Ричард Байерс - Dissolution

«A true scholar always seeks new experiences. Besides, what's the point of being a dark elf, a lord of the Underdark, if you don't exploit the slave races to the utmost?» «Hmm. I admit they might be no worse than one of those priestesses who demand you grovel and do exactly as you're—» «Hush!» The drum had stopped. «Something's happening,» Pharaun added. Ryld saw that his friend was correct. A stir ran through the crowd and they started to shout, «Prophet! Prophet! Prophet!» The master of Melee-Magthere didn't know what he expected to see next, but it certainly wasn't the figure in the nondescript cloak and hood whose upper body appeared above the heads of the crowd. Perhaps he'd climbed up on a bench or table, or maybe he'd simply levitated, for this «Prophet,» plainly beloved of the lower orders, appeared to be a handsome drow male.

The Prophet let his followers chant and shout for a minute or so, then he raised his slender hands and gradually they subsided. Pharaun leaned close to Ryld again. «It's possible the fellow's not really one of us,» the wizard said. «He's wrapped in a glamour somewhat like ours, but his spell makes every observer perceive him in a favorable light. I imagine the goblins see him as a goblin, the gnolls, as one of their own, and so forth.» «What's inside the illusion?» «I don't know. The enchantment is peculiar. I've never encountered anything quite like it. I can't see through it, but I suspect we're about to learn his intentions.» «My brothers and sisters,» the Prophet said. His voice sparked another round of cheering, and he waited for it to run its course. «My brothers and sisters,» he repeated. «Since the founding of this city, the Menzoberranyr have held our peoples in bondage or in conditions equally degraded. They work us until we die of exhaustion. They torture and kill us on a whim. They condemn us to starve, sicken, and live in squalor.» The audience growled its agreement. «You witness our misery everywhere you look,» the hooded orator continued. «Yesterday, I walked through Manyfolk. I saw a hobgoblin girl-child, surely no older than five or six, trying to pick up a scrap of mushroom from the street. With her teeth! Her hands wouldn't serve. Some drow had magically fused them together behind her back so she would live and die a cripple and a freak.» The crowd snarled in outrage, even though their races commonly engaged in tortures equally cruel, albeit far less varied and imaginative. «I walked through Narbondellyn,» the Prophet said. «I saw an orc, paralyzed in some manner, lying on the ground. A dark elf slit his chest, spread the flaps of skin, cut some ribs with a saw, and whistled his riding lizard over to feed on the still-living thrall's organs. The drow told a companion that he gave the reptile one such meal every tenday to make it a faster racer.»

The audience howled its wrath. One female orc, transported with fury, gashed her cheeks and brow with a piece of broken glass. The Prophet's litany of atrocities ran on and on, and Ryld gradually felt a strange emotion overtaking him. He knew it couldn't be guilt—no dark elf experienced that ridiculous condition—but perhaps it was a kind of shame, a disgust at the sheer waste and childishness manifest in Menzoberranzan's abuse of its undercreatures and a desire to rectify the situation if he could.

The feeling was irrational, of course. The goblins and their kin existed only to serve the pleasure of the drow, and if you ruined one, you just caught or bought another. The weapons master gave his head a shake, clearing it, then turned to Pharaun. Even through his orc mask, the wizard's amusement was apparent. «Resolved to mend your wicked ways?» «I gather you feel the influence, too,» said Ryld. «What's happening?» «The Prophet has magic buttressing his oratory, again, in a sort of configuration I don't quite understand.» «Right, but what's the point of all this bellyaching?» «I assume he'll get around to telling us.» The speaker continued in the same vein a while longer, goading the crowd to the brink of hysteria. At last he cried, «But it does not have to be that way!» The undercreatures howled, and for a moment, until he pushed the feelings away, Ryld felt his magically induced disgust blaze up into savage bloodlust. «We can be avenged! Repay every injury a thousandfold! Cast down the drow to be our slaves! We'll wrap ourselves in silks and cloth-of-gold and make them run naked, feast on succulent viands and feed them garbage! We'll sack Menzoberranzan, and afterward those of us who wish it will return to our own peoples laden with treasure, while the rest of us rule the cavern as our own!» Not likely, thought Ryld. He turned to say as much to Pharaun, then blinked in surprise. The wizard looked as if he was taking this diatribe seriously. «They're just venting their resentment in the form of a fantasy,» the warrior whispered. «They'd never dare, and we'd crush them in a matter of minutes if they did.» «So one would assume,» Pharaun replied. «Come on, I want a closer look.» They started working their way forward through the agitated throng. Some of their fellow spectators plainly resented their shoving. Ryld had to toss one hobgoblin down onto the floor of the sunken arena, but no one seemed to think it odd that they wanted to get closer to the charismatic leader. Others were doing the same. The Prophet continued his oration.

«I thank you for your work and your patience, which soon will reap their reward. Word of our revolt has reached every street and alley. We have warriors everywhere, and each understands what he is to do when he hears the Call.

Meanwhile, the drow suspect nothing. Their arrogance makes them complacent. They won't suspect until it's too late, until the Call comes and we rise as one—until we burn them.» Ryld and Pharaun had forced their way close enough to see the Prophet pick up a sandstone rod and anoint the end with an oil from a ceramic bottle. The rod burst into yellow, crackling flame as if it were made of dry wood, that exotic combustible product of the World Above. The master of Melee-Magthere squinted at the sudden flare of light. «Eyes of the Goddess!» Pharaun exclaimed. «It's a neat trick,» Ryld said, «but surely nothing special by your standards.» «Not the fire, those two bugbears standing behind the Prophet.» «His bodyguards, I imagine. What of them?» «They're Tluth Melarn and one Alton the cobbler, two of our runaways. They're wearing veils of illusion, too, but of a simpler nature. I can see past theirs.»

«Are you serious? What are drow, even rogues, doing aiding the instigator of a slave revolt?» «Perhaps we'll find out when we tail the Prophet and his entourage away from here.» «I taught you how to use the fire pots,» the orator continued, «and my friends and I have brought plenty of them.» He gestured toward several hovering floatchests. «Take them and hide them until the day of reckoning.» The bright notes of a brazen glaur horn blared through the air. For a moment, confused, Ryld thought «the Call" — whatever that was—had arrived, then a thrill of panic, or at least the memory of it, reminded him what the trumpet truly portended. Judging by the goblins' babbling and frantic peering about, they knew, too. «What is it?» Pharaun asked. «You're nobly born,» said Ryld, hearing a trace of an old bitterness in his voice. «Didn't you ever go hunting through the Braeryn, slaying every wretch you could catch?»

The wizard smiled and said, «Now that you mention it, but it's been a long time. It occurs to me that this is probably Greyanna's doing. Not a bad tactic, really, even though it involves a lot of waste motion. Once I shielded us our hunters couldn't pinpoint our location, but they knew our mission would bring us to the Braeryn so they organized a hunt for a party of nobles. The idea is that all the turmoil is likely to flush us out and send us scrambling frantically through the streets, at which point they'll have a better chance of spotting us.» «What's more,» said Ryld, making sure his swords were loose in their scabbards, «your sister gives us the choice of retaining our veils of illusion and being harried by our own kind, or casting them off and facing the wrath of the undercreatures. Either way, someone might do her killing for her.» The Prophet raised his hands for calm, and the undercreatures quieted a little. «My friends, in a moment we will scatter as we must, for a little while longer, but before you go, take the fire pots. Once the danger is past, share the weapons and news of our gathering with all those who were unable to attend. Remember your part in the plan and wait for the Call. Now, go!»