R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

“Then let us be done with this,” said Drizzt. “We came for Dahlia, and so we shall find her and deliver her from Menzoberranzan.”

Jarlaxle was glad to hear it, though he certainly had expected nothing less. But his smile wouldn’t hold. Something in the way Drizzt rose, something etched on his face that Jarlaxle couldn’t quite place, spoke of a profound unease. With every step Drizzt took it seemed as if he wanted to wince-not from physical pain, but from something within him that was surely less than comfortable.

Jarlaxle led the way quickly, determined to get into the city as soon as possible. He knew that Zeerith was watching, and that she was ahead of him. He found her signal scratches here and there, guiding him along his path.

Matron Mother Zeerith was doing her job, and Jarlaxle was confident that she had set up the means to get them into the city with a patrol.

But Entreri simmered on the edge of explosive outrage and Drizzt wore an expression that seemed utterly defeated, forlorn beyond anything Jarlaxle could imagine from Drizzt, or anything he had ever seen from the ranger before.

Jarlaxle only liked riddles when he knew the answer.

They sat about a circular table, agreed upon because none would therefore be at the head, but Catti-brie and everyone else in attendance understood who was driving this meeting and its agenda.

They were in Illusk, the ancient Undercity of Luskan, and down here, the drow ruled. Down here, dark elves patrolled the corridors, hand crossbows at the ready, speaking to other patrol groups with flashing fingers. Down here, Gromph Baenre was in control.

Athrogate and Ambergris flanked Catti-brie, and she looked to them now for their opinions. Unsurprisingly, both shook their heads at her solemnly and determinedly, clearly in no mood for another of Archmage Gromph’s lectures.

When Catti-brie looked at the others around the table, she noted mostly hesitation and discomfort, except from Lord Parise Ulfbinder, tap-tapping his fingers together in front of him, seeming eager and smiling widely. That one was only interested in knowledge, Catti-brie reminded herself. He had about him a demeanor of distance, as if he was unaffected by the events that unfolded even right in his face. Catti-brie didn’t know the Netherese lord well, of course, but from her time with him, and from what Jarlaxle had told her of him, she had already come to understand that Parise Ulfbinder was an explorer and student, more concerned with attaining knowledge than with his own power or safety.

He was not her enemy, nor was Lady Avelyere, who sat beside him.

“Pray tell us, Archmage, why you have assembled us,” Lord Parise asked. “If you are interested in reviewing the information we have brought to this city, then I am sure I will need more time to unpack my belongings and catalogue my scripts.”

Catti-brie stared at Gromph as Parise rambled on, noting that the drow didn’t blink, and that the scowl did not diminish upon his handsome, but surely dangerous face. She wondered if Gromph would silence the Netherese lord. Was this meeting to become Gromph’s attempt to dominate this entire mission?

“I brought you here that you might hear my news,” Gromph said, a perturbed element clearly evident in his melodic voice. “If I wished to know what you had brought, I would have asked.”

“Well, that one’s in a bit of a fit, sister,” said Ilnezhara.

“He’s the frost of a white dragon biting his bum, I expect,” Tazmikella replied.

Catti-brie’s eyes went wide and she held her breath, expecting catastrophe at the not-subtle reminder of the dragon fight in the Silver Marches, where Tazmikella and Ilnezhara had killed the son of Arauthator, the great White Death, and had chased the mighty white dragon off, as well. More than a few rumors hinted that Gromph had played a role in luring Arauthator to that battlefield, and his expression twisted as confirmation to that very notion.

Beside Catti-brie, the dwarves both giggled, and Gromph’s face screwed up even tighter. How dare anyone speak to the Archmage of Menzoberranzan, to the great Gromph Baenre, in such a manner!

But these were dragons, Catti-brie reminded herself. As mighty as Gromph might be, was he truly in the mood for a fight with a pair of clever dragons?

“We have among us a sage,” Gromph said, and he relaxed a bit, purposely it seemed to Catti-brie, to show that he was not insulted. He motioned to Parise Ulfbinder, who nodded humbly at the compliment.

“A sorcerer,” he said, and Lady Avelyere bowed her chin.

“Some … wizards.” Penelope Harpell seemed less than amused by his rather insulting pause.

“And a Chosen,” Gromph said with a derisive snicker aimed at Catti-brie, “though she cannot seem to decide if she is wizard or priestess.”

“She might be better at both than any o’ either ye’d find,” Athrogate interrupted.

“Dwarf fodder running about the stone, the greatest of the drow, Netherese lord and lady, a pair of dragons, and …”-again with that clearly insulting pause-“humans.

“We hold among us the knowledge of many races, the understanding of wizardry from three different eras and from many different styles,” Gromph continued. “We access the Weave, but from perspectives and training of great variance. That is our strength in seeking the secrets of the Hosttower of the Arcane.”

The archmage paused and stood up, pacing imperiously.

“Wizardry and spells divine,” he muttered, and nodded toward Catti-brie and Ambergris with faked deference. “But there, too, are other powers.”

“Necromancy,” said Lord Parise.

“It is mere wizardry, distorted,” Kipper Harpell argued.

“A separate art!” Lord Parise insisted.

“That, too, will be properly in place. Jarlaxle has sent to us a necromancer named Effron, who carries an artifact of great power, taken from a skull lord,” Gromph explained.

Lord Parise held his breath at that, quite aware of the necromancer named Effron, and his unsavory relationship with Parise’s closest friend and secret ally in this endeavor, Lord Draygo Quick.

Catti-brie, too, perked up at the mention of Dahlia’s son. She looked to Ambergris, who had been a traveling companion of Effron’s in the last days of the Spellplague, to find the dwarf beaming with excitement at the news.

“But no,” Gromph continued, “I speak of an entirely different power, one equal to those divine and arcane.”

One of the mind , they all heard in their heads, though it took some of them a while to understand that it had been a telepathic impartation.

“You see, Chosen of Mielikki, you are not the only one here who brings magic from two different sources,” Gromph explained.

“Well, this is news,” Tazmikella said. “The Archmage of Menzoberranzan is a psionicist, is he?”

“Gromph Odran?” Ilnezhara teased.

Gromph sneered a bit at the mention of the cursed House, and the reminder that Kimmuriel was still out there beyond his grasp.

“I am only beginning to explore this strange art,” Gromph admitted, “but I have witnessed enough to understand that it is a beautiful thing, and one that can be entwined with the Weave.”

“With Mystra’s Weave?” Catti-brie asked, though of course she knew of what he was speaking. Given Lolth’s failure to take the Weave into her domain, Catti-brie thought a reminder of which goddess held the Weave might be appropriate, and perhaps a bit humbling to the haughty drow wizard.

In response, Gromph offered a bored, somewhat scowling look.

“I have arranged for a representative of the hive-mind to come among us,” he explained. “The illithids are quite interested in this most unusual and powerful endeavor.”