Archmage (8 page)

Errtu chuckled, a wet and throaty noise that sounded as if it was soon to be accompanied by fountaining gouts of vomit.

“You are a beautiful one,” he said to the small figure standing in front of him.

Off to the side, out of the swirling, fetid mists, came a hulking, vulturelike vrock, a battered drow form writhing in one of its powerful clawed hands. On a nod from the other drow female, a doppelganger to this very captive, the vrock dropped its battered prisoner and bird-hopped away into the shadows.

That drow, prone in the muck, managed to turn her filthy head to regard the other, the one that looked exactly like her.

But looked like her for only for a moment longer, as the imposter K’yorl burst free of that restrictive drow form to become once more a creature with the lower torso and legs of a gigantic spider, and the shapely upper body and painfully beautiful face of the most exquisite drow of all.

She held up her right hand, nodding contentedly at the small digits that had already regrown to replace the ones Balor’s lightning sword had taken from her.

K’yorl whined and buried her face in the muck before the deadly brilliance of Lady Lolth.

“Your physical beauty is exceeded only by the beauty of your cunning, Goddess,” Errtu said, grinning widely.

“When Gromph weakens the barrier, Menzoberranzan will know chaos as never before,” Lolth replied.

“And you will rid yourself of the pesky demon lords, and when they have abandoned the Abyss to play in the Underdark of Toril, you will build your army,” said Errtu.

“Beware your tongue, Errtu,” Lolth warned. “Your betters lurk in the fog.”

The mighty balor grunted, but nodded.

“We had all thought you defeated, Spider Queen,” Errtu said. “When you lost the Weave, and then watched as Tiamat’s plans, too, were foiled, we wondered, truly, if perhaps you would recede.”

“In reminding me, do you gain pleasure, Errtu?” Lolth asked. “For I should remind you that were I to destroy you here in this place, your home, you would truly be obliterated, never to return.”

“But it is a great compliment that I offer,” said the balor. “For you have not receded, skulking into the shadows, and truly, great Lady of Spiders, great Goddess of Chaos, this ambition and plan are your greatest scheme of all.”

“And you stand to gain,” she reminded him. He nodded, growled wickedly, and smiled hopefully. “Did I not promise you that Balor would be removed? That you could thrive in his absence?”

“Unending ambition, great Lady of Chaos,” said Errtu, who was clearly elated by the developments. “It is how we survive the boredom of passing millennia, is it not?”

“And yet, if you climb to the highest point you will ever know, it will leave you merely at the lowest point I have ever known,” Lolth said, a most vicious reminder of their relative stations.

Errtu scowled.

“Do not kill this one,” Lolth instructed. She waved her hand and a powerful roll of energy lifted K’yorl from the floor and sent her flipping and spinning through the air. “I might need her again.”

“Kill her?” Errtu asked as if the very thought was preposterous. “Torturing her brings me great pleasure, Lady of Pleasure and Pain!”

“I feel the same way about balors,” Lolth remarked, and she was simply gone in a puff of acrid black smoke. “And do take care that she cannot use her psionic trumpets to warn Demogorgon or Graz’zt, or any of the other demon lords.”

Errtu sat on his throne and tapped his clawed fingernails together in front of his flame-filled eyes.

So much to hate.

That was his nourishment.

M
e thinking’s not changed. Four thousand’re needed,” Bruenor explained late that year of 1485 DR. Outside, winter was on in full, but in Mithral Hall, all seemed cozier than it had in many a year. The tunnels to Felbarr and Adbar were secured, and couriers moved between the three dwarven fortresses on a regular basis, with every new dispatch bringing news of growing excitement for the march to Gauntlgrym. The threat of the orcs felt far removed now.

“Might be more than that,” King Connerad remarked. “Harnoth’s had his griping, but Oretheo Spikes’s been there, every hour, whisperin’ in his ear. Now the young king’s thinking that Adbar’s best served by bringing the biggest force to Gauntlgrym.”

“Might be that he’s got his eyes on the throne,” General Dagnabbet chimed in.

“That ain’t for happenin’,” said Bruenor. “But let the hungry young one think what he’s thinkin’ if it’s getting me the warriors I need."

“If Gauntlgrym’s all ye say, then might be harder to keep the three citadels o’ the Silver Marches open and manned,” King Connerad said, with something in his tone that gave Bruenor pause—and not for the first time over these tendays of anticipation. Bruenor looked to Drizzt, who nodded, obviously catching the other king’s demeanor as well. “So when’re ye meanin’ to speak it clear, me friend?” Bruenor asked pointedly.

Connerad looked at him with puzzlement.

“I’m knowin’ yer heart, young Brawnanvil,” said Bruenor. “As I knowed yer Da’s, as I’m knowing me own.”

By that point, all eyes were squarely focused on the young King Connerad.

“Ye ain’t gettin’ Gauntlgrym’s throne,” said Bruenor.

“Not wantin’ it,” Connerad replied.

“But . . .” Drizzt prompted.

Connerad sighed, snorted, and said nothing.

“But ye’re wantin’ to go,” said Bruenor.

Connerad snorted again, as if the mere suggestion was preposterous.

But Bruenor never blinked, and his probing expression would not let go of Connerad.

“Aye,” the young king finally admitted.

“Ye got Mithral Hall,” Bruenor replied. “We been through it, lad.

I ain’t for taking that from ye.”

“Been all me life here in the Hall,” said Connerad, and with that, Bruenor nodded his agreement.

“With half that life havin’ yer arse on the throne,” said Bruenor.

“Weighin’ on ye, is it? Aye, I know, lad.”

“Weighed on yer own arse when ye left,” said Dagnabbet, and there was an unmistakable edge in her voice that gave Bruenor, and some others, pause. “Suren that ye’re not for thinking that King Bruenor owed the hall more,” Connerad scolded the general.

“Never said that,” she replied.

“Then what?”

“Aye,” Bruenor agreed. “What?”

General Dagnabbet swallowed hard, her deep breaths showing that she was at a crossroads and trying to find her heart. “Was me grandfather that chased the gray dwarfs from Mithral Hall,” she said. “Was me grandfather and me Da that readied the throne for King Bruenor’s return from Calimport, and was them that served well aside ye.”

“Aye, as was me own Da,” Connerad Brawnanvil said. “Served King Bruenor and the king afore him.”

“Aye, and yer legacy’s no greater than me own,” General Dagnabbet blurted, drawing gasps from everyone else.

“Careful lass, he’s yer king,” Bungalow Thump warned. “Me king who’s wantin’ to leave, he just said,” Dagnabbet pressed. “As yerself’s leaving to serve as Bruenor’s shield.”

Off to the side, Catti-brie chuckled, and when Bruenor looked from Dagnabbet to his adopted daughter, he noted Catti-brie nodding in approval to Dagnabbet.

“What’re ye sayin’, girl?” Bruenor demanded of the young but capable general. “Just speak it!”

“Me own claim on Mithral Hall’s throne’s no less than Connerad’s, except that ye gived the throne to his Da, Banak,” she said bluntly.

Bungalow Thump wailed, but Connerad calmed him with an upraised hand. “And I’m not doubtin’ yer pick o’ Banak, as me own Da and Grandda were dead under the stones.”

“But?” Drizzt prompted again.

“But me friend’s not thinkin’ Mithral Hall’s needing a steward on her throne when I’m aside ye on the road to Gauntlgrym, King Bruenor,”

Connerad explained. “She’s thinkin’ Mithral Hall’s needin’ a
queen
.” Bruenor stared hard at General Dagnabbet, who matched his look without blinking, not backing away a finger’s breadth from the accusation. “Throne’s not me own to give,” he said at length, and both turned to Connerad.

“Queen Dagnabbet?” the young Brawnanvil mused aloud, and he chuckled and nodded. He and Dagnabbet had been dear friends for all their lives, military nobility in Mithral Hall’s proud ranks.

He turned to Bruenor. “She’s speakin’ truly,” he admitted. “None’re more distinguished, none more deservin’. If me own father’d had been killed to death in the Obould war, who’d Bruenor’ve chosen, meself or Dagnabbet?”

Bruenor shrugged, not willing to go there.

“If ye’d choosed meself, then me friend Dagnabbet would serve ye well, as she’s served me well,” said Connerad. “And if ye’d choosed to make a Queen Dagnabbet, then know she’d’ve had no more loyal friend and general than meself.”

“And now ye’re leavin’,” said Bruenor. He turned to Dagnabbet. “And yerself’s stayin’.”

“Then Queen Dagnabbet,” Connerad said to Bruenor, and he wasn’t asking, for in truth, it wasn’t Bruenor’s—or anyone else’s—place to offer an opinion. Succession was the choice of the king of Mithral Hall, and Connerad was the king of Mithral Hall.

“Are ye askin’ or tellin’?” Bruenor did reply.

“Both.”

“Then aye, and aye!” said Bruenor.

“Queen Dagnabbet!” Bungalow Thump shouted, and the huzzahs and heigh-ho’s filled the audience chamber and exploded out to echo down the corridors of Mithral Hall.

Dagnabbet bowed respectfully, then stood up straight, seeming hardly shaken and looking every bit the ferocious leader of Mithral Hall. “Me first request’s an easy one,” she said to both Connerad and Bruenor. She smiled and turned to Bungalow Thump. “Once ye get done chasin’ the drow from Gauntlgrym, ye give me back me Bungalow Thump. Mithral Hall’s not to be without him.”

“Honored, me king!” Bungalow said, punching his fists together. It took him a while to realize why everyone in the room was staring at him then, and with expressions full of amusement.

“Honored, me queen!” the embarrassed Gutbuster corrected, and Dagnabbet led the ensuing laughter.

When the council of the three dwarven citadels convened in Citadel Felbarr in the second month of 1486, Queen Dagnabbet was announced formally as the ruler of Mithral Hall, and King Connerad, now shield general of Bruenor’s impending march, did not even make the trip to Felbarr, busy as he was organizing the warriors Mithral Hall would send to the west.

King Harnoth seemed stupefied by the action, incredulous that any dwarf would surrender a throne, perhaps. He was young, Bruenor knew, and still a novice in the ways of being a king. The burdens would weigh on him in another century, likely, if he managed to stay alive that long—something of which Bruenor could not be certain, given Harnoth’s recklessness in the war, and his stubbornness subsequently.

King Emerus, though, not only seemed less than surprised, his nod was one of approval.

A few moments later, when Emerus announced that he, too, would be abdicating his throne to join with his old friend Bruenor in the march to Gauntlgrym, the chorus of gasps were not enhanced by Bruenor.

“What am I hearin’?” Harnoth cried, in disbelief and clear dismay.

“That you are now the longest-serving dwarf king of the Silver Marches,” said Drizzt.

“Madness!” Harnoth fumed, and he slammed his fist down on the table. “All me life, me Da speaked o’ King Bruenor and King Emerus, and now ye’re both for leavin’? We won the war and all the land’s scarred, and now ye’re leavin’?”

“Scars’ll heal,” Emerus said solemnly, his resonant voice showing that he wasn’t taking this lightly. “With or without meself and Bruenor and Connerad. Felbarr’s got her succession as Mithral Hall’s got hers.” He leaned forward and looked down the length of the long table, and Parson Glaive nodded, showing his king, who was now his subject, great deference.

“Citadel Felbarr is mine,” the high cleric announced.

“Huzzah to King Parson Glaive o’ Felbarr!” Emerus toasted, rising up and lifting his flagon.

“Huzzah!” all replied.

“And huzzah to Queen Dagnabbet o’ Mithral Hall!” Bruenor cheered, and the boisterous shouts filled the hall once more.

Bruenor looked to Emerus and nodded, sincerely thrilled and grateful that his old and respected friend would be accompanying him on the journey to reclaim the most ancient Delzoun homeland.

“Mithral Hall on the first day of spring!” Ragged Dain added. “And let the ground shake under the fall o’ four thousand dwarf boots!”

“Eight thousand, ye dolt,” Bruenor corrected, hoisting his flagon so forcefully that half of the contents splashed out. “Most’ve got two legs!”

“Huzzah!” they cheered.

“I should destroy you for coming here,” the great white wyrm roared. “You should reconsider your dangerous impulses,” came a calm reply, and it was a sincere response from an archmage who had lived closer to two centuries than one, and who had come to the lair of Arauthator, the Old White Death, fully prepared to survive a dragon’s onslaught.

“The attempts to bring Tiamat to the Prime Material Plane have failed, and so I understand your frustrations, great wyrm,” Gromph added. “But so, too, has Lolth failed in her quest for the domain of magic. These are the provinces of the gods and we can do that which we may and little more. The world goes on, as does Arauthator, as do I.”

“The philosophy of a weakling,” the dragon replied. “To so dismiss failure.”

“To so dwell upon it, when time moves forward,” said Gromph, with a “tsk, tsk” and a shake of his head.

“You mock me?”

“I only mock those I consider pathetic,” the archmage answered. “I have never thought that of you, surely.”

“The world goes on without my son,” said the dragon.

“Do you pretend to care? I know enough of your kind, and of you, to believe that such a claim is one of false appeal.”

The dragon chuckled, a low and rumbling sound that sounded as if a prelude to an earthquake, and, Gromph knew, often was. “You were rewarded well for your efforts in the war,” Gromph reminded the wyrm. “The treasures from Sundabar alone . . .” He let the thought hang in the air, and shook his head.

“Then let us put that which is past behind us,” the wyrm agreed. “So why are you here, in this, my home?”

“You were not alone in your last battle of the war,” Gromph explained.

“Nor was your son. We have found the body of the noble drow killed with Aurbangras.”

“But not that of your impetuous and impudent nephew,” the dragon commented.

“Tiago, yes,” Gromph agreed. “A favored noble of the Matron Mother Baenre, though one who has grown tiresome to me.”

“He is not.”

“Digested?” Gromph asked dryly.

The dragon paused and spent a moment letting the quip register before offering an amused, rumbling chuckle in response.

“It is an honest question,” the archmage said.

“He is not here, nor has he been in my presence since the battle above the Surbrin Bridge,” the dragon replied.

“A battle in which he rode astride you?”

“Yes.”

“A battle from which you flew directly home?”

“Yes.”

“Must I follow all the possibilities?”

“Tiago was shot from my back in the fight, by a drow no less, with a bow that spat arrows of lightning.”

Gromph took a deep breath. Drizzt again.

“Drizzt slayed him in the midst of an aerial battle?”

“I did not say that.”

“You said . . .” Gromph stopped and silently recounted the dragon’s exact words.

“The clever archer shot the cinch from the saddle, and so Tiago fell from his seat,” the dragon explained. “We were up by the roiling blackness of Lolth’s inspired spell, and so miles above the ground. You might search the lower ground north of the dwarven stronghold to see if you can locate a drow-shaped splatter upon the ground.”

Gromph nodded, though he was hardly listening, playing it all out in his thoughts. He, of course, knew of the magical House Baenre emblems, which could impart near weightlessness with but a touch.

So perhaps Tiago was not dead, and was down there still—and, likely, still hunting Drizzt.

“He is such a fool,” the archmage muttered under his breath, but not enough so to keep the words from the keen hearing of an ancient white dragon.

“Which?” Arauthator asked. “The archer or your nephew? Or are you, perhaps, speaking of me, in which case I find that I am suddenly hungry."

“Dragon, you bore me,” Gromph said, and waved his hand. With that movement, mighty Arauthator sprang to the attack, the great wyrm’s serpentine neck sweeping forward, the toothy maw snapping over Gromph.

Or the projected image of Gromph, for the archmage was far from that place, and farther still when the dragon’s killing jaws snapped, teleporting away almost instantly and leaving Arauthator defensively crouched and growling.

“They will leave on the first day of spring,” Doum’wielle told Tiago. “You are certain?”

Doum’wielle answered him with a stare. She wiped the mud and makeup from her face and began to unbraid her hair. She couldn’t travel about the region without some minor disguise. Some might well recognize her as the daughter of Sinnafein.

“The dwarves are all chattering about it,” she explained. “They’re thick about the wall they have constructed near to where Dark Arrow Keep once stood, convinced that Lorgru will return.”

“And will he?”

Doum’wielle shrugged.

“You should be more thorough in your scouting,
iblith
,” Tiago scolded. And I should kill you while you sleep, Doum’wielle wanted to reply, but did not.

“There has been no sign of the orcs since Bruenor sent them running,” she answered. “Even those dwarves skeptical about this march to the west have come to believe that it will be a good thing.”