the assassin's presence.
"What business brings you here now, Anointed Blade?" asked Vhok.
"That drow expedition, of course," the assassin replied. "They have found a ship of chaos, and they mean to pay their sleeping goddess a visit?"
The assassin was looking at Aliisza, expecting an answer. She sheathed her own sword and slipped back down to the sofa, never taking her eyes off the dark elf. The alu-fiend didn't bother refastening the clasps Vhok had undone on her bodice.
"There's very little reason to suspect they'll succeed," said Vhok.
"Would you agree, Aliisza?" Nimor asked.
Aliisza shrugged and said, "They have a wizard with them who could likely handle the ship. I became acquainted with him in Ched Nasad just before the end, and I found him quite capable."
"Ah, yes," Nimor said, "Pharaun Mizzrym. He could be the next archmage, or so I hear. If his name were Baenre, that is."
"They could do it," Vhok said.
Nimor took a deep breath and said, "There are a thousand things that could go wrong between the Lake of Shadows and the Abyss, and a thousand thousand things could go wrong between the edge of the Abyss and the sixty-sixth layer."
"What will they find there, Nimor?" Aliisza asked, genuinely curious.
Nimor smiled, and Aliisza momentarily thrilled at his feral expression.
"I haven't the vaguest notion," he answered.
"If they find Lolth?" asked Vhok.
"If they find Lolth," said Nimor, "and she's dead, then we can settle in for as long a siege as necessary. Menzoberranzan is doomed. If she sleeps and they can't wake her or if she has simply decided to abandon her faithful on this world, the same is true. If she sleeps and they do wake her or she is ignoring them and they regain her favor, well, that would pose a difficulty for us."
"How do we know what they'll find?" asked the cambion.
"We don't," Nimor answered.
The dark elf folded his arms across his chest and tipped his head down. His features grew tighter, darker as he wrapped himself in thought.
"Let them go, but. . ." Aliisza suggested, the words tripping over her tongue before she'd thought them through.
"Send someone with them," Nimor finished for her.
The alu-fiend smiled, showing a row of yellow-white fangs.
"Agrach Dyrr is alone," Triel Baenre said. "Alone and under siege."
Gromph nodded but didn't look at his sister. He was captivated by the sight of Menzoberranzan. The City of Spiders stretched out before him, ablaze in faerie fire, magnificent in its chaos, in its perversion of nature-a cave made into a home.
"Good," Gromph replied, "but don't assume they'll give up easily. They have loyal servants of their own and allies who make up for what they lack in intelligence with superiority of numbers."
From where they stood on a high belvedere on the outside edge of one of the westernmost spires of the House Baenre complex, Gromph had a largely unobstructed view of the subterranean city. The Baenre palace stood against the southern wall of the huge cavern, atop the second tier of a wide rock shelf. It was the First House, and its position above the rest of the city was more than symbolic.
"They may have thrown in with the gray dwarves," Andzrel Baenre said, "but no dark elf in Menzoberranzan fights on their behalf."
Gromph turned to his left and looked west across the high ground of Qu'ellarz'orl. Before him was the high stalagmite tower of House Xorlarrin and beyond that the cluster of stalactites and stalagmites that housed the treasonous Agrach Dyrr. Flashes of fire and lightning-the work of Xorlarrin's formidable and plentiful mages-flickered across the ground and in the air around Dyrr's manor. The lichdrow who was the rebel House's master was holed up inside there somewhere, and his own mages answered back with fire and thunder of their own. Gromph could feel his sister Triel and the weapons master Andzrel behind him, waiting for him to speak.
"It seems as if I've been gone a very, very long time," Gromph said, his voice subdued but carefully modulated to convey to his sister his grave disappointment at the state of the war.
He could sense Triel stiffen behind him then shake his words off.
"You have been," she said, letting no small amount of acid into her own voice, "but let us not dwell on failures in the face of such grave danger to all we hold dear."
Gromph allowed himself a smile and glanced back overhis shoulder at his sister. She was staring at him, her arms folded in front of her, cradling them as if she were