Ричард Байерс - Dissolution

Stone, liquid as magma, flowed upward from the ground into the elemental's body. Most of the rock served to grow the creature bigger and taller, but some of it accumulated in the palm of its hand, forming a spiky sphere that it no doubt intended to hurl at Pharaun. The wizard snatched a tiny vial of water from one of his pockets. Brandishing it, he chanted. He felt the walls of the cosmos attenuating, and for a moment, sensed an infinite number of Pharauns conjuring in adjacent realities, receding away from him like reflections in a mirror, growing subtly less and less like himself with each step.

A pulse of scarlet light struck him in the chest. Gelroos must have conjured it. The blaze of pain was extraordinary. Pharaun strained to complete the last word of power and final mystic pass without a fumble. He wasn't sure he'd succeeded until a vacancy, a gap not in matter but in the medium that underlies it, opened under the elemental's feet. The creature cocked back its arm to throw, and the animating force fell out of the body it had created for itself and down the hole. The wound in the fabric of the world contracted and sealed itself. Rumbling and thudding, the huge stone form fell apart. Pharaun took stock of himself. It didn't look as if the red light had done more than scrape and prick his skin. He grinned down at Gelroos. «Not quite, colleague.» «This time,» the younger wizard said through gritted teeth. He started casting, and Pharaun did the same.

Force crackled around the outcast Mizzrym but failed to bite into his flesh. His own magic, launched from the same round little mirror he used to check his appearance, made the air surrounding Gelroos tinkle like chiming crystals. The junior wizard screamed, and in the blink of an eye he was transformed into an inert figure made of cool, smooth glass.

Metal rang below Pharaun's feet. He looked down. Ryld appeared as if he might be having a difficult time of it, but a conjured barrage of ice, flung into the midst of the surviving students, turned the tide. Ryld cut down his fellow Master of Melee-Magthere, whirled to do the same to a young spearman, and the fight was over. Pharaun surveyed the battlefield. Though burned and incapacitated, some of the warriors-in-training were still alive, but that was all right. The important thing had always been to murder his fellow instructors. That was what would impress the rogues. He floated back down to earth. «That wasn't too difficult. Looking back, it's a pity we didn't slaughter Greyanna and her allies in the same fashion.»

Ryld grunted, pulled up the hem of a fallen fighter's cloak, and wiped the blood from Splitter. «Can you shatter Gelroos before we decamp?» Pharaun asked. «Otherwise, he'll eventually revert to flesh and blood.» «If you like.» Ryld hefted his blade.

Wrapped in a plain, dark piwafwi, the cowl drawn over her head, Quenthel tramped south across the city. The experience was strange, unique in her personal experience. She was on foot, not mounted on a lizard or enthroned on a floating stone disk. She was alone, not accompanied by a column of guards and servants, and most strangely of all, no one paid her any real attention. Oh, slaves scurried out of her path, and males offered her a cursory show of respect, but no one feared her or cringed in awe of her. Indeed, she herself had to offer obeisance to the noble females she encountered along the way, lest their soldiers chastise her for insolence. It was galling, unsettling, and somehow tempting as well. In her most private thoughts, she'd imagined herself simply running away from the implacable foe who worked so assiduously to kill her. It might be the only way she could survive. If she opted to flee this minute, she was already off to a good start. She'd managed to slip away from Tier Breche with no one, she hoped, the wiser. Flight was a cowardly notion, though, unworthy of a Baenre, and it angered her when she entertained it even for a moment. Until the attacks began, she never had before. She turned a corner, and Qu'ellarz'orl, came into view. Her destination was nigh, and she focused her thoughts on the task at hand. Sneaking away from the Academy had been a little complicated. First, she'd had to surreptitiously lay hands on nondescript outerwear that would allow her to pass for a commoner. Such a piwafwi certainly hadn't existed among her own garments, all of which were costly and bejeweled, but she'd found it among the effects of one of the kitchen staff. After disposing of the cook lest the missing garment be reported, she had to exit Arach-Tinilith without anyone realizing it was her, including her own watchful sentries. Finally, she needed to skulk to the edge of the plateau and float down to the cavern floor below without the guards at the top of the staircase noticing. She'd managed it, though, and she was confident of her ability to sneak back into the Academy, even after the plateau had been put on a state of heightened security. A road ran up the eminence that was Qu'ellarz'orl to the castles of Menzoberranzan's greatest families. It wasn't off limits to commoners. Merchants and supplicants used it all the time, but they were subject to search and interrogation by House Baenre patrols.

Quenthel started up the twisting road and made it better than halfway to the top before she heard the distinctive grunt and hiss of a riding lizard. She scurried off the path into the forest of giant, phosphorescent mushrooms, where she crouched behind a particularly massive specimen. The patrol, a mounted officer and a dozen foot soldiers, marched by without so much as glancing her way. Hiding from her own troops was another bizarre, almost surreal experience. When the warriors passed, she hurried on up the slope. In another minute, she reached the top of the rise. Before her rose the most opulent fortresses in the city. At the easternmost end of the expanse, House Baenre towered on the highest ground of all, dwarfing every other structure. She turned her steps toward the tall, slender spire known as Spelltower Xorlarrin, residence of the Fifth House. Bands of shimmering faerie fire striped the iron walls. She climbed the steep steps to the gate under the watchful eyes of the sentries on the battlements. Had she not already known it, their vigilance would have shown that she could maintain complete anonymity no longer. Still, she'd do the best she could. When a sentry armed with spear and long sword strode over to ask her business, she said, «I'm going to show you something remarkable. Don't let your amazement show.» He looked skeptical. He lived in the Spelltower, after all, and had seen his share of marvels. «All fight, ma'am. Show me, if you will.»

She twitched open her piwafwi, giving him a glimpse of the Baenre House insignia hanging at her throat. His eyes widened, but otherwise, he did a fair job of doing as she'd bade him. «How may I serve you?» he asked softly, the slightest quaver in his voice. «I want to enter the tower without anyone paying the least attention to me, and I want to talk to your matron alone.» «Please, come with me.»

The guard led her through the gate and into a confusion of service passages such as every castle possessed. The corridors eventually brought them into a nicely appointed room with comfortable-looking sandstone chairs, a carnelian-and-obsidian sava set awaiting a pair of players, and frescos of some of Lolth's attendant demons adorning the walls. Her escort departed in search of his mistress, leaving Quenthel to prowl restlessly about the room. Finally the door opened, and Zeerith Q'Xorlarrin slipped through. Her features were plain and nondescript, but she was notable for a dignified bearing and composure that rarely failed her even in the most extreme situations. For a matron, her costume was rather plain and austere. The two princesses saluted one another, then Zeerith ushered her guest to a seat. «When Antatlab told me you'd come without a single guard, I wondered if he'd gone mad,» the matron remarked. «Can I trust him not to gossip about my visit?»