Ричард Байерс - Dissolution

At the top of the steps were a small landing and a limestone door with a rounded top. Two sentries, an orc and a canine-faced gnoll with sores on his muzzle, sat on the floor looking bored. The disguised teachers made a show of examining the door. «Can you knock it down?» Pharaun whispered. «When the bugbears couldn't? Don't count on it. Can you open it with magic?» «Probably. It's magically sealed, so a counterspell should suffice, but I don't want our friends to observe me casting it. That really would compromise my disguise. Stand where you obstruct their view and do something distracting.» «Right.» Ryld positioned himself in the appropriate spot and glowered up at the two bugbears. «We can open it. What loot is inside?» The larger bugbear scowled and, the odious object in his mouth garbling his speech a little, said, «We made a deal. It didn't say nothing about no loot.»

«Smylla took Sis's treasure,» Ryld replied. «We want it back, and extra too, for wergild.» «Hell with that.» The bugbear with the missing teeth reached for the knife tucked through his belt. Ryld could see it was a butcher's tool, not a proper fighting blade, but no doubt it served in the latter capacity well enough. Ryld rested his hand on the hilt of his short sword, the weapon of choice for these tight quarters, and said, «You want to fight, we'll fight. I'll slice your face off your skull and wear it like a breechcloth, but my brother and I came to kill Smylla, not you. Let's talk. If you never get the door—» «Open,» Pharaun said. White light shone at Ryld's back, making the bugbears wince. Squinting, the warrior whirled and scrambled for the opening. «Hey!» yelped the smaller bugbear. Ryld felt a big hand fumble at his shoulder, trying to grab him, but it was an instant too slow. He followed Pharaun over the threshold and slammed the door. «You need to hold it shut,» the wizard said. «I can't do it for long.» Leaning forward, Ryld planted his hands on the limestone slab and braced himself. The door bucked inward. For a split second, the dark elf's feet slid on the calcite floor, then they caught, and he held the barrier in place. Barely. Meanwhile, Pharaun was peering about. He gave a little cry of satisfaction, picked up a small iron bar, and set it so it overlapped the edge of the door and the jamb about halfway up. When he took his hand away, the charm remained in place.

«This is quite a clever little device,» the wizard said. «Oh, and you can let go now.»

Pharaun turned the mechanical locks his spell of opening had disengaged, snapping each shut in its turn. It was actually the enchanted length of iron that had up to then kept the goblinoids out, but he thought he and Ryld might as well be as secure as possible. It also seemed the courteous thing to do. His hostess, however, didn't seem to appreciate the gesture. «Get out!» she croaked. «Get out, or I'll slay you with my sorcery!» The masters turned. Smylla Nathos had lit her sparsely furnished room with a pair of slender brass rods, the tips of which emitted a steady magical glow. They protruded from the necks of wax-encrusted wine bottles like tapers sitting in candelabra, which they perhaps were meant to resemble. Maybe Smylla missed the spellcaster's traditional mode of illumination but couldn't obtain it anymore. She herself lay at the limit of the light, on a cot in the shadows at the far end of the room. Pharaun could just barely make her out.

«Good afternoon, my lady,» the wizard said, bowing. «It shames me beyond measure to ignore your request. Yet should this gentleman and I pass through your door a second time, the bugbears and their ilk will rush in, and that, I think, is the very eventuality you sought to forestall.» «Who are you? You don't talk like an orc.» «My lady is a marvel of perspicacity. We are in fact drow lords come to consult you on a matter of some importance.» «Why are you disguised?»

«The usual reason: To confound our enemies. May we approach? It's tedious trying to converse across the length of the room.» Smylla hesitated, then said, «Come.» Pharaun and Ryld started forward. Behind them, the bugbears were cursing, shouting threats and questions, and pounding on the far side of the door. After four paces, the wizard's stomach turned at yet another stench, this one humid and gangrenous. He'd half expected something of the sort, but that didn't make it any easier to bear. Even the phlegmatic Ryld looked discomfited for an instant. «Close enough,» Smylla said, and Pharaun supposed it was. He had no desire to come any nearer to that wasted form with its boils and pustules, even though the enchantments bound into his mantle and Rylds cloak and dwarven armor would probably protect them from infection. «Can you help us?» asked Ryld. The sick woman leered. «Will you pay me with the magnificent great-sword you wear across your back?» Pharaun was somewhat impressed. The illusion of pig-faced orcishness shrouding his friend made Splitter look like a battle-axe, but Smylla's rheumy, sunken eyes had pierced that aspect of the deception. When he recovered from his surprise, Ryld shook his head. «No, I won't give you the sword, I worked too hard to get it, and I need it to stay alive, but if you want, I can use it to clear away the goblinoids outside. My comrade and I are also carrying a fair amount of gold.» Her dry white hair spread about her head, Smylla lay propped against a mound of stained, musty pillows. She struggled to hitch herself up straighter, then abandoned the effort. Apparently it was beyond her strength. «Gold?» she said. «Do you know who I am, swordsman? Do you know my history?» «I do,» Pharaun said. «The gist of it, anyway. It happened after I more or less withdrew from participation in the affairs of the great Houses.» «What do you know?» she asked. «An expedition from House Faen Tlabbar,» the wizard replied, «ventured up into the Lands of Light to hunt and plunder. When they returned, a lovely human sorceress and clairvoyant accompanied them, not as a newly captured slave but as their guest. «Why did you want to come? Perhaps you were fleeing some implacable enemy, or were fascinated by the grace and sophistication of my people and the idea of living in the exotic Underdark. My hunch is that you wanted to learn drow magic, but it's pure speculation. No outsider ever knew. «For that matter, why did the Faen Tlabbar oblige you? That's an even greater mystery. Conceivably someone harbored amorous feelings for you, or you, too, had secrets to teach.» «I had a way of persuading them,» Smylla said. «Obviously. Once you reached Menzoberranzan, you made yourself useful to House Faen Tlabbar as countless minions from the lesser races had done before you. The difference being that you were accorded a certain status, even a degree of familiarity. Matron Ghenni let you dine with the family and attend social functions, where you reportedly acquitted yourself with a drowlike poise and charm.»

«I was their pet,» said Smylla, sneering at the memory, «a dog dressed in a gown and trained to dance on its hind legs. I just didn't know it at the time.» «I'm sure many saw you that way. Perhaps some saw something else. From all accounts, Matron Ghenni behaved as if she regarded you as a ward, just one notch down from a daughter, and with the mistress of the Fourth House indulging you, few would dare challenge your right to comport yourself like a Menzoberranyr noble. Indeed, no one did, until she turned against you.» «Until I fell ill,» said the sorceress. «Quite. Was it a natural disease, bred, perhaps, by the lack of the searing sunlight that is a natural condition for your kind? Or did an enemy infect you with poison or magic? If so, was the culprit someone inside House Faen Tlabbar, who saw you as a rival for Ghenni's favor, or the agent of an enemy family, depriving their foes of a resource?» «I was never able to find out. That's funny coming from me, isn't it?» «Ironic, perhaps. At any rate, several priestesses tried to cure you, but for some reason, the magic failed, whereupon Ghenni summarily expelled you from her citadel.» «Actually,» Smylla said, «she sent a couple trolls, slave soldiers, to murder me. I escaped them and the castle, too. Afterward, I tried to offer my services to other Houses, noble and merchant alike, but no door would open to a human who'd lost the favor of Faen Tlabbar.» «My lady,» said Pharaun, «if it's any consolation, you were still receiving precisely the same treatment we would have given a member of our own race. No dark elf would abide the presence of anyone afflicted with an incurable malady. The Spider Queen taught us the weak must die, and in any case, what if the sickness was contagious?» «It's not a consolation.» «Fair enough. To continue the tale: Unwelcome anywhere else, you made your way to the Braeryn. Despite your infirmity, some magic remained within your grasp, and you employed it to cow the residents of this particular warren into providing you with a private space in which to live. I daresay that wasn't easy.