Archmage (21 page)

“Be gone from here,” Quenthel ordered, which was her way of admitting that Gromph was right, of course. “Get back to your useless studies before I decide that you should accompany the Abyssal procession.”

Gromph bowed and moved off. He had done his duty—twice over. First he had delivered the warning of the dwarves, and second, he had prevented Quenthel from risking utter devastation to the satellite city.

That second thought bothered him. Why had he done that? Why again had he propped up his idiot sister when his daughter waited in the wings to claim Menzoberranzan as her own?

Because this was Quenthel’s crisis, and one exacerbated by her greedy action bringing forth so many powerful demons.

“Bide your time,” he told himself quietly as he exited the Baenre compound and wound his way across the Qu’ellarz’orl toward Tier Breche and his Sorcere chambers. Had he gone along with Quenthel, knowing the disastrous course for what it was, Q’Xorlarrin would surely have been obliterated. Gromph cared nothing about that, of course, but he cared that the Spider Queen would care, and would seek him out as the one who helped deliver the demons to their source of complete destruction.

No, Gromph’s actions had to be more subtle than that heavy hammer. He nodded as his plans came clear—if he could control some of the greater demons that would march for Q’Xorlarrin, he could profoundly wound his sister, perhaps even mortally wound her reputation within the city, and much more important, in the eyes of Lady Lolth.

“Do you feel it?” asked the half-spider, half-drow woman with exquisite features and undeniable beauty.

Errtu, the largest of the three demons gathered around the black puddle Lolth was using as a scrying pool, bent low and peered more deeply into the wavy image, taking care that the flames that ever surrounded his massive frame didn’t ignite the oily stew.

He could see the rough, natural walls of jagged-edged volcanic stone. It was more porous than what one would expect at this depth, given the amount of pressure upon it from the great weight. It glowed with an inner light, continually shifting within the wall in location and hue. Every pock flared with inner purple or red, as if some wizard had covered himself with faerie fire, then melded into the stone forevermore.

The balor nodded, and had to remind himself not to reach out and plunge his hand into the puddle, for indeed, he felt as if he could grasp the stones, or dive through the puddle, perhaps, and come forth from the jagged stones to walk once more in Faerûn’s Underdark.

“The barrier thins,” Lolth explained. “The Archmage of Menzoberranzan unknowingly whittles at the protections of the Faerzress.”

The Spider Queen laughed, a sound not often heard in the Abyss, and certainly not from her—unless, unlike now, she had a slave lying helpless in front of her, and one worth torturing.

“We will be able to pass through without waiting for some fool to call upon our services?” asked the third of the group, Marilith.

“Not us,” Errtu said with a growl, turning to Lolth as he spoke.

The Spider Queen merely snorted and shrugged.

The Faerzress glowed more brightly, a rolling blue to purple to red filling the pool.

“Archmage Gromph, I presume,” said Lolth.

Marilith sighed and closed her eyes, drawing the attention of the other two.

“He summons me,” she explained. “And I feel compelled to his call. But it cannot be.”

“He wishes to confirm the story being put forth by House Barrison Del’Armgo,” said Lolth, “that Malagdorl defeated and banished you.”

“But I feel as if I can readily answer the call.”

“You can.”

Both demons turned to the Spider Queen with surprise.

“A hundred years,” Errtu said. “The banishment is . . .”

“How do you so break the rules of the cosmos?” Marilith asked. “I was banished by the trident of Malagdorl Armgo. I cannot return to the Prime Material Plane until a century has passed, with rare exception.”

“You weren’t defeated,” Lolth explained. “You did as I instructed. You were sent to lose, and did as you were ordered, so there was no loss. But yes, the Faerzress thins, the boundary between the Underdark of Faerûn and the Abyss is less a barrier, and soon a facilitator.”

“And Bilwhr, whom Gromph obliterated?” Errtu said.

“Eagerly awaiting a call to return,” said Lolth.

“But I remain banished, by the hand of Tiago Baenre?” From his tone, the balor seemed as if he was about leap upon Lolth in rage. He would not, of course, for she would make short work of him, and would take from him much more than a few decades of freedom.

“You were defeated,” Lolth reminded him. “But fear not, for the barrier protecting the Faerzress will continue to diminish, and you will find your way, and perhaps find your vengeance.”

Errtu growled. “Tiago Baenre, and then Drizzt Do’Urden.”

Lolth laughed again, and she was laughing at him and not with him, though he missed the point of her mirth. Lolth’s mockery was one of disbelief as much as anything else. She could not fathom a creature as mighty and intelligent as Errtu wasting so much of his energy plotting vengeance upon a pair of inconsequential mortals.

“My dear Errtu, if a field mouse bit the ankle of Drizzt Do’Urden, do you think he would spend the next century hunting the creature?”

“I will slay Malagdorl before this is through,” Marilith said, clearly in support of the balor.

“You will do as you are told,” Lady Lolth corrected. “I will grant you much freedom, both of you, and perhaps you will find the opportunity to carry out your desperate revenge. But only, I warn, if it does not interfere with that which I need.”

“I have waited . . .” Errtu began to growl.

“And you will wait until I agree with your path,” the Spider Queen shot back with equal threat in her tone. “Drizzt has beaten you twice, fool.”

“He was not alone!”

“Do you believe he will be alone now? Or that you will find Tiago of House Baenre in solitary combat? A noble son of House Baenre?” She turned to Marilith. “Or that you will similarly find such an opportunity against Malagdorl of House Barrison Del’Armgo? The presence of so many of our Abyssal kin has put the city on its highest guard. You will not likely catch any of your prey alone.”

“Drizzt is not in the city,” Errtu pointed out.

“On the surface of Abeir-Toril, likely,” said Lolth. “And there, you cannot go.”

That brought curious expressions to the demons. They looked to each other, Marilith shaking her head, Errtu offering a shrug in return.

“You promised that I would be summoned! I gave you K’yorl, and aided in your plot with Kimmuriel Oblodra—”

“Silence!” Lolth demanded. “The Faerzress will be thinned, and yes, you will be able to pass through
to the Underdark
—whose life and energy is controlled by the Faerzress. Abeir-Toril’s sun will not abide you until your century of banishment has passed.”

“Never before were such restrictions imposed,” Marilith protested. “I have passed between the two, surface and Underdark, on a single summons from a drow wizard, or from a human above! Are you separating the powers, Underdark and World Above?”

“The Faerzress is attuned to the lower planes, which is where it draws its power,” Lolth explained. “The barrier of the Faerzress draws its strength from the sunlit lands, and so keeps us at bay.”

“And so
kept
us at bay,” said Errtu.

“Soon,” the Spider Queen promised.

Marilith closed her eyes then and tilted her head back, as if in ecstasy. “The archmage’s ceremony nears its end,” she explained. “I am called!”

“Go,” Lolth bade her. “Go and play. Tell him nothing that will warn him or help him. You remain fully confused that he was able to bring you back after such a defeat. Do you understand?”

“Of course,” she said, her voice thinning as her corporeal form thinned, as she melted away to the call of the archmage.

“The stooge Kimmuriel performs admirably,” Errtu said when they were alone.

“And Gromph is so eager to bite at Quenthel that he readily accepts this as his own doing.”

Errtu nodded, his growl sounding more like a purr then. “When, Lady of Spiders, will the demon lords walk freely in the Underdark?”

“Soon, my pet. Before the turn of Abeir-Toril’s year, if Gromph is properly teased.”

“He is hungry,” Errtu said. He nodded, and Lolth smiled, both confident that their plans were playing out perfectly.

“It cannot be,” Gromph whispered in amazement when the nine-foot tall, six-armed creature materialized within his summoning circle. He knew all of these particular type of demon, called generically “marilith,” after the strongest of their kind, as was the custom, and he surely knew this particular specimen as Marilith herself.

But that could not be!

Gromph’s thin lips curled in a wicked smile and a chuckle escaped him. “So Malagdorl Del’Armgo lied,” he said, and all the possibilities of embarrassment he might now inflict on House Barrison Del’Armgo began to dance in front of him. Perhaps he would parade Marilith into the chamber of the Ruling Council when they were in session, just to watch the blood drain from the face of Matron Mother Mez’Barris.

“How am I here?” Marilith asked, playing the role Lolth had determined for her.

“You are here by my call.”

“You cannot . . . but you have,” the demon said, appearing quite confused and disoriented.

“Why? What do you know?”

“I was defeated,” Marilith explained, “by the weapons master of the Second House and his cohorts. I am banished from Abeir-Toril for a century, and yet barely a tenday has passed! How can this be?”

Gromph’s eyes sparkled with astonishment at the possibilities that suddenly danced in front of him.

“Ah, but now I might exact my revenge upon the fork-wielding fool!” Marilith said, her eyes turned to the distance as she played her part flawlessly.

“Malagdorl defeated you, just recently, in a tavern in the Stenchstreets?” Gromph asked.

“Did I not just say as much, Archmage Gromph?” the demon answered curtly. “Though the location is not important, for surely it was on this foul plane full of inconsequential beings.” She looked Gromph up and down, scrutinizing him, and seeming not to be much impressed with what she saw. “Why have you disturbed me?” she demanded.

“Did you not just express your elation at being here?”

“Of my own accord and for my own purpose, mortal,” Marilith replied. “Unless you tell me that you brought me here to exact my revenge upon weapons master Malagdorl Del’Armgo.”

Gromph thought it over for a bit. He had no idea how he had captured Marilith in his summoning, since she just admitted that Malagdorl had defeated her. He had only sought her in the spell on a whim, to test the veracity of Malagdorl’s claim. Since that claim was apparently true, there was no way he should have been able to bring Marilith forth.

It was the psionics. He truly was finding the enhancement to the summoning spell through the combination of arcane magic and psionics!

His breath came in short gasps as he pondered just how limitless his powers might soon become. Perhaps he could open half the Abyss to his call, create an army of his own demons and so take power in Menzoberranzan. It seemed a crazy leap, of course, but so, too, did the six-armed demon slithering in front of him here in Menzoberranzan after being so recently banished from the Prime Material Plane. If Gromph could replicate this achievement, he would be revered by the demons and devils weary of their century-long banishments.

If he was the only conduit allowing them to return to the Prime Material Plane before their sentence was served, would they not serve him? Willingly?

Gromph began to chuckle as some other possibilities began to sort themselves out in his thoughts. He believed that he had figured out how he had broken the most ancient code, that his psionics had enhanced his arcane spell of summoning so greatly that Marilith’s banishment could not stop him from pulling her forth from the Abyss. But no other drow would know that, or even begin to consider it. Perhaps he could indeed parade Marilith in front of Mez’Barris Armgo and humiliate her in front of the other matron mothers.

“Your call was . . . different, Archmage,” Marilith said. “Stronger and more insistent. I lamented it at first, fearing that I could not answer, yet eager to return to Menzoberranzan. But something in the call, some deeper power that I have not felt before, made me believe it was possible, and so here I am.”

“To serve me,” Gromph said.

Marilith nodded. “That is the price of answering your call.”

“Serve me well, Marilith,” Gromph explained. “We will together find a most delicious revenge on House Barrison Del’Armgo.”

“You will let me kill the weapons master?”

“Eventually, perhaps. But first, we will humiliate them. All of them.”

C
onnerad Brawnanvil beamed with pride as he stood on the bank of the underground pond, having called Bruenor and Emerus to his side. The two had asked Connerad to oversee the defensive coordination of the outside chamber, Bruenor pointedly reminding him that his father had been one of the greatest military tacticians Mithral Hall had ever known. Now, judging from the younger dwarf’s somewhat smug expression, it seemed that Connerad intended to do his father proud.

“We got our shots sighted in at every guard station,” he explained, pointing out various stalagmites and stalactites that were hollowed out, either recently or in the original dwarven settlement of Gauntlgrym. “So say we got an enemy on the north wall, creeping for the lake.”

He gave a sharp whistle, and a torch flared along the northern wall of the cavern, followed by shouts form various stalactite and stalagmite mounds referencing the “mark.”

“Aye, there they be!” Connerad exclaimed, pointing to a pile of stones and sticks set up to resemble a group of goblins or orcs or some other intruders.

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, the dwarf sentinels let fly with their side-slinger catapults and rebuilt ballistae, and the entire area around those targets filled with flying stones and spears, and finally, with burning pitch.

The speed and violence of the attack had Bruenor and Emerus rocking back on their heels.

“Just for that one spot?” Bruenor asked.

“All about the cavern,” Connerad replied. “We put our war engines on pivots and sighted in, don’t ye doubt, near and far. If it’s in here, movin’ or not, we can hit it!”

“Well played, young Brawnanvil!” King Emerus said.

“Just as it was in the first days o’ Gauntlgrym, and woe to any foe trying to sneak in,” Connerad explained. “And I got some boys scraping mica and polishin’ silver, working on focusin’ mirrors so we can send light from every tower into every crack in the cavern. As it was in the first days o’ Gauntlgrym.”

“How’re ye knowin’ . . .” Emerus started to ask, but Bruenor cut him short.

“Ye sat yer bum on the throne,” he said, staring at Connerad.

The young king didn’t argue.

“Bah, but we telled ye to let us be with ye!” said Emerus.

“And I taked it upon meself to do it meself,” Connerad replied. “Getting ready for
comragh
!”

Bruenor and Emerus looked at each other then, somewhat surprised and a bit perturbed, but only until they realized that Connerad had used the ancient word for “battle.” Aye, he had sat his bum on the throne, and aye, the old ones had talked to him, as they had talked to Bruenor and Emerus. As they had both been leading their respective clans for centuries, it was hard for either of the older kings to think of Connerad as an equal, but by rights, he was just that. He hadn’t been Steward of Mithral Hall for the last decades, but King of Mithral Hall, and once again, as with their earlier conversation about Bruenor taking back the throne of Mithral Hall, Connerad had reminded them both that he didn’t need their permission.

“The throne showed ye the old designs?” Bruenor asked.

“We’re pushin’ out into the tunnels beyond, them leadin’ back to the rocky dale,” he answered. “That’s goin’ to be takin’ some time.”

“How many’re ye using?” Bruenor asked.

“One brigade only,” Connerad answered. “We can’t be splittin’ our forces with a nest o’ drow below.”

“Nest o’ kobolds not far below,” Bruenor reminded him, and the other two nodded.

“Ye plannin’ their party?” Connerad asked.

“Aye, and sure to be a good one.”

“I’ll be expectin’ an invitation,” said Connerad.

“Right by me side,” Bruenor promised, and he clapped Connerad on the shoulder. “Wouldn’t be havin’ it any other way!” Bruenor turned back out to the wider cavern, impressed by the progress. The bridge was almost finished already, with solid abutments and a center span wired to drop.

“And we’ve one more thing we’re needin’ to do afore the fighting starts in full,” Connerad said.

The other two looked at him.

“Clangeddin didn’t tell ye, then,” Connerad asked, “when ye sat yer bums on the throne?”

“Say it clear, lad,” Bruenor bade him.

“Deas-ghnaith inntrigidh,”
Connerad replied.

Bruenor and Emerus turned to each other curiously. These were words neither dwarf had ever heard before, and yet as they stared at each other, each came to understand the phrase, as if they were pulling the wrapping off a present. And more than the words, Connerad’s mere recital of the ancient Delzoun phrase, opened in the minds of the other two images of what could be, of what should be, of what must be.

“All th’ others need to put their bums on that throne, then,” Bruenor whispered, and Emerus nodded his agreement.

“
Tariseachd,
the Rite o’ Fealty, the call o’ Kith’n Kin,” said Connerad. “Three kingdoms joined as one.”

“Aye,” the other two said in unison.

A sharp sound from behind startled Bruenor and turned him around to note work on the wall of the complex. Connerad was building nests for archers, and even some war engines back there.

Bruenor thought back to his unpleasant exchange with Lord Neverember, and he couldn’t help but grin. Send all of Waterdeep down here, he thought, and watch them limp away, battered, before they ever reached Gauntlgrym’s front door.

Because of King Connerad, Gauntlgrym’s entry cavern was ready for
comragh
!

“They are just kobolds,” Tiago grumbled, tugging his shoulder away from Doum’wielle’s grip.

“This is their lair and they are many,” the half-drow warned.

But Tiago wasn’t listening. Kobolds, he thought with disgust—at them and at Doum’wielle for even hinting that these two-legged rats might pose a threat. Menzoberranzan was thick with the vermin, as almost every House used them as slaves. House Baenre kept hundreds, thousands even, tending the gardens, cleaning the compound, and going out into the Underdark to hunt for giant red-cap mushrooms whenever one of the priestesses was in the mood for the delicacy.

Tiago could hardly believe that a colony of kobolds was living here now, in the deeper rooms of the complex’s upper tunnels. Why hadn’t Matron Mother Zeerith enslaved the beasts by now? Or murdered them?

Or perhaps she had enslaved them, he considered again, and he slowed his pace as he moved along the uneven, cracked stones of one twisted hallway. He could only imagine the force that had so broken this place, as if the whole of the mountain had twisted, turning the hallway as a slave might wring the dirty water from a cleaning rag. At various points along the wide cracks in the walls or floor, Tiago noted volcanic rock. He could feel the heat from it, and that truly unsettled him.

Had the primordial escaped again? While he had been off in the Silver Marches fighting the war, had Ravel’s family been blasted by another volcano of primordial power? The last known eruption had been decades before, after all. How could the stone still be throwing such heat?

Noting movement in a wider chamber up ahead, the drow put those thoughts aside and picked up his pace even more, breaking into a trot.

He lifted his arm, turning his shield as he did so that Doum’wielle could see, and motioned her ahead, then shifted his fingers in the silent hand code of the drow, side by side.

Doum’wielle hustled to catch up. Before them lay an oval-shaped room, with the wider chamber opening left and right beyond. It was lighter in there, and brightening now, as if the kobolds within might be stoking a fire. A ghostly image drifted past, beyond the oval, and both companions stutter-stepped a bit, caught by surprise for a heartbeat before realizing that it was merely a bit of steam.

“Stay close,” Tiago whispered. “We ask once for surrender, then we kill them all.”

The drow’s eyes sparkled and he couldn’t suppress his grin. Too long had it been since he had felt the thrill of battle. Indeed, not since the werewolves haunting the forests around Longsaddle. They had noted the kobold lair upon first entering the complex, but Tiago had stayed away, fearing that these were slaves of Q’Xorlarrin. He did not want to be discovered by Matron Mother Zeerith and the rest of her House.

Not until he had the head of Drizzt in a sack.

Three strides away, ready to leap through the opening, Tiago broke into a sprint and gave a battle cry.

But kobolds appeared from around the edges of the opening at just that moment, each holding a large bucket, which they swept across, throwing forth the liquid contents at the opposite edge of the oval.

Tiago pulled up and spun a circuit to slow, but his momentum was too great, and Doum’wielle pressed him from close behind. He gave another yell, this one in alarm as his mind whirled in fear of what these little rats had thrown at him.

Oil of impact that would explode if he brushed too near, perhaps? Acid to bite at him as he dived through?

Even as his mind tried to sort out the surprise, liquid struck stone and hissed in protest, and a wall of steam filled the opening, glowing red.

Shield leading, Tiago dived through. He hit the ground, tucking that shoulder, waving his sword left and right to fend off any attackers in the opaque veil as he rolled around and came up to his feet.

Doum’wielle came in behind him, not as gracefully and not in a roll, tripping past the threshold and stumbling, but holding her feet as she fell toward Tiago.

Fearing that she’d stagger right past him, Tiago turned and shieldblocked her, jolting her upright and steady.

“What—?” she started to ask, but he hushed her, having no time for her idiocy.

Tiago felt as if sweat was running from every pore in his skin. It was hot in here, and not just from the steam. He noted lines of glowing red and suspected them to be lava.

Uncooled lava, and they could hardly see.

Beware every step!
he started to sign, but then, realizing Doum’wielle wouldn’t begin to make out the intricate movements in this thick haze, he spoke the warning instead.

His voice had betrayed their position, he realized a moment later, when rocks soared in at them.

Tiago’s shield unwound, growing by the heartbeat, and he managed to duck behind it to avoid the volley, though the small stones lobbed his way didn’t seem as if they would cause much harm anyway.

But then the first hit his shield, a slight tap. It turned into a more profound one as the ball of stone exploded.

Tiago staggered back even as other missiles banged against the shield, each exploding like the first, driving Tiago back, ever back.

Doum’wielle cried out and went rolling past him to his right, more rocks chasing her, landing all around and pop-popping like the small fireworks and grenades Tiago had used himself at a Baenre celebration, fashioned by the priests of Gond in days gone by, when they had experimented with smoke powder.

These grenades were different, though, for they didn’t burst and whistle like those fireworks. They cracked and popped, throwing stone shards, and burning red, bright and angry, but only briefly.

“Forward!” Tiago ordered Doum’wielle. They couldn’t stand there and suffer the continuing barrage.

But all she returned were screams of pain. Tiago couldn’t see her clearly, but his glance showed him her shadowy form, on the floor and writhing.

The drow tucked his head behind his shield and followed the path of the stones across the room to the throwers. He got hit again, repeatedly, each explosion staggering him, halting him momentarily or even driving him back a step. Tiago reached into his drow heritage, into the magic of the Faerzress that tickled the life-force of his kind, and brought forth a globe of darkness, aiming it in front of him at the far end of the room, where he suspected the kobolds to be.

The barrage slowed, the rocks came in less accurately, and Tiago pressed ahead, shield leading, sword poking forward from all around it. He went into the darkness without hesitation, and thrust more powerfully, scoring a hit.

He dismissed the globe of darkness and found himself faced up with a pair of kobolds, both waving short swords, both holding rocks—missiles that showed the red streaks of contained lava. Behind him, Doum’wielle was still crying out in pain, though it was more a whimper than a scream at that point—a poignant reminder to the son of House Baenre not to let one of those rocks hit him.

The mist thinned, and then he was against not two, but four kobolds, coming at him fearlessly—no slaves these!—and fanning about him, stabbing with short swords, cocking their arms to launch their grenades as soon as an opening showed.

So Tiago gave them that opening—those on his right, at least—as he swept his shield out to the left.

The two on the right let fly, Tiago dropped below the barrage and fast-stepped out to the right, stabbing fiercely, impaling a kobold who fell limp in front of the drow before he’d ever withdrawn the blade.

The mist thinned some more, and Tiago had a better grasp of the room and the grenades. The kobolds stood in front of and beneath a long, slender stalactite, but none like Tiago had ever seen. It dripped red lava, like a leaking, open boil on the skin of the primordial—and onto a mold of solid stone, one that let the lava spread out into a semicircle where it would fast harden and blacken.

So shocked was he by this surprising display of cunning by the miserable little rat-faced kobolds, that Tiago almost forgot that he was in the middle of a fight.

He barely avoided the stab of a short sword from the right, and just got his shield up to deflect the thrust of one of the creatures on his left. He enacted the magic on Orbbcress, his blocker, then, catching the sword fast against the edge. He jerked down and pivoted left, turning the stubborn kobold, who would not surrender its blade.

Bent low, overbalanced, Tiago and Vidrinath turning fast, the kobold surrendered its head instead.

A scraping sound brought the drow back to center, to see a crack opening into a door behind the dropping stalactite, the glowing eyes of a horde of kobolds within.

Tiago felt vulnerable. If that mob held grenades . . .