Dissolution wotsq-1

by Ричард Ли Байерс

  Pharaun bent low in obeisance. He looked winded, and, most peculiarly for such a notorious dandy, disheveled. «Mistress, I beg your pardon, but I must confer with you. Time is of the essence.» «I have little to say to you except to condemn you as the archmage should have done.» «Kill me if you must.» The giant hand winked out of existence and he continued, «Given my recent peccadilloes, I half expected it. But hear my message first. The undercreatures are rebelling.» Quenthel narrowed her eyes and asked, «The archmage sent you here with this news?» «Alas,» the mage replied, «I was unable to locate him but knew this was something that must be brought to the attention of the most senior members of the Academy. I realize no one ever dreamed it could happen, but it has. Walk to the verge of the plateau with me, and you'll see.»

  The Baenre frowned. Pharaun's manner was too presumptuous by half, yet something in it commanded attention.

  «Very well,» she said, «but if this is some sort of demented jest, you'll suffer for it.» «Mistress,» Minolin said, «he may want to lead you into—» Quenthel silenced the fool with a cold stare, then turned back to Pharaun. «Lead on, Master of Sorcere.» In point of fact, the high priestess didn't have to walk all the way to the drop-off to tell that something was badly wrong in the city below. The wavering yellow glare of firelight and a foul smoky tang in the air alerted her as soon as she stepped outside the spider-shaped temple. Heedless of her dignity, she sprinted for the edge, and Pharaun scrambled to keep up with her. Below her, portions of Menzoberranzan—portions of the stone, how could that be? — were in flames. Impossibly, even the Great Mound of the Baenre sprouted a tuft of flame at its highest point, like a tassel on a hat. Once Quenthel's eyes adjusted to the dazzling brightness, she could vaguely make out the mobs rampaging through the streets and plazas. «You see,» said Pharaun, «that's why I ran halfway across the city, dodging marauders at every turn, to reach you, my lady. If I may say so, the situation's even worse than it may look. By and large, the nobles haven't even begun reclaiming the streets. They're bogged down on their estates fighting their own household goblins. Therefore, I suggest you—» The mage was smart enough to stop talking at the sight of Quenthel's glare.

  «We will mobilize Tier Breche,» she said. «Melee-Magthere and Arach-Tinilith can fight. Sorcere will divide its efforts between supporting us and extinguishing the fires. You will either find my brother Gromph or act in his stead.» Pharaun bowed low. Quenthel turned and saw that her priestesses and novices had followed her out onto the plateau. Something in their manner brought her up short. «Mistress,» said long-eared Viconia Agrach Dyrr, one of the senior instructors, rather diffidently, «it makes perfect sense for Melee-Magthere and Sorcere to descend the stairs, but. .» «But you ladies have lost your magic,» Pharaun said. The sisters of the temple gaped at him. «You know?» Quenthel asked. «A good many males know,» the mage replied, just a hint of impatience pecking through, «so there's no point in killing me for it. I'll explain it all later.» He turned back toward the rest of the clerics. «Holy Mothers and Sisters, while you may have lost your spells, you have scrolls, talismans, and the rest of the divine implements your order hoards. You can swing maces, if it comes to that. You can fight.» «But we've lost too many sisters,» Viconia said to Quenthel. «The demons killed a couple, and you, Mistress, by summoning the spiders, slew more. We don't dare risk the rest. Someone must endure to preserve the lore and perform the rituals.» «That's far too optimistic,» Pharaun said. Viconia scowled. «What is, boy?»

  «The assumption that, should you remain up here, annihilation will pass you by,» the wizard replied. «It's more plausible to assume that if the orcs triumph below, they'll climb the stairs to continue their depredations up here. You profess devotion to Arach-Tinilith. Surely it would be more reverent to engage the undercreatures in the vault below and thus deny them the slightest opportunity to profane your shrines and altars. Similarly, it would be better strategy to fight alongside allies than to wait till they perish and you're left to struggle alone.» «You're glib, wizard,» the Agrach Dyrr priestess sneered, «but you don't know our efforts are needed. Flame and glare, they're only goblins! I think you're just a scareling.»

  «Perhaps he is,» Quenthel said, «but how dare we seek the Dark Mother's favor if we decline to defend her chosen city in its hour of need? Surely, then, we never would hear her voice again.» «Mistress,» said Viconia, spreading her hands, «I know we can find a better way to please her than brawling with vermin in the street.» Quenthel lifted her hand crossbow and shot her lieutenant in the face. Viconia made a choking sound and stumbled backward, The poison was already blackening her face as she collapsed. «I thought I'd already demonstrated that I rule here,» the Baenre said. «Does anyone else wish to contest my orders?» «If so,» Pharaun said, «she should be aware that I stand with the mistress, and I have the power to scour the lot of you from the face of the plateau.»

  Ignoring the boastful wizard, Quenthel surveyed her minions. It appeared that no one else had anything much to say. «Good,» the Baenre said. «Let us rouse the tower and the pyramid.»

  TWENTY-THREE

  With Quenthel in the lead, the Academy descended from Tier Breche like a great waterfall. Some scholars tramped after her on the staircase, while others floated down the cliff face. A few, possessed of magic that enabled them to fly, flitted about like bats. «Perhaps Mistress would care to bide a moment,» said Pharaun. At some point he had slipped off to his personal quarters long enough to wash his face, comb his hair, and throw on a new set of handsome clothes. He returned alone, still claiming ignorance of Gromph's whereabouts. «This is as good a spot as any to spy out the lay of the land. We're below some of the smoke but still high enough for an aerial inspection.» Since Gromph was still either unavailable or uninterested, the Mizzrym was—with obvious relish—acting in the archmage's stead. It was arguably an affront to House Baenre as much as the archmage, but Quenthel had given the order anyway.

  Until her brother returned or the crisis abated, she needed someone to speak for Sorcere, and she was sure it would upset Gromph in an amusing way to have this dandy taking his place for so important a task.

  She halted, and her minions came to a ragged, jostling stop behind her. The whip vipers reared to survey the cityscape along with her. From the corner of her eye, she saw Pharaun smile briefly as if he found the serpents' behavior comical. «There,» said Quenthel, pointing, «in Manyfolk. It looks as if House Auvryndar may have finished exterminating their own slaves, but a mob keeps them penned within their walls.»

  «I see it, Blessed Mother,» said Malaggar Faen Tlabbar from the step behind her. The First Sword of Melee-Magthere was a merry-looking, round-faced boy with a fondness for green attire and emeralds. «With your permission, that might be a good place to start. We'll lift the siege and add the Auvryndar to our own army.»

  «So be it,» Quenthel said. The residents of the Academy reached the floor of the lower cavern, whereupon the instructors, particularly the warriors of the pyramid, set about the business of forming the scholars into squads, with swordsmen and spearman protecting the spellcasters. Then they had to arrange the units into some semblance of a marching order. Like every princess of a great House, Quenthel had a working knowledge of military matters, and she watched the attempt to create order with a jaundiced eye. «I could wish for a proper army,» she muttered. She hadn't meant for anyone to hear, but Pharaun nodded. «I understand your sentiments, Mistress, but they're all we have, and I'm sure that if we've trained them properly, we have a chance.» He coughed. «Against the thralls, anyway.» «Your meaning?» «The greatest danger of all is this pall of smoke. I think Syrzan, for all its cunning, miscalculated. If the mages we left upstairs don't extinguish the flames, we'll all suffocate, female and male, elf and orc alike, leaving the alhoon a necropolis to rule. Still, I suppose we must concentrate on our task and not fret about the rest.» «What alhoon?» she demanded. He hesitated. «It really is a long story, Mistress, and not crucial at this momen
t.» «I will decide what is crucial, mage,» she said. «Speak.» Before Pharaun could begin she saw the First Sword approaching, presumably to inform her that the company was ready to set forth. As they started to march, she listened to the mage's tale of the undead mind flayer and its designs for Menzoberranzan. There was more, she was sure, that he was holding back, but she could always torture it out of him later. Along the way, the teachers and students found their way littered with mangled dark elf corpses, some headless, some partially devoured, firelight gilding their sightless eyes. The rich smell of blood competed with the acrid foulness of the smoke. Or course, no drow objected to the spectacle of violent death, but the ubiquity of the ravaged shapes, combined with the glare of the flames and the uncanny sight of burning stone, made it seem as if Menzoberranzan itself had become a sort of hell, and that was, for Quenthel at least, unsettling. The Mistress of Arach-Tinilith thought that were she a weaker person, she might have felt as if she were moving through a nightmare, or interpreted the carnage as proof positive that Lolth had turned her back on Menzoberranzan for good and all. She consoled herself with the thought that at least this time she was marching against an enemy she could see and smite. Periodically the scholars saw small groups of undercreatures looting, slaughtering hapless commoners, or even flinging stones and arrows at the column. The younger students sought to attack the thralls, and the teachers bellowed at them to desist. The Academy had to act as a unit and stick to a plan if it hoped to win the day. Malaggar raised his hand, signaling a stop. We're close, I think, he reported in the silent drow sign language. They stood in place until a flying scout, a brother of the pyramid possessed of a cloak that converted into batlike wings, swooped down and gave his report. Mistress, Malaggar signed, may I suggest that ten squads keep on straight, and the rest of us circle around that block of houses. We'll take the orcs from two sides. Very well, Quenthel replied as she surveyed her army. All of you from the head of the column to the mouth of that alley, follow me. The rest of you, go with Master Faen Tlabbar. Everyone, quietly as you can. Hands lifted at intervals down the column to relay the orders to those who couldn't see her. The company divided, then Quenthel's troops crept on, toward a clamoring mob that quite possibly outnumbered them. Fortunately, the slaves hadn't noticed the Academy's arrival, and she meant to take full advantage of their ignorance. She quickly arranged her troops in a ragged but serviceable formation, then bade them attack as one. Power howled and flashed, burning, blasting, and devouring masses of goblins.

  Darts leaped through the air to pierce orcs and bugbears. Undercreaturcs fell by the score. Yet after that first volley, scores remained, and they flung themselves at the scholars in a yammering frenzy. The drow hastily abandoned their crossbows for swords and spears. Hidden behind lines of warriors, mages and priestesses peered, trying to see what was going on in the midst of the savage melee so they could target their spells without harming their own comrades. Quenthel could have cowered behind her own rank of protectors—perhaps, as high priestess and leader, she should have—but she thought it might stiffen the spines of the first- and second-year students If she led from the front, and in any case, she wanted to kill up close and see the pain and fear in her victims' faces. Her vipers rearing and hissing, she shoved her way to the front. She slew several goblinolds, and dazzling yellow light flashed and crackled around her. The fire magic did her no harm—her mystical defenses held—but several of the folk around her, drow and undercreature alike, shrieked and fell.

  For a moment, everyone, every survivor in the immediate vicinity, was stunned. Then orcs scrambled forward at the gaps the blaze had created in the drow line, and scholars darted forward to fill them. No one paid any heed to the burned comrades beneath their feet, save to curse them if she tripped. Quenthel stepped back, letting a student warrior from House Despana take her place, then cast about, seeking the source of the burst of flame. She had a vague sense that the magic had plunged down from above, so she looked there first, at the upper stories of the buildings to either side. She blinked in surprise. Like true arachnids, driders were scuttling about the walls and rooflines. Many such debased creatures retained their spellcasting abilities, and one of them must have conjured the fire.

  Quenthel had no idea how the thralls and outcasts could have conspired together, nor did she have time to stop and ponder the question. She had to stop the driders before they destroyed her company from above. She levitated upward through the smoky air, meanwhile looking about for the mage who'd created the flame. Barbed arrows and bolts of light streaked at her from all directions. She shielded her face with a fold of her piwafwi, and the missiles rebounded or dissolved when they encountered her layers of enchanted protection. The impacts stung but did no serious damage. When she'd ascended to their level, she recognized certain snarling faces even with the fangs, driders whom she herself had helped to make. Perhaps it explained why they'd throw magic at her despite the inevitable damage to the mob of orcs. She quickly unrolled another scroll and read the trigger phrase therein. Blades appeared, floating among the driders in front of her, then began to revolve around a central point. The razor-sharp slivers of metal sped along so fast they were invisible, and their orbits curved through the bodies of their foes. The blades sliced and pierced the half-spiders without even slowing down, reducing the brutes to scraps of meat and splashes of blood. Quenthel laughed and started to twist around to face the driders atop the stalagmite buildings on the opposite side of the street. A length of something sticky lashed her and looped tightly about her torso, binding her free hand to her chest. It was webbing. She knew that some driders could spin the stuff. As they sought to reel her in, she levitated once more, resisting the pull like a fish on a line. Meanwhile, she struggled to reach another scroll despite the constriction of her arm. The vipers bit and chewed at the cable. Pharaun levitated into view, and sizzling white lightning leaped from his fingertips. It stabbed one drider, then leaped to the next, then another, until the twisting, dazzling power linked all the half-spiders like beads on a chain. They danced spasmodically until the magic ended, then instantly collapsed. Stinking smoke rose from the remains. Pharaun smiled at Quenthel and said, «I've often wondered why the goddess doesn't transform our misfits into something harmless,» he said. «I suppose driders are another tool for culling the weak.» Ignoring his blather, Quenthel peered down to see what was transpiring on the battlefield. Malaggar's contingent had arrived and was tearing into the enemy's flank. At virtually the same instant, the Auvryndar threw open their gates, and, mounted on their lizards, charged forth in a sortie. Teeth gritted, Quenthel pulled the gummy web off her person and floated down to rejoin her troops on the ground. Contemptuous of the enemies' arrows, Pharaun continued to hang above the warriors' heads from which point it was no doubt easier to aim his magic. The scholars only had to fight for a few more minutes then, hammered on three sides, the mass of goblins collapsed in on itself, the implosion laying a carpet of corpses in its wake. Quenthel allowed her troops only a few minutes to collect themselves, then she formed them up and marched them on toward the next of the goddess only knew how many battles.

  «Out!» Greyanna shouted. «Now!» The canoe maker gawked at her and sputtered, «Wh-what about my stock?» The items in question sat about the floor of the workroom or hung cradled in straps hooked to the ceiling. «The goblins will destroy them,» the scar-faced princess said. «Like this.» She smashed a half-finished kayak, a fragile-looking construction of curved bone ribs and hide, with a sweep of her mace. «Afterward, you'll make more, but only if you live. Now get moving, or I'll kill you myself.»

  The craftsman scrambled off his stool, and she chivvied him out the door. Up and down the street, her half dozen minions were rousting out the occupants of other manufactories and shops. A mob of hairy hobgoblins, all well-armed and many a head taller than the average dark elf, slouched around a corner onto the thoroughfare. They spotted the drow, bellowed their uncouth battle cries, and charged. After the disastrous encounte
r with Ryld Argith, one of the twins was dead. The other, and Relonor, lay grievously wounded, as they still did in House Mizzrym.

  There they would live or die without recourse to further doses of healing magic, since Miz'ri declined to squander the House's limited resources on such incompetents. Greyanna had entirely agreed. After taking the wounded home, Greyanna, with the questionable aid of Aunrae, had selected five new males to join her in the hunt. This time, they'd stalk Pharaun on foot, Greyanna having belatedly realized that foulwings weren't lucky for her. She and her band had been wandering the streets seeking word of their quarry when the rebellion erupted. Once she'd grasped the magnitude of the disturbance, she wondered if it was the raid on the Braeryn that she had engineered, that brutal attempt to flush her brother out of hiding, that had inspired the thralls to revolt. In a mad, dark way, the possibility pleased her, but she decided not to share her hypothesis. Few would see the humor. Most of her thinking, however, was given over to practical considerations. She thought her hunting party could help put down the undercreatures, but only if it could combine forces with a bona fide army. Otherwise, the larger mobs would overwhelm it. In those first minutes of slaughter and destruction, she watched for some noble clan to ride forth from their castle and drive the goblins before them. To her consternation, none did, at least not in her immediate vicinity. Her little troop was on its own. Life then became an infuriating business of running and hiding from orcs of all things, of watching beasts no better than rothй destroy beauty and sophistication they couldn't even perceive. Occasionally, she and her companions slew a small group of goblinoids wandering on their own, but it meant nothing, would do nothing to arrest the dissolution of all that was finest in the world. Where was the Spider Queen? Perhaps she was bored with her toy Menzoberranzan, magnificent though it was. Perhaps she intended to break it to make space for a new one. In time, Greyanna's dodging and backtracking brought her to a street she recognized, a double row of prosperous shops—to be precise, establishments owned by tradesmen under the patronage of House Mizzrym. She herself had called hereabouts, collecting rents and fees, occasionally chastising a fool who was late paying on a loan or had otherwise displeased Matron Mother Miz'ri. It occurred to Greyanna that if the merchants perished, they'd contribute no more gold to Mizzrym coffers. Whereas if she conducted them to safety, she might curry some favor with her mother. Miz'ri had grown impatient with her continuing failure to kill Pharaun and had even hinted that another might carry the mantle of First Daughter with more grace. At the very least, preserving Mizzrym assets would feel more constructive and less frustrating than simply skulking about, and so Greyanna instructed her followers to extract the frightened traders and artisans from their homes.