Before that, tell me what is happening in Menzoberranzan, he demanded.

Aliisza frowned, as though the fate of Pharaun's city was an afterthought. It stands, she replied. Lolth's power has returned to the priestesses. Kaanyr is in retreat, and the duergar soon will be.

Pharaun felt a surge of relief at the news. Menzoberranzan still stood.

Odd, he thought, that he felt such attachment to a place when he felt no such attachment to any of the persons in it.

Distantly, he wondered if Gromph had survived the siege. If not, "Archmage Pharaun Mizzrym" sounded pleasing. And since House Baenre would be selecting Gromph's replacement, he had all the more reason to ally himself closely with Quenthel.

A memento? Aliisza prodded. Something small. A lock of your hair?

Pharaun smiled at her, a hard smile. No, Aliisza. No token. I think I'll keep all of me to me.

She took his meaning; her brow furrowed in genuine anger.

You misunderstand, she protested. I- She looked over his shoulder and behind him. It seems your absence has been noted. Farewell, beloved.

With that, Aliisza kissed him as though she never would again and vanished, teleporting away without a sound and leaving him staring at the wall. The smell of her perfume and the remembrance of her last word lingered in the air.

Before Pharaun could do anything further, his invisible flesh erupted in purple flames. Faerie fire. A flutter went through his gut.

The stench of rotting meat overwhelmed the last lingering aroma of Aliisza-Jeggred's breath. Pharaun quickly rehearsed an excuse in his mind, even while he thought through the incantation that would trigger one of his more powerful spells, a spell that required the utterance of only a single word.

Grabbing two fingers' full of web from the wall, he dispelled his invisibility spell, turned, and found that his nose nearly touched Jeggred's heaving chest. The draegloth had moved behind him with the silence of an assassin.

"Jegg-"

With breathtaking speed, Jeggred grabbed him by the throat with one of his fighting claws and lifted him from the ground until they were face to face. Pharaun gagged-partially from his proximity to the draegloth's breath, partially from the clawed hand squeezing his windpipe.

"A spell to cover your absence?" the draegloth asked, nodding back at the chamber where the illusory Pharaun still reclined. Jeggred sniffed the air thoughtfully. "What is it you're doing down here, mage?" His red eyes narrowed. He extended his arm and slammed Pharaun against the cave wall.

Pharaun's magical piwafwi and rings prevented the impact from cracking his ribs, prevented even Jeggred's incredible strength from closing his throat, but only just.

"Release . . . me," Pharaun demanded.

His anger was rising, partially at Jeggred, partially at the fact that he feared he might have mistakenAliisza's motives. Still, he considered it beneath his dignity to flail about, so he remained still.

Jeggred squeezed Pharaun's throat harder and held his other fighting claw before Pharaun's face. With his inner, human hands, the draegloth took hold of Pharaun's arms by the wrists, presumably to prevent him from casting any spell that might require gestures to complete. Pharaun tested their strength for a moment and found them more than a match for his own. Scraps of old meat hung between Jeggred's yellow fangs.

"She is manipulating you," Pharaun croaked, and both of them knew he meant Danifae.

"No," Jeggred said and sneered. "She's manipulating you. And my aunt." He spat the last word as though it tasted foul.

"You're a fool, Jeggred," Pharaun managed. "And time will show it."

The draegloth exhaled a cloud of vileness into his face and said, "If so, you will not be alive to see it, because you, wizard, are out of time. This has been long in coming."

Jeggred looked back up the cavern to see if either Danifae or Quenthel had stirred. Neither had.

Pharaun's illusionary image sat on its rock in blissful Reverie.

To Pharaun's surprise, the serpents of Quenthel's whip-all of them-stared silently down the tunnel, watching the confrontation.

Pharaun understood it then. If the serpents were watching the confrontation, then Quenthel was watching it too, at least indirectly. She wanted to see what Pharaun would do when confronted with her nephew. Another test. He was growing tired of tests.

Jeggred, of course, saw nothing other than the opportunity to kill an irritating rival. With an unexplainable illusion of Pharaun sitting in the campsite, the draegloth probably believed that he could concoct any story he wanted about Pharaun's treachery.

Jeggred leaned in close and his rancid breath made Pharaun wince.

"You see it now, don't you?" the draegloth asked. "Go ahead and scream. You'll be dead before they awaken. I'll explain it as the execution of a traitor and feed on your heart. My aunt will shout, but she'll dare nothing more."

Pharaun could not help but smirk. Jeggred truly was a dolt. He had all the subtlety of a warhammer. It surprised Pharaun that the draegloth possessed any drow blood at all, so inept was he at scheming. Of course, having met and killed Belshazu, Pharaun knew that Jeggred's demon bloodline was something less than spectacular.

"Your death amuses you?" Jeggred whispered, leaning in close.

Pharaun twisted his head to the side so he could more easily speak.

"No, you do."

With that, he whispered a single word of power, one of the most powerful he knew.

The arcane force in the word hit Jeggred like a titan's maul. Foul breath blew from the draegloth's lungs, and he released Pharaun-who managed to keep his feet when he hit the ground-staggered, uttered a spit-fouled stutter, and sank to his knees.

Pharaun knew the word of stunning would leave the draegloth incapacitated for only a short time. He knew too that the spell likely would not ordinarily affect Jeggred at all, but the draegloth's battle with the chwidencha had left him weakened and vulnerable.

Of course, Jeggred knew no more of that than he did of Quenthel's tacit permission to Pharaun to teach the oaf a lesson.

With exaggerated dignity, Pharaun smoothed his piwafwi and straightened the stiff collar of his shirt.

When he noticed that Jeggred's claw had torn a slash into the chest of his shirt, his anger burned hotter still.

"Oaf," he said and cuffed Jeggred in the head. It felt good. He cuffed him twice more.

The draegloth sat on his knees before him, drooling, moaning softly.

Pharaun looked up the tunnel to see ten slitted eyes still watching in silence. He knelt down to look into Jeggred's slack face.

Pharaun thought of offering the draegloth the excuse he had prepared-I was gathering material components. The illusion was to avoid alarming anyone who might stir in their sleep and find me gone. The invisibility is one of my ordinary precautions when acting alone-but decided against it. Quenthel wanted to test Pharaun and at the same time teach a lesson to Jeggred. Pharaun would push it as far as the high priestess wanted it to go.

He took Jeggred's slack face in his hand and said, "Remember this moment, demonspawn. This is me doing better than fire, not so? If I desired it, I could drag you to one of these acid pools and dip your head in. Imagine that, dolt. The spell I used to incapacitate you was of middling power. If I wished you dead, I could strip the flesh from your bones in an instant, or stop your heart with a word." He punched the draegloth in the face again, more angry at himself over Aliisza than at Jeggred. He decided that he wouldburn out Jeggred's eyes before killing him. He started to cast- But the crack of a whip froze him.

"Master Mizzrym!" Quenthel called, her voice sharp.

With effort, Pharaun controlled his anger. He leaned in close to Jeggred's vile face and said, "Serve your mistress and I'll serve mine. We'll see who has the right of it at the end of this. Meanwhile, I'll place a contingency spell on my person. Perhaps you do not know what 'contingency' means? It means that if you put one of your stinking hands on me again-"

"Mage!" Quenthel called again. Pharaun licked his lips, looked back up the tunnel, and slowly stood.

Lesson learned, apparently. He wondered if he had passed her test.

Quenthel stood over the illusionary Pharaun, looking down the tunnel at the confrontation between the real mage and Jeggred. Danifae stood behind and beside her.

"Explain yourself," Quenthel ordered.

Pharaun held up the webs and recited the lie without hesitation: "I was gathering material components, Mistress. I used an illusion of myself to avoid alarming your serpents, lest they disturb your sleep."

At that, the serpents hissed, and Qorra drifted up near Quenthel's ear and hissed something. The high priestess cocked her head and nodded.

Danifae's hooded gaze went from Quenthel, to the stunned and drooling Jeggred, to Pharaun. Despite her obvious vulnerability at that moment, she showed no fear. The Master of Sorcere wondered if Quenthel would take the opportunity to kill the former battle-captive.

"Not this," the Baenre priestess said. She passed her hand through the illusion, which vanished, then she pointed the haft of her whip at Jeggred. "Explain that."

Pharaun looked down on the draegloth, who seemed at last to be recovering from the effects of the word of power. All four of his hands reflexively clenched and unclenched. His moans grew louder, and his drool pooled on the tunnel floor.

"Ah, that," Pharaun said, and aimed a smile at Danifae. "Without the two of you available to mediate, your nephew and I found ourselves engaged in a ... doctrinal dispute. I'm afraid the force of my arguments has left him stunned." He patted the draegloth's head the way he might a pet lizard. "My apologies, Jeggred.

All is forgiven now though, not so? We'll simply agree to disagree."

Jeggred managed a growl, and his fighting hands pawed at the hem Pharaun's piwafwi.

"Yes, well . . . ahem," Pharaun said, and backed up a step. "There we have it. Friends again."

He walked back up the tunnel and bowed before Quenthel.

"Forgive me for disturbing your Reverie, Mistress," he said.

Quenthel stood silent for a moment before saying, "You did not disturb me, Master Mizzrym."

Hearing those words, Pharaun understood that he had passed her test. He smirked at Danifae and called to mind another spell as he watched Jeggred come back to himself. Just in case.

The effect of the word of power vanished quickly. Jeggred's breath came hard, and his hands dug furrows into the stone. He climbed to his feet, shook his head to clear it, and fixed his baleful stare on Pharaun.

"I will tear your head from your shoulders!" he roared as he stalked up the tunnel.

"Stop," Quenthel commanded but to no effect.

It was Danifae's raised hand and soft word that halted Jeggred's charge. He stood in the tunnel, staring hate and rage into Pharaun.

"All things in due time," Danifae said and offered the mage a smirk of her own.

"Indeed," Quenthel answered, eyeing her nephew coldly.

Pharaun forced a smile, just to irk the draegloth, though when he looked at Quenthel and Danifae, he heard Aliisza's troubling words in his mind. Maybe neither of them was the Yor'thae.

Nimor found Crown Prince Horgar at his field headquarters-a large, rough-walled, stalagmite-dotted cavern in the Dark Dominion not far from the battle lines at Tier Breche. The chamber stank of sweat, blood and the thick smoke from stonefire bombs. Nimor hung near the ceiling of the cavern in his half-dragon form, invisible by virtue of one of his spells.

Squads of duergar streamed in and out of the cavern, coming and going from the battle, their blocky armor ringing, their dusky skin smoke-blackened and bloody. Some were still enlarged-duergar possessed an innate magical ability to double their size-so Nimor presumed they had just come from the battle.

They spoke to each other in their inelegant language, their voices deep and gravelly. In the conversations, Nimor caught the ripple of a faint undercurrent of fear. Perhaps the duergar forces at last had encountered the spells of a priestess of Lolth. If so, even the tiny intellects encased in their small baldheads must have understood the implications.

Two elderly clerics, each as bent and twisted as a demon's heart, tended the wounded. Nimor didn't know the name of the deity they served and did not care. Occasional explosions in the distance-stonefire bombs and spells, no doubt-occasionally shook the cavern and rained rock dust on the inhabitants.

Prince Horgar stood to one side of the table, bent over a low stone table, looking at a makeshift map of the approaches to Tier Breche and issuing orders to two of his commanders who stood to either side of him. After a few moments of exchanged words, nods, and gestures at the map, the two bald commanders offered agreement with whatever Horgar said, gave him a salute-by thumping their pick hafts against the cavern floor-and stalked off.

Horgar stood alone over the table. He stroked his chin, staring at the map, lost in thought.

Horgar's scarred bodyguard stood near the Prince. He held a bare warhammer, but his slack stance indicated that he expected no threat to his lord. Nimor smiled without mirth and flexed his claws. With the keen senses gifted him through his dragon heritage, Nimor studied the chamber. Duergar also possessed an innate ability to turn invisible. Nimor wanted no surprises.

As he had expected, he sensed no one in the cavern other than those duergar he could already see.

Horgar stood upright and stared at the cavern wall, no doubt still wrestling with some problem or strategy that plagued his pathetic little mind. He put a hand to his axe haft and rubbed the back of his bald head.

Calling upon the power of his brooch, Nimor levitated down until he stood directly behind the unsuspecting Horgar. The little dwarf was muttering in his awkward tongue.

Lesser races, Nimor thought with contempt.

Nimor might have said something to Horgar before killing him, might have shown himself, might have evoked fear, but he did none of those things. He was the former Anointed Blade, an assassin without peer.

When he killed, he did so without fanfare.

Moving with a rapidity and ease born of long practice, he reached around Horgar and tore open the dwarf's throat. He turned visible the moment he struck.

The hole in the prince's throat sprayed blood across the map, across the cavern wall. Horgar gagged and fell across the table, his muttering becoming a fading, wet gurgle. The prince tried to turn to see his attacker, but Nimor had split his throat so thoroughly that the muscles of the gray dwarf's neck would not function.

Nimor grabbed Horgar by the top of his head and jerked his face around, partially to let Horgar see who had killed him and partially to ensure that the crown prince was beyond the ability of the duergar clerics to help. Horgar's eyes went wide, and Nimor satisfied himself that the gaze had flashed recognition even as the duergar's life blood pumped from the gash in his throat. The prince's gnarled body began to spasm in its death throes. The clerics would be unable to save him.

Shouts of surprise and rage erupted around Nimor-the stomping of boots, the clank of armor, the ring of weapons. He looked up to see duergar charging him from all sides, rushing to their fallen prince. Some were enlarging as they charged, growing taller and broader with each step. Others called upon their innate ability to turn invisible and vanished from his sight.

No matter, Nimor smiled, swallowed, triggered a reaction in his lungs, and exhaled a cloud of billowing, viscous shadows that nearly filled the whole of the cavern. He poured all of his pent up frustration, anger, and shame into the exhalation. The cloud of darkness engulfed the onrushing duergar and siphoned energy from their souls. Nimor heard them shouting in pain, cursing, shrieking. He stood unharmed in the midst of the cloud, grinning at the death around him.

The shadows dissipated quickly. Duergar lay scattered around the cavern, some of them dead, some of them dying, some of them weakened so much that they could no longer stand. A few, perhaps, would live.

Unless a drow patrol happened upon them.

Nimor located Horgar's scarred bodyguard. The duergar lay to Nimor's right, still holding his warhammer. The gray dwarf's eyes were unfocused, and drool dripped from the corner of his mouth.

Nimor stepped to him, knelt, and looked him in the face.

"You should have chosen your master with more care," he said and slit the guard's throat.

He found the death pleasingly cathartic. It always did him good to kill.

Without another word, Nimor rose, shifted back into the Shadow Fringe, and left the cavern of dead and dying duergar behind him. He wanted to see Kaanyr Vhok before he returned to Chaulssin.

Inthracis walked the flesh-lined lower halls of Corpsehaven. The walls squirmed in his wake. Nisviim, his jackal-headed arcanaloth lieutenant, walked beside him.The screams of mortal souls sounded in the distance, audible through the walls. No doubt some of his mezzoloths were feeding soul larvae to his canoloth pets.

"Shall I sound the muster for the Regiment, Lord?" Nisviim asked.

Despite the arcanaloth's muzzle and overlarge canines, his voice and diction were impeccable. His heavy robes swooshed with each step. He toyed with one of the two magical rings on his hairy fingers as he spoke.