He completed the spell and whispered the message it would carry for him through the incalculable distances of dimensions and space, “Jeggred. We are in mortal peril. Slay Tzirik’s physical body at once. We will return quickly, but guard us until we do. Quenthel commands it.”
Pharaun sighed and stood, his expression thoughtful. The sending was reliable, but he didn’t know for certain the effects of attempting it from another plane of existence. Nor did he know how long it would take his words to reach Jeggred back in Minauthkeep, or if the draegloth would choose to do as he asked even in Quenthel’s name ... or even if the cursed half-demon was still alive and free to kill the high priest.
The Master of Sorcere had a good sense of what to expect if all went as he hoped. It was only a matter of time, and not much at that.
“This would not be a good time to become obstinate, Jeggred,” Pharaun muttered, even though his sending was gone already. “For once, do as I ask without question.”
Warily, he began to creep back toward the distant cleft in the temple’s massive wall.
Surrounded by his tumbling wall of blades, Tzirik stood aside from the rest of the company, quickly and expertly reading aloud from his scroll. He didn’t bother explaining to the Menzoberranyr what Vhaeraun had told him to do, or why he was doing it. He simply proceeded as if they were not there at all, though he’d taken the precaution of raising a blade barrier to keep them from interfering.
Ryld and Valas stood close to the deadly, spinning razors, watching helplessly as the priest droned on. Danifae and Quenthel crouched a little father back, equally helpless, the determination to do something battling with their inability to discern what, exactly, they could do. Halisstra stood watching as well, but she merely waited to see what form her doom would take.
“Tzirik, stop!” cried Valas. “You have put us all in sufficient peril today. We will not allow you to continue.”
“Kill him, Valas,” Danifae said. “He will not listen, and he will not stop.”
The scout stood paralyzed as the priest’s chant approached the final, triumphant notes. His shoulders slumped, stricken with defeat. Without warning, Valas brought up his shortbow and fired.
The first arrow was deflected by a whirling blade in the magical barrier, but the second passed through cleanly and pierced Tzirik’s gauntleted hand. The priest cried out in pain and dropped his scroll, which fluttered to the stone plaza, unexpended.
The Jaelre whirled on Valas, eyes afire with hate through his masked helm, and said, “Are you still the bitches’ errand-boy, Valas? Don’t you see that you’re nothing but a well-heeled dog to them? Why do you persist in giving the Spider Queen your loyalty, when you could take the Masked Lord for your god and know true freedom?”
“Lolth will do as she will,” Valas answered. “I, however, am loyal to Bregan D’aerthe, and to my city. We can’t allow you, or even your god, to deflect us from our quest, Tzirik.”
Tzirik’s face clouded and he said, “You and your companions will not gainsay the will of Vhaeraun. I refuse to permit it.”
He crouched and raised his shield, snarling out the words of another divine spell. Valas fired again, but his arrows only ricocheted from the priest’s shield. Tzirik finished his spell and placed his wounded hand on the ground. A powerful tremor blasted through the stone and bludgeoned the Menzoberranyr, flinging them about like dolls and ripping open great cracks in the substance of the stone plain, crevices that led into absolute blackness below.
Valas staggered back and forth, trying to keep his balance as the stones cracked and buckled beneath him. Danifae steadied herself and snapped off a shot with her crossbow that passed through the blades and struck Tzirik a ringing hit on the breastplate, but the bolt shivered into pieces on the priest’s armor. Quenthel managed a desperate, off-balance leap to keep from toppling into a gaping crevice beneath her. She rolled awkwardly, and came up with a short iron rod in her hand. The high priestess barked a command word and discharged a white sphere of some magical, viscous substance at the priest, but Tzirik’s seething blades ripped apart the viscid glob in a spray of gluey strands.
“Get up, Halisstra,” Quenthel hissed. “Your sister priestesses need you!”
The powerful tremors took Halisstra’s feet out from under her the first time she tried to stand. She shook her head and tried again.
My sisters need me? she thought. Strange, as our goddess apparently has no use for any of us who serve as her priestesses. If Lolth chooses to turn her back on me, to spurn my faithfulness and devotion, then the least I can do is return the favor.
Throughout Halisstra’s life she had willingly joined ranks with her worst enemies, her most bitter rivals, when something rose to threaten the absolute dominion over dark elf society she and her sister priestesses shared. Staring off into the endless, empty expanse of the Demonweb Pits, she found that she would not take one single step in Lolth’s name.
“Let him do as he will,” she said to Quenthel. “Lolth has taught me not to care. If we managed to preserve Lolth’s very existence today, do you think she would be grateful? If I tore my own heart out and laid it on the Spider Queen’s altar, do you think she would be pleased by my sacrifice?”
Bitter laughter welled up in her throat and Halisstra gave herself over to it, even as Tzirik’s tremors subsided. Her heart ached with a hurt that could rend the world in two, but she could not find a voice for it.
Quenthel stared at her in horror.
“Blasphemy,” she managed to whisper.
The Mistress of Arach-Tinilith gathered up her whip and turned on Halisstra, but before she could strike, Tzirik struck with another spell, scouring the entire party with sheets of incandescent flames that raced back and forth across the stone plain like water sloshing on a plate. Halisstra threw herself flat and cried out in pain. The others cursed or cried out, scrabbling for cover that did not exist.
“Leave me!” Tzirik commanded from within his cage of whirling steel.
He stooped down and picked up his scroll, while the Menzoberranyr picked themselves up from the smoking stones.
Ryld rose slowly, his flesh seared at face and hands, and watched as the cleric started to cast his spell again. The weapons master eyed the spinning blades surrounding the priest, and with the quickness of a big cat, he gathered up his legs and sprang into the barrier, crouching low into the tightest ball possible. Droplets of blood splattered nearby as the whirling magical blades sparked and sliced against the weapons master’s dwarven armor, drawing blood in a dozen places—but the Master of Melee-Magthere was through the barrier.
He staggered to his feet with an animal grunt of pain, Splitter gripped awkwardly in his slashed hands, but he managed to drive at Tzirik with the point of the greatsword. Once again the cleric was forced to drop his scroll. He parried the thrust with his shield and lashed back with his spiked mace. Ryld avoided the blow only by leaping backward, so close to the whirling blades that sparks flew from his shoulders as the razors kissed his back. He recovered and glided forward again, spinning his deadly sword and slashing quickly at the Jaelre cleric.
Valas, standing outside the whirling blades, reached up to the nine-pointed star token on his breast and touched it. In the blink of an eye he vanished, reappearing inside the barrier behind Tzirik. He dropped his bow and drew his kukris, but Tzirik surprised him.
Turning his back on Ryld, the strong cleric took three powerful strides and slammed his heavy shield into the Bregan D’aerthe even as Valas got his knives in hand. With a roar of anger the Jaelre shoved Valas back into the curtain of deadly razors and sent the scout stumbling through, spinning and screaming as the blades sliced his flesh.