Extinction (War of the Spider Queen #4) 6

Pharaun listened dispassionately as Jeggred gasped out his story. The draegloth was dripping wet and still making the transition to breath-ing air again. He sucked in great, gurgling breaths that might have been construed - were they made by a creature that was not demon-spawned - to be sobs.

"She's been eaten," Jeggred said, his head low and all four arms hanging dejectedly at his sides. "Mistress Quenthel is dead."

Pharaun regarded the draegloth coldly and said, "Thanks to you."

The comment normally would have caused Jeggred to leap for-ward, snarling for blood, but instead he stood as quietly as a rothe waiting for slaughter.

Danifae, standing in the tunnel beside the river, glanced at Pharaun.

"Is it even possible?" she asked. "Even without her spells, Mistress Quenthel should have been capable of defeating the aboleth. Her ar-mor and enchantments alone should have protected her from - "

"He said she was swallowed whole," Valas interjected. "She never had a chance."

At the mercenary's blunt words, Jeggred's shoulders slumped still lower. Hunkering down, the draegloth wrapped his smaller arms around his knees and stared blankly at the river.

Pharaun nodded to himself. As Jeggred had been relating what had happened in the aboleth city, Pharaun grew increasingly certain that the draegloth truly believed his mistress was dead.

Danifae touched his arm lightly and asked, "What should we do next, Master Pharaun? You're the leader now - it's your decision."

Pharaun noted how Danifae had glanced at Valas as she spoke, as if she was watching the mercenary for any challenge to Pharaun's leadership.

Valas, having noted the same thing, grunted, then shrugged.

"Yes," he said, meeting Pharaun's eye. "What now? Continue thesearch for the ship of chaos - or make our way back to Menzo-berranzan?"

Pharaun's answer was immediate.

"We're still under orders from the Matron Mother," he told them briskly, "and I am still under orders from the Archmage of Menzoberranzan. Until we hear otherwise, we continue our quest to find out what's happened to Lolth. And that means finding the ship."

Danifae met his eyes and asked, "All of us?"

Pharaun stared at her.

"Since you didn't keep your part of the bargain," he said slowly, watching for Danifae's reaction, "what reason do I have to keep mine?"

Danifae's eyes blazed as she lost her usual control.

"But you promised!" she spat.

Jeggred, sensing the sudden tension in the air, looked up and growled softly. Valas glanced back and forth between Pharaun and Danifae.

"Promised what?" the mercenary asked.

Pharaun ignored the question.

"You made a promise, too," the Master of Sorcere reminded Danifae in a low voice. He patted the spellbook he'd been reading earlier. "When you slipped away to speak to Quenthel, did you hon-estly think I wouldn't listen in?"

Danifae's hands curled into fists at her sides. Pharaun almost ex-pected her to stamp her foot and turn away, but after a moment her fingers slowly uncurled. She stared hardat him as if trying to guess his thoughts, then she tossed her long white hair and gave him a sulky pout.

"You meant me to betray you all along," she said. "You knew it would make Quenthel more sure of herself. She might not have met with Oothoon if - "

Pharaun interrupted her by clearing his throat. He inclined his head at Jeggred, who had risen to a fighting crouch.

"What are you saying?" the draegloth growled.

"Nothing," Danifae said smoothly, giving Jeggred a seductive smile. "Pharaun tried to get Oothoon to tell him where the ship of chaos was and learned nothing. He knew Quenthel would be able to succeed where he had failed, and so he was jealous. He was planning to discredit your mistress - to tell your matron mother, if and when he succeeds in making contact with Menzo-berranzan again - that he was the one who found out where the ship is, not Quenthel."

Jeggred thought about that for a moment. Then his lips parted in a snarl.

"He would have lied," he growled, understanding at last. "Pharaun would have made the mistress look bad."

Pharaun waved a hand dismissively, thus concealing a gesture that activated a protective spell whose incantation he whispered un-der his breath.

"There's no need to get angry," he told Jeggred. "It's just... politics. You'd do the same, in my shoes. Any drow would."

Jeggred, unmollified, snarled at Pharaun and slammed his fight-ing hands into the mage's chest, but the gesture was half-hearted. His claws remained unflexed. The protective spell Pharaun had cast shimmered only faintly as it easily soaked up the force of the blow. The worst of it was the draegloth's foul breath, which he panted into Pharaun's face for several long moments as he tried to stare him down. Then the draegloth dropped back into a crouch, turning his back to resume his sulk.

Pharaun saw Valas, who had moved silently into position behind Jeggred, sheathing his kukris. Pharaun raised an eyebrow, then nod-ded his thanks at the mercenary. He had neither seen nor heard Valas draw the twin daggers - he was glad that the Bregan D'aerthe scout had chosen to back him and not Jeggred.

"As for the offer I made to you," Pharaun continued, turning to Danifae, "it still stands. It's just that it's not . . . expedient for you to leave us at the moment. With our numbers reduced, I may need you."

Danifae stood with her hands on her hips, an invitation and a challenge in one.

Interesting how quickly she begins to offer up her enticements, the wizard thought, now that Quenthel is gone.

"The question still remains," she said. "What do we do now?"

"We continue to try to get the information we need from Oot-hoon," Pharaun answered, stooping to tuck his spellbook back in his pack. "Or rather,I continue. I'm going back to Zanhoriloch. Alone, this time."

"Are you mad?" Valas asked, shaking his head. "You'll vanish down Oothoon's gullet, just as Quenthel did. Then where will we be?"

Pharaun shrugged and said, "Free to do as you wish, I suppose." He winked at Danifae, then added, "Which would mean you'd have to walk to ... where you want to go. Perhaps your own mistress will return to claim you again, or maybe our valiant mercenary would escort you." He laughed and patted his backpack. "Don't worry. I've prepared a little magical surprise for the aboleth. Mymemories won't be added to Oothoon's."

Danifae gave him a mock pout and said, "See to it that they aren't."

Pharaun wasted no time in making his preparations. He pulled a leather glove onto one hand in preparation for a spell he would cast once he arrived in Zanhoriloch and made sure his wands were close at hand. He then cast two protective spells in quick succession. The first would shield him from any attempts the aboleth made to dominate his mind. The second created eight illusionary images of himself that mirrored his every move.

All nine Pharauns nodded their farewell and smiled as Valas saluted them. The one that was second from the left - the real Pharaun - cast the spell that allowed him to breathe water. Mirrored by the others, he stepped into the river, and, as soon as the cold water closed over his head, he spoke the word that would teleport him to Oothoon's audience chamber.

His arrival took the aboleth matriarch completely by surprise. Oothoon was resting in her niche, admiring a large black pearl held in the tip of a tentacle. As Pharaun and his eight illusionary doubles materialized suddenly in the room, she startled, then coiled her ten-tacle tightly around the pearl, drawing the precious object closer to her body.

Another aboleth was just outside in the spiraling corridor, guard-ing the entrance. It blinked its three eyes in startled surprise to see nine drow suddenly appear in the audience chamber but reacted with the swiftness of a trained soldier. A powerful stroke of its fluked tail propelled it into the room. One of the illusionary Pharauns dis-appeared in a sparkle of magical energy as the aboleth tore through it in an attack as savage and swift as that of a shark.

As the aboleth guard turned for a second attack Pharaun raised his gloved hand and flexed it, swiftly fingering an evocation with his other hand in the silent speech. An enormous ebony-skinned hand appeared in the water. Fingers open, it met the guard head-on, then wrapped itself around the aboleth. It squeezed tight, smashing the aboleth's tentacles against its body. The guard, nearly blinded by a finger that covered two of its eyes, gurgled with rage and gnawed at the palm of the hand, which was pressed up against the mouth in its belly. The hand, however, was made of magical energy, not flesh, and so the guard's attempts to bite it were futile. The aboleth thrashed helplessly in the hand's firm grip, slime from its body clouding the water around it.

Pharaun gave a quick mental push, and the hand carried the guard out of the room and down the corridor.

All that happened in the space of a few heartbeats. Immediately after shoving the guard away, Pharaun turned - together with his mirror images - and cast a powerful enchantment at Oothoon. A wash of magical energy stirred the water around the aboleth matri-arch, and an instant later Pharaun saw Oothoon's tentacles relax. Still wary, he spoke to Oothoon in sign, testing the effects of his charm. If the spell had worked, she would be not just willing but eager to chat with her "old friend" Pharaun.

I apologize for the abrupt intrusion,he signed,but I wanted to find out how our little plan went. I have heard that Quenthel came to you, and that you consumed her. Now will you keep your part of the bargain and tell me where the ship of chaos lies?

Oothoon glancedat the corridor, bereft of its guard, then back at the mage.

"Your 'priestess' had no magic."

Pharaun had anticipated that response.

I suppose you learned from her memories that Lolth is. . . unavail-able,he signed.In time, however, the goddess will awaken, and you will have full use of the spells you just acquired.

"I did not consume Quenthel. She was not worth eating."

Pharaun blinked.

Butthe one who accompanied her came back to us and told us you consumed her. He saw you swallow her whole.

"The four-armed one saw what I wanted him to see," Oothoon said, tentacles quivering and mouth open in what Pharaun took to be a wide grin.

That made Pharaun pause. He had heard that aboleths had mind magic capable of creatingillusions. It seemed that Oothoon had used just that talent on Jeggred. Was she dulling Pharaun's senses with an illusion even then? Were the audience chamber and the corridor beyond not as empty of guards as they seemed?

Pharaun had with him a vial of ointment that, when rubbed on the eyes, would instantly reveal the truth once the words of the spell that activated its potency were spoken - but using it meant reaching inside a pocket of hispiwafwi and closing his eyes briefly. If there were illusion-cloaked guards nearby, it would be the ideal moment in which to overpower him.

No, he'd rely on the magic he'd already protected himself with. Seven of the mirror images he'd created were still hovering in the water next to him. If a surprise attack came, there was only a one-in-eight chance that he would be the one who was targeted.

Oothoon, meanwhile, seemed relaxed. The aboleth matriarch rested easily in the niche, the only sign of unease the fact that the pearl was cupped protectively against her belly. Oothoon hadn't called for more guards to replace the one Pharaun had incapacitated and hadn't made any threatening moves. Pharaun was probably worrying needlessly. His charm spell had obviously taken hold. He decided to test it further by asking a question the aboleth wouldn't answer unless charmed.

Where is Quenthel now?Pharaun asked.

"Gone in search of the ship of chaos."

You told her where it was?

The aboleth matriarch just stared at him - but the silence was answer enough.

Pharaun glanced quickly around the chamber and at last spot-ted the missing pieces of the puzzle. There, clinging to the doorway, was a handful of sticky strands that looked like the remains of a broken web. He also spotted, peeking out from the kelp on which Oothoon's belly rested, the neck of a wine bottle. Not everything Jeggred had seen had been an illusion: Quenthel had used her wand - deliberately - to block him on the other side of the doorway. Later, after she'd gotten the information she wanted from Oothoon, she'd dissolved the barrier with alcohol.

Together, Quenthel and Oothoon had played an elaborate and illusion-enhanced ruse on Jeggred - and Pharaun. Oothoon had been waiting for her reward all the time. The aboleth matriarch knew that Pharaun, as soon as he heard of Quenthel's "death," would return -  

Pharaun's hands rose to cast a spell, but before he could complete his incantation, the pearl Oothoon had been holding appeared just in front of him - the real him, not one of his mirror images - as if out of nowhere. In the instant before it struck his chest, Pharaun realized what must have happened. The aboleth matriarch had put it in her mouth and had spat it at him, masking the action with an illusion.

The pearl struck his chest and exploded in a rush of sound that drove the water from his lungs and made his ears ring. Stunned, un-able to gesture or speak, he hung limp and alone in the water, his mirror images dissipated by the force of the blast. Though he was weak, dizzy, too stunned to move, a part of his mind was still able to note the irony of what had just happened. He'd been about to stun Oothoon with a spell, only to have the aboleth lay him low with pre-cisely the same form of magic. What he'd mistaken for a "pearl" was none other than one of Quenthel's magical beads of power.

It looked as though Oothoon hadn't succumbed to his charm spell, after all. Nor had the aboleth matriarch been fooled by his mir-ror images - an illusion Oothoon had obviously seen through, since she managed to pick the right Pharaun to spit the bead of power at. She'd been teasing him withthe truth, knowing he'd soon be as helpless as a flutter lizard in a web.

Launching herself out of the niche, Oothoon streaked toward the spot where Pharaun hung helpless, jaws open wide, she sucked Pharaun into her mouth. Still stunned by the blast of the bead, Pharaun didn't even have the strength to scream as the jaws snapped shut. Darkness enveloped him, and razor-sharp teeth sawed into his body.