Charons Claw Read online

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  Not that the fallen wizard had many associates, in any case.

  “They are not rogues—” Ravel started to say, but Jearth stopped him short with an upraised hand.

  Quietly! the weapons master insisted, flashing the word with his fingers through use of the intricate drow sign language. As he did that, Jearth brought his cloak up with his other hand to shield the signing hand from view, which the secretive drow often referred to as his “visual cone of silence. ”

  Ravel glanced around, then brought one hand in close so that it was shielded by his own voluminous robes. They are not Houseless rogues, his fingers signed.

  Many are.

  Not all. I recognize a soldier of House Baenre. Their weapons master’s assistant, no less!

  Many are commoners of lower Houses.

  But with a Baenre, Ravel insisted.

  At least three, at my last count, Jearth signalled.

  Ravel recoiled, a look of horror on his handsome black-skinned features.

  Did you believe that we could assemble a force of nearly a hundred skilled drow and march out of Menzoberranzan without attracting the attention of Baenre? Of any of the great Houses? Jearth countered, his hand moving as a blur, so fast that Ravel could barely keep up.

  Matron Mother Zeerith will not be pleased.

  She will understand, Jearth signed. She knows well the ever-present eyes of Baenre and Barrison Del’Armgo. She knows that I invited Tiago Baenre, who serves as first assistant to Andzrel Baenre, weapons master of the First House.

  Ravel looked at him doubtfully.

  Tiago is a friend, Jearth explained.

  Disloyal to Baenre?

  Hardly, Jearth admitted. Our entire plan depends upon our success of securing the powers of Gauntlgrym quickly, that the other Houses will see our fledgling city as a boon and not a rival, or at least, that they will think it not worth the cost of coming after us. In that regard, Tiago will be loyal to his House and useful to our cause if we succeed.

  You will do well to embrace Tiago when we are away, Jearth added. Allow him a position of leadership among our expedition. Doing so will afford us a longer time period before exhausting the patience of House Baenre.

  Keep our enemies close, Ravel’s fingers signaled.

  “Potential enemies,” Jearth replied aloud. “And only if that potential is not realized will House Xorlarrin succeed. ”

  You doubt the power of Matron Mother Zeerith and House Xorlarrin? Ravel flashed indignantly.

  I know the power of Baenre.

  Ravel started to argue the point, but he didn’t get far, his fingers barely forming a letter. He had tutored under Gromph Baenre. He had often accompanied Gromph to the archmage’s private chambers within the compound of the First House of Menzoberranzan. Ravel was a proud Xorlarrin noble, but even the blindness wrought of loyalty had its limits.

  He realized that he could not argue Jearth’s point; if it came to blows, House Baenre would obliterate them.

  “Would you like an introduction to Tiago Baenre?” Jearth asked aloud.

  Ravel smiled at him, a clear sign of surrender, and nodded.

  Young, handsome, and supremely confident, Tiago Baenre guided his lizard along the wall of an Underdark corridor. Even with his saddle perpendicular to the floor, the agile Tiago sat easy, his core muscles locked tightly, keeping him straight and settled. He wasn’t leading the march of a hundred drow, double that number of goblin shock troops, and a score of driders—nay, Ravel had sent two-score goblins up ahead to make sure the way was clear of monsters—but as the leagues wore on, it became apparent to all that Tiago was guiding the pace.

  His sticky-footed subterranean lizard, Byok, was a champion, bred for speed and stamina, and with, so it was rumored, a bit of magical enhancement.

  He thinks us his lessers, Ravel flashed to Jearth at one juncture.

  He is Baenre, Jearth replied with a shrug, as if that explained everything, because indeed it did.

  The clacking of exoskeleton scrabbling across the floor drew their attention, and Ravel pulled up his own mount and turned sidelong to greet the newcomer.

  “A goblin stabbed at my consort, Flavvar,” said the creature. Half gigantic spider, half drow, the speaker’s voice came through with a timbre that was as much insect as it was the melodic sound of a drow voice. Once this creature had been a drow, but he had run afoul of the priestesses of Lolth. Far afoul, obviously, for they had transformed him into this abomination.

  “Out of fear, no doubt,” said Jearth. “Did she creep up on him?”

  The drider, Yerrininae, scowled at the weapons master, but Jearth just grinned and looked away.

  “Did the goblin damage her?” Ravel asked.

  “It startled her and startled me. I responded. ”

  “Responded?” Ravel asked suspiciously.

  “He threw his trident into the goblin,” Jearth reasoned, and when Ravel looked at Yerrininae, he noted that the drider puffed out its chest proudly and made no effort to argue the point.

  “We intend to dine on the fool,” the drider explained, turning back to Ravel. “I request that we slow our march, as we would like to consume it before too much of its liquids have drained. ”

  “You killed the goblin?”

  “Not yet. We prefer to dine on living creatures. ”

  Ravel did well to hide his disgust. He hated driders—how could he not?— thoroughly disgusting beasts, one and all. But he understood their value. If the two hundred goblins sought revenge and turned their entire force on the driders in a coordinated assault, the twenty driders would slaughter all two hundred in short order.

  “Would you be so tactful as to do it out of sight of the goblin’s companions?” the spellspinner asked.

  “A better message might be delivered if—”

  “Out of sight,” Ravel insisted.

  Yerrininae stared at him for a few moments, as if measuring him up—and Ravel knew that he and his drow companions would be constantly scrutinized by this band of dangerous allies—but then nodded and skittered away noisily.

  Why did you bring them along? Jearth’s hands signaled as soon as Yerrininae had started off.

  It is a long and dangerous road, and ending at a complex no doubt defended, Ravel countered, twisting his hands and fingers with emphatic movement. We are but two days out of Menzoberranzan and already we move more slowly in anticipation of a fight around every corner. Do you doubt the fighting prowess of Yerrininae and his band?

  I don’t doubt the prowess of a band of devils, Jearth’s fingers signed. And they would be easier to control, and less likely to murder us.

  Ravel smiled and shook his head, confident that it would not come to that. His relationship with Yerrininae went far back, to his earliest days in Sorcere. The drider, under orders from Gromph—and no one, drider or drow, dared disobey Gromph—had worked with Ravel on some of his earliest expeditions, guarding the young spellspinner as he had ventured into the Underdark beyond Menzoberranzan in search of some herb or enchanted crystal.

  Yerrininae and Ravel had a long-standing arrangement. The drider would not go against him. Besides, Matron Mother Zeerith had sweetened the prize for Yerrininae, hinting that if this expedition proved successful, if House Xorlarrin was able to establish a city in the dwarf homeland of Gauntlgrym, she would afford the driders a House of their own, with full benefits afforded drow, and with Flavvar, Yerrininae’s consort, as Matron. From that position they could, perhaps, regain their standing with Lady Lolth.

  “And who can guess what might happen with the goddess of chaos from there?” Zeerith had teased, not so subtly hinting that perhaps the drider curse could be reversed. Perhaps Yerrininae and his band might walk as dark elves once more.

  No, Ravel did not fear that the driders would turn against him. Not with that possible reward dangling before them.

  The old drow mage put down his quill and tilted his head so he
could regard the door to his private room. He had been back in House Baenre for only a matter of hours, seeking a quiet respite wherein he might work some theories around a particularly effective dweomer he had witnessed in Sorcere. He had explicitly asked Matron Mother Quenthel for some privacy, and she, of course, had agreed.

  Gromph might be a mere male, the Elderboy of the House, but none, not even Quenthel, would move against him. Gromph had been one of the pillars of strength of House Baenre beyond the memory of any living Baenre, noble or commoner. The eldest son of the greatest Matron Mother Baenre, Yvonnel the Eternal, Gromph had served as the city’s archmage for centuries. He had weathered the Spellplague and had grown even stronger in the decades since that terrifying event, and though Gromph was quite likely the oldest living drow in Menzoberranzan, his level of involvement in city politics and power struggles, and in the spell research at Sorcere, had only increased, dramatically so, in the last years.

  A thin, knowing grin creased the old drow’s withered lips as he imagined the doubting expression on the face of his soon-to-be visitor. He envisioned the male’s hand lifting to knock, then dropping once more in fear.

  Gromph paused a bit longer, then waggled his fingers at the entrance, and the door swung in—just ahead of the knocking fist of Andzrel Baenre.

  “Do come in,” Gromph bade the weapons master, and he took up his quill and turned his attention back to the spread parchment.

  Andzrel’s boots clapped hard against the stone floor as he strode into the room—stepped forcefully, Gromph noted from the sound. It would seem that Gromph’s action had embarrassed the weapons master.

  “House Xorlarrin moves brashly,” Andzrel stated.

  “Well met to you, too, Andzrel. ” Gromph looked up and offered the much younger male a withering stare.

  Andzrel let a bit of obvious bluster out with his next exaggerated exhale following the mighty wizard’s clear reminder of station and consequence.

  “A sizable force moving west,” Andzrel reported.

  “Led by the ambitious Ravel, no doubt. ”

  “We believe that your student is at their head, yes. ”

  “Former student,” Gromph corrected, pointedly so.

  Andzrel nodded, and lowered his gaze when Gromph did not blink. “Matron Quenthel is concerned,” he said quietly.

  “Though hardly surprised,” Gromph replied. He braced himself on his desk and pushed up from his chair, then smoothed his spidery robes, glistening black and emblazoned with webs and crawling arachnid designs in silver thread. He walked around the side of his desk to a small shelf on the chamber’s side wall.

  Not looking at Andzrel, but rather at a large, skull-shaped crystal gem set on the shelf, the archmage muttered, “The eating habits of fish. ”

  “Fish?” Andzrel finally asked after a long pause, Gromph purposely making no indication that he would clarify the curious statement, or even that he intended to turn back around, without prompting.

  “Have you ever hunted fish with a line and hook?” Gromph asked.

  “I prefer the spear,” the warrior replied.

  “Of course. ” There was little indication of admiration in Gromph’s voice at that point. He did turn around, then, and studying the weapons master’s face, Gromph knew that Andzrel suspected that he had just been insulted. Suspected, but did not know, for that one, for all his cleverness—and he was conniving— could not appreciate the sublime calculations and patience, the simple absence of cadence that was line fishing.