an explosion that would shake Menzoberranzan's cavern.
The gathering energies caused Gromph's ears to pop.
The wave of power reached the outer wards on the gate and walls, gathered them in, and rebounded back, moving fast.
Roofs collapsed on the buildings around the archmage. Drow screamed. Priestesses shouted unheeded orders.
Another great tremor shook the temple behind him, and the central dome collapsed in a shower of crashing stone and glass. Gromph presumed that Yasraena, Larikal, and the vrocks died under its weight. Fitting, he thought, that in the end Lolth had crushed the traitors.
Gromph stepped off the portico and away from the temple. He wondered distantly if the Xorlarrin forces would be caught in the blast. Certainly enough power seemed to be gathering. The energy from all of the wards would power the explosion. It would consolidate at the trigger, in the center of the collapsed temple, and explode outward from there. Gromph thought it possible that all of House Agrach Dyrr would be destroyed.
He looked toward the gates and saw the wave surging backa great, glowing wall of arcane power. The ground rippled before it.
An idea fluttered around the back of Gromph's mind. The wave was gathering and extinguishing all of the wards as it moved.
All of them.
Even the dimensional lock?
His heartbeat accelerated.
Could the lichdrow have made such a mistake?
Gromph thought it might be possible. He studied the surviving wards as the wave of power drew nearer.
The dimensional lock was still in place and h e could not tell if the master ward would draw on even it. If so ...
If so, Gromph might be able to time a final spell just right. Fortunately, the spell he would use required no material component.
He waited... waited.
The wave of power surged along the master wardand passed him, knocking him from his feet. There! The wave subsumed the dimensional lock and hit the ruined temple. The whole structure glowed, pulsed a blinding white.
Gromph shouted the words to his spell as rapidly as he could without risking a mispronunciation.
Blinding beams of energy shot from the temple in all directions. An explosion was imminent.
He hurried through the spell. A word. Another. Another.
The temple burned as bright as the sun of the World Above as it exploded in a unequalled blast of magical energy. Gromph did not complete his spell.
Pain seared his body, a brief moment of agony unlike anything he had ever felt, and Gromph Baenre knew pain.
Then it was over.
Chapter Nineteen
On the Plains of Soulfire, the mezzoloths shifted into battle formations. The nycaloths flew above the host, axes in hand. The ultroloth pulled out a second rod, likely to bring down Pharaun's wall of force.
Jeggred stood at the top of the path that led down to the plains, growling with rage.
"Get rid of this wall, wizard!" the draegloth roared, veins and tendons visible under his leathery skin. Beside Pharaun, the priestesses voiced spells of summoning. Quenthel didn't bother with a summoning circle. Neither did Danifae. Each cradled her holy symbol to her breast and called on Lolth for aid. Their voices rose into the darkened sky, boomed over the blasted plains.
And the Spider Queen answered.
Quenthel called out a name. The word hit Pharaun like a physical blow, skipped off his brain, and was lost to his memory.
A roll of thunder boomed. Quenthel repeated the name.
Above them, the sky opened. An enormous shadow filled the hole, winged and awful.
Pharaun knew it for it was, but he could scarcely believe his eyes.
A klurichir. One of the most powerful demons in the Abyss. Quenthel had taken a great risk in summoning it. She was either very confident or very desperate.
Except for the lonely sound of Danifae's voice, silence fell over the Plains of Soulfire. Even Jeggred quieted. A nervous shuffle ran through the yugoloth army. The nycaloths hurriedly flew back down to stand with their troops. Pharaun caught the magically augmented telepathic projection of the ultroloth. Stand your ground, he ordered, and the yugoloths obeyed.
The klurichir circled downward, growing larger with each pass. A roar escaped it, and the sound shook the mountains.
It alit on the mountainside, just outside of the invisible wall of Pharaun's sphere of force.
The klurichir's powerfully muscled body, covered in coarse grayish skin and hair that looked more like quills, stood four times the height of Jeggred. The membranous red wings that sprouted from its back extended out to twice that and cast the entire ledge in shadow. Its short legs looked as thick and sturdy as stone columns. Four powerful arms, all of them