Night of the Hunter

CHAPTER 11

"Speak not a word unless you are directly commanded to do so! Tos’un Armgo’s fingers flashed to his daughter Doum’wielle, the two standing side-by-side, as ordered, on marks Berellip Xorlarrin had scratched on the ground.

“Do not move,” she had warned them, the gravity in her voice impossible to miss. Something was going on here, Tos’un understood, and it terrified him. Never had the Xorlarrins been friendly to the House of Armgo, of course, but this was even beyond that measure of animosity.

Berellip, a noble daughter and a high priestess, had been scared when she had ordered them to their spots.

“What do you think …?” Doum’wielle started to ask, but her whisper became a shriek as the heads of four venomous snakes bit into her back one after another. The girl swooned under the burn of poison and the shock that Berellip was still so close nearby. Her legs wobbled beneath her as she slumped to the floor, and she went to one knee. She would have slumped lower, except that a strong hand grabbed her under her upper arm and yanked her back upright.

“Weakling,” Berellip whispered in her ear. “Iblith! Perhaps I should drag you away and feed you to my driders so that the matron mother will not have to suffer the disgust in looking upon such an abomination as you!”

“She is a noble daughter of House Barrison Del’Armgo,” Tos’un said.

Berellip laughed and roughly shoved Doum’wielle before walking around to stand before the pair once more. “That says so much about the fraudulent Second House of Menzoberranzan, does it not? That they seek the beds of iblith to expand their ignoble family?”

Tos’un’s eyes flashed and Doum’wielle expected him to return a verbal barrage at that, but surprisingly, he stood perfectly quiet and perfectly still, except that his jaw quivered just a bit. Doum’wielle thought that curious and out of character, but then she realized that her father was not looking at Berellip any longer but was staring past her. The younger Armgo sucked in her breath, and despite the continuing burn of the snake bites, forced herself to stand taller.

Behind High Priestess Berellip Xorlarrin came a procession of drow such as she had never seen before, such as she had never imagined before. Male warriors flanked the central figures left and right, marching with precision, in perfect step, arms and armor sparkling with magical power.

Between those ranks, on a floating translucent disk that shined purple and blue, sat a woman bedecked in grand robes, laced and bejeweled with intricate designs of spiders and webs. A five-snake scourge rested across her lap, the serpent heads alive and writhing and clearly aware of the scene before them.

Berellip spun around and fell to her knees, eyes lowered to the floor.

Should she do the same, Doum’wielle wondered? She glanced at her father, who stood perfectly still, his eyes lowered. Her gaze dipped to the floor and she swallowed hard. The sight of her father, so clearly terrified, sweat upon his brow, had further unnerved her.

“Matron Mother Quenthel,” Berellip greeted, but did not look up.

“This is the son of House Barrison Del’Armgo?” Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre asked, stepping off her disc and moving up beside Berellip, waving for the high priestess to stand up as she did.

“Yes, Tsabrak caught him in the tunnels to the east.”

The matron mother turned a curious eye over Doum’wielle, first with intrigue but with her face quickly scrunching up with open disgust.

“What is this?”

“My daughter, Matron Mother,” Tos’un dared interject, and Berellip slapped him across the face.

Quenthel pushed Berellip back, though, and bade Tos’un to look up at her. “Your daughter?” she asked, using the common tongue of the surface.

“Yes.”

“A noble of House Barrison Del’Armgo?”

Tos’un swallowed hard, something Doum’wielle surely did not miss.

“How lovely,” Matron Mother Quenthel said. “Such a thoughtful present you have delivered to me.”

All three-Doum’wielle, Tos’un, and Berellip-looked at the matron mother with puzzlement.

“I wonder how proud your mother will be to know that her line is no longer pure,” Quenthel remarked, her voice like the purr of a contented cat. “Or will it be a secret she will want kept, do you suppose?”

Tos’un swallowed hard and cast a plaintive glance at Doum’wielle, and the young half-drow saw the sudden regret in his eyes. He had erred in bringing her here. They should never have left the Silver Marches.

“Andzrel!” Matron Mother Quenthel called, looking back to her line. A tall warrior rushed forward. “Take her and teach her what it is to be iblith in Menzoberranzan.”

“As I please?” he asked.

“Just keep her alive,” Quenthel instructed. “How much alive, I do not care.”

“No!” Doum’wielle cried, grabbing for her sword, but Quenthel lifted her hand and uttered a single word and the poor girl was sent flying backward.

Khazid’hea, the sentient blade, screamed in her head, telling her to stand down, but the headstrong girl picked herself up from the floor and stubbornly drew out the sword.

“Little Doe, no!” Tos’un cried.

Matron Mother Quenthel laughed wickedly. At her side, Andzrel drew out his two swords and calmly walked toward the poor girl. “Back, I warn!” Doum’wielle said.

The Weapons Master of House Baenre came at her then in a blur of movement, spinning and dodging, his blades flashing brightly as they cut in circles and stabs. Doum’wielle thought herself a fine swordswoman, but never had she seen anything of this tempo and skill. And worse, Khazid’hea would not cooperate, filling her head with doubt and calls for surrender.

Andzrel’s blade slapped hard against her sword, and Khazid’hea sent a charge of discord into her head, dizzying her.

Doum’wielle didn’t know what to make of any of it. She saw her cherished blade go flying out to the side, clanging down on the stone floor. She saw Andzrel stepping in closer, saw the pommel of his weapon rushing to smash her in the face.

Then she saw black spots flitting around her swirling vision. She felt the strong hands of the drow upon her, dragging her back. He was behind her, holding her upright …

Five snake heads danced before her eyes.

Berellip’s whip had hurt her, so she had believed, but compared to the scourge of Matron Mother Quenthel, that strike had been nothing at all.

In moments, Doum’wielle was on the floor, screaming and writhing in agony. Blow after blow descended upon her, viper fangs tearing at her flesh, burning poison streaming into her veins.

“Matron Mother, I beg of you!” Tos’un cried.

The matron mother turned an angry glare upon him. “You have lived on the surface,” she said. “How long?”

Tos’un hesitated, and Doum’wielle paid for his slip with another beating.

“Since the attack on Mithral Hall!” the son of House Barrison Del’Armgo blurted.

Quenthel stared at him incredulously. “I did not return to Menzoberranzan,” he explained. “I was lost and wandering …”

“And you went to live with elves?”

“Yes … no! I found others, drow of Ched Nasad, of House Suun Wett and Khareese …”

“Where are they?”

“Dead. Long dead.”

“And you stayed?”

“I had nowhere to turn, nowhere to go,” Tos’un explained.

“Until now.”

“It was time to find my way home, with Doum’wielle, my daughter, who is drow in heart and soul. She killed her brother, who was not akin to our weal, who could not follow the Spider Queen, and I, too, struck down her mother.”

“Dead?”

“Dead,” he said. “I have left the surface behind and only wish to return home.”

The matron mother mulled it over for a few moments, then looked down at the battered girl. “Perhaps …” she said, but then shook her head. “Take her away,” she instructed Andzrel.

“And teach her?” he asked with a smile.

“Gently,” Quenthel Baenre said.

Andzrel motioned for another of the Baenre soldiers to retrieve the fallen sword. Noting the commoner drow’s movement, Tos’un cried out again, “Take care! The blade is sentient, malicious and powerful!”

That drew curious looks from both Baenre nobles. The matron mother nodded to the weapons master and he went over and personally retrieved the sword, gingerly picking it up. His eyes widened with shock immediately and he held the blade aloft, clearly involved in a mental struggle for dominance with it.

And then Andzrel threw Khazid’hea to the ground once more and stared at his matron mother with a look of shock.

“The iblith child wielded it!” Matron Mother Quenthel scolded.

“With much preparation,” Tos’un explained.

“Dantrag!” Andzrel cried, and he rushed back and scooped up the sword once more, now wearing a determined expression and squeezing the blood from his knuckles as he gripped the hilt.

“Dantrag?” Quenthel Baenre echoed, for Dantrag, her brother, was long dead, a century or more. Andzrel had known him, but what …?

Quenthel’s eyes went wide with the shock of recognition as she stared at the sword Andzrel held.

“Khazid’hea,” she whispered. She snapped her angry glare over Tos’un.

“My sword?” he asked innocently.

“The sword of Dantrag Baenre!” the matron mother corrected, and it was Tos’un’s turn to gasp in surprise.

“It cannot be,” he mouthed.

“How did you get this?” Matron Mother Quenthel asked sharply, her threat clear in her tone.

“It … it found me,” Tos’un stammered, and he sounded very much like he knew he was about to die horribly. “In a rocky canyon, in the World Above.”

“A sword of such power?” Quenthel snapped back incredulously.

“It had abandoned its wielder, I expected, or the wielder was slain. I do not know!”

“Liar!”

“The sword agrees!” Andzrel said through chattering teeth, and when the matron mother and Tos’un turned to him, the weapons master threw the sword down once again. He stood there gawking and gasping for his breath. “It is a blade of considerable power!”

“Dantrag mastered it,” Quenthel reminded him spitefully. She turned back on Tos’un angrily. “Where did you get it?”

“As I told you, Matron Mother,” he said desperately. “I believe that one of the companions of Drizzt Do’Urden carried it, or perhaps the rogue himself.” He dared look up as he spoke that cursed name, and was relieved to see that it had the desired effect, for the matron mother visibly backed down, considering his words. She was weighing the region, no doubt, the Silver Marches, where Drizzt was known to roam, where Drizzt’s friend had once been the dwarven King of Mithral Hall.

Matron Mother Quenthel walked over and casually picked up Khazid’hea. “A Baenre blade,” she said quietly, as if talking to herself, or perhaps to the sword. “Ah, my brother, a pity you were lost to us.”

Quenthel’s eyes widened suddenly in shock. “ ‘Deceived by Drizzt,’ it said to me.”

“It has told me the same, Matron Mother,” Tos’un dared reply.

“ ‘Traitorous rogue,’ it calls him,” Quenthel said softly, and she focused on the blade again and seemed to be holding a telepathic conversation with it. A short while later, she walked back over, sword in hand. She moved to Andzrel, then with a mocking grin moved right past him to stand before Tos’un.

“Your blade,” she said.

“It was,” Tos’un said, keeping his eyes low, and to his shock, and indeed, to Andzrel Baenre’s gasp, Matron Mother Quenthel handed the blade back to the son of House Barrison Del’Armgo.

“Sheathe it and keep it there,” the matron mother ordered, and Tos’un accepted the blade with trembling hands and quickly put it away.

The matron mother offered a look of disgust to Andzrel and motioned for him to gather up Doum’wielle and be gone. She then instructed Tos’un to walk immediately behind her as the procession left the chamber.

“Deceived by Drizzt Do’Urden,” she said, turning back to him, and Tos’un noted that she spat every word with utter contempt. What Tos’un did not know was that this Matron Mother, Quenthel Baenre had great personal history with the rogue named Drizzt, and indeed, she had been slain by his blades in the very battle that had left Tos’un alone in the tunnels and mountains around the place called Mithral Hall.

“It is fortunate that you arrived when you did, Matron Mother,” Tsabrak Xorlarrin said. The matron mother had cornered him in his private chamber in the Xorlarrin Gauntlgrym complex, a situation that had made him clearly uncomfortable.

“Do tell,” Matron Mother Quenthel replied, coolly, and without any hint that the wizard should relax. She liked having her subjects balanced on a precarious edge.

“The son of House Barrison Del’Armgo,” Tsabrak replied, as if that should have been obvious.

“I did not come for him,” Matron Mother Quenthel said, and then, slyly, she added, “I came for you.”

The Xorlarrin wizard swallowed hard. “Matron Mother?” he asked.

“You were dispatched to the east to find the tunnels that would lead you to the land known as the Silver Marches,” Matron Mother Quenthel explained.

“Yes, Matron Mother, and I have!” Tsabrak quickly answered, and it was clear that he was fighting hard to keep his voice steady. “The Armgo pair are but an added benefit.”

“We will see,” Matron Mother Quenthel replied. “But they are not nearly as important. Do you know why you were sent on your journey?”

“No.” The hesitance in Tsabrak’s voice was palpable.

“I do,” Matron Mother Quenthel assured him. She offered a smile, but it was not a comforting one. “And know that you will be returning, and soon … once you are prepared.” She moved to the door and pulled it open, then motioned out in the hallway adjacent to Tsabrak’s quarters. In came Gromph, and Tsabrak bowed before the archmage. As he rose, Gromph’s companion entered the room, and Tsabrak’s eyes went wide.

He did well not to scream out, which was the expected reaction of anyone when an illithid walked into his bedroom.

“You’re a blessed one, Tsabrak,” Matron Mother Quenthel explained. “You will do your family great honor. I expect that you will return to this city of Q’Xorlarrin and be awarded a place of high honor-perhaps even as Archmage of Q’Xorlarrin, yes?” She looked to her brother slyly. “A rival to Gromph?”

The old Baenre wizard scoffed at the absurd notion, and only because he understood the truth of this new incarnation of Quenthel did he resist the urge to magically melt Tsabrak before her then and there, just to prove a point.

“Methil will show you the way, and will instruct you how to enact the spell,” Gromph explained to Tsabrak.

“Spell?”

“The Darkening,” Matron Mother Quenthel said. “You are preparing the greatest battlefield of this age, for the glory to the Spider Queen.” She nodded, then turned on her heel and left, but tarried long enough in the hallway to hear the first delicious screams of Tsabrak as the illithid sent its tentacles into his brain. Methil wouldn’t truly hurt him, she knew-indeed, far from it! — but none could feel that intimate intrusion without a bit of screaming, after all.

Her soldiers and scouts had spied out every corner of the Q’Xorlarrin complex, and Matron Zeerith’s children had done an impressive job of preparing the substructure of this ancient dwarven homeland to serve as a proper drow outpost-they would call it a city, but of course Matron Mother Quenthel would never let it rise to quite that level, that it might rival Menzoberranzan.

She didn’t knock on the next door, but pushed right through, to find Saribel Xorlarrin, a minor priestess by all accounts, but one that Tiago had inexplicably decided to take as a wife.

Saribel stared at her in puzzlement for just a moment, then cried out “Matron Mother!” and fell to her knees.

“Get up, child,” Matron Mother Quenthel said.

As Saribel rose, Quenthel cupped her chin and forced her head up as well, that she could look her in the eye.

“I am returning to Menzoberranzan with my entourage,” the matron mother explained. “I will leave only a few behind, including the illithid, who works with your uncle, Tsabrak. The creature is of no concern to you or any others.”

“Yes, Matron Mother,” Saribel replied, her eyes instinctively lowering.

Matron Mother Quenthel grabbed her more roughly and forced her to look up once more. “Tsabrak has work to do,” she explained. “He will not be impeded. When he returns to the east, he will take as many of your contingent as he pleases. If he instructs any to join him, your sister or brother or even your mother, if Matron Zeerith is here before he departs, then so be it. His word will be followed.”

“Yes, Matron Mother, I will go if ordered …”

“Not you,” Matron Mother Quenthel sternly corrected. “No, you will gather Tiago and return to me in Menzoberranzan. Where is he?”

“He is out of the complex, on the surface with Ravel and others.”

“I know that, you simpleton. Where have they gone?”

Saribel blinked repeatedly and seemed as if she was looking for an escape.

“Dear child,” Quenthel said, and her tone made it a clear threat.

“They had word of enemies,” Saribel blurted, “in a small city of humans and dwarves, not far. They have gone to eradicate …”

The matron mother blew an exaggerated sigh. “Impulsive children,” she said. “When they return, you will gather up Tiago and return to me at House Baenre, immediately.”

“Yes Matron Mother, but I am … I was left here to prepare the way for Matron Zeerith.”

“You will gather up Tiago and return to me at House Baenre, immediately,” Matron Mother Quenthel repeated slowly and evenly, her tone showing no room for debate.

“Yes, Matron Mother.”

“Do not expect to return here,” Quenthel Baenre warned. “Ever.”

Saribel withered under those words and Quenthel’s continuing glare, but she didn’t dare argue.

“Fear not, child,” Matron Mother Quenthel added with her knowing grin. “You will find a place of honor in a fine House of Menzoberranzan and that is no small thing. Perhaps you will one day sit on the Ruling Council.” Even as she spoke the words, Quenthel thought them ridiculous, for Saribel Xorlarrin was hardly worthy of her surname. Even Matron Zeerith had little to say about Saribel that was not rife with derision. But still, Quenthel thought, perhaps having such a stooge on the Ruling Council would secure her a second vote on any issue she wanted. Her smile turned genuine for just a moment before she reminded herself that she was getting way out in front here. Too many things still had to be accomplished before any of this would come to fruition, with the first battle of words no doubt looming.

She had a surprising announcement to make, after all, when next the Ruling Council was joined, and even her allies at the table might take exception.

But she was moving along the path beautifully, Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre believed. With the addition of High Priestess Minolin Fey to the Baenre ranks, and Gromph’s coming child, House Fey-Branche had been secured as an ally. The avatar of Lolth had confirmed the alliance, clearly, and the Fey-Branche family would never dare go against so obvious an imprimatur!

And now Quenthel found herself on the verge of diffusing the predicted battle between Andzrel and Tiago, to the satisfaction of both, and to the benefit, ultimately, of House Baenre.

She heard the continuing screams of Tsabrak Xorlarrin echoing down the hall when she left Saribel’s chamber. She remembered when she had screamed like that, when Methil’s tentacles had wriggled up her nose and into her brain.

If only she had understood then, as she did now, the beauty Methil had been imparting to her, the understanding of the millennia, the wisdom of her great mother, the clear vision of Lady Lolth’s grand scheme!

Quenthel would welcome another intimate intrusion by the illithid if such a gain was to be found again. She suspected that Tsabrak would feel the same.

He was learning the spell now, perhaps the greatest spell a drow would cast, at least since Matron Mother Yvonnel Baenre had created the tentacles that had grabbed House Oblodra and torn it from its stone roots to drop the whole of the place into the Clawrift.

“The Darkening,” she whispered as she moved along, and she wished that she could go all the way out to the east with Tsabrak to witness the beauteous spectacle!

She had only one more visit to make before heading home to Menzoberranzan, and she waited patiently in the hall, enjoying the music of the screams for just a short while until Gromph came out of Tsabrak’s room, Methil close behind.

“Tsabrak is prepared?” she asked.

“Almost,” the archmage answered. “He will scream again, but at least now he has come to understand that there is indeed a reason. Still, we will find some pleasure in his pain.”

Quenthel smirked at her brother, who was indeed, she knew, finding great pleasure in tormenting Tsabrak. As much as Gromph tried to deny it, Quenthel suspected that there was a bit of trepidation and even envy within him regarding Tsabrak.

Or perhaps she just hoped there was.

The trio went to Berellip Xorlarrin’s room, collected the high priestess, and traveled to the Forge, where goblins scrambled all around to supply the drow craftsmen as they worked their magic.

“I have heard much of this place,” the matron mother said to Berellip. “Blacksmith Gol’fanin has told me that there is no forge upon Toril to exceed the heat and power of this one.”

“He does not exaggerate,” Berellip assured her, and she waved her arm out at the great Forge of Gauntlgrym, set in the middle of the long and narrow chamber.

“It is an oven. I do not need to view an oven,” Matron Mother Quenthel said with a derisive chortle that set Berellip back on her heels.

“Show us the source of the power within those furnaces,” Gromph explained, and the Xorlarrin priestess nodded excitedly and hustled to a small mithral door set back behind the main forge, halfway along the room’s long side wall. Beyond it lay a narrow tunnel that had once been sealed with several doors, it seemed.

“Portals designed by dwarves to keep all others out,” Berellip explained as they passed through one empty jamb where a door had been removed.

The air grew humid, then steamy; they could hear the sound of falling water, and an angry hissing noise in response. The tunnel wound for many paces before ending at another door, this one slightly ajar. Berellip pushed it open and led them through, spilling out into an oblong chamber.

A chamber that was alive with the power of the elements.

The chamber was cut, wall-to-wall, by a very deep pit, into which a perpetual waterfall poured from the ceiling.

“Do you feel it, Archmage?” Matron Mother Quenthel said, and she closed her eyes and moved forward, basking in the power of the primordial. With Gromph beside her, she moved to the edge of the pit and looked down at the bared power of Gauntlgrym, and even for the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan, who knew best the beauty and grandeur of the City of Spiders, and even for the Archmage of Menzoberranzan, who had walked the planes, such a sight as this surely stole their breath.

They could not see the walls of the pit, for they were obscured by a spinning vortex of water, living water elementals forming the shaft prison for the beast far, far below. Through that spray and mist it loomed, the fire primordial, a living beast older than the dragons, older than the gods, perhaps.

It was trapped but it was not still. Nay, the bubbling lake of lava popped and spat forth its fire and magma, vomiting them upward to fall against the watery wall of the spinning vortex, the endless battle between fire and water.

The two Baenres stepped back from the ledge and turned to look upon a beaming Berellip.

“This is …” the matron mother started to say, glancing around and shaking her head as if in disgust, which stole more than a bit of Berellip’s bluster.

The matron mother stared her in the eye. “Why have you not prepared this room?”

“M-matron Mother?” Berellip stammered, hardly able to grasp the dangled concept. “The room is functional. Perfectly so. The forges …”

“Functional?” Matron Mother Quenthel snapped incredulously, and Gromph gave a little laugh. “This is not functional!” she insisted, spitting the last word as if it rang out as a tremendous insult to her sensibilities. “This is majesty! This is glory! This place, that beast, the elementals trapping it, are the reason Lolth has allowed your departure from Menzoberranzan. Do you not recognize that, priestess?”

“Yes, Matron Mother, of course.”

“Then why have you not prepared this room?” the matron mother emphatically demanded.

Berellip’s lips moved, but she said nothing, so at a loss as to even know where to begin.

Quenthel pushed past her impatiently, moving out to the center of the flat stone area and surveying the room.

“That tunnel?” she asked, pointing to a second exit from the place, just down the wall from the door through which they had entered. She could see that it was a natural tunnel, perhaps a lava tube, burned out from the stone. “Where does it lead?”

“To a back corridor, Matron Mother,” Berellip answered.

“Seal it where it joins the outer corridor,” Quenthel instructed Gromph, who nodded and started across the way.

“I will put up a wall of iron, but it may be dispelled,” he informed her.

“Seal it,” she said again. “And then the Xorlarrin craftsmen will construct more permanent walls to support your magical construct.”

“This place!” Quenthel exclaimed, and then she began to dance, slowly turning, and she began to sing, an ancient song of the founding of Menzoberranzan for the glory of the Spider Queen.

Her twirls became more enhanced and rapid, her spidery gown flowing out wide from her slender form, and from that gown dropped small spiders, living spiders, that scurried away from her as if they knew their task.

For indeed they did. The song of consecration had brought them to life from the magical garments of the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan, and that song told them.

Gromph came back out of the tunnel a short while later, his wall constructed to seal off the far end. Quenthel continued her song and dance. Spiders ran all around the ledge and up the walls, many already trailing their filaments.

Quenthel twirled around and then stopped abruptly, dramatically, her grasping hands cupping at the front of her shoulders, at green, spider-shaped brooches she wore. She tore them free of her gown, her song becoming a powerful chant and plea to the Spider Queen, and she threw those brooches out to the floor before her, where they landed and skidded and animated.

And grew.

“This is the chapel of Q’Xorlarrin!” the matron mother declared to Berellip, and now the jade spiders were the size of ponies, then the size of horses, then the size of umber hulks. One moved to stand beside the door through which they had entered, the other to flank the tunnel Gromph had sealed.

And there they froze in place, perfectly still, guardian statues.

“Matron Mother, we are blessed by your generosity!” Berellip said and she threw herself to the floor before Quenthel Baenre.

Quenthel ignored her and once more scanned the chamber, smiling as she saw the webs coming into being, the thousand little spiders working their magic.

“There is a chamber across the pit,” Gromph informed her, and he led her gaze to the far end of the room.

“What is in there?” Quenthel demanded of Berellip.

“The lever of magic,” she answered. “It controls the water to feed the elementals to hold the primordial, so Ravel has told me.”

“A simple lever?” Quenthel asked, turning to Gromph.

“Simple to a dwarf of noble Delzoun blood, so Jarlaxle has told me,” the archmage answered. “Impossible for any others.”

“And such a dwarf might pull that lever to free the beast,” Quenthel reasoned.

“Such was nearly the destruction of Gauntlgrym,” Gromph explained, “The volcano that alerted us to this place many years ago.”

“But if a dwarf king found the hallowed Forge under the control of the drow …” Quenthel remarked.

Gromph led her down the way to stand opposite the chamber, then enacted a magical doorway, a dimensional warp, that the two of them and Methil could step across.

“A simple lever,” Quenthel said when they moved under a low archway into the antechamber.

“Let me complicate it, then,” the archmage offered. He moved back under the archway and began casting a powerful spell, calling to the water.

When he came back into the antechamber, he led a large, flowing, humanoid construct created entirely of water.

“A proper guard, against any and all who would come in here,” Gromph explained. “Except, of course, those who wear the insignia of House Baenre.”

The matron mother nodded her appreciation.

Gromph signed his fingers at his illithid companion, and the mind flayer’s tentacles began to wave and waggle around.

“Mark it?” Quenthel asked, having read his hand signal to Methil.

“When we decide to return here, would there be a better place to arrive?” Gromph replied, and Quenthel understood then that the archmage and his mind flayer had just magically attuned to this particular room for purposes of teleportation, both magical and psionic.

When that was finished, Gromph moved back under the archway and reconstructed his dimension door and followed Quenthel back to the ledge across the way.

“The Chapel of Q’Xorlarrin,” she repeated to Berellip. “And that tunnel, I think, would suit well your matron as her private quarters.”

“Yes, Matron Mother.”

“Consecrate this ground with the blood of slaves,” Quenthel instructed. “Feed the primordial beast with the flesh of our enemies.”

“Yes, Matron Mother,” Berellip eagerly replied.

So eagerly, Matron Mother Quenthel thought. On impulse, Quenthel lifted her arms out wide, tilted her head back, and closed her eyes. “Lift your scourge,” she told Berellip.

“Matron Mother?” the priestess replied with a clear tremor in her voice.

“It is fitting that my blood is first to seal the chapel. Lift your scourge!”

With trembling hands, Berellip complied. She didn’t snap her snake-headed whip at the matron mother, but she didn’t have to, for it was an instrument of Lady Lolth’s wrath, and the snakes understood their purpose here.

They lashed and tore at Quenthel’s skin, and she reveled in the glory of Lolth as her blood dripped to the stones. She began to twirl and to dance, and Berellip kept pace, her four serpents biting again and again.

After many steps and much blood it ended, and the matron mother cast a spell of healing to close her wounds, regain her strength, and neutralize the poison of Berellip’s vipers.

Then she took her own five-headed instrument from her belt. Now it was Berellip’s turn to dance for the Spider Queen.

Some time later, Quenthel, Gromph, and Methil left Berellip lying on the floor of the primordial chamber in a pool of her own blood. Dazed and disoriented, the priestess would surely die if she could not find the clarity to collect her thoughts and her powers enough to heal herself from the venom of Quenthel’s vicious serpents.

In that tragic event, the matron mother figured, it would be the will of Lolth, and Matron Zeerith would have no one to blame but herself for raising such impotent daughters.