'Archmage?' Nauzhror asked.
'Never mind,' Gromph said.
Only the fact of Menzoberranzan's empty thoroughfares testified to the fact that the city was embattled. The ordinarily thronged streets were as still as a tomb. The Menzoberranyr had confined most of the fighting to the tunnels of the Dark Dominion, the Donigarten, and Tier
Breche. The city's center remained untouched by any battle except that between Gromph and the lichdrow.
But that battle had nearly leveled the bazaar.
Gromph turned and looked across the cavern to the great stairway that led to Tier Breche.
There on that high rise stood the spine of Menzoberranzan's power, the triad of institutions that had kept it strong and vital for millennia: Arach-Tinilith, Sorcere, and Melee-Magthere.
Flashes, explosions, and smoke illuminated the schools in silhouette. The siege of the duergar from the north continued unabated. Gromph knew that each of the schools was scarred and burned by stonefire bombs, but he knew too that each stood.
And soon, the duergar would find the spells of Lolth's priestesses bolstering the defenses, strengthening the counterattacks, and rejuvenating the fallen.
'The duergar are stubborn,' said Nauzhror, following his gaze.
'More likely, they are ignorant of Lolth's return,' Gromph replied. 'But ignorant or stubborn,
they soon will be dead.'
In Gromph's mind, the battle for the city was already won. The siege of Menzoberranzan soon would end. He allowed himself a moment's satisfaction. He had done the part allotted him, and his city would live.
'Agreed,' Nauzhror said. 'It is only a matter of time, now.'
Gromph turned and looked to the other side of the cavern, where rose the high plateau of
Qu'ellarz'orl. If Sorcere, Arach-Tinilith, and Melee-Magthere were Menzoberranzan's spine, the great Houses of Qu'ellarz'orl were the city's heart.
House after House lined the plateau, with House Baenre dominating by far in both size and power. Squatting in House Baenre's shadow along the rise, barely visible from such a distance,
were the fortresses of the city's other great houses-Mizzrym, Xorlarrin, Faen Tlabbar, even
Agrach Dyrr.
Gromph's eyes narrowed when they fell upon the stalactite wall of the traitor House.
Occasional flashes of power and explosions of magical energy lit the Dyrr fortress. The siege by the Xorlarrin mages continued. Gromph imagined that it would for some time. With Yasraena and her underpriestesses once more wielding Lolth's power, the siege could take a long while.
'The Xorlarrin are also stubborn,' Gromph observed.
'And greedy,' Nauzhror said. 'With House Agrach Dyrr defeated and removed from the
Ruling Council. . ' He trailed off.
Gromph nodded. When Agrach Dyrr fell, no doubt House Xorlarrin hoped to take its place on the Council. Nauzhror observed, 'The fall of House Dyrr too is only a matter of time.'
Gromph nodded again and said, 'But I cannot wait.'
Within House Agrach Dyrr, he believed, was the lichdrow's phylactery, the receptacle of the lichdrow's immortal essence. Gromph had to find and destroy it if he was to fully and finally destroy the lichdrow. Otherwise, the surviving essence of the undead wizard, embodied in the phylactery and driven by Dyrr's undying will, would bring itself back together and reincorporate a body within a matter of threescore hours. Were that to occur, the battle between the lichdrow and Gromph would begin anew.
And Gromph no longer had a Staff of Power to sacrifice in order to win.
Another fireball exploded along the parapet of Agrach Dyrr's wall.
'What are you thinking now, Yasraena?' he asked softly.
Gromph knew that the Matron Mother of House Agrach Dyrr already would have learned of the lichdrow's fall; likely she was scrying Gromph even then.
Like Gromph, Yasraena would know that the lichdrow was not fully dead until and unless his phylactery was destroyed.
'Did he confide its location to you, Matron Mother?' he whispered.
'Archmage?' Nauzhror asked.
Gromph ignored Nauzhror. He thought it unlikely that the lichdrow would have shared the location of his phylactery with Yasraena. He imagined that the relationship between the lichdrow and the Matron Mother would have been a tense one, not unlike that between Gromph and his sister Triel. Likely, Yasraena no more knew the location of the lichdrow's phylactery than did
Gromph. But like Gromph, Yasraena would look first to her own House, the most likely hiding place.
She already would be looking for it, Gromph knew. He had little time. He would have to find a way through the defensive wards of one of Menzoberranzan's great Houses while it was under siege and while its Matron Mother and her underpriestesses-all once more armed with spells from Lolth-would be awaiting him.
He almost laughed. Almost.
'Come, Nauzhror,' Gromph said. 'We return to my sanctum. The war for the city is won, but there is a battle or two yet to be fought.'
Prath, he sent to the young Baenre apprentice. Meet us in my offices.
Yasraena stood over the marble scrying basin and watched the image of Gromph Baenre waver and fade as he and his fellow mage teleported away from the ruined bazaar. There was no sign of the lichdrow. The undead wizard's body had been utterly destroyed.
But not his soul, she reminded herself, not his essence, and that reminder gave her hope.
Though her heart pounded in her chest, Yasraena kept her expression outwardly calm. With the lichdrow. . absent, she was the true and only head of House Agrach Dyrr. It would not do to show alarm.
Two of her four daughters, Larikal and Esvena, the Third and Fourth Daughters of the House and each a lesser priestess of Lolth, stood to either side of her. Her First and Second Daughters were occupied supervising the defenses of the House against the besieging Xorlarrin forces, so it fell to Larikal and Esvena to gather intelligence and spy on the House's enemies. Both were taller than Yasraena, and Larikal bordered on heavyset, though neither was as strongly built as their mother. But both had inherited Yasraena's ambition. Both were as eager as any drow priestess to kill their way to the top of their House.
Three males too stood in the chamber, on the other side of the basin. All were graduates of
Sorcere and apprentices of the lichdrow. They seemed stunned that their undead master had been defeated. Slack hands hung limply from the sleeves of their piwafwis. Yasraena saw fear in their stances, uncertainty in their hooded red eyes. It disgusted her but she expected little better from males.
'The Archmage has retreated to his sanctum,' said Larikal. 'He is beyond our ability to scry.'
Yasraena vented her frustration on her daughter. 'You state the obvious as though it were profound. Be silent unless you have something useful to say, fool.'
Larikal's thin-lipped mouth hardened in anger but her crimson eyes found the floor. The male wizards shifted uneasily, shared surreptitious glances. Yasraena gripped her tentacle rod so tightly in her hand it made her fingers ache. She would have strangled the lichdrow herself, had he stood before her.
Look where his plotting had gotten her House!
She stared at the dark water of the stone basin and tried to think.
The battle for the city was over, or would be soon. When the great Houses mustered their priestesses- priestesses again capable of casting spells-the tide of battle would turn rapidly. The duergar and tanarukks would be routed. Her House would stand alone against the combined might of all of Menzoberranzan.
Despite the dire situation, Yasraena held onto hope. After all, House Agrach Dyrr had single handedly annihilated several noble Houses in recent centuries, both under her stewardship and that of her sister Auro'pol, the previous Matron Mother. The Dyrr knew how to fight.
For a heartbeat, she entertained other options.
She could flee the city, but where would she go? Would she become a Houseless vagabond,
wandering the Underdark or the outer planes with her hands out? The thought appalled her. She was the Matron Mother of House Agrach Dyrr, one of the great Houses of Menzoberranzan, not some beggar!
