R. Salvatore: Archmage

Out of the room glided the yochlol, one tentacle dragging back to clasp the door and slam it shut.

Minolin Fey slumped back in the high-backed great chair, not even bothering to straighten her gown to cover her exposed, leaking breast. Her breathing was quite raspy, Gromph noted, and more than once she glanced at the closed door with an expression that seemed to be clearly approaching panic.

“She is beautiful, is she not?” Gromph asked, and when the high priestess snapped a surprised glare at him, he added, “Our child.”

Minolin Fey swallowed hard, and Gromph laughed at her. Whatever her feelings, Minolin would not dare harm Yvonnel. She would do as she was told, as Lolth’s avatar had instructed, because in her heart, Minolin Fey was truly a coward. Even in their previous plotting to overthrow Matron Mother Quenthel-before the end of the Spellplague, before the Darkening, before Methil had imbued Quenthel with the memories of Yvonnel much as the illithid had done with the child in Minolin’s womb-Minolin had slithered in the shadows. She had remained in the background, prodding others into the forefront to hunt for K’yorl Oblodra in the Abyss, and whispering to those other Houses that would bear the brunt of Matron Mother Baenre’s wrath if the plot unfolded badly.

“You do not understand!” Minolin Fey snapped at him in a voice as shrill as any she had ever dared use with Gromph Baenre.

“I?”

“To have your body so invaded. .” the high priestess said, lowering her gaze and looking thoroughly, pathetically broken. “Those illithid tentacles, invading my flesh, probing me,” she said, her tone hinting that she was barely able to speak the words. “You cannot know, husband.”

She dared look up, to find Gromph glaring at her.

“You know nothing of what I know or do not know, Minolin of House Fey-Branche.” His reference to her lesser House, instead of naming her as a Baenre, was a clear and sharp reminder.

“You are not a woman,” Minolin Fey said quietly. “There is nothing more. . personal.”

“I am not a woman,” Gromph echoed. “A fact of which I am reminded every day of my life.”

“The child. .” Minolin Fey said with a disgusted shake of her head.

“Will become Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan,” Gromph stated.

“In fifty years? A century?”

“We shall see.” Gromph turned on his heel and started for the door.

“There remains K’yorl,” Minolin Fey dared remark before he reached the exit, referring to their previous plans to be rid of Quenthel.

Gromph stopped and stood staring at the door for a few heartbeats. Then he snapped about, eyes and nostrils flaring. “This is not Quenthel any longer, who serves as Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan,” he warned. “Not simply Quenthel, at least. She knows as Yvonnel knew, and as our child Yvonnel is coming to know.”

“Knows. .?”

“The history of our people, the living truth of the ways of the Spider Queen, the myriad plots and contortions of the many, many Houses that have come before. You would do well to remember that, Minolin Fey. Our union has served me well.” He glanced at the door where the yochlol and the baby Yvonnel had gone. “But if you conspire and connive, and so invoke the wrath of Quenthel-of Matron Mother Baenre-then know that I will not protect you. Indeed, know that I will destroy you, in service to my beloved sister.”

Minolin Fey could not match his gaze and lowered her face.

“Treat our child well, my wife,” Gromph warned. “As if your very life depended on doing so.”

“She demeans me,” Minolin Fey muttered under her breath as Gromph turned once more to leave. And again the archmage spun on his heel.

“What?”

“The child,” the high priestess explained.

“The child demeans you?”

The high priestess nodded, and Gromph chuckled once more.

“You understand who that child has become?” Gromph asked rhetorically. “Beside her, you deserve to be demeaned, and mocked.

“But fear not,” Gromph added. “Perhaps if you treat her well, and feed her well with your breasts, she will not utterly obliterate you with a Lolth-given spell.”

Still chuckling, though not really feeling any better than when he had entered the room, the archmage departed.

Sometime later that day, Gromph became aware of a major demon, a gigantic canine-faced four-armed glabrezu, wandering the ways of Menzoberranzan near House Baenre. After that, a courier from the matron mother arrived and informed him that more demons would follow, and he was not to destroy or banish them except in defense of his very life.

The archmage’s expression grew sourer still.

Seated at the right foreleg of the spider-shaped council table, Matron Mother Mez’Barris Armgo trembled visibly after High Priestess Sos’Umptu Baenre announced that their scouts had located a very-muchalive Tiago Do’Urden, thus finishing the full recounting of the results of the Silver Marches War-full, except for the not-so-minor detail that the sun had returned to that region of the World Above, the Darkening spell dismissed, and the fact that her words about Tiago were untrue, issued only to annoy Matron Mother Mez’Barris Armgo of the Second House.“Issues, Matron Mother Mez’Barris?” the matron mother asked when

Sos’Umptu moved back around to the far side of the table and took her seat, the Ruling Council’s new Ninth Seat, between the matron mothers of House Vandree and House Do’Urden.

“Too many to recount in the hours we have, perhaps,” the matron mother of House Barrison Del’Armgo retorted.

“Then the most recent, if you please.”

“Did you not hear your own sister’s words?”

Matron Mother Baenre shrugged dismissively.

“Drow nobles were killed,” Mez’Barris said.

“Drow nobles are often killed,” Matron Miz’ri Mizzrym of the Fourth House obediently pointed out. Miz’ri had become little more than an echo for the whispers Matron Mother Baenre did not wish to speak aloud. As she looked from Miz’ri to the matron mothers Vadalma Tlabbar and Byrtyn Fey, she was reminded of the tightening and dangerous alliance between House Baenre and the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Houses of Menzoberranzan.

Mez’Barris had to unwind that alliance if she was ever to be out from under the squirming shadow of the wretched Quenthel Baenre. She turned her stare over Miz’ri once more and added a sly and knowing grin, pointedly letting her gaze drop to the ornate necklace of gemstones Miz’ri had worn to council this day. Rumors about the city claimed that House Mizzrym was dealing with enemies of Menzoberranzan, including the deep gnomes of Blingdenstone, and that, of course, would explain the precious gemstones around Miz’ri’s neck.

Perhaps that was Baenre’s hold over Matron Mother Miz’ri, Mez’Barris mused. It was no secret that House Mizzrym was trying to build a trade market beyond Menzoberranzan to rival that of the ever-dangerous House Hunzrin, and perhaps the matron mother was granting Miz’ri dispensation to bargain with enemies, even the hated deep gnomes, with impunity.

It was just a hunch, but one worth investigating and perhaps exploiting.

“It is curious, though, that with the discovery of a living Tiago, of the Do’Urden nobles who went to war, only two were killed,” Mez’Barris remarked. “And those two of the same family line.”

“Are we to believe now that you ever truly claimed the darthiir half-breed daughter of Tos’un as a true member of House Barrison Del’Armgo?” asked Dahlia-Matron Darthiir Do’Urden-and the whole of the Ruling Council, with the exception of the two Baenres, gasped in unison, not so much at the bluntness of the remark but that the wretched elf who all, even the allies of House Baenre, knew to be no more than a second echo for Matron Mother Baenre’s votes, had spoken the open accusation.