Matron Baenre sat back easily in the cushioned chair, her withered fingers tapping impatiently on the hard stone arms of the seat. A similar I chair, the only other furnishing in this particular meeting room, rested across from her, and in it sat the most extraordinary mercenary.
Jarlaxle had just returned from Mithril Hall with a report that Matron Baenre had fully expected.
"Drizzt Do'Urden remains free," she muttered under her breath. Oddly enough, it seemed to Jarlaxle as if that fact did not displease the conniving matron mother. What was Baenre up to this time? the mercenary wondered.
"I blame Vierna," Jarlaxle said calmly. "She underestimated the wiles of her younger brother." He gave a sly chuckle. "And paid for her mistake with her life."
"I blame you," Matron Baenre quickly put in. "How will you pay?"
Jarlaxle did not smile, but simply returned the threat with a solid glare. He knew Baenre well enough to understand that, like an animal, she could smell fear, and that smell often guided her next actions.
Matron Baenre matched the stern look, fingers tap-tapping.
"The dwarves organized against us more quickly than we believed possible," the mercenary went on after a few uncomfortable moments of silence. "Their defenses are strong, as is their resolve and, apparently, their loyalty to Drizzt Do'Urden. My plan" - he emphasized the personal reference - "worked perfectly. We took Drizzt Do'Urden without much trouble. But Vierna, against my wishes, allowed the human spy his deal before she had put enough distance between us and Mithril Hall. She did not understand the loyalty of Drizzt Do'Urden's friends."
"You were sent to retrieve Drizzt Do'Urden," Matron Baenre said too quietly. "Drizzt is not here. Thus, you have failed."
Jarlaxle went silent once more. There was no sense in arguing Matron Baenre's logic, he knew, for she needed no approval, and sought none, in any of her actions. This was Menzoberranzan, and in the drow city, Matron Baenre had no peer.
Still, Jarlaxle wasn't afraid that the withered matron mother would kill him. She continued with her tongue-lashing, her voice rising into a shriek by the time she was done with the scolding, but, through it all, Jarlaxle got the distinct impression that she was enjoying herself. The game was still on, after all; Drizzt Do'Urden remained free and waiting to be caught, and Jarlaxle knew that Matron Baenre would not see the loss of a couple dozen soldiers - male, at that - and Vierna Do'Urden as any great price.
Matron Baenre then began discussing the many ways that she might torture Jarlaxle to death - she favored "skin-stealing," a drow method of taking a victim's skin, one inch at a time, using various acids and specially designed jagged knives.
Jarlaxle had all he could handle in biting back his laughter at that notion.
Matron Baenre stopped suddenly, and the mercenary feared that she had figured out that he was not taking her seriously. That, Jarlaxle knew, could be a fatal mistake. Baenre didn't care about Vierna or the dead males - she apparently was pleased that Drizzt was still on the loose - but to wound her pride was to surely die a slow and agonizing death.
Baenre's pause went on interminably; she even looked away. When she turned back to Jarlaxle, he breathed a sincere sigh of relief, for she was at ease, smiling widely as though something had just come to her.
"I am not pleased," she said, an obvious lie, "but I will forgive your failure this time. You have brought back valuable information."
Jarlaxle knew who she was referring to.
"Leave me," she said, waving her hand with apparent disinterest.
Jarlaxle would have preferred to stay longer, to get some hint at what the beautifully conniving matron mother might be plotting. He knew better than to contradict Baenre when she was in such a curious mood, though. Jarlaxle had survived as a rogue for centuries because he knew when to take his leave.
He pulled himself up from the chair and eased his weight onto a broken leg, then winced and nearly fell over into Baenre's lap. Shaking his head, Jarlaxle picked up his cane.
"Triel did not complete the healing," the mercenary said apologetically. "She treated my wound, as you instructed, but I did not feel that all of her energy was into the spell."
"You deserve it, I am sure," was all the cold Matron Baenre would offer, and she waved Jarlaxle away once more. Baenre had probably instructed her daughter to leave him in pain, and was probably taking great pleasure in watching him limp from the room.
As soon as the door was closed behind the departing mercenary, Matron Baenre enjoyed a heartfelt laugh. Baenre had sanctioned the attempt at capturing Drizzt Do'Urden, but that did not mean that she hoped it would succeed. In truth, the withered matron mother was hoping that things would turn out pretty much as they had.
"You are not a fool, Jarlaxle. That is why I let you live," she said to the empty room. "You must realize by now that this is not about Drizzt Do'Urden. He is an inconvenience, a moss gnat, and hardly worthy of my thoughts.
"But he is a convenient excuse," Matron Baenre went on, fiddling with a wide dwarven tooth, fashioned into a ring and hanging on a chain about her neck. Baenre reached up and undid the clasp on the necklace, then held the item aloft in the palm of her hand and chanted softly, using the ancient Dwarvish tongue.
For all the dwarves in all the Realms
Heavy shields and shining helms,
Swinging hammers, hear them ring,
Come forth my prize, tormented King!
A swirl of bluish smoke appeared at the tip of the dwarf tooth. The mist gained speed and size as the seconds slipped past. Soon a small twister stood up from Matron Baenre's hand. It leaned away from her at her mental bidding, intensifying in speed and in light, growing as it stretched outward. After a few moments, it broke free of the tooth altogether and swirled in the middle of the room, where it glowed a fierce blue light.
Gradually an image formed in the middle of that swirl: an old, gray-bearded dwarf standing very still in the vortex, upraised hands clenched tightly.
The wind, the blue light, died away, leaving the specter of the ancient dwarf. It was not a solid image, merely translucent, but the ghost's distinctive details - the red-tinged gray beard and steel-gray eyes - showed clearly.
"Gandalug Battlehammer," Matron Baenre said immediately, utilizing the binding power of the dwarf's true name to keep the spirit fully under her command. Before her stood the First King of Mithril Hall, the patron of Clan Battlehammer.
The old dwarf looked at his ancient nemesis, his eyes narrowed in hatred.
"It has been too long," Baenre teased.
"I'd walk an eternity o' torment as long as I'd the guarantee that yerself'd not be there, drow witch!" the ghost replied in its gravelly voice. "I'd ..."
A wave of Matron Baenre's hand silenced the angry spirit. "I did not recall you to hear your complaints," she replied. "I thought to offer you some information that you might find entertaining."
The spirit turned sideways and cocked his hairy head to stare over his shoulder, pointedly looking away from Baenre. Gandalug was trying to appear indifferent, removed, but like most dwarves, the old king was not so good at hiding his true feelings.
"Come now, dear Gandalug," Baenre teased. "How boring the waiting must be for you! Centuries have passed as you have sat in your prison. Surely you care how your descendants fare."
Gandalug turned a pensive pose over the other shoulder, back toward Matron Baenre. How he hated the withered old drow! Her talk of his descendants alarmed him, though, that much he could not deny. Heritage was the most important thing to any respectable dwarf, even above gems and jewels, and Gandalug, as the patron of his clan, considered every dwarf who allied himself with Clan Battlehammer as one of his own children.
He could not hide his worry.
"Did you hope that I would forget Mithril Hall?" Baenre asked teasingly. "It has been only two thousand years, old king."
"Two thousand years," Gandalug spat back disgustedly. "Why don't ye just lay down and die, old witch?"
"Soon," Baenre answered and nodded at the truth of her own statement, "but not before I complete what I began two thousand years ago.
"Do you remember that fateful day, old king?" she went on, and Gandalug winced, understanding that she meant to replay it again, to open old wounds and leave the dwarf in perfect despair.
When the halls were new, when the veins ran thick,
Gleaming walls, with silver slick,
When the king was young, the adventure fresh,
And your kinfolk sang as one
When Gandalug ruled from the mithril throne
Clan Battlehammer had begun.
Compelled by the magic within Matron Baenre's continuing chant, Gandalug Battlehammer found his thoughts cascading back along the corridors of the distant past, back to the time of the founding of Mithril Hall, back to when he looked ahead with hope for his children, and their children after them.
Back to the time right before he had met Yvonnel Baenre.
Gandalug stood watching the cutting as the busy dwarves of Clan Battlehammer chipped away at the sloping walls of the great cavern, cutting the steps that would become the Undercity of Mithril Hall. This was the vision of Bruenor, Gandalug's third son, the clan's greatest hero, who had led the procession that had brought the thousand dwarves to this place.
"Ye did well in givin' it to Bruenor," the dirty dwarf beside the aged king remarked, referring to Gandalug's decision to award his throne to Bruenor, and not to Bruenor's older brothers. Unlike many of the races, dwarves did not automatically award their inheritance or titles to the eldest of their children, taking the more pragmatic approach of choosing which they thought most fitting.
Gandalug nodded and was content. He was old, well past four centuries, and tired. The quest of his life had been to establish his own clan, the Battlehammer clan, and he had spent the better part of two centuries seeking the location of a fitting kingdom. Soon after Clan Battlehammer had tamed and settled Mithril Hall, Gandalug had begun to see the truth, had begun to realize that his time and his duty had passed. His ambitions had been met, and, thus contented, Gandalug found that he could not muster the energy to match the plans his sons and the younger dwarves laid out before him, plans for the great Undercity, for a bridge spanning the huge chasm at the complex's eastern end, for a city above the ground, south of the mountains, to serve as a trading link with the surrounding kingdoms.
It all sounded wonderful to Gandalug, of course, but he hadn't the yearning to see it through.
The old graybeard, his hair and whiskers still showing hints of their previous fiery red, turned an appreciative look upon his dear companion. Through those two centuries, Gandalug could not have asked for a better traveling companion than Crommower Pwent, and now, with one more journey before him, the king who had stepped down from the throne was glad for the company.
Unlike the regal Gandalug, Crommower was dirty. He wore a beard, black still, and kept his head shaved so that his huge, pointed helm would hold a tight fit. "Can't be runnin' into things with me helm turnin' aside, now can I?" Crommower was fond of saying. And in all truth, Crommower Pwent loved to run into things. He was a battlerager, a dwarf with a singular view of the world. If it threatened his king or insulted his gods, he'd kill it, plain and simple. He'd duck his head and skewer the enemy, slam the enemy with his glove nails, with his elbow spikes, with his knee spikes. He'd bite an enemy's ear off, or his tongue out, or his head off if he could. He'd scratch and claw and kick and spit, but most of all, he'd win.
Gandalug, whose life had been hard in the untamed world, valued Crommower above all others in his clan, even above his precious and loyal children. That view was not shared among the clan. Some of the dwarves, sturdy as they were, could hardly tolerate Crommower's odor, and the squealing of the battlerager's ridged armor grated as sourly as fingernails scratching a piece of slate.
Two centuries of traveling beside someone, of fighting beside someone, often in desperate straits, tends to make such facts diminish.
"Come, me friend," old Gandalug bade. He had already said his farewells to his children, to Bruenor, the new King of Mithril Hall, and to all his clan. Now was the time for traveling again, with Crommower beside him, as it had been for so many years. "I go to expand the boundaries of Mithril Hall," Gandalug had proclaimed, "to seek greater riches for me clan." And so the dwarves had cheered, but more than one eye had been teary that day, for all the dwarves understood that Gandalug would not be coming home.
"Think we'll get a good fight or two outta this?" Crommower eagerly asked as he skittered along beside his beloved king, his armor squealing noisily every step of the way.
The old graybeard only laughed.
The two spent many days searching the tunnels directly below and west of the Mithril Hall complex. They found little in the way of the precious silvery mithril, though - certainly no hints of any veins to match the huge deposits back in the complex proper. Undaunted, the two wanderers then went lower, into caverns that seemed foreign even to their dwarven sensibilities, into corridors where the sheer pressure of thousands of tons of rock pushed crystals out in front of them in swirling arrays, into tunnels of beautiful colors, where strange lichen glowed eerie colors. Into the Underdark.
Long after their lamp oils had been exhausted, long after their torches had burned away, Crommower Pwent got his fight.
It started when the myriad of color patterns revealed by heat-sensing dwarven infravision blurred to gray and then disappeared altogether in a cloud of inky blackness.
"Me king!" Crommower called out wildly. "I've lost me sight!"
"As have I!" Gandalug assured the smelly battlerager, and, predictably, he heard the roar and the shuffle of anxious feet as Crommower sped off, looking for an enemy to skewer.
Gandalug ran in the noise of the battlerager's wake. He had seen enough magic to understand that some wizard or cleric had dropped a globe of darkness over them, and that, the old graybeard knew, was probably only the beginning of a more direct assault.
Crommower's grunts and crashes allowed Gandalug to get out of the darkened area with relatively few bruises. He caught a quick look at his adversary before yet another globe dropped over him.
"Draw, Crommower!" Gandalug cried, terror in his voice, for even back then, the reputation of the merciless dark elves sent shivers along the backbones of the hardiest surface dwellers.
"I seen 'em," came Crommower's surprisingly easy reply. "We oughtta kill about fifty o' the skinny things, lay 'em flat out with their hands above their heads, and use 'em for window blinds once they're stiffened!"
The sight of draw and the use of magic told Gandalug that he and the battlerager were in tight straits, but he laughed anyway, gaining confidence and strength from his friend's confident manner.
They came bouncing out of the second globe, and a third went over them, this one accompanied by the subtle clicking sound of hand-held crossbows firing.
"Will ye stop doing that?" Crommower complained to the mysterious enemies. "How am I supp - Ow! Why ye dirty sneak-sters! - supposed to skewer ye if I can't see ye?"
When they came out the other side of this globe, into a wider tunnel strewn with tall stalagmite mounds and hanging stalactites, Gandalug saw Crommower yanking a small dart from the side of his neck.
The two slid to a stop; no darkened globe fell over them and no draw were in sight, though both seasoned warriors understood the many hiding places the stalagmite mounds might offer their enemies.
"Was it poisoned?" Gandalug asked with grave concern, knowing the sinister reputation of draw darts.
Crommower looked at the small quarrel curiously, then put its tip to his lips and sucked hard, furrowing his bushy eyebrows contemplatively and smacking his lips as he studied the taste.
"Yup," he announced and threw the dart over his shoulder.
"Our enemies are not far," Gandalug said, glancing all around.
"Bah, they probably runned away," snickered Crommower. "Too bad, too. Me helm's getting rusty. Could use a bit o' skinny elf blood to grease it proper. Ow!" The battlerager growled suddenly and grasped at a new dart, this one sticking from his shoulder, Following its up-angled line, Gandalug understood the trap - draw elves were not hiding among the stalagmites, but were up above, levitating among the stalactites!
"Separate!" the battlerager cried. He grabbed Gandalug and heaved him away. Normally, dwarves would have stayed together, fought back-to-back, but Gandalug understood and agreed with Crommower's reasoning. More than one friendly dwarf had taken a glove nail or a knee spike when wild Crommower went into his fighting frenzy.
Several of the dark elves descended swiftly, weapons drawn, and Crommower Pwent, with typical battlerager intensity, went berserk. He hopped all around, slamming elves and stalagmites, skewering one draw in the belly with his helmet spike, then cursing his luck as the dying draw got stuck. Bent over as he was, Crommower took several slashing hits across his back, but he only roared in rage, flexed his considerable muscles and straightened, taking the unfortunate, impaled draw along for the ride.
With Crommower's insanity occupying most of the enemy force, Gandalug did well initially. He faced off against two draw females. The old dwarf was quite taken with how beautiful these evil creatures were, their features angled, but not sharp, their hair more lustrous than a well-groomed dwarven lady's beard, and their eyes so very intense. That observation didn't slow Gandalug's desire to gash the skin off the draw faces, though, and he whipped his battle-axe back and forth, battering aside shields and blocking weapons alike, forcing the females back.
But then Gandalug grimaced in pain, once, again, and then a third time, as some unseen missiles scorched into his back. Magical energy slipped through his fine plate armor and bit at his skin. A moment later, the old graybeard heard Crommower growl in rage and sputter, "Damn wizard!" He knew then that his friend had been similarly assaulted.
Crommower spotted the magic-thrower from under the dangling legs of the now-dead draw impaled on his helmet. "I hates wizards," he grumbled and began punching his way toward the distant draw.
The wizard said something in a language that Crommower could not understand, but he should have caught on when the six dark elves he was fighting suddenly parted ranks, opening a direct line between Crommower and the wizard.
Crommower was not in any rational state, though, consumed as he was by the battle rage, the bloodlust. Thinking to get a clear punch at the wizard, he charged ahead, the dead draw flopping atop his helm. The battlerager took no note of the wizard's chanting, no note of the metal rod the draw held out before him.
Then Crommower was flying, blinded by a sudden flash and hurled backward by the energy of a lightning bolt. He slammed a stalagmite hard and slid down to the seat of his pants.
"I hates wizards," the dwarf muttered a second time, and he heaved the dead draw off his head, leaped up, and charged again, smoking and fuming.
He dipped his head, put his helmet spike in line, and thrust forward furiously, bouncing off mounds, his armor scraping and squealing. The other dark elves he had been fighting came in at his sides, slashing with fine swords, banging with enchanted maces as the battlerager plowed through the gauntlet, and blood ran freely from several wounds.
Crommower's single cry continued without interruption; if he felt the wounds at all, he did not show it. Rage, focused directly on the draw wizard, consumed him.
The wizard realized then that his warriors would not be able to stop the insane creature. He called on his innate magic, hoping that these outrageous dwarf-things couldn't fly, and began to levitate from the floor.
Gandalug heard the commotion behind him and winced every time it sounded as though Crommower took a hit. But the old graybeard could do little to help his friend. These draw females were surprisingly good fighters, working in perfect concert and parrying all his attacks, even managing to get in a few hits of their own, one slashing with a cruelly edged sword, the other whipping a fiercely glowing mace. Gandalug bled in several places, though none of the wounds was serious.
As the three settled into a dancing rhythm, the mace-wielder stepped back from the fight and began an incantation.
"No, ye don't," Gandalug whispered, and he drove hard into the sword-wielder, forcing her into a clinch. The slender draw was no physical match for the tough dwarf's sheer strength, and Gandalug heaved her back, to collide with her companion and disrupt the spell.
On came the old graybeard, the First King of Mithril Hall, battering the two with his emblazoned shield, slamming them with the foaming mug standard of the clan he had founded.
Back down the corridor, Crommower turned to the side, virtually ran up a stalagmite, and leaped high, his helmet spike driving into the rising wizard's knee, splintering the kneecap and cutting right out the back of the leg.
The wizard screamed in agony. His levitation was strong enough to hold them both aloft, and in the blur of pain, the frightfully wounded draw couldn't think to release the spell. They hung weirdly in midair, the wizard clutching his leg, his hands weak with pain, and Crommower thrashing from side to side, destroying the leg and punching up with his glove nails. He smiled as he sank them deep into the draw's thighs.
A rain of warm blood descended over the battlerager, feeding his frenzy.
But the other draw were under Crommower, and he was not that high from the ground. He tried to tuck his legs under him as swords slashed his feet. He jerked then, and understood that this would be his final battle, as one draw produced a long lance and stuck it hard into the battlerager's kidney.
The mace-wielder fell back again, around a corner, and Gandalug closed quickly on the female with the sword. He moved as if he would shield rush again, close in tight, and heave her back as he had done before. The crafty old dwarf pulled up short, though, and fell low, his wicked axe coming across and sweeping the draw's feet out from under her. Gandalug fell over her in an instant, accepting one nasty stick from the sword, and dishing out a head-splitting chop in exchange.
He looked up just in time to see a magical hammer appear in midair before him and whack him across the face. Gandalug shifted his thick tongue about curiously, then spit out a tooth, staring incredulously at the young - and this draw was indeed young - female.
"Ye got to be kidding," the old graybeard remarked. He hardly noticed that the female had already launched a second spell, pulling the tooth to her waiting fingers with a magically conjured hand.
The magical hammer continued its assault, scoring a second hit on the side of Gandalug's head as he straightened over the draw. "Ye're dead," he promised the young female, smiling wickedly. His mirth was stolen, though, when a resounding scream split the air. Gandalug had seen many fierce battles; he knew a death cry when he heard it, and he knew that this one had come from a dwarf.
He spent an instant steadying himself, reminding himself that he and old Crommower had fully expected that this would be their last journey. When he focused ahead once more, he saw that the young female had retreated farther around the bend, and he heard her chanting softly. Gandalug knew that other dark elves would soon be at his back, but he determined then that they would find their two female companions dead. The stubborn dwarf stalked ahead, heedless of whatever magic the young draw might have waiting for him.
He spotted her, standing vulnerable in the middle of the passage, eyes closed, hands by her side, as he rounded the corner. In charged the old graybeard - to be intercepted by a sudden whirlwind, a vortex that encircled him, stopped him, and held him in place.
"What're ye about?" Gandalug roared. He fought wildly against the cunning magic, but could not break free of its stubborn grasp, could not even shuffle his feet toward the devious female.
Then Gandalug felt a horrid sensation deep within his breast. He could no longer feel the whipping of the cyclone, but its winds continued, as if they had somehow found a way to pass through his skin. Gandalug felt a tug at his soul, felt as though his insides were being ripped out.
"What're ye . .. ?" he started to ask again, but his words disappeared into blabber as he lost control of his lips, lost control of all his body. He floated helplessly toward the draw, toward her extended hand and a curious item - what was it? he wondered. What was she holding?
His tooth.
Then there was only white emptiness. From a great distance Gandalug heard the chatter of dark elves, and he found one last view as he looked back. A body - his body! - lay dead on the floor, surrounded by several dark elves.
His body...
The dwarf ghost teetered weakly as he came out of the dream, the nightmare, that cruel Yvonnel Baenre, that devious young female, had once again forced upon him. Baenre knew that those recollections were the most horrid torture she could exact upon the stubborn dwarf, and she did so often.
Now Gandalug stared at her with utter hatred. Here they were, nearly two thousand years later, two thousand years of an empty white prison and terrible memories that poor Gandalug could not escape.
"When you left Mithril Hall, you gave the throne to your son," Baenre stated. She knew the story, had forced it out of her tormented prisoner many centuries before. "The new king of Mithril Hall is named Bruenor - that was your son's name, was it not?"
The spirit held steady, kept his gaze firm and determined.
Matron Baenre laughed at him. "Contained in your memories are the ways and defenses of Mithril Hall," she said, "not so different now from what they were then, if I properly understand the ways of dwarves. It is ironic, is it not, that you, great Gandalug, the founder of Mithril Hall, the patron of Clan Battlehammer, will aid in the end of the hall and the clan?"
The dwarf king howled with rage and grew in size, gigantic hands reaching out for Baenre's skinny, withered throat. The matron mother laughed at him again. She held out the tooth and the whirlwind came at her bidding, grabbing at Gandalug and banishing him back to his white prison.
"And so Drizzt Do'Urden has escaped," Matron Baenre purred, and she was not unhappy. "He is a fortunate excuse and nothing more!"
Baenre's evil smile widened as she sat comfortably in her chair, thinking of how Drizzt Do'Urden would allow her to cement the alliance she would need, thinking how coincidence and fate had given her the means and the method for the conquest she had desired for nearly two thousand years.