F O U R (51 page)

Authors: JASON

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answered, grinning, "but then we do know one another fairly well.""So much for my ability to manufacture a nonmagical disguise," Pharaun "You're allowed to try to kill another Master of Sorcere," said Gelroos. "That'

entirely proper.pointless and sloppy But you overstepped when, and their mothers won' you struck down these youths. It was

reward me for taking you down." t appreciate the waste. They'll "Does it help if I explain that all I do, I do to deliver Menzoberranzan f

rom

twin calamities?" Pharaun asked.

Gelroos raised his hands, preparing to conjure, and the remaining warriorscharged.

He too began to cast."Ah. I thought not."

Crashing and crunching, the surface of the Gelroos completed his spell a moment before Pharaun finished his. lane spat stone in the air. It was like a

geyser, save for the fact that the chunks of rock didn't fall back to earth. Instead, they shifted around one another and fitted together

towering, massive, and vaguely drowlike form, like a heroic statue abandoned , forming a

creature lurched up the corridor between the stalls.when the sculptor had barely begun. Its footsteps shaking the ground, the Pharaun was mildly impressed. It wasn't

essential spirit of the earth—nor easy to fend one of easy to summon and control an manifestation didn't shake his concentration. He continued his recitation f, either—but the

without a flub, meanwhile floating up into the air to avoid, if only mo-mentarily

He spoke the final syllable of the conjuration. A dagger made of ice flew, the swords of the onrushing warriors. from

tarhis hand. Gelroos dodged it, but the conjured blade exploded, peppering its get with frozen shards. One slashed open the mage's cheek and he stum

but Pharaun could tell he wasn' bled, t seriously hurt.

Below the Mizzrym, some of the warriors were readying their crossbows. Others began to levitate. By rushing him

, they'd drawn even with the game

merchant's tent, and Ryld burst from underneath it. Half an hour earlier, he'd

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Book 1

Dissolution

purchased a scimitar to use in this particular battle, but it was Splitter, rendered visible by his touch, that he currently clasped in hi

s hands. He must have decided

that, since Gelroos had already called out Pharaun's name, it would be pointless to try to conceal his own identity

The greatsword leaped back and forth, each stroke dropping a foe to th

Bellowing for his minions to turn and face the new threat, R e ground.yld's fellow instructor tried to shove his way toward him

Stone, liquid as magma, flowed upward from the ground into the elemental's body. Most of the rock served to grow the creature bigger and t

aller, but some of

it accumulated in the palm of its hand, forming a spiky sphere that it no doubt

intended to hurl at Pharaun.

The wizard snatched a tiny vial of water from one of his pockets. Brandishhe chanted. He felt the walls of the cosmos attenuating, and for a ing it,

moment, sensed

an infinite number of Pharaun’s conjur

from him like reflections in a mi ing in adjacent realities, receding away rror, growing subtly less and less like himself

with each step.A pulse of scarlet light struck him in the chest. Gelroos m

ust have conjured it.

The blaze of pain was extraordinary. Pharaun strained to complete the last word of power and final m

ystic pass without a fumble.He wasn't sure he'd succeeded until a v

acancy, a gap not in matter but in the

medium that underlies it, opened under the elemental's feet. The creature cocked

back its arm to throw, and the animati

for itself and down the hole. The wound in the fabric of the world contracted and ng force fell out of the body it had created

sealed itself. Rumb

Pharaun took stock of himling and thudding, the huge stone form fell apart.self. It didn't look as if the red light had done more

than scrape and prick his skin. He grinned down at Gelroos.

"This tim"Not quite, colleague."

He started casting, and Pharaun did the same," the younger wizard said through gritted teeth.e.Force crackled around the outcast Mizzrym but failed to bite into his flesh. His

own magic, launched from the same round little mirror he used to check his

junior wizard screamed, and in the blink appearance, made the air surrounding Gelrof an eye he wasoos tinkle like chiming crystals. The transformed into an inert figure made of cool, smooth glass.

Metal rang below Pharaun's feet. He looked down. Ryld abe having a diff ppeared as if he might

of the surviving students, turned the icult time of it, but a conjtide. Rured barrage of ice, flung into the midst yld cut down his fellow Master of Melee-Magthere, whirled to do the same to a young spearman, and the fight was

over.

Pharaun surveyed the battlefield. Though burned and incapacitated, some of thewarriors-in-training were still alive, but that was all right. The im

portant thinhad always been to murder his fellow instructors. That was g

the rogues. what would impress He floated back down to earth. "That wasn't too difficult. Looking back, it'

s a

pity we didn't slaughter Greyanna and her allies in the same fashion ".R

yld grunted, pulled up the hem of a fallen fighter'sfrom Splitter cloak, and wiped the blood

"Can you shatter Gelroos before we decamp?" Pharaun asked. "Otherwise, he'lleventually revert to flesh and blood."

" If you like." Ryld hefted his blade.

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Dissolution

C h a p t e r

F I F T E E N

Wrapped in a plain,

dark piwafwi,

the cowl drawn over her head, Quenthel trampersonal experience. She was on foot, not mped south across the city. The experience was strange, unique in her ounted on a lizard or enthroned on a floating stone disk. She was alone, not accompanied by a columnand servants, and m of guards ost strangely of all, no one paid her any real attention. Ohslaves scurried out of her path, and ,males ofrespect, but no one feared her or cringed in awe of herfered her a cursory show of

.to offer obeisance to the noble fem Indeed, she herself had ales she encountered along the way lest their soldiers chastise her for i ,nsolence.

It was galling, unsettling, and somehow tempting as well. In her most privatethoughts, she'd imagined herself simply running away from the implacable foe who worked so assiduously to kill her

. It might be the only way she couldsurvive. If she opted to flee this minute, she was already off to a good start. She'd managed to slip away from Tier Breche with no one, she hoped, the wiser.

Flight was a cowardly notion, though, unworthy of a Baenre, and it angered herwhen she entertained it even for a moment. Until the attacks began, she never had before. She turned a corner, and Qu'ellarz'orl, came into view. Her destination was nigh, and she focused her thoughts on the task at hand.Sneaking away from the Academy had been a little complicated. First, she'dhad to surreptitiously lay hands on nondescript outerwear that would allow her to pass for a commoner. Such a

piwafwi

certainly hadn't existed among her own garments, all of which were costly and bejeweled, but she'd found it ameffects of one of the kitchen staff. After disposing of the cook lest the mong the issing garment be reported, she had to exit Arach-Twas her inilith without anyone realizing it edge of the plateau and float down to , including her own watchful sentrithe cavern floor below without the guards es. Finally, she needed to skulk to the at the top of the staircase noticing.

She'd managed it, though, and she was confident of her ability to sneak backinto the Academy, even after the plateau had been put on a state of heightenedsecurity.A road ran up the eminence that was Qu'ellarz'orl to the castles of Men-zoberranzan's greatest families. It wasn't off limits to commoners. Merchants and supplicants used it all the time, but they were subject to search and

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