remains of a broken web. He also spotted, peeking out from the kelp on which Oothoon's belly rested, the neck of a wine bottle. Not everything Jeggred had seen had been an illusion: Quenthel had used her wand - deliberately - to block him on the other side of the doorway. Later, after she'd gotten the information she wanted from Oothoon, she'd dissolved the barrier with alcohol.
Together, Quenthel and Oothoon had played an elaborate and illusion-enhanced ruse on Jeggred - and Pharaun. Oothoon had been waiting for her reward all the time. The aboleth matriarch knew that Pharaun, as soon as he heard of Quenthel's "death," would return -
Pharaun's hands rose to cast a spell, but before he could complete his incantation, the pearl Oothoon had been holding appeared just in front of him - the real him, not one of his mirror images - as if out of nowhere. In the instant before it struck his chest, Pharaun realized what must have happened. The aboleth matriarch had put it in her mouth and had spat it at him, masking the action with an illusion.
The pearl struck his chest and exploded in a rush of sound that drove the water from his lungs and made his ears ring. Stunned, un-able to gesture or speak, he hung limp and alone in the water, his mirror images dissipated by the force of the blast. Though he was weak, dizzy, too stunned to move, a part of his mind was still able to note the irony of what had just happened. He'd been about to stun Oothoon with a spell, only to have the aboleth lay him low with pre-cisely the same form of magic. What he'd mistaken for a "pearl" was none other than one of Quenthel's magical beads of power.
It looked as though Oothoon hadn't succumbed to his charm spell, after all. Nor had the aboleth matriarch been fooled by his mir-ror images - an illusion Oothoon had obviously seen through, since she managed to pick the right Pharaun to spit the bead of power at. She'd been teasing him withthe truth, knowing he'd soon be as helpless as a flutter lizard in a web.
Launching herself out of the niche, Oothoon streaked toward the spot where Pharaun hung helpless, jaws open wide, she sucked Pharaun into her mouth. Still stunned by the blast of the bead, Pharaun didn't even have the strength to scream as the jaws snapped shut. Darkness enveloped him, and razor-sharp teeth sawed into his body.
Chapter Twenty-two
Halisstra stood near one of the trophy trees, the hilt of the songsword raised to her lips. After she'd killed the phase spider two nights be-fore, the priestesses had let her keep the broken sword, as well as Seyll's shield and chain mail. They'd also given her back her House insignia - which Halisstra had tucked into a pocket, instead of pin-ning to herpiwafwi - and her other enchanted rings and devices. She also still had her magical lyre, though she felt as disinclined to use it as the other things from the Underdark she had set aside. In-stead she practiced on the songsword, fingers dancing as she tried to create a tune to suit the mood of the snow-dappled woods and the clouds drifting lazily overhead, as white and fine-spun as hair.
Ryld sat cross-legged on a log a short distance away, sharpening his shortsword. His eyes were squinted against the morning sunlight even though he'd chosen a spot in deep shade. He sat with his back against a large boulder, under a canopy of tree branches that hung no more than a handspan above him. He was obviously still struggling with his unease of open spaces, of having nothing but the sky over his head.
After a while, the arrhythmicrasp . . . rasp rasp. . . rasp of Ryld's sharpening stone grated on Halisstra's nerves, forcing her to lower the songsword.
"Ryld," she said in exasperation. "If you have to do that here, could you at least work in time with my music?"
Startled, Ryld looked up.
"Fine," he said. He crawled out from under the overhanging branches, stood, and shoved the shortsword back into its sheath. Scowling at the forest, he asked, "How long do you intend for us to stay here?"
"A tenday, a month ... a year, if need be," Halisstra answered. "Until I learn everything I can about Eilistraee's worship."
"A lifetime, you mean," Ryld said sourly.
"Perhaps," Halisstra said with a shrug, then added, "There's no one forcing you to