Dissolution

Houndaer saw no reason to play that game, not if his new sword was as keen as it was supposed to be. He brought the blade around in a low arc. It tore away the ma

«Please!» said the Tuin'Tarl. «We always got along, didn't we? I was one of your most dutiful students, and I can help you get out of here.» The teacher kept coming, and Houndaer saw that his face wasn't empty or expressionless after all. It might be devoid of emotion, but it revealed a preternatural, almost demonic concentration, focused entirely on slaughter.

Houndaer saw his own inescapable death there, and, suffused with a strange calm, he lowered the greatsword. Ryld's blade sheared into his chest an instant later.

The echoing metallic crash startled Quenthel. It was well that she'd spent a lifetime learning self control, for otherwise, she might have cried out in dismay. She and her squad were patrolling the temple. After the events of the past four nights it would have been mad to relax their vigilance, but as the hours had crept uneventfully by, her troops began to speculate that the siege was over. After all, it was supposed to be. The bone wand had supposedly turned the malignancy of the past night's sending back on she who cast the curse. Yet Quenthel had found she wasn't quite ready to share in the general optimism.

Yes, she'd turned an attack back on its source, but that didn't necessarily mean her faceless enemy had succumbed to the demon's attentions. The spellcaster could have survived, and if so, she could keep right on dispatching her unearthly assassins. From the sound of it, another such had just broken in, and Quenthel didn't have another little bone wand. For a moment, the Baenre felt a surge of fear, perhaps even despair, and she swallowed it down. «Follow me,» she snapped. Perhaps her subordinates would prove of some use for a change. Their tread silent in their enchanted boots, the priestesses trotted in the direction of the noise. Greenish torchlight splashed their shadows on the walls. Parchment rattled as one novice fumbled open a scroll. Female voices began to shout. Power reddened the air for an instant and brushed a gritty, pricking feeling across the priestesses' skin. «It's not a demon,» said Yngoth, twisting up from the whip handle to place his eyes on a level with Quenthel's own. Her stride made his scaly wedge of a head bob up and down. «No?» she asked. «Has my enemy come to continue our duel in person?»

She hoped so. With her minions at her back, Quenthel would have a good chance of crushing the arrogant fool. But alas, it wasn't so. Her course led her to the entry hall with the spider statues. The poor battered valves hung breached and crooked once again. This time the culprit was a huge, disembodied, luminous hand, floating open with fingers up as if signaling someone to halt. A lanky male in a baggy cloak had taken shelter behind the translucent manifestation from the spears and arrows that several priestesses were sending his way. Quenthel sighed, because she knew the lunatic, and he couldn't possibly be her unknown foe. By all accounts, he'd been too busy down in the city the past few days. She gestured with the whip, terminating the barrage of missiles. «Master Mizzrym,» she called. «You compound your crimes by breaking in where no male may come unbidden.»

Pharaun bent low in obeisance. He looked winded, and, most peculiarly for such a notorious dandy, disheveled. «Mistress, I beg your pardon, but I must confer with you. Time is of the essence.» «I have little to say to you except to condemn you as the archmage should have done.» «Kill me if you must.» The giant hand winked out of existence and he continued, «Given my recent peccadilloes, I half expected it. But hear my message first. The undercreatures are rebelling.» Quenthel narrowed her eyes and asked, «The archmage sent you here with this news?» «Alas,» the mage replied, «I was unable to locate him but knew this was something that must be brought to the attention of the most senior members of the Academy. I realize no one ever dreamed it could happen, but it has. Walk to the verge of the plateau with me, and you'll see.»

The Baenre frowned. Pharaun's ma

«Very well,» she said, «but if this is some sort of demented jest, you'll suffer for it.» «Mistress,» Minolin said, «he may want to lead you into—» Quenthel silenced the fool with a cold stare, then turned back to Pharaun. «Lead on, Master of Sorcere.» In point of fact, the high priestess didn't have to walk all the way to the drop-off to tell that something was badly wrong in the city below. The wavering yellow glare of firelight and a foul smoky tang in the air alerted her as soon as she stepped outside the spider-shaped temple. Heedless of her dignity, she sprinted for the edge, and Pharaun scrambled to keep up with her. Below her, portions of Menzoberranzan—portions of the stone, how could that be? — were in flames. Impossibly, even the Great Mound of the Baenre sprouted a tuft of flame at its highest point, like a tassel on a hat. Once Quenthel's eyes adjusted to the dazzling brightness, she could vaguely make out the mobs rampaging through the streets and plazas. «You see,» said Pharaun, «that's why I ran halfway across the city, dodging marauders at every turn, to reach you, my lady. If I may say so, the situation's even worse than it may look. By and large, the nobles haven't even begun reclaiming the streets. They're bogged down on their estates fighting their own household goblins. Therefore, I suggest you—» The mage was smart enough to stop talking at the sight of Quenthel's glare.

«We will mobilize Tier Breche,» she said. «Melee-Magthere and Arach-Tinilith can fight. Sorcere will divide its efforts between supporting us and extinguishing the fires. You will either find my brother Gromph or act in his stead.» Pharaun bowed low. Quenthel turned and saw that her priestesses and novices had followed her out onto the plateau. Something in their ma

«The assumption that, should you remain up here, a

«Perhaps he is,» Quenthel said, «but how dare we seek the Dark Mother's favor if we decline to defend her chosen city in its hour of need? Surely, then, we never would hear her voice again.» «Mistress,» said Viconia, spreading her hands, «I know we can find a better way to please her than brawling with vermin in the street.» Quenthel lifted her hand crossbow and shot her lieutenant in the face. Viconia made a choking sound and stumbled backward, The poison was already blackening her face as she collapsed. «I thought I'd already demonstrated that I rule here,» the Baenre said. «Does anyone else wish to contest my orders?» «If so,» Pharaun said, «she should be aware that I stand with the mistress, and I have the power to scour the lot of you from the face of the plateau.»