"I have touched nothing that did not come from the table," Malik replied. "Do you think 1 am eager to keep a lich in the treasury of my new manor?" "If you're lying-"
"How many times must I tell you?" Malik demanded. "I was crippled by that harlot Mystra's truth magic and cannot lie! You may inspect everything I have taken." Vala reached for a coffer, but Galaeron put out a hand.
"He hasn't lied to us yet, which is more than we can say for Melegaunt," he said. The phylactery's not here, or Wulgreth would be on us like a spider on flies."
Takari turned to Jhingleshod. "Is there another place he lairs?" When the knight did not seem to register the question, she gingerly pushed his arm. "Are you still with us?"
The iron knight disappointed them all by meeting her gaze. "There is no other place. He stays near the butte."
"Then he would store the phylactery somewhere visible from here." Galaeron glanced toward the door. "As overgrown as the ruins are, it will take time to find."
Melegaunt stepped in front of Jhingleshod. "I have done everything possible to keep my word, but there is more at issue here than Wulgreth. We will find the phylactery, I promise you, but Aris should be finished with his passage by now. Would it not be possible to take the Karsestone outside and summon Shade? There are thousands in the city, and they will help us search." Jhingleshod looked to Galaeron.
"It would be best," Galaeron said. "Otherwise, it could take months."
"Months?" The disappointment in Jhingleshod's eyes was as easy to read as Galaeron had prayed it would be. The promise of the end to any ordeal could make days seem like tendays, and this looked to be as true for Jhingleshod as for an elf.
Glancing at his weary companions, Galaeron added, "I don't know that we could survive that long."
Jhingleshod waved Melegaunt toward the crawlway in the corner and said, "Summon your city."
"A wise choice." Though Melegaunt tried to sound restrained, the joy in his voice was unmistakable. "You won't regret it."
Giving Jhingleshod no time to change his mind, the wizard led the way through the green barrier. Vala, Takari, and Malik followed, with the iron knight next and Galaeron last
As the elf dropped through the door, a booming crash shook the cavern below. He looked down to see Melegaunt skittering across the silver pool on his back, limbs flaying and forks of magic dissipating against his spell guard. Leaping off the Karsestone after him was a skeletal form with a rotting, noseless face and lipless mouth. The filth-stained claws and fiery pinpoints in its empty eye sockets left no doubt that they had finally found Wulgreth.
Hurling himself into an oblique somersault, Galaeron grabbed his sword and had it half drawn by the time he splashed into the pool. He swam half a dozen strokes toward the rear of the cavern, then surfaced behind Jhingleshod.
The iron knight was splashing toward the battle behind Vala and Takari, his big axe raised to strike. At first Galaeron thought their guide was rushing to attack Wulgreth, but something inside much wiser and darker suggested otherwise. Jhingleshod had been trying to exterminate them since the sunken bridge. Had he not forced them to cross separately, so it would be easier for the undead to attack? After they survived that, he had led them through a savage gauntlet of wights and wraiths. When even that failed, he had found excuse after excuse to stall until Wulgreth returned. Probably, it had even been Jhingleshod who alerted the lich to their presence in the first place-after all, they had only his word that he had ever killed Wulgreth at all. Galaeron swung at Jhingleshod's neck. Even sharp elven steel did not bite deep into the iron flesh, but it did catch the knight's attention. He whirled around, his gruesome jaw hanging almost as low as his guard. Galaeron sprang for the opening, driving his sword at the knight's exposed throat.
Jhingleshod's arm flashed up, deflecting the attack almost before the elf saw it move. "Are you mad?"
"Hardly!" Galaeron slipped his free hand into his sleeve. "I see how you have been playing us."
"Playing you?" A long crackle sounded from the melee behind Jhingleshod, prompting the knight to glance over his shoulder. "I am not one to play at anything."
Galaeron pulled his hand from his sleeve, cupping a small glass rod, but Malik's chubby arm knocked it away before the elf could cast the spell.
"Matters are bad enough without this shadow folly!" Malik pointed to the artistic trefoil passage Aris had cut into the side of the butte. "The giant told me there are phaerimm coming!"
Galaeron realized he should have been disappointed in himself, but he was not After learning of Melegaunt's lies, the line between his shadow and himself had blurred. Suspicions that might have seemed groundless before were suddenly reasonable. He peered past Jhingleshod and saw that matters were, indeed, bad enough. Melegaunt was kneeling in the pool, beard scorched away and eyes glazed with pain. Only the constant attacks of Vala and Takari, harrying the lich from opposite sides, kept Wulgreth from finishing the wizard in a blow.
Jhingleshod let out an eerie wail and hefted his axe. Trusting more to Malik's word than his own instincts, Galaeron pointed at Wulgreth's head and summoned a spell. Vala lunged in, blocking Galaeron's lightning bolt, and Takari attacked from the opposite side.
The lich flicked a finger and sent Takari stumbling away, wailing and shaking her head, eyes red with blood and fixed blindly ahead. Vala's darksword took some small vengeance, slashing off a moldering arm, then whipping around to open Wulgreth's side from spine to navel. Hissing and spitting in anger, the lich grabbed her by the throat with its good arm.
Vala went instantly rigid, mouth gaping, eyes rolling back. Jhingleshod buried his axe deep into Wulgreth's back, driving both the lich and the woman down beneath the pool's silvery skin. The iron knight hefted his axe again, lidless eyes bulging as he tried to see beneath the surface. He began to shuffle through the basin, trying to locate his quarry with a series of savage kicks. "Jhingleshod, you'll break her ribs!"
"Galaeron?" This from Takari, who stood with her back to the wall and her sword weaving a blind-fighting pattern before her. "I can't see."
"You're fine," Galaeron said, realizing Vala was in the most danger. Even if the lich released her, its touch would leave her paralyzed and unable to return to the surface. "Stay there." "But Galaeron-"
She was interrupted by a startled cry from Melegaunt. The archwizard pointed his hand into the basin and started a spell, then vanished beneath the surface. Galaeron rushed forward, sweeping his sword back and forth across the bottom, trying to think of some spell that would allow him to find Vala before she drowned. Jhingleshod opted for a more direct method and dived under the surface.
A muffled crack rumbled out of the pool, then Melegaunt's body floated to the surface, the smell of charred flesh rising from a hole in his back. "Galaeron?" Takari called.
"Stand still," Galaeron ordered, starting after the wizard. "Stab anything near you."
His sword touched a body on the bottom of the pool. When it did not attack, he ducked down and grabbed hold of an armored elbow, then pulled Vala to the surface. She began coughing, spewing liquid magic from her nostrils and mouth. Dragging her along beside him, Galaeron went to Melegaunt's side and rolled the archwizard over.
The spell had blown open Melegaunt's whole chest. Incredibly, the archwizard's heart continued to beat Galaeron could see it
"Meleg-ghaunt!" coughed Vala, more or less recovered from her near drowning. "He needs help!" She spun her head around the room. "Malik!"
Malik appeared in the mouth of Aris's tunnel. "Quiet!" he hissed. "The phaerimm are already coming out of the forest." "We need to get him to Aris." Vala motioned to Melegaunt