golem. The statue stared down at her with eight emotionless eyes.
In the distance, Yasraena heard an occasional shout from the forces arrayed atop her fortress's walls. Hours before, thunderous explosions had shaken the complex, booming along the walls.
Yasraena found the relative quiet ominous. She knew the Xorlarrin forces had pulled back well beyond the moat bridge to plot a strategy for another assault. Tension sat thick in the air. She saw it in the eyes of her troops, her mages, her daughters. The next Xorlarrin attack would be more forceful than the last. She was confident that House Agrach Dyrr would hold it off, but what of the one after that or after that? What would occur when a second House joined Xorlarrin? A
third?
Her House had only days left to live, unless she found the phylactery and arranged a peace. Or returned the lichdrow to life and thus bolstered, demanded a peace.
So far, Larikal and the huffing oaf Geremis had been unable to locate the phylactery, yet
Yasraena was convinced that it was within the stalagmite fortress. The lichdrow had seldom moved outside its walls. He would not have secreted the vessel for his soul anywhere but within the manor.
She called upon the power of the amulet at her breast and projected to Larikal, My patience grows thin.
She sensed her daughter's anger through the connection afforded by their amulets.
The search continues, Matron Mother. The lichdrow was no mere conjurer. He has hidden his treasure well.
Yasraena let venom leak into her mental voice. Do not offer me excuses, she said. Offer me the phylactery or I will offer your life to the Spider Queen.
Yes, Matron Mother, answered Larikal, and the connection went quiet.
Yasraena's threat was sincere. She had killed progeny before to make a point. She would do so again, if necessary.
From behind, she heard the beat of footsteps on the temple's portico. She rose and turned just as Esvena sprinted through the open double doors and into the temple. The links of her adamantine mail tinkled like slave's bells. She held her helm in her hand, and her face was flushed.
A hundred possibilities flew through Yasraena's mind, none of them good. Her grip on her tentacle rod tightened.
'Esvena?' she asked, and her voice echoed through in the vaulted temple.
'Matron Mother,' Esvena huffed and ran up the aisle between the pews. She offered a hurried supplication to Lolth before broaching the apse and bowing before Yasraena.
Esvena's otherwise plain face was as animated as Yasraena had ever seen it.
'We have him, Mother!' she said and stood, smiling.
Esvena did not need to say whom she meant by 'him.' A thrill went through Yasraena, and she grabbed her taller daughter by the shoulders.
'Lolth has answered our prayers,' she said. 'Show me.'
Together, mother and daughter hurried from the temple, past exhausted troops and sunken-
eyed wizards, though empty halls and chambers, until they reached the vaulted scrying chamber and its stone basin.
The two homely male wizards, both in dark piwafwis, awaited them there. One of them-the one Yasraena previously had choked for smiling-greeted them with a bowed head and lowered eyes. He did not smile, instead eyeing Yasraena's tentacle rod with dread. The other male stood over the scrying basin, his furrowed brow covered in sweat, his hands held over the still water,
palms downward.
Without acknowledging the male, Yasraena pushed past her daughter and hurried to the edge of the waist- high basin. Esvena followed in her wake.
A wavering image showed itself in the waters. Gromph Baenre sat at a huge desk of bone, his gaze fixed intently on an unusual crystal set before him. Yasraena took the crystal to be a scrying device, though it showed only a gray mist at the moment.
Across from the archmage sat another wizard, a fat Master of Sorcere whose name Yasraena did not know. From time to time, they exchanged words. They appeared frustrated and tired.
'This is very good,' Yasraena said to the room. 'Very good, indeed.'
She knew that she still had time to locate the lichdrow's phylactery. The archmage remained at Sorcere. Perhaps his spell duel with the lichdrow had drained him so much that he would not make an attempt on the House at all.
'The work was long, Matron Mother,' said the male she had choked. 'The archmage's wards were powerful. But we persisted.'
'You saved yourself a painful death,' Yasraena said. After a pause, she added, 'Well done.'
The male almost smiled, but one look at Yasraena's tentacle rod kept the corners of his mouth from rising.
The wizard went on, 'Notice the gray mist present in the archmage's scrying crystal, Matron
Mother. If the archmage is attempting to scry House Agrach Dyrr through that crystal, as we suppose, the mistiness indicates that he has not yet breached our anti-scrying wards.'
She nodded. The lichdrow had well warded the fortress, better, apparently, than the archmage had warded his own chambers.
Yasraena saw that the archmage and the Master of Sorcere were speaking intently. From their body language, Yasraena thought that Gromph too easily tolerated impudence in his inferiors.
'Why can we not hear what they are they saying?' she asked the room.
Silence answered her. She looked up, and Esvena barked, 'Answer the Matron Mother!'
The male Yasraena had choked cleared his throat and said, 'Matron Mother, the basin does not allow for the transmission of sounds. I humbly apologize.'
Yasraena stared at the top of the male's head for a moment before turning back to the image.
The vision wavered too much for lip readers to be of much use. She would have to rely on observation to keep her apprised of Gromph's plans.
She eyed the sweating male wizard who leaned over the basin, maintaining the image. He would not be able to hold the image for much longer. She looked to Esvena.
'Rotate our mages so that this image is constant. It is imperative that we know what Gromph
Baenre is doing at all times.'
Esvena nodded.
Yasraena was beginning to think that the temporary Xorlarrin withdrawal was part of some larger ploy by the archwizard. Perhaps he would time his own assault with that of the Xorlarrin,
hoping to sneak in under cover of the battle.
We've got you, Baenre, she thought, eyeing Gromph through the basin. With the Dyrr wizards'
scrying eye on him, the archmage would not be able to surprise them. If he came, they would be ready.
Yasraena took a deep, satisfied breath. She had asked the Spider Queen for an opportunity.
She had been given more time, and that was opportunity enough.
Conscious of his companions' eyes upon him, Pharaun pulled a swatch of bat fur from his piwafwi, positioned his fingers in a circle, and spoke a couplet.
An incorporeal, silvery orb took shape before him. With an exercise of his will, he saw through the ball as though it were his own eyes. At his mental command, the ball sped back through the chwidencha tunnel, up the vertical shaft, and through the wall of stone that Pharaun had created to cap the tunnel.
Through the eye, Pharaun saw the surface.
It was night. And raining. Spider carcasses and limbs dotted the landscape. The chwidencha bodies they had left behind lay torn in pieces. Pharaun saw no movement, no spiders. He ceased concentration on the orb, leaving it where it was, and returned his vision to his own eyes.
Quenthel stood near him, waiting. Danifae stood a few steps behind her, her expression veiled. Jeggred
