R. Salvatore - Night of the Hunter

Ravel found himself back on his heels at that outrageous accusation-for was it so outrageous that it would not bring the wrath of Matron Zeerith upon him?

“In the opening salvoes,” Saribel said with great remorse, drawing the attention of both. The priestess shook her head. “We must finish this fight in our favor to atone for the loss. Berellip will not be pleased. Matron Zeerith will not be pleased.”

“Unless we return with a gaggle of slaves to work our mines,” Tiago said, and he motioned for driders to come forth with their shackles to gather and secure the captives. “And with the head of Drizzt Do’Urden. Come,” he said to Saribel, to Ravel, and loudly enough to include all the others, “let us avenge the death of Jearth.”

“With all speed,” Ravel agreed. “Before a formal defense can be put in place.” The mage cast a spell then, creating a floating wizard eye, which he sent off down the side passage.

Others of Ravel’s wizardly contingent did likewise, their magic vision spreading out among the corridors, showing them the way.

"Where is your pet?” Quenthel asked Gromph when she found him in his private quarters in House Baenre.

The archmage chuckled at the characterization of the illithid. “Methil remains in Q’Xorlarrin.”

Quenthel took her seat opposite him, and she seemed far from pleased at the news. “Still?” she asked sourly.

“I can recall him at any time,” Gromph explained. “And he is constantly in my mind, communicating. Physical distance matters little to an illithid.”

“Tsabrak is off to the east,” the matron mother said. “Matron Zeerith has not yet departed for Q’Xorlarrin. I do not trust her daughter Berellip …”

“Berellip is of no concern. To me, to you, or to Methil, surely.”

“Then why have you left the mind flayer behind?”

“We found … an instrument,” Gromph explained, a grin undeniably spreading across his face.

Matron Mother Quenthel looked at him curiously, and seemed not pleased by his cryptic response. “An instrument?”

Gromph nodded. “So it would seem.”

“An instrument to further the aims of the Spider Queen?”

“Or one that was already used in that capacity,” said Gromph.

“Do tell,” Quenthel remarked.

“This is yet another of many moving parts,” Gromph replied. “Perhaps. Or perhaps not. It is astounding, is it not, how so many things have come full circle, to land back before us at this critical time?”

The matron mother seemed initially as if she would shriek in rage at the continuing evasiveness of the archmage, but Quenthel, instead of bluntly verbally lashing out, paused and tilted her head.

She was honestly considering the words, Gromph recognized, and he saw that as further evidence of the progress his once immature and weakling sister continued to make. Methil’s work implanting Yvonnel’s memories continued to amaze.

“The son of Barrison Del’Armgo returned to us at precisely this time,” Gromph explained, “and bearing the sword of our slain brother, no less! Slain by the hand of the same heretic who once murdered you.”

Quenthel’s eyes narrowed, but she was not angry with him, Gromph knew.

“The same rogue who brought the recent scream from Lady Lolth, and to whom you have now properly and cleverly reacted by reconstituting his damned House.”

“A rogue known to Jarlaxle,” Quenthel agreed. “Who is surely now caught in the web of Drizzt.”

“You will force alliance from Matron Mez’Barris through manipulation of Tos’un, no doubt, as you glue the bondage of Matron Zeerith through Tsabrak and Saribel. And really, is there anything more facilitating than war to bring all of the Houses into line?”

“And now another instrument, so you say,” Quenthel prompted.

“So many seeming coincidences!” Gromph replied with dramatic flair. “That Jarlaxle brought to me the head of our dead mother, and that Methil El-Viddenvelp returned to haunt the caverns just outside of our home, that he and Yvonnel the Eternal could so aid us in this time of great upheaval. Are these fortuitous and random events? Or have the gods, or has Lady Lolth, so cleverly planned for this time of the Sundering?”

“It is enough to make you wish that you were more devout, I expect,” Matron Mother Quenthel said slyly.

Gromph laughed. “Devout enough, it would seem, given my current role in the Spider Queen’s spinning web.”

Quenthel conceded that point with a nod. “And now another instrument, so you say,” she prompted again, a bit less patiently this time.

“Perhaps.”

“Do tell.”

Gromph stared at her for a few moments, then shook his head. “When I am certain,” he answered, and Quenthel scowled.

“There are too many moving parts in this great clockwork,” the archmage explained. “You need not bother with this other potential cogwheel at this time.”

“It is not your place to determine what I should or should not bother with,” the matron mother warned.

But Gromph merely smiled. “My play parallels your own,” he informed her, “as it was in the tunnels outside the city, when I took you to Methil. Go and pray, I beg, and you will see that my decision serves Lady Lolth best. You have a dangerous rival to coerce to your side, a House to reconstruct and a war to prepare, do you not? If this instrument I have found is deemed suitable for your needs, then I will reveal it to you, and indeed, trouble you with it. If not, then better that you are not distracted.”

“You hide this from me for my own good?”

“I hide nothing. I will not distract you until I am sure that the distraction is worthy of your time and thought.”

He watched his sister closely as he spoke the words, thinking of how Quenthel would handle such a retort as compared to the expected reaction he would have received from Yvonnel.

And indeed, Quenthel seemed to be working her way through an internal struggle at that moment, though she did well to keep her expression calm. Her long pause was telling, though.

“A parallel play to a common goal, then,” she said at length, and rose to leave. “You will inform me when the illithid returns.”

Gromph nodded and his sister-no, he couldn’t think of her as such at that moment, for indeed, she had answered as wise Yvonnel would have-and the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan left his chamber.

The intrusion of the tentacles did not disgust her as much, her revulsion diminishing with each session-sessions that were fast becoming commonplace, though Dahlia truly had little notion of the passing of time.

She knew this place, she thought, as memories of the swirling sounds of the water elementals and the subtle thrum of the fire primordial in the pit before her brought her back to the days of Sylora Salm and the destruction of Neverwinter.

She couldn’t quite sort it out.

She knew the chamber was different, too, and she noted the many drow craftsmen and goblin workers rushing around, carrying metal. A ladder? A railing?

Directly before her came a grinding sound of stone sliding on stone as the many goblin workers fitted the marble top of …

Of what? A sarcophagus? An altar? A sacrificial table, perhaps? It was a smooth black stone, she noted, shot with red veins, like blood.

Yes, like blood.

Fleeting images, many of Dahlia’s memories, some of things she did not understand, crossed her mind as the room before her faded away, and she could not honestly recognize what the illithid was taking from her, or what it was offering to her.

It was all a blur, and the throbbing pain of Methil’s work could not be denied.

She heard herself screaming, but that, too, seemed distant, as if she was hearing the screams of some other woman in some other room being violated to the core of her very identity.