F O U R (79 page)

War Of The Spider Queen

Book 1

Dissolution

Ryld pivoted toward the newcomers and stalked forward. His eyes were intentyet somehow empty,  his face,  expressionless, and he seemed indifferent to theweapons leveled at his burly frame. One warrior muttered uneasily, as if he'dmistaken the Master of Melee-Magthere  for a ghost. Pharaun knew better; herecognized a deep trance when he saw one. Evidently his friend had utilized some esoteric martial discipline to keep himself alive."Ryld!" Pharaun said. "Well met! I  knew you could defeat  Houndaer and the rest of those buffoons. Otherwise I never would have left you."

The he sounded thin even to the liar.

Certainly it didn't impress Ryld. Perhaps in  his altered statue of consciousness,he hadn't even heard it or recognized his fellow mastercoming.                       , either. He just kept "Wrescue you. These boys hail from House ake up!" the wizard said. "It's me, Pharaun, your friend. I came back to Freth, and they're our allies."Ryld took another gliding swordsman's advance, still directly toward the Masterof Sorcere.

I'breath to give the order to shoot, and shm sorry, Pharaun thought, but this  time you bring it on yourself. He drew apes surged through the three tall arched doorways at the rear of the dais.clattering chain. They were kytons, mIn the lead capered several human-sized creatures wrapped in lengths of align spirits whom  mages could summonand control. Behind the devils strode the surviving conspirators, and Syrzan in its decaying robes.Rwhistling quarrels, and the Freth warrioryld wheeled and oriented on the conspis responded in kind. Trators. The rogues shot a flight of he renegadeshad the advantage of their elevated platform, and the soldiers, of numericalsuperiority, but neither volley dropped more  than a smattering of its targets. The combatants were too well armored, by metal, magic, or both.soldiers howled a battle cry and charEager to see if swords would serve where the darts had failed, the Freth ged.  Most of them, anyway. In his deebooming voice, W                          p,elverin ordered some  of  the troops back outside to find theirway around to the entrances the traitors had used and attack them from thereargetting lost instead. Not a bad idea, but Pharaun thought the warriors had a good chance of Whirling loose lengths of chain, eight kytons, each a match for a dozen ordinary fighters, leaped down off the  stage to meet the oncoming foe. Therogues remacrossbows with the obvious intention of shooting down into tined on the platform  with Syrzan, where they started reloading their he melee.

Pharaun decided he wouldn't allow that. He levitated above his comradesthus obtaining a clear shot at the dais.                   ,He felt a twinge in the center of his forehead, but only for a second. As he'dexpected, Syrzan had attacked first with  a psionic thrust, not realizing its  foe  had warded himself against such effects with apposite talismans and spells.

This time, the Mizzrym  thought, you'll have to fight me  charm  to charm andspell to spell.To  his surprise, he received an answerbuzzing inside his mind.          , a telepathic voice grating and
So be it, mammal,
 
the alhoon said.
 
Either way

,  I'll have revenge on the wretchwho condemned me to exile yet again.
Even as he attended to Syrzan's threat, Pharaun was murmuring an incantation

Richard Lee Byers

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War Of The Spider Queen

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Dissolution

end, expanding into a skull-sized orb as it flewand manipulating a little steel tube. A bright pellet of flame hurtled from the open . It
 
smashed into one of the

brenegades

on the dais,

ack and forth across th

rebounded,  and struck  another.  It bounced  and slashed

e platform, sowing a zigzag trail of sparks and afterima

in its wake, striking everyone. Before it                  ge winked out of existence, it killed a good

many of the rogues or turned them into reeling, flailing living torches, whom

unaftheir own allies had to slay lest they ifected.             gnite them  as well. Syrzan, however, was

Below his feet, Pharaun glimpsed the  clash of stabbing, cutting blades and spinning chains. As they flailed at their adversaries, the kytons, who r

esembled

oozing, festering corpses within their coiled armor of chains, altered  their  features.The devils had the capacity to take  on the appearance of a deceased intim

ate

from  an  enemy's past. Supposedly svirfneblin and their  ilk  found this

di                                 deeply stressing,  but  it  was  only  slightly  discomfitin

did not love.                g  to representatives of a race that

R

accustomyld was at the forefront of the fighting, sweeping Splitter about with all his ed strength and skill. Pharaun was glad to see that his friend was only

striking at the demons.Mouth tentacles writhing, bulbous eyes glaring, Syrzan lifted its three-finge

red

hands to conjure. Around it, many of the rogues who still survived jumped off the dais. Evidently they'd

near the alhoon while Pharaun threw s rather fight the Freth warriors on the floor than stand pells at it.

The Master of Sorcere was surprised that  so few of the traitors simply tried to

run away. Certainly loyalty—that alien  conceit—didn't hold them  there.  They

must have known that with their schemes thwarted, their conspiracy revealed

they were outlaws, outcast from  all they coveted and cheri         ,shed. Perhaps theirplight filled them  with such rage that they prized v

engeance above survival.

As Syrzan wove magic, its dark elf  counterpart was hastily doing the same.The lich finished first. A blaze of li

forking through the open air outside, leaped fromghtning, kin to those still twisting and crackled entirely through Pharaun's torso, and burned a b its parched, scaling hand, l

ack spot on the

ceiling.Pharaun'

s muscles clenched, and his hair lifted away from  his head, but his

protections averted any real harm. Indeed, the  attack  didn't even  disrupt  his  own conjuring. On the final word, he thrust out his hand, releasi

ng a wave of cold

fluttering shadows like ghostly bats.                    ,

326

Screeching and chattering, the phantoms swooped and whirled about thealhoon, slashing at it with their claws. The mind flayer growled a word in some

infernal tongue, and a jagged crack snakedminions vanished.             up one of the walls. Pharaun's illusory

dexterously in his palm, and rattled ofThe Mizzrym extracted five glass marblef  s from one of his pockets, rolled them spheres appeared in the air and shot towa a brief tercet. A quintet of luminous

cold, acid, and lightning simultaneously  rd Syrzan, attacking  it with fire, sound, . Surely at least one of those forces would pierce its defenses.

Syrzan gave a rasping, clacking shriek  and swept its hand through the air.  In an instant, the orbs reversed their courses, streaking back at their s

ource as fast as

Richard Lee Byers

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War Of The Spider Queen

Book 1

Dissolution

they'd  sped away.

possible. He restored his weight and Caught by surprise, Pharaun nonetheless dropped toward the flattempted to dodge in the only manner oor like a stone. Two

of  the radiant projectiles streaked  past  him  to  explode against the ceiling. Two

more simply vanished when they came into contact with  his
 
piwafwi.
 
The fifth ghosted into his chest.

The loudest scream he'd  ever hear

ears, and smashed his thoughts to pieces. d shook his bones, jabbed agony through his smashed down in the midst of the melee.  Stunned, he kept  plummeting until he

For a moment he simply lay amidst scores of shifting, stamping feet, then his

mind  focused,  and  he  realized  he  needed  to  get  off  the  floor  before

trampled him. He started to scramble  up, and a swinging length of chain struck somebody him on the temple.

It was just a glancing blow, but it  knocked him back down.over him, whirling its flexible weapons  around for another attack. The A kyton loomed

spirit  had

Sabal's face.

Pharaun pointed his finger and rattled off  a spell, realizing he couldn't hear himself—or  anything else. Seconds before, the battle had been a partway through that

hammering cacophony, but it  had fallen silent.Luckily he didn't need to hear his voice

fingertip into the devil's body. In a heartbeat, the kyton'to recite a spell. Power blazed from his s flesh shriveled within its wrapping of chain. The li

A hand gripped Pharaun'nks sliding and flopping around  it, the fiend collapsed.s  shoulder and hauled him W                        up. He turned and saw

elverin. The officer's  mouth moved, but the wizard had no idea what he was

far from numb. They throbbed and bled. Hisaying. He shook his head  and pointed to his ears,  which, though useless, were made him want to destroy Syrzan all the more.s insides hurt as well, and the pain

must have conjured while its fellow agPharaun levitated, only to find himself  mere feet from something the illithilich e was floundering about  below.  It was a

than the drow was tall. The members wrhuge, phosphorescent, disembodied illithid  ithing, the squidlikhead, with mouth tentacles longer e construct flew

forward. Up close, it smelled fishy.

cloak and commenced a spell. A taperePharaun snatched a white leather glove d tentacle tip whipped around his forearm, and a chip of clear crystal from his tugged, and nearly spoiled the final  manipulation, but he p

ulled free and

completed the pass successfully.An immense hand made of ice appeared  beside the mind flayer'

s  head. It

wrapped its fingers around it, dug its talons in, and held the thing immobile.

Pharaun'The only problem was that the phants view. He simultaneously wove  a spell and bobbed lower until he som illithid head was still blocking aw

Syrzan.O

n  the final word  of  the incantation,  white fire erupted  from  the alhoon's

desiccated flesh . . . fire that died  a second later.  The magic should have

transformed the undead wizard  into an inanimate corpse, but the  only effect had

been to singe its shabby robe a little. Pharaun reflected that despite several attempts, he had yet to injure or even jostle his adversary

.  If the dark elf hadn't

known better,  he might have  wondered if Syrzan was  not in fact the better

arcanist.

was in orderMuch as the Mizzrym disliked hand-to-hand combat, perhaps a change of tactics .  He snatched a delicate  little bone, dissected from a petty demon he'd

Richard Lee Byers