«At least we can stop running for a while,» Quenthel said. «I'm sick of carrying this damned thing.»

She growled, kicking at the knapsack at her feet. She began rubbing her shoulders.

Pharaun shook his head, amazed at the high priestess's stubbornness. The mage had tried to be as deferential as possible, to let her see the folly of heading in this direction, but despite his warnings—and Valas's—the Mistress of Arach-Tinilith had, with her usual haughty demeanor, browbeat them into obeying her wishes anyway. Now they were pinned against the bloated growth, just as he had predicted, and she was simply going to ignore that fact.

Pharaun pursed his lips in vexation as he watched her out of the corner of his eye. She labored to work the stiffness out of her shoulders. He could only imagine the discomfort she must be feeling, but he had no pity for her plight. Despite the fact that his own haversack was magically lightened, Pharaun's shoulders ached, too. They had gone far beyond sore and were, he was certain, chaffed raw.

«Ah, yes,» he said, continuing to examine the spongy growth, «you've made it quite clear how far beneath a Baenre—the Mistress of the Academy no less—it is to … how did you say it? … 'demean herself like a common slave lugging roth dung through the moss beds’. But, I would respectfully point out—again — that it was your masterful tactical decision to leave our thralls and pack lizards behind, tethered and bleeding, in order to facilitate our escape from those cloakers.»

The wizard knew full well that his cutting remarks would further sour her already unpleasant mood, but he truly didn't care. Getting under Quenthel's skin gave him no end of delight, even during trying circumstances such as these.

«You presume much, boy» the high priestess snapped as she stood straight again, glaring balefully at him. «Perhaps too much. .»

Still not looking at her, Pharaun rolled his eyes where she could not see.

«A thousand times a thousand pardons, Mistress,» he said, sensing the time was ripe to change the subject. «So I suppose you no longer intend to bother with the goods you think are stored in the Black Claw Mercantile storehouses in Ched Nasad. Even if they do rightfully belong to House Baenre, how are we going to get them back to Menzoberranzan? You certainly won't carry them, and once word gets around that you like to use your pack animals and drovers as bait, no one else will, either.»

Pharaun stole a sidelong glance at the high priestess, mostly for the simple pleasure of observing her disgrunded state. Quenthel's scowl was particularly severe, drawing out fully the vertical line that ran between her brows and giving her that pinched look that the mage was beginning to find unduly comical. The wizard stifled a chuckle.

That managed to get under her skin, he thought, grinning, but then he noticed Jeggred moving to stand between the two of them.

The beast loomed over the wizard, and Pharaun's grin vanished. He held his breath as the draegloth smiled balefully. The fiend's fetid panting cascaded over him, making his stomach turn.

The demon served Quenthel unswervingly, and at a word from her, he would gladly attempt to rip the wizard—or anyone else in the group, for that matter—limb from limb with malice-laden glee. Thus far, that word had not come, but Pharaun did not relish the possibility of having to defend himself from the fiend's assault, especially in such close quarters where he would have a hard time getting clear to exercise his own allotment of spells. He would prefer a large cavern to make his stand against Jeggred, but unfortunately, there was only this cramped passage, with no room to stay clear of the brute's claws.

Despite her current foul humor and the very ungainly way she had recently been bearing the load on her back, Quenthel somehow managed to look regal as she pushed herself away from the wall and stalked across the corridor toward Pharaun, herpiwafwi swishing about her. He understood that she wasn't merely ignoring his jibes. She had waited until her faithful servant had moved into position to back her up before confronting the mage.

«I know very well what I said and did, and I do not need you mimicking my words back to me like some idiot savant, displayed in a gilded cage for all to look upon and laugh at.» She focused her stare on him and held it there. «We are on a diplomatic mission, wizard, but those goods do belong to my House, and they will be returned there. I'll see to that. If I can't hire a caravan to carry them back, then you'll do it for me. Jeggred will make certain of it.»

She held his gaze imperiously for a moment as Jeggred smiled carnally beside her. Finally, she straightened, made a subtle motion to the draegloth, and the fiend moved off to lick the gore from his claws.

«Find us a way around this. . thing,» Quenthel said, jabbing her finger toward the massive growth before she turned and strode back to her own pack and sank down to the floor.

Pharaun sighed and rolled his eyes, knowing he had pushed the high priestess too far. He would suffer more later for his little jibes. He looked over at Faeryl to gauge her reaction to the confrontation. The ambassador from Ched Nasad merely shook her head at him, scorn plain on her mien.

«I would think you, of all people, would be more than a little disgruntled that she's planning to strip your mother's mercantile company bare,» he said quietly to her.

Faeryl shrugged and said, «It's no concern of mine. My House merely works for her—for House Baenre and for House Melarn. They own Black Claw together, so if she wants to steal from her partners, who am I to stop her? As long as I get home. .»

Pharaun was surprised to actually see a wistful look on the ambassador's face.

The Master of Sorcere grunted at Faeryl's response and turned once more to inspect the material that blocked their way. He was both fascinated at seeing it in person for the first time and desperate to seek a possible way around it. He knew that the Araumycos filled countless miles of caverns in this part of the Underdark, but travelers had sometimes been able to find ways around or through it.

Valas was already climbing up the surface of the growth, pressed tightly against it, working his way toward the upper reaches. Pharaun could see that the passage they had followed opened into what must be a larger cavern, for the ceiling, like the passage itself, rose abruptly. He could see that the scout was making his way toward a narrow gap between the growth and the side of the cavern, perhaps hoping that there was a way to squeeze through, though to where, Pharaun had no idea.

Pharaun considered the diminutive mercenary from Bregan D'aerthe to be a bit uncouth, but nonetheless, he was glad the wiry guide was along for the trip.

«How long do we have before that gives out?» Faeryl asked, staring back the way they all had come, back toward the inky blackness.

Pharaun was surprised that she spoke to him. She was emboldened, the wizard supposed, from their earlier conversation. Not bothering to look at the ambassador, Pharaun continued his inspection, producing a tiny flame at the tip of his finger with which he began scorching the fungus. Where the fire touched the growth, it blackened and withered, but it did not burn a hole through to anywhere.

«Not long,» he said.

He sensed rather than saw her discomfort at his offhand comment. The wizard smiled despite himself as he worked, bemused at the irony of Faeryl's situation. It had not been that long ago that she had been desperate to make this journey, to return to her home city.

Desperate enough to try sneaking out of Menzoberranzan and crossing Triel Baenre, the most powerful matron mother in the city, in the process. Faeryl had failed, of course. She had been captured at the gates, and she had wound up as Jeggred's imprisoned plaything to boot. Pharaun could only imagine what the draegloth might have been doing to her in the name of sport, but somehow the Zauvirr had earned a reprieve from Triel and had been assigned to participate in this little excursion to Ched Nasad.

In the end, Faeryl had achieved what she wanted, but the wizard wondered if she was still glad of it, despite her previous remarks. Even if she did get home, she was faced with the prospect of informing her mother, the matron mother of House Zauvirr, that Quenthel was coming to take everything. Absolutely everything. Regardless of the feasibility of such a move and the contingent's ability to actually pull it off unmolested by House Melarn, Faeryl and her mother would be the ones caught in the middle. He did not envy her position.

Plus, every time Jeggred so much as turned his gaze in her direction, she flinched and moved away. The fiend seemed to enjoy this, taking every opportunity to enhance the ambassador's discomfort through a suggestive smile, a lick of his lips, or a studied examination of his razor-sharp claws. It was clear to Pharaun that Faeryl was close to fully losing her composure. If that happened, he supposed they might have to actually let the draegloth have her and be done with it.

Then, of course, there was the matter of the supplies. Faeryl, like the rest of the members of the small excursion, had been forced to carry her own belongings for the better part of a tenday, something no high-born dark elf was accustomed to. Sedan chairs borne by slaves and porters was more her style, as it was Quenthel's. Leaving those thralls behind to stave off pursuit had been regrettable but necessary, and even with Jeggred's ability to carry a substantial portion of the load, the rest of them still had sizable burdens. He could hardly blame Faeryl if she was wondering whether this journey was nothing more than a huge mistake.

From Quenthels demeanor it seemed she already knew that, or perhaps didn't care if Lolth's silence extended as far as Ched Nasad at least and that their journey of exploration had become more akin to a raid. That was fine with Pharaun, but still he suspected there would be more to take from Ched Nasad than a store of magical trinkets.

Glancing at his pack once more and feeling the tension in his own shoulders, Pharaun wished for maybe the tenth time that day that he could summon a magical disk to bear their supplies. So many of the drow noble Houses made steady use of such a handy spell that the matron mothers generally insisted their House wizards learn it while attending Sorcere, the arcane branch of the Academy. Pharaun had never bothered to familiarize himself with it, though, since he had his haversack with its magically roomy interior. Even loaded up with all of his grimoires, scrolls, and more mundane supplies, it weighed a fraction of what a normal pack would. Besides, back at the Academy, if he had ever had cause to transport something with the magical disk, there was always a ready supply of students on hand who could have performed the task for him. Still. .