Dyrr's spell took effect half a heartbeat before Gromph's. As the lich finished the last gestures and the final complex verbalization and crunched a lodestone and a pinch of dust in his right hand, something opened under the archmage's feet.

Gromph's spell went off, and his own globe fell victim to it—but so did the forcecage—and Gromph was falling into whatever it was Dyrr had conjured underneath him.

The archmage touched his brooch and made himself stop quickly, well before he contacted Dyrr's dramatic magical effect. As he drew himself up, moving farther and farther away from it, Gromph looked down—and into a whole other universe. The lichdrow had opened a gate beneath him, and a blinding, eye-searing light poured out of it. Gromph had seen light like it only a few times in his long life. It was sunlight, and the Archmage of Menzoberranzan didn't like it at all.

"Where are you trying to send me?" Gromph asked his opponent.

The World Above? Prath mused, though only Gromph could hear him.

Dyrr didn't answer but busied himself gathering some spell component or perhaps another magic item.

"You've imprisoned me more than once already," Gromph went on, "though they seem to hold me less time each attempt. Now you want to send me away? For pity's sake, Dyrr, why not simply kill me and get it over with? Or is it that you can't kill me?"

Gromph certainly wished that were the case—and maybe by some bizarre twist of fate it was—but Dyrr seemed to have something else in mind. The lich finished casting his spell. The immediate effect was that Gromph's stomach lifted in his gut. He caught his breath in a hissing gasp and started to fall.

He couldn't levitate—Dyrr had dispelled the magic that was keeping him aloft—and Gromph fell toward the rotating pool of daylight beneath him. Knowing Dyrr, it would be a worse fate than simply splattering at the bottom of the Clawrift. It was a fate Gromph would do anything to avoid.

The archmage extended himself, wiping more stored energy, more access to the Weave from his mind than he normally would have had to, but he needed the spell to take effect faster and couldn't spare the time for complicated incantations. The effect felt the same as Dyrr's dispelling of his levitation, but instead of falling down, Gromph drifted to a stop then started falling upward. The source of gravity, with enough magic, could be moved.

Gromph twisted in the air as he accelerated toward the roof of the cavern that housed Menzoberranzan. As the lich crossed his field of vision, Gromph could see him grimace in frustration. The archmage didn't waste time gloating. His brooch was useless to him—at least for the time being—Gromph would continue to fall upward toward the new source of gravity until he was dashed against the ceiling. He would have to stop himself.

The command word, Gromph sent to the masters of Sorcere. Quickly.

The staff that he'd used to surround himself in the globe of protective magic had been charged with more than one effect. He'd never used it, but the staff would grant him the same power of levitation as his brooch.

Sshivex,Nauzhror provided.

"Sshivex,"Gromph repeated and immediately began to levitate «up» and away from the ceiling.

In a fraction of a second—before he «landed» on the ceiling—Gromph once again drew to a halt in midair. The pool of blinding sunlight was far below him. The light made it difficult, but Gromph finally managed to spot the lichdrow, who was flying slowly, well away from the gate, and casting another spell.

"That was close, Dyrr," Gromph called out. "You almost—"

The words caught in Gromph's throat. His vision blurred. For a few seconds he couldn't breathe.

"You al—" Gromph started again, but the words were pinched off when his throat clamped shut.

Tears welled up in the archmage's eyes, and a wave of overwhelming despair passed through him, leaving his skin clammy, and his head spinning.

It's an enchantment, Grendan told him.

He was going to die. Gromph knew that with absolute certainty, but what was worse, Menzoberranzan would die soon after him. Everything he'd built over a life spent in the corridors of power had come to nothing. Menzoberranzan was eating itself alive. Everything Gromph had considered a strength—in himself, and in his race—had proven a weakness.

A compulsion, added Prath.

The hate and mistrust, the vendettas and animosities, had finally come home to roost. The once great City of Spiders had been reduced to a besieged, ragged, self-destructing ruin of its former glory—glory that was proving with every dead drow to have been a lie all along.

Fight it, Archmage, Nauzhror urged.

Lolth was dead, and Gromph would be dead soon too. Lolth was dead, and so was House Baenre. So was Sorcere. So was Menzoberranzan. It had all come to nothing, as he himself had come to nothing.

Archmage. . Nauzhror prodded.

Gromph's body shuddered through an alien sensation: a sob. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand and tried to blink away the tears, but more came. Through the tears he saw that Dyrr had moved and was floating above him.

"That's it, young Baenre," the lichdrow said. "Lament. Cry for fallen Menzoberranzan. Cry for House Baenre."

Cry? Gromph thought. Am I crying?

"Slow," Dyrr said, his voice like a gentle caress against Gromph's pain-ravaged brow. "Stop, young mage."

No,a voice in Gromph's mind all but shouted.

Gromph hadn't realized he was moving—levitating slowly «down» toward the ceiling, moving away from the blinding light pouring from Dyrr's gate. The archmage slowed his descent and came to a stop, hanging only a few yards from the jagged stalactites that hung from the ceiling like fangs ready to puncture the neck of Menzoberranzan the Mighty, ready to punish them all for their weakness.

"There. ." the lichdrow murmured, his voice sending a quivering chill down Gromph's spine. "There. ."

The lich was holding something.

How did he get so close?

Archmage,the voice in his head asked, shall I come help you?

No,he thought back at the voice.

Gromph tried to flinch away, but the lichdrow touched him with a long, thin wand of gem-inlaid silver. The touch of it sent a wave of blinding agony ripping through the archmage's body. Every muscle tensed, joints popped, and the wizard clenched his teeth against the pain. His eyes watered more, and Gromph could feel tears streaming down his tingling black cheeks.

He turned away from the lich, rolling in the air, and faced down toward the gate. His eyes closed against the light, but he blinked them open and saw the briefest flash of a silhouette: Dyrr in shadow against the sunlight. The lichdrow was below him but had been above him. Gromph wasn't sure at that instant what he was seeing. Dyrr had fooled him, or he was disoriented … or he was dying.

Am I dying? Gromph thought.

"Am I?" he said aloud then clamped a hand over his face, closing his eyes and mouth.

No, Archmage, said the voice in his head. You are under the effect of a powerful enchantment.

In that moment, Gromph lost all memory of any plan, of any determination, of any purpose for the ruin of a life he'd been cursed with. He wanted to get away. He needed to run, but he was still the Archmage of Menzoberranzan, so he cast a spell that would get him away a little faster, a little farther. With a few words and gestures he'd repeated so many times that even in his confused, despairing state of mind he managed to get right, Gromph brought forth the magic to open a doorway through the dimensions—a break in space and time.

Gromph levitated toward it, but something hit him and hit him hard. It was Dyrr. The lichdrow had put away his wand. The slim magical weapon caused physical damage and pain, but it didn't cause an impact—not like that. The air was forced from Gromph's lungs again, and he found himself pinwheeling through the air.