Dissolution

Off to Faeryl's left stood an iron maiden cast in the form of a tubby jester in cap and bells. The bells looked real, and would evidently jingle while a victim writhed inside. The device was open just a crack, not enough to expose the spikes inside.

Straight ahead, a chain and hook dangled from their pulley, fishing for a prisoner to hoist, and a rack waited to stretch one. To the left, a brazier of coals threw off dazzling heat, and a collection of probes, knives, pincers, and pears hung on their pegs. Her nemesis, the small male with all the ugly baubles, lounged in that vicinity in an iron chair with shackles attached to the armrests.

That was about as much as the envoy could see while roped naked to a molded calcite post.

She was hungry, thirsty, and sore from standing for hours in one position. Her bonds chafed her, and her head ached. However, she had yet to endure one of the genuine agonies this stuffy cellar provided, and she thoughtshe knew why. Some messenger had instructed the torturers to wait for Triel to arrive before commencing the festivities.

Faeryl had already attempted to converse with the little male and her jailers and failed to elicit a response from either. She had nothing else to do but struggle to govern her thoughts.She didn't want to imagine all the things the Baenre might do to her, but she herself had presided over enough excruciations that it was difficult not to envision the possibilities. She didn't want to dwell on the massacre of her followers, either, but the memories kept welling up inside her.

Surrounded and outnumbered, the daughters and sons of Ched Nasad had perished one by one. As Faeryl watched the slaughter, her eyes ached with the tears she refused to shed. Naturally, she didn't "love" her minions, but she was used to them, even fond of a few, and she knew that without a retinue she was nothing, just a fallen priestess in a land of enemies, bereft of goddess and home alike.

Then the small male confronted her and used his magic to confound her and knock her out. She woke tied to the stone stake.

A door creaked, and voices murmured. Faeryl's instincts warned her that Triel had come at last. The ambassador closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, composing herself. She wouldn't show fear. Dignity was all she had left - for a little while longer anyway, until her captors lashed and burned it out of her.

Sure enough, Triel and her draegloth son emerged from the doorway that apparently led to more salubrious precincts of the Great Mound. The Baenre matron was smiling. Fangs bared in a grin, Jeggred bounded along on his caprine legs.

The little male rose and offered obeisance.

"Valas," said Triel. "Well done. Did the Zauvirr give you any trouble?"

"They tried to sneak away in disguise," the male replied. "It almost fooled the lookout, but once he figured out what was what, everything went as planned."

The Baenre proffered a fat pouch that lookedtoo big and heavy for her tiny hand.

"I'll send word when I need Bregan D'aerthe again," she said. Valas took the pouch, then bowed low. He withdrew, and Triel and her monstrous son turned toward the prisoner.

"Good evening, Matron," Faeryl said, "or is it morning now?"

Fighting hands outstretched, talons at the ready, jaws agape, Jeggred lunged at the prisoner. Despite herself, Faeryl flinched. Both the claws and the pointed teeth stopped less than an inch from her flesh. The draegloth loomed over her, pressing close, almost seeming to embrace her like a lover. He ran a pointed nail across her cheek, then lifted it to his bestial muzzle. He sucked, and a bit of warm, viscous drool, mixed, perhaps, with a trace of her blood, dripped onto her forehead.

"Have a care," the ambassador said with as much nonchalance as she could muster. "If your son kills me quickly, won't that spoil the fun?"

Jeggred made a low, grinding sound. Faeryl couldn't tell if he was growling or laughing.

Triel said, "You underestimate him. True, I've watched him butcher eight prisoners in as many seconds, but I've also seen him spend days picking one little faerie child apart a mote of flesh at a time. It depends on his humor, and, needless to say, my instructions."

"Of course," Faeryl said. The shallow gash in her cheek began to sting. Jeggred traced the edges of her lips with his claw, not quite cutting, not yet. "I hope the traitor whelp appreciated the honor."

"It was hard to tell," she said. "What about you? Will you savor it?"

"Alas, Exalted Mother," Faeryl said, "your daughter can take no pleasure in an honor she didn't earn."

Still stroking the prisoner's features with the claw, Jeggred lifted one of the smaller hands that, save for their dusting of fine hair, looked no different than those of an ordinary dark elf. He caught hold of Faeryl's ear and twisted it, and she gasped at the brutal stab of pain. When he finally let go, the organ kept on throbbing and ringing. She wondered if the draegloth had inflicted permanent damage, though it really didn't matter. In the hours to come, deafness would be the least of her problems.

"I wish you wouldn't deny your guilt," sighed the dainty little Baenre matriarch. "I always find that dull."

"Even when it's true?" Faeryl felt a fresh cut bleeding under her eye. Apparently, when Jeggred had abused her ear, she'd bucked against his claw.

"Don't be tiresome," Triel said. "You were fleeing, and that confirms your guilt."

"All it confirms is my certainty that someone has poisoned your mind against me," Faeryl retorted. Jeggred caught hold of a lock of her hair and gave it a vicious tug. "My aversion to being condemned unjustly."

"Did you think to escape by running back to Ched Nasad?" Triel asked. "My word is law there, too."

"How do you know?" Faeryl asked.

Jeggred slapped her with one ofhis enormous fighting hands, bashing her head sideways. For a moment, the shock froze her mind. When her senses returned, she tasted blood in her mouth.

The draegloth crouched, placing his bestial face directly in front of her own, and growled, "Respect the chosen of Lolth."

"I mean no disrespect," Faeryl said. "I'm just saying that for all we know, anything could be happening in Ched Nasad. Cloakers could have overrun the city, or it may have drowned in tides of lava. I doubt it, I pray not, but we don'tknow. We need to find out, and that's why I was sneaking away. Not to betray the weakness of Menzoberranzan's clergy to some enemy or other. Mother of Lusts, it's my weakness too! To gather intelligence, to reestablish communication - "

"I told you I have been in communication with Ched Nasad," Triel said.

"To reestablishtrustworthy communication . . ." Faeryl persisted, "to make myself useful and so demonstrate I'm your loyal vassal, never a traitor."

Triel made a spitting sound, then said, "My loyal servants obey me."

Faeryl wanted to weep, not from fear, though she was experiencing plenty of that, but from sheer frustration. Jeggred ran his claw along her carotid artery.

"Matron," the Zauvirr said, "I beg you. Let me confront the person who traduced me. Give me that one chance to prove my fidelity. Is it so hard to imagine someone telling you a lie? Don't your courtiers slander one another all the time as a means of vying for your favor? Is it impossible that someone or something in Ched Nasad is lying to you even now - telling you all is well while days, then tendays, then months go by without a single caravan?"

Triel hesitated, and Faeryl felt a thrill of hope. Then the ruler of Menzoberranzan said, "You're the liar, and it will do you no good. If you want me to show any mercy at all, tell me whose creature you are. The svirfneblin? The aboleths? Another drow city?"

"I serve only you, Sacred Mother."

Faeryl said the words without hope, for she saw that she would never convince the Baenre of her innocence. It was too hard for Triel to measure up to her predecessor, too hard, to rule in these desperate times, too hard to make decisions. She wasn't about to rethink one of the few she'd managed to squeeze out, no matter how foolish it was.

Jeggred slapped Faeryl and kept on slapping until she lost count of the blows. Finally time seemed to skip somehow, and he wasn't hitting her anymore. Why should he bother? He'd already battered all the strength out of her. She would have fallen if not for the ropes holding her up. A broken tooth had lodged under her tongue, and it was all she could do just to spit it out.

"I told you," the draegloth snarled,"respect!"

"I am respectful," Faeryl wheezed. "That's why I give the truth even when it might be easier to lie."

Triel peered up at her son and said, "Princess Zauvirr will not distract you from your duties."

Jeggred inclined his head. "No, Mother."

"But at such times as I do not require you," the matron continued, "you may use the spy as you see fit. If she tells you anything of interest, pass it along, but the point of your efforts is chastisement, not interrogation. I doubt she has anything all that important to confide. We already know who our enemies are."

"Yes, Mother." The half-demon crouched, leered into Faeryl's face, and said, "I can make the fun last. You'll see."

He stuck out his long, pointed tongue and licked blood from her face. The member was as rough as a beast's.

The figure in the chapel doorway had a bulbous head with huge, protruding eyes, dry, wrinkled hide, and four wriggling tentacles surrounding and obscuring the mouth. It had gnarled three-fingered hands, a body with contours and proportions different than those of a drow, and an assortment of talismans and amulets burning with strange enchantments.

Syrzan, Pharaun had no doubt, was a member of the psionically gifted species called illithids. Specifically, it was one of the few such creatures to follow the path of wizardry and ultimately transform itself into an undead entity known as an alhoon. The thing was surely prodigiously powerful, immune to the ravages of time, and still entirely capable of reading the masters' minds and discerning the treachery therein.

Like Pharaun, Ryld had sprung up from his bench. The hulking warrior flung himself at Houndaer, no doubt in an attempt to get his weapons back. Pharaun, who thought he needed his spell components just as badly, scrambled after his friend.

The weapons master threw a punch, knocked Houndaer backward off his bench, and snatched up Splitter. He whirled, looking for the next threat, and almost whacked his fellow teacher with the blade.

Pharaun reached for his cloak, then realized Houndaer's unassuming companion was singing a wordless arpeggio.

Had Pharaun already been wearing thepiwafwi with all its protective enchantments, he might have resisted the song, but instead its power stabbed into his mind. He laughed convulsively, uncontrollably, and staggered backward. Finally, he fell to his knees, his stomach muscles clenching and aching.

He'd suspected the nondescript little male was more than he'd seemed, a formidable combatant employing a bland appearance to throw his adversaries off guard, and he'd been right. The "craftsman" was in reality a bard, a spellcaster who worked his wonders through the medium of music. Teeth gritted, Pharaun shook off the compulsion to laugh. Gasping, he lifted his head and looked around. The bard was simultaneously drawing his enchanted dagger and starting another song, this time pitched falsetto. Houndaer was on his feet battling Ryld, their swords ringing. At the end of the room, Tsabrak, shifting his eight legs in agitation, aimed an arrow at Pharaun, while in the doorway the alhoon simply stood with only its mouth tentacles moving, seemingly content to let its compatriots do the righting.

Pharaun threw himself sideways. The arrow missed him and clacked and skipped across the floor. The mage slapped the stone, and a wall of sheltering darkness sprang up between him and the foe. Moving with a practiced, silent grace, he scrambled on.

Something clamped down on Pharaun's mind, smothering his will and robbing him of the ability to move. The undead mind flayer hadn't been idle after all. Syrzan had simply utilized itspsionic strength in preference to its wizardry and thus hadn't needed to whirl its three-fingered hands in arcane passes. The wall of shadow no impediment, the Prophet had reached out, found Pharaun's intellect, and struck a crippling blow.

The barricade of darkness disappeared. Syrzan must have employed a bit of countermagic to dispel it and in so doing, afforded Pharaun a view of the space beyond. Rather to his surprise, Houndaer was still alive, perhaps because Tsabrak had discarded his bow, drawn a broadsword, and come to fight alongside him. The two conspirators were trying to catch Ryld between them, generally an effective tactic, but thus far the teacher'spiwafwi, dwarven armor, and prowess had preserved him from harm.

The Tuin'Tarl made a halfhearted slash, and Ryld, recognizing the feint for what it was, didn't react. The pale phosphorescence of the carvings gleaming on his naked limbs, Tsabrak spat venom onto his blade. The bard brought his shrill singing to a crescendo, crossed his legs, and wrapped his arms tightly around his torso, all but tying himself in knots.

With the aid of his ring, Pharaun saw a glittering pulse of magic fly from the singer to Ryld. He could even tell what it was intended to do. His friend was supposed to contort his own body in helpless imitation of the bard's constrictive posture. But, strong of spirit, Ryld resisted the compulsion without even realizing he was doing it.

The weapons master faked a cut at Houndaer's head, then whirled and dived. He slid between Tsabrak's legs, breaking away from the drider and Houndaer, too, leaped up, and charged Syrzan. He recognized the alhoon as the most dangerous of his foes, even though the illithilich hadn't attacked him yet.

Syrzan reached into a pocket and produced a small ceramic vial. When it swung the bottle from right to left, a dozen orbs of bright flame materialized in its wake. They shot at Ryld in one straight line and exploded one after the other, banging rapidly like some hellish drum roll.

The glare was dazzling. For a moment, Pharaun couldn't see anything, and he made out Ryld through floating blobs of afterimage. His friend appeared unscathed. He was still charging and almost in sword's reach of the alhoon.

Syrzan used its mind flayer talents. Even though the lich hadn't directed the attack at him, Pharaun felt the fringe of it. It was like a sprinkle of hot ash burning his brain. Ryld dropped.

Syrzan gazed down at the warrior for a moment, evidently making sure he was truly incapacitated, then walked over to Pharaun. Despite the long skirt of its robe, there was something noticeably strange about its gait, as if its legs bent in too many places. Up close, it exuded a faint stink not unlike rotten fish. Its garments, once of princely quality, were frayed and stained.

It touched a finger to Pharaun's brow, and they were elsewhere.