R. Salvatore: Archmage

Matron Mother Zeerith turned to the webbing again and waved her hands. The swarm of spiders retreated, and the filaments began to lower the three prisoners to the floor. Catti-brie, the Harpells, and Ambergris rushed over to catch them as they touched down and slouched limply to the floor.

When Zeerith turned back, she focused her stare upon Drizzt, and he noted quite a few swirling emotions when he locked that gaze with his own. Mostly intrigue, which confused him more than a little.

Far from the chambers of Gromph Baenre, in the region of the great Underdark known as the Faerzress, a burst of bright yellow light erupted within the stones of one wall, like the ignition of trapped gasses or the spark of life itself, or something in between.

That fire slid down to the floor and swept out from the stones, speeding in a straight line across the expanses of the Underdark. It did not turn in deference to solid walls, but burned right through, like a heavy stone falling through still water. It shot along the miles, the tens of miles, the hundreds of miles, and moments later entered the cavern of Menzoberranzan, and only the blink of an eye later, delivered its passenger into the room of the archmage.

“Show me,” Jarlaxle insisted when he found Kimmuriel staring into the crystal necklace of the set he shared with Gromph and Doum’wielle. “Have you found her, then?”

Kimmuriel looked up at him incredulously, an expression that begged the question of why he would bother trying to find Doum’wielle.

He wisely kept that to himself, though. He was spying upon not Doum’wielle, but Gromph, which was a very dangerous, even reckless thing to do. But Kimmuriel couldn’t resist. He wanted to see the Baenre’s face when K’yorl materialized in his chamber! Let him try his rudimentary understanding of psionic power against the assault she would wage!

“Not yet,” he answered, for he couldn’t let Jarlaxle know his target without tacitly admitting that he had been behind this brewing catastrophe.

“I see,” Jarlaxle replied, unconvinced, and Kimmuriel knew that Jarlaxle had seen right through his pathetic attempt to dodge. “Well, do inform me when you have located her. I wish to save the poor girl, and expect that she will prove of value.”

Had he spent the few moments to follow the logical conclusion of the exchange, Kimmuriel would have realized that Jarlaxle, when he learned of the disaster about to befall House Baenre and Menzoberranzan, would surely link it to him.

But he was simply too excited to care at that moment, and he dived back into the connecting crystals of the necklace, seeking Gromph.

He found the archmage clawing at his own eyes and screaming, falling away, Gromph’s face a mask of sheer horror.

And Kimmuriel knew exultation, and swung his view through the scrying device, determined to see his mother.

Then Kimmuriel, too, began clawing at his own eyes, falling back in abject terror, stumbling right over backward and falling to the floor- and that alone saved his sanity when the fall broke the connection to Gromph’s chambers in Sorcere.

Thrice the height of a drow, two-headed, with the bright blue and red horrible faces of a mandrill or a baboon, bipedal and two-armed-though those arms were waving tentacles, replete with suckers that could catch and hold and haul prey in to be devoured-and with a scaled and sinewy saurian body, great and powerful, the summoned beast had to squat to fit within the confines of the room.

Until it did not squat and simply crashed through the stone ceiling with hardly an inconvenience, and swept its great tail about, which ended in blades that seemed as if they would be more fitting set upon the claymore of a mountain giant, the mighty weapons easily slicing through the mushroom-wood and stones of the walls, tearing them with hardly a hesitation-despite the powerful enchantments that had been placed to fortify the walls of the tower of the archmage of Menzoberranzan. Dweomers seemed like child’s play in the face of this beast.

One baboon head screeched at the other in protest, and the other spat back, the continuing, millennia-old battle between the dueling identities of this one great beast.

That one of the most powerful wizards of the mortal realms shivered and melted, pissed in his own robes, and couldn’t find a single word to cry out for help or for mercy, didn’t impress the demon.

After all, to the Prince of Demons Gromph Baenre was of no more concern than an insect.

Jarlaxle rushed back into Kimmuriel’s chamber to find the psionicist in a near-catatonic state, trembling on the floor.

“What?” Jarlaxle insisted, truly unnerved in seeing Kimmuriel in such a state. Kimmuriel unnerved! Kimmuriel, who had lived in the hive cities of mind flayers!“ Not K’yorl,” Kimmuriel began to babble, over and over.

Purely on a hunch, Jarlaxle took off his magical eye patch and set it upon the face of his friend, and indeed, the protective and calming powers of the item did bring some small measure of composure over Kimmuriel. Still, the psionicist stared at Jarlaxle bug-eyed, trembling so badly that Jarlaxle could hear his teeth rattling.

“What is it, my friend?” Jarlaxle implored.

“Not K’yorl,” Kimmuriel stuttered. “Gromph. . summoned. ."

“Gromph tried to summon your mother?” a truly perplexed Jarlaxle asked, as Kimmuriel continued to stammer and stutter the name of K’yorl.

Finally, Kimmuriel found a moment of clarity, and grabbed Jarlaxle desperately, hoisting himself up to look closely into Jarlaxle’s face.

“Gromph,” he stammered. “The archmage. . gate. ."

“For K’yorl?”

Kimmuriel nodded, but quickly shook his head.

“An Abyssal gate?” Jarlaxle prodded. He knew that what remained of K’yorl Odran, Matron Mother Oblodra, was rumored to be imprisoned in the lower planes in the service of a balor.

Kimmuriel nodded so excitedly that it seemed as if his head might pop off.

“Not K’yorl. .”

Jarlaxle stared intently as Kimmuriel managed to whisper out the name, “Demogorgon.”

Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons, the most powerful creature of the Abyss, a beast even Lolth would not challenge in battle.

Jarlaxle bolted upright, letting go of Kimmuriel, who dropped back to the stone floor. The mercenary glanced all around, as if expecting some terrible catastrophe to fall upon him. He knew of Demogorgon-everyone knew of Demogorgon-and such thoughts were not misplaced.

Perhaps all of Faerûn would soon know misery.

It all seemed calm after the initial celebration in learning that the two Harpells and Stokely Silverstream were still alive.

“I will be allowed to leave in peace?” Matron Mother Zeerith asked Drizzt, and again he noted a bit of curiosity in her manner, and it left him off balance.

“I will see to it,” Drizzt said, or started to say, as a huge commotion erupted from across the primordial pit, in the small antechamber that held the lever controlling the flow of magic into this area from the under-chambers of the broken Hosttower of the Arcane in distant Luskan.

All of the others jumped to attention, turning back, weapons ready- and that included Zeerith, Drizzt noted, and she, like the rest, gasped in surprise when out of that chamber came a tall drow male dressed in the distinctive robes that even Drizzt recognized to be the garb of the Archmage of Menzoberranzan.

Stumbling, Gromph rushed across the bridge, nearly overbalancing and tumbling to his death into the pit more than once. He steadied himself as he came across, though he kept looking back the way he had come, as if expecting some great monster to come in close pursuit.

“Bah, but what trick’s this?” Bruenor demanded, rushing to Matron Mother Zeerith, who stood there shaking her head and seeming at a complete loss.