Dissolution

Faeryl was pleased to be chosen first. In retrospect, she thought the same thing would have occurred even if she hadn't made sure of a position immediately in front of the dais. The haughty Menzoberranyr often feigned disinterest in their client city, but she knew they understood the importance of Ched Nasad.

It was hard not to hurry, but she forced herself to approach the throne with a stately tread consonant with the dignity of her position, the stature of her House, and the grandeur of her homeland. It was also difficult to offer a second graceful obeisance without dropping her roll of maps, but she accomplished that as well.

"Ambassador," said Triel without any extraordinary warmth. Perhaps she considered Faeryl's presence inappropriate.

"Matron Mother," Faeryl replied. Tall, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted by the standards of her slender race, she would have dwarfed the Baenre had the two of them been standing side by side. "I know we sometimes meet in private,but after tendays of deliberation I arrived at a conclusion, one that compelled me to confer with you at the earliest opportunity."

"What conclusion?" Triel asked.

She still seemed unconcerned if not downright cold. Perhaps she was preoccupied with her affliction.

Faeryl had of course fallen prey to the same malaise, but to her own surprise, she'd discovered she was at least as worried about something else: the well-being of House Zauvirr and the magnificent city in which it amassed its wealth, fought its covert battles, and worked its magic.

"I keep track of the caravans arriving from Ched Nasad," the ambassador said. "For the past six tendays, none has. None. As the Matron Mother is undoubtedly aware, several major trade routes converge in the City of Shimmering Webs, which then funnels the merchants on to Menzoberranzan. At least half the goods that reach your cavern come through us. Except that now, they aren't reaching you. The steady flow has dried up. Except in time of war, that's unprecedented."

"It's an odd coincidence, certainly, all the merchant clansmen choosing other destinations, but I'm sure they'll decide to head for Menzoberranzan next trip, or the trip after that."

Faeryl had to make a conscious effort to compose her features. Otherwise she would have scowled. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought Triel was being deliberately obtuse.

"I suspect it may be more than a coincidence," the ambassador said. "A thousand thousand dangers haunt the Underdark, and the philosophers tell us new ones are spawning all the time. What if something has cut the route between Menzoberranzan and Ched Nasad? What if it's killing everyone who tries to pass through?"

"More than one tunnel connects the cities," rumbled the draegloth unexpectedly, and despite the perfume waftingthrough the air, Faeryl caught a whiff of the creature's putrid breath. "Is that not so?"

"Exactly!" Triel reached back around the edge of her golden chair and gave the half-fiend an approving pat on the leg. "Your theory doesn't stand up, Ambassador."

Not for the first time, Faeryl wished that Triel's mother was still leading House Baenre. The greedy, vicious old autocrat could be hard to contend with, but though she would have cherished a draegloth as a mark of Lolth's approval and delighted in the demidemon's gift for slaughter, she wouldn't have tolerated it speaking unbidden at a formal conference, any more than she would, have borne such disrespect from anyone else.

"If the threat consists of more than one beast," the emissary said, "or more than one manifestation of a phenomenon, it could cut more than one passage."

Triel shrugged. "If you say so."

"I hesitate to mention it," said Faeryl, "lest I be thought an alarmist, but it's even possible that some misfortune has befallen Ched Nasad itself."

"A misfortune so abrupt and all-encompassing that your folk never even had a chance to dispatch a messenger to Menzoberranzan?" Triel replied. "Nonsense. Even Golothaer, home of our ancestors, didn't perish in an hour. Besides, I am personally aware of several communiques having reached here from Ched Nasad in only the past few days."

"I have received some of those sendings myself, Matron Mother, and find their excuses suspicious at best. In any case, the dearth of traffic from Ched Nasad warrants investigation, and as my city's representative in Menzoberranzan, the task is my responsibility."

"No one has charged you with it."

"Then I take it upon myself. Yet I'm reluctant to venture across the Underdark with merely my own little entourage for protection. Traders guard their caravans very well. Anything that could destroy all those merchant trains would likely put a quick end to me, too, in which case, Matron Mother, the priestesses of Menzoberranzan would know no more about the new menace beyond their borders than they do now. Accordingly, I ask you to provide me with a sizable escort. I'll march it to Ched Nasad and back again and see what befalls me along the way."

"You have an enterprising nature," said Triel "It does you credit. Alas, Menzoberranzan can't spare any troops. Not at this time. Our forces are engaged in training exercises."

Faeryl fancied she knew the real reason the Baenre was at present reluctant to divest herself of any portion of her military strength. Her caution made perfect sense on its own terms, but surely it must yield to the gravity of the envoy's concerns!

"Matron Mother, if trade with Ched Nasad does nor resume, the people of Menzoberranzan will find themselves bereft of countless amenities. Some of your craftsmen will lack the raw materials they need for their work. Your own merchant clans will endeavor to send caravans to my city, and those expeditions will probably not return."

"I imagine some clever malewill import the same goods via a different route if he can reap a profit thereby."

Faeryl was beginning to feel as if she were mired in some lunatic dream.

"Matron, you can't be serious. Ched Nasad is the single greatest source of wealth your people possess."

Demons of the Web, it was in fact half again as populous as Menzoberranzan itself. The two realms had long been equals, and it was only a comparatively recent happenstance that had reduced the once independent City of Shimmering Webs to vassalage.

Triel spread her dainty, obsidian hands in a gesture of helpless resignation andsaid, "Wealth that is as much ours when stored in our trading costers in Ched Nasad as in our own vaults here."

Faeryl didn't know what else to say. No argument, however cogent, seemed capable of piercing Triel's shield of bland, almost mocking complacency.

"Very well," the ambassador said through gritted teeth, struggling to keep a grip on her temper. "If I must, I'll manage without your help. It will exhaust my purse, but perhaps I can hire some of the sellswords of Bregan D'aerthe."

Triel smiled. "No, my dear, that won't be necessary."

"I don't understand."

"I cannot give you leave to depart so precipitously. Who then would speak on behalf of your people? Even more importantly, I believe you may be right. Some new peril may be lurking in the Underdark and massacring drow left and right. I don't want it to kill you as well. I hold you in too high an esteem, and I certainly wouldn't want the other nobles of Ched Nasad to think that I blithely sent you to your doom. They might infer that I have little regard for even the most exalted officers of your splendid city, when of course, nothing could be farther from the truth."

"You honor me. Yet considering what's at stake - "

"Nothing is more important than your safety.Anythingcould happen if you attempt to traverse the tunnels at this unsettled time. You might not even make it out of Bauthwaf. Why, one of Menzoberranzan's own patrols, weary from too much duty, imagining a dwarf crouched behind every stalagmite, might mistake your band for a hostile force and loose a volley of poison darts at you. You might die an agonizing death at thehands of your own friends, in which case I would never forgive myself."

A chill crept up Faeryl's spine, because she understood what Triel had really said. The matron mother had just forbidden her to leave the city, on pain of death.

But why? What accounted for Matron Baenre's sudden hostility? Faeryl had no idea until she happened to glance up at the draegloth's face. Somehow the half-fiend's leer suggested an explanation.

Triel had decided Faeryl was less diplomat than spy, an agent for some power inimical to Menzoberranzan, who'd concocted this business of missing traders to provide herselfwith a good excuse to leave the city and report to her superiors.

Matron Baenre couldn't allow it, couldn't permit a spy to pass along the tale of Menzoberranzan's newfound weakness. She didn't dare, because it was entirely possible that not all dark elf enclaves had suffered the same calamity, and even if they had, perhaps the dwarves, duergar, deep gnomes, and illithids had not.

What remained unclear was why Triel believed as she did. Who had put the idea in her head, and what did that person have to gain by holding Faeryl in the city?

Jaw tight, the emissary stifled the impulse to confront Triel about the latter's true concerns. She knew she wouldn't be able to draw the Baenre into an genuine consideration of the allegations against her. Taking a malicious pleasure in the play-acting, Triel would simply feign shock that Faeryl doubted her trust and good will.

Indeed, if Faeryl wanted to avoid further humiliation, all she could do was go along with the pretense.

She smiled and said, "As I said before, Matron Mother, your concern honors me, and I will of course obey you. I'll remain in the City of Spiders and savor its many delights."

"Good," said Triel, and Faeryl imagined the words that remained unspoken: We'll know where to find you when it's time for your arrest.

"May I have your permission to withdraw? I see there are many others seeking the benefit of your wisdom."

"Go, with my blessing."

Faeryl offered her obeisance, exited the hall, and walked through the great mound that was the Baenre citadel until she found herself alone and unobserved in a short connecting passageway. She took the rolled maps of the Underdark, the charts she had imagined that she and Triel might consult together, from beneath her arm. Teeth bared in a snarl, she smashed them repeatedly against the wall until the stiff parchment cylinder flopped limp and battered in her hands.

Gromph and Quenthel strolled about the plateau watching the apprentices and masters of Sorcere perform the rituals. The sound of chanting and the pungent scent of incense filled the air, along with various conjured phenomena: flashes of light, dancing shadows, demonic faces appearing and disappearing, moaning and crackling. All to lay a new set of wards about Tier Breche.

Gromph was mildly impressed. By and large, his minions were doing a good job of it, though they weren't laying any enchantments he couldn't pierce. In fact, since he was supervising them at their labors, getting past the wards would be easy.

"I wonder if all this will actually protect us," said Quenthel, scowling, her long skirt rippling in the stray breeze kicked up by someone's incantation.

Gromph was surprised that even after Beradax's attack, she hadn't donned a suit of mail. Perhaps she thought her frightened novices and priestesses required a show of confidence.

"It didn't protect us before," hissed one of the annoyingly vocal snakes comprising the whip on her belt.

Four of them were twisting this way and that, watching for danger. The fifth kept its cold eyes staring at Gromph, not, the archmage was convinced, because his sister suspected him of trying to murder her. Or rather she did, but not specifically. She simply had too many viable suspects. There were subordinates who aspired to be Mistress of Arach-Tinilith, and the myriad. foes of House Baenre. Perhaps it was even Triel seeking to forestall the all but inevitable day when Quenthel would challenge her for preeminence.

"Enchantments can attenuate with time," said Gromph, honestly enough.

"The new ones will be stronger. Strong enough, I trust, to keep you safe in Arach-Tinilith."

"It isn't just the temple at risk," Quenthel snapped. "Next time, a demon could attack Sorcere or Melee-Magthere."

Don't count on it, Gromph thought, but he said, "I understand."

"I've seen enough for now," said the mistress, her scowl deepening. "Don't let your males slack off. I want the defenses complete before you leave to cast your spell into Narbondel."

"Consider it done."

Quenthel turned and walked back toward Arach-Tinilith. The primary entrance to the imposing spider-shaped temple had become merely an odd-looking hole. The artisans hadn't yet finished repairing the crumpled adamantine leaves of the gate. Gromph smiled to think how that must annoy his sister. Knowing her as he did, he was fairly certain the unfortunate metalworkers had already felt the weight of her displeasure.

Well, perhaps they wouldn't have to bear it for much longer. He fingered a small ornament, a black stone clasped in a silver claw dangling over his heart.

Quenthel hadn't asked about the trinket, nor had Gromph expected her to. He always wore his amulet of eternal youth and the brooch that helped him imbue Narbondel with radiant warmth. Beyond those two staples, he tended to adorn the Robes of the Archmage with a constantly changing array of charms and talismans, depending on his whim and the particular magical tasks he expected to perform that day. His sister had had no reason to suspect that this particular trinket was of any particular significance, certainly not to herself.

If she had noticed it at all, she probably assumed the stone was onyx, ebony, or jet. In actuality, it was polished ivory cut from a unicorn's horn after Gromph slew the magical equine - sacred to the despicable elves of the World Above - in a necromantic rite. The orb was only black because of the entity he had placed inside it only two hours before.

"That was her," he murmured, too softly for any of the spellcasters bustling about him to overhear. "Did you take her scent?"

Yes,the demon answered, its silent voice like a nail scratching the inside of Gromph's head.Though it was unnecessary. I may not possess the power of sight, but that has never hindered me as I sought my prey.

"I was just making sure. Now, can you succeed where Beradax failed?"

Of course. No one of your world has ever escaped me. Afterward, I will feast on Quenthel's soul, one tiny morsel at a time.

Most likely the netherspirit would do exactly that, and if it failed, Gromph had six more waiting in line to pick up where it left off. Perhaps it wouldn't even come to that. He had, after all, manipulated events in such a way as to inspire more mundane assassins.

A third-year student came scurrying up with a stubby chalcedony wand in his hand. Recalled to more immediate concerns, Gromph sighed and prepared to teach the youth how the device worked.

Pretending to take an interest in an itinerant vendor's rack of cheaply forged and poorly balanced daggers, Ryld turned and surreptitiously surveyed the intersection.

A fellow with what the weapons master suspected were self-inflicted sores on his legs chanted for alms 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 entrance to a shabby boardinghouse catering to non-drow.

A female 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 commoner with 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 agriculture. Or maybe they were compensating for the fact that, for all their wealth, they were stuck living in "mere East."

Any number of other rather drab and hungry-looking souls rushed on about their business.

"Reliving childhood memories?" the wizard asked.

"You forget," Ryld replied, "I was born in the Braeryn. I had to work my way up to get to Eastmyr."

"I daresay you took one look around, then kept right on climbing."

"You're right. Just now, I was checking to see if someone's tailing us. No one is."

"What a pity. I was hoping that if we asked enough questions in diverse male gatherings, some 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."

They started walking, and Pharaun continued, "Say, did I ever tell you how, two days into my first mission to the World Above, I wound up having to tail a human mage while the sun was blazing in the

sky? I was blind with the glare, my eyes - "

"Enough," Ryld said. "You've told this a thousand times."

"Well, it's a good story. I know you'll enjoy hearing it again. There I was, blind with the glare . . ."

As the twomasters strolled on, they passed a doorway sealed with a curtain of spiderweb. Forbidden by sacred law to disturb the silken trap until such time as its builder ceased to occupy it, the luckless occupant of the house had placed a box beneath his front window to serve as a makeshift step.

Across the way, a ragged half-breed child, part dark elf, part human by the look of her, brushed past a drunken laborer, then quickened her pace a trifle. Ryld hadn't actually seen her lift the tosspot's purse, but he was fairly certain she had.

Pharaun came to a sudden halt. "Look at this," he said.

Ryld turned, the long, comfortable weight of Splitter shifting ever so slightly across his back. On a wall at the mouth of an alley, someone had clumsily daubed a rudimentary picture of a clawed hand surrounded by flames. Though it was small and smeared in paint that barely contrasted with the 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 Skortchclaw horde, one of the larger tribes of orcs. I've been to the Realms that See the Sun a time or two myself, remember?"

"Good, I'm glad you confirm my identification. Now, what is it doing here?"

Ryld took a reflexive glance around, searching for potential threats, and said, "I assume some orc painted it."

"That would be my supposition, too, but have you ever known a thrall to do such a thing?"

"No."

"Of course not. What slave would dare deface the city, knowing that each and every drow takes pride in its perfection?"

"A crazy one. We've all seen them go mad under the lash."

"Whereupon they attack their handlers. They don't creep about scrawling on walls. I'd like to questions the people in these houses on cither side. Perhaps someone can shed some light on this occurrence."

"You get curious about the strangest things," Ryld said, shaking his head. "Sometimes I think you're a little mad yourself."

"Genius is so often misperceived."

"Look, I know this puzzle is going to nag at you, but we're right in the middle of trying to find the runaways and so save your life. Let's stick to that."

The tall, thin wizard smiled and said, "Yes, of course."

They walked on.

"But eventually," Pharaun said after a moment, "when we've located the rogues and covered ourselves in glory - or at least convinced Gromph to let me continue breathing - I am going to inquire into this."

They traveled another block, then a column of roaring yellow fire fell from the sky, engulfing Pharaun's body. Wings beat the air, and an arrow streaked at Ryld.

The netherspirit couldn't see the new enchantments surrounding Tier Breche, but as the uttermost attenuated projection of its substance washed over them, it could feel them.

Metaphorically speaking, the wards were not unlike a castle. There was the motte, 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 unclimbable. Amid those was the recessed gate, defensible by spears and arrows loosed from three directions.

Within the passage itself, murder holes gaped in the ceiling to rain burning oil on the invaders' heads, while beyond it rose a gatehouse with battlements at the top, another barrier to enclose the first section of the courtyard and turn it into a killing pit.

Gromph's first countermagic, the one that had admitted the late and unlamented Beradax to the temple, had stormed the fortress like a rampaging army equipped with catapults, rams, and siege towers. The archmage's second effort resembled a mine sappers had excavated to pass unobtrusively beneath the walls. Except that this hole ran though extradimensional space.

As the netherspirit understood it, this method of egress was arranged by the Baenre eldermale so that the occupants of Arach-Tinilith wouldexperience another kind of terror. They had already discovered the dread of a screaming alarm, and they would learn the fear that came when death slipped into their midst without any warning at all.

Pulling in the longer tendrils of its ectoplasmic substance, the entity - it and its kind had no names, an advantage in that most wizards therefore lacked the ability to summon them - poured its formless form into the tunnel, albeit not without a measure of trepidation. If Gromph's magic was unable to neutralize the conjurations of his minions, this was where the spirit would discover it in some unpleasant way.

As it crept down the mine, it sensed the wards poised above and around it, enchantments like hanging axes, precariously balanced and eager to fall, or taut tripwires attached to crossbows, or caltrops strewn lavishly underfoot. 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 mortal eyes unless they were magically augmented, opened on a corridor. The netherspirit climbed out and took its bearings. It was inside one of the spider leg annexes of Arach-Tinilith, some distance from Quenthel's suite, but that was all right. It was confident that nothing could bar its path to its target.

The intruder hunched and drifted around a corner and saw a novice standing watch. Happily, the dark elf female didn't notice it, though that was scarcely a surprise. For some reason it didn't fully understand,

Gromph had given it the guise of a demon of darkness, and it was all but indistinguishable from the ordinary, empty gloom behind it.

The netherspirit yearned to kill the mortal, but Gromph had forbidden it to do harm to anyone but Quenthel unless she was fool enough to stand between it and its appointed prey. With a pang of regret, it slipped past the sentry and on down the corridor. Soon it came upon a row of cells. Within the square little rooms, students recited their devotions.

So eager for bloodshed was the entity that the hall seemed to last forever. Soon enough, though, the spirit reached the spider's cephalothorax. This was the round, firelit heart of the temple, home to the grandest chapels, the holiest of altars, and the quarters of the temples senior priestesses.

The intruder flowed into a spacious and largely empty octagonal chamber, where the air was perceptibly cooler than in the surrounding rooms and hallways. Statues of Lolth stood between the eight open rectangular doorways, and inlaid lines and curves of gold defined a complex magical sigil on the floor, a pentacle seemingly focused on a nexus of power at the exact center of the room. The same figure adorned the lofty ceiling, reinforcing the enchantment.

The netherspirit had no particular desire to discover what that enchantment was. It crawled along the walls, making sure not to touch the edge of the design.

Waves of power beat from the middle of the figure as something woke or became more real in the center of the chamber. A sharpness tore into the top of the spirit's vaporlike body, stunning it for an instant with a hurst of unexpected pain.

Something jerked the living darkness toward the middle of the chamber. It realized that despite its lack of solidity, something had caught it with the equivalent of a hook and line. It also understood that simply avoiding the pentacle hadn't been good enough. Apparently when one entered the room, one was supposed to say a password or something.

The pulling ended abruptly, and the pain diminished. Shaking off its shock and disorientation, the darkness cast about and discerned the being crouching over it. The attacker was nearly as amorphous as itself, but the essence of it was fixed, hard, a mass of knobs and angles.

The attacker extruded additional lengths of itself to transfix the darkness. The piercings burned, made the spirit shake uncontrollably, and seemed to be leeching out its strength.

This, Gromph's agent realized with a kind of wonder, was the cold that could extinguish a mortal life in a heartbeat. The intruder had never felt the sensation before - not in a painful way - and shouldn't have been feeling it at all,but the prisoner of the pentacle wasn't just cold. It was theessence of cold, the pure ideaof cold given life, just as the netherspirit to some degree embodied the concept of darkness.

Bits of the assassin began to clot, to gum, and to harden to a brittle rigidity, at which point they broke away. It wasn't truly injured as yet, but if it wanted to keep it that way, it knew it had better strike back at its assailant.

It washed its leading edge over the spirit of cold and discovered stress points, hairline cracks, imperfect junctures. Of course - the prisoner's structure resembled a mass of ice.

Gromph's agent materialized members likehammers, which pounded at the weak spots. It slid thin planes of itself into the fissures, then thickened them, forcing the edges apart.

The cold spirit snatched its frigid claws out of its foe. Its mind babbled a psionic offer of surrender. The cloud of darkness ignored it and continued the attack.

The freezing prisoner of the sigil exploded into motes of frost. They peppered the spirit of darkness for a second then they were gone.

Pleased with itself, the victor turned, inspecting each of the doorways in turn, trying to see if the battle had attracted anyone's attention. Apparently not, and actually, that made sense. The struggle had been relatively quiet, conducted largely on another level of existence.

The darkness reached the entrance to Quenthel's suite without further incident. Another sentry waited there, a spiked mace all but crackling with mystic force in her hand. Left to her own devices, she might hear her superior's distress and try to intervene, and the spirit decided to prevent such an occurrence. It rose around the priestess, blinding her, thickened a length of itself, and whipped it around her neck.

The female thrashed a little, then passed out for want of air. Her assailant laid her down and slid beneath the door.

Scores of costly icons decorated Quenthel's private rooms, so many that the place seemed a temple of Lolth in its own right. Beyond that, however, the suite was sparsely furnished, albeit with exquisite pieces, as if the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith practiced an asceticism at odds with the habits of the average sybaritic Menzoberranyr.

The darkness sent an intangible ripple of itself probing ahead. At once it discovered an element of Quenthel's personal defenses. It was not, as the spirit might have expected, a hidden mantrap woven of potent divine magic but a simple set of crystal wind chimes rendered invisible and hung at a point where any oblivious intruder would be sure to bump his head on them. Apparently the Baenre priestess believed that so long as an assassin gave her a second's warning, she would be able to handle the threat herself.

Maybe she could. The netherspirit would never know, because it had no intention of informing her of its coming. It took a certain ironic amusement in sliding its smokelike form directly through the dangling crystals without disturbing them in the slightest.

Eyes closed, in reverie no doubt, Quenthelsat straight-backed and cross-legged on a rug. Along the back wall, pulses of mystical force throbbed from a pair of iron chests and from behind a theoretically secret door. The high priestess had invoked some formidable magic to protect her valuables. It was too bad she wasn't similarly careful with her life.

Gromph's agent flowed forward, and something reared hissing atop a round little table. It was the five vipers comprising an enchanted whip. Distracted by the magical power blazing at the back of the chamber, the netherspirit had missed feeling the lesser emanations of the vipers.

Fortunately, it didn't matter. The animate darkness had skulked too close to its prey for anything to balk it. It solidified a twisting strand of itself and slapped the table over, sending the whip flying. At the same time it darted, stretching, to pounce on Quenthel.

Her slanted eyes opened but of course saw only blackness. She opened her mouth to speak or shout, and the demon shoved a tendril inside.