An illithid, its head grossly misshapen-even more than usual-stood by the door at all times. The creature maintained boundaries in K’yorl’s mind, preventing her from gaining a solid mental foothold on reality while constantly trying to get into her thoughts. She had to be ever vigilant against that, and then hope that her vigilance would be enough to keep the mental intruder at bay.
K’yorl Odran was free of the Abyss for now, for the first time in more than a century, perhaps, but she remained in a cage.
Caged by this one impossibly beautiful young drow woman who called herself Yvonnel-the name of K’yorl’s most hated adversary, hated more than even Errtu. Yvonnel, the matron mother who had ruined K’yorl’s life and had torn asunder the stone roots of House Oblodra, dropping the structure, and most of K’yorl’s family, into the chasm known as the Clawrift. Whether this was the same Baenre or someone new, K’yorl already hated the witch.
And she knew, beyond any doubt, that there was nothing she could do about it. If Yvonnel made a mistake, K’yorl could strike … but this one didn’t make mistakes.
“I know not,” Jarlaxle replied, holding the black leather belt out to Drizzt. “She fashioned it.”
“You would have me believe that you were presented with a magical item and did not bother to try it?” Drizzt said as he took the belt.
“I do not even know if it is magical,” Jarlaxle replied, and now it was Artemis Entreri’s turn to offer his doubts, in the form of a chortle.
“Well,” said Jarlaxle, “it has to do with that bow of yours, I expect, and I have no interest in bows. Most inefficient weapons, when a lightning bolt or fireball would better serve.”
“Says the knife thrower,” Entreri remarked.
Drizzt was only half-listening by that point. He set the belt about his waist, fastening it with the remarkable diamond-decorated mithral buckle. He felt somewhat stronger immediately, just a bit-and fortified, as if he had strapped on some armor. But there was more, he realized, focusing his thoughts upon it. This might be one of the many magical items that conveyed its powers to the user’s thoughts.
If it even was magical, he realized when nothing else came to mind, and he wondered if his earlier sensations of strength and armor were merely his own expectations manifesting. Perhaps Catti-brie had fashioned this simply as a measure of goodwill for allowing her to regain possession of Taulmaril the Heartseeker.
Still nothing came to him. He adjusted the fit of the belt and fiddled with the curious cylindrical pouch at his hip, thinking it might serve as a sheath for a small wand. His hands went to the buckle, and he turned it up to consider the diamond gemstone image set upon it, a perfect likeness of the Heartseeker. He noted then that the buckle was double-layered, mithral upon mithral.
“Twist the top sheet,” Entreri instructed-he too had noted the layers.
Drizzt grasped just the top plating and gave a slight turn, and the glittering gemstone design popped free, but it was not a tiny diamond item he held in his hand.
It was Taulmaril!
He felt the weight suddenly on his hip and understood before he even looked that the quiver had expanded as well, had become again the Quiver of Anariel, which would magically feed him arrows.
“Clever woman,” Jarlaxle commented. “You’ll better navigate some of the tighter tunnels without that longbow sticking up from your shoulder.”
“What?” was all the shocked Drizzt could say.
“A buckle-knife,” Jarlaxle replied. It was a weapon somewhat common among the rogues of Toril, a belt buckle that transformed into a deadly knife.
“A buckle-bow, you mean,” said Entreri.
Drizzt couldn’t resist. He drew an arrow from his quiver, set it to the string of Taulmaril and let fly, the missile drawing a silver line down the corridor before exploding in a torrent of sparks against the far wall, where the passageway bent to the side.
The report of the blast echoed, and in those rocky grumbles came the shriek of demons.
“Well played,” Artemis Entreri remarked. “Perhaps you might shoot the next one straight up above us, to collapse the tunnel upon our heads and save the demons you alerted the trouble of rending us apart.”
“Or perhaps I will simply shoot you so that I am less inclined to so readily accept death,” Drizzt returned, and he sprinted off ahead to meet the charge.
Unused to being insulted, Entreri looked to Jarlaxle for support, but the mercenary just drew Khazid’hea and a wand, offered a wink, and came back with, “He has a point.”
The room of Divination in House Baenre was among the most marvelous of constructs in all of Menzoberranzan. In this dark city knowledge was power. Mirrors lined three walls, the fourth being the massive mithral door, which gleamed almost as reflectively as the mirrors. The apparatuses holding the mirrors were set several strides from each other all along the way, but were bolted to metal poles running floor to ceiling, and not to the wall. Each apparatus held three mirrors, set on iron hangers, edge-to-edge-to-edge, forming a tall, narrow triangle.
In the center of the room sat a stoup of white marble, a round bench encircling it. Dark, still water filled the bowl. Deep blue sapphires were set in its thick rim, the angle of their reflection making the water within seem wider, as if it continued far under the rim, beyond sight, beyond the bench.
In a manner, it did.
Yvonnel gracefully stepped over the bench and sat facing the water. She motioned for K’yorl to sit opposite her.
The battered prisoner, so long tortured in the Abyss, hesitated.
With a sigh, Yvonnel waved to Minolin Fey, and the priestess forcefully pushed K’yorl into place on the bench.
“Put your hands up here on the rim,” Yvonnel told the psionicist, and when K’yorl hesitated, Minolin Fey moved to strike her.
“No!” Yvonnel scolded the priestess.
Minolin Fey fell back a step in shock.
“No,” Yvonnel said more calmly. “No, there is no need. K’yorl will come to understand. Leave us.”
“She is dangerous, Mistress,” Minolin Fey replied, using the title Yvonnel had instructed them all to use now, for Quenthel remained, to outside eyes at least, as Matron Mother of House Baenre.
“Do not be a fool,” Yvonnel said with a laugh. She looked into K’yorl Odran’s eyes, her grin disappearing, her own eyes flaring with threat. “You do not wish to be cast back into Errtu’s pit.”
The psionicist gave a little whimper at that.
“Now,” Yvonnel said slowly and evenly, “place your hands on the rim.”
The woman did as instructed. Yvonnel nodded at Minolin Fey to dismiss her, and the priestess hurried away.
“I do not wish to punish you-ever,” Yvonnel explained to K’yorl when they were alone. “I will not ask much of you, but what I ask, I demand. Obey my commands and you will find no further torture. You may even purchase your freedom, once we are truly in agreement, mind and soul.”
The psionicist barely looked up and seemed not to register the soothing words or the dangled carrot. She had heard it all before, Yvonnel assumed, and likely a thousand times during her time in the Abyss. Unlike Errtu, though, Yvonnel meant it, and she would convince K’yorl soon enough. After all, the psionicist was going to be in her thoughts, where deception was nearly impossible.
“Together we are going to find Kimmuriel,” Yvonnel explained.
She put her hands on top of K’yorl’s and uttered a command word. The rim of the bowl became less than solid, and the hands sank into the white marble, melded with the stoup. Yvonnel felt K’yorl’s terrified tug, but she wouldn’t let go. She had placed enhancements of strength upon herself in anticipation of exactly this, and the psionicist might as well have been tugging against a giant.
All around them, the mirrored apparatuses began to turn. The torches lighting the room went out and were replaced by a bluish glow emanating from the sapphires set in the rim of the stoup.