“Well,” Halisstra said when the embrace ended, “I think we should begin. There’s a long road ahead for us and the most frightening opponent of all at the end of it: a goddess on her home plane.”
Uluyara stood, helping Halisstra up with her. Halisstra dressed for travel and for fighting as the other two had, but when she was done she felt heavy and stiff.
Gromph’s world had been reduced to a series of circles. The antimagic field surrounded him in a circle of null space that would dissipate any spell that tried to pierce it and suppress any magical effect within it. The pain in his leg circled all the way around, where the interrupted regenerative effect of the ring had only partially reattached it, leaving a ragged, seeping wound all the way around the middle of his thigh. Past the outer edge of the antimagic field a tiny circle—a sphere really—of condensed magical fire orbited slowly around and around. It was Dyrr’s next explosive blast of fire, held in check, circling, waiting for the field to drop. The lichdrow was circling him too, and like his fireball, waiting.
Gromph sat on the cool rock floor of the ruined Bazaar trying not to actually writhe in agony, concentrating on his breathing, and making himself think.
“How long can it last, Gromph?” the lichdrow taunted from well outside the antimagic field. “Not forever, I know. Not as long as my own would. Am I that frightening to you that you have to hide so, even in plain sight?”
Gromph didn’t bother answering. He wasn’t afraid of the lichdrow. In fact, he was more concerned with Nimor Imphraezl. The winged assassin had disappeared into the shadows, back into his natural element. He could be anywhere. Dyrr, a being literally held together by magic, would no more cross the threshold of the antimagic field than he would throw himself headlong into the Clawrift. Nimor, on the other hand, had likely lost most if not all of his magic in the disjunction anyway and needed no spell to cut with his claws.
The Weave was blocked by the field, but that was all. Gromph, weak and in pain from loss of blood and the morbid wound in his leg, was all but helpless against anything but spells. Nimor could walk right up—anyone could walk right up—and kill the Archmage of Menzoberranzan with a dagger across the throat.
At least, Gromph thought, I don’t have to listen to Prath remind me of that.
The field blocked the telepathic link he’d established with the other Baenre mages. Gromph was entirely on his own, though he was sure Nauzhror and the others were still watching.
“Please tell me you aren’t going to just sit there and die,” Dyrr said. “I’ve come to expect so much more from you.”
“Have you?” Gromph answered, every word coming with a painful effort. “What have you . . . come to expect . . . from Nimor?”
“Why, Archmage,” the lich replied, “whatever do you mean?”
“Where is he?” Gromph said. “Where has your half-dragon gone? He could kill me easily enough, and we both know that. Has he—” Gromph winced through a wave of pain— “abandoned you?”
“I never trusted Nimor Imphraezl,” said the lich. “What’s your excuse?”
Gromph puzzled over that last comment.
Still, some of what the lich said rang painfully true. If he didn’t drop the antimagic field, the ring would never finish reattaching his leg. If he sat there he would succumb to shock, loss of blood, even infection soon enough. The only thing keeping Dyrr from killing him was killing him.
Gromph did nothing to alert Dyrr to his intentions. He didn’t draw in any dramatic, shuddering breath. He didn’t move his trembling, pain-ravaged body. He didn’t even look at the lich or at the bead of compressed fire waiting for its chance to immolate him. Everything that was happening was occurring inside his mind.
Gromph mentally arranged spells, bringing the opening stanzas to mind, willing his fingers in advance to form the gestures. He kept one hand on his staff, knowing that its magic wasn’t gone but was simply suppressed, waiting the same way Dyrr’s fireball—and Dyrr himself—was waiting.
He dropped the antimagic field, and in that same instant the globe burst back around him and the spell tripped rapidly past his lips. The bead of fire dropped out of its lazy orbit and shot at him as fast as a bolt from a crossbow, but Gromph’s spell was a split second faster. The spell enabled him to push the bead of fire away with a wave of invisible force. Using the power of his mind, Gromph seized control of the nascent fireball and sent it hurtling back at the lichdrow.
Dyrr backed quickly away from it then turned and flew fast. Gromph kept the fireball racing toward the lich, gaining on him.
The pain in his leg began to fade and was replaced once more by pulses of nettling as it drew itself together. Concentrating on chasing the fleeing lich with his own fireball, Gromph didn’t see the blood that still surrounded him—his own blood—being soaked up by the skin of his leg. As it drew into his tissue, the blood itself warmed, and one by one the cells came back to life.
The bead of fire was within a handspan of the fleeing lich when Nimor stabbed Gromph in the back.
The archmage might have thought that he’d be accustomed to the odd blast of mind-ravaging agony by then, but the pain hit him full force. He could feel every fraction of an inch of the blade’s path through his skin, into and through the muscles of his back. He could feel the cold steel pierce his heart.
Gromph gasped and lost control of the spell that held the fireball. He closed his eyes against the flare of it exploding— too far from Gromph to burn him but too far from the lich to damage him either.
That wasn’t the only fire. The flickering shield of arcane flames that had surrounded him before he cast the antimagic field had returned to him as had the globe. Fire poured over the wound in Gromph’s back even though it hadn’t protected him from the dagger. Fire washed over Nimor, who released the knife and staggered back, waving off the flames that once again seared his shadow-black face.
The dagger was still in him, still in his heart, and Gromph lurched forward to sprawl on his stomach on the unforgiving floor of the Bazaar. The ring fought second by second to keep his heart intact, to keep it beating, to keep his blood flowing, but it did nothing for the pain. The archmage’s vision blurred, and when he tried to reach behind him to pull the dagger out of his back he could only twitch his arm uselessly at his side.
The archmage was vaguely aware of heat, light, and the sound of crackling, a dull roar . . . fire.
He blinked. His vision cleared enough to see a row of burning merchant’s stalls and a thick column of smoke rising into the still, warming air. Hovering in stark, spindly silhouette against the blinding orange flames was the figure of the lichdrow Dyrr.
Gromph coughed and felt something warm and thick trickle from his lips. The dagger twitched in his back, and Gromph was afraid that it was Nimor, turning the blade, driving it deeper, or withdrawing it only to plunge it home again.
No, Nauzhror said into Gromph’s confused, slowing mind. It’s the ring. Don’t move, Archmage. Try not to move for a few seconds more.
Gromph looked up at the hovering lich and saw another black silhouette join him to hover far above the burning stalls. The second silhouette had huge, semi-transparent wings traced with veins.
The dagger twitched again, and Gromph coughed more blood as it came free of his heart, only to knick his lung.
A few more seconds, Master, Nauzhror said. Patience.
Gromph let that last word play in his mind. He had no choice but to be patient. To him, it felt as if the pain were actually pushing him down, driving him into the rock beneath him.
The two black figures started to grow against the roiling backdrop of uncontrolled fire. They were coming for him. They meant to end it.
The dagger slipped out of Gromph’s back to clatter on the stone floor beside him. He shuddered through a last spasm of pain and clenched his chest when his heart skipped a beat then started up again, strong and regular. The archmage began to cast a spell.
Gromph rolled into a seated position as he cast,
turning to face his enemies with fire reflected in his stolen eyes. Nimor was closer, coming at him with his shadow dragon’s claws, so Gromph directed the spell at him. The archmage sent a rolling wave of blinding fire at the assassin, but Nimor stepped quickly to one side and was gone, sinking into the shadows like a rock slipping under the surface of Donigarten Lake.
The conjured fire flared past the spot where the assassin had been standing, burning nothing but empty air.
Gromph cringed.
It’s all right, Archmage, Nauzhror said.
No it’s not, Gromph shot back at him. I’m using too much fire against Nimor.
It’s true—Prath began but stopped so abruptly Gromph was sure it was Nauzhror who silenced him—lucky for Prath.
The lichdrow stopped his advance and waved his hands in front of him. Gromph tightened his grip on his staff, sighing as the last of the grievous wounds were closed forever by the magic of the ring.
A faint mist coalesced in the air in front of Dyrr, adding to itself one mote at a time until a wide, flat cloud of churning mist rolled out away from the lich and toward Gromph.
The archmage got to his feet and uttered the single triggering command that activated another of his staff’s array of powers. Gromph couldn’t see it, but thanks to the magic of the staff he was keenly aware of the confines of the invisible wall he’d conjured in front of him.
The cloud of—Gromph assumed—poisonous gas that Dyrr had conjured mixed with the smoke from the burning stalls, slowing it but not stopping it. Gromph set the wall of magical force between himself and the cloud, and in a moment the mist began to spread along the flat surface of the wall, well away from the archmage.
Dyrr, obviously not surprised by Gromph’s simple solution to the killing cloud, arced high into the air and flew over the wall of force. The lich drew a wand from the folds of his piwafwi and stared at Gromph with a face devoid of emotion.
Gromph began to cast, judging the time necessary by the lich’s flying speed. Even when Dyrr accelerated, Gromph had the opportunity to finish the spell and step through the doorway he opened in the air next to him. Like passing through an ordinary door, Gromph stepped out the other side having traveled a dozen yards across the burning Bazaar. He watched the lich swoop down, swing his wand through the spot where Gromph had been standing, then come to rest on the ground growling in frustration.
Gromph dropped the wall of force and smiled.
The cloud of poisonous gas—Dyrr’s own spell—burst through when the wall fell, and the lich only had time to look up before the mist engulfed him and he disappeared inside its black-and-green expanse.
Gromph took a deep breath and glanced down when the fire shield finally faded from him. The spell he cast next was one of his most difficult. He worked it carefully and reveled as its effects washed through him. All at once he got the distinct impression that someone was behind him, and he knew that the spell was warning him. No one was behind him yet, but someone would be.
Gromph spun in place then stepped back when Nimor appeared from the shadows, already bringing one black-taloned hand down at the archmage’s face. The tips of the claws passed within a finger’s breadth of the archmage’s nose. Nimor let the surprise show in his eyes, and Gromph had to admit to himself at least that he was just as surprised.
The archmage skipped back several steps, and so did the assassin. Nimor looked at Gromph with narrowed eyes that glowed in the smoky shadows of the burning Bazaar. Gromph had a clear vision of Nimor stepping in then quickly to the left and slashing at his side—then Nimor did just that. Gromph managed to step away again, and again the assassin was taken aback by the archmage’s newfound reflexes. What Nimor didn’t know was that it wasn’t reflexes but foresight.
Gromph reached into a pouch—an extradimensional space that held much more than it appeared capable of from the outside—and drew a weapon. The duergar’s battle-axe was heavy, and the weight and heft of it was unfamiliar to Gromph. The archmage had been schooled in the use of a number of weapons, but the battle-axe was hardly his cup of tea. It was unwieldy and unsubtle, almost more a tool than a weapon. However, there was more to that particular axe than its blade and a handle.
He knew that Nimor was going to step back and give himself a chance to examine Gromph’s weapon. The archmage also expected that Nimor would move a few steps to one side in order to turn Gromph around and place himself between the half-dragon and the cloud that still concealed the lichdrow. Gromph gave him the chance he wanted to study the axe but didn’t oblige him with the superior position.
Archmage, Nauzhror said, are you certain?
Gromph assumed that the other mage was referring to the battle-axe, and the obvious fact that Gromph meant to actually fight the assassin with physical weapons.
Gromph sent back the answer, I know what I’m doing, at precisely the same moment that Nauzhror repeated, Archmage, are you certain?
Gromph realized he hadn’t heard Nauzhror the first time. It was the spell, showing him the future.
I see, Nauzhror replied and Gromph could feel that the other Baenre mage understood that Gromph had armed himself with perhaps the most potent weapon imaginable: the ability to perfectly anticipate every move of your opponent.
The voice came to his head for real: I see.
Gromph knew that Nimor was going to rush him in an attempt to push him back toward the cloud of poison gas, so the archmage stepped quickly to the side and circled. Nimor took one step then stopped, eyeing Gromph.
The lich burst out of the cloud, trailing tendrils of toxic mist as he rose into the air. He turned and faced the archmage.
“Go ahead,” said the lichdrow with a leering, evil smile, “try to fight him with your stolen axe. I’ll enjoy watching Nimor shred you.”
The half-dragon assassin smiled at that, and Gromph saw him coming in with one wild slash after another, a flurry of claws and kicks and head butts. Gromph had no idea what to do.
In the instant that Nimor started to run toward him, Gromph realized that knowing what your opponent intended to do might not be enough.
chapter
twenty three
How could there be any sense to a world that existed in a universe made of chaos? In a place where the only rule was that there were no rules?
When they were there last, not very long ago, they walked enormous strands of spiderweb and saw nothing alive until they were beset upon by a horde of feral demons at the gates to a temple sealed by the face of Lolth herself. There, a god tried to break through but couldn’t.
Though they had been away from the Demonweb Pits for only a short time, much had changed.
The smooth expanse of the gigantic webs was pitted and worn. Patches of what looked like rust went on for acres at a time. In spots they had to climb or levitate up and down cliffs of crumbling webbing and traverse craters big enough to hold all of Menzoberranzan in their uneven bowls.
All around them was the stench of decay, so intense at times Pharaun Mizzrym thought he would suffocate.
The wizard had been walking for hours in uncharacteristic silence. None of the drow or the draegloth commented aloud on the state of the Demonweb Pits. It was too difficult to voice the palpable sense of despair the ruined place imbued in them all. They stopped occasionally to rest, and minutes would go by where they didn’t even look at each other.
Constantly on their guard for the plane’s demonic inhabitants, at first they were all on a knife’s edge, but as the hours dragged on and they saw nothing alive, let alone threatening, they soon began to relax. That was when the despair deepened even further.
They walked on and on and finally came to Lolth’s temple. The once imposing, otherworldly structure stood in ruin, infected by the same decay as the universe-spanning web. The obsidian stone had turned brown and was crumbled away in spots. Huge columns of smoke rose from the interior. Many of the great buttresses stood like shattered stumps, amputated by some inconceivable power. The surrounding plazas were
difficult to traverse, littered with boulders of carved stone and iron rusted and twisted out of shape. Bones lay everywhere— the bones of millions stacked in great piles or scattered as if by the cruel winds alone. The petrified spider-things they had marveled at before were gone, leaving holes in the floor of the plaza and along the buttresses as if they’d pulled up their feet from the stone and marched away.
The party traced the same path they had taken when in astral form and came once again to the entrance to the temple. The great stone face was itself shattered, revealing glimpses of the visage of Lolth but only in tiny, enigmatic fragments.
The doors swung wide.
“It was the gods,” Valas whispered, his voice echoing in a million tiny pings across the ruined plaza.
Vhaeraun, who had come to kill Lolth because of their own rash decision to lead one of his priests there, had been confronted by Selvetarm—Lolth’s protector—at the temple gates. Their duel was a sight that would be burned into Pharaun’s memory if he lived to be ten thousand years old, and the contest had caused much damage, but . . .
“Not this,” the Master of Sorcere said, his own voice echoing, though in not quite the same way. “This is different. Older.”
“Older?” the draegloth asked, his eyes darting from rock to rock.
“He’s right,” said Danifae, who was crouching, holding the skull of something that might have been half drow, half bat. “These bones are dried and bleached, almost petrified. The stone itself is crumbling to dust. The webs are rotten and brittle.”
“This place was razed a century ago or more,” Pharaun said.
“That’s not possible,” Valas argued, staring up at the open doors. “We were just here—right here, and the doors were sealed, and . . .”
The others didn’t expect him to finish.
“Lolth has left this place,” Quenthel said, her voice so quiet it barely managed to elicit an echo at all.
“She has left the Demonweb Pits?” Danifae asked. “How could that be?”
R. A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Extinction, Annihilation, Resurrection Page 60
