Dissolution

It was an extraordinary feat of mass assassination, but the mercenaries had only cleared one small part of Menzoberranzan. They couldn't reclaim the entire city by themselves, if, in fact, the job could be done at all. Triel shouted down into the yard, to any officer within earshot, «Assemble my troops. We're marching out.»

Jeggred couldn't speak for joy. This had already been the best night of his admittedly young life, and he was drunk on slaughter. He'd killed and killed and killed and killed again, an ecstasy that put his sport with Faeryl Zauvirr to shame. And his mother said it wasn't over! They were going to descend into the city to gorge on murder, and Jeggred would know a fiend's transcendent bliss. The only hard part would be remembering not to kill dark elves, just everyone else. He squeezed Triel's shoulder with a quivering hand, one of the smaller ones.

Valas Hune skulked around the corner, then blinked. A keep blocked the street, where no bastion should be—then the huge thing moved. No, not a keep after all, but the biggest stone giant he'd ever seen. The scout knew that some Houses kept giant slaves as well as the more common goblinoids and ogres, and, gray in the firelight, with a long head and black, sunken eyes, this specimen still wore iron bracelets dangling lengths of broken chain. From somewhere it had procured a greataxe sized for a creature of its immensity, and was using it to pulp any drow it noticed scurrying about. Valas had gotten separated from his comrades sometime back. That was all right. He was used to traversing wild places by himself, though in truth, he'd never explored any tu

Gromph was in a vile humor as he floated up the cliff face. He'd cast light into the foot of Narbondel the same as always, and the world exploded into madness. Orcs lunged out of nowhere and attacked his guards. His own ogre litter-bearers summarily dumped his luxurious conveyance on the ground and joined in the uprising. The archmage had sought to strike the undercreatures dead with a spell, but nothing happened. Someone had conjured a magical dead zone around him. Either one of the orcs was a shaman powerful enough to create such an effect, or, more likely, one of the brutes had stolen a talisman from his owner. However they'd managed it, the beasts were charging, and the spells in Gromph's memory were just odd little rhymes, his robe and cloak, mere flimsy cloth, and his weapons, inert sticks and ornaments. Well, probably not all of them, but he wasn't reckless enough to stand and experiment while the orcs assailed him with their pilfered blades. Forfeiting his dignity, he turned and ran. The exertion made his chest throb where K'rarza'q had gored him. When he reached the edge of the plaza, he thought he must have exited the dead zone. He'd better have, because he could hear the grunting ogres with their long legs catching up behind him. He turned, pointed a wand, and snarled the trigger word. A drop of liquid shot from the tip of the rod. It struck the belly of the lead ogre and burst into a copious splash of acid. With his magic restored, Gromph obliterated every attacker who lacked the sense to run away. His dark elf attendants were already dead, leaving him to make his way back to Tier Breche alone. As it turned out, the slave rebellion was pandemic, and the trek wasn't altogether easy. He considered going to ground in some castle or house, but when he saw the flames gnawing stone, he knew he had to get back. Dirty, sore, and coughing, he eventually made it home, and when he rose to the top of the limestone wall, he saw something that lifted his spirits, albeit only a little. Eight Masters of Sorcere stood in the open air, chanting, gesturing, attempting a ritual, while an equal number of apprentices looked on. The wizards had fetched much of the proper equipment out of the tower. That was something, Gromph supposed, but the incantation was a useless mess. The Baenre reached out and hauled himself onto solid ground and his hands and knees, another irksome affront to his dignity. He rose and shouted, «Enough!» The teachers and students twisted around to gawk at him. The chanting died. «Archmage!» cried Guldor Melarn. He was supposedly without peer in the realm of elemental magic, though it couldn't be proved by his performance thus far that night. «We were worried about you!» «I'm sure,» said Gromph, striding closer. «I noticed all the search parties you sent out looking for me.» Guldor hesitated. «Sir, the mistress of the Academy commanded—» «Shut up,» said Gromph. He'd come close enough to see that the teachers were standing in a complex pentacle, written in red phosphorescence on the ground. «Pitiful.» He extended his index finger and wrote on the air. The magic words and sigils reshaped themselves. «My lord Archmage,» said Master Godeep. «We drew this circle to extinguish the fires below. If you break it—» «I'm not breaking it,» said Gromph, «I'm fixing it.» He turned his gaze on one of the apprentices, some commoner youth, and the dolt flinched. «Fetch me a bit of fur, an amber rod, and one of the little bronze gongs the cooks use to summon us to supper. Run!» «Archmage,» said Guldor, «you see we already have all the necessary foci for fire magic.» He gestured to a brazier of ruddy coals. «I'm whispering to the flames below, commanding them to dwindle.» «And making more smoke in the process. That's just what we need.» Gromph kicked the brazier over, scattering embers across the rock. «Your approach isn't working, elementalist. I should exile you to the Realms that See the Sun for a few decades, then you might figure out what it takes to extinguish a fire of this magnitude.» The male came sprinting back with the articles Gromph had requested. The Baenre whispered a word of power, and the pentacle changed from red to blue.

«Right, then,» he said to the wizards. «I assume you can tell where you're meant to stand, so do it and we'll begin. I'll say a line, you repeat it. Copy my passes if you're up to it.» For a properly schooled wizard, magic was generally easy. He relied on an armamentarium of spells, many devised by his predecessors, a few, perhaps, invented by himself. In either case, they were perfected spells that he thoroughly understood. He knew he could cast them properly, and what would happen when he did. An extemporaneous ritual was a different matter. Relying on their arcane knowledge and natural ability, a circle of mages tried to generate a new effect on the fly. Often, nothing happened. When it did, the power often turned on those who had raised it or discharged itself in some other ma

As one, the clouds dropped torrents of water to fall in frigid veils. The Baenre could hear the sizzling sound as it pounded the cavern wall. «That's impressive,» said Guldor, «but are you sure it will put out the flames? The fire's magical, after all.» Gromph's bruise gave him a twinge. «Yes, instructor,» he growled, «because I'm not an incompetent from a House of no account. I'm a Baenre and the Archmage of Menzoberranzan. . and I'm sure.»

Before it was over, Pharaun lost track of how many battles he and his comrades had fought. He only knew they kept wi