“Gromph is back in the Hosttower of the Arcane?” Drizzt asked the unexpected guest at the Ivy Mansion in the town of Longsaddle.
Jarlaxle nodded.
“I’m surprised that he came back from the north,” Drizzt said.
“He knows,” Jarlaxle said.
Drizzt looked to Catti-brie, who had escorted Jarlaxle to the room and was now sitting off to the side, pretending to work on some magical scroll. She wasn’t in a good mood, and certainly wasn’t missing a word of this conversation.
“Knows?” Drizzt asked, though he was fairly certain that he understood what Jarlaxle was talking about.
“He knows that this is the chance,” Jarlaxle explained. “Right now, this one moment, and his house, his sisters, his lover, and his daughter are leading the fight. To break the tyranny is now or never for him, for all of us.”
“You think Gromph is coming with us to Menzoberranzan to wage war on the Lolthian drow?”
“He is considering it, surely. Else, he would have stayed in Callidae with the aevendrow beside Zaknafein.”
Drizzt’s heart dropped at the reminder that his father had not come south with them back to the Sword Coast. Zaknafein had quite obviously fallen in love with Azzudonna, and so he had declared himself a Callidaean, with the blessing of the Temporal Convocation and the mona currently holding the office to oversee the drow city’s governing council. Zaknafein had heard clearly Jarlaxle and Drizzt’s designs to join the war in Menzoberranzan, and he had rejected them.
Drizzt had dearly hoped to have his father at his side, but alas, it seemed not to be.
“Gromph could have remained up there in the farthest north outside of Lolth’s spidery grasp,” Jarlaxle said. “He understands, as I do, that the moment will pass, and swiftly. House Baenre is powerful, and they are bolstered by an army of resurrected drow stolen from the cruel judgment of Lolth . . .”
“But you don’t think that enough.”
Jarlaxle held up his hands and shook his head. “What I know is that the ambitions of the other houses are rooted deeply in the past, and that the power of the matrons of most of those houses sits squarely in their loyalty, and the devotion of their underlings, to the Spider Queen. What are they without her, truly? What hold do they have on the men of Menzoberranzan other than the edict of the Spider Queen that those men, simply by a matter of chance to be born as men, have to accept being lesser? The religion of Lolth determines the order of Menzoberranzan, and those at the top of that order will be loath to surrender it. Gromph sees it, and so he has returned.”
“Which, in turn, leaves Callidae without a powerful protector. What might become of Callidae if Lolth wins in Menzoberranzan now?”
“Who knows the way to the aevendrow lands to tell the Lolthian victors if that is the case? You? I? Kimmuriel or Gromph or Dab’nay? We all understand our duty if we fall into the hands of Matron Zhindia Melarn or any of the zealots, and that is to die silently . . .”
He paused as Catti-brie rather loudly shifted her chair on the wooden floor.
“Of course, it won’t come to that,” Jarlaxle insisted, trying to shift the conversation away from such a grim possibility.
“Bah, but ye’re all a lot o’ fools,” Catti-brie mumbled, and her reversion to her dwarven brogue told Drizzt that he was surely in for a long night.
“Why fools, pray tell?” Jarlaxle asked.
“Cuz ye’re thinking in terms o’ mortal might. I’m well aware of the division in the city, and that it be favorin’ House Baenre at this time,” Catti-brie said, turning in her seat and tossing her quill to the desk. “As aware as I am that Jarlaxle can say one thing out of one side of his mouth, and not a minute later, say the opposite out th’other side of his mouth. Might be. But I’m knowin’, too, that Baenre’s side, yer own side, isn’t led by any goddess, or demon queen, or whatever it is we should be calling the witch Lolth. Drow against drow, ye’ve a chance. So I ask ye:
“Do ye think it’ll be stayin’ that way?”
“I don’t know,” Jarlaxle admitted.
“Exactly,” Catti-brie said. “Fools.”
“If King Bruenor were to call in his allies and join us . . .” Jarlaxle started.
“But he won’t and ye know he won’t!” Catti-brie came back.
“Then he won’t,” Drizzt interjected strongly. “But we are bound to try to break free of Lolth. This is, was, my home.”
“Never was, by yer own words,” Catti-brie reminded.
“But it should have been,” said Drizzt. “And it should be for all the drow there now, particularly the young and all who will come in the years ahead.” He shrugged helplessly. He had struggled over this decision for a long while now. Was this really his fight? Was it his place to charge back into a city he had so long ago left behind, returning only on a couple of occasions when circumstance had forced his hand, and fleeing the place thereafter as soon as he possibly could?
Now there was a civil war beginning in full, Lolthian zealot against those drow desperate to throw off the shackles of her tyranny—as Drizzt had done. He couldn’t deny that he had been an inspiration for this war, certainly.
But did that make it his war, his responsibility?
“. . . Gromph made his choice when he reignited the magic of the Hosttower to power us here in Gauntlgrym,” Jarlaxle was arguing to Catti-brie when Drizzt tuned back in to the conversation. “It was a heresy to Lolth, whose handmaidens and representatives had made it clear to him to shut down Gauntlgrym’s access to the magic. He disobeyed, and so King Bruenor and his subjects survived. Gromph did that. Lolth doesn’t forget or forgive those who disobey.”
“So, he’ll only be joinin’ in the battle because if the Baenres lose, he knows that he’s sure to be eternally doomed?” Catti-brie scoffed.
“Well . . .”
“If Gromph had remained in Callidae, outside of any influence in Menzoberranzan, then it is likely that he would have lived out his life in peace, removed from the politics of the City of Spiders and any vengeance Lolth or her priestesses might have thought to mete out,” said Drizzt. “The drow of Menzoberranzan have cowered in fear of Lolth for centuries, and that is what got us to this crisis. No more.”
“I know one who didn’t cower in fear, and who left, expecting fully that his desertion of a city so far down in the Underdark would certainly mean the end of his life,” said Jarlaxle. “Yet here he sits.”
“Free, and ready to go back,” Catti-brie added, staring hard at her husband.
I have to, Drizzt mouthed at her.
She didn’t blink.
“What of Bregan D’aerthe?” Drizzt asked the mercenary leader. “You hold Luskan, you rule Luskan, and the people there depend upon your band for stability. Are you all leaving to go to war in Menzoberranzan?”
Jarlaxle didn’t seem certain of his answer, but he eventually shook his head. “Bregan D’aerthe’s value to the cause will be greater outside the city. King Bruenor will offer supplies—more, I hope, as the battle plays out—but Bregan D’aerthe must operate to bolster that, to find other sources to grant us magical weapons and mundane necessities. Beniago has proven himself clever and competent. He will continue to lead in Luskan and all about the region, with much of my people working toward that end.”
“What does that leave, then? You and Kimmuriel and how many others will go to the city?”
“A handful, at least, perhaps many more than that, not counting those agents I already have within the City of Spiders. And obviously our belief that Gromph will decide to join is proven true. I am expecting reports from Braelin Janquay within a tenday, who is in Menzoberranzan, and I will use that to convince the archmage if he still needs convincing.” He looked to Catti-brie as he spoke that, then pointedly added, “Penelope Harpell herself will be in contact with Braelin. It is good that we have so much support among the surface communities.”
Catti-brie chuckled, but didn’t respond.
“I wish you well in your coming battles,” Jarlaxle said to Drizzt, glancing slyly at the angry Catti-brie as he rose to leave. “I am back to Gauntlgrym, and we will be in the tunnels of the upper Underdark this very evening.
“I daresay it might be a safer venue this evening,” he said, a smirk on his face.
Drizzt’s eyes never left his wife as he replied, “I will be there.”
Jarlaxle started for the door, but Catti-brie jumped up from the chair and intercepted him, wrapping him in a hug. “I feel like this is goodbye,” she said quietly and soberly, her bombastic Dwarven brogue fading. “Forever goodbye.”
Clearly touched by the moment, Jarlaxle seemed at a loss for words.
“It was a great and grand adventure we had up north,” Catti-brie said. “And one that will shape the future for me and my daughter, for Zaknafein and for so many others for years to come. I thank you for it.”
Pointedly, Drizzt and Jarlaxle both understood, she had left them off her list.
Jarlaxle’s expression showed that he was looking for words with which to respond, but Catti-brie stopped him short by adding, “I understand.”
The rogue tipped his hat to Drizzt, kissed Catti-brie on the cheek, and rushed out of the room, all jokes abandoned out of respect to his two friends.
Drizzt studied his wife, her back to him as she stared at the open door to the hallway, Jarlaxle fast receding.
He could see the conflict within her, and understood it all so well. She knew what had to be done.
She hated what had to be done.
And dreaded what seemed almost inevitable.
That this inevitability was something different this time.
Something much darker.
“Who do I think will win?” Gromph echoed back to the questioner. He shook his head and gave a helpless little laugh. “It is the lair of the Demon Queen of Spiders, her primary playground on the Material Plane. My dear Kimmuriel, who do you think will win?”
“I think we have no choice.”
“First, that doesn’t answer my question . . . although it also does, in your own roundabout way. Second, though, there is always a choice.”
“Indeed there is. So I put a question to you: Why didn’t you stay in Callidae?” the psionicist asked. “I have been in your thoughts, Archmage. We both know this, and as I understand you so very well, I find your question an exercise in confirming and confronting your fears and nothing more.”
“My work is here, not Callidae,” Gromph countered, but Kimmuriel’s grin remained.
“It is more than that. What is happening in Menzoberranzan is of great concern to you.”
“You think that an accusation?” Gromph scoffed.
“An observation.”
“And one I do not deny. Why would I?”
“Yes, but I know your hopes for our homeland,” Kimmuriel said. “You made them clear when you allowed the magic of the Hosttower to flow back through the channels to Gauntlgrym to keep the primordial in its pit. The handmaidens had told you to shut it down, and you did, but in the end . . .”
Gromph’s eyes narrowed threateningly, but Kimmuriel was confident enough in his statements to have no fear.
“I know where your heart is, Gromph Baenre, father of Yvonnel.”
“I don’t even know the child.”
“Hardly a child, but yes, perhaps you do not know her. But you hope to. And even without her, you prevented Zhindia Melarn from conquering King Bruenor’s people.”
“By undoing that which I had done in sealing off the Hosttower’s magic to Gauntlgrym in the first place. By becoming truly neutral in the conflict.”
“And yet you had to understand what your neutrality meant. Do you deny your hopes regarding which side proves victorious in Menzoberranzan?”
“The heart and the mind are often in conflict,” Gromph said. “I have perhaps another two centuries of life—more if my studies prove fruitful. I wish to live those centuries and more. And when I am finally done with this existence, I know that Lolth will remain very much entrenched in the afterlife.”
“Then escape her.”
“How? By feigning worship of some other foolish god?”
“You know your god, as do I, and they are the same.”
Gromph was sitting, but that statement set him back on his heels.
“So, that’s your plan,” the former archmage of Menzoberranzan said after digesting it. “When Kimmuriel is no more with this physical realm, he will blend into the hive mind.”
“The multiverse is a matter of divine numbers,” Kimmuriel said. “The particulars of the tyrant gods are merely noise—temporary noise in the ultimate eternity of it all. We are manifestations of pure and singular thought, grains of sand on an endless beach or drops of water in the endless ocean that splashes onto that beach. The hive mind is a conduit into that pure and singular thought. It is my destiny to directly merge, to become less speck and less droplet, and more a viewer of it all. You felt the power when we channeled it from the hive mind to obliterate Demogorgon those years ago. You felt it, the ecstasy.”
Gromph didn’t blink.
“Do you deny that?”
“That is your escape from Lolth?” he asked.
“In the end, yes, from her and from all the pretend gods,” said Kimmuriel. “It is the same escape you seek here, hiding in a magical tower dedicated to learning and testing your limits and your whims. Only of a magnitude greater than any number I might now assign.”
“You sound like Drizzt and his talk of transcendence.”
“In the end, there is one Truth,” Kimmuriel asserted. “Whether through fear or hope or perhaps even through some divine inspiration, we all seek that one Truth. Perhaps the monks have found their path to this same place but with a different name. We live in a world with a multitude of beliefs and religions and assertions of what will come next—what reasoning being wouldn’t ponder such things? Perhaps the paths to Truth are many and winding. Who are we to know?”
“Perhaps Lolth is the way.”
“That I reject,” said Kimmuriel. “Lolth and those godbeings like her demand actions contrary to nature, to conscience, to any reasoning and decency of what might be an eternal soul. The one Truth is harmony, not chaos.”
“Even if we now must partake of great chaos and destruction to find it,” Gromph said and tried to hold his scowl.
But Kimmuriel’s grin told Gromph that his sour expression was failing badly.
“That is your escape in the end,” Kimmuriel offered, promised.
“You are angry with me for my choice to go?” Drizzt asked when he and Catti-brie were alone.
The woman, tears running down her cheeks, closed the door and turned to face him. “I am angry,” she said, “but not at you. I am terrified for you, sad at what I expect, and jealous of you.”
Drizzt started to get up, but Catti-brie’s look showed him that she didn’t want a hug from him at that moment.
“Jealous?” he probed.
“Of course you have to go. This is your destiny. This is the circle you trod when first you left Menzoberranzan.”
Drizzt could only nod, saddened, but truly appreciative that Catti-brie understood.
“And here I stand torn,” Catti-brie explained. “Because when I chose to leave Iruladoon, to return to this life and your side after the century of turmoil for you, and of peace for me, I expected that this path would be our path, not yours alone.”
“But for our child,” Drizzt whispered.
“But for Brie,” Catti-brie confirmed, and gave a crooked, broken smile, her deep blue eyes glistening with moisture.
“You understand that I walk my path more willingly because of her and because of you?” Drizzt asked. “Surely, I would prefer Catti-brie at my side, both for her support and because of her, of your, strength. You are an ally of spirit and one of formidable magic, even measured against the powers of Menzoberranzan.”
“And against the powers of the Abyss that will no doubt bolster your drow enemies in Menzoberranzan?”
“A balor would quake at the sight of Catti-brie’s bared power,” Drizzt said heartily, and now he did stand and move toward his wife, who couldn’t help but give a little laugh.
“Don’t die,” she whispered in his ear when he wrapped her in a hug.
“If I don’t, it is because I am unafraid,” he replied after a pause. “Because I know that my legacy, my little Breezy, has Catti-brie guiding her.”
He felt Catti-brie’s arms tighten around him. He feared, and understood it to be mutual, that this might be their last hug.