Starless Night

 

Catti-brie had never seen such creatures. They somewhat resembled gnomes, at least in stature, being about three feet tall, but they had no hair on their lumpy, ruddy heads, and their skin, in the starlight afforded her by the magical circlet, showed grayish. They were quite stout, nearly as muscular as dwarves, and judging from the fine tools they carried and the well fitting metal armor they wore, they were, like dwarves,  adept at mining and crafting.

Drizzt had told Catti-brie of the svirfnebli, the deep gnomes,  and that is what she presumed she was looking upon. She couldn't be sure, though, and was afraid that this might be some offshoot of the evil duergar, gray dwarves.

She crouched amid a cluster of tall, thin stalagmites in an area of many crisscrossing corridors. The deep gnomes, if that's what they were, had come down the opposite way, and were now milling about one wide, flat section of corridor, talking among themselves and paying little heed of the stalagmite cluster twenty feet away.

Catti-brie was not sure of how she should proceed. If these were svirfnebli, and she was fairly sure of that, they could prove to be valuable allies, but how might she approach them? They certainly did not speak the same language and probably were as unfamiliar with humans as she was with them.

She decided that her best course would be simply to sit tight and let the creatures pass. Catti-brie had never experienced the strangeness of infravision, though, and she did not fully appreciate that, sitting among the cool stalagmites, her body temperature fully thirty degrees warmer than the stone, she was practically glowing to the svirfnebli's heat seeing eyes.

Even as the young woman crouched and waited, deep gnomes fanned out in the tunnels around her, trying to discern if this drow (for Catti-brie still wore the magical mask) was alone or part of a larger band. A few minutes slipped by; Catti-brie looked down to her hand, thinking that she felt something in the stone, a slight vibration, perhaps. The young woman continued to stare at her tin  gling hand curiously. She did not know that deep gnomes commu  nicated in a method that was part telepathy and part psychokinesis,  sending their thought patterns to each other through the stone, and that a sensitive hand could sense the vibrations.

She did not know that the minute tingling was the confirmation from the deep gnome scouts that this drow crouching in the stalag  mite cluster was indeed alone.

One of the svirfnebli ahead suddenly burst into motion, chant  ing a few words that Catti-brie did not understand and hurling a rock her way. She dipped lower behind the stones for cover and tried to decide whether to call out a surrender or take out her bow and try to frighten the creatures away.

The stone bounced harmlessly short and shattered, its flecks spreading in a small area before the stalagmite cluster. Those flecks began to smoke and sizzle, and the ground began to tremble.

Before Catti-brie knew what was happening, the stones before her rose up like a gigantic bubble, then took on the shape of a giant fifteen foot tall humanoid, its girth practically filling the corridor. The creature had huge, rocky arms that could smash a building to pieces. Two of the front stalagmites had been caught up in the mon  strous formation and now served as dangerous spikes protruding from the front of the monster's massive chest.

Down the passage, the deep gnomes let out battle cries, calls that echoed in corridors all about the frightened woman.

Catti-brie scrambled backward as a gigantic hand swooped in and took the top from one stalagmite. She dropped the onyx figur  ing and called frantically for Guenhwyvar, all the while fitting an arrow to her bowstring.

The earth elemental shifted forward, its bulky legs melding with, slipping right through, the stony stalagmites in its way. It moved again to grab the woman, but a silver streaking arrow ripped through its rock face, blowing a clean crevice between the monster's eyes.

The elemental straightened and reeled, then used its hands to push its halved head back into one piece. It looked back to the clus  ter and saw not the female drow, but a huge cat, tamping down its hind legs.

Catti-brie came out the back of the cluster, thinking to flee, but found deep gnomes coming down every side passage. She ran along the main corridor, cutting from mound to mound for cover, not dar  ing to glance back at Guenhwyvar and the elemental. Then some  thing hard banged against her shin, tripping her, and she sprawled headlong. She squirmed about to see another of the svirfnebli rising from behind one mound, a pickaxe still angled out as it had been placed to trip her.

Catti-brie pulled her bow around and shifted into a sitting posi  tion, but the weapon was batted away. She instinctively rolled to the side, but heard shuffling feet as three gnomes kept pace with her,  heavy mauls lifted high to squash her.

Guenhwyvar snarled and soared, thinking to fly right past the behemoth and turn it about. The elemental was faster than the pan  ther suspected, though, and a great rocky hand shot out, catching the cat in midflight and pulling it to its massive chest. Guenhwyvar shrieked as a stalagmite spike dug into a shoulder, and the deep gnomes, running up beside their champion, shrieked as well, in glee that the drow and her unexpected ally were apparently soon to be finished.

A maul descended toward Catti-brie's head. She snapped out her short sword and caught it at the joint between handle and head,  deflecting it enough so that it banged loudly off the floor. The young woman scampered and parried, trying to get far enough from the gnomes to regain her footing, but they paced her, every which way,  banging their mauls with shortened, measured strokes so that this fast tiring dark elf had no opportunities for clear counterstrikes.

The sight of the marvelous panther, soon to be fully impaled and crushed, brought victorious thrills to a handful of the trailing svirfnebli, but brought only confusion to two others. Those two,  Seldig and Pumkato by name, had played with such a panther as fledglings, and since Drizzt Do'Urden, the drow renegade they had played beside almost thirty years before, had just passed through Blingdenstone, they felt the panther's appearance could not be coincidence.

"Guenhwyvar!" Seldig cried, and the panther roared in reply.

The name, so perfectly spoken, struck Catti-brie profoundly and made those three deep gnomes about her hesitate as well.

Pumkato, who had summoned the elemental in the first place,  called for the monster to hold steady, and Seldig quickly used his pickaxe to scale partway up the behemoth. "Guenhwyvar?" he asked, just a few feet from the panther's face. The trapped cat's ears came up, and it put a plaintive look on the somewhat familiar gnome.

"Who is that?" Pumkato demanded, pointing to Catti-brie.

Although she did not understand any of the svirfneblin's words, Catti-brie realized that she would never find a better oppor  tunity. She dropped her sword to the stone, reached up with her free hand and pulled off the magical mask, her features immediately reverting to those of a young human woman. The three deep gnomes near her cried out and fell back, regarding her with less  than complimentary sour expressions, as though her new appear  ance was quite ugly by their standards.

Pumkato mustered the courage to shuffle over to her, and he stood right in front of her.

He had known one name, Catti-brie realized, and she hoped that he would recognize another. She pointed to herself, then held her arms out wide and pulled them in as if hugging someone. "Drizzt Do'Urden?" she asked.

Pumkato's gray eyes widened, then he nodded, as though he should not have been surprised. Hiding his disgust at the human's appearance, the gnome extended one hand and helped Catti-brie to her feet.

Catti-brie moved slowly, obviously, as she took out the figurine and dismissed Guenhwyvar. Pumkato, likewise, sent his elemental back into the stone.

"Kolsen 'shea orbb, " Jarlaxle whispered, an arcane phrase rarely uttered in Menzoberranzan that roughly translated to "pull the legs off a spider."

The seemingly plain wall before the mercenary reacted to the passwords. It shifted and twisted into a spiderweb, then rotated outward, its strands tucked together, to leave a hole for the merce  nary and his human escort to climb through.

Even Jarlaxle, usually one step ahead of other drow, was some  what surprised, pleasantly surprised, to find Triel Baenre waiting for him in the small office beyond, the private chambers of Gromph Baenre at Sorcere, the school of magic in the drow Academy. Jarlaxle had hoped that Gromph would be about, to witness the return, but Triel was an even better witness.

Entreri came in behind the mercenary and wisely stayed behind at the sight of volatile Triel. The assassin eyed the intriguing room,  perpetually bathed in soft glowing bluish light, as was most of the wizards' tower. Parchments lay everywhere, on the desk, on the three chairs, and on the floor. The walls were lined with shelves that held dozens of large, capped bottles and smaller, hourglass shaped containers, their tops off and with sealed packets lying next to them. A hundred other curious items, too strange for the surface dweller to even guess at what they might do, lay amid the jumble.

"You bring colnbluth to Sorcere?" Triel remarked, her thin eye  brows angling up in surprise.

Entreri took care to keep his gaze to the floor, though he man  aged a few peeks at the Baenre daughter. He hadn't viewed Triel in so strong a light before, and he thought now that she was not so beautiful by drow standards. She was too short and too stocky in the shoulders for her very angular facial features. It struck the assas  sin as odd that Triel had risen so high among the ranks of drow, a race that treasured physical beauty. Her station was testament to the Baenre daughter's power, he decided.

Entreri couldn't understand very much of the Drow tongue,  though he realized that Triel probably had just insulted him. Nor  mally, the assassin responded to insults with weapons, but not here,  not so far from his element and not against this one. Jarlaxle had warned Entreri about Triel a hundred times. She was looking for a reason to kill him, the vicious Baenre daughter was always looking for a reason to kill any colnbluth, and quite a few drow as well.

"I bring him many places, " Jarlaxle answered. "I did not think that your brother would be here to protest."

Triel looked about the room, to the fabulous desk of polished dwarf bones and the cushioned chair behind. There were no con  necting rooms, no obvious hiding places, and no Gromph.

"GrQmph must be here, " Jarlaxle reasoned. "Else, why would the matron mistress of Arach Tinilith be in this place? That is a vio  lation of the rules, as I remember them, as serious a breach, at least,  as my bringing a non drow to Sorcere."

"Take care how you question the actions of Triel Baenre, " the short priestess replied.

"Asanque, " Jarlaxle answered with a sweeping bow. It was a somewhat ambiguous word that could mean either "as you wish, " or "likewise."

"Why are you here?" Triel demanded.

"You knew I was coming, " Jarlaxle stated.

"Of course, " Triel said slyly. "I know many things, but I wish to hear your explanation for entering Sorcere, through private doors reserved for headmasters, and into the private quarters of the city's archmage."

Jarlaxle reached into the folds of his black cloak and produced the strange spider mask, the magical item that had gotten him over House Baenre's enchanted web fence. Triel's ruby red eyes widened.

"I was instructed by your mother to return this to Gromph, " the mercenary said, somewhat sourly.

"Here?" Triel balked. "The mask belongs at House Baenre."

Jarlaxle couldn't hide a bit of a smile, and he looked to Entreri,  secretly hoping that the assassin was getting some of this conversa  tion.

"Gromph will retrieve it, " Jarlaxle answered. He walked over to the dwarf bone desk, uttered a word under his breath, and quickly slipped the mask into a drawer, though Triel had begun to protest. She stalked over to the desk and eyed the closed drawer suspi  ciously Obviously Gromph would have trapped and warded it with a secret password.

"Open it, " she instructed Jarlaxle. "I will hold the mask for Gromph."

"I cannot, " Jarlaxle lied. "The password changes with each use. I was given only one." Jarlaxle knew that he was playing a danger  ous game here, but Triel and Gromph rarely spoke to each other,  and Gromph, especially in these days, with all the preparations going on in House Baenre, rarely visited his office at Sorcere. What Jarlaxle needed now was to be rid of the mask, openly, so that it could not be tied to him in any way That spider mask was the only item, spells included, in all of Menzoberranzan that could get some  one past House Baenre's magical fence, and if events took the turns that Jarlaxle suspected, that mask might soon be an important piece of property, and evidence.

Triel chanted softly and continued to stare at the closed drawer. She recognized the intricate patterns of magical energy, glyphs and wards, on the drawer, but they were woven too tightly for her to easily unravel. Her magic was among the strongest in Menzober  ranzan, but Triel feared to try her hand against her brother's wiz  ardly prowess. Dropping a threatening gaze at the cunning merce  nary, she walked back across the room and stood near Entreri.

"Look at me, " she said in the Common tongue of the surface,  which surprised the assassin, for very few drow in Menzoberranzan spoke the language.

Entreri lifted his gaze to peer into Triel's intense eyes. He tried to keep his demeanor calm, tried to appear subjugated, broken in spirit, but Triel was too perceptive for such facades. She saw the strength in the assassin, smiled as though she approved of it.

"What do you know of all this?" she asked.

"I know only what Jarlaxle tells me, " Entreri replied, and he dropped the facade and stared hard at Triel. If she wished a contest of wills, then the assassin, who had survived and thrived on the most dangerous streets of Faerun's surface, would not back down.

Triel matched the unblinking stare for a long while and became convinced that she would garner little of use from this skilled adver  sary "Be gone from here, " she said to Jarlaxle, still using the surface tongue.

Jarlaxle rushed past the Baenre daughter and scooped up Entreri in his wake. "Quickly, " the mercenary remarked. "We should be long out of Sorcere before Triel tries that drawer!" With that, they were through the spidery door, which fast reverted to a plain wall behind them, blocking Triel's inevitable curses.

But the Baenre daughter was not as mad as she was intrigued. She recognized three courses coming together here, her own and her mother's, and now, apparently, Jarlaxle's. The mercenary was up to something, she knew, something that obviously included Artemis Entreri.

When they were safely away from Tier Breche and the Acad  emy, Jarlaxle translated all that had transpired to Entreri.

"You did not tell her of Drizzt's impending arrival, " the assassin remarked. He had thought that important bit of information to be the gist of Jarlaxle's brief conversation with Triel, but the mercenary said nothing about it now.

"Triel has her own ways of discerning information, " Jarlaxle replied. "I do not wish to make her work easier, not without a clear and agreed upon profit!"

Entreri smiled, then bit his lower lip, digesting the mercenary's words. There was always so much going on in this infernal city, the assassin mused. It was no wonder that Jarlaxle enjoyed the place so! Entreri almost wished that he was a drow, that he could carve out a place such as Jarlaxle had done, playing on the edge of disaster. Almost.

"When did Matron Baenre instruct you to return the mask?" the assassin asked. He and Jarlaxle had been out of Menzoberranzan for some time, had gone into the outer caverns to meet with a svirf  neblin informant. They had returned only a short time before their trip to Sorcere, and Jarlaxle, as far as Entreri knew, hadn't gone any  where near House Baenre.

"Some time ago, " Jarlaxle replied.

"To bring it to the Academy?" Entreri pressed. It seemed out of place to him. And why had Jarlaxle taken him along? He had never been invited to that high place before, had even been refused on one occasion, when he had asked to accompany Jarlaxle to Melee  Magthere, the school of fighters. The mercenary had explained that taking a colnbluth, a non drow, there would be risky, but now, for some reason, Jarlaxle had thought it appropriate to take Entreri to Sorcere, by far the more dangerous school.

"She did not specify where the mask was to be returned, " Jar  laxle admitted.

Entreri did not respond, though he realized the truth of that answer. The spider mask was a prized possession of the Baenre clan,  a potential weak spot in its hardened defenses. It belonged in the secured quarters of House Baenre and nowhere else.

"Foolish Triel, " Jarlaxle remarked offhandedly. "The same word, asanque, would get her into that drawer. She should know that her brother was arrogant enough to believe that none would ever try to steal from him, and so he would not spend too much time with password tricks."

The mercenary laughed, and Entreri followed suit, though he was more intrigued than amused. Jarlaxle rarely did or said any  thing without purpose, and the mercenary had told him all of this for a reason.

But why?