R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, Insurrection, Condemnation by Richard Lee & Reid Byers Page A

“Shoot!”
    With commendable haste, they obeyed. They took up their crossbows, aimed, and the bolts leaped forth in a ragged clatter.
    Pharaun’s foulwing lurched, then plummeted down and down and down, crashing to earth somewhere amid the hollowed stalagmite edifices of the city.
    “Got him,” said the captain of the guard.
    Bigger and stronger than he, Greyanna had no difficulty knocking the male to the floor.
    “You got the foulwing,” she said. “We don’t know that you hit Pharaun at all. We don’t know that he didn’t use his wizardry or his levitation to cushion his fall. We don’t know that he isn’t down there alive and well laughing at us. I need to see his corpse, and one way or the other, you will fetch it for me. Turn out every available priestess, wizard, and warrior—drow or slave. Jump! ”
    Jump he did. It was the last bit of satisfaction that was to come her way.
    Her mortal agents flooded the streets, while she remained in her personal sanctum in House Mizzrym, summoning spirits and casting divinations to aid the search. Astonishingly, maddeningly, it was all to no avail. When light flowered in the base of Narbondel, signaling the advent of the new day, she was forced to admit that at least for the time being, Pharaun had eluded her.
    A month later, she learned that her brother had somehow made his way all the way up to Tier Breche and begged the Archmage of Menzoberranzan himself for a place in Sorcere, and, remembering the wizardly talent the younger male had demonstrated throughout his training, Gromph had seen fit to take him in.
    The news came as a considerable relief. She’d feared her brother had fled Menzoberranzan and placed himself permanently beyond her reach. Instead, he’d simply hopped up on a shelf above the city. He was bound to hop down again eventually, and she would have him.
    Or so she thought, until her mother sent for her. Possessed of the same intelligence concerning her fugitive son’s whereabouts, Miz’ri had formed a very different idea of what ought to be done about it: Nothing.
    Even though they were only males, the Masters of Sorcere possessed both a degree of practical autonomy and an abundance of mystical power, and, always weaving her labyrinthine schemes to elevate the status of House Mizzrym, Mother had decided not to unnecessarily provoke the wizards. Which was to say, as Pharaun had obtained a place in that cloistered, many-spired tower, he was more significant in exile than he had ever been at home, and Greyanna would have to let him live. She had achieved what ought to have been her primary goal, preeminence among her sisters and cousins, but her vengeance would remain unfinished.
    Through all the decades that followed, it galled her. A hundred times she planned to defy her mother’s command and kill Pharaun anyway, only to abandon her stratagems just short of implementation. As fiercely as she hated him, she feared Miz’ri’s displeasure even more.
    Was it possible that at long last the matron mother had changed her mind? Or was this some new cruelty, was Miz’ri perhaps going to somehow force Greyanna into an odious proximity with a brother who was still untouchable?
    “It might be nice to see Pharaun again,” the younger female said in the blandest tone she could muster.
    Miz’ri laughed. “Oh, I daresay it would, to see him and kill him, isn’t that the way of it?”
    “If you say so. You know our history. We played out the whole sava game under your nose.” I imagine you relished every moment of it, she thought.
    “Yes, you did, and so I know this will interest you. Sadly, a problem has arisen that even supercedes my desire to get along with the mages of the Academy. While you were away, males continued to desert—”
    “Pharaun ran off from Sorcere?” Greyanna interrupted, her eyes narrowed. “Were they finally going to punish him for getting those novices killed?”
    “No, and no! Shut your mouth, let me tell the tale, and