Arklem Greeth sat perfectly still, digesting the information. He looked again at Valindra.
“My friend is not in her mind any longer,” said the voice, and Arklem Greeth sharpened his focus on the undead woman, and was greatly encouraged as she didn’t melt into a well of despair.
“He has shown her possibilities,” said the voice. “He will return to her to reinforce the message and help her through this difficult time.”
Arklem Greeth turned to the magical darkness. “I’m grateful,” he said, and sincerely.
“You will have many years to repay us,” said the voice, and it melted away as the darkness dissipated.
Arklem Greeth went to his beloved Valindra, and when she didn’t respond to him, he sat and draped an arm around her.
His thoughts, though, sailed out to sea.
“It has not been a good winter,” Deudermont admitted to Drizzt and Regis in the palace that day. “Too many dead men, too many shattered families.”
“And during it all, the idiots fought each other,” Robillard interjected. “They should have been out fishing and hunting, preparing the harvested crops and pooling their supplies. But would they?” He scoffed and waved his hand at the city beyond the window. “They fought amongst themselves—high captains posturing, guildless rogues murdering….”
Drizzt listened to every word, but never took his eyes off Deudermont, who stared out the window and winced at every one of Robillard’s points. There was no disagreement—how could there be, with smoke rising from every quarter of Luskan and with bodies practically lining the streets? There was something else in Deudermont’s posture that, even more than the words, revealed to Drizzt how brutal the winter had been. The weight of responsibility bowed the captain’s shoulders, and worse, Drizzt realized, was breaking his heart.
“The winter has passed,” the drow said. “Spring brings new hope, and new opportunities.”
Deudermont finally turned, and brightened just a bit. “There are promising signs,” he said, but Robillard scoffed again. “It’s true! High Captain Suljack sat behind me on that day when I was appointed as governor, and he has stood behind me since. And Baram and Taerl have hinted at coming around to a truce.”
“Only because they have some grudge with Ship Rethnor and fear the new leader of that crew, this creature Kensidan, whom they call the Crow,” said Robillard. “And only because Ship Rethnor ate well through the winter, but the only food Baram and Taerl could find came from the rats or came through us.”
“Whatever the reason,” Deudermont replied. “The Mirabarrans suffered greatly in the explosion of the Hosttower and have not opened the gates of the Shield District to the new Luskan, but with the spring, they may be persuaded to look toward the opportunities before us instead of the problems behind us. And we will need them this trading season. I expect Marchion Elastul will let the food flow generously, and on credit.”
Drizzt and Regis exchanged concerned looks at that, neither overly impressed by the goodness of Elastul’s heart. They had dealt with the man several times in the past, after all, and more often than not, had left the table shaking their heads in dismay.
“Elastul’s daughter, Arabeth, survived the war and may help us in that,” Deudermont said, obviously noting their frowns.
“It’s all about food,” Robillard said. “Who has it and who will share it, whatever the price. You speak of Baram and Taerl, but they’re our friends only because we have the dark meat and the fungus.”
“Curiously put,” said Drizzt.
“From Suljack,” Robillard explained, “who gets it from his friend in Ship Rethnor. Suljack has been most generous, while that young high captain of Rethnor ignores us as if we don’t exist.”
“He is unsure, like the Mirabarrans, perhaps,” Regis offered.
“Or he is too sure of his position,” Robillard said in a grim tone that Kensidan, had he heard, would have certainly taken as a warning.
“The spring will be our friend,” Deudermont said as the door opened and his attendant indicated that dinner was served. “Caravans will arrive by land and by sea, laden with goods from the grateful lords of Waterdeep. With that bargaining power in my hands, I will align the city behind me and drag the high captains along, or I will rouse the city behind me and be rid of them.”
“I hope for the latter,” Robillard said, and Drizzt and Regis were not surprised.
They moved into the adjacent room and sat at Deudermont’s finely appointed table, while attendants brought out trays of the winter’s unexpected staple.
“Eat well, and may Luskan never be hungry again!” Deudermont toasted with his feywine, and all the others cheered that thought.
Drizzt gathered up knife and fork and went to work on the large chunk of meat on his plate, and even as that first morsel neared his lips, a familiar sensation came over him. The consistency of the meat, the smell, the taste….
He looked at the side dish that ringed his main course, light brown mushrooms speckled with dots of purple.
He knew them. He knew the meat—deep rothé.
The drow fell back in his chair, mouth hanging open, eyes unblinking. “Where did you get this?”
“Suljack,” Deudermont replied.
“Where did he get it?”
“Kensidan, likely,” said Robillard as both he, Deudermont, and Regis stared at Drizzt curiously.
“And he?”
Robillard shrugged and Deudermont admitted, “I know not.”
But Drizzt was afraid that he did.
If Valindra Shadowmantle’s corpse had indeed been animated, she didn’t show it those hours subsequent to the strangers’ visit in Arklem Greeth’s subterranean palace. She didn’t sway, didn’t moan, didn’t blink her dead eyes, and any attempts to reach the woman were met with utter emptiness.
“But it will pass,” Arklem Greeth told himself repeatedly as he moved through the sewers beneath Illusk and Closeguard Island, collecting allies for his journey.
All the while, he considered the intruders to his subterranean palace. How had they so easily gotten past his many wards and glyphs? How had they even known that his extradimensional room had been anchored down there in the sewers? What magic did they possess? Psionics, he knew, from the one who had entered Valindra’s consciousness to calm her, but were they truly powerful enough in those strange arts to utilize them to neuter his own skilled magical wards? An involuntary shudder coursed Greeth’s spine—the first time anything like that had happened in his decades of lichdom—but it was true. Arklem Greeth feared the visitors who had come unbidden, and Arklem Greeth rarely feared anything.
That fear, as much as his hatred for Captain Deudermont, drove the lich along his course.
With an army of unbreathing, undead monsters behind him, Arklem Greeth went out into the harbor then out to sea, steadily, tirelessly moving south. He found more of his unbreathing soldiers in the deeper waters—ugly lacedon ghouls—and easily brought them under his sway. The undead were his to control. Skeletons and zombies, ghouls and ghasts, wights and wraiths proved no match for his superior and dominating willpower.
Arklem Greeth swept them up in his wake, continuing south all the while, paralleling the shore as he knew the Waterdhavian ships would do. His army needed no rest in the depths, where day and night were not so different. With their webbed, clawing hands, the lacedons moved with great speed, weaving through the watery depths with the grace of dolphins and the impunity of a great shark or whale. They stayed low, far from the surface, sliding past the reeds and weeds, crossing low over reefs, where even the mighty and fierce eels stayed deep in their holes to avoid the undead things. Only through a great expenditure of magic could Arklem Greeth hope to pace the aquatic ghouls, and so he commanded a pair to tow him along with them. Every so often, the powerful lich opened dimensional doors, transporting himself and his ghoulish coachmen far ahead of the undead army, that he would note the ships long before engaging them.