R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

Minolin Fey was overwhelmed. Only the wall held her up as the snakes retreated.

Then it was the iron grasp of Matron Mother Quenthel, taking her by the arm and dragging her away through another door from the balcony and into a small sitting room. Baenre shoved Minolin forward. The priestess crashed through some chairs and barely held her balance.

She struggled for a few moments, seeming on the verge of collapse, but then stood straight and spun around to face her adversary.

“You dare strike me in my own house? And on this day of festival?” she started to growl, but the words caught in her throat as Baenre lifted a clawed hand and reached out with her magic.

“Yield,” she said simply.

Minolin wanted to spit, of course, but instead, she fell to her knees, driven there by the power of the spell, held there by the will of Quenthel Baenre.

“I will never underestimate you again, clever assassin,” Matron Mother Quenthel said. “Indeed, my scorn for you is removed, replaced by-”

Gromph Baenre burst into the room.

“-admiration,” Matron Mother Quenthel finished, smiling wickedly and looking at the archmage as if to ask him what had taken him so long.

“On-on this day?” Gromph stammered with obvious shock. “In this time?”

Matron Mother Quenthel lowered her scourge, the snakes going to their writhing dance and sleep as the weapon fell to the end of its wyvern hide loop at her hip. She held her hands up innocently, as if in surrender.

“Decide where your loyalties lie,” she said to Gromph. “The Spider Queen will not have her archmage divided in his loyalties, not in this majestic time. You would secretly lead House Baenre, so you hoped, and a tenday ago, your choice would have been an easy one.”

“Dear sister,” Gromph said, and in that instant, the face of the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan darkened with rage and twisted with the weight of centuries, and for just a flash of time, glared at him with an awful power bared.

“Matron Mother,” he quietly corrected, lowering his gaze.

“No!” cried Minolin Fey, her eyes wide, her expression shocked to see mighty Gromph so cowed.

“You will never lead Baenre,” the matron mother calmly remarked.

“Strike at her!” Minolin cried. “It is just Quenthel!”

Gromph’s gaze snapped up, full of anger, but it fell over Minolin and not his sister. The priestess of Fey-Branche fell back, her arms coming up defensively as if she expected Gromph to destroy her utterly, then and there. “I am with child!” she shrieked as she fell away to prostrate herself on the floor. “Your child!” she begged pathetically.

Matron Mother Quenthel smiled knowingly as Gromph turned his astonished expression her way. With a nod to Minolin, the matron mother began to cast a spell, and the wizard followed suit. A pair of spectral drow hands, one male, one female, appeared above the prostrated priestess, and together they reached down and grabbed her around the folds of her robes and jerked her back to her feet so abruptly that it took her a moment to even realize that she was standing.

She started to speak once more, both Gromph and Matron Mother Quenthel moving to silence her, but then all three fell silent as there erupted a great tumult from inside the Fey-Branche house, shrieks and screams and the clatter of dropped glasses and tumbling furniture.

“House Baenre wars upon us!” Minolin Fey said with a gasp.

“Matron Mother?” Gromph asked, turning Quenthel’s way.

But the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan wore a look of serenity, her expression telling the other two that this was no attack.

The interior door of the sitting room swung open and in strode a drow female of extraordinary beauty and presence.

“Yor’thae,” Matron Mother Quenthel greeted, using the term reserved for the greatest Chosen being of Lady Lolth, a particular priestess who had become the vessel of Lolth in the War of the Spider Queen. Matron Mother Quenthel, the leader of Menzoberranzan, the supreme drow of the City of Spiders, ended her greeting with a deep and respectful bow.

Minolin swallowed hard before the specter, the avatar of the Spider Queen herself. Beyond the female, in the other room, the minions of House Fey-Branche and the four remaining Baenres followed the glorious creature, and all of them were on their knees, crawling, and with their eyes respectfully aimed at the floor.

Minolin shuffled uncomfortably, almost imperceptibly, but Matron Mother Quenthel caught it, and understood. Minolin knew that she should be kneeling, of course, particularly when Gromph fell to his knees beside her. She wanted to drop, but she could not, Baenre knew, because the avatar before them, a priestess who had once been known as Danifae Yauntyrr, would not let her fall.

Matron Mother Quenthel fixed Minolin with a knowing glance and a taunting grin. Any thoughts Minolin Fey had entertained of revenge against Matron Mother Quenthel had just been washed away, they both knew.

The incarnation of Lady Lolth glided across the room, passing before Minolin, and pausing there only to put her hand on the trembling priestess’s belly, not yet swollen with child. She moved to stand before the matron mother, and nodded and smiled, then fixed Quenthel Baenre with the most passionate kiss.

“My Eternal Servant,” the avatar said, gently stroking the matron mother’s tender cheek.

Then she walked past Baenre, out onto the balcony, and floated off into nothingness.

“Lolth appeared!” cried one of the priestesses in the room beyond, several daring to climb to their feet once more.

“The festival is a success!” another yelled, for indeed, the Festival of the Founding was a day when all the drow of Menzoberranzan hoped that Lady Lolth would make an appearance among them, a sign that they remained in her good graces.

Cheers and chatter echoed around the compound, spreading out to the streets beyond. All the city would soon know of Lolth’s appearance, Matron Mother Quenthel understood. Matron Mez’Barris Armgo would soon know.

Matron Byrtyn moved up beside her, and Baenre was glad to see the look of reverence splayed upon the old matron’s face.

“It is a sign to us,” Baenre quietly explained. “House Fey-Branche is vulnerable no more. You are no longer without an ally.”

Matron Byrtyn bowed before the supreme Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan.

“You will marry,” Matron Mother Quenthel instructed Gromph and Minolin.

“Marry?” Gromph chortled, for indeed, Minolin was hardly the first priestess to bear one of his children, and, if he had his way, she would hardly be the last.

Matron Mother Quenthel turned and waved Sos’Umptu and Myrineyl back, then waved the door closed in their faces, leaving only Byrtyn, Gromph, and Minolin in the room with her.

“You are with child, and that child is a girl,” she explained to Minolin. “She will be raised in House Baenre, where you will forever more reside, at my side.”

“Minolin is the High Priestess of Fey-Branche!” Matron Byrtyn protested, but Baenre silenced her with a look.

“And your child will be groomed as my successor,” Baenre said. Byrtyn gasped. “And you will name her …” She fixed Gromph with a sly look.

“Yvonnel,” he finished for her quietly, catching on.

The matron mother sidled up to Minolin, who trembled visibly. Baenre reached up to stroke her smooth cheek and the priestess tried unsuccessfully to shy from the touch. “If you fail in this, you will suffer eternity at the feet of the Spider Queen, her poison burning in your blood with an agony that will never relent,” she warned.

“I will serve,” Minolin said, her voice thin and shaky. “When the child is born, I will properly train-”