Night of the Hunter

EPILOGUE

The wondrous things I have witnessed, Gromph Baenre heard in his mind, and the thought had been offered with excitement. That alone alerted the archmage that something tremendous indeed had occurred, for when had he ever known an illithid to show excitement?

He felt a further communication, a request that he go to Methil with all haste, and with the matron mother. Normally, the archmage would have ignored such a request, but the excitement in Methil’s thoughts had surely intrigued him.

Within a short while, he and Quenthel joined the illithid in the anteroom of the primordial chamber.

“My elemental?” he asked at once, with surprise and alarm. “Where is the guard?”

“Destroyed,” Methil replied in his watery voice. The mind flayer’s tentacles waved toward the archway and the bridge beyond, motioning them out.

The matron mother was no less alarmed, and surely more horrified, when she crossed through the steam and mist to witness the defilement of the chapel. One jade spider was missing, the other lying inverted and quite destroyed back the other way, by the tunnel to the Forge. And most of the webs were gone, the floor beneath the remaining strands littered with the crispy bodies of scores of burned spiders.

“What is this sacrilege?” Matron Mother Quenthel demanded, and Gromph looked to Methil for an explanation.

“The battle of gods,” Gromph answered his sister a moment later, his voice full of incredulity. He lifted his gaze above the altar stone, to the missing centerpiece of this sacred chapel.

“The darthiir sacrifice,” he mumbled.

Both he and Quenthel looked to the cave-in as Methil telepathically relayed the images of the last moments of the battle. The illithid started for the pile, the other two in tow. He held up one arm to Gromph, who joined hands with the creature.

Gromph nodded as Methil silently explained.

“What is it?” Matron Mother Quenthel demanded.

Gromph offered her his hand. “Come,” he bade her.

Quenthel hesitated, looking at him and particularly at that strange mind flayer, suspiciously. When Gromph didn’t retract his offered hand, though, she took it, and immediately she felt strange, lighter.

“Whatever you do, do not let go,” Gromph solemnly warned as Methil led the way to the pile-and into it.

Quenthel did well not to cry out in revulsion and fear as her less than corporeal form slipped through the stones and dirt. Not between them, as a priestess or mage might do with some wraithform spell, but through them, as if her own corporality and that of the stones had somehow moved into different dimensions.

She could feel the stones slipping through her, and it was not a comfortable sensation.

When they came into an open area past the pile, the closed chamber was too dark even for drow lowlight vision. With a few words and a wave of his hand, Gromph created a muted red light. They were about halfway along the tunnel, the archmage estimated, glancing at his magically created metal wall a bit farther along.

“What is that?” he heard the matron mother say and he looked back, to see that Methil had collected something in their strange journey.

“The darthiir’s staff,” Gromph said, taking Kozah’s Needle, then handing it to his sister.

Methil pointed down at the rubble pile and waggled his tentacles, the emanating psionic magic pushing a few small stones aside to reveal a foot, delicate and light-skinned, the foot of a darthiir woman.

“She is dead, then,” the matron mother stated flatly, for clearly Dahlia had been buried under tons of stone.

But a moment later, Gromph began to chuckle, and he and his sister watched as Methil became nearly translucent once more, then reached down and grabbed Dahlia’s foot, sharing the psionic state with her.

Illithids were not physically strong creatures, but Dahlia slid easily out from under the pile. In that moment, she simply did not exist in the same dimension as the crushing stones.

Methil left her lying on the ground when he and Dahlia came back fully to their material state, and the darthiir did not stir in the least, and indeed, seemed quite dead.

But Methil knew better and he explained it to Gromph and to Quenthel.

“Strange are the powers of these creatures of the mind,” Gromph remarked. “Often I am reminded to be glad that Matron Mother Yvonnel destroyed House Oblodra.”

Quenthel could only shake her head and mutter, “Kinetic barrier?” without any understanding of the psionic dweomer at all.

“Come, and be quick!” Gromph said suddenly. He grabbed Dahlia’s hand and held out his other one for Quenthel, who took it, then shuddered in revulsion as she grabbed hold of Methil’s offered hand as well.

A few moments later, they stood by the altar, Dahlia lying atop it, the red veins in the stone seeming to pulse with life.

“Stay back,” Gromph warned his sister. “When she awakens, she must release the held energy of the cave-in, residing now in Methil’s offered psionic protection.”

“Awakens?” the matron mother said, at a loss. “Release?”

Even as she spoke, Dahlia’s eyes popped open and she jerked suddenly, her back arching so violently that she was lifted up into the air. As her physical form separated from the altar stone, they could see that she was still connected by a wall of black energy, pulsing with red lines of power, rushing into the stone. The primordial chamber shook once more, the altar taking in the force and seeming as if it grew stronger in doing so.

Dahlia fell back down, hard. She looked at them, but distantly, clearly dazed, and Methil fell over her, his tentacles wriggling up her nose and around her skull as he joined with her once more.

The illithid telepathically shared his understanding, and Dahlia’s thoughts, with Gromph and Quenthel.

“Back to the anteroom,” Matron Mother Quenthel instructed as she sorted it all out. “Let us await the arrival of Matron Zeerith.”

And indeed, she was smiling as she made that proclamation, and Gromph could only shake his head at how this struggle of the goddesses continued to play out. When they got into the anteroom, Methil still connected to Dahlia, who walked zombie-like, her eyes empty, Gromph created an extra-dimensional mansion that the Baenre nobles and their blessed guest might relax in proper security and comfort to await the arrival of the Xorlarrins.

All of them, even the two dwarves, breathed a sigh of relief when they came out of the tunnels into the open air of the Crags.

“The road ain’t far,” Bruenor explained, pointing to the east. “She’ll get us to Port Llast, and from there on to Longsaddle.”

“For Pwent,” Regis agreed, and the dwarf nodded.

The three humans they had rescued cheered at that thought, but Drizzt and Ambergris both turned to Brother Afafrenfere, for the monk had been hinting that he would not follow their road.

“Well, speak it clear, then,” Ambergris bade him.

“It is time for me to go home,’ Afafrenfere admitted. “To face my brethren in the hopes that they will forgive me.”

“Was years ago when ye went with Parbid to the Shadowfell,” Ambergris said. “Think they’ll even remember ye?”

The monk smiled. “Not that long,” he said, and Ambergris laughed.

And nodded as she looked at Drizzt. The drow knew her story, of how she had been sent to the Shadowfell as an agent of Citadel Adbar, as repentance for some … indiscretions. Knowing how Amber Gristle O’Maul had walked the gray areas of morality herself, Drizzt was not surprised when she reached up and patted her friend on the shoulder and declared, “I’m goin’ with ye.”

Brother Afafrenfere’s face brightened immediately, but he shook his head and tried to insist that he could not ask that of her, that it was too far a journey, and through dangerous lands.

“Bah, but who’s to speak for ye if not meself, who knows ye better than any?” the dwarf said.

Afafrenfere stared at her for a moment, then laughed in surrender. “I am not so sure that your presence will bolster my case,” he said in a lighthearted tone. “But I welcome it!”

“The Monastery of the Yellow Rose?” Drizzt asked.

“Aye,” said the monk. “In faraway Damara, in the Bloodstone Lands.”

Regis’s ears perked up. “Come with us to the road and turn south, then,” he said to the monk. “Then turn south through Neverwinter and follow the Trade Way to the Boareskyr Bridge, and inquire of Doregardo and the Grinning Ponies all along your way. When you find them, tell them you are a friend of mine, of the halfling called Spider. They will see you to Suzail, where you can catch passage to Impiltur.” The halfling nodded as he finished, his thoughts spinning back to the far banks of the great Sea of Fallen Stars, to Aglarond, to Donnola Topolino and a life he had known, and one whose echoes tapped profoundly at his heavy heart.

When they got to the main road and Afafrenfere and Ambergris turned to the south, it was all Regis could manage not to go with them.

He had a duty here, he reminded himself, repeatedly. To Pwent, trapped in Wulfgar’s broken horn, and to Bruenor, determined to return to Mithral Hall.

But he would return to the city of Delthuntle and to his beloved Donnola, Regis silently vowed as he watched the monk and the dwarf walk away to the south, his other companions moving north for Port Llast, and with Longsaddle waiting beyond that.

They crept back into the complex they had declared as their home to witness the carnage and the defilement of their chapel. For Berellip Xorlarrin, the shock was complete. The webs had unfolded and the captive Dahlia was gone and the room prepared for her mother, Matron Zeerith, was buried now under tons of rock. She did not dare set the remaining goblin slaves to dig out that rubble for fear that it would lead to more instability.

The images in the Forge were no less troubling, beginning with, and centering around, the broken form of the great drider. The captive human was gone-even the dead monk had been removed. And those slaves they had not had the time to drag away had also been freed. The priestess cursed herself for not sending an assassin down into that remaining mining section, particularly when she remembered that a dwarf cleric had been among the few down there.

And the dead in the Forge, many, many dead, were all Xorlarrin allies, scores of goblins, a quartet of driders, and more than a dozen Xorlarrin drow.

With not a single enemy among them.

By all accounts, the invaders had gone and the apostate Do’Urden had gone, and the complex was back in Berellip’s hands, but her mother would not be pleased.

According to Berellip’s scouts, Matron Zeerith was only a day or two away, marching with the rest of the House and a sizable force from Menzoberranzan that would lead the way to Tsabrak’s location in the east.

The only good news the priestess received came from the north, where Ravel, Saribel, and Tiago Baenre approached, so said her scouts. But even in this, there were whispers of trouble, rumors about many drow dead, many Xorlarrin dead, and even whispers that Weapons Master Jearth was not among the returning band.

It was all too much for Berellip and she went to her private chambers and tumbled down upon a pile of large pillows, seeking respite. She lay on her back, staring up at the webbing canopy of her bed, noting the designs in the intricate strands and letting them take her thoughts back to the chapel. What might she do to make the place more presentable to Matron Zeerith? To mitigate the rage she knew would be directed her way?

No, not her way, she decided, for she would blame Ravel for all of this. It would be a tricky proposition, she realized, for by doing so, she would also be implicating Tiago Baenre, and it was never a good thing to speak ill of a Baenre.

She would reveal Ravel’s spying on Gromph-yes! This tragedy fell squarely on his shoulders. Ravel had found the apostate, so he had believed, and Ravel had taken the soldiers, leaving Q’Xorlarrin vulnerable, above Berellip’s protests.

The priestess nodded as her plan unfolded in her thoughts. She would have to take care to absolve Tiago-if she did it correctly, she might even find Tiago on her side in this conflict, as he, too, tried to deflect blame onto others.

They would all try to deflect blame. That was the way of the drow, after all.

Berellip knew that she had to do so not only with her mother but with the archmage, surely. Gromph had taken a particular interest in this Dahlia creature, and now she was gone.

With that thought in mind, Berellip pictured the darthiir in the webbing, only in the strands of her own canopy. Perhaps she could find a replacement among the slaves they had brought back, she thought. Was Gromph done with Dahlia? Were they all? If so, another body up there might suffice, for how would they know the truth of the newer sacrifice?

The image above her became clearer, and nearer, and Berellip blinked as she realized that it was not an image in her mind’s eye but an actual person up there. For a heartbeat, she thought of Dahlia and wondered if a handmaiden of Lolth had somehow saved the prisoner and hung her here for Berellip to find.

But it was not Dahlia, she realized as that form broke through the webbing and dropped upon her, as she recognized it as a man, and human, and one she knew.

Yes, Artemis Entreri made sure that Berellip saw his face and looked into his eyes as he deftly kicked aside her snake-headed scourge before she could awaken the serpents. And he made sure that those eyes were the last thing this witch ever saw before a fine drow sword cut her throat, ear-to-ear.

Entreri rolled off the pillows to his feet. “For Dahlia,” he whispered.

He wiped the sword on the pillows and stripped the fine and valuable robes from the priestess, and was pleased to find that she wore a king’s treasure worth of jewelry.

Now he could leave.

Tsabrak Xorlarrin at last came to the mouth of the deep cave and looked out from his mountain perch over the lands of the Silver Marches, over the kingdom of Many-Arrows. He squinted against the glare of the fiery ball in the sky, the infernal sun.

“Why would we deign to wage war in this wretched place?” Andzrel Baenre asked, moving up beside the Xorlarrin mage.

“Were it like this, I would agree,” was all that Tsabrak would answer, and he chuckled knowingly.

“Set the guards,” he instructed the Baenre weapons master. “Protect this place, protect me, at all cost!”

Andzrel narrowed his eyes, surprised that a mere Xorlarrin would speak to him in such a manner. For a moment, he harbored the notion of drawing his sword.

But then came a command from behind him, and in a voice he surely knew.

“Do,” said Gromph, and Andzrel spun around to see the archmage, along with Tos’un Armgo and his half-darthiir daughter.

The weapons master bowed and rushed away.

“I thought you had vowed not to witness this,” Tsabrak dared remark to Gromph.

The archmage shrugged as if it hardly mattered, and indeed, given the prize he and his sister had found and now kept in the extra-dimensional mansion in the anteroom of the primordial chamber of Q’Xorlarrin, it did not.

Gromph moved back into the shadows, taking the Armgo duo with him, and there they watched as Tsabrak began his long incantation. Heartbeats became an hour, hours became a day, and still he chanted.

But Tsabrak did not move, other than his mouth, standing perfectly still as if rooted to the stone beneath his feet, his arms uplifted and stretching forward, just under the lip of the cave’s front roof, and up toward the sky.

The sun rose in the east, and still he chanted, and that infernal ball of discomfort had just reached its zenith when at last the call of Tsabrak was answered.

Black tendrils pulsed up out of the stone and into the Xorlarrin wizard’s form, and ran up around and within him to his reaching fingers, then shot forth up into the sky.

And so it went, hour after hour, the daylight dimming with a roiling gray overcast, shrouding the western sun as it found the horizon.

Through the night, Tsabrak chanted, and the tendrils of the Underdark poured forth, and when the sun rose the next morning, it seemed a meager thing, and the land barely brightened, and those surface dwellers of the Silver Marches, orcs and elves, dwarves and humans alike, all battened their homes, expecting a terrific storm.

But no storm came, for these were not rain clouds, surely.

Through the day, Tsabrak chanted, and Gromph departed to a call from Methil that Matron Zeerith had arrived in Q’Xorlarrin.

The archmage had seen enough, after all, and indeed he was humbled by the power he had witnessed. Not the power of Tsabrak, he knew, for that one was merely a conduit, and indeed might not even survive this spellcasting. But the power of the Spider Queen as she reached into the realm of the Arcane, as she tried to claim supremacy.

As she stole the daylight of the region called the Silver Marches, preparing the battlefield for her drow minions.

The power of the Darkening, Gromph understood, and all the world would take note, and all the world would be afraid.

Matron Zeerith clearly was in a foul mood. Her weapons master was dead, slain in the cold north. Her eldest daughter, the First Priestess of her House, of her fledgling city, was dead, murdered in her own bed.

More than half the drider force she had sent here with her children had been slain, and nearly two-score of her House, including priestesses and wizards.

Oh, they had a sizable number of dwarf slaves in return, but that hardly mitigated the losses.

And the chapel!

Matron Zeerith had been told that it would be the shining jewel of her precious city, a place of solemn and god-like power that would serve her craftsmen well and please Lady Lolth.

She looked upon it now, webs hanging in tatters, rubble around the room and collapsed across the way, and with uninvited guests waiting for her.

The sight of Matron Mother Quenthel and Gromph standing beside the altar block did not improve Zeerith’s mood. They were here to judge her, she figured, and to tell her how her children had failed the Spider Queen.

Likely, she thought, they were here to absorb Q’Xorlarrin into House Baenre’s widening web.

A third figure was with them, a delicate woman standing atop the altar block in fabulous spidery robes. She had her back to Zeerith as the matron approached, her black hair bobbed around her shoulders-and shot with streaks of red, Matron Zeerith noted, much like the stone.

As Zeerith neared, the woman, the elf, turned around to look down at her from on high.

“Darthiir!” Matron Zeerith cried incredulously.

“Do you not recognize her, Matron Zeerith?” the matron mother asked. “You have heard the name of Dahlia many times, I expect.”

“Upon the sacred altar stone, Matron Mother?” Zeerith asked. “Are we to sacrifice this wretched creature, then? Pray let me hold the blade!”

“Speak with respect to a fellow matron, Matron Zeerith Q’Xorlarrin,” the matron mother advised, and as the words registered, a stupefied Zeerith stared at Quenthel.

Gromph began to laugh, and that only added to the tension and discord of confused Zeerith.

Matron Mother Quenthel turned to the archmage and bade him to explain, to introduce the elf woman standing atop the sacred stone.

Gromph stepped over and bowed respectfully to Matron Zeerith, then swept his arm back out to Dahlia. “Behold Matron Do’Urden,” he explained, “of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, the Eighth House of Menzoberranzan.”