第 31 页

"Show yourself," he shouted. "Let it begin!"

In response, a bolt of liquid stone rose from the pool and shot toward him. Kharza crossed his forearms before his face and spoke a single word of power. A rounded shield, glimmering black but as transparent as glass, sprang up between him and the onrushing lava. The glowing stone hit the magical shield with a tremendous hiss, cooling instantly to become a solid wall of protection.

With insolent ease, Kharza cast a spell that shattered the wall into pebbles and dust. He stood there, his arms crossed and a faintly bored expression on his wrinkled face.

Mocking applause echoed through the cavern, and Nisstyre stepped into view. The copper-haired wizard stood on the far side of the lava pool, on a ridge of rock roughly on eye level with his foe.

"I believe the first round is a draw," he conceded with a slight bow.

"And the second will be mine," Kharza assured him. The wizard took a sticky pellet from a hidden pocket of his robes and hurled it high into the air. The pellet exploded, and what had been merely a wad of spiderweb expanded into gray lines of magical force. Sticky tendrils shot off in all directions, seeking solid stone and quickly finding purchase. In less than a second the entire cavern was enmeshed in a giant, shadowy web. The web trembled far over the heads of the wizards, like a giant canopy. A large sticky drop slowly broke free to fall with a hise into the lava pool below.

Nisstyre's face, which glowed red in the darkness of the cavern, paled nearly to gray as the web of shadows magically stole his body's warmth. His features registered the pain of the bone-deep chill, and his hands moved with agonizing slowness as he formed the gestures of an answering spell.

The Xorlarrin wizard did not wait for the attack; he chanted the words of a summoning. Giant spiders appeared at his command and scurried across the sticky gray web toward their assigned prey. They slipped through the strands and began to descend on silvery threads toward Nisstyre.

"A fit death for a heretic!" exulted Kharza-kzad as the venomous spiders, so beloved of the Lady of Chaos, closed in.

"Do you really fight for the honor of Lloth?" sneered Nisstyre.

The younger wizard's hand swept slowly forward in a menacing arc, not at the spiders, but at the web itself. Kharza had expected this to come sooner or later, for only a magical attack could dispel the web. To his astonishment, the copper-haired wizard unleashed not a pulse of fey energy, but a bolt of simple fire.

Simple, but effective. Flames raced along every strand, setting the entire web ablaze. The web of fire was a glorious, dazzling sight, and Kharza marveled as he beheld it. It was also, he conceded, a brilliant strategy. The heat and the punishing light of the fire forced him to deal with the burning web. This would give his enemy time to marshal his own magical strength, to recover somewhat from the magical chill. Fortunately, Kharza was well prepared for the task.

Shielding his eyes with one hand against the brilliant light, the wizard drew a fist-sized obsidian sculpture from a pocket of his robes. As was befitting of a master of the Sorcere, he possessed an Amulet of Plelthong, an ancient and powerful drow device that commanded many attacks and defenses, Kharza spoke the words that would unleash the needed force. He raised the amulet—the graven face of a smiling drow wizard—and pointed it toward the flaming web.

The obsidian lips pursed, and the drow-shaped amulet spat a stream of cold blue light upward. The magic expanded, becoming a cone of power that engulfed the fire and extinguished it. The web remained, but it was blackened and brittle. The charred bodies of the spiders dangled and swayed for a moment, then fell toward the waiting lava.

Kharza allowed himself a smile of triumph and just a moment's celebration. Too long: a black dart sped toward him and pierced his uplifted hand. His priceless amulet was knocked from his grasp to roll amid the common stones.

The wizard let out a shout of pain and outrage, but he had learned the danger of hesitation. Without bothering to pull the needlelike dart from his hand, he snatched a wand from his belt and pointed it upward.

As he had anticipated, two more of the death darts had taken flight, and yet another was in Nisstyre's hands. The merchant wizard did not hurl the final dart. He mockingly lifted it to his lips and tossed it into the air as if throwing a kiss. He did not bother to aim, and he did not need to. Magically enspelled to seek out their target, the long black weapons circled the cavern and swooped toward the Xorlarrin wizard like birds of prey.

Kharza squeezed the grip of his wand once, twice, and then a third time. He held the wand steady in case its fourth and final attack was needed. But his aim was true, and three globes of light flew to meet the incoming darts. The wizard summoned his natural power of levitation and rose at a sharp angle, putting as much distance between himself and the coming impact as he could.

The globes struck the death darts and exploded, one after another, in spectacular bursts of greenish light. Acid spat from the globes, corroding the black metal and sending droplets of green acid and liquid metal to the ledge where Kharza had stood an instant before.

But the Xorlarrin wizard was safely beyond the lethal shower. Floating high above the battle, he threw back his head and let out a laugh of pure exultation. What wonderful power, what delightful destruction, his creations unleashed! He had possessed these marvelous toys all these many years and never enjoyed them!

Nisstyre observed his enemy's pleasure and took note of his growing confidence. He allowed Kharza his moment, knowing it would soon end. All was going as he, Nisstyre, had planned. The copper-haired wizard had studied Kharza-kzad well, and he had anticipated the older wizard's every attack and parry. He knew the Xorlarrin wizard was a master of battle magic and tactics, and he'd gotten to know Kharza well enough to suspect that the isolation of study, the focused effort needed to craft wondrous weapons of destruction, had left dangerous blind spots in Kharza's education. Xorlarrin might be a master of magic and convoluted draw logic, but he did not have a fighter's instinct for the terrain. The simpler the attack against such an opponent, the better its chances for success.

So thinking, Nisstyre unleashed his next spell. At his command the air of the cavern began to stir, to gain force and momentum. Before the levitating Kharza could react, a mighty wind caught him in midair and flung him still higher, into the waiting arms of the web of shadows.

The fire had thinned and blackened the web, but no physical force could destroy its magic. The Xorlarrin wizard struck the sticky strands and was held there, bouncing slightly and facing the pool of lava. His eyes darted toward Nisstyre; the younger wizard's hands flashed as he formed a spell that would destroy the web. Kharza knew it well, and he understood the danger he was in. His natural ability to levitate had been exhausted. Once freed from the web, he might be able to cast a spell of levitation before he fell to his death. He was not sure; he had no idea how long it took one to fall such a distance.

Kharza-kzad had not long to decide, for his pounding heart beat perhaps thrice before the other wizard finished the dispellment, and then he was plummeting toward the deadly pool. The old wizard could see only one chance of survival, and he took it. As he fell, his fingers closed upon another wand, his greatest creation and his deepest secret.

It was Nisstyre's turn to laugh now as he watched his rival splash into the pool of molten rock. He had planned this battle, step by step, and he had also prepared a spell that would fish the old droVs bones from the lava. He'd doubted from the beginning that a live Kharza-kzad would willingly yield up any useful information, but there were ways of compelling a spirit to speak truth. Soon he would know everything the wizard had learned about Liriel Baenre and her amulet, and he would be well on his way to possessing both.

Nisstyre's laughter died abruptly. Something was stirring in the pool of lava. Some dark shape was breaking free of the bubbling surface. As he watched, stunned, the skeletal form of a drow rose slowly from the molten rock. All flesh had been melted away by the lava, but the wizard's robes—and presumedly all the magic they contained—had survived intact. Nisstyre did not know how Kharza-kzad had done it, but he knew what the old draw had become.

Kharza-kzad was now a lichdrow, a dark-elven wizard who existed beyond death, beyond the limitations of mind and body. Invulnerable, nearly invincible, the undead creature could cast at will all the spells gathered throughout its centuries of life.

The lichdrow soared upward, pausing only upon becoming eye-level with its dumbfounded enemy. It raised a skeletal hand. Clasped in the bony fingers was a slender metal rod, still glowing with the lava's borrowed heat.

"My finest creation," announced the undead wizard in a whisper as dry as desiccated bone. "A wand of lichdom. Would you care to see it demonstrated again—on you, perhaps?"

Nisstyre was terribly outmatched, but even now he was determined to have the final word. He clasped a ring of tele-portation that would take him from this place, and he painted a mocking smile on his face.

"Perhaps several centuries from now, when I have witnessed Vhaeraun's triumph and have grown tired of life, I might be tempted to accept your offer. When that time comes, I will no doubt find you still here."

And with those words, the merchant summoned the magic that would take him out of the volcano and beyond reach of the lichdrow Xorlarrin.

In time, the former Kharza-kzad might find his way back to Menzoberranzan, but Nisstyre knew the wizard had few gate spells at his command. He'd made sure—or at least, as reasonably certain as one drow could be about the secrets of another—that Kharza knew no way back into his own Spelltower. At the present, therefore, Nisstyre felt safe enough in returning to the city.

He might not have gotten the information he needed from Kharza, but there was another drow in Menzoberranzan who knew more about Uriel's plans than she would admit. It was time to get seek out his new partner.

Shakti Hunzrin had just returned to Tier Breche when the summons came. Along with a dozen other high-level students, she was attending a tutorial session on accessing the lower planes and conversing with its denizens. The subject held little interest for Shakti; indeed, after the events of the last few days, all of her studies at Arach-Tinilith seemed no more than a dreary anticlimax. She would have welcomed almost any interruption.

Almost.

Eight armed female guards—part of the elite forces of House Baenre—came to the very door of the classroom and respectfully commanded Shakti to accompany them. With them was a driftdisc, the floating magical conveyance used by the most powerful of matrons and priestesses. Shakti had never expected to ride on one, and she took little pleasure in it now as she glided in state toward the Baenre fortress, surrounded by her prestigious escort. For in sending a driftdisc, Matron Triel was not honoring her guest but blatantly displaying her own might and position. To Shakti, it seemed the logical first step toward a very public execution. Lloth might have decreed no priestess kill another, but the Baenre clan always seemed to be beyond law.

Her prospects did not brighten when they reached the Baenre fortress. She was ushered into the very heart of the first house—the vast chapel. Gromph pushed past her at the door, looking grim and sullen. Shakti understood why at once: eight Baenre priestesses gathered about the altar. A dark rite would be performed in this chamber that no mere male could witness.

Matron Triel beckoned Shakti to come toward the altar. As the younger priestess drew near, the matron slowly raised her arm. In it was a whip armed with the heads of two angry, writhing snakes.

"Lloth knows what is in your heart," Triel said in ?her cold, even voice. She began to advance, slowly, a glint of mocking pleasure in her usually unreadable eyes.

At that moment Shakti understood the Spider Queen had witnessed her deal with Nisstyre and had informed the First Matron of her treachery. Because there was nothing else to do, Shakti stood awaiting the first lash of the whip. To her utter astonishment, the Baenre matron turned the whip and offered it, handle first, to the younger drow.

"By the command of Lloth, you are to be elevated to high priestess. This whip will be yours. Ascend the altar for the rite of atonement."

Not without fear, Shakti did as she was commanded. She had witnessed the rite, which was usually administered after the graduation ceremonies. It was not a sight for the fainthearted. But she would have undergone the rite gladly, had she trusted Triel to actually go through with it.

For once, the Baenre matron kept her word, and the circle of priestess enacted the ritual that attuned the weapon to the emotions of its sole wielder.

Much later, the eight priestesses helped Shakti down from the altar. The living snakes that had bound her there slithered off into the shadows, but for the three which had been magically added to the whip. Shakti admired her new weapon with a mixture of pride and awe. Five heads! Few priestesses commanded as many, and such a whip was a sign of Lloth's highest favor.

Triel dismissed the other priestesses with a wave of her hand and then motioned Shakti into a seat.

"We must now talk about your future," she said bluntly. "You need not return to the Academy, except to attend the graduation ceremonies when the time comes. You are free to attend your family business, bearing the full rank and honor of a high priestess. If that business takes you from Menzoberranzan from time to time, so be it. House Baenre and House Hunzrin have worked together in the past. We will do so again, as never before, to the glory of the Queen of Spiders."

The hidden meaning in Matron Triel's words begin to dawn on Shakti. She was supposed to serve House Baenre as a traitor-priestess! From time to time the matriarchy uncovered a spy among the clergy—usually a male priest—who served Lloth on the surface, Vhaeraun underneath. The reversal was almost unknown, and the prospect of gaining such a double spy clearly had Triel salivating with dark glee.

Shakti absorbed this, and again glanced at the snake-headed whip tucked in her belt. Lloth was courting her. Her!

Triel continued to speak, outlining Shakti's mission with precise detail and an occasional threat, but the Hunzrin priestess did not hear the matron's words. Another voice, even more powerful, commanded her attention.