R. Salvatore - Archmage

Bilwhr.

The archmage held up his hand to calm the group, all looking around and clutching their weapons desperately. With a sigh, the archmage went back to the door.

The building shook again under the weight of a thunderous footstep.

Bilwhr.

With a sigh, Gromph motioned for the commoners to stay in place, and he went out into the street.

“The beast,” one drow said, an unnecessary warning, when another heavy footfall shook the walls.

“He is the archmage,” the young drow reminded the rest. He led the way, tentatively, toward the window on the street side of the common room.

They heard the moans of the manes, lesser demons they knew to be flocking in front of mighty Bilwhr. These were the spirits of the dead consigned to the Abyss in their afterlife, like semi-intelligent zombies formed of Abyssal muck and cursed to serve the major demons throughout eternity, cursed to battle and be destroyed, only to rise again and serve again. They were the fodder of the Abyss in every manner, and so that proved true now. Before the dark elves arrived at the window, they saw such a flash of fiery power that they stumbled back and covered their stinging eyes.

Just outside, the archmage’s fireball roiled and burned, taking the rotting flesh from the manes and leaving them as puddles of goo on the stones of the Stenchstreets.

“You are in violation!” they heard Bilwhr roar, and they cowered back even more.

A flash of lightning crackled outside, the thunder of the blast shaking the building once more, and then the mushroom stalk rafters verily bounced under the weight of the charging demon. The young drow saw the huge beast, fully ten feet tall and four tons of power, pass by the window, its small wings flapping furiously behind it-though those strange appendages could never hope to lift the bulky Bilwhr from the ground.

Another lightning bolt sounded, then a great burst of wind shook the building, followed by a tremendous crash.

The wall by the door split and the demon-part of it, at least-crashed through. One arm, one shoulder, and the simian head struggled and twisted, splintering planks.

“Kill it!” the young drow cried, waving his sword and leading the charge. He fell back, as did his companions, only a stride later, though, as black tentacles grew out of the floor, waggling and grabbing, mostly at the struggling demon. So great was Bilwhr’s strength, though, that the beast got its thick boar legs planted and simply stood upright, tearing tentacles and floorboards and splintering the wall as if it was no more than brittle paper.

“You dare!” it bellowed, and the dark elves cried out and whimpered and rushed back for cover.

The great demon aimed its ire not at them, but at Gromph, and it burst back out into the street, staggering under the stubborn pull of the remaining tentacles.

Bilwhr had just disappeared from view when there came a blast beyond anything the young drow and his companions had ever experienced, an explosion so violent that it sent them all flying about the room, crashing through furniture and into walls. The front wall by the door all but collapsed under the power of the magical explosion, and shuddered violently as huge pieces of demon splattered against it.

One such chunk of Bilwhr-half an arm, a shoulder, and enough of the back to include one small leathery wing-came flying through the opening to bounce across the floor, and there it melted into black slime.

“The archmage,” the young drow said reverently, and the others nodded numbly, jaws open, eyes unblinking as they continued to stare out the window or through the hole in the wall.

Gromph retreated to his summoning chamber in the main tower of Sorcere on the plateau of Tier Breche, the drow academy. In a magical bag of holding, the archmage carried dozens of tomes, along with all of the scrolls and notes he could find regarding spells of summoning and demonology.

In the chamber, secured by powerful runes and magic circles, Gromph buried his face in the knowledge. Soon, he once more felt the insight he had noted in his time with Kimmuriel, when first he had considered countering demon with demon, and that led him to one particular blackbound book, In the Swirling Smoke of Abyss. In there, he found listings of the demons, the lords, the major demons, the minor demons, with all the known true names.

On a hunch-one implanted by Kimmuriel, though Gromph couldn’t know that-the archmage ruffled through some parchments that spoke of the Faerzress, the magical radiation that gave the Underdark its life and magical energy, and that also served as the barrier and door to the lower planes.

It was beginning to come clear to Gromph. His psionic training seemed to blend effortlessly with his insights regarding the spells of summoning. He unrolled many of those scrolls now, and in their words he recognized new possibilities.

He knew that he was close, that soon he could bring in a balor, even- that monster among many other major demons-and fully control the beast.

But not yet.

He found the appropriate references, the appropriate names, and stepped back from his summoning circle. First he enacted some personal wards and surrounded himself with protective glyphs. He was aiming for lesser demons, but powerful creatures nonetheless, and so he would take no chances.

Gromph began to chant, and he fell into his meditation, as Kimmuriel had taught him. He couldn’t believe the level of intensity. He felt as if he were in the Abyss, so clear did the image of the place, with its swirling fogs, come into his mind. He could smell the stench.

And he found, too, his targets, and so he beckoned them, then compelled them.

Many, many heartbeats later, Gromph opened his amber eyes to find that he was back in the summoning room of Sorcere. No longer was it a quiet place of meditation, however. The very stones of the walls shook with the sound of the thrumming wings of several large, hovering demons. They looked like gigantic flies, fully eight feet from the tip of their horn-like proboscis to the stinger that protruded from the back of their abdomens. Their faces were humanlike, save the nose, a curious facet of this particular manifestation of chaos that had led many demonologists to believe that these demons, chasme by name, were created by some vile bonding of demon spirit and wayward soul.

However they came to be, and whatever they were, summing a chasme was no small feat, and summoning a handful, as Gromph had just done, might, as far as the archmage knew, prove unprecedented.

He could hear their telepathic calls in his head, begging for instructions, and he knew that he controlled them.

He could feel it. They would obey his every command.

“Kill that one,” he instructed the others, pointing to what appeared to be the most aggressive of the group, and without hesitation, the other four fell over the targeted creature, bearing it to the floor with a tumbling crash.

They tore it apart, appendage by appendage, leaving a smoking, melting husk on the floor.

Gromph felt almost godlike, and he couldn’t suppress his grin as he considered the melding of psionics and arcane powers.

He understood the mind flayers much better at that moment, and understood Kimmuriel as well, and wondered how his brother Jarlaxle could possibly control the psionicist of House Oblodra.

This was true power, undeniable and unstoppable.

“Go and watch over the city,” Gromph instructed his chasme patrol. “Partake of no murder and no battle. You are spies, nothing more. Engage no one, not even those of your own wretched Abyss, without my permission.”

The four began to bob and weave all around each other, and Gromph could feel their mounting excitement and agitation. He sensed that they weren’t very happy about his commands, but he felt keenly that neither would they dare to defy him.