“You said that they would never attack!” Briza growled at her mother. “Even as you explained why we could not dare to attack them!” Briza remembered that conversation vividly, for it was she who had suggested the open attack on House Hun’ett. Malice had scolded her harshly and publicly, and now Briza meant to return the humiliation. Her voice dripped of angry sarcasm as she aimed each word at her mother. “Could it be that Matron Malice Do’Urden has erred?”
Malice’s reply came in the form of a glare that wavered somewhere between rage and terror. Briza returned the threatening look without ambiguity and suddenly the matron mother of House Do’Urden did not feel so very invincible and sure of her actions. She started forward nervously a moment later when Maya, the youngest of the Do’Urden daughters, entered the room.
“They have breached the house!” Briza cried, assuming the worst. She grabbed at her snake-headed whip. “And we have not even begun our preparations for defense!”
“No!” Maya quickly corrected. “No enemies have crossed the balcony. The battle has turned against House Hun’ett!”
“As I knew it would,” Malice observed, pulling herself straight and speaking pointedly at Briza. “Foolish is the house that moves without the favor of Lloth!” Despite her proclamation, though, Malice guessed that more than the judgment of the Spider Queen had come into play out in the courtyard. Her reasoning led her inescapably to Jarlaxle and his untrustworthy band of rogues.
Jarlaxle stepped off the balcony and used his innate drow abilities to levitate down to the cavern floor. Seeing no need to involve himself in a battle that was obviously under control, Dinin rested back and watched the mercenary go, considering all that had just transpired. Jarlaxle had played both sides off against the other, and once again the mercenary and his band had been the only true winners. Bregan D’aerthe was undeniably unscrupulous, but, Dinin had to admit, undeniably effective.
Dinin found that he liked the renegade.
“The accusation has been properly delivered to Matron Baenre?” Malice asked Briza when the light of Narbondel, the magically heated stalagmite mound that served as the time clock of Menzoberranzan, began its steady climb, marking the dawn of the next day.
“The ruling house expected the visit,” Briza replied with a smirk. “All of the city whispers of the attack, and of how House Do’Urden repelled the invaders of House Hun’ett.”
Malice futilely tried to hide her vain smile. She enjoyed the attention and the glory that she knew would be lavished upon her house.
“The ruling council will be convened this very day,” Briza went on. “No doubt to the dismay of Matron SiNafay Hun’ett and her doomed children.”
Malice nodded her agreement. To eradicate a rival house in Menzoberranzan was a perfectly acceptable practice among the drow. But to fail in the attempt, to leave even one witness of noble blood alive to make an accusation, invited the judgment of the ruling council, a wrath that wrought absolute destruction in its wake.
A knock turned them both toward the room’s ornate door.
“You are summoned, Matron,” Rizzen said as he entered. “Matron Baenre has sent a chariot for you.”
Malice and Briza exchanged hopeful but nervous glances. When punishment fell upon House Hun’ett, House Do’Urden would move into the eighth rank of the city hierarchy, a most desirable position. Only the matron mothers of the top eight houses were accorded a seat on the city’s ruling council.
“Already?” Briza asked her mother.
Malice only shrugged in reply and followed Rizzen out of the room and down to the house’s balcony. Rizzen offered her a hand of assistance, which she promptly and stubbornly slapped away. Her pride apparent with every move, Malice stepped over the railing and floated down to the courtyard, where the bulk of her remaining soldiery was gathered. The floating, blue-glowing disk bearing the insignia of House Baenre hovered just outside the blasted adamantite gate of the Do’Urden compound.
Malice proudly strode through the gathered crowd; dark elves fell over each other trying to get out of her way. This was her day, she decided, the day she achieved the seat on the ruling council, the position she so greatly deserved.
“Matron Mother, I will accompany you through the city,” offered Dinin, standing at the gate.
“You will remain here with the rest of the family,” Malice corrected. “The summons is for me alone.”
“How can you know?” Dinin questioned, but he realized he had overstepped his rank as soon as the words had left his mouth.
By the time Malice turned her reprimanding glare toward him, he had already disappeared into the mob of soldiers.
“Proper respect,” Malice muttered under her breath, and she instructed the nearest soldiers to remove a section of the propped and tied gate. With a final, victorious glance at her subjects, Malice stepped out and took a seat on the floating disk.
This was not the first time that Malice had accepted such an invitation from Matron Baenre, so she was not the least bit surprised when several Baenre clerics moved out from the shadows to encircle the floating disk in a protective guard. The last time Malice had made this trip, she had been tentative, not really understanding Baenre’s intent in summoning her. This time, though, Malice folded her arms defiantly across her chest and let the curious onlookers view her in all the splendor of her victory.
Malice accepted the stares proudly, feeling positively superior. Even when the disk reached the fabulous weblike fence of House Baenre, with its thousand marching guards and towering stalagmite and stalactite structures, Malice’s pride had not diminished.
She was of the ruling council now, or soon would be; no longer did she have to feel intimidated anywhere in the city.
Or so she thought.
“Your presence is requested in the chapel,” one of Baenre’s clerics said to her when the disk came to a stop at the base of the great domed building’s sweeping stairs.
Malice stepped down and ascended the polished stones. As soon as she entered, she noticed a figure sitting on one of the chairs atop the raised central altar. The seated drow, the only other person visible in the chapel, apparently did not notice that Malice had entered. She sat back comfortably, watching the huge illusionary image at the top of the dome shift through its forms, first appearing as a gigantic spider, then a beautiful drow female.
As she moved closer, Malice recognized the robes of a matron mother, and she assumed, as she had all along, that it was Matron Baenre herself, the most powerful figure in all of Menzoberranzan, awaiting her. Malice made her way up the altar’s stairs, coming up behind the seated drow. Not waiting for an invitation, she boldly walked around to greet the other matron mother.
It was not, however, the ancient and emaciated form of Matron Baenre that Malice Do’Urden encountered on the dais of the Baenre chapel. The seated matron mother was not old beyond the years of a drow and as withered and dried as some bloodless corpse. Indeed, this drow was no older than Malice and quite diminutive. Malice recognized her all too well.
“SiNafay!” she cried, nearly toppling.
“Malice,” the other replied calmly.
A thousand troublesome possibilities rolled through Malice’s mind. SiNafay Hun’ett should have been huddling in fear in her doomed house, awaiting the annihilation of her family. Yet here SiNafay sat, comfortably, in the hallowed quarters of Menzoberranzan’s most important family!
“You do not belong in this place!” Malice protested, her slender fists clenched at her side. She considered the possibilities of attacking her rival there and then, of throttling SiNafay with her own hands.