Archmage (27 page)

“To destroy your matron mother,” said the other.

And they kept talking, but Dahlia was falling away once more. She felt the drow grab her by the arms and usher her away, still talking amongst themselves, but now seeming far, far distant.

Matron Mother Mez’Barris Armgo was not happy as the reports began to filter out of the Do’Urden compound. Not at all. The fight had ended, all the attacking demons destroyed, banished, or driven from the scene.

Marilith was about the place now, stalking the grounds with her contingent of lesser guards. And so, Mez’Barris understood, Archmage Gromph was not far behind.

And the most recent report indicated that Matron Mother Baenre was there too, along with that wretched Sos’Umptu and all the priestesses of the Fane of the Goddess—indeed, those very priestesses had banished many of the demons sent against house Do’Urden.

Worst of all, Matron Darthiir had escaped unharmed. The
iblith
abomination lived, and would sit again at the table of the Ruling Council.

“Let me go and slay Marilith once more!” Malagdorl grumbled at Mez’Barris’s side.

“Shut up,” she replied without even bothering to turn and regard him, and in a tone that had even the impetuous and prideful weapons master swallowing hard.

Mez’Barris knew that she had to regroup and quickly. Her alliance—the other noble matron mothers who had agreed to go after House Do’Urden— would not be reconstituted. For all their efforts and plotting, only a handful of Do’Urden House guards had been slain—and half of those had been low-ranking warriors Mez’Barris’s own House had provided.

But Matron Darthiir, this Dahlia creature, had survived.

Terondarg Del’Armgo, one of Mez’Barris’s most capable scouts, rushed back into the room, and on her nod, ran up to her and began conversing with her secretly, shielding his hands with his wide cloak and flashing the matron mother the information in sign language.

Mez’Barris dismissed him with a wave and closed her eyes.

“What news?” High Priestess Taayrul, Mez’Barris’s daughter, asked tentatively.

“Go to Melarn and tell Matron Zhindia that she and I need to parlay,” Mez’Barris replied curtly, and she waved her daughter away.

Her wince was telling, though, and all in the room understood that the spy Terondarg had not delivered welcome news.

All in the room wisely followed Priestess Taayrul out of Mez’Barris’s chamber.

The matron mother of the Second House moved over and flopped into her chair, trying to sort out her next move—any move—that would somehow repair the damage of this day. She had known that the demons would inflict little pain to House Do’Urden with the Baenres and Bregan D’aerthe so near, but the critical point to the assault was to facilitate the death of the abomination, the surface elf posing as a matron mother of Menzoberranzan.

But Dahlia had escaped, and worse, Mez’Barris now had learned that her spies within the Do’Urden compound, the guards to Matron Darthiir Do’Urden who had allowed the demon encroachment to her chamber, had been discovered. Those Barrison Del’Armgo warriors had admitted their crimes.

“The mind flayer,” Mez’Barris muttered under her breath, solving the riddle, for surely the matron mother’s pet illithid had aided in extracting the information. What couldn’t Quenthel Baenre find out? Mez’Barris wondered—and feared.

“She will make a spectacle of it,” Mez’Barris said. Terondarg had told her that the trial would be public, as would the transformation.

The transformation.

Her warriors would be turned into driders in full view of the city, in full view of those who had dared conspire with Matron Mother Mez’Barris to bring about the fall of Matron Darthiir. Those driders, no doubt, would become the core guard for the abomination, a poignant reminder to Mez’Barris and to all who would quietly stand with her of the consequences of going against Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre.

It had not been a good day.

S
he stayed close to the back wall, alert and ready, but with no weapon in hand, staring across the low-burning fire to the open door across from her. There was movement out in the hall. Doum’wielle could sense it, and Khazid’hea did as well.

Soon, my Little Doe,
the sword promised.
You will regain your leverage.

The priestesses will interrogate me,
Doum’wielle reiterated, the strong fear that had kept creeping into her mind as this pivotal day moved nearer to reality.

I will protect you from their inquisitions. The day is ours!

A black feline face appeared in the doorway, peeking in from the right, and before Doum’wielle could react, the huge panther leaped around the corner and into the room, ears flat, fangs bared.

“Guenhwyvar!” Doum’wielle said, as happily as she could manage. The panther paused, ears coming up.

“Oh, Guen, dear Guen!” the half-elf, half-drow said, clapping her hands together. “You must save me, please!”

She knew this cat fairly well, and recognized that Guenhwyvar, so intelligent, understood most of what she was saying. The panther padded a step forward, silently, sniffing the air.

Then Guenhwyvar whirled when Doum’wielle yelled, “Behind you!” But it was too late, and the stone door slammed shut. The panther hit it hard, clawing and pressing to no avail.

And Doum’wielle slipped out the secret door behind her, and closed that, too, securing the locking bar, trapping the panther in the room. She moved down a side hallway and around a corner to find Tiago, smiling widely, coming to meet her.

“He is mine,” the drow declared, and led the way back toward where they knew Drizzt was scouting.

In a tower in Menzoberranzan, Gromph watched the trap spring. The archmage shook his head, not thrilled with the timing here—too much was at play in Menzoberranzan and the last thing he needed now was more complications.

He tried to imagine how the return of Tiago might help with the situation, but he couldn’t see much to gain, particularly with that wretched half-elf Armgo creature along beside him.

At least House Do’Urden was secure for the time being, and Quenthel would not soon call on him.

Gromph waved his arms and barked out a sharp chant. A few moments later, he disappeared, arriving securely into his prepared chamber in Q’Xorlarrin. He stepped out of the small room to consider the main chapel of the city, across the way and over the primordial pit. Gromph’s second spell created a disembodied orb through which he could see while a third rendered that orb invisible, and off it flew at tremendous speed.

A fourth spell turned Gromph into a floating wisp, ghostly and barely tangible, and a fifth made him invisible. Off he went, passing locked doors as if they were open portals, gliding through the forge room where several drow craftsmean and wizards looked up curiously, sensing something.

But while the hair on their necks might have stood up in warning, even the greatest of the dark elves in that room could not begin to decipher the wards against detection the archmage had enacted, and he was beyond them before any even realized that something had passed.

“The archmage is in Q’Xorlarrin,” Kimmuriel informed Jarlaxle only moments later.

“Good,” the mercenary leader replied. “I have long grown bored of this game. Let us finish it.”

“Our play must be subtle,” Kimmuriel warned.

“Have we a play to make?”

“Jarlaxle always has a play to make.”

The mercenary leader reset his eye patch to his right eye and shrugged and grinned, clearly accepting that as a compliment. In this one particular case, however, both truly hoped that Kimmuriel was wrong. Better for them all if it played out perfectly without any intervention.

“I do not expect to find the archmage in a good mood,” Kimmuriel said.

“My brother is never in a good mood. That is his weakness, and why he is so predictable.”

Kimmuriel didn’t often sigh, but he did so now. Jarlaxle might be taking Gromph lightly, but the psionicist could not afford to do so. If Gromph found them in Q’Xorlarrin at this critical time and in that critical place, would he consider it a coincidence? Or might he figure out that Kimmuriel’s scrying gemstones included a bonus to Kimmuriel that allowed him to also spy on Gromph?

In that instance, the consequences would likely prove rather unpleasant.

Drizzt crept along from shadow to shadow, scimitars in hand in these close quarters. He had seen little sign of anyone about, or anything amiss, but his warrior sense told him differently.

And where was Guenhwyvar?

He moved to the doorway of a wider room, the ancient furniture inside broken and cast about. He noted the absence of cobwebs, which were prevalent in many of the other rooms. He wrapped his fingers anxiously around his scimitar hilts.

He heard a call then, a low and long roar, more sad than excited, he thought. He clutched the blades tighter.

Then came a tapping noise, rhythmic and determined, from across the way, in the corridor beyond.

Drizzt held his position at the side of the door, his eyes widening when a dark elf—Tiago Baenre!—stepped into the room through the opposite door.

“Well, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Tiago said, obviously perfectly aware of Drizzt’s position. “Shall we end this at last?”

The brash young warrior stepped into the room. Drizzt could have pulled Taulmaril and let fly, but he did not. Instead, he marveled at Tiago’s shield and sword, which seemed to him as if made of star-stuff, with glittering diamonds encased in the nearly translucent blade and all about the buckler, which resembled, too, a spider’s web. He thought of the dragon fight, when he had seen Tiago up in the darkened sky, when he had first looked upon that sword, and the shield that had unwound to defeat his lightning arrows.

He reminded himself that this was a Baenre, and so the armor Tiago wore and the quiet magical items set on his person were likely superior to anything Drizzt had faced in many a decade.

The ranger stepped into the room to face his nemesis.

“How many years have you pursued me now, Tiago of House Baenre?” Drizzt asked.

“Decades,” Tiago corrected. “Did you ever believe that I would stop? Did you secretly hope that this day would never come, cowardly rogue?”

“Yours is a foolish endeavor and a worthless quest.”

“I’ll not think it worthless when I hand your head to the matron mother.”

Drizzt sighed and shook his head. They were doomed, his people. Doomed forever to their stupid traditions and dishonorable manners. The drow would war upon the drow until time’s end. They would waste their talent and potential, their ability to truly do good for the world, in their endless pursuits of gaining the upper hand, of personal aggrandizement, of petty revenge.

“If only . . .” Drizzt mumbled, and not for the first time. “I had no desire to fight you,” he said instead.

“Then surrender and save yourself the pain,” Tiago replied. “I will be as merciful as you deserve.” With that, he started walking toward Drizzt, but veered off to the ranger’s left, circling, and Drizzt, too, began to move, keeping himself square with Tiago.

“
Had
no desire,” Drizzt emphasized. “For truly your quest seems a silly thing. But then, you see, I only thought of the pain you brought to the people of Icewind Dale, to the people of Port Llast, and . . .”

“And to the dwarves of Icewind Dale?” Tiago finished. “Ah yes, what fine slaves they make! Until they are worked to their miserable deaths, of course.”

Drizzt narrowed his lavender eyes. He focused on his enemy’s weapon and noted the delicate curve of that starlit blade. It wasn’t quite as curved as Drizzt’s own blades, but it was as much scimitar as straight long sword, leading Drizzt to believe that Tiago fought in circles, much like Drizzt, rather than the straight ahead and straight back routines more common among the drow who used long swords.

They continued to circle and Drizzt kept making mental notes of this mostly unknown opponent, who had likely studied many of the tales of Drizzt’s fighting style and exploits. Tiago had the edge, Drizzt knew, because Tiago had not ventured into a fight with the unknown.

“Leap upon me, O great Drizzt Do’Urden,” the noble son of House Baenre taunted. “Let your hatred flow to your blades. Let me prove who is the stronger.”

When Drizzt didn’t accept that invitation, Tiago took it upon himself, leaping wildly into the air, flying for Drizzt, falling over Drizzt, his shield spinning and widening and sweeping clear of his flank as he burrowed in behind it, Vidrinath slashing hard.

Drizzt was too quick for such a straightforward attack, of course, and he quickly dodged, first to his right, as Tiago surely anticipated, but then fast back to his left, in front of the sweep of the shield. He took Tiago’s sword down harmlessly to the side with his right-hand blade, Icingdeath, leaving him in a half-turn that aligned Twinkle perfectly with the younger drow’s exposed side.

But Tiago landed in a spin, with amazing speed and balance, and he came all the way around to bring his shield to bear in time to block the counter.

Out came Vidrinath with three quick stabs, low, high, and low again.

Up went Twinkle to lift the first harmlessly away. Drizzt hopped back from the second, and down came Twinkle to crash against the third strike, driving Tiago’s sword down to the side, across Tiago’s body. Drizzt went out to the left behind the parry, and Tiago spun again and wisely went down low in a crouch so that Drizzt’s stab came in high.

Tiago slashed across with his shield.

Drizzt hopped it and came down with both blades, but Tiago’s shield was too large now, and the skilled young warrior brought it up deftly from the slash to cover above.

Twinkle and Icingdeath struck solidly on the shield, and seemed to hold there for just a heartbeat, allowing Tiago to come up fast and hard, stabbing out his sword from under the lifting, horizontal shield.

Drizzt wasn’t quite sure what had just happened, or why he hadn’t disengaged his blades fast enough to properly respond. That question followed him through his desperate backstepping.

Desperate, but not quite fast enough. Tiago’s brilliant sword caught up to him and stuck him, just a bit, until Drizzt could bring his scimitars to bear in driving the biting blade away. He was hurt, in the belly, and he felt the sting.

But that was hardly the worst of his problems, Drizzt realized. He felt something else within that sting: the familiar burn of drow sleeping poison. The sword was Vidrinath, after all, the drow word for lullaby.

Drizzt grimaced and fought against the poison, one whose sting he had suffered many times before. A lesser drow, a lesser warrior, would have been slowing already from the dose that sword had inflicted, but when Tiago came confidently on, he found a flurry of scimitars blurring in his path and inevitably driving him back.

Drizzt took the offensive, fearing that time might work against him as the poison seeped deeper into his body. His scimitars rolled over each other, stabbing and slashing from many different angles. He felt the same frustration as he had that day on the dragon. Tiago was simply too good with that shield to allow for any clean hits—and now Drizzt had learned the hard way to be wary of that shield, suspecting that it had grabbed his blades, allowing Tiago the strike.

He had to formulate some new attack routine, had to piece together a strategy in the middle of the frenzy to somehow separate the Baenre warrior enough from his shield so that he could slip one of his blades past the guard.

Drizzt reached into his innate magic, the reverberations of the Faerzress still within him despite his many decades on the surface. Tiago’s frame lit up in purplish flames of faerie fire, harmless except that they outlined him more clearly for his opponent.

Tiago skidded to a stop, glancing at himself with incredulity, then did likewise to Drizzt, limning him with angry red flames—dark elf warriors in Menzoberranzan hardly bothered with the faerie fire when engaged in melee with each other.

For Drizzt, though, the pause gave him a moment of clarity, which was the whole point, and in that moment, he searched for answers. He came on furiously once more, red and purple flames licking each other as the two combatants passed and turned.

Vidrinath came out in a solid thrust, and across came Icingdeath to drive it wide to Drizzt’s left.

But Tiago rolled with the blow, his shield sliding back into alignment to slow any pursuit Drizzt might have intended. And then Tiago swung back the other way, suddenly and powerfully.

Up came Twinkle to block, a ringing blow—one heavier than Drizzt had anticipated, telling him that Tiago was likely in possession of some item, a belt or a ring, that granted him magical strength beyond his musculature and training.

Drizzt only fought the heavy blow for the blink of an eye, thrusting Twinkle vertically to intercept before collapsing to the right, falling into a roll. Sparks flew as Tiago’s sword crashed against Twinkle, and unknown to the combatants, so, too, flew a piece of Drizzt’s left-hand scimitar, compromising the integrity of the blade.

The greatest power of Vidrinath wasn’t its poisoning bite, but the simple craftsmanship of the weapon. It had been created in this very complex, at the Forge of Gauntlgrym, with primordial fire and by the greatest drow weaponsmith of the age, using an ancient recipe reserved for this one special blade.

Few weapons in all the Realms could match the strength of glassteel Vidrinath, and so it was with Twinkle.

But Drizzt was too engaged in his plotting, in moving the fight to where he needed it to be, to notice. He rolled to his feet and went right back in, slapping Icingdeath hard into Tiago’s shield—and retracting too quickly for that equally impressive blocker, Orbbcress by name, to get a firm hold on it.

But Drizzt did feel that pull, just for a moment as he retracted, and he understood.

And now his plan took clearer shape.

Outside the room, Doum’wielle dared to peek in.

Her breath was stolen away.