Extinction

The cleric, red eyes wide with fear, danced backward, avoiding Ryld's charge. Then, nerve broken, he turned and fled, screaming the words of a prayer. A circle of darkness appeared in the air just ahead of him, and he hurled himself into it. Then he was gone.

An instant later, the mask vanished from Ryld's face. Able to breathe again, Ryld drew a shuddering breath and steadied himself against one wall. For the moment, all was well. The cleric was gone, his magic having spirited him away, and the two warriors of House Jaelre who had accompanied him were dead. Even if the cleric did find Pharaun and the others, Ryld had greatly improved the odds. In the meantime, the two dead bodies would give his excuse about going back to see who was following them the ring of truth. If the others came that way they would find the dead warriors, would be able to tell from the tracks that there had been a third man, and would assume, when Ryld failed to return, that he had been captured and dragged back to Minauthkeep. Perfect.

Stepping out into the chimney once more, Ryld levitated down to retrieve the sword he'd dropped. The bodies of the two warriors he'd killed lay in a tangled heap, wedged into the bottom of the chimney.

Ryld's sword was sandwiched between them.

Flipping the top corpse over, he reached for his sword?then gasped when he spotted a pair of leather gloves that had spilled out of one of the warrior's torn pockets. He recognized them in an instant by the insignia of House Melarn embossed onto their wide cuffs.

They were Halisstra's gloves?and the soft leather was stiff with dried blood.

Fear washed through Ryld like an icy river. Did that mean Halisstra had been killed? If so, the logical thing for Ryld to do would be to return to the others?assuming they weren't demon meat by then?and give up the insane notion of remaining on the surface. It had all been Halisstra's idea, anyway. If she was dead, there was no point in him continuing alone.

But if she wasn't dead. .

Ryld shook his head, angry at himself. He didn't owe Halisstra anything, he told himself Going after her was simply insane.

His fist tightened on the bloody gloves. Stuffing them into a pocket of his piwafwi, he touched his brooch and levitated up the chimney.

Chapter Five

Pharaun smirked as Belshazu surged across the boiling pool of water.

"Demons are so predictable," he said, tsk tsking.

He raised the cone of glass he'd palmed earlier and spoke a command word. A blast of freezing air burst from the cone, smashing against the demon. Sweat crystallized to sparkling ice on Belshazu's broad chest but cracked and melted away under the heat and motion of the demon's charge. When the cone of cold struck the knee-deep water that surrounded Belshazu the pool instantly froze solid again.

The demon, finding himself trapped in knee-deep ice, directed the flames that surrounded his hands downward, but the ice did not melt.

Pharaun's smirk grew as he saw that his plan had worked.

"Thanks for stirring up the pool," he told the demon. "You mixed Jeggred's blood into it quite nicely. Oh, and here's a bit of trivia for you. Did you know that ice crystals always have six sides? So do crystals of blood, since blood is mostly water. They always form perfect little hexagrams. Millions of them."

It took a moment for the demon to realize what Pharaun was talking about. When it did, it roared even louder than before, smashing its pincers down on the ice that bound it. While the blows were hard enough to fill the cavern with booming crashes, the ice neither cracked nor splintered. The effort seemed to tax the demon. After just a few blows, it was panting in great, wheezing gasps.

"Now then," Pharaun continued. "You were going to tell us where the nearest gate to the Abyss can be fou?"

With a lurch that sent bile rushing into his throat, Pharaun fell upward as gravity suddenly reversed itself. Bound in ice the demon might be, but he still could work his magic. Taken by surprise, disoriented by the sudden gravity shift, Pharaun was unable to counter his fall with levitation magic. He slammed into the ceiling, knocking the breath from his lungs. Danifae and Jeggred crashed into the ceiling an instant later, but Valas had landed on his feet with catlike grace, and Quenthel was able to levitate before striking the rocks.

The demon lunged up at Pharaun, stretching as far as his icebound feet would allow. One of his pincers clamped onto Pharaun's foot and scissored down, slicing through boot leather and flesh until it grated against bone. Pharaun screamed in agony and scrambled at the rocks, trying to find a handhold as the demon pulled the drow wizard toward himself.