Ричард Байерс - Dissolution

Most likely the netherspirit would do exactly that, and if it failed, Gromph had six more waiting in line to pick up where it left off. Perhaps it wouldn't even come to that. He had, after all, manipulated events in such a way as to inspire more mundane assassins. A third-year student came scurrying up with a stubby chalcedony wand in his hand. Recalled to more immediate concerns, Gromph sighed and prepared to teach the youth how the device worked.

Pretending to take an interest in an itinerant vendor's rack of cheaply forged and poorly balanced daggers, Ryld turned and surreptitiously surveyed the intersection.

A fellow with what the weapons master suspected were self-inflicted sores on his legs chanted for alms and shook a ceramic bowl. Since it was a rare if not demented dark elf who ever felt the tug of pity, the beggar sat near the entrance to a shabby boarding house catering to non-drow. A female hurried by with a hooked and pointed pole—virtually a pike, when one really looked at it—on her shoulder and a giant weasel on a leash. She was plainly an exterminator headed out to rid a household of some substantial infestation. A snarling noble from House Hunzrin drew his rapier and lashed a commoner with the flat, evidently because the latter had been a trifle slow stepping out of his way. The Hunzrins were notorious for their virulent arrogance. Perhaps it stemmed from the fact that they controlled the greater part of Menzoberranzan's agriculture. Or maybe they were compensating for the fact that, for all their wealth, they were stuck living in «mere East.» Any number of other rather drab and hungry-looking souls rushed on about their business. «Reliving childhood memories?» the wizard asked. «You forget,» Ryld replied, «I was born in the Braeryn. I had to work my way up to get to Eastmyr.» «I daresay you took one look around, then kept right on climbing.» «You're right. Just now, I was checking to see if someone's tailing us. No one is.» «What a pity. I was hoping that if we asked enough questions in diverse male gatherings, some more friends of the runaways would try to murder us, or at least seek to learn what we're about. Perhaps the rogues are too canny for that.» «What do we do now?» «Visit the next vile tavern, I suppose.» They started walking, and Pharaun continued, «Say, did I ever tell you how, two days into my first mission to the World Above, I wound up having to tail a human mage while the sun was blazing in the sky? I was blind with the glare, my eyes—»

«Enough,» Ryld said. «You've told this a thousand times.» «Well, it's a good story. I know you'll enjoy hearing it again. There I was, blind with the glare. .» As the two masters strolled on, they passed a doorway sealed with a curtain of spiderweb. Forbidden by sacred law to disturb the silken trap until such time as its builder ceased to occupy it, the luckless occupant of the house had placed a box beneath his front window to serve as a makeshift step.

Across the way, a ragged half-breed child, part dark elf, part human by the look of her, brushed past a drunken laborer, then quickened her pace a trifle. Ryld hadn't actually seen her lift the tosspot's purse, but he was fairly certain she had. Pharaun came to a sudden halt. «Look at this,» he said. Ryld turned, the long, comfortable weight of Splitter shifting ever so slightly across his back. On a wall at the mouth of an alley, someone had clumsily daubed a rudimentary picture of a clawed hand surrounded by flames. Though it was small and smeared in paint that barely contrasted with the stone behind it, Ryld was slightly chagrined that Pharaun had noticed it and he hadn't, but he supposed wizards had a nose for glyphs. «Do you know what this is?» asked Pharaun.

«An emblem of the Skortchclaw horde, one of the larger tribes of orcs. I've been to the Realms that See the Sun a time or two myself, remember?» «Good, I'm glad you confirm my identification. Now, what is it doing here?» Ryld took a reflexive glance around, searching for potential threats, and said, «I assume some orc painted it.» «That would be my supposition, too, but have you ever known a thrall to do such a thing?» «No.» «Of course not. What slave would dare deface the city, knowing that each and every drow takes pride in its perfection?» «A crazy one. We've all seen them go mad under the lash.» «Whereupon they attack their handlers. They don't creep about scrawling on walls. I'd like to questions the people in these houses on cither side. Perhaps someone can shed some light on this occurrence.» «You get curious about the strangest things,» Ryld said, shaking his head. «Sometimes I think you're a little mad yourself.» «Genius is so often misperceived.» «Look, I know this puzzle is going to nag at you, but we're right in the middle of trying to find the runaways and so save your life. Let's stick to that.» The tall, thin wizard smiled and said, «Yes, of course.» They walked on. «But eventually,» Pharaun said after a moment, «when we've located the rogues and covered ourselves in glory—or at least convinced Gromph to let me continue breathing—I am going to inquire into this.» They traveled another block, then a column of roaring yellow fire fell from the sky, engulfing Pharaun's body. Wings beat the air, and an arrow streaked at Ryld.

The netherspirit couldn't see the new enchantments surrounding Tier Breche, but as the uttermost attenuated projection of its substance washed over them, it could feel them. Metaphorically speaking, the wards were not unlike a castle. There was the motte, the steep slopes of which would slow an enemy's approach while the defenders rained missiles down on him. Atop that loomed the thick, high walls, virtually unbreachable and unclimbable. Amid those was the recessed gate, defensible by spears and arrows loosed from three directions.

Within the passage itself, murder holes gaped in the ceiling to rain burning oil on the invaders' heads, while beyond it rose a gatehouse with battlements at the top, another barrier to enclose the first section of the courtyard and turn it into a killing pit. Gromph's first countermagic, the one that had admitted the late and unlamented Beradax to the temple, had stormed the fortress like a rampaging army equipped with catapults, rams, and siege towers. The archmage's second effort resembled a mine sappers had excavated to pass unobtrusively beneath the walls. Except that this hole ran though extradimensional space. As the netherspirit understood it, this method of egress was arranged by the Baenre eldermale so that the occupants of Arach-Tinilith would experience another kind of terror. They had already discovered the dread of a screaming alarm, and they would learn the fear that came when death slipped into their midst without any warning at all. Pulling in the longer tendrils of its ectoplasmic substance, the entity—it and its kind had no names, an advantage in that most wizards therefore lacked the ability to summon them—poured its formless form into the tunnel, albeit not without a measure of trepidation. If Gromph's magic was unable to neutralize the conjurations of his minions, this was where the spirit would discover it in some unpleasant way. As it crept down the mine, it sensed the wards poised above and around it, enchantments like hanging axes, precariously balanced and eager to fall, or taut tripwires attached to crossbows, or caltrops strewn lavishly underfoot. The constructs of mystical force fairly quivered like living things with their compulsion to slay, but none of them detected the intruder. The other end of the tunnel, which would not exist for mortal eyes unless they were magically augmented, opened on a corridor. The netherspirit climbed out and took its bearings. It was inside one of the spider leg annexes of Arach-Tinilith, some distance from Quenthel's suite, but that was all right. It was confident that nothing could bar its path to its target. The intruder hunched and drifted around a corner and saw a novice standing watch. Happily, the dark elf female didn't notice it, though that was scarcely a surprise. For some reason it didn't fully understand, Gromph had given it the guise of a demon of darkness, and it was all but indistinguishable from the ordinary, empty gloom behind it. The netherspirit yearned to kill the mortal, but Gromph had forbidden it to do harm to anyone but Quenthel unless she was fool enough to stand between it and its appointed prey. With a pang of regret, it slipped past the sentry and on down the corridor. Soon it came upon a row of cells. Within the square little rooms, students recited their devotions.