CHAPTER 16
I request entry, Archmage Gromph.”
The voice caught Gromph by surprise. The night was late, well past midnight, and the moon had set. Darkness had fallen deeply over Luskan.
Gromph slipped a robe over his slender shoulders and moved to the tent flap, pulling it aside just enough to view the woman standing a little ways back from his heavily warded entryway.
It was Catti-brie, dressed in a simple shift, and with her black lace cape pulled around her shoulders.
Gromph licked his thin lips. He knew his psionic intrusions were assailing her and confusing her, and possibly even tempting her.
But this?
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want,” she answered, and the archmage swallowed hard.
“Then enter,” he said, stepping back and pulling the flap wider. “I command the glyphs and wards to allow you.”
Catti-brie came forward on bare feet, looking more nervous with each step, as if she expected some burst of magical energy, lightning or fire or freezing cold, to assault her as she entered the wizard’s private tent.
By the time she arrived inside, Gromph had already conjured a magical light, one tinted blue, quietly glowing. In that glow, Gromph could even better appreciate the sheer beauty of this woman, her beautiful skin, so smooth and clear, and those huge blue eyes. And that hair! Auburn locks thick enough to get lost in. Her shift clung teasingly to her frame, solid and strong, but so promisingly supple. She was not drow, but Gromph could not deny her beauty.
“Well met,” he said with a smile. “This is a night I have long awaited.”
“No more than I,” said Catti-brie, and her black lace cloak fell to the floor behind her.
Kiriy stood alone in the hallway, the sounds of battle all around her, and waited.
“Matron Mother Zhindia?” Kiriy called again, and again she waited. Every glance about grew a bit more nervous. Had her siblings escaped the driders? And what of the dangerous Tiago?
And where were the Melarni priestesses? Kiriy had come into House Do’Urden as their conduit. Their ritual allowed them to follow her every movement, allowed them to intrude upon her enemies with mighty spells hurled from afar. But where had they gone?
Kiriy knew Zhindia would not answer, that the matron mother could not hear her. Her efforts to reach the matron mother were desperation and fear, not certainty of success.
It occurred to her that perhaps she had been set up by the Melarni. Perhaps the invasion of House Do’Urden would fail-maybe with House Baenre coming again to its aid-and in that event, would Kiriy be named as the perpetrator?
“No,” she said resolutely. “The Spider Queen is with me-is with us!”
She nodded, knowing what she must do. Even without the Melarni, even without knowing why the magical connection had been severed, Kiriy understood her mission. It was, in fact, as clear to her as the door just down this curving corridor, the door of the private quarters of Matron Mother Darthiir Do’Urden.
Nodding, the first priestess moved to the door. She cast several protection spells upon herself, then disenchanted the door. With a deep breath, for she could not truly know the extent of explosive magical warding placed upon this door, she pushed through into the anteroom.
The door to her right was closed, the one to her left ajar, enough for her to see the abominable surface elf seated in a curled position on the bed, hugging her bare knees and rocking in a stupor.
Kiriy closed the door and cast a spell of holding upon it, then moved for her prey.
“Do you know me, iblith?” she asked, entering.
Dahlia glanced up, but her stare remained blank.
“Do you know why I’ve come?” Kiriy asked.
No response at all, and Kiriy sighed. She had hoped it would be more fun than this. She started around the bottom of the bed, grinning as she turned her glance sidelong at Dahlia. She noticed then that the woman was holding something, some metal bar, beneath the bend in her legs. Kiriy took a cautious step away and began quietly casting, deliberately going through the words and movements of a spell of holding.
She wanted to take her time here, to make this abomination feel every moment of terror and agony, but she reminded herself that time was not on her side. Above all else, she had to make sure that Dahlia was dead-and consecrated in such an unholy manner that she could not, could never, be resurrected.
Her spell was complete and Dahlia started, as if in shock, then froze in place.
Kiriy Xorlarrin laughed at her. “Now you will be set free, iblith,” she whispered. She drew out a ceremonial dagger. She wanted to feel her blood, and wanted to be close enough to see the pain in the woman’s eyes.
She knew just when to free Dahlia from the spell of holding, too, just enough to hear that last wail before death.
“I always wondered how some of my kind could find a human attractive,” Gromph said. He let his robe slip to the floor and sat naked on the edge of his bed, patting the spot next to him. “Now I see you and I understand. I will show you pleasures you cannot begin to imagine.”
Catti-brie wore nothing but her smile and that simple nightgown, almost sheer, and hanging only to mid-thigh.
She didn’t feel naked, though. Her grin was full of knowledge, and her knowledge was as protective as the finest suit of mithral armor.
“As pleasurable as you expect I found those mind-magic intrusions you have been injecting into my thoughts?” she asked.
That got Gromph’s attention, and he looked at her curiously for a moment, then painted on an incredulous, surely feigned expression.
“That is quite a game that you designed and delivered,” Catti-brie went on. “I suppose I should be impressed-”
“You should be thankful,” Gromph interrupted. He sat back easily, turning up his hips to more fully expose himself, letting her know that he understood the game to be up, and more importantly, that he didn’t care. “That I, the Archmage of Menzoberranzan, would take the time and effort to so pleasure you from afar.”
“But I find myself truly disappointed,” Catti-brie resolutely pressed on. “To think that one as accomplished as you, one whose reputation rivals the legends of Khelben, or even Elminster, would unlock such new and great mysteries of this other magic for use in such a petty manner.”
Gromph laughed at her and patted the bed again.
“Though I suppose that after so stupidly summoning Demogorgon to Menzoberranzan, you find it refreshingly small to attack a person in such a manner from afar,” Catti-brie finished, and Gromph’s demeanor turned ugly for a brief and telling instant. Catti-brie knew she had hurt him with that remark.
She wanted to hurt him a lot more than that.
“Attack?” he echoed, his expression reverting to confidence and ease. “I merely offered to you a vision. You let me in. Willingly. And in your accusation you referred to ‘those mind-magic intrusions,’ inferring more than one instance. Yet only once did I offer you a telepathic hint of the pleasures we two might enjoy together.”
His laughter cut into her heart. She didn’t want to believe him, and logically did not believe him, but the doubt …
“The rest-and were there many?-came wholly from your own imagination,” he said slyly. He beckoned to her with one hand and touched himself with the other. “Come,” he said, patting the bed insistently. “Do tell me of these fantasies. Let us see what pleasure they might inspire.”
And Gromph found that he was not alone on the bed-an unexpected guest was now sitting beside him, hot breath on his neck.
“Have you met Guenhwyvar?” Catti-brie asked.
Gromph snickered, but glanced warily at the huge black panther out of the corner of his eye. “Do you mean to kill me then?”