a race given to honoring our debts, she signed.
That has been made clear to me more than once, the weapons master replied. A brief flicker of pain crossed his face, and Halisstra wondered exactly whom the Master of Melee-Magthere had trusted, and why he’d done something so foolish. Before she could ask, he continued, So tell me of the bae’qeshel. I do not know of them.
“By tradition,” she whispered, “our wizards, swordsmen, and clerics are trained in academies. This is true in most drow cities. The reason you do not know of the bae’qeshel is that the bardic training is not a public matter. We pass our secrets, one mistress to one student at a time.”
I thought the noble Houses had little use for common minstrels.
“The bae’qeshel are not common minstrels, weapons master,” Halisstra said in a low voice. “We are a proud and ancient sect, the bae’qeshel telphraezzar, the Whisperers of the Dark Queen. I am a priestess of Lolth, as are the other females of my House, but I was chosen to spend many long years as a girl studying the bae’qeshel lore. I revere the goddess not only with my service as her priestess, but with the gift of raising the ancient songs of our race, which are pleasing to her ears. House Melarn has always been proud to raise one bae’qeshel into the sisterhood of Lolth’s service in each generation.”
“If your songs are sacred to Lolth, why do they work while other spells fail?” Ryld asked.
“Because the songs possess a power in and of themselves, like a wizard’s spells. We do not channel the divine power of the Queen of Spiders to wield our songs. Regrettably, my skill with such things is nothing compared to the divine might I could wield in Lolth’s name, if she would restore her favor to me.”
“An interesting talent, nonetheless,” he murmured. Ryld glanced back down the passageway toward the chamber where the others waited. “It seems quiet enough. We may have some time to wait yet. If I know Pharaun, he will need hours to regain his strength. Tell me, do you play sava?”
Nimor clung to the shadows of a gigantic stalactite, one of many such stone fangs reaching down from the ceiling of Menzoberranzan’s vast cavern. Old passages and precarious paths crisscrossed the city’s roof, and many of the stalactites were in fact carved into darkly beautiful castles and aeries all the more spectacular for their bold arrogance. Only drow would make homes out of fragile stone spears a thousand feet above the cavern floor. Highborn dark elves frequently possessed innate magic or enchanted trinkets that freed them of concern over heights, and gave little thought to dizzying overlooks that would terrify bats. Their slaves and servants were not so fortunate, and must have found life in a ceiling spire something peculiarly nerve-racking.
The more important ceiling spires were of course magically reinforced against the inevitable fall, and would not fail unless magic itself gave outbut more than one proud old palace stood dusty and abandoned at the top of the city, the House that claimed it too weak in the Art to maintain the spells that made the place tenable. It was in just such an empty place that Nimor crouched, leaning out over a dark abyss to study his target below.
House Faen Tlabbar, Third House of Menzoberranzan, lay below him and a short distance to his left. The castle sprawled over several towering stalagmites and columns, its elegant balustrades and soaring buttresses belying the underlying strength of the rambling towers and mighty bulwarks of dark stone. Faen Tlabbar’s compound was one of the largest and proudest of any in Menzoberranzan that did not sit on the high plateau of Qu’ellarz’orl, the most prestigious of the underground city’s noble districts. Instead House Tlabbar’s palace clambered up along the southern wall of Menzoberranzan’s great cavern, until its highest spires surmounted the plateau in whose shadow it sat, as if the matrons
That has been made clear to me more than once, the weapons master replied. A brief flicker of pain crossed his face, and Halisstra wondered exactly whom the Master of Melee-Magthere had trusted, and why he’d done something so foolish. Before she could ask, he continued, So tell me of the bae’qeshel. I do not know of them.
“By tradition,” she whispered, “our wizards, swordsmen, and clerics are trained in academies. This is true in most drow cities. The reason you do not know of the bae’qeshel is that the bardic training is not a public matter. We pass our secrets, one mistress to one student at a time.”
I thought the noble Houses had little use for common minstrels.
“The bae’qeshel are not common minstrels, weapons master,” Halisstra said in a low voice. “We are a proud and ancient sect, the bae’qeshel telphraezzar, the Whisperers of the Dark Queen. I am a priestess of Lolth, as are the other females of my House, but I was chosen to spend many long years as a girl studying the bae’qeshel lore. I revere the goddess not only with my service as her priestess, but with the gift of raising the ancient songs of our race, which are pleasing to her ears. House Melarn has always been proud to raise one bae’qeshel into the sisterhood of Lolth’s service in each generation.”
“If your songs are sacred to Lolth, why do they work while other spells fail?” Ryld asked.
“Because the songs possess a power in and of themselves, like a wizard’s spells. We do not channel the divine power of the Queen of Spiders to wield our songs. Regrettably, my skill with such things is nothing compared to the divine might I could wield in Lolth’s name, if she would restore her favor to me.”
“An interesting talent, nonetheless,” he murmured. Ryld glanced back down the passageway toward the chamber where the others waited. “It seems quiet enough. We may have some time to wait yet. If I know Pharaun, he will need hours to regain his strength. Tell me, do you play sava?”
Nimor clung to the shadows of a gigantic stalactite, one of many such stone fangs reaching down from the ceiling of Menzoberranzan’s vast cavern. Old passages and precarious paths crisscrossed the city’s roof, and many of the stalactites were in fact carved into darkly beautiful castles and aeries all the more spectacular for their bold arrogance. Only drow would make homes out of fragile stone spears a thousand feet above the cavern floor. Highborn dark elves frequently possessed innate magic or enchanted trinkets that freed them of concern over heights, and gave little thought to dizzying overlooks that would terrify bats. Their slaves and servants were not so fortunate, and must have found life in a ceiling spire something peculiarly nerve-racking.
The more important ceiling spires were of course magically reinforced against the inevitable fall, and would not fail unless magic itself gave outbut more than one proud old palace stood dusty and abandoned at the top of the city, the House that claimed it too weak in the Art to maintain the spells that made the place tenable. It was in just such an empty place that Nimor crouched, leaning out over a dark abyss to study his target below.
House Faen Tlabbar, Third House of Menzoberranzan, lay below him and a short distance to his left. The castle sprawled over several towering stalagmites and columns, its elegant balustrades and soaring buttresses belying the underlying strength of the rambling towers and mighty bulwarks of dark stone. Faen Tlabbar’s compound was one of the largest and proudest of any in Menzoberranzan that did not sit on the high plateau of Qu’ellarz’orl, the most prestigious of the underground city’s noble districts. Instead House Tlabbar’s palace clambered up along the southern wall of Menzoberranzan’s great cavern, until its highest spires surmounted the plateau in whose shadow it sat, as if the matrons
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