“Perhaps I consider you an honorary member of my family,” the spellspinner offered.
“Would that not be a tremendous step down?”
Ravel’s smile disappeared in the blink of an eye, but Tiago’s laughter diffused the tension before it could truly begin to mount.
“How goes the fight for the outer halls?” Ravel asked.
“Your older brother and his pet elementals are proving quite effective,” Tiago answered. “They drive the critters, the corbies, and even the dwarf ghosts, before them. We have found a pocket of orcs, as well, and are . . . negotiating.”
“Do we really need more slaves?”
Tiago shrugged as if it did not matter. “The more hands who serve us, the more quickly the corridors will be bolstered and secured.” As he finished, he glanced over at the outer forges, both ends, where goblins and orcs and even bugbears worked the metal hard, building crude beam supports and thick iron doors, and most importantly, new rail lines and long pegs for the ore carts. Other slaves carried the finished products from the room to the appointed corridors and chambers.
Nearer in toward the central forge, drow craftsmen worked the fires, creating the finer items necessary for refurbishing the infrastructure of the vast complex. Sensitive drow fingers sheared at hot metal to create intricate locks and delicatelooking but strong sections of stairway they could assemble in the larger chambers above, where the previous stairs had been destroyed by the rage of the rampaging primordial.
Tiago’s words resonated with Ravel, the young Baenre could clearly see. It would take years to restore Gauntlgrym, and to secure the chambers, and that was assuming an ample supply of metal. The forges needed no fuel, and that was a tremendous advantage indeed, but the raw materials were not so easily found in tunnels teeming with dwarf ghosts or dire corbies or other untamed monsters.
“Patience, my friend,” Tiago said. “You have exceeded even your own wildest hopes thus far.”
“True enough,” Ravel admitted.
“And now you have something to lose, and so you tremble,” Tiago said, and Ravel nodded.
“Who trembles?” came another voice, and the pair turned to regard the approach of Berellip.
“I was speaking figuratively, priestess,” said Tiago.
Berellip gave Ravel a dismissive glance. “Were you?”
Tiago laughed, but Ravel didn’t follow his lead.
“We were discussing the slow work,” Tiago said. “The long process and road ahead for House Xorlarrin if you mean to proceed with your dreams of creating a city to rival Menzoberranzan.”
“Why would we ever think to do such a thing?” Berellip replied with feigned surprise. “A rival city? That would not please Lolth.”
“It would please Zeerith,” Tiago quipped, again purposely leaving off her title, daring either of the children of Xorlarrin to call him out on his indiscretion, which neither did, though Berellip narrowed her eyes and offered a quiet sneer.
“You know why we journeyed here,” Ravel remarked. “Matron Mother Quenthel knows, as well, as does Archmage Gromph.”
“Have you reservations now, young Baenre, since we have succeeded more than you could have imagined?” Berellip added.
“Nay,” Tiago replied easily. “Quite the contrary. I am pleased by what I have learned and seen. Your progress has been remarkable, and this place— these forges, this source of power, the resonating strength of this complex—is beyond anything I would have imagined. You have the beginnings of a proper sister city.”
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.”