“The catacombs are full of the ravenous things,” Dor’crae explained. “Ghouls and lacedons, half-eaten zombies…”
“Lovely,” Dahlia remarked, and she lamented that the undead seemed to follow her wherever she went.
“Most are small, but there are at least two large ones,” the vampire explained, turning his attention and the conversation back to the curious roots. “Hollow tubes, one running out from the foundation of the ruined Hosttower to the open sea, the other running back inland to the east, southeast.”
“How far?”
The vampire shrugged. “Well beyond the city walls.”
“What magic is this?” Dahlia asked, lifting the light and peering again at the nearly translucent greenish tube and the streaks of red.
“Ancient.”
Dahlia shot the vampire an unappreciative look.
“If I had to guess, I’d say dwarven,” Dor’crae elaborated.
“Dwarven? It’s too delicate.”
“But the stonework around it is impeccable, all the way to the Hosttower’s foundation stones, which certainly showed the mark of dwarf craftsmen.”
“You’re asserting that the Hosttower of the Arcane, one of the most magnificent and magical structures in all of Faer?n, a wizards’ guildhouse from beyond the memory of the oldest elves, was made by dwarves?”
“I think it likely that dwarves worked with the ancient architects of the Hosttower,” Dor’crae replied, “who were likely not dwarves but elves, I would guess, given the history of the region, and the treelike shape of the place before its fall.”
Dahlia didn’t argue, though she suspected that more than a few humans would have needed to be involved to bring the elves and dwarves together.
“Roots?” Dahlia asked. “And you think these are import-“She stopped as she noticed some movement above, then screwed up her face curiously when she saw some kind of liquid sloshing through the tube above her.
“The tide,” Dor’crae explained. “When it rises, some water is forced along the tunnels-the roots, the veins, whatever you wish to call them. It’s not much, though, and goes back out with the tide.”
Dahlia had no idea what any of this surprising information might mean. She and Dor’crae had come to Luskan to learn if the destruction of the Hosttower had anything to do with the earthquakes that had been wracking the Sword Coast North since its fall. Magical wards had burst in the fall of the tower, it was said, and somehow, given the timing of the quakes, those wards affected not only Luskan but the forested hills known as the Crags.
She turned to follow the line of the strange “root” back to the southeast.
“What else have you learned?” the warrior elf asked.
“Come, I will take you to the lich Valindra, and an older and more powerful being-or one who was more powerful, before he was driven insane in the Spellplague.”
He started away, but Dahlia didn’t immediately follow, silently recounting what she knew of the recent history of Luskan, something she had studied intently before leaving Thay.
“Arklem Greeth?” she asked, referring to the lich who had once commanded the Hosttower in the name of the Arcane Brotherhood, and who had been defeated in its fall. Defeated, but not likely destroyed, she knew, for that was the manner of liches, after all.
Dor’crae grinned, showing his approval.
“A formidable foe,” Dahlia warned. “Even with Szass Tam’s brooch protecting me.”
Dor’crae shook his head. “Once, perhaps, but no more. The drow have taken care of that matter for us.”
A short while and a dozen chambers and corridors later, the pair came into a strange room.
“What is this place?” Dahlia asked, for it seemed more the drawing room of a fancy inn than a subterranean chamber amidst a network of damp caves. Colorful tapestries hung around the chamber, which was set with lavishly-decorated and well-crafted furniture, including a marble-topped vanity with a large, gold-gilded mirror set atop it.
“It is my home,” said a woman seated on a delicate chair in front of that vanity. When she turned in her seat and smiled at the couple, Dahlia tried hard not to wince. She might have been beautiful, with long, lustrous black hair and delicate features, though what color her eyes might once have been was long lost to the red dots of a lich’s unnatural inner fires. Her smile was a ghastly thing, for her gums had rotted back, making her teeth seem far too large, and her pallid skin seemed almost to crack as she smiled.
“Do you not like it?” she asked sweetly-too sweetly, as if she was a young girl at play, perhaps.
“Oh, we do, Valindra! Oh, we do!” Dor’crae said with exaggerated enthusiasm before Dahlia could even begin to reply. The warrior looked to her vampire companion then back at the lich.
“You are Valindra Shadowmantle?” she asked.
“Why, yes, I am,” Valindra replied.
“I have heard stories of your greatness,” Dahlia lied, and Dor’crae squeezed her hand in approval. “But even those flattering tales greatly understated your beauty.”
With that, Dahlia bowed low, while Valindra tittered and laughed.
“Where is your husband, good lady?” Dor’crae asked, and when Valindra spun as if looking for someone, Dor’crae nodded his chin up toward a shelf on a glass-fronted hutch, where sat a most curious, skull-shaped gem the size of Valindra’s fist.
As they all considered that phylactery, the eyes of the skull flared red, brightly for a moment before going soft once more.
“Greeth is in there?” Dahlia quietly asked her companion.
“What’s left of him,” the vampire replied. He directed Dahlia’s gaze the other way, to a second skull-shaped gem, which showed no life within its smoky white crystal.
“Valindra’s phylactery,” Dor’crae explained.
Dahlia felt at the brooch on her vest as she considered the gems. She dared walk over to the hutch, and noting that Valindra still smiled stupidly, she dared to open the door. Dahlia glanced back at Dor’crae, who held up his hands, having no answer.
“A most beautiful gemstone,” Dahlia said to Valindra.
“It’s my husband’s,” the lich replied.
“May I hold it?”
“Oh, please do!” said Valindra.
Dahlia wasn’t sure if that sweetness was from her apparent simple-mindedness, or if it was an enthusiastic prodding for more nefarious reasons. Holding the phylactery of a disembodied lich, after all, was reputedly the easiest way to get oneself possessed.
But Dahlia wore Szass Tam’s brooch, which offered great protection from such necromancy, and so she took the gemstone in her hand.
Almost immediately, she felt the rush of confusion, anger, and terror contained within that gemstone. She knew it was Arklem Greeth, and would have even if Dor’crae hadn’t told her so, for the lich screamed at her to release him, and to kill someone named Robillard.
She saw flashes of the glory that had been Hosttower of the Arcane, for Arklem Greeth had been its final master. So many images assaulted her, so many discordant thoughts flickered in her consciousness. She felt herself being drawn into the inviting depths of the gemstone.
She began to wonder where Dahlia ended and Arklem Greeth began.
In a flicker of recognition, Dahlia dropped the skull gem back onto the shelf and quickly stepped back, gasping for breath and trying hard to hold her composure.
“Your husband has a magnificent gemstone, Valindra,” she said.
“Oh, but he does, and mine is no less wondrous,” the lich answered, and her voice sounded different then, husky, threatening, sober.
Dahlia turned on her.
“Why are you here?” Valindra asked. “Did Kimmuriel send you?”
“Kimmuriel?” Dahlia asked, looking more at Dor’crae than the lich.
“One of the leaders of the dark elves in Luskan,” the vampire explained.
“Where is he?” Dahlia asked.
“He went home,” Valindra unexpectedly answered, her voice full of regret. “Far, far away. I miss him. He helps me.”
The warrior and the vampire exchanged curious glances.
“He helps me remember,” Valindra went on. “He helps my husband.”