Read Online Archmage by R. A. Salvatore - Free Book Online

will salvage the goodwill of the Spider Queen.”
    High Priestess Kiriy held her tongue, unsure that the exercise of summoning the corpses from the distant battlefield and properly disposing of them would do any such thing. But they had to try, she knew, for she understood as her mother understood: Lady Lolth was not pleased with their failures in the Silver Marches.
    Perhaps that was why the dark elves killed in that war were so disproportionately Xorlarrin warriors.
    So now they would perform their tedious duty, in the hopes that they would garner some measure of forgiveness or clemency from the merciless Spider Queen. Such a task would consume them for hours each day, and was no inexpensive feat. Tsabrak had to destroy a valuable gemstone for each summoning.
    Perhaps it would be easier, Kiriy thought—but surely did not say—if Matron Mother Zeerith simply sent Tsabrak to the Silver Marches to physically reclaim the fallen dark elves of Q’Xorlarrin.
    But of course, her mother would never do such a thing. Tsabrak was Zeerith’s lover now, her partner, and she had secretly elevated him to a position of power nearly equal to her own. And that, Kiriy feared—but again dared not speak aloud—might be the truth behind Lady Lolth’s disapproval.

    A fireball stole the darkness in a far corner of the great cavern that housed Menzoberranzan. It was something more than a wizard’s blast, Gromph knew, as he watched from his window at the drow academy of Sorcere.
    Cries drifted across the cavern, echoing. A battle raged, drow against demon, likely, or just as likely, demon against demon.
    The Abyssal beasts were thick about Menzoberranzan now, these ugly creatures of destruction and chaos, wandering freely, untended, uncontrolled. Gromph had lost two students caught in a skirmish with a glabrezu over in the district called the Stenchstreets—the body of one apprentice wizard had been sent to him in two equal-sized boxes.
    The gates of every house in the city were closed, sealed, every sentry on a nervous edge, every matron mother plotting and fretting in turn, wondering if she might turn a demon to her advantage or fearing that a horde of the beasts would descend upon her House and obliterate it. They could find no pattern to alleviate their fears. These were demons, changing direction at a whim, destroying simply for the joy of destroying.
    A low growl escaped the archmage’s lips. What idiocy was this? What demons, literal and figurative, was his arrogant sister unleashing upon the city of Menzoberranzan?
    He heard a knock on his door but ignored it. More bad news, likely: another student torn apart by a glabrezu’s giant pincers, a lesser House invaded, perhaps.
    Another knock sounded, this one more insistent, and when Gromph didn’t respond, he heard, to his absolute astonishment, the door creaking open.
    “You are fortunate that I did not enable my wards,” he said dryly, never turning. “Else you would be a red puddle from which a wounded frog would hop.”
    “Truly, husband?” came the surprising reply, the voice of Minolin Fey. “Perhaps in that event you would find me more attractive.”
    “What are you doing here?” Gromph demanded, and still he did not bother to turn to face the priestess.
    “The matron mother is quite pleased with herself,” Minolin Fey replied. “The other matron mothers are too busy securing their gates to think about colluding against her.”
    “Perhaps if she just burned down House Baenre, she would have even less to worry about,” Gromph sardonically replied.
    He took a deep breath and finally turned a serious expression upon the high priestess. “How many has she summoned?”
    “Who can know?” Minolin Fey replied. “Now the demons are summoning each other. The matron mother might as well have thrown fifty scurvy rats into a nest, the beasts reproduce so efficiently. Except that even scurvy rats have a few tendays of helpless infancy. The summoned demons are quite mature