The Dark Elf Trilogy: Homeland

Chapter 4 Tbe First House

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Four cycles of Narbondel-four days-later, a glowing blue disk floated up the mushroom-lined stone path to the spider-covered gate of House Do'Urden. The sentries watched it from the windows of the two outer towers and from the compound as it hovered patiently three feet off the ground. Word came to the ruling family only seconds later.

"What can it be?" Briza asked Zaknafein when she, the weapon master, Dinin, and Maya assembled on the balcony of the upper level.

"A summons?" Zak asked as much as answered. "We will not know until we investigate" Zak stepped up on the rail-ing and out into the empty air, then levitated down to the compound floor. Briza motioned to Maya, and the youngest Do'Urden daughter followed Zak.

"It bears the standard of House Baenre" Zak called up af-ter he had moved closer. He and Maya opened the large gates, and the disk slipped in, showing no hostile move-ments.

"Baenre" Briza repeated over her shoulder, down the house's corridor to where Matron Malice and Rizzen waited.

"It seems that you are requested in audience, Matron Mother" Dinin put in nervously.

Malice moved out to the balcony, and her husband obedi-ently followed.

"Do they know of our attack?" Briza asked in the silent code, and every member of House Do'Urden, noble and commoner alike, shared that unpleasant thought. House DeVir had been eliminated only a few days before, and a calling card from the First Matron Mother of Menzoberran-zan could hardly be viewed as a coincidence.

"Every house knows" Malice replied aloud, not believing the silence to be a necessary precaution within the bounda-ries of her own complex. "Is the evidence against us so over-whelming that the ruling council will be forced to action?" She stared hard at Briza, her dark eyes alternating between the red glow of infra vision and the deep green they showed in the aura of normal light. "That is the question we must ask" Malice stepped up onto the balcony, but Briza grabbed the back of her heavy black robe to stay her.

"You do not mean to go with the thing?" Briza asked.

Malice's answering look showed even more startlement.

"Of course" she replied. "Matron Baenre would not openly call upon me if she meant me harm. Even her power is not so great that she can ignore the tenets of the city"

"You are certain that you will be safe?" Rizzen asked, truly concerned. If Malice was killed, Briza would take over the house, and Rizzen doubted that the eldest daughter would want any male by her side. Even if the vicious female did de-sire a patron, Rizzen would not want to be the one in that position. He was not Briza's father, was not even as old as Briza. Clearly, the present patron of the house had a lot at stake in Matron Malice's continued good health.

"Your concern touches me" Malice replied, knowing her husband's true fears. She pulled out of Briza's grasp and stepped off the railing, straightening her robes as she slowly descended. Briza shook her head disdainfully and motioned Rizzen to follow her back inside the house, not thinking it wise that the bulk of the family be so exposed to unfriendly eyes.

"Do you want an escort?" Zak asked as Malice sat on the disk.

"I am certain that I will find one as soon as I am beyond the perimeter of our compound" Malice replied. "Matron Baenre would not risk exposing me to any danger while I am in the care of her house"

"Agreed" said Zak, "but do you want an escort frem"~ House Do'Urden?"

"If one was wanted, two disks would have floated in" Mal. ice said in a tone of finality. The matron was beginning to find the concerns of those around her stifling. She was the matron mother, after all, the strongest, the oldest, and the wisest, and did not appreciate others second-guessing her. To the disk, Malice said, "Execute your appointed task, and let us be done with it!"

Zak nearly snickered at Malice's choice of words.

"Matron Malice Do'Urden" came a magical voice from the disk, "Matron Baenre offers her greetings. Tho long has it been since last you two have sat in audience"

"Never" Malice signaled to Zak. "Then take me to House Baenre!" Malice demanded. "I do not wish to waste my time conversing with a magical mouth!" Apparently, Matron Baenre had anticipated Malice's impatience, for without an. other word, the disk floated back out of the Do'Urden com. pound.

Zak shut the gate as it left, then quickly signaled his sok diers into motion. Malice did not want any open company, but the Do'Urden spy network would covertly track every movement of the Baenre sled, to the very gates of the ruling house's grand compound.

Malice's guess about an escort was correct. As soon as the disk swept down from the pathway to the Do'Urden com-pound, twenty soldiers of House Baenre, all female, moved out from concealment along the sides of the boulevard. They formed a defensive diamond around the guest matron mother. The guard at each point of the formation wore black robes emblazoned on the back with Ii large purple-and-red spider design-the robes of a high priestess.

"Baenre's own daughters" Malice mused, for only the daughters of a noble could attain such a rank. How careful the First Matron Mother had been to ensure Malice's safety on the trip!

Slaves and drow commoners tripped over themselves in a frantic effort to get far out of the way of the approaching entourage as the group made its way through the curving streets toward the mushroom grove. The soldiers of House Baenre alone wore their house insignia in open view, and no one wanted to invoke the anger of Matron Baenre in any way.

Malice just rolled her eyes in disbelief and hoped that she might know such power before she died.

She rolled her eyes again a few minutes later, when the group approached the ruling house. House Baenre encom-passed twenty tall and majestic stalagmites, all intercon-nected with gracefully sweeping and arching bridges and parapets. Magic and faerie fire glowed from a thousand sep-arate sculptures and a hundred regally adorned guardsmen paced about in perfect formations.

Even more striking were the inverse structures, the thirty smaller stalactites of House Baenre. They hung down from the ceiling of the cavern, their roots lost in the high dark-ness. Some of them connected tip-to-tip with the stalagmite mounds, while others hung freely like poised spears. Ring-ing balconies, curving up like the edging of a screw, had been built along the length of all of these, glowing with an overabundance of magic and highlighted design.

Magic, too, was the fence that connected the bases of the outer stalagmites, encircling the whole of the compound. It was a giant web, silver against the general blue of the rest of the outer compound. Some said it had been a gift from Lloth herself, with iron-strong strands as thick as a drow elf's arm. Anything touching Baenre's fence, even the sharpest of drow weapons, would simply stick fast until the matron mother willed the fence to let it free.

Malice and her escorts moved straight toward a symmet-rical and circular section of this fence, between the tallest of the outer towers. As they neared, the gate spiraled and wound out, leaving a gap large enough for the caravan to step through.

Malice sat through it all, trying to appear unimpressed.

Hundreds of curious soldiers watched the procession as it made its way to the central structure of House Baenre, the great purple-glowing chapel dome. The common soldiers left the entourage, leaving only the four high priestesses to: escort Matron Malice inside.

The sights beyond the great doors to the chapel did not disappoint her. A central altar dominated the place with a row of benches spiraling out in several dozen circuits to the perimeter of the great hall. 1\'0'0 thousand drow could sit there with room to stretch. Statues and idols too numerous to count stood all about the place, glowing in a quiet black light. In the air high above the altar loomed a gigantic glow-ing image, a red-and-black illusion that slowly and contin-ually shifted between the forms of a spider and a beautiful drow female.

" A work of Gomph, my principal wizard" Matron Baenre explained from her perch on the altar, guessing that Malice, like everyone else who ever came to Chapel Baenre, was awestruck by the sight. "Even wizards have their place" "As long as they remember their place" Malice replied;;::

slipping down from the now stationary disk.