Free Archmage by R. A. Salvatore Page A

with all but the mind flayers and Jarlaxle, for he could read the meaning behind every word with a simple glance into the flittering thoughts as the words were spoken.
    “Fan the flames in the archmage’s humors,” K’yorl explained. “Subtly suggest a way for him to strike back at his sister. Let him battle demon with demon.”
    “You ask me to implant a suggestion into the mind of the archmage to summon demons of his own? Into the mind of Gromph Baenre?” Kimmuriel didn’t try to hide his doubts. Those dark elves expecting and hoping for a long life simply didn’t do such things.
    “It will be no difficult task. Gromph’s thoughts already flow in that direction.”
    Movement to the side caught Kimmuriel’s attention, and he noted a massive, leather-winged beast moving toward them, one he knew to be the mighty balor Errtu. The creature moved close enough to tower over Kimmuriel, and sniffed the air a few times before plopping down in a mushroom fashioned into a throne just off to the side, one Kimmuriel hadn’t even noticed before—had Errtu brought it with him?
    “To have Gromph call in a balor, perhaps?” Kimmuriel asked K’yorl, but he was looking at Errtu.
    “Think bigger,” K’yorl replied. “Perhaps Gromph will think he is calling forth a peer of Errtu, but let his spell draw a bigger prize, a prize beyond his control?”
    “You?” Kimmuriel asked dryly.
    Both K’yorl and Errtu laughed at that.
    “You cannot return to the Prime Material Plane at this time,” Kimmuriel said to Errtu.
    The balor growled, but nodded. Errtu had been defeated on the Prime Material Plane, and so banished, a penalty of a century of exile.
    “Banished by a Baenre,” K’yorl said. “Tiago Baenre.”
    “Who is now Tiago Do’Urden, if he is even still alive,” said Kimmuriel.
    “All the more reason to hate him,” said Errtu. The demon stared hard at Kimmuriel and focused his thoughts at the drow psionicist, who was overwhelmed by the sheer wall of demonic hate emanating from the creature.
    “What do you know of the Faerzress?” K’yorl asked.
    “What every drow of Menzoberranzan is taught at the Academy,” said Kimmuriel. The Faerzress was a region of the Underdark teeming with magical energy—the very stones of the region glowed with the power of magic, both the Weave and the extraplanar energies of the lower planes. Through the emanations of the Faerzress, the drow gained their innate magical abilities, and their innate resistance to magic. With the permeating glow of the Faerzress, drow smiths fashioned their fabulous weapons and armor. As the sun nurtured the surface world with its warmth and life energy, so the Faerzress fed the darkness of the Underdark.
    “I will give you a spell,” K’yorl said, and closed her eyes. “Open your mind.”
    Kimmuriel similarly closed his eyes and focused on receiving—and studying—K’yorl’s psionic impartation. He didn’t know all the words, for it was an arcane chant and not a psionic pattern.
    “Give that to Gromph during your sessions,” she bade him. “Bit by bit, inflection by inflection. Let him find the strength to battle his sister and foil her plans, and so we will pay back House Baenre.”
    Kimmuriel opened his eyes to stare at her intently.
    “Would it so pain you to see House Baenre punished and Menzoberranzan thrust back into chaos?” she asked. “Would not Bregan D’aerthe profit from such . . . tribulations?”
    “And you would find a deep sense of sweet revenge?”
    “Do you expect me to deny it?” K’yorl asked.
    “No.”
    “And would you not share in your mother’s satisfaction?” Kimmuriel said nothing.
    “Then we are agreed?” K’yorl asked.
    “When next Methil summons me to Gromph’s chamber to continue our work, I will offer him a view of what he might do to counter the matron mother. And, too, I will begin showing him a more powerful gate to the Abyss.”
    “He will light the Faerzress with the power of that spell,