R. A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Extinction, Annihilation, Resurrection Read online

  “Now,” Pharaun said, cracking his fingers as he stretched, “for the difficult part.”

  From a pocket, he pulled a candle. He cut it into six pieces, trimming each back to expose the wick. He walked around the star, boring a hole at each of the points and pushing one of the candles into it. Then he stood back and snapped his fingers. Six flames sprang to life as the candles began to burn. Their meager heat magically spread through the blood that had frozen inside the troughs in the ice. The blood melted and began to circulate, pumping through the veins of the hexagram.

  Valas squinted as the flickering yellow light disrupted his darkvision. The frosted walls of the cavern picked up the illumination and sparkled like a million tiny diamonds. The candles flickered, their flames guttering slightly to one side. Seeing that, Valas nodded. The cavern wasn’t completely a dead end. There must have been some tiny fissure, hidden from view, through which air was circulating.

  Standing with his hands extended over the hexagram, Pharaun began to chant. As his words echoed back and forth across the confined space, the candles burned at a terrific rate, melting down to puddles of wax against the ice. Yet still the wicks burned, and as soon as they touched the ice, the color of the flames turned a brilliant blue. The flame pulsed out along the lines of the symbol and, mixing with Jeggred’s blood, turned a ghastly, glowing purple.

  As Pharaun’s chant rose to a crescendo the mage clapped his hands together over his head. The boom of thunder that resulted all but obliterated Valas’s gasp and Jeggred’s harsh grunt. For an instant, the frigid air in the cavern seemed to wrench itself in two. Through the split, Valas could see the roiling red-black clouds and furnace-hot flames of the Abyss. Then came a roar of utter rage and indignation as an enormous, humanoid figure hurtled through the portal between the planes, staggering as though it had been pushed by an invisible hand. Pharaun, facing it, backed up a step or two on the ice, then recovered his composure.

  “He’s done it,” Quenthel said.

  “So he has,” Danifae agreed, and she sounded impressed.

  Valas realized that he was gripping his lucky coin amulet and quickly moved his hand to the hilt of his dagger, instead.

  The demon—a glabrezu—was nearly three times as tall as a drow and powerfully muscled. It had four arms—two with hands, and two with enormous, snapping pincers—and a doglike head. Its body emitted a stench that smelled like putrid corpses roasting over a sulfur fire. Its skin was so utterly black it was difficult to see its features clearly, save for a truncated snout filled with gnashing yellow fangs and eyes that glowed with penetrating intensity, as if all the fury of the Abyss swirled within their violet depths.

  “You dare summon me?” it roared in a voice that filled the cavern, shaking loose small stones that tumbled down the slope onto the ice. “You dare!”

  In what seemed a mockery of the gesture Pharaun had used to summon it, the demon flung its hands above its head. Intensely bright flame erupted between the outspread fingers, filling the cavern with a blinding light. Leering, the demon thrust its hands at Pharaun, sending the flame at him in a horizontal wave.

  Instead of washing over Pharaun, the flame was contained by the lines of the hexagram. It licked along the veins of blood, roaring from point to point of the star in a dizzying blur, then gradually began to slow. Rather than melting the ice, the flame seemed to freeze in place. Then it shattered with a tinkling sound, like breaking crystal.

  A corner of Pharaun’s mouth twitched up into a half-smile.

  “Are you quite finished, Belshazu?” he asked dryly.

  The demon’s eyes narrowed.

  “You know my name,” it said, its voice dropping to a deep rumble.

  “We do,” Quenthel said from behind Valas. “And unless you wish to be trapped inside that hexagram for all eternity, you will tell us where we can find a gate that leads from this realm to the Abyss. Tell us that, and the mage will dismiss you.”

  Belshazu grunted, then dropped to its knees and sniffed at the symbol that bound it. When the demon looked up, its eyes fastened on Jeggred.

  “Draegloth blood,” it growled. “So that was why the drow bitch mated with me. What was her name? Tral? Tull? No . . . Triel.” The demon spat a gob of foul-smelling phlegm onto the ice, then added, in a disdainful rumble, “That whore.”

  It stared past Pharaun at the group of drow above, its violet eyes burning with a terrible challenge that caused Valas to draw his kukris in readiness.

  Jeggred returned the demon’s growl. Tensing, he hunched into a crouch. Quenthel’s hand darted to his back and clenched the draegloth’s tangled mane. She jerked Jeggred back just as he was about to spring.

  “Stay beside me,” she commanded.

  Jeggred complied.

  Valas heaved a sigh of relief, glad the draegloth hadn’t sprung forward to attack his father. Had Jeggred taken a single step across the symbol that had been wrought with his blood, the lines of magical force that bound the demon would have stretched—and snapped. Which was what the demon had obviously intended, all along.

  Pharaun cleared his throat, and the demon returned its attention to him.

  “Now then,” the mage said. “We need to get to the Demonweb Pits. Where’s the nearest gate to the Abyss?”

  Belshazu bared yellowed fangs in a smile and stared down at Pharaun as if contemplating which of the wizard’s limbs to tear from his body first.

  “Right here, in this cavern,” it rumbled. “Just beneath my feet. Let me show you.”

  Summoning its magical fire again, the demon directed the flame from its hands downward, onto the ice at its feet. Because the magic was not trying to cross the hexagram itself, the flame took effect. Enormous clouds of steam rose from the melting ice, obscuring the spot where the demon stood. A crater appeared beneath the demon’s feet, and as melt water rushed to fill it, Belshazu plunged flaming hands into the water and set it aboil.

  Pharaun was leaning forward, intensely curious to see the gate the demon had promised. He reached into a pocket of his piwafwi at the same time. Jeggred was still flexing his claws in barely suppressed anger at the insult to his mother. Danifae and Ryld stood closer to the tunnel entrance, and were talking in rapid sign. Their backs were turned to Valas, making it impossible for him to see what they were saying.

  Beside him, Quenthel suddenly tensed.

  “Pharaun, stop Belshazu!” she shouted. “He’s trying to—”

  Her order was lost in a furious hiss of steam and the loud bubbling of boiling water. Valas himself could only hear

  Quenthel because she stood right beside him. Then he saw what Quenthel was pointing to: the edge of the crater of knee-deep water Belshazu was standing in was crumbling back toward the line of the hexagram. At last awakening to the danger, Pharaun saw it too—but too late.

  With a hissing roar, the line of flowing blood tumbled into the boiling water and was gone.

  The hexagram was broken.

  “Wizard—you are mine!”

  Roaring his triumph, Belshazu waded through the boiling water toward Pharaun, eyes blazing violet fury at the mage who had so foolishly dared to attempt to bind him.

  chapter

  four

  Ryld pulled the bag of sand out of the pocket of his piwafwi and placed it on a ridge in the rock wall at the point where the tunnel forked, then carefully balanced a large stone on top of it. He pulled from his quiver one of the crossbow bolts Halisstra had taken from the surface elves and checked its barbed head for traces of poison. Seeing none, he used it to cut his palm. He smeared blood on the tunnel wall, then snapped the point off the bolt. As he placed the broken bolt on the tunnel floor, he glanced nervously back down the fork that led to the cavern, worried that someone might have heard the sound.

  Silence. The noise had been slight, and no one was coming to investigate.

  He balled his hand around a rag to staunch the flow of blood, then dropped it to the floor beside the broken crossbow bolt. Then he pulle
d his portable hole out of a pocket and flipped the folded piece of phase-spider silk open, laying it on the ground just below the sand-filled bag. Carefully, he loosened the bag’s drawstrings until just a trickle of sand began to fall from it into the portable hole. Then he hurried back down the steeply sloping corridor to the cavern where the others were.

  He’d been worried that Jeggred would smell the fresh blood on his palm, but the draegloth seemed to have been doing a little bloodletting of his own. It was Danifae who stared at him as he returned.

  Ryld paid little attention as Pharaun summoned the demon, his mind instead focused on the silent count he’d begun after leaving the bag. He did glance down in alarm, however, when the demon told Pharaun there was a gate to the Abyss directly under the frozen pond. It was obviously a ploy of some kind, but Pharaun didn’t question it. Instead, when the demon’s hands flared with fire for the second time, Pharaun merely stood and watched, as if curious to see what the demon would do.

  Ryld concentrated on his count: fifteen, fourteen, thirteen . . . almost time.

  “Listen,” he said, touching Danifae’s arm. “Do you hear that?”

  Danifae gave him a suspicious look. Then, from farther up the tunnel, came the sound of a dislodged stone hitting the tunnel floor and rolling toward them. Danifae’s eyes widened slightly.

  “Someone is—”

  Her words were cut off by a violent hiss of steam from the cavern below. Glancing down, Ryld saw that the demon was melting the ice. He opened his mouth to shout a warning— then he pursed his lips shut. The demon was Pharaun’s problem.

  Ryld shifted to sign language, in order to speak over the hissing roar of boiling water.

  Whoever it is, I’m going to make them sorry they followed us. Tell Quenthel where I’ve gone.

  You’re running off after Halisstra, Danifae accused.

  Ryld, startled, was surprised by her bluntness—and by the approval he saw in her eyes. Was she glad that her mistress would have someone to protect her, after all?

  No, he told her, determined to keep up his bluff. I’ll be back. As proof, you can keep this.

  He pulled the lesser of his two magical rings from his finger and passed it to Danifae, intentionally dropping it. The ring bounced off a rock and began to roll down the slope toward where the others stood. Danifae scrambled after it, trying to grab the ring before Quenthel or one of the others claimed it.

  Ryld turned to hurry back the way they had come. He saw Valas shoot him a quick, questioning glance. Then Quenthel shouted a warning to Pharaun. An instant later a roar of triumph filled the cavern. The demon was free.

  Ryld was already several paces away, climbing swiftly up the narrow tunnel that had led them to the cavern. Behind him he could hear more roaring, violent splashing, and terrified shouts. An explosive rush of cold air whooshed past him—the blast of a spell. There was no way to tell whether it was one of Pharaun’s—or one cast by the demon. Then a male voice screamed in mortal agony. Pharaun’s?

  For a heartbeat or two, he actually considered turning around. Then he decided against it. Pharaun deserved to know what it felt like not to be able to count on a friend.

  He climbed upward, ignoring the sounds of battle behind him until he reached the flattened bag, which he plucked from its ledge. He dropped it into the portable hole, then folded the hole shut. He’d shake it out later when he reached the surface. If the others survived the demon attack and came looking for him, there would be no clues to alert them to the trick he’d played.

  Ryld pressed on, retracing the route they’d taken from the surface. He’d taken careful mental notes as they descended, pausing several times to turn around to view landmarks from the opposite direction.

  He passed the place where they’d been forced to crawl over a jumble of rock because the ceiling had partially collapsed, then the long, narrow cavern where a trickle of water had encouraged a faintly glowing patch of lichen to grow. Next came the natural chimney that rose more than a hundred paces above and below to dead ends, with several narrow tunnels opening onto it.

  Reaching it, Ryld looked up the chimney and counted. The third tunnel above and slightly to the right was the one they’d come through. Touching the magical brooch pinned to his shirt, Ryld stepped out into the chimney and levitated toward it.

  As he drew closer to the tunnel mouth, he heard a faint clink from somewhere inside it. Instantly recognizing the sound of chain mail links clinking against each other, he whipped up the hood of his piwafwi and drew his feet up under its hem. The magic of his cloak enfolded him, throwing his body into shadow. He drifted past the mouth of the tunnel he’d been heading for—to one side of it, so the person he’d just heard wouldn’t spot the movement of shadowed gray against shadowed gray—then he halted the equivalent of a dozen paces above the opening. He hung there, carefully controlling his breathing so that not even a whisper of sound escaped his lips. He waited.

  A moment later, a dark face appeared in the tunnel mouth. The strange drow’s ebony skin blended with the darkness of the tunnel behind it, as did the black mask that hid his lower face—the symbol of a cleric of Vhaeraun—but his white hair and faintly glowing red eyes stood out in sharp relief. He peered up at where Ryld floated. A chimney was a natural place to expect an ambush.

  Slowly, Ryld slid his finger into the trigger of the crossbow that was strapped to his wrist, but the cleric didn’t appear to have spotted him.

  After a quick scan of the chimney above, the cleric turned his attention downward. Pulling a forked bit of bone out of a pocket of his piwafwi, he grasped it with the thumb and forefinger of each hand and held it over the chimney, then spoke the words of a spell. The bone glowed with a soft purple light. A moment later, the light coalesced at the point of the V-shaped bone, then erupted into a sizzling purple spark. The spark began to drift up, then hesitated and drifted slowly and steadily downward. It came to a halt in front of the tunnel Ryld had just climbed out of before it winked out.

  The priest turned and signed to someone in the tunnel behind him, They went this way.

  That seen, Ryld’s suspicions were confirmed. The cleric was from House Jaelre and was seeking vengeance for the death of his high priest.

  Ryld watched in silence as the cleric and two well-armed males descended toward the tunnel. The cleric and one of the warriors simply stepped out of the tunnel and drifted magically downward, but the second warrior was forced to climb down the narrow corner of the chimney, his back braced against one wall, hands and feet against the other. Tactically, that was the moment for Ryld to strike—or to flee, since the grunts and scuffing noises the climbing male was making would cover the sound of him entering the tunnel they’d just left.

  Ryld didn’t care about Quenthel Baenre. He had accompanied her because he’d been ordered to. Valas could take care of himself in a fight, and Danifae was from another city, and no concern of Ryld’s. But Pharaun, even though he was a powerful mage, had just been in a fight with a demon. He would be easy pickings for those three . . .

  Flipping back his piwafwi, Ryld shot his crossbow at the cleric. The tiny bolt struck the drow’s cheek, plowing a furrow of red across it. As the powerful poison on the barb entered his bloodstream, the cleric sagged in mid-air and was forced to grab at the mouth of one of the tunnels as his levitation magic failed him. Crawling into it, he lay trembling on its stone floor, his lips moving in whispered prayer.

  Ryld touched his brooch and dropped like a stone. He twisted as he fell, simultaneously drawing his short sword and lashing out with a foot as he passed the climbing drow. Braced against the rock as he was, the man could do nothing but close his eyes against the kick Ryld aimed at his face. The blow rocked his head back, smashing it into the wall with a loud crack. An instant later, his unconscious body tumbled after Ryld.

  Pushing off from a wall, Ryld activated the magic of his brooch a second time, checking his fall. The unconscious drow tumbled past, landing with a bone-snapping thud against th
e floor far below. In the meantime, the levitating warrior had drawn his weapon: a spiked mace.

  Ryld floated down toward him, short sword at the ready. His opponent shouted something—a command word—and the head of his mace burst into bright, magical light. Blinded by the sudden brilliance, Ryld instinctively twisted aside—and heard the mace strike a shattering blow against the wall beside his head. His foot lashed out a second time but missed its target. The warrior was used to fighting in sunlight and had easily avoided the kick.

  Cursing, Ryld summoned a magical darkness that filled the chimney. Neither of them could see, so both had to listen carefully over the sound of the cleric’s prayers for the faint shifts of fabric and armor in order to locate his opponent.

  A rush of air warned Ryld of a second mace blow. He twisted violently back, inadvertently falling a little as his levitation magic was interrupted. His sword arm brushed the chimney wall—and an instant later the mace smashed into his elbow, numbing his arm to the fingertips. He tried to swing, but the sword slipped from his fingers.

  The mace smashed in a second time, catching him in the stomach. Ryld’s breastplate stopped the spikes from penetrating, but even so, the force of the blow made him grunt. His opponent was better than Ryld had expected.

  Ryld heard his short sword clatter against the bottom of the chimney, far below. Meanwhile, the cleric’s prayer had increased in volume from a whisper to a chant. The cleric must have been using his magic to neutralize the poison, which meant that Ryld would soon have two threats to face. In the narrow chimney, the greatsword strapped to his back was useless. He wouldn’t be able to bring Splitter to bear. That meant close fighting. Very close.

  Kicking off from a wall, Ryld launched himself horizontally at the sound of his opponent’s breathing. His fingers brushed against a mail tunic, but then he heard the rush of a mace. He twisted, but the weapon connected with his shoulder. He was saved from injury by the dragon-shaped ring on his finger—the ring that marked Ryld as a Master of Melee-Magthere—for its magic made his skin and flesh as tough as that of a dragon. The spikes of the mace bent as they struck, and the weapon glanced off.