In the glittering nightmare cavescape of Menzoberranzan Ghilanna Tlabbar dreams. She dreams of her city, its twisted paths and dark dwellings. She dreams of rising stalagmites and looming stalactites, of ominous castles wreathed in faerie fire and glowing runes whose deadly magic waits for the unwary or unlucky. She dreams also of the denizens of this nightmare, fey creatures with obsidian skin and snow-white manes of silken hair whose beauty is exceeded only by their cruelty.
It is a world Ghilanna is all too familiar with outside the domain of her trance, but the vision shows her more. It shows what she does not see from the luxury of her drift-disc, safely ensconced behind a perimeter of Faen Tlabbar soldiers. It shows her littered streets, empty dwellings and crumbling stone columns. It shows her the fading faerie fire and dissipating runes of castles that should be better defended.
It shows her a city in need.
In the dream, she steps forward to help her city, to whip its denizens into a proper fear of their Dark Mother and set right what sloth, apathy and decay have done. But she cannot. She finds herself entangled in a web, stuck fast as a spider’s prey. She does not understand. She should be able to move through the strands as easily as any arachnid, but she is held fast, unable to lend even the smallest aid to the city that needs her. She begins to struggle and as she does she sees a spider on a stone ledge above watching her. Its eyes betray a malign intelligence and Ghilanna knows that Llolth watches, waiting for her to aid Menzoberranzan. Ghilanna struggles to be free, her struggles growing more and more frantic as fear turns to desperation and then to panic. Above her, the spider watches…….
***
Ghilanna awakens panting. Her sparkling blue eyes, unusual for a drow, stare up at the carved ceiling of her bedchamber as she ponders the meaning of her dream. A moment passes and she starts to rise but finds herself entangled, not in webs but in the arms and legs of her lovers. There are three of them, all her patrons. One is a captain of her own house while the second is a wizard of House Xorlarrin. The third, a tall, muscular drow of uncommon beauty and dexterity, is one of Jarlaxle’s Bregan D’aerthe mercenaries.
She smiles as she remembers the pleasant hours they spent together. Much drink was had, and many mushrooms were eaten. She remembers the debauchery fondly, but surprisingly, her head is clear.
Gingerly, she extricates herself from the slumbering males so as not to wake them. She slips from the bed, wearing only wisps of white silk which accent, not conceal, her lithe form and ample charms. The debauch was so frenetic she had not even had time to get completely naked.
She crosses the room towards her balcony doors, silently pondering her vision. Unlocking the ornate portals she moves out onto the crenellated perch that overlooks Menzoberranzan from the heights of Faen Tlabbar. The glittering city lays before her, in all its splendor. It calls to her. Its evil, heartless song of cruelty and domination sings to her soul in the chords she has learned are the music of the Spider Queen. Ambition, violence … treachery. Looking back at her companions, she understands what she must do, but it will be dangerous.
Without a sound she slips back into her chamber and makes her way to the dressing table where she retrieves her mother’s favored weapon, Scragtooth. The horribly poisonous blade, a Faen Tlabbar artifact, had been lost for a time. The mind-witch K’yorl Odran had stolen it when she stole the life of Ghilanna’s mother, Ghenni’tiroth, and her adopted heir, Fini’they. Ghilanna had sent an expedition to the clawrift to recover Scragtooth – and one other prize. The thought of that prize makes Ghilanna smile in the gloom – this will be no easy road, but the prize will make it … smoother. She sighs, looking back upon the tangled men. Easy or not, it was time for her to take the first step down that road….
***
Outside the interior portals to Ghilanna’s bedchamber two of her elite guards stood watch. One, the older of the two, was known simply as Vuzlyn. Like many of Faen Tlabbar’s soldiery, he had come to this house as a refugee from another house, now long gone, his surname lost to time and misfortune. He had come to Faen Tlabbar more than three centuries ago, granted a new life by the previous Matron Mother, Ghenni’tiroth. She had shown him great kindness, as great as any drow female ever showed a male of lower station, and in return he granted her that rarest of drow gifts – true loyalty. Two and half centuries ago Ghenni’tiroth had come to him and assigned him the job of protecting her latest daughter, Ghilanna.
Ghilanna was typical of the Faen Tlabbar females; tall, slender, beautiful and thoroughly devoted to the Spider Goddess. All that aside, in Vuzlyn’s eyes, she was but a pale imitation of her mother. Indeed, Vuzlyn had always been disappointed by her and thought her little more than a spoiled harlot. Vuzlyn’s one surprise had come in the power struggle that followed the death of Ghenni’tiroth – Ghilanna revealed an intelligence and cunning he had not attributed to her. Though not Ghenni’tiroth’s equal, she had earned some measure of respect from him. Not that he would ever display any sign of disrespect – she may be a spoiled harlot, but she was a spoiled harlot with the power of life and death.
That spoiled harlot now lay on the other side of this portal, wrapped in the arms of her lovers. In the corridor outside, Vuzlyn and the other guard watched, listened and waited. Sounds came from the chamber beyond: muffled cries; a yell; the crack of a whip. Vuzlyn and his companion did not flinch – these were not unusual sounds.
Vuzlyn was just about to let out a disappointed sigh when he heard it: A distinctive sound that should not come from the bedchamber beyond – the sound of metal on metal. Without even thinking his well trained hands had already drawn his short sword. His companion was only a heartbeat slower. For a brief moment they locked eyes and both knew what the other was thinking – too disturb the Matron Mother in her revels was to invite death. But both knew they could not risk inaction. Their fates were tied to Ghilanna. Should she die, surely her bodyguards would not live a cycle longer. They had to risk it. A quick look and gesture and Vuzlyn signaled the alert to his companion, a female elite guard. Beyond her, down the corridor, another elite guard also saw the signal, and passed it on to the next guard at the next corridor bend and so forth. Within seconds, all of Ghilanna’s guards were alerted.
Vuzlyn knew they had to enter, but there was no point in being stupid. Anyone doing violence to Ghilanna would naturally look for her guards at the portal and the first guard through could well be dead even before the doors had finished swinging open. He signaled the female to go through the bedchamber portal
The female followed the command. She was a female, and Vuzlyn a male, but Vuzlyn was an acknowledged veteran, a leader, appointed as Ghilanna’s guardian by Ghenni’tiroth herself. On this detail, he was her superior. With no hesitation she pushed open the portal, brought her hand-crossbow to bear and entered the room.
Vuzlyn watched her enter, her crossbow ready, offhand already drawing her short sword and then crouching out of the doorway. She was well trained. Good. She would last longer. Vuzlyn dropped to one knee peering into the bedchamber, searching for targets with his own hand-crossbow.
He could see nothing. Someone had dropped a globe of darkness over Ghilanna’s bed. There was only silence. To his right, the female guard crouched, hand-crossbow up, short sword in the off hand. Beyond her, two other elite female guards had entered from a secret portal.
There were no more sounds of struggle. Whatever had happened was already done. Under his breath Vuzlyn cursed the spider goddess for wedding his fate to this tramp. If Ghilanna was dead, the guards’ only salvation lay in vengeance upon her killer…or a well timed defection helping the killer escape.
As Vuzlyn pondered the dilemma and searched for a target, the darkness began to fade. Vuzlyn could see movement near where the bed should be. Fear coursed through him but he controlled it, as did all the guards.
From the darkness a form emerged, a female form, delicate and light, beautiful in its darkness. It was Ghilanna. A she emerged from the dwindling gloom Vuzlyn could see that she wore little but a gossamer silk wrapping, white in color, but now torn and stained with blood. Indeed, all of the dark priestess was stained in blood. Red streaks of gore shot through her snowy silken tresses, and more dripped from her ebon skin. As the dark faded and the faerie fire of the bedchamber returned, it was not a bedchamber which Vuzlyn saw, it was an abattoir. Ghilanna’s three patrons lay sprawled around the room and there was no doubt that they were very, very dead. A whip was still wrapped around the neck of the one Vuzlyn knew to be a wizard, and the unfortunate Faen Tlabbar captain was nearly beheaded. On the other side of the bed, Vuzlyn could see that the Bregan D’aerthe mercenary had managed to draw his blade. Little good it did him. Scragtooth, that most poisonous implement of death, was lodged to the hilt in his ribs.
Ghilanna moved slowly, almost languidly, towards Vuzlyn and the female guard. Her hips swayed seductively as she licked the blood off of her own fingers. Behind her, on the wall above the bed, she had written a rune of thanks to Llolth in the blood of her patrons. As Vuzlyn watched, crimson droplets ran down the wall from the rune to the silken covers. But these were no ordinary droplets – as they fell, Vuzlyn could see them take the form of tiny, bloody little spiders. His eyes shot from the wall to the corpses. Everywhere the blood ran, it ran in little spider-drops.
For a brief moment, Vuzlyn’s heart stopped. Though no yathrin, even he could sense the presence here, the otherworldly evil. As Ghilanna came forward out of the slaughter he looked upon her and saw a bloody avatar of Llolth. Here was a Matron Mother in the full favor and glory of the Spider Goddess and such a creature could not be denied. Vuzlyn fell to his knees in submission, his eyes falling to the floor in front of him.
Ghilanna’s delicate feet entered into his sight. They too were covered in little scurrying blood-spiders.
She spoke.
“Summon my priestesses and prepare the chapel for a conclave of the House. The city needs us and we have much work to do….”
Ghilanna turned and walked back into her chambers, to the open balcony doors, and looked out upon the city. The gates of Menzoberranzan were closed now, a product of the disastrous times the city had suffered since the march on Mithril Hall. Streets, dwellings, institutions – her people, all were in decay. The gates were closed to protect them in this weakened state. Too long had she ignored the plight of her city in favor of carnal delights. Ghilanna knew now those gates had to be opened, and she knew the city had to be prepared for it when they were. She would see that it was. She looked back upon the carnage that had been her playmates. Now that she was free from the distractions which kept her from seeing her duty, she would mobilize the House and help Gromph, Triel, Quenthal and even Jarlaxle prepare for the times ahead.
When the gates to Menzoberranzan opened, Menzoberranzan would be ready. Indeed, when the gates opened, it would be the outside world that was not ready for Menzoberranzan……