Maestro

CHAPTER 7

K’yorl, the former Matron Mother Of House Oblodra, had lost track of the decades she’d spent in the Abyss as a slave to Errtu. She had endured torture beyond what any mortal could expect to survive. In many ways, it had broken her. Physically, she could barely stand. Emotionally, she existed on the edge of disaster, cowering at every movement, trembling at every sound. She was not K’yorl Odran as K’yorl Odran had been, but a hollowed-out creature, thoroughly battered. Still, there was enough left of her to occasionally see beyond her safe hiding places and recognize those around her.

Amazingly, her decades of training in the psionic disciplines had allowed her to keep some portion of who she once was locked in safe rooms she had carved out in the corners of her mind.

This creature, this young drow priestess, was far more than her match. K’yorl knew that beyond doubt, felt she knew this little beast who called herself Yvonnel, and had a hard time distinguishing her from the Yvonnel Baenre K’yorl had known and hated.

This one looked so different, though, and was far too young. The psionic K’yorl knew beyond any doubt that this was no illusion. Was it another drow, or had the old matron mother found a way to revitalize herself?

An illithid, its head grossly misshapen-even more than usual-stood by the door at all times. The creature maintained boundaries in K’yorl’s mind, preventing her from gaining a solid mental foothold on reality while constantly trying to get into her thoughts. She had to be ever vigilant against that, and then hope that her vigilance would be enough to keep the mental intruder at bay.

K’yorl Odran was free of the Abyss for now, for the first time in more than a century, perhaps, but she remained in a cage.

Caged by this one impossibly beautiful young drow woman who called herself Yvonnel-the name of K’yorl’s most hated adversary, hated more than even Errtu. Yvonnel, the matron mother who had ruined K’yorl’s life and had torn asunder the stone roots of House Oblodra, dropping the structure, and most of K’yorl’s family, into the chasm known as the Clawrift. Whether this was the same Baenre or someone new, K’yorl already hated the witch.

And she knew, beyond any doubt, that there was nothing she could do about it. If Yvonnel made a mistake, K’yorl could strike … but this one didn’t make mistakes.

“I know not,” Jarlaxle replied, holding the black leather belt out to Drizzt. “She fashioned it.”

“You would have me believe that you were presented with a magical item and did not bother to try it?” Drizzt said as he took the belt.

“I do not even know if it is magical,” Jarlaxle replied, and now it was Artemis Entreri’s turn to offer his doubts, in the form of a chortle.

“Well,” said Jarlaxle, “it has to do with that bow of yours, I expect, and I have no interest in bows. Most inefficient weapons, when a lightning bolt or fireball would better serve.”

“Says the knife thrower,” Entreri remarked.

Drizzt was only half-listening by that point. He set the belt about his waist, fastening it with the remarkable diamond-decorated mithral buckle. He felt somewhat stronger immediately, just a bit-and fortified, as if he had strapped on some armor. But there was more, he realized, focusing his thoughts upon it. This might be one of the many magical items that conveyed its powers to the user’s thoughts.

If it even was magical, he realized when nothing else came to mind, and he wondered if his earlier sensations of strength and armor were merely his own expectations manifesting. Perhaps Catti-brie had fashioned this simply as a measure of goodwill for allowing her to regain possession of Taulmaril the Heartseeker.

Still nothing came to him. He adjusted the fit of the belt and fiddled with the curious cylindrical pouch at his hip, thinking it might serve as a sheath for a small wand. His hands went to the buckle, and he turned it up to consider the diamond gemstone image set upon it, a perfect likeness of the Heartseeker. He noted then that the buckle was double-layered, mithral upon mithral.

“Twist the top sheet,” Entreri instructed-he too had noted the layers.

Drizzt grasped just the top plating and gave a slight turn, and the glittering gemstone design popped free, but it was not a tiny diamond item he held in his hand.

It was Taulmaril!

He felt the weight suddenly on his hip and understood before he even looked that the quiver had expanded as well, had become again the Quiver of Anariel, which would magically feed him arrows.

“Clever woman,” Jarlaxle commented. “You’ll better navigate some of the tighter tunnels without that longbow sticking up from your shoulder.”

“What?” was all the shocked Drizzt could say.

“A buckle-knife,” Jarlaxle replied. It was a weapon somewhat common among the rogues of Toril, a belt buckle that transformed into a deadly knife.

“A buckle-bow, you mean,” said Entreri.

Drizzt couldn’t resist. He drew an arrow from his quiver, set it to the string of Taulmaril and let fly, the missile drawing a silver line down the corridor before exploding in a torrent of sparks against the far wall, where the passageway bent to the side.

The report of the blast echoed, and in those rocky grumbles came the shriek of demons.

“Well played,” Artemis Entreri remarked. “Perhaps you might shoot the next one straight up above us, to collapse the tunnel upon our heads and save the demons you alerted the trouble of rending us apart.”

“Or perhaps I will simply shoot you so that I am less inclined to so readily accept death,” Drizzt returned, and he sprinted off ahead to meet the charge.

Unused to being insulted, Entreri looked to Jarlaxle for support, but the mercenary just drew Khazid’hea and a wand, offered a wink, and came back with, “He has a point.”

The room of Divination in House Baenre was among the most marvelous of constructs in all of Menzoberranzan. In this dark city knowledge was power. Mirrors lined three walls, the fourth being the massive mithral door, which gleamed almost as reflectively as the mirrors. The apparatuses holding the mirrors were set several strides from each other all along the way, but were bolted to metal poles running floor to ceiling, and not to the wall. Each apparatus held three mirrors, set on iron hangers, edge-to-edge-to-edge, forming a tall, narrow triangle.

In the center of the room sat a stoup of white marble, a round bench encircling it. Dark, still water filled the bowl. Deep blue sapphires were set in its thick rim, the angle of their reflection making the water within seem wider, as if it continued far under the rim, beyond sight, beyond the bench.

In a manner, it did.

Yvonnel gracefully stepped over the bench and sat facing the water. She motioned for K’yorl to sit opposite her.

The battered prisoner, so long tortured in the Abyss, hesitated.

With a sigh, Yvonnel waved to Minolin Fey, and the priestess forcefully pushed K’yorl into place on the bench.

“Put your hands up here on the rim,” Yvonnel told the psionicist, and when K’yorl hesitated, Minolin Fey moved to strike her.

“No!” Yvonnel scolded the priestess.

Minolin Fey fell back a step in shock.

“No,” Yvonnel said more calmly. “No, there is no need. K’yorl will come to understand. Leave us.”

“She is dangerous, Mistress,” Minolin Fey replied, using the title Yvonnel had instructed them all to use now, for Quenthel remained, to outside eyes at least, as Matron Mother of House Baenre.

“Do not be a fool,” Yvonnel said with a laugh. She looked into K’yorl Odran’s eyes, her grin disappearing, her own eyes flaring with threat. “You do not wish to be cast back into Errtu’s pit.”

The psionicist gave a little whimper at that.

“Now,” Yvonnel said slowly and evenly, “place your hands on the rim.”

The woman did as instructed. Yvonnel nodded at Minolin Fey to dismiss her, and the priestess hurried away.

“I do not wish to punish you-ever,” Yvonnel explained to K’yorl when they were alone. “I will not ask much of you, but what I ask, I demand. Obey my commands and you will find no further torture. You may even purchase your freedom, once we are truly in agreement, mind and soul.”

The psionicist barely looked up and seemed not to register the soothing words or the dangled carrot. She had heard it all before, Yvonnel assumed, and likely a thousand times during her time in the Abyss. Unlike Errtu, though, Yvonnel meant it, and she would convince K’yorl soon enough. After all, the psionicist was going to be in her thoughts, where deception was nearly impossible.

“Together we are going to find Kimmuriel,” Yvonnel explained.

She put her hands on top of K’yorl’s and uttered a command word. The rim of the bowl became less than solid, and the hands sank into the white marble, melded with the stoup. Yvonnel felt K’yorl’s terrified tug, but she wouldn’t let go. She had placed enhancements of strength upon herself in anticipation of exactly this, and the psionicist might as well have been tugging against a giant.

All around them, the mirrored apparatuses began to turn. The torches lighting the room went out and were replaced by a bluish glow emanating from the sapphires set in the rim of the stoup.

“You know Kimmuriel,” Yvonnel whispered. “Find him again, but this time through the divination of the scrying pool. Let your mind magic flow into it, but do not send forth your thoughts to Kimmuriel unaccompanied by this scrying magic! Now, send forth your thoughts, K’yorl, Matron Mother of House Oblodra.” She felt the psionicist tense up at the mention of the doomed House, and Yvonnel knew that reference would soon enough come to be her greatest weapon.

It took a long, long while-out in the cavern, the light of Narbondel diminished by half-but finally, Yvonnel felt her own thoughts going forth, following K’yorl’s psionic call. They were joined by the magic of the stoup, their minds in perfect harmony, and Yvonnel could hardly contain her delight at that realization. The stoup had been built for Baenre priestesses, of course, so they could join in ritual scrying. Quenthel and Sos’Umptu both had insisted that Yvonnel’s plan would not work here, that the stoup would not accept K’yorl’s mind magic.

But they were wrong.

Through K’yorl’s thoughts, Yvonnel could see the cavern in the waters of the stoup and reflected at every angle in the mirrors. She felt K’yorl’s regrets then, particularly when they neared the Clawrift, wherein House Oblodra had been cast.

It proved to be too much for the fallen matron mother, and her mind-sight failed, casting her and Yvonnel back into the room.

The water cleared to still darkness.

The lights brightened, the torches reignited.

Yvonnel sat staring at K’yorl, their hands still joined within the marble.

K’yorl tried to recoil. She had failed and expected punishment, Yvonnel clearly saw.

“Wonderful!” the daughter of Gromph congratulated. “In one attempt, your vision fled the boundaries of this room! Did you feel it, Matron Mother K’yorl? The freedom?”

Gradually, the other woman’s expression began to change; Yvonnel could feel her hands relaxing.

“I did not expect that you would get out of the room on our first session,” Yvonnel explained. “Next time we will go farther.” She pulled her hands out of the stoup, taking K’yorl’s with her, and the rim appeared undisturbed.

“We will find him,” Yvonnel said confidently.

Kimmuriel? she heard in her thoughts, the first time K’yorl had communicated directly to her.

“Yes. Yes, and soon,” Yvonnel promised-promised K’yorl and herself.

“Are we to be fighting these beasts all the way to Menzoberranzan?” Entreri demanded two days later, when the trio had found yet another cluster of Abyssal beasts. The assassin slipped a quick side-step to avoid the overhead swing of a gigantic hammer, then stepped in quickly, Charon’s Claw easily and beautifully sliding into the balgura’s thick chest. The magnificent sword slowed when the blade hit a thick rib, the blade too fine to be chipped or snagged. Entreri’s sigh revealed his pleasure at the power of the weapon. He hated this sword profoundly, but he could not deny its utility and craftsmanship.

Balgura blood flowed along the trough in the red blade, pouring over the demon’s torso.

Entreri didn’t merely retract the weapon. So confident was he in the power of Charon’s Claw, he tore it out to the side, through skin and bone, leaving the dying demon nearly cut in half.

And this was a balgura, massively thick and heavy-boned.

“Do you truly believe I mean to walk all that way?” Jarlaxle replied with a laugh, and he too put his newly acquired sword to use. Khazid’hea decapitated one manes as Jarlaxle began his slash, bringing the vorpal blade across to cut deeply into a second enemy. “Your lack of faith disappoints me.”

“When you’re done talking …” Drizzt said from the side of the small oval chamber, where he held the door against the press of several demons, a mixed group of thick-limbed balgura, manes, and some other fiends Drizzt did not know: slender and with tentacle-like arms that they effectively used as stinging whips. Those tentacles, coming at him from behind a wall of allies, kept him moving and threatened to drive him back, which he did not want. He had the incoming monsters bottlenecked at the narrow entryway. One step back and the beasts would fan out to either side and the chamber would become a wild melee.

Drizzt ducked a snapping tentacle, but moved forward from a crouch, his scimitars working furiously to poke at a balgura, one, two, three, as he tried to drive the brute into a retreat.

But then it was Drizzt who was backstepping, and covering his head with his cloak. Out of nowhere, it seemed, a whipping wind came up, and stinging sleet pelted down all around him.

“Magic!” he warned, thinking it a trick of the demons, and unaware at that moment that they were taking the brunt of the ice storm.

“Left!” Jarlaxle called, and Drizzt slid that way-and just in time.

A glob of viscous goo from Jarlaxle’s wand shot past him. It struck the floor right at the feet of the closest demons, but it didn’t hold securely there. The floor was already a sheet of ice. The glob did stick to the front demons, though, who stumbled in futile attempts to maintain their balance. The momentum of the glob sent them skidding back into their allies.

A second glob came forth, hitting the ice again right in front of the first row of enemies and sliding in with great weight and force, taking the whole ball of demons back to the far wall of the corridor, where they struggled against the goo, stuck together as one.

Drizzt slid away his blades and let his left hand come to the belt buckle, his right to the small quiver, pulling forth Taulmaril and setting an arrow so fluidly that an observer might still be wondering where the scimitars went. The chamber and corridor filled with streaks of silver as the drow let fly. Drizzt’s barrage pummeled the helpless demons as they rent and tore at the unyielding magical globs, and at each other. They were, after all, demons.

The ice storm had ended, and Drizzt battered the group in relative comfort, explosive arrows pounding home, every shot boring into demon flesh. But a sudden buzzing in the air was his only warning, before a swarm of horrid demons soared past the trapped group: chasme, like great houseflies with the head and face of a bloated human.

Drizzt managed to alter the angle of his bow enough to shoot the first of the flying demons from the air, but the second dived upon him, and a host of others were close behind, entering the chamber.

Or trying to.

A wall of ice appeared in that opening. It resounded with the impact of the third of the chasme, which collided with it full force. It shook again and again as the others crashed in behind.

The one in the room had Drizzt diving for the floor though, his bow flung aside and desperately going for his scimitars. Before he ever drew them, barely an eye-blink of time, he found he didn’t need them. A red blade swept down in front of him, tearing the edge off the chasme’s fly-like wings. As the demon spun and crashed, the great Netherese sword slashed in again, scraping the grotesque human face right off.

Entreri didn’t remain in place to accept Drizzt’s thanks, leaping away for the wall of ice. He stabbed Charon’s Claw through one of the spider-web cracks, the shriek of a chasme telling them all that he had struck true.

“Well played,” Drizzt congratulated Jarlaxle, thinking it he who had brought forth the ice storm and the wall.

But Jarlaxle shook his head and shrugged, his smile wide.

He turned away from Drizzt, and from Entreri, who was stabbing through the ice wall yet again, scoring another hit on a second of the flying beasts.

“Quite the hero,” Jarlaxle said, addressing another dark elf who had come into the small chamber, though from where, Drizzt could not guess. He seemed about Drizzt’s age and wore the robes of a wizard and the House emblem of Xorlarrin. A small silver chain closed the collar of his fabulous piwafwi, showing him to be a master of Sorcere, the drow school of magic.

“Be quick with your spell and remove us from this place,” Jarlaxle instructed.

“Yes, do,” Entreri added, speaking perfect drow, and looking very much like a Menzoberranyr soldier behind the magical disguise of Agatha’s Mask.

A quick look at the assassin revealed the source of the urgency in Entreri’s voice. The ice wall was cracking more and more, pressed by the vicious and unyielding demons behind it.

“I cannot,” the newcomer replied to Jarlaxle.

“Help our friend hold the door,” Jarlaxle said to Drizzt, his tone for the first time less than calm. The mercenary pulled the newcomer aside and conversed silently in the hand code of the drow, shielding his fingers from Drizzt and Entreri.

Drizzt and Entreri met the onslaught side-by-side as the ice wall crumbled bit by bit and the demons pressed in. With Entreri beside him, Drizzt gave the beasts more leeway into the room. The pair were not afraid of being flanked.

Drizzt double-stabbed a balgura right in front of him, but quickly retracted the blades. He knew Entreri was coming by him, right to left. Drizzt rolled behind that rush, back to the right, coming in cleanly at a tentacle-armed demon distracted by Entreri’s sudden departure, its confusion leaving Drizzt an opening he would not miss.

Icingdeath he buried nearly to the hilt into the fiend, the magic of the sword hungrily eating the demon’s Abyssal force.

Twinkle Drizzt brought to the side, prodding the elbow of the balgura he’d just stabbed, preventing the brute from coming forward with its overhead chop. The demon let go with that hand, thinking to complete its attack with just one hand on the heavy hammer, but its other arm fell off-Charon’s Claw swept across, above the crumbling demon Entreri had already dispatched.

Now they had room to maneuver again, and Entreri went forward, closing the bottleneck, and Drizzt fell back and gathered up Taulmaril once more. His first shot went over Entreri and the beast he battled, blasting another chasme from the sky. He called to his companion, directing Entreri’s movements to provide openings through which the Heartseeker’s deadly barrage could continue.

Soon enough, all that remained were the least of the demons, the zombie-like manes, and Drizzt brought his bow across, the item shrinking once more and becoming diamond as he set it in place on the mithral buckle. He drew his blades, and waded through the archway beside Entreri, out into the adjacent corridor and right into the midst of the mob of manes. Grasping, clawed hands never got near either of the two sword-masters, their speed and coordination too much for these least of demonkind to comprehend, let alone fight.

But in the midst of that slaughter, the companions noted a greater presence coming fast to the fray, a pack of gigantic and hulking four-armed, dog-faced glabrezu, each with two arms ending in giant pincers that could cut a drow in half. These beasts knew no fear and hunted as cleverly as a pack of wolves. Their claws snapped eagerly.

Drizzt and Entreri gasped and fell back, to be confronted by a shouting Jarlaxle. As one, they turned to protest, to tell Jarlaxle that they could not hold the door.

But their protests were lost in their throats. A third drow had joined Jarlaxle and the Xorlarrin wizard.

The diviners escaped the room more easily this time, their hands joined in the stoup, their thoughts entwined through the magic of the room and the powers of K’yorl’s discipline.

Yvonnel guided her differently this time, not out into the cavern but just into the hallway adjacent to the Room of Divination, where sat Minolin Fey, awaiting Yvonnel’s word. They hovered over the priestess, who was clearly oblivious to them. She was quietly singing, humming mostly, and to Yvonnel’s delight, she could hear Minolin Fey quite clearly. The scrying was strong, both clairvoyance and clairaudience, washing away Yvonnel’s fears that the injection of psionics would hurt the divine magic.

Yvonnel wondered how much the psionics might heighten the experience.

To her, Yvonnel imparted to K’yorl. Into her!

Together, they went to the seated priestess-close enough for Yvonnel to see the small flecks of black around the iris of Minolin Fey’s red eyes. And closer still, so that one of the priestess’s eyes filled Yvonnel’s vision.

Then it shifted and they were looking across the hallway. Yvonnel’s thoughts became so badly disoriented that it took the powerful drow many moments to realize that the shift had been more than a turn of their disembodied consciousness. They were seeing as she was seeing, and when she looked to the side, so did they.

Yvonnel tried to read the priestess’s thoughts, and when that failed, she implored K’yorl to do so.

But that, too, failed, as did any messages or suggestions either of the two tried to impart upon Minolin Fey.

They still saw the outside corridor through her eyes, and better still, she seemed fully unaware of it. Intellectually, Minolin Fey was no Yvonnel, but she was a priestess of Lolth of some renown and achievement. And still she was oblivious to the scrying.

They lingered there for a long time, a very long time, until Yvonnel became convinced that there was no limit here, that they could have remained in Minolin Fey’s head, seeing through her eyes for as long as they wished-and that Minolin Fey would never become wise to it.

Back in the Room of Divination, Yvonnel pulled her hands from the stoup and sighed profoundly.

“Maintain the connection to Minolin Fey!” she ordered. K’yorl hadn’t yet returned. “See though her eyes!”

On impulse, Yvonnel rushed out of the room to the waiting priestess.

“What is it, Mistress?” a startled Minolin Fey asked.

Yvonnel merely smiled. Minolin Fey remained oblivious to the intrusion, and K’yorl remained in there, seeing and hearing Yvonnel exactly as clearly as was Minolin Fey.

Yes, Yvonnel thought, this will do.

“Down!” Jarlaxle warned, and in the heartbeat it took Drizzt and Entreri to recognize the second newcomer, who was in the midst of casting, they surely did as they were told.

The lightning bolt went above them as they flattened themselves on the floor. They felt its radiating heat as it flashed into the hall, through the glabrezu, and into the far wall. The report jolted the stones so profoundly that both Drizzt and Entreri were able to regain their footing without even calling upon their own muscles to propel them upward. They spun around, blades ready.

But as the smoke cleared, the way in front of them was empty of enemies. Entirely empty.

Though they did see the glabrezu’s feet, still side by side in the hall, smoke rising from severed ankles.

“Archmage,” Entreri whispered, and Drizzt, too stunned by the display to find his voice, could only nod his agreement.

After a quick glance along the corridor to ensure that no more demons were about, the pair sheathed their weapons and Drizzt replaced his “buckle bow.” Together they returned to join Jarlaxle and the two wizards.

“You cannot,” Faelas Xorlarrin was saying to the mercenary leader when they arrived. “The matron mothers have sealed the city from magical intrusion. You cannot magically teleport into the city, or near to the city, or even use a simple dimensional door to breach one of the cavern’s outer walls. Nor will clairvoyance or clairaudience afford you any insights. Under the inspired guidance of Matron Mother Baenre, they have been most complete and effective in controlling the flow of such spells.”

“But you are here and mean to return,” Jarlaxle replied.

“I was instructed by Sos’Umptu Baenre, Mistress of Arach-Tinilith and High Priestess of the Fane of the Goddess to report to Luskan with news of the changing rules in Menzoberranzan. If you or any of Bregan D’aerthe intend to magically return to Menzoberranzan, Jarlaxle, you must do so with the express permission of Matron Mother Baenre.” He glanced at the other two. “She would not give such permission for these companions of yours whom she does not know, I am certain.”

“Oh, she would know one of them,” Gromph remarked, “and would welcome him with open fangs.”

Jarlaxle threw a smirk Gromph’s way, then shook his head and said to the archmage, “She suspects that I am in some way connected to your disappearance. No matter, then.”

“The way is magically sealed,” Faelas reiterated.

“There is always a seam in even the finest armor, even in the armoring spells the greatest wizard might conjure,” Jarlaxle returned, grinning at Faelas, then turning to encompass Gromph as well.

But Gromph paid him no heed, Drizzt noted, and was instead staring hard at the fifth drow of the group, Artemis Entreri, and with the rare hint of puzzlement gnawing at the edges of his expression.

“You cannot detect the truth, can you?” an obviously-pleased Jarlaxle asked the archmage, clearly catching on to the same thing Drizzt had noted.

“That is your human toy?” Gromph asked.

Entreri snickered, but not too loudly, and none, not even Jarlaxle, were about to correct Gromph.

“I wish I could decipher the magic of Agatha’s Mask,” Jarlaxle lamented. “So many grand old artifacts we have seen. Ah, but to have known the greatest days of Faerun’s magic.”

“We are rebuilding the Hosttower,” Gromph reminded him. “Do you believe that I cannot unravel the magic of that simple mask should I try?”

“I ask that you wait until I am done with it,” Entreri remarked.

“If you ever address me again, I will turn you into a frog and step on you,” Gromph promised, his voice as steady and sure as anything Drizzt had ever heard.

Drizzt looked to his often too-proud companion and noted an almost involuntary twitch of Entreri’s fingers. Surely the assassin wondered if he might get out his deadly dagger or that awful sword and put one or both to use on Gromph before the archmage could cast a spell.

“Faelas speaks the truth,” Gromph confirmed. “The matron mothers and high priestesses have joined together in grand communal rituals, weaving their powers into a shield that has magically sealed off Menzoberranzan. They know that Demogorgon is about-or was-and his magical powers cannot be underestimated.”

“The mere sight of him can drive a man to tear out his own eyes, I have been told,” Jarlaxle replied, and he was staring at Gromph’s eyes as he spoke. Drizzt nearly gasped when he looked closely at the archmage, to see the scratches that confirmed Jarlaxle had referenced the actions of Gromph himself.

Drizzt didn’t know much about Demogorgon, though it was a name that he, like every adult of every sentient race on the face of Toril, had surely heard. Looking at Gromph, perhaps the most powerful wizard he had ever met, a wizard worthy of being spoken of in the same breath as the great Elminster himself, Drizzt suddenly realized just how profoundly he preferred to keep it that way.

“Even with the wards of the matron mothers, surely Gromph can break through the barrier and get us into the city,” Jarlaxle said.

“No,” Faelas answered, his subsequent sharp intake of breath and his expression clearly revealing that he had blurted it out before realizing that he was insulting the Archmage of Menzoberranzan … who was standing right beside him. “At the very least, such an intrusion would alert the matron mothers that Archmage Gromph was involved,” he quickly added. “In that event, you would be compromised.”

Jarlaxle sighed and seemed at a loss, though only for a moment, of course. He was, after all, Jarlaxle. “Kimmuriel,” he said with a wry grin.

Faelas nodded.

“His magical abilities are apart from their wards,” Jarlaxle reasoned. “In the days of House Oblodra, the greatest Houses always held a measure of fear and watchfulness for Matron Mother K’yorl, for she and her mind-magic minions could walk past their wards.”

Thinking he had found the answer, Jarlaxle grinned more widely and nodded at his own cleverness. Until he got to the scowling Gromph.

“I will reduce him to ash,” the archmage promised, and there was no compromise or debate to be found in his tone. “Yes, dear Jarlaxle, do go find him.”

All four of the others took a cautious step back from the sheer weight of the threat.

“He was your instructor in what you most desired,” Jarlaxle dared to reply.

“Was,” said Gromph. “And he betrayed me.”

“You do not know that.”

Gromph glared at him.

“Am I to believe that mighty Gromph Baenre considers himself to have been used as a puppet by Kimmuriel?” Jarlaxle answered. “You think it was Kimmuriel who tricked you into casting a spell beyond your control, one that brought the great Demogorgon into the tower of Sorcere?”

“There are many times when Jarlaxle speaks too much,” Gromph warned.

“But that cannot be,” Jarlaxle pressed anyway. “How can Kimmuriel have had knowledge of that kind of power? To summon the Prince of Demons? Every matron mother in the city would have murdered her own children to find such a secret.”

“Most matron mothers would do so simply for the pleasure of it,” Entreri remarked under his breath, so that only Drizzt could hear.

“To summon a power that cannot be controlled?” Faelas asked doubtfully.

“Yes, because such a threat alone would elevate the summoner!” Jarlaxle insisted. “It matters not if House Baenre, or Barrison Del’Armgo, or Xorlarrin, or any of the others would also be consumed in the process. A matron mother possessing the power to call forth the greatest of demonkind would dominate the Ruling Council by mere threat! Besides, such an act would be to the pleasure of Lolth, the Lady of Chaos. Is not Demogorgon the epitome of chaos, even among his own frenzied kind?

“No, it could not have been Kimmuriel,” Jarlaxle finished.

“You deflect and dodge!” Gromph declared. Then he added with finality, “If I find your Oblodran stooge, I will destroy him.”

When Jarlaxle started to respond, Gromph held up a finger, just a finger, and it was enough of a warning to lock Jarlaxle’s retort into his throat.

“You should be leaving,” Gromph said to Jarlaxle and his two warrior companions a few uncomfortable heartbeats later. “You have a long walk ahead of you.”

“Your own journey will prove no less trying,” Jarlaxle replied to his brother.

“Farewell. Perhaps we will meet again soon,” Faelas said, and he began casting a spell that would transport him back to the waiting Sos’Umptu.

Gromph, too, began casting the spell that would return him to Luskan, but not until offering a derisive snicker at the trio of travelers.

“Always a pleasant one,” Entreri said when the wizards were gone.

“It will be his death,” Jarlaxle noted. “Someday.”

“Not soon enough,” Entreri muttered.

“The way is full of demons,” Drizzt reminded them both.

“We’ll be fighting every day,” Entreri agreed, “and likely will find little rest when we pause our journey to eat or sleep. Would it have been too much trouble for Gromph or the other one to have magically brought us nearer to the city, at least?”

“The matron mothers are watching for such spells,” Jarlaxle said as they started off once more. “Who knows how far their scrying eyes might extend?”

“Even here?” Entreri remarked, glancing around as if expecting the might of Menzoberranzan to descend upon him then and there. Drizzt, too, shuffled nervously, but when he looked at the nonchalant Jarlaxle he found some peace.

“This was the appointed meeting place,” Jarlaxle explained to the others. “No one is more careful than Archmage Gromph, and no one is less inclined to have a visit with the matron mothers. I trust that we were properly warded from any prying eyes.”

“But going forward?” Drizzt asked.

“They are looking for magic. We’ll be using little, so it seems.” Jarlaxle paused and turned his gaze aside, a sudden thought taking his attention. “We will eventually need Kimmuriel,” he explained after a few moments. “And not just to help us get into the city-perhaps we can accomplish that on our own. But Dahlia’s mind is twisted, her thoughts are wound like a writhing pile of worms. The only person who can hope to unravel that is Kimmuriel. Rescuing Dahlia without that resource would do us little good. Better in that event that we simply and mercifully end her life.”

Drizzt glanced sideways at Entreri as Jarlaxle spoke and noted the man’s profound grimace.

“So just call to him now then and let us be done with this,” an agitated Entreri said. “And save us the pain of the march.”

It wasn’t about the march at all, Drizzt knew, or about any demons that might rise to block their path. Entreri had to get to Dahlia and had to learn if she could be saved. His tone suggested that he merely wanted to rid himself of the inconvenience, that he had better things to do with his time. But were that the case, why would he even be with them now?

“We are in less of a hurry than your impatience demands,” Jarlaxle answered. “Let us search the tunnels about Menzoberranzan and devise our plans, perhaps?”

“Battling fiends all the way?” Entreri asked.

Jarlaxle laughed, but Drizzt caught something behind that dismissive gesture. And then it hit him: Jarlaxle didn’t know how they were going to accomplish this mission. Jarlaxle, the maestro who prepared for every eventuality, who never stepped along the roads of a journey without complete preparation, was truly at a loss.

And had been since the beginning.

Jarlaxle took the point and started away, and Drizzt held Entreri back a bit so that he could ask, “Have you ever seen him like this? So unsure?”

“Consider where we’re going,” Entreri replied. “And consider that the whole of Menzoberranzan is on its highest guard right now. Would you believe his confidence if he pretended as much?”

Drizzt couldn’t disagree with that. Menzoberranzan was shut down, the drow locking out the demons and monitoring every movement about the city. If their task to sneak in and steal Dahlia away had seemed difficult before, it surely seemed impossible now.

Foolhardy.

Suicidal.

Jarlaxle was uneasy-that much was clear-because he now lacked information about his adversaries. Lack of knowledge was never Jarlaxle’s way.

They were still going, though, each putting one foot in front of the other on the winding way into the deeper Underdark. Perhaps Jarlaxle was already considering ways in which he might correct his lack of understanding and accordingly adjust his course. Perhaps he would find the solutions.

Drizzt had to believe that, had to hope for that, because he wasn’t about to turn back either. His friendship to Dahlia, his debt to Jarlaxle, and surprisingly, his relationship to Artemis Entreri would demand no less of him that he try.

“We always knew this would be difficult,” he said to Entreri as they made their way along in Jarlaxle’s wake.

Up ahead, there came a demonic shriek, followed by a sharp whistle from Jarlaxle.

Already the fiends had found them once more.

“Some things we knew,” Entreri corrected with an angry snort. But he drew Charon’s Claw and his jeweled dagger and rushed ahead.