Extinction

Closing his eyes, he raised his head, baring his exposed neck.

Triel laughed.

The noise startled Vrellin. Uncertain, he looked up?but not quite into Triel's eyes. Vrellin was a male who knew his place.

"Matron Mother, do you mock me?" he asked in a strained voice. "Is my life worth so little you deem it not worth taking?"

Triel spread her fingers and brushed them across the lieutenant's head?a touch as light as a spiderweb.

"For what you have done, lieutenant, the goddess will reward you?in this life, or the next."

As she spoke, she wondered if that was true. Then something caught her eye in the distance, on the opposite side of the great cavern: streaks of dull red light, arcing up into the air and down again. They seemed to be coming from the rear of the Tier Breche cavern, from somewhere between and behind Sorcere and Arach-Tinilith.

She swore softly as she realized their point of origin?the tu

Stonefire bombs.

Menzoberranzan was under attack on a second front. And, judging by the pinpoints of fire blossoming on the buildings in the distant cavern, the stonefire bombs were being used to good effect against Menzoberranzan's three most cherished institutions: Sorcere, Melee-Magthere?and Arach-Tinilith, the most holy of the temples to Lolth.

Tearing her eyes away, Triel glanced down at the base of the Qu'ellarz'orl plateau. The drow had finally beaten the tanarukks back into the tu

"Abyss take them," Triel swore under her breath. "It was just a feint."

Aliisza lounged on one of the plush carpets that had been thrown down on the floor of the cavern and sipped her glass of lacefungus wine. Kaanyr had been pacing back and forth across the cavern that served as his quarters in the field. He paused next to his "throne"?an enormous chair that had been lashed together from the bones of his enemies, a hideous piece of furniture he'd insisted on carrying with him on campaign. Snarling, he kicked over the enormous brazier that stood next to it.

"Abyss take Nimor!" he shouted, his skin blazing with radiant heat. "He promised the drow would be in disarray, unable to mount a coherent defense. Now my army sits stalled and impotent, while the duergar claim all the glory."

Glowing red coals scattered across the rugs, which began smoldering. Aliisza picked up one of the coals and juggled it back and forth across her palm. Its heat tickled her skin.

"So why not march your troops north and join the duergar attack?" she suggested, her black wings framing the question with a shrug.

"And give the drow an opportunity to attack us from the rear, and in territory they know well?" Vhok shook his head and added, "Your grasp of tactics?or lack thereof?astounds me. Sometimes I wonder just whose side you're on, Aliisza."

Setting her glass aside, Aliisza rose to her feet. She stood on tiptoe and locked her hands behind Kaanyr Vhok's head. Drawing his mouth down to hers, she kissed him.

"I'm on your side, darling Kaanyr," she murmured.

The half-demon broke off the kiss.

"This Nimor begins to a

He paused, lost in thought as he stared at one of the small fires that had erupted in the carpet at his feet.

"That group of drow you were spying on, back in Ched Nasad. ." he said.

Aliisza was busy nuzzling the cambion's coal-hot neck.

"Mmm?" she purred.

"What were they doing?"

Aliisza pouted but asked, "Does it matter?"

"It might," Vhok said. "Which is why I have another little job for you. I want you to find them?and, more importantly, learn what they're up to. If I'm right, we may need to rethink our alliance."

Aliisza cocked her head and smiled?not at the treachery Kaanyr Vhok was hinting at, but at the thought of seeing Pharaun again.

He certainty was delicious.

Chapter Fourteen

Gromph felt the blood drain from his face as he stared, horrified, at the illithid. Were he not trapped in the gods-cursed sphere, he could have dealt with the creature in a summary fashion, casually flicking a death-dealing spell in its direction, but instead he was at its mercy. Every fleeting thought that passed through Gromph's mind would be heard by the illithid as if spoken aloud. None of Gromph's secrets?or the secrets of Sorcere?were safe, unless he could deliberately not think of them. That effort would only cause them to come bubbling to the surface of his mind. The only good thing about his situation was that the mind flayer's gently waving tentacles were on the other side of the glass. The illithid could no more reach in and attack Gromph than Gromph could send his magic out to blast the illithid.

The mind flayer's telepathic speech was another matter. It penetrated the sphere with ease.

Sorcere? Which building is it?

A fleeting image formed in Gromph's mind: Sorcere's sculpted stalagmite tower, standing proudly beside the other two edifices of the Academy: the pyramid of Melee-Magthere, and the eight-legged temple of Arach-Tinilith.

Gromph cursed, and quickly fixed his mind on something else, but it was too late. The illithid swam up until its head broke the surface of the lake. It glanced to its right, toward the northern end of the city, blank white eyes searching for the raised grotto that opened off the main cavern of Menzoberranzan. Its tentacles lifted slightly, and its mouth began to move.

A bright sparkle of magical energy enveloped the illithid, and the view of the lake and shore disappeared. With a sinking heart, Gromph realized that things were even worse than he'd thought. His captor was no ordinary illithid but one capable of sorcery.

Gromph immediately recognized the spot that the illithid's spell had carried them to. They were in the wide cavern that led from the Dark Dominions into Tier Breche. Exhausted duergar sprawled on the cavern floor, many of them wounded. Others, carrying enormous axes and battle-chewed shields, hurried through the tu

Still other gray dwarves busied themselves just inside the mouth of the tu

Gromph could see everything but could not hear the shouts of the duergar?who nodded to the newly arrived illithid?nor could he smell the sulfurous explosions. The sphere enclosed him in a world filled only with his own breathing?which became rapid as he realized that Gracklstugh's army had not only reached Menzoberranzan but had established a foothold inside Tier Breche itself. The duergar were attacking the three buildings that were the most heavily fortified in the city, aside from the noble Houses themselves.

Hands pressed to the curved wall of his prison, Gromph strained his eyes, looking for the jade spiders that should have been guarding the tu

They serve a different master, now, the illithid said with a smirk. As will the drow, soon enough. The army is already inside Menzoberranzan.