Dissolution

When Pharaun returned to House Mizzrym an hour later, his hair and garments were as immaculate as ever, but he reeked of wine and walked with a slightly weaving and excessively careful tread. Evidently he'd been drinking his troubles away. Perfect. As it had been instructed, the zombie stepped out of a doorway at the other end of the hall. Its arms were extended in a beseeching gesture. Pharaun took a few steps toward it and faltered. Drunk or not, he had finally noticed that, despite Greya

Knowing that Sabal was dead, Pharaun must likewise assume that without the aegis of a high priestess he could no longer survive in House Mizzrym. Certainly he couldn't count on his vicious mother, who hadn't bestirred herself to save one daughter from another, to do more for a paltry son. He was surely ru

They no doubt intended to be obey. She was a high priestess and he, a mere male, and manifestly trying to run away to boot. But alas, since their primary function was to look for miscreants trying to enter the castle, Pharaun had taken them by surprise. He had time to conjure some sort of hindering spell and dash on.

When Greya

A clattering, followed a split second later by grunts and cries of pain, snapped her head around to the right. At the far end of the landing, a second contingent of sentries also looked at least temporarily incapacitated, these because Pharaun had pelted them with a conjured barrage of ice. He disappeared down the exit they'd been guarding, the winding crystal staircase, gorgeous with magical luminescence, which co

Greya

Grotesque winged predators that commonly reeked of their caustic ammonia breath, the foulwings bespoke the Mizzryms power and magical prowess and lent the first step on the path to their citadel a certain style that mere soldiers could not match. They also made terrifying watchbeasts. With a snap of their clawed, batlike wings, in no wise hindered by their lack of legs, they spun their long-necked bodies around to loom over Pharaun. Forked snouts with fanged jaws at the end of either branch came questing hungrily down. From her perch, Greya

Except that they did. They hesitated, and he lifted his hands. Their deadly jaws played delicately about his fingers, taking in his scent. She cried again for the brutes to kill him. They twisted their heads around to look at her, but he spoke to them once more, and they ignored her command.

Greya

Pharaun scrambled onto a foulwing's back, and both it and its fellow sprang into the air. Obviously her brother had managed to dissolve the enchantment that made the beasts want to sit contentedly at their post. The wizard managed his mount more deftly than Greya

She turned and looked around. Those guards whom Pharaun had addled were disoriented still, but some of the soldiers he'd battered with hailstones appeared to have regained their composure. «Shoot him!» she shouted, pointing at the rapidly receding target. «Shoot!» With commendable haste, they obeyed. They took up their crossbows, aimed, and the bolts leaped forth m a ragged clatter. Pharaun's foulwing lurched, then plummeted down and down and down, crashing to earth somewhere amid the hollowed stalagmite edifices of the city. «Got him,» said the captain of the guard.

Bigger and stronger than he, Greya

«You got the foulwing,» she said. «We don't know that you hit Pharaun at all. We don't know that he didn't use his wizardry or his levitation to cushion his fall. We don't know that he isn't down there alive and well laughing at us. I need to see his corpse, and one way or the other, you will fetch it for me. Turn out every available priestess, wizard, and warrior—drow or slave. Jump!» Jump he did. It was the last bit of satisfaction that was to come her way. Her mortal agents flooded the streets, while she remained in her personal sanctum in House Mizzrym, summoning spirits and casting divinations to aid the search. Astonishingly, maddeningly, it was all to no avail. When light flowered in the base of Narbondel, signaling the advent of the new day, she was forced to admit that at least for the time being, Pharaun had eluded her.

A month later, she learned that her brother had somehow made his way all the way up to Tier Breche and begged the Archmage of Menzoberranzan himself for a place in Sorcere, and, remembering the wizardly talent the younger male had demonstrated throughout his training, Gromph had seen fit to take him in. The news came as a considerable relief. She'd feared her brother had fled Menzoberranzan and placed himself permanently beyond her reach. Instead, he'd simply hopped up on a shelf above the city. He was bound to hop down again eventually, and she would have him. Or so she thought, until her mother sent for her. Possessed of the same intelligence concerning her fugitive son's whereabouts, Miz'ri had formed a very different idea of what ought to be done about it: Nothing.

Even though they were only males, the Masters of Sorcere possessed both a degree of practical autonomy and an abundance of mystical power, and, always weaving her labyrinthine schemes to elevate the status of House Mizzrym, Mother had decided not to u