Annihilation

Valas purchased more supplies than he probably should have-three large bags that carried more than would seem possible from their size or weight-buthe couldn't help thinking they'd be gone longer than Pharaun had estimated. Already their journey had lasted longer than any of them had assumed when they'd left Menzoberranzan.

He sat at a small table in an open cafe high up and in the center of the ziggurat-city, waiting for Danifae. The battle-captive hadn't been joking, obviously, when she'd told him that she would ignore his summons. Valas wasn't necessarily anxious to return to the Lake of Shadows, but he did want to leave the city. Dark elves throughout Sschindylryn were looking over their shoulders. Tempers were short, and the lesser races had a dangerous gleam in their eyes. The city wasn't quite as bad off as Ched Nasad, but the scout could see it was headed in that direction and sooner rather than later.

"Waiting for me?" Danifae asked.

Valas turned, surprised, to see her standing behind him. He hadn't noticed her. "Cities. . . ." the scout sighed.

He stood, quickly gathering up his bags.

"Are we really in such a hurry?" Danifae asked as she slid into the chair across the table from him.

She looked up at him with one arm raised and a wide, bright grin on her face. She looked different. Valas couldn't help but stare.

"In the Surface Realms," Danifae said, "it's customary for a gentleman to buy a lady a drink. Well, so I hear."

Valas shook his head but found it difficult to take his eyes off the female. The chair he had been sitting in slowly slid toward him. She pushed it with her foot from under the table.

"Order us a bottle of algae wine," she purred.

Valas turned to order the wine but stopped himself.

"We should get back," he said. "The others will be waiting for us."

"Let them wait."

Valas took a deep breath and shifted the bags onto his shoulders.

"Mistress Quenthel will be displeased," he said, not caring but wanting to be on his way.

"Let her be displeased," Danifae shot back, still smiling, but her eyes grew colder. "I feel a bit like taking a holiday."

"Her House is paying," the mercenary said, still not sitting down.

Danifae looked at him, and Valas felt his skin crawl. It was as if she was peeling off his flesh with her eyes and looking inside him.

She stood slowly, unfolding herself from the chair piece by piece, andValas watched every subtle movement that made up the whole. She held out a hand. "I'll carry one," she said.

Valas didn't move to hand her a bag.

Whatever it was about Danifae that had changed, Valas was trying desperately not to like it.

For the drow, as with other sentient races above and below the surface of Faerun, each individual had his own set of skills and talents, his own individual use that served the whole in some way, even if only as an irritant. In Menzoberranzan talent was something that was identified early, and skills were a commodity traded on the open market and imparted on the young only with great care and economy. Individuality was accepted only within certain limits and rarely if at all for males of the species.

"He is a lich," the Master of Sorcere said, "so his touch will paralyze." There were a few places where male drow had some advantage, and one of those places was the halls of Sorcere. It was the females who held the power, and when things were as they should be, the ear of Lolth, but it was the males who were attuned to the Weave. Of course, not all wizards were male . . . only the best were, and Gromph Baenre, the Archmage of Menzoberranzan, had more than a little to do with that. It was his responsibility, after all, to identify talent for the Art in young drow from every House in the city, and it was his right to choose those who would go to Sorcere to study. It was his whim that decided whether or not they would ever finish their course of study. The fact that the majority of wizards in Menzoberranzan were male was no coincidence, no accident of birth or statistics, but a carefully and often less than subtly played turn in the great sava game of the City of Spiders. That most females preferred serving Lolth anyway only made that bit of manipulation easier.

"He will radiate an aura of fear," the Master of Sorcere continued, "but you probably won't be affected by that."

While there was no question that the priestesses had and would always have dominion over the city, his dominion over the Art was simply a small consolation-something that would warm Gromph's heart in his private moments.

With Lolth silent, withdrawn, and the priestesses scrambling for answers, thrown into the sort of chaos only a demon goddess could conjure . . . well, things had changed.

"Once in each twenty-four hour cycle," said the Master of Sorcere, "he can kill with a touch."

The strangest thing, for Gromph, about the shift in power was how little he liked it. He had, after all, spent a lifetime manipulating the system to best serve his House and himself. When the system faltered, he might have been in a position to unseat his sister and the rest of the matron mothers and take control of Menzoberranzan himself-but why? What would he hope to gain? How could his position be any better? He enjoyed all the benefits of House Baenre's position and Sorcere's, but there was always someone else onto whom he could deflect responsibility, always someone who could be manipulated.

"There are a number of spell effects that will be of no concern to the lich," said the master. "These include cold, lightning, poison, paralysis, disease, necromancy, polymorph, and spells that affect or influence the mind. Best not even to bother preparing such enchantments."

Gromph was the third most powerful dark elf in Menzoberranzan, and Lolth be damned, he liked it that way.

"He will likely be wearing a robe of black silk," the Master of Sorcere continued, "that will allow him to conjure a barrier of whirling blades." Well, he might like to be second, but still . . .

"The crown," the Master of Sorcere finished, "is more than simply a crass affectation. It can store and reflect back offensive spells."

So it was that Gromph Baenre sat on the floor of a very small, very dark, and very secret room in the deepest heart of Sorcere, surrounded by a circle of mages who were the most powerful in the city-among the most powerful spellcasters in all the Underdark. The other mages, Masters of Sorcere all, whispered or chanted and waved or gesticulated, and tossed into the air or pinched between fingers all manner of tokens, totems, focuses, and components. They showered the archmage with protective magic, doing it at so fast a pace they'd stopped even bothering to tell him what they were casting on him. Gromph had few doubts that by the time they were done, he'd be immune to everything. Surely no one would be able to harm him-no one but a spellcaster of greater power than the Masters.

And it was precisely such an opponent that Gromph meant to face.

"I should go with you, Archmage," Nauzhror Baenre said, his voice conveying a lack of real desire in that regard.

"If any of you say anything like that," Gromph replied, "even once more, I will. . ."

He let the threat go unfinished. He wouldn't do anything, and they all knew it, but out of respect for the archmage, none of them suggested going with him again. They were all smart enough to know that Gromph meant to face an enemy who, all things being equal, was the most dangerous being in Menzoberranzan. The lichdrow was a spellcaster of extraordinary, sometimes almost godlike, power. Of course they didn't really want to face him in the way that Gromph meant to: toe to toe in a spell duel that would surely find its place in drow history.

That duel was something only the archmage could fight. In Menzoberranzan, it had come down to that: male against male, wizard against wizard, First House against Second, establishment against revolutionary, stability against change, civilization against . . . chaos?

Exactly, Gromph thought-though he would never say it out loud. Order against chaos, and it was Gromph who fought for order, for law, in the name of one of the purest embodiments of chaos in the multiverse: Lolth, a goddess with the heart of a demon.

"Strange," the archmage murmured aloud, "how things work out."

"Indeed, Archmage," Nauzhror answered as if he was reading Gromph's mind-and perhaps he was. "It is strange indeed."

The two Baenre wizards shared a smile, then Gromph closed his eyes and let the others continue their casting. The protective and contingency spells were draped over him one after the other. Sometimes Gromph could feel an itching, warmth, a cool breeze, or a vibration, and sometimes he would feel nothing at all.

"Have you decided where to face him?" Grendan asked, pausing briefly between defensive spells.

Gromph shook his head.

"Somewhere out of the city?" Nauzhror suggested. "Behind the duergar lines?" Gromph shook his head again.

"At the veryleast," said Nauzhror, "let us send guards to secure the arena . . . wherever it might be ... before you arrive. They could remain hidden and come into play against the lichdrow only if necessary."

"No," said Gromph. "I said I will go alone, and I will go alone."

"But Archmage-" Nauzhror started to protest.

"What, precisely, do you think a House guard could do for me against the lichdrow Dyrr?" Gromph asked. "He would dry them up and smoke them in his pipe-precisely as I will do to any soldier Dyrr decides to bring with him. Dyrr will face me on my terms because he has to. He has to beat me, and he has to do it in front of all Menzoberranzan. If not, he will always be second, even if he manages to defeat House Baenre."

The masters continued with their spells, leaving only Nauzhror and Grendan still considering more than the magical practicalities of the duel at hand.

"Donigarten, then," suggested Grendan.

"No," Gromph said, then paused while another spell made him shudder briefly. "No."

He looked up at Nauzhror, who raised an eyebrow, waiting.

"The Clawrift, I think," Gromph said-deciding the second before he actually said it.

"An excellent choice, Archmage," Nauzhror said. "Away from any property of value and away from most of the finer drow of Menzoberranzan, of whom we have so few to spare on the best day."

A younger student entered and quickly set a small crystal ball on a short golden stand on the floor in front of the archmage. Gromph made no effort to acknowledge the student who was even then racing from the room.

He looked deeply into the crystal ball, holding up a hand to still the barrage of protective castings. The crystal grew cloudy, then flashes of light flickered in the roiling clouds inside the once perfectly clear globe.

Gromph brought a memory-image of the lichdrow into his mind's eye and held it there then did his best to convey that image into the globe. It would find the lichdrow, unless Dyrr expended some energy in avoiding it.

Gromph put his hand down, and several of the more ambitious masters started casting again-muttering incantations and tracing invisible patterns in the air-as if they'd been sitting there holding the thought.

There, Gromph thought as an image coalesced in the crystal ball of the lichdrow striding confidently across a reception hall in House Agrach Dyrr. There you are.

Gromph recognized the hall. He had been there himself on several occasions, back before things started to dissolve and Houses Agrach Dyrr and Baenre were close allies and business associates. He kept his attention on Dyrr. As he watched the lichdrow barking orders to his House guards and other armed drow, Gromph cast a spell of his own.

"Good afternoon, Dyrr," Gromph told the image in the crystal ball. "It will be the Clawrift. I know I don't have to tell you to come alone. I know you're always ready."

Gromph didn't wait for a response. He nodded to his masters and closed his eyes.

"We will be watching, Archmage," said Grendan, "and we'll be in constant contact."

"It would be irresponsible of me," Nauzhror said, "not to ask one more time if I might take your place in-"

"It would be irresponsible of me to hide behind my students," Gromph said. "Besides, Cousin, you were archmage for a little while, and by all accounts you liked it."

"I did, Archmage," Nauzhror admitted, "very much so."

'Well, if you hope to live long enough to be archmage again, you will await me here."

The lichdrow Dyrr dismissed his guards and proceeded via dimension door to the sitting room. There he found Yasraena and Nimor, who were occupied with trying not to speak to each other. Both seemed relieved when the lich stepped from the transdimensional doorway and into the room.

"It is time then?" Nimor asked.

Yasraena drew in a deep breath and held it, her eyes fixed on the lich.

"He awaits me at the Clawrift," Dyrr replied.

The matron mother exhaled slowly, and Nimor nodded.

"As good a place as any," the assassin said. "A hole in the ground ... no sense damaging the merchandise we're paying so dearly to acquire."

"If by 'merchandise,' " Yasraena hissed, "you mean Menzoberranzan the Mighty, you-"

"Yasraena," Dyrr interrupted, his voice like ice.

The matron mother pressed her teeth together and turned away from Nimor, who stifled a laugh.

"I am prepared, as always," Dyrr said to them both, "and I will leave at once." Yasraena turned to Nimor and said, "Go with him."

The assassin raised an eyebrow, and Dyrr-if he had any blood he would have felt it boil.

"Surely," the lichdrow said to Yasraena, "you don't mean to imply that I might not achieve the necessary victory on my own. Surely you don't. . . worry over my safety."

He locked his gaze on the young matron mother's eyes and held her there until she went gray, blinked, and turned away.

"You know that all of House Agrach Dyrr has the utmost confidence in you," she said, her voice low, stretched thin. She turned to look Nimor up and down. "But this is no time for personal vendettas. We have aligned ourselves with this . . . whatever he is. Why not use him?"

Nimor smiled, and Dyrr was reminded of the carnivorous lizards that inhabited the wilds of the Underdark.

"You wouldn't know where to begin to use me," the assassin said.

Dyrr simply shrugged off the meaningless exchange. He began to cast a series of protective spells on himself, ignoring a few more tiresome minutes of Yasraena and Nimor's verbal scuffling. Dyrr blinked after having cast on himself a spell that would make unseen things visible to him. Nimor looked different but in ways that seemed incongruous, even impossible. The drow assassin was no drow, as Dyrr had known for some time, but for the first time Dyrr could see something that might have been wings.

The lichdrow let that matter fall to the side in favor of a series of carefully crafted contingencies. Afterall, Dyrr himself wasn't exactly a drow anymore either. If Nimor was something else than a drow, so be it-as long as the dark assassin remained useful.

Something that Yasraena said made Dyrr stop in the middle of an incantation. "Will House Agrach Dyrr be evacuated from Menzoberranzan," she asked Nimor, "should things not go the lichdrow's way?"

Dyrr struck her. The slap echoed in the Spartan sitting room, and Yasraena fell in an undignified heap onto the worg-carpeted floor. The lich took some of her life-force with the slap-only a taste, but enough to turn her gray and leave her gasping for breath. She looked up at him from the floor with wide, terrified eyes.

Matron mother indeed, Dyrr thought.

Nimor made no move and barely even seemed to take notice. Finally, he looked down at Yasraena as she began to struggle to her feet.

"If the lichdrow gives his leave," said the assassin, "I would like to answer that question."

The cold gleam in Nimor's eyes was enough to convince Dyrr that the assassin would give the right answer. The lichdrow nodded.

"House Agrach Dyrr," Nimor said to Yasraena, who had managed to get to her feet though her knees shook, "lives or dies in Menzoberranzan."

Yasraena nodded, rubbing her face with trembling hands, and Dyrr caught Nimor's attention.

"Precisely, my friend," the lichdrow said, "as do you."

Nimor stepped toward him, squaring his shoulders. It could never have crossed the lichdrow's mind for a second to back down, and he didn't.

"If I believe you are soon to fall," Nimor said to Dyrr, "I will rescue you." Dyrr wanted in that moment to kill Nimor Imphraezl, but he didn't. Instead, he laughed. He was still laughing as he teleported away.

The Clawrift, a natural rent in the bedrock, cut into the northern sections of Menzoberranzan east of Tier Breche. Gromph stood at the very edge of it, looking down into the blackness. Even his newly acquired, much younger eyes were incapable of seeing the bottom. Sorcere was behind him. In front of him, across the wide chasm, was the City of Spiders. The stalagmites and stalactites that had been carved into homes and places of business for the drow were aglow with faerie fire. He could see House Baenre all the way on the other side of the cavern and the odd flash of light that marked the continuing siege of House Agrach Dyrr.

The lichdrow appeared in midair over the mile-deep chasm and hung there, a dozen yards away or more. He appeared facing Gromph as if he knew exactly where the archmage would be.

"Ah, my young friend," the lichdrow called, his voice floating over the space between them and echoing into the Clawrift itself, "there you are."

"As promised," Gromph replied, bringing a string of spells to mind.

"So ithas come to this, then?" Dyrr asked.

"The two of us," replied Gromph, "fighting to the death?"

The lich laughed, and Gromph knew the sound would have sent lesser drow running.

"Why, Dyrr?" the archmage asked, not really expecting an answer.

The lichdrow turned his palms up and lifted his arms to his sides, looking around, gesturing toward the city.

"What better reason,"asked Dyrr, "than the City of Spiders herself? From here, the Underdark, and from there, the World Above."

It was Gromph's turn to laugh.

"That's it then?" the archmage asked. "Mastery of all the world? Isn't that a bit of a cliche, lich? Even for you?"

The lichdrow shrugged and replied, "My existence knows no bounds, Gromph, so why should my ambition?"

"A simple enough answer, I suppose," Gromph said, "to a simple question."

"Shall we get on with it, then?"

"Yes," Gromph replied, "I suppose we had better."

They began slowly, both feeling each other out with minor divinations. Gromph could feel himself being explored even as he explored the lich. Nauzhror's voice, and Grendan and Prath's, whispered in his mind. Defenses were noted, items and clothing assessed for enchantment, notes compared. Gromph had brought a staff with him and was surprised to see that Dyrr had one too. He hadn't expected Dyrr to bring a staff.

Fire, Nauzhror told him after a tense few minutes of study. The most effective weapon against the undead wizard from the traitor House will be fire.

That's it, Gromph thought. Dyrr had made his one mistake.

"You're going to surprise me today," the lich called to Gromph, "aren't you, my dear archmage?"

"The only two things I'm completely sure of, Dyrr," Gromph replied, "is that we will surprise each other today and I will destroy you."

They started casting at the same time. Gromph was an experienced enough diviner to know that like himself, the lichdrow had cast his last defensive incantation.

The spells burst into being from the Weave at the same instant. A freezing wind blew from the lichdrow, carrying with it thousands of razor-sharp splinters of ice. That shredding storm met Gromph's fireball over the black depths of the Clawrift. The fire blew out even as it melted the ice. The two effects ate each other before either came close to touching their intended targets.

Well, Gromph told himself with a sigh, this is going to take a while.