Resurrection

One of the male wizards in the chamber offered, "Geremis last reported that they were to search the temple, Matron Mother."

The temple. Yasraena could hardly believe her ears. Had the lichdrow secreted his phylactery within the temple? She cursed him for the arrogant, scheming fool he was.

Yasraena clenched her fists, then her jaw. Her body shook. Anger and fear threatened to overwhelm her.

Through gritted teeth, she said to Esvena, "Go to the walls and retrieve the vrocks and any

House mages you can find. Then meet us at the temple. Go, now."

Esvena streaked from the chamber.

Yasraena looked to the two males still with her and said, "You two, accompany me to the temple. The Archmage of Menzoberranzan awaits us.

When the shapechange spell expired on Prath, Nauzhror swore aloud. Prath studied his hands,

saw them grow larger, and looked wide-eyed across the desk at Nauzhror.

At that moment, the Dyrr wizards had learned of Gromph's deception.

For a heartbeat-but only a single heartbeat-Nauzhror wrestled with what action he should take. Nauzhror coveted the archmage's position, but his fear of failing Gromph Baenre outweighed his ambition. If Gromph succeeded and learned that Nauzhror did nothing more after the shapechange spell expired, Nauzhror knew he would suffer. If Gromph failed and died, he knew too that Triel Baenre would investigate herself, and again, Nauzhror would suffer.

In the end, the Master of Sorcere knew that he could do nothing but play his part to the best of his abilities and hope that Gromph succeeded.

To Prath, still sitting in the archmage's chair, he said, "Get up, boy."

Prath leaped from the chair as though it was on fire. Nauzhror circled the desk and slid into the chair. With an expertise born of decades of training, he attuned Gromph's chrysoberyl scrying crystal and caused it to show him the Xorlarrin forces gathered outside of House Agrach Dyrr.

The soldiers and wizards were massed but standing idle.

Nauzhror studied the locale for a time, fixed the image in his mind, and let the scrying crystal go inert.

"What should we do now, Master Nauzhror?" asked Prath. The apprentice's voice betrayed his nervousness.

Nauzhror replied, "Now, we assist the archmage's efforts by seeing to it that Yasraena will be faced at the same time with enemies within and without."

Without further explanation, he spoke a word of power and teleported into the midst of the

Xorlarrin army.

Chapter Fifteen

Pharaun's mind fogged the moment he stepped onto the Pass of the Soulreaver. His equilibrium failed him. He felt as though he were moving back and forth, up and down, all at once.

Staggering, he held out a hand until it touched the cool wall of the narrow pass. He stood still,

leaning against the stone and trying to recover himself.

The mage knew he wasn't moving but still felt a sensation of motion and perceived the rapid passage of time. He stood at the center of the world as it streaked around and past him.

Pharaun closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and clutched at the wall with a death grip.

Time and motion stopped so suddenly he almost fell forward.

He opened his eyes and saw no souls, no Quenthel, nothing but stone walls to either side of him rising toward infinity. Darkness shrouded the pass, but ordinary darkness through which

Pharaun could see. A smooth, narrow path stretched before him, disappearing into the far distance. He turned around and saw the same path extending backward to the limits of his vision.

But he had taken only one step. Hadn't he?

Pharaun had teleported, gated, dimension doored, and shadowalked enough to understand that the Pass of the Soulreaver was not a physical place with spatial dimensions so much as it was a metaphor, a symbol for whatever bridged the time and distance between the ruined land he had just left behind and Lolth's personal realm that lay ahead.

For a disconcerting instant, though, he wondered if the entirety of Lolth's plane was no more than metaphor, if the minds of he and his companions had given form to something otherwise formless.

The thought disquieted him, and he pushed it from his brain.

"Quenthel," he called and did not like the quaver he heard in his voice. The word echoed off the stone, and when it came back to him, the voice was not his own.

A scream of terror: "Quenthel!"

Hysterical laughter: "Quenthel."

A despairing mumble: "Quenthel."

A wail of pain: "Quenthel!"

Pharaun's skin crawled. Sweat beaded his forehead. His skin was clammy. He kept his mouth shut and walked down the path-slowly.

He saw nothing and heard nothing but the twisted echo of his own voice, but. .

He was not alone.

And it was not Quenthel he sensed.

From ahead-or was it behind? — whispering began, hissings, the remnant of ancient screams.

The inarticulate mutterings soaked into his soul. He felt itchy, soiled. His breath came fast.

"Who is there?" he called and cringed when the words rebounded to him, screaming in terror.

He reached into his robe and withdrew a wand for each hand: the iron shaft that discharged lightning in his right, the zurkhwood wand that fired bolts of magical energy in his left.

He walked on. The walls whispered and muttered in his ears.

"Reaver," they said.

He felt eyes on him from behind, boring into his being. He whirled around, both wands brandished, certain something was there.

Nothing.

The whispers turned to hissing laughter.

Breathing heavily, he put his back to the wall and tried to gather himself. Ghostly hands as cold as a grave reached through the wall and covered his mouth. Panic sent his heart hammering.

He pulled himself free, fell to the ground, turned and fired three magic missiles into the wall.

There was nothing there.

He scrabbled to his feet.

What was happening? He was not himself. A spell was affecting him. Surely he-

A sudden shriek rang off the walls, a hopeless wail filled with despair and rage. Pharaun tensed, his knuckles white on his wands.

Ahead of him, a vast, spectral form flew out of the wall on one side of the pass and into the wall on the other, like a fish swimming through the waters of the Darklake. The form moved fast,

but he caught a good glimpse of it before it vanished into the stone-a vast, bloated, serpentine body of translucent gray, within which squirmed and screamed hundreds or thousands of glowing drow souls.

The Soulreaver.

Its black eyes were bottomless holes; its mouth a cavern. It dwarfed the nalfeshnee; it dwarfed ten nalfeshnees.

It was a living prison for failed souls.

Pharaun imagined his own soul trapped within it, and a pit formed in his stomach. He tried to ignore the shaking in his hands as he put one of the wands back in his robe and withdrew a pinch of powdered irtios, a clear gem. He cast the sparkling powder into the air while speaking aloud the words to a powerful evocation.

He maintained his concentration even when the arcane words echoed back at him as wails.

When he finished, the irtios powder swirled around him, formed a sphere about fifteen paces in diameter, and transformed into an invisible, impenetrable sphere of force that could keep out even incorporeal creatures.

Pharaun prayed to Lolth that it would keep out the Soulreaver. Even it if did, however,

Pharaun knew the solution was only a temporary one. The spell would not last overlong, and he could not move the sphere. Still, he needed some time to gather himself. He was agitated,

nervous.

The shriek of the Soulreaver repeated but sounded muffled, as though from deep in the ground.

Secure within his sphere, Pharaun tried to settle his racing heart and develop a plan.