R. Salvatore - Archmage

“I am the matron mother, the voice of Lolth in Menzoberranzan, foolish male,” Quenthel answered. “I have every option.”

“Matron Mother Zeerith will not withstand the press of King Bruenor and his dwarves,” Gromph replied, pointedly using the name of that cursed dwarf, who had split the head of their mother a century before with his fabled battle-axe. He thought to mention his belief that Drizzt Do’Urden would be there beside Bruenor as well. Quenthel knew well the rogue of House Do’Urden. He had killed her once.

But Gromph decided not to twist the verbal blade quite that far. “There are too many dwarves, and by all accounts they came well equipped. It will take much of Menzoberranzan’s power to turn them back.”

“Menzoberranzan cannot afford to march at this time.”

“If the city of Q’Xorlarrin falls. .”

“It will not fall,” the matron mother said with a wry grin. “Not when the dwarves come up against a horde of mighty demons, and that long before they have ever neared Matron Mother Zeerith’s position in the lower tunnels.”

Gromph stepped back as if struck, and the surprising response had him stuttering in his brain, even if he was too disciplined to let those doubts pass through his lips. Was Quenthel seriously suggesting sending an army of demons to Q’Xorlarrin? An army of demons, led by mighty beasts like Nalfeshnee?

Who could truly control such an army? Bringing those demons together might prove worse for Matron Mother Zeerith if the demons chased off the dwarves than if the dwarves destroyed them to a manes.

“You hold a favored teleport location within Gauntlgrym, do you not?” Quenthel asked.

“I do.”

“Then you will-”

“You cannot be serious,” Gromph interrupted, and Quenthel’s eyes flashed with anger. “My attuned chamber is in the antechamber to the primordial that fires Gauntlgrym’s forges. You know this.”

“Then nearer the battle.”

“The demons will seek to release the primordial,” Gromph protested. “These demons you summon are not stupid creatures, and surely they will recognize the chaotic potential of freeing such a force as a fire primordial. They will dance about the explosions as the volcano begins anew!”

The matron mother leaned back and stared at him hard, seeming unimpressed.

“Unless you wish me to bring through simple-minded manes and lesser demons,” Gromph clarified, and wisely backstepped. “Chasme, even, who would not be clever enough to defeat Gauntlgrym’s magical defenses. Or succubi, who would be too intrigued with playing in the battle to care for an uncontrollable force such as a primordial. Or glabrezu-indeed, the violent hunters would be fine shock troops for the Xorlarrins. They would want the flesh of dwarves for them-”

“Greater beings,” Matron Mother Baenre said evenly.

“You wish me to deliver greater demons to the side of the primordial pit?”

The matron mother hesitated, and Gromph could see her inner struggle then. No doubt she wanted to press forward with her ridiculous demand simply to not give her brother the satisfaction of being correct. But she was seeking Yvonnel’s advice now, he understood. She was searching those many memories Yvonnel the Eternal could offer in dealing with a nalfeshnee or a marilith, or a balor even.

Gromph knew what that advice would entail, for he knew that he was correct. When such demons moved into Gauntlgrym, Matron Mother Zeerith would have to send her garrison of wizards into the primordial chamber in full force, sealing the area of Abyssal intrusion to protect the lever that kept the magical powers of the Tower of the Arcane in Luskan flowing. Those powers brought in the waters of the ocean, the ancient magic manipulating that aqueduct system, reaching into the Elemental Plane of Water and bringing forth mighty water elementals, which dived down from the ceiling of the primordial’s chamber and circled the walls of the entrapping pit in a dance that doused the primordial’s volcanic designs.

“The dwarves have only just entered the caverns,” Gromph said. “Send forth your creatures-they are tireless and will find the Xorlarrins before King Bruenor has moved from the upper levels.”

“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.”