Extinction

Working quickly, Pharaun reached down?nearly falling into the web as the ship bucked on a wave and only recovering his balance at the last moment?and mired the statue's feet in the outer edge of the web, sticking it to the deck, Then, carefully, he pushed the pin into the deck. It slid home into the bone-white boards as easily as if it was piercing a stick of wet chalk.

Pharaun began the binding. Staring up at the demon that hung far above the mast, he chanted the words of his spell, hands raised above his head with thumbs and forefingers forming interlocking circles. Slowly, he drew his hands down toward the deck?and chuckled with delight as he saw the demon begin to descend toward the ship. Compelled by the spell, it was pulled down past the top of the mast, down past where Quenthel and Jeggred clung, down toward the spot where Pharaun stood. Still twisting in the fierce wind, the demon seemed to grow larger and more fearsome as it descended, but that was just a product of the unholy aura that surrounded it. In fact the demon was only a little larger than Pharaun himself. It was, however, powerfully muscled, with claws like yellowed daggers on hands and feet and a tail that looked powerful enough to smash a stalagmite in two. Its face resembled a rat's, and its skin was a mottled, dead-looking gray. As it descended to Pharaun's eye level, guided by his hands toward the statue on the deck, Pharaun noted that one of the demon's ears had a half-circle bitten out of it. The wound had festered, and a maggot protruded, unmoving, from the rotten flesh?another victim of the spell that had frozen the demon in time.

Squatting, Pharaun touched the statuette, then ripped the finger-and-thumb links apart. As the symbolic chain parted, a flash of multicolored magical energy exploded from the opal, melting the statuette.

For a moment Pharaun was blinded?but the sweet tang of melted beeswax told him his spell had succeeded. Blinking away the spots of light that dazzled his vision, he peered at the demon that stood before him, its ankle secured to the deck by a thin length of lead chain. The demon was still frozen in time, but its red eyes blazed with fury. Despite the stasis spell that held it, the demon seemed to know it had been bound.

Pharaun waved at Jeggred and Quenthel to join him on the deck. At a nod from Quenthel, who was still clinging to his back, the draegloth obeyed. He leaped down from the mast and anchored himself on the steeply sloping deck by thrusting his hands into the sticky mass of web. Pharaun immediately cast another spell, tossing a pinch of ground diamond into the air. A dome of force shut out the storm, enclosing the three of them, together with the demon, in welcome silence. Sprays of water crashed onto the invisible barrier and ran down it in streams, but inside, all was quiet.

Quenthel clambered off Jeggred's back, but she continued to hold onto his mane, steadying herself against the rise and fall of the deck. She stared at the demon, the serpents in her whip tasting the air next to it with flickering tongues, and she wrinkled her nose. Even with its body held in stasis, the demon stank of sulfur and rot.

"It's small," she noted derisively. "Not even a match for Jeggred."

The draegloth, mired in the web up to his elbows, grunted his agreement.

"Don't let its size fool you," Pharaun cautioned, wrinkling his nose at Jeggred's panting breath, which was almost as bad as the stench from the demon. "One bite from those needle teeth, and you'd be paralyzed."

Quenthel tried to back up a step but a lurch of the ship caused her foot to land squarely inside the sticky web. She fell sideways, arms flailing. She landed in an undignified sprawl in a thicker patch of web and immediately erupted into muffled cursing.

"Dispel this!" she spat, struggling to rise from the tilting deck and only getting herself further mired. "Dispel it at once."

Her serpents, too, were stuck in the web and spat violently at each other in frustration. Jeggred tried to help, but was unable to free his hands from the web. Frustrated, the draegloth turned to growl at Pharaun, instead.

With an effort, Pharaun fought down his mirth. It wouldn't do to laugh, not with Jeggred's hackles raised?even though the sight of a priestess of the Queen of Spiders being caught in a web was too good to be true. Instead he inclined his head in a bow.

"As you wish, Mistress. But you're going to need something else to anchor yourself to the deck, or you'll slide right off the ship. Allow me, if you will, to provide an alternative."

He pulled out a second wad of bitumen and broke the gummy mass in half. He passed a piece each to Quenthel and Jeggred, and when they had swallowed them, cast the spell that would allow them to cling like spiders to anything?even a spray-sodden deck. He then dispelled the web.

Clambering to her feet, purple-faced with suppressed rage, Quenthel looked around the ship.

"I see no mouth," she spat. "Belshazu lied."