Annihilation (22 page)

Danifae waited a few heartbeats for him to finish then prodded, “We all serve greater mistresses, Jeggred. The Matron Mother of House Baenre, in your case, and in mine, Lolth herself—both greater mistresses than Quenthel. If you have something that either your matron mother or your goddess need to know, you must speak. Duty demands it.”

Jeggred looked deep into her eyes, and she let him. She held the half-demon’s gaze for a long time, never permitting herself the slightest twitch, the most miniscule sign of weakness or indecision.

“She’s … sensitive,” the draegloth said.

“Sensitive?” Danifae pressed.

“The Mistress of Arach-Tinilith has a sensitivity to beings from the outer planes,” he said. “She can sense the presence of demons and communicate with them. It’s not something that everyone knows about her, but I do.”

“Then why didn’t she know that Raashub was gating in …?” She let the question fade away.

The look in Jeggred’s eyes as he stared at Quenthel’s still back told her all she needed to know.

“I am a priestess of Lolth,” she told the draegloth. “I serve the
Queen of the Demonweb Pits, and on this ship that means I serve Quenthel Baenre.”

Jeggred tipped his huge head to one side, his wild mane of white hair spilling over his muscular, gray-furred shoulders.

“I serve her,” Danifae went on, “whether she knows it or not, whether she appreciates it or not, and whether she desires it or not. Something is …”

Danifae wasn’t sure how to finish that thought.

“She has succumbed,” the draegloth said.

“Succumbed?” asked Danifae.

“To fear.”

Danifae let that settle in then said, “She requires our services more than ever now. Lolth’s servant demands our service, and we both live to serve, do we not?”

Jeggred nodded slowly, making it plain he was waiting to hear more.

The former battle-captive reached into her pouch and drew out one of the rings she’d taken from the cold, dead hand of her former House mage. She held it up so that only Jeggred could see it, sliding it between her fingertips so that it reflected the feeble illumination—enough for the draegloth’s dark-sensitive eyes to see it. Jeggred opened one hand, and Danifae let the ring fall onto the half-demon’s palm.

I need you to go somewhere with me
, Danifae signed, her hands close to her stomach so none of the others could see,
and do something for me
.

Ask
, he replied, also careful to keep his hands where only she could see them.
I live to serve, Mistress
.

They hadn’t managed to kill each other yet.

Gromph floated in the still darkness above the Clawrift surrounded by a globe of magical energy. He’d conjured it from his staff, draining some of the item’s magical essence in the process. The cost was worth it to keep out even the rudimentary spells the globe protected him from. Gromph knew the lich was capable of much more powerful castings—spells that would pass through the globe without the slightest degradation in power—but at least it would limit Dyrr’s options.

Regardless of the globe, no matter what he tried, Gromph couldn’t get within sixty yards of the lich.

The repulsion effect is coming from Dyrr’s staff
, Nauzhror whispered into Gromph’s mind.
We are studying possible solutions
.

The repulsion was another petty defense, another meager
drain on a powerful item, and in that way Gromph and Dyrr were even—again.

“What are you afraid of, lich?” the archmage called to his opponent. “I won’t try to kiss you.”

Dyrr, who was also floating above the black depths of the Clawrift, actually laughed.

“We could simply float here,” Dyrr replied, “waiting for one of the defenses to go down—your globe, my repulsion … but where’s the sport in that?”

“Good question,” Gromph whispered, not caring if the lich could hear him or not.

The archmage began to cast a spell, and the lich pressed his fingertips together, waiting to defend against it. Gromph set himself moving through the air toward the lich the second he finished his incantation and knew it was successful when the distance between them abruptly closed. The repulsion effect successfully dispelled, Gromph swooped in quickly to get into range for a more damaging spell.

Dyrr, who didn’t seem the least bit surprised, dropped out of the air. Gromph knew he’d dispelled the repulsion effect, not Dyrr’s ability to fly. The lich was trying to escape into the black abyss of the Clawrift.

Gromph dropped after him. The air, moving fast over the surface of the magical globe that still surrounded him, made a curious humming sound that Gromph found distracting. Still, he managed to cast another spell as he flew and succeeded in closing the distance between them even more.

A bead of pulsing orange light appeared in Gromph’s right hand. He looked up at Dyrr, brought his arm back to throw the bead, and hesitated. Dyrr, a cold light in his dead eyes, was coming at him. The distance between the two mages was closing faster and faster—and the lichdrow was casting a spell.

The words of Dyrr’s spell—a series of almost nonsensical quatrains in an obscure dialect of Draconic—echoed around them both. Gromph drew his right arm back farther still, aiming the bead at his opponent’s face while holding his staff in his left hand. Dyrr had something cupped in his own left hand and his own staff in his right. It was as if they were both looking in a mirror.

Dyrr threw his first. A cloud of sparkling red dust—
Crushed rubies
, Grendan reported—burst into the air around the lich. The dust swirled on some twist of wind for half a heartbeat then was gone. As the last grain of the powdered gemstone disappeared, Gromph threw the bead.

The archmage came to a sudden stop in the air. The breath was forced from his lungs, and he grunted loudly. His own staff hit him in the face, numbing his bottom lip and making his eyes water. His joints went limp for a few seconds, and his arms and legs flapped out of control.

The bead of compressed fire should have hit the lich in the face and exploded in a ball of flame six paces wide. It should have burned the lich’s face off—but it didn’t.

Gromph, as he finally gained control of his body and came to rest once again hovering in midair, could see the tiny speck of orange light fly true toward the lich’s face then curve in the air and dive into the garish crown the Agrach Dyrr wizard had the audacity to wear. The bead blazed briefly to life in a splash of orange and yellow luminescence that lit the lichdrow’s face but didn’t come close to burning it off.

The crown, Gromph thought. I should have remembered.

The fireball has been absorbed by the crown
, Nauzhror hissed into Gromph’s mind.

Gromph was certain he’d see it again.

The item will allow him to redirect the fireball at you
, Grendan warned.

Yes, gentlemen
, Gromph replied.
Thank you
.

Dyrr drew to an abrupt stop and hung in the air, bouncing ever so slightly. He looked like a mushroom cap bobbing on the surface of Donigarten Lake. Gromph, on the other hand, was frozen in air, standing on what felt like a solid surface but looked like a dim, phosphorescent glow.

Gromph’s globe was still up, but it wasn’t the only thing that surrounded him.

An impressive spell
, Nauzhror said.
Difficult to cast and expensive what with the ruby dust and all. It’s nothing you can’t handle, Archmage
.

“A forcecage?” Gromph asked.

The lichdrow didn’t bother answering. Instead, he began to cast another spell. Clearly he thought he had Gromph trapped, so of course he would take advantage of the situation. The archmage brought a spell to mind and rushed through the casting of it, racing the lich, though he would likely still have to suffer through whatever Dyrr was throwing at him. He needed to get the forcecage off him. Being trapped in a magical box was hardly convenient at that moment.

Dyrr’s spell took effect half a heartbeat before Gromph’s. As the lich finished the last gestures and the final complex verbalization and crunched a lodestone and a pinch of dust in his right hand, something opened under the archmage’s feet.

Gromph’s spell went off, and his own globe fell victim to it—but so did the forcecage—and Gromph was falling into whatever it was Dyrr had conjured underneath him.

The archmage touched his brooch and made himself stop quickly, well before he contacted Dyrr’s dramatic magical effect. As he drew himself up, moving farther and farther away from it, Gromph looked down—and into a whole other universe. The lichdrow had opened a gate beneath him, and a blinding,
eye-searing light poured out of it. Gromph had seen light like it only a few times in his long life. It was sunlight, and the Archmage of Menzoberranzan didn’t like it at all.

“Where are you trying to send me?” Gromph asked his opponent.

The World Above?
Prath mused, though only Gromph could hear him.

Dyrr didn’t answer but busied himself gathering some spell component or perhaps another magic item.

“You’ve imprisoned me more than once already,” Gromph went on, “though they seem to hold me less time each attempt. Now you want to send me away? For pity’s sake, Dyrr, why not simply kill me and get it over with? Or is it that you
can’t
kill me?”

Gromph certainly wished that were the case—and maybe by some bizarre twist of fate it was—but Dyrr seemed to have something else in mind. The lich finished casting his spell. The immediate effect was that Gromph’s stomach lifted in his gut. He caught his breath in a hissing gasp and started to fall.

He couldn’t levitate—Dyrr had dispelled the magic that was keeping him aloft—and Gromph fell toward the rotating pool of daylight beneath him. Knowing Dyrr, it would be a worse fate than simply splattering at the bottom of the Clawrift. It was a fate Gromph would do anything to avoid.

The archmage extended himself, wiping more stored energy, more access to the Weave from his mind than he normally would have had to, but he needed the spell to take effect faster and couldn’t spare the time for complicated incantations. The effect felt the same as Dyrr’s dispelling of his levitation, but instead of falling down, Gromph drifted to a stop then started falling upward. The source of gravity, with enough magic, could be moved.

Gromph twisted in the air as he accelerated toward the roof
of the cavern that housed Menzoberranzan. As the lich crossed his field of vision, Gromph could see him grimace in frustration. The archmage didn’t waste time gloating. His brooch was useless to him—at least for the time being—Gromph would continue to fall upward toward the new source of gravity until he was dashed against the ceiling. He would have to stop himself.

The command word
, Gromph sent to the masters of Sorcere.
Quickly
.

The staff that he’d used to surround himself in the globe of protective magic had been charged with more than one effect. He’d never used it, but the staff would grant him the same power of levitation as his brooch.

Sshivex
, Nauzhror provided.

“Sshivex,”
Gromph repeated and immediately began to levitate “up” and away from the ceiling.

In a fraction of a second—before he “landed” on the ceiling—Gromph once again drew to a halt in midair. The pool of blinding sunlight was far below him. The light made it difficult, but Gromph finally managed to spot the lichdrow, who was flying slowly, well away from the gate, and casting another spell.

“That was close, Dyrr,” Gromph called out. “You almost—”

The words caught in Gromph’s throat. His vision blurred. For a few seconds he couldn’t breathe.

“You al—” Gromph started again, but the words were pinched off when his throat clamped shut.

Tears welled up in the archmage’s eyes, and a wave of overwhelming despair passed through him, leaving his skin clammy, and his head spinning.

It’s an enchantment
, Grendan told him.

He was going to die. Gromph knew that with absolute certainty, but what was worse, Menzoberranzan would die soon after him. Everything he’d built over a life spent in the corridors of power
had come to nothing. Menzoberranzan was eating itself alive. Everything Gromph had considered a strength—in himself, and in his race—had proven a weakness.

A compulsion
, added Prath.

The hate and mistrust, the vendettas and animosities, had finally come home to roost. The once great City of Spiders had been reduced to a besieged, ragged, self-destructing ruin of its former glory—glory that was proving with every dead drow to have been a lie all along.

Fight it, Archmage
, Nauzhror urged.

Lolth was dead, and Gromph would be dead soon too. Lolth was dead, and so was House Baenre. So was Sorcere. So was Menzoberranzan. It had all come to nothing, as he himself had come to nothing.

Archmage
… Nauzhror prodded.

Gromph’s body shuddered through an alien sensation: a sob. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand and tried to blink away the tears, but more came. Through the tears he saw that Dyrr had moved and was floating above him.