The crystal sat cradled in a triangular stand of unusuallytextured gray stone. An eye motif decorated the stand. Gromph had sculpted it from the spheroid body of an eye tyrant that he had petrified in battle long ago.
“An unusual scrying crystal,” Nauzhror observed. “I have never seen its like.”
“It is of my own making,” Gromph replied. “And I have never recorded the process of its creation.”
Nauzhror only nodded, eyeing the crystal.
Gromph took a sip from the mushroom wine. The bitter taste left a pleasant tang on his tongue. The wine fortified his will. He put his fingertips to the faceted surface of the crystal. It felt cool, though the magic within it sent a charge through his hands. He moved his fingers over its surface, tracing its edges, attuning it to his will.
Nauzhror and Prath watched in expectant silence.
Gromph closed his eyes and let his mind see the lines of power that flowed within the chrysoberyl. He waited for the connection between the stone and his mind to coalesce.
There.
He smiled, feeling the crystal as an extension of his own mind, his own senses. He opened his eyes, still connected to the crystal, and gave a satisfied nod. The bands of color in the crystal had bled together to turn the crystal black. As he watched, the black gave way to a misty gray.
“It is ready,” he said, as much to himself as to Nauzhror and Prath.
“Indeed,” said Nauzhror. “Are we to be of assistance, Archmage?”
“Yes,” Gromph answered. “But not with this. Be patient, Nauzhror.”
Prath leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. He eyed the swirling gray mists in the crystal, and asked, “Archmage, I presume you will scry House Agrach Dyrr. Why not use the Scrying Chamber for this task? The crystal there is—”
Before Gromph could answer, Nauzhror answered in the same tone he might use with a particularly dense student, “Because only Baenre are to know of this. There may be spies other than Vorion within Sorcere’s walls.”
Gromph cocked an eyebrow. Nauzhror’s analysis impressed him; the Master wizard saw much. Soon, Gromph would have either to move him up Sorcere’s ranks or, if his ambition proved too great, kill him.
“Master Nauzhror offers one reason among several,” Gromph said, giving the Master of Sorcere a look of reserved approval. “Another is that I know my offices to be shielded from Yasraena’s scrying. I cannot be as certain regarding the wards around the scrying chamber without first performing a thorough check. We do not have time for that. Still a third reason is that I will need you both here, in my office, to further my deception.”
“Deception?” asked Prath.
“Need?” Nauzhror asked.
Gromph regretted his word choice the moment it exited his mouth. Nauzhror’s expression showed an ill-concealed eagerness at Gromph’s declaration of “need.” Even Prath looked mildly taken aback.
Gromph sealed the breach.
He stared coldly into Nauzhror’s pudgy face and said, “My need is one of convenience, Nauzhror. Nothing more. Any Baenre mage will do. Perhaps another would be better suited than you. Do you wish to be dismissed?”
The multitude of possible meanings for which “dismissed” might be a euphemism hung in the air between them.
Nauzhror shook his head so rapidly that his paunch shook. “No, Archmage,” he replied. “Not at all. I am honored to be of any small assistance in these weighty matters. I merely want to understand what it is you are planning.”
“And you will,” Gromph replied. “In time and only in part.”
Gromph eyed Prath, whose expression showed no challenge whatever. Gromph was mildly disappointed.
“I am pleased to be of service too, Archmage,” said the apprentice unnecessarily.
“I know,” Gromph replied. Hours before, Prath had shaved off his own flesh to supply Gromph with a needed material component. He still bore a divot in his finger from the wound.
Prath was loyal, but Gromph had little love for loyalty. It was too fickle a sentiment, easily shattered, easily manipulated. Gromph demanded not loyalty but obedience, and he ensured it through fear of his power. He decided that he would have to keep a close eye on Prath going forward, though the apprentice would be useful over the next few hours.
“Well enough, then,” Gromph said. “Let us first determine the nature of the challenge.”
He concentrated on the crystal, and whorls of color began to swirl within the gray mist. Prath and Nauzhror watched intently. Both pulled their chairs closer to Gromph’s desk.
“The lichdrow’s phylactery must be within House Agrach Dyrr,” Gromph said, speaking his thoughts and his hopes aloud. “Or at least it must be accessible through House Dyrr.”
“A reasonable supposition, Archmage.” Nauzhror scratched his cheek and said, “But even if the phylactery is in the House, will it not be too heavily warded for divinations to locate it?”
Gromph replied, “It will.”
Gromph pictured House Agrach Dyrr in his mind—the moat, the bridge, the wall of stalagmites and adamantine, and the adamantine keep within. He had been within House Agrach Dyrr many times in the past. He called upon those memories to focus his vision.
“Then how do you propose to find it?” Nauzhror asked.
Gromph smiled through his concentration and said, “I’m not going to find it.” He let his underlings share a confused look before he added, “I’m going to find everything but it.”
Confusion stayed written in Prath’s expression, but Nauzhror’s face showed dawning realization.
“Cunning, Archmage,” Nauzhror said, and Gromph heard genuine admiration in his voice.
Gromph did not acknowledge the compliment but instead let his mind sink farther into the crystal, let his consciousness float on its many facets.
“What is he going to do?” Prath whispered to Nauzhror.
He need not have kept his voice to a whisper. Gromph could maintain concentration while holding a conversation or while burning in the Hells’ fires.
“Excluding the possibilities,” the Master of Sorcere answered. “Watch and learn, Prath Baenre.”
Prath seemed to want to ask another question but held his tongue.
The mists in the crystal parted, and House Agrach Dyrr took shape in the facets. Nauzhror and Prath leaned farther forward, put their elbows on Gromph’s desk.
Gromph forced the crystal to change perspective and saw the House as though from the ceiling of Menzoberranzan’s cavern.
House Agrach Dyrr was built in a series of concentric circles, with a domed temple of Lolth centermost. A wide moat in a deep chasm surrounded the complex. The chasm ended at the very edge of a high, worked wall of nine stalagmites, each as thick around as a giant’s waist and as tall as a titan. Walls of adamantine stretched between the stalagmites. A second, lower adamantine wall ringed several inner structures.
Gromph moved the scrying eye downward, near the moat chasm, and saw that bodies floated face down in the water, burned, bloated, or cut down. Many were drow, some were orc and ogre, some were unrecognizable.
“Xorlarrin casualties,” Nauzhror observed.
Gromph nodded agreement. “And perhaps a few Dyrr dead too,” he said.
The moat was useful primarily as a way to channel an attacker’s forces. Skilled mages could span it with a magical construction or fly over it, but it would be difficult to attack the walls in more than a few places at once without expending substantial magical resources. And even after crossing the chasm, an attacker would be faced with the foreboding outer wall of House Agrach Dyrr.
Atop that outer wall of stone and metal the Dyrr forces massed—drow soldiers, ogres, trolls, mages, a few of Yasraena’s priestesses. They gazed down at the besieging Xorlarrin forces through narrow gaps in the stone parapets. To Gromph, they looked like insects crawling about their hive.
A single adamantine bridge, a narrow slab of metal without guardrails and wide enough for only two or three me
n abreast, spanned the moat. Gromph presumed the bridge was designed to be dropped into the chasm, if the need arose. At the bridge’s end stood the massive adamantine and mithral doors that provided the only access through the stalagmite wall. A group of eight ogres lay in burned pieces in the shadow of the doors. The metal battering ram they had carried lay askew across the bridge. Gromph knew the doors would not show even a scratch from the ram. Like all drow noble manors, the doors, walls, bridge, moat, and the structure of House Agrach Dyrr itself would be warded with a series of protective spells and enchantments, all of them cast by the lichdrow and a long line of powerful Matron Mothers. House Agrach Dyrr would stand for as long as the wards remained. Gromph knew that the wizards of House Xorlarrin, despite their deserved fame, would be hard pressed to dispel a ward put in place by the lichdrow. Until those wards were dispelled, Xorlarrin spells would harm the walls of House Agrach Dyrr about as well as a candle flame would harm a fire elemental.
“The siege will be long and bloody,” Nauzhror said.
The Master of Sorcere and Prath leaned out over Gromph’s desk so far that their heads almost touched Gromph’s.
“Longer and bloodier still if the lichdrow returns,” Gromph said, and the lesser mages shared a look.
“How long do we have, Archmage?” asked Prath.
“I am uncertain” Gromph admitted. “But not as long as I would like.”
Prath’s brow wrinkled, and he sagged back into his chair.
Gromph returned his focus to the scrying and saw that the bulk of the Xorlarrin forces massed on the far side of the bridge, just out of easy crossbow and spell range.
There, Gromph saw spider cavalry, drow infantry, a score or more of the robed Xorlarrin mages, a handful of priestesses, and a multitude of the soldiery of lesser races. The siege seemed to have quieted for the moment, as though House Xorlarrin was planning a new strategy.
Gromph moved the image over the stalagmite wall and drew in closer. Within the walls stood the squat, interconnected buildings that made up House Agrach Dyrr itself. The temple of Lolth dominated, a domed tabernacle set in the center of a complex that looked from above like the silhouette of a spider.
“Let us see what we have,” Gromph said and whispered the words to a spell that allowed him to see magical emanations, their strength and type. He could have simply activated the permanent dweomer on his person that allowed him to see such emanations, but he wanted his underlings to see the wards as well.
When he finished and the spell took effect, Nauzhror drew in a sharp breath.
“Lolth’s eight legs,” Prath swore, and Gromph forgave him the heretical oath.
Layer upon layer of protective wards sheathed the structure of the house, the bridge, and the moat. More even than Gromph had expected. Gromph’s divination translated the wards as a network of glowing lines, a matrix of veins that ran along and within the stone of the fortress, pulsing with power. The magical energy flowing through the walls, floors, and ceilings of House Agrach Dyrr nearly matched that of Gromph’s own chambers. The lichdrow and the Dyrr priestesses had been busy over the centuries.
Some of the wards glowed ochre and viridian, some a deep blue, and some glowed a hot crimson. Most of them were designed to prevent physical entry, to bolster the structural strength of the House, or to dampen or negate magical effects, but many were designed to prevent scrying within the walls. It was those that Gromph was most interested in, at least at the moment.
Interspersed among all of the various types of wards were a series of spell traps, killing spells, and alarms that would be triggered by the disruption of a ward.
“One step at a time,” Gromph said, both to himself and his undermages.
He whispered a series of arcane words and modified his divination slightly so that it showed him only the glowing blue lines of the anti-scrying wards. They made a complex network that surrounded the fortress. Various sub-networks covered only certain buildings or rooms within buildings.
“It’s as fine as a smallfish fisherman’s net,” Prath observed.
“True,” said Nauzhror. “There are alarms, but I see no killing spell traps set amongst the scrying wards.”
“Nor do I,” said Gromph and was pleased.
The spell traps set in the anti-scrying wards that surrounded his own offices, if triggered, would trap the soul of the wouldbe scryer or drive him mad. House Agrach Dyrr had not been as thorough.
Gromph took a long moment to study the structure of the wards, searching for a backdoor. Unfortunately, he saw none. He settled in for a long assault.
He took a calming breath and said, “Let us begin.”
The Scourged Legion was in full retreat, Nimor saw. Already it had entirely withdrawn from the fungus fields of the Donigarten, and only a token force held the tunnels to the east of the city. Within those tunnels, Shobalar spider cavalry prowled and infantry from House Barrison Del’Armgo and House Hunzrin massed.
Invisible once more, and also using the shadows and darkness as cover, Nimor avoided detection by the drow forces as he moved through their lines. He could see they were preparing for a counter attack against the tanarukks. He was tempted to kill a few as he passed, just out of spite, but decided against it. His business with the Menzoberranyr was finished.
The counterattack that the drow were so carefully planning likely would find no enemies. Before Narbondel climbed another hour, the Scourged Legion would have vanished into the Underdark and be scuttling its way back to the warrens under Hellgate Keep. The war-weary drow were unlikely to pursue, Nimor thought, especially with the duergar still battling at Tier Breche. Nimor found it ironic and amusing that Vhok had shown more effectiveness in retreat than he had in attack.
After flying over and through the drow lines, Nimor moved through a long series of mostly empty tunnels, encountering only an occasional stealthy drow scout. To judge from the marks in the stone, much of the combat between the Scourged Legion and the Menzoberranyr had occurred within those tunnels. The passage of many hobnailed boots had scored the floor; blood stained the stone here and there; severed body parts and spider carcasses dotted a few of the rooms; broken weapons, shields, and links of armor littered the floors; and burn marks from magical energies blackened walls.
Nimor saw no actual bodies until . . .
A winding, narrow, tertiary tunnel opened onto a large cavern in which lay the bloody corpses of forty or so duergar footmen. They looked as though they had formed against the far, dead-end wall and fought to the last. Broken weapons, dented armor, and cloven shields littered the cavern’s floor. Blood slicked the floor, still tacky to the touch. The duergar had been hacked to bits—the work of tanarukk axes and swords, not elegant drow blades.
“Well done, Kaanyr,” Nimor said.
It seemed that Vhok, like Nimor, had decided to clean up his duergar association before retreating. It seemed that Vhok no more left ends untied than did Nimor.
Vhok had planned his escape well. He would flee the siege of Menzoberranzan with hardly a scratch, and if it mattered, scavengers would strip the cavern clean of duergar bodies within a tenday. Meat, dead or alive, never went unconsumed in the Underdark. No evidence of Kaanyr’s betrayal of the duergar would be found by anyone but Nimor.
Nimor left the dead duergar behind and continued his invisible flight through the caverns. After a time, he began to encounter pockets of the withdrawing tanarukk forces. Squads of scaled and horned tanarukks—creatures with the savagery of orcs and the cunning of demons—trooped through the winding tunnels, weapons bare, bloodshot eyes intermittently checking behind them for pursuit. The ring of their boots, weapons, and armor resounded off the stone. Nimor moved over and through them like a specter, and only the breeze from his beating wings betrayed his passage.
For perhaps half an hour, Nimor trailed the retreating tanarukk forces through the tunnels. The demon-orcs moved with a purpose, probably toward a pre-determined mustering point, and Nimor hopped from one group to the n
ext. He knew he would eventually happen upon Vhok.
Nimor heard the cambion before he saw him—coarse voices, the thump of dozens of boots, and the ring of heavy armor sounded from ahead, as did the occasional barked order by Kaanyr Vhok. Nimor beat his wings, sped forward, and spotted the cambion at the front of a large column of torch-bearing tanarukks. Vhok’s close aid Rorgak, a tusked tanarukk broad-shouldered by even the standards of his own kind, stood at his side as they marched. Vhok had apparently retreated ahead of even the token force that he had left behind in Menzoberranzan.
Nimor smiled at the light that shined into Vhok’s character— the cambion was a loud bully but ever a quiet coward.
Still, he commanded an army and had his uses and might yet again. And cowards were easy to manipulate, if not to rely upon.
Nimor swooped in front of the column, alit on the tunnel floor, and allowed himself to become visible.
Snarls and shouts of surprise ran through the tanarukk ranks, a low, dangerous rumble. The column surged to a halt. Vhok and Rorgak had their blades in their hands within a heartbeat.
Rorgak, greatsword in hand, lunged toward Nimor. Several of the tanarukks behind Vhok moved forward, blood in their eyes.
Vhok halted all of them with an upraised hand and a barked order.
“Hold,” the cambion commanded, and they did. Even Rorgak.
Dozens of red eyes fixed on Nimor, hungry eyes.
Nimor held up his hands to show that he bore only a smile, though he knew his wings and fangs must have appeared disconcerting. Vhok and his tanarukks had never before seen him in his half-dragon form. If it proved necessary, Nimor could quickly flee into the Shadow Fringe.
“Nimor,” Vhok said and raised his pointed eyebrows. “I hardly recognized you. You look different than last we met.” He sheathed his rune inscribed blade and offered Nimor a hard look. “You take a chance showing a lone drow face to my men and me.”
The tanarukks near Vhok growled agreement. Rorgak continued to stare at Nimor, his blade still bare.
Nimor flapped his wings and let shadowstuff leak from his nostrils. “As you can see, Kaanyr, I’m no more drow than you are human or they orcs.”
R. A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Extinction, Annihilation, Resurrection Page 81