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minor indignity, perhaps, but to Triel’s troubled mind her dangling feet seemed to be an omen, a sign she was not equal to the task before her.
    Triel knew that, by any measures known to her, she should have been ecstatically happy with her elevation. She was now matron mother of Menzoberranzan’s first house. Triel was no stranger to power—as matron mistress of the clerical school Arach-Tinilith, she held a position of great honor—but she had never truly aspired to her late mother’s throne. The former matron had reigned for so many centuries she had seemed eternal. Even her given name had been lost to memory. To generations of drow, Triel’s mother was Baenre, was Menzoberranzan. Thus each repetition of “Baenre is dead” echoed through Triel’s mind like a portent of doom, until she felt she must scream aloud or go mad.
    But at last the ceremony ended, and Triel was left alone to face the task of rebuilding the shattered household. It was a formidable challenge. A house’s strength lay in its priestesses, and far too many had fallen in her mother’s war. Many of the former matron’s daughters—and their daughters in turn—had gone on to form houses of their own. In theory, these minor houses were allies of House Baenre, but their primary concern was spinning their own webs of power and intrigue.
    In addition to its lack of priestesses, the first house was without a weapon master. Triel’s brother Berg*inyon had gone missing during the war. As leader of the mighty lizard riders, he had led the attack on Mithril Hall’s surface-dwelling allies, and he had never returned to his family home. Many drow had fallen in the terror and confusion that followed dawn, and it was not unlikely the Baenre weapon master was among them. Triel suspected otherwise. She’d often sensed that the young male’s instincts for self-preservation far outstripped his loyalty to his house. Whatever the truth behind his disappearance, Berg’inyon was lost to her. He might be a mere youth—barely sixty years of age—but he was a strong fighter, and he would be difficult to replace. Lloth forbid, Triel thought with immense distaste, she might even be required to take on a patron to fill the role of weapon master!
    Yet Triel’s most immediate task was to choose her own successor at Arach-Tinilith. Usually the position of Academy matron went to the highest-ranking priestess of Lloth in House Baenre. After Triel, that would be Merith, a commoner taken into the Baenre ranks years ago when her considerable clerical powers began to emerge. Merith coveted the title of matron mistress, but this was simply out of tüe question. In any capacity, she was a potential disgrace to House Baenre. The former daughter of a streetsweeper had no understanding of the subtle nuances of protocol, no - appreciation for the intricate warp and weft of intrigue. She was also sadistic in the extreme. In situations that called for a stiletto, Merith was a dwarven battle-axe. Triel expected her dear adopted sister to contract a rare, fatal illness any day now.
    That left Sos’Umptu, the keeper of the Baenre chapel, as the most likely candidate. Sos’Umptu was Baenre-born, her favor with Lloth was secure, and her standing as a priestess impressively lofty. So after due consideration Triel sent for her younger sister and offered her Arach-Tinilith.
    Sos’Umptu, far from being pleased at her promotion, was horrified at the suggestion she leave the Baenre chapel. Triel coaxed, wheedled, and threatened, but in the end she conceded that, at least for the time, she herself must fill both roles. Her younger sister received this decision with a relieved sigh, then glanced at the door that led toward her beloved chapel.
    “No, stay with me a while,” Triel said tiredly. “I must speak with you on another matter. House Baenre needs high priestesses desperately, especially nobles Baenre-born. You know I have no daughters of my own, nor am I likely to have any. I must rely