Ryld shrugged, took a sip, and said, "You're drinking it, aren't you?"
The three companions continued on, sharing the flask and discussing the prospects of acquiring some sort of tangible confirmation that Lolth was absent from Ched Nasad. Pharaun continued to be deeply intrigued by the idea of investigating other races known to worship the goddess, and even as he contributed to the conversation, he mulled the concept over. It would require some research. Given time and Quenthel's willingness, he had a good idea where he might go to perform the study.
The mage's musings were interrupted when the trio ascended a webbed staircase, turned a corner, and found themselves on a colonnade overlooking an open plaza. From the congestion in the mall, Pharaun thought it obvious that refugees had taken to using the place as a sort of campground. Still, there was enough room to move along the raised walkway around the perimeter without brushing shoulder to shoulder with the riffraff, and the three dark elves glided along, ignoring the pleas and demands for coin from the unwashed around them.
A shout from below drew the drow's attention, and when Pharaun peered toward the center of the plaza, he spotted the source of the disturbance. A priestess was standing in a fairly open area, three or four hobgoblins gathered around her. She seemed to be mumbling something, but from a distance Pharaun couldn't make out what it was. The female drow raised her arm back and tried to lash out at one of the hobgoblins with a scourge, but the creature easily stepped aside, and the priestess stumbled forward from the exertion. She was quite drunk, Pharaun realized.
"Filthy animals," the priestess barked, staggering back upright. "Stay away from me!"
Pharaun noticed her unkempt state. Her piwafwi was soiled and sloughed half off her shoulders, her lustrous white hair was disheveled, and she held a bottle of something the wizard presumed to be liquor in her other hand.
The hobgoblins merely laughed at the drow before them, casually circling, which caused the priestess to turn, trying to keep an eye on them all. The effort made her stumble again, and she nearly went down in a heap.
"I don't think I've ever seen such a thing," Valas breathed. "The gall those subcreatures have is truly bewildering."
"Let's put a stop to this," Ryld said, taking a step forward.
Suddenly, Pharaun was aware of magic around him, an effect that seemed to be centered on him and his two companions. He reached out and put a hand on the warrior's arm.
"Wait," he said. "Let's see what happens."
When Ryld looked at the wizard quizzically, he continued, "Drawing attention to ourselves is not the best way to investigate. Besides," the mage added, "We might see once and for all if our theory is correct. This might be the proof we need."
The wizard flashed in sign language, I think someone is watching us, observing us magically.
Both Ryld and Valas raised eyebrows in concern, but before they could turn and look around, Pharaun cautioned, Don't draw attention to the fact that we know. Just pretend we're watching the spectacle.
Pharaun briefly considered dispelling the magic, but he discounted the idea because he knew it would only give their spy notification that they were aware of his or her presence. Instead, he pretended to turn his attention back to the brewing fight below while in actuality scanning the plaza for signs of someone looking at him rather than at the hobgoblins. There were a great many magical auras radiating from many different individuals, but no one, as far as the wizard could observe, seemed to be staring in his direction.
The hobgoblins seemed content for the moment to keep their distance, though they were increasingly pressed from behind by a gathering crowd. For her part, the priestess seemed to have lost interest in her detractors and was standing relatively still, her eyes closed, swaying slightly. She was mumbling something, but Pharaun again could not make it out.
Well, spy or no spy, he thought, I want to know what she's saying.
He reached into one of his many pockets and produced a tiny brass horn, with which he cast a spell. When the magic was complete, the wizard could hear the priestess's mutterings as though he were standing right in front of her.
“—beseech thee, our Mistress Lolth, return to me. Give me your blessings. Do not abandon me when I am your loyal an—aieee!"
One of the hobgoblins had chosen that moment to prod the drow with a sharpened stick, and she shrieked as she jumped, losing her grip on the bottle of spirits. It fell to the calcified pavement and shattered, spilling only the trickle that remained.
"Damn you, thrall!" she screamed at the hobgoblin that had molested her, attempting to stalk forward, her hand outstretched as though she were going to throttle him.
A second hobgoblin casually reached out with his own short spear and tripped the priestess, who went sprawling.
She rose to her hands and knees and began shouting, "My goddess, come to me, aid me! Do not abandon me, your loyal servant, who will obey—"
"Your goddess is dead," the first hobgoblin snarled, kicking the drow.
She grunted from the impact and toppled to the side, clutching for her scourge.
"No!" she shrieked. "Lolth would not abandon us! She is mighty, and her faithful are mighty!"
The four hobgoblins advanced together, and the drow priestess tried to kick at them, but the creature in the lead easily sidestepped the attack and jabbed down at her with his spear. Pharaun saw the point draw blood from the dark elf priestess's thigh.
Ryld snarled and flashed, This is not right. We should do something.
Valas nodded in agreement and produced his two kukris, one curved dagger in each hand.
The mage laid a hand on each drow's shoulder to slow them.
You only put our mission in danger, he signed. As you can see, no other drow move to help her.
He gestured down into the crowd, where several other dark elves were in attendance, observing dispassionately.
She has lost her faith and deserves no less, Pharaun admonished his companions.
It is not the priestess I am worried about, Ryld replied, a sullen look on his face, but to allow those vermin to believe they can so blatantly confront a superior being spells trouble for us all. They should be put in their place.
Perhaps, Pharaun responded, but we need anonymity if we are to finish our task. Confronting those beasts does nothing to further our own goals.
The wizard is right, Valas motioned, sagging back from the edge of the colonnade. If the matron mothers hear that three outsiders interfered in what may very well be one of their own plots, we will no longer be able to walk this city unhindered and unobserved.
If they're not already watching us, Ryld flashed. Are we still being observed? When Pharaun nodded yes, the warrior continued, We've got the proof we sought, anyway. Let's return to the inn. I no longer have the stomach for this city.
Pharaun nodded, though he did not share his friend's sentiment. Together, they turned and strolled back the way they had come, ignoring the screams of the priestess as the hobgoblins opened her a hundred times with quick, controlled thrusts of their short spears. After a few steps, the magical scrying vanished, and Pharaun cast his gaze around once more, hoping to find the source. He did not, and the three of them departed the plaza.
Behind them, the crowd that had gathered around the confrontation stirred and grew rowdy. Several other drow in the throng found themselves pushed and prodded as they tried to extricate themselves from the roiling multitudes. The other races were growing bold after witnessing the murder of a dark elf. Shouts rose up, curses to drow and their missing goddess. Finally, the handful of dark elves scrambled free, either rising up above the aggressors around them, or pushing through to more open streets. The mood was turning ugly in Ched Nasad.
SIX
Aliisza, disguised as a lovely drow female, perched on the roof of a quaint shop that stood along the side of a street leading to the plaza, and she watched the comings and goings of the citizens, slaves, and visitors of Ched Nasad. The store offered fashionable, decorative silk wraps and other clothing, but the fiend crouching on its rounded, cocoonlike roof was not interested in making a purchase. Instead, she watched intently as Pharaun and the other two drow males turned away from the slaughter of one of their own race and strolled calmly in the other direction. She observed them as they disappeared down one of the calcified webs that served as a street in the unusual city. When they were almost out of sight, she hopped down from her vantage point and strode off after them.
Aliisza was not terribly surprised that the three dark elves she was shadowing had not aided the drunken priestess. She had seen far too much nonchalance in the city since she had arrived for it to strike her as odd. Still, she got the distinct impression that the entire group from Menzoberranzan was making a great effort to avoid drawing attention to itself. She intended to find out why, but first things first.
The alu could not help but smile as she made her way along the streets, following the wizard and his companions while pretending to shop for trinkets in the bazaars and markets. She studied the myriad lines of calcified webs that stretched across from one side of the massive cavern to the other, glowing faintly with magical, flickering light as far as the eye could see. She half expected to see some great, lumbering spider making its way across the vast webbing.
They sure do love their spider motifs, she thought wryly. Everything they do revolves around the great Lolth, Queen of the Spiders. You'd think they would learn to diversify a little bit, try to become a little more well-rounded.
She grinned at her own little joke. Drow were such odd creatures, she decided. On the one hand so deceitful and chaotic, always turning on one another, but on the other hand trying to live their lives by some code or structure, based on the tenets of faith set down by a demon who was as unpredictable as could possibly be.
At least they universally agree on one thing, the alu concluded, they all think they're superior to every other species in the Underdark, and on the surface, too.
Aliisza watched as a gaggle of kobold slaves, pushed along by their hobgoblin slavemasters, scurried from one web street down a sloped ramp to the next web street below. All in all, she had seen more species of creature in Ched Nasad than she could imagine being gathered anywhere else. The "lesser races" outnumbered the drow by two to one, she figured, and included surface dwarves, orcs, quaggoths, bugbears, and others, almost all of them slaves. The one possible exception to this was the gray dwarves, who traded honestly enough with the drow that they were tolerated in the city as merchants. In addition, Aliisza had seen an aboleth with its host of caretakers, illithids, grell, and what she suspected must be a deep dragon, for though it too was disguised as a dark elf, she detected the unmistakable scent as it strolled by.
The one notable exception to the eclectic collection of visitors were the beholders, for which Aliisza was not in the least sorry.
There's a race that's even more fond of itself than the dark elves, if that's even possible, the alu thought.
Eye tyrants were nothing but trouble as far as Aliisza was concerned, but fortunately they were in a perpetual state of war with the drow, so none were ever seen in the vicinity. If she had caught even a glimpse of one inside the great V-shaped cavern, she would have turned and headed the opposite direction as quickly as was fiendishly possible.
The alu blinked, realizing that with all her daydreaming, she was letting her quarry slip away. Glancing around, she spotted the trio of drow heading along a segment of web street toward a wall, into an out-of-the-way part of the city. She realized that they were in the mercantile district, and she recognized quickly enough that Pharaun and the others were headed for an inn set along the end of the dead-end thoroughfare.
Good, she thought. Now I can keep an eye on them and still enjoy the sights and sounds for a few days. Maybe I can even get the wizard alone for a little while. . . .
* * *
Faeryl Zauvirr brooded on the plush bed while Quenthel stalked back and forth in the room they shared at the Flame and Serpent. The high priestess didn't like to be kept waiting during the best of times, and she certainly didn't like being kept waiting in the middle of a strange city, tendays away from her homeland, and by three males, no less.
That damnable Mizzrym and his infuriating smile, Quenthel thought. I should have Jeggred rend him the moment he returns.
But she knew she couldn't eliminate the wizard or even allow him to be injured. As much as she loathed the situation, Quenthel knew she was dependent on Pharaun as a resource.
But when we return to Menzoberranzan . . .
The unfinished thought hovered in her mind, not so much because she didn't know what was to be done with the irritating mage but because she didn't know when, or if, she would see her home again.
It had been so long since she'd last felt the presence of Lolth, had last bathed in the goddess's glory and favor, that she wondered if she even properly remembered what it felt like.
Will it ever return? Is she gone?
Stop it! Quenthel silently scolded herself. If you are being rested, fool, then right now, your score is not high. Not high at all. Even if she did send you back for a purpose.
Jeggred opened the door and entered, stooping as he did so to avoid the low jamb overhead.
"They are back," he growled, sliding the door shut behind him.
"Where in the Hells were they?" Quenthel asked, still pacing.
"They went for a walk," the draegloth answered, shrugging.
Quenthel looked over at the creature, who was leering at Faeryl. The ambassador looked miserable under the fiend's scrutiny, and Quenthel wanted to laugh, remembering some of the things Triel had told her about the Zauvirr's torture at the hands of Jeggred. Even so, this was not the time.
Quenthel snapped, "Are those worthless males coming, or must I send you to fetch them?"
"They will be here shortly," Jeggred replied, turning away from Faeryl to crouch in a corner. "The mage told me he had something he needed to look over before they joined us." Even down on his haunches, the draegloth was as tall as the high priestess. His white mane of hair cascaded out behind him as he examined the claw of one hand, picking some fleck of something from its surface with the hand of one of his smaller arms. "They have been drinking," he finished, not looking up.
Quenthel swore, drawing a look from Faeryl, but the high priestess didn't care.
Out carousing, like foolish boys! she seethed. When we return, they shall be put to work in the rothé fields.
There was a knock at the door, and Quenthel stopped pacing at last, planting her hands on her hips as Jeggred rose to answer it. When he swung the portal open, Pharaun, Valas, and Ryld filed in. Quenthel was surprised to see the grim looks on the faces of the three males.
Before anyone had a chance to speak, Pharaun flashed, Someone was watching us today, with magic. No one say a word until I ward the room.
With that, he produced a small mirror and a tiny brass horn and used them to cast a spell of some sort, though Quenthel could not see any visible difference. Nor that she expected to, but the idea of the wizard performing spells of his own accord, like everything he did, made her uneasy.
"The city is about to boil over," Pharaun said when he was finished casting. He took a seat on the couch and avoided looking directly at Quenthel.
He knows he's about to catch it, the high priestess thought.
"What do you mean? Who's been watching you? And what were you doing out there, anyway? Didn't I instruct you to get some rest and meet back here before the evening meal?"
"Actually, you did not, Mistress," Pharaun answered as the other two found places to lean against the far wall. "You said that you were going to rest, and you specifically told us to leave you alone. Under such circumstances, I didn't see the wisdom in disturbing you with trivialities like a refreshing walk."
Quenthel sighed. Once again the wizard was twisting her words around, using them to his advantage.
"As for who was watching us, I can't say. It might have been nothing, just a curious mage checking out some unusual-looking characters as a matter of course and moving on. Then again, it could have been someone specifically worried about us. I didn't see who was scrying. When I returned, I pulled out my grimoires and studied a spell that would detect scrying, though not stop it from happening. If I give a signal, everyone must be silent."
Quenthel nodded once, curtly, knowing that the wizard was taking wise precautions.
"Very well," she said. "What did you discover while you were strolling through the city that makes you believe it is about to 'boil over'?"
"It's true," Valas said quietly from his corner. "The lesser races are growing restless. We witnessed an attack today."
"So what?" the high priestess responded. "They squabble among themselves all the time back home."
"Yes, but this was a gang of them, assaulting a priestess," Ryld said. He was glowering, though at whom, Quenthel was not sure. "They were bold enough to kill her in front of everyone in an open plaza."
"They would dare?" It was Faeryl, sitting on the edge of the bed, her red eyes glittering with anger, "And you did nothing?"
"Truth be told, she was quite inebriated," Pharaun said, reclining on the couch. "Still, she provided us with the proof we needed. Ched Nasad's clergy suffers the same, ah ... challenges that you do, Mistress."
Quenthel had folded her arms beneath her breasts and moved to stand in front of the wizard.
"You did nothing to aid her?" she asked, turning her gaze toward the other two males, watching as they looked away, some notion of guilt on their faces.
Pharaun shrugged and said, "To have interfered would have only drawn attention to the fact that we were in the city, Mistress. If we are to continue to investigate, we must maintain our inconspicuousness. Besides," he added, leaning forward again, "she was pleading for Lolth to return to her, right there in the open courtyard. She had clearly lost her resolution and was not, in my most humble opinion, fit to serve the goddess."
"In your—!" Faeryl seethed. "The opinion of a mere male is counted upon for very little in most issues. In the matters of the sisterhood, it matters not at all!"
She stood, taking a step toward the wizard. With a gesture from Quenthel, Jeggred was instantly between them. The ambassador shrank back from her one-time tormentor.
"Faeryl, my dear, in this you are usually correct," Quenthel said in her most soothing voice. It was one she rarely used, but in this instance she believed it was warranted. For his part, Pharaun gaped at her, which made her smile. "But, my dear, think on it," the high priestess continued. "The wizard is actually correct, though he may have stumbled upon this conclusion accidentally, addled with brandy though his mind seems to be. I understand your fears, but you must not let them eat away at your logic. If a priestess loses her faith in such a public spectacle, does she do her sisterhood any service?"
Faeryl shook her head as she backed away from Jeggred, returning to her spot on the bed.
"No, of course not," she mumbled at last. "She shames us all with her cowardice."
"Precisely," Quenthel said, nodding sagely, "and as foolish as it was for them to be out and about in the first place, these three silly boys would have only caused more harm to our progress if they had made a spectacle of themselves as well."
"Forgive my impudence, Mistress Quenthel," Faeryl said, her tone dreary "I have returned home to find my city on the brink of implosion, where thralls dare to assault priestesses in open markets. As you love Menzoberranzan, your city and homeland, so I love Ched Nasad and do not wish to see her come to this end. I forgot myself in a moment of emotion."
Quenthel dismissed the apology with a wave of her hand.
"Understandable, in this time of crisis," she said, "but you must learn to control that emotion if we are to move forward."
"Do I take it, then, that you believe there is still more to be uncovered?" Pharaun asked.
"Perhaps," the high priestess answered, pacing once more. "I am willing to hear what the rest of you think, before I make my decision."
It was Valas who spoke first.
"I think it's unsafe to remain in the city for long, Mistress," the diminutive scout said. "We have discovered what we came here to learn, and I think it would be wise to return to Menzoberranzan before riots fill the streets and we get caught up in another slave revolt, or worse."
"I agree with Valas," Ryld added. "It is clear to me that the clerics here have handled the vanishing of Lolth less well than you and yours back home. There is little they can do for us."
Quenthel looked to Pharaun, knowing he would have something completely different and unorthodox in mind.
Pharaun shifted a bit, eyeing the other two males before saying, "I think we might do better to investigate further. Valas opened my eyes to another possible avenue of study, one that I would like to take advantage of. There are other races who venerate the Dark Mother besides drow, and it would behoove us to discover whether or nor they, too, suffer her loss."
Quenthel nodded and said, "An interesting idea, but not one of much practicality. We are not loved by many others, and I doubt that those who worship Lolth would too freely impart such secretive information to us. Notice how we haven't been too forthcoming ourselves, even to the dark elves of our sister city. However, as there is still business I consider unfinished here, we will not be going just yet."
"Yes, precisely," Pharaun replied. "While you're busy with all that, I plan to at least look into my theory. I think I might know of a way to confirm it by tomorrow."
"I have other work for you tomorrow," Quenthel said, giving the wizard a cold gaze. "Faeryl, Jeggred, and I shall pay a visit to the storehouses of Black Claw Mercantile and take what rightfully belongs to House Baenre while the three of you find a means to transport it back. I intend to get out of the city with those goods as quickly as possible. The caravans are long overdue in Menzoberranzan, and we are here to make sure due payment is made."
Pharaun scowled briefly, and Quenthel was expecting an argument, but the wizard merely stood, nodding again.