Resurrection

Gromph allowed himself no time to enjoy his victory. He flew down, flipped again when he left the affected area of his spell, landed atop the body of the parent golem, and looked down at the prismatic sphere, at the twine of the master ward that fed into it. He could have used one of his more powerful spells to disjoin the magic but doing so would negate all magic within the temple, triggering the master ward, freeing the golems, forcing his soul back into his body, and negating his walls of force.

Instead, he would cancel the sphere with the methodical application of specific spells. Each of the seven colors of the sphere was negated by casting a certain spell on the sphere when the appropriately colored layer appeared.

In his mind, Gromph thought through the spells he would need to eliminate the sphere's layers. Some of them would require material components. He reached into his robes and withdrew the materials he would need: a tiny cone of glass, his lodestone, and a pinch of dried mushroom spores.

He stared at the prismatic sphere as it cycled through its colors. He had to down the colors in sequence, starting with red and moving to violet. The master ward complicated things potentially, but Gromph had no more time to worry about it.

He readied his spells.

The sphere showed red. Gromph incanted a couplet, put the glass cone to his lips, and exhaled a cone of freezing cold that slicked the floor in ice. The prismatic sphere froze in the ice.

Gromph tapped it with his finger, and the red layer shattered and disappeared, revealing the orange layer.

Another assault on the wall of force. The angry clicking of the golem swarm from above.

Gromph ignored both.

He spoke another series of arcane words and summoned a powerful gust of wind. The magic of the spell whipped his hair into his face and tore the orange layer from the sphere, where it dissipated into nothingness. The yellow layer was revealed.

He picked up his lodestone, gathered some of the dust from the floor, and spoke the words to the same spell that he had used to disintegrate Geremis. The spell a

exposing the green.

Gromph heard voices from outside the window. The screech of something powerful and predatory.

Yasraena must have brought the vrocks, he thought, recalling the shapechanged demons that had stood on the walls.

He picked up the mushroom spores and spoke aloud the words to a spell that ordinarily would have opened a hole through solid walls. Instead, the magic opened a tiny hole in the green layer,

which rapidly expanded until the layer was consumed. The blue layer lay open to him.

Almost there.

The vrocks screeched again.

He whispered the words to a simple evocation, pointed his finger, and discharged a bolt of magical energy. It struck the blue layer and consumed it, revealing a scarlet layer.

He was nearly done.

Behind and above him, another assault on his wall of force brought it down. A shower of sparks a

Looking at the next layer, he closed his eyes and pronounced the words to the next spell.

When it took effect, light as bright as the sun in the World Above illuminated the temple.

Gromph's eyes watered even through his closed lids.

Shouts of dismay sounded from outside the window. House Dyrr's forces no more liked light than did Gromph.

Darkness spells quickly countered the light, but the spell's work was done. The light had burned away the scarlet layer. Only one remained-violet.

Gromph uttered the words to the spell he had used so many times over recent hours, the spell that dispelled other magic. When he pronounced the final syllable, the violet layer disappeared.

He held his breath.

There, exposed but for the twisting embrace of the master ward, lay the lichdrow's phylactery.

It glowed so brightly in his magic-attuned vision that he had to again blink away tears.

The phylactery looked like nothing more than a sparkling, fist-sized beljuril, a hard green gemstone. Tiny runes covered it.

Within it, Gromph knew, was the lichdrow's essence.

Gromph hefted the duergar axe. Not only would a blow from the axe destroy the gem, it would drink the lichdrow's soul, such as it was. The thought pleased Gromph.

Behind him, the vrocks streaked through the window and into the temple. Gromph spared a look back. The demons had assumed their natural form: that of muscular, giant, bipedal vultures.

Vicious talons ended their legs, and large, tearing beaks jutted from their twisted faces. The beat of their enormous wings carried the stench of carrion.

"She is here!" they shouted back out the window, and Gromph heard exclamations of excitement from outside the temple.

Yasraena appeared in the window, levitating high and stepping onto the sill. For a moment,

she stared down with a confused expression at the ruined temple and Gromph-he still wore the body of her daughter-but her expression quickly changed to one of rage.

She guessed who he was.

"Archmage!" she screamed.

Gromph shot her a smile and raised the axe high.

The vrocks flew toward him as fast as arrows, mouths open wide and shrieking. Yasraena voiced the words to a spell.

"Good-bye, Dyrr," he said, and drove the axe into the beljuril.

The gem shattered into countless glittering fragments, emitting a foul puff of smoke. A vague,

distant howl sounded somewhere deep in Gromph's mind, and the axe shook in his hands. The lichdrow's soul rushed into the metal. It glowed, vibrated, and displaced the previous souls that the axe had claimed. A score or more spirits exploded from the axe head, exclaimed with joy at their freedom, and vanished into the aether. Henceforth, the axe would house only the lichdrow.

"No!" Yasraena screamed and lost the thread of her spell.

The vein of the master ward turned a burning orange.

Before Gromph could reason out the meaning of the change in the master ward, before he could turn to face the onrushing vrocks, a tremor shook the temple, shook all of House Agrach

Dyrr. The force of it knocked Gromph off of the remains of the golem, and the vrocks shrieked past him overhead.

Speaking as quickly as he could, Gromph uttered the incantation to one of his most powerful spells.

Time stopped for everyone but Gromph.

Silence fell. Motion ceased.

The vrocks hung frozen in mid-air, mouths agape. Yasraena stood in the window, frozen in the middle of another casting.

Gromph studied the vein of the master ward. A bubble of power distorted its otherwise straight line, just where it passed through the temple doors.

It took Gromph a moment to determine what had happened. He cast a series of divinations to confirm his suspicions. When he saw the results, he almost laughed.

The lichdrow's defenses never ended. And it appeared he would have his revenge, after all.

The master ward had reset the wards behind Gromph not to prevent a second intruder from entering but to provide a power source for its real purpose. The destruction of the phylactery had triggered the lichdrow's final spell, a cyclic reaction that fed on the reset wards.

Power would race back along the vein of the master ward, absorbing the energy of all of the wards in its path. When it reached the start of the spell network, it would rebound back to its place of origin-the location of the phylactery, the temple-bringing with it all of the pent-up power of the absorbed wards.

The explosion would be enormous, perhaps large enough to level the entire stalagmite fortress complex of House Agrach Dyrr.

Gromph could not flee. The dimensional lock prevented magical travel, and he could never get out on foot in time.

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