Лиза Смедман - Extinction

It didn’t matter though. Jeggred didn’t need to know what was being said. He could read Quenthel’s emotions by the way she held her body. That stiffening of her shoulders was tension. And that furtive drift of her hand toward her wand was caution—perhaps even fear.

Strangely, the vipers in Quenthel’s whip were drifting lazily with the current, completely relaxed. They, even more than Jeggred himself, should have sensed her rising tension. But instead the stupid things were off guard. Quenthel was wrong to put such stock in the bound imps, which were little better than slaves. Always asking their opinions—instead of trusting her own heart? made her weak.

The draegloth didn’t like the feeling of that thought. He wasn’t sure what to do with an idea like that, the idea that the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith, his aunt, sister to his mother the Matron Mother of the First House of Menzoberranzan, was... weak? He pushed the thought from his mind and found it quickly replaced by a growing unease.

Growling low in his throat—a low gurgle of water—Jeggred readied himself. Something was about to happen. He braced a foot against the far wall—one kick would send him into the room—and flexed his claws.

Quenthel drew her wand, and in a swift motion spun and aimed it at the aboleth behind her. A sticky glob shot out of the end of the wand, expanding swiftly as it raced through the water.

Simultaneously raking the aboleth beside him with one clawed hand, Jeggred kicked himself into the audience chamber—

—only to find his head and shoulders tangled in a sticky mass. Quenthel’s shot had missed when the aboleth ducked swiftly aside. The viscous glob struck the doorway instead and completely blocked the opening.

Roaring with rage, Jeggred twisted his body around and braced both feet against the sides of the opening. Heaving, calf and thigh muscles nearly bursting from the strain, he tore his head free, then his shoulders. Ignoring the sting where hair had torn from his scalp, he clawed at the sticky barrier with a fighting hand. It got stuck, too.

Meanwhile, inside the audience chamber, Quenthel corrected her aim. A second glob erupted from the wand, and it struck the aboleth guard in the mouth just as its teeth were about to close on the drow priestess. Gurgling, the aboleth tried to spit out the sticky ball but could not.

The aboleth that had been out in the corridor with Jeggred had been motionless at first, but it soon moved in to attack. It reared above Jeggred, opening its mouth, attempting to bite. Jeggred raked its belly with his free hand, tearing a deep slash. Green blood oozed out—lots of blood—clouding the water Jeggred breathed. It tasted vile, like pungent seaweed—not at all as Jeggred had imagined.

The aboleth turned and bolted down the tunnel, retreating with powerful strokes of its fluked tail. Jeggred growled, knowing it had probably gone to summon more of the fish-folk.

He continued ripping at the sticky ball that blocked the audience chamber doorway. Each time, his hand got stuck—but each time he ripped off a few strands. Smelling real blood, the draegloth began to pant—then he realized that the blood was his own. His hand was raw where skin had been torn from it.

Inside the audience chamber, Quenthel held Oothoon at bay with her rod. The aboleth matriarch stared for several moments, her three eyes unblinking, then she launched herself out of the niche. Mouth gaping, she sped across the chamber.

For some reason that Jeggred could not imagine, Quenthel seemed to be having trouble making her rod work. Only at the last moment did its magic come to life. A glob streaked toward Oothoon—and missed. As Quenthel flailed back in terror, the aboleth matriarch closed on her, and swallowed the high priestess whole.

For a moment, Jeggred could only stare in horror. His mistress was gone. Eaten. Dead!

Fury seized him. He tore at the sticky mess that held him, heedless of the skin that was being ripped from his hands and arms. Panting water in and out of his lungs—or perhaps vomiting it up and swallowing it again—he thrashed like a fish caught in a net.

All the while, Oothoon stared at him mockingly, one tentacle stroking a bulge in her stomach.

The sticky mass blocking the doorway tore but did not come free. Tipping his head back in frustration—and tearing out yet more hair that had become stuck in the viscous glob—Jeggred howled in rage and sorrow but at last came to his senses.

The Mistress was wise, he thought. She had foreseen this.

And she had given him an order—a final order that had to be carried out quickly, before the wounded aboleth returned with reinforcements.

Wrenching himself free of the sticky doorway, Jeggred swam as fast as he could down the corridor, looking for a way out.

Pharaun listened dispassionately as Jeggred gasped out his story. The draegloth was dripping wet and still making the transition to breathing air again. He sucked in great, gurgling breaths that might have been construed—were they made by a creature that was not demon-spawned—to be sobs.

“She’s been eaten,” Jeggred said, his head low and all four arms hanging dejectedly at his sides. “Mistress Quenthel is dead.”

Pharaun regarded the draegloth coldly and said, “Thanks to you.”

The comment normally would have caused Jeggred to leap forward, snarling for blood, but instead he stood as quietly as a rothe waiting for slaughter.

Danifae, standing in the tunnel beside the river, glanced at Pharaun.

“Is it even possible?” she asked. “Even without her spells, Mistress Quenthel should have been capable of defeating the aboleth. Her armor and enchantments alone should have protected her from—”

“He said she was swallowed whole,” Valas interjected. “She never had a chance.”

At the mercenary’s blunt words, Jeggred’s shoulders slumped still lower. Hunkering down, the draegloth wrapped his smaller arms around his knees and stared blankly at the river.

Pharaun nodded to himself. As Jeggred had been relating what had happened in the aboleth city, Pharaun grew increasingly certain that the draegloth truly believed his mistress was dead.

Danifae touched his arm lightly and asked, “What should we do next, Master Pharaun? You’re the leader now—it’s your decision.”

Pharaun noted how Danifae had glanced at Valas as she spoke, as if she was watching the mercenary for any challenge to Pharaun’s leadership.

Valas, having noted the same thing, grunted, then shrugged.

“Yes,” he said, meeting Pharaun’s eye. “What now? Continue the search for the ship of chaos—or make our way back to Menzoberranzan?”

Pharaun’s answer was immediate.

“We’re still under orders from the Matron Mother,” he told them briskly, “and I am still under orders from the Archmage of Menzoberranzan. Until we hear otherwise, we continue our quest to find out what’s happened to Lolth. And that means finding the ship.”

Danifae met his eyes and asked, “All of us?”

Pharaun stared at her.

“Since you didn’t keep your part of the bargain,” he said slowly, watching for Danifae’s reaction, “what reason do I have to keep mine?”

Danifae’s eyes blazed as she lost her usual control.

“But you promised!” she spat.

Jeggred, sensing the sudden tension in the air, looked up and growled softly. Valas glanced back and forth between Pharaun and Danifae.

“Promised what?” the mercenary asked.

Pharaun ignored the question.

“You made a promise, too,” the Master of Sorcere reminded Danifae in a low voice. He patted the spellbook he’d been reading earlier. “When you slipped away to speak to Quenthel, did you honestly think I wouldn’t listen in?”