A stockade of tall mushrooms ringed the place, every fifth one a shrieker, a sentient fungus named (and favored as guardians) for the shrill cries of alarm it emitted whenever a living being passed it by. Dinin kept a cautious distance, not wanting to set off one of the shriekers and knowing also that other, more deadly wards protected the fortress. Matron Malice would see to those.
An expectant hush permeated the air of this city section. It was general knowledge throughout Menzoberranzan that Matron Ginafae of House DeVir had fallen out of favor with Lolth, the Spider Queen deity to all drow and the true source of every house’s strength. Such circumstances were never openly discussed among the drow, but everyone who knew fully expected that some family lower in the city hierarchy soon would strike out against the crippled House DeVir.
Matron Ginafae and her family had been the last to learn of the Spider Queen’s displeasure―ever was that Lolth’s devious way―and Dinin could tell just by scanning the outside of House DeVir that the doomed family had not found ample time to erect proper defenses. DeVir sported nearly four hundred soldiers, many female, but those that Dinin could now see at their posts along the parapets seemed nervous and unsure.
Dinin’s smile spread even wider when he thought of his own house, which grew in power daily under the cunning guidance of Matron Malice. With all three of his sisters rapidly approaching the status of high priestess, his brother an accomplished wizard, and his uncle Zaknafein, the finest weapon master in all of Menzoberranzan, busily training the three hundred soldiers, House Do’Urden was a complete force. And, Matron Malice, unlike Ginafae, was in the Spider Queen’s full favor.
"Daermon N’a’shezbaernon," Dinin muttered under his breath, using the formal and ancestral reference to House Do’Urden. "Ninth House of Menzoberranzan!" He liked the sound of it.
Halfway across the city, beyond the silver glowing balcony and the arched doorway twenty feet up the cavern’s west wall, sat the principals of House Do’Urden, gathered to outline the final plans of the night’s work. On the raised dais at the back of the small audience chamber sat venerable Matron Malice, her belly swollen in the final hours of pregnancy. Flanking her in their places of honor were her three daughters, Maya, Vierna, and the eldest, Briza, a newly ordained high priestess of Lolth. Maya and Vierna appeared as younger versions of their mother, slender and deceptively small, though possessing great strength. Briza, though, hardly carried the family resemblance. She was big, huge by drow standards and rounded in the shoulders and hips. Those who knew Briza well figured that her size was merely a circumstance of her temperament a smaller body could not have contained the anger and brutal streak of House Do’Urden’s newest high priestess.
"Dinin should return soon" remarked Rizzen, the present patron of the family, "to let us know if the time is right for the assault."
"We go before Narbondel finds its morning glow!" Briza snapped at him in her thick but razor-sharp voice. She turned a crooked smile to her mother, seeking approval for putting the male in his place.
"The child comes this night." Matron Malice explained to her anxious husband, "We go no matter what news Dinin bears."
"It will be a boy child", groaned Briza, making no effort to hide her disappointment, "third living son of House Do’Or-den."
"To be sacrificed to Lolth" put in Zaknafein, a former patron of the house who now held the important position of weapon master. The skilled drow fighter seemed quite pleased at the thought of sacrifice, as did Nalfein, the family’s eldest son, who stood at Zak’s side. Nalfein was the elder boy and he needed no more competition beyond Dinin within the ranks of House Do’Orden.
"In accord with custom," Briza glowered and the red of her eyes brightened. "The aid in our victory!"
Rizzen shifted uncomfortably. "Matron Malice" he dared to speak, "you know well the difficulties of birthing. Might the pain distract you…"
"You dare to question the matron mother?" Briza started sharply, reaching for the snake-headed whip so comfortably strapped―and writhing―on her belt. Matron Malice stopped her with an outstretched hand.
"Attend to the fighting." the matron said to Rizzen. "Let the females of the house see to the important matters of this battle."
Rizzen shifted again and dropped his gaze.
Dinin came to the magically wrought fence that connected the keep within the city’s west wall with the two small stalagmite towers of House Do’Urden, and which formed the courtyard to the compound. The fence was adamantite, the hardest metal in all the world, and adorning it were a hundred weapon-wielding spider carvings, each ensorcelled with deadly glyphs and wards. The mighty gate of House Do’Urden was the envy of many a drow house, but so soon after viewing the spectacular houses in the mushroom grove, Dinin could only find disappointment when looking upon his own abode. The compound was plain and somewhat bare, as was the section of wall, with the notable exception of the mithril and adamantite balcony running along the second level by the arched doorway reserved for the nobility of the family. Each baluster of that balcony sported a thousand carvings, all of which blended into a single piece of art.
House Do’Urden, unlike the great majority of the houses of Menzoberranzan, did not stand free within groves of stalactites and stalagmites. The bulk of the structure was within a cave, and while this setup was indisputably defensible, Dinin found himself wishing that his family could show a bit more grandeur.
An excited soldier rushed to open the gate for the returning secondboy. Dinin swept past him without so much as a word of greeting and moved across the courtyard, conscious of the hundred and more curious glances that fell upon him. The soldiers and slaves knew that Dinin’s mission this night had something to do with the anticipated battle.
No stairway led to the silvery balcony of House Do’Urden’s second level. This, too, was a precautionary measure designed to segregate the leaders of the house from the rabble and the slaves. Drow nobles needed no stairs; another manifestation of their innate magical abilities allowed them the power of levitation. With hardly a conscious thought to the act, Dinin drifted easily through the air and dropped onto the balcony.
He rushed through the archway and down the house’s main central corridor, which was dimly lit in the soft hues of faerie fire, allowing for sight in the normal light spectrum but not bright enough to defeat the use of infra vision. The ornate brass door at the corridor’s end marked the secondboy’s destination, and he paused before it to allow his eyes to shift back to the infrared spectrum. Unlike the corridor, the room beyond the door had no light source. It was the audience hall of the high priestesses, the anteroom to House Do’Urden’s grand chapel. The drow clerical rooms, in accord with the dark rites of the Spider Queen, were not places of light.
When he felt he was prepared, Dinin pushed straight through the door, shoving past the two shocked female guards without hesitation and moving boldly to stand before his mother. All three of the family daughters narrowed their eyes at their brash and pretentious brother. To enter without permission! he knew they were thinking. Would that it was he who was to be sacrificed this night!
As much as he enjoyed testing the limitations of his inferior station as a male, Dinin could not ignore the threatening glances of Vierna, Maya, and Briza. Being female, they were bigger and stronger than Dinin and had trained all of their lives in the use of wicked drow clerical powers and weapons. Dinin watched as enchanted extensions of the clerics, the dreaded snake-headed whips on his sisters belts began writhing in anticipation of the punishment they would exact. The handles were adamantite and ordinary enough, but the whips’ lengths and multiple heads were living serpents. Briza’s whip, in particular, a wicked six-headed device; danced and squirmed, tying itself into knots around the belt that held it. Briza was always the quickest to punish.