Siege of Darkness

Forever after, the bards of the Realms called it the Time ofTroubles, the time when the gods were kicked out of the heavens, their avatars walking among the mortals. The time when the Tablets of Fate were stolen, invoking the wrath of Ao, Overlord of the Gods, when magic went awry, and when, as a consequence, social and religious hierarchies, so often based on magical strength, fell into chaos.

I have heard many tales from fanatical priests of their encounters withtheir particular avatars, frenzied stories from men and women who claim to have looked upon their deities. So many others came to convert to a religionduring this troubled time, likewise claiming they had seen the light and thetruth, however convoluted it might be.

I do not disagree with the claims, and would not openly attack thepremise of their encounters. I am glad for those who have found enrichmentamidst the chaos; I am glad whenever another person finds the contentmentof spiritual guidance.

But what of faith?

What of fidelity and loyalty? Complete trust? Faith is not granted bytangible proof. It comes from the heart and the soul. If a person needs proofof a god's existence, then the very notion of spirituality is diminished intosensuality and we have reduced what is holy into what is logical.

I have touched the unicorn, so rare and so precious, the symbol of the goddess Mielikki, who holds my heart and soul. This was before the onset of theTime of Troubles, yet were I of a like mind to those who make the claims of viewing avatars, I could say the same. I could say that I have touched Mielikki, thatshe came to me in a magical glade in the mountains near Dead Orc Pass.

The unicorn was not Mielikki, and yet it was, as is the sunrise and the seasons, as are the birds and the squirrels and the strength of a tree that has lived through the dawn and death of centuries. As are the leaves, blowing on autumn winds and the snow piling deep in cold mountain vales. As are

the smell of a crisp night, the twinkle of the starry canopy, and the howl of a distant wolf.

No, I'll not argue openly against one who has claimed to have seen anavatar, because that person will not understand that the mere presence of such a being undermines the very purpose of, and value of, faith. Because if the true gods were so tangible and so accessible, then we would no longer be independent creatures set on a journey to find the truth, but merely a herd of sheep needing the guidance of a shepherd and his dogs, unthinking and without the essence of faith.

The guidance is there, I know. Not in such a tangible form, but in whatwe know to be good and just. It is our own reactions to the acts of others that show us the value of our own actions, and if we have fallen so far as to need an avatar, an undeniable manifestation of a god, to show us our way, then we are pitiful creatures indeed.

The Time of Troubles? Yes. And even more so if we are to believe the suggestion of avatars, because truth is singular and cannot, by definition, support so many varied, even opposing manifestations.

The unicorn was not Mielikki, and yet it was, for I have touchedMielikki. Not as an avatar, or as a unicorn, but as a way of viewing myplace in the world. Mielikki is my heart. I follow her precepts because, were I to write precepts based on my own conscience, they would be the same. Ifollow Mielikki because she represents what I call truth.

Such is the case for most of the followers of most of the various gods,and if we looked more closely at the pantheon of the Realms, we would realize that the precepts of the «goodly» gods are not so different; it is theworldly interpretations of those precepts that vary from faith to faith.

As for the other gods, the gods of strife and chaos, such as Lloth, the Spider Queen, who possesses the hearts of those priestesses who rule Menzoberranzan…

They are not worth mentioning. There is no truth, only worldly gain, and any religion based on such principles is, in fact, no more than a practice of self-indulgence and in no way a measure of spirituality. In worldly terms, the priestesses of the Spider Queen are quite formidable; in spiritual terms, they are empty. Thus, their lives are without love and without joy.

So tell me not of avatars. Show me not your proof that yours is the truegod. I grant you your beliefs without question and without judgment, but ifyou grant me what is in my heart, then such tangible evidence is irrelevant.

Chapter 6 WHEN MAGIC WENT AWRY

Berg'inyon Baenre, weapon master of the first house of Menzoberranzan, put his twin swords through a dizzying routine, blades spinning circuits in the air between him and his opponent, an insubordinate drow common soldier. A crowd of the Baenre house guard, highly trained though mostly males, formed a semicircle about the pair, while other dark elves watched from high perches, tightly saddled astride sticky-footed, huge subterranean lizards, the beasts casually standing along the vertical slopes of nearby stalactites or towering stalagmite mounds.

The soldiers cheered every time Berg'inyon, a magnificent swordsman (though few thought him as good as his brother, Dantrag, had been), scored a minor hit or parried a fast-flying counter, but the cheers were obviously somewhat tempered.

Berg'inyon noticed this, and knew the source. He had been the leader of the Baenre lizard riders, the most elite grouping of the male house guards, for many years. Now, with Dantrag slain, he had become the house weapon master as well. Berg'inyon felt the intense pressure of his dual stations, felt his mother's scrutinizing gaze on his every movement and every decision. He did not doubt

that his own actions had intensified as a result. How many fights had he begun, how many punishments had he exacted on his subordinates, since Dantrag's death?

The common drow came ahead with a weak thrust that almost slipped past distracted Berg'inyon's defenses. A sword came up and about at the last moment to drive the enemy's blade aside.

Berg'inyon heard the sudden hush behind him at the near miss, understood that several of the soldiers back there—perhaps all of them—hoped his enemy's next thrust would be quicker, too quick.

The weapon master growled low and came ahead in a flurry, spurred on by the hatred of those around him, of those under his command. Let them hate him! he decided. But while they did, they must also respect him—no, not respect, Berg'inyon decided. They must fear him.

He came forward one step, then a second, his swords snapping alternately, left and right, and each being cleanly picked off. The give and take had become common, with Berg'inyon coming ahead two steps, then retreating. This time, though, the Baenre did not retreat. He shuffled forward two more steps, his swords snapping as his opponent's blades rushed for the parry.

Berg'inyon had the lesser drow up on his heels, so the young Baenre rushed ahead again. His opponent was quick enough with his swords to turn the expected thrusts, but he could not retreat properly, and Berg'inyon was up against him in a clinch, their blades joined to either side, down low, by the hilt.

There was no real danger here—it was more like a break in the battle—but Berg'inyon realized something his opponent apparently did not. With a growl, the young Baenre heaved his off-balance opponent away. The drow skidded back a couple of steps, brought his swords up immediately to fend off any pursuit.

None came; it seemed a simple break of the clinch.

Then the backpedaling drow bumped into the House Baenre fence.

In the city of Menzoberranzan, there was perhaps nothing as spectacular as the twenty-foot-high, web-designed fence ringing House Baenre, anchored on the various stalagmite mounds that ringed the compound. Its silvery metallic cords, thick as a dark elf's leg, were wound into beautiful, symmetrical designs, as intricate as the work of any spider. No weapon could cut through it, no magic, save a single item that Matron Baenre possessed, could get one over

it, and the simplest touch or brush against one of those enchanted strands would hold fast a titan.

Berg'inyon's opponent hit the fence hard with the flat of his back. His eyes went wide as he suddenly realized the young Baenre's tactics, as he saw the faces of those gathered brighten in approval of the vicious trick, as he saw devious and wicked Berg'inyon calmly approach.

The drow fell away from the fence and rushed out to meet the weapon master's advance.

The two went through a fast series of attacks and parries, with stunned Berg'inyon on the defensive. Only through his years of superior training was the drow noble able to bring himself back even against his surprising opponent.

Surprising indeed, as every drow face, and all the whispers, confirmed.

"You brushed the fence," Berg'inyon said.

The drow soldier did not disagree. The tips of his weapons drooped as Berg'inyon's drooped, and he glanced over his shoulder to confirm what he, and all the others, knew could not be.

"You hit the fence," Berg'inyon said again, skeptically, as the drow turned back to face him.

"Across the back," he agreed.

Berg'inyon's swords went into their respective scabbards and the young Baenre stormed past his opponent, to stand right before the enchanted web. His opponent and all the other dark elves followed closely, too intrigued to even think of continuing the fight.

Berg'inyon motioned to a nearby female. "Rest your sword against it," he bade her.

The female drew her blade and laid it across one of the thick strands. She looked to Berg'inyon and around to all the others, then easily lifted the blade from the fence.

Another drow farther down the line dared to place his hand on the web. Those around him looked at him incredulously, thinking him dangerously daring, but he had no trouble removing himself from the metal.

Panic rushed through Berg'inyon. The fence, it was said, had been a gift from Lloth herself in millennia past. If it was no longer functioning, it might well mean that House Baenre had fallen out of the Spider Queen's favor. It might well mean that Lloth had dropped House

Baenre's defense to allow for a conspiracy of lower houses.

"To your posts, all of you!" the young Baenre shouted, and the gathered dark elves, sharing Berg'inyon's reasoning and his fears, did not have to be told twice.

Berg'inyon headed for the compound's great central mound to find his mother. He crossed paths with the drow he had just been fighting, and the commoner's eyes widened in sudden fear. Normally Berg'inyon, honorable only by the low standards of dark elves, would have snapped his sword out and through the drow, ending the conflict. Caught up in the excitement of the fence's failure, the commoner was off his guard. He knew it, too, and he expected to be killed.

"To your post," Berg'inyon said to him, for if the young Baenre's suspicions proved correct, that a conspiracy had been launched against House Baenre and Lloth had deserted them, he would need every one of the House's twenty-five hundred soldiers.

*****

King Bruenor Battlehammer had spent the morning in the upper chapel of Mithril Hall, trying to sort out the new hierarchy of priests within the complex. His dear friend Cobble had been the reigning priest, a dwarf of powerful magic and deep wisdom.

That wisdom hadn't gotten poor Cobble out of the way of a nasty drow spell, though, and the cleric had been squashed by a falling wall of iron.

There were more than a dozen remaining acolytes in Mithril Hall. They formed two lines, one on each side of Bruenor's audience chair. Each priest was anxious to impress his (or, in the case of Stumpet Rakingclaw, her) king.

Bruenor nodded to the dwarf at the head of the line to his left. As he did, he lifted a mug of mead, the holy water this particular priest had concocted. Bruenor sipped, then drained the surprisingly refreshing mead in a single swallow as the cleric stepped forward.

"A burst of light in honor of King Bruenor!" the would-be head priest cried, and he waved his arms and began a chanting prayer to Moradin, the Soulforger, god of the dwarves.

"Clean and fresh, and just the slightest twinge of bitterness," Bruenor remarked, running a finger along the rim of the emptied

mug and then sucking on it, that he might savor the last drop. The scribe directly behind the throne noted every word. "A hearty bouquet, properly curling nose hairs," Bruenor added. "Seven.»

The eleven other clerics groaned. Seven on a scale of ten was the highest grade Bruenor had given any of the five samples of holy water he had already taste-tested.

If Jerbollah, the dwarf now in a frenzy of spellcasting, could perform as well with magic, he would be difficult to beat for the coveted position.

"And the light shall be," Jerbollah cried, the climax of his spell, "red!"

There came a tremendous popping noise, as if a hundred dwarves had just yanked their fingers from puckered mouths. And then… nothing.

"Red!" Jerbollah cried in delight.

"What?" demanded Bruenor, who, like those dwarves beside him, saw nothing different about the lighting in the chapel.

"Red!" Jerbollah said again, and when he turned about, Bruenor and the others understood. Jerbollah's face was glowing a bright red—literally, the confused cleric was seeing the world through a rose-colored veil.

Frustrated Bruenor dropped his head into his palm and groaned.

"Makes a good batch o' holy water, though," one of the dwarves nearby remarked, to a chorus of snickers.

Poor Jerbollah, who thought his spell had worked brilliantly, did not understand what was so funny.

Stumpet Rakingclaw leaped forward, seizing the moment. She handed her mug of holy water to Bruenor and rushed out before the throne.

"I had planned something different," she explained quickly, as Bruenor sipped, then swallowed the mead (and the dwarf king's face brightened once more as he declared this batch a nine). "But a cleric of Moradin, of Clanggedon, who knows battle best of all, must be ready to improvise!"

"Do tell us, O Strumpet!" one of the other dwarves roared, and even Bruenor cracked a smile as the laughter exploded about him.

Stumpet, who was used to the nickname and wore it like a badge of honor, took no offense. "Jerbollah called for red," she

explained, "so red it shall be!"

"It already is red," insisted Jerbollah, who earned a slap on the head from the dwarf behind him for his foolishness.

The fiery young Stumpet ruffled her short red beard and went into a series of movements so exaggerated that it seemed as if she had fallen into convulsions.

"Move it, Strumpet," a dwarf near the throne whispered, to renewed laughter.

Bruenor held up the mug and tapped it with his finger. "Nine," he reminded the wise-cracking dwarf. Stumpet was in the clear lead; if she pulled off this spell where Jerbollah had failed, she would be almost impossible to beat, which would make her the wise-cracking dwarf's boss.

The dwarf behind the humbled jokester slapped him on the back of the head.

"Red!" Stumpet cried with all her might.

Nothing happened.

A few snickers came from the line, but in truth, the gathered dwarves were more curious than amused. Stumpet was a powerful spellcaster and should have been able to throw some light, whatever color, into the room. The feeling began to wash over them all (except Jerbollah, who insisted that his spell had worked perfectly), that something might be wrong here.

Stumpet turned back to the throne, confused and embarrassed. She started to say something, to apologize, when a tremendous explosion rocked the ground so violently that she and half the other dwarves in the room were knocked from their feet.

Stumpet rolled and turned, looking back to the empty area of the chapel. A ball of blue sparks appeared from nowhere, hovered in the air, then shot straight for a very surprised Bruenor. The dwarf king ducked and thrust his arm up to block, and the mug that held Stumpet's batch of holy water shattered, sheared off at the handle. A blue storm of raging sparks burst from the impact, sending dwarves scurrying for cover.

More sparking bursts ignited across the room, glowing balls zipping this way and that, thunderlike booms shaking the floor and walls.

"What in the Nine Hells did ye do?" the dwarf king, a little curled-up ball on his great chair, screamed at poor Stumpet.

The female dwarf tried to respond, tried to disclaim responsibil-

ity for this unexpected turn, but a small tube appeared in midair, generally pointed her way, and fired multicolored balls that sent Stumpet scrambling away.

It went on for several long, frightening minutes, dwarves diving every which way, sparks seeming to follow them wherever they hid, burning their backsides and singeing their beards. Then it was over, as suddenly as it had begun, leaving the chapel perfectly quiet and smelling of sulphur.

Gradually Bruenor straightened in his chair and tried to regain some of his lost dignity.

"What in the Nine Hells did ye do?" he demanded again, to which poor Stumpet merely shrugged. A couple of dwarves managed a slight laugh at that.

"At least it's still red," Jerbollah remarked under his breath, but loud enough to be heard. Again he was slapped by the dwarf behind him.

Bruenor shook his head in disgust, then froze in place as two eyeballs appeared in the air before him, scrutinizing him ominously.

Then they dropped to the floor and rolled about haphazardly, coming to rest several feet apart.

Bruenor looked on in disbelief as a spectral hand came out of the air and herded the eyeballs close together and turned them so that they were both facing the dwarf king once more.

"Well, that's never happened before," said a disembodied voice.

Bruenor jumped in fright, then settled and groaned yet again. He hadn't heard that voice in a long time, but never would he forget it. And it explained so much about what was going on in the chapel.

"Harkle Harpell," Bruenor said, and whispers ignited all about him, for most of the other dwarves had heard Bruenor's tales of Longsaddle, a town to the west of Mithril Hall, home of the legendary, eccentric wizard clan, the Harpells. Bruenor and his companions had passed through Longsaddle, had toured the Ivy Mansion, on their way to find Mithril Hall. It was a place the dwarf, no fan of wizardry magic, would never forget, and never remember fondly.

"My greetings, King Bruenor," said the voice, emanating from the floor right below the steadied eyeballs.

"Are ye really here?" the dwarf king asked.

"Hmmm," groaned the floor. "I can hear both you and those who are around me at the Fuzzy Quarterstaff," Harkle replied,

referring to the tavern at the Ivy Mansion, back in Longsaddle. "Just a moment, if you please.»

The floor "Hmmmm'd" several more times, and the eyeballs blinked once or twice, perhaps the most curious sight Bruenor had ever seen, as an eyelid appeared from nowhere, covered the ball momentarily, then disappeared once more.

"It seems that I'm in both places," Harkle tried to explain. "I'm quite blind back here—of course, my eyes are there. I wonder if I might get them back…" The spectral hand appeared again, groping for the eyeballs. It tried to grasp one of them securely, but only wound up turning the ball about on the floor.

"Whoa!" shouted a distressed Harkle. "So that is how a lizard sees the world! I must note it…»

"Harkle!" Bruenor roared in frustration.

"Oh, yes, yes, of course," replied Harkle, coming to what little senses he possessed. "Please excuse my distraction, King Bruenor. This has never happened before.»

"Well it's happened now," Bruenor said dryly.

"My eyes are there," Harkle said, as though trying to sort things out aloud. "But, of course, I will be there as well, quite soon. Actually, I had hoped to be there now, but didn't get through. Curious indeed. I could try again, or could ask one of my brothers to try—"

"No!" Bruenor bellowed, cringing at the thought that other Harpell body parts might soon rain down on him.

"Of course," Harkle agreed after a moment. "Too dangerous. Too curious. Very well, then. I come in answer to your call, friend dwarf king!"

Bruenor dropped his head into his palm and sighed. He had feared those very words for more than two weeks now. He had sent an emissary to Longsaddle for help in the potential war only because Drizzt had insisted.

To Bruenor, having the Harpells as allies might eliminate the need for enemies.

"A week," Harkle's disembodied voice said. "I will arrive in a week!" There came a long pause. "Err, umm, could you be so kind as to keep safe my eyeballs?"

Bruenor nodded to the side, and several dwarves scrambled ahead, curious and no longer afraid of the exotic items. They battled to scoop up the eyes and finally sorted them out, with two different

dwarves each holding one—and each taking obvious pleasure in making faces at the eye.

Bruenor shouted for them to quit playing even before Harkle's voice screamed in horror.

"Please!" pleaded the somewhat absent mage. "Only one dwarf to hold both eyes." Immediately the two dwarves clutched their prizes more tightly.

"Give 'em to Stumpet!" Bruenor roared. "She started this whole thing!"

Reluctantly, but not daring to go against an order from their king, the dwarves handed the eyeballs over.

"And do please keep them moist," Harkle requested, to which, Stumpet immediately tossed one of the orbs into her mouth.

"Not like that!" screamed the voice. "Oh, not like that!"

"I should get them," protested Jerbollah. "My spell worked!" The dwarf behind Jerbollah slapped him on the head.

Bruenor slumped low in his chair, shaking his head. It was going to be a long time in putting his clerical order back together, and longer still would be the preparations for war when the Harpells arrived.

Across the room, Stumpet, who, despite her antics, was the most level-headed of dwarves, was not so lighthearted. Harkle's unexpected presence had deflected the other apparent problems, perhaps, but the weird arrival of the wizard from Longsaddle did not explain the happenings here. Stumpet, several of the other clerics, and even the scribe realized that something was very wrong.

*****

Guenhwyvar was tired by the time she, Drizzt, and Catti-brie came to the high pass leading to Mithril Hall's eastern door. Drizzt had kept the panther on the Material Plane longer than usual, and though it was taxing, Guenhwyvar was glad for the stay. With all the preparations going on in the deep tunnels below the dwarven complex, Drizzt did not get outside much, and consequently, neither did Guenhwyvar.

For a long, long time, the panther figurine had been in the hands of various drow in Menzoberranzan, and, thus, the panther had gone centuries without seeing the out-of-doors on the Material Plane. Still, the out-of-doors was where Guenhwyvar was most at

home, where natural panthers lived, and where the panther's first companions on the Material Plane had lived.

Guenhwyvar had indeed enjoyed this romp along mountain trails with Drizzt and Catti-brie, but now was the time to go home, to rest again on the Astral Plane. For all their love of companionship, neither the drow nor the panther could afford that luxury now, with so great a danger looming, an impending war in which Drizzt and Guenhwyvar would likely play a major role, fighting side by side.

The panther paced about the figurine, gradually diminished, and faded to an insubstantial gray mist.

* * * * *

Gone from the material world, Guenhwyvar entered a long, low, winding tunnel, the silvery path that would take her back to the Astral Plane. The panther loped easily, not eager to be gone and too tired to run full out. The journey was not so long anyway, and always uneventful.

Guenhwyvar skidded to a stop as she rounded one long bend, her ears falling flat.

The tunnel ahead was ablaze.

Diabolical forms, fiendish manifestations that seemed unconcerned with the approaching cat, leaped from those flames. Guenhwyvar padded ahead a few short strides. She could feel the intense heat, could see the fiery fiends, and could hear their laughter as they continued to consume the circular tunnel's walls.

A rush of air told Guenhwyvar that the tunnel had been ruptured, somewhere in the emptiness between the planes of existence. Fiery fiends were pulled into elongated shapes, then sucked out; the remaining flames danced wildly, leaping and flickering, seeming to go out altogether, then rising together in a sudden and violent surge. The wind came strong at Guenhwyvar's back, compelling the panther to go forward, compelling everything in the tunnel to fly out through the breach, into nothingness.

Guenhwyvar knew instinctively that if she succumbed to that force, there would be no turning back, that she would become a lost thing, helpless, wandering between the planes.

The panther dug in her claws and backpedaled slowly, fighting the fierce wind every inch of the way. Her black coat ruffled up,

sleek fur turning the wrong way.

One step back.

The tunnel was smooth and hard, and there was little for panther claws to dig against. Guenhwyvar's paws pedaled more frantically, but inevitably the cat began to slide forward toward the flames and the breach.

* * * * *

"What is it?" Catti-brie asked, seeing Drizzt's confusion as he picked up the figurine.

"Warm," Drizzt replied. "The figurine is warm.»

Catti-brie's expression likewise crinkled with confusion. She had a feeling of sheer dread then, a feeling she could not understand. "Call Guen back," she prompted.

Drizzt, equally fearful, was already doing exactly that. He placed the figurine on the ground and called out to the panther.

* * * * *

Guenhwyvar heard the call, and wanted desperately to answer it, but now the cat was close to the breach. Wild flames danced high, singeing the panther's face. The wind was stronger than ever, and there was nothing, nothing at all, for Guenhwyvar to hold on to.

The panther knew fear, and the panther knew grief. Never again would she come to Drizzt's call; never again would she hunt beside the ranger in the forests near Mithril Hall or race down a mountain with Drizzt and Catti-brie.

Guenhwyvar had known grief before, when some of her previous masters had died. This time, though, there could be no replacement for Drizzt. And none for Catti-brie or Regis, or even Bruenor, that most frustrating of creatures, whose love and hate relationship with Guenhwyvar had provided the panther with many hours of teasing enjoyment.

Guenhwyvar remembered the time Drizzt had bade her lie atop sleeping Bruenor and nap. How the dwarf had roared!

Flames bit at Guenhwyvar's face. She could see through the breach now, see the emptiness that awaited her.

Chapter 7 BAENRE'S FAULT

Uthegental Armgo, the patron and weapon master of Barrison del'Armgo, Second House of Menzoberranzan, was not Jarlaxle's favorite drow. In fact, Jarlaxle wasn't certain that this one was truly a drow at all. Standing near six feet, with a muscled torso that weighed close to two hundred pounds, Uthegental was the largest dark elf in Menzoberranzan, one of the largest of the normally slender race ever seen in the Underdark. More than size distinguished the fierce weapon master, though. While Jarlaxle was considered eccentric, Uthegental was simply frightening. He cropped his white hair short and spiked it with the thick, gelatinous extract gained by boiling rothe udders. A mithril ring was stuck through Uthegental's angular nose, and a golden pin protruded through each cheek.

His weapon was a trident, black like the fine-fitting mail of jointed plates he wore, and a net—magical, so it was said—hung on his belt, within easy reach.

Jarlaxle was glad that at least Uthegental wasn't wearing his war paint this day, zigzagging streaks of some dye the mercenary did not know that showed yellow and red in both the normal and

infrared spectrums. It was common knowledge in Menzoberranzan that Uthegental, in addition to being patron to Matron Mother Mez'Barris, was the consort of many Barrison del'Armgo females. The second house considered him breeding stock, and the thought of dozens of little Uthegentals running around brought a sour expression to Jarlaxle's face.

"The magic is wild, yet I remain strong!" the exotic weapon master growled, his perpetually furrowed brow making him even more imposing. He held one iron-muscled arm to the side and tightened his biceps as he crooked his elbow, the rock-hard muscles of his arm standing high and proud.

Jarlaxle took a moment to remind himself where he was, in the midst of his own encampment, in his own room and seated behind his own desk, secretly surrounded by a dozen highly skilled and undeniably loyal soldiers of Bregan D'aerthe. Even without the concealed allies, Jarlaxle's desk was equipped with more than a few deadly traps for troublesome guests. And, of course, Jarlaxle was no minor warrior himself. A small part of him—a very small part of him—wondered how he might measure up in battle against Uthegental.

Few warriors, drow or otherwise, could intimidate the mercenary leader, but he allowed himself a bit of humility in the face of this maniac.

"Ultrin Sargtlin!" Uthegental went on, the drow term for "Supreme Warrior," a claim that seemed secure within the city with Dantrag Baenre dead. Jarlaxle often imagined the battle that most of Menzoberranzan's dark elves thought would one day be waged by bitter rivals Uthegental and Dantrag.

Dantrag had been the quicker—quicker than anyone—but with his sheer strength and size, Uthegental had rated as Jarlaxle's favorite in such a contest. It was said that when he went into his battle rage, Uthegental possessed the strength of a giant, and this fearsome weapon master was so tough that when he battled lesser creatures, such as goblin slaves, he always allowed his opponent to swing first, and never tried to parry the attack, accepting the vicious hit, reveling in the pain, before tearing his enemy limb from limb and having the choicest body parts prepared for his supper.

Jarlaxle shuddered at the notion, then put the image from his mind, reminding himself that he and Uthegental had more important business.

"There is no weapon master, no drow at all, in Menzoberranzan to stand against me," Uthegental continued his boasting, for no reason that Jarlaxle could discern beyond the savage's overblown sense of pride.

He went on and on, as was his way, and while Jarlaxle wanted to ask him if there was a point to it all, he kept silent, confident that the emissary from the second house would eventually get around to a serious discussion.

Uthegental stopped his mounting tirade suddenly, and his hand shot out, snatching from the top of the desk a gem that the mercenary used as a paperweight. Uthegental muttered some word that Jarlaxle did not catch, but the mercenary's keen eye did note a slight flicker in the huge drow's brooch, the house emblem of Barrison del'Armgo. Uthegental then held the gem aloft and squeezed it with all his strength. The muscles in his sculpted arm strained and bulged, but the gem held firm.

"I should be able to crush this," Uthegental growled. "Such is the power, the magic, that I have been Lloth-blessed with!"

"The gem would not be worth as much when reduced to powder," Jarlaxle replied dryly. What was Uthegental's point? he wondered. Of course, something strange was going on with magic all over the city. Now Jarlaxle better understood Uthegental's earlier boasting. The exotic weapon master was indeed still strong, but not as strong, a fact that apparently worried Uthegental more than a little.

"Magic is failing," the weapon master said, "failing everywhere. The priestesses kneel in prayer, sacrifice drow after drow, and still nothing they do brings Lloth or her handmaidens to them. Magic is failing, and it is Matron Baenre's fault!"

Jarlaxle took note of the way Uthegental seemed to repeat things. Probably to remind himself of what he was talking about, the mercenary mused, and his sour expression aptly reflected his opinion of Uthegental's intellect. Of course, Uthegental would never catch the subtle indication.

"You cannot know that," the mercenary replied. Uthegental's accusation no doubt came from Matron Mez'Barris herself. Many things were coming clear to the mercenary now, mostly the fact that Mez'Barris had sent Uthegental to feel out Bregan D'aerthe, to see if the time was ripe for a coup against Baenre. Uthegental's words could certainly be considered damning, but not against Barrison del'Armgo,

for their weapon master was always running off at the mouth, and never with anything complimentary to anyone but himself.

"It was Matron Baenre who allowed the rogue Do'Urden to escape," Uthegental bellowed. "It was she who presided over the failed high ritual! Failed, as magic is failing.»

Say it again, Jarlaxle thought, but wisely kept that derisive reply silent. The mercenary's frustration at that moment wasn't simply with the ignorance revealed by Uthegental. It was with the fact that Uthegental's reasoning was common all over the city. To Jarlaxle's thinking, the dark elves of Menzoberranzan continually limited themselves by their blind insistence that everything was symptomatic of a deeper meaning, that the Spider Queen had some grand design behind their every movement. In the eyes of the priestesses, if Drizzt Do'Urden denied Lloth and ran away, it was only because Lloth wanted House Do'Urden to fall and wanted the challenge of recapturing him presented to the other ambitious houses of the city.

It was a limiting philosophy, one that denied free will. Certainly Lloth might play a hand in the hunt for Drizzt. Certainly she might be angered by the disruption of the high ritual, if she even bothered to take note of the event! But the reasoning that what was happening now was completely tied to that one event—ultimately a minor one in the five-thousand year history of Menzoberranzan—was a view of foolish pride, wherein the dwellers of Menzoberranzan seemed to think that all the multiverse revolved about them.

"Why then is all magic failing every house?" Jarlaxle asked Uthegental. "Why not just House Baenre?"

Uthegental briskly shook his head, not even willing to consider the reasoning. "We have failed Lloth and are being punished," he declared. "If only I had met the rogue instead of pitiful Dantrag Baenre!"

Now that was a sight Jarlaxle would wish to see! Drizzt Do'Urden battling Uthegental. The mere thought of it sent a tingle down the mercenary's spine.

"You cannot deny that Dantrag was in Lloth's favor," Jarlaxle reasoned, "while Drizzt Do'Urden most certainly was not. How, then, did Drizzt win?"

Uthegental's brow furrowed so fiercely that his red-glowing eyes nearly disappeared altogether, and Jarlaxle quickly reassessed the prudence of pushing the brute along this line of reasoning. It

was one thing to back Matron Baenre; it was another altogether to shake the foundation for this religion-blinded slave's entire world.

"It will sort itself out properly," Jarlaxle assured. "In all of Arach-Tinilith, in all of the Academy, and in every chapel of every house, prayers are being offered to Lloth.»

"Their prayers are not being answered," Uthegental promptly reminded. "Lloth is angry with us and will not speak with us until we have punished those who have wronged her.»

Their prayers were not being answered, or their prayers were not even being heard, Jarlaxle thought. Unlike most of the other typically xenophobic drow in Menzoberranzan, the mercenary was in touch with the outside world. He knew from his contacts that Blingdenstone's svirfneblin priests were having equal difficulty in their communion, that the deep gnomes' magic had also gone awry. Something had happened to the pantheon itself, Jarlaxle believed, and to the very fabric of magic.

"It is not Lloth," he said boldly, to which Uthegental's eyes went wide. Understanding exactly what was at stake here, the entire hierarchy of the city and perhaps the lives of half of Menzoberranzan's drow, Jarlaxle pressed ahead. "Rather, it is not solely Lloth. When you go back into the city, consider Narbondel," he said, referring to the stone pillar clock of Menzoberranzan. "Even now, in what should be the cool dark of night, it glows brighter and hotter than ever before, so hot that its glow can even be viewed without the heat-sensing vision, so hot that any drow near the pillar cannot even allow their vision to slip into the heat-sensing spectrum, lest they be blinded.

"Yet Narbondel is enchanted by a wizard, and not a priestess," Jarlaxle went on, hoping that dim Uthegental would follow the reasoning.

"You doubt that Lloth could affect the clock?" the weapon master growled.

"I doubt she would!" Jarlaxle countered vehemently. "The magic of Narbondel is separate from Lloth, has always been separate from Lloth. Before Gromph Baenre, some of the previous archmages of Menzoberranzan were not even followers of Lloth!" He almost added that Gromph wasn't so devout, either, but decided to keep that bit of information back. No sense in giving the desperate second house additional reasons to think that House Baenre was

even more out of the Spider Queen's favor.

"And consider the faerie fires highlighting every structure," Jarlaxle continued. He could tell by the angle of Uthegental's furrowed brow that the brute was suddenly more curious than outraged—not a common sight. "Blinking on and off, or winking out altogether. Wizard's faerie fire, not the magic of a priestess, and decorating every house, not just House Baenre. Events are beyond us, I say, and beyond the high ritual. Tell Matron Mez'Barris, with all my respect, that I do not believe Matron Baenre can be blamed for this, and I do not believe the solution will be found in a war against the first house. Not unless Lloth herself sends us a clear directive.»

Uthegental's expression soon returned to its normal scowl. Of course this one was frustrated, Jarlaxle realized. The most intelligent drow of Menzoberranzan, the most intelligent svirfnebli of Blingdenstone, were frustrated, and nothing Jarlaxle might say would change Uthegental's mind, or the war-loving savage's desire to attack House Baenre. But Jarlaxle knew he didn't have to convince Uthegental. He just had to make Uthegental say the right things upon his return to House Barrison del'Armgo. The mere fact that Mez'Barris sent so prominent an emissary, her own patron and weapon master, told Jarlaxle she would not lead a conspiracy against Baenre without the aid of, or at least the approval of, Bregan D'aerthe.

"I go," Uthegental declared, the most welcome words Jarlaxle had heard since the brute had entered his encampment.

Jarlaxle removed his wide-brimmed hat and ran his hands over his bald pate as he slipped back comfortably in his chair. He could not begin to guess the extent of the events. Perhaps within the apparent chaos of the fabric of reality, Lloth herself had been destroyed. Not such a bad thing, Jarlaxle supposed.

Still, he hoped things would sort themselves out soon, and properly, as he had indicated to Uthegental, for he knew this request—and it was a request—to go to war would come again, and again after that, and each time, it would be backed by increasing desperation. Sooner or later, House Baenre would be attacked.

Jarlaxle thought of the encounter he had witnessed between Matron Baenre and K'yorl Odran, matron mother of House Oblodra, the city's third, and perhaps most dangerous, house, when Baenre had first begun to put together the alliance to send a

conquering army to Mithril Hall. Baenre had dealt from a position of power then, fully in Lloth's favor. She had openly insulted K'yorl and the third house and forced the unpredictable matron mother into her alliance with bare threats.

K'yorl would never forget that, Jarlaxle knew, and she could possibly be pushing Mez'Barris Armgo in the direction of a war against House Baenre.

Jarlaxle loved chaos, thrived amidst confusion, but this scenario was beginning to worry him more than a little.

*****

Contrary to the usually correct mercenary's belief, K'yorl Odran was not nudging Matron Mez'Barris into a war against House Baenre. Quite the opposite, K'yorl was working hard to prevent such a conflict, meeting secretly with the matron mothers of the six other ruling houses ranked below House Baenre (except for Ghenni'tiroth Tlabbar, Matron of House Faen Tlabbar, the fourth house, whom K'yorl could not stand and would not trust). It wasn't that K'yorl had forgiven Matron Baenre for the insult, and it wasn't that K'yorl was afraid of the strange events. Far from it.

If it hadn't been for their extensive scouting network beyond House Oblodra and the obvious signs such as Narbondel and the winking faerie fire, the members of the third house wouldn't even have known that anything was amiss. For the powers of House Oblodra came not from wizardly magic, nor from the clerical prayers to the Spider Queen. The Oblodrans were psionicists. Their powers were formed by internal forces of the mind, and, thus far, the Time of Troubles had not affected them.

K'yorl couldn't let the rest of the city know that. She had the score of priestesses under her command hard at work, forcing the psionic equivalent of faerie fire highlighting her house to blink, as were the other houses. And to Mez'Barris and the other matron mothers, she seemed as agitated and nervous as they.

She had to keep a lid on things; she had to keep the conspiracy talk quieted. For when K'yorl could be certain that the loss of magic was not a devious trick, her family would strike—alone. She might pay House Faen Tlabbar back first, for all the years she had spent watching their every ambitious move, or she might strike directly

against wretched Baenre.

Either way, the wicked matron mother meant to strike alone.

* * * * *

Matron Baenre sat stiffly in a chair on the raised and torch-lit central dais in the great chapel of her house. Her daughter Sos'Umptu, who served as caretaker to this most holy of drow places, sat to her left, and Triel, the eldest Baenre daughter and matron mistress of the drow Academy, was on her right. All three stared upward, to the illusionary image Gromph had put there, and it seemed strangely fitting that the image did not continue its shape-shifting, from drow to arachnid and back again, but rather, had been caught somewhere in the middle of the transformation and suspended there, like the powers that had elevated House Baenre to its preeminent position.

Not far away, goblin and minotaur slaves continued their work in repairing the dome, but Matron Baenre had lost all hope that putting her chapel back together would right the strange and terrible events in Menzoberranzan. She had come to believe Jarlaxle's reasoning that something larger than a failed high ritual and the escape of a single rogue was involved here. She had come to believe that what was happening in Menzoberranzan might be symptomatic of the whole world, of the whole multiverse, and that it was quite beyond her understanding or her control.

That didn't make things easier for Matron Baenre. If the other houses didn't share those beliefs, they would try to use her as a sacrifice to put things aright. She glanced briefly at both her daughters. Sos'Umptu was among the least ambitious drow females she had ever known, and Baenre didn't fear much from that one. Triel, on the other hand, might be more dangerous. Though she always seemed content with her life as matron mistress of the Academy, a position of no minor importance, it was widely accepted that Triel, the eldest daughter, would one day rule the first house.

Triel was a patient one, like her mother, but, like her mother, she was also calculating. If she became convinced that it was necessary to remove her mother from the throne of House Baenre, that such an act would restore the Baenre name and reputation, then she would do so mercilessly.

That is why Matron Baenre had recalled her from the Academy to a meeting and had located that meeting within the chapel. This was Sos'Umptu's place, Lloth's place, and Triel would not dare strike out at her mother here.

"I plan to issue a call from the Academy that no house shall use this troubled time to war against another," Triel offered, breaking the virtual silence—for none of the Baenres had taken note of the hammering and groaning from the slaves working on the curving roof a mere hundred feet away. None of them took note even when a minotaur casually tossed a goblin to its death, for no better reason than enjoyment.

Matron Baenre took a deep breath and considered the words, and the meaning behind the words. Of course Triel would issue such a plea. The Academy was perhaps the most stabilizing force in Menzoberranzan. But why had Triel chosen this moment to tell her mother? Why not just wait until the plea was presented openly and to all?

Was Triel trying to reassure her? Matron Baenre wondered. Or was she merely trying to put her off her guard?

The thoughts circled in Matron Baenre's mind, ran about and collided with one another, leaving her in a trembling, paranoid fit. Rationally, she understood the self-destructive nature of trying to read things into every word, of trying to outguess those who might be less than enemies, who might even be allies. But Matron Baenre was growing desperate. A few weeks before, she had been at the pinnacle of her power, had brought the city together beneath her in readiness for a massive strike at the dwarven complex of Mithril Hall, near the surface.

How fast it had been taken away, as fast as the fall of a stalactite from the ceiling of the cavern above her treasured chapel.

She wasn't done yet, though. Matron Baenre had not lived through more than two thousand years to give up now. Damn Triel, if she was indeed plotting to take the throne. Damn them all!

The matron mother clapped her hands together sharply, and both her daughters started with surprise as a bipedal, man-sized monstrosity popped into view, standing right before them, draped in tremendous flowing crimson robes. The creature's purplish head resembled that of an octopus, except that only four skinny tentacles waved from the perimeter of its round, many-toothed orifice, and

its eyes were pupilless and milky white.

The illithid, or mind flayer, was not unknown to the Baenre daughters. Far from it, El-Viddenvelp, or Methil, as he was commonly called, was Matron Baenre's advisor and had been at her side for many years. Recovered from their startlement, both Sos'Umptu and Triel turned curious stares to their surprising mother.

My greetings to you Triel, the illithid imparted telepathically. And, of course, to you, Sos'Umptu, in this, your place.

Both daughters nodded and conjured similar mental replies, knowing that Methil would catch the thoughts as clearly as if they had spoken them aloud.

"Fools!" Matron Baenre shouted at both of them. She leaped from her chair and spun about, her withered features fierce. "How are we to survive this time if two of my principle commanders and closest advisors are such fools?"

Sos'Umptu was beside herself with shame, wrought of confusion. She even went so far as to cover her face with the wide sleeve of her thick purple-and-black robe.

Triel, more worldly-wise than her younger sister, initially felt the same shock, but quickly came to understand her mother's point. "The illithid has not lost its powers," she stated, and Sos'Umptu peeked curiously from above her arm.

"Not at all," Matron Baenre agreed, and her tone was not happy.

"But then we have an advantage," Sos'Umptu dared to speak. "For Methil is loyal enough," she said bluntly. There was no use in masking her true feelings behind words of half-truth, for the illithid would read her mind anyway. "And he is the only one of his kind in Menzoberranzan.»

"But not the only one who uses such powers!" Matron Baenre roared at her, causing her to shrink back in her chair once more.

"K'yorl," Triel gasped. "If Methil has use of his powers…»

"Then so do the Oblodrans," Baenre finished grimly.

They exercise their powers continually, Methil telepathically confirmed to all three. The highlights of House Oblodra would not be winking were it not for the mental commands of K'yorl's coven.

"Can we be certain of this?" Triel asked, for there seemed no definite patterns in the failing of magic, just a chaotic mess. Perhaps Methil had not yet been affected, or did not even know that he had been affected. And perhaps Oblodra's faerie fire highlights, though

different in creation than the fires glowing about the other houses, were caught in the same chaos.

Psionic powers can be sensed by psionic creatures, Methil assured her. The third house teems with energy.

"And K'yorl gives the appearance that this is not so," Matron Baenre added in a nasty tone.

"She wishes to attack by surprise," Triel reasoned.

Matron Baenre nodded grimly.

"What of Methil?" Sos'Umptu offered hopefully. "His powers are great.»

"Methil is more than a match for K'yorl," Matron Baenre assured her daughter, though Methil was silently doing the same thing, imparting a sense of undeniable confidence. "But K'yorl is not alone among the Oblodrans with her psionic powers.»

"How many?" Triel wanted to know, to which Matron Baenre merely shrugged.

Many, Methil's thoughts answered.

Triel was thinking it, so she knew that Methil was hearing it, and so she said it aloud, suspiciously. "And if the Oblodrans do come against us, which side will Methil take?"

Matron Baenre was, for an instant, shocked by her daughter's boldness, but she understood that Triel had little choice in divulging her suspicions.

"And will he bring in his allies from the illithid cavern not far away?" Triel pressed. "Surely if a hundred illithids came to our side in this, our time of need…»

There was nothing from Methil, not a hint of telepathic communication, and that was answer enough for the Baenres.

"Our problems are not the problems of the mind flayers," Matron Baenre said. It was true enough, and she knew so. She had tried to enlist the illithids in the raid on Mithril Hall, promising them riches and a secure alliance, but the motivations of the otherworldly, octopus-headed creatures were not the same as those of the dark elves, or of any race in all the Underdark. Those motivations remained beyond Matron Baenre's understanding, despite her years of dealing with Methil. The most she could get from the illithids for her important raid was Methil and two others agreeing to go along in exchange for a hundred kobolds and a score of drow males, to be used as slaves by the illithid community in their small cavern city.

There was little else to say. The house guards were positioned at full readiness; every spare drow was in prayer for help from the Spider Queen. House Baenre was doing everything it could to avert disaster, and yet, Matron Baenre did not believe they would succeed. K'yorl had come to her unannounced on several occasions, had gotten past her magical fence and past the many magical wards set about the complex. The matron mother of House Oblodra had done so only to taunt Baenre, and, in truth, had little power remaining to do anything more than that by the time her image was revealed to Baenre. But what might K'yorl accomplish with those magical guards down? Baenre had to wonder. How could Matron Baenre resist the psionicist without countering magic of her own?

Her only defense seemed to be Methil, a creature she neither trusted nor understood.

Chapter 8 MAGICAL MANIFESTATIONS

Guenhwyvar knew pain, knew agony beyond anything the panther had ever felt. But more than that, the panther knew despair, true despair. Guenhwyvar was a creature formed of magic, the manifestation of the life-force of the animal known on Toril as the panther. The very spark of existence within the great panther depended on magic, as did the conduit that allowed Drizzt and the others before him to bring Guenhwyvar to the Prime Material Plane.

Now that magic had unraveled; the fabric that wove the universal magic into a mystical and predictable pattern was torn. The panther knew despair.

Guenhwyvar heard Drizzt's continued calling, begging. The drow knew Guen was in trouble; his voice reflected that desperation. In his heart, so connected with his panther companion, Drizzt Do'Urden understood that Guenhwyvar would soon be lost to him forever.

The chilling thought gave the panther a moment of renewed hope and determination. Guenhwyvar focused on Drizzt, conjured an image of the pain she would feel if she could never again return to her beloved master. Growling low in sheer defiance, the panther scraped

her back legs so forcefully that more than one claw hooked on the smooth, hard surface and was subsequently yanked out.

The pain did not stop the panther, not when Guenhwyvar measured it against the reality of slipping forward into those flames, of falling out of the tunnel, the only connection to the material world and Drizzt Do'Urden.

The struggle went on for more time than any creature should have resisted. But though Guenhwyvar had not slid any closer to the breach, neither had the panther earned back any ground toward her pleading master.

Finally, exhausted, Guenhwyvar gave a forlorn, helpless look over her shoulder. Her muscles trembled, then gave way.

The panther was swept to the fiery breach.

* * * * *

Matron Baenre paced the small room nervously, expecting a guard to run in at any moment with news that the compound had been overrun, that the entire city had risen against her house, blaming her for the troubles that had befallen them.

Not so long ago, Baenre had dreamt of conquest, had aspired to the pinnacle of power. Mithril Hall had been within her grasp, and, even more than that, the city seemed ready to fall into step behind her lead.

Now she believed she could not hold on to even her own house, to the Baenre empire that had stood for five thousand years.

"Mithril Hall," the wicked drow growled in a damning curse, as though that distant place had been the cause of it all. Her slight chest heaving with forced gasps of air, Baenre reached with both hands to her neck and tore free the chain that lay there.

"Mithril Hall!" she shouted into the ring-shaped pendant, fashioned from the tooth of Gandalug Battlehammer, the patron of Bruenor's clan, the real link to that surface world. Every drow, even those closest to Matron Baenre, thought Drizzt Do'Urden was the catalyst for the invasion, the excuse that allowed Lloth to give her blessing to the dangerous attempt at a conquest so near the surface.

Drizzt was but a part of the puzzle, and a small part, for this little ring was the true impetus. Sealed within it was the tormented spirit of Gandalug, who knew the ways of Mithril Hall and the ways of Clan Battlehammer. Matron Baenre had taken the dwarf king herself

centuries before, and it was only blind fate that had brought a renegade from Menzoberranzan in contact with Bruenor's clan, blind fate that had provided an excuse for the conquest Matron Baenre had desired for many, many decades.

With a shout of outrage, Baenre hurled the tooth across the room, then fell back in shock as the item exploded.

Baenre stared blankly into the room's corner as the smoke cleared away, at the naked dwarf kneeling there. The matron mother pulled herself to her feet, shaking her head in disbelief, for this was no summoned spirit, but Gandalug's physical body!

"You dare to come forth?" Baenre screamed, but her anger masked her fear. When she had previously called Gandalug's physical form forth from the extradimensional prison, he was never truly whole, never corporeal—and never naked. Looking at him now, Baenre knew Gandalug's prison was gone, that Gandalug was returned exactly as he had been the moment Baenre had captured him, except for his clothes.

The battered old dwarf looked up at his captor, his tormentor. Baenre had spoken in the drow tongue, and of course, Gandalug hadn't understood a word. That hardly mattered, though, for the old dwarf wasn't listening. He was, in fact, beyond words.

Struggling, growling, with every pained movement, Gandalug forced his back to straighten, then put one, then the other, leg under him and rose determinedly. He understood that something was different. After centuries of torment and mostly emptiness, a fugue state in a gray void, Gandalug Battlehammer felt somehow different, felt whole and real. Since his capture, the old dwarf had lived a surreal existence, had lived a dream, surrounded by vivid, frightening images whenever this old wretch had called him forth, encompassed by interminable periods of nothingness, where place and time and thought were one long emptiness.

But now… now Gandalug felt different, felt even the creaks and pains of his old bones. And how wonderful those sensations were!

"Go back!" Baenre ordered, this time in the tongue of the surface, the language she always used to communicate with the old dwarf. "Back to your prison until I call you forth!"

Gandalug looked around, to the chain lying on the floor, the tooth ring nowhere in sight.

"I'm not fer tinkin' so," the old dwarf remarked in his heavy,

ancient dialect, and he advanced a step.

Baenre's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You dare?" she whispered, drawing forth a slender wand. She knew how dangerous this one could be, and thus she wasted no time in pointing the item and reciting an arcane phrase, meaning to call forth a stream of webbing that would engulf the dwarf and hold him fast.

Nothing happened.

Gandalug took another step, growling like a hungry animal with every inch.

Baenre's steely-eyed gaze fell away, revealing her sudden fear. She was a creature weaned on magic, who relied on magic to protect her and to vanquish her enemies. With the items she possessed (which she carried with her at all times) and her mighty spell repertoire, she could fend off nearly any enemy, could likely crush a battalion of toughened dwarven fighters. But without those items, and with no spells coming to her call, Matron Baenre was a pitiful, bluffing thing, withered and frail.

It wouldn't have mattered to Gandalug had a titan been standing before him. For some reason he could not understand, he was free of the prison, free and in his own body, a sensation he had not felt in two thousand years.

Baenre had other tricks to try, and in truth, some of them, like the pouch that carried a horde of spiders that would rush to her call, had not yet fallen into the chaotic and magical web that was the Time of Troubles. She couldn't chance it, though. Not now, not when she was so very vulnerable.

She turned and ran for the door.

The corded muscles of Gandalug's mighty legs tightened, and the dwarf sprang, clearing the fifteen feet to get to the door before his tormentor.

A fist slammed Baenre's chest, stealing her breath, and before she could respond, she was up in the air, twirling about over the enraged dwarf's head.

Then she was flying, to crash and crumple against the wall across the room.

"I'm to be rippin' yer head off," Gandalug promised as he steadily advanced.

The door burst open, and Berg'inyon rushed into the room. Gandalug spun to face him as Berg'inyon drew his twin blades. Startled by the sight—how had a dwarf come into Menzoberranzan, into his own

mother's private chambers? — Berg'inyon got the blades up just as Gandalug grabbed them, one in each hand.

Had the enchantment still been upon the weapon master's fine blades, they would have cut cleanly through the tough dwarven flesh. Even without the enchantment, the magic lost in the swirl of chaos, the swords dug deeply.

Gandalug hardly cared. He heaved Berg'inyon's arms out wide, the slender drow no match for his sheer strength. The dwarf whipped his head forward, crashing it into Berg'inyon's supple armor, slender rings that also relied on enchantment for their strength.

Gandalug repeated the movement over and over, and Berg'inyon's grunts fast became breathless gasps. Soon the young Baenre was out on his feet, hardly conscious as Gandalug yanked the swords from his hands. The dwarf's head came in one more time, and Berg'inyon, no longer connected to, and thus supported by, the dwarf, fell away.

Still ignoring the deep cuts on his hands, Gandalug threw one of Berg'inyon's swords to the side of the room, took the other properly in hand, and turned on Matron Baenre, who was still sitting against the wall, trying to clear her thoughts.

"Where's yer smile?" the dwarf taunted, stalking in. "I'm wantin' a smile on yer stinkin' face when I hold yer head up in me hand fer all t'see!"

The next step was the dwarf king's last, as an octopus-headed monstrosity materialized before him, its grotesque tentacles waving his way.

A stunning blast of mental energy rolled Gandalug over, and he nearly dropped the sword. He shook his head fiercely to keep his wits about him.

He continued to growl, to shake his hairy head, as a second blast, then a third, assaulted his sensibilities. Had he held that wall of rage, Gandalug might have withstood even these, and even the two subsequent attacks from Methil. But that rage melted into confusion, which was not a powerful enough feeling to defeat the mighty illithid's intrusions.

Gandalug didn't hear the drow-made sword fall to the stone, didn't hear Matron Baenre call out for Methil and for the recovering Berg'inyon, as she instructed the pair not to kill the dwarf.

Baenre was scared, scared by these shifts in magic that she could not understand. But that fear did not prevent her from remembering her

wicked self. For some unexplained reason, Gandalug had become alive again, in his own body and free of the apparently disintegrated ring.

That mystery would not prevent Baenre from paying this one back for the attack and the insult. Baenre was a master at torturing a spirit, but even her prowess in that fine art paled beside her abilities to torture a living creature.

*****

"Guenhwyvar!" The figurine was wickedly hot now, but Drizzt held on stubbornly, pressed it close to his chest, his heart, though wisps of smoke were running up from the edge of his cloak and the flesh of his hands was beginning to blister.

He knew, and he would not let go. He knew that Guenhwyvar would be gone from him forever, and like a friend hugging close a dying comrade, Drizzt would not let go, would be there to the end.

His desperate calls began to lessen, not from resignation, but simply because his voice could not get past the lump of grief in his throat. Now his fingers, too, were burning, but he would not let go.

Catti-brie did it for him. On a sudden, desperate impulse, the young woman, herself torn with the pain of grief, grabbed roughly at Drizzt's arm and slapped hard the figurine, knocking it to the ground.

Drizzt's startled expression turned to one of outrage and denial, like the final burst of rage from a mother as she watched her child's casket lowered into the grave. For the moment the figurine hit the ground, Catti-brie drew Khazid'hea from its sheath and leaped to the spot. Up went the sword, over her head, its fine edge still showing the red line of its enchantment.

"No!" Drizzt cried, lunging for her.

He was too late. Tears rimming her blue eyes, her thoughts jumbled, Catti-brie found the courage for a last, desperate try, and she brought the mighty blade to bear. Khazid'hea could cut through stone, and so it did now, at the very instant that Guenhwyvar went through the breach.

There came a flash, and a throbbing pain, a pulsating magic, shot up Catti-brie's arm, hurling her backward and to the ground. Drizzt skidded, pivoted, and ducked low, shielding his head as the figurine's head fell free, loosing a line of raging fire far out into the air.

The flames blew out a moment later and a thick gray smoke

poured from the body of the broken figurine. Gradually Drizzt straightened from his defensive crouch and Catti-brie came back to her senses, both to find a haggard-looking Guenhwyvar, the panther's thick coat still smoking, standing before them.

Drizzt dove to his knees and fell over the panther, wrapping Guenhwyvar in a great hug. They both crawled their way to Catti-brie, who was still sitting on the ground, laughing and sobbing though she was weak from the impact of the magic.

"What have you done?" Drizzt asked her.

She had no immediate answers. She did not know how to explain what had happened when Khazid'hea struck the enchanted figurine. She looked to the blade now, lying quiet at her side, its edge no longer glowing and a burr showing along its previously unblemished length.

"I think I've ruined me sword," Catti-brie replied softly.

*****

Later that same day, Drizzt lounged on the bed in his room in the upper levels of Mithril Hall, looking worriedly at his panther companion. Guenhwyvar was back, and that was a better thing, he supposed, than what his instincts had told him would have happened had Catti-brie not cut the figurine.

A better thing, but not a good thing. The panther was weary, resting by the hearth across the small room, head down and eyes closed. That nap would not suffice, Drizzt knew. Guenhwyvar was a creature of the Astral Plane and could truly rejuvenate only among the stars. On several occasions necessity had prompted Drizzt to keep Guenhwyvar on the Material Plane for extended periods, but even a single day beyond the half the cat usually stayed left Guen exhausted.

Even now the artisans of Mithril Hall, dwarves of no small skill, were inspecting the cut figurine, and Bruenor had sent an emissary out to Silverymoon, seeking help from Lady Alustriel, as skilled as any this side of the great desert Anauroch in the ways of magic.

How long would it take? Drizzt wondered, unsure if any of them could repair the figurine. How long could Guenhwyvar survive?

Unannounced, Catti-brie burst through the door. One look at her tear-streaked face told Drizzt that something was amiss. He rolled from the bed to his feet and stepped toward the mantle, where his twin scimitars hung.

Catti-brie intercepted him before he had completed the step and wrapped him in a powerful hug that knocked them both to the bed.

"All I ever wanted," she said urgently, squeezing tight.

Drizzt likewise held on, confused and overwhelmed. He managed to turn his head so he could look into the young woman's eyes, trying to read some clues.

"I was made for ye, Drizzt Do'Urden," Catti-brie said between sobs. "Ye're all that's been in me thoughts since the day we met.»

It was too crazy. Drizzt tried to extract himself, but he didn't want to hurt Catti-brie and her hold was simply too strong and desperate.

"Look at me," she sobbed. "Tell me ye feel the same!"

Drizzt did look at Catti-brie, as deeply as he had ever studied the beautiful young woman. He did care for her—of course he did. He did love her, and had even allowed himself a fantasy or two about this very situation.

But now it seemed simply too weird, too unexpected and with no introduction. He got the distinct feeling that something was out of sorts with the woman, something crazy, like the magic all about them.

"What of Wulfgar?" Drizzt managed to say, though the name got muffled as Catti-brie pressed tightly, her hair thick against Drizzt's face. The poor drow could not deny the woman's allure, the sweet scent of Catti-brie's hair, the warmth of her toned body.

Catti-brie's head snapped as if he had hit her. "Who?"

It was Drizzt's turn to feel as if he had been slapped.

"Take me," Catti-brie implored.

Drizzt's eyes couldn't have gone any wider without falling out of their sockets.

"Wield me!" she cried.

"Wield me?" Drizzt echoed under his breath.

"Make me the instrument of your dance," she went on. "Oh, I beg! It is all I was made for, all I desire." She stopped suddenly and pushed back to arm's length, staring wide-eyed at Drizzt as though some new angle had just popped into her head. "I am better than the others," she promised slyly.

What others? Drizzt wanted to scream, but by this point, the drow couldn't get any words out of his slack-jawed mouth.

"As are yerself," Catti-brie went on. "Better than that woman, I'm now knowing!"

Drizzt had almost found his center again, had almost regained

control enough to reply, when the weight of that last statement buried him. Damn the subtlety! the drow determined, and he twisted and pulled free, rolling from the bed and springing to his feet.

Catti-brie dove right behind, wrapped herself about one of his legs, and held on with all her strength.

"Oh, do not deny me, me love!" she screamed, so urgently that Guenhwyvar lifted her head from the hearth and gave a low growl. "Wield me, I'm begging! Only in yer hands might I be whole!"

Drizzt reached down with both hands, meaning to extract his leg from the tight grip. He noticed something then, on Catti-brie's hip, that gave him pause, that stunned him and explained everything all at once.

He noticed the sword Catti-brie had picked up in the Underdark, the sword that had a pommel shaped into the head of a unicorn. Only it was no longer a unicorn.

It was Catti-brie's face.

In one swift movement, Drizzt drew the sword out of its sheath and tugged free, hopping back two steps. Khazid'hea's red line, that enchanted edge, had returned in full and beamed now more brightly than ever before. Drizzt slid back another step, expecting to be tackled again.

There was no pursuit. The young woman remained in place, half sitting, half kneeling on the floor. She threw her head back as if in ecstacy. "Oh, yes!" she cried.

Drizzt stared down at the pommel, watched in blank amazement as it shifted from the image of Catti-brie's face back into a unicorn. He felt an overwhelming warmth from the weapon, a connection as intimate as that of a lover.

Panting for breath, the drow looked back to Catti-brie, who was sitting straighter now, looking around curiously.

"What're ye doing with me sword?" she asked quietly. Again she looked about the room, Drizzt's room, seeming totally confused. She would have asked, "And what am I doing here?" Drizzt realized, except that the question was already obvious from the expression on her beautiful face.

Chapter 9 IMPLICATIONS

It was rare that both Gromph and Triel Baenre would be in audience with their mother at the same time, rarer still that they would be joined by Berg'inyon and Sos'Umptu and the two other notable Baenre daughters, Bladen'Kerst and Quenthel. Six of the seven sat in comfortable chairs about the dais in the chapel. Not Bladen'Kerst, though. Ever seeming the caged animal, the most sadistic drow in the first house paced in circles, her brow furrowed and thin lips pursed. She was the second oldest daughter behind Triel and should have been out of the house by this time, perhaps as a matron in the Academy, or even more likely, as a matron mother of her own, lesser, house. Matron Baenre had not allowed that, however, fearing that her daughter's simple lack of civility, even by drow standards, would disgrace House Baenre.

Triel looked up and shook her head disdainfully at Bladen'Kerst every time she passed. She rarely gave Bladen'Kerst any thought. Like Vendes Baenre, her younger sister who had been killed by Drizzt Do'Urden during the escape, Bladen'Kerst was an instrument of her mother's torture and nothing more. She was a buffoon,

a showpiece, and no real threat to anyone in House Baenre above the rank of common soldier.

Quenthel was quite a different matter, and in the long interludes between Bladen'Kerst's passing, Triel's stern and scrutinizing gaze never left that one.

And Quenthel returned the look with open hostility. She had risen to the rank of high priestess in record time and was reputed to be in Lloth's highest favor. Quenthel held no illusions about her tentative position; had it not been for that fact of favor, Triel would have obliterated her long ago. For Quenthel had made no secret of her ambitions, which included the stepping stone as matron mistress of Arach-Tinilith, a position Triel had no intention of abandoning.

"Sit down!" Matron Baenre snapped finally at the annoying Bladen'Kerst. One of Baenre's eyes was swollen shut and the side of her face still showed the welt where she had collided with the wall. She was not used to carrying such scars, nor were others used to seeing her that way. Normally a spell of healing would have cleaned up her face, but these were not normal times.

Bladen'Kerst stopped and stared hard at her mother, focusing on those wounds. They carried a double-edged signal. First, they showed that Baenre's powers were not as they should be, that the matron mother, that all of them, might be very vulnerable. Second, coupled with the scowl that perpetually clouded the worried matron mother's features, those wounds reflected anger.

Anger overweighed the perceived, and likely temporary, vulnerability, Bladen'Kerst wisely decided, and sat down in her appointed chair. Her hard boot, unusual for drow, but effective for kicking males, tapped hard and urgently on the floor.

No one paid her any attention, though. All of them followed Matron Baenre's predictable, dangerous gaze to Quenthel.

"Now is not the time for personal ambitions," Matron Baenre said calmly, seriously.

Quenthel's eyes widened as though she had been caught completely off guard.

"I warn you," Matron Baenre pressed, not the least deterred by the innocent expression.

"As do I!" Triel quickly and determinedly interjected. She wouldn't usually interrupt her mother, knew better than that, but she figured that this matter had to be put down once and for all, and

that Baenre would appreciate the assistance. "You have relied on Lloth's favor to protect you these years. But Lloth is away from us now, for some reason that we do not understand. You are vulnerable, my sister, more vulnerable than any of us.»

Quenthel came forward in her seat, even managed a smile. "Would you chance that Lloth will return to us, as we both know she shall?" the younger Baenre hissed. "And what might it be that drove the Spider Queen from us?" As she asked the last question her gaze fell over her mother, as daring as anyone had ever been in the face of Matron Baenre.

"Not what you assume!" Triel snapped. She had expected Quenthel to try to lay blame on Matron Baenre's lap. The removal of the matron mother could only benefit ambitious Quenthel and might indeed restore some prestige to the fast-falling house. In truth, even Triel had considered that course, but she had subsequently dismissed it, no longer believing that Matron Baenre's recent failures had anything to do with the strangeness going on about them. "Lloth has fled every house.»

"This goes beyond Lloth," Gromph, the wizard whose magic came from no god or goddess, added pointedly.

"Enough," said Baenre, looking about alternately, her stare calming her children. "We cannot know what has brought about the events. What we must consider is how those events will affect our position.»

"The city desires a pera'dene," Quenthel reasoned, the drow word for scapegoat. Her unblinking stare at Baenre told the matron mother who she had in mind.

"Fool!" Baenre snapped into the face of that glare. "Do you think they would stop with my heart?"

That blunt statement caught Quenthel off guard.

"For some of the lesser houses, there never has been and never will be a better opportunity to unseat this house," Matron Baenre went on, speaking to all of them. "If you think to unseat me, then do so, but know that it will do little to change the rebellion that is rising against us." She huffed and threw her arms up helplessly. "Indeed, you would only be aiding our enemies. I am your tie to Bregan D'aerthe, and know that our enemies have also courted Jarlaxle. And I am Baenre! Not Triel, and not Quenthel. Without me, you all would fall to chaos, fighting for control, each with your own

factions within the house guard. Where will you be when K'yorl Oblodra enters the compound?"

It was a sobering thought. Matron Baenre had passed word to each of them that the Oblodrans had not lost their powers, and all the Baenres knew the hatred the third house held for them.

"Now is not the time for personal ambitions," Matron Baenre reiterated. "Now is the time for us to hold together and hold our position.»

The nods about her were sincere, Baenre knew, though Quenthel was not nodding. "You should hope that Lloth does not come back to me before she returns to you," the ambitious sister said boldly, aiming the remark squarely at Triel.

Triel seemed unimpressed. "You should hope that Lloth comes back at all," she replied casually, "else I will tear off your head and have Gromph place it atop Narbondel, that your eyes may glow when the day is full.»

Quenthel went to reply, but Gromph beat her to it.

"A pleasure, my dear sister," he said to Triel. There was no love lost between the two, but while Gromph was ambivalent toward Triel, he perfectly hated Quenthel and her dangerous ambitions. If House Baenre fell, so, too, would Gromph.

The implied alliance between the two elder Baenre children worked wonders in calming the upstart younger sister, and Quenthel said not another word the rest of the meeting.

"May we speak now of K'yorl, and the danger to us all?" Matron Baenre asked. When no dissenting voices came forth (and if there had been, Baenre likely would have run out of patience and had the speaker put to a slow death), the matron mother took up the issue of house defense. She explained that Jarlaxle and his band could still be trusted, but warned that the mercenary would be one to change sides if the battle was going badly for House Baenre. Triel assured them all that the Academy remained loyal, and Berg'inyon's report of the readiness of the house guard was beaming.

Despite the promising news and the well-earned reputation of the Baenre garrison, the conversation ultimately came down to the only apparent way to fully fend off K'yorl and her psionic family. Berg'inyon, who had taken part in the fight with the dwarf Gandalug, voiced it first.

"What of Methil?" he asked. "And the hundred illithids he

represents? If they stand with us, the threat from House Oblodra seems minor.»

The others nodded their agreement with the assessment, but Matron Baenre knew that such friends as mind flayers could not be counted on. "Methil remains at our side because he and his people know we are the keystone of security for his people. The illithids do not number one-hundredth the drow in Menzoberranzan. That is the extent of their loyalty. If Methil comes to believe that House Oblodra is the stronger, he will not stand beside us." Baenre gave an ironic, seemingly helpless chuckle.

"The other illithids might even side with K'yorl," she reasoned. "The wretch is akin to them with her powers of the mind. Perhaps they understand one another.»

"Should we speak so bluntly?" Sos'Umptu asked. She looked about the dais, concerned, and the others understood that she feared Methil might even be among them, invisibly, hearing every word, reading their every thought.

"It does not matter," Matron Baenre replied casually. "Methil already knows my fears. One cannot hide from an illithid.»

"Then what are we to do?" Triel asked.

"We are to muster our strength," Baenre replied determinedly. "We are to show no fear and no weakness. And we are not to do anything that might push Lloth further from us." She aimed that last remark at the rivals, Quenthel and Triel, particularly at Triel, who seemed more than ready to use this Lloth-absent time to be rid of her troublesome sister.

"We must show the illithids we remain the power in Menzoberranzan," Baenre went on. "If they know this, then they will side with us, not wanting House Baenre to be weakened by K'yorl's advances.»

"I go to Sorcere," said Gromph, the archmage.

"And I to Arach-Tinilith," added a determined Triel.

"I make no illusions about friendship among my rivals," Gromph added. "But a few promises of repayment when issues sort themselves out will go far in finding allies.»

"The students have been allowed no contact outside the school," Triel put in. "They know of the problems in general, of course, but they know nothing of the threat to House Baenre. In their ignorance, they remain loyal.»

Matron Baenre nodded to both of them. "And you will meet with the lower houses that we have established," she said to Quenthel, a most important assignment. A large portion of House Baenre's power lay in the dozen minor houses that former Baenre nobles had come to head. So obviously a favorite of Lloth's, Quenthel was the perfect choice for such an assignment.

Her expression revealed that she had been won over—more by Triel and Gromph's threats, no doubt, than by the tidbit that had just been thrown her way.

The most important ingredient in squashing the rivalries, Baenre knew, was to allow both Triel and Quenthel to save face and feel important. Thus, this meeting had been a success and all the power of House Baenre would be coordinated into a single defensive force.

Baenre's smile remained a meager one, though. She knew what Methil could do, and suspected that K'yorl was not so much weaker. All of House Baenre would be ready, but without the Lloth-given clerical magic and Gromph's wizardly prowess, would that be enough?

* * * * *

Just off Bruenor's audience hall on the top level of Mithril Hall was a small room that the dwarf king had set aside for the artisans working on repairing the panther figurine. Inside was a small forge and delicate tools, along with dozens of beakers and flasks containing various ingredients and salves.

Drizzt was eager indeed when he was summoned to that room. He'd gone there a dozen times a day, of course, but without invitation, and every time to find dwarves huddled over the still-broken artifact and shaking their bearded heads. A week had passed since the incident, and Guenhwyvar was so exhausted that she could no longer stand, could barely lift her head from her paws as she lay in front of the hearth in Drizzt's room.

The waiting was the worst part.

Now, though, Drizzt had been called into the room. He knew that an emissary had arrived that morning from Silverymoon; he could only hope that Alustriel had some positive solutions to offer.

Bruenor was watching his approach through the open door of

the audience chamber. The red-bearded dwarf nodded and poked his head to the side, and Drizzt cut the sharp corner, pushing open the door without bothering to knock.

It was among the most curious of sights that Drizzt Do'Urden had ever witnessed. The broken—still broken! — figurine was on a small, round table. Regis stood beside it, working furiously with a mortar and pestle, mushing some blackish substance.

Across the table from Drizzt stood a short, stout dwarf, Buster Bracer, the noted armorer, the one, in fact, who had forged Drizzt's own supple chain mail, back in Icewind Dale. Drizzt didn't dare greet the dwarf now, fearing to upset his obvious concentration. Buster stood with his feet wide apart. Every so often, he took an exaggerated breath, then held perfectly steady, for in his hands, wrapped in wetted cloth of the finest material, he held… eyeballs.

Drizzt had no idea of what was going on until a voice, a familiar, bubbly voice, startled him from his shock.

"Greetings, O One of the Midnight Skin!" the disembodied wizard said happily.

"Harkle Harpell?" Drizzt asked.

"Could it be anyone else?" Regis remarked dryly.

Drizzt conceded the point. "What is this about?" he asked, pointedly looking toward the halfling, for he knew that any answer from Harkle would likely shed more dimness on the blurry situation.

Regis lifted the mixing bowl a bit. "A poultice from Silverymoon," he explained hopefully. "Harkle has overseen its mixing.»

"Overseen," the absent mage joked, "which means they held my eyes over the bowl!"

Drizzt didn't manage a smile, not with the head of the all-important figurine still lying at the sculpted body's feet.

Regis snickered, more in disdain than humor. "It should be ready," he explained. "But I wanted you to apply it.»

"Drow fingers are so dexterous!" Harkle piped in.

"Where are you?" Drizzt demanded, impatient and unnerved by the outrageous arrangement.

Harkle blinked, those eyelids appearing from thin air. "In Nesme," he mage replied. "We will be passing north of the Trollmoors soon.»

"And then to Mithril Hall, where you will be reunited with your eyes," Drizzt said.

"I am looking forward to it!" Harkle roared, but again he laughed alone.

"He keeps that up and I'm throwin' the damned eyes into me forge," Buster Bracer growled.

Regis placed the bowl on the table and retrieved a tiny metal tool. "You'll not need much of the poultice," the halfling said as he handed the delicate instrument to Drizzt. "And Harkle has warned us to try to keep the mixture on the outside of the joined pieces.»

"It is only a glue," the mage's voice added. "The magic of the figurine will be the force that truly makes the item whole. The poultice will have to be scraped away in a few day's time. If it works as planned, the figurine will be…" He paused, searching for the word. "Will be healed," he finished.

"If it works," Drizzt echoed. He took a moment to feel the delicate instrument in his hands, making sure that the burns he had received when the figurine's magic had gone awry were healed, making sure that he could feel the item perfectly.

"It will work," Regis assured.

Drizzt took a deep, steadying breath and picked up the panther head. He stared into the sculpted eyes, so much like Guenhwyvar's own knowing orbs. With all the care of a parent tending its child, Drizzt placed the head against the body and began the painstaking task of spreading the gluelike poultice about its perimeter.

More than two hours passed before Drizzt and Regis exited the room, moving into the audience hall where Bruenor was still meeting with Lady Alustriel's emissary and several other dwarves.

Bruenor did not appear happy, but Drizzt noted he seemed more at ease than he had since the onset of this strange time.

"It ain't a trick o' the drow," the dwarf king said as soon as Drizzt and Regis approached. "Or the damned drow are more powerful than anyone ever thought! It's all the world, so says Alustriel.»

"Lady Alustriel," corrected the emissary, a very tidy-looking dwarf dressed in flowing white robes and with a short and neatly trimmed beard.

"My greetings, Fredegar," Drizzt said, recognizing Fredegar Rockcrusher, better known as Fret, Lady Alustriel's favored bard and advisor. "So at last you have found the opportunity to see the wonders of Mithril Hall.»

"Would that the times were better," Fret answered glumly.

"Pray tell me, how fares Catti-brie?"

"She is well," Drizzt answered. He smiled as he thought of the young woman, who had returned to Settlestone to convey some information from Bruenor.

"It ain't a trick o' the drow," Bruenor said again, more emphatically, making it clear that he didn't consider this the proper time and place for such light and meaningless conversation.

Drizzt nodded his agreement—he had been assuring Bruenor that his people were not involved all along. "Whatever has happened, it has rendered Regis's ruby useless," the drow said. He reached over and lifted the pendant from the halfling's chest. "Now it is but a plain, though undeniably beautiful, stone. And the unknown force has affected Guenhwyvar, and reached all the way to the Harpells. No magic of the drow is this powerful, else they would have long ago conquered the surface world.»

"Something new?" Bruenor asked.

"The effects have been felt for several weeks now," Fret interjected. "Though only in the last couple of weeks has magic become so totally unpredictable and dangerous.»

Bruenor, never one to care much for magic, snorted loudly.

"It's a good thing, then!" he decided. "The damned drow're more needin' magic than are me own folk, or the men o' Settlestone! Let all the magic drain away, I'm sayin', and then let the drow come on and play!"

Thibbledorf Pwent nearly jumped out of his boots at that thought. He leaped over to stand before Bruenor and Fret, and slapped one of his dirty, smelly hands across the tidy dwarf's back. Few things could calm an excited battlerager, but Fret's horrified, then outraged, look did just that, surprising Pwent completely.

"What?" the battlerager demanded.

"If you ever touch me again, I will crush your skull," Fret, who wasn't half the size of powerful Pwent, promised in an even tone, and for some inexplicable reason, Pwent believed him and backed off a step.

Drizzt, who knew tidy Fret quite well from his many visits to Silverymoon, understood that Fret couldn't stand ten seconds in a fight against Pwent—unless the confrontation centered around dirt. In that instance, with Pwent messing up Fret's meticulous grooming, Drizzt would put all of his money on Fret, as sure a bet as the

drow would ever know.

It wasn't an issue, though, for Pwent, boisterous as he was, would never do anything against Bruenor, and Bruenor obviously wanted no trouble with an emissary, particularly a dwarven emissary from friendly Silverymoon. Indeed, all in the room had a good laugh at the confrontation, and all seemed more relaxed at the realization that these strange events were not connected to the mysterious dark elves.

Chapter 10 THE THIRD HOUSE

It wasn't that Jarlaxle, who always thought ahead of others, hadn't been expecting the visit, it was simply the ease with which K'yorl Odran entered his camp, slipped past his guards and walked right through the wall of his private chambers, that so unnerved him. He saw her ghostly outline enter and fought hard to compose himself as she became more substantial and more threatening.

"I had expected you would come many days ago," Jarlaxle said calmly.

"Is this the proper greeting for a matron mother?" K'yorl asked. Jarlaxle almost laughed, until he considered the female's stance. Too at ease, he decided, too ready to punish, even to kill. K'yorl did not understand the value of Bregan D'aerthe, apparently, and that left Jarlaxle, the master of bluff and the player of intrigue, at somewhat of a disadvantage.

He came up from his comfortable chair, stepped out from behind his desk, and gave a low bow, pulling his wide-brimmed and outrageously plumed hat from his head and sweeping it across the floor. "My greetings, K'yorl Odran, Matron Mother of House

Oblodra, Third House of Menzoberranzan. Not often has my humble home been so graced…»

"Enough," K'yorl spat, and Jarlaxle came up and replaced the hat. Never taking his gaze from the female, never blinking, the mercenary went back to his chair and flopped down comfortably, putting both his boots atop his desk with a resounding slam.

It was then Jarlaxle felt the intrusion into his mind, a deeply unsettling probe into his thoughts. He quickly dismissed his many curses at the failure of conventional magic—usually his enchanted eye patch would have protected him from such a mental intrusion— and used his wits instead. He focused his gaze on K'yorl, pictured her with her clothes off, and filled his mind with thoughts so base that the matron mother, in the midst of serious business, lost all patience.

"I could have the skin flailed from your bones for such thoughts," K'yorl informed him.

"Such thoughts?" Jarlaxle said as though he had been wounded. "Surely you are not intruding on my mind, Matron K'yorl! Though I am but a male, such practices are surely frowned on. Lloth would not be pleased.»

"Damn Lloth," K'yorl growled, and Jarlaxle was stunned that she had put it so clearly, so bluntly. Of course everyone knew that House Oblodra was not the most religious of drow houses, but the Oblodrans had always kept at least the pretense of piety.

K'yorl tapped her temple, her features stern. "If Lloth was worthy of my praise, then she would have recognized the truth of power," the matron mother explained. "It is the mind that separates us from our lessers, the mind that should determine order.»

Jarlaxle offered no response. He had no desire to get into this argument with so dangerous and unpredictable a foe.

K'yorl did not press the point, but simply waved her hand as if throwing it all away. She was frustrated, Jarlaxle could see, and in this one frustration equated with danger.

"It is beyond the Spider Queen now," K'yorl said. "I am beyond Lloth. And it begins this day.»

Jarlaxle allowed a look of surprise to cross his features.

"You expected it," K'yorl said accusingly.

That was true enough—Jarlaxle had wondered why the Oblodrans had waited this long with all the other houses so vulnerable—

but he would not concede the point.

"Where in this does Bregan D'aerthe stand?" K'yorl demanded.

Jarlaxle got the feeling that any answer he gave would be moot, since K'yorl was probably going to tell him exactly where Bregan D'aerthe stood. "With the victors," he said cryptically and casually.

K'yorl smiled in salute to his cleverness. "I will be the victor," she assured him. "It will be over quickly, this very day, and with few drow dead.»

Jarlaxle doubted that. House Oblodra had never shown any regard for life, be it drow or otherwise. The drow numbers within the third house were small mainly because the wild clan members killed as often as they bred. They were renowned for a game that they played, a challenge of the highest stakes called Khaless — ironically, the drow word for trust. A globe of darkness and magical silence would be hung in the air above the deepest point in the chasm called the Clawrift. The competing dark elves would then levitate into the globe and, there, unable to see or hear, it would become a challenge of simple and pure courage.

The first one to come out of the globe and back to secure footing was the loser, so the trick was to remain in the globe until the very last second of the levitation enchantment.

More often than not, both stubborn competitors would wait too long and would plunge to their demise.

Now K'yorl, merciless and ultimately wicked, was trying to assure Jarlaxle that the drow losses would be kept at a minimum. By whose standard? the mercenary wondered, and if the answer was K'yorl's, then likely half the city would be dead before the end of the day.

There was little Jarlaxle could do about that, he realized. He and Bregan D'aerthe were as dependent on magic as any other dark elf camps, and without it he couldn't even keep K'yorl out of his private chamber—even his private thoughts!

"This day," K'yorl said again, grimly. "And when it is done, I will call for you, and you will come.»

Jarlaxle didn't nod, didn't answer at all. He didn't have to. He could feel the mental intrusion again, and knew that K'yorl understood him. He hated her, and hated what she was about to do, but Jarlaxle was ever pragmatic, and if things went as K'yorl predicted, then he would indeed go to her call.

She smiled again and faded away. Then, like a ghost, she simply walked through Jarlaxle's stone wall.

Jarlaxle rested back in his chair, his fingers tapping nervously together. He had never felt so vulnerable, or so caught in the middle of an uncontrollable situation. He could get word to Matron Baenre, of course, but to what gain? Even House Baenre, so vast and proud, could not stand against K'yorl when her magic worked and theirs did not. Likely, Matron Baenre would be dead soon, and all her family with her, and then where would the mercenary hide?

He would not hide, of course. He would go to K'yorl's call.

Jarlaxle understood why K'yorl had paid him the visit and why it was important to her, who seemed to have everything in her favor, to enlist him in her court. He and his band were the only drow in Menzoberranzan with any true ties outside the city, a crucial factor for anyone aspiring to the position of first matron mother—not that anyone other than Matron Baenre had aspired to that coveted position in close to a thousand years.

Jarlaxle's fingers continued tapping. Perhaps it was time for a change, he thought. He quickly dismissed that hopeful notion, for even if he was right, this change did not seem for the better. Apparently, though, K'yorl believed that the situation with conventional magic was a temporary thing, else she would not have been so interested in enlisting Bregan D'aerthe.

Jarlaxle had to believe, had to pray, that she was right, especially if her coup succeeded (and the mercenary had no reason to believe it would not). He would not survive long, he realized, if First Matron Mother K'yorl, a drow he hated above all others, could enter his thoughts at will.

* * * * *

She was too beautiful to be drow, seemed the perfection of drow features to any, male or female, who looked at her. It was this beauty alone that held in check the deadly lances and crossbows of the House Baenre guard and made Berg'inyon Baenre, after one glance at her, bid her enter the compound.

The magical fence wasn't working and there were no conventional gates in the perimeter of the Baenre household. Normally, the spiderweb of the fence would spiral out, opening a wide hole on

command, but now Berg'inyon had to ask the drow to climb over.

She said not a word, but simply approached the fence. Spiral wide it did, one last gasp of magic before this creature, the avatar of the goddess who had created it.

Berg'inyon led the way, though he knew beyond doubt that this one needed no guidance. He understood that she was heading for the chapel—of course she would be heading for the chapel! — so he instructed some of his soldiers to find the matron mother.

Sos'Umptu met them at the door of the chapel, the place that was in her care. She protested for an instant, but just for an instant.

Berg'inyon had never seen his devoted sister so flustered, had never seen her jaw go slack for lack of strength. She fell away from them, to her knees.

The beautiful drow walked past her without a word. She turned sharply—Sos'Umptu gasped—and put her glare over Berg'inyon as he continued to follow.

"You are just a male," Sos'Umptu whispered in explanation. "Be gone from this holy place.»

Berg'inyon was too stricken to reply, to even sort out how he felt at that moment. He never turned his back, just gave a series of ridiculous bows, and verily fell through the chapel's door, back out into the courtyard.

Both Bladen'Kerst and Quenthel were out there, but the rest of the group that had gathered in response to the whispered rumors had wisely been dispersed by the sisters.

"Go back to your post," Bladen'Kerst snarled at Berg'inyon. "Nothing has happened!" It wasn't so much a statement as a command.

"Nothing has happened," Berg'inyon echoed, and that became the order of the day, and a wise one, Berg'inyon immediately realized. This was Lloth herself, or some close minion. He knew this in his heart.

He knew it, and the soldiers would whisper it, but their enemies must not learn of this!

Berg'inyon scrambled across the courtyard, passed the word, the command that "nothing had happened." He took up a post that allowed him an overview of the chapel and was surprised to see that his ambitious sisters dared not enter, but rather paced about the main entrance nervously.

Sos'Umptu came out as well and joined their parade. No words were openly exchanged—Berg'inyon didn't even notice any flashes of the silent hand code—as Matron Baenre hustled across the courtyard. She passed by her daughters and scurried into the chapel, and the pacing outside began anew.

For Matron Baenre it was the answer to her prayers and the realization of her nightmares all at once. She knew immediately who and what it was that sat before her on the central dais. She knew, and she believed.

"If I am the offending person, then I offer myself…" she began humbly, falling to her knees as she spoke.

"Wael! " the avatar snapped at her, the drow word for fool, and Baenre hid her face in her hands with shame.

"Usstan'sargh wael! " the beautiful drow went on, calling Matron Baenre an arrogant fool. Baenre trembled at the verbal attack, thought for a moment that she had sunk lower than her worst fears, that her goddess had come personally for no better reason than to shame her to death. Images of her tortured body being dragged through the winding avenues of Menzoberranzan flashed in her mind, thoughts of herself as the epitome of a fallen drow leader.

Yet thoughts such as that were exactly what this creature who was more than a drow had just berated her about, Matron Baenre suddenly realized. She dared look up.

"Do not place so much importance on yourself," the avatar said calmly.

Matron Baenre allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief. Then this wasn't about her, she understood. All of this, the failure of magic and prayer, was beyond her, beyond all the mortal realms.

"K'yorl has erred," the avatar went on, reminding Baenre that while these catastrophic events might be above her, their ramifications most certainly were not.

"She has dared to believe that she can win without your favor," Matron Baenre reasoned, and her surprise was total when the avatar scoffed at the notion.

"She could destroy you with a thought.»

Matron Baenre shuddered and lowered her head once more.

"But she has erred on the side of caution," the avatar went on. "She delayed her attack, and now, when she decided that the advantage was indeed hers to hold, she has allowed a personal feud to

delay her most important strike even longer.»

"Then the powers have returned!" Baenre gasped. "You are returned.»

"Wael! " the frustrated avatar screamed. "Did you think I would not return?" Matron Baenre fell flat to the floor and groveled with all her heart.

"The Time of Troubles will end," the avatar said a moment later, calm once more. "And you will know what you must do when all is as it should be.»

Baenre looked up just long enough to see the avatar's narrow-eyed glare full upon her. "Do you think I am so resourceless?" the beautiful drow asked.

A horrified expression, purely sincere, crossed Baenre's face, and she began to numbly shake her head back and forth, denying she had ever lost faith.

Again, she lay flat out, groveling, and stopped her prayers only when something hard hit the floor beside her head. She dared to look up, to find a lump of yellow stone, sulphur, lying beside her.

"You must fend off K'yorl for a short while," the avatar explained. "Go join the matron mothers and your eldest daughter and son in the meeting room. Stoke the flames and allow those I have enlisted to come through to your side. Together we will teach K'yorl the truth of power!"

A bright smile erupted on Baenre's face with the realization that she was not out of Lloth's favor, that her goddess had called on her to play a crucial role in this crucial hour. The fact that Lloth had all but admitted she was still rather impotent did not matter. The Spider Queen would return, and Baenre would shine again in her devious eyes.

By the time Matron Baenre mustered the courage to come off the floor, the beautiful drow had already exited the chapel. She crossed the compound without interference, walked through the fence as she had done at her arrival, and disappeared into the shadows of the city.

* * * * *

As soon as she heard the awful rumor that House Oblodra's strange psionic powers had not been too adversely affected by whatever was happening to other magic, Ghenni'tiroth Tlabbar, the

matron mother of Faen Tlabbar, Menzoberranzan's Fourth House, knew she was in dire trouble. K'yorl Odran hated the tall, slender Ghenni'tiroth above all others, for Ghenni'tiroth had made no secret of the fact that she believed Faen Tlabbar, and not Oblodra, should rank as Menzoberranzan's third house.

With almost eight hundred drow soldiers, Faen Tlabbar's number nearly doubled that of House Oblodra, and only the little understood powers of K'yorl and her minions had kept Faen Tlabbar back.

How much greater those powers loomed now, with all conventional magic rendered unpredictable at best!

Throughout it all, Ghenni'tiroth remained in the house chapel, a relatively small room near the summit of her compound's central stalagmite mound. A single candle burned upon the altar, shedding minimal light by surface standards, but serving as a beacon to the dark elves whose eyes were more accustomed to blackness. A second source of illumination came from the room's west-facing window, for even from halfway across the city, the wild glow of Narbondel could be clearly seen.

Ghenni'tiroth showed little concern for the pillar clock, other than the significance it now held as an indicator of their troubles. She was among the most fanatical of Lloth's priestesses, a drow female who had survived more than six centuries in unquestioning servitude to the Spider Queen. But she was in trouble now, and Lloth, for some reason she could not understand, would not come to her call.

She reminded herself constantly to keep fast her faith as she knelt and huddled over a platinum platter, the famed Faen Tlabbar Communing Plate. The heart of the latest sacrifice, a not-so-insignificant drow male, sat atop it, an offering to the goddess who would not answer Ghenni'tiroth's desperate prayers.

Ghenni'tiroth straightened suddenly as the heart rose from the bloody platter, came up several inches and hovered in midair.

"The sacrifice is not sufficient," came a voice behind her, a voice she had dreaded hearing since the advent of the Time of Troubles.

She did not turn to face K'yorl Odran.

"There is war in the compound," Ghenni'tiroth stated more than asked.

K'yorl scoffed at the notion. A wave of her hand sent the sacrificial organ flying across the room.

Ghenni'tiroth spun about, eyes wide with outrage. She started to scream out the drow word for sacrilege, but stopped, the sound caught in her throat, as another heart floated in the air, from K'yorl toward her.

"The sacrifice was not sufficient," K'yorl said calmly. "Use this heart, the heart of Fini'they.»

Ghenni'tiroth slumped back at the mention of the obviously dead priestess, her second in the house. Ghenni'tiroth had taken in Fini'they as her own daughter when Fini'they's family, a lower-ranking and insignificant house, had been destroyed by a rival house. Insignificant indeed had been Fini'they's house— Ghenni'tiroth could not even remember its proper name—but Fini'they had not been so. She was a powerful priestess, and ultimately loyal, even loving, to her adopted mother.

Ghenni'tiroth leaned back further, horrified, as her daughter's heart floated past and settled with a sickening wet sound on the platinum platter.

"Pray to Lloth," K'yorl ordered.

Ghenni'tiroth did just that. Perhaps K'yorl had erred, she thought. Perhaps in death Fini'they would prove most helpful, would prove a suitable sacrifice to bring the Spider Queen to the aid of House Faen Tlabbar.

After a long and uneventful moment, Ghenni'tiroth became aware of K'yorl's laughter.

"Perhaps we are in need of a greater sacrifice," the wicked matron mother of House Oblodra said slyly.

It wasn't difficult for Ghenni'tiroth, the only figure in House Faen Tlabbar greater than Fini'they, to figure out who K'yorl was talking about.

Secretly, barely moving her fingers, Ghenni'tiroth brought her deadly, poisoned dagger out of its sheath under the concealing folds of her spider-emblazoned robes. "Scrag-tooth," the dagger was called, and it had gotten a younger Ghenni'tiroth out of many situations much like this.

Of course, on those occasions, magic had been predictable, reliable, and those opponents had not been as formidable as K'yorl. Even as Ghenni'tiroth locked gazes with the Oblodran, kept K'yorl distracted while she subtly shifted her hand, K'yorl read her thoughts and expected the attack.

Ghenni'tiroth shouted a command word, and the dagger's magic functioned, sending the missile shooting out from under her robes directly at the heart of her adversary.

The magic functioned! Ghenni'tiroth silently cheered. But her elation faded quickly when the blade passed right through the specter of K'yorl Odran to embed itself uselessly in the fabric of a tapestry adorning the room's opposite wall.

"I do so hope the poison does not ruin the pattern," K'yorl, standing far to the left of her image, remarked.

Ghenni'tiroth shifted about and turned a steely-eyed gaze at the taunting creature.

"You cannot outfight me, you cannot outthink me," K'yorl said evenly. "You cannot even hide your thoughts from me. The war is ended before it ever began.»

Ghenni'tiroth wanted to scream out a denial, but found herself as silent as Fini'they, whose heart lay on the platter before her.

"How much killing need there be?" K'yorl asked, catching Ghenni'tiroth off her guard. The matron of Faen Tlabbar turned a suspicious, but ultimately curious, expression toward her adversary.

"My house is small," K'yorl remarked, and that was true enough, unless one counted the thousands of kobold slaves said to be running about the tunnels along the edges of the Clawrift, just below House Oblodra. "And I am in need of allies if I wish to depose that wretch Baenre and her bloated family.»

Ghenni'tiroth wasn't even conscious of the movement as her tongue came out and licked her thin lips. There was a flicker of hope.

"You cannot beat me," K'yorl said with all confidence. "Perhaps I will accept a surrender.»

That word didn't sit well with the proud leader of the third house.

"An alliance then, if that is what you must call it," K'yorl clarified, recognizing the look. "It is no secret that I am not on the best of terms with the Spider Queen.»

Ghenni'tiroth rocked back on her legs, considering the implications. If she helped K'yorl, who was not in Lloth's favor, overcome Baenre, then what would be the implications to her house if and when everything was sorted out?

"All of this is Baenre's fault," K'yorl remarked, reading

Ghenni'tiroth's every thought. "Baenre brought about the Spider Queen's abandonment," K'yorl scoffed. "She could not even hold a single prisoner, could not even conduct a proper high ritual.»

The words rang true, painfully true, to Ghenni'tiroth, who vastly preferred Matron Baenre to K'yorl Odran. She wanted to deny them, and yet, that surely meant her death and the death of her house, since K'yorl held so obvious an advantage.

"Perhaps I will accept a surren—" K'yorl chuckled wickedly and caught herself in midsentence. "Perhaps an alliance would benefit us both," she said instead.

Ghenni'tiroth licked her lips again, not knowing where to turn. A glance at Fini'they's heart did much to convince her, though. "Perhaps it would," she said.

K'yorl nodded and smiled again that devious and infamous grin that was known throughout Menzoberranzan as an indication that K'yorl was lying.

Ghenni'tiroth returned the grin—until she remembered who it was she was dealing with, until she forced herself, through the temptation of the teasing bait that K'yorl had offered, to remember the reputation of this most wicked drow.

"Perhaps not," K'yorl said calmly, and Ghenni'tiroth was knocked backward suddenly by an unseen force, a physical though invisible manifestation of K'yorl's powerful will.

The matron of Faen Tlabbar jerked and twisted, heard the crack of one of her ribs. She tried to call out against K'yorl, to cry out to Lloth in one final, desperate prayer, but found her words garbled as an invisible hand grasped tightly on her throat, cutting off her air.

Ghenni'tiroth jerked again, violently, and again, and more cracking sounds came from her chest, from intense pressure within her torso. She rocked backward and would have fallen to the floor except that K'yorl's will held her slender form fast.

"I am sorry Fini'they was not enough to bring in your impotent Spider Queen," K'yorl taunted, brazenly blasphemous.

Ghenni'tiroth's eyes bulged and seemed as if they would pop from their sockets. Her back arched weirdly, agonizingly, and gurgling sounds continued to stream from her throat. She tore at the flesh of her own neck, trying to grasp the unseen hand, but only drew lines of her own bright blood.

Then there came a final crackle, a loud snapping, and

Ghenni'tiroth resisted no more. The pressure was gone from her throat, for what good that did her. K'yorl's unseen hand grabbed her hair and yanked her head forward so that she looked down at the unusual bulge in her chest, beside her left breast.

Ghenni'tiroth's eyes widened in horror as her robes parted and her skin erupted. A great gout of blood and gore poured from the wound, and Ghenni'tiroth fell limply, lying sidelong to the platinum plate.

She watched the last beat of her own heart on that sacrificial platter.

"Perhaps Lloth will hear this call," K'yorl remarked, but Ghenni'tiroth could no longer understand the words.

K'yorl went to the body and retrieved the potion bottle that Ghenni'tiroth carried, that all House Faen Tlabbar females carried. The mixture, a concoction that forced passionate servitude of drow males, was a potent one—or would be, if conventional magic returned. This bottle was likely the most potent, and K'yorl marked it well for a certain mercenary leader.

K'yorl went to the wall and claimed Scrag-tooth as her own.

To the victor…

With a final look to the dead matron mother, K'yorl called on her psionic powers and became less than substantial, became a ghost that could walk through the walls and past the guards of the well-defended compound. Her smile was supreme, as was her confidence, but as Lloth's avatar had told Baenre, Odran had indeed erred. She had followed a personal vengeance, had struck out first against a lesser foe.

Even as K'yorl drifted past the structures of House Faen Tlabbar, gloating over the death of her most hated enemy, Matrons Baenre and Mez'Barris Armgo, along with Triel and Gromph Baenre and the matron mothers of Menzoberranzan's fifth through eighth houses, were gathered in a private chamber at the back of the Qu'ellarz'orl, the raised plateau within the huge cavern that held some of the more important drow houses, including House Baenre. The eight of them huddled, each to a leg, about the spider-shaped brazier set upon the small room's single table. Each had brought their most valuable of flammable items, and Matron Baenre carried the lump of sulphur that the avatar had given her.

Chapter 11 TRUMP

Normally it pleased Jarlaxle to be in the middle of such a conflict, to be the object of wooing tactics by both sides in a dispute. This time, though, Jarlaxle was uneasy with the position. He didn't like dealing with K'yorl Odran on any account, as friends, and especially not as enemies, and he was uneasy with House Baenre being so desperately involved in any struggle. Jarlaxle simply had too much invested with Matron Baenre. The wary mercenary leader usually didn't count on anything, but he had fully expected House Baenre to rule in Menzoberranzan until at least the end of his life, as it had ruled since the beginning of his life and for millennia before that.

It wasn't that Jarlaxle held any special feelings toward the city's first house. It was just that Baenre offered him an anchor point, a measure of permanence in the continually shifting power struggles of Menzoberranzan.

It would last forever, so he had thought, but after talking with K'yorl—how he hated that one! — Jarlaxle wasn't so sure.

K'yorl wanted to enlist him, most likely wanted Bregan D'aerthe to serve as her connection with the world beyond Menzoberranzan.

They could do that, and do it well, but Jarlaxle doubted that he, who always had a private agenda, could remain in K'yorl's favor for long. At some point, sooner or later, she would read the truth in his mind, and she would dispatch and replace him. That was the way of the drow.

* * * * *

The fiend was gargantuan, a gigantic, bipedal, doglike creature with four muscled arms, two of which ended in powerful pincers. How it entered Jarlaxle's private cave, along the sheer facing of the Clawrift, some hundred yards below and behind the compound of House Oblodra, none of the drow guards knew.

"Tanar'ri! " The warning word, the name of the greatest creatures of the Abyss, known in all the languages of the Realms, was passed in whispers and silent hand signals all through the complex, and the reaction to it was uniformly one of horror.

Pity the two drow guards who first encountered the towering, fifteen-foot monster. Loyal to Bregan D'aerthe, courageous in the belief that others would back their actions, they commanded the great beast to halt, and when it did not, the drow guards attacked.

Had their weapons held their previous enchantment, they might have hurt the beast somewhat. But magic had not returned to the Material Plane in any predictable or reliable manner. Thus, the tanar'ri, too, was deprived of its considerable spell repertoire, but the beast, four thousand pounds of muscle and physical hazards, hardly needed magical assistance.

The two drow were summarily dismembered, and the tanar'ri walked on, seeking Jarlaxle, as Errtu had bade it.

It found the mercenary leader, along with a score of his finest soldiers, around the first bend. Several drow leaped forward to the defense, but Jarlaxle, better understanding the power of this beast, held them at bay, was not so willing to throw away drow lives.

"Glabrezu," he said with all respect, recognizing the beast.

Glabrezu's canine maw curled up in a snarl, and its eyes narrowed as it scrutinized Jarlaxle, privately confirming that it had found the correct dark elf.

"Baenre cok diemrey nochtero," the tanar'ri said in a growl, and without waiting for a response, the gigantic beast lumbered about

and waddled away, crouching low so that its head did not scrape the corridor's high ceiling.

Again, several brave, stupid drow moved as if to pursue, and again Jarlaxle, smiling now more widely than he had in many weeks, held them back. The tanar'ri had spoken in the language of the lower planes, a language that Jarlaxle understood perfectly, and it had spoken the words Jarlaxle had longed to hear.

The question was clear on the expressions of all the unnerved drow standing beside him. They did not understand the language and wanted desperately to know what the tanar'ri had said.

"Baenre cok diemrey nochtero," Jarlaxle explained to them. "House Baenre will prevail.»

His wry smile, filled with hope, and the eager way he clenched his fists, told his soldiers that such a prediction was a good thing.

*****

Zeerith Q'Xorlarrin, matron mother of the fifth house, understood the significance of the makeup of the gathering. Triel and Gromph Baenre attended primarily to fill the two vacant spots at the spider-shaped brazier. One of those places rightfully belonged to K'yorl, and since they were gathered to fend off K'yorl, as the avatar of the Spider Queen had bade them, she hadn't been invited.

The other vacant place, the one filled by Gromph, was normally reserved for Zeerith's closest drow friend, Matron Mother Ghenni'tiroth Tlabbar. None had said it aloud, but Zeerith understood the significance of the Baenre son's presence and of the matron mother's failure to appear.

K'yorl hated Ghenni'tiroth—that was no secret—and so Ghenni'tiroth had been left open as a sacrifice to delay the intrusions of House Oblodra. These other supposed allies and the goddess they all served had allowed Zeerith's best friend to perish.

That thought bothered the matron mother for a short while, until she came to realize that she was the third highest-ranking drow in the meeting chamber. If the summoning was successful, if K'yorl and House Oblodra were beaten back, then the hierarchy of the ruling houses would surely shift. Oblodra would fall, leaving vacant the third place, and since Faen Tlabbar was suddenly without a proper matron mother, it was feasible that House Xorlarrin

could leap past it into that coveted spot.

Ghenni'tiroth had been given as a sacrifice. Zeerith Q'Xorlarrin smiled widely.

Such were the ways of the drow.

Into the brazier went Gromph's prized spider mask, a most magical item, the only one in all of Menzoberranzan that could get someone over the House Baenre web fence. The flames shot into the air, orange and angry green.

Mez'Barris nodded to Baenre, and the withered old matron mother tossed in the lump of sulphur that the avatar had given her.

If a hundred excited dwarves had pumped a huge bellows, their fire would not have been more furious. The flames shot straight up in a multicolored column that held the eight watchers fast with its unholy glory.

"What is this?" came a question from the front of the room, near the only door. "You dare hold a meeting of council without informing House Oblodra?"

Matron Baenre, at the head of the table and, thus, with her back directly to K'yorl, held up her hand to calm the others gathered about the spider brazier. Slowly she turned to face that most hated drow, and the two promptly locked vicious stares.

"The executioner does not invite her victim to the block," Baenre said evenly. "She takes her there, or lures her in.»

Baenre's blunt words made more than a few of the gathered drow uneasy. If K'yorl had been handled more tactfully, some of them might have escaped with their lives.

Matron Baenre knew better, though. Their only hope, her only hope, was to trust the Spider Queen, to believe with all their hearts that the avatar had not steered them wrongly.

When K'yorl's first wave of mental energy rolled over Baenre, she, too, began to foster some doubts. She held her ground for some seconds, a remarkable display of will, but then K'yorl overwhelmed her, pushed her back against the table. Baenre felt her feet coming from the floor, felt as if a gigantic, unseen hand had reached out and grabbed her and was now edging her toward the flames.

"How much grander the call to Lloth will be," K'yorl shrieked happily, "when Matron Baenre is added to the flames!"

The others in the room, particularly the other five matron mothers, did not know how to react. Mez'Barris put her head down and

quietly began muttering the words of a spell, praying that Lloth would hear her and grant her this.

Zeerith and the others watched the flames. The avatar had told them to do this, but why hadn't an ally, a tanar'ri or some other fiend, come through?

* * * * *

In the sludge-filled Abyss, perched atop his mushroom throne, Errtu greatly enjoyed the chaotic scene. Even through the scrying device Lloth had prepared for him, the great tanar'ri could feel the fears of the gathered worshippers and could taste the bitter hatred on the lips of K'yorl Odran.

He liked K'yorl, Errtu decided. Here was one of his own heart, purely and deliciously wicked, a murderess who killed for pleasure, a player of intrigue for no better reason than the fun of the game. The great tanar'ri wanted to watch K'yorl push her adversary into the pillar of flame.

But Lloth's instructions had been explicit, and her bartered goods too tempting for the fiend to pass up. Amazingly, given the state of magic at the time, the gate was opening, and opening wide.

Errtu had already sent one tanar'ri, a giant glabrezu, through a smaller gate to act as messenger, but that gate, brought about by the avatar herself, had been tenuous and open for only a fraction of a moment. Errtu had not believed the feat could be duplicated, not now.

The notion of magical chaos gave the fiend a sudden inspiration. Perhaps the old rules of banishment no longer applied. Perhaps he himself might walk through this opening gate, onto the Material Plane once more. Then he would not need to serve as Lloth's lackey; then he might find the renegade Do'Urden on his own, and, after punishing the drow, he could return to the frozen Northland, where the precious Crenshinibon, the legendary Crystal Shard, lay buried!

The gate was opened. Errtu stepped in.

And was summarily rejected, pushed back into the Abyss, the place of his hundred-year banishment.

Several fiends stalked by the great tanar'ri, sensing the opening, heading for the gate, but snarling Errtu, enraged by the defeat, held them back.

Let this wicked drow, K'yorl, push Lloth's favored into the flames, the wretched Errtu decided. The gate would remain open with the sacrifice, might even open wider.

Errtu did not like the banishment, did not like being lackey to any being. Let Lloth suffer; let Baenre be consumed, and only then would he do as the Spider Queen had asked!

* * * * *

The only thing that saved Baenre from exactly that fate was the unexpected intervention of Methil, the illithid. The glabrezu had gone to Methil after visiting Jarlaxle, bringing the same prediction that House Baenre would prevail, and Methil, serving as ambassador of his people, made it a point to remain on the winning side.

The illithid's psionic waves disrupted K'yorl's telepathic attack, and Matron Baenre slumped back to the side of the table.

K'yorl's eyes went wide, surprised by the defeat—until Methil, who had been standing invisibly and secretly at Matron Baenre's side, came into view.

Wait for this to end, K'yorl's thoughts screamed at the octopus-headed creature. See who wins and then decide where your alliances lie.

Methil's assurance that he already knew the outcome did not disturb K'yorl half as much as the sight of the gigantic, batlike wing that suddenly extended from the pillar of flame: a tanar'ri—a true tanar'ri!

Another glabrezu hopped out of the fire to land on the floor between Baenre and her adversary. K'yorl hit it with a psionic barrage, but she was no match for such a creature, and she knew it.

She took note that the pillar was still dancing wildly, that another fiend was forming within the flames. Lloth was against her! she suddenly realized. All the Abyss seemed to be coming to Matron Baenre's call!

K'yorl did the only thing she could, became insubstantial once more and fled across the city, back to her house.

Fiends rushed through the open gate, a hundred of them, and still more. It went on for more than an hour, the minions of Errtu, and, thus, the minions of Lloth, coming to the call of the desperate matron mothers, swooping across the city in frenzied glee to surround House Oblodra.

Smiles of satisfaction, even open cheers, were exchanged in the meeting room at the back of the Qu'ellarz'orl. The avatar had done as promised, and the future of Lloth's faithful seemed deliciously dark once more.

Of the eight gathered, only Gromph wore a grin that was less than sincere. Not that he wanted House Oblodra to win, of course, but the male held no joy at the thought that things might soon be as they had always been, that he, for all his power and devotion to the ways of magic, would, above all else, be a mere male once more.

He took some consolation, as the flames died away and the others began to exit, in noticing that several of the offered items, including his prized spider mask, had not been consumed by the magical flames. Gromph looked to the door, to the matron mothers and Triel, and they were so obsessed with the spectacle of the fiends that they took no notice of him at all.