F O U R (28 page)

War Of The Spider Queen

Book 1

Dissolution

the pieces turned to some  useful purpose. Possibly chow for other thralls.

oil fromThe fencing teacher sat down and rem the pockets of his garments.  He unfastened his short sword foved a cloth, a whetstone, and a v

ial of

rom  his

belt, pulled on the hilt, and made a little spitting sound of displeasure when the blade, which he had been forced to put away bloody

, stuck in the scabbard. Heyanked m

ore forcefully, and it came free.

He looked over at Pharaun, who was regarding with him  with a sort of quizzical exasperation.

"Talk," the warrior said. "I can care for my  gear and listen at the same  time ".

"Is this how you attend to mind-boggling revelations? I suppose I'm  luckyou don't have to use the Jakes. All right, here it is  ... L           y

olth is gone. Well, ma be

not gone, but unavailable at least in the sense that it's no longer possible for her yMenzoberranyr clerics to receive spells from  her "

.

For a moment, Ryld thought he'd  misheard the words. "I guess that's  a joke?"

he asked. "I'm  glad you didn't make it while we were in the middle of a crowd.

There's no point compounding our crimes with blasphemy."

"Blasphemy  or not, it's the truth."Rag in hand, R

yld scrubbed tacky blood off the short sword."What are you suggesting," the weapons m

aster asked, "another Time  of

Tr

Pharaun grinned and said, "Possiblyoubles? Could there be two such upheavals?", but I think not. When the gods wereforced to inhabit the m

ortal world,  the arcane forces we wizards command

fluctuated unpredictably.  One day,  we could mold the world like clay. The next,we couldn't turn ice to water

.  That isn't happening now. My powers  remain

constant as ever, from  which I tentatively  infer this is not the Time  of Troubles

come  again but a different sort of occurrence."

"What sort?"

detect the occurrence at all.""Oh, am  I supposed to know that already? I thought I was doing rather well to

R"Only if it's really happening."yld inspected the point of the short stabbing blade, then took the hone to it.

Bemused by Pharaun's contention, he wondered how his canny friend could

credit such a ludicrous idea.

"I want you to think back over the confrontation from  which we just

emer                                he

other priestess cast divine mged," said the Master of Sorcere.  "Did you even once see Greyanna or tagic from  her own mind and inner strength asopposed to off a scroll or out of som

e  device?"

"I was fighting the skeletons.""You ke

ep  track  of ever    on the  battle

see them  casting spells out of their own innate power?"y foe      ground. I know  you do. So, did  you

Ryld thought that of course he had . . . then realized he hadn't.

"What does that suggest?" Pharaun asked.  "They have no spells left in theirheads, or only a few

,  which they're hoarding desperately because they can

't solicit

new ones from  their goddess. Lolth has withdrawn her favor from

Menzoberranzan,  or  ...  something ".

"W"Why would she do that?"ould she need a reason—or at any  rate, one her mortal children can

comprehend? She is a deity of chaos. Perhaps she's testing us somehow, or else

she's angry and deems us unworthy of her patronage.

"Or,  as I suggested before, the cause of her silence, if in fact she is mute when

Richard Lee Byers

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War Of The Spider Queen

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Dissolution

her clerics pray to her'and not just  uncooperative, may be somealtogether

have  only one. Perhaps even another happe faith and clergy in Menzobenstance involving all the gods. Sinc

thing else

e  we

rranzan, it's difficult to judge."

"Wait," Ryld said. He unstoppered his  little bottle of oil. The sharp smell

provided a welcome counterpoint to the moist stink of the dung fields "I.  admitI didn't see Greyanna or any of the lesser priestesses worki         ,

ng magic, but didn't

you yourself once tell me  that in the turmoil  of  battle, it's often easier and more reliable to cast your effects from  a wand o

r parchment?"

"I suppose I did. Still, under normal circumstances, would you expect a pair ofspell casters to conjure every single m

anifestation that way? Just before our

exit, I saw Greyanna groping in the ether for a weapon that was slow in comito her hand. The sister I rem                     ng

ember would have said to the Hells with it and

dumped some  other magic on our heads. That is, unless some

circumscribed her options."                   thing had

ld conceded, "but when the clerics lost their powers in the T"I see what you mi     ean," Ry

me  of Tr

Houses. Those who believed the change moubles, it destabilized  the balance of power among the noble ade them stronger in relative terms

just the usual level of controlled estruck hard to supplant their rivals. As  far as I can see, that isn't happening now, nmity ".He laid the short sword aside and picked up Splitter

.

Pharaun nodded and said, "You'll recall that none of the Houses attemexploit the Ti                          pting to

me  of Troubles ultimately profited thereby.  To  the contrary the

Baenre and others punished them  for their tem             , erity. Perhaps  the  matron motherstook the lesson to heart."

"So instead of hatching schemes to topple  one anotherevery single priestess in a grand conspiracy to conceal their fall from,  they . . . what? Enlisted grace? If

your mad idea is right, that's  what they must have done.""Why is that implausible? Picture the  day—a few tendays past?—when th

e

lost the ability to draw power from  th                 ycollaborate in m           eir goddess. Clerics of Lolth routinely

agical rituals, so they would have discovered fairly quickly that

they were all similarly afflicted. Apprised of the scope of the situation, TrielBaenre, possibly in hurried consultation  with our esteem

and the m                     ed Mistress Quenthel atrons of the Council, might  well have decided to conceal the

priesthood's debility and sent the word  round in timeblabbing."                       to keep anyone from

"The word would have to pass pretty damnSplitter's                   quickly," said Ryld, examining

edge.  As  he'd expected,  despite all the  bone  it had just bitten thr

was as preternaturally keen and free of notches and chips a       ough, it s ever."Oh, I don't know," the wizard said. "If you lost the strength of your arm

would you be eager to announce it, knowing the news would find i    s, ts way  toeveryone who'd ever taken a dislike to you?  Anyway, since this is  the  first w

e've

learned of the problem, the deception obviously did organize in time ".

im"Or else everything is as it always agination."            was, and the plot exists only in your

s real. I'm  sure Triel deemed the ruse necessary to make sure no visitor

would discern Menzoberranzan'"Oh, it'           s  sudden

"And to fix it so we poor m       weakness." He grinned and added, ales wouldn'our betters had lost a m        t swoon with terror upon learning that

"Well, it'      easure of their ability to guide and protect us."s an amusing fancy ".

"Fire and glare, you're a hard boy to convince, and I'll be cursed if I  know

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why.  You've already lived through the Time  of TrBaenre'                  oubles, the previous Matron

s  death, and the defeat of Menzoberranzan by a gaggle of wretched

dwarves. Why do you assume  our world cannot have altered in somefundam

ental way when you've watched it change so many times before?  Open

your mind, and you'll see my  hypothesis ma"What do you mean?"         kes sense of all that has puzzled us."

"Whatever they're up to, how is it that  for the past month an unusual numberof m

ales have dared to elope from  their families? Because they somehow

tumbled to the fact that a priestess's wrath now constitutes less of a threat."

"While the clerics," said Ryld, catching  the thread of the arto catch them  because they want to know  how the m     gument, "are eager

ales know about the Silence,

if we're going to call it that. Hells, if all those males had the nerve to run away,

maybe they even know more about the problem  than the females do ".

"Conceivably," said Pharaun. "The priestesses can't  rule it out until they strap afew of them  to torture racks, can  they? But they don't want G

romph involved

with capturing the rogues because . . . ?""They don't want him  to find out what the runaways know."

"Very good, apprentice. We'll ma

"Do you think the archm    ke a logician of you yet."age already knows the divines have lost their magic?""I'd  bet your left eye on it, but he'

s  in  the same  cart as the high priestesses.  He

posits that the fugitives might know even more."R

yld nodded. "In a war,  or any crisis, you have to cover every possibility.""The notion of the Silence even explains why the Jewel Box was so c

rowded

and why som                             ,e  of the patrons were in a belligerent humor or even bruised and battered. Fem

ales divested of their magic  might  well  feel  weak  and vulnerable.

Consciously or otherwise, they'dhousehold and com        worry about losing control of the folk in their

that," said R    pensate by instituting a harsher discipline than usual." "I see yld."Of course you do. As I said, the one  hypothesis accounts for every a

nomaly.

That's  why we can be confident the idea is valid."

Pharaun blinked, narrowed his eyes "How does it account for the relative paucity of goods in the Bazaar?"in thought, and finally laughed. "Youknow, it'

s  diff

irrelevancies. Actuallyicult for genius to soar, you're right. At first glance, the Silence doesn' in the face of these carping little t  explain the