“Matron Asha demands an audience,” house wizard Iltztran Melarn informed his matron.
“She demands?”
“Apparently. She is quite angry, so said her emissary.”
“Angry?” Zhindia gave a derisive snort. “I have always questioned House Vandree’s true understanding of and allegiance to Lady Lolth. Who was killed?”
“Chellith Vandree.”
“Who?”
“A nephew,” Iltztran explained. “A fair fighter by all accounts, and one aspiring to the rank of weapon master.”
“But they have a weapon master.”
“Of course.”
“Then this one was a worthy gift to Lady Lolth,” Zhindia said. “And one that does not cost them as much as it helps us in the greater scheme of the war.”
“Matron—”
“She wants answers,” Zhindia interrupted. “That is understandable. And so we shall give her answers beyond the obvious: that her precious nephew died in service to Lolth, fighting in the Braeryn. A greater loss was the priestess of House Hunzrin, of course, and the greatest of all, the banishment of the hezrou for a hundred years! Is Matron Asha Vandree angry about those losses?”
“The emissary mentioned only Chellith.”
“Because Asha is selfish and stupid and cannot understand that we will pay great prices only because the reward is greater still.”
“She joined in our alliance, and did so against her fear of our greatest ally. House Vandree has a difficult history with House Barrison Del’Armgo, who will become untethered if . . .” Iltztran stopped and abruptly cleared his throat to hide his forthcoming correction. “When,” he said, “House Baenre falls.”
“Untethered? Whose tether matters most?”
“Lady Lolth’s,” Iltztran answered immediately, recognizing yet another slip. He looked to Yiccardaria and Eskavidne, and relaxed a bit, for neither seemed overly concerned.
“Come,” Zhindia bade him and all her entourage. “Let us see if our investigators have returned.”
She led the way out to the main balconies of House Melarn, a wide and long walkway protected by the many pillars of stalactites supporting it every few feet. The sentries, wizards and archers and mostly men, all snapped to tight attention at the arrival of the stern matron.
“How long?” Zhindia asked the lone priestess, a young Melarni woman named Zovallia.
“Matron,” Zovallia answered, bowing appropriately—to Zhindia and to the two yochlols. “Not long.” She motioned out to the northeast. “I expect them to come into view any moment.”
Zhindia nodded and turned to watch.
“With . . . witnesses,” Zovallia added with a rather wicked emphasis.
That news pleased Zhindia. Zovallia’s apparent delight in it pleased her more.
They heard the horrible droning of chasme wings before the demons came into view, flying in a group, but two by two, for each pair held one side of a harness that carried a drow prisoner. There were fourteen chasmes, bearing seven “witnesses,” and the whole of the group was led by a trio of succubi, who no doubt had convinced the harnessed drow that it would be in their best interest to come along.
The droning noise grew to maddening levels, so much so that one of Zhindia’s archers fell unconscious to the balcony.
“Punish him,” she told Zovallia, and gave it no further thought, moving to greet the succubi trio as they alighted on her complex.
“A single drow killed all three: the Hunzrin priestess, the Vandree warrior, and Ingrou,” said Kariva, a most beautiful succubus with red hair to perfectly match the red bat wings that she folded to invisibility behind her shoulders as she stepped upon solid stone.
“An impressive victory,” agreed the black-haired succubus Uvillia.
“We should catch him and play with him,” offered Riffithia, the third of the group, whose eyes constantly shifted color—but remained remarkable and intense whatever their hue.
“Him?” Zhindia asked. “What do you know?”
“It was a man, yes,” Kariva replied. “Several have confirmed that.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the now-deafening droning of the fourteen chasme demons.
Zhindia scowled and looked to those approaching beasts, with their ugly blue-gray insectoid bodies and their hideous and bloated human faces.
“Desist!” Kariva shouted and almost instantly the droning became the more normal hum of their large beating wings. “They do like to show off their droning prowess,” she explained to Zhindia.
“Several, you were saying?”
“Yes, all but one of them admitted to being on the street, though more than one claim to have seen little. It is likely they all saw the fight, at least from afar. What we have garnered is that the fighter who slayed the three was a man, slight of build, quick with blades, and clever, so very clever.”
“Line them up in my throne room,” Zhindia ordered as the chasmes began ushering the captured drow to the balcony. She stalked off, Iltztran and the two handmaidens in tow.
“The succubi will be valuable additions,” the wizard remarked on the way. “I am surprised they answered our call.”
“You doubt Lolth?” Zhindia snapped at him.
“I am sure he does not,” Yiccardaria intervened.
“I only . . . it is not my recollection that succubi, who are neither true demon nor true devil, answer to the calls of the priestesses of the Spider Queen.”
“Cleverly reasoned, wizard,” Yiccardaria congratulated him. “Apparently, the succubi hold a grudge against some of our likely enemies, particularly Drizzt Do’Urden and his friends who did harm to their queen, Malcanthet. These three were eager to be a part of this glorious battle, in any case, and that is to our great advantage.”
“A hezrou is worth two succubi,” Zhindia said dryly.
“In battle, perhaps, but the subtler advantages offered by the alluring Kariva and her sisters cannot be overlooked. They are smart, their magic is deceptive, and their ability to enthrall is undeniable.”
“The blessing of Lolth has attracted powerful allies, then, and that is good,” Zhindia decided, needing to put it back in terms favorable to her beloved goddess.
“And Lolth’s blessings have made more of current allies, yes?” Iltztran put in. “I have to ask. I have followed Zovallia’s journey since her return from Arach-Tinilith and now I witness her performing dweomers I had thought forever beyond her limits. She had been but a minor priestess before the recent events, but now?”
“Many of the young priestesses siding with our cause and battling the heretics, Zovallia included, have been blessed by an intervention of these two handmaidens,” Zhindia confirmed, entering the throne room and taking her place on the throne.
“Through our work, the clergy of our half of Menzoberranzan have become far more formidable,” said Eskavidne. “Zovallia has excelled, and is casting dweomers that would have been decades away from her abilities, and perhaps forever beyond her reach, as you noted, wizard. Faith in the goddess is an advantage.”
“More than half,” Zhindia corrected. “And more will join us when their ingrained fears of House Baenre cannot hold against the power we bear or the proof we are in Lolth’s favor.”
They left the conversation there for the time being, as Zovallia and the three succubi paraded the seven witnesses into the room, lining them before the throne.
Zhindia let them stand there in silence for a long while, sizing them up and down, making them sweat and hoping that some might wet themselves. How she enjoyed this feeling of complete power!
Finally, she slipped off her seat and began pacing the line slowly, hands clasped behind her back. “You were there, all of you, on that street when the fight commenced,” she said. She stopped walking and blurted, “I will spare the first person who tells the truth of the fate that befell the Vandree warrior and the Hunzrin priestess!” with sudden volume and energy, startling them all.
“I did not witness it!” one said, while a trio of others proclaimed that they had only seen the fight from afar, and another couple remained silent. The last of the group shouted out, “It was a rogue, of Bregan D’aerthe, I believe!”
The room was buzzing, but Zhindia silenced it all by lifting her hand.
“Take those who denied seeing it to a room and enact a zone of truth there,” she told Zovallia. “We will give any who lied to the Curse of Abomination.”
“No, I did see it,” one of those four blurted. “I was just afraid to speak!”
Zhindia called for silence again, as that brought more murmurs, and at least one more of those who claimed ignorance of the fight appeared to be ready to confess the truth.
The matron walked up before the trembling speaker, a young woman who appeared malnourished and who, like so many in the Braeryn, probably spent most of her days wandering about stupidly under the poisonous delusions of certain mushrooms.
“See? You can be prompted to honesty,” Zhindia softly said to the poor woman.
She nodded eagerly. “I saw it, but I know not who—”
“Shh, shh,” Zhindia prompted. “You did well in telling the truth.” She nodded to a pair of guards, who rushed over to grab the woman by the arms. “Perhaps I will let you lead my drider brigade.”
The woman’s sunken eyes widened in shock as that registered and she began pleading for mercy.
“Take her,” Zhindia told the guards, who dragged her away. The matron moved up before the two who had remained silent. One man chewed his lips nervously. The other, a woman, kept her gaze cast to the floor, muttering, “I saw nothing.”
Zhindia snorted and chuckled wickedly, then moved before the man who had blurted out the name of Jarlaxle’s band.
“Take the others away and interrogate them,” she told Zovallia. “They are of no interest to me. Those who did not lie might find a place in our ranks, or a merciful death if you find them untrustworthy. Those who dared to lie in this holy place of Lolth will become the first of our answer to the Blaspheme.
“And you,” she said to the man before her. “Bregan D’aerthe? What do you know of Bregan D’aerthe?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Or little, and nothing more than what everyone else knows.”
“Then how can you make such a claim?”
“He came out of the Oozing Myconid right before the fight,” the man nervously explained. “That’s Jarlaxle’s place, they say. I was in there when he came in. He spent the whole time talking to the tavern keeper, and the conversations seemed to be . . . friendly.”
“Tell me more,” Zhindia prompted.
“I am not certain of his name, but I have seen him before. Braelin, I think, or something like that.”
Matron Zhindia elicited a little growling mewl at that. She remembered that one, one she had given to Lolth only to have the cursed Yvonnel Baenre steal him back.
“Take this witness, feed him, outfit him, and put him in the ranks of our army,” Zhindia instructed other guards. She looked at the man, who seemed truly terrified.
“You have earned the place to serve in the army of Lolth,” she told him. “And when this is over, you will be a houseless rogue no more, but instead, a full member of House Melarn, the First House of Menzoberranzan.”
If that was supposed to calm the poor fellow, it certainly did not. Zhindia understood it, of course. This one, like so many other cowardly drow, was simply hoping to ride out the war hiding in holes.
One did not hide from the Spider Queen, though.
She dismissed him with the remaining guards, then turned to her priestesses, her house wizard, the three succubi, and the handmaidens. “Braelin?” she asked.
“Braelin Janquay,” Iltztran replied, nodding. “I have heard the name, and yes, it is one associated with Bregan D’aerthe.”
“Then we must capture this Braelin Janquay,” Zhindia said, not bothering to inform Iltztran that House Melarn and Braelin Janquay were not strangers.
Zovallia started to offer her services for that task, but Zhindia cut her short with an upraised hand, drawing the priestess’s gaze across the way to three far better suited for such a job.
“Can we play with him before we deliver him to you?” Kariva asked.
“As long as he is alive when you give him to me,” Zhindia replied.