Archmage

CHAPTER 24

Bruenor’s strike landed with an explosive sound, the vrock’s skull disintegrating beneath the tremendous weight of the blow. Another room, another corridor, secured.

“I’m thinking they runned off, elf,” he said to Drizzt.

The drow ranger could only shrug, for indeed, there was no sign of any other dark elves about. They had encountered a few demons-nothing bigger than the vulture-like vrock-and various groups of orcs or goblins, but all of those had seemed more interested in running away than in fighting.

And no drow.

“They are either laying a trap for us, or you are quite correct,” Drizzt answered. “The Forge is clear,” Catti-brie said, coming into the room to join her friends. “Toliver’s wizard eye entered and swept through the entirety of the area, and more than once.”

Drizzt was about to suggest that they should go and take the place, but he found he didn’t have to, for as soon as the woman’s message became clear, Bruenor ran off, growling with determination.

Within a very short while, Bruenor’s strike force burst into the allimportant Forge of Gauntlgrym, with Drizzt, Catti-brie, and the Harpells close behind. Oretheo Spikes and a brigade of Wilddwarves fanned out to one flank, Bungalow Thump taking the Gutbusters the other way. “King Emerus should be here,” Bruenor decided as soon as they determined that the room was clear of enemies. He motioned to Mallabritches, who had served her beloved King Emerus for all her life, and she ran off for the main chamber where the gravely wounded dwarf lay. “Send an eye to the primordial chamber,” Catti-brie bade Toliver, and she pointed out the side door that led to the nearby cavern. “No need,” Bruenor insisted, and he walked right to that side door, pulled it open, and started in. Drizzt, Athrogate, Ambergris, and the wizards followed close behind. “I’m bringing three gods with me."

“Why thank ye, me king,” said Athrogate.

“Not yerself, ye dolt!” Bruenor roared, and Athrogate howled with laughter.

Down the tunnel they went, full of confidence. Bruenor didn’t even hesitate as he strode into the main chamber. Near the center of the ledge on this side of the pit, past a gigantic, inanimate jade spider-one that Catti-brie focused her attention on, for she had seen these guardians attack before-Bruenor, Drizzt, and the others found quite a surprise waiting for them.

A beautiful drow woman sat upon the altar stone, seeming quite at ease-though an occasional wince betrayed the hatred that was in her heart.

Bruenor’s entourage fanned out wide, while Drizzt and Catti-brie remained close to the red-bearded dwarf’s side, Catti-brie alternating her wary glance from the drow female to that jade spider, and to another gigantic green arachnid statue standing guard across the way, near the collapsed tunnel where Catti-brie had struck down Dahlia a couple of years earlier.

“And you are the famous Drizzt Do’Urden,” the beautiful drow said, not hiding her contempt. “I congratulate you on being alive, though I doubt it will last all that long.”

All the dwarves and Harpells went deeper into their crouches then, expecting some catastrophe to erupt.

“Short when measured against the lifespan of a drow, I mean,” the matron mother clarified. “Fear not, Drizzt Do’Urden, or you, King Bruenor Battlehammer. There is no battle to be found. You have won back Gauntlgrym. My people, House Xorlarrin, are gone.”

“You are Matron Mother Zeerith Xorlarrin?” Drizzt asked.

The woman stood and bowed.

“And ye waited here to be catched?” Bruenor asked doubtfully.

“I awaited your arrival that we might come to terms,” she replied.

“Terms o’ yer surrender?”

She bowed again. “It is a simple matter,” she said. “I will leave you, the members of House Xorlarrin beside me, and we will not return. .” She paused and smiled. “Let us use the terms of demonic banishment,” she added slyly, “for that seems fitting at this time. We will not return to challenge you for this place you call Gauntlgrym until at least a century has passed.”

“From where I’m looking, I got me a prisoner that’s worth the peace,” Bruenor replied. “For one what’s been beaten, ye’re asking a high price, even in just thinking I’m to let ye go.”

He meant every word, all knew, and why would he not? King Connerad was dead, along with many Gutbusters and hundreds of dwarves from the Silver Marches who had given their lives to drive the drow from Gauntlgrym. King Emerus lay near death, and none of the priests truly expected him to survive.

“Or might that we take yer ugly head now, eh?” Bruenor said. “Queen o’ this city. .”

“Matron Mother,” she corrected. “Zeerith Xorlarrin.”

“What’er ye might call yerself!” Bruenor snapped at her. “Ye bringed me pain, and now ye’re askin’ me to just let ye walk away?”

“I only remained to seal the truce, to accept the terms of surrender.”

“Terms yerself ’s namin’!”

“Behold,” Zeerith said, and she turned to her left, away from the primordial pit, and waved her hand at the magical webbing. It parted obediently, revealing three forms hanging by filaments, and with swarms of ugly spiders the size of a dwarf’s fat hand ready to descend upon them, poison-dripping mandibles clattering eagerly.

Gasps arose from all about. There hung Kenneally and Tuckernuck Harpell, somehow alive. And no jaw fell lower than that of Bruenor Battlehammer, for the third prisoner hanging in that deadly trap was none other than Stokely Silverstream of Icewind Dale.

“Bah!” Bruenor snorted, and it took all of his discipline to not leap out and behead Matron Mother Zeerith Xorlarrin on the spot.

“Their bite is quite poisonous, and quite deadly, even to a dwarf,” Zeerith assured them. “And for all the delicate skin they will tear in such numbers, will they even need the poison, I wonder?”

“They die and I’m throwin’ ye into the pit,” Bruenor promised.

“Spare me your idle threats,” Zeerith replied, and she looked to Cattibrie and the Harpells and waggled her finger, warning them from thinking a small fireball might save their friends.

“I have offered the terms,” Zeerith said. “Understand that I could already be long gone from this place, and could have left behind three corpses to bring your tears.”

“Then why’d ye stay?” Bruenor demanded. This didn’t make much sense to him, particularly in light of the fact that this was a powerful drow matron mother standing in front of him. He had heard enough tales from Drizzt, and indeed, had battled these ferocious and fanatical priestesses before.

But Drizzt, who had been pulled from his unconscious state and guided into battle, figured it out then, and he said, “Jarlaxle,” without a hint of doubt in his voice.

Zeerith didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

Bruenor turned a puzzled expression upon Drizzt, who nodded.

“Agreed, dwarf?” Zeerith asked a moment later.

“Ye come back in a hunnerd years and I’ll be here,” Bruenor replied. “And don’t ye doubt that I’ll be throwin’ ye into that pit then.”

Matron Mother Zeerith turned to the webbing again and waved her hands. The swarm of spiders retreated, and the filaments began to lower the three prisoners to the floor. Catti-brie, the Harpells, and Ambergris rushed over to catch them as they touched down and slouched limply to the floor.

When Zeerith turned back, she focused her stare upon Drizzt, and he noted quite a few swirling emotions when he locked that gaze with his own. Mostly intrigue, which confused him more than a little.

Far from the chambers of Gromph Baenre, in the region of the great Underdark known as the Faerzress, a burst of bright yellow light erupted within the stones of one wall, like the ignition of trapped gasses or the spark of life itself, or something in between.

That fire slid down to the floor and swept out from the stones, speeding in a straight line across the expanses of the Underdark. It did not turn in deference to solid walls, but burned right through, like a heavy stone falling through still water. It shot along the miles, the tens of miles, the hundreds of miles, and moments later entered the cavern of Menzoberranzan, and only the blink of an eye later, delivered its passenger into the room of the archmage.

“Show me,” Jarlaxle insisted when he found Kimmuriel staring into the crystal necklace of the set he shared with Gromph and Doum’wielle. “Have you found her, then?”

Kimmuriel looked up at him incredulously, an expression that begged the question of why he would bother trying to find Doum’wielle.

He wisely kept that to himself, though. He was spying upon not Doum’wielle, but Gromph, which was a very dangerous, even reckless thing to do. But Kimmuriel couldn’t resist. He wanted to see the Baenre’s face when K’yorl materialized in his chamber! Let him try his rudimentary understanding of psionic power against the assault she would wage!

“Not yet,” he answered, for he couldn’t let Jarlaxle know his target without tacitly admitting that he had been behind this brewing catastrophe.

“I see,” Jarlaxle replied, unconvinced, and Kimmuriel knew that Jarlaxle had seen right through his pathetic attempt to dodge. “Well, do inform me when you have located her. I wish to save the poor girl, and expect that she will prove of value.”

Had he spent the few moments to follow the logical conclusion of the exchange, Kimmuriel would have realized that Jarlaxle, when he learned of the disaster about to befall House Baenre and Menzoberranzan, would surely link it to him.

But he was simply too excited to care at that moment, and he dived back into the connecting crystals of the necklace, seeking Gromph.

He found the archmage clawing at his own eyes and screaming, falling away, Gromph’s face a mask of sheer horror.

And Kimmuriel knew exultation, and swung his view through the scrying device, determined to see his mother.

Then Kimmuriel, too, began clawing at his own eyes, falling back in abject terror, stumbling right over backward and falling to the floor- and that alone saved his sanity when the fall broke the connection to Gromph’s chambers in Sorcere.

Thrice the height of a drow, two-headed, with the bright blue and red horrible faces of a mandrill or a baboon, bipedal and two-armed-though those arms were waving tentacles, replete with suckers that could catch and hold and haul prey in to be devoured-and with a scaled and sinewy saurian body, great and powerful, the summoned beast had to squat to fit within the confines of the room.

Until it did not squat and simply crashed through the stone ceiling with hardly an inconvenience, and swept its great tail about, which ended in blades that seemed as if they would be more fitting set upon the claymore of a mountain giant, the mighty weapons easily slicing through the mushroom-wood and stones of the walls, tearing them with hardly a hesitation-despite the powerful enchantments that had been placed to fortify the walls of the tower of the archmage of Menzoberranzan. Dweomers seemed like child’s play in the face of this beast.

One baboon head screeched at the other in protest, and the other spat back, the continuing, millennia-old battle between the dueling identities of this one great beast.

That one of the most powerful wizards of the mortal realms shivered and melted, pissed in his own robes, and couldn’t find a single word to cry out for help or for mercy, didn’t impress the demon.

After all, to the Prince of Demons Gromph Baenre was of no more concern than an insect.

Jarlaxle rushed back into Kimmuriel’s chamber to find the psionicist in a near-catatonic state, trembling on the floor.

“What?” Jarlaxle insisted, truly unnerved in seeing Kimmuriel in such a state. Kimmuriel unnerved! Kimmuriel, who had lived in the hive cities of mind flayers!“ Not K’yorl,” Kimmuriel began to babble, over and over.

Purely on a hunch, Jarlaxle took off his magical eye patch and set it upon the face of his friend, and indeed, the protective and calming powers of the item did bring some small measure of composure over Kimmuriel. Still, the psionicist stared at Jarlaxle bug-eyed, trembling so badly that Jarlaxle could hear his teeth rattling.

“What is it, my friend?” Jarlaxle implored.

“Not K’yorl,” Kimmuriel stuttered. “Gromph. . summoned. ."

“Gromph tried to summon your mother?” a truly perplexed Jarlaxle asked, as Kimmuriel continued to stammer and stutter the name of K’yorl.

Finally, Kimmuriel found a moment of clarity, and grabbed Jarlaxle desperately, hoisting himself up to look closely into Jarlaxle’s face.

“Gromph,” he stammered. “The archmage. . gate. ."

“For K’yorl?”

Kimmuriel nodded, but quickly shook his head.

“An Abyssal gate?” Jarlaxle prodded. He knew that what remained of K’yorl Odran, Matron Mother Oblodra, was rumored to be imprisoned in the lower planes in the service of a balor.

Kimmuriel nodded so excitedly that it seemed as if his head might pop off.

“Not K’yorl. .”

Jarlaxle stared intently as Kimmuriel managed to whisper out the name, “Demogorgon.”

Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons, the most powerful creature of the Abyss, a beast even Lolth would not challenge in battle.

Jarlaxle bolted upright, letting go of Kimmuriel, who dropped back to the stone floor. The mercenary glanced all around, as if expecting some terrible catastrophe to fall upon him. He knew of Demogorgon-everyone knew of Demogorgon-and such thoughts were not misplaced.

Perhaps all of Faerûn would soon know misery.

It all seemed calm after the initial celebration in learning that the two Harpells and Stokely Silverstream were still alive.

“I will be allowed to leave in peace?” Matron Mother Zeerith asked Drizzt, and again he noted a bit of curiosity in her manner, and it left him off balance.

“I will see to it,” Drizzt said, or started to say, as a huge commotion erupted from across the primordial pit, in the small antechamber that held the lever controlling the flow of magic into this area from the under-chambers of the broken Hosttower of the Arcane in distant Luskan.

All of the others jumped to attention, turning back, weapons ready- and that included Zeerith, Drizzt noted, and she, like the rest, gasped in surprise when out of that chamber came a tall drow male dressed in the distinctive robes that even Drizzt recognized to be the garb of the Archmage of Menzoberranzan.

Stumbling, Gromph rushed across the bridge, nearly overbalancing and tumbling to his death into the pit more than once. He steadied himself as he came across, though he kept looking back the way he had come, as if expecting some great monster to come in close pursuit.

“Bah, but what trick’s this?” Bruenor demanded, rushing to Matron Mother Zeerith, who stood there shaking her head and seeming at a complete loss.

Drizzt, too, didn’t know what to make of this. He recognized the archmage, but why would that one come now, and why would he cross over to their side of the pit? For surely Gromph Baenre could have destroyed them all from across the way.

Drizzt’s confusion turned to horror, though, when Catti-brie ran out in front of him to meet the charge of the archmage.

“You cannot be here!” she cried, lifting her enchanted staff at the drow. “Be gone!”

Gromph skidded to a stop, and seemed for all the world as though he only then realized there were others in the room. He looked at the woman opposing him, his amber eyes, bloodshot now and with scratches all around them, flaring dangerously.

But Catti-brie didn’t blink and didn’t back down.

Swirling mists gathered in Gromph’s wake, as if the very floor was awakening to his passage, to his call.

And small fires danced behind Catti-brie as she stalked opposite, keeping herself squared to the dangerous drow.

Drizzt moved up beside Zeerith, but suddenly felt as if this whole thing was quite beyond him. He looked to Zeerith, and could tell that she, too, wanted nothing to do with the battle that simmered on the ledge in front of them all.

“Do not challenge me, foolish woman,” Gromph warned. “Not now.”

“If you come intending battle, you will face me,” Catti-brie said. The fires behind her flared more intensely, and forms appeared in them, alive and begging release.

But Gromph’s gray mists, too, took shape, diabolical and dark.

The archmage growled and reached out behind him, turning to face the antechamber across the way. With a growl he let loose a tremendous bolt of lightning that sizzled across the pit, arcing and sparking through the archway to resound sharply within the stones of the small chamber. The bolt was so powerful it left all the air of the large chamber smelling like a battered field after a violent thunderstorm.

“I will be followed,” he growled in response to Catti-brie’s puzzled look. “That chamber must be sealed!”

“Do it! Oh, do it!” cried another voice, and all turned to see Jarlaxle stumbling into the room. “Shut it! Destroy it! Eliminate it! Oh, quickly!

“You know?” Gromph demanded.

The flames rushed in at Catti-brie, leaping upon her and limning her form. She lifted her staff, which blackened, hot lines of fire veining it.

“Dull the power of the water beasts,” Catti-brie demanded, in a voice that seemed different then, hissing and crackling as if infused with the stuff of fire.

Gromph launched into a spell, as did Penelope, Kipper, and Toliver, all rushing over. One spell designed to mute magic after another went into the pit, assailing the swirl of water elementals, driving them from the area immediately below the antechamber.

And all the while, Catti-brie cast her own enchantment, calling to the primordial to rise up. The chamber shook, all the complex of Gauntlgrym rumbled under the power of the godlike beast. Up came a wall of lava carrying great black boulders, targeted by the will of Catti-brie. The eruption leaped above the level of the stunned companions, exploding into the antechamber across the way, the lava stones crashing and bouncing off the walkway bridge in their descent. So violent was the belch of the rumbling primordial that it sent half the onlookers tumbling to the floor.

But not Catti-brie, who held her ground and held fast her concentration, her demands to the fire beast.

It was over as abruptly as it had started, the molten vomit settling back into the pit, the water elementals leaping back into their entrapping spin. Gusts of steam filled the chamber, turning everything ghostlike, but when the mists cleared enough, Drizzt could see that the walkway across the pit was no more, smashed and brought down by falling boulders, and the angry orange glow of the lava filling the antechamber fast darkened to black as it cooled, entombing the lever and the room.

Drizzt looked for Catti-brie and found her, standing opposite Gromph, the two wizards once again staring at each other threateningly.

Drizzt inched forward, ready to leap upon the archmage if he made a move against Catti-brie.

But Gromph Baenre, who had just fled the most feared beast of the lower planes, offered only a respectful bow.

Catti-brie didn’t blink, and she threw off her fiery coat, the living flames rushing at her demand to leap upon the thick webbing that covered the back wall of House Xorlarrin’s altar room. The webs disintegrated under the touch of the living flames, the spiders shrieked and curled in smoky death, and Matron Mother Zeerith gasped and stumbled back to fall into a sitting position on the altar stone.

Gromph’s lips curled in a smile, and to the shock of all in the room, he bowed to Catti-brie yet again.

Then Catti-brie wore a curious expression, and it seemed to Drizzt as if she were listening to something, as if the archmage, perhaps, was silently in her thoughts, speaking to her.

“You need us,” Catti-brie said at length. “And I need you.”

The mighty Archmage Gromph Baenre looked at the woman curiously.

But he did not disagree.