The little man stepped out of a shadowy corner, dagger clutched in his trembling hand. "Have no fear on my account."
Galaeron motioned at the skull fragments. "Douse them well-and hold your breath."
Malik did as he was asked, and the blessed water began to eat through the skull fragments, filling the room with an evil-smelling fume that troubled the little man not in the least. Everyone else withdrew to the tunnel and took turns gulping down fresh air. The bone fragments dissolved, mixing with the dust in a single muddy heap. Malik continued to pour, but no matter how much he stirred, the whole mess adhered together like bread dough. Finally, when no chips of the skull remained visible, Galaeron returned and prepared another spell. Melegaunt caught his arm. "Allow me."
"If you're not too weary, old man." Galaeron was surprised to feel his lip curl into a disparaging sneer. "All you need do is dispel the magic."
Melegaunt glowered at him. "I can manage. And 1 could have handled the forgetting magic as well."
The archwizard muttered a few syllables and waved his hand. A purple shadow fell over the doughy mass, then the mud lost its cohesiveness and spread across the floor. Malik dropped the waterskin, and on the pretext of stooping to pick it up, deftly swept up the six brown-crusted gems that had been in the demilich's mouth. Having no interest in the stones himself, Galaeron pretended not to notice.
Jhingleshod came to their side, then propped his axe on the floor and looked at his iron palm. When the gauntlet showed no sign of flaking or disintegrating, he turned to Galaeron. "What next?"
"I don't know." Galaeron glanced around the chamber, searching in vain for some hint of a forgotten step. "The lich is gone."
"What of its phylactery?" Malik quietly pocketed the gems. "I have heard it said that liches hide their life-forces in repositories-usually an item of great worth?"
"They do," said Galaeron. "But not so with a demilich. They have abandoned their repositories for worlds beyond, and remain connected to Toril only through their remains."
"Liar! Do you think your excuses can fool me?" There was a note of desperation in Jhingleshod's voice. "Had you destroyed the lich, I would not be here now."
"Unless we destroyed the wrong one," said Galaeron, recalling the argument between Melegaunt and Jhingleshod over the lich's true identity. "Malik, let me see those gems you took." "Gems?" asked the little man. "What gems are those?" "These."
Vala slipped an arm around Malik's throat and used the other to pluck the brown nuggets from his pocket. Galaeron took them and carefully scraped the brown crust from their faces. He was down to the sixth, a deep ruby, before he found the inner light for which he had been searching. Returning the others to Malik, he displayed this one to his companions.
"The chronicles suggest that this will be an imprisoned spirit," he said. "If we free it, perhaps it can help us."
Melegaunt cast an impatient eye toward the tunnel. "How long?"
"Not as long as trying to defend yourself from my axe," warned Jhingleshod.
"It will need a body," said Galaeron. "Perhaps one of the undead?"
"1 can make a body for it," said Melegaunt. "One that will be safer for it-and us."
The archwizard took a piece of shadow silk from his cloak and laid it on Vala's shoulder. Repeating a long incantation over and over, he began to knead the stuff with his fingers, spreading the dark substance over her, carefully covering her flanks, limbs, even her head and face. When he finally finished, Vala resembled a living, breathing sculpture of the blackest basalt.
Melegaunt took her hand and pulled. She emerged from the shadow as though from a dark corner, leaving a dark likeness as perfectly shaped as one of Aris's sculptures.
"If the spirit is troublesome, we can dismiss it with a little light."
Galaeron laid the gem next to the figure, then waved Jhingleshod over. "If you would smash it." "If this is one of your tricks…"
"By the shadow deep!" Melegaunt cursed. "We haven't time for trickery."
Melegaunt brought his heel down and ground the gem to powder. A crimson radiance flowed out from beneath his heel and began to climb his leg. "Oh no, my friend!"
The archwizard plunged his foot into the body he had created, then sighed in relief as the luminescence melded into the shadow. A glossy sheen spread over the figure's black flesh, then the eyes opened and stared at the ceiling. It raised a leg, and twisting it around at an impossible angle, studied its heel. Then, seemingly unaware of the arms hanging motionless at its side, did the same with the other leg-and crashed to the floor.
Galaeron rushed to its side. "We didn't know what kind of creature you were." He waved at the body. "We made this in our own fashion."
The shadow sprouted a pair of eyes on the side of its head. "You did well. The color is right."
Galaeron glanced at Melegaunt and found the wizard staring at the dark figure with a dropped jaw. When the elf looked back to the creature, it had wrapped its arms around its legs, and all four limbs were melding into the body.
"We were wondering if you could tell us…" Galaeron looked away. He could not quite keep from asking, "What are you?"
"A sharn." It was Melegaunt who said this. "At least that is what I think."
A smiling mouth appeared in the flank of the drop-shaped body "You think right, wizard." Another mouth appeared on Galaeron's side. "What is it you want to know? I am obviously in your debt."
Galaeron was too stunned to answer, as was everyone except Jhingleshod.
"We would know who captured you, and whether he has been entirely destroyed."
The sharn rose off the floor and floated toward the door. That was the lich Wulgreth, who took my soul when I came thinking to end his depredations against the empire." "Wulgreth?" echoed Jhingleshod. "Which Wulgreth?"
"The only Wulgreth that is a lich," replied the sharn. "How many do you think there can be?"
Iron shoulders slumping, Jhingleshod whirled on Galaeron. "You have not destroyed him, not completely."
"Wulgreth is completely destroyed," said the sham, now struggling to squeeze itself into the exit tunnel. "Were that not so, I would not be free."
Jhingleshod whirled on the sharn. "Liar! If Wulgreth were destroyed-"
"Jhingleshod, wait," Galaeron said, stepping in front of the iron knight "You asked the wrong question."
"Then ask the right one-and quickly" The sharn paused in the tunnel mouth, peering out from a bulbous extrusion that might or might not have been a head. "Grateful as I am, I hunger for better company than yours."
"Which empire were you trying to protect?" Galaeron asked.
"Which empire?" The sharn withdrew completely into the tunnel. "Why, the only empire of course-unless you mean to include your quaint elven confederacies." "The Netherese Empire?" Galaeron pressed.
"The very one." The sharn's voice faded as it retreated up the passageway "And now, if you'll excuse me, I shall return later to repay the favor you have done me."
"Wait!" Melegaunt stepped forward, speaking in a language of strange syllables. When the sharn did not reply, he turned back to the others, shaking his head sadly "He doesn't know. It's all gone, and he doesn't know." "The sharn were Netherese?" Galaeron gasped.
The question jolted Melegaunt out of his despair. "I don't know." He shrugged. "No one does, I suspect. There are some who claim they were Netherese arcanists who transformed themselves in order to battle the phaerimm. Others claim they came from another world. What is clear is that they had a hatred of phaerimm, or they would not have erected the Sharn Wall."