R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, Insurrection, Condemnation (15 page)

It took her an instant to shake off the shock. When she did, she sensed the fiend’s other limbs poised to slash and pound. She was almost out of time to recite the trigger phrase.

But not quite.

She rattled off the three words, and power seethed and tingled inside her flesh. She discharged it into the living darkness, an easy task since the demon was holding onto her. She held her breath, waiting to see what would happen.

Like allowing her adversary to seize her, this too was a part of the gamble. The magic she had just unleashed would weaken a dark elf or pretty much any other mortal being to the point of death. However, depending on its precise nature, the demon—or whatever it was—might simply shrug it off. It might even feed on the blast of force and grow stronger than before.

The ploy worked. The fiend was susceptible, at least to some degree. She knew it when the entity’s limbs flailed and thrashed in spasms, the one on her ankle releasing her to twist and flop about. The ambient darkness blinked out of existence for a moment as the creature’s grip on its surroundings wavered.

One instant of vision was all Quenthel needed to mark where her enemy’s ragged core was floating. She scrambled up, charged it, and found that she was hobbling, every other stride triggering a jolt of pain. She didn’t let the discomfort slow her down.

The creature of darkness was recovering. Two tendrils squirmed at Quenthel. She ducked one and lashed the other, which flinched back.

After two more steps, she judged, hoped, that she’d limped within striking distance of the entity’s formless heart. She swung the whip, and shouted in satisfaction when she felt the vipers’ fangs rip something more resistant than empty air.

She struck as hard and as fast as she could, grunting with every stroke. Her snakes warned her of tendrils looping around behind her, and she ignored the threat. If she left off attacking the center of the darkness, she might not get another chance.

The darkness obscuring the room started rapidly oscillating between presence and absence. Quenthel’s motions looked oddly jerky in the disjointed moments of vision.

Tentacles grabbed and dragged her backward. She shouted in rage and frustration. As if responding to her cry, the arms dissolved, dumping her back on the floor.

Quenthel raised her head and peered about. There was no longer any impediment to sight. The murderous darkness was gone. Her last blow must have been mortal. It had just taken the creature another heartbeat or two to succumb.

“It’s dead!” hissed Hsiv. “What now, Mistress?”

“First . . . I’m going to sit . . . and tend my wounds, then we’re going to look . . . for my sentry,” panted Quenthel, attenuating her rapport with the vipers. In too deep and prolonged a communion, shades of identity could bleed in one direction or the other. “If she’s lucky, she’s already dead.”

She wished she were as undaunted as she was trying to sound, but it appeared that demonic assassins were going to keep coming for her. She’d hoped that the appearance of the spider demon might be an isolated incident. She’d thought that if any more such fiends did appear, the renewed wards would keep them out. Plainly, she’d been too optimistic.

At least Arach-Tinilith was the seat of her power. There, she could deploy a small army of retainers and a hoard of magical devices in her own defense, but those resources hadn’t helped her against the darkness, and she couldn’t help wondering how many hostile visitations a priestess in her condition could hope to survive.

Greyanna’s henchmen came floating down around her. Two were warriors, one a wizard, and the third was another priestess. All wore the half masks of true seeing, giving them the deceptively foolish look of actors in a pantomime.

Pharaun tried to levitate, but the net was too heavy. He willed his animate rapier into existence. The steel ring vanished from his finger, and the long, slim sword materialized outside the net. The blade started slicing at the thick ropes, but to little effect. A rapier was a thrusting weapon and not suited to sawing. Tensing his muscles against the remorseless pressure of the tightening web, he turned the floating sword around to threaten his fellow representatives of House Mizzrym.

Greyanna laughed. “Is that one little bodkin supposed to hold us all at bay?”

“Possibly not,” said Pharaun, straining to work his fingers closer to one of his pockets. “That’s why I instructed it to kill you first.”

“Did you, now?”

His sister motioned her warriors forward. Twin brothers possessed of the same slightly yellowish hair and deeply cleft chin, they carried pale bone longbows slung over their backs in preference to the more common crossbows.

Greyanna herself remained on her mount and produced a scroll from within her
piwafwi
. Thanks to his remaining ring, Pharaun could see from the complex corona of magical force shining around the rolled parchment that it contained, among others, a spell to disrupt the other fellow’s magic. Perhaps she intended to use it to render the dancing rapier inert long enough for her minions to break or immobilize it.

The wretched ropes were digging into the wizard’s flesh like knives. He would hardly have been surprised if they drew blood. They were certainly cutting off his circulation and numbing his extremities. Trembling with effort, he shifted his fingers another inch.

“My companion is Ryld Argith,” he said, “a Master of MeleeMagthere. He’s never done anything to you, and you will place yourself in debt to the warriors of the pyramid by killing him.”

Entangled as he was, Pharaun couldn’t even turn his head to look at his friend anymore, but he could hear Ryld grunting and swearing and feel him shaking the net. The swordsman was plainly trying to free himself, but it seemed unlikely that even his extraordinary strength would be enough if he was unable to bring one of his blades to bear, and apparently such was the case.

“I’ve kept tabs on you through the years.” Greyanna said. “I know Master Argith is your most valued comrade. I don’t need him trying to liberate or avenge you. Our mother will handle Melee-Magthere.”

On further inspection, Pharaun observed that the subordinate priestess had readied a scroll as well. That struck him as vaguely odd, but he supposed this was hardly the time to ponder the possible significance.

The warriors were approaching steadily but warily, and not merely, he suspected, because of the hovering rapier. Greyanna could neutralize the weapon, but they feared that Pharaun would work some terrible magic that only required speech, not gestures or a focal object. He was sorry to disappoint them. He did have one or two such spells in his memory but none that could annihilate all five of these unpleasant folk at a single stroke, and he knew that once he conjured some devastating attack, they would abandon any intention of taking him alive for a demise by torture. They would strike back as fast and murderously as possible, and immobilized in the mesh, he would have little hope of defending against their efforts.

“Actually, you ought to think twice about harming either of us,” he said, hoping that further conversation would slow the fighters’ advance, even if only for a moment.

Greyanna chuckled. “Be assured, I’ve thought of it a thousand thousand times.”

“The archmage won’t like it.”

“I’m acting on behalf of the Council. I doubt he’ll deem it politic to retaliate . . . any more than Melee-Magthere will.”

“Well, Gromph won’t sign his name to your cadaver, but someday . . .”

Pharaun’s fingers finally jerked into the pocket and closed around a small but sturdy leather glove. With the net still tightening, it was just as hard to withdraw the article as it had been to reach it. He experimented to see if he could possibly fumble it through the proper mystical pass.

Such a cramped, tiny motion was neither easy nor natural for him. He was accustomed to conjure with a certain flair, making sweeping, dramatic gestures. Yet he had on occasion practiced making the signs as small as possible. It was good for his control and had a few times allowed him to cast a spell without an adversary realizing what he was about. So he had some hope of properly manipulating the glove. If only the web wasn’t so constrictive or his hand so dead and awkward.

“Excuse me,” Greyanna said, then suspended the conversation to read from her scroll.

It was of course divine magic, not arcane, and Pharaun didn’t recognize all the words. The effect, however, was unmistakable. The rapier jerked and fell to the ground with a clank. The masked wizard stepped forward and scooped it up. Pharaun was content at least with the fact that the rapier’s peculiar enchantment would make it impossible for Greyanna’s henchman to turn the weapon on him—at least not for an hour or so.

Pharaun recognized the mage, whose high, wide forehead and small, pointed chin were unmistakable. Pharaun had always thought they made the other mage’s head look like an egg. He was Relonor Vrinn, an able wizard and longtime Mizzrym retainer. He was still wearing his silk sash with the spell foci tucked inside and an eightpointed gold brooch securing it.

Scimitars in hand, the warriors approached the net. Judging from their smiles, they’d decided there was nothing to fear and were looking forward to beating the two prisoners unconscious.

Pharaun was not yet satisfied with his employment of the glove, but he was rather clearly out of time. He would just have to try the pass and see if it worked. He shifted the focus one more time, meanwhile reciting an incantation under his breath.

A giant hand, radiant and translucent, appeared beneath the net. The instantaneous addition of another object lodged inside jerked the mesh even tighter. Pharaun knew the jolt was coming, but he cried out anyway.

The pain only intensified when, responding to the wizard’s unspoken command, the hand hurtled twenty-five feet into the air, carrying the net and its prisoners along. For a moment, Pharaun feared he would black out, but the pressure eased. As he’d hoped, and despite the best sliding, bunching efforts of the web of ropes, his own weight was dragging him free. He shoved and thrashed to speed the process along.

When he was able, he looked over at Ryld. The hulking warrior was wrestling free of the net as well, though he lost hold of Splitter doing it. The greatsword fell point first, narrowly missed plunging through one of the Mizzrym warriors, and stuck pommel up in the smooth stone surface of the street.

“We have to fall,” said Ryld. “If we just float here, they’ll shoot and magic us to pieces.”

“Let’s go,” Pharaun replied.

The masters released their holds and plummeted. One of the soldiers hit Ryld with an arrow, but the missile failed to penetrate his armor. A ball of flame exploded in the air, but Relonor had aimed too high, and the blast only made his targets flinch. Pharaun used his House insignia to slow his descent just a little. He thought that otherwise he’d break his legs.

As a result, he saw Ryld—who possessed a similar levitating talisman, his bearing the sigil of Melee-Magthere—reach the ground a moment ahead of him. The Master of Melee-Magthere tucked into a ball, rolled, sprang up with short sword in hand, and lunged at the soldier who’d loosed the arrow. The masked male leaped backward, dropped his bow, and whipped his scimitar out of its scabbard again. While he was so engaged, Ryld yanked Splitter out of the ground.

Pharaun landed. Despite his attempt to cushion the impact, it slammed up his legs and sent him staggering. As he fought to recover his balance, he noticed Relonor swirling his hands in a star-shaped pattern.

As the Master of Sorcere lurched upright, the other mage completed his incantation. A long, angular reptilian thing sprang from the palms of the older drow’s outstretched hands as if they were the doorway to another world. Wreathed in flowing blue flame, the monster charged Pharaun.

Relonor was a gifted mage but no marvel as a tactician. In the excitement of the moment, he’d reflexively cast his favorite spell, and characteristically for a Mizzrym retainer, it was an illusion. He’d forgotten that his foe, born in the same House, might well recognize the sequence of mystic passes. Of course, even if Pharaun hadn’t, his silver ring would have shown him what sort of magic the other male was creating.

He ignored the phantasm and reached into a pocket to snatch a tiny crystal and commence a spell. He ignored the apparition even when it lunged so close he felt the imaginary but searing heat of its halo of flame.

An intense coldness, visible in the fan of drifting ice crystals it instantly created, exploded from his hand. It passed right through the reptile, dissipating the illusion in the process, and washed over Relonor. It painted him with rime, and he fell backward.

Pharaun grinned. Greyanna was a fool to accost him with so few retainers in her train. Didn’t she realize that two masters of Tier Breche were more than equal to the worst that she and her four dolts could do?

The foulwing flapped its batlike wings and hopped closer to the melee. As its legless body pounded down on the ground, Greyanna opened a leather bag and flung a handful of its contents into the air.

The falling motes flared with greenish light when they struck the ground. Each seethed and sparkled upward like a spore instantaneously growing into a fungus. In an instant, a number of animate skeletons stood upon the street. They carried a miscellany of weapons and shields but shared a common purpose. As one, they oriented on the masters and advanced.

Shifting back and forth, Ryld cut the undead creatures down. Pharaun took momentary shelter behind his friend, then the swordsman cried out, staggered, and dropped his guard. The skeletons surged forward, and the twins, who’d been hovering at the periphery of the fight, darted in as well.

Caught by surprise, Pharaun only just had time to conjure a dazzling, crackling fork of lightning. The power held the enemy back for a moment, and Ryld recovered his balance.

“All right?” asked the Master of Sorcere.

“Yes.” Ryld chopped a spear-wielding skeleton’s legs out from under it. “Something was trying to tamper with my mind, but it’s gone now.”