Back by the doorway on the bridge of webs, the drider heaving his dying breaths behind them, Yvonnel and Yiccardaria watched the three depart. Behind them, studying the dying abomination, K’yorl seemed quite amused.
“The champion battle should be singular,” the handmaiden instructed, and Yvonnel nodded.
“That human has been in the city before,” said Yiccardaria.
“I know, from the memories of the Eternal. He is Artemis Entreri.”
“It is a small world after all,” said Yiccardaria. “And one rich with the simple beauty of coincidence.”
Yvonnel looked at her curiously.
“Artemis Entreri,” the handmaiden prompted. “There is history with House Horlbar.”
Yvonnel got the reference then, and chuckled.
“So you have not forgotten.”
Yvonnel laughed louder. “Beautiful indeed!” she replied. In his escape from Menzoberranzan those many years ago-thirteen decades and more-Artemis Entreri had encountered one of the two Matron Mothers of House Horlbar, a woman named Jerlys, and had promptly and efficiently dispatched her.
Jerlys Horlbar was Matron Mother Zhindia Melarn’s mother.
“Matron Mother Zhindia’s daughter, the young priestess Yazhin, was in the bloodied war room,” Yiccardaria explained. “And she, too, fell to Artemis Entreri.”
“And Lolth will not allow her resurrection?”
“Lolth cannot.”
That brought a surprised look from Yvonnel.
“The human carries a most awful and effective dagger,” Yiccardaria explained. “Matron Mother Zhindia will learn that there is nothing left of Yazhin, no soul, to resurrect.”
Yvonnel nodded and looked at the now-distant departing trio. “And Kyrnill will be in the room before Zhindia, no doubt,” she said. “Perhaps Zhindia will blame her rival for her inability to bring back her dead daughter.”
“Chaos is a beautiful thing,” said the handmaiden. “Full of excitement, the very edge of existence.”
Yvonnel looked back, and stuttered. Yiccardaria had become again a yochlol in form, ugly and without symmetry, tentacles waving and dripping ooze.
“We will be watching with great amusement,” Yiccardaria promised in her bubbly, watery, mud-filled voice, and with that, she melted away.
Yvonnel light-stepped past the puddle of Abyssal mud left in the departing yochlol’s wake, back into the corridor.
“Come, my pet,” she told K’yorl. “I will give you the image of House Do’Urden and show you where to bring us.”
As K’yorl began to fall within herself, within her psionic powers, a death rattle issued from crumpled Braelin.
“Wait!” ordered Yvonnel. She moved fast to the drider and began casting, and in moments, Braelin’s breath came easier, as Yvonnel healed his mortal wounds.
And then Yvonnel did something else, something she wasn’t supposed to do, something she wasn’t supposed to be able to do, and K’yorl gasped in recognition and in horror.
Even she understood the blasphemy.
And the sheer power.
CHAPTER 18
A trio of warriors dropped upon the battle raging on the balcony of House Do’Urden.
They had been up on the wall, levitating and pulling themselves along until they were above the balcony. And there they had waited, sorting out the combatants, determining Do’Urden defenders from the invading Hunzrin warriors. Hands flashed the silent drow code, the three coming to agreement and tactics.
Down they went, landing in the midst of the Hunzrin line, exploding into coordinated motion before the enemy drow even realized they were there. A blurring dance of four masterful swords, a jeweled dagger, and a stream of magical daggers fed into Jarlaxle’s free hand by his enchanted bracer soon broke the center of that Hunzrin line so brutally, so efficiently, that the remaining invaders wanted no part of this whirling cyclone of death.
More went over the balcony railing than continued to fight, and with the Do’Urden garrison pressing from the room beyond, Jarlaxle and his companions soon confronted the House defenders, a group that clearly didn’t know what to make of them.
“Step aside, you fools!” Jarlaxle insisted, and he dropped his magical disguise and revealed himself. “Your salvation has arrived!”
Gasps and cheers followed the trio through the anteroom, and many of the garrison moved to follow.
“This is your post,” Entreri said, turning back on them and pointing to the balcony. “The enemy will likely return! Do not let them through this door!”
They ran through the second anteroom, and into the winding corridor within the house proper, and there the trio almost crashed into Faelas Xorlarrin.
“The Xorlarrins and Tiago should be soon to this place,” Faelas warned the Bregan D’aerthe leader. “I received a magical whisper from Jaemas that they had just dispatched Melarni driders.” He pointed down to the right and motioned for them to be away quickly.
Jarlaxle nodded and patted the wizard on the shoulder, starting away, Entreri close behind.
“Tiago?” Drizzt asked, his lips curling into a snarl.
“Pray go,” Faelas said, shaking his head. “And be quick!”
But Drizzt didn’t move, and his hands tightened on the handles of his bloody scimitars.
“Not now!” Jarlaxle scolded, moving back a step.
Entreri took it even farther, leaping back to grab Drizzt by the arm. “Dahlia!” he said, and he pulled Drizzt along.
Drizzt went, but kept glancing back, hoping they would be too slow and Tiago Baenre would catch up to them.
They found few guards and no enemies along the crisscrossing corridors, and through many chambers.
“We can wind about the chapel and approach from the rear of the compound,” Jarlaxle explained.
“This way,” corrected Drizzt, and he kicked through a side door opposite of Jarlaxle’s instruction. He moved with purpose and with confidence. It was all coming back to him, and he felt as if he had never left this place, his first home.
He could almost hear his sister Vierna’s voice as he stormed through the familiar rooms, and down a secret passageway that even Jarlaxle had not yet discovered. The passageway was small and tight, one that child Drizzt had often run along to frustrate his violent sisters.
Vierna thought it an amusing game.
Briza would beat him for it.
At one point, Drizzt almost broke off along a side passage, one that would put them farther from their goal. It led to a training room where the ghosts of the past haunted Drizzt still.
“Why have you stopped?” Entreri demanded. “Are you lost?”
“Double-cross down,” Drizzt whispered, though it didn’t seem as if he had heard Entreri at all.
With a sigh, Drizzt pressed on.
They came into a larger room, the war room of House Do’Urden, the room in which a lavender-eyed child had been born to Matron Mother Malice …
The sound of battle from somewhere beyond the walls kept Drizzt focused then. Across the way, separated by small partitions, loomed three doorways. But which led to the battle, they could not immediately determine. Drizzt broke off to the door on the far right of the opposite wall, Entreri to the left, and Jarlaxle to the center, and while the latter two pressed their ears to their respective doors, Drizzt didn’t even wait, and simply kicked his open, eager for a fight.
His next step failed him, though. There in front of him stood a most beautiful drow, a woman whose beauty gave him pause.
He couldn’t tell dream from reality then. The woman became Catti-brie-she was Catti-brie!
“My love, they have captured me,” she said. “Help me …” She reached out.
Before he could even register the strangeness of the moment, the entranced Drizzt slid Icingdeath away and reached for his beloved with his empty hand.
But the woman laughed at him, and became a drow again-the most beautiful drow he could imagine-and the hand he reached to take became a serpent, floating in the air.