his ears went numb with a roaring rush of blood as his body fought in vain to keep his brain alive. The ring was of no help. The lich wasn't wounding him, he was killing him soul-first.
Gromph tried to speak, to utter the words of a spell that might save him, but he couldn't. Dyrr stepped closer, moving to stand over him. Gromph barely managed to turn his head to look up at the gloating lich. The archmage had other means of escape but couldn't force himself to activate any of them. He could feel Nauzhror and Prath trying to speak into his head, but their words never fully formed. Gromph feared that his body was already dead.
He tightened his grip on the staff, and his arm jerked again—the staff.
Gromph forced every ounce of will he had left into pulling his other hand beneath him. He felt his fingers wrap around the staff.
'Fight it, Gromph,' the lich growled at him. 'Suffer before you die.'
'Arrogant—' Gromph coughed out, surprising himself with his ability to speak, even if it was only that one word.
'What was that?' the lich asked, taunting him. 'The last words of Gromph Baenre?'
'Not. .' the archmage gasped.
Gromph's arms tensed, his hands tight around the staff of power—an item so prized hundreds had died just to possess it for a day.
'. . quite,' Gromph finished, and he broke the staff.
The ancient wood snapped in response less to the force of Gromph's arms and hands than to his will. The staff broke because Gromph wanted it to break.
Dyrr had time to take in a breath, Gromph had time to smile, then the world around them both became a raging hell of fire, heat, pain, and death. Gromph couldn't see the lich blasted to pieces. He was too busy worrying that the same had happened to him. He closed his eyes, but the light still burned them. He felt his flesh peel away in parts, sizzle, and crisp.
It was over as fast as it started.
Gromph Baenre drew in a breath and laughed through waves of burning agony. The ring started to bring him back to life a cell at a time and he lay there, waiting.
'You've done it,' Nauzhror said, and it took a few murmuring heartbeats for Gromph to realize he'd heard the Master of Sorcere's voice with his ears and not his mind. 'The lichdrow is dead.'
Gromph coughed and dragged himself up to a sitting position. Nauzhror squatted next to him. The rotund wizard began examining the archmage's wounds.
'Dead?' Gromph said then coughed again.
'The cost was high, and not only the staff of power,' Nauzhror said, 'but he's been utterly destroyed.'
Gromph shook his head, disappointed with Nauzhror. The lich's physical form was blasted to flinders when the staff unleashed all its power in one final burst, but a lich was more than a body.
'Dead?' the archmage said. 'Not quite yet.'
Nimor Imphraezl stepped out of the Shadow Fringe and into the ruins of Ched Nasad. High above him, clinging to the remains of a calcified web street, was perched a massive shadow dragon, an ancient wyrm magnificent in the terror it inspired in all who gazed upon it.
It was a dragon Nimor recognized instantly. It was the dragon Nimor had gone there to see.
Stretching his own aching, exhausted, wounded wings—wings that were puny in comparison to the great shadow wyrm's—Nimor lifted himself up off the rubble-strewn floor of the cavern and into the air below the dragon. If the wyrm took any notice of him, it gave no sign. Instead, it continued as it had been, directing the clearing of the rubble in the preparation for the rebuilding of Ched Nasad. It was a huge task, even for the dragon.
Nimor coasted to a slow, respectful stop on the web strand next to the dragon and bowed, holding the posture until the dragon acknowledged his presence. He was still bowing when the enormous shadow wyrm shrank into the form of an aging drow with thinning hair but a solid, muscular form, dressed in fine silks and linens from all corners of the World Above, every stitch as black as the assassin's heart.
'Stand,' the transformed dragon said, 'and heed me.'
Nimor straightened, looked the drow-formed dragon in the eyes, and said, 'I am less than satisfied with the results at Menzoberranzan, Revered Grandfather.'
The dragon-drow returned Nimor's look and held it until Nimor had to look away. The assassin heard footsteps approaching but didn't turn around to look. Nimor knew whose they were.
'Nimor,' someone said. 'Welcome to Ched Nasad.'
Nimor pretended to look around at the still smoldering ruins.
'Of course,' the source of the second set of footsteps said, 'it will look quite different when we're finished.'
'I clearly remember your promise,' the transformed dragon said. 'Do you?'
'Of course, Revered Grandfather,' Nimor replied, head held high, showing no outward sign of weakness.
Patron Grandfather Mauzzkyl drew a deep breath in through his nose then slowly said, 'You promised to cleanse Menzoberranzan of the stench of Lolth. Have you done that? Is that why you're here?'
Nimor didn't nod, shake his head, or sigh—nothing to make it seem to the patron fathers that he was guilty of anything. The two patron fathers who had approached him from behind stepped around him on either side and stood before Nimor flanking the once majestic wyrm.
'No,' Nimor said.
'I have come from the City of Wyrmshadows,' the patron grandfather went on, 'to aid Patron Father Zammzt in the reconstruction of Ched Nasad. Is that why you've come from Menzoberranzan? To aid in the cleanup?'
'No, Revered Grandfather,' Nimor replied.
'Tell your tale to Patron Father Tomphael and Patron Father Zammzt,' Mauzzkyl said, his voice cold and final.
Nimor closed his eyes and said, 'I answer to—'
'Tomphael,' Mauzzkyl said. 'You will speak to me through Tomphael from this day until I order otherwise.'
Nimor had no time to argue, but that was the last thing he intended to do. Instead he watched, barely breathing as Patron Grandfather Mauzzkyl turned his back then transformed again into a dragon. The great wyrm stepped off the edge of the shattered web and disappeared into the gloom of the ruined city.
'Tell me what you came here to say,' Patron Father Tomphael said.
Nimor looked Tomphael in the face but saw no anger, pity, or contempt. Nimor had fallen in the ranks of the Jaezred Chaulssin, and he'd done it just like that.
'Something has changed,' Nimor said.
'Lolth has returned,' Tomphael finished.
Nimor nodded and said, 'Or she will soon. Very soon. The lichdrow failed, and the tide is turning in Menzoberranzan. I thought we'd have more time.'
'Dyrr is dead?' Tomphael asked.
Nimor nodded.
'And the cambion?'
'Alive,' said Nimor, 'but already withdrawing. He had an agent in the Abyss who gave a strange report. I still don't know what happened to the spider goddess, where she's been, or why she fell silent, but she has managed to pinch the Demonweb Pits off of the Abyss.'
Tomphael raised an eyebrow, and he and Zammzt shared a glance.
'So,' Tomphael said, 'your tanarukks are deserting. What of the duergar?'
'Horgar still lives, and when I left him he was still fighting,' Nimor said. 'However, with the priestesses again able to commune with their goddess and the tanarukks marching home, the gray dwarves won't stand a chance.'
'Menzoberranzan,' Zammzt said, 'is the greatest prize. It was always the one thing most out of reach. We have had successes in other cities. The Queen of the Demonweb Pits was gone long enough.'
'Was she?' Nimor asked.
'Look around you,' Zammzt replied. 'Once this was a drow trade city, openly obedient to the priestesses. Now
