Relentless

by R. A. Salvatore

  “What are you thinking?”

  Catti-brie narrowed her eyes, her face, normally so innocent and generous, taking on a very different affect then.

  “Nothing good for our enemies,” Artemis Entreri whispered.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Catti-brie said to Yvonnel. “Let us discuss it when I have sorted my thoughts more clearly.”

  Chapter 23

  That Nagging Discomfort

  One thing stayed with Kimmuriel over the next few days, one nagging implication from his time with the illithid hive mind. Not from what he had learned, but from what he had not learned.

  Ouwoonivisc? The memories that particular illithid had added had struck him as odd at the time—or not odd, perhaps, but somehow out of place.

  He knew what he had to do regarding Brevindon Margaster. He had to engage the man and force Asbeel to the surface, then somehow destroy the phylactery and intervene in the battle over the man’s physical body.

  But there remained a problem, and one that could put him right in the face of a powerful demon if he could not resolve it and find an answer to a pressing question:

  Why had Wulfgar missed?

  The inescapable conclusion, particularly to a skilled psionicist, was that the barbarian’s thoughts were being scoured, for surely Wulfgar was too fine a warrior to reveal the coming attack. How could that be, though, for Kimmuriel was connected to Wulfgar at that time, maintaining his kinetic barrier. He should have sensed any such intrusion. He had learned much about Asbeel in the hive mind. Asbeel was not really a demon, not a demonic incarnation, at least, but rather, an elf—or he once had been. There was no indication of psionic powers, and even if there were, how could Kimmuriel not have sensed any such magic upon Wulfgar?

  There was an answer, one answer, but though it was glaringly obvious, Kimmuriel couldn’t quite come to accept it.

  But he had to. He considered again the last memories imparted to him by Ouwoonivisc, images accompanied by sentiment and words that were not unfamiliar to Kimmuriel Oblodra of Lolth’s Menzoberranzan.

  Familiar thoughts in an unexpected place. Shocking, even. Ouwoonivisc’s contributions at the hive mind were nothing Kimmuriel had felt there—ever—even when the communal joining of the illithid community had been focused on Menzoberranzan, House Oblodra, or Lady Lolth. Ouwoonivisc’s manner of thought, a hint of the joy of not just chaos, but destructive chaos, was nothing Kimmuriel would have ever expected of the disciplined, always-in-control mind flayers.

  It reminded him of other experiences, Torilian experiences. The words, the cadence, of Ouwoonivisc’s memory had come straight from the Fane of the Goddess, the most holy altar to Lady Lolth in Menzoberranzan.

  That alone wouldn’t have bothered Kimmuriel so much, except that this particular memory wasn’t related to Asbeel—he now understood that after taking so many hours in separating things out. No, this was an aside, an offered memory.

  No, that wasn’t right, either. Not a memory.

  As he finally worked through it all, Kimmuriel had his answer. He put this in perspective to his own memories, ones barely shared with the hive mind. Terrible memories of the fall of House Oblodra.

  That, too, now made more sense to him.

  He went to Wulfgar, in his quarters with Bonnie Charlie and Dab’nay.

  “Now?” the barbarian asked eagerly. He rose from his chair and took a step toward Aegis-fang, which was leaning against the wall.

  “Not yet,” Kimmuriel told him. “But soon. This day, if I return.”

  “Where are you going?” Dab’nay asked.

  “Nowhere that concerns you, priestess,” he replied, his voice edged with more than a little animosity, particularly with the memories of the fall of House Oblodra so close in mind. He softened his visage almost immediately, though, and considered the possibility that, indeed, he would not return from his dangerous journey. In that event, Dab’nay might prove to be his best option.

  If I do not return, deliver this message, Kimmuriel telepathically instructed her. He considered the best persons to whom he might offer such revelations. To Jarlaxle, he decided, then knew that this was not time for caution and changed his mind. To Matron Mother Quenthel, to Yvonnel Baenre—yes, to them, and only to them. But privately, and speak nothing to Matron Zhindia Melarn or High Priestess Sos’Umptu Baenre.

  Dab’nay stared at him in confusion, an expression that only amplified as the moments passed, as Kimmuriel revealed his epiphany. He walked closer to her and lifted his hand, resting it gently on her forehead as he gave to her some memories and his explanation in tying them all together.

  He found the woman a willing vessel for such heresy, and only in that exchange did Kimmuriel understand the depth of Dab’nay’s apostasy.

  Good. Very good, he thought.

  “You would have me tell these things to the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan?” Dab’nay asked him incredulously. “That way lies doom! She will make a drider of me before I have uttered a hint that will resonate . . .”

  “You know that I am correct in my beliefs here,” Kimmuriel said.

  “It matters not!”

  “Indeed, nothing else matters,” said Kimmuriel.

  “What are you two jawing about?” Bonnie Charlee demanded.

  “Nothing you would begin to understand,” Kimmuriel retorted, without ever bothering to look at her.

  “Perhaps you could persuade them—by showing them, as you showed me,” Dab’nay said.

  “That would be preferable,” Kimmuriel admitted. “But first, I must confirm my suspicions.”

  “I thought we were going for Brevindon this day?” Wulfgar asked, but Kimmuriel ignored him.

  “You have not even confirmed this, yet you ask me to speak with the Matron Mother?” Dab’nay remarked, shaking her head.

  “If I do not return, consider it confirmed,” the psionicist told her.

  “I do not understand,” the priestess argued. “What? Where?”

  “It is not your concern. Do as I instructed if I do not return this day. Tell Matron Mother Quenthel and Yvonnel alone. No one else.”

  “I will need the assistance of those here to even find them, I am sure.”

  “And they will give it,” Kimmuriel replied.

  “But if they ask . . .”

  “They will not.” He looked hard at Wulfgar and at Bonnie Charlee. “Bregan D’aerthe will know that these orders came from me alone, and so they will aid you unquestionably and unquestioningly.”

  “And Jarlaxle?”

  “He will learn when he needs to know,” Kimmuriel answered. “Matron Mother Baenre and Yvonnel alone. Do you understand?”

  Dab’nay nodded and Kimmuriel took his leave.

  The exchange between Pescatawav and Kimmuriel was rapid and complete, for the drow psionicist accepted the great risk in allowing the Most Endeared illithid into his deepest thoughts and reasoning. If he was wrong, if he had missed some obvious flaw in his reasoning, Kimmuriel understood that he would be destroyed without hesitation, for to make such an accusation against another illithid was no minor charge, after all. Other races spoke of the value of family, but in the hive mind, such a notion went far deeper. Illithids were more than brothers, or sisters, or whatever—if any—gender they might hold at any given time, as they defined such things far differently than any of the other races. As with everything among the mind flayers, the desires of the mind overwrote the limitations of the body.

  In the final note, however, the community was one. One. So to levy a charge against an illithid, in this case Ouwoonivisc, was to point out a flaw in the entire mind flayer community. In a way, Kimmuriel had just privately called Pescatawav a traitor.

  I offer only my observations and memories of the fall of my house, he pointedly imparted when he felt Pescatawav pulling away from him.

  I know what you offer.

  “It is her, Lolth, not Ouwoonivisc,” he said aloud, thinking that they were less likely to be overheard audibly than tel
epathically in this particular place.

  “Your reasoning is not proven, but is sound,” replied the illithid in its scratchy voice, picking up on his cue. “But why?”

  In his mind, Kimmuriel sensed the addition of House Oblodra to the question.

  “Matron K’yorl went too far in the Time of Troubles,” Kimmuriel said. “She threatened the order of the Lolthian drow. The ever-hungry infection that is Lady Lolth craved domination of the illithids, but the drow were her base of power in the place she most coveted, the material plane,” he answered out loud, though of course Pescatawav had already felt that same reasoning within him.

  Kimmuriel sensed his doubt—this was the critical point: Drow above illithid. How could that be?

  “She could not have both at that time, but now she can,” Kimmuriel answered, a response that was an epiphany both to him and to Pescatawav in that very moment.

  Engage Ouwoonivisc now, the drow was told.

  Kimmuriel took a deep breath and followed the Most Endeared out of the quiet side chamber to the main area of the illithid castle, wherein rested the great brain of the community. Slaves of all races were in there, gently massaging the delicate and all important brain, and many illithids moved about, some going to the brain to see what memories had been recently left for them, or to leave their own. Others were off to the sides, typically in pairs or threes, close together and facing each other, their tentacles entwined in something that Kimmuriel had come to understand was either lovemaking or psionic battle, or perhaps a bit of both.

  Pescatawav sent out a thrumming wave of energy, one that sent the slaves scurrying away and brought the illithids rushing to meld with the brain, the mind flayer equivalent of a ship’s boatswain’s call for all hands on deck. The Most Endeared held Kimmuriel back for a moment while all of the others settled in.

  “Are you certain you wish to proceed now?” Pescatawav asked quietly, for any telepathy now would be akin to shouting.

  “More time will not help,” the drow replied. “It will not help either my predicament or yours.”

  His framing stiffened the back of the Most Endeared, reminding him pointedly that, if he was right, the hive mind was in dire trouble here.

  Pescatawav and Kimmuriel took their places, side by side and with Kimmuriel right next to Ouwoonivisc. The Most Endeared was in Kimmuriel’s mind immediately, using the power of the central brain to silence Kimmuriel to all others. Then, through the brain once more, the Most Endeared silenced all, except for Kimmuriel and Ouwoonivisc.

  The drow poured forth his thoughts, as he had privately to Pescatawav, and with the speed of the telepathic transmission came the wall of denial and outrage from Ouwoonivisc.

  You work with the agents of Lolth, he accused. You were there with the attackers in Luskan, in the thoughts of Asbeel the demon, aiding him. You carry the desires of Lolth in yourself, and bring them here to the community of illithids.

  Ouwoonivisc’s protests continued, but without conviction. One could not hide here, and could not lie.

  It all happened in a matter of heartbeats, and then Pescatawav opened up the floor to all.

  Kimmuriel had engaged in this communal expression of the hive mind many times in the past, but never like this.

  Never anything remotely like this.

  Swirls of anger and denial came at him, mixed with horror at the thought that what he had imparted could be true. He felt as if he were in a tornado, not a physical wind of course, but a spinning of so many viewpoints that it left him dizzy and so terrified that he wanted to lift his hand and flee from this place forever.

  But he didn’t. Kimmuriel Oblodra had spent his life engaged in discipline, and he needed all of it now. He focused on one thing, long in the past, and showed the illithid hive mind in a running loop, the fall of House Oblodra and the drow woman standing before the great house as it tumbled into the Clawrift, her face a mask of ecstasy.

  Matron Mother Yvonnel Baenre. Yvonnel the Eternal. The virtual avatar of Lady Lolth.

  The thoughts of the entire colligate continued to swirl about him, jumbled, opposing, battling.

  The drow kept his focus, and focused, too, on the illithid right beside him, Ouwoonivisc, who had no defense against the memory, indeed, who seemed appalled by it.

  Gradually, the swirl seemed smoother, one side growing louder.

  Kimmuriel knew the truth, and the illithids were confirming it: Lady Lolth was not a goddess, was not a demon queen. No, in this matter, to the perspective of creatures chasing the truth of pure thought, Lady Lolth was an infection. Ouwoonivisc was infected, diseased. The illithid had, almost certainly unwittingly, become the conduit of Lolth’s newest attempt on the hive mind, one that was now ongoing. Before, it had been House Oblodra acting as the conduit to bring the infection of Lolthian chaos to this place, perhaps even Matron K’yorl herself.

  That attempt had failed because during the Time of Troubles, when Lolth’s minion drow, her beloved priestesses and even the wizards of Menzoberranzan, had lost their magical powers both divine and arcane, the ambitious Oblodrans had threatened the entire structure Lolth had spent millennia creating.

  Thus had Lolth failed.

  But the Spider Queen hadn’t given up. Quite the opposite. Now the clever malevolence—with the infinite patience of the immortal—had found an even more direct organism to come here and infect the central brain and, thus, the entire hive mind.

  All of the thoughts coalesced, the spinning tornado now a roaring hurricane, denying Ouwoonivisc’s attempt, denying the physical being of Ouwoonivisc itself.

  Kimmuriel felt the doomed illithid’s protestations—not a denial, but simply a plea for mercy. He understood it all now. Lolth was a goddess, perhaps, but also perhaps a demon, and a being with physical form. But she was much more than all that. A bit of Lolth was inside every reasoning being, usually dormant, but like a disease or an infection, it could awaken. That should never have happened within the brain of a disciplined illithid. It seemed utterly impossible.

  But it was not.

  Clearly not.

  There was little conviction in Ouwoonivisc’s protestations, for even the illithid now understood the truth.

  For the sake of the hive mind, Ouwoonivisc was there and then wasn’t, driven mad, every synaptic pathway twisting and killed. From madness came emptiness, a continuing shutdown of the illithid’s mind.

  One last telepathic howl of horror, a silent shriek that shuddered Kimmuriel to his very core, escaped the illithid.

  The central brain cried out in sorrow so powerfully that Kimmuriel was pushed back, his hand forcibly coming from the fleshy membrane, the contact sundered. He saw that he was not alone, that all the illithids were standing as he was, dumbfounded, confused, trying to find some balance against the shock Kimmuriel had given them, the horror Ouwoonivisc had been forced to reveal to them, and the overwhelming emotions of a central brain so suddenly made vulnerable that it had to destroy a part of itself, as if a drow were to bite off his own finger.

  Right beside Kimmuriel lay the lifeless body of Ouwoonivisc, propped against the arching side of the central brain.

  So it must be, Pescatawav imparted to all.

  And that was it. It was over, other than the slaves being brought forth to destroy the body of the inadvertent traitor.

  Kimmuriel’s work here was done. He offered that thought to Pescatawav, and the Most Endeared excused him to go and tend to the more pressing problems he faced on his home plane, among his own inferior people.

  There was no sense of gratitude, no thoughts of hope that Kimmuriel would succeed.

  It just was.

  There were a few moments like this for Kimmuriel Oblodra, when he almost reconsidered his life’s journey, when he saw so plainly the difference between the sensibilities of the hive mind and those of Jarlaxle.

  His only friend.

  “Come at once,” Kimmuriel told Wulfgar. “It is time to meet Brevindon Margaster and be done with this.” />
  “Now?” asked the surprised barbarian.

  “Now,” Kimmuriel demanded. “Our enemy is vulnerable, but he likely does not yet know that one of his great advantages has been stolen from him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Aye, nor do I,” Bonnie Charlie added.

  Kimmuriel sighed. “Of course you don’t. It matters not. If you were only included in things you truly understand, the two of you would spend your days doing nothing but drinking and rutting.”

  Bonnie Charlee scowled at that, but Wulfgar laughed.

  “Kimmuriel told a joke. I thought I’d never live long enough to witness such a thing.”

  “If you tarry now, you’ll likely not live long enough to tell anyone else about it,” said the drow. “Now come along, and quickly.”

  He held out his hand toward Wulfgar, then, as both humans approached, reluctantly held out his other one for Bonnie Charlee. She had no role here, Kimmuriel knew, but perhaps Asbeel would kill her and thus waste a swing.

  The two took the offered hands.

  “He is in Ship Kurth, a place I know well, and there is a room not far from the seat of power with which I am quite familiar—one I have prepared for instances like that before us now.”

  “Aye, like a wizard’s glyph for teleports,” Bonnie Charlee said.

  “To put it in crude terms, yes,” Kimmuriel replied. “I know not what we’ll find there in this moment, so weapons in hand and ready. I do not wish to waste my skills on mere underlings.”

  That brought a snicker from Wulfgar.

  “You understand your role?” Kimmuriel asked him.

  The barbarian nodded. “One of them.”

  “That is all you will need to do.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Kimmuriel wasn’t thrilled with the man’s evasiveness here. He had told Wulfgar of his plans, of specifically what he would need from the man in order to perhaps decapitate the new order in the City of Sails. He knew that Wulfgar wanted more—Kimmuriel had read that thought clearly during his explanation of how he intended the fight to go.