She did a good job of hiding the winding line of terror that continued to twist inside her. Catti-brie trusted in her powers and her relationship with Mielikki. She had returned to this world with clear goals, and that guiding purpose had dominated her existence over the more than two decades of her second life. She had trained with powerful wizards, studied in the extensive library of the Harpells, communed closely with a goddess …
But this was Gromph Baenre, recently the Archmage of Menzoberranzan. He had magically appeared right beside her without a hint of warning or a tingle that anything was amiss.
Catti-brie understood that he could very likely destroy her just as easily and unexpectedly.
“I have examined pieces of the fallen tower already,” Gromph explained. “All the materials are available. We have paintings and have uncovered design sketches of the tower in the bowels of Illusk, below this city. The dwarves should have no trouble replicating the physical structure.”
“That is the easy part,” Catti-brie said.
Gromph stared at the hole in the ground and nodded.
“Why are you doing this?” Catti-brie asked bluntly, and he looked up to match her blue eyes with his amber orbs, the two locking stares intently.
“If I wished you to know-”
“Amuse me,” she heard herself saying, and couldn’t believe the words as they came forth.
Gromph was the one who seemed amused, and he looked back to the hole.
“You intend to inhabit the tower when it is rebuilt,” Catti-brie said in a voice that sounded far too accusatory.
“If it suits me,” Gromph answered. “I intend to live wherever I desire to live. Would you wish to try to stop me?”
“In this city, run by drow?”
Gromph looked up at her again and flashed a wicked smile. “Here or anywhere,” he clarified.
Catti-brie swallowed hard, but she did not allow herself to blink and did not look away.
“You fear for the dwarves,” Gromph surmised. “You fear that if I am in control of the new Hosttower, I might use that position against the magic that preserves Gauntlgrym.”
Catti-brie saw no need to answer.
“It is a reasonable fear, of course,” said Gromph. “Or it would be, except for two important matters. First, the magic of the Hosttower isn’t enacted like that of a wand. I will not call upon the tower to fuel the elementals enslaving the primordial any more than I can tell the tower not to do so. I expect you will understand this as we go through the process. Surely no instrument of such power would have ever been left to the whims of whomever happened to be serving as the leader of the Hosttower at any particular time in its millennia of existence, particularly not since the dwarves helped build the original tower, from all that I can tell.
“And second, I am not a simple and capricious murderer. What reason would I have to destroy Gauntlgrym, even if that was within my power?”
“Why did the drow attack Mithral Hall? Why does Tiago pursue Drizzt? Why-?”
“Gauntlgrym in the hands of a dwarf king serves me well at this time,” Gromph stated.
“And if that changes?”
“I assure you, human woman, I am not one you wish to anger. And I do not need a Hosttower beneath my feet to rain destruction, wherever I choose.”
“You say such things and expect me to trust you in this most important endeavor?”
“I speak the simple truth, and know that you have no choice in the matter. If you believe that you can reconstruct the Hosttower of the Arcane without my aid, then you prove the drow matron mothers correct when they proclaim the stupidity of humans.”
Catti-brie was very relieved at that moment when Beniago walked up to stand beside her. Jarlaxle and his many henchmen would protect them all from the wrath of Gromph.
“Braelin Janquay has returned to serve in House Do’Urden?” Gromph asked in the drow tongue, and Catti-brie was glad to learn that she could still understand the language well enough to keep up with the fast-speaking wizard.
A mixed blessing, she realized, when Beniago answered in perfect drow, “Yes, uncle.”
Uncle.
The web around her was daunting. Catti-brie walked away, to a tent she had taken as her own. As she neared the closed flap, she shut her eyes and pictured again the hole in the ground that had been the grand and wondrous Hosttower of the Arcane. She tried again to picture that magnificent structure with its branching tendrils-it seemed as much a living thing as something built by elves and dwarves.
The image proved fleeting, replaced by something else, something that surprised Catti-brie: the amber eyes of Gromph Baenre, staring at her, measuring her, devouring her.
She glanced back to find Gromph looking back at her from the base of the Hosttower.
Shaken, the woman retired to her tent.
“Ignore the ghosts,” Jarlaxle told Drizzt as they wound their way through ancient, cobweb-filled halls and corridors, many with stone statues and bas reliefs so covered by the dust of centuries that they had become unrecognizable.
Still, Drizzt understood the design of the place and the architecture and statues enough to suspect that he and Jarlaxle had come into Illusk in their underground meandering.
“The spirits have been rendered benign by my associates,” Jarlaxle explained. “At least, benign to those strong enough of mind and will to ignore them-I would expect you are among that group. Such creatures feed and strengthen on fear.”
Several of the specters appeared, their faces stretched and elongated as if frozen in some exaggerated, truly horrified scream. The long-dead of Illusk floated about the sides of the wide hall Drizzt and Jarlaxle traversed. They leered at them from every shadow, it seemed. And they whispered in Drizzt’s mind, telling him to flee, offering him images of some gruesome impending feast upon his warm flesh.
Drizzt looked at his companion, then steeled himself against his budding terror. Trust Jarlaxle, he silently reminded himself. The drow mercenary’s casual gait comforted him, reminding him that he was traveling with one of the most capable people Faerun had ever known.
So Drizzt found his center and his heart, and in his fortified emotional state, the ghosts became no more to him than moving decorations, like a rolling animation of Illusk’s ancient secrets and history.
They came to an area less dusty and forlorn, and with other dark elves of Bregan D’aerthe moving about, all pausing to tip a nod to their leader, and to Drizzt. At one door, Jarlaxle paused and held his hand up to halt Drizzt. “Pray wait here,” the mercenary instructed. “I will return in a moment.”
Drizzt moved to put his back up against the wall, and tried to appear relaxed, though he surely didn’t want to be in this place without an escort. But no sooner had Jarlaxle gone through the door than he came back out, shook his head, and apparently reconsidered,. He motioned to Drizzt to follow.
It was a small chamber with a single bed, a single desk, and a single chair, now filled by a lone man, a human, sitting back with his soft boots up on the table.
A man Drizzt knew well.
“Drizzt has agreed to join our quest,” Jarlaxle explained, and Artemis Entreri nodded.
“You will risk the ways of Menzoberranzan for the sake of Dahlia?” Drizzt asked the assassin.
“You will?” Entreri returned with equal skepticism. “Will not Catti-brie burn with jealousy?”
“She knows I have no interest in Dahlia in any way that is threatening to her,” Drizzt replied. “I seek to aid an old companion, nothing more.” He paused and stared hard at Entreri, beginning to decipher more regarding this unexpected valor from the assassin. “Do you understand that?”
After a pause, Entreri offered a slight nod and said convincingly, “I am pleased to have you along.”