Archmage

CHAPTER 23

You mean to go to him now?” Jarlaxle asked incredulously. He and Kimmuriel stood alone in a side chamber just off the Forge of Q’Xorlarrin, which they both expected would soon enough be known as the Great Forge of Gauntlgrym once more. The dwarves had secured the main lower chamber, had even put the staircase back up, and were already fortifying their foothold and constructing war engines to sweep clear the lower level.

Neither Jarlaxle nor Kimmuriel were convinced there would soon be anything left to sweep, however, for the demons were once again acting very much like. . demons. Orc slave, goblin slave, rothé, or even dark elf, it did not matter. With the fall of Marilith and Nalfeshnee, the Abyssal beasts had turned. Any creature of the Prime Material Plane was now prey, and even the lesser demons shied from their larger, insatiable Abyssal kin.

And so the Xorlarrins had retreated to this very small area around the Great Forge and the primordial chamber, their wizards nervously readying spells of banishment or evocation-anything to be rid of rampaging demons.

“It is the appointed time,” Kimmuriel calmly answered. “The archmage is not forgiving of my tardiness.”

“The enclave of Q’Xorlarrin will likely be wiped out before you return,” Jarlaxle pointed out.

Kimmuriel shrugged as if he hardly cared. “This city will find its fate whether I am here or not.”

“When the dwarves come, perhaps I will need you.”

Kimmuriel scoffed. “Jarlaxle, you have more friends among their ranks than in Q’Xorlarrin,” he said, and he closed his eyes, opened his distancewarping mental gate, and stepped far, far away, to the antechamber of Archmage Gromph in the distant city of Menzoberranzan.

He found Gromph in the other room, sitting at his desk and tapping his fingers together pensively.

“Ill news will soon arrive from Q’Xorlarrin,” Kimmuriel warned.

The archmage nodded, seeming unsurprised. He had felt the fall of Marilith, his demon.

Are you prepared? Kimmuriel telepathically reached out to his student.

No reply.

Perhaps we should forsake your instruction this day, the psionicist offered, and he was reading the archmage’s mind as he imparted that thought.

Gromph did a good job in feigning only limited interest in pursuing the lesson when he responded, but Kimmuriel knew better. The archmage had nearly panicked at the thought of foregoing the lesson, and understandably so to Kimmuriel, who knew that Gromph believed that psionics were giving him the edge in summoning extraplanar creatures, an edge he’d likely need soon enough with Quenthel Baenre holding a goristro at her side and with Marilith now banished back to her Abyssal home.

Yes, Kimmuriel mused, Gromph would be very receptive to his quiet background impartations this day.

And so he would give to Gromph all of the missing words and inflections, the completed spell, and let chaos reign-and let catastrophe rain upon Menzoberranzan and House Baenre.

Matron Mother Zeerith sat upon her altar in the primordial chamber of Gauntlgrym, the open pit steaming behind her, the wall in front of her covered in webbing. All of her principals advisers were there-Archmage Tsabrak, High Priestess Kiriy, Hoshtar, Jaemas, and Faelas among them.

“We must be gone from this place,” Faelas advised. “To remain is foolhardy.”

“Nay, we must kill the dwarves,” the often-fanatical Kiriy argued. “The Spider Queen demands no less of us!”

“They will overrun us,” Jaemas flatly stated.

“We will turn the demons back-”

“No, we won’t,” a clearly defeated Matron Mother Zeerith interrupted.

“Then call out to Matron Mother Baenre,” the high priestess begged. “She will grant us allies as we continue the fight.”

“Even if she sent a second army, even if it was led by a demon as powerful as Marilith once more, they would not arrive in time to save Q’Xorlarrin.”

“Then what do we do, Matron Mother?” Hoshtar asked, and his tone showed that he knew well enough.

“The tunnels below will shield us,” Matron Mother Zeerith said. “The dwarves will not chase us far beyond their precious forge and the beast that powers the furnaces of this place. So we will leave. Let the dwarves and the demons battle to the last.”

“And then we will return,” said Kiriy, and the matron mother nodded and smiled, but unconvincingly to any who cared to study her more closely.

Zeerith waved them away then, telling them to gather together the family and begin the retreat. She motioned for Tsabrak to stay behind with her, though.

“Bring to me the newest prisoners,” she instructed when she was alone with the wizard. She nodded to the webbing.

“You mean to greet the invaders?” Tsabrak asked skeptically. “Dwarves are not known for their mercy, Matron Mother.”

“I have enough with which to bargain,” she assured him.

Tsabrak shook his head. “We could just. .”

“Do as I say,” Zeerith cut him short. “I’ll not have an army of dwarves chasing my House through the Underdark.”

Tsabrak started to argue yet again, but Matron Mother Zeerith’s scowl chased him away.

“Well played, Matron Mother,” said the only other person in the room, the one whose presence had been known only to Zeerith.

“That’s just what I meant to say to you, these last days, Jarlaxle,” the matron mother answered. “Do I congratulate you? Or is there another who would lay claim to the credit?”

“You wound me, truly,” said the mercenary, moving over and casually sitting upon the altar stone, one leg dangling off the far end, the other foot comfortably settled on the floor in front of him. “I did not orchestrate the events, but do pride myself on being the first to understand where those events will lead.”

If his words convinced Matron Mother Zeerith, she surely didn’t show it. She glanced at the room’s main exit, her expression revealing her desire to take her leave.

“You guarantee my safety?”

“That was the deal,” Jarlaxle replied.

“A deal I am sure to regret, of course.”

“The best deal you will be offered.”

“I am a matron mother of Menzoberranzan!”

“You were,” Jarlaxle corrected. “Would you bring your tattered House back to the City of Spiders? Where will you now rank in that hierarchy, I wonder?”

“Xorlarrin was the Third House, and-” she protested.

“Was,” the clever mercenary said again. “Can you claim the favor of Lolth?” He laughed, and it sounded very much like a mocking snort. “My dear Matron Mother Zeerith, were you ever truly in the favor of Lolth?”

“Third House,” she replied.

“We know the truth of the familial rankings, so please, do not take that as confirmation. Lolth rarely meddles in such minutiae, and hardly cares beyond the identity of the Matron Mother of the First House.”

“I grow weary of your chiding,” she said. “Be warned.”

“I am doing no such thing!” he earnestly protested. “Now is the time for honesty, for your sake more than mine, so let us speak the truth. My fondness for you goes back many years. You know this. You alone among the matron mothers value the men of your House as greatly as the women.”

“Barrison Del’Armgo. .”

Jarlaxle snorted. “The witch Mez’Barris uses her men as she would a pack of guard dogs, biting instruments to bring glory to the priestesses of her House, herself paramount. But you’ve never been like that.”

He spoke the last words quietly, and after a proper glance around to ensure that no one had entered, he reached out and gently and intimately stroked Zeerith Xorlarrin’s cheek.

And she let him, for the touch was not unfamiliar to her, though it had been years.

“Lolth will punish me if I do this,” she said.

“She has not punished me,” Jarlaxle argued. “And I have been doing this for centuries!”

“But she will see my desertion. .”

“It is not a desertion!” Jarlaxle insisted. He shook his head. “My old friend, do not give in to the fear that the Spider Queen oversees our every move. Or that she cares! Her ambitions are quite beyond us, I assure you. Archmage Gromph summoned Marilith and sent her here, under his direct command, and yet the rogue Do’Urden slayed her!”

Zeerith’s eyes flashed at the mention of Drizzt.

Jarlaxle shook his head and gave her a stern glance, silently but clearly warning her to forget that obvious thought. Every drow in Menzoberranzan seemed to believe that bringing the head of Drizzt would somehow garner great fame and stature and the favor of the Spider Queen, but Jarlaxle knew better, knew that it was a fool’s mission. In Menzoberranzan, there was no bigger fool than Tiago Baenre, and his obsession with the rogue Do’Urden had already cost him greatly.

“As you come to understand Drizzt Do’Urden the way I do, you will learn,” he promised.

“You will introduce me to him,” Matron Mother Zeerith said.

“In time,” was all that Jarlaxle would offer, and to his thinking, that might be a very, very long time. Though, of course, Jarlaxle expected that Drizzt might well meet Zeerith this very day.

“This is difficult for you,” Jarlaxle said.

“I am the matron mother of a powerful House.”

“Your family will survive, and so your House will survive.”

“Under the suffrage of. .?”

“I promised you a great measure of autonomy,” Jarlaxle reminded her.

Matron Mother Zeerith seemed unconvinced, and even shook her head.

“You pretend that you have options,” Jarlaxle reminded her. “It would be easier for me to abandon you here and let you play out your story in the Underdark, or back in Menzoberranzan with my unmerciful sister. If Quenthel Baenre finds advantage in having you murdered, know that your death will not be painless.”

“And what might Matron Mother Baenre think of your designs, should I go to her?” Zeerith asked, a rather pitiful attempt to take back the upper hand.

“She would applaud.” Jarlaxle let his smile linger for a moment, before the sound of a distant door caught his attention.

“Tsabrak returns,” he said. “You have time to consider the wider reaches of my offer, of course. Quite a bit of time once this immediate crisis is averted, and your safety is my guarantee. For now, your best play is to remain.”

Matron Mother Zeerith stared at him for few long moments, then nodded, and Jarlaxle disappeared once more into the shadows of the webbing, right before Archmage Tsabrak arrived with the prisoners in tow.

Gromph wasn’t surprised by the next visitor to his quarters this day. The matron mother entered with hardly an announcement, and with a scowl that told him that she, too, knew of the failures in Q’Xorlarrin.

“Your demon has fallen,” she said in greeting.

“Along with many, it would seem,” Gromph calmly answered. “Matron Mother Zeerith will not hold for long, I presume.”

“The dwarves will reclaim Gauntlgrym, but they will never hold it,” the matron mother vowed.

Gromph did well not to laugh out loud at that pronouncement. He found this whole adventure rather silly. How many resources would Quenthel squander in trying to evict the formidable dwarves? And for what practical gain?

“Because next time, I will be wiser than to rely on the foolish Gromph for such important matters!” the matron mother added, and she sounded so small and petulant at that moment. Had she abandoned the wisdom of Yvonnel? The archmage just stared at her, unsure as to what any of this could mean.

The satellite city of Q’Xorlarrin had been brought down, or soon would be, it seemed, but in the end, most of Matron Mother Zeerith’s House would escape and so the loss would be minimal to Menzoberranzan. In fact, such an event might even strengthen Quenthel’s hold over the Ruling Council, for it would remove a very sharp thorn from the side of House Hunzrin and the Melarni fanatics, and that alliance was one that Matron Mother Mez’Barris Armgo could actually use to weaken House Baenre. “Your demon led the defense,” the matron mother spat. “This failure falls upon your shoulders. Be cautious, wizard, for Tsabrak Xorlarrin will surely survive this, and he remains in the graces of the Spider Queen.” She spun and swept out of the room and Gromph fell back in his seat, his fingers tap-tapping once more. He tried to dismiss Quenthel’s overt threat, but he began to see some troubling possibilities. Would his sister cut a deal with Matron Mother Zeerith to absorb House Xorlarrin into House Baenre? Where might the Xorlarrins go if the dwarves gained an unshakable foothold? They would not be welcomed back into Menzoberranzan as a rival House, particularly not now with so many backroom alliances being formed among the ruling matron mothers.

And perhaps Quenthel would spread the whispers that Gromph had failed, that the archmage had, in fact, been the cause of the loss of Q’Xorlarrin. In that event, would Quenthel be in a stronger position to offer Zeerith one of her most coveted trophies: a Xorlarrin as Archmage of Menzoberranzan?

Nay, this was not a threat Gromph could easily dismiss, and in that realization, so came his outrage.

Barely had Quenthel left the tower of Sorcere when Gromph began his spellcasting, twining in the psionic insights to heighten the spell-or so he thought.

In truth, the archmage was obliviously casting Lolth’s spell, given to him through Kimmuriel in the guise of the captured K’yorl Odran. Gromph’s long-developed sense of caution should have clarified the truth to him, but his anger and ego overruled his common sense, and so he pressed on.

“Omminem dimti’ ite’spem,” he chanted, words he did not know, a language he did not know, but he somehow understood-or that he believed at least, that this chant aligned perfectly with his usual vocalizations for his spells of summoning. This was the perfect joining, psionics and arcane magic, perhaps the greatest and purest call to the lower planes any mortal had made in centuries.

He would replace the fallen Marilith with something bigger. With a balor, likely, and one to match and exceed Quenthel’s current pet. Or perhaps several of the major demons would come to his call, bound and allied under the sheer power of his will.

“Ovisin trantes vobis ohm!”

He had to work hard to keep a bubbling chuckle out of his voice when he felt the power growing within him. He could visualize his hand reaching for the Faerzress, prodding through the boundary between the planes, demanding an answer to his call.

And he felt the presence! A balor? A great one indeed-the strength of the demon resonated within him.

He reached deeper, unwittingly wounding the boundary of the Faerzress. He reached for the great power that lurked there in the shadows, just out of sight, only barely beyond his grasping thoughts. But he could stretch. .

“Dimti’ ite spem!”