Drizzt had to be perfect, and so he was perfect, and Guenhwyvar dropped upon the demon’s head and shoulders and tore mercilessly at the flesh.
Marilith shrieked again in protest, but she was still leaning back over her tail, and even farther now, and she simply collapsed, acrid smoke, her life’s essence, flowing from the wound around the hilt of Icingdeath, her body withering, her essence retreating to the Abyss in true banishment.
“What do we do?” Jaemas Xorlarrin asked Jarlaxle, who glanced down from his perch, seeming quite amused.
“You go to Matron Mother Zeerith and tell her that the cavern is lost,” an unexpected voice answered, as Kimmuriel Oblodra walked out of that exit tunnel to stand beside the two wizards.
Jarlaxle looked back to the battle, where the coordination of the demon line was already beginning to fail, the dwarves rallying, and Drizzt cutting down everything near to him with a volley of silver-streaking arrows. He looked at the smoking husk that had been Marilith, Drizzt’s scimitar protruding from her withered chest, King Bruenor’s axe creasing her once-beautiful face.
Jarlaxle could not disagree with Kimmuriel’s assessment. Indeed, the rout was on once more.
As it progressed, as more and more of the drow abandoned the cavern, as demons turned on demons in a mob of senseless murder and frenzy, Jarlaxle looked to Kimmuriel.
“Methinks it is time that we, too, are gone from this place,” he said. He smiled widely. This was the outcome he preferred.
“Long past time,” Kimmuriel agreed.
The psionicist was not nearly as interested in this battle as Jarlaxle was, of course, and mostly because he had another matter to attend, one where he would at long last impart the last pieces of the powerful summoning to the archmage who would unintentionally free his mother.
So he errantly believed.
CHAPTER 23
You mean to go to him now?” Jarlaxle asked incredulously. He and Kimmuriel stood alone in a side chamber just off the Forge of Q’Xorlarrin, which they both expected would soon enough be known as the Great Forge of Gauntlgrym once more. The dwarves had secured the main lower chamber, had even put the staircase back up, and were already fortifying their foothold and constructing war engines to sweep clear the lower level.
Neither Jarlaxle nor Kimmuriel were convinced there would soon be anything left to sweep, however, for the demons were once again acting very much like. . demons. Orc slave, goblin slave, rothé, or even dark elf, it did not matter. With the fall of Marilith and Nalfeshnee, the Abyssal beasts had turned. Any creature of the Prime Material Plane was now prey, and even the lesser demons shied from their larger, insatiable Abyssal kin.
And so the Xorlarrins had retreated to this very small area around the Great Forge and the primordial chamber, their wizards nervously readying spells of banishment or evocation-anything to be rid of rampaging demons.
“It is the appointed time,” Kimmuriel calmly answered. “The archmage is not forgiving of my tardiness.”
“The enclave of Q’Xorlarrin will likely be wiped out before you return,” Jarlaxle pointed out.
Kimmuriel shrugged as if he hardly cared. “This city will find its fate whether I am here or not.”
“When the dwarves come, perhaps I will need you.”
Kimmuriel scoffed. “Jarlaxle, you have more friends among their ranks than in Q’Xorlarrin,” he said, and he closed his eyes, opened his distancewarping mental gate, and stepped far, far away, to the antechamber of Archmage Gromph in the distant city of Menzoberranzan.
He found Gromph in the other room, sitting at his desk and tapping his fingers together pensively.
“Ill news will soon arrive from Q’Xorlarrin,” Kimmuriel warned.
The archmage nodded, seeming unsurprised. He had felt the fall of Marilith, his demon.
Are you prepared? Kimmuriel telepathically reached out to his student.
No reply.
Perhaps we should forsake your instruction this day, the psionicist offered, and he was reading the archmage’s mind as he imparted that thought.
Gromph did a good job in feigning only limited interest in pursuing the lesson when he responded, but Kimmuriel knew better. The archmage had nearly panicked at the thought of foregoing the lesson, and understandably so to Kimmuriel, who knew that Gromph believed that psionics were giving him the edge in summoning extraplanar creatures, an edge he’d likely need soon enough with Quenthel Baenre holding a goristro at her side and with Marilith now banished back to her Abyssal home.
Yes, Kimmuriel mused, Gromph would be very receptive to his quiet background impartations this day.
And so he would give to Gromph all of the missing words and inflections, the completed spell, and let chaos reign-and let catastrophe rain upon Menzoberranzan and House Baenre.
Matron Mother Zeerith sat upon her altar in the primordial chamber of Gauntlgrym, the open pit steaming behind her, the wall in front of her covered in webbing. All of her principals advisers were there-Archmage Tsabrak, High Priestess Kiriy, Hoshtar, Jaemas, and Faelas among them.
“We must be gone from this place,” Faelas advised. “To remain is foolhardy.”
“Nay, we must kill the dwarves,” the often-fanatical Kiriy argued. “The Spider Queen demands no less of us!”
“They will overrun us,” Jaemas flatly stated.
“We will turn the demons back-”
“No, we won’t,” a clearly defeated Matron Mother Zeerith interrupted.
“Then call out to Matron Mother Baenre,” the high priestess begged. “She will grant us allies as we continue the fight.”
“Even if she sent a second army, even if it was led by a demon as powerful as Marilith once more, they would not arrive in time to save Q’Xorlarrin.”
“Then what do we do, Matron Mother?” Hoshtar asked, and his tone showed that he knew well enough.
“The tunnels below will shield us,” Matron Mother Zeerith said. “The dwarves will not chase us far beyond their precious forge and the beast that powers the furnaces of this place. So we will leave. Let the dwarves and the demons battle to the last.”
“And then we will return,” said Kiriy, and the matron mother nodded and smiled, but unconvincingly to any who cared to study her more closely.
Zeerith waved them away then, telling them to gather together the family and begin the retreat. She motioned for Tsabrak to stay behind with her, though.
“Bring to me the newest prisoners,” she instructed when she was alone with the wizard. She nodded to the webbing.
“You mean to greet the invaders?” Tsabrak asked skeptically. “Dwarves are not known for their mercy, Matron Mother.”
“I have enough with which to bargain,” she assured him.
Tsabrak shook his head. “We could just. .”
“Do as I say,” Zeerith cut him short. “I’ll not have an army of dwarves chasing my House through the Underdark.”
Tsabrak started to argue yet again, but Matron Mother Zeerith’s scowl chased him away.
“Well played, Matron Mother,” said the only other person in the room, the one whose presence had been known only to Zeerith.
“That’s just what I meant to say to you, these last days, Jarlaxle,” the matron mother answered. “Do I congratulate you? Or is there another who would lay claim to the credit?”
“You wound me, truly,” said the mercenary, moving over and casually sitting upon the altar stone, one leg dangling off the far end, the other foot comfortably settled on the floor in front of him. “I did not orchestrate the events, but do pride myself on being the first to understand where those events will lead.”
If his words convinced Matron Mother Zeerith, she surely didn’t show it. She glanced at the room’s main exit, her expression revealing her desire to take her leave.