Gromph looked from one to the other, and arched an eyebrow when the illithid bowed to Kimmuriel.
“Do you plan to enlighten me?” asked the archmage, who sensed the exchange but could not quite decipher it.
“Our discussions are quite beyond your understanding at this point in your training, my student,” Kimmuriel answered.
Leave us, Kimmuriel silently requested of Methil, and the illithid bowed again and complied. Methil walked to the door, then dematerializing to pass right through the closed door as only a powerful psionicist might.
“Brilliant,” Kimmuriel said as he watched Methil leave.
“Rather showy, I think,” Gromph said.
Kimmuriel looked at him incredulously.
“Shall I weave a dimensional door to take me from this place when I desire to leave?” the archmage asked.
Kimmuriel shrugged and shook his head, his expression still incredulous, even belittling. “If you so desire.”
“And will I then be brilliant in the eyes of Kimmuriel?”
“Showy,” the psionicist was quick to answer, and now Gromph wore a confused expression.
“Methil exists more in his mind than in the physical world,” Kimmuriel explained. “He exited the room in that manner for the sake of expediency, nothing more.”
Gromph glanced back at the door. “Are you saying that it was less effort for the mind flayer to walk through the door than to reach out and open it?”
“Brilliant,” Kimmuriel replied, and when Gromph looked back at him, he added, “And brilliant in a manner unlike your magical dweomers each day. For Methil the powers are nearly inexhaustible.”
“Will I come to that point, my teacher?” Gromph asked slyly.
“If you do, I will envy you.”
Gromph tilted his head to study Kimmuriel. “You cannot do so?”
“Of course I can, but for me, alas, it would be easier to open the door. Not so for Methil.”
“Or for many mind flayers, I expect.”
“Even among that group, this one is powerful,” Kimmuriel answered. “Insane, dangerously so, but powerful. He escapes the bonds of the physical coil with ease, and I believe that his work with your dead mother’s head has taught him much of the workings of thought, even above what others of his kind might know.” He shook his head and glanced back at Dahlia’s bedroom door. “He has piled a million worms in a jumble, and that jumble is Dahlia’s mind.”
“A jumble in which you took advantage.”
“Advantage?” Kimmuriel asked skeptically. “Hardly.”
“Ah, yes,” said Gromph sarcastically. “You were learning.”
“I am always learning. That is why I am the master, and you the student.”
Gromph’s red eyes flared for just an instant. He was not used to being talked to in that manner, Kimmuriel knew.
“Now that you have learned, you will leave? Or am I to have another lesson?”
If you have the time, Kimmuriel imparted into Gromph’s thoughts, then added, Why is Dahlia still here in the city?
“Where should she …” Gromph started to respond, but Kimmuriel assailed him with a sudden jolting blast of psionic energy to silence him.
Where should she be? Gromph silently asked him, and he imparted to Kimmuriel that the other nobles of House Do’Urden—Patron Tos’un and his half-breed daughter, Weapons Master Tiago and High Priestess Saribel—were all away at war.
And House Do’Urden Wizard Tsabrak?
Gromph shook his head and laughed. “In Q’Xorlarrin,” he said, “with Matron Mother Zeerith, where he will remain, it seems.”
Kimmuriel looked at him curiously, trying to unwind that information in light of the timber of Gromph’s voice. There was some not-subtle hint there of amusement.
Yes, of course, Kimmuriel realized, Gromph would be glad to see Tsabrak remain outside of Menzoberranzan. The Xorlarrin had channeled the power of Lolth directly, something no drow in Menzoberranzan had done since Matron Mother Baenre had dropped House Oblodra into the chasm of the Clawrift. In enacting the Darkening, Tsabrak Xorlarrin had become a rival to Gromph—though in knowing the two as he did, Kimmuriel doubted that the Xorlarrin would survive the first volleys of a magical battle against Gromph Baenre.
Quenthel, who was the matron mother, had wanted Tsabrak here in Menzoberranzan, Kimmuriel knew, and Gromph had not fought her on that matter. Indeed, from his earlier discussions with Gromph, Kimmuriel had come to believe that it would be a relief to this old drow to have someone else relieve him of much of his responsibilities to the city, particularly as he delved deeper into the art of psionics, the pure magic.
But now the amusement?
“Matron Mother Baenre and Matron Mother Zeerith …” Kimmuriel started to ask.
“I’ll not speak of it,” Gromph replied, then added slyly, “Just so we understand each other.”
It was a curious phrase coming from this one, one of those nonsensical surface structures often bandied about by the less intelligent races, but in this context it was, more than that. A hint?
Kimmuriel sent his probing thoughts into Gromph’s mind. There were few drow more intelligent than Gromph Baenre, and he could easily defeat such psionic intrusions from afar. Indeed, Kimmuriel wondered whether even an illithid could gain much from stubborn Gromph directly through the meld of its probing tentacles if the archmage mentally tried to block it.
But now those guards were down. Gromph was allowing him in.
Gromph kept it focused, his disciplined mind allowing no side-journeys for the psionicist, who felt almost as if he had mentally entered a long and illustrious hallway, full of statues with teasing placards.
Yes, the psionicist knew immediately, Quenthel and Zeerith were arguing over the disposition of Tsabrak Xorlarrin. With the death of her House’s First Priestess, her eldest daughter Berellip, Matron Mother Zeerith had insisted that the Lolth-blessed Tsabrak remain with her as the Archmage of Q’Xorlarrin.
Quenthel had not been amused by this unexpected development, but Gromph surely was.
“Ravel Xorlarrin will become the Wizard of House Do’Urden,” Kimmuriel asked as much as stated.
“He is friend to Tiago, and is the brother of Saribel,” Gromph replied. “And he is a potent mage in his own right.”
“A student of Gromph,” Kimmuriel said, and then he learned from his continuing probing of Gromph’s mind that the relationship between Gromph and Ravel was more than that, and indeed, that Gromph had helped Ravel find Gauntlgrym. The new wizard of House Do’Urden was indebted to Gromph.
And so it all made sense … the archmage’s light step and amused tone.
“Well enough,” Kimmuriel said and he broke the connection. “But that does not answer my original question as to why Dahlia remains in Menzoberranzan. To serve as your Matron Mother’s second on the council, no doubt, but could that not be arranged from afar?”
“She is too valuable to Quenthel,” Gromph replied, “and to Lady Lolth.”
That last part put the normally unshakable Kimmuriel on his heels a bit.
With a beckoning wave, Gromph invited him back in, and in his thoughts, the archmage revealed to him the battle of the goddesses, Lolth and Mielikki. Dahlia had served Lolth, inadvertently, as the temptress of the rogue, Drizzt Do’Urden.
Drizzt had rejected her.
Mielikki had won.
Lolth did not like losing.
Through Gromph’s thoughts—images put there by Methil, Kimmuriel understood—Kimmuriel saw the proxy fight between the goddesses in the primordial chamber of Gauntlgrym, where Mielikki’s chosen, Catti-brie, defeated Dahlia in the end.
“And so it is House Do’Urden that leads the charge in the Silver Marches,” said Gromph. “The House of heroic Drizzt turning against the kingdoms that once named him as friend, but now will believe that all of it, including the peace with the orcs that Drizzt had counseled King Bruenor to sign, was naught but a longer plan to conquer the region.”
/> Are you implying that this war is nothing more than the petulant fit of a goddess to destroy the reputation of a single rogue? Kimmuriel imparted, but did not dare speak aloud.
“Even Tos’un Armgo,” Gromph said with a laugh. “He was placed among the elves of the Glimmerwood with the aid of Drizzt, and he has betrayed them utterly. It is beautifully diabolical, is it not? The edges of Lolth’s web have rolled together, and look, she has caught a fly named Drizzt.”
Kimmuriel shook his head.
“All of that is merely an added benefit,” Gromph assured him. “The war is Lolth’s means to unite her people under the matron mother once more, and more fully than at any time since the fall of Yvonnel the Eternal. The city is Quenthel’s, wholly. Her alliances are strong and well-placed. None will dare move against her wishes, let alone her House.”
“Your House,” Kimmuriel corrected, and Gromph’s responding shrug spoke volumes to the perceptive psionicist. Gromph was ambivalent about it—all of it.
But why?
He thought of Jarlaxle, who had ever been possessed of a similar malaise regarding the matters of the Menzoberranzan’s Houses, and, in general, of the dispossession of drow males, for these were matters for the priestesses and matron mothers …
Kimmuriel considered that the eighth month had begun, and the significance of that month to this drow, who served still as the archmage, and thus, the Master of Sorcere, the drow academy of magic.
“The Spider Queen uses the war to unify her people,” he said quietly, and Gromph nodded. “The Spider Queen wishes to unify her people at this time because she is engaged in a struggle—not the sideshow that is her fight with Mielikki but a greater struggle to command the domain of Mystra, the domain of Magic, of which Gromph is her most accomplished practitioner.”
He nodded again, for this one did not ever feign humility—which was a quality Kimmuriel shared with Gromph.
“And now Gromph seeks the higher magic of the mind, and without, I expect, the blessing of the Spider Queen.”
The archmage shrugged.
“You have the lists of the new students entering Sorcere,” Kimmuriel said.
Gromph nodded.
“More daughters of noble Houses than sons,” Kimmuriel guessed, “for the first time in memory, perhaps the first time ever.”
“Ever,” Gromph confirmed.
“And many more females than males.”
Gromph did not need to respond, for now Kimmuriel understood. Almost all of the accomplished wizards of Menzoberranzan were males. True, there were female wizards, but most of those were primarily priestesses who had learned the arts arcane in addition to their long training at Arach-Tinilith. And so, Lady Lolth’s move to secure the domain of Mystra had brought hope to many of the males of Menzoberranzan, had brought apparent freedom to House Xorlarrin, the one Noble House where males had been able to achieve such prominent stature, because it was the one noble House where arcane magic did not remain wholly subservient to the divine magic of the priestesses.
The arts arcane had remained the domain of the males throughout the history of Menzoberranzan, their one rung on the city’s hierarchical ladder, but now even that was being preempted by the matron mothers. Their daughters would dominate Sorcere, and all that would be left for the males was Melee-Magthere, the school of warriors.
Gromph’s sister, Matron Mother Baenre, was strong now, as Gromph had said. The addition of House Do’Urden on the Ruling Council had given her, in essence, two votes of the eight, and the alliances she had formed with the other sitting Houses guaranteed her near absolute control.
“Enough control to make a mockery of it all,” Gromph answered, and Kimmuriel was pleased by the fact that the archmage had just read his thoughts. He had not put up any defenses, for he could have stopped the intrusion easily, and the lack of a psionic block was an invitation indeed, and one that Gromph had been able to answer.
“A mockery of House Do’Urden, a mockery of the Ruling Council,” Gromph explained. “They all know it, Matron Mother Mez’Barris of Barrison Del’Armgo most especially. Matron Mother Baenre has shown them that she will pull the strings and they will serve as puppets, and nothing makes that more obvious to the Matron Mothers than when Dahlia, Matron Mother Darthiir Do’Urden, walks into the Ruling Chamber and takes her seat at Lolth’s table.”
None would go against her, Kimmuriel thought. Not then.
“It is always a temporary thing in Menzoberranzan, is it not?” Gromph asked, reading that thought, and Kimmuriel found the old wizard’s words and tone interesting, inviting even.
Quenthel’s power would solidify with a victory in the Silver Marches, but perhaps there were some in Menzoberranzan—and indeed, given the dispute over Tsabrak, some in Q’Xorlarrin—who were not thrilled with that possibility.
And perhaps there were some in Lolth’s flock who were not quite as hopeful that she would claim Mystra’s domain as her own as they once had been.
“Matron Mother Zeerith is adamant about Tsabrak remaining in her fledgling city,” Kimmuriel reasoned.
“Her son, Ravel, will replace him in House Do’Urden.”
With a wave of his hand, Kimmuriel ended all telepathic intrusions Gromph might attempt from that point on. The psionicist wore a pensive expression as he tried to unwind the subtle hints and inferences of this most surprising meeting. Two of Zeerith’s children would sit in high standing in House Do’Urden, then, with Ravel as House Wizard and Saribel as the First Priestess.
It occurred to Kimmuriel that such an unusual arrangement would not grant Zeerith the power she might anticipate, however.
Because Dahlia, named Matron Mother Darthiir, ruled House Do’Urden, and such was the power of the mockery Matron Mother Baenre had enacted that anyone making an attempt on Dahlia’s life would surely risk the overwhelming response from House Baenre, perhaps even from Lady Lolth, who was obviously—since it was such a mockery of all that Menzoberranzan knew and believed—pleased with Matron Mother Baenre’s choice for the Eighth seat on the Ruling Council.
And Matron Darthiir was the unquestioning puppet of Matron Mother Baenre.
Kimmuriel cast a sly look at Gromph, the companion of Methil El-Viddenvelp.
Or was she?
A DRAGON’S ROAR
THE CITY HAD BEEN BUILT BY DWARVES IN A TIME BEYOND MEMORY, AND so it remained as one of the strongest fortresses above ground in all of Faerûn. Double walls surrounded Sundabar, with a deep moat full of ravenous giant carnivorous eels between them, and ladders and walkways were properly placed connecting the sentry positions, and easily dropped if a section of the city was ever lost—which had not happened in the proud history of the place.
And so mighty Sundabar had withstood the tendays of bombardment, the continual attacks from the masses of orcs and other foul monsters, and even the occasional strafing of the white dragons. A thousand were dead, thrice that number seriously wounded, and twice again that number carrying injuries that would have sent them running for a cleric in times when a cleric could be bothered. Indeed, almost half of the twenty-five thousand citizens of Sundabar bore some wound, and all found their stomachs growling in hunger as supplies continued to wither.
The great granary caverns below the city had been opened, but minimally, as Knight-Captain Aleina Brightlance, a Knight-in-Silver commander from neighboring Silverymoon, had taken command of the city’s defenses upon request from King Firehelm. It was an unlikely and unusual request, of course, but one facilitated by an event of extraordinary bad luck. A huge stone dropped by a great dragon had landed squarely upon the headquarters of the Sundabar garrison commander, and at a time of intense planning. The stone had flattened the building, and flattened, too, the Captain of the Guard of Sundabar and most of his officers!
Aleina, fresh from the disaster at the battle known as the Crossings of the Redrun, had been pressed into service, and she went about her tasks with steely determination.
She was not impervious to the c
ries of the hungry, nor was King Firehelm, son of Frosthelm, son of Helm Dwarf Friend, but Aleina knew, and had convinced the kindly king, that no help would be forthcoming from Sundabar’s allies and neighbors. The city had to hold strong until the winter, and then they had to hope that the snows and freezing winds would convince the orcs to give up their siege and return to the north.
Aleina rode the length of the wall as twilight descended over the city this day, the 6th of Eleint, on her magnificent white stallion, calling huzzah to the brave men and women—human and dwarf mostly—who stood tall on the battlements. She winced subtly and did not show her dismay at the fact that many of those guards were not really men or women but children.
The orcs were preparing another charge this day, Aleina believed. They would get to the outer wall, climbing over their dead. Many would gain the wall, and many defenders would die expelling them. The siege had run for six tendays, through midsummer and now into the ninth month.
Aleina passed by a pair of her Silverymoon companions, fellow Knights-in-Silver who had fled the carnage at the Crossings of the Redrun and turned for Sundabar, guessing the course of the orc horde. An elf, Plenerond Silverbell, and his human companion Doughty called back to her with a responding, “Heigh-ho!” and lifted their bows in salute.
Aleina noted the bandages wrapping the fingers of the duo, digits rubbed skinless by a thousand bowshots a day. She grimly nodded as she rode on, taking heart that most of those arrows had probably found a mark. On her last trip to the city’s outer wall, she had seen a frost giant lying dead in a heap, its body so thick with arrows that it more resembled a giant porcupine than any humanoid creature. Aleina had noted the fletching on some of those arrows, and had recognized several at least that had come from Plenerond Silverbell’s quiver.
King Firehelm awaited her in the city’s grand central citadel, a fortress within the fortress. As she rode up to the main door of that massive and impregnable keep, she spotted the king on a balcony, hands gripping an iron rail as he stared out over the city courtyard, the walls, and the bloody fields. He took note of her and looked down with an approving nod, but his eyes went right back to the fields, to the carnage.
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