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  "Daermon N’a’shezbaernon," Dinin muttered under his breath, using the formal and ancestral reference to House Do’Urden. "Ninth House of Menzoberranzan!" He liked the sound of it.

  Halfway across the city, beyond the silver glowing balcony and the arched doorway twenty feet up the cavern’s west wall, sat the principals of House Do’Urden, gathered to outline the final plans of the night’s work. On the raised dais at the back of the small audience chamber sat venerable Matron Malice, her belly swollen in the final hours of pregnancy. Flanking her in their places of honor were her three daughters, Maya, Vierna, and the eldest, Briza, a newly ordained high priestess of Lolth. Maya and Vierna appeared as younger versions of their mother, slender and deceptively small, though possessing great strength. Briza, though, hardly carried the family resemblance. She was big, huge by drow standards and rounded in the shoulders and hips. Those who knew Briza well figured that her size was merely a circumstance of her temperament a smaller body could not have contained the anger and brutal streak of House Do’Urden’s newest high priestess.

  "Dinin should return soon" remarked Rizzen, the present patron of the family, "to let us know if the time is right for the assault."

  "We go before Narbondel finds its morning glow!" Briza snapped at him in her thick but razor-sharp voice. She turned a crooked smile to her mother, seeking approval for putting the male in his place.

  "The child comes this night." Matron Malice explained to her anxious husband, "We go no matter what news Dinin bears."

  "It will be a boy child", groaned Briza, making no effort to hide her disappointment, "third living son of House Do’Or-den."

  "To be sacrificed to Lolth" put in Zaknafein, a former patron of the house who now held the important position of weapon master. The skilled drow fighter seemed quite pleased at the thought of sacrifice, as did Nalfein, the family’s eldest son, who stood at Zak’s side. Nalfein was the elder boy and he needed no more competition beyond Dinin within the ranks of House Do’Orden.

  "In accord with custom," Briza glowered and the red of her eyes brightened. "The aid in our victory!"

  Rizzen shifted uncomfortably. "Matron Malice" he dared to speak, "you know well the difficulties of birthing. Might the pain distract you…"

  "You dare to question the matron mother?" Briza started sharply, reaching for the snake-headed whip so comfortably strapped―and writhing―on her belt. Matron Malice stopped her with an outstretched hand.

  "Attend to the fighting." the matron said to Rizzen. "Let the females of the house see to the important matters of this battle."

  Rizzen shifted again and dropped his gaze.

  Dinin came to the magically wrought fence that connected the keep within the city’s west wall with the two small stalagmite towers of House Do’Urden, and which formed the courtyard to the compound. The fence was adamantite, the hardest metal in all the world, and adorning it were a hundred weapon-wielding spider carvings, each ensorcelled with deadly glyphs and wards. The mighty gate of House Do’Urden was the envy of many a drow house, but so soon after viewing the spectacular houses in the mushroom grove, Dinin could only find disappointment when looking upon his own abode. The compound was plain and somewhat bare, as was the section of wall, with the notable exception of the mithril and adamantite balcony running along the second level by the arched doorway reserved for the nobility of the family. Each baluster of that balcony sported a thousand carvings, all of which blended into a single piece of art.

  House Do’Urden, unlike the great majority of the houses of Menzoberranzan, did not stand free within groves of stalactites and stalagmites. The bulk of the structure was within a cave, and while this setup was indisputably defensible, Dinin found himself wishing that his family could show a bit more grandeur.

  An excited soldier rushed to open the gate for the returning secondboy. Dinin swept past him without so much as a word of greeting and moved across the courtyard, conscious of the hundred and more curious glances that fell upon him. The soldiers and slaves knew that Dinin’s mission this night had something to do with the anticipated battle.

  No stairway led to the silvery balcony of House Do’Urden’s second level. This, too, was a precautionary measure designed to segregate the leaders of the house from the rabble and the slaves. Drow nobles needed no stairs; another manifestation of their innate magical abilities allowed them the power of levitation. With hardly a conscious thought to the act, Dinin drifted easily through the air and dropped onto the balcony.

  He rushed through the archway and down the house’s main central corridor, which was dimly lit in the soft hues of faerie fire, allowing for sight in the normal light spectrum but not bright enough to defeat the use of infra vision. The ornate brass door at the corridor’s end marked the secondboy’s destination, and he paused before it to allow his eyes to shift back to the infrared spectrum. Unlike the corridor, the room beyond the door had no light source. It was the audience hall of the high priestesses, the anteroom to House Do’Urden’s grand chapel. The drow clerical rooms, in accord with the dark rites of the Spider Queen, were not places of light.

  When he felt he was prepared, Dinin pushed straight through the door, shoving past the two shocked female guards without hesitation and moving boldly to stand before his mother. All three of the family daughters narrowed their eyes at their brash and pretentious brother. To enter without permission! he knew they were thinking. Would that it was he who was to be sacrificed this night!

  As much as he enjoyed testing the limitations of his inferior station as a male, Dinin could not ignore the threatening glances of Vierna, Maya, and Briza. Being female, they were bigger and stronger than Dinin and had trained all of their lives in the use of wicked drow clerical powers and weapons. Dinin watched as enchanted extensions of the clerics, the dreaded snake-headed whips on his sisters belts began writhing in anticipation of the punishment they would exact. The handles were adamantite and ordinary enough, but the whips’ lengths and multiple heads were living serpents. Briza’s whip, in particular, a wicked six-headed device; danced and squirmed, tying itself into knots around the belt that held it. Briza was always the quickest to punish.

  Matron Malice, however, seemed pleased by Dinin’s swagger. The secondboy knew his place well enough by her measure and he followed her commands fearlessly and without question.

  Dinin took comfort in the calmness of his mother’s face, quite the opposite of the shining white-hot faces of his three sisters. "All is ready," he said to her "House DeVir huddles within its fence except for Alton, of course, foolishly attending his studies in Sorcere."

  "You have met with the Faceless One?" Matron Malice asked.

  "The Academy was quiet this night." Dinin replied. "Our meeting went off perfectly."

  "He has agreed to our contract?"

  "Alton DeVir will be dealt with accordingly," Dinin chuckled. He then remembered the slight alteration he had made in Matron Malice’s plans, delaying Alton’s execution for the sake of his own lust for added cruelty. Dinin’s thought evoked another recollection as well; high priestesses of Lolth had an unnerving talent for reading thoughts.

  "Alton will die this night," Dinin quickly completed the answer, assuring the others before they could probe him for more definite details.

  "Excellent," Briza growled. Dinin breathed a little easier.

  "To the meld," Matron Malice ordered.

  The four drow males moved to kneel before the matron and her daughters, Rizzen to Malice, Zaknafein to Briza, Nalfein to Maya, and Dinin to Vierna. The clerics chanted in unison, placing one hand delicately upon the forehead of their respective soldier, tuning in to his passions.

  "You know your places" Matron Malice said when the ceremony was completed. She grimaced through the pain of another contraction. "Let our work begin."

  Less than an hour later, Zaknafein and Briza stood together on the balcony outside the upper entrance to House Do’Urden. Below them, on the cavern floor, the second and third brigades o
f the family army, Rizzen’s and Nalfein’s, bustled about, fitting on heated leather straps and metal patches―camouflage against a distinctive elven form to heat-seeing drow eyes. Dinin’s group, the initial strike force that included a hundred goblin slaves, had long since departed.

  "We will be known after this night," Briza said. "None would have suspected that a tenth house would dare to move against one as powerful as DeVir. When the whispers ripple out after this night’s bloody work, even Baenre will take note of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon!" She leaned out over the balcony to watch as the two brigades formed into lines and started out, silently, along separate paths that would bring them through the winding city to the mushroom grove and the five-pillared structure of House DeVir. Zaknafein eyed the back of Matron Malice’s eldest daughter, wanting nothing more than to put a dagger into her spine. As always, though, good judgment kept Zak’s practiced hand in its place.

  "Have you the articles?" Briza inquired, showing Zak considerably more respect than she had when Matron Malice sat protectively at her side. Zak was only a male, a commoner allowed to don the family name as his own because he sometimes served Matron Malice in a husbandly manner and had once been the patron of the house. Still, Briza feared to anger him. Zak was the weapon master of House Do’Urden, a tall and muscular male, stronger than most females, and those who had witnessed his fighting wrath considered him among the finest warriors of either sex in all of Menzoberranzan. Besides Briza and her mother, both high priestesses of the Spider Queen, Zaknafein, with his unrivaled swordsmanship, was House Do’Urden’s trump.

  Zak held up the black hood and opened the small pouch on his belt, revealing several tiny ceramic spheres. Briza smiled evilly and rubbed her slender hands together. "Matron Ginafae will not be pleased," she whispered.

  Zak returned the smile and turned to view the departing soldiers. Nothing gave the weapon master more pleasure than killing drow elves, particularly clerics of Lolth.

  "Prepare yourself." Briza said after a few minutes.

  Zak shook his thick hair back from his face and stood rigid, eyes tightly closed. Briza drew her wand slowly, beginning the chant that would activate the device. She tapped Zak on one shoulder, then the other, then held the wand motionless over his head.

  Zak felt the frosty sprinkles falling down on him, permeating his clothes and armor, even his flesh, until he and all of his possessions had cooled to a uniform temperature and hue. Zak hated the magical chill―it felt as he imagined death would feel―but he knew that under the influence of the wand’s sprinkles he was, to the heat-sensing eyes of the creatures of the Underdark, as gray as common stone, unremarkable and undetectable.

  Zak opened his eyes and shuddered, flexing his fingers to be sure they could still perform the fine-edge of his craft. He looked back to Briza, already in the midst of the second spell, the summoning. This one would take a while, so Zak leaned back against the wall and considered again the pleasant, though dangerous, task before him. How thoughtful of Matron Malice to leave all of House DeVir’s clerics to him!

  "It is done," Briza announced after a few minutes. She led Zak’s gaze upward, to the darkness beneath the unseen ceiling of the immense cavern.

  Zak spotted Briza’s handiwork first, an approaching current of air, yellow-tinted and warmer than the normal air of the cavern. A living current of air.

  The creature, a conjuration from an elemental plane, swirled to hover just beyond the lip of the balcony, obediently awaiting its summoner’s commands.

  Zak didn’t hesitate. He leaped out into the thing’s midst, letting it hold him suspended above the floor.

  Briza offered him a final salute and motioned her servant away. "Good fighting," she called to Zak, though he was already invisible in the air above her.

  Zak chuckled at the irony of her words as the twisting city of Menzoberranzan rolled out below him. She wanted the clerics of House DeVir dead as surely as Zak did, but for very different reasons. All complications aside, Zak would have been just as happy killing clerics of House Do’Urden.

  The weapon master took up one of his adamantite swords, a drow weapon magically crafted and unbelievably sharp with the edge of killing dweomers. "Good fighting indeed," he whispered. If only Briza knew how good.

  Chapter 2

  The Fall of House DeVir

  Dinin noted with satisfaction that any of the meandering bugbears or any other of the multitude of races that composed Menzoberranzan, drow included, now made great haste to scurry out of his way. This time the secondboy of House Do’Urden was not alone. Nearly sixty soldiers of the house walked in tight lines behind him. Behind these, in similar order though with far less enthusiasm for the adventure, came a hundred armed slaves of lesser races―goblins, orcs, and bugbears.

  There could be no doubt for onlookers―a drow house was on a march to war. This was not an everyday event in Menzoberranzan but neither was it unexpected. At least once every decade a house decided that its position within the city hierarchy could be improved by another house’s elimination. It was a risky proposition, for all of the nobles of the «victim» house had to be disposed of quickly and quietly. If even one survived to lay an accusation upon the perpetrator, the attacking house would be eradicated by Menzoberranzan’s merciless system of "justice."

  If the raid was executed to devious perfection, though, no recourse would be forthcoming. All of the city, even the ruling council of the top eight matron mothers, would secretly applaud the attackers for their courage and intelligence and no more would ever be said of the incident.

  Dinin took a roundabout route, not wanting to lay a direct trail between House Do’Urden and House DeVir. A half-hour later for the second time that night, he crept to the mushroom grove’s southern end, to the cluster of stalagmites that held House DeVir. His soldiers streamed out behind him eagerly, readying weapons and taking full measure of the structure before them.

  The slaves were slower in their movements. Many of them looked about for some escape, for they knew in their hearts that they were doomed in this battle. They feared the wrath of the dark elves more than death itself, though, and would not attempt to flee. With every exit out of Menzoberranzan protected by devious drow magic, where could they possibly go? Every one of them had witnessed the brutal punishments the drow elves exacted on recaptured slaves. At Dinin’s command, they jumped into their positions around the mushroom fence.

  Dinin reached into his large pouch and pulled out a heated sheet of metal. He flashed the object, brightened in the infrared spectrum, three times behind him to signal the approaching brigades of Nalfein and Rizzen. Then, with his usual cockiness, Dinin spun it quickly into the air, caught it, and replaced it in the secrecy of his heat-shielding pouch. On cue with the twirling signal, Dinin’s drow brigade fitted enchanted darts to their tiny hand-held crossbows and took aim on the appointed targets.

  Every fifth mushroom was a shrieker, and every dart held a magical dweomer that could silence the roar of a dragon. "… two… three." Dinin counted, his hand signaling the tempo since no words could be heard within the sphere of magical silence cast about his troops. He imagined the «click» as the drawn string on his little weapon released, loosing the dart into the nearest shrieker. So it went all around the cluster of House DeVir, the first line of alarm systematically silenced by three-dozen enchanted darts.

  Halfway across Menzoberranzan, Matron Malice, her daughters, and four of the house’s common clerics were gathered in Lolth’s unholy circle of eight. They ringed an idol of their wicked deity, a gemstone carving of a drow-faced spider, and called to Lolth for aid in their struggles. Malice sat at the head, propped in a chair angled for birthing. Briza and Vierna flanked her, Briza clutching her hand.

  The select group chanted in unison, combining their energies into a single offensive spell. A moment later, when Vierna, mentally linked to Dinin, understood that the first attack group was in position, the Do’Urden circle of eight sent the first insinuating waves of mental
energy into the rival house.

  Matron Ginafae, her two daughters, and the five principal clerics of the common troops of House DeVir huddled together in the darkened anteroom of the five-stalagmite house’s main chapel. They had gathered there in solemn prayer every night since Matron Ginafae had learned that she had fallen into Lolth’s disfavor. Ginafae understood how vulnerable her house remained until she could find a way to appease the Spider Queen. There were sixty-six other houses in Menzoberranzan, fully twenty of which might dare to attack House DeVir at such an obvious disadvantage. The eight clerics were anxious now, somehow suspecting that this night would be eventful.

  Ginafae felt it first, a chilling blast of confusing perceptions that caused her to stutter over her prayer of forgiveness. The other clerics of House DeVir glanced nervously at the matron’s uncharacteristic slip of words, looking for confirmation.

  "We are under attack," Ginafae breathed to them, her head already pounding with a dull ache under the growing assault of the formidable clerics of House Do’Urden.

  A second signal from Dinin put the slave troops into motion. Still using stealth as their ally, they quietly rushed to the mushroom fence and cut through with wide-bladed swords. The secondboy of House Do’Urden watched and enjoyed as the courtyard of House DeVir was easily penetrated.

  "Not such a prepared guard," he whispered in silent sarcasm to the red-glowing gargoyles on the high walls. The statues had seemed such an ominous guard earlier that night. Now they just watched helplessly.

  Dinin recognized the measured but growing anticipation in the soldiers around him, their drow battle-lust was barely contained. Every now and then came a killing flash as one of the slaves stumbled over a warding glyph, but the secondboy and the other drow only laughed at the spectacle. The lesser races were the expendable «fodder» of House Do’Urden’s army. The only purpose in bringing the goblinoids to House DeVir was to trigger the deadly traps and defenses along the perimeter, to lead the way for the drow elves, the true soldiers.