Dissolution

NINETEEN

The Underdark was boundless, its mysteries infinite, and despite centuries of following wherever his curiosity led, Pharaun had never seen an illlthid city. Save for a dearth of inhabitants, he thought he'd just stepped into one. Artisans had carved the walls and columns of the vault into spongiform masses like brain tissue, then covered the convolutions with lines of graven runes. Pools of warm fluid dotted the floor. Redolent of salt, the ponds crawled and throbbed with a mental force that even a non-psionic intelligence dimly sensed as a whisper of alien, incomprehensible thought at the back of the mind. Pharaun recognized that the cavern was in some sense an illusion, but that didn't make it any less interesting. He would have liked nothing better than to explore every nook and cra

He turned, saw Syrzan standing a few feet away, and cast darts of force, a spell requiring only words of power and a flourish of the hands. Halfway to their target, the streaking shafts of azure radiance stopped dead in the air, fell to the ground, and turned into limbless things like leeches or tadpoles, which, squealing telepathically, slithered toward the nearest pool. «Your spells won't work here,» said Syrzan in the Prophet's rich, compelling tones. «I suspected as much, but I had to try. Are we inside your mind?» «More or less.» Syrzan strolled closer. Off to the side, liquid splashed and plopped as the tadpoles wallowed. «We're conversing in my special haven,» the undead mind flayer said, «but we're also still in the heretic's chapel. In that reality I'm rebuking Houndaer for fetching you after I told him it was dangerous, and you're insensible.»

«Fascinating,» Pharaun said, «and I suppose you spirited me into the dream for a private tete-a-tete.» «Essentially,» the alhoon said. Even in this phantasmal domain, it smelled faintly of decaying fish. «This is actually a form of mind-reading. You wont be able to lie.» The Master of Sorcere chuckled. «Some people would say that so handicapped, I won't be able to speak at all.» The mages began stroll along side by side. The atmosphere felt quite congenial. «How is it,» Syrzan asked, «that you came looking for my associates and me?» Pharaun explained. He didn't see how it could do any harm. When he was finished, the illithilich said, «You couldn't wield my particular sort of power.» «I understand that now. You enthrall the undercreatures through a deft combination of wizardry and mind flayer arts, and I lack the i

«No,» said Syrzan, its mouth tentacles coiling and twisting. «Like the others, I know what's happened but not why.» «So none of what I sought was ever here for the finding.» Pharaun laughed and said, «My sister Sabal once told me that a clever drow's wits can lead him into follies no dunce would dare to undertake. . but that's blood down the gutter. What of you? What in the wide world prompted a creature such as yourself to throw in with a band of Menzoberranyr malcontents?» «You seek information you can use against me.» «Well, partly. .» Pharaun had to pause for a second when a wave of psionic force from one of the larger pools dizzied him and threatened to wash his own thoughts away. «In the unlikely event I'm ever afforded the chance. Mostly, though, I'm just curious. You're a mage. Surely we share that trait even if little else.» Syrzan shrugged, the narrow shoulders beneath its faded robes hitching higher than would a drow's.

«Well,» the alhoon said, «I suppose it can do no harm to enlighten you, and it's been a long while since I've had the opportunity to converse with a colleague of genuine ability. Not that you're my equal—no elf or dwarf could ever be—but you're several cuts above any of Houndaer's allies.» «Your kind words overwhelm me.»

The two wizards stepped onto a bridge, a crooked limestone span arching over one of the briny pools. «Dark elves will abide a lich,» the alhoon said, a brooding note entering its musical and almost certainly artificial voice. «Illithids won't. By and large, they hate the idea of sorcery, a foreign discipline as potent as the psionic skills that constitute our birthright. Still, they'll tolerate a limited number of mortal mages, those of us drawn to wizardry despite the stigma, for the advantages we bring. But the thought of undying wizards enduring for mille

«Yes,» Syrzan said, «I've watched your people for a long while. I discovered the cabal of renegade males some forty years ago. More recently, I observed the priestesses' debility; no mere dark elves could hide such an enormous change from an observer with my talents. I remembered the would-be rebels and arranged for them to make the same discovery, then I emerged from the shadows and offered them my services.»

«Why?» Pharaun asked. «Your collaborators are drow, and you're, if you'll pardon my bluntness, a member of an inferior species. Jumped up vermin, really. You don't expect Houndaer and the boys to honor a pact with you once the prize is won? Dark elves don't even keep faith with one another.» «Fortunately, the prize won't be won for decades, and during those years, I'll be subtly working to impose my will on my associates. Long before they assume the rulership of the city, I'll be ruling them.» «I see. The fools have given you your opening, and now that which you could never conquer from the outside you'll subjugate from within, extending the web of compulsion farther and farther, one assumes, until all Menzoberranyr are mind-slaves marching to your drum.» «Obviously, you understand the fundamentals of illithid society,» said Syrzan.

«You probably also know that we prefer to dine on the brains of lesser sentients and that we share your own race's fondness for torture. Still, some of your folk will fare all right. I can't eat or flay everyone, can I?» «Not unless you want to wind up a king of ghosts and silence. And where, may I ask, do these stone-burning fire bombs come from?» «Menzoberranzan isn't the only drow city possessed of ambitious males,» the illithilich said. Pharaun was momentarily speechless. Another drow city— «Now, it's your turn to satisfy my curiosity,» Syrzan said, interrupting the drow's reverie. «I live for the opportunity.» «When Houndaer and the others explained our scheme, did you sincerely consider joining us?» Pharaun gri

«Why did you reject the idea? You're no more faithful or less ambitious than any other drow.» «Or illithid, I'll hazard. Why then did I remain firm in my resolve to betray you to Gromph?» The slender dark elf spread his hands. «So many reasons. For one, I'm a notable wizard, if I do say so myself, and in Menzoberranzan we mages have our own tacit hierarchy. In recent years, I've cha

Syrzan flipped its tentacles, a gesture that conveyed impatience, and a flake of skin fell off. Unlike the slimy hide of living mind flayers, the lich's flesh was cracked and dry. «The renegades are trying to place themselves above the females,» the undead creature said. «I understand that, but I doubt it'll work out the way they plan, or even the way you plan.»

«You believe the priestesses are too formidable, even divested of their spells?»

«Oh, they're powerful. They may well extinguish this little cabal. Yet for the moment, I'm more concerned about the undercreatures. Do you realize how many goblins there are, how fervently they hated us even before you maddened them, or how dangerous your stone-consuming fire is? It could be that after they riot, we won't have a Menzoberranzan left for anyone to rule.» «Nonsense. The orcs will have their hour, and your people will butcher them.» Pharaun sighed. «That's what folk keep telling me. I wish your consensus comforted me, but it doesn't. That's one of the drawbacks of knowing yourself shrewder than everybody else.» «I assure you, the orcs ca