R. Salvatore: Night of the Hunter

A few moments later, they stood by the altar, Dahlia lying atop it, the red veins in the stone seeming to pulse with life.

“Stay back,” Gromph warned his sister. “When she awakens, she must release the held energy of the cave-in, residing now in Methil’s offered psionic protection.”

“Awakens?” the matron mother said, at a loss. “Release?”

Even as she spoke, Dahlia’s eyes popped open and she jerked suddenly, her back arching so violently that she was lifted up into the air. As her physical form separated from the altar stone, they could see that she was still connected by a wall of black energy, pulsing with red lines of power, rushing into the stone. The primordial chamber shook once more, the altar taking in the force and seeming as if it grew stronger in doing so.

Dahlia fell back down, hard. She looked at them, but distantly, clearly dazed, and Methil fell over her, his tentacles wriggling up her nose and around her skull as he joined with her once more.

The illithid telepathically shared his understanding, and Dahlia’s thoughts, with Gromph and Quenthel.

“Back to the anteroom,” Matron Mother Quenthel instructed as she sorted it all out. “Let us await the arrival of Matron Zeerith.”

And indeed, she was smiling as she made that proclamation, and Gromph could only shake his head at how this struggle of the goddesses continued to play out. When they got into the anteroom, Methil still connected to Dahlia, who walked zombie-like, her eyes empty, Gromph created an extra-dimensional mansion that the Baenre nobles and their blessed guest might relax in proper security and comfort to await the arrival of the Xorlarrins.

All of them, even the two dwarves, breathed a sigh of relief when they came out of the tunnels into the open air of the Crags.

“The road ain’t far,” Bruenor explained, pointing to the east. “She’ll get us to Port Llast, and from there on to Longsaddle.”

“For Pwent,” Regis agreed, and the dwarf nodded.

The three humans they had rescued cheered at that thought, but Drizzt and Ambergris both turned to Brother Afafrenfere, for the monk had been hinting that he would not follow their road.

“Well, speak it clear, then,” Ambergris bade him.

“It is time for me to go home,’ Afafrenfere admitted. “To face my brethren in the hopes that they will forgive me.”

“Was years ago when ye went with Parbid to the Shadowfell,” Ambergris said. “Think they’ll even remember ye?”

The monk smiled. “Not that long,” he said, and Ambergris laughed.

And nodded as she looked at Drizzt. The drow knew her story, of how she had been sent to the Shadowfell as an agent of Citadel Adbar, as repentance for some … indiscretions. Knowing how Amber Gristle O’Maul had walked the gray areas of morality herself, Drizzt was not surprised when she reached up and patted her friend on the shoulder and declared, “I’m goin’ with ye.”

Brother Afafrenfere’s face brightened immediately, but he shook his head and tried to insist that he could not ask that of her, that it was too far a journey, and through dangerous lands.

“Bah, but who’s to speak for ye if not meself, who knows ye better than any?” the dwarf said.

Afafrenfere stared at her for a moment, then laughed in surrender. “I am not so sure that your presence will bolster my case,” he said in a lighthearted tone. “But I welcome it!”

“The Monastery of the Yellow Rose?” Drizzt asked.

“Aye,” said the monk. “In faraway Damara, in the Bloodstone Lands.”

Regis’s ears perked up. “Come with us to the road and turn south, then,” he said to the monk. “Then turn south through Neverwinter and follow the Trade Way to the Boareskyr Bridge, and inquire of Doregardo and the Grinning Ponies all along your way. When you find them, tell them you are a friend of mine, of the halfling called Spider. They will see you to Suzail, where you can catch passage to Impiltur.” The halfling nodded as he finished, his thoughts spinning back to the far banks of the great Sea of Fallen Stars, to Aglarond, to Donnola Topolino and a life he had known, and one whose echoes tapped profoundly at his heavy heart.

When they got to the main road and Afafrenfere and Ambergris turned to the south, it was all Regis could manage not to go with them.

He had a duty here, he reminded himself, repeatedly. To Pwent, trapped in Wulfgar’s broken horn, and to Bruenor, determined to return to Mithral Hall.

But he would return to the city of Delthuntle and to his beloved Donnola, Regis silently vowed as he watched the monk and the dwarf walk away to the south, his other companions moving north for Port Llast, and with Longsaddle waiting beyond that.

They crept back into the complex they had declared as their home to witness the carnage and the defilement of their chapel. For Berellip Xorlarrin, the shock was complete. The webs had unfolded and the captive Dahlia was gone and the room prepared for her mother, Matron Zeerith, was buried now under tons of rock. She did not dare set the remaining goblin slaves to dig out that rubble for fear that it would lead to more instability.

The images in the Forge were no less troubling, beginning with, and centering around, the broken form of the great drider. The captive human was gone-even the dead monk had been removed. And those slaves they had not had the time to drag away had also been freed. The priestess cursed herself for not sending an assassin down into that remaining mining section, particularly when she remembered that a dwarf cleric had been among the few down there.

And the dead in the Forge, many, many dead, were all Xorlarrin allies, scores of goblins, a quartet of driders, and more than a dozen Xorlarrin drow.

With not a single enemy among them.

By all accounts, the invaders had gone and the apostate Do’Urden had gone, and the complex was back in Berellip’s hands, but her mother would not be pleased.

According to Berellip’s scouts, Matron Zeerith was only a day or two away, marching with the rest of the House and a sizable force from Menzoberranzan that would lead the way to Tsabrak’s location in the east.

The only good news the priestess received came from the north, where Ravel, Saribel, and Tiago Baenre approached, so said her scouts. But even in this, there were whispers of trouble, rumors about many drow dead, many Xorlarrin dead, and even whispers that Weapons Master Jearth was not among the returning band.

It was all too much for Berellip and she went to her private chambers and tumbled down upon a pile of large pillows, seeking respite. She lay on her back, staring up at the webbing canopy of her bed, noting the designs in the intricate strands and letting them take her thoughts back to the chapel. What might she do to make the place more presentable to Matron Zeerith? To mitigate the rage she knew would be directed her way?

No, not her way, she decided, for she would blame Ravel for all of this. It would be a tricky proposition, she realized, for by doing so, she would also be implicating Tiago Baenre, and it was never a good thing to speak ill of a Baenre.

She would reveal Ravel’s spying on Gromph-yes! This tragedy fell squarely on his shoulders. Ravel had found the apostate, so he had believed, and Ravel had taken the soldiers, leaving Q’Xorlarrin vulnerable, above Berellip’s protests.

The priestess nodded as her plan unfolded in her thoughts. She would have to take care to absolve Tiago-if she did it correctly, she might even find Tiago on her side in this conflict, as he, too, tried to deflect blame onto others.

They would all try to deflect blame. That was the way of the drow, after all.

Berellip knew that she had to do so not only with her mother but with the archmage, surely. Gromph had taken a particular interest in this Dahlia creature, and now she was gone.