F O U R (63 page)

Specifically, it was one of the few such cr the psionically gifted  species called illithids. eatures  toand ultimately transform itself into          follow the path of wizardry thing was surely prodigiously powerful, ian undead entity known as an alhoon. The entirely capable of reading the masters'mmune to the ravages of time, and still therein.                 minds and discerning the treachery

Like Pharaun, Ryld had sprung up from his bench. The himself at Houndaer, no doubt in an attempt to get his weapons bahulking warrior flung ck.  Pharawho thought he needed his spell components just as badly        un,,  scrambled after his friend.

The weapons master threw a punch,  knocked Houndaer backward off his bench, and snatched up Splitter

.  He whialmost whacked his fellow  teacher with the blade.rled, looking for the  next threat, and

Pharaun reached for his cloak,  then realized Houndaer'scompanion was singing a wordless arpeggio.             unassuming enchantments, he might have resisted thHad Pharaun already been wearing the e song, but instead its power s
piwafwi
 
with all its protective tabbed intohis mind. He laughed convulsively, uncontrollably

,  aFinally                      nd staggered backward.

He'd , he fell to his knees, his stomach muscles clenching and aching. suspected the nondescript little male was more than he'dformidable combatant employing a bland a             seemed, a f guard, and he'd been right. The "craftsmanppearance to throw his adversaries ofwho worked his wonders through the medium of music." was in reality a  bard, a spellcaster Thead and looked around. The bard was eeth gritted, Pharaun shook off the compulsion to laugh. Gasping, he lifted his dagger and starting another song, this    simultaneously drawing his enchanted feet battling R           time pitched falsetto. Houndaer was on his yld, their swords ringing. At  the end of the room, Tsabrak, shifting alhoon simply stood with only his eight legs in agitation, aimed an aits mouth tentacles moving,rrow at Pharaun, while seemingly content to in the doorway the

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War Of The Spider Queen

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Dissolution

let its compatriots do the fighting.Pharaun threw himself sideways. The arrow missed him and clacked and

darkness sprang up between him and the foskipped across the floor. The mage slapped the stone, and a wall of sheltering grace, he scrambled on.          e. Moving with a practiced, silent

Something clamped down on Pharaun's mind, sm

robbing him  of the ability to move. The  undead mind flayer hadn'othering his will and t been idleafter all. Syrzan had sim

wizardry and thus hadn't needed to whply utilized its psionic strength in preference to its irl its three-fingered hands in arcanepasses. The wall of shadow no impediment, the Prophet had

reached out,  found

Pharaun's intellect, and struck a crippling blow.

The barricade of darkness disappeared. Syrzan must have emcountermagic to dispel it and in so doing,  afforded Pharaun  a view ofployed a bit of the

beyond. Rather to his surprise, Houndaer was still alive, perh    space aps because T

sabrak had discarded his bow, drawn a broadsword, and come

alongside him                           to fight .  The two conspirators were trying to catch Ryld between themgenerally an effective tactic, but thus far the teacher'            ,

s
 
piwafwi,
 
dwarven armor

and prowess had preserved him  from  harm                 ,.The T

uin'Tarl made a halfhearted slash, and Ryld, recognizing the feint for

what it was, didn't react. The pale phosphorescence of the carvings gleaminon his naked limbs, T                         g

sabrak spat venom

shrill singing to a crescendo, crossed his legs, and wrapped his aonto his blade. The bard brought his rms tightlaround his torso, all but tying him                    y

self in knots.

With the aid of his ring, Pharaun saw  a glittering pulse of magic fly from the

singer to Ryld. He could even tell what  it was intended to do. His friend wassupposed to contort his own body in helpless imitation of the b

ard's constrictive

posture. But, strong of spirit, Ryld resisted the comhe was doing it.                pulsion without even realizing

ster faked a cut at Houndaer's  head, then whirled and dived.

He slid between TThe weapons m

a

sabrak's legs, breaking away from  the drider and Houndaer

too, leaped up, and charged Syrzan. He recognized the alhoon a     , s the mostdangerous of his foes, even though the illithilich hadn'

t attacked him yet.

Syrzan reached into a pocket and produced a small ceramic vial. When it swung the bottle from  right to left, a dozen  orbs of bright flam

e materialized in

its wake. They shot at Ryld in one straight line and exploded one after theother

,  banging rapidly like some  hellish drum  roll.The glare was dazzling. For a m

oment, Pharaun couldn't see anything, and  he

made out Ryld through floating blobs of afterima

unscathed. He was still charging and alm       ge. His friend appeared ost in sword's reach of the alhoon.

Syrzan used its mind flayer talents.  Even though the lich hadn't directed theattack at him

,  Pharaun felt the fringe of  it. It was like a sprinkle of hot ash burning his brain. R

Syrzan gazed down at the warrior for a myld dropped.      oment, evidently matruly incapacitated, then walked over to  Pharaun. Despite the long sking sure he was kirt of its

robe, there was some

too m       thing noticeably strange about its gait, as if its legs bent in any places. Up close, it exuded a faint stink not unlike rotten fish. Its

garments, once of princely quality,  were frayed and stained.It touched a finger to Pharaun's brow, and they were elsewhere.

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C  h a p t  e r

N   I   N   E   T   E   E   N

The Underdark was boundless, its mysteries infinite, and despite centuries of following wherever his curiosity led, Pharaun had never seen an illithid city.

Save for a dearth of inhabitants, he thought he'd  just stepped into one.Artisans had carved the walls and columns of the vault into spongiform  masses like brain tissue, then covered the convolutions with lines of graven runes. Poolsof warm  fluid dotted the floor. Redolent of salt, the ponds crawled andthrobbed with a mental force that even a non-psionic intelligence  dimly  sensedas a whisper of alien, incomprehensible thought at the back of the mind.Pharaun recognized that the cavern was  in some  sense an illusion, but thatdidn't make it any less interesting. He  would have liked nothing better than toexplore every nook and cranny. It was sense of well-being, a blithe unconcern  an inclination rooted in a profound no more genuine than the landscapebut seductive all the sam                         ,e. He would have to fight it.

He turned, saw Syrzan standing a few feet away, and cast darts of force,requiring only words of power and a flourish of the hands.  Halfway to their a spell target, the streaking shafts of azure radiance stopped dead in the air,  fell to the ground, and turned into limbless things  like leeches or tadpoles, which, squealing telepathically

"Your spells won't work here," said Sy, slithered toward the nearest pool.rzan in the Prophet's rich, compelling tones.

"I suspected as much, but I had to  try.  Are we inside your mind?""More or less."

Syrzan strolled closer. Off to the side, liquid splashed and plopped as thetadpoles wallowed.

"We're conversing in my special havewe'                 n," the undead mind flayer said, "but re also still in the heretic'sfetching you after I told him it was chapeldangerous, and you'. In that reality I're im rebuking Houndaer for nsensible "."Fascinating," Pharaun said, "and I suppose you spirited me into the dream for a private tete-a-tete."faintly of decaying fish. "T"Essentially," the alhoon said. Even in his is actually a form of this phantasmal domain, it smelled mind-reading.  You won't  beable to lie."

The Master of Sorcere chuckled. "Some  people would say that  so handicapped,

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