Do not entertain such thoughts! she silently scolded herself. She was the matron mother. She had found the wisdom of Yvonnel and the memories of the early days of Menzoberranzan, when demons, even great and powerful major demons, openly roamed the dark avenues. She had recreated this embodiment of chaos, and that after forcing unity in the city, sublimating Mez’Barris Armgo and stonewalling the plotting of several other Houses. She, Quenthel, had taken control.
“I hold her memories as closely as you,” she dared to say to the child.
The little girl slowly turned her head and stared up at Quenthel with a smile so serene as to mock the matron mother’s claim.
And the child could not be harmed.
But neither would Quenthel fear her. She decided that then and there.
“I am the Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan,” she said, and before the child could reply or react, Quenthel turned and left the chamber.
She wondered what punishment little Yvonnel would inflict upon Minolin Fey when she came out of the magical hold spell.
Perhaps Yvonnel and her yochlol would murder …
“No,” Quenthel said aloud, and with certainty. She looked into the memories of Yvonnel within her to understand the motivations of the Yvonnel in the chamber behind her. Little Yvonnel wouldn’t kill Minolin Fey. Not yet. She wouldn’t even punish the priestess in any serious way.
But Minolin Fey would know hopelessness, a dark pit from which she could never hope to escape. And from this point forward, the cowed priestess would no doubt prove to be a wonderful and attentive mother.
Because she now understood the consequences of failure.
THE GREAT DEMON towered over Malagdorl and the other drow, even from across the open floor of the common room. Like everyone else in the room, the demon had turned at the remarkable entourage crashing through the doorway of the inn, noticing most obviously the startling warrior centering the newcomers, who seemed a reincarnation of mighty Uthegental, in his black plate mail and with that huge trident in hand.
Beside the demon, held off the floor in the squeezing embrace of her serpentine lower torso, a drow commoner grimaced in pain.
The demon took careful measure of the newcomers, saw Malagdorl, and her eyes sparkled with anticipation. In her flush, she squeezed tighter with her tail.
The captured dark elf’s eyes bulged, and he let out a little wheezing sound.
“Have you come to play?” the demon purred. “Such big weapons. Such power and strength. I am overwhelmed.”
“Are you done playing with the rabble?” Malagdorl said.
“Rabble?” the demon echoed. “You fancy yourself above them? What say you?” she asked the others in the room, all shying as much from the drow newcomers as from the demon.
“Oh, so you are a drow of importance,” the demon said, when no reply came.
“I am Malagdorl Del’Armgo, weapons master of the Second House of Menzoberranzan,” the drow proclaimed. “You will soon come to know my name as that of the dark elf who banished you from this plane for a hundred years.”
“Do tell,” she said, her voice taking on a gratingly sharp edge. Her snake tail unwound, spinning and launching the poor captive across the room to crash into the wall, where he slumped and melted to the floor, gasping for air. Each breath brought a soft cry, his broken ribs aching with the simple movement.
The demon’s six arms went to her sides and back, and with the sharp hiss of metal on metal, six weapons came forth: swords and scimitars, a fat khopesh blade and a slender rapier. The weight of each weapon seemed to matter not at all to the huge and mighty demon, possessed of supernatural strength. She spun them about with practiced ease.
“And do you know who I am, Malagdorl Del’Armgo?” the demon purred.
“You are a marilith.”
“No, fool, I am not merely a marilith. I am Marilith!”
Malagdorl puffed out his chest.
“Come, Weapons Master,” Marilith teased. “Come and witness the glory of a true master of weapons.”
The six blades in her hands moved in a mesmerizing dance. Malagdorl’s entourage fanned out around him, three on either side. To a drow, they understood the formidability of this fiend they faced, but these were Barrison Del’Armgo’s elite warriors.
They knew no fear.
With a nod from Malagdorl to left and right, the weapons master led the way. The noble drow warriors stalked in slowly, the commoners in the room all backing to the farthest corners, and Marilith smiling, her snake tail twitching, eager for the fight.
Too eager, Malagdorl thought. He and his entourage were elite warriors, veterans, and they had fought side by side for decades. Surely the demon in front of them knew this. Surely the beast was aware of the reputation of House Barrison Del’Armgo. The weapons master glanced around, expecting other demons—minions of Marilith—to leap from the shadows or crash through the walls.
When he noted nothing, Malagdorl leaped into the fray, stabbing his great trident ahead with a powerful thrust.
In from the sides came his entourage, six drow, twelve swords, rushing and circling, skipping ahead to strike, falling back with great agility.
Marilith’s arms were a blur of motion, her weapons ringing against drow blades, parrying almost every strike. The khopesh swept three swords aside with a single parry, and the rapier darted in behind to drive the nearest foe back. Almost every strike was parried, and those few that got through did little damage against the demonic creature. From the waist up, Marilith appeared as a naked human woman, though gigantic. But her skin was surely that of a major fiend, and even the fine edges of masterfully crafted drow blades could barely dig in.
Her center arms on each side came together in a crossing motion, turning aside Malagdorl’s powerful stab. Back out they went, nearly tearing the trident from the mighty drow’s grasp. He staggered backward a few steps to regroup and secure his grip on the weapon.
And to let his lesser companions bear the brunt of the demon’s initial surge.
Both lines of three became a weave, the drow leaping to and fro, swerving around each other, constantly changing positions and attack angles.
Marilith’s blades worked furiously to keep up, and the ring of weapon-against-weapon became a continuous metallic screech.
Her tail swept out around her left flank, and the three dark elves leaped straight up and tucked their legs—one, two, three—dodging perfectly, and then again as the serpent tail rushed back and swept all the way around to the right.
The three dark elves on that side similarly began their evasion, but Marilith stopped and swung around, bringing all six of her blades to bear on the three now slightly off-balance on her right side, six swords meeting six, though with the strength of a major demon behind the attacking blades.
Her tail snapped the other way, whipping across, and up went the drow again. This time, though, the demon lashed out at them with a spell. She grabbed a huge table from across the room with magical telekinesis and hurled it at the agile trio.
Normally, they would have easily dodged, but now they were up in the air as the table hurtled at them, their twisting and turning less effective.
One got clipped and was sent spinning aside. A second caught the table under the arm and was taken with it across the room to smash into the far wall. The third, though, landed easily out of a spin and leaped right back in at the demon, his momentum carrying his sword hard into Marilith’s lower side.
Malagdorl marked that soldier’s name—Turven’di—for a later salute.
The demon shrieked and jerked about frantically, all of her swords coming to bear on Turven’di, overwhelming him and slashing him in short order, driving him back like a pathetic field mouse in front of a hungry fox. To his credit, the drow warrior did manage to parry the khopesh and another blade with his right-hand sword, neatly picked off a third blade with his left-hand sword, and partially deflected a fourth, turning the angle of attack so that it merely stung him as it grazed past.
But the fifth, an underhand cut, got him deep in the thigh, and with his lurch, he had no defense at all against the sixth.
An overhead chop from Marilith’s top right arm brought that last weapon, a short, wide-bladed sword straight down into the hollow between Turven’di’s neck and left shoulder. The weight and bite of the blow dropped him to his knees, but there he jolted, caught upright long enough for Marilith to sink the sword deeper and deeper, through flesh and bone, through his lung, tearing the side of his heart. A fountain of blood erupted as the blade disappeared into doomed Turven’di. The wound was mortal, but even worse, the poor doomed drow realized, his eyes going wide, this was an Abyssal blade, a soul-capturing weapon. Marilith let go and the sword transformed into a swirl of blackness that engulfed the dying drow, chasing him down to the floor even as the magic ushered his soul to the hopelessness of the Abyss.
It had all happened in a few blinks of an eye, but in the momentary distraction, the remaining elite guards went right back in. Marilith accepted their first strikes, but then met them, three arms sweeping back to engage those from her right, a fourth going at the warrior who had been clipped by the table, as she swung fully around.
Still back a few strides, Malagdorl saw his opening and in he charged, batting aside Marilith’s last-moment attempted parry and driving his trident in hard between the demon’s breasts. With strength beyond that of any other drow in Menzoberranzan, the nephew of Uthegental crouched forward and bore in, pressing and twisting.
Magical rage burst from the demon—every burning sconce in the room exploded in wild pyrotechnics, more objects came flying in from every angle—and the enraged Marilith sent her swords into purely offensive routines, giving hits to the dark elves around her and accepting strikes without apparent concern. Her tail lashed out left and right, then came forward to snap at Malagdorl, to wrap around him and lift him away.
The coils tightened around him. He felt his bones bending and crunching, but he tightened his great muscles and growled through it, watching his warriors leaping all around the demon, and seeing his trident still stuck deeply into Marilith’s chest.
In a great exhale, Marilith unwound her tail, hurling Malagdorl across the room, where he shattered a table and chairs and crashed through the mushroom-stalk planking of the wall. All the other dark elves flew from her as well, her physical shrug accompanied by a burst of telekinesis and a wild sweep of tail and weapons.
Everything seemed to pause for many heartbeats, with Marilith slowly rotating to look at Malagdorl.
“Does it hurt, son of Barrison Del’Armgo?” she asked, blood pouring from her mouth with every determined word.
“You are banished, demon,” Malagdorl replied, his voice pained. Every breath sent fire through his surely broken ribs. “A hundred years …”
“Not so long,” the demon roared, and she laughed wickedly and simply melted away, the great trident of Malagdorl falling flat to the floor with a metallic clang.
“I will be waiting for you,” Malagdorl threatened, and the voice of Marilith, the demonic spirit still hovering about the room, responded, “I know,” and laughed again.
Six drow limped out of the common room and onto the Stenchstreets, dragging dead Turven’di to strap him across the back of his lizard mount. They were all bloody, some with serious wounds, Malagdorl so twisted and broken that he could barely hold himself in his saddle.
But he did, and he managed to straighten a bit with every lizard stride back across the city, his pride overruling his pain.
By the time they reached the gates of the city’s Second House, another of the band had fallen unconscious, clearly near death, but the remaining guards and their noble leader spoke only of victory.
They had battled and defeated a major demon, banishing the beast back to the smoke of the Abyss. Indeed was this one a foul beast, especially so in the measure of House Barrison Del’Armgo, because they knew that Marilith served at the pleasure of Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre.
Matron Mother Mez’Barris personally greeted the victorious but battered group with spells of healing, and ordered a great feast in their honor, in honor mostly of Malagdorl, whom she proclaimed openly as the greatest weapons master of Menzoberranzan.
“YOU DID NOT kill the son of House Barrison Del’Armgo?” Lolth asked Marilith when they were together again in the Demonweb Pits.
“He will grimace in pain for many days, whatever spells the priestesses might employ, but he lives,” Marilith assured her. “I killed only the one warrior.”
Lolth nodded her appreciation. “And Malagdorl of Barrison Del’Armgo will be celebrated in many corners not loyal to House Baenre,” she said. “Matron Mother Mez’Barris will be emboldened, surely, perhaps enough to even speak of this at the next meeting of the Ruling Council.”
“I wanted to kill them all,” Marilith remarked.
Lolth nodded again, certainly understanding and appreciating that this chaotic creature had stayed her murderous hands, had suppressed that which came so naturally to her, and instead had acceded to Lolth’s requests—no small feat for a major demon in the heat of combat!
“It will not be a hundred years,” Lolth assured her.
“How long?”
“Yes, do tell, Spider Queen of Chaos?” asked a third voice, and the two turned to regard the balor Errtu, striding over to join them.
“When the archmage diminishes the barrier of the Faerzress, you will find your freedom,” Lolth promised, looking to Errtu.
“Freedom to kill the weapons master of Barrison Del’Armgo,” Marilith said. She cooed, a discordant sound that resembled some strange cross between a purr and a hiss.
“Freedom to crush the son of House Baenre,” Errtu growled.
Lolth just nodded and smiled at one and then the other, offering tacit approval. Their tasks would not be as easy as they presumed, she knew. For as chaos grew in her beloved city, the Houses would grow strong once more, ever on alert. Even creatures as mighty as these would realize in the dark elves formidable enemies—enemies aided, of course, by the blessings of the Spider Queen.
Marilith slithered away, but Errtu remained, and Lolth became keenly aware of his penetrating stare. She turned to him at last and noted his toothy smile.
“What do you know, balor?” she asked.
“You strengthened House Baenre under the matron mother,” the beast replied. “You foiled me, and the plot against her, with my prisoner K’yorl. You gave to Quenthel the memories of Yvonnel the Eternal, and so tightened her grip on the City of Spiders.”
“I needed unity and singular purpose.”
“But now the dragons have failed. And now the Weave is beyond you once more, and so … you allow your minions to fall back to chaos. Indeed, you coax the city of Menzoberranzan back to a state of nervous chaos.”
“Order bores me.”
“Great risk.”
Lolth shook her head and snickered.
“Will your children of Menzoberranzan not need that unity and strength when demon lords stalk the Underdark?” Errtu asked bluntly, and Lolth’s eyes flared dangerously, warning him to silence. The Spider Queen calmed quickly, though.
“For some tasks, the drow are stronger in chaos,” she replied. “And beware, always angry Errtu, for the Houses of Menzoberranzan will not suffer the whims of a balor.”
That set the hulking Errtu back on his heels, and a simmering growl escaped his toothy maw.
“And beware now,” she warned. “I will make of you a demon lord, or I will hang you in a cocoon beside Balor, to be nibbled by spiders until I decide otherwise.”
On eight clicking spider legs, Lady Lolth walked away.
THE CHEERS FILTERED through the dark and reached the House Baenre compound, where the matron mother and Sos’Umptu stood on a balcony, looking out across Qu’ellarz’orl, the noble section of Menzoberranzan, to the west and the sprawling compound of House Barrison Del’Armgo.
“I liked them much better when
they resided in the Narbondellyn,” the matron mother quipped. The Second House’s move to this plateau in the city’s southern reaches was a relatively recent event. “The family Armgo is a collection of peasants, and nothing more.”
“They celebrate the triumph of Malagdorl, whom they fancy as the reincarnation of Uthegental now, apparently,” Sos’Umptu remarked.
“Of Malagdorl and a company of elite warriors,” came the fast reminder.
“Still, Marilith was no minor foe.”
The matron mother turned slowly to regard her sister, her face locked in a mask of anger. “Would you like to go and join Mez’Barris in her celebration?”
The high priestess, Mistress of Arach-Tinilith and seated on the Ruling Council, did not shy away from the threat. “We must acknowledge the implications of this unexpected victory for Matron Mother Mez’Barris’s fighting dog. Was there a greater demon in the city at this time than Marilith? And if so, if Marilith can be so readily banished, then why not the others?”
“Let them spend their time and blood chasing the demons about the shadows,” the matron mother said evenly, her voice low, belying her expressed confidence. “There are other demons awaiting my call.” She turned sharply on Sos’Umptu, before the other could remark that there might be, but now there was one less of this particularly devastating type of demon to be summoned.
“I am surprised by the descriptions we have heard of the fight,” Sos’Umptu said. “Marilith did not call in any demonic assistance, and her use of magic was limited, apparently. Her pride betrayed her, so it would seem, but still, that one always before seemed more wise than proud.”
“Clearly not,” said Quenthel, though she wasn’t really disagreeing with any heart, for she, too, had entertained some level of surprise regarding that very point. A creature of Marilith’s power wouldn’t normally fear a squad of seven drow, but Marilith had known Uthegental in centuries past, and so, too, understood well the power of Barrison Del’Armgo warriors.