her mother seemed immortal. Indestructible. But then, suddenly, she was gone, and the ambition that at one time or another goaded every dark elf awoke in Triel's breast. How could shenot strive to ascend to her mother's throne?How could she let Quenthel or one of her other kin climb over her head to order her about forever after?

  She managed to claim the title of Matron Mother,
and though she soon came to feel somewhat overwhelmed by the scope and intricacies of the position, at first it wasn't so bad. Things were relatively normal and didn't require some dramatic intervention from on high to set them right.

  Moreover, she had Quenthel and Gromph to advise her. True, her sister and brother invariably disagreed, but Triel could review their competing proposals and pick the one that suited her. It was considerably easier than having to come up with the ideas herself.

  But she had a crisis to manage, perhaps the greatest crisis in the long history of the dark elves, and apparently she would have to do it alone. She obviously couldn't confide in Gromph, and insolent Quenthel claimed she had to attend to the security of Tier Breche before she could focus on anything else.

  Triel gave her head a shake, trying to dislodge her doubts and worries.

  "Let them down. "

  Jeggred obeyed, and she turned to the secretary.

  "When you get a chance," she said, raising her voice over the choking gasps of the two cousins, "have somebody haul them out to Arach-Tinilith to be patched back together, and have someone wash away the blood. But for now, we'd best get moving. I think we're late. "

  The trio moved on. A final turn brought them to the door. Behind it was the dais overlooking the largest audience chamber in House Baenre. A pair of sentries guarded the entry to ensure that no one would sneak through to stab the matron mother in the back. They snapped to attention when they saw her coming.

  Triel swept on through the entry with Jeggred and the clerk in tow. The hall on the other side glowed with soft magical light to facilitate the examination of documents. A sweet perfume scented the air, and a fresco of Lolth adorned the ceiling. The guards along the walls - dark elves near the dais, ogre and minotaur slaves farther down - saluted, while the supplicants and petitioners made the obeisance proper to their stations, anything from a dignified inclination of the head and spreading of the hands to an abject grovel flat on the floor.

  Looking down on them from the elevated platform, Triel reflected that it was astonishing just how many such folk turned up each and every tenday. She'd thought people were always demanding her attention when she ruled the Academy, but she'd had no conception of the hordes of idiots who constantly sought Matron Baenre's ear, often to resolve trivial if not nonsensical concerns.

  She sat down on her mother's throne, an empress's ransom in gold with a flaring back shaped to resemble an arc of spiderweb. Her predecessor had been a relatively large female, and her successor always felt a bit childlike and lost in the chair. She had enough of a sense of irony to comprehend the accidental symbolism.

  She surveyed the waiting throng and discovered Faeryl Zauvirr at the very front with some long, bulky rolled papers rucked under her arm. The matron mother smiled, for at least she knew how to deal with this one particular petitioner. For a blessed change, Waerva, one of the lesser females of her House, had made herself useful. She'd come up with some significant information and a sensible idea of what to do about it.

  Triel decided she might as well start out feeling dominant and shrewd. Perhaps it would set the tone for the rest of the session. She waited for the herald to conclude the ceremonials and the crowd to rise. Then, still spattered with blood, and with Jeggred looming reassuringly behind her throne, she motioned for Faeryl to step forward.