Still in the shape of Prath, Gromph exited his offices and moved through the vaulted halls of Sorcere. The tapestry-festooned corridors stood mostly empty. Almost all of Sorcere's masters and apprentices were occupied in finishing off the surprisingly stubborn duergar forces in the northern tunnels. Gromph did encounter one master, Havel Duskryn.
As he passed, Gromph bowed and said, "Master Duskryn."
"Prath Baenre," the tall, thin Master replied, rubbing his weak jaw and obviously too involved in whatever troubled him to query "Prath" about his business.
Gromph hurried through hallways lined with paintings, sculpture, and framed magical writings until he reached the apprentices' wing of the complex. There, he encountered two of the new class of apprentices searching for a tome in the apprentices' li brary. Neither spoke to Gromph, and he made his way to Prath's austere quarters.
Like all apprentices, Prath lived alone out of a stone-walled room five paces on a side. His sparse furnishings consisted of an uncomfortable looking sleeping pallet and a small zurkhwood desk and chair. Books, papers, ink, a glowball, and three inkrods were neatly organized upon the desktop. Prath was surprisingly fastidious. Gromph's own chambers as an apprentice had always been in disarray.
Gromph walked through Prath's doorway and pulled the door closed behind him. The moment the latch caught, a magic mouth whispered, "Welcome back, Master Prath."
Gromph smiled. An apprentice could be flogged for casting spells frivolously, though the masters usually turned a blind eye to the practice. In truth, using spells for pranks and entertainment made an apprentice's otherwise harsh existence a bit more bearable. It also encouraged creative thinking in the use of spells. When Gromph had been an apprentice, he had kept an invisible wine service in a corner of his quarters, complete with an unseen servant to pour it at his command. Smuggling the wine into Sorcere had been a difficult challenge. Prath's violation looked minor compared to Gromph's.
Gromph slid into the chair behind the desk and leafed through Prath's papers. He saw from the notes and formulae written there that the apprentice was in the process of learning a series of progressively more complicated augmenting transmutations. Gromph spent a moment reading over Prath's observations.
He decided first that Prath had potential; he decided second that it was time to get on with his work. He had several preparatory spells to cast. He pushed the papers aside.
Gromph's own magical robe had extradimensional pockets that organized their contents according to his mental urgings. Prath's robe contained no such enchantment, and Gromph found sorting through his spell components an unfamiliar chore. Still, he took it in good spirit, found the various items he would require, and cast.
He first sprinkled a pinch of diamond dust over his head and whispered the words to a protective spell that would ward his person from detection. The spell was not as powerful a shield against scrying as a stationary screen, but it would serve to defeat most scrying attempts.
Next, in preparation for the spell traps he would encounter in the fortress of House Agrach Dyrr, he cast a series of wards that protected his flesh for several hours against negative energy, fire, lightning, cold, and acid. If the spell traps did more damage than his wards could absorb, his magical ring eventually would regenerate it, provided the damage did not kill him outright. Not even his ring could bring back the dead.
Third, he withdrew from his pocket a tiny vial of glassteel containing a dollop of quicksilver. After pricking the tip of his finger on the edge of the duergar axe at his belt, he squeezed a few drops of his blood into the vial. He then smeared the tips of his fingers with the admixture and incanted the words to one of his most powerful spells, a dweomer that would whisk him back to his offices should certain contingenciescontingencies that he would have to articulate as part of the castingoccur.
His fingers traced glowing lines in the air as he recited the incantation. Presently, the spell was completed but for the articulation of the contingent triggers. The magic of the spell sizzled around him, awaiting his words. He thought for a moment about the nature of the spell traps he would face then whispered the triggers aloud "Should my body be rendered involuntarily immobile or be materially consumed by magical energy of any kind, should my soul be trapped or otherwise imprisoned, should my mind become enfeebled or otherwise unable to function."
The spell soaked into him, there to await a triggering event. Gromph had only another step or two to take before he moved against House Agrach Dyrr.
Moving his hands through another intricate gesture, he spoke the words to a spell that rendered him invisible. With another whisper, he modified the magic to cause the invisibility effect to last a full day rather than its normal duration of but an hour or two.
Finally, he called upon the ongoing transmutation that allowed him to change his shape and mentally selected the form of an incorporeal, undead creature a literal shadow. The magic seized him, and his body grew dark, shadowy, and insubstantial. His flesh grew light but his soul grew heavy. He was suffused with dark energies. Prath disappeared; a living shadow replaced him.
Gromph felt his existence stretched across multiple realities. He felt solid to himself, as did all of his equipment, but his "flesh" tingled, and most of his senses felt dull. He could not hear or smell and the loss of sensation disconcerted him. Too, he could not touch anything on the physical world, at least not in the way he was used to. He was solid; the world was shadow. He perceived the touch of physical objects more as a distant pressure change than a tactile sensation. He "sat" in Prath's chair only as matter of will, not because of the physical properties of the chair. He could have passed through it had he wished. The archmage perceived no colorsonly varying shades of graybut his visual acuity grew sharper. Solid objects looked solid, the lines between them as sharp as a razor. He knew that he could walk on the air as easily as on the ground. He knew too that he could still cast spells in his shadow form. His equipment and components had transformed with him, so they were solid to him.
He was ready.
Literally sheathed in an armor of protective magic, Gromph floated up from Prath's chair and rose through the stone ceiling above him. Passing through the solid stone of the ceiling blinded him while he was within it, but he simply kept willing himself upward until he passed through it. The wards in Sorcere's structure did not impede his progress. Gromph had cast most of them and knew the gestures and wordshis voice sounded hollow when he spoketo bypass them safely.
Soon, he was in the air above the school, with a breathtaking view of all of Tier Breche the spider-shaped, curving walls of Arach-Tinilith, the stout pyramid of Melee-Magthere, the soaring spires of Sorcere. Smoke rose from the tunnels to the north and explosions, and shouts still rang through the area. He took only a moment to enjoy the view before he turned and flew south along the cavern's ceiling, moving amidst the stalactite spear points that hung from the cavern's roof.
He passed over the bazaar, where he had fought the lichdrow, over the Braeryn, and headed directly toward Qu'ellarz'orl and besieged House Agrach Dyrr.
On her knees before the altar of Lolth in the otherwise empty temple, Yasraena prayed to the Spicier Queen, not for deliveranceLolth despised such weaknessbut for opportunity. She knew that unless something changed, and soon, the siege of her House must eventually succeed. She needed to locate the phylactery and decide whether she would honor her bargain with Triel. The damned thing could have been under her very feet and she would not have known it. She cursed the lichdrow for the thousandth time, and cursed herself for allowing her House to pursue schemes concocted by a male.
She looked up to the altar, hoping for a sign of Lolth's favor. Nothing. The light from a single holy candle flickered on the polished body of the majestic widow sculpture that stood behind the altarin reality, a guardian golem. The statue stared down at her with eight emotionless eyes.
In the distance, Yasraena heard an occasional shout from the forces arrayed atop her fortress's walls. Hours before, thunderous explosions had shaken the complex, booming along the walls. Yasraena found the relative quiet ominous. She knew the Xorlarrin forces had pulled back well beyond the moat bridge to plot a strategy for another assault. Tension sat thick in the air. She saw it in the eyes of her troops, her mages, her daughters. The next Xorlarrin attack would be more forceful than the last. She was confident that House Agrach Dyrr would hold it off, but what of the one after that or after that? What would occur when a second House joined Xorlarrin? A third?
Her House had only days left to live, unless she found the phylactery and arranged a peace. Or returned the lichdrow to life and thus bolstered, demanded a peace.
So far, Larikal and the huffing oaf Geremis had been unable to locate the phylactery, yet Yasraena was convinced that it was within the stalagmite fortress. The lichdrow had seldom moved outside its walls. He would not have secreted the vessel for his soul anywhere but within the manor.
She called upon the power of the amulet at her breast and projected to Larikal, My patience grows thin. She sensed her daughter's anger through the connection afforded by their amulets.
The search continues, Matron Mother. The lichdrow was no mere conjurer. He has hidden his treasure well.
Yasraena let venom leak into her mental voice. Do not offer me excuses, she said. Offer me the phylactery or I will offer your life to the Spider Queen.
Yes, Matron Mother, answered Larikal, and the connection went quiet.
Yasraena's threat was sincere. She had killed progeny before to make a point. She would do so again, if necessary.
From behind, she heard the beat of footsteps on the temple's portico. She rose and turned just as Esvena sprinted through the open double doors and into the temple. The links of her adamantine mail tinkled like slave's bells. She held her helm in her hand, and her face was flushed.
A hundred possibilities flew through Yasraena's mind, none of them good. Her grip on her tentacle rod tightened.
"Esvena?" she asked, and her voice echoed through in the vaulted temple.
"Matron Mother," Esvena huffed and ran up the aisle between the pews. She offered a hurried supplication to Lolth before broaching t he apse and bowing before Yasraena.
Esvena's otherwise plain face was as animated as Yasraena had ever seen it.
"We have him, Mother!" she said and stood, smiling.
Esvena did not need to say whom she meant by "him." A thrill went through Yasraena, and she grabbed her taller daughter by the shoulders.
"Lolth has answered our prayers," she said. "Show me."
Together, mother and daughter hurried from the temple, past exhausted troops and sunken-eyed wizards, though empty halls and chambers, until they reached the vaulted scrying chamber and its stone basin. The two homely male wizards, both in dark piwafwis, awaited them there. One of themthe one Yasraena previously had choked for smilinggreeted them with a bowed head and lowered eyes. He did not smile, instead eyeing Yasraena's tentacle rod with dread. The other male stood over the scrying basin, his furrowed brow covered in sweat, his hands held over the still water, palms downward.
Without acknowledging the male, Yasraena pushed past her daughter and hurried to the edge of the waist-high basin. Esvena followed in her wake.
A wavering image showed itself in the waters. Gromph Baenre sat at a huge desk of bone, his gaze fixed intently on an unusual crystal set before him. Yasraena took the crystal to be a scrying device, though it showed only a gray mist at the moment.
Across from the archmage sat another wizard, a fat Master of Sorcere whose name Yasraena did not know. From time to time, they exchanged words. They appeared frustrated and tired.
"This is very good," Yasraena said to the room. "Very good, indeed."
She knew that she still had time to locate the lichdrow's phylactery. The archmage remained at Sorcere. Perhaps his spell duel with the lichdrow had drained him so much that he would not make an attempt on the House at all.
"The work was long, Matron Mother," said the male she had choked. "The archmage's wards were powerful. But we persisted."
"You saved yourself a painful death," Yasraena said. After a pause, she added, "Well done."
The male almost smiled, but one look at Yasraena's tentacle rod kept the corners of his mouth from rising.
The wizard went on, "Notice the gray mist present in the archmage's scrying crystal, Matron Mother. If the archmage is attempting to scry House Agrach Dyrr through that crystal, as we suppose, the mistiness indicates that he has not yet breached our anti-scrying wards."
She nodded. The lichdrow had well warded the fortress, better, apparently, than the archmage had warded his own chambers.
Yasraena saw that the archmage and the Master of Sorcere were speaking intently. From their body language, Yasraena thought that Gromph too easily tolerated impudence in his inferiors.
"Why can we not hear what they are they saying?" she asked the room.
Silence answered her. She looked up, and Esvena barked, "Answer the Matron Mother!"
The male Yasraena had choked cleared his throat and said, "Matron Mother, the basin does not allow for the transmission of sounds. I humbly apologize."
Yasraena stared at the top of the male's head for a moment before turning back to the image. The vision wavered too much for lip readers to be of much use. She would have to rely on observation to keep her apprised of Gromph's plans.
She eyed the sweating male wizard who leaned over the basin, maintaining the image. He would not be able to hold the image for much longer. She looked to Esvena.
"Rotate our mages so that this image is constant. It is imperative that we know what Gromph Baenre is doing at all times."
Esvena nodded.
Yasraena was beginning to think that the temporary Xorlarrin withdrawal was part of some larger ploy by the archwizard. Perhaps he would time his own assault with that of the Xorlarrin, hoping to sneak in under cover of the battle.
We've got you, Baenre, she thought, eyeing Gromph through the basin. With the Dyrr wizards' scrying eye on him, the archmage would not be able to surprise them. If he came, they would be ready.
Yasraena took a deep, satisfied breath. She had asked the Spider Queen for an opportunity. She had been given more time, and that was opportunity enough.
Conscious of his companions' eyes upon him, Pharaun pulled a swatch of bat fur from his piwafwi, positioned his fingers in a circle, and spoke a couplet.
An incorporeal, silvery orb took shape before him. With an exercise of his will, he saw through the ball as though it were his own eyes. At his mental command, the ball sped back through the chwidencha tunnel, up the vertical shaft, and through the wall of stone that Pharaun had created to cap the tunnel.
Through the eye, Pharaun saw the surface.
It was night. And raining. Spider carcasses and limbs dotted the landscape. The chwidencha bodies they had left behind lay torn in pieces. Pharaun saw no movement, no spiders. He ceased concentration on the orb, leaving it where it was, and returned his vision to his own eyes.
Quenthel stood near him, waiting. Danifae stood a few steps behind her, her expression veiled. Jeggred hulked over the battle-captive, staring at Pharaun with undisguised hunger.
"It is night, Mistress," Pharaun said to Quenthel. "And raining lightly. The Teeming appears to have abated."
Quenthel nodded as though she had expected nothing less.
"Then we go," she said. "Open the way."
Pharaun nodded. A simple spell would suffice to move them.
He visualized the surface and spoke a magical word that opened a dimensional portal between where they stood and the surface. A curtain of green energy formed in the air.
Pharaun reached out a hand for Quenthel, and her whip serpents reared up with a hiss. Even the snakes were more tense than usual. Pharaun's confrontation with Jeggred had thrown fuel on the fire of the priestesses' war of nerve. Pharaun reminded himself not to get caught in the conflagration when it inevitably blew.
"I must touch you if you are to use the portal," he said to Quenthel.
She nodded and quieted her serpents. He put his hand gently to her shoulder. As he did, he raised his eyebrows and looked a question at her.
The high priestess's expression showed that she took his meaning. They could leave Jeggred and Danifae behind, trapped underground.
Danifae shifted on her feet, as though she sensed the exchange.
Quenthel seemed to consider it before surreptitiously signing, All go.
Pharaun did not let his disappointment reach his face. He looked past Quenthel to Danifae and said, "Mistress Danifae?"
At her nod, he walked over and put his hand on hers, letting it linger for a moment on her smooth skin. Her flesh felt hot to the touch.
"Jeggred too," she said with a seductive, predatory smile.
Pharaun eyed the draegloth, who offered him a fanged smile and a cloud of foul breath.
"Of course," Pharaun said, wincing at the stink. He stepped to the draegloth, who slavered at his approach.
True to his promise to Jeggred, Pharaun had put a contingency spell on his person that would automatically cast another spell should the trigger be met. Pharaun had cast the spell such that if Jeggred attacked him, even if Pharaun was incapacitated or otherwise made unable to speak or cast, the draegloth would instantly be attacked by a giant, crushing hand of force. The hand was bigger than the draegloth, stronger, and would squeeze him until his bones broke.
"Gently, mage," Danifae warned.
Pharaun said over his shoulder, "Jeggred already knows how gentle is my touch. I won't hurt him, Mistress Danifae."
"Of that I have no doubt," she answered.
In whispered Infernal, the tongue of demons, Jeggred said, "Only her command keeps me from ripping your head from your shoulders, contingency or not."
Pharaun understood the demonic tongue, as he did many other languages, and he answered in kind, "Should you even attempt to do so, your end will be rapid and painful. In fact, I wish you would."
He stared a challenge into the draegloth's face. Jeggred's lips peeled back from his yellow fangs, but he did nothing else.
"Enough," Quenthel commanded.
Without another word, Pharaun slammed his fist into the draegloth's shoulderhard. He might as well have been punching a wall of iron.
Jeggred only smiled.
"Mistress," Pharaun said, backing away from Jeggred. "Your nephew remains, as always, an excellent conversationalist." He looked to Quenthel and added, "I believe we're all ready, now."
He stepped near Quenthel, and she took him by the arm.
"Us, first," she said.
"Of course," Pharaun answered.
Together they stepped through the dimensional portal.
They materialized instantly on the surface. All was quiet, and pieces of spider were everywhere. After the chaos of the Teeming, the surface felt eerily still. Eight bright stars like the eyes of a spider beat down on them from the otherwise jet black sky. A light rain pattered against the rocks.
Pharaun hissed, "Do you not think Danifae would look better dead, Mistress? And your nephew would be a fine trophy for" Quenthel silenced him with an upraised hand. Her whip serpents hissed.
"Of course she would," said the high priestess, "but she will look better still as a sacrifice. The insolent bitch dies when I will it, mage. And my nephew, for all of his stupidity, remains a Baenre and the matron mother's son."
Before Pharaun could reply, Danifae and Jeggred appeared beside them, both in a fighting crouch.
Seeing no ambush awaited them, they relaxed their stances. Jeggred snorted with contempt, as though disappointed that his aunt had not attacked.
Quenthel didn't bother to disguise her own sneer. She held her whip in her hand and nodded at something one of the serpents, Yngoth, whispered in her ear. She looked up to the line of souls in the sky and followed them with her eyes in the direction of the distant mountains. Their darkvision did not extend far enough, and the jagged peaks were lost to the night.
Quenthel said, "Lolth bids us to hurry onward."
The wind gusted; songspider webs sang above the falling rai n. Quenthel nodded absently as though the webs had spoken to her.
Pharaun perked up at Quenthel's statement. He asked, "Mistress, if Lolth bids us hurry, perhaps it is time that we make our way across this unfortunate landscape via magical means?"
He was more than a little tired of walking Lolth's wasteland.
"Indeed it is time, Master Mizzrym," answered Quenthel.
Mentally, Pharaun checked through his spells. "With all of the stray energies present here" he gestured at the vortices of power that still dotted the sky"I would not recommend teleportation. But I have other spells that might"
Quenthel held up a hand to silence him and stared at Danifae.
"Call what aid you can, priestess," Quenthel said, "if you would accompany me. Lolth demands the quick arrival of her Yor'thae."
"Is that the reason, Mistress Quenthel?" Danifae asked with a cryptic smile. She threw back her hood. Spiders crawled along her hair, her brow, her lips. "Or are you concerned that Lolth's mind might change over the course of a longer journey?"
Anger brewed behind Quenthel's eyes. Her whip serpents lunged at Danifae but did not bite. All five of them hissed into the battle-captive's gorgeous face.
"Impudent whore!" said one of the females, K'Sothra.
Jeggred snatched at the heads with an inner arm, missed as they retracted. The draegloth growled.
Pharaun couldn't remember ever having heard the serpents speak aloud.
Danifae only smiled innocently and said, "I intended no offense with my question."
"Of course you didn't," Quenthel said, and her whips swirled around her head.
Jeggred growled, as though he could he hear the serpents' mental projections to their mistress.
Pharaun felt very tired all of sudden. He just wanted the whole affair completed. If Lolth wanted it done quickly, all the better.
"Mistress," he said to Quenthel. "I have spells that"
"Silence!" Quenthel ordered, without removing her gaze from Danifae. "Use what spell you will to follow me, Master Mizzrym, but you are to transport only yourself. Do you understand?"
For emphasis, her whip serpents turned their gaze from Danifae, stared at Pharaun, and flicked their tongues. Pharaun bowed his head in acquiescence.
To Danifae, Quenthel repeated, "I said, summon what aid you can, priestess, if you wish to accompany me further."
Pharaun saw it then and was not sure what to make of it.
Quenthel was taking Danifae's measure, testing her abilities as a priestess. That was why she had ordered Pharaun to transport only himself. All in the group had at least a sense of Quenthel's personal power. No one knew the scope of Danifae's except Danifae. Quenthel meant to find out before sacrificing the battle-captive.
The two priestesses stared at one another for a moment longer, Quenthel's challenge hanging between them. The wind blew. The rain fell. The webs sang.
"Very well, Mistress Quenthel," Danifae said, and she inclined her head slightly.
Jeggred stared at Pharaun and said to Danifae, "I could remove the ring of flying from the wizard's corpse and"
Danifae held up her hand for silence, and the draegloth trailed off.
Pharaun answered Jeggred's stare with what he knew to be an annoying smirk. He held up his hand and waggled his fingers to show the draegloth the ring.
Quenthel turned her back on the junior priestess and her nephew and prepared a summoning. She moved away a bit and used her jet disk holy symbol to trace a circle on the blasted rocksnot a binding circle but a summoning circle. Power trailed behind her movements, leaving a distortion in the air. Throughout, she softly chanted a prayer, which Pharaun recognized as the initial words to a spell that would reach into the Abyss.
Quenthel was calling a demon to transport her.
Danifae watched Quenthel's back for a time, listening to her spell. Perhaps Danifae understood Quenthel's play and was attempting to determine an appropriate response. Presently, she began her own spell.
Holding her holy symbol to her breast, Danifae used her heel to trace a second summoning circle into the dirt, away from Quenthel's. She too chanted the while.
Pharaun and Jeggred stood a few paces apart between the dueling priestesses, doing nothing. Pharaun moved a few steps farther from the draegloth. The wind was carrying his stink to Pharaun, and the damp only magnified its foulness.
The voices of the priestesses mingled with the call of the wind and the patter of the rain. Quenthel's voice rose as she began the actual summoning. Danifae's voice, still in the midst of a preparatory chant, rose in answer.
The wind gusted hard and for a moment sang above them both, favoring neither.
Pharaun spared a glance at Jeggred, expecting to see the drooling oaf trying to threaten him with his glare, but the draegloth had eyes only for Danifae. He looked rapt. Pharaun could only shake his head at the simpleton.
Power gathered. Quenthel had started her casting first, and she would finish it first.
Orange sparks flared within Quenthel's summoning circle, little mirrors of the vortices that still littered the sky.
Danifae completed her preparations and started the final stages of her summoning.
Quenthel, sweating, chest heaving, stood at the edge of her circle, pronounced the final phrase of her spell, and shouted a name "Zerevimeel!"
Pharaun didn't recognize the name, but it hung suspended in the air like fog, a foul echo reverberating in Pharaun's ears. A final shower of sparks sizzled in the center of Quenthel's summoning circle and left in its wake a glowing line of orange. The line expanded, and grew into a tall oval. A very tall oval.
A portal.
Through the portal, Pharaun caught a glimpse of night on another world, another plane.
A lush jungle of twisted trees, grasses, and bushes waited beyond the gate, growing from a soil the color of blood. Yellowed bones of all types and sizes jutted from the earth, as though the whole plane was a graveyard. Turgid rivers covered in a brown foam squirmed their circuitous way through the befouled landscape. Thin, twisted forms moved furtively in the shadows, mortal souls trying desperately to hide from something. Pharaun could see the terror in their eyes, and it made him vaguely uneasy.
A blast of humid air escaped the portal. It smelled like a charnel house, as though tens of thousands of corpses lay rotting in the jungle heat. It bore groans with it, the soft susurration of agonized souls. "Zerevimeel, come forth!" Quenthel shouted.
The view in the portal changed as its perspective whipped across the landscape, passing ruined cities of crimson stone, lakes of watery sludge, huge, twisted things prowling the jungle in pursuit of the souls. A form took shape in the portal, a towering muscular form that dwarfed even Jeggred and blotted out Pharaun's view of the demon's home plane.
Nalfeshnee, Pharaun recognized from the silhouette. Quenthel had summoned a fairly powerful demon. Not as powerful as she could have but powerful nevertheless.
Pharaun readied to mind a spell that would shroud the demon in lightning should Quenthel not be able to convince it with her offer. He knew that demons, even powerful ones, were vulnerable to lightning. The huge demon stepped through the portal and solidified fully in Quenthel'scircle, naked and slicked in something sticky and red. The creature smelled sickly-sweet, like half-cooked meat.
Behind them, Danifae continued her own summoning, her voice rising. She would complete her own spell soon, but for the moment, Pharaun ignored her and focused on Quenthel's demon.
Huge tusks erupted from the nalfeshnee's muzzle. Burning red eyes dominated its bestial face. With each breath the demon's huge chest, covered in dark, coarse fur, rose and fell like a bellows. Two ridiculously small feathered wings sprouted from its back. Clawed hands at the end of muscular arms clenched and unclenched reflexively. The demon inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring, and wrinkled its snout.
"The Pits of the Spider Bitch," he spat, his voice deep and resonant. "It is bad enough that her stink infests all of the Lower Planes, but now I must abide it directly?" He fixed his eyes on Quenthel, who stood before him, seeming small and insignificant. "You will pay for this, drow priestess. I was swimming in the gore pits of" Quenthel's whip cracked, and five sets of fangs sank into the sensitive flesh of the demon's thigh, very near its genitals. The blow was meant to be more a painful threat than injurious.
The nalfeshnee roared and grabbed at the whip heads but was too slow.
Quenthel spoke in a low tone. "Speak another heresy, demon, and I'll offer your manhood to Lolth as penance."
Zerevimeel's burning red eyes narrowed. He looked around for the first time, as though to evaluate his situation. His eyes moved to Pharaun, to Jeggred (at whom he sneered in contempt), to Danifae, who was finalizing her own spell.
Pharaun felt the tingle of divination magic against his skin. The demon was attempting to measure their power, to get a sense of their souls. Pharaun did not contest the spell, though he could have easily enough.
Gently, as though expecting a backlash, Zerevimeel tested the boundaries of the summoning circle. He seemed surprised when it did not hold him within its confines.
He smiled, dripping huge droplets of saliva, and said, "You have left me unbound, drow whore."
He stepped out of the scribing on hoofed legs, towering over Quenthel. Pharaun readied his lightning spell, but the Baenre priestess gave no ground.
"My spell was a calling, dolt," she said. "Not a binding. Are males such fools even among demons?" All five of her whip serpents stared up at the nalfeshnee, hissing with laughter.
The demon regarded her with the arrogance endemic to his kind and said, "You are either a great fool or have much to offer."
"Neither," Quenthel replied. She brandished her holy symbol, stared up at the towering demon, and said, "You just cast your divination. You know the scope of my power. The Spider Queen once again answers the prayers of her faithful, and I can destroy you at my whim.You can perform willingly, or I can shred your body and summon another of your kind."
The demon rumbled low in his deep chest, a sound reminiscent of Jeggred, but did not dispute Quenthel's claim.
The high priestess went on, "If you accept willingly, you will be recompensed fairly in souls, upon my return to Menzoberranzan."
"If you return," the demon said, and his face twisted in an expression that Pharaun took to be a tusked grin. The creature looked skyward and for the first time seemed to notice the line of souls floating high above them. He eyed them with a predatory gaze and licked his thick lips.
"Souls, you say," he said, returning his gaze to Quenthel.
Quenthel cracked her whip and said, "Souls, yes. But not those. Those belong to Lolth. You will be paid with others, after you have flown me to the base of the mountains thence, to the Pass of the Reaver."
She pointed her whip in the direction of the far mountains, still hidden by night.
Pharaun cocked his head. He had never before heard Quenthel mention the name of their destination at the base of the mountains, though he had long suspected she knew what they would find there.
"You cannot attempt the pass and live," the demon said.
Quenthel put her hands on her hips and said, "I can and will. As will those who accompany me."
The demon licked his lips, seeming to consider his options. Finally, he said, "I am not a beast of burden, drowess."
"No," Quenthel replied, "but you will bear Lolth's Chosen and be honored to do so."
The demon's lips peeled back from oversized, yellowed canines. He turned his head to the side and spat a glob of stinking spittle onto the dirt. He crossed his arms over his huge chest and said, "Perhaps you are the Chosen, priestess, but perhaps you are not. In either case, let the Reaver claim you in his pass. But for the indignity you ask, my price shall be sixty-six souls."
Pharaun raised his eyebrows. Sixty-six souls was a very modest demand. Quenthel had cowed the demon effectively.
"Done," Quenthel agreed. "Attempt to betray me and you die."
"No betrayal, priestess," said the demon in a low voice. "I am looking forward to the feel of your soft flesh against mine. And when I return again to the blood pools of my home, I will think fondly of your soul being devoured by the Reaver."
Quenthel sneered and her whips laughed.
"Let us leave now, priestess," the demon said. "I wish to return to the familiar gore of my home."
"Not yet," Quenthel said. She turned her back to the demona show of supreme confidenceand watched as Danifae finally finished her own calling.
Danifae stood before her summoning circle, her arms outstretched, and called out a name "Vakuul!" Power flared in Danifae's circle. The air tore open. A circular portal, outlined in blue light, took shape. Through it, Pharaun could see only a swirling, thick blue mist. Some of the mist leaked from the portal and brought with it a cloying stink reminiscent of rotting mushrooms.
"Charistral," observed the Nalfeshnee with unconcealed contempt.
Pharaun assumed the word to be the name of the Abyssal plane viewable through the portal.
"Vakuul!" Danifae called again.
A buzzing sounded. It grew louder, louder...
"Chasme," said Zerevimeel and somehow managed still more contempt.
Pharaun saw that Quenthel was smiling. The flylike chasme demons were a relatively weak type, weaker than the nalfeshnee. Either Danifae had deliberately underutilized her abilities or she simply could summon nothing more powerful.
A winged, insectoid form filled the portal. The blue mist vanished, and the portal closed, leaving a buzzing chasme demon within the summoning circle.
Quenthel's smile vanished when she saw the creature. Pharaun drew in a sharp breath.
The chasme Danifae had summoned was the largest of the type that Pharaun had ever seen, fully as large as four pack lizards.
"Big one," Zerevimeel said.
"Silence," Quenthel ordered, and her whips hissed at the demon. To Danifae, she called, "Is calling the dregs from the bottom of the Abyss what passes for a summoning spell in Eryndlyn?"
Danifae did not turn to reply, but Pharaun read anger in her bunched back.
The chasme ignored Quenthel's taunt, and its compound eyes, each as big as Pharaun's two fists, swept the surroundings, lingering for a moment on Jeggred and the nalfeshnee. Its wings buzzed in agitation. "Why have you disturbed Vakuul?" the chasme demanded of Danifae. Unlike Zerevimeel's baritone, the chasme's voice was high-pitched, interspersed with vibrations and buzzing.
In appearance, Vakuul reminded Pharaun of a giant black cavefly, the kind that troubled rothe and whose bite resulted in pus-filled wounds. The demon stood on six legs. The rear four looked insectoid, with hooks and hairs sprouting from the upper segments, while the front two resembled oversized drow arms, both of which ended in hands that jerked and clenched spasmodically. A huge double pair of wings, much larger than those of the nalfeshnee's, sprouted from the chasme's back and buzzed at intervals. Each time they did, a breeze that smelled of corpses wafted over Pharaun. The chasme's head and face sproutedlike a tumor from its thorax, and its face combined the features of a fly and a human to form a grotesque profile. Bony black ridges filled its otherwise toothless mouth, and a long horn jutted from where its nose should have been. Thickets of short, coarse black hair stuck out of the demon's body in irregular bunches.
Danifae stood before the demon and said, "You are to bear me to the far mountains there and the pass at their base."
The demon turned a circle, its movements jerking and insectoid, and looked in the direction Danifae indicated.
It turned back to her and said, "This is the Demonweb Pits."
Its wings buzzed again in agitation.
"And I am a priestess of Lolth," Danifae said, holding forth her holy symbol.
Jeggred stepped up beside Danifae, his eyes boring holes into the fly-demon. Big as it was, the chasme's wings twittered. It rubbed its human hands together, the same way a fly sometimes rubbed together its front two legs.
"You ask for a service but make no mention of payment," Vakuul said. "What is to be Vakuul's payment, priestess of Lolth?"
Quenthel watched intently, as did Pharaun. That would be a true indication of Danifae's power. The offer and acceptance of payment was a formality inherent to the casting, but the particulars of the bargain reflected the relative power of summoner and summoned. The higher the cost paid, the weaker the summoned believed the summoner to be. Could Danifae compel a favorable offer through threat, as had Quenthel?
Danifae eyed Quenthel before she took a step toward the chasme.
She entered the summoning circle, reached up, and ran her fingertips along the horn of the chasme's nose. The demon's wings buzzed uncontrollably. His mouth fell open, showing a long, hollow tongue, wet with stinking saliva.
"I believe we will be able to come to some... amicable arrangement," Danifae purred.
A thick, dark fluid leaked from the chasme's mouth. The demon shifted his gaze past Danifae to Jeggredhimself the spawn of a drow-demon couplingbuzzed his wings, and leered at Danifae. Something long, thin, and dripping slipped out of his thorax.
Pharaun found the scene grotesque but fascinating.
Danifae only smiled, wrapped her hand around the demon's horn, and said, "I trust you find my offer appealing?"
"Most appealing, priestess," the chasme answered. With his thick, yellow tongue, Vakuul licked the ridges that served as his teeth. "I will carry you within my arms, carry you close. And afterward," his wings buzzed with excitement, "closer still."
Danifae released the demon's horn and said, "My draegloth must accompany us."
The chasme's wings beat in agitation. His voice rose still higher. "No, priestess, no. He is too big, his smell too foul. Just you."
Jeggred said nothing, merely stared.
Pharaun found it mildly amusing that a giant fly-demon found Jeggred too foul for transport. A cutting quip seemed in order, but he restrained himself.
Danifae smiled and put her hand on Vakuul's head. The chasme's wings beat fast as she ran her fingers along the bristles of the demon's hair.
"You cannot begin to comprehend what I am prepared to do for you," she said, low and husky, "if you but do this for me and my servant."
The thing protruding from the creature's thorax managed to squirm out just a little farther.
"Both then," the chasmesaid, drooling from his open mouth. "Come. Come, now."
Danifae turned and gestured Jeggred forward.
"Come, Jeggred," she said, even while signing to the draegloth When we arrive at the mountains, tear off anything that is sticking out of it, then kill it.
Jeggred smiled at the demon and stalked forward.
When Danifae turned back around to face the chasme, she again wore a seductive smile.
Pharaun could not help but admire her. The woman was not as powerful as Quenthelthat was clearbut she was as skilled a manipulator as Pharaun had ever encountered. Pharaun thought back to his encounter with Jeggred in the chwidencha tunnel. Pharaun had said that Danifae was manipulating the draegloth; Jeggred had answered that Danifae was instead manipulating Pharaun and Quenthel.
Pharaun began to suspect that both were likely true. Where Quenthel was raw power, Danifae was skillful subtlety. Both women were dangerous. He was coming to believe that either could be the Yor'thae, or perhaps neither. In truth, he did not care, as long as he came out of it with his life and his position.
Danifae looked back to Quenthel and Pharaun and said, "To the mountains then, Mistress Quenthel?" Quenthel nodded, her face a mask of impassivity that poorly hid her anger.
Jeggred took the smiling Danifae in his arms, and the chasme wrapped both of them in his legs. Vakuul's wings beat so fast that they became a barely visible blur.
"Heavy," the demon said, in his whining voice but managed to get off the ground. "So heavy."
Quenthel turned to the nalfeshnee and allowed him to scoop her up in his huge arms. His wings too began to beat, and somehow those absurd little appendages bore his huge bulk aloft. "Follow, wizard," Quenthel called.
Pharaun sighed, called on the power of his ring, and took flight behind them.
They soared high over the Demonweb Pits, flying into the teeth of the wind. They stayed below the souls but above the highest of the tors. The nalfeshnee cradled Quenthel against his mammoth chest. Her hair whipped in the wind. The chasme held Jeggred and Danifae close.
The creature pawed at Danifae as best he could while they flew.
Despite their respective loads, the demons moved at speed, and Pharaun struggled to keep up. He could hear nothing over the roar of the wind other than the muted buzz of the chasme's wings. Rain pelted his face.
Taking flight allowed them to avoid the difficulties of the harsh terrain, and they devoured the leagues quickly. On foot, they would have had a five or six day trek to the mountains. Flying at the rate they were, Pharaun expected to reach the mountains around daybreak, perhaps a bit after.
He surveyed the plane below him as he flew. From above, the surface of the Pits looked like diseased skinblistered, scarred, pockmarked. Lakes of acid dotted the ground, spider carcasses lay everywhere, and great crevasses split the landscape like scars.
He looked ahead toward the mountains but they remained invisible in the darkness. He could see the glowing souls, though, flying toward the mountains' base, toward the Pass of the Reaver.
He replayed the demon's words in his mind You cannot attempt the pass and live, Zerevimeel had said. Then, I will think fondly of your soul being devoured by the Reaver.
Pharaun decided that he would rather keep his soul than not, but he still flew on.