"It does, Mistress," Valas said, offering a slight bow.
Pharaun strode forward and clapped an arm around the scout's shoulders.
"Well done, Valas," he said in a hearty voice. "I always said you could smell a tunnel a mile away. Lead on! We'll be back in Menzoberranzan in no time, quenching our well-earned thirst with the finest wines that - "
"I think not." Quenthel stood with hands on her hips, the ser-pents in her whip matching her venomous stare. "The goddess is missing, possibly under attack. We must find her." Her eyes nar-rowed. "You are not suggesting, are you, Pharaun, that we turn our backs on Lolth? If so, I'm sure the matron mother will see to it you receive proper punishment."
Valas glanced between Pharaun and Quenthel, then took a slight step to the side, dislodging Pharaun's arm from his shoulder.
"Turn my back on Lolth?" Pharaun asked, chuckling to hide his nervousness. "Not at all. I'm merely suggesting we follow the matron mother's orders. She bade us find out what's happened to Lolth, and we have. We may not have all of the answers yet, but we have some pretty important pieces of the puzzle. The matron mother will no doubt want us to report what we've found out so far. Since the archmage is no longer answering my sendings, we can't be certain he's receiving our reports. I assumed we would report in person."
"Only one of us need go," Quenthel said. "But it won't be you. There are other, more important things for you to be doing." She paused for a moment, thinking. "You have the ability to summon demons, do you not?"
Pharaun raised an eyebrow.
"I have summoning spells, yes," he said. "But what does that have to do w - "
"We will return to the Demonweb Pits - in the flesh, this time," answered Quenthel. "And with a more trustworthy guide than Tzirik."
Valas shuddered and asked, "A demon?" The normally taciturn scout saw Quenthel's glare, seemed suddenly to realize he'd spoken aloud, and bowed. "As you command, Mistress."
"Assuming I do summon a demon, how can we possibly hope to prevent it from tearing us limb from limb, let alone coerce it into becoming a tour guide for some little jaunt to the Abyss? Even Archmage Gromph wouldn't think of whistling up a demon without a golden pentacle to bind it. We're in the wilderness - in the Realms of Sunlight, in case you hadn't noticed. Where am I supposed to get the spell components to - "
"Jeggred."
Pharaun blinked, wondering if he'd heard Quenthel correctly.
"Jeggred," she repeated. "We'll use his blood. You can draw the summoning diagram with that."
"Ah . . ." Pharaun cursed silently as he realized that Quenthel was, unfortunately, right. The blood of a draegloth could indeed bind a demon, but only one: the demon who had sired Matron Mother Baenre's half-demon son. The demon that was Jeggred's father.
Pharaun had no desire to meet him, in the flesh or otherwise, but he could see he had little choice in the matter. Not if he wanted to maintain his delicate balancing act of apparent loyalty to Lolth - necessary if he was to keep his position as Master of Sorcere. Just as Valas had done, Pharaun bowed.
"As you command, Mistress," he said - with just enough of a sarcastic twist on the final word to remind her that her title was a hollow one. Mistress of Arach-Tinilith she might be, back in Men-zoberranzan, but he was hardly one of her quivering initiates. He swept a hand in the direction Valas had indicated earlier. "Let's do the spellcasting below ground, shall we? I'd like to get out of this wretched sunshine."
As Valas and Quenthel set off, Pharaun pretended to follow them. He paused, picked up a twig, and used it to collect a bit of spiderweb from the trail. Lolth might be silent, but the sticky nets woven by her children were still useful; spiderweb was a component in more than one of his spells. Tucking the web-coated twig into a pocket, he hurried after the others.
Chapter Two
Halisstra stood on top of the bluff, staring out across the forest. Snow-blanketed trees stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction, here and there dimpled by a lake of an impossibly bright blue or divided by a road as neat and straight as a part through hair. For the first time, Halisstra understood what the word "horizon" meant. It was that