Archmage (7 page)

“I am surprised that you are so informed of the—”

“I have nothing but time,” K’yorl interrupted. “And Errtu torments me by showing me the turning of Menzoberranzan without me.”

“Then you know that Matron Mother Baenre will see to Matron Mother Zeerith’s troubles as well.”

“With demons.”

“You know much for a slave in the Abyss,” Kimmuriel said again, even allowing a bit of sarcasm into his normally impassive tone.

“I know much because I
am
in the Abyss! Errtu does not fear me, surely, and so he does not fear letting me know of Menzoberranzan.”

“Demons, yes,” said Kimmuriel.

K’yorl gave a little laugh, a wicked one indeed. “You must be my conduit, Kimmuriel. You must exact the punishment House Baenre rightly deserves.”

Kimmuriel dismissed that foolish notion even as the matron mother spoke it. He wasn’t about to go against Matron Mother Baenre and her vast array of powerful friends. Still, he heard and sympathized with every word. He hated Quenthel Baenre. Despite any logical protestations to the contrary, a simmering rage burned within Kimmuriel Oblodra for all that he had lost, for all that House Baenre had taken from him. He watched again in his memories the tumbling structure of House Oblodra, pitching over the side of the Clawrift, so many dark elves, his family, tumbling into oblivion.

For a long while, for many years, Kimmuriel had hated House Baenre. When first he had learned of Jarlaxle’s heritage, he had even considered murdering the mercenary.

That was a long time ago, of course, but now, hearing K’yorl, Kimmuriel realized that he hadn’t dismissed those feelings of rage quite as thoroughly as he had believed.

“I do not expect you to expose yourself to suspicion,” K’yorl said, as if reading his thoughts—and she probably was, he reminded himself, throwing up more mental guards.

“You ask me to serve as your instrument, your assassin against House Baenre, but do so without wishing me to expose myself to their wrath?” he asked skeptically.

“Not my instrument, but my conduit to my instrument,” K’yorl said with a crooked and knowing little smile, one that took Kimmuriel back across the centuries, one that he had known well in his youth.

“A mighty Baenre studies under you, I am told,” K’yorl said.

It was beginning to bother Kimmuriel more than a little just how much K’yorl was being told.

“The archmage, no less,” she said.

Kimmuriel remained impassive—there was no need to confirm anything, apparently.

“And how does Gromph Baenre feel about his sister the matron mother filling the streets of Menzoberranzan with demons?”

“He thinks it a brilliant ploy to insulate the matron mother from the wrath of the Ruling Council over her . . . choices.”

“But how does he
feel
? Is he pleased by his sister Quenthel’s dangerous ploy?”

“You clearly know the answer.”

“He hates her. They all do,” K’yorl said. “She imposes order on a city of chaos. It will not stand.”

“I will not stop it.”

“Not directly.”

“I do not enjoy cryptic conversations, Matron Mother,” Kimmuriel said, and what he really didn’t enjoy—and he knew that this drow in front of him understood it well—was not being able to read her thoughts. Kimmuriel was used to holding a huge advantage in such conversations, with all but the mind flayers and Jarlaxle, for he could read the meaning behind every word with a simple glance into the flittering thoughts as the words were spoken.

“Fan the flames in the archmage’s humors,” K’yorl explained. “Subtly suggest a way for him to strike back at his sister. Let him battle demon with demon.”

“You ask me to implant a suggestion into the mind of the archmage to summon demons of his own? Into the mind of Gromph Baenre?” Kimmuriel didn’t try to hide his doubts. Those dark elves expecting and hoping for a long life simply didn’t do such things.

“It will be no difficult task. Gromph’s thoughts already flow in that direction.”

Movement to the side caught Kimmuriel’s attention, and he noted a massive, leather-winged beast moving toward them, one he knew to be the mighty balor Errtu. The creature moved close enough to tower over Kimmuriel, and sniffed the air a few times before plopping down in a mushroom fashioned into a throne just off to the side, one Kimmuriel hadn’t even noticed before—had Errtu brought it with him?

“To have Gromph call in a balor, perhaps?” Kimmuriel asked K’yorl, but he was looking at Errtu.

“Think bigger,” K’yorl replied. “Perhaps Gromph will think he is calling forth a peer of Errtu, but let his spell draw a bigger prize, a prize beyond his control?”

“You?” Kimmuriel asked dryly.

Both K’yorl and Errtu laughed at that.

“You cannot return to the Prime Material Plane at this time,” Kimmuriel said to Errtu.

The balor growled, but nodded. Errtu had been defeated on the Prime Material Plane, and so banished, a penalty of a century of exile.

“Banished by a Baenre,” K’yorl said. “Tiago Baenre.”

“Who is now Tiago Do’Urden, if he is even still alive,” said Kimmuriel.

“All the more reason to hate him,” said Errtu. The demon stared hard at Kimmuriel and focused his thoughts at the drow psionicist, who was overwhelmed by the sheer wall of demonic hate emanating from the creature.

“What do you know of the Faerzress?” K’yorl asked.

“What every drow of Menzoberranzan is taught at the Academy,” said Kimmuriel. The Faerzress was a region of the Underdark teeming with magical energy—the very stones of the region glowed with the power of magic, both the Weave and the extraplanar energies of the lower planes. Through the emanations of the Faerzress, the drow gained their innate magical abilities, and their innate resistance to magic. With the permeating glow of the Faerzress, drow smiths fashioned their fabulous weapons and armor. As the sun nurtured the surface world with its warmth and life energy, so the Faerzress fed the darkness of the Underdark.

“I will give you a spell,” K’yorl said, and closed her eyes. “Open your mind.”

Kimmuriel similarly closed his eyes and focused on receiving—and studying—K’yorl’s psionic impartation. He didn’t know all the words, for it was an arcane chant and not a psionic pattern.

“Give that to Gromph during your sessions,” she bade him. “Bit by bit, inflection by inflection. Let him find the strength to battle his sister and foil her plans, and so we will pay back House Baenre.”

Kimmuriel opened his eyes to stare at her intently.

“Would it so pain you to see House Baenre punished and Menzoberranzan thrust back into chaos?” she asked. “Would not Bregan D’aerthe profit from such . . . tribulations?”

“And you would find a deep sense of sweet revenge?”

“Do you expect me to deny it?” K’yorl asked.

“No.”

“And would you not share in your mother’s satisfaction?” Kimmuriel said nothing.

“Then we are agreed?” K’yorl asked.

“When next Methil summons me to Gromph’s chamber to continue our work, I will offer him a view of what he might do to counter the matron mother. And, too, I will begin showing him a more powerful gate to the Abyss.”

“He will light the Faerzress with the power of that spell, and oh, but his surprise will delight you, my noble son.”

Despite himself, Kimmuriel grinned. He nodded and bowed deferentially to the mighty Errtu, then bent time and space and was once more back in Faerûn, in a tavern called One-Eyed Jax, in the port city of Luskan.

“What is wrong?” Matron Mother Zeerith asked when Tsabrak walked into her private chamber—unannounced and without knocking. She could see the look on her most powerful ally’s face, though, and so she knew he had not shown the disrespect out of anything more than abject misery.

“Tsabrak?” she demanded as he moved over and numbly sat down on a chair across from her.

“I looked in on the Silver Marches,” he said, his voice a defeated monotone. “I went to see if I could confirm the areas where our other warriors likely fell. It would make the corpse summoning easier, of course, if we knew . . .” His voice trailed off.

“What do you know?” Matron Mother Zeerith asked, moving forward, sliding from her chair and across the floor to kneel before the seated mage, one hand on his knee, the other holding him by the chin, forcing him to look into her eyes.

“It’s gone,” he said.

Matron Mother Zeerith’s face screwed up with confusion as she tried to decipher that. “ ‘It’s’? What is gone?”

“The dweomer.”

“The dweomer?” she echoed, but suddenly it hit her and her eyes widened.

“The gift Lady Lolth imparted through my physical form,” Tsabrak confirmed. “The Darkening, Matron, it is gone.”

“Gone? The sky over the Silver Marches is cleared?”

“The sun shines brightly,” the despondent wizard replied.

“How can this be?” Matron Mother Zeerith looked all around. She rolled away from Tsabrak and up to her feet to begin pacing, muttering to herself. The implications were staggering. The Darkening had been channeled through Tsabrak, through a representative of House Xorlarrin, who had become the archmage of Q’Xorlarrin. Tsabrak was a powerful wizard—none would doubt that—but Zeerith wanted him spoken of in the same hushed tones normally reserved for Gromph Baenre alone.

The Darkening was the achievement that afforded him that possibility. The Darkening had elevated him in the eyes of all the drow. Few in Menzoberranzan would utter the name of Tsabrak Xorlarrin without the title of archmage attached.

But now it was gone.

Would the others see this as a sign that Tsabrak had lost the favor of Lolth, Matron Mother Zeerith wondered? Would they extend that criticism to House Xorlarrin, to Q’Xorlarrin?

“I felt the power,” she heard Tsabrak muttering to himself, and she turned back to regard him. He sat in the chair, eyes downcast, shaking his head slowly.

“True power,” he said. “The goddess flowed through me in beauteous power. She would take the Weave and make of it the Web. The new age would be heralded in, and I, Tsabrak, would lead that new age.”

“You alone?” Matron Mother Zeerith asked sharply, and Tsabrak looked up at her.

“House Xorlarrin,” he quickly corrected himself. “Who better? We have the most wizards. We—you!—have ever exalted in them, in us, in me, and have given to the males of your family hope unknown among the others of Menzoberranzan. I was positioned—”

“
We
were positioned!” Matron Mother Zeerith interrupted.

Tsabrak nodded. “But it is gone, Matron Mother. The skies are bright once more. And there were whispers . . .”

He lowered his gaze once more and looked as if he might break down.

“What did you hear, Tsabrak?” Matron Mother Zeerith demanded. “When you walked among the folk of the Silver Marches, what did you hear?”

“Mielikki, the goddess,” he whispered. “It is said that she countered my magic, and did so through the body of the heretic Drizzt Do’Urden.” He looked up as Matron Mother Zeerith gasped.

“I have failed the Spider Queen,” Tsabrak said. “You should give me to the primordial.”

Matron Mother Zeerith dismissed that with a snort, and waved away Tsabrak’s words. “If you truly failed the Spider Queen, we would make of you a drider, fool.”

“Then do so!”

“Shut up!” she ordered. She rushed back at Tsabrak and skidded down to put her face right near his. “You did not fail. The magic failed, expired, or was defeated. We cannot know which. How draining was it for the Spider Queen to hold back the light of the sun on the World Above? Perhaps she intended the Darkening for only a certain period of time, and when our people withdrew, what was to be gained by holding strong to it?”

“It pains me to think that our beloved goddess has suffered yet another defeat . . .”

“Enough of such foolishness,” Matron Mother Zeerith warned.

“And one with which I was so intimately involved,” the wizard said.

“We do not even know that it was a defeat,” Matron Mother Zeerith reminded him. “We will continue our work in bringing home our fallen and properly disposing of them. We will give due thanks to the Spider Queen with our every action. We cannot know her thoughts, and so we act with only good intentions to her, our Lady of Chaos.”

Tsabrak stared for a long time, but gradually began to nod. “Thank you,” he said. “My shock—”

“Say no more about it,” Matron Mother Zeerith interrupted. She pulled his head close against her and stroked his short, thick mop of white hair, comforting him, cooing softly in his ear, reassuring him.

But inside, Matron Mother Zeerith was anything but calm or reassured. Tsabrak’s dismay was clear, and surely a straight line from it to the now-failed Darkening gave him reason to worry.

For Matron Mother Zeerith, though, that fear was multiplied a hundredfold. She was until recently the Matron Mother of the Third House of Menzoberranzan, Lolth’s own city. She was a high priestess of Lolth, but she was not much like her peers, not the Baenres or the fanatical Melarni. Matron Mother Zeerith did not adhere to the hierarchy so common in Menzoberranzan. House Xorlarrin’s power came from the men of the House, not the women, from the wizards and not the priestesses.

It had been Matron Mother Zeerith’s hunch that this would be the new paradigm, and she thought her instincts correct when Lolth made a try for the goddess Mystra’s Weave. She thought her efforts well rewarded when Tsabrak, not Gromph Baenre, had been chosen to enact the Darkening.

In the new paradigm, would any House hold higher favor with Lady Lolth than House Xorlarrin? Would not her new city become the glorious enclave of Lolth, and so Menzoberranzan would be the satellite?

But now the Darkening was no more.

And Q’Xorlarrin was burying scores of dead.

Zeerith had suffered great losses in her entourage, in her family.

Lolth was angry, Zeerith believed. Would she focus that anger on Q’Xorlarrin, on Tsabrak, on Zeerith herself?

She continued to stroke Tsabrak’s hair for a long while, drawing as much comfort as she was giving, for what that was worth.

Matron Mother Zeerith, who understood well the wrath of the Spider Queen, feared that it wasn’t worth much.