“Not really,” said the dragon.
“We would not wish to miss your reactions when our dear friend arrives,” Ilnezhara added.
“This is unacceptable,” said Gromph, and all the others bristled, too, except for Catti-brie, who looked at Tazmikella and got a wink in reply.
“Acceptable or not, it is our choice,” Tazmikella replied.
“You will know later this day, Archmage Gromph,” said Ilnezhara. “When our friend arrives, we can send her on her way, if that is the decision of this table.”
“Oh, it won’t be,” Tazmikella answered her sister, and both laughed.
Catti-brie kept her gaze on Gromph through it all, judging the simmer in his amber eyes. She recognized the explosive rage there. This one wasn’t used to being trapped into a role where he was not supreme—not by any other than the most powerful matron mothers of Menzoberranzan, at least. And he clearly didn’t much like it.
But he had erred, badly, back in the Underdark. He had cost himself dearly by bringing Demogorgon to Menzoberranzan, and thus, he was not in a position of power here.
And it was driving him quite mad.
Catti-brie lingered as the others departed so that she would be the last in the room with Gromph. He noted her intent long before the rest had gone, and sat staring at her from behind his tapping fingers. He had a way of flaring his eyes to make it seem as if some great catastrophe was about to befall all within his line of sight—and no doubt that look often preceded exactly that.
Catti-brie was neither impressed nor concerned.
“A grand speech you gave,” Gromph said when at last they were alone. “Lined with laughter to profess confidence. An amazing act, after all.”
“No act,” the woman replied.
“Then foolish confidence.”
“Simple truth of the matter before us.”
“You mistake your position here,” said Gromph. “I did not destroy you in the primordial chamber of Gauntlgrym, out of deference to those around me because I expected you might be of use to me going forward. Now, in this, you are of use to me—perhaps—but do not make the mistake of believing that the annoyance and insubordination you offer will not ever outweigh the perspective gain.”
“Insubordination? So we are still there? Perhaps it remains you who misunderstands the situation at hand and the hierarchy in place here at the Hosttower.”
A snarl escaped his lips.
“I do not claim rank above you, but neither do I concede the same,” Catti-brie said.
“Shall I show you the bared power of the archmage?”
“A threat?”
Gromph lifted his hand and slowly began to turn it in the air, palm rotating to face up. He looked as if he was gathering magical energy, and Catti-brie could feel that he was doing just that.
“Hold!” she demanded.
“Wise choice.”
“Oh, if ye insist on continuing, then know ye’ll be findin’ a willing opponent,” Catti-brie clarified, her reversion to Dwarvish brogue a clear sign, even to her, that Gromph was indeed getting her hackles up. “But know that ye’re thinkin’ to wage a fight ye canno’ win.”
“You have no idea, young human.”
“Not so young,” the woman replied. “And sure but I’m old enough to understand the jar o’ worms ye’d be opening. If ye beat me—”
“No doubt,” Gromph said evenly.
“Then Drizzt would kill you,” Catti-brie replied with equal enunciation and tone.
Gromph snorted as if that notion was even more preposterous—and Catti-brie knew it probably was. Could Drizzt, could any warrior, ever even get close to this mighty spellcaster?
But she didn’t back down. “And King Bruenor would send every dwarf in Faerûn to hunt ye and kill ye. Every one. Not to doubt, and oh, but they’d come for ye by the thousand.”
Gromph seemed to be paying more attention then.
“And Jarlaxle, such a dear friend of me husband, would reveal ye to the Matron Mother o’ Menzoberranzan,” she stated. “Oh, but he would. So for just yer stubborn pride, ye’d throw all the best chances away, would ye now?”
She paused and rose, and brushed some hair from the front of her magical blouse, and in doing so, brushed away, too, her Dwarvish edge.
“I am not your enemy, Archmage Gromph,” she said in proper Common. “We are allied in this endeavor, and when the Hosttower is rebuilt, I have no interest in the structure or its hierarchy, other than continuing the flow of its magic to hold the primordial in check. And I have learned enough of the ancient magic here, of how it was constructed and the safeguards that were placed upon it and still remain in the residue of the tower, to understand that the magical flow to Gauntlgrym is something that no one will be able to do anything about once we are finished with our work. Not even you, should you claim the title as Archmage of the Hosttower of the Arcane, as I expect is both your and Jarlaxle’s plan. And so, you see, dear Archmage Gromph, that I simply do not care about your personal designs regarding the lordship of the Hosttower beyond our alliance here, no more than I care that Jarlaxle rules Luskan from the shadows. It is not my affair, and so I am not your enemy. We would both be better served to keep it that way.”
Gromph kept tap-tapping his fingers together, staring at the woman for a long, long time.
Catti-brie recognized that to be as solid an answer as she was going to get from the angry wizard, so she smiled again shook her head, and walked past Gromph to the doorway beyond.
For all her confidence, she was indeed quite relieved when she reached the hall and closed the door behind her.
The wind blew cold off the dark waters of Luskan Harbor, carrying drizzle with the smell of brine.
Catti-brie was so engaged she hardly noticed the chill or the wetness as she stood with her shawl tightly wrapped around her. To her right stood Ilnezhara and Tazmikella. On the other side, Lord Parise Ulfbinder and Lady Avelyere whispered quietly with Penelope, Kipper, and the other Harpells. Back behind them all, Archmage Gromph sat on a grand chair he had summoned from nowhere, one finger casually rubbing across the lips of his handsome face. Catti-brie understood that there was something dangerous in that look from Gromph. Likely, he spent as much time considering the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of his allies as he did in focusing on the monumental task at hand.
Catti-brie purposefully and repeatedly reminded herself of that truth. Her personal experiences with drow on the surface of Faerûn, with her husband of course, but even with Jarlaxle and his associates, were not indicative of the methods and ethos of the sinister culture of Menzoberranzan.
She could not tell herself that truth too often.
Archmage Gromph was tied to Jarlaxle now not out of temperament, but out of necessity. He was a product of Menzoberranzan, who had thrived in those shadows and by all accounts instigated more than a little of the calamity around him.
This was not Jarlaxle. This was Gromph Baenre. This drow was dangerous.
The woman silently nodded as she played through the reminder, telling herself to be ever vigilant.
But then she imagined Gromph towering over her, in a very different light. His amber eyes bored into her, devouring her every inch of flesh. She saw his lips. She both heard and felt his breath. In her mind’s eye, he raised his hand and freed some mysterious magic, and goose bumps grew upon Catti-brie’s arms.
A confused Catti-brie dismissed the thought forcefully, rejected it and silently berated herself.
She meant to turn and scowl at Gromph then, just to reassure herself, but was distracted when, all around the principal wizards, a thousand dwarves halted their work, the whole area going suddenly quiet. Catti-brie looked on curiously, her gaze going from one group of dwarves to the next, when she realized that they were all looking in the same direction: out to sea, to the southwest.
The woman turned back slowly, noting the other wizards and sages around her, jaws inevitably dropping open, and the dragon sisters smiling.
She was not surprised, then, but surely amazed, when she again gazed out to sea, then high above the surface to the gray and black outlines of the heavy cloud cover, and to one cloud in particular that she soon realized was much more than a cloud.
Its bulging front took firmer shape: the curving wall of a huge tower.
It seemed of like substance to the other clouds—perhaps it was—but it revealed more definite shape than its fellows as it drifted out of the bank: towering, running walls of gray, the rest of the giant floating castle.
As if that wasn’t enough to transfix the gathering and all of those looking on from the mainland of Luskan as well, a sudden noise to the side startled most, including Catti-brie.
Gasps of surprise turned to coos of appreciation of the image in front of them as a pair of copper-colored dragons flew up for the immense castle of clouds floating in the air. That giant structure settled into place just offshore, and the dragon sisters flew up over the wall and disappeared from view for few moments. They reappeared, coming back for the gathering, bearing between them a giant litter, a giant throne, with a huge, blue-skinned woman seated upon it. She held a bejeweled scepter across her bosom and a crown of glittering gold and rubies was set upon her head, pinning back her thick and flowing white mane.
The dragons set her down in front of the gathering. The wizards held their ground, but many of the dwarves fell back into more defensible positions.
The cloud giant rose and slowly advanced, Ilnezhara and Tazmikella becoming human women once more and flanking her advance. She moved directly up to Catti-brie and gave a respectful bow—one which, even if she had bent fully perpendicular at the waist would have still left her head high above the human. Though she was similarly proportioned, the giant queen stood thrice Catti-brie’s height, at least.
“I am Caecilia,” she said in a loud voice, but with a quality that still gave it some delicacy. “My friends Ilnezhara and Tazmikella here thought that I might be of service to you, and in an endeavor that they knew I would find most wondrous.”
“We welcome any who would aid in our most important quest,” Cattibrie said, trying to sound calm, but surely overwhelmed. She remembered then to reciprocate the bow, albeit she did so with far less grace than Caecilia had managed.
“With your blessing then,” Caecilia replied. She turned back to the distant castle, lifted her hand, and shot forth a bolt of brilliant white light.
“I will require a large tent and a large bed, of course,” she said. “I trust that you will see to my proper accommodations.”
“Of course, Lady,” Catti-brie replied, and that last word left her mouth awkwardly. Was she to call this giant “Lady,” after all? What rules of etiquette might apply to a giantess?
Up above the bay, the giant castle began to recede, floating back into the thick overcast to blend to practical invisibility. Many lifted faces continued to stare up that way, unsure if the massive structure was gone or simply hiding in the clouds.
Only gradually did the dwarves and others go back to their work, with Caecilia going off with the dragon sisters to be brought up to date on the efforts. Catti-brie took a deep and steadying breath, reminding herself that these amazing sights and guests were all for the good. Her focus had to be on the Hosttower. If it could not be rebuilt, then Gauntlgrym would fall to utter ruin.
She turned away from the cloud bank, shaking her head, steeling her resolve.
And then she saw Gromph, sitting on his throne, staring at her, amused, or perhaps bemused.
The fantasy of the archmage bent over her, kissing her, touching her, returned suddenly—so quickly, unexpectedly, and powerfully that Cattibrie staggered for a step and nearly stumbled.
Gromph was smiling.
J
arlaxle examined Entreri, then nodded approvingly at the disguise. “If you slip into the common tongue of the surface, do not grow anxious,” he instructed both his companions. “You are of Bregan D’aerthe. As far as any we will see knows, it has been years since you have been down here in Araunilcaurak.”
“What?” Entreri asked.
“Araunilcaurak,” Drizzt answered before Jarlaxle could. “The Great Pillar Cavern that Houses Menzoberranzan.” Jarlaxle and Entreri continued talking, but Drizzt receded as soon as the words had left his mouth. That word,
Araunilcaurak
, echoed in his thoughts. It was a word he hadn’t heard since childhood.
He thought back to the day he’d cast Menzoberranzan behind him, Guenhwyvar beside him, to venture into the wilds of the Underdark. It occurred to him at that moment, for the first time in more than a century, the first time since he’d ventured to the surface, that perhaps his decision on that long-ago day had not been so wise. He could have remained in the city, could have lived as Zaknafein had lived. Perhaps his family would still be alive in that event, instead of this abomination that had been created of House Do’Urden for no better reason than to smear his name.
Perhaps his father would not have been killed.
And his poor sister, Vierna, too kind for the title of priestess of Lolth. Would she have been spared? Drizzt himself had killed her, after all. Even his friends on the World Above would have been better off, he realized to his horror. He had known this before, after the drow had come to Mithral Hall, after Wulfgar had fallen into the grasp of a yochlol. On that occasion, Drizzt had returned to Menzoberranzan, to surrender himself rather than place his friends in worse jeopardy.
Catti-brie had come for him, and their subsequent escape—Artemis Entreri beside them—had shown Drizzt the error of his ways. But he now realized his love for Catti-brie, his gratitude to her, had blinded him to the truth of it all.
“What is it?” he heard Jarlaxle ask, drawing him from his thoughts. He looked at his companion, and at Entreri, too, who was staring at him. “For all these years, I have thought myself brave,” Drizzt admitted. “Now I see that I am a coward, after all.”
Jarlaxle and Entreri exchanged glances, curious and concerned, at that strange remark.
“He’s not looking forward to walking into Menzoberranzan any more than I am,” Entreri decided.
When Jarlaxle nodded and turned a sympathetic eye, Drizzt let it go. Let them believe what they needed to believe, but it was not as they had assumed. He was not afraid to enter the city of his birth. He was ashamed that he had deserted it in the first place.
“So let us be done with it, and quickly,” Entreri remarked. Jarlaxle held up his hand, and fiddled with his pouch, producing a small gemstone ring. He tossed it back and reached in, bringing forth another ring. When this one, too, seemed wrong, he tossed it back and shoved his arm into the pouch up to his elbow—even though the pouch seemed far too small to hold even his hand.
This time he brought his hand forth with a pile of rings in his palm, and he sorted through them for a moment, then slid a gold band set with some light stone, perhaps a diamond, onto his finger. He paused a moment, placed his finger against his temple, and issued a command word. His great hat shifted, then seemed to rise a bit of its own accord. Jarlaxle solved the mystery for the other two by reaching up and pulling off the hat, letting a mop of white hair fall down over his shoulders. Thick and styled, one side was cut in layers, the other hanging over the shaved side of Jarlaxle’s head. Jarlaxle slapped his hat against his thigh and the magical thing seemed to fold in upon itself, becoming small enough for Jarlaxle to easily slide it into his pocket.
“I’m sure we’re better off in disguise,” the mercenary explained with a wink—or maybe it was a blink. His eye patch remained in place. He dropped the ring back into his pouch, replaced it with some other magical ring, and motioned for the others to follow.
The trio met up with an agent of Matron Mother Zeerith’s in the next chamber, a broken cavern of slanted walls and natural chimneys. Nowhere was the ground even, a situation made worse by the blood and goo that covered the stones.
“You should have arrived sooner,” remarked Palaenmas, a young warrior of House Xorlarrin. “We could have used the extra swords.” “I am surprised to find you by the Wanderways,” Jarlaxle replied, referring to a group of tunnels leading off of the most remote eastern reaches of Menzoberranzan.
“The Masterways are closed, both magically and physically,” Palaenmas explained, the Masterways being the main routes in and out of Menzoberranzan. “Only a fool would test the glyphs and wards the priestesses and wizards have placed in those corridors.”
“And no doubt they are tested daily,” said Jarlaxle.
“Constantly,” Palaenmas replied. “The corridors are filled with the stench of demon corpses. War parties venture forth every hour to place new wards. But the foolish beasts keep coming, and so they die before they get near to Menzoberranzan.” He looked around at the trio. “It is a testament to your skill and cunning that you even made it to this point. You will find your path easier now.”
Somehow the three travelers doubted that.
Palaenmas nodded for them to follow and led them back to the main patrol group, explaining them as refugees from a separate failed patrol.
Their timing had been perfect. The group was already on the way back to the city, and was only a few turns and chambers from the straight, well-defended passageway leading into Araunilcaurak.
The troupe went through the checkpoints and newly constructed gates without incident and was dismissed as soon as they entered the great cavern. They began dispersing just inside to the various ways of Menzoberranzan.
Jarlaxle paused there, holding his two companions back, and so Drizzt took a moment to reorient himself to the city. To the left of them, the rothé cattle lowed and grazed on the small island in the midst of the lake named Donigarten. Mushroom groves and fungi farms filled the area in front of them, with small cottages and large storehouses built low on the stones. The nearest of the houses of the city proper began several hundred feet down to the right, in the Braeryn, the slum region known as the Stenchstreets. Farther along the cavern wall loomed the Clawrift, Drizzt recalled, and beyond that the Masterways and then Tier Breche, the raised antechamber that held the drow Academy.
He looked directly across from the entryway, to the southwest and the structures of the greatest noble Houses on the higher plateau known as the Qu’ellarz’orl. The lights of the city captured his vision, the perpetual blue and purple and green faerie fire that artistically highlighted every stalactite and stalagmite, the beautiful decorations that made Menzoberranzan so much more than Araunilcaurak.
He continued his scan, his eye roving to the north, caught and held by the glow of Narbondel, the great pillar that gave this cavern its name. By the height of the glow of that gigantic pillar, Drizzt had once set the regimen of his days.
Narbondel was discipline within chaos, was the constant within the swirl, was the symbol of the hour, the day, the eternity of the drow. “We’ll go to the Stenchstreets,” Jarlaxle said when the three were isolated enough just inside the city gates. “I’ll find my information there . . .” He paused, his voice trailing off as he noted Drizzt. The ranger stood there, transfixed, staring at the great column. But Drizzt’s thoughts, revealed in his wistful and unresponsive gaze, were far, far away.
Braelin had never imagined the possibility of such pain, the burn unrelenting and so much worse than anything he had known from the scourge of his matron mother or the hateful magic of some high priestess.
He could not believe this. It would not relent. He was certain he would soon be driven completely insane by the sheer, brutal agony of it all. He watched helplessly, shackled and held above the floor by his bloody wrists, as his right leg bloated and swelled. Braelin could not imagine greater pain, but that didn’t matter as the bones in his leg split in half, skin and muscles tearing.
They would split again, so promised the chants of the Melarni priestesses dancing around him, their vile magic coagulating in Braelin’s tormented form. One leg would become four, then the other would complete his arachnid lower torso.
He should have passed out long before, but that, too, was part of the magic of the demon priestesses, keeping him alert to witness his brutal and agonizing transformation.
Braelin screamed—oh, how he screamed! He screamed until he could not draw enough breath to make any more noise. His head lolled from side to side, his arms twitched, but had little strength remaining to cause more than a ripple of movement from his trembling body.
“It doesn’t get better,” one of them or all of them said—Braelin was too far removed from reality to know which. In any case, the words reverberated in his thoughts, ominous portents as the pain continued on and on.
“You will feel this for a century,” another voice told him. “Unrelenting.”
“The curse of the drider.”
Even in the midst of mind-swirling agony, Braelin understood that the vicious priestesses were enjoying this torture.
But then it stopped, though it took Braelin a long, long while to understand that it had. The sound of metal he heard above him was the key sliding into the shackles.
He dropped hard to the floor, his leg exploding in a wave of new agony as it touched ground.
“Heal him,” Braelin heard, distantly, and somehow he recognized that particular voice, the sharp intonations of Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn.
Soon after, the first wave of warm healing washed over him, and Braelin fell into a deep slumber.
“You are certain of this?” Matron Mother Zhindia asked Kiriy Xorlarrin. “Jarlaxle, here in the city?”
“It was confirmed by my envoy,” Kiriy assured her, “a Xorlarrin who escorted Jarlaxle and two others in through the eastern gate, as Matron Mother Zeerith had instructed.”
“To Baenre’s call?”
“No,” Kiriy replied with confidence. “The matron mother does not know of Jarlaxle’s arrival—he is not here at her command. This is his own mission, to his own ends.”
“And those are?”
“I do not know. But it is surely of importance for Jarlaxle to venture here at this time, through tunnels filled with demons.”
“Matron Mother Darthiir,” Zhindia said, nodding.
“Matron Mother Zeerith does wish to make a play for House Do’Urden,” said Kiriy. “If Jarlaxle seeks the
iblith
Dahlia, then Matron Mother Zeerith would certainly welcome and facilitate the move. It would leave a void, one to be filled by a Xorlarrin, no doubt.”
“By High Priestess Kiriy Xorlarrin, who has not forgotten the ways of the Lady of Chaos.”
Kiriy smiled.
“I do not think Matron Mother Zeerith will be happy with the fruition of her plans,” the Matron Mother of House Melarn remarked. “She does not understand her eldest daughter.”
“She will not come near to Menzoberranzan to discover the truth.”
Matron Mother Zhindia shook her head at that. “Once House Do’Urden is secure, Matron Mother Zeerith cannot be allowed to live. She will not accept the truth of House Do’Urden when you reveal the new ways of Xorlarrin. She will connive with the matron mother to be rid of you.”
“Jarlaxle will lead us back to her, perhaps.”
“Jarlaxle will be dead,” Matron Mother Zhindia assured her. “But there are others of Bregan D’aerthe who will be useful to us. But first, we have much to do. This is too much supposition. We do not truly know Jarlaxle’s plans here in the city.”
“I will see what I can learn.”
Matron Mother Zhindia shook her head. “Just lead me to him. I have a way.”
Kiriy looked to the door to her right in the small chamber, the antechamber to the torture room where Braelin Janquay recovered from the brutality of his trials.
“We stopped it in time to use him,” Matron Mother Zhindia assured her.
“Jarlaxle’s players are fiercely loyal,” Kiriy warned her.
“There is no loyalty in the face of the punishment the rogue Braelin knows will be returned upon him if he disappoints me.”
“That punishment will be returned upon him even if he does not.”
“Of course, but he does not know that, and with the memories of the transformation so fresh in his thoughts, he will not allow himself to believe that.”
T
HE DEMON SHOWED
him Catti-brie, his wife, and let him live with their children, and all was well, and all was grand.
And the beast Errtu ate them, chewed them, tore them apart, before Wulfgar’s eyes, shattering his mind . . .
The brutal conjuring of that image jolted Drizzt from his slumber at the table in the nondescript common room in the ramshackle building in the Stenchstreets. He opened his eyes to find Jarlaxle and Entreri staring at him incredulously.
“We are at the most dangerous point of our journey and you think it time for a nap?” Entreri asked angrily.
Jarlaxle tried to calm Entreri with a patting hand, while he looked at Drizzt carefully. “Are you all right, my friend?” he asked.
“Is anything all right?” Drizzt replied. “Ever?”
Jarlaxle and Entreri exchanged yet another concerned glance. “He sounds like me,” Entreri snorted. “And he considers me the dour one!”
Jarlaxle shook his head, dismissing the superfluous conversation. “Drizzt,” he said earnestly, “we are almost there. Our goal is in sight on the western wall.”
Drizzt stared at him and couldn’t be bothered with even a nod of agreement. He understood his role here, and though he now doubted the value of it, he would gladly fight—more gladly than ever—against anyone who got in his way.
Simply because he wanted to kill something.
“For Dahlia,” Jarlaxle said, and Drizzt wondered if it really even was Dahlia seated as Matron Mother of House Do’Urden. How deep, how complete, might the deception go?
“There’s your friend,” Entreri interrupted and he led Jarlaxle’s gaze to the entry area of the common room, and to Braelin Janquay who came limping toward them, heavily favoring his right leg.