“Or the will of the goddess?” the matron mother continued, giving them an out for their protests, and turning away from the course that would have inexorably led to direct and violent confrontation.
“A signal, perhaps, that Matron Darthiir should not be seated here at the Ruling Council,” Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn offered.
“Or perhaps that she should not be a matron mother at all,” Mez’Barris added.
“Or that she should not be suffered to live,” said Zhindia.
“Yet here she is,” said Matron Mother Baenre. “Alive and well.”
“Foolishly rescued. .” Zhindia started to interrupt, but Quenthel slammed her fist down on the table.
“Matron Darthiir fought brilliantly, so say the Xorlarrin nobles who happened upon her,” Matron Mother Baenre declared. “Shall I bring them in to confirm? Matron Darthiir was assaulted by a horde of demons, but she battled them away and left them melting on the floor.”
She turned to Mez’Barris, locking stares with her rival. “What say you?” Quenthel demanded. “Are we to believe that Lady Lolth ordered forth the demons to destroy a matron mother of the Ruling Council, and believe even more so that those demons failed in the Spider Queen’s task?”
With no answer forthcoming, Quenthel stood up and towered over the others. “And if so,” she went on, “then why would Lady Lolth allow Matron Darthiir back here to sit beside us on the Ruling Council of this, her city? Go and seek guidance, Zhindia Melarn, I beg, before you blaspheme the Spider Queen with your ignorance and prejudice. And rest assured, if the Spider Queen had wanted Matron Darthiir dead, then Matron Darthiir would be dead by my own hand!”
“Are we to celebrate her great victory?” Matron Mother Mez’Barris asked sarcastically. “Perhaps you would elevate House Do’Urden to a place of greater rank to properly acknowledge that a matron mother successfully killed a handful of manes.”
The matron mother turned a perfectly wicked smile over Mez’Barris as others snickered.
“Perhaps House Do’Urden will find its own ascent under the guidance of its heroic matron mother,” Matron Mother Baenre calmly replied, and she glanced sidelong at the sneering Zhindia Melarn, whose House was ranked one above Do’Urden, and so seemed the most likely target of any such attempt.
“Perhaps the bastard House, so favored by Lady Lolth, will find its way to your seat,” Quenthel added to Mez’Barris, an absurd proposition, of course, but surely a threat the matron mother did not try to veil.
“This is all for another day,” said Sos’Umptu at the back of the chamber. “This meeting was not convened to applaud or decry the battle at the compound of House Do’Urden, nor the valiance of Matron Darthiir Do’Urden.”
“Indeed,” agreed Quenthel, who had demanded the meeting. “Matron Mother Zeerith of Q’Xorlarrin is in dire need. It would seem that an army of dwarves have come to reclaim the citadel they know as Gauntlgrym.”
“That was ever a possibility,” Matron Mother Byrtyn Fey replied.
“I will spare no warriors to go do battle for the sake of Q’Xorlarrin,” Matron Mother Mez’Barris said bluntly, and more than a couple of gasps were heard following that declaration.
“We cannot,” Matron Mother Miz’ri Mizzrym added. “Not with a city full of demons scratching at our doors.”
“And now you understand the beauty of my call to the Abyss,” Quenthel calmly replied. She let that hang in the air for a short while, all the others staring at her curiously. Quenthel took great pleasure in seeing the epiphany flash on each drow face, one by one, as they came to understand.
“I have already spoken with the archmage,” Quenthel went on. “Marilith, whom he fully controls, will lead their march to Q’Xorlarrin, Nalfeshnee at her side, to the defense of Matron Mother Zeerith.”
“You will send an army of demons to Matron Mother Zeerith’s door?” Zhindia Melarn asked, incredulous. “She would fare better battling the dwarves!”
“I am sure that you hope your words prove true,” Quenthel replied, and Zhindia narrowed her hate-filled eyes, clearly recognizing the nottoo-subtle implication that Quenthel had sorted out the secret alliance between the Melarni and the traders of House Hunzrin, who hated the very idea of the satellite city of Q’Xorlarrin. “I have assured Matron Mother Zeerith of our allegiance, and so our demons will serve her, by the will of Lolth.”
Zhindia Melarn sat there simmering, with Mez’Barris Armgo looking no less miserable, and Quenthel basked in their frustration. Every time they thought they had gained the upper hand, Quenthel had snatched it back from them. They thought they had House Do’Urden destroyed, or Matron Darthiir murdered, at least. And yet here she was, seated beside them at the table of the Ruling Council.
They had conspired and fumed over Quenthel’s decision to summon demons to the City of Spiders, and yet now those demons seemed the salvation of the satellite enclave of Q’Xorlarrin.
Armed with the memories and reasoning of Yvonnel the Eternal, Matron Mother Quenthel was always one step ahead of them.
Later that same day, all across the huge cavern that housed Menzoberranzan, nobles looked out from their balconies, nodding, sighing with relief as they watched the ghastly procession, hundreds of demons and thousands of manes and lesser Abyssal beings, filtering out of the city, marching to the command of the Ruling Council.
And what a council it had been, so said the whispers filtering throughout the city, rumors that seemed confirmed by the noticeable increase in guards around the Barrison Del’Armgo compound.
The hammer rang out, slow and steady, like the heartbeat of a dying man, or the tears dripping from a broken woman’s eyes.
“Ye stay with him, then,” Connerad Brawnanvil said to Emerus Warcrown after one ring of hammer on metal.
“Aye, but we’re near to taking the whole o’ the top,” Emerus replied. The hammer rang again.
“The entry cavern’s work is all in order,” Connerad explained. “They’re not needin’ me shouts now. I’ll get Bungalow Thump aside me and the Gutbusters’ll finish the task Bruenor started.”
“An uamh,” Emerus said, nodding, the ancient Dwarvish words for the “under way.”
“Tha,” Connerad agreed, and he clasped wrists with Emerus. “Hold faith that I’ll call for ye afore we take the Forge.”
Emerus nodded and Connerad started away. The young dwarf king flinched, but didn’t turn, though Emerus surely did, when another ring of hammer on metal echoed along the halls.
“Ah, me friend Bruenor,” both dwarves independently and quietly whispered, and both, though they weren’t looking at each other and hadn’t heard each other, shook their heads in dismay.
Flanked by a pack of glabrezu, the six-armed Marilith led the demonic procession. Tireless, brutal, unstoppable, the chaotic beast traversed the tunnels of the Lowerdark, many weaving down side passages, seeking prey. And any before them-goblin or myconid or umber hulk, it did not matter-was torn asunder and consumed, pulled down in a sea of manes, borne down under a flight of chasme, torn apart by a flock of vrock.
It did not matter. The very stones of the Underdark reverberated under the stamp of demonic feet and hooves.
Unseen by Marilith, but surely felt, the magical emanations of the Faerzress fed her and promised her freedom. She could feel the truth of Lolth’s promises now, away from the city. It was obvious to her that the barrier had thinned. She felt no pull to return to the Abyss, felt as welcome and secure here as in the swirling gray stench of her home plane.
She would serve as instructed by Gromph now, and serve him well, and that, in this situation, meant adhering to the demands of the matron mother.
Marilith was amenable to that, for those demands included the spilling of buckets of blood, a liquid she relished as decoration.
“Put her in place, boys!” Oretheo Spikes yelled to the hauling team as the great stone slab began to twist out of alignment. “Don’t ye be lettin’ her crash the buttress, what!”