"Soon, Nisviim," Inthracis answered, "but first we must attend to a small matter in my laboratory."

The arcanaloth cocked his head with curiosity but kept his questions to himself.

"Very well, Lord," he said.

Nisviim was as skilled an enchanter as Inthracis was a necromancer. Ordinarily, an arcanaloth of Nisviim's power would not have been content to serve as a second to Inthracis, but Inthracis had long ago learned Nisviim's true name. With it, he kept Nisviim obedient and subservient. The only alternative to service for Nisviim was pain.

They approached the flesh-and-bone door that led to one of Inthracis's alchemical laboratories. Two hulking, round-bodied, four-armed dergholoths stood silent guard outside the door, both of them dead, both of them animated by Inthracis's spells. Recognizing their master, the guardian dergholoths made no move to stop Inthracis's advance.

Inthracis telepathically projected the password to suspend the wards on his door. The doors flared green as the wards dispelled. Decaying hands reached from the jambs to swing the portal open. The stink of rot, pleasant to Inthracis, wafted into the hallway.

Inthracis and Nisviim walked through the dergholoths and entered. Corpsehaven's dead pulled the door closed behind them.

Animated hands, arms, and claws crawled the floor of the laboratory-the aftereffects of some of Inthracis's experiments. All of them scrabbled out of the ultroloth's path. Several immobilized and magically silenced barbed devils lay on tables, all of them partially dissected. Beakers and braziers covered the multitude of bone workbenches. The handkerchief with which Inthracis had daubed Vhaeraun's blood soaked in an enchanted beaker filled with shadow essence. A bound fire mephit chained to the beaker held his tiny, flaming hand under the glass. Inthracis hoped to turn the blood into a distillate strongly resistant to Shadow Magic.

"Follow, Nisviim," he said.

They crossed the laboratory to the opposite wall, where Inthracis spoke a word of power. The corpses in the wall rearranged themselves at its utterance, squirmed wetly aside, and formed an archway. A small, secret, heavily warded chamber lay beyond. With a mentally projected series of words, Inthracis temporarily deactivated the wards.

The ultroloth walked through, as did his lieutenant.

The arcanaloth believed that he had never before seen the chamber, but Inthracis knew better. Nisviim had been in the chamber many times, but he remembered none of them.

Within the room, reclined in a clear case of glassteel, was Inthracis's body. Or at least one of them. As a matter of prudence, he kept at all times at least one clone of himself in temporal stasis. Were his current body to die, his soul, and his memories and knowledge, would immediately inhabit the clone. Upon being released from stasis, the clone would live; Inthracis would live.

He had been through three cloned bodies already, and the process had served him well. He'd died under devil claws before Dis's gates in battle with the forces of Dispater, and he'd been consumed by a caustic ooze on the fungus-filled thirty-fourth layer of the Abyss.

"A clone, Lord," Nisviim observed.

Inthracis pushed aside the memories of his earlier deaths and nodded. The time had come.

Without preamble, he spoke aloud Nisviim's true name: "Heed me, Gorgalisin."

Instantly, Nisviim's body went slack, his eyes vacant. The arcanaloth stood perfectly still, as much an animated corpse as the dergholoths outside the laboratory. At that moment, Inthracis could have commanded Nisviim to do anything and the arcanaloth would have done it without question. Indeed, had he desired it, Inthracis could have used the invocation of Nisviim's true name to wrack the arcanaloth's soul or stop his heart.

He did not desire it, of course. A bound, named arcanaloth was too valuable an asset to waste with an amusing death.

Instead, Inthracis said, "In the event that you gain knowledge of my death or if I do not return to Corpsehaven within a fortnight of this day, you will enter this chamber-" and Inthracis telepathically projected into Nisviim's mind the words to bypass the wards of his laboratory and the secret clonechamber-"and dispel the stasis on this body. Thereafter, you will return to your quarters and forget that any of this ever occurred. Nod if you understand."

Nisviim nodded.

"Return now to your quarters," Inthracis said, "and let slip from your consciousness all that has transpired during the last hour. Thereafter, sound the muster and summon the regiment to the Assembly Hall."

Nisviim nodded, turned, and walked slowly from the chamber.

Inthracis watched him go, content that even if he died in combat with the drow priestesses, or if Vhaeraun betrayed and murdered him, he would live again.

In a thoughtful mood, he studied his hand, compared it to that of the clone in stasis. He wondered for a few heartbeats as to the nature of identity. Was the vivified clone still him? Was Nisviim still Nisviim when commanded by his truename?

For a moment, Inthracis felt as much a construct as Corpsehaven, no more truly alive than the dead who prowled its halls.

Chapter Eight

The storm railed against the temple for hours. Feliane and Uluyara sat in peaceful Reverie throughout, untroubled by the angry scream of the wind and the blistering patter of the smoking, acidic rain. Halisstra allowed them their rest.

Within only a few hours, the storm abated, as though the plane itself was too exhausted to continue its tirade. Even the ever-present wind died down somewhat. Halisstra offered a prayer of thanks to Eilistraee, rose quietly, and exited the makeshift temple.

She stepped forth into the fall of night. Lolth's tiny sun was just vanishing behind the distant horizon, casting its last spiteful rays of blood-red light over the landscape. The violence below too had abated, and Halisstra took a moment to enjoy the silence-no storm, no keening webs, no whispered, "Yor'thae."

She felt free of Lolth, entirely free. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed deeply, a clean breath.

She turned and saw that the walls of the temple were pitted from the rain, but that the symbol of Eilistraee over the door remained intact, untouched by the storm.

Our goddess is stubborn, Halisstra realized with a smile.

High above her, the river of souls flowed on toward their eternal fate. Looking at them, she felt a pang for Ryld. She hoped he had found at least some peace.

The souls flowed as one toward a range of craggy mountains that soared so high they looked like a wall between worlds. Halisstra noticed that while vortices of power still churned in the sky, there were fewer than before.

She felt as though events were settling down, consolidating before the final resolution. Unfortunately, she did not know just what the final resolution would be. She pressed the flat of the Crescent Blade against her palm and tried to keep her heart calm.

Feeling small but still determined, she walked to the edge of the tor and looked out and down on the Demonweb Pits.

The sight nauseated her.

Evidence of the destructive violence had survived the storm. Legs, torn carcasses, and pedipalps lay strewn across the broken land for as far as she could see. Ichor stained the rocks, even after the rain.

Gorges, holes, and pits marred the surface of the landscape; webs spanned every opening; lakes of acid steamed poison into the air.

Soon, she knew, the wind would return and with it, the keening of the songspider webs and the call to Lolth's Yor'thae.

Why did Lolth need this Yor'thae, Halisstra wondered? What was the Chosen supposed to do?

With effort, she pushed the questions from her mind. Lolth's schemes no longer concerned Halisstra.

She touched the symbol of the Dark Maiden embossed on her breastplate and smiled. She felt that she had stepped on a new path, that Lolth's voice would no longer pull at her soul. She was free of the Spider Queen.

For now, said a stubborn voice from the depths of her brain, but she pushed it back down.

The sun sank behind the mountains and its light faded entirely. Halisstra felt a painful itch between her shoulder blades, as though she had been poked with needles. She turned and saw, through a convenient hole in the clouds, eight red stars rising into the sky. Seven were bright, one dim. Clustered like a spider's eyes, the stars looked down on Halisstra with palpable malevolence.

She answered their gaze with a defiant stare and a raised blade.

Gromph sat behind the enormous, polished dragonbone desk in his office in Sorcere. A dim green glowball cast the room in viridian and threw long shadows on the walls. Various trinkets, weapons, sculptures, and paintings decorated the office, the magical flotsam Gromph had gathered over the course of his long life.

His magical ring had almost fully regenerated his flesh. The burns were entirely gone; the blisters healed. He tapped his fingertips on the desk-the skin was still slightly tender and tingly--and thought about his next steps.

Though he'd had little time to spare, he had managed a quick meal of spiced mushrooms and cured rothe meat while he and Nauzhror had awaited Prath's arrival. Gromph had not taken the time to bathe or change his attire, so the stink of filth and smoke still oozed from him. More conscious of the smell in the close confines of his office, he crinkled his nose, spoke the words to a cantrip, and used the minor magical powerto mend his clothes and clean himself up, at least a bit.

A knock sounded on the zurkhwood door that opened onto the hallway.

"It is Prath, Archmage," the apprentice called.

With a flick of his finger, Gromph temporarily suspended the wards on his door.

"Enter," he commanded, and Prath did.

The wards reengaged when the door shut.

Prath nodded to Nauzhror, who sat in one of the two cushioned chairs opposite Gromph's desk, and crossed the room.

"Sit, apprentice," Gromph said and indicated the second chair.

Prath sank into it, saying nothing.

Gromph studied the two wizards, thinking the apprentice overly muscular and fidgety, the Master overly fat and ambitious. Neither yet understood exactly what Gromph proposed to do.

Gromph's personal office was perhaps the most secure location in the city, the haven from which he could begin in secret his assault on House Agrach Dyrr. A series of wards-far more than those that simply prevented entry through the doorway-sheathed the room to prevent not only physical intrusion but scrying and other magical surveillance. Gromph perceived the wards in the room around him as a tickle on the newly regrown hairs of his arms, a slight charge in the air.

Of all the mages in Menzoberranzan, only the lichdrow would have had a chance to penetrate Gromph's ward scheme, and only maybe.

Of course, the lichdrow was no more than dust at the moment. Gromph intended to ensure that he stayed that way.

A half-full chalice of fortified mushroom wine sat on the smooth, white desktop beside the remains of Gromph's meal. Near the chalice and silver plate sat one of Gromph's two personal scrying crystals. Unlike his crystal ball, unlike the great lens in Sorcere's scrying chamber, the crystal on his desk was not smooth surfaced, but rather was a head-sized, irregularly-shaped piece of brown, black, and red banded chrysoberyl. Those in the World Above called it "cat's eye," and its properties as a scrying medium were highly valued.

Unfortunately, a chrysoberyl scrying crystal typically did not have the range of most other types of crystals. Still, for close work, there was nothing better. And Gromph's crystal had an added benefit: He could cast certain types of spells through it.

The crystal sat cradled in a triangular stand of unusually-textured gray stone. An eye motif decorated the stand. Gromph had sculpted it from the spheroid body of an eye tyrant that he had petrified in battle long ago.

"An unusual scrying crystal," Nauzhror observed. "I have never seen its like."

"It is of my own making," Gromph replied. "And I have never recorded the process of its creation."

Nauzhror only nodded, eyeing the crystal.

Gromph took a sip from the mushroom wine. The bitter taste left a pleasant tang on his tongue. The wine fortified his will. He put his fingertips to the faceted surface of the crystal. It felt cool, though the magic within it sent a charge through his hands. He moved his fingers over its surface, tracing its edges, attuning it to his will.

Nauzhror and Prath watched in expectant silence.

Gromph closed his eyes and let his mind see the lines of power that flowed within the chrysoberyl. He waited for the connection between the stone and his mind to coalesce.

There.

He smiled, feeling the crystal as an extension of his own mind, his own senses. He opened his eyes, still connected to the crystal, and gave a satisfied nod. The bands of color in the crystal had bled together to turn the crystal black. As he watched, the black gave way to a misty gray.

"It is ready," he said, as much to himself as to Nauzhror and Prath.

"Indeed," said Nauzhror. "Are we to be of assistance, Archmage?"

"Yes," Gromph answered. "But not with this. Be patient, Nauzhror."

Prath leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. He eyed the swirling gray mists in the crystal, and asked, "Archmage, I presume you will scry House Agrach Dyrr. Why not use the Scrying Chamber for this task? The crystal there is-"

Before Gromph could answer, Nauzhror answered in the same tone he might use with a particularly dense student, "Because only Baenre are to know of this. There may be spies other than Vorion within Sorcere's walls."

Gromph cocked an eyebrow. Nauzhror's analysis impressed him; the Master wizard saw much. Soon,Gromph would have either to move him up Sorcere's ranks or, if his ambition proved too great, kill him.

"Master Nauzhror offers one reason among several," Gromph said, giving the Master of Sorcere a look of reserved approval. "Another is that I know my offices to be shielded from Yasraena's scrying. I cannot be as certain regarding the wards around the scrying chamber without first performing a thorough check.

We do not have time for that. Still a third reason is that I will need you both here, in my office, to further my deception."

"Deception?" asked Prath.

"Need?" Nauzhror asked.

Gromph regretted his word choice the moment it exited his mouth. Nauzhror's expression showed an ill-concealed eagerness at Gromph's declaration of "need." Even Prath looked mildly taken aback.

Gromph sealed the breach.

He stared coldly into Nauzhror's pudgy face and said, "My need is one of convenience, Nauzhror.

Nothing more. Any Baenre mage will do. Perhaps another would be better suited than you. Do you wish to be dismissed?"

The multitude of possible meanings for which "dismissed" might be a euphemism hung in the air between them.

Nauzhror shook his head so rapidly that his paunch shook. "No, Archmage," he replied. "Not at all. I am honored to be of any small assistance in these weighty matters. I merely want to understand what it is you are planning."

"And you will," Gromph replied. "In time and only in part."

Gromph eyed Prath, whose expression showed no challenge whatever. Gromph was mildly disappointed.

"I am pleased to be of service too, Archmage," said the apprentice unnecessarily.

"I know," Gromph replied. Hours before, Prath had shaved off his own flesh to supply Gromph with a needed material component. He still bore a divot in his finger from the wound.

Prath was loyal, but Gromph had little love for loyalty. It was too fickle a sentiment, easily shattered, easily manipulated. Gromph demanded not loyalty but obedience, and he ensured it through fear of his power. He decided that he would have to keep a close eye on Prath going forward, though the apprentice would be useful over the next few hours.

"Well enough, then," Gromph said. "Let us first determine the nature of the challenge."

He concentrated on the crystal, and whorls of color began to swirl within the gray mist. Prath and Nauzhror watched intently. Both pulled their chairs closer to Gromph's desk.

"The lichdrow's phylactery must be within House Agrach Dyrr," Gromph said, speaking his thoughts and his hopes aloud. "Or at least it must be accessible through House Dyrr."