Dissolution

Until someone murdered her, Lirdnolu had taught her classes in a sort of indoor amphitheater, one of many architectural oddities scattered through Arach-Tinilith, and as the conspirators slunk in, they seated themselves on the C-shaped tiers.

Drisinil wondered what to say to them, how to stall until Quenthel arrived to confront them. The novice's mind was a blank, but she knew she'd have to think of something. Her mouth was dry and tasted of metal. Her armpits were clammy with sweat, and her accelerated pulse pounded in the stumps of her severed fingers. The poison was obviously well on its way to killing her, and she had to please Quenthel Baenre sufficiently to earn the antidote.

Wrinkled old Vlondril Tuin'Tarl leered at Drisinil as if she knew of the student's distress, but all she said was, "I believe most everyone's here. Let's get this done before our colleagues start missing us."

"Uh, yes," Drisinil said, gazing up at the rows of faces staring back down at her. "Well, mothers, sisters, we all know what happened last night. The vipers in the mistress's whip detected the drugs - "

"So they did," said Quenthel.

Startled, Drisinil spun around. A figure shrouded in a cowled,piwafwirose from the first row. She lifted her head, pushed the hoodback, and stood revealed as the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith. Somehow she'd entered the room without her enemies realizing her identity.

Quenthel pushed back one wing of net cloak, freeing the arm that held her whip. She sauntered to the center of the room. It occurred to Drisinil that at that moment the plotters could have fallen on their target en masse, but they didn't. The mistress cowed them with her unexpected appearance, her contemptuous demeanor, and the simple fact that she was a Baenre princess.

The mistress smiled at Drisinil and said, "You've done well, novice, except for one detail. It's traditional for priestesses to conduct their affairs by candlelight. That's all right, I've taken care of it." She turned toward the door. "Come."

Two teachers marched in carrying silver candelabra. After a moment, Drisinil, squinting, saw they weren't alone. Many of the residents of Arach-Tinilith filed in after them, all well armed and wearing mail.

Quenthel beckoned to the plotters.

"Move down to the lower seats, why don't you? The latecomers won't mind climbing to the top." She waited a beat, then said, "That wasn't a suggestion."

The conspirators hesitated a moment longer, and the show of force convinced them to obey.

"Thank you," Quenthel said, then waited until everyone had taken a seat and the plotters all had armed loyalists at their backs. "Now, let's discuss the matter that concerns you so."

"I don't know what my niece told you about this gathering," said Drisinil's Aunt Molvayas, clad in a gown of a dark and shimmering green that matched her eyes, "but I assure you, its purpose is entirely innocent."

"Its purpose is to contrive your death, Mistress," Vlondril called out. "I know. I've been in on it from the start."

Quenthel nodded to the mad priestess.

"Thank you, Holy Mother. Your candor helps move things along." The Baenre surveyed her enemies and said, "I understand that your excuse for seeking to depose me was the supposition that the goddess desires it. You postulate that she so abhors my rule of Arach-Tinilith that she renounces all Menzoberranzan."

Molvayas drew a deep breath, evidently screwing up her courage. "We do. Do you deny it's possible?"

"Of course," Quenthel replied. "It's a ludicrous notion unsupported by a single shred of evidence .. . though I'm sure it seems plausible to the lieutenant who covets my position."

Drisinil noticed that while the Baenre appeared perfectly at ease, the twisting whip serpents were keeping watch in all directions.

"What of the demons? They reflect the attributes of Lolth - "

"And they come for me. Because one of my mortal enemies sends them in guises intended to stimulate your imaginations."

"What enemy?" Molvayas demanded.

"That has yet to be determined."

"In other words," said Quenthel's second-in-command, "you don't know what's going on any more than we do."

"At least I know whatisn't happening."

"Do you? What makes your one opinion superior to all of ours?"

"The answer to that is readily apparent to those with some smattering of intelligence."

"Insults won't resolve this matter, Mistress, but I can think of a test that might. Step down for a year, and we'll see what happens."

Quenthel laughed.

"Meekly surrender the Academy to you, Barrison Del'Armgo? Nor likely. As it happens, I too have conceived a test to determine who truly enjoys Lolth's favor, your sad little cabal or me."

"What do you mean?" Molvayas asked, wariness in her eyes.

"My test is simplicity itself. We simply ask Lolth whom she prefers, and await her answer."

"That's insane. The Spider Queen no longer speaks to us."

"Perhaps if we petition, she will at least condescend to give us a sign. Are you willing to try?"

"Perhaps," Molvayas said, no doubt aware that with blades at her back, she actually had little choice. "Do you propose to perform some sort of ritual?"

"As we've lost our magic, what would that accomplish?Myidea is simpler. We all bide in this room, engaged in silent prayer and meditation, until the Dark Mother reveals her will."

Vlondril snorted. "What if she chooses to ignore us?"

Quenthel shrugged. "I don't believe she's truly abandoned her chosen people or her chosen ministers. My faith is too strong to credit such a calamity. How strong is yours, Barrison Del'Armgo?"

"Strong enough that I have no fear of the goddess preferring you to me," Molvayas spat hack. "I just don't see the point of your scheme. Lolth will speak when she wishes, not when we desire it."

"It's not a waste of time if it's keeping you alive. I could have had my loyal followers kill you the moment they entered the chamber. Instead, I'm proposing an honest inquiry into your concerns, for the sake of all the temple. Under the circumstances, what could be more magnanimous than that?"

"All right," Molvayas said. "We'll remain for a time, but if nothing happens, my comrades and I go free. You can't chastise us if the results of the test are inconclusive. That wouldn't be an honest inquiry."

"Agreed," the mistress said.

Drisinil was bewildered and appalled. This strange, passive procedure sounded as if it could take hours. She needed the antidote before her thundering heart tore itself apart, but she could do nothing to speed things along.

Though plainly just as puzzled as she, the company obediently fell quiet. Meditation wasa familiar practice to all of them, though frustrating and futile since Lolth had receded beyond their ken.

For what seemed a long while, nothing happened, except that a muscle under Drisinil's eye twitched uncontrollably, and some of those whom she'd betrayed surreptitiously glared at her, wordlessly vowing revenge. A tiny something scurried across the floor. Or perhaps it did. By the time she tried to focus on it, it was gone.

More minutes crawled by. Cloth whispered as someone shifted position. Later, somebody else smothered a little sneeze. Drisinil realized she could just barely smell the ghost of the funereal incense Lirdnolu had burned when teaching necromancy.

Another mite scuttled along. Drisinil saw that this one was a spider. Nothing unusual in that. Arach-Tinilith was full of the sacred creatures.

Still, something about this particular specimen tugged at her despite her sickness and terror. She stared until she discerned that it had a blue shell with red markings.

That was a little odd. This particular species generally spent its time lurking in webs, not roaming about. Still, she didn't see why the anomaly should trigger a twinge of alarm. It must be the poison clawing at her nerves.

Time dragged on. A priestess on the lowest tier sang a hymn under her breath. She was flat. Another novice with mutilated hands surreptitiously checked the knife strapped under her sleeve, making sure the weapon was loose in the sheath. And, Drisinil noticed, more black dots were creeping on the walls and floor. More than were normal for a disused part of the temple? She thought so, and she glanced over at Quenthel, seeking some sign to confirm her formless suspicions. The Baenre stood motionless with head bowed, the very picture of a mystic absorbed in her devotions.

A novice with a gold earring cried out in pain. She dragged on her shirt, baring her right shoulder, and found the spider that was biting her. Her frantic efforts to remove the arachnid without hurting it should have been comical but Drisinil couldn't laugh. Frazzled, addled by the poison, she could only stare at the dark flecks swarming thickly on every side. Some of the other conspirators had started to notice as well. They whispered to one another, and their eyes grew wide.

Something brushed Drisinil's arm. She cried out and spun around. It was one of the Quenthel's vipers that had touched her.

"Stay close," the mistress said.

Once again, the spiders increased in number. Somehow hordes of them were scuttling over the bodies of the conspirators, biting, crawling under their clothing, freckling their skins like the sores of some hideous plague. Shrieking, no longer caring that the creatures were sacrosanct, their victims struggled to crush them and brush them off, but they couldn't get them all. A few of the traitors retained the presence of mind to activate protective talismans, only to discover that the magic didn't help, either.

The one place free of spiders was the upper tiers. Once they realized the creatures weren't going climb up and attack them, the loyalists mocked and jeered at the plight of the traitors. Whenever one of the plotters tried to grope her way into their safe space, a loyalist would knock her back with a casual swat from a mace or whip. Some even shot down with hand crossbows any conspirator who attempted to stagger for the door.

Drisinil did remain at Quenthel's side, and the spiders crawled over her feet but otherwise took no notice of her. They didn't avoid the Baenre, however. They climbed all over her body without biting, and, laughing, she stooped, picked up more, and poured them over her head until the creatures virtually encrusted her. Her bright red eyes shone from a pebbled, squirming mask.

Finally the shrieking stopped, uncovering the sound of Vlondril ecstatically chanting one of the litanies as the spiders destroyed her. After another moment, that noise ceased as well. Drisinil noticed her aunt's corpse slumped among the carnage, though she only recognized it by the jade gown. Molvayas's face was swollen and bloodied beyond recognition.

Quenthel gazed up at the living and called, "We asked Lolth for a sign, and she gave us one. My foes are dead and I remain, robed in the goddess's sacred spiders. I am the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith, and my minions will question my leadership no more or else die in agony for their effrontery."

The surviving priestesses and novices hastily paid her obeisance.

"Good," the Baenre said. "You are wise, and so I make you a vow. We will put an end to these nightly attacks. We will regain our magic. We will hear Lolth's voice again. We will make our order and our temple greater than ever before. Now, clear away this mess."

The spiders began to disappear, from the room and Quenthel's person as well. Drisinil couldn't quite tell if they were simply scuttling away or teleporting out.

"I did it," the student said. "I brought the traitors together for you. Now, please give me the antidote."

Quenthel smiled and said, "There is none."

"What?"

"I didn't poison you. The liquid was simply a stimulant to combat drowsiness. I gave you enough to make the effect alarming, but it'll wear off."

"You're lying! Playing with me!"

"I would have administered a slow poison had I been carrying one, bur as I was not, I had to improvise."

Drisinil felt a surge of bitter humiliation and a need to demonstrate she wasn't entirely a fool.

"Well," she blurted, "then, you've tricked everyone all the way around. I know Lolth didn't control those spiders. You did. You read a scroll or used some sort of charm before you entered the room."

"If so, does it matter?" A yellow arachnid crawled out of Quenthel's snowy hair and onto her shoulder. She paid it no mind. "Lolth teaches that the cunning and strong must master the foolish and weak. However you look at it, this outcome is in accordance with her will. Now, let's talk about your future."

Drisinil swallowed. "You promised to spare me."

"I did, didn't I?" a smiling Quenthel replied. "Unlike some, we Baenre generally keep our word. A reputation for fair dealing facilitates certain transactions. However, I never promised not to punish you."

"I understand. Of course I'll take a flogging or whatever you think appropriate."

"That's quite agreeable of you. How about this, then? We'll nip off the other eight fingers and cut out your tongue as well."

For a moment, Drisinil thought she hadn't heard correctly.

"Now you're joking."

"Oh, no. I firmly believe you engineered the plot against me, and I intend to make sure you don't get up to any more mischief. Ever. If you can't communicate, work magic, or grip a weapon, that should take care of it. Obviously, it won't be possible for you to continue at Arach-Tinilith, and I wouldn't count on the warmest of welcomes whenyou return home. I doubt Mez'Barris Armgo will have muchinterest in a grotesquely crippled and thoroughly useless daughter. She may even consider you an embarrassment to be killed or locked away."

Enraged, panicked, Drisinil lunged, but never landed a blow. Powerful hands grabbed her from behind, hauled her back, and something hard and heavy bashed her over the head. Her legs folded beneath her. She would have fallen if not for her captors holding her up.

Quave's voice sounded over Drisinil's shoulder. "We've got her, Mistress."

"Thank you," Quenthel said. "Take her to the penance chamber and secure her."

"Yes, Mistress," said Quave. "I assume you'll do the cutting yourself."

"I'd like to," said the Baenre, "bur there's another matter demanding my attention. You can do it. Enjoy yourself. Just mind she doesn't die of it. They can drown in their own blood when you take the tongue."

Pharaun relaxed in the chair, enjoying the feel of the barber's fingers kneading tonic into his scalp. It wasn't as relaxing as a full-body massage, but soothing nonetheless.

The barber chattered away, and the wizard periodically responded with a noncommittal, "Indeed," or a grunt. Like, he suspected, tonsorial customers of all races in all ages of the world, he wasn't actually listening.

The barber's stall, a little boxredolent of unguents and pomades, was open at the front, and it was more interesting to gaze out at the sights of the Bazaar. A commoner strode by carrying a clucking chicken, imported from the Lands of Light, in a box. A merchant had probably promised the fellow the fowl would lay for years to come, though in reality, such birds rarely thrived in the Underdark. A portrait painter rendered his subject, the enchantments in the brush enabling him to fill the canvas with astonishing speed. An armorer drove a rapier through a bound, gagged kobold to demonstrate the sharpness of the point.

Cowl up, mantle drawn close around him, and Splitter hidden by the charm of concealment Pharaun had cast on it, Ryld loitered across the way in a tent with the sides folded up. There, games of all sorts were on display. The hulking swordsman stood pondering asava board, where he'd set up a problem with the onyx and carnelian pieces.

A change came over the scene beyond the doorway, and people looked to the north. Some started to squeeze up against the stalls, clearing the center of the lane. A ragged, furtive-looking commoner hurried away in the opposite direction.

Ryld sauntered to the near edge of the tent, glanced where everyone else was peering, then gave Pharaun a subtle nod, confirming what the wizard had already guessed. A patrol was headed their way.

Pharaun wished the guards could have waited just five more minutes, but alas, he would have to go to work before the barber finished with him. A tragedy, but it couldn't be helped.

A moment later the patrol marched by, casting stern glances hither and yon, their tread silent thanks to their enchanted boots. In at least nominal command was a priestess of Arach-Tinilith armed with a polished wooden wand. Assisting her were a teacher from Melee-Magthere and Gelroos Zaphresz, one of Pharaun's junior colleagues in Sorcere. It was unfortunate. Possessed of a store of jokes and comical ditties, Gelroos was congenial company. At least if Pharaun murdered the other mage today, he wouldn't have to worry about Gelroos trying to assassinate him tomorrow.

In addition to its officers, the patrol consisted of a number of warriors-in-training, boys whom Ryld had almost certainly instructed at one time or another. Pharaun wasn't particularly worried about them. His fellow teachers were the real threat.

The Master of Sorcere waited until the guards had marched pastthen, surprising the barber, he tossed aside the hair-sprinkled cloth covering his chest, stood up, and handed the craftsman a gold coin, a princely overpayment for his services. He touched a finger to his lips in wordless explanation of what he actually wanted to buy. He picked up hispiwafwi, whose elegance he'd obscured with a minor illusion, swirled it around his shoulders, walked to the doorway of the stall, and peeked out.

The patrol had tramped about twenty yards down the lane. Any farther and they'd turn a corner, so Pharaun had attained as much separation from the enemy as he was going to get. He draped a fold of silk across the lower half of his face, then stepped out into the open, brandished a glass marble and a pinch of rust, and recited an incantation. His half-barbered hair stood on end, and the air around him smelled of ozone. A crackling blue-white spark appeared in the air before him, then shot down the aisle.

When it reached the patrol, the flickering point of radiance exploded, shooting flares of lightning in all directions. Many of the callow young soldiers danced, burned, and fell, as they possessed neither the spiritual strength nor the protective talismans that might have minimized their injuries and kept them on their feet. Unfortunately, the sizzling, jumping arcs of power struck a handful of vendors and shoppers as well. Pharaun hadn't particularly wanted to harm noncombatants, but the aisle was simply too cramped.

The rest of the patrol began to pivot. The captain from Melee-Magthere was smoking, blackened, and blistered, but if he was anything like Ryld, his burns weren't likely to slow him down. Gelroos and the priestess looked as if the lightning hadn't even touched them. The female was spinning around a hair faster than the other two, raising her baton. Thanks to his silver ring, Pharaun could tell it was a spider wand, a weapon capable of entangling him in sticky webbing.

He had no intention of enduring that kind of humiliation. He rattled off a string of magic words and thrust his arm out. Five slivers of arcane force leaped from his fingertips, hurtled across the intervening space, and slammed into the cleric's torso. She stumbled backward and collapsed.

A wiry male with deep-set eyes, and a trace of a scholar's stoop, Gelroos peered up the street and called, "Master Mizzrym!"

"So much for my ability to manufacture a nonmagical disguise," Pharaun answered, grinning, "but then we do know one another fairly well."

"You're allowed to try to kill another Master of Sorcere," said Gelroos. "That's entirely proper. But you overstepped when you struck down these youths. It was pointless and sloppy, and their mothers won't appreciate the waste. They'll reward me for taking you down."

"Does it help if I explain that all I do, I do to deliver Menzoberranzan from twin calamities?" Pharaun asked.

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

"Ah. I thought not."

He too began to cast.

Gelroos completed his spell a moment before Pharaun finished his. Crashing and crunching, the surface of the 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, forming a towering, massive, and vaguely drowlike form, like a heroic statue abandoned when the sculptor had barely begun. Its footsteps shaking the ground, the creature lurched up the corridor between the stalls.

Pharaun was mildly impressed. It wasn't easy to summon and control an essential spirit of the earth - nor easy to fend one off, either - but the manifestation didn't shake his concentration. He continued his recitation without a flub, meanwhile floating up into the air to avoid, if only momentarily, the swords of the onrushing warriors.

He spoke the final syllable of the conjuration. A dagger made of ice flew from his hand. Gelroos dodged it, but the conjured blade exploded, peppering its target with frozen shards. One slashed open the mage's cheek and he stumbled, but Pharaun could tell he wasn'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 purchased a scimitar to use in this particular battle, but it was Splitter, rendered visible by his touch, that he currently clasped in his 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 the ground. Bellowing for his minions to turn and face the new threat, Ryld'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 taller, 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. Brandishing it, he chanted. He felt the walls of the cosmos attenuating, and for a moment, sensed an infinite number of Pharauns conjuring in adjacent realities, receding away from him like reflections in a mirror, growing subtly less and less like himself with each step.

A pulse of scarlet light struck him in the chest. Gelroos must have conjured it. The blaze of pain was extraordinary. Pharaun strained to complete the last word of power and final mystic pass without a fumble.

He wasn't sure he'd succeeded until a vacancy, 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 animating force fell out of the body it had created for itself and down the hole. The wound in the fabric of the world contracted and sealed itself. Rumbling and thudding, the huge stone form fell apart.

Pharaun took stock of himself. It didn't look as if the red light had done more than scrape and prick his skin. He grinned down at Gelroos.

"Not quite, colleague."

"This time," the younger wizard said through gritted teeth.

He started casting, and Pharaun did the same.

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

Metal rang below Pharaun's feet. He looked down. Ryld appeared as if he might be having a difficult time of it, but a conjured barrage of ice, flung into the midst of the surviving students, turned the tide. Ryld 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 the warriors-in-training were still alive, but that was all right. The important thing had always been to murder his fellow instructors. That was what would impress the rogues.

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."

Ryld grunted, pulled up the hem of a fallen fighter's cloak, and wiped the blood from Splitter.

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

"If you like."

Ryld hefted his blade.