R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

Quenthel stared at him incredulously. “I did not return to Menzoberranzan,” he explained. “I was lost and wandering …”

“And you went to live with elves?”

“Yes … no! I found others, drow of Ched Nasad, of House Suun Wett and Khareese …”

“Where are they?”

“Dead. Long dead.”

“And you stayed?”

“I had nowhere to turn, nowhere to go,” Tos’un explained.

“Until now.”

“It was time to find my way home, with Doum’wielle, my daughter, who is drow in heart and soul. She killed her brother, who was not akin to our weal, who could not follow the Spider Queen, and I, too, struck down her mother.”

“Dead?”

“Dead,” he said. “I have left the surface behind and only wish to return home.”

The matron mother mulled it over for a few moments, then looked down at the battered girl. “Perhaps …” she said, but then shook her head. “Take her away,” she instructed Andzrel.

“And teach her?” he asked with a smile.

“Gently,” Quenthel Baenre said.

Andzrel motioned for another of the Baenre soldiers to retrieve the fallen sword. Noting the commoner drow’s movement, Tos’un cried out again, “Take care! The blade is sentient, malicious and powerful!”

That drew curious looks from both Baenre nobles. The matron mother nodded to the weapons master and he went over and personally retrieved the sword, gingerly picking it up. His eyes widened with shock immediately and he held the blade aloft, clearly involved in a mental struggle for dominance with it.

And then Andzrel threw Khazid’hea to the ground once more and stared at his matron mother with a look of shock.

“The iblith child wielded it!” Matron Mother Quenthel scolded.

“With much preparation,” Tos’un explained.

“Dantrag!” Andzrel cried, and he rushed back and scooped up the sword once more, now wearing a determined expression and squeezing the blood from his knuckles as he gripped the hilt.

“Dantrag?” Quenthel Baenre echoed, for Dantrag, her brother, was long dead, a century or more. Andzrel had known him, but what …?

Quenthel’s eyes went wide with the shock of recognition as she stared at the sword Andzrel held.

“Khazid’hea,” she whispered. She snapped her angry glare over Tos’un.

“My sword?” he asked innocently.

“The sword of Dantrag Baenre!” the matron mother corrected, and it was Tos’un’s turn to gasp in surprise.

“It cannot be,” he mouthed.

“How did you get this?” Matron Mother Quenthel asked sharply, her threat clear in her tone.

“It … it found me,” Tos’un stammered, and he sounded very much like he knew he was about to die horribly. “In a rocky canyon, in the World Above.”

“A sword of such power?” Quenthel snapped back incredulously.

“It had abandoned its wielder, I expected, or the wielder was slain. I do not know!”

“Liar!”

“The sword agrees!” Andzrel said through chattering teeth, and when the matron mother and Tos’un turned to him, the weapons master threw the sword down once again. He stood there gawking and gasping for his breath. “It is a blade of considerable power!”

“Dantrag mastered it,” Quenthel reminded him spitefully. She turned back on Tos’un angrily. “Where did you get it?”

“As I told you, Matron Mother,” he said desperately. “I believe that one of the companions of Drizzt Do’Urden carried it, or perhaps the rogue himself.” He dared look up as he spoke that cursed name, and was relieved to see that it had the desired effect, for the matron mother visibly backed down, considering his words. She was weighing the region, no doubt, the Silver Marches, where Drizzt was known to roam, where Drizzt’s friend had once been the dwarven King of Mithral Hall.

Matron Mother Quenthel walked over and casually picked up Khazid’hea. “A Baenre blade,” she said quietly, as if talking to herself, or perhaps to the sword. “Ah, my brother, a pity you were lost to us.”

Quenthel’s eyes widened suddenly in shock. “ ‘Deceived by Drizzt,’ it said to me.”

“It has told me the same, Matron Mother,” Tos’un dared reply.

“ ‘Traitorous rogue,’ it calls him,” Quenthel said softly, and she focused on the blade again and seemed to be holding a telepathic conversation with it. A short while later, she walked back over, sword in hand. She moved to Andzrel, then with a mocking grin moved right past him to stand before Tos’un.

“Your blade,” she said.

“It was,” Tos’un said, keeping his eyes low, and to his shock, and indeed, to Andzrel Baenre’s gasp, Matron Mother Quenthel handed the blade back to the son of House Barrison Del’Armgo.

“Sheathe it and keep it there,” the matron mother ordered, and Tos’un accepted the blade with trembling hands and quickly put it away.

The matron mother offered a look of disgust to Andzrel and motioned for him to gather up Doum’wielle and be gone. She then instructed Tos’un to walk immediately behind her as the procession left the chamber.

“Deceived by Drizzt Do’Urden,” she said, turning back to him, and Tos’un noted that she spat every word with utter contempt. What Tos’un did not know was that this Matron Mother, Quenthel Baenre had great personal history with the rogue named Drizzt, and indeed, she had been slain by his blades in the very battle that had left Tos’un alone in the tunnels and mountains around the place called Mithral Hall.

“It is fortunate that you arrived when you did, Matron Mother,” Tsabrak Xorlarrin said. The matron mother had cornered him in his private chamber in the Xorlarrin Gauntlgrym complex, a situation that had made him clearly uncomfortable.

“Do tell,” Matron Mother Quenthel replied, coolly, and without any hint that the wizard should relax. She liked having her subjects balanced on a precarious edge.

“The son of House Barrison Del’Armgo,” Tsabrak replied, as if that should have been obvious.

“I did not come for him,” Matron Mother Quenthel said, and then, slyly, she added, “I came for you.”

The Xorlarrin wizard swallowed hard. “Matron Mother?” he asked.

“You were dispatched to the east to find the tunnels that would lead you to the land known as the Silver Marches,” Matron Mother Quenthel explained.

“Yes, Matron Mother, and I have!” Tsabrak quickly answered, and it was clear that he was fighting hard to keep his voice steady. “The Armgo pair are but an added benefit.”

“We will see,” Matron Mother Quenthel replied. “But they are not nearly as important. Do you know why you were sent on your journey?”

“No.” The hesitance in Tsabrak’s voice was palpable.

“I do,” Matron Mother Quenthel assured him. She offered a smile, but it was not a comforting one. “And know that you will be returning, and soon … once you are prepared.” She moved to the door and pulled it open, then motioned out in the hallway adjacent to Tsabrak’s quarters. In came Gromph, and Tsabrak bowed before the archmage. As he rose, Gromph’s companion entered the room, and Tsabrak’s eyes went wide.

He did well not to scream out, which was the expected reaction of anyone when an illithid walked into his bedroom.

“You’re a blessed one, Tsabrak,” Matron Mother Quenthel explained. “You will do your family great honor. I expect that you will return to this city of Q’Xorlarrin and be awarded a place of high honor-perhaps even as Archmage of Q’Xorlarrin, yes?” She looked to her brother slyly. “A rival to Gromph?”

The old Baenre wizard scoffed at the absurd notion, and only because he understood the truth of this new incarnation of Quenthel did he resist the urge to magically melt Tsabrak before her then and there, just to prove a point.