by Филип Этанс
Gromph hadn't moved far from the spot at which he'd first appeared. The Green Fields seemed to be exactly that: an endless open landscape of green grass and other plants. Gromph hadn't seen a building of any kind, and it appeared as if the halflings lived out in the open, slowly but constantly moving.
When the light returned, Gromph knew he would have to be on his way. He cast the last in a series of divinations that would help him not only return to the Prime Material Plane but go back to Toril, back to the Underdark below Faerun, and back to Menzoberranzan herself. It was no mean feat, and certainly Dyrr hadn't expected him to be able to accomplish it, but then Dyrr hadn't expected him to break free of the imprisonment either. The lichdrow's insistence on underestimating him would, possibly, allow Gromph the luxury of beating him.
The archmage stood, shielding his eyes from the pervasive light and watched Dietr and one of the females approaching with another tray of fruit. Dietr held a waterskin.
"We thought you might want breakfast," Dietr said.
The halfling looked at Gromph with that same expression of vague hopefulness and fear. The female barely seemed to notice him at all.
"I've had enough of your food," the archmage said, "and I'm taking my leave of your pointless expanse."
"Pointless expanse?" the female repeated, her ambivalence all at once replaced by anger, "Who are you to dismiss the Green Fields?"
"Who are you to speak to me at all?" Gromph asked.
He waited for an answer, but all he got was a squinting sneer from the winged female. Dietr's eyes bounced back and forth between them, and his breathing grew shallow and expectant.
"Leave me in peace," Gromph commanded.
When the two halflings didn't immediately turn to leave, the archmage raised an eyebrow. The female did her best to stare him down, but her best wasn't anywhere near good enough.
"You were alive once," Gromph asked her, "weren't you?"
Neither of the halflings responded right away.
"This one" — Gromph indicated Dietr with a wave of his hand—"was a living, material being on Faerun. Where did you live before you went to your Great Beyond?"
Again the female said nothing.
"I'll admit to being curious," Gromph went on. "If you died on whatever world you came from and your soul came here to rest in peace for all eternity, what happens when I kill you here? Does your soul go somewhere else, or are you consigned to oblivion? Will one of your weakling halfling godlings stop me? Even a halfling god on his home plane can be an inconvenience I'm sure, but it might be amusing to make the effort anyway."
"If you think you can kill me, interloper," the female sneered, "try it now or shut up."
Gromph smiled, and it must have been that expression that made Dietr finally step forward, his hands held out in a gesture of weak conciliation.
"Easy," he said. "Easy there, everybody."
Gromph laughed.
"That's better," said Dietr, a grin plastered across his cherubic face. "If the venerable drow would like to leave, then he's certainly free to go on his way."
"There will be no violence here," the female said, her voice even and strong. "If I have to blast you to pieces to ensure that. ."
"We've all been blasted to pieces at least once, haven't we?" Dietr said. "No one wants to do that again, so let's all be friends."
Gromph took a deep breath and said, "I will be leaving, but there will be residual effects from the gate, and you won't want to go where I'm going. Back away or not, I'll leave that up to you."
The female continued to stare daggers at him, but still she drifted the slightest bit back from the archmage.
Gromph looked her up and down. She was half his size, and she looked ridiculous. The whole world looked ridiculous—the whole world was ridiculous. Dyrr had sent him there on purpose, and looking at the winged halfling in her grass-infested setting made Gromph angrier and angrier by the second. Dyrr was trying to get rid of him, was trying to dismiss him by sending him to that pastoral universe, and Gromph Baenre, Archmage of Menzoberranzan, would not be dismissed.
"Fine," Gromph said, and he began to cast his spell.
He was only vaguely aware of the female moving farther away, and he assumed that Dietr was doing the same thing. The words of the spell came easily enough, and the gestures went smoothly from one to another. There was a part of the spell that few of the experienced casters who'd ever done it knew could be manipulated, and Gromph began to maneuver it. He wove into the spell a subtle modification that would take him precisely where he wanted to go.
He finished and could feel himself falling backward out of the Green Fields—and he felt a hand on his arm.
There was light everywhere but it wasn't too bright.
There was sound coming from all around him but it wasn't too loud.
There were colors in the air but they weren't too vibrant.
They were moving in every direction at once but not too fast.
They appeared in Menzoberranzan, their feet on solid rock, their eyes comforted by the gloom lit by faerie fire.
Gromph turned and looked at the halfling. He was naked, shaking, his wings were gone, and he looked older, smaller, and weaker. His eyes were red, his skin dry and yellow. His face, twisted in a rictus of suffering, revealed gray, decaying teeth.
With a sigh, the archmage turned to survey his surroundings. It was Menzoberranzan—the Bazaar. He'd made it. There weren't many drow in the streets, and the few who were there recognized the archmage immediately. The smart ones scattered.
Nauzhror,Gromph thought, sending the name along the Weave to the Baenre wizard.
After a tense moment of silence a voice echoed in Gromph's mind: Archmage. It is gratifying to hear you again. Welcome back to Menzoberranzan.
It was Nauzhror.
Before he could reply, Gromph was distracted by a high-pitched whine. He looked down at the desiccated halfling.
"You are a fool," Gromph said to Dietr.
The halfling cowered from his gaze and quivered.
"I didn't ask you to come with me," Gromph added, "and you don't belong here any more than I belonged in the Green Fields."
"I wanted. ." the halfling began then coughed. Dust puffed from his throat. "I wanted to live again."
"Why?" Gromph asked.
"My mother. She has been attending seances to contact me. She has no other family and needs me to support her."
Gromph laughed.
"It's not funny," Dietr said.
Gromph laughed more then cast a spell.
"An amusing diversion, traitor," he said into the air, "but a temporary one. We'll finish it in the Bazaar. Now."
He still had ten words left in the spell but had nothing more to say.
The lichdrow has been hiding in House Agrach Dyrr, Nauzhror sent. The siege continues at a stalemate.
"I don't understand," Dietr said.
Gromph turned to look down at the halfling again.
"Can you get me home?" Dietr asked. "Can you send me back to Luiren?"
Gromph raised an eyebrow at the little creature's audacity then slid his tongue around a quick divination. Obvious as it was by the halfling's appearance, it didn't hurt to be certain. The spell revealed a telltale glow around the slight humanoid.
Where have you been? Nauzhror asked.
Nowhere I'd like to visit again, he replied, but someone's come back with me.
I see, said Nauzhror. The gate effect seems to have given him some kind of physical form.
But he died on this plane, Gromph added, so when he came back. .
"Yes," the archmage finally answered the halfling. "I can take you anywhere you want to go. Of course, I won't."
The halfling shook, and Gromph thought he could actually hear the creature's bones rattle.
"Please. .?" the halfling whimpered.
"Your mother will not be happy to see you, Dietr," Gromph said. "You died. Remember? You came back to this world unbidden. You came back as
a. ."
It is a huecuva, Nauzhror provided.
"An undead creature," Gromph said to the halfling. "You're a huecuva. Do you know what that is?"
The halfling shook his head, terror plain in his bloodshot eyes.
Gromph, my young friend, the lichdrow's voice reverberated in the wizard's head, welcome back. Of course I accept your gracious invitation. It will be my honor to attend you on your last day.
Gromph nodded, mumbled through a simple necromancy, and directed it at the halfling. The archmage felt the undead creature come under his control.
"Stand up straight," Gromph commanded, and Dietr instantly complied, though it seemed to cause him some discomfort.
Gromph cast another spell on him, one that set a flicker of magical fire playing over the halfling's dead flesh.
"No. ." the halfling muttered. "Please. ."
Gromph tightened his grip on his staff and conjured a globe of protective force around himself.
"Please don't. ." the huecuva pleaded.
Gromph looked around the Bazaar—abandoned tents and stalls, most with their wares secured under lock and key, and a few curious drow eyes watching from safe places in the surrounding stalactites.
"Won't you please just let me—?" Dietr begged.
"Silence," Gromph said, and the halfling was compelled to obey. "You decided to come through with me, Dietr, and now you're in Menzoberranzan, not Luiren. In Menzoberranzan, undead are property."
The huecuva's mouth worked in silence, and his skin crawled over his bones.
Gromph felt something, a presence, and quickly scanned the Bazaar again. At the far end of the wide thoroughfare was a splash of green light. The spell he'd cast on Dietr continued to give Gromph the ability to see a distinctive aura around undead, and the green light was just such an emanation, but all Gromph saw was the aura—a smudge of green light surrounding empty space.
Gromph rushed through another incantation, leaning his staff against his chest so he could use both hands to work the magic. Twisting tendrils of blue-hot flame leaped from his fingertips, growing as they made their way unerringly at the green shadow. The fire shuddered in the air and was drawn thin. It poured into a spot at the top of the shadow and disappeared into it.
The crown, Nauzhror sighed.
"Stand in front of me," Gromph said to the halfling.
The huecuva did precisely as he was told, even as the wave of blue fire shot back at Gromph. The flames hit the halfling full in the chest, and activated the protective spell Gromph had cast on him. The blue fire was replaced by a flash of red-orange that carried back along the path of the reflected spell. The green shadow was replaced by the fully revealed form of the lichdrow Dyrr, who was no longer invisible.
The fire from the huecuva's defensive aura burned the lich, making Gromph smile. He looked at the halfling and saw that Dietr was smoking, his dead flesh smoldering. His face was twisted with agony.
"Go," Gromph commanded. "Kill the lich."
Dyrr cast a spell on him, but Gromph's defenses proved capable of turning it away. It made the archmage a little dizzy, and that was all. Dietr staggered forward, reluctant but compelled to act. He wasn't moving fast enough.
"Kill the lich," Gromph called after him, "and I'll send you home to your mother."
Dietr believed the lie and broke into a run. Dyrr moved up to meet him and raked a clawed hand across the huecuva's face. Red-orange fire flared at the touch, blowing blistering heat into the lichdrow's masked face.
Dyrr threw up an arm, but the damage had been done. He roared, frustrated and angry.
Gromph was already working his next spell. Before Dyrr could strike again, it took effect, and the lichdrow's arm stopped in mid-swipe. Gromph hadn't quite expected the spell to work, but it had. Dyrr was frozen.
"Take me home!" the undead halfling shrieked.
He raked his own set of undead talons across Dyrr's sunken cheeks. The frozen lichdrow growled at the pain and humiliation of the wound and was able to move again.
Taking advantage of Dyrr's misdirected rage at the huecuva, Gromph channeled the energy of a minor divination into a blast of arcane fire. He sent the silvery light pouring over the lichdrow and had to close his own eyes against its brilliance.
Dyrr had been casting a spell—likely one that would have blasted Dietr to flinders—but the arcane fire took him full in the face. His spell was ruined, and the lichdrow was burned again.
You're hurting him, Grendan said into Gromph's mind.
Dietr struck again, digging a deep furrow into the lichdrow's forearm. Thick, dead blood oozed slowly from the wound.
The lichdrow looked at Gromph, and the archmage could see in his undead eyes that he was hurt, and hurt badly. Gromph smiled, and—
Dietr exploded in a shower of black fire, dead flesh, and yellowed bones.
What's happening? Nauzhror asked.
The sphere of magical energy that surrounded Gromph winked out—its magic spent—as the archmage realized that the black fire that had destroyed his huecuva hadn't come from Dyrr.
The lichdrow looked up into the air over the Bazaar, and Gromph followed his gaze.
Nimor Imphraezl hung suspended on batlike wings a dozen yards above the floor of the Bazaar.
Wings? Gromph thought.
I knew he was no true drow, said Nauzhror.
"Well," Nimor said to the lich, his voice deeper, weightier than Gromph remembered, "seems you need me after all."
Chapter Eighteen
Ryld stood knee-deep in the freezing water of the cold swamp. Jeggred was nowhere to be seen. The constant noise made it hard to pick out the sound of the draegloth moving, The strange smells masked Jeggred's rancid breath. The pinpoint stars and the odd patch of bioluminescence made it impossible to see the draegloth in the cold water and thick vegetation. The faerie fire the strange swamp cat had cast on him had long since faded away.
He saw things moving in the water from time to time, mostly snakes, but no disturbances big enough to be the draegloth. Something slid past his leg, but there was no sign on the slime-covered surface that anything had passed by. It was definitely something alive, but it couldn't possibly be Jeggred. It didn't touch him again, whatever it was.
Careful with each step, Ryld made his way across the swamp much more slowly than he'd hoped. The thin coating of bright green algae that covered the water made it impossible for the weapons master to see his feet. With each step his boot met some resistance: a rock, something soft, something that might have been alive, something that was solid and round like a quarterstaff—there were a lot of those—and something sharp like a dagger blade.
A bubble as big as Ryld's fist slowly expanded on the surface a few feet in front of him, sat there for a few seconds, then popped. Ryld stopped and watched it and winced when the smell of the air that had been trapped in the bubble finally wafted past his nose. The smell was reminiscent of the draegloth's horrid breath, but it was different enough that Ryld was sure that it wasn't Jeggred who'd sent up the bubble—and it wasn't the first such bubble he'd seen.
Ryld stepped forward, his foot again brushing past some hard object below the water. He used a Melee-Magthere technique to slow his breathing and steady the shivering that threatened to slow his reaction time. He could see his breath condensing in the air in front of him in puffs of white steam when he exhaled, the air cold enough to make his teeth sting when he inhaled.
An explosion of water doused his face and made him close his eyes. The water was thick with slime and grainy bits of something—Ryld couldn't even guess what. His eyes blazed with flashes of yellow light and pain that made his jaw tense. Still, he brought his sword up in front of him and slashed twice at whatever it was that had splashed him. His blade met no resistance.
From much farther below, a set of claws grabbed at his left thigh, punctured, then pulled down. The claws dragged deep, ragged furrows in his skin, and Ryld could feel the heat of his own blood soaking his leg then cooling
when it mixed with the cold water of the swamp.
Stepping back and stabbing down, Ryld tripped over something in the water that felt like a length of petrified rope. Though he did his best to judge where the draegloth must have been to have clawed him like that, Splitter sank into the spongy ground under the water, never touching Jeggred. Ryld fell backward until the water wrapped him in its freezing embrace.
The draegloth's next attack pushed one of Ryld's arms off the pommel of his greatsword and flipped it out to his side. Another set of deep cuts appeared on the underside of his left arm. Ryld wanted to scream, but he was under water, so he kept his mouth shut and brought his greatsword back under control. Even in the roar of swirling water that overwhelmed his hearing, the weapons master could sense the draegloth's jaws snap closed half an inch from his throat.
The draegloth was on top of him, and all the half-demon had to do was keep Ryld under water and eventually the weapons master would drown. The mistake the draegloth made was to reveal his position so clearly, though, and Ryld took full advantage of that mistake.
Pressing up with one leg, Ryld felt the heavy weight of the half-demon. The weapons master pressed harder, curling backward and straightening his leg—not an easy task since the draegloth outweighed Ryld by more than two hundred pounds. He almost had the draegloth rolled over his head, but—maybe due to resistance from the water, the cold, shivering, or exhaustion—Ryld's knees gave way, and the draegloth fell onto him.
Jeggred's claws found the underside of Ryld's breastplate and made some shallow but painful cuts in the weapons master's belly. The cold water slowed the flow of blood, though. Ryld almost subconsciously noted the irony in that. He would drown in the water that was keeping him from bleeding to death.
Ryld pressed again, using Splitter instead of his legs. Either the draegloth feared the greatsword or being totally submerged made him lighter, but Ryld managed to roll the half-demon off him. He made a few more blind jabs with Splitter to keep the draegloth at bay while he stood.