Maestro

CHAPTER 13

"Stone Heads!” Ravel cried. He held up his hands, at a complete loss. Those were Hunzrin soldiers Kiriy had set into position along the House Do’Urden perimeter, and House Hunzrin was no ally of House Xorlarrin. Their rivalry had grown particularly cold since Matron Mother Zeerith had established Q’Xorlarrin, a city set to facilitate trade with the surface and thus rob Matron Mother Shakti Hunzrin of her most important resource, her House’s great commerce.

“Just soldiers,” First Priestess Kiriy Xorlarrin calmly corrected her younger brother. “House Do’Urden is in need of soldiers, and so I have collected some.”

“Without asking,” Saribel said, but a threatening look from Kiriy quieted her.

“Should I beg permission from mad Matron Mother Darthiir, who doesn’t even know her own name?” Kiriy spat in retort.

Off to the side, Tiago started to chuckle, but he held his hands up, desiring no fight, when both Kiriy and Saribel cast him threatening sidelong glares.

The arrogant Baenre brat was rather enjoying this sibling spat. And she expected that he’d soon enjoy it much, much more-right up until he was killed.

“You are not alone here,” Ravel dared say to the First Priestess of House Xorlarrin. “And not without allies who know better the lay of Menzoberranzan and of House Do’Urden at this time …”

“Silence, male!” Kiriy snapped at him, reaching for her whip. Ravel was so shocked his eyes seemed as if they would simply roll out of his face. Jaemas and Saribel, too, gasped. That was not a common phrase, tone, or attitude in the House of Matron Mother Zeerith Xorlarrin. The ever-angry Berellip had used that tone often, and Berellip was dead.

“Yes,” Kiriy said to the dumbfounded stares coming back at her. “The times have changed. Lady Lolth demands it of us.”

“Matron Mother Zeerith …” Saribel started to say.

“Is not here,” Kiriy finished for her. “But I am. Kiriy, High Priestess, First Priestess, Eldest Daughter of Xorlarrin.”

“Yes, and your elder, the male Tsabrak, is Archmage of Menzoberranzan,” Tiago Baenre put in then, a not subtle reminder that Matron Mother Baenre had installed the Xorlarrin wizard into that post, and by extension, a not subtle reminder that Matron Mother Baenre had created House Do’Urden, as well.

“House Hunzrin is no friend of the Baenres,” Ravel dared to add.

“And allied with Matron Mother Mez’Barris Armgo and the Second House, by all accounts,” Tiago added.

Kiriy started to respond, but bit it back and just chuckled instead.

“Send them away,” Ravel demanded. “The mere presence of the stupid stone heads will anger Matron Mother Baenre.”

Kiriy continued to chuckle. “And worse,” she admitted, “there are rumors that House Hunzrin has allied with House Melarn.”

The other three Xorlarrins and Tiago all glanced at each other, taken aback by those words, given that Kiriy had let soldiers of House Hunzrin right into their compound. Had she brought in these soldiers as a ruse, then, to steal some of Shakti’s soldiers so that they could be sacrificed by House Do’Urden? Was it something else, some underlying pact that none of them knew about?

“Rumors,” Kiriy said with a laugh. She reached into a pouch and pulled forth a trio of small spiders, or so they seemed. She dropped them to the ground, the others staring in confusion, their eyes gradually widening as they realized that these were not spiders.

“Rumors,” Kiriy said again, and she turned and swept out of the room. At that same moment, even as all four in the room began to protest, the arachnid creatures grew, blossoming to full size.

The four drow remaining in the Do’Urden audience chamber found themselves engaged with Melarni driders.

“Be wary, and with your hands near your weapons,” Jarlaxle told his companions. He rose from the table and moved quickly to the bar, arriving there at almost the same time as Braelin exited the common room.

“Did you catch the conversation?” Entreri asked Drizzt, referring to the hand exchange Jarlaxle and Braelin had shared under the table.

Drizzt shook his head. “It’s been a long time since I’ve conversed at any length in that manner.”

“Something about the way to House Do’Urden being open,” Entreri said, leaning in close. “But if that is the case, then why the warning?”

Entreri’s nod signaled to Drizzt that the mercenary was returning.

“I have secured us a room,” Jarlaxle announced. “Come, we must rest quickly and make our plans.”

The other two exchanged curious looks. Their plan, after all, was to come into the city and go straight to House Do’Urden, the reasoning being that the less time they spent in this land of drow, the better. Certainly if any of them were recognized, their mission would become much more difficult.

Drizzt started to ask a question, but Jarlaxle gave him a curt little head shake as he swung around and started for the staircase, the other two in tow. There weren’t many rooms upstairs. Indeed, the place hardly seemed to be an inn, and when Jarlaxle pushed through the door, they came into a comfortably furnished room with a pair of decorative swords hanging above a stocked hearth, cushy chairs set in front of it.

Jarlaxle swung back and pulled the hesitating Drizzt into the room before he quickly shut and bolted the door. The lower class of inns as one might find on the Stenchstreets didn’t typically have doors that could be locked from the inside.

“What is this place?” Drizzt asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jarlaxle replied, starting across the room.

Drizzt moved to respond, but Entreri intervened, grabbing Jarlaxle by the arm.

“Enough,” he said. “We follow you willingly, but enough of the secrets.”

“There is no time,” Jarlaxle said, and he tried to pull away.

“You waste more time by arguing,” Entreri replied, and did not let go.

“This is the tavern owner’s personal quarters, and I paid him handsomely to allow us a short respite, and only that. We are not staying,” Jarlaxle explained. He moved to the back wall. He ran his hands along the planks of mushroom stalk, tapping and listening carefully.

“Then why?” Entreri asked, or started to. Jarlaxle held up his hand to quiet the man.

The mercenary leader produced his great hat from his tiny belt pouch, slapped it open against his leg, then reached inside and pulled forth a black disc of some satiny material. He spun it on his finger a couple of times, elongating it, then tossed it against the base of the wall, opening a portable hole in the structure, and revealing a secret tunnel beyond.

“Quickly,” he instructed motioning into the tunnel. “This will afford us the time we need.”

Drizzt went in, followed by Entreri. Jarlaxle came through last, removing the portable hole as he entered, and the wall was just a wall once more.

The corridor stretched down a ramp, padded to silence footfalls, doubled back on itself, and continued to descend. They moved below the floor level, and lower still, beneath the tavern’s wine cellar and into the sewers of the city.

When they all dropped down into that smelly corridor, Entreri once more grabbed Jarlaxle and held him back.

“Now explain.”

“There is no way out of that room save through magic-and any use of teleportation magic within the city would be detected. There are wards set everywhere,” the mercenary replied. “If enemies come against us, they will not know how we managed to leave that room-and the tavernkeeper will honestly tell them that he set us up for capture.”

“What enemies?” Entreri asked.

“Who knows we are here?” Drizzt added.

“I will explain in time, but on the move,” said Jarlaxle. “We have an opportunity here, but only if we are clever and only if we are quick!”

He rushed off, the others keeping pace. Despite the maze of sewers, Jarlaxle seemed quite confident in their course. Drizzt wasn’t surprised. There was little Jarlaxle didn’t know, after all, like the secret passageway in this particular building beyond the owner’s room. Drizzt had no doubt that if enemies did come looking for the trio, the most surprised person upon discovering that they weren’t in the room would be the tavernkeeper himself.

They emerged aboveground far from the tavern, indeed far from the Stenchstreets, and much farther along the West Wall district of the city, where sat House Do’Urden.

There it was, the high balcony entrance off to their left, and Drizzt could only take a deep breath to steady himself at the sight of his former home. So many memories came rushing back to him then, of Vierna and Briza, of Matron Mother Malice.

Of Zaknafein.

Given what he knew now, given the grand deception awaiting his return to the surface, what did it matter, after all?

What did anything matter?

The truth he now knew mocked his precious morals and principles.

He looked around at his companions and felt a keen urge to draw his blades and slay Entreri then and there. Be done with him.

Damn him!

Entreri was part of the lie that Drizzt had lived, and a focal point of the foolish optimism that had carried Drizzt through his days. Why did he ever think he could redeem this murderer? This petty assassin? This wretched and heartless beast?

Drizzt caught himself, shook the thought away, and only then realized that he had drawn Icingdeath halfway from its sheath.

And Jarlaxle was speaking, to both Drizzt and Entreri.

“Braelin told you the way to House Do’Urden was clear,” Entreri replied to whatever it was Jarlaxle had said.

“No,” said Jarlaxle, and he started away toward the West Wall, but to the right and not in the direction of House Do’Urden.

“I saw it with my own eyes,” Entreri protested, hustling to keep up.

“Where are we going?” Drizzt asked.

“Be wary of pursuit,” Jarlaxle warned. “House Hunzrin’s war party was trying to intercept us, and so steal the glory.”

“Steal the glory?” Entreri asked. “The glory of catching us?”

“From whom?” Drizzt asked, finally catching up.

And when he did, rounding a corner to come face up with the cavern’s wall, Drizzt’s breath caught in his throat. There in front of him stood one of the most distinct and strangely beautiful structures in Menzoberranzan, indeed, as beautiful as any building Drizzt had ever seen. Graceful and intricate webbing climbed up the wall, with great bridges of spiderwebs flying back and forth around it. Faerie fire was marvelously placed among those shining strands to accent the grace and feeling of movement the wall of webbing evinced.

“To steal the glory from their allies,” Jarlaxle explained, “House Melarn.”

Drizzt noted Entreri’s curious and unsettled expression.

“To any outside observer, my dear and trusted Braelin told us the clear way to our goal,” Jarlaxle explained. “And he also told me that House Hunzrin had refused to ally with House Melarn against the matron mother, and so House Melarn had forsaken any immediate plans to deal with Dahlia and the abomination of House Do’Urden. He also told me that the arrival of First Priestess Kiriy Xorlarrin had shaken the resolve of any waiting enemies. Her loyalty to Matron Mother Zeerith and Zeerith’s loyalty to Matron Mother Baenre has made both Baenre and Do’Urden untouchable.”

Now Drizzt’s expression was no less unsettled than Entreri’s, and Entreri echoed Drizzt’s thoughts perfectly when he asked, “Then why are we here, instead of House Do’Urden?”

“Because Braelin prefaced his report with this,” Jarlaxle explained, and he held up his left hand and scraped his thumb over the back of his index finger. “Which means that everything he subsequently told me was exactly opposite of the truth. And he picked his words most carefully.”

The other two digested that for a moment in light of Jarlaxle’s report. Hunzrin and Melarn had joined in common cause and were going after House Do’Urden and Dahlia-and right now. And they knew of the trio’s arrival in the city.

“But then why are we here?” Drizzt asked.

“Because their eyes are elsewhere.”

Jarlaxle turned to Entreri. He took a mirror out of his bottomless pouch and held it up in front of the assassin.

“Matron Mother Shakti Hunzrin,” he explained, and Entreri’s drow reflection shifted to become the image of the Matron Mother of House Hunzrin. “Use the mask to replicate this visage. The deception will be unsolvable, for the magic of Agatha’s Mask cannot be detected.”

“You want me to-”

“Turn yourself into Shakti Hunzrin, and be quick about it,” Jarlaxle ordered. “We have an audience with Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn.”

“I need you to be better,” Yvonnel told K’yorl, sitting across the stoup from the psionicist, their hands joined in the magical meld. “Stronger.”

She felt K’yorl fall deeper into the magic of the holy water, felt her and followed her as the woman let go of her thoughts and sent them into and through the basin. They spun and twined and were one again when they escaped the room, Yvonnel and K’yorl sharing the vision of their disembodied consciousness.

Now Yvonnel reached deeper, and instead of focusing her thoughts on the external images flying about them, on a sudden impulse, she turned inward, into K’yorl. At first, there was only darkness, and she could feel her partner resisting.

She prodded with thoughts and promises of peace and comfort, of pleasure and not pain. So long had this woman been battered and tortured, so brutal had been her fall.

K’yorl wanted to resist, but Yvonnel wouldn’t let go-and she even let K’yorl into her own thoughts to witness, naked, her sincerity. Yvonnel had no desire or reason to torture K’yorl. It would offer her no benefit and give her no pleasure.

Her offer, her promise, was real, and K’yorl came to believe that, Yvonnel knew, when those barriers began to thin and wash away.

And a grand revelation followed when Yvonnel began to understand this strange magic of the mind so much better. She didn’t expect that she would learn psionics in this way, but the beauty of this melding was that Yvonnel realized she didn’t have to.

She had a weapon. K’yorl was her weapon, and she could use the woman as readily as she might trigger a wand or fire a bow.

She scoured the woman’s thoughts, asking questions and finding answers. What powers might be available to her? What strange spells could she cast through the melding, through the instrument that was K’yorl?

She eased her thoughts back to their surroundings. Their blended consciousness had escaped the Room of Divination once more, now moving about the corridors surrounding the room, which were mostly empty, as Yvonnel had demanded.

They witnessed Minolin Fey in a side chamber, lighting the many candles on a crystal candelabra, performing a common ceremony of meditation.

Yvonnel telepathically whispered to K’yorl Odran, setting her mental fingers to the bowstring.

K’yorl hesitated only briefly, only until Yvonnel assured her that her future was not back in the pit of the balor Errtu.

The joined women loosed the psionic arrow.

Minolin Fey’s thoughts scrambled under the invisible barrage. Her words slurred and became nonsensical. Her hands fumbled, the candle falling to the floor at her feet.

The poor woman muttered, stammered, stuttered, garbled gibberish spilling forth.

The flames caught the bottom of her robe.

She didn’t even notice.

Yvonnel gasped with delight.

“Stop!” Yvonnel at last instructed K’yorl, and the two let go their mental clamp.

Minolin Fey nearly pitched over headlong, gasping back to her sensibilities. Still, it took her a few heartbeats to realize that she was on fire, and then she screamed, batting at her robes.

Yvonnel reached into her own magic, casting a simple spell to create water, thinking to douse her mother.

But no, she found. She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t find any avenue to use her magic through the scrying stoup. Perhaps she would need to invite other Baenre priestesses to join her in ritual, as gatherings of priestesses did when waging war on another House, as the Melarni were likely soon doing, or perhaps even then doing, to House Do’Urden.

She focused outward again. Minolin Fey had shed the gown and stumbled away. She leaned heavily against the wall, trembling hands reaching for the burns on one shin. Yvonnel appreciated her mother’s calm as Minolin Fey cast anew, a healing spell to repair the burns.

As soon as that was completed, the priestess glanced around the side chamber, out of embarrassment or confusion, or perhaps fear. There was a wariness in her darting eyes, Yvonnel noted, as if she sensed something.

So, we are not fully invisible, Yvonnel thought, and she felt K’yorl agree.

Still, what a wonderful weapon!

Yvonnel guided the blended consciousness back to the Room of Divination, then pulled her hands from the stoup and clapped them excitedly.

“Oh, you are wonderful!” she told K’yorl when the woman blinked open her eyes. “The power of your mind is glorious! That you are able to extend it out through the divination, to so fully disembody our thoughts from our bodies … Glorious.”

“I … I …” K’yorl stammered, not seeming to quite have a handle on all of this.

“There are powerful crystal balls that offer telepathy through their scrying,” Yvonnel explained. “They are very rare-many think them rumor and false legend. But we have done that, here, together. We can channel our power through the magic of the scrying waters.”

She was careful to say “our” instead of “your,” and took great pains to concentrate and make sure that K’yorl was no longer in her thoughts. The last thing Yvonnel wanted was for this prisoner to come to the realization that she had some measure of control-what a monster K’yorl Odran might become within this Room of Divination. Could she sit there and attack her enemies from afar, secure in the midst of House Baenre?

That was Yvonnel’s fear, and her hope-as long as she could keep K’yorl under her guidance and her control.

Yvonnel realized then that she could no longer ever allow K’yorl to remain active with the scrying waters without her hands on top of the prisoner’s hands and her thoughts on top of the prisoner’s thoughts.

She sank her fingers back into the stone rim, felt again the soft hands of K’yorl within the magical device.

“Come,” Yvonnel bade K’yorl. “Back out, quickly. Let us find Jarlaxle and his companions and see again through the eyes of the human, Entreri.”

Kiriy giggled as she exited the room, even before the cries of surprise and alarm erupted behind her.

Matron Mother Zhindia and her cabal of priestesses were watching her, she knew, and so she was not surprised when the Melarni gathering reached out magically to slam the Do’Urden audience chamber doors behind her.

“What?” cried out one of the guards in surprise.

“Priestess Kiriy?” asked the other. But the woman was already several steps beyond them.

Kiriy swung about, eyes flashing. “You are Bregan D’aerthe,” she said to one of the men. “And you are Baenre!” she called to the other, in clearly accusatory tones.

The two young warriors looked at each other, then back at her, confused. “Do’Urden,” one replied, but too late. Balls of fire appeared in the air above each of the two, and lines of searing flames shot down over them, immolating them where they stood.

Kiriy laughed again. Matron Mother Zhindia was with her! It had been so many years since she had been involved in an inter-House war. So many boring years! These wars showcased the epitome of drow battle prowess and glory, where priestesses hurled their magic across the city, through scrying portals enacted by infiltrating agents like Kiriy.

These were the fights, priestess against priestess, where Lady Lolth could fully determine the outcome. And now, with the guards writhing and dying on the floor, Kiriy knew with all her heart that Lady Lolth was with her cause.

Priestess Kiriy would depose Dahlia and Matron Mother Zeerith at long last. Lolth was with her, and would see a new House Xorlarrin arise from the ashes of House Do’Urden and from the corpses of those Xorlarrins who chose to side with Zeerith.

She looked again to the audience chamber guards, writhing on the floor pathetically, melting under the wrath of Lolth. She heard the fighting in the audience chamber now-even if her siblings and their allies won out in there, they would be too late to stop the coup.

She pictured the spider-shaped table in House Melarn, brilliantly ornate and as fabulous as the one in the Ruling Council, by all accounts-though Kiriy had never actually seen the one in the chambers of the Ruling Council. Why didn’t the other great Houses of Menzoberranzan have tables, gathering places for priestesses, as beautiful as the one in House Melarn? Why wasn’t a tribute like that commonplace? Surely House Xorlarrin never had such a beautiful tribute to Lady Lolth in all their vast compound.

But House Do’Urden, soon enough to be the new House Xorlarrin, would, Kiriy vowed. She pictured the Melarni war room, the magnificent spider table set between the prized bronze doors, Matron Mother Zhindia in her black gown, her war gown, seated at its head.

And they were with her now. Lolth was with her now.

“Quickly!” Kiriy heard in the air around her, and she smiled. It was Matron Mother Zhindia reminding her, magically whispering to her: “Darthiir is the key! You must be rid of her.”

Kiriy was already moving in that direction, though she didn’t agree with that estimation, and certainly not with the urgency in Zhindia’s voice.

“She is a babbling idiot,” Kiriy whispered, knowing the Melarni priestesses could hear her. “She is no threat.”

“She is Baenre’s puppet,” Matron Mother Zhindia’s voice sounded in the empty air beside her. “Kill her quickly. Sever the tie.”

Kiriy moved more deliberately. She dismissed her curiosity about her siblings and the others in the audience chamber. She would sort out the remains of that battle later.

She heard other fighting then, echoing along the corridors. A young priestess rushed toward her from the side.

“High Priestess!” the younger woman cried. “They have made the balcony!”

“They?”

“Hunzrin!” the young woman explained. “Those guards who arrived have turned on us and have helped reinforcements to our balconies! Our enemies are in the House!”

The frantic young woman turned to sprint away, but Kiriy called to her, “Who are you, young priestess?”

The woman turned and looked at her curiously, clearly perplexed by such a question at that critical time.

“It is all right,” Kiriy assured her. “We will defeat the stone heads. Who are you?”

“Ba’sula,” she replied.

Kiriy studied her more closely, trying to remember this one. “Who is your mentor?” she asked. “Who sent you to House Do’Urden?”

“I serve High Priestess Sos’Umptu in the Fane of the Goddess,” Ba’sula replied.

“Ah, you are Baenre,” Kiriy said, nodding in recognition, and smiling-and if Ba’sula had been more perceptive, she would have known it to be the grin of a hunter.

“What are we to do? Where would you have me go?”

“Go?” Kiriy asked incredulously.

“We are under assau-”

Her voice stopped as she froze in place, caught by a spell of holding cast by the Melarni priestesses. Kiriy felt that magic flowing through her, and felt privileged indeed to be used as a conduit for the glory of the Spider Queen.

She walked by the magically frozen Ba’sula, lifting a hand to gently stroke the young priestess’s smooth neck. She could see the terror in Ba’sula’s eyes, could feel the woman trembling slightly, but only slightly. The spell would allow nothing more. Kiriy thought for a moment that she should keep this one, a plaything for after victory was won.

But no, she was Baenre, Kiriy reminded herself. Keeping her alive, if she was discovered, would give the matron mother all the excuse she needed to throw all her considerable weight at House Do’Urden.

The same hand that so gently stroked Ba’sula’s throat now waved in the air, fingers casting a spell as Kiriy passed.

It was a simple poisoning dweomer, one that would normally kill a victim with little outward sign. But Kiriy had cleverly altered this one, as much for the viewing pleasure of the Melarni priestesses as because she wanted this priestess, this Baenre, to know the full horror of approaching death.

Images of large spiders, a large as Kiriy’s open palm, appeared in the air all around the trapped priestess, floating on strands of glistening webs. They scrambled hungrily, the strands swaying. They leaped to the priestess’s face and shoulders. She saw them-and they bit her. It didn’t matter that they were magical illusions designed to simply add terror to the pain of the poisoning spell. They bit her and she saw them biting, and she felt them biting. They bit her eyes. They crawled into her mouth and they bit her tongue. One skittered down her throat and bit her all the way to her belly.

Kiriy walked away, confident that her display would please Matron Mother Zhindia. She got confirmation of exactly that a dozen steps later, when the Melarni priestesses dispelled their holding spell, freeing Ba’sula Baenre.

And the dying woman screamed, and gurgled, and choked on the sensation of spiders crawling down her throat.

Sweet music to Kiriy Xorlarrin’s ears.

Entreri turned a doubtful look to Drizzt, who could only shrug, equally at a loss. “Matron Mother Shakti?” he asked doubtfully. “A woman?”

Jarlaxle motioned to the mirror, which now showed the image of Shakti Hunzrin superimposed over his own reflection.

“You are insane.”

“Let your thoughts align the images,” Jarlaxle explained.

Entreri looked to Drizzt.

“Dawdle and we will be caught, and your dear Dahlia will be quite dead, I assure you!” Jarlaxle cried.

Entreri looked more deeply into the looking glass and offered a profound and resigned sigh. Agatha’s Mask turned back to a simple white stage mask for just a moment. Then it began to shift, and so, too, did Entreri’s face and body, the illusion of Shakti Hunzrin coming to life before Drizzt’s astonished eyes.

“Now what?” Entreri asked when the transformation was complete-and even his voice had changed.

Jarlaxle pulled forth a wand, held its tip up to his temple, spoke a command word, and he, too, became a woman, a priestess of Lolth. He looked at Drizzt and reminded him, “You are a mere male and these are fanatical Melarni. Two steps back and head bowed.” Then he led the way to the webbed front of the Melarn compound.

As they neared, Jarlaxle stepped behind Entreri-let all the detection magic focus on the Matron Mother of House Hunzrin, and so fail against the powerful magic of Agatha’s Mask.

“Just glare at them,” he whispered to Entreri as the trio neared the House guards.

Entreri did-and few in the world could freeze a target with a look as fully as Artemis Entreri.

In any form.

“Oh, brilliant!” Yvonnel exclaimed as she and K’yorl watched Jarlaxle’s group outside of House Melarn. “He sorted through the webbing and strikes from behind.”

“It pleases you when one House attacks another?” K’yorl said, the interruption shocking Yvonnel so profoundly she nearly pulled her hands from the stoup. K’yorl rarely spoke, other than to answer direct questions, and never before had she found the courage to interrupt Yvonnel, particularly not when they were in this melded state, their joined consciousness far from the room that held their corporeal forms.

“Jarlaxle is of no House. Nor are his companions.”

“But there is a war. You approve.”

Yvonnel opened her eyes, and looked again back in the Room of Divination, staring across the water that showed Jarlaxle and his friends in their disguises nearing House Melarn.

She stared at K’yorl for a moment, then glanced into the stoup to regard the scene. On a sudden impulse and a sudden fear, she closed her eyes, and then breathed a sigh of relief to find herself looking through the eyes of Artemis Entreri. So she was in two places at once, she thought, but then corrected herself. She could be in either of the places, here in her corporeal form, or out there with the disembodied consciousness, but not in both. She opened her eyes again to regard K’yorl, who grinned.

That grin came as a warning to Yvonnel, for while she could be in one place or the other, she only then realized that her prisoner was truly in both, simultaneously.

I approve that the aggressor House Melarn will not ruin my plans, she telepathically told K’yorl, and Yvonnel went back to the distant place, inside the eyes of Artemis Entreri.

“They are fanatical disciples of the Spider Queen,” she both heard and felt K’yorl reply.

So Yvonnel tried the same. She forced her mouth to speak her response, but kept her eyes and sensibilities out there, approaching House Melarn. “As are we all,” she said and thought, and she heard her voice in the background, and she sensed that her sudden mastery of this dual-experience had caught K’yorl off her guard. “Yet some will win, and some will lose. Too often do we attribute such outcomes to the favor of Lady Lolth.”

“You do not believe in such a thing?”

“I believe that Lady Lolth favors those who are most expedient and clever among us. You should hope for that truth, K’yorl Odran. In it, you might find your salvation.”

Whatever threat she had sensed from K’yorl was gone then, vanished in the possibility of redemption, of salvation.

She put her focus back to the situation at House Melarn, where Jarlaxle, Drizzt, and Entreri were approaching some wary House guards.

Using K’yorl’s powers, her psionic bow, Yvonnel imparted suggestions of uneasiness and fear into those guards, who were clearly already intimidated-and why not, with Matron Mother Shakti fast approaching?

“To Matron Mother Zhindia, at once!” Jarlaxle ordered the intimidated Melarni guards.

“We will announce …” one soldier started to reply, but Jarlaxle was ready for that, and even as the warrior started talking, Jarlaxle started casting through a ring he wore on his left hand. He gestured and the guard melted into a slug on the ground at the base of the webbing.

“To Matron Mother Zhindia!” Jarlaxle told the remaining soldier, and the mercenary squashed the slug with a grinding heel.

Drizzt tried not to wince. He understood the stakes, of course, but the sheer brutality of Menzoberranzan had caught him off guard.

And the deaths were only just beginning.

Drizzt scrambled to keep up, the surviving guard leading them quickly along the swinging web bridges. As they went, Jarlaxle emphatically and repeatedly signed to him, and to Entreri: Do not hesitate!

Near the top of the webbed front, high from the cavern floor, the group went into the complex, which was organized much like a conch shell, with circling corridors winding tighter to the center, surrounded by small chambers all the way.

Many dark elves noted their passage, with several dropping into polite bows at the sight of the Matron Mother of House Hunzrin.

Jarlaxle had guessed right, Drizzt realized. Shakti had been here before, likely recently, and much was afoot now regarding the joint attack on House Do’Urden-how else to explain the deference being shown here, and the hustle to the audience chamber of the Melarn compound?

At last, down one last side passage, they came to a pair of large bronze doors, decorated with jewels and detailed sculptures of Lolth and driders and spiderwebs.

“It is heavily warded,” the leading Melarni guard explained, pausing, but Jarlaxle had an orb in hand-whence it came, Drizzt did not know-and pushed right past the guard. He hurled the orb into the door, where it exploded into a puff of spinning, shining bits of some silvery material, all of which seemed attracted to the door. It settled there and began to pop with tiny explosions.

And Jarlaxle, still appearing as a Hunzrin priestess, just stormed ahead, and pushed right through the doors.

Entreri, as Matron Mother Shakti, went with him. The guard started to protest, but only started. Drizzt took him down by slamming Twinkle’s pommel into the back of the man’s neck, dropping him to the floor.

Beyond the doors, the room’s curving walls formed an oval, longer than it was wide. A second identical set of doors stood closed directly across from them. Torches burned along the curving side walls, the flickering lights dancing across tapestries depicting the many glories of the Spider Queen.

A circular table supported by eight external spider-like legs stood in the middle of the floor, a priestess standing in each gap between the appendages. A large decorated golden bowl was set in the middle of the table, still water reflecting the torchlight.

A scrying bowl, Drizzt realized, and in the instant he considered it, he could guess easily enough that these priestesses were looking at House Do’Urden.

It didn’t, couldn’t, hold his attention for more than that instant, however. As he crossed the threshold into the room, Jarlaxle raised his clenched fist and enacted some magic, and the doors swung shut behind Drizzt with a resounding slam.

At that same moment, the priestess farthest from them, on the far side of the table, screamed in protest. “Matron Mother Shakti, you dare disturb us!”

But Entreri didn’t hesitate to answer the woman, who was obviously Matron Mother Zhindia. He drew his blades and leaped ahead-Jarlaxle had told them not to hesitate!-and the nearest Melarni priestess fell dead before she even realized she was being attacked.

A twist of Drizzt’s wrist on his belt buckle brought Taulmaril to his hand, an arrow going to it and flying away, and the priestess next to Entreri’s victim gasped and folded over the table, neither her wards nor her enchanted robes sufficient to defeat the power of Drizzt’s lightning missile.

“Down!” Jarlaxle yelled, and Entreri dived to the side and Drizzt went to one knee, setting another arrow.

Jarlaxle reached inside the front of his blousy white shirt and brought forth a large red gem, which he hurled into the midst of the gathering of priestesses, bouncing it right under the table, where it exploded into a devastating fireball.

In the flames, Drizzt could still pick out a second target. Away went his next arrow, and another priestess tumbled.

As the flames abated, Entreri went forward-and it was Entreri now. He tore the mask from his face, reverting to his human form. He leaped into the midst of a pair of priestesses, standing along the right hand side of the table, both of them with wisps of smoke rising from their gowns, both of them clearly shaken, but also beginning their spellcasting.

Charon’s Claw and that deadly jeweled dagger went to work, though, and the two Melarni priestesses became too concerned with diving away to continue their spells.

A third arrow led Drizzt’s way to the table, but his intended target, the matron mother directly across the way, already had a powerful ward in place. The arrow exploded in a firework burst of multicolored lights before it could reach its mark. Drizzt hardly noticed. He dropped his bow and drew out his blades, leaping over to the table’s left hand side.

But the moment of surprise was over. If these had been common drow, all eight in the room would have been slain in short order, dead before they could begin to react. But these were priestesses of the Spider Queen, zealots all, including the Matron Mother of House Melarn and the first priestess of the powerful House.

Three were down, one by Entreri’s blades, two by Drizzt’s arrows. A fourth had been wounded in Entreri’s charge, but still fought, and a fifth was on the floor, having dived from the assassin’s charge, and there she knelt, fingers gesturing.

Behind them, the doors exploded open once more, compelled by a countering spell from Matron Mother Zhindia, and Drizzt heard the charge of Melarni reinforcements.

And he and his companions had nowhere to run.