Charon's Claw (Neverwinter #3)(82)
Berellip stared at him and seemed unconvinced of his sincerity.
“I would recommend that you send word back to Menzoberranzan,” Tiago added. “You will need more hands, and quickly.”
“Baenre hands?” Berellip asked, her voice full of suspicion. “Will Matron Mother Quenthel send her legions to aid us?”
Tiago laughed at her, thoroughly mocking her with his easy tone and manner, and Berellip stiffened even more. “You do understand that you’re here at Matron Baenre’s suffrage?” he asked. “If we were truly interested in establishing this place for ourselves, then why would we have allowed you to journey here so freely? Why would we not have sent our own expedition to this place?
“Because we do not wish to dissuade House Xorlarrin of its ambitions,” he answered when the Xorlarrins did not. “Matron Mother Quenthel is willing to grant to you this place and your dreams, as we have made clear by our actions, and even more so by our inactions. With the advent of the Netheril Empire, the world has become too dangerous a place for the Houses of Menzoberranzan to so continue their incessant in-fighting, and House Xorlarrin is among the worst of those offenders, even you must admit.”
Despite her stoic posturing, Berellip swallowed hard at that obvious truism.
“And so we’ll allow you to migrate to the outskirts of Menzoberranzan’s domain and influence.”
“As long as our city strengthens Menzoberranzan,” Ravel stated.
“Of course. Were you to rival us instead of working in accordance with our needs, we would utterly destroy you,” Tiago said matter-of-factly, and he had said the same before in other words, of course. He had never made a secret of it to either of these two.
“But you think we should call for more drow to bolster our ranks now,” Berellip remarked, as if seeing the contradiction.
“I never said drow,” Tiago corrected. “The Clawrift could spare a few hundred kobolds, a thousand even. They are clever little wretches and surprisingly adept at mining and working metal. Such a gift from Menzoberranzan would help you greatly here and would hardly diminish Menzoberranzan, of course, since the rats breed like . . . well, rats, and they would quickly replenish their ranks in the corridors of the Clawrift. And driders! Indeed, you should ask for more driders, for I have no doubt that many in Menzoberranzan would be rid of the whole lot of them were we able! Such wretched things.
“Bring them in to your side, I say, and grant them some outer sections to secure and call as their own home.”
“Driders are driders for a reason,” Berellip dryly reminded.
“The Spider Queen would not be pleased?” Tiago asked sarcastically. “Better to put them into service for her, would you not agree?”
“That’s not the point,” Berellip argued.
“It’s entirely the point,” Tiago said, and he dismissed all semblance of being reasonable. “That is the only point . . . to any of this! You’re here, in these halls, to serve the Spider Queen. You’ll be allowed to construct a sister city to Menzoberranzan, if you can succeed, for no purpose other than to serve the Spider Queen. Matron Mother Quenthel allows you this because she serves the Spider Queen. There is no other reason, there is no other purpose. Once you truly appreciate that, Berellip Xorlarrin, you will better understand my counsel, and only if you do come to truly appreciate that, Priestess Berellip, will you and your family have a chance of surviving this daring ‘escape’ from Menzoberranzan. I should not have to school a priestess of Lolth in these obvious truths. You disappoint me!”
With that, Tiago took his abrupt leave, moving to join Gol’fanin, who had started the long task of creating the coveted blades.
Herzgo Alegni stubbornly pulled himself out of the bed and stood to his full, imposing height. The many bandages he wore fought against him as he straightened, but the proud tiefling just pressed through their binding, obviously determined to show no weakness before the withered old warlock. Still, he stumbled a bit, disoriented by the fact that he no longer had a working right eye.
“When will you be ready to return to the land of light?” Draygo Quick asked him curtly, and without even a casual hint that he cared about Alegni’s health in the least—which of course, he did not.
“When I am ordered to do so,” Alegni replied.
“Even this moment?”
“I will leave at once, if you so desire.”
Draygo Quick couldn’t suppress his smile. Alegni was a stubborn one. He could barely stand, his legs wobbly, his shoulders shaking from the strain as he tried to keep them squared.
“You know that you must return, of course.”
Alegni looked at him curiously.
“You left something behind.”
Still the tiefling seemed confused.
Draygo Quick was not surprised by the reaction, doubting that Alegni remembered much of anything of the last moments of that brutal fight. When he’d come into the Shadowfell, so near to death, the great panther tearing at him and biting deep into his flesh, his every action had been reflexive and desperate, his every sound filled with the most profound timbre of agony.
Suddenly Alegni’s one uncovered eye popped open wide and he glanced all around desperately. “Claw,” he muttered.
“They have it.”
Herzgo Alegni turned back to face his master, and his shoulders slumped. This was his failure, of course, and one that was typically accompanied by the most profound and extreme punishment. Netherese lords lived and died, the saying went, but weapons were eternal.