“How . . . rustic,” Halisstra said.
She wondered for one terrible moment if it would be her fate to live out the rest of her expatriate existence crouched in some similar hovel.
“It’s even more charming than the last time I was here,” Pharaun said with a forced smile. “The dwarf there is Dinnka. You’ll find that this nameless wayside inn of hers constitutes the finest lodgings available in Mantol-Derith. You’ll get food, fire, and shelter—three things that are hard to come by in the wilds of the Underdark—and pay a small fortune for it.”
“It will be better than resting in a monster-haunted surface ruin, I suppose,” Quenthel said.
She led the way as the party approached one of the cookfires. A trio of bugbears occupied the seats there, apparently mercenaries of some skill, judging by the quality of the armor they wore. The hairy creatures brooded over big leather jacks of mushroom ale, and gnawed at haunches of rothé meat. One by one the hulking warriors looked up as the five drow and Jeggred approached. Quenthel folded her arms and looked at the creatures with contempt.
“Well?” she said.
The bugbears growled, setting down ale and meat as their great fists dropped down to rest on axe-hafts thrust through their belts. The motion caught Halisstra’s eye. Bugbears with any lick of sense would have vacated their places immediately, almost anywhere in the Underdark. They might not have been drow slaves—clearly they weren’t, if they were in Mantol-Derith—but she’d ventured out into similar places near Ched Nasad enough times to understand that creatures like bugbears learned quickly to give way to the truly dangerous denizens of the Lands Below, such as noble dark elves.
“Well, what?” snarled the largest of the three. “It’ll take more’n a drow sneer t’make us give up our seats.”
“Think y’can just push us aroun’?” the second bugbear added. “You elfies ain’t as scary as y’was, y’know. Maybe yous’ll have t’start showin’ off why we’s oughtta do what y’says.”
Quenthel waited for a moment, then said one word: “Jeggred.”
The draegloth bounded forward and seized the first bugbear. With his two smaller arms he clamped down over the bugbear’s hands, preventing him from drawing any of the weapons at his side. He locked one fighting talon around the creature’s head, holding him tightly, and with his other fighting hand he plunged his powerful talons into the bugbear’s face. The mercenary screamed something in his uncouth language and struggled against the draegloth. Jeggred grinned, knotted his claws deep in the shrieking monster’s head, and yanked back hard, ripping off the front of the bugbear’s skull. Blood and brain matter splattered the bugbear’s companions, who scrambled to their feet, drawing swords and axes.
Jeggred lowered the twitching body a bit and looked over it at the other two.
“Next?” he purred.
The two remaining bugbears stumbled back, and fled in abject terror. Jeggred shook his white-furred head and tossed the corpse aside, taking a seat at the fire. He helped himself to a hunk of roast dropped by a bugbear, and raised one of their jacks in another hand.
“Bugbears. . . .” he muttered.
“Hey, you!”
The surly duergar innkeeper—Dinnka—scuttled forward, anger plain on her face.
“Those three hadn’t settled their tab yet,” she complained. “Now how in all the screaming hells am I going to get my gold from them?”
Ryld stooped and removed the bugbear’s belt pouch. He tossed it to Dinnka.
“Settle up with this,” the weapons master said, “and start our tab with what’s left. We’ll want good wine, and more food.”
The duergar woman caught the purse, but she did not move.
“I don’t appreciate your scaring off paying customers, drow. Nor killing them, neither. Next time do your murdering at home, where it belongs.”
She marched off, already barking orders at the goblin slaves underfoot.
Halisstra watched her go, then she looked back to the others and flashed, That was odd. Did you hear what the bugbear said?
“What he said about the drow not being as scary as they used to be?” Ryld said, then he switched to sign. Has word of Ched Nasad’s fall reached this place so quickly? It was only a couple of days ago, and Mantol-Derith is many days’ travel from the City of Shimmering Webs.
It’s possible that magical scrying or spells of communication might have spread the word already, Halisstra said. Or . . . perhaps he meant something else. Perhaps something of our unusual difficulties is known here.
That, thought Halisstra, was a very disturbing scenario. Gray dwarves and mind flayers were competent foes, creatures who knew many secrets of sorcery. If they had discerned the drow’s weakness, it would not be unduly surprising, but if common bugbear mercenaries were aware of matters in Ched Nasad or Menzoberranzan, it must be widely known indeed.
Goblin slaves returned to their fire, laden with somewhat better fare than the bugbears had enjoyed, and flagons of cool wine from some surface vineyard. The small slaves gathered up the hulking body of the fallen bugbear and dragged it off into the darkness. The dark elves paid them scant attention. Goblin slaves were so far beneath their notice that they might as well have not existed. The party ate and drank in silence, occupied with their own thoughts.
After a time, Valas joined them, accompanied by another gray dwarf. This one was a male, with a short beard of iron grey and not a single hair on his head above his eyebrows. The duergar wore a shirt of chain mail and carried a wicked hand axe at his side. His visage was maimed by a set of three great furrowed scars that had taken off one ear and twisted the right side of his face into a nightmarish map of old pain. He might have been a merchant, a mercenary, or a miner—his dour attire offered few hints as to his trade.
“This is Ghevel Coalhewer,” the scout said. “He owns a boat moored nearby, on the Darklake. He will take us to Gracklstugh tomorrow.”
“I’ll want me payment in advance,” the gray dwarf warned. “And I’ll have ye know I’ve a contract o’ redress with me guild back home. If ye think to slit me throat and dump me over the side out on the lake, ye’ll be hunted down for it.”
“A trusting soul,” Pharaun said with a smile. “We’ve no interest in robbing you, Master Coalhewer.”
“I’ll take me precautions, just the same.” The duergar looked at Valas and asked, “Ye know where the boat is. Pay me now, and ye can meet me there tomorrow early.”
“How do we know you won’t rob us, dwarf?” rumbled Jeggred.
“It’s usually bad business to rob drow, not unless ye be sure to get away with it,” the dwarf replied. “ ’Course, that may be changing, but no’ so fast that I’ll chance it today.”
Valas jingled a pouch in front of the duergar and dropped it into his hand. The dwarf immediately poured out its contents into his big, weathered palm, appraising the gemstones there before scooping them back into the pouch.
“Ye must be in a rush, or yer man here might’ve struck a better bargain. Ah, well, ye drow don’t appreciate a good gemstone, anyway.”
He turned and stumped away into the darkness.
“That’s the last you’ll see of him,” Jeggred said. “You should have waited to pay him.”
“He insisted on it,” Valas said. “He said something about wanting to make sure we didn’t kill him to recover the fare.” The scout looked after the duergar, and shrugged. “I don’t think he would cheat us. If he was that kind of duergar, well, he wouldn’t last long in Mantol-Derith. People here don’t take kindly to being cheated.”
“He can secure safe passage through Gracklstugh?” Ryld asked.
Valas spread his hands and replied, “We’ll have to carry some kind of documents or letters, which Coalhewer can arrange for us. I think it’s some kind of mercantile license.”
“We’re carrying no goods,” Pharaun observed dryly. “Doesn’t that explanation seem a little thin?”
“I told him that Lady Quenthel’s family has bu
siness holdings in Eryndlyn she wishes to check on, and that if she finds things in order, she might be interested in negotiating for the services of duergar teamsters to transport her goods across Gracklstugh’s territory. I also implied that Coalhewer might do well to make himself a part of the arrangement.”
Pharaun didn’t have time to reply before the cavern echoed softly with the stealthy padding of numerous feet. The dark elves glanced up from the fire to see a large band of bugbear warriors approaching, led by the two mercenaries who had fled a moment or so before. At least a dozen of their fellows followed close behind them, axes and spiked flails dangling from hairy paws, murder in their eyes. The other patrons of Dinnka’s inn began to slip away from their places, seeking safer environs. The hulking humanoids muttered and growled to each other in their own tongue.
“Tell me,” said Valas, “did someone happen to kill, maim, or humiliate a bugbear when I was talking with Coalhewer?” The scout glanced back at the others, and at Jeggred, who shrugged. He sighed. “Was I unclear when I advised against starting fights here?”
“There was a misunderstanding over the seating arrangements,” Quenthel explained.
Ryld stood, threw his cloak over his shoulder to clear his arms for fighting, and said, “Should’ve guessed there might be more of them nearby.”
“Time to remind these stupid creatures of the order of things,” Halisstra remarked.
Quenthel stood and drew her five-headed whip, eyeing the approaching warriors with a wry smile.
“Jeggred?” she said.
Gromph Baenre stood on a balcony high above Menzoberranzan, studying the dim faerielights of the drow city. He had been waiting for nearly an hour, and his patience was almost exhausted. Under most circumstances an hour here or an hour there would have meant nothing to a dark elf with centuries of life behind him, but this was different. The archmage waited in fear, dreading the arrival of the one who had summoned him to this clandestine encounter. It was not a sensation Gromph was accustomed to, and he found that he did not care for it at all. He had, of course, taken extreme steps to protect his person, girding himself with an array of formidable defensive spells and a carefully considered selection of protective magical devices. The archmage was not entirely confident that those precautions would deter the one who came to meet him in that lonely, windswept spot.
“Gromph Baenre,” a voice, cold and rasping, greeted him. Before the archmage even began to turn, he felt the presence of the other, an icy chill that somehow managed to sink past his defenses, the smell of great and terrible magic. “How good of you to accept my invitation. It has been a long time, has it not?”
The ancient sorcerer Dyrr approached from the shadows at the back of the balcony, leaning on his great staff, his feet seeming not to move at all as he glided forward in a rustle of robes no quicker than an old man’s shuffle.
Among the ambitious drow of his own House, it suited Dyrr to wear the shape of a venerable old dark elf of fantastic age, but Gromph’s arcane sight pierced the guise to the truth behind it. Dyrr was dead, dead these many centuries. Nothing remained of the ancient mage but dusty bones clothed in tattered shreds of mummified flesh. His hands were the claws of a skeleton, his robes were faded and threadbare, and his face was a hideous grinning skull, the black eye sockets alight with the bright green flame of his powerful spirit.
“I see that my poor guise does not deceive you,” the lich rasped. “In truth, I would have been disappointed if you were so easily beguiled, Archmage.”
“Lord Dyrr,” said Gromph, a cautious greeting. He inclined his head without taking his eyes off the lichdrow. “In truth, I am surprised to find that you are still among us. I have heard whispers that you still lived—er, so to speak—secluded in your house. I thought from time to time that I detected an old and canny hand guiding the affairs of Agrach Dyrr, but I have not met anyone who claims to have seen you in almost two hundred years, and it’s been almost twice that since last we spoke.”
“I value my privacy, and encourage my descendants to value my privacy as well. It’s best for all involved if my hand remains hidden. We wouldn’t want to make the matron mothers nervous now, would we?”
“Indeed. In my experience they react poorly to surprises.”
The lich laughed, a horrible sound that chilled the blood. He moved closer, gliding forward to stand by Gromph’s side and look out over the city. The archmage found himself more than a little unsettled by the unnatural presence of the undead creature—again, a sensation he did not experience often at all.
What secrets does this walking ghost hold in its empty skull? Gromph wondered. What does he know about this city that no one else remembers? What lonely and terrible heights of lore has he scaled alone in the dreary centuries of his deathless existence?
The questions troubled Gromph, but he decided to put such speculation behind him for the moment.
“Well, Lord Dyrr, you requested this meeting. What shall we talk about?”
“You were always admirably direct, young Baenre,” the lich said. “It’s a refreshing quality among our kind. To get swiftly to the point, what do you think of the recent difficulties that have beset our fair city? More specifically, what do you think should be done about the powerlessness that has descended upon our ruling caste of priestesses?”
“What should be done?” Gromph replied. “That’s hard to say, when the question would seem to be what can be done? It is hardly within my power to entreat the Queen of the Demonweb Pits to restore her favor to her priestesses. Lolth will do as she will.”
“As ever. I do not mean to imply that you could do otherwise.” The lich paused, the green fire of its gaze locked on the archmage. “What do you see when you look out over Menzoberranzan today, Gromph?”
“Disorder. Peril. Denial.”
“And, perhaps, opportunity?”
Gromph hesitated a moment, then said, “Yes, of course.”
“You hesitated. You do not agree with me?”
“No, it is not that.”
The archmage frowned, and chose his words with care. He did not wish to give offense to the powerful apparition. Dyrr seemed civil enough, but the mind did not always stand up well to ages of undeath. He had to assume that there was nothing the lich was not capable of.
“Lord Dyrr,” he said, “surely you have observed that there is no end to the wiles of the Spider Queen. The only certainty of our existence is that Lolth is a capricious and demanding deity, a goddess who delights in teaching very harsh lessons indeed. What if her silence is a ruse to test her faithful? Isn’t it likely, even probable, that Lolth withholds her favor from her priestesses to see how they respond? Or—worse yet—to see whether the enemies of her clerics might be emboldened to creep out from the shadows and assault her minions directly? If that is the case, what then becomes of anyone foolish enough to defy the Queen of Spiders when she tires of her test and restores her full favor to her priestesses, just as abruptly as she withdrew it? I would not care to be caught out by such a ploy. Not at all.”
“Your logic is sound enough, though I think you have perhaps allowed the habit of caution to hobble your thoughts,” Dyrr said. “I could almost agree with you, dear boy, except for this one fact. In the more than two thousand years that I have walked this world, I have never seen this happen before. Oh, I can recall several occasions when Lolth denied her clerics spells for a few days, and many instances in which she arbitrarily decided to stop favoring this priestess or that House all together, casting them down to their enemies, but never has she abandoned our entire race for month after month.” The lich glanced up in a reflective manner. “It seems a poor way to treat one’s worshipers. Should I ever attain godhood, I think I will try to do a better job of it.”
“What precisely do you propose, then, Lord Dyrr?”
“I propose nothing yet, but I do consider, young Baenre, whether powerless clerics should be trusted with the rule of this city for very much longer at all. You and I, we sti
ll command great and terrible powers, do we not? The mystic secrets of our Art have not abandoned us, nor are they likely to at any point in the future. Perhaps it is time to look to the security of our civilization, the defense of our city, by taking up the reins of governance the matron mothers are no longer strong enough to hold. Our city’s peril grows with every hour. We have rivals outside the Dark Dominion, after all, other races and realms that threaten us.”
“And that is precisely why I am hesitant to turn drow wizards against drow priestesses,” Gromph replied. “The only thing that could possibly increase our current vulnerability would be to start a civil war. To spare ourselves the fate of Ched Nasad, we must shore up the existing order until the crisis has passed.”
“And what thanks do you think you will earn, from the priestesses or from the Spider Queen herself, for that blind loyalty?” Dyrr turned back to Gromph and tapped one skeletal forefinger in the center of the archmage’s chest. Gromph could not restrain a shudder. “You have potential, young Gromph. You are not without talent, and you see past House Baenre to Menzoberranzan itself. Put those qualities to work and consider carefully the course you choose in the next few days. Events are coming that will provide you with an opportunity for greatness, or failure. Do not make the wrong choice.”
Gromph took a cautious step backward, moving out over the vast gulf of the cavern and hovering in the air.
“I am afraid I must tend Narbondel, Lord Dyrr. I will take my leave now . . . and I will think carefully on your words. You may have appreciated the situation more accurately than I.”
The burning green gaze of the lichdrow followed Gromph down into the darkness as he fell softly toward the city below. He would indeed think long and hard about the lich’s words. He might stall Dyrr once with civility and caution, but he would not be able to do so indefinitely. Gromph didn’t doubt the lich would expect a different answer when next they spoke.
R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, Insurrection, Condemnation Page 83