Drizzt was hardly listening by that point, his stare locked by Catti-brie, the woman silently pleading with him to trust her with these decisions. And Drizzt knew that he should. Catti-brie’s understanding of what needed to be done was much greater than anything he might discern.
But he feared that she did not as well understand the webs of the drow, how easily she might be caught in those ultimately sticky filaments, and how difficult it would be to ever escape.
“Any guilt you might feel is surely misplaced. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else,” Jarlaxle remarked to Gromph when he caught up to the archmage in a suite of rooms Gromph had taken as his own in Illusk, the ancient Undercity buried beneath the common graveyard of Luskan.
Gromph arched an eyebrow at the mercenary, his expression uncertain, but certainly not appreciative.
“We have word of other demon lords walking the ways of the Underdark,” Jarlaxle explained. “Zuggtmoy, the Lady of Fungi, is rumored to be holding court among a large gathering of myconids. Orcus is said to be about, as is Graz’zt. The Underdark is less inviting than before, it would seem, and that is no small feat.”
“Rumors,” Gromph muttered, denying the premise.
That made sense to Jarlaxle and confirmed many of his suspicions. Gromph knew what he had done. The archmage understood that his mighty spell had wrenched Demogorgon from the Abyss and in doing so, had likely broken the protective planar barrier formed within the magic of the Faerzress.
“It would seem that your summoning was part of a larger invasion by the Abyssal lords,” Jarlaxle said.
“Rumors!” Gromph emphatically roared. “Have you considered that perhaps Demogorgon brought them forth?”
“He would not,” Jarlaxle replied, shaking his head resolutely. “No, there is something bigger afoot.”
“Concern yourself with the matters of Luskan, Jarlaxle,” Gromph warned, his voice ominous and threatening. “Leave the greater truths to those of greater understanding.”
Jarlaxle bowed at that, as much to hide his knowing grin as to mollify his volatile brother.
“Where is that creature you claim as a peer?” Gromph demanded.
The one you consider your tutor? Jarlaxle thought, but very wisely did not say. “Seeking answers, I would hope.”
“In the Abyss?”
Jarlaxle nearly laughed out loud. “Where Kimmuriel always seeks his answers,” he replied. “At the hive-mind, of course. The illithids know everything in the multiverse, if one is to believe Kimmuriel.”
“Bring him to me.”
Jarlaxle’s expression grew doubtful.
“I wish to speak with him,” Gromph added. “Bring him here, as soon as you can.”
“Of course,” Jarlaxle replied, though of course he had no intention of doing any such thing. Kimmuriel had gone to the hive-mind of the illithids to search for answers, and that was no place Jarlaxle ever intended to visit. But the psionicist had also gone there, posthaste, to get away from Gromph. Jarlaxle hadn’t pieced it all together yet, but he was quite suspicious that Kimmuriel had played more than a little role in the disaster Gromph had brought about by inadvertently summoning Demogorgon to Menzoberranzan.
It might prove beneficial to keep Kimmuriel at the hive-mind for the time being in any case, and not just for Kimmuriel’s own sake. If any race in the multiverse could aid in rediscovering the magic that had created the Hosttower of the Arcane, it would be the illithids. Time itself, the passing of millennia even, seemed no barrier to those strange creatures and their vast repository of knowledge.
“Perhaps Kimmuriel will garner some information as to how we might be rid of the demon lords,” Jarlaxle offered, and that, too, was an honest hope.
“Demon lord,” Gromph corrected. “We know of one, Demogorgon. The rest is speculation.”
“Even if it is just one …” Jarlaxle conceded with a shrug
And that one alone was catastrophe on a monumental scale. Who was going to remove Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons, from the Underdark? Not Gromph, who had fled the scene screaming and tearing at his own eyes. Not Jarlaxle, who had no intention of doing battle with any demon lord. Jarlaxle was quite enamored of his current life.
“You will tell me everything Kimmuriel learns,” the archmage said at length. “And when he returns, you will deliver him to me immediately.”
“Deliver him?” Jarlaxle shrugged and offered a meek smile.
“What?” Gromph demanded.
“Kimmuriel is a leader of Bregan D’aerthe, dear Gromph, and as such, he is free to make his own choices,” Jarlaxle explained. “I will inform him of your desire to speak with him, but …”
Gromph’s nostrils flared and for a heartbeat, Jarlaxle feared that he might have gone a bit too far in his overt backtracking. But Gromph quickly calmed-no doubt he reminded himself that he needed Bregan D’aerthe right now more than they needed, or feared, him. Jarlaxle could get word of Gromph’s whereabouts to Matron Mother Baenre very quickly, after all, and the mercenary leader had a good idea that Quenthel and Gromph were not on particularly good terms at this time.
“I wish to speak with him,” Gromph said calmly.
“Perhaps it would help if you would tell me why,” Jarlaxle offered.
“Perhaps I might burn my explanation onto your naked back and leave you face down and dead on the floor for Kimmuriel to read.”
“A simple no would have sufficed.”
“Jarlaxle doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“Hmm,” the mercenary leader snorted, and he shrugged, tipped his hat in concession, and walked away, muttering as he made his way through the haunted corridors of Illusk.
Now he knew, without doubt, that Gromph blamed Kimmuriel for Demogorgon. “Ah, my tentacle-loving friend, what have you done?” Jarlaxle asked himself, but the question carried back no answers in its echoes.
The primordial chamber had been fully redone in the time Drizzt and Catti-brie had been away from Gauntlgrym. The altar block used by Matron Mother Zeerith had been efficiently removed by a team of dwarves, Bruenor centering them, who had merely pushed it into the pit to be devoured by the primordial beast. The webs were gone, the giant jade spiders rudely dismantled, and jade jewelry was all the rage in Gauntlgrym.
Another table, more a bathtub, rested where the drow altar had been, this one bound in mithral as if it were some altar for Bruenor’s homeland-though, of course, any altar shaped like a bathtub seemed out of place in a dwarven chapel. Still, in a sense, it was just that. The metal tub had been placed there for the most reverent and somber of circumstances: to commit the dead to their unique coffins.
Below the tub, the dwarves had dug a narrow tunnel. Using a mithral drill and crank, they had driven the channel deep into the stone, angling it toward the primordial pit, where it had broken out just below the swirl of the water elementals. Heavy plugs had been bolted into place-the primordial would not get up through this shaft unless called upon.
They laid Thibbledorf Pwent out to rest in that bowl and Catti-brie began her work, covering Pwent in the special shroud, one heavy with metals that would strengthen the lava. Her assistant dwarves removed the tunnel plug and the priestess reached through her ring to coax the beast forth.
The process would take a full day of labor, bringing forth a bit of lava, magically easing it into place, and then summoning the next molten spurt. It was painstaking and heavy work, but Catti-brie did not tire and paid attention to every last detail. This was Pwent, once her friend, and dear to her Da, and she considered this work to be as much a piece of art as a sarcophagus.
“Have you told him yet?” a voice asked late in the day, startling her when she thought she was alone.