Maestro

CHAPTER 21

Gromph Baenre was in a foul mood-more foul than usual, even. The witch had taken the lead from him with her knowledge of fire and of the primordial.

He sat in his grand chair, behind his grand desk, staring at the tent flap through which Caecilia had just departed.

Even she had fallen for Catti-brie’s lies.

And the Shadovar Lord Parise, too, with whom Gromph had spoken right before Caecilia had come to call. It made no sense to him. How could anyone believe Catti-brie’s lies? How could any of these learned scholars for a moment think it a good idea to let a primordial of fire free of its cage, even a bit?

And worse, the former archmage mused, why would anyone believe a simple human above the words of Gromph?

He tapped the tips of his fingers together, as he did when deep in thought, and tried to organize a new strategy regarding the dragon sisters. They might be his last hope to stop Catti-brie. The foolish Harpells would blindly follow her, and if the dwarves were to be persuaded, it wouldn’t be from anything he might say.

Into Gromph’s thoughts, then, came a plea, and it took the archmage a while to sort it out.

I wish to speak with you directly, Archmage.

When he at last identified the source of the communication Gromph’s eyes went wide, and his lips curled down in a most wicked scowl.

“Come in!” he said and telepathically imparted at the same time. “Oh do!”

“Know that I come at the behest of the hive-mind,” a voice replied, both in Gromph’s head, and in his room, and he watched as Kimmuriel appeared in view, stepping through the distance-bending magic of psionics.

“I am connected to them even now, Archmage, and they will look unfavorably upon you should you try to foolishly take out your vengeance upon me,” Kimmuriel warned. “They are quite involved now in the wake of the summoning of Demogorgon and the breaking of the boundaries of the Faerzress.”

How Gromph wanted to lash out and obliterate this impudent fool. Ever since he had completed the incantation, to find the Prince of Demons materializing in his chamber in Sorcere, Gromph had known that Kimmuriel had waged the ultimate deception upon him, and had ruined his name and reputation. And now here Kimmuriel stood, in Gromph’s own room, vulnerable.

Or perhaps not.

Gromph bit back the invective bubbling in his throat and the spell he wanted to utter to obliterate Kimmuriel. He had no desire to anger the illithid hive-mind. There wasn’t much in the multiverse that frightened Archmage Gromph Baenre, but angering a hive-mind wasn’t something he ever wanted to experience.

“How dare you come to this place?” he said.

“You requested an emissary from the hive-mind to aid in the work on the Hosttower.”

“But you?” an incredulous Gromph cried.

Kimmuriel shrugged. “The choice is theirs, not mine. I am bid to be here, by your side, and so I am.”

“Perhaps the illithids wished to see you destroyed, then.”

Kimmuriel sighed. “I was equally deceived, Archmage,” he said with a respectful bow.

“Were you now?” Gromph answered, full of doubt.

“Yes, and by Lady Lolth herself. It was she who deigned to weaken the Faerzress, so that she could expel the demon lords from the Abyss and gain control of the plane.”

Gromph cocked an eyebrow at that, his expression both incredulous, and despite his best intentions and great discipline, intrigued.

“Yvonnel has risen,” Kimmuriel said, and Gromph’s expression shifted more to confusion.

“Your daughter,” the psionicist clarified. “She has taken control of the levers of power of Menzoberranzan.”

“She is a baby!”

“No more,” Kimmuriel replied. “Never in her mind, with the memories of Yvonnel the Eternal, and now, through wizardry, neither in body.”

“Quenthel is no more the matron mother?”

“In name only. Yvonnel has cowed the Melarni and crowned the Champion of Lolth-a most unlikely champion-to prepare for the destruction of the beast you summoned to the Underdark.”

“You babble!”

“She knows where you are, Archmage,” Kimmuriel warned. “Yvonnel is well aware of your location, and the circumstances around it. Even now, she speaks with Jarlaxle in the dungeons of House Baenre.”

Gromph started to argue, but that last bit of information stole his breath.

“She may call upon you, and in that event, you would be wise to heed that summons,” Kimmuriel said. “But for now …” He held out his hand to Gromph, and the archmage stared at him incredulously.

“Come,” said Kimmuriel.

“To where?” Gromph demanded. “To Yvonnel?”

“To the hive-mind,” Kimmuriel explained. “At their invitation, and this is no small honor. Witness this and you will understand your daughter, and that is knowledge I believe will serve you well in the coming days of chaos and conflict.”

“Then why would Kimmuriel offer it to me?”

“In exchange that my debt to you be repaid,” said Kimmuriel. “I wish to return to Bregan D’aerthe, and to serve as the emissary of the illithids, and here, you, too, will remain. I would not spend my days expecting retribution.”

“Retribution you earned.”

Kimmuriel shrugged. “These are strange times of unexpected occurrence, Archmage. I did not know that the invocation I helped you to sort out through the combination of magic arcane and psionic would bring Demogorgon to the Underdark, or that it would so damage the Faerzress as to give other mighty demons access to the corridors of Faerun’s underworld.

“Had I known that, surely I would have helped you to avoid that … trouble.” He shrugged again. “Come, Archmage. You will find the journey enlightening in ways you could not ever before imagine.”

Gromph tapped his fingers together again, staring at this confusing drow. The hive-mind!

From everything Gromph had ever learned regarding the mind flayers-and thanks to Methil El Viddenvelp, his knowledge of the subject was extensive-the illithid hive-mind was perhaps the greatest repository of knowledge and understanding of the multiverse in existence.

He took Kimmuriel’s hand.

The floor still had him. Even though Drizzt had come to believe once more that he still had a corporeal body, that he wasn’t dead, he couldn’t feel anything, even pain. Nor could he see. The blackness remained.

Then he heard a woman’s cry and he knew the voice.

Dahlia.

Drizzt struggled against the magical bonds that had entrapped him. With great effort, he forced his eyes open. The blackness began to lighten, ever so gradually.

He heard another cry of terror from Dahlia, then his own grunt as he tried futilely to stand. He surrendered and exhaled, only to have his chin drop to his chest, and then he realized he was standing,. He was chained to a pole with his arms outstretched to either side, held by strong cords.

Many more sounds came into focus: movement all around him; Dahlia softly weeping; another voice, Entreri’s voice, calming her.

“Iblith,” another woman said with utter contempt.

“Whenever her mind allows her some clarity, she realizes the truth of her desperate situation,” another said, speaking in the tongue of the drow, and the rhythm of the words, abrupt and harsh halts breaking up flowing lines of melody, all too clearly reminded Drizzt of the paradox of his people.

At once, the drow were beautiful and flowing, yet hard and sharp as Underdark stone. Melodic and discordant. Alluring and vile.

The blackness had become a lighter gray now as he floated back into consciousness, and now and again he noted the ghostly silhouette of a form moving past him.

“Ah, Jarlaxle, whatever am I to do with you?” one asked.

“Let us go, of course. We are of more use to you back where we belong than in the dungeons of House Baenre.”

The dungeons of House Baenre.

Those five words assaulted Drizzt’s sensibilities. He had been in this most awful place before.

His eyes focused at last, and he blinked against the sting of the torchlight. He had no idea how he had come to this terrible dungeon-he tried to remember the culmination of the fight in the Do’Urden chapel. He saw again Tiago’s head explode under the power of his enchanted arrow. He considered the trio on the balcony, three drow women, two in fine robes and one standing naked.

He blinked open his eyes again, to find one of that same group standing right in front of him, smiling disarmingly. Despite the horrors of his surroundings, despite his very real fears, Drizzt was surprised to see that he could not deny the beauty of this very young drow. Her long hair, so lustrous that it sparkled in reflections of the torchlight, shined mostly white, but all the colors of the rainbow seemed captured within that, revealing hints of those colors with the slightest turn of the head. Her eyes were a startling amber, but not uniformly. Like her hair, they teased with color-the softest pink, a hint of blue.

“I am glad you returned to us, Drizzt Do’Urden,” she said, moving closer and running her hand lightly over Drizzt’s naked chest.

There was some magic in her fingers. The sensation seemed to pull his senses nearer to his own skin somehow.

“I-I did not wish to … fight him,” Drizzt stammered, not even knowing what he could say. He was in the dungeon of House Baenre, after all, and he had just splattered the head of a Baenre noble.

“You seemed willing enough,” the woman answered.

Drizzt didn’t want to take his eyes off the young woman, but he couldn’t help but notice a second drow, one more his own age, wearing the robes of the matron mother. She stood to the side and scowled at him fiercely, appearing very much as if she wanted to torture him to death then and there.

Drizzt steeled his own gaze and locked stares with her. He didn’t care. He truly didn’t care, and that indifference revealed that he would not be intimidated.

The woman in front of him turned and glanced at the matron mother, nodding and obviously noting the glowering exchange.

“Leave us,” she instructed the matron mother.

When that older drow woman turned about and swept out of the dungeon chamber, Drizzt looked back at the young creature in front of him, his expression betraying his incredulity.

“Petty creatures, these matron mothers,” the woman said. “Do you not agree?”

“Who are you?”

“I am young and I am old,” she teased. “I am new to the City of Spiders, yet I know its memory more fully and clearly than the oldest of the old dark elves. I am bound to lead here, to rule as Matron Mother Baenre, and yet I find myself intrigued by …” She grinned and ran her finger over Drizzt’s lips. “By you. Why is that, do you suppose, Drizzt Do’Urden?”

“I am sure that I do not know.” Drizzt steadied himself with a deep breath and pulled his gaze from the young woman, staring past her defiantly.

“Are you so removed?” she asked. “Are you so above all that you have left behind?”

“Do you always speak in riddles?”

The woman laughed and snapped her fingers, and Drizzt, without any movement of his own, turned right around, though he had no sensation of movement. He was suddenly just facing the other way.

He tried to sort through that disorienting shift, but lost those questions as soon as he registered the image in front of him. There sat Entreri, who was once again in his normal, human form, along with Jarlaxle and Dahlia, the three locked in a prison of bars that crackled and sparked and was made of streaks of lightning.

“Still uninterested?” the woman teased from behind Drizzt.

Jarlaxle stood up and shrugged, as if apologetic for his failure. “Almost,” he said, motioning to Dahlia.

“Only because I allowed it,” the woman replied rather sharply.

Jarlaxle shrugged again.

The young drow stepped by Drizzt and waved her hand. “Be gone,” she said, and the glowing cage turned black and disappeared from Drizzt’s sight. No longer did he hear Dahlia’s sobs or the crackle of lightning sparks, or any other noises coming from the magical cage.

“What am I to do with them?” the woman asked with exaggerated exasperation. She turned back to Drizzt, smiling again. “I cannot make a drider of Artemis Entreri, but I am certain I can find other ways to torment him.”

“Do you think to impress me, or disgust me?”

“Do I disgust you, Drizzt Do’Urden?” she asked in a very innocent voice, and she moved up right in front of him again and ran her hands lightly about his face and chest. “Is that what you feel, truly?”

“What do you want? And who are you?” he demanded.

She slapped him across the face, and he could hardly believe the strength behind the blow. He felt his legs go weak beneath him and knew that the only thing keeping him upright were the ties that bound him.

“Whatever I want from you, I will take,” she warned. “And who am I? I am Yvonnel the Eternal. Do you not understand? I am Matron Mother Baenre, whenever I choose to be. This is my city, and these my subjects. My city, Menzoberranzan, which you have betrayed.”

“Never.”

“Never? Shall I recount the many treacheries of Drizzt Do’Urden? Shall I speak of the dwarf you befriended who split my head in half?”

That remark hit Drizzt as hard as the previous slap, and he looked upon this young drow woman with deep confusion. Was he lost in time and space, meandering through his life rewound as if in a dream, again?

“I raised no army against Menzoberranzan,” Drizzt answered, little strength in his voice or in his heart, so overwhelmed and confused was he at that dark moment.

“Neither did you help our cause. Indeed, you fought against your own people.”

“Bruenor is my friend. The dwarves were my own people-by choice, and not by blood.”

“And so you admit your treachery.”

“I admit my free will. Nothing more.”

She laughed. “Ah yes, your choice, your free will, that led to the chop of a dwarf king’s axe.”

“Upon the head of your namesake,” Drizzt said, trying to make sense of it all.

Yvonnel laughed again. “Oh, much more than that!”

Drizzt could only look at her with confusion.

“Enough of this,” Yvonnel said with a dismissive wave, her voice calm once more. “What is past is past. Now tell me, what am I to do with your friends?”

“Whatever you please.”

“You don’t believe that. You cannot believe that. I asked you a question.”

Drizzt looked away.

“If you do not care, I will bring them in here, lay them before you, and cut them up into little pieces,” Yvonnel said. “Is that what you want?”

Drizzt refused to look at her, refused to give her the satisfaction of an answer.

“Or I could let them go.”

“You will never do that,” Drizzt replied, still not looking at her.

But then she moved up to him again, grabbed him by the chin, and forced his head around. Her stare held him as surely as had her hand, and she ran her fingers over his flesh, igniting little fires in their wake. She was so close, her breath sweet on his face, her eyes stealing his soul, it seemed, and holding his stare.

“Love me,” she whispered.

Drizzt sucked in his breath and fought to turn his gaze away.

“Love me and I will let them go.”

“You won’t.”

“I shall! They are nothing. You are the prize.”

“No,” Drizzt said, and closed his eyes.

She grabbed him and kissed him hard, forcing her tongue into his mouth. He felt such a sensation of power and intensity he couldn’t even gasp.

She stepped back and laughed-and slapped him again, nearly knocking him unconscious.

“Love me and I will let your companions live!”

“No … I cannot.”

“You can.”

“I cannot!”

“Then show me fealty.”

“I cannot.”

“Even for the sake of the three you claim to love?” Yvonnel asked. “You would let them die?”

“You offer me no choice, because what you ask is not a choice.”

“I am the Chosen of Lolth and you are the Champion of Lolth.”

“No, never!”

“Yes, Drizzt Do’Urden. There is no choice in that matter for you. Love me! Show me fealty.”

“I cannot,” Drizzt replied, but his tone was broken, less defiant. He sighed and moaned and fell limp against his bonds.

Again Yvonnel grabbed him by the chin and made him look her in the eye, but it was a gentle touch now. “Who is your god?” she asked quietly, and he felt her sympathy and believed it sincere.

“What would you have me say?”

“Just the truth.”

“Mielikki was the closest I found.”

“You name Mielikki as your goddess?”

Drizzt found himself sinking into emotional quicksand. It wasn’t even as if he was speaking to this strange drow woman at that point, but more that he was being forced to admit the truth to himself, honestly, emotionally stripped.

“She was the closest, a name that I put upon what was within my heart. But even of that I have become unsure. So, no, I do not.”

“You claim no god?”

Drizzt shrugged.

“You will not even say it, will you? Do you claim that you are your own god then, miserable mortal?”

Drizzt steadied himself and found some solid ground then. “I claim that what is right is in my heart,” he answered. “That I do not need to be told right from wrong, and if I am weak, and when I am weak, then I know that I have chosen wrongly. And that error is my failing, and not that of any external god.”

The woman’s demeanor shifted visibly then, and her smile returned.

“Then be weak,” she said, moving forward to kiss him.

He turned away.

But she grabbed him again. He could not resist that strength, and she kissed him again. With her lips and with her tongue came that intensity, a hot fire all around his body, to the very edge of pain, promising excruciating agony and unbearable ecstasy all at once.

But it never quite got there.

“You wish your friends to live,” Yvonnel said, pulling back. “In truth, I would take little pleasure in killing them. They showed great courage in coming here for Dahlia, and I must admit that I admire such daring, even if I believe it stupid.”

“Not stupid,” Drizzt said through gritted teeth.

“Truly?”

“No, it cannot be, else what is the point?”

“What point?”

“Of anything. Of life itself. What is the point of anything without honor and loyalty and friendship and love?”

He knew her smile to be sincere then, and she nodded slightly, as if digesting and considering his words. That surprised him.

“Perhaps there is something to your claim,” she admitted. “But I cannot simply allow your friends to leave, of course. Nor you, though murdering you would be much like throwing blood on the most beautiful of paintings.”

“You would prove a most fitting matron mother to do exactly that,” Drizzt replied.

Yvonnel slapped her hand over her mouth to catch her own laughter. “Oh, the spirit!” she said. “You beautiful, stupid drow.”

Drizzt stared at her hard.

“I offer you a deal.”

“I cannot show you fealty.”

She held up her hand to stop him short so she could clarify. “A great prince of demons has been loosed upon the Underdark. The beast loiters in the tunnels nearby, and will soon enough return to Menzoberranzan. You will serve as my champion and as my instrument.”

“Instrument?”

“Defeat Demogorgon and I will let your friends leave, without injury, without pursuit, without any future retribution. I will even return to them all of their belongings, and that is no small hoard of treasure, you well know from your time with Jarlaxle. All of it, including the rescued Dahlia, without future retribution. Free and successful in their mission.”

“I am to believe …”

“Upon my word,” she said, moving very near and staring him in the eye. Drizzt tried, but could not disbelieve her in that moment.

He settled back and tried to digest it all. His thoughts swirled about that name, Demogorgon. He had heard of the prince of demons, of course, but he knew so little about any of demonkind, other than the balor Errtu.

But still he replied, “I cannot champion you.”

“Because this place is so repellent to you?”

Drizzt had no answer.

“Is everything here evil, then, Drizzt Do’Urden?” Yvonnel asked. “Simply, irredeemably evil? Demogorgon will run mad across the city if he is not stopped. How many young Drizzts will he kill, I wonder? How many Zaknafeins?”

The mention of his father, the image of Zaknafein’s sacrifice still fresh in his thoughts, tugged at Drizzt’s sensibilities.

“Who would your morals favor in such a fight, the demon prince or the drow?”

Drizzt licked his lips.

“It is a simple question.”

“I do not wish destruction upon this place,” Drizzt admitted. “I came here only for Dahlia.”

“But now it is much more complicated, is it not?” she asked. “And perhaps you will find what you sought after all. But only if you serve as I demand. Prove to me that you are no threat to Menzoberranzan. Prove to me that in your heart, you would defend this place, your people, my people, against the ultimate evil that is Demogorgon. Is that too much to ask of Drizzt Do’Urden? Are you to be a hero only for the dwarves, then, or the humans, and not for your own race?”

She stepped back and waved her hand, and the lightning bars of the cage reappeared, Drizzt’s three companions still inside. Jarlaxle and Entreri stared at him, their expressions giving him the distinct impression that they were well aware of his conversation.

“If you cannot be a hero merely for Menzoberranzan,” Yvonnel said, “then, as you planned, be one for Dahlia, and for Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle. Serve as my champion. Help me to defeat this demon prince, and I will let them leave, unharmed and with no future recourse against them. Upon my word.”

“For them,” Drizzt said, but Yvonnel turned on him sharply.

“And for Menzoberranzan,” she demanded. “And I will let your friends leave, alive and unharmed.”

“And with our possessions …” Jarlaxle started to say, but Yvonnel fixed him with such a glare that he bit back the thought.

Drizzt didn’t hear any of it. If the ground beneath his feet before this moment had been as quicksand, now it was water, ready to swallow him and drown him in confusion and despair. He tried to tell himself again that none of it mattered anyway, that everything was, after all, merely a grand illusion.

Catti-brie was long dead and buried, he reminded himself, as were Regis and Wulfgar, and he had witnessed Bruenor’s last breaths. Perception was not reality.

And perception could not be reality, else what purpose was left?

No matter how hard he tried to convince himself, however, a nagging doubt lingered and nibbled at his resolve. In the end it left him hanging there, overwhelmed.