over to panic the matrons with news of a duergar army on our doorstep. In fact, my plans will be well served if you do so at a time and in a manner convenient to me."
"That would place the city in peril," Gromph said.
"It is in peril already, young Gromph. I mean to impose some meas-ure 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 accept-ance, 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, valu-able progress? There will doubtless be tremendous damage, but the Men-zoberranzan 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 servea 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 Menzober-ranzan. 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 childas 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