R. Salvatore - Archmage

And with that hint, Kimmuriel gave to Gromph the beginnings of the spell he had been taught in the Abyss, the spell he believed would deliver K’yorl back to Menzoberranzan, where she could wreak her psionic wrath on House Baenre.

“Enough!” Gromph shouted suddenly, breaking Kimmuriel from his trance.

Kimmuriel blinked open his eyes and looked at his student, his expression one of puzzlement. “Archmage?” he innocently asked.

“What kind of fool do you take me to be?” Gromph said with deathlike flatness.

A wave of panic rolled up through the normally composed psionicist, and he seriously considered teleporting from that room at once-though of course Gromph would chase him and find him.

“Spare me your false accolades,” Gromph clarified, and it was all Kimmuriel could do to suppress a great sigh of relief. “I know I have failed this day.” He strode away, to the small balcony of his room here at Sorcere, on the elevated plateau of Tier Breche, clenching and unclenching his fist as he went-and alternately producing a magical flame and crushing the life from it, one after another with practiced ease.

It was a minor spell, surely, but still, the notion that Gromph could enact it repeatedly as such an afterthought, like the magical doodle of a great artist, sent a shiver up the psionicist’s spine. He considered again that which he had done in implanting the beginnings of K’yorl’s spell-or Errtu’s spell, perhaps.

Briefly, Kimmuriel thought himself quite the fool for even attempting such a thing.

“Have you seen them?” Gromph asked, pulling open the decorated door-all black adamantine, but worked with the flare more common to an iron grate, with swirls and spikes and rolling designs. “Have you seen them slithering all about the city?”

“The demons,” Kimmuriel reasoned.

“The matron mother’s demons,” Gromph clarified, leaning on the balcony’s railing, limned with purple faerie fire that rushed to engulf his hands as he grasped the bar.

“Can creatures of the Abyss truly belong to any other than their own whim?”

Gromph glanced back over his shoulder to regard the psionicist.

“They serve her simply by going about their business as demons,” the archmage explained. “That is the beauty of the matron mother’s design.”

“Then more glory to House Baenre,” Kimmuriel said, and Gromph snickered but didn’t bother to look back, clearly not in agreement.

“I will return in half a tenday for our next encounter,” Kimmuriel said.

“I will still be distracted.”

“Then I will engage with the illithids before we meet again,” Kimmuriel improvised. “Perhaps I can gain some insights into the ways of demons, perhaps of controlling them. You might gain advantage over the lesser creatures of the Abyss at least.”

This time, Gromph turned to regard the psionicist. The archmage crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back on the balcony rail. The faerie fire engulfed him almost fully.

He didn’t flinch. Kimmuriel could sense his intrigue.

“Half a tenday?”

The archmage nodded, and Kimmuriel stepped away, far away, stepped all the way back to the World Above and his private chambers in the city of Luskan along the northern Sword Coast.

Gromph, meanwhile, continued to lean against the rail for a long while in deep contemplation, thinking that perhaps he was beginning to see the greater benefits of this new pursuit of psionic training. The archmage pictured the Faerzress, the source of magical energies within the Underdark, the barrier between the material Underdark and the lower planes that lent this land its dark energies.

Many times before had Gromph pictured this place, and he had visited the Faerzress several times in his long life, and indeed had spent many days there once, when he was adding enchantments to his already fantastic robes.

But now he viewed the Faerzress differently, with a new spark of insight. Now he saw the extraplanar barrier embedded within those glowing stones.

A spark of psionic insight, he thought.

Gromph had not become Archmage of Menzoberranzan, nor had survived as such for centuries untold, by acting rashly, and so he threw aside any foolish notions of incorporating this thought into any such dangerous and formidable spellcasting as that of calling for a major demon.

For now.

Her tempo increased, her movements becoming sharper and less fluid, but her strikes more deadly.

Doum’wielle couldn’t figure out exactly what the sword was trying to do. The sentient weapon was guiding her, telepathically prodding her-thrust, riposte, feint, parry.

Step back! she heard in her thoughts. She had not moved quickly enough for Khazid’hea’s liking. Then she sensed the great regret of the sword, as if she, as if they, had failed. Before she could inquire, though, the sword was prodding her once more, the same routine, but now slowly again, and adding in the step. Over and over, building muscle memory. Doum’wielle still did not question. She came to believe that this sentient weapon was preparing her for a fight with Tiago-or more to the point, she admitted to herself, she desperately wanted to believe that was Khazid’hea’s plan.

The Baenre fiend had taken her again the night before, in the forest by the road now beyond the Silver Marches, the violation all the more wretched because she knew it was not wrought out of any honest emotions he held for her-that would still be bad enough! — but simply to remind her that he could take her whenever he wanted, for whatever reason he wanted.

She would love to feel her sword violating his body. .

A jolt shocked Doum’wielle, startling her and jerking her upright, the weapon lowering as all strength seemed drawn from her arm.

You think in pedestrian terms, the sword scolded.

Doum’wielle took a deep breath and tried to steady herself.

Would you like to kill him?

Yes.

Do you think that would hurt him?

I would make it hurt.

She could feel the sword’s amusement, silent laughter mocking her.

Tiago Baenre does not fear death, the sword explained. But there is something else that he does fear.

Doum’wielle spurned the obvious question, and instead she considered all that she was doing here, and Khazid’hea’s grand plan. “Humiliation,” she said aloud, and she felt the sword’s agreement.

And she felt the call to get back to her work. Khazid’hea guided her again, thrust and parry, sharp and fast. She moved ahead, but only briefly, then quick-stepped back, holding balance, sword going out left-low and right-high in rapid succession. Though she was alone on the field, she could feel the parries as surely as if her weapon had actually struck steel.

Left and right.

And that clue, left and right, showed her the truth of this exercise. She understood clearly then that her sword wasn’t preparing her for any fight with Tiago, who fought with one sword. Khazid’hea was training her to battle a two-handed opponent: Drizzt Do’Urden.

And Khazid’hea knew that drow ranger well, and knew Drizzt’s companion Catti-brie even more intimately. She had wielded the sword, which she called Cutter, for a short time, long ago.

And Cutter had dominated her.

A question formed in Doum’wielle’s mind, but she blurted it, not wanting to give the sword the satisfaction of reading it from her thoughts.

“Why not return to Catti-brie?” she asked. “You can control her and easily strike Drizzt down.”

She felt the sword’s seething response.

Doum’wielle dared a little laugh at her pompous weapon’s expense.