R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

And from there, she took him through her ring, to converse with the primordial, to see what she had seen from ancient times, when the volcano had roared through the tendrils and through the stone of Cutlass Island, melting the crystal of the limestone into something stronger, something magical, and pressing it out of the ground to grow. Squeezing it, hollowing it, pushing it farther, more and more crystal. Bubbles became holes became branches, flowing and growing.

A long while later, she cut off the communication and images, then abruptly dismissed Gromph from her thoughts and opened her eyes to stare at him once more.

The archmage licked his lips. He tried to appear nonchalant, but, judging by Catti-brie’s smirk, unsuccessfully.

For the second time in a span of hours, Gromph had witnessed something beyond his understanding, something terrifying and alluring all at once.

He returned her grin.

What else could he do?

She was right. For all the danger, all the chance of complete disaster, to rebuild the Hosttower of the Arcane, she was right.

“We cannot leave him,” Artemis Entreri said out in the tunnels just beyond Menzoberranzan. He was with Jarlaxle and Dahlia, and with all their gear returned.

Jarlaxle laughed. “We surely cannot go and get him!”

“He would have died for us.”

“He is probably already dead,” the mercenary replied with a shrug. “Would you dishonor him and get all of us killed, as well? Or do you not understand the limits of a drow matron mother’s mercy?”

Entreri spat on the ground and spun away, then stood up straight when he noted the approach of two dark elves.

Jarlaxle, too, noted them, and was not as surprised by the appearance of Yvonnel as he was by the other. “It cannot be,” he said.

“Use your magic, then,” Yvonnel answered. “You have the mask back in your possession. Is there another item that could so deceive the clever Jarlaxle?”

Braelin Janquay walked up in front of Jarlaxle and bowed. “Thank you for trying to end my misery,” he said.

“You were a drider,” Jarlaxle said. He looked past Braelin to Yvonnel. “You cannot undo a drider.”

“Of course you can,” she replied. “Or I can. I doubt others would have the courage to try.”

“But Lolth …”

“She is celebrating the fall of Demogorgon,” Yvonnel said. “She will forgive me.”

“But why?” a suspicious Entreri demanded.

Yvonnel looked at him, and even tilted her pretty head to regard him more closely, then began to laugh and waved him aside. She motioned for Jarlaxle to follow, and walked back the way she had come.

“I do this for you,” she said when Jarlaxle caught up to her. “A measure of good faith in expectation that you will serve my purpose.”

“And that purpose is?”

“We will see, in time.”

“Is he dead?” Jarlaxle asked, more seriously.

“Of course not.”

Jarlaxle walked around to face the strange young drow squarely.

“You envy him,” he dared to say.

Yvonnel snorted.

“You do!” Jarlaxle insisted. “You envy him. Because he is content in his heart that there is something more, some better angels and greater reason, and because he so easily finds his rewards, treasures as great as anything I or even you might know, in the contentment of moral clarity and personal honor.”

“I envy him?” Yvonnel scoffed. “And what of Jarlaxle?”

The mercenary assumed a pensive pose, considering the words before finally nodding. “How many times might I have killed Drizzt for easy personal gain?” he asked rhetorically, with a helpless laugh. “And yet he lives, and I find that I would defend this Houseless rogue at the cost of my own life.”

“Why?” Yvonnel asked, and sincerely. “Why you, and why that filth named Entreri?”

“Perhaps because secretly we all want to believe what Drizzt believes,” said Jarlaxle. He waited for Yvonnel to look him in the eye. “You couldn’t break him. You cannot break him.”

She looks annoyed, he thought.

She waved him away. “Go,” she said. “Remember that I gave your underling back to you. Remember that I let you walk away from this place.”

“It will all be forgotten, I assure you, if you kill Drizzt Do’Urden,” Jarlaxle warned.

Yvonnel scowled at him and waved him away.

A tenday later, back in Luskan, Beniago stood with Gromph near the ruins of the old Hosttower.

“Jarlaxle will return on the morrow,” he informed the archmage. “Catti-brie has entered the southern gate.”

Gromph looked at the drow in human disguise.

“She will be here presently, I expect.”

The archmage turned back to the ruins.

“You could be rid of her,” Beniago offered, and Gromph arched his eyebrows at that surprising remark.

“Jarlaxle would not like it, but would he ever know?” Beniago asked when Gromph looked back at him again.

Gromph wasn’t angry, of course. Beniago’s words were perfectly consistent with everything about drow society and tradition-even within Bregan D’aerthe. But the archmage chuckled and shook his head. “Go back to your tower, High Captain,” he said, mocking Beniago’s silly station. “Let the artists work.”

Even as Beniago started away, Gromph noted Catti-brie’s approach, the woman riding upon her unicorn across the bridge from Closeguard Island.

In watching her, and now in appreciating the truth of this human woman, Gromph for the first time in his life was surprised to admit that he was jealous of a mere warrior.

She rode Andahar up to him, and slid from the saddle to stand in front of him.

“May I help you, Lady?” he asked, but didn’t look at her.

“I forgive you,” she said, surprising him.

“What?”

“I forgive you,” she repeated. “For your telepathic intrusions. I understand now that you were not even there in my thoughts, and that it was only a suggestion placed for me to find.”

“And to enjoy.”

Catti-brie’s expression went cold.

“Then I am no rapist,” Gromph smugly replied to that look.

“You are a scoundrel and a fraud,” the woman said. “But I expected as much from the outset. I forgive you because now I trust that you will not hold me in lust, in body, in mind, or in hatred.”

“Interesting,” Gromph admitted. “I did not think you cared.”

“For you? No, I care for those you might harm. And I care most of all for those for whom you may do well. Can you do that, Archmage Gromph Baenre of Menzoberranzan? Can you just this once look beyond your own needs and desires and act for the benefit of others?”

“I am here, am I not?”

“Because you have to be, or because you want to be?”

Gromph gave a little laugh. “Good lady, let us finish this and make the new Hosttower of the Arcane more grand than the first.”

“It will be,” Catti-brie said with a nod, and then she offered a returned grin and added, “Just stay out of my thoughts.”

It was merely an off-hand remark, a bit of levity among the continual tension, but to Catti-brie’s obvious surprise, Gromph swung to face her, his expression very serious, and dipped a long, low bow. When he came back up in front of her, he said, in all seriousness, “Good lady. Catti-brie. I am Gromph Baenre of Menzoberranzan. Many times have I bowed to women-to do otherwise was to feel the bite of a snake-headed scourge. I say to you now, in all honesty, in all of my long life, that this is the first time I have offered a bow to a woman because I believe she deserved it.”

Catti-brie fell back a step, for a moment seeming at a loss. “Am I to swoon now?” she asked with an unsettled laugh.

“If I thought you would, I never would have bowed.”