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
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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
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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