Maestro

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Gromph is about,” Zeerith reasoned.

  “It is more than that,” Jarlaxle explained, and he reflexively glanced back in the direction of his companions, who had been acting so curiously. “There is something about the thinning of the Faerzress … a mind sickness.”

  “The chaos of the Abyss seeps through?” Zeerith wondered aloud.

  “The illithids are very sensitive to such things, and terrified of them, of course,” Jarlaxle explained. “Kimmuriel will not come here.”

  “Do you still wish to follow through with your plans?” Zeerith asked, after a long pause to digest the information.

  “I want to get Dahlia out of there, yes. It will wound Matron Mother Baenre, but not mortally, and will force her hand in allowing the Xorlarrin family to assume complete control over House Do’Urden.”

  “Or she will disband House Do’Urden all together.”

  “She’ll not do that,” Jarlaxle said with some confidence. “She has pressed the other Houses into a tight corner—even her allies have come to fear her as much as they fear their rivals. She has shown them that she considers herself far above them, above their counsel even. The matron mother’s one play to assure no movement against her is to bring House Xorlarrin back, and to do so in a way that offers them, you, the same independence as every other House. Are your children up to that task?”

  Zeerith gave a little noncommittal laugh. She wasn’t going back to Menzoberranzan, they both had decided. Jarlaxle’s play to weaken the matriarchy had Matron Mother Zeerith’s fingerprints all over it. Those other matron mothers who decided to wage war to keep their power unchallenged would surely conspire to murder Matron Mother Zeerith first, if they could find her.

  “You will need Kimmuriel before this is through,” she said, and Jarlaxle didn’t argue the point.

  “I might need him simply to deal with my companions,” he replied, glancing back the way he had come, to the chambers that held Drizzt and Entreri.

  “Our people are running patrols in the outer corridors,” Zeerith explained. “I can lead you there and give you my imprimatur. That should get you into the city, though from there, there is little I can offer.”

  “Who among your children know I’m coming for Dahlia?”

  “None.”

  “Thank you,” Jarlaxle said with a bow. He didn’t trust Zeerith’s flock, of course. There was simply too much opportunity for personal gain for any of them. In truth, Jarlaxle was shocked that he trusted Zeerith—might she not regain favor with Quenthel by double-crossing him?

  It was a calculated risk. Zeerith might come to consider that Jarlaxle’s odds of succeeding were so tiny and, given that, any gains she might make with him would not outweigh the possibilities for her to find favor with the Ruling Council once more.

  But no, he decided, Zeerith’s best play was with him. Her relationship with the men of her House was no ploy. She hadn’t elevated the Xorlarrin males in any twisted plot to give her an edge on the other Houses—far from it! House Xorlarrin’s climb was in spite of Zeerith’s unusual feelings toward the weaker gender, and not because of them. But she had held her ground through the decades because there was honest conviction behind her decision. To Zeerith’s belief, subjugating the males of Menzoberranzan meant that the drow could only achieve half of their potential.

  “This journey has left me uncertain,” he admitted. “Nothing is as it should be, or as I anticipated.”

  “Demon lords walk the Underdark. Are you surprised by the chaos?”

  Jarlaxle thought of the fit of—of what? Delusion? Insanity?—that had come over Drizzt and Entreri in the earlier fight. Might that increase? He was tempted to take off his eye patch, that he might experience whatever had gripped the two, if indeed it was some outside influence, but he quickly dismissed that notion.

  “Concerned, more than surprised,” he replied. “Let me go to them and offer the choice. I will return to you this way momentarily, and if with them, then know we will press on. I would like to be in the city this very tenday.”

  “They are not to know of my involvement, on pain of their deaths,” Matron Mother Zeerith reminded him.

  “You don’t trust me?” Jarlaxle asked, feigning dismay.

  “I do not trust them,” she corrected, and Jarlaxle grinned and spun away.

  HE WAS BACK with Entreri and Drizzt a short while later, the two settled very near to where he had left them. Entreri guarded the north corridor, a winding and climbing trail, absently spinning his jeweled dagger on its point against the tip of his extended index finger.

  Drizzt sat across the way, on a ledge of rock in front of the corridor that had brought them to this crossroads.

  “The way is clear, for a bit at least,” Jarlaxle announced.

  Entreri nodded, but Drizzt didn’t lift his face, apparently distracted.

  Jarlaxle didn’t much like the look of that, but he pressed on. “Now I must tell you that at every turn, my expectations have been altered. You know of the unexpected challenges Faelas Xorlarrin explained, and there are more, I fear. Something—I cannot quite discern the source—but something is amiss down here in these deep tunnels. We will likely get into the city, but from there, I cannot predict our fate.”

  “Are you saying that we should turn back?” Entreri asked, and every word was accompanied by a profound scowl.

  “I am only offering the truth.”

  “You promised me that we would do this. You owe this to me!”

  Jarlaxle held his hand up in the air to calm the man, and was afraid that Entreri might leap at him with deadly intent. “What say you, Drizzt?” he asked.

  The ranger didn’t seem to hear.

  “Say it!” Entreri demanded, apparently taking the silence as an admission that they should indeed turn back. For a moment, Jarlaxle expected another skirmish.

  But Drizzt looked up finally and said, “We came for Dahlia. She is still in the city?”

  “Of course,” Entreri snapped, at the same time as Jarlaxle replied, “That is my belief.”

  “Then let us be done with this,” said Drizzt. “We came for Dahlia, and so we shall find her and deliver her from Menzoberranzan.”

  Jarlaxle was glad to hear it, though he certainly had expected nothing less. But his smile wouldn’t hold. Something in the way Drizzt rose, something etched on his face that Jarlaxle couldn’t quite place, spoke of a profound unease. With every step Drizzt took it seemed as if he wanted to wince—not from physical pain, but from something within him that was surely less than comfortable.

  Jarlaxle led the way quickly, determined to get into the city as soon as possible. He knew that Zeerith was watching, and that she was ahead of him. He found her signal scratches here and there, guiding him along his path.

  Matron Mother Zeerith was doing her job, and Jarlaxle was confident that she had set up the means to get them into the city with a patrol.

  But Entreri simmered on the edge of explosive outrage and Drizzt wore an expression that seemed utterly defeated, forlorn beyond anything Jarlaxle could imagine from Drizzt, or anything he had ever seen from the ranger before.

  Jarlaxle only liked riddles when he knew the answer.

  CHAPTER 11

  Eclectic Allies

  THEY SAT ABOUT A CIRCULAR TABLE, AGREED UPON BECAUSE NONE would therefore be at the head, but Catti-brie and everyone else in attendance understood who was driving this meeting and its agenda.

  They were in Illusk, the ancient Undercity of Luskan, and down here, the drow ruled. Down here, dark elves patrolled the corridors, hand crossbows at the ready, speaking to other patrol groups with flashing fingers. Down here, Gromph Baenre was in control.

  Athrogate and Ambergris flanked Catti-brie, and she looked to them now for their opinions. Unsurprisingly, both shook their heads at her solemnly and determinedly, clearly in no mood for another of Archmage Gromph’s lectures.

  When Catti-brie looked at the others around the table, she noted mostly hesitation an
d discomfort, except from Lord Parise Ulfbinder, tap-tapping his fingers together in front of him, seeming eager and smiling widely. That one was only interested in knowledge, Catti-brie reminded herself. He had about him a demeanor of distance, as if he was unaffected by the events that unfolded even right in his face. Catti-brie didn’t know the Netherese lord well, of course, but from her time with him, and from what Jarlaxle had told her of him, she had already come to understand that Parise Ulfbinder was an explorer and student, more concerned with attaining knowledge than with his own power or safety.

  He was not her enemy, nor was Lady Avelyere, who sat beside him.

  “Pray tell us, Archmage, why you have assembled us,” Lord Parise asked. “If you are interested in reviewing the information we have brought to this city, then I am sure I will need more time to unpack my belongings and catalogue my scripts.”

  Catti-brie stared at Gromph as Parise rambled on, noting that the drow didn’t blink, and that the scowl did not diminish upon his handsome, but surely dangerous face. She wondered if Gromph would silence the Netherese lord. Was this meeting to become Gromph’s attempt to dominate this entire mission?

  “I brought you here that you might hear my news,” Gromph said, a perturbed element clearly evident in his melodic voice. “If I wished to know what you had brought, I would have asked.”

  “Well, that one’s in a bit of a fit, sister,” said Ilnezhara.

  “He’s the frost of a white dragon biting his bum, I expect,” Tazmikella replied.

  Catti-brie’s eyes went wide and she held her breath, expecting catastrophe at the not-subtle reminder of the dragon fight in the Silver Marches, where Tazmikella and Ilnezhara had killed the son of Arauthator, the great White Death, and had chased the mighty white dragon off, as well. More than a few rumors hinted that Gromph had played a role in luring Arauthator to that battlefield, and his expression twisted as confirmation to that very notion.

  Beside Catti-brie, the dwarves both giggled, and Gromph’s face screwed up even tighter. How dare anyone speak to the Archmage of Menzoberranzan, to the great Gromph Baenre, in such a manner!

  But these were dragons, Catti-brie reminded herself. As mighty as Gromph might be, was he truly in the mood for a fight with a pair of clever dragons?

  “We have among us a sage,” Gromph said, and he relaxed a bit, purposely it seemed to Catti-brie, to show that he was not insulted. He motioned to Parise Ulfbinder, who nodded humbly at the compliment.

  “A sorcerer,” he said, and Lady Avelyere bowed her chin.

  “Some … wizards.” Penelope Harpell seemed less than amused by his rather insulting pause.

  “And a Chosen,” Gromph said with a derisive snicker aimed at Catti-brie, “though she cannot seem to decide if she is wizard or priestess.”

  “She might be better at both than any o’ either ye’d find,” Athrogate interrupted.

  “Dwarf fodder running about the stone, the greatest of the drow, Netherese lord and lady, a pair of dragons, and …”—again with that clearly insulting pause—“humans.

  “We hold among us the knowledge of many races, the understanding of wizardry from three different eras and from many different styles,” Gromph continued. “We access the Weave, but from perspectives and training of great variance. That is our strength in seeking the secrets of the Hosttower of the Arcane.”

  The archmage paused and stood up, pacing imperiously.

  “Wizardry and spells divine,” he muttered, and nodded toward Catti-brie and Ambergris with faked deference. “But there, too, are other powers.”

  “Necromancy,” said Lord Parise.

  “It is mere wizardry, distorted,” Kipper Harpell argued.

  “A separate art!” Lord Parise insisted.

  “That, too, will be properly in place. Jarlaxle has sent to us a necromancer named Effron, who carries an artifact of great power, taken from a skull lord,” Gromph explained.

  Lord Parise held his breath at that, quite aware of the necromancer named Effron, and his unsavory relationship with Parise’s closest friend and secret ally in this endeavor, Lord Draygo Quick.

  Catti-brie, too, perked up at the mention of Dahlia’s son. She looked to Ambergris, who had been a traveling companion of Effron’s in the last days of the Spellplague, to find the dwarf beaming with excitement at the news.

  “But no,” Gromph continued, “I speak of an entirely different power, one equal to those divine and arcane.”

  One of the mind, they all heard in their heads, though it took some of them a while to understand that it had been a telepathic impartation.

  “You see, Chosen of Mielikki, you are not the only one here who brings magic from two different sources,” Gromph explained.

  “Well, this is news,” Tazmikella said. “The Archmage of Menzoberranzan is a psionicist, is he?”

  “Gromph Odran?” Ilnezhara teased.

  Gromph sneered a bit at the mention of the cursed House, and the reminder that Kimmuriel was still out there beyond his grasp.

  “I am only beginning to explore this strange art,” Gromph admitted, “but I have witnessed enough to understand that it is a beautiful thing, and one that can be entwined with the Weave.”

  “With Mystra’s Weave?” Catti-brie asked, though of course she knew of what he was speaking. Given Lolth’s failure to take the Weave into her domain, Catti-brie thought a reminder of which goddess held the Weave might be appropriate, and perhaps a bit humbling to the haughty drow wizard.

  In response, Gromph offered a bored, somewhat scowling look.

  “I have arranged for a representative of the hive-mind to come among us,” he explained. “The illithids are quite interested in this most unusual and powerful endeavor.”

  “Oh grand!” Parise Ulfbinder said without a hint of sarcasm, and clapped his hands.

  Catti-brie sighed, not surprised at that reaction.

  “You are bringing a mind flayer into Luskan?” Ilnezhara asked, seeming much less enthusiastic than the Netherese lord.

  “A stinkin’ squid head?” Athrogate demanded. “By the hairy bum o’ Moradin, ye’ve lost yer sense, drow!”

  Gromph’s stare alone seemed as if it might prove enough to explode Athrogate’s head—so much so that Catti-brie actually feared the Archmage was launching a psionic attack upon the black-bearded dwarf. But Athrogate remained unbothered and unshaken, and didn’t shrink back a bit from the glare. In fact, he returned it with a grin that seemed to welcome any challenge.

  Catti-brie reminded herself that there were two undeniable truths in the Realms: It was very easy to overestimate a drow and even easier to underestimate a dwarf.

  And both races could, and usually did, use that mistake to their respective advantage.

  The notion followed to a deeper level with Catti-brie, a poignant reminder to her that the physical trappings of an individual—race, gender, attractiveness, size—played such an important role in perception of everything else related to that individual, indeed could sometimes outweigh the quality of action or words.

  It was such an absurd notion, when she stripped it down to that level, and so, in this tense moment, with so many powerful beings sitting about, the woman couldn’t help herself and began to laugh. And not just a titter, but an actual laugh, a belly laugh, a reaction to absurdity that had everyone in the room staring at her as if she had lost her mind.

  Gromph turned his glare upon her. The dragon sisters seemed perplexed for a moment, then they, too, began to laugh.

  “What’re ye doin’, lass?” Athrogate said with obvious concern.

  It took Catti-brie another few moments to comport herself. When she did, she planted her hands firmly on the round table and stood up, commanding attention.

  “We are here under dangerous circumstance for common gain, personal insight, and to be a part of something grander than our individual lives,” she said. She took a moment to look around at all gathered, letting her gaze settle on each for some time to acknowledge them i
ndividually.

  “We all have different reasons for being here, and will find different gains both for ourselves and, for some, for those we have come to represent,” she continued. “There are possibly competing interests here, but they are within a common goal. And each of these competing interests, as much as they might diminish another’s, are muted and countered by third interests and fourth. I can see in looking around that there is to be no supremacy here, as much as any of us might desire it.” She paused and offered a sidelong look to Archmage Gromph. “And so I insist that any additions to the collection be agreed upon by all at the table. There will be no shifting of the balance.”

  “The illithids are coming,” Gromph stated.

  “Surely they are aware of our efforts here,” Lord Parise added. “There is little of any importance that escapes their view. And do not doubt that their contribution will be great—perhaps as great as any here assembled.”

  “But they are ugly things, aren’t they?” Ilnezhara asked.

  “Squid heads,” Athrogate grumbled.

  “I doubt you not, Lord Parise,” said Catti-brie. “The larger question I have, the larger concern I have, is whether or not their presence will give advantage to any personal agendas above the common goal.” Again she ended with a glance at Gromph, who stared at her now with open contempt.

  “Doubtful,” said Tazmikella. “They are illithids, mind flayers. None here can discern their desires, let alone trust any alliance with them. They are as foreign to us, even to my sister and me, as we are to the houseflies we might swat. In all the millennia, none have quite sorted the true intentions and motivations of the mind flayers.” She, too, turned an eye to Gromph, and finished pointedly, “Not even the Archmage of Menzoberranzan, who, after a recent disaster, should be most concerned among us regarding the intentions, motivations, and methods of those psionic beasts.”

  “Then do we allow them audience with our efforts?” Penelope Harpell asked.

  “They already are aware of what is happening here,” said Catti-brie. “So the audience is a foregone conclusion, whether we allow them into our circle or not. Is there anything we could truly hide from an illithid hive-mind?”