Condemnation (13 page)

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 still 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.

The Darklake was a strange and terrible place. A blackness greater than any Halisstra had ever known enveloped her and her companions, a space so vast that its unseen recesses gnawed at the mind. The great caverns of the drow were often miles across, tremendous places harboring cities of many thousands, but—if Coalhewer did not exaggerate—the Darklake occupied a cavern well over one hundred miles from side to side, and thousands of feet in height. Great island columns the size of mountains held up the mighty roof, creating fanglike archipelagos in the darkness. The waters of the lake virtually filled the immense space. As they sailed across its surface the ceiling was often less than a spearcast above them, leaving many hundreds, or even thousands of feet of black mystery below their feet. It was an unsettling sensation.

Coalhewer’s boat was less than comforting itself. It was an asymmetrical vessel made mostly of planks sawn from the woody stems of a particular type of gigantic Underdark mushroom, and treated with lacquers for strength and rigidity. The zurkhwood formed a broad platform, which floated on a cluster of soft air bladders taken from some aquatic species of giant fungus. The whole thing was riveted together with the excellent metalwork of the gray dwarves.

Four hulking skeletons—ogres in life, perhaps, or maybe trolls—crouched in a well-like area in the boat’s center, endlessly turning two large cranks that drove a pair of zurkhwood waterwheels. The mindless undead never tired, never complained, never even slowed their pace unless Coalhewer ordered them to, driving the boat onward with no sound but the soft rush of water over the wheels and the faint clicking and scraping of their bones in motion. The gray dwarf stood near the stern on a small, elevated bridge, high enough to see over the waterwheels. He peered ahead into the darkness, arms folded across his thick chest, keeping his thoughts to himself.

The passengers crouched on the cold, uncomfortable deck or paced back and forth, staying a little ways back from the railless edge of the platform. The journey from Mantol-Derith was not extremely swift, as the vessel was not quick, and Coalhewer had to carefully thread his way around places where the cavern roof dropped so low there wasn’t enough room for the boat.

Valas spent most of his time standing on the bridge beside the dwarf, keeping a careful eye on the course he steered. Pharaun sat cross-legged at the base of the structure, deep in Reverie, while Ryld and Jeggred kept a sharp watch on the port and starboard sides respectively, making sure that none of the lake’s denizens approached undetected. The priestesses kept to themselves, wrapped in Reveries of their own or staring out over the lightless waters, lost in thought.

They passed almost two full days in that manner, pausing only briefly for austere meals or to let the duergar captain rest. Coalhewer was extraordinarily cautious about showing any kind of light and made them build their cookfires in a small, secluded fire-box that shielded the flames from view.

“There’s too many things as are drawn by the light,” he muttered. “Even this much may be dangerous.”

After their third such meal, late on their second day of travel, Halisstra retired to the bow of the boat so that she could look out over the waters and not find herself staring at one or another of her companions. In the furious battle to escape Hlaungadath, and the walk through the Plane of Shadow, she had had little time to embrace and understand her new circumstances. Empty hours of listening to the soft murmur of water and the insectlike clicking and scraping of the boat’s skeletal engine had unfortunately failed to immerse her in activity, leaving her with the opportunity to replay the fall of Ched Nasad over and over again in her head.

What became of my House? she wondered. Did any of our servants and soldiers survive by escaping Ched Nasad? Are they together, and who leads them? Or did they all die amid the flame and ruin?

Matron Mother Melarn’s death left Halisstra as the head of the House—presuming that none of her younger cousins had managed to claim leadership. If one of them had, Halisstra was certain she could wrest it away from her kinswoman. She had always been the most favored of the Melarn daughters, the oldest, the strongest, and she knew her cousins could not deny her her birthright.

But it seemed very likely indeed that her birthright was nothing more than ash and rubble at the floor of Ched Nasad’s great chasm. Even if some part of her household had escaped, would she want to seek them out and join them in a miserable, squalid, and dangerous exile in the Underdark?

This was not how it was supposed to be, she thought. I was to ascend to my mother’s place in time, and wield the power that had been hers and her mother’s before her. The thousand strands of Ched Nasad would have met at my feet. My least desire I might have fulfilled with a word, a look, a simple frown. Instead, I am a rootless wanderer.

Why, Lolth? she cried out in her mind. Why? What offense did we give you? What weakness did we show?

Once Halisstra had heard the dark whispers of the Spider Queen in her heart, but that place was empty. Lolth chose not to answer. She did not even choose to punish Halisstra for the temerity of demanding an answer.

If Lolth had truly abandoned her, what would become of her if she followed her House down into death? All of her life, Halisstra had believed that her faithful service as a priestess and a bae’qeshel to the Queen of the Demonweb Pits would earn her a high place in Lolth’s domain after her death, but what would become of her now? Would her rootless spirit be interred with the other unfortunate souls no god claimed in the afterlife, fated to dissipate and die the real and eternal death in the gray voids reserved for the faithless? Halisstra shivered in horror. Lolth’s faith was hard, and weaklings had no place in it, but a priestess could expect that she would be rewarded in death for her service in life. If that was no longer true …

Danifae approached with sinuous grace and knelt beside her. She looked into Halisstra’s face boldly, and did not lower her eyes.

“Grief is a sweet wine, Mistress Melarn. If you drink but a little, you are tempted to drink more, and things are never improved by overindulging in either.”

Halisstra looked away to compose herself. She did not care to share her secret horror with Danifae.

“Grief is not enough of a word for what is in my heart,” she said. “I have thought of little else since we began this interminable voyage. Ched Nasad was more than a city, Danifae. It was a dream, a dark and glorious dream of the Spider Queen. Graceful castles, soaring webs, Houses full of wealth and pride and ambition, all burned to ashes in a few short hours. The city, its matrons and daughters, the beautiful web-spun palaces, all lost now, and for what reason?” She closed her eyes and battled the hot ache in the hollow of her breast. “The dwarves did not destroy us. We destroyed ourselves.”

“I will not mourn the passing of Ched Nasad,” Danifae said. Halisstra looked up sharply, cut more by the girl’s dispassionate tone than her words. “It was a city full of enemies, most of whom are dead, while others flee as paupers into the wilds of the Underdark. No, I will not mourn Ched Nasad. Who, besides the few Ched Nasadans who survive, will?”

Halisstra did not choose to answer. No one would grieve for a city of drow, not even other dark elves. That was the way of the drow. The strong endured, and the weak fell by the wayside, as the Spider Queen demanded. Danifae waited for a long time before she spoke again.

“Have you given thought to what we will do next?”

Halisstra glanced at her and said, “Our lot is already cast with the Menzoberranyr, is it not?”

“For today, yes, but tomorrow will your purposes and theirs coincide? What will you do if Lolth’s favor returns tomorrow? Where would you go?”

“Does it matter?” Halisstra said. “Return to Ched Nasad, I suppose, and gather together what survivors I can. It will be a hard task, more than I likely could hope to accomplish even in a lifetime, but with the Spider Queen’s blessing House Melarn may yet rise again.”

“Do you think Quenthel would permit such a thing?”

“Why should she care what I do with the rest of my life? Especially if I spend it raising a wretched fragment of a House over the smoking ruins of my city?” Halisstra said bitterly.

Danifae merely spread her hands. Halisstra understood. What reason would a Baenre need to do anything at all, really? The Menzoberranyr might have been their saviors from the wreck of Ched Nasad, but at a word from Quenthel they might become their captors, or their killers. The girl glanced back to where the others meditated or stood their watches, and changed to signs, carefully hidden from the rest of the company.

Perhaps it might be wise to consider exactly how we can make ourselves indispensable to the Menzoberranyr, she motioned. The hour will come when we will no longer wish to rely on Quenthel Baenre’s benevolence, such as it is.