Lolth's Warrior

Book 3: Way of the Drow

by R. A. Salvatore

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Epic Fantasy; Media Tie-In

Synopsis

The epic conclusion to New York Times bestselling author R. A. Salvatore’s electrifying trilogy, The Way of the Drow, finds Drizzt Do’Urden coming to understand his role as a friend, a father, and a man caught between the darkness and the light.

The drow city of Menzoberranzan has fallen into discontent, sowed by the growing legend of the one who escaped: Drizzt Do’Urden. Now many of the drow—including the city’s most powerful house, led by the Matron Mother—are questioning the influence of the Spider Queen and the very history of the city’s founding.

What secrets lie ahead? The drow are determined to find out, and they’ll stop at nothing to dismantle the very structure they’ve called home.

As social tensions rise and the demands for answers boom, a fight erupts between the adherents of Lolth’s chaotic evil and those drow who demand more, demand better. In the Underdark there are only absolutes and no compromise will be found. With winner taking all, Drizzt Do’Urden cannot and will not remain on the sidelines anymore. This will be an uprising Menzoberranzan will never forget, and the rest of the Forgotten Realms won’t be able to look away. 

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Release date: August 15, 2023

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 432

Sample

Prologue

“Let it play,” the lump of yochlol mud who was Yiccardaria said to her co-conspirator Eskavidne.

“Like the sludge swirling at our feet,” the other handmaiden of Lolth agreed. “As it will, without prediction, chaotic and wonderful. How beautiful it is.”

“Truly marvelous,” Yiccardaria agreed. “It tickles because it flows upon me at unexpected angles. These fools who seek patterns . . .” She shook her head, which, in this particular form, meant that the entire upper half of her half-melted candle-shaped form swayed left and right.

“They need order to make sense of the senseless.”

“They need control. But they can never have control. Not truly.”

“Lolth is chaos and chaos is truth,” said Eskavidne.

“Shall we wager on the outcome?”

“Yes, of course. We mustn’t waste such an enjoyable opportunity.”

“The winner gets to properly train the newest drider when she is sent to us, as surely will happen in the war up above.”

“And the loser?” Eskavidne asked, and she gurgled with laughter—they both did, for there were no losers to be found among them. Just a winner.

“Training that one would be enjoyable, yes,” Eskavidne agreed, knowing exactly the drow Yiccardaria referenced. “She gave her all to Lady Lolth for centuries. Everything. All of it. And to what end? Such a pity. She heads one of the oldest and most loyal houses in the city. For so long, so very long, that one and those around her were strong with Lolth. And now she is not and her fall is complete.”

“No pity,” Yiccardaria corrected. “That is the beauty, the surprise of chaos.”

“So true. And now I wish to win this wager. You choose, my sister, Baenre or Melarn?”

“Zhindia Melarn has much on her side.”

“Including us!”

“For the moment.”

“True, true.”

There came a gurgle of laughter from both yochlols, muddy burps in rapid cadence.

“The Baenres and their allies will win,” Eskavidne decided. “Matron Mother Quenthel or one of her nobles will see the truth before it is too late for their house.”

“No, they are weak now and possessed of mercy. Matron Zhindia is not. She will torture all she can capture, make of them driders. The Blaspheme will turn on the heretics if Zhindia promises them redemption.”

“Some, but not all.”

“But enough. And Zhindia’s alliance is the stronger, for fear of our Spider Queen,” Yiccardaria added. “The Baenre allies may well hide in their holes or desert altogether before long.”

“They are the Baenres,” Eskavidne countered. “They have ruled Menzoberranzan since the beginning. They understand the way of things.”

“They have ruled?” came another voice, melodic and beautiful—to the handmaidens, the most beautiful voice ever spoken. It wasn’t clear if it emphasized “they” or “ruled,” but there was certainly amusement in the tone.

Both turned to see the approach of Lolth, a gigantic spider and drow combination of a being that evoked so many emotions, from love and terror to everything in between.

“Ruled for you, of course,” Eskavidne clarified. “Until the heresy.”

“Ah, yes, the heresy. And a beautiful thing, was it not?” Lolth said with a continual background of hissing laughter filtering across every

word. “When the namesake of Yvonnel the Eternal was first given a taste of stealing back from me the rogue who had been turned into a drider, she simply could not resist.”

“Pure chaos,” said Yiccardaria. “And no more confused and disjointed than in the minds of those driders who rushed through the web she wove with the Matron Mother.”

“A masterstroke. I commend your play these last months,” Lolth told the two. “I expected no less of you and am not disappointed.”

“Your praise is all,” the two recited together.

“Your part is done, then,” Lolth explained. “You have rolled the stones from the mountaintop, and now we must just watch and enjoy where the trails and valleys take them.”

Few could recognize the face of a yochlol in its true form, and fewer still could understand the expressions on those muddied gobs. Lolth was one of the few non-yochlol beings who could decipher those strange facial tics.

“Why do you appear disappointed?” Lolth asked. “You have rolled the stones perfectly, and the damage is done. Your chaotic child is free to bounce and destroy as it will.”

“It was so much fun, though,” said Eskavidne.

“Yes,” Yiccardaria reasoned, realizing Lolth’s will, “but if we continue, then how might we wager without interfering in the outcome?”

“True. But I do so enjoy prompting the zealots and frightening the heretics,” Eskavidne said.

“There are no heretics,” Lolth reminded them.

If it was possible for yochlols to nod, they both did so. “From how afar do we watch?” Yiccardaria asked. “The fires burn bright and there is no limit to their fuel.”

“All the better,” Lolth said. “Watch from afar or play as you will. There are few rules for you here.”

“How many of your children in Menzoberranzan will you allow to die?” Yiccardaria bluntly asked.

“Does it matter in the end?” The spider queen shrugged, ten arms and legs conveying her indifference. “Half may die, but the city will survive. The society may change, but the chaos I’ve bred there will remain.”

“The Baenres could lose control,” Eskavidne warned.

“They already have, and it is a beautiful thing,” Lolth assured them. “Whichever house, if indeed it is a different house, that ascends when the blood has dried will have earned the right to claim the city . . . until the next conflict, of course.”

“And if it is House Baenre, and the heret . . . the upstarts?” Yiccardaria asked.

“Then you two will begin a new play.”

“We will rebuild the City of Shimmering Webs,” Eskavidne offered. “And fill it with any who survive and prefer the old ways, and find for them many more allies, drow and duergar, or any others who would rush to claim Ched Nasad as a home. A rival city to Menzoberranzan until the Baenres are toppled.”

“They will be toppled

 from within,” Yiccardaria insisted.

“From without,” Eskavidne insisted.

“I see that you are already on to your next game,” said Lolth approvingly.

“A competition this time,” Eskavidne agreed. “I think the Baenres will win, and then I will work to defeat them—from without.”

“While I work to defeat them from within,” said Yiccardaria.

“And if Zhindia Melarn and her allies prove victorious?” Lolth asked. “Then the city will be secure in its devotion, so does the play end?”

That gave the two yochlols pause, and they slurped about to look at each other and gurgled in unison, the yochlol version of “hmm.”

“Then we will have to find division within,” said Eskavidne.

“And new enemies without!” Yiccardaria added.

“Perhaps our play is not quite done,” Eskavidne offered. “Our play in this initial game, yes, but there are those on the side of Zhindia who are too ambitious to bow to her.”

“Mez’Barris Armgo,” Yiccardaria purred, and the two gurgled and giggled.

“So if Zhindia should win . . .”

“You see? That is why my word is the truth,” said Lolth. “Chaos is easy. It is the natural way.”

“So we are done now in letting the sides sort, except to watch and enjoy?” Yiccardaria said.

“And to try not to get ourselves banished in the chaos of battle,” Eskavidne added.

“As you will,” Lolth offered them. “There is always enjoyment to be found, and you have earned that.”

“But are there any we must protect?” Yiccardaria asked.

“Who might there be?”

“The young Yvonnel, who has been given so much,” said Eskavidne.

“And Drizzt Do’Urden,” the other handmaiden added. “You have long desired to break him to your side. In death, he may be beyond even your long grasp.”

“Protect none,” Lolth instructed with firm resolve. “If Yvonnel cannot find her way out of this danger, then she is not worth the effort. She has served her purpose in this grand play, and so much sooner than I ever believed possible.”

“And Drizzt Do’Urden?” Yiccardaria pressed when Lolth hesitated.

“He is no longer of any real importance,” Lolth told them. “His actions have helped to bring the city to this needed time of cleansing, this beautiful time of carnage and chaos. But this is the expected and anticipated culmination of his journey. His use to us will be greater if he is killed, for he will become then true legend, a martyr for the foolish, and forever a whisper of false hope and heresy.

“An unwitting symbol of what devotion to my chaos can bring. “Protect none,” the godlike Spider Queen finished. “You have rolled the stones from the mountaintop. Enjoy their paths of destruction.”

Part 1
Malaise

My previous malaise embarrasses me. When I returned to this life, I did so without the proper appreciation of . . . this life! And with that shortcoming, so, too, did I pass that malaise on to those around me. Not intentionally, no, but my actions and words, my detachment from the very responsibilities of friendship, of partnership, of parenting, could not be ignored, even as I worked harder to cover them up.

That which I had witnessed in what I believe is the next existence had brought upon me a great despair, and an almost overwhelming sense of the smallness of our current state of being. Not outwardly, but within my own consciousness.

I could not have been more wrong.

How could I have allowed myself to be so tempted by that which might come next, to ignore that which is here and now? It took a ferocious battle, a great victory, a great personal loss, and a moment of shared exultation to show me my errors.

Callidae was more than I could have ever hoped for—for all of us who were born and raised in Menzoberranzan, the journey through that city among the aevendrow was the fulfillment of our (almost always secret) hopes and visions and lamentations of what Menzoberranzan might have been.

For me, it also ended a personal debate that, from the beginning, seemed to have an obvious answer—yet still, it was immensely satisfying to see my beliefs proven so dramatically:

It was Lolth. Always Lolth.

Not the religion of her worshippers—for how can anyone rightly call it a religion, after all, since the “divine being” for whom you’re supposed to take on as a matter of faith is, in fact, a dictatorial menace who’s often meddling directly with her “flock,” and surely doling out extreme punishments directly? Worshipping Lolth in Menzoberranzan isn’t a matter of faith—hardly! It’s not even obeisance, or any expression of deserved respect or gratitude or any such thing. No, it is blind obedience, a subjugation of one’s own will stemming from either a hunger for power—such as with many of the ruling matrons—or simple, logical terror for almost everyone else.

I will shake my head until it clears, until I somehow come to understand this notion of fear as a great motivation.

But while that has always been a compelling issue for me—and will continue to plague my thoughts and drive my actions—I also must take time to examine my own thoughts and feelings regarding Callidae, my here and now.

That is the most pressing thing, and another important realization: the need to live in the present.

And here I must admit my foolishness in allowing the beauty of transcendence to almost steal so much from me. For if the journey from this life to the next is what I now believe it to be, then yes, had I remained in that higher state, outside of this mortal body, dead to this life and alive in the next, I would have learned of Callidae and of all the other drow cities and clans the aevendrow told me existed throughout the surface world of Faerun. I would have known them in t

hat oneness, in that complete and beautiful understanding.

But would I have felt them? Would I have felt Callidae with the living sensations that overwhelmed me up there on the icy shelf when first I looked over the city? Would I have held Catti-brie for support, and kissed her so dearly for bringing me to that place? Would my joy have multiplied by the look on her face in sharing this discovery she and the others had made with me? And would my joy grow even more in seeing Jarlaxle’s smile, Zaknafein’s nod, and even the glow that emanated so clearly from Artemis Entreri? By the look on the face of Jarlaxle as he, at long last, found what he had spent much of his life seeking?

We shared a lot on that high ledge when he nodded knowingly to me.

Would I have found wonder in the sublime calm of Kimmuriel, who at long last had found a measure of value and caring that he before could only hope existed?

Or in the sobs of Gromph (though he did well to hide them), the great and powerful Archmage at long last humbled into admitting his own feelings, overwhelmed as he had never before allowed, by something beyond his control, by something that had brought him such joy that was not of his own making?

As much as the sight of Callidae had meant to me—and I cannot understate the importance of realizing that place and those aevendrow—sharing that moment with the others, absorbing their myriad expressions and emotions and taking them as my own and giving to them my own, made it all the more wonderful.

And that is the rub of transcendence. That is the fear I hold of losing something this special if, indeed, there is no individuality. And since this is an answer I cannot yet know, then this is a fear I cannot yet dismiss.

But so be it.

Because, now, finally, I understand.

I am in this moment of my journey, in this forming word of my story.

The present will not be a prisoner of the past.

The present will not be a servant for the future.

In the weight of it all, it is the journey that matters, the moment, the forming word.

I will continue to speak it until I’m ready for that new, different conversation.

—Drizzt Do’Urden

 

Chapter 1
Lines Drawn and Legs Quartered

“I had great hopes for her,” Yvonnel Baenre admitted to Matron Mother Quenthel. The powerful drow was frustrated. She had thought that Kyrnill Melarn—who had once been Matron Kyrnill Kenafin and was not thrilled at the current arrangement that had put her into the family and service of the zealous Zhindia—would be her informant in her designs for defeating Zhindia and her Lolthian minions.

But Kyrnill had steered them wrong by indicating that House Melarn would attack the Baenres’ allied forces at the lake of Donigarten, when instead the Lolthian forces and their demonic allies had swept into and through House Fey-Branche.

“I will kill her,” said Minolin Fey Baenre, who was standing beside Matron Mother Quenthel’s throne.

“Let us not be quick to presume—” Quenthel started, but Minolin Fey’s huff stopped her short.

The outburst was understandable to the other two women. Minolin was the daughter of Matron Byrtyn Fey, after all, who had been taken in the raid on House Fey-Branche, and was now held prisoner in the city’s formidable Second House, Barrison Del’Armgo.

“I have information that Kyrnill’s daughter, the priestess Ash’ala, was not murdered by Matron Zhindia,” Quenthel explained. “She was tortured most horribly in the milk bath of maggots, but she remains alive.”

“What is left of her remains alive,” Minolin Fey remarked sourly.

“Enough to make her mother rethink her espionage?” Quenthel asked.

“None of the Kenafin line within House Melarn is loyal to Zhindia,” said Yvonnel. “But they are rightfully afraid of her, and of the power that supports her. Whatever the case, our informant is lost to us. We are well beyond that stage of the war now anyway. Only two of the most powerful houses are undeclared now—three, if we consider House Hunzrin truly out of the conflict.”

“Four if House Fey-Branche is likewise sidelined,” Minolin Fey said.

Yvonnel nodded, but only for her mother’s sake. She hadn’t even been thinking of House Fey-Branche when she had made her remark. Byrtyn sat on the Ruling Council, for what that was now worth, of course, but that was more a matter of legacy than the current power of House Fey-Branche. And after the successful and brutal raid by Zhindia’s allies, House Fey-Branche was even less significant in any material way.

The symbolism, however, remained critical.

“We will know of House Fey-Branche soon enough,” Quenthel assured them. “The Ruling Council is called and our demands for Matron Byrtyn and the other captured Fey-Branche nobles have been made quite clear to Matron Mez’Barris Armgo and all else who would side with Zhindia.”

“Faen Tlabbar is the only house left undeclared of the noble eight,” Yvonnel said. “Their actions at that Ruling Council will be critical, as will those of First Priestess Sos’Umptu.”

“Sos’Umptu,” Quenthel echoed with disgust. “She will no longer walk on the edge of a knife. My dear sister will fall to the side of Zhindia Melarn or she will step to our side in this fight.”

“She will wish to remain above the battle, to serve her demon god when 

the blood dries,” said Minolin Fey.

“There is no neutral position,” Quenthel reiterated.

“Oh, but there is,” Yvonnel corrected. “And we will see it often among the houseless drow of the Stenchstreets—and who can blame them? And among the lesser houses, who know that to choose wrong in this war will be their utter demise when, as you said, the blood dries. But for Sos’Umptu, you are right: there is no edge to walk, not now that the knife is blooded.”

“I should have killed Zhindia Melarn when I had the chance those years ago,” Yvonnel remarked.

“The handmaiden stopped you,” Quenthel reminded.

“The handmaiden asked me to stop. Yiccardaria could not have stopped me had I denied her request.” She shook her head. “In that same time, I removed the Curse of Abomination from one of Jarlaxle’s associates, a prelude to the great event you and I created on the surface.”

“What does that tell you?” Quenthel asked.

Yvonnel shook her head, trying to process it all. She had known she could reverse the curse, but it was not something commonly done, of course, even if the one who had been turned into a drider had later been found to be innocent of whatever insult to Lolth had doomed them in the first place. Yet she had known then that she could remove the state of drider from the Bregan D’aerthe scout, and she had done so with handmaidens in the city.

Was it all a tease by Lolth?

“This all occurred before,” Minolin Fey offered then, putting her hand on Yvonnel’s forearm.

“Before?” Quenthel asked.

“Before we knew. Before we came to see the truth. Before we came to understand the great deception that Lolth long ago placed upon our ancestors and the devastating march to this present place in Menzoberranzan. For those of us here in House Baenre now, or siding with House Baenre in this fight, can any hold less blame for following the edicts of Lolth’s handmaidens than Yvonnel? If we are damned by our actions before we came to see the truth, then we are all damned.”

“But we do not believe that,” said Matron Mother Quenthel. “Because if we did, then what reason for this war? Because if we did, then what play was our web to steal the Curse of Abomination from the Blaspheme?

“Because if we did, then what is the point?”

“To any of it,” Yvonnel finished and agreed. “I only wish I had been more prescient in that moment and finished off the zealot Zhindia.”

“You said that already—it’s in the past, and your regrets do us no good now. Besides, Lolth would have found one to replace her,” Quenthel said with a shrug and a sigh.

Yvonnel couldn’t really argue with that.

“At least Zhindia is stupid,” offered Minolin Fey, drawing astonished looks from the other two. Minolin Fey took their surprise as a 

compliment. She rather liked being underestimated by all around her, ally and foe alike. “Well, she is.”

 

He froze when he heard her voice down the natural tunnel from his dungeon door. The part of Dinin that just wanted to get it over with could not stand up to the reality that this might be the moment. For all the dread of waiting for Matron Zhindia to fulfill her promise, the execution of that threat meant that this would be his last day as a living drow.

He began shaking his head, trembling, his eyes darting all about, looking for some escape, though he knew of course that there was none.

Still he searched, forced himself from his paralyzing fear, when he saw the glimmer of light down the uneven and broken tunnel up here in the great cavern’s ceiling above House Melarn.

She was coming.

She was coming for him.

He was going to be a drider again.

No more looking for a way out; Dinin began searching for some way to kill himself. He had held out hope that maybe a reprieve—a rescue—might be coming, but he knew that to be futile now and hoped he had enough agency to go out on his own terms. To end the nightmare before he lived it . . . again. He felt along the walls for the most jagged bit of stone he could find, then backpedaled as far as his small cell would allow.

He bent low, put his arms back behind him, leaned his forehead and face before him. He told himself to go, to rush into the wall. But still, he wasn’t moving!

“Matron Zhindia!” he heard a guard say, not far away.

Dinin sprinted into the wall. He managed to hold his arms back just long enough for his forehead to take the brunt of the impact.

He staggered backward, knees wobbling, blood dripping down over one eye.

But he didn’t fall.

So he ran again, then a third time, then stood right before the jag of stone, beating his head against it.

The world blurred. The dim light became darkness.

The sweet release of death, he thought fleetingly as he fell, fell, and kept falling. He suffered no pain, felt nothing at all except for the sensation of falling.

He heard laughter. He hoped it wasn’t Lolth or one of her handmaidens, hoped that he had somehow escaped the Abyss this time.

Then, so suddenly, he did indeed feel the pain! Burning across his forehead, throbbing in his mind as he returned to consciousness.

He blinked his eyes open to see Matron Zhindia standing over him, laughing at him.

“What fool runs

face-first into a wall?” she chided.

Another spell of healing fell over him—not from Zhindia, but from one of the priestesses standing beside her.

“One who knows that the Curse of Abomination is about to befall him,” that priestess answered the matron.

“He wasn’t even strong enough to kill himself,” added a man standing in the back, one Dinin recognized as Narl’dorltyrr Melarn, the house weapon master. Naldorl, as he was called, like his aunt Zhindia had been a Horlbar noble son back in the days before the houses Horlbar and Kenafin had joined to become House Melarn. Dinin knew this one, or had known him long ago, when he had attended the Academy of Melee-Magthere in the same class as Dinin.

Despite his fears at that moment, Dinin managed a scowl at Naldorl. How many times in Melee-Magthere had Dinin bested this one? And that was before Dinin had returned home for even better training under the tutelage of Zaknafein. Yes, this current situation must be an enjoyable moment for that pathetic warrior.

The attempt to bury his fear under rage only lasted until Matron Zhindia began to speak once more.

“Is this true, son of House Do’Urden?” she purred, moving closer to her prisoner. “Did you not think your time as a true servant of Lolth was exhilarating? Do you fear returning to her service now?”

Dinin didn’t answer. He was quite sure that he didn’t have to answer, given the expression he knew to be on his face, given the way he couldn’t stop darting his gaze about, searching for some way out, and given the warm wetness he felt down his leg.

His legs gave out beneath him. He heard the priestess and Naldorl laughing and tried in vain to turn that mockery and embarrassment into the strength to fight back against his weakness.

But he could not. Nothing could be worse than this. No torture, no pain, no loss whether physical or emotional could come near to the dread of what he knew was about to befall him: the exquisite and unending agony of the Curse of Abomination. He could almost feel his legs splitting and then splitting again, his bones breaking and reshaping, and that interminable, ceaseless, and stinging ringing in his ears.

He felt his captors pick him back up and hold him upright, for his legs could not.

“Perhaps I will stay the verdict, Dinin Do’Urden,” Zhindia said, but he didn’t react, because he was certain that this was just her way of trying to make it even worse—which was impossible, for nothing could be worse!

“Sit him down against the wall,” he heard her order, and a moment later, he crashed hard against the stone and heard a groan escape his lips.

A bucket of water was dumped over him, shocking him back to clarity. He shook

his head and opened his eyes wide, and a flash of possibility came to him—perhaps he could leap up and attack Zhindia and force them to kill him before the transformation.

That thought flew away as soon as the scene before him registered clearly, for now two others were standing beside the matron. They were beautiful and they were fully naked, a pair of drow women, or so they seemed for just a few eyeblinks until they transformed into their true yochlol forms, like towering half-melted candles of mud.

Handmaidens of Lolth.

The notion staggered Dinin. Why were they here? He was nothing to them.

“In this one instance, perhaps I was wrong,” Zhindia said to him. “You see, that is why we have the guidance of Lolth, here in the form of Eskavidne and Yiccardaria. They have counseled me differently, and so as much as I would enjoy watching you break apart and bloat and become again a drider, that may not be your fate. Not now, at least, and on this promise of mine and of these two beautiful creatures beside me, perhaps not ever.

“It remains up to you, though.

“Are you willing to do a service for the Spider Queen, Dinin Do’Urden? Are you willing to serve Lolth in an important task?”

“Anything. Please.” His voice surprised him, the fear and pleading choking out of him. But he did not regret those words, or the speed in which he spat them out.

Zhindia laughed at him and looked to the yochlols in turn, their bubbling chuckles echoing her own.

“You will enjoy this task, I am sure. You do like revenge?”

He nodded slightly, not sure what to make of any of this.

“Then this is something you are well suited to.” She looked at him intently, then said with venomous conviction, “Your brother did all of this to you and to your house. Is it not time for you to repay him?”

“Drizzt?”

“Of course Drizzt, idiot,” Zhindia snapped. “He is coming here, to Menzoberranzan. This is assured. Who better to deliver Lolth’s message to him than the brother he so terribly wronged?”

“He would not know me, and would not trust me,” Dinin heard himself stupidly admit.

“Then what use are you to me?” Zhindia asked, and to the priestess standing over Dinin, she said, “Priestess Calstraa, the scroll.”

“No,” Dinin begged. “No!”

“Who are you to command me?”

“I—”

“You will make Drizzt trust you?” Zhindia asked, although it sounded as much like an order as a question. “And he will know you. Of course, he will.”

“I know you, weakling,” Naldorl said from the other side of Dinin. “Surely he will, too.”

“I cannot defeat Drizzt,” Dinin told Zhindia, and again, the words were simply

too stupid to be spoken aloud.

He was under a magical spell of truth, he realized.

“A boy with a knife can kill a great warrior if he stabs him unexpectedly, perhaps while sleeping. But no, Dinin, Lady Lolth does not want you to kill Drizzt. Why would she? He has brought her great enjoyment through the centuries. No, no, she wants you to wound him, more profoundly than any blade ever could.”

Dinin licked his lips, trying to find the obvious next question and failing.

“Drizzt is married to a human woman, and together, they have brought an abomination of their own into the world,” Zhindia explained. “Kill that abomination. Kill Catti-brie if you find the chance, but only after you murder the one fathered by Drizzt. That alone is your quest. Even one as pathetic as you can find the strength to murder a toddler, yes?

“Then, the worst you can expect is that you will feel the wrath of Drizzt, of Catti-brie, of King Bruenor Battlehammer, of Zaknafein—all of them! They will destroy you if they catch you, of course. But they cannot and will not do to you what I can do—what I surely will do, if you fail. They will kill you, perhaps after some torture, though that is not the way of those particular weaklings. No, they will simply kill you cleanly and swiftly and you will be taken into the arms of Lolth once more, but this time, redeemed.”

Dinin didn’t know how to react or what to do or say.

“We will know if you are lying,” the yochlol to Zhindia’s right said in a gurgling voice.

“Will you do this?” asked the other.

“Or will you be cursed here and now?” Zhindia asked.

“Yes,” Dinin blurted, and it was all pouring out of him now, and it was, of course, very true. Anything, he would do anything, to avoid the Curse of Abomination. He would kill a hundred children, a million children, of any species so condemned. “I will kill the child, and the human woman if I can. I will find a way to kill Drizzt—”

“No!” Zhindia and both handmaidens said together. “Not Drizzt.”

“Drizzt will face Lolth again when you have completed your task,” one of the yochlols explained.

“Okay—I will leave him alone. But how will I find her?” Dinin asked. “The child? Surely he won’t bring her here.”

“With patience,” Zhindia explained. “Perhaps it will take you a year, perhaps ten. It matters not. You will kill the child and Lolth will arrive to inform Drizzt of his loss. And it will be glorious!”

“Glorious” wasn’t the word Dinin would put on such an act, but he would do it.

He would do anything, anything at all, anything and everything, to escape his fate. 

In the southwestern corner of the Qu’ellarz’orl, the raised region of Menzoberranzan where most of the greatest houses were located, sat a set of large ironbound doors, guarded by powerful magic in the arch that surrounded them and by an honor guard contingent from the school of Melee-Magthere.

Whatever bickering or even open fighting going on in the city at any time, it could not pass these doors.

For this was the entrance to the chamber of the Ruling Council, a small natural cavern sparingly adorned and lit by scores of everburning candles. A rather unremarkable altar to Lolth stood at the far end of the chamber, left as it had been in the earliest days of the city’s founding. The room was dominated by a spider-shaped table and eight splendid chairs adorned with jewels. Until recently, the only other piece of furniture within the natural cave was a plain chair reserved for an invited guest, but now a tenth chair had been added—this one as fabulous as those for the eight ruling matrons.

It had been added for the priestess now sitting in it, the First Priestess of the Fane of the Quarvelsharess, also known as the Fane of the Goddess. Like the matrons who would be arriving, she was allowed two bodyguards, and Sos’Umptu’s escorts this day were quite unexpected, quite remarkable, and quite telling. She had been the first to arrive to the council, followed soon after by Matron Mother Quenthel.

Quenthel and her escorting bodyguards, Yvonnel and the House Baenre weapon master Andzrel, said nothing as they entered, although both Quenthel and Yvonnel, recognizing the handmaidens Eskavidne and Yiccardaria flanking Sos’Umptu’s chair, did raise their eyebrows a bit.

The Matron Mother spoke not a word to her sister, nor looked at her with more than a fleeting glance, as she took her seat at the end of the table’s left foreleg, with Yvonnel and Andzrel, who were not permitted to speak in any event, moving to the wall behind her.

The six sat there quietly as the minutes passed.

Quenthel looked at the seat across the spider table’s pedipalps, to the empty chair of Matron Mez’Barris Armgo of the Second House. She had feared that Mez’Barris wouldn’t show up to the meeting, as that would be a statement greater than any the matron might make here. She held out hope that the woman would soon make a grand entrance, an unharmed Matron Byrtyn Fey at her side.

She wiped all expression from her face, stoically watching; despite her desperate hopes, held her breath in hope when the door opened again.

In walked Matron

Vadalma Tlabbar of the city’s Fourth House, Faen Tlabbar, long an ally of House Baenre—but now?

Without a word, Vadalma took her assigned seat next to the chair of Mez’Barris.

Quenthel was pleased that Vadalma had come. She glanced at Sos’Umptu, and couldn’t read the look on her sister’s face as Sos’Umptu, too, considered the latest arrival. On the surface and in normal times, Vadalma seemed an obvious ally of Quenthel’s. But these were not normal times. House Faen Tlabbar was among the most devout Lolthian houses in the city, perhaps second only to the insanely cruel Zhindia Melarn and her brood. Those two houses had long been vicious rivals, ever vying for the favor of the Spider Queen. But if the favor of Lolth was firmly on Melarn, would Vadalma be proud enough to reject Lolth’s will?

The door opened again, but it was not Mez’Barris escorting an unharmed Byrtyn Fey—had it been, Quenthel might have dared to hope that the war was nearing an end with the obvious defeat of Zhindia Melarn.

But no, it was Zeerith Xorlarrin Do’Urden, escorted by her two children, Priestess Saribel and the wizard Ravel.

Quenthel thought that strange, for she had never seen Zeerith’s children serving as house bodyguards at the Ruling Council before.

Old Zeerith wasn’t walking, but rather, floating on a magical disc of blue-white light. It drifted up to her chair, at Quenthel’s side, and there her children helped the ancient matron into her proper seat.

She looked frail, Quenthel saw. Battered and very fretful.

“I feared I was late,” Zeerith said to Quenthel, but loud enough for the others at the table to hear.

“You are,” Sos’Umptu replied.

“And yet I’m not the only one. What word on Matron Byrtyn?” Zeerith asked specifically to Quenthel.

“That is why we are here. To learn of her fate most of all, and to see where the alliances have fallen.”

“If I am late to the council, it would seem we have our answer to the latter question,” said Zeerith.

“Do we?” Sos’Umptu interjected.

“Soon,” Quenthel snapped back at her. “Five of the houses are notably absent, and is it really a surprise? The fourth house would be here, and are here in spirit, and certainly we know House Fey-Branche’s position in the matter before us.”

Across the table, Matron Vadalma cleared her throat, surprising the others and turning all eyes her way.

“I came here to listen, not to speak,” Vadalma said. “But it would seem that there is little you wish to say.”

“What do you mean?” Quenthel asked her.

“I want to know why,” Vadalma explained. “You turned against her!”

“Zhindia? You have no love for Zhindi—”

“Of course not Zhindia. Lady Lolth!” Vadalma clarified. “The heresy . . . how could you—you and that child who now stands behind you in the body of a woman—how could you defy our goddess? Yes, Matron Mother, I have no love for Matron Zhindia

Melarn, and less still for her closest ally, House Mizzrym and that double-dealing Matron Miz’ri.”

“Long have our houses been allied,” Quenthel reminded.

“And longer have I and my house been loyal to the Spider Queen,” she snapped. “That web you and your—is she your grandniece?—wove to steal the Curse of Abomination from eight hundred driders . . .” She stopped and shook her head in disgust.

“It worked!” Quenthel argued.

“It worked against Lolth, you mean. Blasphemy,” spat Vadalma, and Sos’Umptu gave a mocking little chuckle that had Quenthel turning a scowl her way.

“You say it yourself, then.”

“Say what?” Vadalma asked.

“By whose laws is what we did blasphemy? Lolth’s?” Quenthel said, never taking her withering stare off her devout sister, Sos’Umptu. “In that event, by Lolth’s laws, can the attack on House Fey-Branche go unpunished? Can the abduction of Matron Byrtyn go unpunished?”

“A minor squabble by comparison,” Vadalma replied, incredulous. “What you did has broken a covenant of four millennia!”

“Two millennia,” Quenthel corrected. “And a covenant based on lies and false history.”

“Do you hear yourself? In this chamber! You say these are lies and false history. But can you prove that?”

Before Quenthel could answer, the door opened again, and her heart leaped for a moment with hope.

Matron Byrtyn Fey walked into the room, and that hope dropped along with Quenthel’s heart.

For she didn’t really walk into the room. She skittered.

On eight legs.

Behind Sos’Umptu, the two bodyguards began to laugh, something strictly forbidden and punishable by death—except, of course, these two were demon yochlols, ...