R. Salvatore - Archmage

“Well heal him, ye dolt!” Bruenor finally shouted.

Ambergris nodded, but then shook her head and replied, “Ah, but this one’s beyond me.”

“Well try!” the frantic Bruenor screamed.

“Ye go and get his wife,” Ambergris told the Fellhammer sisters. “Go now, and quick.”

“We can’t wait!” Bruenor frantically shouted, but Ambergris was already beginning her first spell, and when he realized that, the dwarf calmed somewhat.

Ambergris pressed her hand in tighter against the drow’s torn chest and brought forth her healing magic. The blood flow slowed its trickle from that small, uncovered part of the wound, but the cleric looked to Bruenor and shook her head.

“Me spells won’t be enough for this one,” she lamented. “Be sure that he’s been killed to death in battle, and only the goo’s keeping him a bit alive.”

“Aye, and smotherin’ him at the same time!” Athrogate said.

Bruenor was shaking his head. Someone had cleared Drizzt’s nose, and Bruenor realized that it was probably the same person who had hit him with the syrupy glob in the first place. “Jarlaxle,” he muttered, nodding. He had seen this trick before from that one.

But why would Jarlaxle just leave Drizzt here like this? The dwarf looked to the wall, where the vortex had been. Another Jarlaxle trick, he wondered?

But had Drizzt and Jarlaxle battled? It didn’t seem possible to him. He could not begin to imagine those two going at each other with blades.

None of this made sense to him, but Bruenor figured that the only way he was going to get the answers was to get Drizzt healed.

He looked to Ambergris, who was deep into casting another spell, and this one elicited a groan from Drizzt as the healing waves entered his torn and battered body.

“Come on, girl,” Bruenor muttered, looking to the door.

“Come on, get his other leg, then,” Athrogate called to him, and Bruenor turned to see the black-bearded dwarf clearing the goo from Drizzt’s shin. “Just a bit at a time, so we’re not for opening any more cuts! Elf’s bled enough!”

“Too much,” Bruenor replied, going at the other leg. He winced as he did, wondering suddenly if this determined expedition was worth it to him. If he recovered Gauntlgrym, but at the price of Drizzt and Cattibrie’s lives, say, would he consider that a victory?

“Aye,” he said with determination, but without much conviction. And he added, “Come on, girl.”

Matron Mother Baenre sat quietly for a long while after Sos’Umptu’s prayer, which called the meeting of the Ruling Council to order. She let her gaze settle on each of the rival matron mothers, her withering look telling them that she understood well the true power behind the attack on the Do’Urden compound, and the coordination it had required. Even those matron mothers who had not participated directly shifted uncomfortably in their seats under the weight of that stare, for certainly all had known of the whispers, the shadowy nods and look-aways that had led to the coordinated assault.

And behind them, seated at the back leg of the table, Matron Darthiir Do’Urden sat impassively.

“Are we to believe this was anything less than an attempted assassination?” the matron mother asked. Several shifted uncomfortably, Matron Mother Mez’Barris let out a little growl, and other matron mothers nodded at the sentiment. Such accusations, if that indeed was where Matron Mother Baenre was going, were not acceptable in the city of backstabbing dark elves.

“Or the will of the goddess?” the matron mother continued, giving them an out for their protests, and turning away from the course that would have inexorably led to direct and violent confrontation.

“A signal, perhaps, that Matron Darthiir should not be seated here at the Ruling Council,” Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn offered.

“Or perhaps that she should not be a matron mother at all,” Mez’Barris added.

“Or that she should not be suffered to live,” said Zhindia.

“Yet here she is,” said Matron Mother Baenre. “Alive and well.”

“Foolishly rescued. .” Zhindia started to interrupt, but Quenthel slammed her fist down on the table.

“Matron Darthiir fought brilliantly, so say the Xorlarrin nobles who happened upon her,” Matron Mother Baenre declared. “Shall I bring them in to confirm? Matron Darthiir was assaulted by a horde of demons, but she battled them away and left them melting on the floor.”

She turned to Mez’Barris, locking stares with her rival. “What say you?” Quenthel demanded. “Are we to believe that Lady Lolth ordered forth the demons to destroy a matron mother of the Ruling Council, and believe even more so that those demons failed in the Spider Queen’s task?”

With no answer forthcoming, Quenthel stood up and towered over the others. “And if so,” she went on, “then why would Lady Lolth allow Matron Darthiir back here to sit beside us on the Ruling Council of this, her city? Go and seek guidance, Zhindia Melarn, I beg, before you blaspheme the Spider Queen with your ignorance and prejudice. And rest assured, if the Spider Queen had wanted Matron Darthiir dead, then Matron Darthiir would be dead by my own hand!”

“Are we to celebrate her great victory?” Matron Mother Mez’Barris asked sarcastically. “Perhaps you would elevate House Do’Urden to a place of greater rank to properly acknowledge that a matron mother successfully killed a handful of manes.”

The matron mother turned a perfectly wicked smile over Mez’Barris as others snickered.

“Perhaps House Do’Urden will find its own ascent under the guidance of its heroic matron mother,” Matron Mother Baenre calmly replied, and she glanced sidelong at the sneering Zhindia Melarn, whose House was ranked one above Do’Urden, and so seemed the most likely target of any such attempt.

“Perhaps the bastard House, so favored by Lady Lolth, will find its way to your seat,” Quenthel added to Mez’Barris, an absurd proposition, of course, but surely a threat the matron mother did not try to veil.

“This is all for another day,” said Sos’Umptu at the back of the chamber. “This meeting was not convened to applaud or decry the battle at the compound of House Do’Urden, nor the valiance of Matron Darthiir Do’Urden.”

“Indeed,” agreed Quenthel, who had demanded the meeting. “Matron Mother Zeerith of Q’Xorlarrin is in dire need. It would seem that an army of dwarves have come to reclaim the citadel they know as Gauntlgrym.”

“That was ever a possibility,” Matron Mother Byrtyn Fey replied.

“I will spare no warriors to go do battle for the sake of Q’Xorlarrin,” Matron Mother Mez’Barris said bluntly, and more than a couple of gasps were heard following that declaration.

“We cannot,” Matron Mother Miz’ri Mizzrym added. “Not with a city full of demons scratching at our doors.”

“And now you understand the beauty of my call to the Abyss,” Quenthel calmly replied. She let that hang in the air for a short while, all the others staring at her curiously. Quenthel took great pleasure in seeing the epiphany flash on each drow face, one by one, as they came to understand.

“I have already spoken with the archmage,” Quenthel went on. “Marilith, whom he fully controls, will lead their march to Q’Xorlarrin, Nalfeshnee at her side, to the defense of Matron Mother Zeerith.”

“You will send an army of demons to Matron Mother Zeerith’s door?” Zhindia Melarn asked, incredulous. “She would fare better battling the dwarves!”

“I am sure that you hope your words prove true,” Quenthel replied, and Zhindia narrowed her hate-filled eyes, clearly recognizing the nottoo-subtle implication that Quenthel had sorted out the secret alliance between the Melarni and the traders of House Hunzrin, who hated the very idea of the satellite city of Q’Xorlarrin. “I have assured Matron Mother Zeerith of our allegiance, and so our demons will serve her, by the will of Lolth.”