“That would place the city in peril,” Gromph said.
“It is in peril already, young Gromph. I mean to impose some measure of order on the inevitable. You could be of great assistance to me in the coming days, or. ...”
“I see,” said Gromph.
He narrowed his eyes, considering his options. He could feign acceptance, and do as he wished anyway, but that would certainly invite the lich’s wrath at the time and place of Dyrr’s choosing. He could refuse outright, which would likely result in a deadly contest on the spot to determine whose will would prevail. Or I could agree in earnest, he thought. Who’s to say that we might not channel the forces marshalling against the city into useful chaos, valuable progress? There will doubtless be tremendous damage, but the Menzoberranzan that emerged from such a crucible of blood and fire might be a better, stronger city in the end, a city purged of the ruthless tyranny of the sadistic priestesses and instead governed by the cold, passionless intelligence of pragmatic wizards. Every cruelty could be made to serve a rational purpose, every excess curbed to produce a city whose strength was not spent on its own internecine strife. Would not such a city be worthy of his loyalty?
Would such a city have any place for a Baenre? he answered himself.
No revolution such as Dyrr dreamed of could possibly end with anything but complete annihilation for the First House of Menzoberranzan. While Gromph despised his sisters and loathed many of the simpering relations who populated Castle Baenre, he would be damned if he would allow some lesser House to unseat his high and ancient family as the supreme power of Menzoberranzan. There could be, really, only one response.
As quick as thought, Gromph raised his hand and unleashed a terrible, brilliant blast of colors at the lich, a spell whose energy he had prepared with such care and effort that it took only the merest act of will to unleash it. Colors never seen in the gloom of the cavern city lanced through his conjury, each carrying with it a different doom, blight, or energy. A quivering blue bolt of electricity passed so close to Dyrr that the lich’s ancient robes crackled with tiny arcs, while a bright orange ray burned the ancient creature with acid powerful enough to melt stone. A third ray, a beam of insidious violet, was deflected by the lich’s animated buckler. The device tittered like a wicked child as it intercepted the attack.
“I am the Archmage of Menzoberranzan,” Gromph roared. “I am no one’s errand boy!”
Dyrr recoiled with a wailing shriek of anger as the acid splattered and hissed, gnawing at his ancient flesh. The smell of burning bone filled the magnificent conjury with a horrid stench. Gromph followed up his first assault by raising an abjuration he hoped would turn Dyrr’s spells back at him. The archmage fully expected that it would take every ruse, every defense, every subtle and deadly spell at his command to defeat a thing as powerful as the Lord of Agrach Dyrr. Gromph concluded his turning spell just in time, as Dyrr recovered with impossible speed and lashed out with a dire black ray of invidious energy that would have ripped away great portions of the archmage’s very life-force had it struck home. Instead, the ebon beam rebounded on Gromph’s shield and struck Dyrr in the center of his torso. This, however, had an unforeseen effect. Instead of shredding the ancient lich’s own life-force, the crackling black energy swelled the Lord of Agrach Dyrr with its horrible power. The lich laughed aloud.
“A clever move, Gromph, but I fear it miscarried. Living creatures are grievously harmed by that spell, but the undead are invigorated by it!”
The archmage muttered a curse and struck again, this time directing a vile green ray at the laughing lich. It burned a perfect round hole in Dyrr’s breastbone, blasting undead flesh and bone to dust. The lich screeched again in whatever passed for pain in its undead state and leaped aside before Gromph could disintegrate him outright.
Even as the archmage commenced another casting, Dyrr snarled out the words of a dark and murderous spell that clawed horribly at Gromph’s flesh, sucking greedily at the very fluids of his body and bleaching his skin with a thousand needles of agony. Gromph gasped aloud in pain and lost the spell he’d been preparing to cast, stumbling back over a marble bench and falling heavily to the floor.
Damn it all, he thought. I need to buy a moment’s respite.
Fortunately, he was in his sanctum, surrounded by a dozen weapons he might employ.
Gromph rolled to his elbow and barked out, “Szashune! Destroy him!”
In one alcove of the room, a tall statue of a four-armed swordsman carved from perfect black obsidian stirred to life, striding out into the chamber as it hefted and clashed its ebon blades like a living warrior.
Dyrr skittered away several steps and spoke a word. The lich soared up out of the spiderstone golem’s reach, but Gromph used the opportunity of the distraction to summon up the most destructive spell he knew and hurl it at the airborne lich. From his outstretched hands eight brilliant orbs of blinding white energy streaked out to blast through the lich’s undead form, each detonating in a stone-shattering explosion that demolished great gaping pieces of the undead sorcerer. The exploding meteors caused no small damage to Gromph’s sanctum, blasting a pair of old bookshelves to flinders and snapping an arm from the spiderstone golem as if the device was a toy damaged by a petulant child. Gromph cried out in triumph as pieces of Dyrr clattered to the floor.
Dust billowed from the hovering form of the lich, and his skull nodded down to his breastbone almost as if his animating magic was failing him, but the bony creature returned to itself with startling speed. Dyrr looked up again as wicked green light grew strong in his eye sockets, and he laughed.
“My old bones aren’t the entirety of my being, Gromph,” he rasped. “You abuse them to no great effect.”
He started to intone another spell, but the archmage struck again, seeking to dispel any enchantments or abjurations protecting the lich. Dyrr’s flying spell failed, and the lich sank down into blade-reach of the living statue waiting below.
The golem rushed forward. The massive construct pounded at the lich with terrific blows of its three remaining arms, its gleaming black face completely expressionless. The conjury rang with the mighty impact of the blows. Gromph bared his teeth in a savage grin.
“You might not be tied to your moldering corpse, lich, but you’ll have a difficult time casting spells when you’ve been dismembered and buried in a dozen different graves,” he called. “You were a fool to challenge me here!”
Gromph prowled closer, looking for an opening to strike again with a spell. Dyrr endured two, then three tremendous blows from the towering statue, staggering in his steps as bone cracked and split. The demon-faced buckler darted and wheeled around him, laughing shrilly and blocking even more blows than that, parrying strike after strike from the stone construct. The sorcerer retreated a step, found his footing, and spread his arms wide. His gleaming black robes shimmered once, and exploded outward in a deadly spinning saw of razor-sharp blades that carved chunks of stone from Gromph’s golem and diced tables, furnishings, and books with abandon.
Blades slashed through the archmage’s own potent defensive enchantments, gashing him in a dozen places, though nowhere deep enough to kill. Gromph threw himself flat to duck beneath the disk of flying razors, blinking blood from his eyes as his golem crumbled into worthless black rock.
Dyrr shouted in triumph and leaped forward at the archmage, swinging his adamantine staff with startling speed and swiftness. Gromph yelped in surprise and rolled aside just in time to avoid a two-handed blow that split the marble flagstone right where he’d fallen.