This time he brought his hand forth with a pile of rings in his palm, and he sorted through them for a moment, then slid a gold band set with some light stone, perhaps a diamond, onto his finger. He paused a moment, placed his finger against his temple, and issued a command word.
His great hat shifted, then seemed to rise a bit of its own accord. Jarlaxle solved the mystery for the other two by reaching up and pulling off the hat, letting a mop of white hair fall down over his shoulders. Thick and styled, one side was cut in layers, the other hanging over the shaved side of Jarlaxle’s head.
Jarlaxle slapped his hat against his thigh and the magical thing seemed to fold in upon itself, becoming small enough for Jarlaxle to easily slide it into his pocket.
“I’m sure we’re better off in disguise,” the mercenary explained with a wink—or maybe it was a blink. His eye patch remained in place. He dropped the ring back into his pouch, replaced it with some other magical ring, and motioned for the others to follow.
The trio met up with an agent of Matron Mother Zeerith’s in the next chamber, a broken cavern of slanted walls and natural chimneys. Nowhere was the ground even, a situation made worse by the blood and goo that covered the stones.
“You should have arrived sooner,” remarked Palaenmas, a young warrior of House Xorlarrin. “We could have used the extra swords.”
“I am surprised to find you by the Wanderways,” Jarlaxle replied, referring to a group of tunnels leading off of the most remote eastern reaches of Menzoberranzan.
“The Masterways are closed, both magically and physically,” Palaenmas explained, the Masterways being the main routes in and out of Menzoberranzan. “Only a fool would test the glyphs and wards the priestesses and wizards have placed in those corridors.”
“And no doubt they are tested daily,” said Jarlaxle.
“Constantly,” Palaenmas replied. “The corridors are filled with the stench of demon corpses. War parties venture forth every hour to place new wards. But the foolish beasts keep coming, and so they die before they get near to Menzoberranzan.” He looked around at the trio. “It is a testament to your skill and cunning that you even made it to this point. You will find your path easier now.”
Somehow the three travelers doubted that.
Palaenmas nodded for them to follow and led them back to the main patrol group, explaining them as refugees from a separate failed patrol.
Their timing had been perfect. The group was already on the way back to the city, and was only a few turns and chambers from the straight, well-defended passageway leading into Araunilcaurak.
The troupe went through the checkpoints and newly constructed gates without incident and was dismissed as soon as they entered the great cavern. They began dispersing just inside to the various ways of Menzoberranzan.
Jarlaxle paused there, holding his two companions back, and so Drizzt took a moment to reorient himself to the city. To the left of them, the rothé cattle lowed and grazed on the small island in the midst of the lake named Donigarten. Mushroom groves and fungi farms filled the area in front of them, with small cottages and large storehouses built low on the stones. The nearest of the houses of the city proper began several hundred feet down to the right, in the Braeryn, the slum region known as the Stenchstreets. Farther along the cavern wall loomed the Clawrift, Drizzt recalled, and beyond that the Masterways and then Tier Breche, the raised antechamber that held the drow Academy.
He looked directly across from the entryway, to the southwest and the structures of the greatest noble Houses on the higher plateau known as the Qu’ellarz’orl. The lights of the city captured his vision, the perpetual blue and purple and green faerie fire that artistically highlighted every stalactite and stalagmite, the beautiful decorations that made Menzoberranzan so much more than Araunilcaurak.
He continued his scan, his eye roving to the north, caught and held by the glow of Narbondel, the great pillar that gave this cavern its name. By the height of the glow of that gigantic pillar, Drizzt had once set the regimen of his days.
Narbondel was discipline within chaos, was the constant within the swirl, was the symbol of the hour, the day, the eternity of the drow.
“We’ll go to the Stenchstreets,” Jarlaxle said when the three were isolated enough just inside the city gates. “I’ll find my information there …” He paused, his voice trailing off as he noted Drizzt.
The ranger stood there, transfixed, staring at the great column.
But Drizzt’s thoughts, revealed in his wistful and unresponsive gaze, were far, far away.
BRAELIN HAD NEVER imagined the possibility of such pain, the burn unrelenting and so much worse than anything he had known from the scourge of his matron mother or the hateful magic of some high priestess.
He could not believe this. It would not relent. He was certain he would soon be driven completely insane by the sheer, brutal agony of it all. He watched helplessly, shackled and held above the floor by his bloody wrists, as his right leg bloated and swelled. Braelin could not imagine greater pain, but that didn’t matter as the bones in his leg split in half, skin and muscles tearing.
They would split again, so promised the chants of the Melarni priestesses dancing around him, their vile magic coagulating in Braelin’s tormented form. One leg would become four, then the other would complete his arachnid lower torso.
He should have passed out long before, but that, too, was part of the magic of the demon priestesses, keeping him alert to witness his brutal and agonizing transformation.
Braelin screamed—oh, how he screamed! He screamed until he could not draw enough breath to make any more noise. His head lolled from side to side, his arms twitched, but had little strength remaining to cause more than a ripple of movement from his trembling body.
“It doesn’t get better,” one of them or all of them said—Braelin was too far removed from reality to know which. In any case, the words reverberated in his thoughts, ominous portents as the pain continued on and on.
“You will feel this for a century,” another voice told him.
“Unrelenting.”
“The curse of the drider.”
Even in the midst of mind-swirling agony, Braelin understood that the vicious priestesses were enjoying this torture.
But then it stopped, though it took Braelin a long, long while to understand that it had. The sound of metal he heard above him was the key sliding into the shackles.
He dropped hard to the floor, his leg exploding in a wave of new agony as it touched ground.
“Heal him,” Braelin heard, distantly, and somehow he recognized that particular voice, the sharp intonations of Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn.
Soon after, the first wave of warm healing washed over him, and Braelin fell into a deep slumber.
“YOU ARE CERTAIN of this?” Matron Mother Zhindia asked Kiriy Xorlarrin. “Jarlaxle, here in the city?”
“It was confirmed by my envoy,” Kiriy assured her, “a Xorlarrin who escorted Jarlaxle and two others in through the eastern gate, as Matron Mother Zeerith had instructed.”
“To Baenre’s call?”
“No,” Kiriy replied with confidence. “The matron mother does not know of Jarlaxle’s arrival—he is not here at her command. This is his own mission, to his own ends.”
“And those are?”
“I do not know. But it is surely of importance for Jarlaxle to venture here at this time, through tunnels filled with demons.”
“Matron Mother Darthiir,” Zhindia said, nodding.
“Matron Mother Zeerith does wish to make a play for House Do’Urden,” said Kiriy. “If Jarlaxle seeks the iblith Dahlia, then Matron Mother Zeerith would certainly welcome and facilitate the move. It would leave a void, one to be filled by a Xorlarrin, no doubt.”
“By High Priestess Kiriy Xorlarrin, who has not forgotten the ways of the Lady of Chaos.”
Kiriy smiled.
“I do not think Matron Mother Zeerith will be happy with the fruition of her pla
ns,” the Matron Mother of House Melarn remarked. “She does not understand her eldest daughter.”
“She will not come near to Menzoberranzan to discover the truth.”
Matron Mother Zhindia shook her head at that. “Once House Do’Urden is secure, Matron Mother Zeerith cannot be allowed to live. She will not accept the truth of House Do’Urden when you reveal the new ways of Xorlarrin. She will connive with the matron mother to be rid of you.”
“Jarlaxle will lead us back to her, perhaps.”
“Jarlaxle will be dead,” Matron Mother Zhindia assured her. “But there are others of Bregan D’aerthe who will be useful to us. But first, we have much to do. This is too much supposition. We do not truly know Jarlaxle’s plans here in the city.”
“I will see what I can learn.”
Matron Mother Zhindia shook her head. “Just lead me to him. I have a way.”
Kiriy looked to the door to her right in the small chamber, the antechamber to the torture room where Braelin Janquay recovered from the brutality of his trials.
“We stopped it in time to use him,” Matron Mother Zhindia assured her.
“Jarlaxle’s players are fiercely loyal,” Kiriy warned her.
“There is no loyalty in the face of the punishment the rogue Braelin knows will be returned upon him if he disappoints me.”
“That punishment will be returned upon him even if he does not.”
“Of course, but he does not know that, and with the memories of the transformation so fresh in his thoughts, he will not allow himself to believe that.”
THE DEMON SHOWED him Catti-brie, his wife, and let him live with their children, and all was well, and all was grand.
And the beast Errtu ate them, chewed them, tore them apart, before Wulfgar’s eyes, shattering his mind …
The brutal conjuring of that image jolted Drizzt from his slumber at the table in the nondescript common room in the ramshackle building in the Stenchstreets. He opened his eyes to find Jarlaxle and Entreri staring at him incredulously.
“We are at the most dangerous point of our journey and you think it time for a nap?” Entreri asked angrily.
Jarlaxle tried to calm Entreri with a patting hand, while he looked at Drizzt carefully. “Are you all right, my friend?” he asked.
“Is anything all right?” Drizzt replied. “Ever?”
Jarlaxle and Entreri exchanged yet another concerned glance. “He sounds like me,” Entreri snorted. “And he considers me the dour one!”
Jarlaxle shook his head, dismissing the superfluous conversation. “Drizzt,” he said earnestly, “we are almost there. Our goal is in sight on the western wall.”
Drizzt stared at him and couldn’t be bothered with even a nod of agreement. He understood his role here, and though he now doubted the value of it, he would gladly fight—more gladly than ever—against anyone who got in his way.
Simply because he wanted to kill something.
“For Dahlia,” Jarlaxle said, and Drizzt wondered if it really even was Dahlia seated as Matron Mother of House Do’Urden. How deep, how complete, might the deception go?
“There’s your friend,” Entreri interrupted and he led Jarlaxle’s gaze to the entry area of the common room, and to Braelin Janquay who came limping toward them, heavily favoring his right leg.
He glanced around as he neared the table, then sat opposite Drizzt, to Jarlaxle’s left. He stared at Jarlaxle only briefly, then leaned to the edge of the table, his hands beneath. He started signing, but stopped and cautiously glanced around once more.
Then his fingers began their dance, the chatter of the drow, and the words he formed told Jarlaxle that all was well and that the way was clear to House Do’Urden. He explained that Dahlia was seated as expected, paralyzed by her jumbled thoughts in the audience chamber. No one knew of Jarlaxle’s entrance into the city, so said Braelin’s waggling fingers, and no other House was moving against Do’Urden. All was as it should be, as they had hoped it would be, and this was the perfect time to execute their devious plan.
Braelin glanced around again and struggled to stand. All three noted it and glanced at his leg.
“Injured in a patrol,” Braelin replied to Jarlaxle’s concerned look. “It is well on the mend.”
When he was gone, Jarlaxle looked to the others and nodded.
AT THE SAME moment, in House Baenre’s Room of Divination, the daughter of Gromph Baenre considered the image in the stoup water and laughed heartily. She grasped K’yorl’s hands tightly and forced herself more deeply into the powerful psionicist’s mind. This cistern was serving her well.
AT THE SAME moment, Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn told Kiriy Xorlarrin, “Prepare now for the defense of House Do’Urden,”
“You will help?”
“They are only three,” Zhindia replied, but with a sly tone that didn’t offer any definitive answer to the question.
“Then let us kill them where they sit and be done with it,” Kiriy replied.
“Catching Jarlaxle of Bregan D’aerthe as he tries to rescue the damned Matron Mother Darthiir will greatly shake dear Quenthel’s confidence and position,” Matron Mother Zhindia said.
“And so, too, will this moment of Jarlaxle’s treachery offer us the opportunity to be done with House Do’Urden,” Zhindia went on. “The news of Bregan D’aerthe conspiring overtly against House Baenre will embolden Matron Mother Mez’Barris Armgo to take the steps at long last to put House Baenre back into its proper place and destroy the tyrannical and wrongheaded rule of Matron Mother Quenthel.”
She cast a knowing glance at Iltztrav, the Melarni House Wizard who had facilitated the clairvoyance and clairaudience spells so they could witness Braelin’s deception. Then she added, “Particularly so when Jarlaxle’s companion is revealed.”
She turned back to Kiriy, who was staring at her with confusion and intrigue.
“You did not notice?” Zhindia asked.
Kiriy shook her head ever so slightly.
“The one across from Braelin,” Zhindia explained. “The one with the purple eyes.”
Kiriy Xorlarrin lost her breath and rocked as she stood there. “Drizzt Do’Urden,” she mouthed.
“In Menzoberranzan,” a grinning Zhindia replied, “on his way to House Do’Urden, where we will indeed send assistance to you to ensure his capture.”
Kiriy’s heart was beating so furiously she feared she might faint and fall to the floor.
“Of course we will help—oh, more than help!” Matron Mother Zhindia said. She turned to her wizard. “Alert Shakti Hunzrin. Tell her that the time is upon us.” Then to her daughter, “First Priestess Kyrnill, prepare the war room.”
“So quickly,” an overwhelmed Kiriy remarked.
“We are prepared,” Zhindia replied. Her smile was awful at that moment, but she added a bit of warmth to it as she promised the future Matron Mother of House Do’Urden, “I will arrange for you to be at Council when I present Drizzt Do’Urden to the ruling matron mothers. You will be there when I throw him at the feet of Matron Mother Quenthel and name him as the murderer of Matron Mother Darthiir. When I declare that the great Lady Lolth used this traitor Drizzt to her own advantage as assassin of the abomination Quenthel foolishly seated on the Ruling Council.
“Then, my dear High Priestess Kiriy, Menzoberranzan will know true chaos and upheaval, as is demanded,” the zealous Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn explained, savoring every last word.
“And House Do’Urden will be mine, and a new alliance will bring Baenre to its knees,” Kiriy finished.
PART 3
Ghosts
I HAVE HEARD POWERFUL MEN WITH IMPERIAL DESIGNS CLAIM THAT reality is what they choose it to be. That they make their own reality, and so decide the reality for those in their way, and while others are trying to decipher what is truth, they move on to the next conquest, the next creation, the next deception of malleable reality.
That is all I could call it—a grand illusion, a lie wrapped as truth, and
so declared as truth by the controlling puppet masters of the powerful.
I rejected—and still do, to great extent—the notion. If there is no truth, then it seems to me that there is no basis of reality itself. If perception is reality, then reality is a warped and malleable thing, and to what point, I must ask?
Are we all gods within our own minds?
To entertain the notion is to invite the purest chaos, I fear—but then, is it not to also offer the purest harmony?
I choose to be happy, and happiness is indeed a choice. Every day I can rise from my Reverie and gnash my teeth at what I do not have. Or I can smile contentedly in appreciation of what I do possess. To this level, then, I must agree with the hubristic conqueror. In this emotional level, perception can indeed be the reality of one’s feelings, and properly corralling that perception might well be the key to happiness and contentment. I know many poor men who are happy, and many rich men full of discontent. The failings of the heart—pride, envy, greed, and even lust, if such will result in pain for another—are choices as well, to be accepted or denied. Acceptance will lead to discontent, and so these are, in the words of many texts of many cultures and races, considered among the deadliest of sins.
But aside from the false justifications of the conqueror and the choices of honest perception, is there another level of contortion where perception and reality cross? Where perception, perhaps, is so powerful and so distorted that it masks reality itself, that it replaces reality itself? And in such a state, is there a puppet master who can shatter perception as easily as a powerful smith might punch his sledge through thin glass?
This is my fear, my terror. My nightmare!
All the world beneath my feet shifts as the sands of a desert, and what those sands might conceal …
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