R. Salvatore - Archmage

She thought of running down a hill, toward a rocky gorge, a drow-a drow friend! — outdistancing her, leaping with amazing balance and grace from stone to rise to stone.

She felt the wind on her face-the wind! She felt herself tumbling, but it was not frightening, for she controlled this movement, her brilliant vault bringing her around to do battle. .

“How many tendays?” a voice said, and for a moment, Dahlia thought it a memory, until the voice-High Priestess Saribel-spoke again. “How many tendays have you left to draw breath, darthiir ?” she asked, and Dahlia opened her eyes to see the woman, resplendent in her spidery laced gown, all purple and black, beautiful and deadly all at once. So beautiful, so alluring. That was part of their magic, and how could Dahlia resist?

How could she think herself worthy?

“My husband is alive,” Saribel said, and Dahlia couldn’t begin to understand what that might even mean, let alone who Saribel might be talking about.

“Tiago Baenre,” Saribel said, and Dahlia wondered if that name should mean something to her.

An image of mighty Szass Tam flashed in her mind, and she nearly swooned from the overwhelming, almost divine power she felt from him, as well as the incredible malignancy-and Dahlia was sure that she should know who that was. Alarms sounded in her thoughts, echoing and winding, wrapping back under the pile of writhing worms that was her train of thought.

“Tiago has been found, alive and well with that Doum’wielle creature,” Saribel said, and she might as well have been talking in the tongue of myconids, for now even the words made no sense to Dahlia.

“When Tiago returns, we together will claim this House Do’Urden for our own. We will be fast rid of you, witch, and I will claim the title of matron mother. Matron Mother Baenre has come to trust me now, and needs not your echo on the Ruling Council, when my own voice would be so much more helpful.”

She moved closer, and Dahlia thought she should lash out at the drow, though she couldn’t figure out quite how to make her arms do that.

“We will make of you a drider, lovely Dahlia,” Saribel said, almost cooing the words, and she raised her hand to gently stroke the elf’s face. Lightly, teasingly. And how beautiful was she!

Dahlia closed her eyes, the energy of Saribel’s touch filling her body, reverberating through her as a moment of pure sensation and growing ecstasy. She heard herself breathing more heavily, lost herself in the vibrations of the touch, so soft and teasing, moving within her and multiplying.

Saribel slapped her across the face, and in a moment of clarity Dahlia thought that fitting. So beautiful, so alluring.

Yet so horribly wretched and dangerous.

“I will taunt you and torture you for a hundred years,” Saribel promised. “When my husband Tiago returns with the head of Drizzt Do’Urden, your time of comfort will end.”

Dahlia couldn’t make out much of that, but that name! Oh, that name!

Drizzt Do’Urden.

Drizzt Do’Urden!

She knew that name, knew that drow, her lover, her love!

She had felt so safe in his arms, and so wild under his touch. She had found peace there. . Effron! He had brought her to Effron, her son, her child she thought lost. .

A tidal wave of emotions rolled over Dahlia then, a flood of memories, all jumbled of course, but relaying so many different emotions all too clearly. She burst into tears, shoulders bobbing in sobs. They had done this. These drow had murdered Effron!

Saribel laughed at her, cackled wildly, taking great pleasure, in thinking her words had terrified the elf.

But Dahlia paid her no heed, had not even recognized many of her words, the sounds nonsensically arranged in Dahlia’s ears.

None of them mattered anyway, except for two: Drizzt. Do’Urden.

“Drizzt Do’Urden,” she silently mouthed, and she held on desperately to those sounds, to that word if it was a word, to that name if it was a name.

She knew it mattered.

Through all the winding worms within her thoughts, Dahlia became confident that she knew that the name-yes, it was name! — and that it, Drizzt Do’Urden, mattered. So she held it and repeated it as a mantra, a litany against the winding courses of a broken mind.

“What have you done?” Matron Mother Mez’Barris Armgo screamed at Matron Mother Baenre. The matron mother of the Second House trembled with rage and jumped up from her seat at the council table. “Demons! Too many to battle! Should they all come against any one House-even your own, foolish Matron Mother! — that House will surely perish!”

“Why would they come against any one House?” asked High Priestess Sos’Umptu Baenre from the back of the table.

Matron Mother Mez’Barris swung around to face Sos’Umptu, her eyes narrowing in a clear threat. She knew that Sos’Umptu had been prompted to make that response by the wretched Quenthel.

“Indeed,” Quenthel said, following up on that very point. “No one of us controls the demons. Every House has brought forth some-every House seated here has summoned a major fiend to their control.”

“Arach-Tinilith, too,” Sos’Umptu added, clearly aiming the remark at Mez’Barris. “Our many priestesses have reveled in summoning demons now, with all limitations removed.”

All around the table of the Ruling Council, the other matron mothers sucked in their breath at that. Even those Houses of Menzoberranzan most proficient in the arts of summoning, like House Melarn and House Mizzrym, could not hope to match the sheer volume of demons that Arach-Tinilith might bring forth.

Mez’Barris studied her peers, knowing that they were all only then beginning to understand the danger. This demon orgy orchestrated by Matron Mother Baenre could doom any of them, could doom all of them.

Matron Miz’ri Mizzrym rose up then and began to speak, but Quenthel cut her short.

“Sit down! Both of you!” the matron mother ordered. “Pray you, sisters, seek guidance from Lolth, and hold your foolish words, else my scourge will take the tongues from your mouths! We return Menzoberranzan to the early days of the city, when demons shared the boulevards with drow and Lady Lolth was ascendant and pleased.”

“Many drow have been murdered by the instruments of the Spider Queen,” Mez’Barris reminded her.

“We cull the weak,” Matron Mother Baenre answered without hesitation. “And we will be stronger for our vigilance and our experience. As with your weapons master, Malagdorl, who slew Marilith herself.” She paused and flashed a wicked grin, before adding, “Or so you claim.”

Mez’Barris felt her nostrils flaring, her eyes widening with pure outrage. Before she could argue, though, the chamber door opened, and in walked Archmage Gromph, and behind him, in slithered Marilith. Not a marilith, but Marilith herself, without question.

Mez’Barris sank back into her chair, her jaw hanging open.

“This is how it was in the earliest days of Menzoberranzan,” Matron Mother Baenre said calmly, matter-of-factly, for there was no need to press the embarrassment of Matron Mother Mez’Barris. “And so it shall be again. Look to your prayers, sisters. The Spider Queen is pleased, do not doubt.”

Mez’Barris slowly surveyed the table. She saw the surprise, the doubts aimed her way, certainly. She saw the trepidation, even fear, on the faces of these high priestesses who had attained such glory and power, which now, so suddenly, seemed so fragile. They were looking to her now, it seemed to Mez’Barris, and plaintively in the midst of this terrifying confusion, as if pleading with her to serve as some sort of balance to the seemingly out-of-control Matron Mother Baenre.

Matron Mother Mez’Barris covertly scanned the room and met the stares of each matron mother, save Quenthel Baenre and that filthy Dahlia creature. Even in the eyes of Matron Mother Baenre’s known allies, Mez’Barris noted some measure of that plea for help. The matron mother of the Second House took heart in that moment. In her insatiable desire to gain full control, perhaps Quenthel Baenre had gripped too tightly.