Annihilation

"We have to go back," she whispered.

His embrace tightened.

"It's not what you're thinking," she whispered because she knew he wanted to go back underground and never come back. "The time has finally come to find Quenthel and her expedition."

"And stop them?" he asked, the words touching her neck with each exhalation of his hot breath.

"No," she whispered.

"Follow them?" he said into her hair, his hand pressed into the small of her back.

Halisstra moved into the warrior until she felt as if she were flattening herself against him, disappearing into his night-black skin.

"Yes," she said. "They'll take us with them, whether they want to or not. They'll take us to Lolth, and we can end it."

Halisstra knew that he began to make love to her then because he didn't want to think about it, and she let him because she didn't want to think about it either.

Pharaun stood at the rail of the ship of chaos, staring into the empty darkness of the Lake of Shadows, because he couldn't think of anything else to do. Valas and Danifae hadn't returned from their supply mission, he had fed the ship enough petty demons to satisfy it, the uridezu captain was cowed and quiet, and there was no sign of Aliisza.

The Master of Sorcere went over their conversation again in his mind and was still convinced that the alu-fiend had managed to tell him nothing but had gone away having learned nothing from him. Still, she'd found him and had seen the ship. She knew where they were going and what they hoped to accomplish there—but anyone who'd been at the fall of Ched Nasad could figure that out easily enough.

He put the alu-fiend out of his mind and peered deeper into the darkness, though there was still nothing to see. Pharaun didn't have to turn around to know that Quenthel was sitting against the rail, absently chatting in some kind of silent telepathy with the bound imps that gave her venomous whip its evil intelligence. He couldn't imagine the substance of a conversation someone might have with a demon trapped in the body of a snake that was stuck to the end of a whip.

Whatever they talked about, it didn't seem to be helping Quenthel. The high priestess, as far as Pharaun could tell, was going quietly mad. She had always been sullen and temperamental, but recently she had become. . twitchy.

Her half-demon nephew grew angrier and angrier the more bored he became. Jeggred sent a large portion of his hatred out through his eyes and into the uridezu. Raashub did an admirable job of ignoring him.

Something caught Pharaun's attention, movement out of the corner of his eye, and he stepped back from the rail as an emaciated, soaking-wet rat scurried along the bone-and-cartilage rail in front of him.

Pharaun watched the rat run, absently wondering where it thought it was going.

Anywhere dry, he thought.

Noises echoed from behind him—Jeggred fidgeting.

Pharaun tepped back to the rail and was about to let his eyes wander through the impenetrable darkness again when another rat crawled quickly past.

"Damn it," the Master of Sorcere whispered to himself.

He turned to voice some impotent complaint to Jeggred, but the words stuck in his throat.

There were more than the two rats that ran past him. There were dozens of them, hundreds perhaps, and they swarmed over Jeggred.

Something's wrong, thought Pharaun, marveling even as the words formed in his head at how slowly his mind was working after days of tedium aboard the anchored ship.

The draegloth looked more a

Pharaun started casting defensive spells on himself, watching as Quenthel finally looked up and over at her nephew.

The Mistress of the Academy's eyes widened, then narrowed as she watched Jeggred smash one rat after another in his bigger set of hands, while his smaller hands brushed others off his face. Quenthel slowly rose to her feet, the vipers tangling loosely, affectionately around her legs.

"Jeggred?" she asked.

"Rats," was the draegloth's grunted reply.

Pharaun layered more magical protections over himself as Quenthel started toward the draegloth.

"Raashub," Pharaun said, keeping his voice steely and cold.

The demon flinched at the sound of his name but didn't look up.

"What are you doing, Raashub?" Pharaun asked between two more spells of protection. "Stop it. Stop it now."

The demon looked up at him with smoldering eyes and hissed, "It's not me. They're not my rats."

Pharaun couldn't shake the feeling that the uridezu was telling the truth—at least, a version of the truth.

"Pharaun?" Quenthel said, and the mage detected a trace—more than a trace—of panic creeping into her voice. "What are all these rats. .?"

"Pay close attention, both of you," Pharaun said, at the same time readying a more offensive spell. "There's ano—"

A globe of darkness enveloped Quenthel.

Any drow could have done it but not only a drow.

The unmistakable sounds of a physical struggle resounded from inside the slowly undulating cloud of blackness. Something hit the deck, and something cracked.

Pharaun changed direction before he'd actually begun casting the spell he'd had in mind. Instead, he formed the words and gestures to a spell he hoped would eliminate the darkness.

From inside the gloom, Pharaun could hear the shriek of metal being dragged across metal—or was it bone against bone?

His spell went off, and the darkness blew into nothingness.

Suddenly visible, Quenthel lay on her stomach on the deck. She was patting the carved bone surface in front of her, reaching for her scourge, which lay just out of her reach. Her nose was bleeding, and she winced every time she bent her back.

Standing over her was another uridezu.

The demon was, like Raashub, a humanoid rat. Smaller than Raashub, thi

"Jeggred. ." Pharaun said, glancing over at the draegloth.

The half-demon was covered head to foot with rats of every size and description. It was as if all the vermin in the Lake of Shadows had staged some sort of family reunion—one that took place on, under, and all around the draegloth. They swarmed onto him faster than he could kill them, though he was dispatching the rodents four at a time.

Pharaun ran quickly through possible spells, stepping forward a few paces toward Quenthel.

The uridezu smashed her on the back with its tail. The high priestess's face was forced into the bone-hard deck. Blood sprayed, but not much, and she took the strong hit with a grunt.

Pharaun was impressed. Something made him set aside his first choice of spell.

Too much, he thought, for only one. .

The Master of Sorcere looked over at Raashub. The demon captain's eyes were darting rapidly between Quenthel and the newcomer.

He's testing us, Pharaun thought. The wily bastard gated in one of his kind and is setting it against us so we can show off, reveal our strengths and weaknesses.

Raashub might have been bound, but he was a demon still, and there was always fight left in a demon—it always had a way out.

The other uridezu clawed at Quenthel's legs, opening deep gashes, and she kicked back at it. The demon danced out of reach of her boots. The high priestess extended a hand back over her head, but she still couldn't reach her whip. The vipers seemed panicked and weren't able to coordinate their movements well enough to crawl to her.