“They celebrate the triumph of Malagdorl, whom they fancy as the reincarnation of Uthegental now, apparently,” Sos’Umptu remarked. “Of Malagdorl and a company of elite warriors,” came the fast reminder. “Still, Marilith was no minor foe.”
The matron mother turned slowly to regard her sister, her face locked in a mask of anger. “Would you like to go and join Mez’Barris in her celebration?” The high priestess, Mistress of Arach-Tinilith and seated on the Ruling Council, did not shy away from the threat. “We must acknowledge the implications of this unexpected victory for Matron Mother Mez’Barris’s fighting dog. Was there a greater demon in the city at this time than Marilith? And if so, if Marilith can be so readily banished, then why not the others?"
“Let them spend their time and blood chasing the demons about the shadows,” the matron mother said evenly, her voice low, belying her expressed confidence. “There are other demons awaiting my call.” She turned sharply on Sos’Umptu, before the other could remark that there might be, but now there was one less of this particularly devastating type of demon to be summoned.
“I am surprised by the descriptions we have heard of the fight,”
Sos’Umptu said. “Marilith did not call in any demonic assistance, and her use of magic was limited, apparently. Her pride betrayed her, so it would seem, but still, that one always before seemed more wise than proud."
“Clearly not,” said Quenthel, though she wasn’t really disagreeing with any heart, for she, too, had entertained some level of surprise regarding that very point. A creature of Marilith’s power wouldn’t normally fear a squad of seven drow, but Marilith had known Uthegental in centuries past, and so, too, understood well the power of Barrison Del’Armgo warriors. Across Qu’ellarz’orl, the cheers climbed higher.
Likely there were more drow there than those of House Barrison Del’Armgo, Quenthel knew, and it wasn’t hard for her to imagine what other Houses might have scurried through the dark alleyways to join in the celebration.
The matron mother nodded and reinforced her resolve. More demons, she thought.
Kimmuriel sensed the distraction in his student. He continued to guide Gromph through the mental exercises, holding fast his own mental barrier against which the archmage could throw his blasts of psionic energy.
Until this day, Kimmuriel had noted tremendous gains in Gromph’s control and power, but psionic energies were contingent upon focus, particularly in novice users.
Gromph was distracted. His waves of energy barely challenged Kimmuriel’s mental barriers. Kimmuriel doubted that Gromph could make a goblin stutter in its advance with this pathetic display.
The veteran psionicist didn’t relay that disappointment to the archmage. Quite the contrary, his telepathic responses back to Gromph hinted of growing power and an impressive psionic assault.
Kimmuriel felt the acceptance of those compliments, but knew his time here would prove short.
And so, along with the compliments, he sent a suggestion, just a hint, that the psionic powers could be coaxed to work in conjunction with arcane magic. This would be no foreign concept to Gromph. The archmage had deigned to dabble in psionics with this very hope in the forefront of his thoughts-and why wouldn’t the greatest practitioner of the Art not hope for such an enhancement from his newest “hobby”?
And with that hint, Kimmuriel gave to Gromph the beginnings of the spell he had been taught in the Abyss, the spell he believed would deliver K’yorl back to Menzoberranzan, where she could wreak her psionic wrath on House Baenre.
“Enough!” Gromph shouted suddenly, breaking Kimmuriel from his trance.
Kimmuriel blinked open his eyes and looked at his student, his expression one of puzzlement. “Archmage?” he innocently asked.
“What kind of fool do you take me to be?” Gromph said with deathlike flatness.
A wave of panic rolled up through the normally composed psionicist, and he seriously considered teleporting from that room at once-though of course Gromph would chase him and find him.
“Spare me your false accolades,” Gromph clarified, and it was all Kimmuriel could do to suppress a great sigh of relief. “I know I have failed this day.” He strode away, to the small balcony of his room here at Sorcere, on the elevated plateau of Tier Breche, clenching and unclenching his fist as he went-and alternately producing a magical flame and crushing the life from it, one after another with practiced ease.
It was a minor spell, surely, but still, the notion that Gromph could enact it repeatedly as such an afterthought, like the magical doodle of a great artist, sent a shiver up the psionicist’s spine. He considered again that which he had done in implanting the beginnings of K’yorl’s spell-or Errtu’s spell, perhaps.
Briefly, Kimmuriel thought himself quite the fool for even attempting such a thing.
“Have you seen them?” Gromph asked, pulling open the decorated door-all black adamantine, but worked with the flare more common to an iron grate, with swirls and spikes and rolling designs. “Have you seen them slithering all about the city?”
“The demons,” Kimmuriel reasoned.
“The matron mother’s demons,” Gromph clarified, leaning on the balcony’s railing, limned with purple faerie fire that rushed to engulf his hands as he grasped the bar.
“Can creatures of the Abyss truly belong to any other than their own whim?”
Gromph glanced back over his shoulder to regard the psionicist.
“They serve her simply by going about their business as demons,” the archmage explained. “That is the beauty of the matron mother’s design.”
“Then more glory to House Baenre,” Kimmuriel said, and Gromph snickered but didn’t bother to look back, clearly not in agreement.
“I will return in half a tenday for our next encounter,” Kimmuriel said.
“I will still be distracted.”
“Then I will engage with the illithids before we meet again,” Kimmuriel improvised. “Perhaps I can gain some insights into the ways of demons, perhaps of controlling them. You might gain advantage over the lesser creatures of the Abyss at least.”
This time, Gromph turned to regard the psionicist. The archmage crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back on the balcony rail. The faerie fire engulfed him almost fully.
He didn’t flinch. Kimmuriel could sense his intrigue.
“Half a tenday?”
The archmage nodded, and Kimmuriel stepped away, far away, stepped all the way back to the World Above and his private chambers in the city of Luskan along the northern Sword Coast.
Gromph, meanwhile, continued to lean against the rail for a long while in deep contemplation, thinking that perhaps he was beginning to see the greater benefits of this new pursuit of psionic training. The archmage pictured the Faerzress, the source of magical energies within the Underdark, the barrier between the material Underdark and the lower planes that lent this land its dark energies.
Many times before had Gromph pictured this place, and he had visited the Faerzress several times in his long life, and indeed had spent many days there once, when he was adding enchantments to his already fantastic robes.
But now he viewed the Faerzress differently, with a new spark of insight. Now he saw the extraplanar barrier embedded within those glowing stones.
A spark of psionic insight, he thought.
Gromph had not become Archmage of Menzoberranzan, nor had survived as such for centuries untold, by acting rashly, and so he threw aside any foolish notions of incorporating this thought into any such dangerous and formidable spellcasting as that of calling for a major demon.
For now.
CHAPTER 5