Maestro

CHAPTER 8

Braelin Janquay mostly kept to himself that day. House Do’Urden had been called out to supply a patrol group in the caverns outside of Menzoberranzan. By edict of the Ruling Council all such groups were to be headed by a noble of the House. However, like any rule in Menzoberranzan, it had translated to the various Houses as more of a suggestion than a literal command, and predictably, none of the Xorlarrins, nor Tiago Baenre, had been so inclined.

And so Braelin had been declared a noble of the bastard House. In House Do’Urden, it was as simple a matter as Tiago and Saribel claiming it to be so, apparently. There was no royal family, after all, with a Baenre and several Xorlarrins all laying claim to the title of noble, to say nothing of the surface elf who served as the Matron Mother of House Do’Urden. Or the two Armgos, Tos’un and the half-drow Doum’wielle, who had also been granted nobility.

Since Braelin had come to House Do’Urden at the wish of Jarlaxle, who was afforded great latitude in the matter by Matron Mother Baenre, and who, no doubt, would serve as a major noble in the House should he decide to reside there, it was only fitting, said Tiago and Saribel, that Braelin be given the honor in his stead.

Of course, the real reason the Houses were working around the edict of the Ruling Council was that none of the House nobles-indeed, few nobles in all the city other than perhaps that crazed Malagdorl Armgo creature-wanted any part of the extra-city patrols. The tunnels were thick with demons, and the ultimately deadly Demogorgon-and, if reports were true, other demon lords-hunted out there somewhere.

The mission was doubly dangerous for Braelin. He had no allegiance to any of his dozen Do’Urden companions, nor they to him. They were common soldiers from several different Houses, sent to serve in the Do’Urden ranks as several of the matron mothers tried to keep their eyes attuned to the happenings in Matron Mother Baenre’s lackey House. Braelin doubted that any of the soldiers accompanying him would make a move against him-no one outside his or her matron mother’s protection would willingly invoke the wrath of Jarlaxle-but if the situation arose where a demon had gained the upper hand over Braelin, should he expect assistance?

He doubted that.

So he remained among the main group of his patrol, sending others out to walk point and envisioning an escape route with every corridor they traversed.

He also made a mental note to speak with Jarlaxle. He wasn’t supposed to be a noble of House Do’Urden, and wanted nothing to do with such an “honor,” as he truly wanted nothing to do with Menzoberranzan, a place he had escaped years before. He was of Bregan D’aerthe and the entire purpose of putting him in the House was to give Jarlaxle inauspicious eyes in the fledgling House, which would surely be in the middle of any excitement within the city.

Braelin reminded himself all the time that he just had to survive until Jarlaxle returned. He was confident that Jarlaxle would put the upstart Tiago in his place.

Fortunately, the House Do’Urden patrol encountered no monsters that day out in the wilds of the Underdark, and they returned to Menzoberranzan with not a blade drawn in alarm.

“Hold close until we reach the compound,” Braelin ordered his soldiers when a trio of recruits started to break off from the main group.

The two men, of minor Houses, and a woman of Barrison Del’Armgo looked back at Braelin doubtfully, then ignored him entirely and moved off down a side alley leading to the Stenchstreets.

A flustered Braelin stood with hands on hips watching the mutinous commoners melt into the shadows. He thought to shout a warning that he would inform Tiago of their impudence, but he held his tongue. He wasn’t a real noble of House Do’Urden, or of any House for that matter. He was a Houseless rogue, whose only claim to authority was because Jarlaxle had taken him into Bregan D’aerthe. In Menzoberranzan, at this troubled time, that meant he had no claim to authority at all.

He was reminded of that fact when the remaining commoners laughed.

Braelin sharply turned on one in particular, a young priestess formerly of House Fey-Branche, who had been offered to House Do’Urden mostly because she had been dismissed from Arach-Tinilith for her ineptitude and so had become an embarrassment to Matron Mother Byrtyn Fey.

“You think there will be no consequences?” he asked the woman as convincingly as he could manage. In fact, Braelin knew there would be none.

She just smiled at him and before he could further chastise her, another group, five of them this time, simply walked off the other way.

“Is there even a House Janquay remaining in the city?” the Fey-Branche woman asked, her eyes on the new deserters.

“Does it matter?” Braelin angrily retorted.

“Am I to expect Tiago or the Xorlarrins to take up your cause?” she replied without hesitation. “They appointed you out of convenience, and resent your presence in their House. They think you Jarlaxle’s spy. And of course, you are.”

“Then you would be wise to fear me,” Braelin countered. “For that makes me valuable to Jarlaxle, does it not?”

The woman seemed less sure suddenly, as did the other three of the patrol group remaining with Braelin.

“You are confused, and with good cause,” Braelin said to the four. He was trying to be somewhat conciliatory here, but also determined to show no sign of weakness. “What is this House Do’Urden? What future might it hold for any of us? Trust me when I tell you that I remain as tentative as any of you-we are pawns of powerful matron mothers, all of us. And our current abode, this House Do’Urden, is viewed as an abomination by many of the powerful Houses.”

“But under the protection of Matron Mother Baenre,” the young woman of House Fey-Branche reminded him. “That is no small thing.”

“Allied with your House,” another added, and he, along with yet another, nodded their agreement at the reminder of the matron mother’s protective shadow.

“That is no small thing, true,” Braelin admitted. “But for how long?”

“You should ask the matron mother,” said the Fey-Branche priestess and she ended with a wicked smile. “I am certain that she will welcome your questions.”

Another of the soldiers, the other female remaining, snickered, but one of the men seemed less amused and revealed that he was far more concerned with Braelin’s point when he asked, “What of Bregan D’aerthe?”

“What of them?”

“Do you plan to continue to pretend that you are not of Jarlaxle’s band?” the drow, an older warrior, pressed. “We all know.”

“And we know, too, that the cadre of nobles of House Do’Urden do not look with favor upon Jarlaxle or his minions,” said the other male.

“Tiago is Baenre, and House Baenre supports Jarlaxle’s endeavors, of course,” Braelin said. “And House Xorlarrin is not at war with Bregan D’aerthe.”

“Not the Houses, but these particulars,” the male replied. “Tiago is Baenre, true, but he has no love for Jarlaxle or any of Jarlaxle’s band. None of them do.”

“They would have cared not at all if you did not return to House Do’Urden,” said the Fey-Branche woman.

“And so perhaps I will care not at all when Matron Mother Baenre looks away from them long enough to allow those who hate this incarnation of House Do’Urden to overrun their-your-compound,” said Braelin. “And where will you turn in that event?”

“It depends what you are offering,” said the older male fighter.

Braelin welcomed their obvious intrigue. He understood that many of the commoners of House Do’Urden would be looking for a way out if an attack came. They knew their own former Houses wouldn’t help them. Any attack on House Do’Urden would surely result from a powerful alliance-likely one that included House Barrison Del’Armgo, second only to House Baenre. What might House Fey-Branche or the scattered refugees of House Xorlarrin do in that event?

He knew he had to let the matter drop, determined not to get too far ahead of anticipated events. He had planted a seed among these four. Let the whispers of a planned assault on the Do’Urden compound fester, and they would come to him, begging.

Bregan D’aerthe could offer them an escape route. All other roads would lead only to death, or worse.

Braelin looked at the older warrior and chortled. “The eight who deserted us assured their participation in the next Do’Urden patrol,” he said.

“Deserted you, you mean,” the Fey-Branche priestess said, and with a laugh she moved to the corner of a building, leaning into the alleyway as if she, too, was thinking of leaving.

Braelin didn’t much like her. If it came to an escape with Bregan D’aerthe, he decided, he would invite that one along then kill her as soon as she believed herself free from the disaster of House Do’Urden.

“As you wish,” he started to say, but he mumbled out the last two words as the priestess’s expression changed to surprise.

The others noticed it, too. All eyes went to that Fey-Branche woman.

She sucked in her breath, eyes going wide, as she jerked back just a bit. Then the source of her discomfort became clear as the tip of a huge spear exploded out of her back, pieces of lung and heart still attached.

Into the air she lifted, her assailant still unseen, and with a flick of the spear shaft, she was flung from the weapon to bounce off the structure across the alleyway and flop grotesquely onto the boulevard.

And then came her assailant: huge and powerful, eight-legged and two-armed.

The four remaining drow gasped in unison at the sight of the mighty drider, and drew their weapons as one. But before any combat could be joined, the air filled with stinging bees-darts from hand crossbows. Braelin and the others, for all their agility, armor, and clever movements, could not escape the swarm.

Braelin was hit several times, and he felt the burn of poison immediately. Being of Bregan D’aerthe, he had been trained in resisting the sleep poison. Not so for one of his companions, who slid down onto the street.

“Form and run!” he told the other two. They started for him, the older male moving well, but the remaining woman strode sluggishly, fighting the call of the poison with every step. She surely wasn’t moving swiftly enough to escape the drider.

It didn’t really matter, though, Braelin realized. The trap had been well-coordinated and every route was blocked now by driders backed by drow.

“Melarni,” Braelin mumbled under his breath. That House of vicious fanatics was known for its driders, and no fewer than four of the abominations skittered out around the trapped patrol.

Four driders backed by drow soldiers against three drow. Braelin glanced around, expecting a second barrage of poisoned darts, and saw just one possibility for escape, back the way they had come. Only a single drider and a single drow enemy had come out that way.

If they could move swiftly and decisively, he, at least, might be able to slip past and run free. He turned to his companions just in time to see the older warrior bring his sword to bear on the slumping, sluggish woman. Braelin realized the man had not been struck at all by any of the darts.

“Second House!” the older warrior cried to the attackers as he cut his companion down. “I serve Matron Mother Mez’Barris!”

And so Braelin Janquay knew he was alone.

He turned and sprinted at the lone drider, dived into a roll to avoid a flying hand crossbow dart, and came up into a sudden charge, his swords working together to turn the creature’s thrusting spear aside, out to his left.

He disengaged his right hand from the parry and leaped up and ahead, stabbing furiously and finding some measure of satisfaction at least when his blade entered the belly of the large half-arachnid creature.

But Braelin was struggling even as he retracted the blade, as filaments filled the air around him and his opponent, magically coagulating into a web.

Braelin growled and rubbed his thumb across the ring on the index finger of his left hand, enacting the magic, just a small spark, but one that lit the web even as it formed. The Bregan D’aerthe scout, knowing what was coming, ducked under his protective piwafwi, and the drider shrieked in sudden stinging pain. Then shrieked again as Braelin scrambled across the beast itself, running along its bent spider legs, his second sword coming in hard to slash the drider’s chest.

Braelin leaped away, thinking to sprint off into the shadows, but where he landed was not the boulevard, as he had expected, but a deep hole into which he tumbled, rolling and skidding to the bottom. Even as he managed to recover from that shocking descent, Braelin looked up to see the hole ringed by drow, half a dozen hand crossbows aimed his way, a trio of wizards and another two priestesses already into spellcasting.

He had nowhere to run.

“You are caught!” one drow warrior cried out, his red eyes flashing.

The older male of Braelin’s group moved up beside that one, glanced down at Braelin, and snickered.

“You will not replace her!” High Priestess Kiriy Xorlarrin said to her younger sister. Kiriy grabbed Matron Mother Darthiir by the arm and thrust her forward. The confused surface elf, looking as always as if she had partaken of far too much Feywine, stared blankly in Saribel’s direction while not actually looking at the priestess.

“Save yourself the disappointment and dismiss that thought now,” Kiriy finished. She spun Dahlia to face her and gently stroked the dazed elf’s face. “She is pretty, is she not? The perfect plaything.”

“She is the Matron Mother of House Do’Urden,” Saribel managed to gabble.

“She is Matron Mother Baenre’s toy and nothing more, you silly child,” Kiriy corrected. “Is that why you are so stupid as to believe that you are destined to lead House Do’Urden, because you believe that this, this, this creature from the sunlit world is somehow taken seriously among the matron mothers?”

“Quite the opposite,” Saribel said. “I believe it because Darthiir is not!”

But Kiriy laughed at her. “Then why do you suppose that you will replace her? Do you think the rules that apply to the other Houses have any meaning here in this abomination called House Do’Urden?”

“No, because they do not,” Saribel argued. “I am the wife of Tiago Baenre, and so I am Baenre, and so I am favored …”

Kiriy’s laughter stopped her.

“Understand this, my young and foolish sister, when Matron Mother Darthiir falls, as surely she will, it will be because Matron Mother Baenre is wise enough to no longer afford this iblith her protection. In that event, Matron Mother Baenre will have turned House Do’Urden over to Matron Mother Zeerith most of all, and which of us do you suppose our great mother might decide is most worthy to serve as Matron Mother of House Do’Urden in her continuing absence?”

Saribel didn’t answer, but silently reminded herself not to put too much stock into Kiriy’s predictions. Something was wrong here, and out of kilter. Saribel had not heard from Matron Mother Zeerith since the fall of Q’Xorlarrin-rumors said that Zeerith was hiding in the Underdark under the protection of, or at least with information supplied by, Bregan D’aerthe.

“If that is the case, then Matron Mother Zeerith will return,” she said meekly.

“She will not,” Kiriy taunted. “You will likely never see our mother again in this city. Her ways have long been gossiped about unfavorably by the other matron mothers, and now that Q’Xorlarrin has failed, more than one matron mother will think Matron Mother Zeerith a fine target for earning them the favor of the Spider Queen. Our path is to hide under the banner of Do’Urden-Xorlarrin is dead in Menzoberranzan. The sooner you understand that, the better your chances are of surviving.” She paused and grinned wickedly, making sure that Saribel was listening very intently before clarifying, “Of surviving my rule.”

Saribel left that meeting more shaken than she had been in many tendays. She had just started to find solid ground beneath her feet, had just begun to assert herself and press forward with daring plans to someday rule House Do’Urden.

And now entered Kiriy, her oldest sister, the First Priestess of House Xorlarrin, with a greater chance of ascension than she.

Saribel found herself wishing that Matron Mother Zeerith would return and assume command of the House. Surely that would destroy her own plans to become Matron Mother Do’Urden, perhaps forevermore, but better Zeerith and her even hand than the volatile Kiriy.

“You are a Baenre now,” Saribel whispered repeatedly, trying to convince herself that she would survive the reign of Matron Mother Kiriy.

Or maybe, she thought, she could quietly whisper in Tiago’s ear, and let Kiriy deal with his family should it come to that.

“I will be Matron Mother Do’Urden,” she stated, nodding. She thought then that perhaps she should go out into the Underdark to find her mother-she could preemptively warn Matron Mother Zeerith that allowing Kiriy to assume the throne of House Do’Urden could bring dire ramifications to the remnants of House Xorlarrin.

But she shook her head at that unsettling possibility. She would throw in with Tiago, she decided. If Kiriy got in her way to the throne of House Do’Urden, Saribel would find a way to use Tiago to be rid of the witch.

Saribel was pondering the benefits of being part of three separate families-Xorlarrin, Baenre, and Do’Urden-when word came of an urgent meeting in the audience chamber. She rushed across the compound to find Kiriy, Ravel, Tiago, and Jaemas already in attendance, along with a couple of House soldiers who had recently returned from the outer corridor patrol. Matron Mother Darthiir was there, too, sitting in the back like an ornament-and what more might she be?

The patrol members were in the middle of recounting their tale when Saribel neared the group-they hadn’t bothered to wait for her, clearly. She shot a sharp glance at Kiriy, who pretended not to notice.

Saribel sighed, but it was cut short when she finally realized the subject of the tale.

And the weight of it.

These drow, a formal patrol of House Do’Urden, clearly marked as such, had been attacked in the streets of Menzoberranzan!

“We must inform the Ruling Council immediately,” Saribel blurted.

“Do shut up,” said Kiriy, and when Saribel looked to Tiago, she found him looking back at her with open disgust.

“Likely rogues,” Kiriy went on. “What of Braelin Janquay?”

The scouts shrugged and shook their heads-too conveniently, Saribel thought, as if they had been coached.

“Was it Bregan D’aerthe, then?” Kiriy asked Tiago.

“To what end?” Jaemas added, his skepticism clear.

“Jarlaxle hates Tiago-that is common knowledge,” said Kiriy.

“Jarlaxle sides with the heretic Drizzt,” Tiago added.

Saribel stared at her husband, trying to read him. Given his honest reactions and expressions to Kiriy’s startling deduction that Bregan D’aerthe might have perpetrated the ambush, Tiago didn’t seem to be in formal league with Kiriy, thank Lolth. But he was no admirer of Jarlaxle. And particularly not now, when he was convinced that Jarlaxle had played more than a minor role in foiling his attempts to kill the heretic in Gauntlgrym and elsewhere.

Equally intriguing to Saribel was Jaemas’s reaction, though. He clearly wasn’t buying this theory Kiriy had floated, and indeed, seemed more than a little suspicious of Kiriy herself.

That might be a lead worth following, she noted.

“We should use this to defer from any further patrol responsibilities,” Kiriy said.

“We should prepare for an assault on our House,” Jaemas countered. “This was a brazen attack in a time when the Ruling Council has forbidden such infighting.”

“Bregan D’aerthe does not listen to the Ruling Council,” Kiriy replied.

“If it was Bregan D’aerthe,” Jaemas countered. “We have no evidence-”

“Who gave you permission to speak to me in such a manner?” Kiriy asked bluntly. “You are a nephew to Matron Mother Zeerith, and with no direct line to the throne of House Xorlarrin, yet you address the first priestess of your House with such familiarity?”

Jaemas shrank back. “Your pardon, First Priestess Kiriy.”

“If it was Bregan D’aerthe, then they have Braelin, apparently,” Ravel remarked. “In that case, they know much of our House defenses.”

“A third of our warriors were culled from the ranks of Bregan D’aerthe,” Tiago said. “They know everything of our defenses, and are inside our line already.”

Despite his dramatics, the others really didn’t seem too alarmed at his claim. Bregan D’aerthe had indeed supplied many of the House Do’Urden soldiers-in the beginning of the new House, Jarlaxle himself had been among that group. But Jarlaxle had slipped away and had replaced nearly all of his Bregan D’aerthe veterans with new recruits plucked from the Stenchstreets, Houseless rogues who offered little threat to House Do’Urden. Indeed, if it came to a fight with Bregan D’aerthe or anyone else, those new Do’Urden recruits who did not outright flee would almost surely fight for this House, their only House, their only real chance to survive with any dignity in what might come after.

Saribel found herself off-balance, as did Jaemas and Ravel, she noted. She would be wise to hold some private meetings with those two, perhaps.

“And now you serve me,” Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn said to Braelin Janquay.

The beaten rogue stood naked, his arms stretched out to the sides by taut chains affixed to stout metal poles. Two of Zhindia’s priestesses sat at the base of those poles, occasionally casting minor arcane enchantments: stinging jolts of lightning coursed the metal to Braelin’s singed and smoking wrists.

They cast their little spikes of torture quite often-too often for them to be actually casting the spells. Likely they possessed magical items with the magic stored for easy access, such as rings or wands.

Or more likely, Braelin realized, the brutal Melarni had constructed this torture location right in their chapel, with such magic built into the securing posts.

He wanted to get a look at the contraptions, out of simple curiosity and a desire to be distracted, but every time his eye wavered from the specter of Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn, who was sitting on a wide-backed chair with its metal twisted and etched to resemble a spider’s web with a thousand arachnids scrambling about, the priestess behind him whipped him with her scourge.

Braelin had not been very familiar with the Melarni in his days in Menzoberranzan. Like every male in the city who was not of House Melarn, he wanted nothing to do with the Lolth zealots. They were a particularly cruel lot, even by the standards of Menzoberranzan.

And they loved their driders, and had warped more drow into the eight-legged abominations than any other House in the city-than any ten Houses combined.

Braelin winced.

“If you will have me, I will willingly serve House Melarn,” Braelin replied. “I am glad to be back in Menzoberran …”

He gasped and groaned as the priestess behind him struck him brutally. The snake heads of her whip bit and tore long lines into his flesh, their poison igniting new fires so painful Braelin hardly registered the repeated jolts of lightning searing the flesh of his wrists.

“At least try to be clever,” Zhindia Melarn remarked. “Do you think I accept your loyalty? Do you think me fool enough to ever allow one of Jarlaxle’s lackeys in my ranks? And a heretic lackey at that?”

“I am no heretic,” Braelin managed to spit out before he got struck again-and again and again and again.

Nearly unconscious, his sense of time and place stolen by the blistering, tearing, and searing agony, Braelin was surprised to find Matron Mother Zhindia standing right in front of him, yanking his head up so that she could look him squarely in the eye.

“And a mere male at that?” she added with an evil laugh.

She spat in his face and whirled away. “Turn him into a soldier for the army of Lady Lolth,” she instructed, and Braelin knew he was doomed.

“I do not understand,” Matron Mother Quenthel said when Minolin Fey guided her and Mistress Sos’Umptu to one of Yvonnel’s antechambers. At Quenthel’s instruction, the illithid Methil followed.

A new construction lined the left-hand wall, a series of ten separate cubbies, each with a single seat large enough for one person to sit. They were designed so that someone sitting within could see out into the room, but could not view anything in any of the other compartments.

All of them now had easels, facing out and each holding a painting of a different drow woman, naked except for a belt of pearls and a gemstone-studded tassel, and in exactly the same pose.

“These were all painted at the same time,” Minolin Fey explained. “And by ten of Menzoberranzan’s most renowned artists.”

“Interpretive,” Sos’Umptu remarked.

“But not so!” Minolin Fey explained. “They were instructed by the subject to paint her exact likeness, and warned not to stray.”

Quenthel wore a curious expression. She looked from the paintings to the empty divan, imagining Yvonnel sitting there in the pose depicted, then turned back again to the paintings. Several of them were quite similar, but none exact, and often with differences too distinct to be an accident. Yvonnel’s hair was white in a few, pink in another, blue in a pair-nor was the cut ever exactly the same, and in the most disparate instances, not even close.

The same was even true of the hair on her loins!

“Matron Mother Byrtyn did an eleventh painting, with the same subject and the same instructions,” Minolin Fey explained.

“Then of course they are interpretive,” said Sos’Umptu, but Quenthel cut her short.

“Did the artists regard the work of the others as they painted?” the matron mother asked.

“No.”

“Then when they finished? Did they compare?”

“No, Minolin Fey answered. “They finished and they left.”

“And each was, in turn, congratulated by Yvonnel, and each believed his or her likeness perfect,” Quenthel reasoned, nodding with every word as she began to catch on.

“As did my mother,” said Minolin Fey. “A perfect representation of the subject.”

“Whose painting of Yvonnel was also as she sees the young … woman.”

Sos’Umptu looked at Quenthel, seeming at a loss.

“Which do you think most resembles Yvonnel?” Quenthel asked her.

The Mistress of Arach-Tinilith studied each briefly, then pointed to the third from the far end.

Quenthel looked to Minolin Fey, who answered by pointing to the painting nearest them, which drew a curious look from Sos’Umptu.

“We are not seeing the same person when we look upon Yvonnel,” the matron mother explained.

“We each see our own version of her,” Minolin Fey followed, nodding at her revelation.

“And is she not among the most beautiful, most alluring women you have ever witnessed?” asked Quenthel.

“The most disarming,” Minolin Fey remarked.

“Her very being is enchanted,” Sos’Umptu said. “She is cloaked in deception.”

“In illusion,” Minolin Fey added.

“Everything about her,” said the matron mother, her tone more of admiration than anything else. She gave a little laugh. “She lets each of us paint our own image of perfection upon her, and gains advantage in that. Are not the most beautiful prisoners the most difficult to torture? Do we not listen more attentively to people we consider attractive? Do we not hope for beauty to succeed?”

“Unless we know better concerning the motivations and intentions of the beauty in question,” replied Sos’Umptu, whose tone was much less admiring.

“What does she really look like, I wonder?” asked Minolin Fey.

“It does not matter,” said Quenthel. “She is no doubt beautiful, and adds the deception to elicit appropriate and helpful reactions from those who look upon her. Perception is everything in this matter. When we look upon another, I might see innocent beauty, where another would see sensuality and the promise of carnal pleasure, where another might see plainness. With our dear Yvonnel, though, it seems we see her as she chooses.”

“And where is she?” asked Sos’Umptu. “And what do you suppose she might do to you if she learns that you brought us to see this?”

“I did so at her bidding, Priestess,” Minolin Fey replied.

Sos’Umptu’s eyes widened, but Quenthel began to laugh.

“Because she does not care that we know,” the matron mother explained. “Yvonnel is secure now that she is in control. She is pleased to let us view this great achievement-and can we deny that it is exactly that? What power must it take to maintain such a distinctive illusion? Perhaps she shows us this to learn if we, knowing now the truth, can see through her facades.” She gave a helpless little laugh. “Though I am confident that we will not, and so is our dear Yvonnel, no doubt.”

It was obvious to the other two that Sos’Umptu wasn’t very happy with that answer, but she said nothing to deny it. She stood there shaking her head, again studying the paintings as if looking for clues. Finally she simply shrugged and sighed and let it go.

What could be said, after all?

Matron Mother Zhindia’s audience chamber was right next to the chapel, close enough for her, First Priestess Kyrnill Melarn, and their guest to hear the screams from Braelin as his long and excruciating transformation began.

“You are interested in the ceremony?” Zhindia asked her guest, seeing the priestess staring at the wall with clear intrigue.

“I have only witnessed it once,” Kiriy Xorlarrin replied, “when I was much younger. I have heard that it is quite satisfying.”

“Immensely,” Zhindia confirmed.

“But it would not do,” said Kiriy. “We cannot have Braelin seeing me here with you now.”

“There is no danger,” Kyrnill explained. “When Braelin walks as a drider, he will remember nothing but the agony of this day. And for the rest of his miserable days, if any thoughts against Lolth or the matron mother he serves enter his head, he will revisit that agony. He could never find the strength to betray your secret.”

“Do they suspect House Melarn?” Zhindia asked.

“House Do’Urden is full of clever nobles now,” Kiriy replied. “I have led them astray, as we agreed, into thinking that Bregan D’aerthe likely ambushed their patrol, but that theory will not hold long, particularly if the wizard Jaemas is somehow in league with Jarlaxle, as we believe.”

“We should move quickly then,” said Kyrnill.

“We must move quickly, particularly if these other whispers from the tunnels prove true,” said Zhindia.

Kiriy looked at her curiously.

“A sickness of the mind,” Matron Mother Zhindia explained. “Some say it is the thinning of the Faerzress. Others pose that the presence of the demon lords in the Underdark is the cause of the madness. But we know better. It is House Do’Urden, its mere existence, that so offends Lady Lolth. It will not stand.” She looked directly at the First Priestess of House Xorlarrin and qualified the remark, “Not in its present form.”

Kiriy nodded. They were going to tear down the hierarchy of House Do’Urden, murder that abomination Matron Mother Baenre had placed on the throne, and replace it with a House to the liking of the Spider Queen. It would be a House devout, in Melarn’s own image, a House that would correct both the abomination of Matron Mother Baenre and the wayward path Matron Mother Zeerith had steered for House Xorlarrin at the same time. And it would be a House with males put in their proper place in accordance with the edicts of Lolth, at long last.

If the fall of the abominable House Do’Urden also led to the fall of House Baenre, might the new Xorlarrin quickly ascend the city’s ranks? The thought teased Kiriy, particularly if they could wrangle an alliance with their once arch-rival, House Barrison Del’Armgo.

The promise of glory for the Xorlarrins remained, if the family had the foresight and the courage.

The promise of a new House devout, in Lolth’s favor, and in alliance with the new powers of Menzoberranzan: House Melarn and House Barrison Del’Armgo.

House Xorlarrin, led by Matron Mother Kiriy.

“What else did you give to the child beyond the memories of Yvonnel the Eternal?” Quenthel asked Methil later on when they were alone.

“I did as I was instructed,” the illithid answered in his gurgling voice. “Much as I did for you.”

“Much, but not all,” Quenthel accused. “There is more than simple illusion at play with that one. But it is not magical illusion at all, is it?”

“I am quite sure that it is,” Methil answered. “Your mother had some understanding of the old illusionary magic, and I know that this child was quite attentive when those memories were imparted.”

“More than that!” a frustrated Quenthel retorted. “A simple illusion would alter Yvonnel’s appearance somewhat. Even I can do that, and I cared little for that part of your … instruction. It’s not difficult for one skilled in the Art to simply alter her appearance, but what Yvonnel is doing is beyond that. She is not merely altering her appearance, but subtly managing the expectations and desires of each individual who looks upon her, even multiple individuals in the same room with her at the same time. And she’s doing it in a way that will gain her the greatest individual advantage over each observer.”

“Indeed, and she is doing it continually.”

“How?”

“I do not know,” the illithid replied. “Her sensitivity to the perceptions of others is instinctual.”

“No, she took this from you,” Quenthel said. “When your tentacles were in Minolin Fey’s womb, this baby, this creature, took more than you were offering. She borders on the mind magic of the illithids, if she is not fully there.”

“You would be better served in directing this to Lady Lolth,” Methil replied. “I do not doubt the power of Yvonnel. She is as strong as the Eternal.”

“I am as strong as the Eternal!” Quenthel snapped back.

Methil didn’t answer, and the matron mother understood that as a clear repudiation of her claim-and she knew, to her ultimate frustration, that Methil was correct in his assessment.

“The powers come so easily to her,” Quenthel lamented, more to herself than to the mind flayer. “To maintain such a ruse …”