Ричард Байерс - Dissolution

«Yes,» Syrzan said, «I've watched your people for a long while. I discovered the cabal of renegade males some forty years ago. More recently, I observed the priestesses' debility; no mere dark elves could hide such an enormous change from an observer with my talents. I remembered the would-be rebels and arranged for them to make the same discovery, then I emerged from the shadows and offered them my services.»

«Why?» Pharaun asked. «Your collaborators are drow, and you're, if you'll pardon my bluntness, a member of an inferior species. Jumped up vermin, really. You don't expect Houndaer and the boys to honor a pact with you once the prize is won? Dark elves don't even keep faith with one another.» «Fortunately, the prize won't be won for decades, and during those years, I'll be subtly working to impose my will on my associates. Long before they assume the rulership of the city, I'll be ruling them.» «I see. The fools have given you your opening, and now that which you could never conquer from the outside you'll subjugate from within, extending the web of compulsion farther and farther, one assumes, until all Menzoberranyr are mind-slaves marching to your drum.» «Obviously, you understand the fundamentals of illithid society,» said Syrzan.

«You probably also know that we prefer to dine on the brains of lesser sentients and that we share your own race's fondness for torture. Still, some of your folk will fare all right. I can't eat or flay everyone, can I?» «Not unless you want to wind up a king of ghosts and silence. And where, may I ask, do these stone-burning fire bombs come from?» «Menzoberranzan isn't the only drow city possessed of ambitious males,» the illithilich said. Pharaun was momentarily speechless. Another drow city— «Now, it's your turn to satisfy my curiosity,» Syrzan said, interrupting the drow's reverie. «I live for the opportunity.» «When Houndaer and the others explained our scheme, did you sincerely consider joining us?» Pharaun grinned and said, «For about a quarter of a second.»

«Why did you reject the idea? You're no more faithful or less ambitious than any other drow.» «Or illithid, I'll hazard. Why then did I remain firm in my resolve to betray you to Gromph?» The slender dark elf spread his hands. «So many reasons. For one, I'm a notable wizard, if I do say so myself, and in Menzoberranzan we mages have our own tacit hierarchy. In recent years, I've channeled my aspirations into that. Should I rise to the top, it will make me a personage nearly as exalted as a high priestess.»

Syrzan flipped its tentacles, a gesture that conveyed impatience, and a flake of skin fell off. Unlike the slimy hide of living mind flayers, the lich's flesh was cracked and dry. «The renegades are trying to place themselves above the females,» the undead creature said. «I understand that, but I doubt it'll work out the way they plan, or even the way you plan.»

«You believe the priestesses are too formidable, even divested of their spells?»

«Oh, they're powerful. They may well extinguish this little cabal. Yet for the moment, I'm more concerned about the undercreatures. Do you realize how many goblins there are, how fervently they hated us even before you maddened them, or how dangerous your stone-consuming fire is? It could be that after they riot, we won't have a Menzoberranzan left for anyone to rule.» «Nonsense. The orcs will have their hour, and your people will butcher them.» Pharaun sighed. «That's what folk keep telling me. I wish your consensus comforted me, but it doesn't. That's one of the drawbacks of knowing yourself shrewder than everybody else.» «I assure you, the orcs cannot prevail.»

«At the very least, they'll destroy some of the lovely architecture the founders sculpted from the living rock, and they'll set a defiant example for future generations of thralls. Your scheme will harm not merely the priestesses but Menzoberranzan itself, and I disapprove of that. It's sloppy and inept. Only a fool mars the very treasure he's striving to acquire.» A sneer in its tone, Syrzan said, «I wouldn't have taken you for a patriot.» «Odd, isn't it? I'll tell you something even stranger. In my way, I'm also a devout child of Lolth. Oh, its never kept me from pursuing my own ends—even past the point of murdering a priestess or two—but though I strive for personal preeminence, I would never seek to topple the entire social order she established. I certainly wouldn't conspire to place net chosen people and city under the rule of a lesser creature.» «Even gods die, drow. Perhaps Lolth is no more. If Menzoberranzan is indeed the mortal realm she loves best, why else would she abandon you?» «A test? A punishment? A whim? Who can say? But I doubt the Spider Queen is dead. I saw her once, and I don't just mean the manifestation who visited Menzoberranzan during the Time of Troubles. I've gazed upon the Dark Mother in the full majesty of her divinity, and I can't imagine that anything could ever lay her low.» «You have looked upon the Spider Queen?» «I thought you might be interested in that,» said the mage. «It wasn't long after I graduated from Sorcere, returned home to serve my mother, and sided with my sister Sabal against her twin Greyanna. One night, a delegation of priestesses came to our stalactite castle. Triel Baenre herself led the expedition—she was Mistress of Arach-Tinilith in those days—and she'd brought along dignitaries from Houses Xorlarrin, Agrach Dyrr, Barrison Del'Armgo, and other families of note. It was a momentous occasion, especially for me, because all these great ladies had come to arrest me. «I never did find out if Greyanna instigated the affair. It was the kind of thing she would have done, but it needn't have been her. You'll scarcely credit it, but in those days, I was considered an insolent, uppity scapegrace, a far cry from the meek and modest gentleman you see before you today. A good many clerics may have suspected me of irreverence.» «This is what happened to Tsabrak,» Syrzan said. «The priestesses arrested him, turned him into a drider, and drove him forth.»

«Sometimes they mete out punishments even fouler,» Pharaun said, «but first they examine you to determine your true sentiments. I hoped my mother would intervene. She was one of the great Matrons of Menzoberranzan, and I'd scored a number of coups for House Mizzrym, but she never said a word. Perhaps she believed me a traitor in the making or was reluctant to disagree with the Baenre. Maybe she simply found my predicament amusing. Miz'ri's like that. «Be that as it may, the priestesses threw me in a dungeon and put me to the question, employing whips and other toys. Somehow I managed to resist the urge to make a spurious confession merely to stop the pain. A fellow wizard cast a mind-reading spell, only to slap up against the defenses most mages erect to protect their thoughts. I imagine an illithid would have smashed right through, but he was unequal to the challenge.» «Then you passed the test?» Syrzan asked. «Alas, no,» Pharaun laughed. «The examiners deemed the results inconclusive and accordingly asked a higher power to make the determination. They laid me on an obsidian altar, performed a dancing, keening, self-mutilating ritual together, and the torture chamber faded away. You'd think I would have been glad of it, wouldn't you, but my new surroundings were no less ominous.» Pharaun's captors had ignored his silver ring, obviously thinking it mere jewelry, if they noticed it at all. As soon as he'd looked at Syrzan, he'd discovered its magic operated even within the confines of the lich's phantasmal creation. He forced an idea into his subconscious and continued to prattle. «The priestesses had drugged me to prevent my resisting their attentions, then used me with considerable brutality. It took me awhile just to lift my battered head and look around. When I did, I perceived that I lay atop an enormous object with the shape of a staff or length of cord made of a substance that gave ever so slightly but was as strong as adamantine nonetheless. Otherwise, it would have disintegrated under its own weight. Far ahead, my perch fused at right angles with another such object, which connected with still others, the pattern spreading out to form, I suddenly realized, a spiderweb of insane complexity, huge enough to make a world. If it was attached to anything, the anchor points were too distant for me to see. Perhaps it just went on and on forever.» «The Demonweb,» Syrzan said. Pharaun surreptitiously examined his captor's talismans, using the magic in the silver ring, trying to figure out which one would allow an illithid to send a psionic «Call» to every orc and goblin in Menzoberranzan. «Very good,» the mage said. «I see you were paying attention when your teachers discoursed on the sundry planes of existence. I was indeed exiled to that layer of the Abyss where Lolth holds sway. I remembered hearing that the strands of the web were hollow and that much of the life of the place existed inside. Well, I certainly couldn't see any source of food or water on the outside, let alone a portal to take me home, so, still dazed and sick from the clerics' attentions, I started crawling and searching for a means of entry. «Eventually, I might have found one, but I ran out of time. The strand I was traversing began to tremble. I peered about and saw her scuttling toward me.» «Lolth?» Syrzan asked.