F O U R (20 page)
War Of The Spider Queen
Book 1
Dissolution
the youth how the device worked.
poorly balanced daggers, RPretending to take an interest in an itinerant vendor'
s
yld turned and surreptitiously surve
rack of cheaply for
yed the inte
ged and
rsection.
A fellow with what the weapons master suspected were self-inflicted sores on hislegs chanted for alm
s and shook a ceramic bowl. Since it was a rare if not demented
dark elf who ever felt the tug of pity, the beggar sat near the
boarding house catering to non-drow entrance to a shabby . A fem
ale hurried by with a hooked and pointed pole—virtually a pike, when one
really looked at it—on her shoulder and a giant weasel on a leash. She was plainly
an exterminator headed out to rid a household of some substantial infestation.
A snarling noble from House Hunzrin drew his rapier and lashed a commonerwith the flat, evidently because the latter had been a trifle slow stepping out of his
way. The Hunzrins were notorious for their virulent arrogance. Perhaps it stemmed from the fact that they controlled the greater part of Menzoberranzan'
s
Or maybe they were compensa agriculture. stuck living in "mere East." ting for the fact that, for all their wealth, they were
Any number of other rather drab and hungry-looking souls rushed on about their business.
"Reliving childhood memories?" the wizard asked. "You for
get," Ryld replied, "I was born in the Braeryn. I had to work my wato get to Eastm y up
yr " .
"Y"I daresay you took one look around, then kept right on climou're right. Just now, I was checking to see if som bing."eone's tailing us. No one is."
"What a pity. I was hoping that if we asked enough questions in diverse malegatherings, som
e more friends of the runaways would try to murder us, or at
least seek to learn what we're about. Perhaps the rogues are too canny for that."
"What do we do now?"
"Visit the next vile tavern, I suppose."
two days into mThey started walking, and Pharaun continued, "Say, did I ever tell you how, y first mission to the World Above, I wound up having to tail a hum
an mage while the sun was blazing in the sky? I was blind with the glare,
my
"Enough," R eyes—" ld said. "You've told this a thousand times.""Well, it's a good storyy
. I know you'll enjoy hearing it again. There I was, blind
with the glare ..."
As the two masters strolled on, they passed a doorway sealed with a curtain of
spider web. Forbidden by sacred law to disturb the silken trap until such time asits builder ceased to occupy it, the luckles
s
beneath his front window to serve as a m occupant of the house had placed a box akeshift step.
look of herAcross the way, a ragged half-breed child, part dark elf, part human by the, brushed past a drunken laborer
R , then quickened her pace a trifle. yld hadn't actually seen her lift the tosspot's purse, but he was fairly certain she
had.
Pharaun cam
R e to a sudden halt. "Look at this," he said.yld turned, the long, comfortable weight of Splitter shifting ever so slightly
Richard Lee Byers
52
War Of The Spider Queen
Book 1
Dissolution
across his back. On a wall at the mouth of an alley, someone had clum
daubed a rudim sily e
was small and sm
ntary picture of a clawed hand surrounded by flameared in paint that barely contrasted with th es. Though it
e stone behind it,
Ryld was slightly chagrined that Pharaun had noticed it and he hadn't, but he
supposed wizards had a nose for glyphs."Do you know what this is?" asked Pharaun.
"An emblem of the larger tribes of ores. I've
been to the Realm of the Skortchclaw horde, one s that See the Sun a time or two myself, remember?"
"Good, I'm glad you confirm my identification. Now, what is it doing here?"R
assume some ore painted it."yld took a reflexive glance around, searching for potential threats, and said, "I
such a thing?""That would be my supposition, too, but have you ever known a thrall to do
"No."
"Of course not. What slave would dare
every drow takes pride in its perfection?" deface the city, knowing that each and "A crazy one. W
e'v
"Whereupon they attack their handlers.e all seen them go mad under the lash." They don't creep about scrawling on walls. I'
someone can shed some light on this occurrence."d like to questions the people in these houses on either side. Perhaps "Y
"Sometimes I think you'ou get curious about the strangest things," Ryld said, shaking his head. "Genius is so often misperceived."re a little mad yourself."
going to nag at you, but we're right in the middleof trying to find the runaways and so "Look, I know this puzzle is save your life. Let's stick to that."
The tall, thin wizard smiled and said, "YThey walked on. es, of course."
"But eventually "
, Pharaun said after a moment
"w
, hen we
've located the
and covered ourselves in gl rogues breathing—I am going to inquire into this."ory—or at least convinced Gromph to let me continue
skyThey traveled another block, then a column of roaring yellow fire fell from the , engulfing Pharaun's body. Wings beat the air, and an arrow streaked at Ryld.
The netherspirit couldn't see the new enchantments surrounding Tibut as the uttermost attenuated projecti er Breche, could feel them. on of its substance washed over them, it
Metaphorically speaking, the wards were not unlike a castle. There was themotte, the steep slopes of which would slow an enemy's approach while the defenders rained missiles down on him. Atop that loomed the thick, high walls,virtually unbreachable and un climbable. Amid those was the recessed gate,defensible by spears and arrows loosed from three directions. Witself, murder holes gaped in ithin the passage while beyond it rose a gatehouse with battleme the ceiling to rain burning oil on the invaders'nts at the top, another barrier to heads, enclose the first section of the cour
Gromph's first counter magic, the onetyard and turn it into a killing pit. that had admitted the late and unlamented Beradax to the temple, had stormed the fortress like a rampaging
Richard Lee Byers
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War Of The Spider Queen
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Dissolution
army equipped with catapults, rams, aeffort resembled a mine sappers had exnd siege towers. The arch-mage's second
walls. Except that this hole ran though extra dicavated to pass unobtrusively beneath the mensional space.
Baenre elder male so thAs the netherspirit understood it, thisat the occupants of Arach-T method of egress was arranged by the inilith would experience
another kind of terror. Th
alarm, and they would learn the fear they had already discovered the dread of a screaming midst without any warning at all. at came when death slipped into their
kind had no names, an advantage in that moPulling in the longer tendrils of its ectoplasmic substance, the entity— it and its st wizards therefore to summon them—poured its fo lacked the ability
measure of trepidation. If Gromph'rmless form into the tunnel, albeit not without a s conjurations of his minions, this was where the spirmagic was unable to neutralize the it would discover it in some
unpleasant way.As it crept down the mine, it sensed the wards poised above and around i
t
enchantments like hanging axes, precariously balanced and eager to fall, o ,r tauttripwires attached to crossbows, or caltrops strewn lavishly underf
oot. The
constructs of mystical force fairly quivered like living things with their compulsion to slay, but none of them detected the intruder
.
The other end of the tunnel, which would not exist for mortalwere magically augmented, opened on a corridor eyes unless they
and took its bearings. It was inside one . The nether-spirit climbed out Tinilith, some distance from Quenthel's su of the spider leg annexes of Arachconfident that nothing could bar its path to its tarite, but that was all right. It was get.The intruder hunched and drifted around a corner
watch. Happily, the dark elf female didn't notice it, though that was scarcely a and saw a novice standing surprise. For some reason it didn't fu
guise of a demon of darkness, and it lly understand, Gromph had given it the ordinary, empty gloom behind it. The netherspirit yearned to kill the mwas all but indistinguishable from the