Archmage

CHAPTER 11

Dahlia ran her fingers along the smooth metal of Kozah’s Needle, trying to use the tangible feel of her weapon to bring her back to stability, to a time when she knew a better life.

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she believed that she had once known that better life.

She thought of running down a hill, toward a rocky gorge, a drow-a drow friend! — outdistancing her, leaping with amazing balance and grace from stone to rise to stone.

She felt the wind on her face-the wind! She felt herself tumbling, but it was not frightening, for she controlled this movement, her brilliant vault bringing her around to do battle. .

“How many tendays?” a voice said, and for a moment, Dahlia thought it a memory, until the voice-High Priestess Saribel-spoke again. “How many tendays have you left to draw breath, darthiir?” she asked, and Dahlia opened her eyes to see the woman, resplendent in her spidery laced gown, all purple and black, beautiful and deadly all at once. So beautiful, so alluring. That was part of their magic, and how could Dahlia resist?

How could she think herself worthy?

“My husband is alive,” Saribel said, and Dahlia couldn’t begin to understand what that might even mean, let alone who Saribel might be talking about.

“Tiago Baenre,” Saribel said, and Dahlia wondered if that name should mean something to her.

An image of mighty Szass Tam flashed in her mind, and she nearly swooned from the overwhelming, almost divine power she felt from him, as well as the incredible malignancy-and Dahlia was sure that she should know who that was. Alarms sounded in her thoughts, echoing and winding, wrapping back under the pile of writhing worms that was her train of thought.

“Tiago has been found, alive and well with that Doum’wielle creature,” Saribel said, and she might as well have been talking in the tongue of myconids, for now even the words made no sense to Dahlia.

“When Tiago returns, we together will claim this House Do’Urden for our own. We will be fast rid of you, witch, and I will claim the title of matron mother. Matron Mother Baenre has come to trust me now, and needs not your echo on the Ruling Council, when my own voice would be so much more helpful.”

She moved closer, and Dahlia thought she should lash out at the drow, though she couldn’t figure out quite how to make her arms do that.

“We will make of you a drider, lovely Dahlia,” Saribel said, almost cooing the words, and she raised her hand to gently stroke the elf’s face. Lightly, teasingly. And how beautiful was she!

Dahlia closed her eyes, the energy of Saribel’s touch filling her body, reverberating through her as a moment of pure sensation and growing ecstasy. She heard herself breathing more heavily, lost herself in the vibrations of the touch, so soft and teasing, moving within her and multiplying.

Saribel slapped her across the face, and in a moment of clarity Dahlia thought that fitting. So beautiful, so alluring.

Yet so horribly wretched and dangerous.

“I will taunt you and torture you for a hundred years,” Saribel promised. “When my husband Tiago returns with the head of Drizzt Do’Urden, your time of comfort will end.”

Dahlia couldn’t make out much of that, but that name! Oh, that name!

Drizzt Do’Urden.

Drizzt Do’Urden!

She knew that name, knew that drow, her lover, her love!

She had felt so safe in his arms, and so wild under his touch. She had found peace there. . Effron! He had brought her to Effron, her son, her child she thought lost. .

A tidal wave of emotions rolled over Dahlia then, a flood of memories, all jumbled of course, but relaying so many different emotions all too clearly. She burst into tears, shoulders bobbing in sobs. They had done this. These drow had murdered Effron!

Saribel laughed at her, cackled wildly, taking great pleasure, in thinking her words had terrified the elf.

But Dahlia paid her no heed, had not even recognized many of her words, the sounds nonsensically arranged in Dahlia’s ears.

None of them mattered anyway, except for two: Drizzt. Do’Urden.

“Drizzt Do’Urden,” she silently mouthed, and she held on desperately to those sounds, to that word if it was a word, to that name if it was a name.

She knew it mattered.

Through all the winding worms within her thoughts, Dahlia became confident that she knew that the name-yes, it was name! — and that it, Drizzt Do’Urden, mattered. So she held it and repeated it as a mantra, a litany against the winding courses of a broken mind.

“What have you done?” Matron Mother Mez’Barris Armgo screamed at Matron Mother Baenre. The matron mother of the Second House trembled with rage and jumped up from her seat at the council table. “Demons! Too many to battle! Should they all come against any one House-even your own, foolish Matron Mother! — that House will surely perish!”

“Why would they come against any one House?” asked High Priestess Sos’Umptu Baenre from the back of the table.

Matron Mother Mez’Barris swung around to face Sos’Umptu, her eyes narrowing in a clear threat. She knew that Sos’Umptu had been prompted to make that response by the wretched Quenthel.

“Indeed,” Quenthel said, following up on that very point. “No one of us controls the demons. Every House has brought forth some-every House seated here has summoned a major fiend to their control.”

“Arach-Tinilith, too,” Sos’Umptu added, clearly aiming the remark at Mez’Barris. “Our many priestesses have reveled in summoning demons now, with all limitations removed.”

All around the table of the Ruling Council, the other matron mothers sucked in their breath at that. Even those Houses of Menzoberranzan most proficient in the arts of summoning, like House Melarn and House Mizzrym, could not hope to match the sheer volume of demons that Arach-Tinilith might bring forth.

Mez’Barris studied her peers, knowing that they were all only then beginning to understand the danger. This demon orgy orchestrated by Matron Mother Baenre could doom any of them, could doom all of them.

Matron Miz’ri Mizzrym rose up then and began to speak, but Quenthel cut her short.

“Sit down! Both of you!” the matron mother ordered. “Pray you, sisters, seek guidance from Lolth, and hold your foolish words, else my scourge will take the tongues from your mouths! We return Menzoberranzan to the early days of the city, when demons shared the boulevards with drow and Lady Lolth was ascendant and pleased.”

“Many drow have been murdered by the instruments of the Spider Queen,” Mez’Barris reminded her.

“We cull the weak,” Matron Mother Baenre answered without hesitation. “And we will be stronger for our vigilance and our experience. As with your weapons master, Malagdorl, who slew Marilith herself.” She paused and flashed a wicked grin, before adding, “Or so you claim.”

Mez’Barris felt her nostrils flaring, her eyes widening with pure outrage. Before she could argue, though, the chamber door opened, and in walked Archmage Gromph, and behind him, in slithered Marilith. Not a marilith, but Marilith herself, without question.

Mez’Barris sank back into her chair, her jaw hanging open.

“This is how it was in the earliest days of Menzoberranzan,” Matron Mother Baenre said calmly, matter-of-factly, for there was no need to press the embarrassment of Matron Mother Mez’Barris. “And so it shall be again. Look to your prayers, sisters. The Spider Queen is pleased, do not doubt.”

Mez’Barris slowly surveyed the table. She saw the surprise, the doubts aimed her way, certainly. She saw the trepidation, even fear, on the faces of these high priestesses who had attained such glory and power, which now, so suddenly, seemed so fragile. They were looking to her now, it seemed to Mez’Barris, and plaintively in the midst of this terrifying confusion, as if pleading with her to serve as some sort of balance to the seemingly out-of-control Matron Mother Baenre.

Matron Mother Mez’Barris covertly scanned the room and met the stares of each matron mother, save Quenthel Baenre and that filthy Dahlia creature. Even in the eyes of Matron Mother Baenre’s known allies, Mez’Barris noted some measure of that plea for help. The matron mother of the Second House took heart in that moment. In her insatiable desire to gain full control, perhaps Quenthel Baenre had gripped too tightly.

Mez’Barris let a sly grin appear on her thin lips. She could do as she had hoped now, she was certain. The others, even Quenthel’s allies, desired to send a strong message to the matron mother, to back her away from this maddeningly dangerous course. Would they go so far as to covertly join with Mez’Barris in her plans to overwhelm House Do’Urden?

Yes they would, Mez’Barris believed, particularly whenever she directed another’s gaze to the matrondarthiir and noted the immediate sour frown that ugly view elicited of the various matron mothers.

That abomination, the darthiir matron mother of House Do’Urden, would soon perish.

And Matron Mother Quenthel would be taught her limitations.

Lightning flashed and fires burned in the Stenchstreets, and high above near the cavern’s ceiling, and now even in the Qu’ellarz’orl.

Gromph Baenre watched the mounting fight between demons with mild disdain. He was hardly surprised-you couldn’t put such numbers of chaotic demons together in one area and not expect wild brawls of magic, tooth, and claw. And there were hundreds of demons in Menzoberranzan now, not even counting the thousands of manes the larger beasts had brought in to serve as fodder.

Gromph moved from his balcony at Sorcere back into his private chambers, for even from the high perch of that tower upon Tier Breche, the archmage couldn’t properly witness the mounting carnage.

He waved his hand over a still pool of water in a magical basin, calling forth the images.

He blew a sigh of disgust. Every street, every way, every side region of Menzoberranzan was alive with fighting, it seemed, demon against demon. A gang of glabrezu rampaged across the island housing the city’s rothé, the huge demons cutting through the Underdark cattle the way predatory fish might chomp through a swirling school of prey.

Behind the archmage, Marilith hissed with excitement, the view of the carnage teasing her murderous sensibilities. Gromph glanced back, thinking to admonish her, to keep her in line, but she looked past him and gasped once more at some new and greater event in the scrying pool, no doubt.

Gromph spun back just in time to see a swarm of chasme drop upon the glabrezu. In waded another marilith, along with a pair of larger nalfeshnee, and then a monstrous goristro.

This was Matron Mother Quenthel’s force.

“A goristro,” he muttered, shaking his head. Only certain balors and the demon lords themselves were more powerful. To summon such a creature was always a danger. To summon one and send it forth into battle even more so.

But to summon a goristro and send it out beside a trio of major demons, and with a swarm of chasme besides?

“Madness,” Gromph muttered.

The glabrezu gang fled before the superior force, splashing back across the small lake, chasme diving at them every step of the way.

Gromph shifted the image in his scrying pool to a massive brawl right outside the Barrison Del’Armgo compound. Hundreds of manes and other minor demons roiled about the boulevard, clawing each other to shreds. Here, too, chasme buzzed and bit, and larger beasts prowled the shadows and the edge of the battle, no doubt directing their disposable minions.

The pool brightened suddenly in the flash of a massive fireball, followed by a series of roiling balls of fire in the air above the fight. Flamestrikes shot down, turning manes into living candles, the humanoid demons, too stupid to know the pain of the flames engulfing them, running on to ravenous battle, until they fell, one by one, into smoking husks.

Gromph understood then the source of the magic and focused his attention on the Barrison Del’Armgo compound. There stood Mez’Barris’s wizards and priestesses, throwing forth their destructive magic into the boulevard beyond. Lightning flashed and manes died. Another fireball erupted, and flamestrikes followed.

The archmage shook his head once more.

“I wish to go and fight,” Marilith said from behind him.

“You will stay here,” he answered without even bothering to turn around. He heard her hiss then, and was surprised by it, for surely Marilith knew better than to hint at her displeasure with the commands of the one controlling her, particularly when that one was Gromph Baenre.

A wave of the archmage’s hand dismissed the images in the scrying pool, and he slowly turned to face his demonic servant. She stood there, towering twice his height, her naked, human-like upper body glistening with sweat, breasts heaving, and with swords held in all six of her hands.

“The battles are glorious,” Marilith answered. She seemed apologetic, but Gromph felt the hair on the back of his neck standing up, as if in warning.

“You are here at my call,” he said.

“Yes, Master.”

“Master. .” he echoed. “Your master. Your master while you walk the ways of Menzoberranzan. Do not question me.”

Marilith bowed her head and turned her blades down to the floor.

“If I dismiss you, you will once more be banished, to serve out your century in the Abyss,” Gromph reminded her. “Only I know the secret now of twining the two forms of magic to break the ancient covenant.”

Marilith nodded. “Yes, Master.”

“Is that what you want?”

The demon looked up at him, her face a mask of alarm. “No, Master! Tell me who to kill, I beg!”

Gromph laughed. “In time,” he promised. “In time.”

A movement outside caught his attention, and he focused on the view beyond his balcony again just in time to see a ball of flaming pitch go soaring through the air and drop from sight. He moved to the edge of the balcony and saw that it had landed among the combatants in front of Barrison Del’Armgo’s gate, though the angle of the shot showed him that it had not come from inside Mez’Barris’s compound.

Another House had come to the aid of the Second House.

Not that the Second House had needed any aid. The fight had already greatly diminished, with destroyed, smoking husks of demons thick about the street and the Barrison Del’Armgo wall untouched.

But still, some other House had thought it prudent to join in with one of its war engines.

Symbolically, Gromph realized. That catapult throw was meant to send a message more than it demonstrated any practical aid.

“Conspiracy?” the archmage asked under his breath.

As with the huge demon fight that morning, wise old Gromph Baenre was not surprised.

“Arach-Tinilith or the high priestess of House Baenre?” Yvonnel teased in her squeaky baby voice.

Long past the shock at the sight and sound of a tiny child speaking with such sophistication, Minolin Fey considered the question carefully.

“Well?” the impatient child demanded.

“What are you asking me?” Minolin Fey replied. She swallowed hard as she dared to presume. “Are you seeking my preference?”

“Would I have asked if I was not?”

“I did not think either position would. .”

“You should think more, then,” baby Yvonnel interrupted. “In either position, I will need someone capable of thinking, after all.”

She was all insults and promises, Minolin Fey thought, and surely not for the first time. All she ever got from her little girl were taunts and teases, and the latter stung more than the former, for Minolin, who was not Baenre by blood, considered the teases as no more than the cruelest taunts of all.

And yet. .

“High priestess,” she said, not daring to not answer, and thinking that her life expectancy would increase greatly if she stayed at Yvonnel’s side. If this was truly to be her choice, going out from House Baenre to the Academy would make her a prime target for those who would not accept this child as the matron mother in a time that would surely be marked by great upheaval.

“Good,” the baby replied. “I was thinking the same. Sos’Umptu, should she survive, serves House Baenre well from Arach-Tinilith. Were I to bring her in to my side and put you in the Academy, it might embolden your mother to believe that she still commands your loyalty.”

The child put on a very sweet smile then and Minolin Fey felt her heart warming at the sight, and all she wanted to do was rush over and hug Yvonnel close to her breast and smother her in kisses.

“I have no desire to destroy your House,” the baby said, abruptly tugging Minolin Fey back to the present and throwing aside the warm compulsion. For a brief instant, Minolin Fey thought herself a foolish child, reaching to pat a purring housecat, only to discover it to be a guardian familiar, all teeth and murderous claws.

But then, before she could truly register that Yvonnel was magically toying with her, she wanted to rush over and hug the child, her baby, once more.

“You need to make sure that Matron Byrtyn knows that,” the baby said, and it took the confused Minolin Fey a moment to realign her thoughts to the conversation at hand.

“That you wish her and her House no harm?”

“Yes. Her House, which is your House.”

“No,” Minolin Fey said before she could think better of arguing. Black wings of panic rose up around her, thrumming about the edges of her thoughts.

“No?”

“I am Baenre now,” she replied.

“Not Fey-Branche?”

“Baenre!” Minolin Fey declared.

“And who do you serve, Minolin or Baenre?”

“The Matron Mo. .” Minolin Fey flinched as she heard the reflexive response pouring forth, particularly to this particular audience.

“To all who look, I am the loyal servant of Matron Mother Baenre,” she tried to clarify, using the wide caveat and undefined title as she tried to wriggle free.

“And who is that?” the devious little child asked.

Minolin Fey licked her suddenly dry lips. She felt backed into a cage. As far as she knew, Quenthel still held the favor of Lolth and thus, the legitimate title of Matron Mother Baenre. Was this wretched little deviant creature testing her, ready to report her blasphemy to Quenthel should she answer otherwise?

Or would Yvonnel destroy her if she pledged her fealty to Quenthel? And the daughter of Byrtyn Fey held no illusions. Despite the tiny, cherubic little body of Yvonnel, Minolin had no doubt whatsoever that this child, steeped in the knowledge of Yvonnel the Eternal, could easily obliterate her.

“Yv. . Matron Mo. .” she stammered, and wicked little Yvonnel turned her lips into an amused smile.

“Whomever Lady Lolth determines is the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan,” poor Minolin Fey sputtered.

“Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre,” Yvonnel told her, and then, with that mischievous grin so common with this little one, and so ominous to Minolin Fey, who understood the level of mischief this little one could accomplish, Yvonnel added, “for now.”