Daughter of the Drow (31 page)

The wizard slid the bracelet onto his own wrist. It was too large for him, but he regarded the trophy with pride.

“How delightful,” he murmured, turning his arm this way and that so the polished brass sparkled in the candlelight. “I managed to kill someone, after all.”

I’m so delighted to have found you still here. I rather thought you’d have run to the safety of the Sorcere by now.”

Startled, Kharza-kzad whirled to face his unwelcome visitor. As his eyes settled upon the copper-haired drow—who was sprawled with insolent ease in Kharza’s own chair—the wizard bitterly cursed the day he’d started trading with the merchant. Once again Nisstyre had slipped into Spelltower Xorlarrin, using the gate they had established many years ago for that purpose, without invitation or permission. It had become a frequent, disturbing practice.

“What do you want?” Kharza-kzad demanded. The merchant smiled and propped his feet up on the study table, paying no heed to the pile of scrolls dented by his boots. “No more than any other drow in the city. I want Liriel Baenre’s amulet.”

The wizard willed himself not to let his eyes slide to the faint, nearly faded outline of the gate that had taken Liriel to safety.

“I’ve no idea how rabble like you heard such news, but it will do you little good,” he said with a godd deal more bravado than he felt. Even flushed with the excitement of his first kill, Kharza-kzad had no real wish to raise his battle wands against another wizard. He knew success in battle involved more than might of arms and magic; it required instincts he himself had never tested, much less developed. His best chance of avoiding such a conflict, he believed, would be to utterly discourage the merchant wizard.

“By the word of the Ruling Council, the amulet was taken to the Sorcere for study,” Kharza said, deliberately invoking all the powers of Menzoberranzan. “Unless you plan to apply as a student there, it’s well beyond your reach.”

“I think not,” Nisstyre said calmly, ignoring the older drow’s insults. “Somehow I doubt the amulet has made its way to the Sorcere. You are here, after all. And, if I am not mistaken, awaiting a visit from your student.”

“Such a visit would be welcomed, but it is unlikely. Liriel is at Arach-Tmilith,” lied Kharza-kzad.

“Not so, I’m afraid. My sources at Arach-Tinilith assure me Liriel is hiding somewhere in the city, or in the Underdark nearby. Or perhaps,” the merchant said slowly, “she has already escaped into the Night Above.”

Nisstyre rose to his feet and bore down upon the wizard. “Tell me what you know,” he hissed.

In response, the Xorlarrin wizard snatched a wand from his belt. If ever he’d had any compunction over killing, it did not show now in his hard, narrowed gaze. Blue fire sizzled down the length of the weapon and hurtled in a ball of light and power toward the copper-haired merchant.

To Kharza’s astonishment, the fireball passed right through

Nisstyre’s body and struck the far wall of the chamber. It exploded silently, showering the carpet with bright sparks. The fire caught, and flames licked upward at the walls. A priceless tapestry hanging there began to smolder and smoke.

Kharza realized the Nisstyre standing before him was no more than a magical projection. The younger wizard’s true body was elsewhere, perhaps far from Menzoberranzan, more likely in this very room. Kharza whirled, looking frantically for his enemy, but there was no other sign of the red-haired drow.

“Do you have the courage to join me in the open?” mocked Nisstyre’s image. “Or shall the two of us raze Spelltower Xorlarrin to its foundation?”

So it had come to this: he had no choice but to fight. Strangely enough, Kharza-kzad felt none of the fear he’d expected. A surging elation swept through his ancient frame, and he glared steadfastly at the projected image of his nemesis.

“I am ready,” he said simply. “You have only to choose the site.”

“It is chosen, and I await you.” The magical projection extended one slender, apparently solid hand. “Give me a personal item, a ring or some such, so I might attune the portal to you.”

Kharza-kzad did not consider this demand unreasonable, for he knew magic gates had an endless variety of requirements. Some demanded an offering of gold or gems, others granted transport only at certain times, still others required spells or rituals. He had not heard of a need for attunement, but it was not inconceivable. So he stripped a gold and onyx ring from his finger and dropped it into the outstretched hand.

At once the Xorlarrin wizard felt the magical swirl of a teleportation spell surround him, carrying him off with a rush of power and movement such as he had never experienced. Kharza had seen little need for magical portals in his long life. He could summon a mere five or six, and on only one occasion had he used one himself: the brief trip from Uriel’s room at Arach-Tinilith to Spelltower Xorlarrin. Of course, he knew enough about general magical principles to help Liriel practice the gate spells in her new book, but he had not bothered to copy any of the spells or learn them himself. He regretted that now, for this new experience was exhilarating beyond words.

Suddenly he felt solid stone beneath his feet, and he found himself in a vast, uninhabited cavern. As he looked around in awe, the wizard realized this was his first time out of Menzoberranzan. Under less dire circumstances, he would have been fascinated by the wild stone landscape, untouched by magic or artifice, and by the seething pool of melted rock that bubbled and spat far below him.

Kharza-kzad shot a glance upward. His eyes were not accustomed to such distances, nor was his mind equipped to register them. But he perceived high overhead a distant light, a brilliant snatch of blue that could only be the sky of the Lands Above. Nisstyre, it seemed, had chosen the heart of a live volcano for their confrontation. So be it, thought Kharza, and he steeled himself for the fight to come.

“Show yourself,” he shouted. “Let it begin!”

In response, a bolt of liquid stone rose from the pool and shot toward him. Kharza crossed his forearms before his face and spoke a single word of power. A rounded shield, glimmering black but as transparent as glass, sprang up between him and the onrushing lava. The glowing stone hit the magical shield with a tremendous hiss, cooling instantly to become a solid wall of protection.

With insolent ease, Kharza cast a spell that shattered the wall into pebbles and dust. He stood there, his arms crossed and a faintly bored expression on his wrinkled face.

Mocking applause echoed through the cavern, and Nisstyre stepped into view. The copper-haired wizard stood on the far side of the lava pool, on a ridge of rock roughly on eye level with his foe.

“I believe the first round is a draw,” he conceded with a slight bow.

“And the second will be mine,” Kharza assured him. The wizard took a sticky pellet from a hidden pocket of his robes and hurled it high into the air. The pellet exploded, and what had been merely a wad of spiderweb expanded into gray lines of magical force. Sticky tendrils shot off in all directions, seeking solid stone and quickly finding purchase. In less than a second the entire cavern was enmeshed in a giant, shadowy web. The web trembled far over the heads of the wizards, like a giant canopy. A large sticky drop slowly broke free to fall with a hise into the lava pool below.

Nisstyre’s face, which glowed red in the darkness of the cavern, paled nearly to gray as the web of shadows magically stole his body’s warmth. His features registered the pain of the bone-deep chill, and his hands moved with agonizing slowness as he formed the gestures of an answering spell.

The Xorlarrin wizard did not wait for the attack; he chanted the words of a summoning. Giant spiders appeared at his command and scurried across the sticky gray web toward their assigned prey. They slipped through the strands and began to descend on silvery threads toward Nisstyre.

“A fit death for a heretic!” exulted Kharza-kzad as the venomous spiders, so beloved of the Lady of Chaos, closed in.

“Do you really fight for the honor of Lloth?” sneered Nisstyre.

The younger wizard’s hand swept slowly forward in a menacing arc, not at the spiders, but at the web itself. Kharza had expected this to come sooner or later, for only a magical attack could dispel the web. To his astonishment, the copper-haired wizard unleashed not a pulse of fey energy, but a bolt of simple fire.

Simple, but effective. Flames raced along every strand, setting the entire web ablaze. The web of fire was a glorious, dazzling sight, and Kharza marveled as he beheld it. It was also, he conceded, a brilliant strategy. The heat and the punishing light of the fire forced him to deal with the burning web. This would give his enemy time to marshal his own magical strength, to recover somewhat from the magical chill. Fortunately, Kharza was well prepared for the task.

Shielding his eyes with one hand against the brilliant light, the wizard drew a fist-sized obsidian sculpture from a pocket of his robes. As was befitting of a master of the Sorcere, he possessed an Amulet of Plelthong, an ancient and powerful drow device that commanded many attacks and defenses, Kharza spoke the words that would unleash the needed force. He raised the amulet—the graven face of a smiling drow wizard—and pointed it toward the flaming web.

The obsidian lips pursed, and the drow-shaped amulet spat a stream of cold blue light upward. The magic expanded, becoming a cone of power that engulfed the fire and extinguished it. The web remained, but it was blackened and brittle. The charred bodies of the spiders dangled and swayed for a moment, then fell toward the waiting lava.

Kharza allowed himself a smile of triumph and just a moment’s celebration. Too long: a black dart sped toward him and pierced his uplifted hand. His priceless amulet was knocked from his grasp to roll amid the common stones.

The wizard let out a shout of pain and outrage, but he had learned the danger of hesitation. Without bothering to pull the needlelike dart from his hand, he snatched a wand from his belt and pointed it upward.

As he had anticipated, two more of the death darts had taken flight, and yet another was in Nisstyre’s hands. The merchant wizard did not hurl the final dart. He mockingly lifted it to his lips and tossed it into the air as if throwing a kiss. He did not bother to aim, and he did not need to. Magically enspelled to seek out their target, the long black weapons circled the cavern and swooped toward the Xorlarrin wizard like birds of prey.

Kharza squeezed the grip of his wand once, twice, and then a third time. He held the wand steady in case its fourth and final attack was needed. But his aim was true, and three globes of light flew to meet the incoming darts. The wizard summoned his natural power of levitation and rose at a sharp angle, putting as much distance between himself and the coming impact as he could.

The globes struck the death darts and exploded, one after another, in spectacular bursts of greenish light. Acid spat from the globes, corroding the black metal and sending droplets of green acid and liquid metal to the ledge where Kharza had stood an instant before.

But the Xorlarrin wizard was safely beyond the lethal shower. Floating high above the battle, he threw back his head and let out a laugh of pure exultation. What wonderful power, what delightful destruction, his creations unleashed! He had possessed these marvelous toys all these many years and never enjoyed them!

Nisstyre observed his enemy’s pleasure and took note of his growing confidence. He allowed Kharza his moment, knowing it would soon end. All was going as he, Nisstyre, had planned. The copper-haired wizard had studied Kharza-kzad well, and he had anticipated the older wizard’s every attack and parry. He knew the Xorlarrin wizard was a master of battle magic and tactics, and he’d gotten to know Kharza well enough to suspect that the isolation of study, the focused effort needed to craft wondrous weapons of destruction, had left dangerous blind spots in Kharza’s education. Xorlarrin might be a master of magic and convoluted draw logic, but he did not have a fighter’s instinct for the terrain. The simpler the attack against such an opponent, the better its chances for success.

So thinking, Nisstyre unleashed his next spell. At his command the air of the cavern began to stir, to gain force and momentum. Before the levitating Kharza could react, a mighty wind caught him in midair and flung him still higher, into the waiting arms of the web of shadows.

The fire had thinned and blackened the web, but no physical force could destroy its magic. The Xorlarrin wizard struck the sticky strands and was held there, bouncing slightly and facing the pool of lava. His eyes darted toward Nisstyre; the younger wizard’s hands flashed as he formed a spell that would destroy the web. Kharza knew it well, and he understood the danger he was in. His natural ability to levitate had been exhausted. Once freed from the web, he might be able to cast a spell of levitation before he fell to his death. He was not sure; he had no idea how long it took one to fall such a distance.

Kharza-kzad had not long to decide, for his pounding heart beat perhaps thrice before the other wizard finished the dispellment, and then he was plummeting toward the deadly pool. The old wizard could see only one chance of survival, and he took it. As he fell, his fingers closed upon another wand, his greatest creation and his deepest secret.

It was Nisstyre’s turn to laugh now as he watched his rival splash into the pool of molten rock. He had planned this battle, step by step, and he had also prepared a spell that would fish the old droVs bones from the lava. He’d doubted from the beginning that a live Kharza-kzad would willingly yield up any useful information, but there were ways of compelling a spirit to speak truth. Soon he would know everything the wizard had learned about Liriel Baenre and her amulet, and he would be well on his way to possessing both.

Nisstyre’s laughter died abruptly. Something was stirring in the pool of lava. Some dark shape was breaking free of the bubbling surface. As he watched, stunned, the skeletal form of a drow rose slowly from the molten rock. All flesh had been melted away by the lava, but the wizard’s robes—and presumedly all the magic they contained—had survived intact. Nisstyre did not know how Kharza-kzad had done it, but he knew what the old draw had become.