With Lolth silent, withdrawn, and the priestesses scrambling for answers, thrown into the sort of chaos only a demon goddess could conjure . . . well, things had changed.
"Once in each twenty-four hour cycle," said the Master of Sorcere, "he can kill with a touch."
The strangest thing, for Gromph, about the shift in power was how little he liked it. He had, after all, spent a lifetime manipulating the system to best serve his House and himself. When the system faltered, he might have been in a position to unseat his sister and the rest of the matron mothers and take control of Menzoberranzan himself-but why? What would he hope to gain? How could his position be any better? He enjoyed all the benefits of House Baenre's position and Sorcere's, but there was always someone else onto whom he could deflect responsibility, always someone who could be manipulated.
"There are a number of spell effects that will be of no concern to the lich," said the master. "These include cold, lightning, poison, paralysis, disease, necromancy, polymorph, and spells that affect or influence the mind. Best not even to bother preparing such enchantments."
Gromph was the third most powerful dark elf in Menzoberranzan, and Lolth be damned, he liked it that way.
"He will likely be wearing a robe of black silk," the Master of Sorcere continued, "that will allow him to conjure a barrier of whirling blades." Well, he might like to be second, but still . . .
"The crown," the Master of Sorcere finished, "is more than simply a crass affectation. It can store and reflect back offensive spells."
So it was that Gromph Baenre sat on the floor of a very small, very dark, and very secret room in the deepest heart of Sorcere, surrounded by a circle of mages who were the most powerful in the city-among the most powerful spellcasters in all the Underdark. The other mages, Masters of Sorcere all, whispered or chanted and waved or gesticulated, and tossed into the air or pinched between fingers all manner of tokens, totems, focuses, and components. They showered the archmage with protective magic, doing it at so fast a pace they'd stopped even bothering to tell him what they were casting on him. Gromph had few doubts that by the time they were done, he'd be immune to everything. Surely no one would be able to harm him-no one but a spellcaster of greater power than the Masters.
And it was precisely such an opponent that Gromph meant to face.
"I should go with you, Archmage," Nauzhror Baenre said, his voice conveying a lack of real desire in that regard.
"If any of you say anything like that," Gromph replied, "even once more, I will. . ."
He let the threat go unfinished. He wouldn't do anything, and they all knew it, but out of respect for the archmage, none of them suggested going with him again. They were all smart enough to know that Gromph meant to face an enemy who, all things being equal, was the most dangerous being in Menzoberranzan. The lichdrow was a spellcaster of extraordinary, sometimes almost godlike, power. Of course they didn't really want to face him in the way that Gromph meant to: toe to toe in a spell duel that would surely find its place in drow history.
That duel was something only the archmage could fight. In Menzoberranzan, it had come down to that: male against male, wizard against wizard, First House against Second, establishment against revolutionary, stability against change, civilization against . . . chaos?
Exactly, Gromph thought-though he would never say it out loud. Order against chaos, and it was Gromph who fought for order, for law, in the name of one of the purest embodiments of chaos in the multiverse: Lolth, a goddess with the heart of a demon.
"Strange," the archmage murmured aloud, "how things work out."
"Indeed, Archmage," Nauzhror answered as if he was reading Gromph's mind-and perhaps he was. "It is strange indeed."
The two Baenre wizards shared a smile, then Gromph closed his eyes and let the others continue their casting. The protective and contingency spells were draped over him one after the other. Sometimes Gromph could feel an itching, warmth, a cool breeze, or a vibration, and sometimes he would feel nothing at all.
"Have you decided where to face him?" Grendan asked, pausing briefly between defensive spells.
Gromph shook his head.
"Somewhere out of the city?" Nauzhror suggested. "Behind the duergar lines?" Gromph shook his head again.