"There. ." the lichdrow murmured, his voice sending a quivering chill down Gromph's spine. "There. ."
The lich was holding something.
How did he get so close?
Archmage,the voice in his head asked, shall I come help you?
No,he thought back at the voice.
Gromph tried to flinch away, but the lichdrow touched him with a long, thin wand of gem-inlaid silver. The touch of it sent a wave of blinding agony ripping through the archmage's body. Every muscle tensed, joints popped, and the wizard clenched his teeth against the pain. His eyes watered more, and Gromph could feel tears streaming down his tingling black cheeks.
He turned away from the lich, rolling in the air, and faced down toward the gate. His eyes closed against the light, but he blinked them open and saw the briefest flash of a silhouette: Dyrr in shadow against the sunlight. The lichdrow was below him but had been above him. Gromph wasn't sure at that instant what he was seeing. Dyrr had fooled him, or he was disoriented … or he was dying.
Am I dying? Gromph thought.
"Am I?" he said aloud then clamped a hand over his face, closing his eyes and mouth.
No, Archmage, said the voice in his head. You are under the effect of a powerful enchantment.
In that moment, Gromph lost all memory of any plan, of any determination, of any purpose for the ruin of a life he'd been cursed with. He wanted to get away. He needed to run, but he was still the Archmage of Menzoberranzan, so he cast a spell that would get him away a little faster, a little farther. With a few words and gestures he'd repeated so many times that even in his confused, despairing state of mind he managed to get right, Gromph brought forth the magic to open a doorway through the dimensions—a break in space and time.
Gromph levitated toward it, but something hit him and hit him hard. It was Dyrr. The lichdrow had put away his wand. The slim magical weapon caused physical damage and pain, but it didn't cause an impact—not like that. The air was forced from Gromph's lungs again, and he found himself pinwheeling through the air.
The light from the gate grew brighter and brighter, and Gromph was only dimly aware that he was moving toward it. The pain was everywhere, still burning from the wand and joined by whatever it was that had hit him to send him falling toward the light. The pain turned to numbness in spots then was gone, and Gromph took a deep, shuddering breath.
The ring, he thought. I have a ring that will. .
Yes, Archmage, the voice said, the ring. The ring will keep you alive but not forever.
Gromph closed his eyes tight again and let his body relax. The ring he'd slipped on at Sorcere before meeting Dyrr at the Clawrift would regenerate injuries: knit broken bones back together, seal cuts, even re-grow severed limbs. He remembered putting the ring on but couldn't for the life of him remember why. What could possibly have been the point? To live? To live in the shattered ruins of a Menzoberranzan ruled by the traitorous Dyrr and an army of stinking gray dwarves?
Gromph touched the ring, grabbed it with the opposite hand, and was about to rip it from his finger so it would let him die, when he saw the lichdrow swooping down at him, cackling. Laughing at him.
"Take it off," Dyrr chuckled. "It won't help with burns anyway."
Archmage!another voice shouted into his mind.
The lich blinked and jerked forward with his head and shoulders. From the grotesque crown on his head came a tiny ball of undulating orange light. It spiraled through the air, riding a sort of wave, and drew a long, curved trajectory directly at Gromph.
Your fireball, the voice in his head warned.
"My fireball. ." the archmage whispered, as he instinctively tucked himself into a fetal position, wrapping his body around his staff and closing his eyes tightly.
Even with his eyes closed the flare of hot orange light burned his retinas. The fireball warmed his skin but didn't burn him. He and the other Masters of Sorcere had thought, of course, to protect him against fire.
"A little longer. ." the archmage murmured.
"Gromph," the lichdrow spat back. "You live!"
"For now," was the archmage's shaking, muttered reply.
Dyrr didn't wait for Gromph to elaborate. He began to work another spell.
The fireball had broken Gromph's concentration on the levitation effect, and once again his stomach lurched up as he began to fall. Gravity was still upside down, and his fall took him away from the gate and toward the ceiling.
While Dyrr finished his spell, Gromph began to list in his own mind the many reasons he should simply let himself fall into the ceiling and die.
Before the troubled archmage could reach a conclusion, shards of jagged, half-molten rock burst into existence, flying with extraordinary speed toward the falling archmage. There were too many of them to count, and Gromph, mumbling to himself of his lost position and the bleak fate of his House, didn't bother trying.
When the meteors entered the area in which Gromph had affected gravity, their courses radically changed. They went everywhere, scattering, dipping, curving, colliding with each other, some even curving back at Dyrr.
One of the burning projectiles struck Gromph a glancing blow, sending him spinning as he fell. Pain blazed in his side, and without thinking he cast a spell. With only a few words and a quick gesture, Gromph's skin tightened, stretched—painfully—and took on the gleam, and the hardness, of cold black iron.
Very good, Master, the voice … it was Nauzhror. . said.
Gromph watched one of the meteors come right at him. He might have twisted out of the way, but he didn't care. The rock hit him square in the chest, exploding in a shower of yellow-orange sparks and sending a deafening clang rippling away from him in the air. He started to spin in a different direction and began to wonder why he hadn't hit the ceiling. As he whirled around he saw Dyrr slip through a dark hole in the sky that was rimmed with purple light like faerie fire. The lichdrow was passing through a dimension door of his own to avoid the meteors that had come careening back at him.
Spinning, falling, Gromph saw the jagged, stalagmite-cluttered ceiling racing toward him, closer and closer—only inches from oblivion, from the sweet release of death—
— and the spell effect ended.
Gromph hadn't made it permanent after all. Gravity went back to its normal place, and once again Gromph hung in midair for a second—less than a second maybe—his stomach feeling as if it were rotating in his belly. He started to fall again but toward the floor—toward the Clawrift, toward the light, toward the gate, toward wherever it was that Dyrr was trying to send him.
Gromph didn't care. He'd go, then. He'd go anywhere as long as he could get out of Menzoberranzan, where every stone, every stalactite and stalagmite, every glow of faerie fire, reminded him of his failure and despair.
Archmage,Nauzhror said. Gromph. . no.
Closing his eyes against the blinding sunlight, Gromph fell through the gate. Squinting, able only to see a vague play of shadow and light, he watched the gate close behind him. He was enveloped, enclosed in blinding light.
He hit the ground hard enough to break a leg, more than a few ribs, his left arm, and very nearly his neck. Quivering from pain and shock, blinded by the relentless sunlight, Gromph lay in a heap on a bed of what felt like some kind of moss. Blood roared in his ears, which were still ringing from the whine of the meteors and the rush of wind. Something in his chest popped, and his leg twitched out from under him, rolling him over onto his back.
Gromph put a hand over his face and realized that his broken arm was obeying his commands with only a little pain. His leg was numb and tingling, and he could actually feel his ribs popping back into place.