Arklem Greeth strode in, Valindra on his heel. He cast a spell of detection and moved slowly, scanning for glyphs and other deadly wards. He couldn’t help but pick up his pace, though, as he came to understand the light source as a crystal ball set on a small table, and came to recognize the voice as that of Arabeth Raurym.

The lich walked up to the table and stared into the face of his missing overwizard.

“What is she doing out of…?” Valindra started to ask as she, too, came to recognize Arabeth, but Arklem Greeth waved his hand and snarled in her direction. Her words caught in her throat so fully that she fell back, choking.

“Well met, Arabeth,” he said to the crystal ball. “You didn’t inform me that you and your associate wizards would be leaving the Hosttower.”

“I didn’t know that your permission was required for an overwizard to leave the tower,” Arabeth replied.

“You knew enough to leave an active scrying ball in place to greet any visitors,” Greeth replied. “And who but I would deign to enter your chambers without permission?”

“Perhaps that permission has been given to others.”

Arklem Greeth paused and considered the sly comment, the veiled threat that Arabeth had co-conspirators within the Hosttower.

“There is an army assembled against you,” Arabeth went on.

“Against us, you mean.”

The woman in the crystal ball paused and didn’t blink. “Captain Deudermont leads them, and that is no small thing.”

“I tremble at the thought,” Arklem Greeth replied.

“He is a hero of Luskan, known to all,” Arabeth warned. “The high captains will not oppose him.”

“Good, then they won’t get in my way,” said Arklem Greeth. “So pray tell me, daughter of Mirabar, in this time of trial for the Hosttower, why is one of my overwizards unavailable to me?”

“The world changes around us,” Arabeth said, and Arklem Greeth took note that she seemed a bit shaken, that as the reality of her choice opened wide before her, as expected as that eventuality had to be, doubts nibbled at her arrogant surety. “Deudermont has arrived with a Waterdhavian lord, and an army trained specifically in tactics for battling wizards.”

“You know much of them.”

“I made it a priority to learn.”

“And you have not once addressed me by my title, Overwizard Raurym. Not once have you spoken to me as the archmage arcane. What am I to garner from your lack of protocol and respect, to say nothing of your conspicuous absence in this, our time of trial?”

The woman’s face grew stern.

“Traitor,” said Valindra, who had at last rediscovered her magically muted voice. “She has betrayed us!”

Arklem Greeth turned a condescending look over the perceptive elf.

“Tell me then, daughter of Mirabar,” the archmage arcane said, seeming amused, “have you fled the city? Or do you intend to side with Captain Deudermont?”

As he finished, he closed his eyes and sent more than his thoughts or voice into the crystal ball. He sent a piece of his life essence, his very being, the undead and eternal power that had held Arklem Greeth from passing into the netherworld.

“I choose self-preservation, whatever course that—” She stopped and winced, then coughed and shook her head. It seemed as if she would simply topple over. The fit passed, though, and she steadied herself and looked back at her former master.

The crystal ball went black.

“She will run, the coward,” said Valindra. “But never far enough….”

Arklem Greeth grabbed her and tugged her along, hustling her out of the room. “Wraithform, at once!” he instructed, and he cast the enchantment upon himself, his body flattening to a two-dimensional form. He slipped through a crack in the wall then through the floor, rushing swiftly and in a nearly straight line back to the main section of the Hosttower with the similarly flattened Valindra close behind.

And not a moment too soon, both learned as they slipped out of a crease in the tower’s main audience chamber just as the south tower was wracked by a massive, fiery explosion.

“The witch!” Valindra growled.

“Impressive witch,” Greeth said.

All around them, other wizards began scrambling, shouting out warnings of fire in the south tower.

“Summon your watery friends,” Arklem Greeth said to them all, calmly, almost amused, as if he truly enjoyed the spectacle. “Perhaps I have at last found a worthy challenge in this Deudermont creature, and in the allies he has inspired,” he said to Valindra, who stood with her jaw hanging open in disbelief.

“Arabeth Raurym is still in the city,” he told her. “In the northern section, with the Shield of Mirabar. I looked through her eyes, albeit briefly,” he explained as she started to ask the obvious question. “I saw her heart, too. She means to fight against us, and has gathered an impressive number of our lesser acolytes to join her. I’m wounded by their lack of loyalty, truly.”

“Archmage Arcane, I fear you don’t understand,” Valindra said. “This Captain Deudermont is not to be taken—”

“Don’t tell me how I should take him!” Arklem Greeth shouted in her face, his dead eyes going wide and flashing with inner fires that came straight from the Nine Hells.

“I will take him roasted and basted before this is through, or I will devour him raw! The choice is mine, and mine alone. Now go and oversee the fighting in the south tower. You bore me with your fretting. We have been issued a challenge, Valindra Shadowmantle. Are you not up to fighting it?”

“I am, Archmage Arcane!” the moon elf cried. “I only feared—”

“You feared I didn’t understand the seriousness of this conflict.”

“Yes,” Valindra said, or started to say, before she gasped as an unseen magical hand grabbed at her throat and lifted her to her tip-toes then right off the ground.

“You are an overwizard of the Hosttower of the Arcane,” Arklem Greeth said. “And yet, I could snap your neck with a thought. Consider your power, Valindra, and lose not your confidence that it’s considerable.”

The woman squirmed, but could not begin to break free.

“And while you are remembering who you are, while you consider your power and your present predicament, let that remind you of who I am.” He finished with a snort and Valindra went flying away, stumbling and nearly falling over.

With a last look at the grumbling archmage arcane, Valindra ran for the south tower.

Arklem Greeth didn’t watch her go. He had other things on his mind.

CHAPTER 12

SAVA, FIVE-AND-A-HALF WAYS

M y bilge rats are grumbling!” High Captain Baram protested, referring to the peasants who lived in the section of the city that was his domain, the northeastern quadrant of Luskan south of the Mirar. “I can’t have fires taking down their hovels, now can I? Your war’s not a cheap thing!”

“My war?” old Rethnor replied, leaning back in his chair. Kensidan sat beside him, his chair pushed back from the table, as was the protocol, and with his thin legs crossed as always.

“Word’s out that you provoked Deudermont from the start,” Baram insisted. He was the heaviest of the five high captains by far, and the tallest, though in their sailing days, he was the lightest of the bunch, a twig of a man, thinner even than the fretful Taerl, who very much resembled a weasel.

A bit of grumbling ensued around the table, but it ended when the most imposing of the five interjected, “I heard it, too.”

All eyes turned to regard High Captain Kurth, a dark man, second oldest of the five high captains, who seemed always cloaked in shadow. That was due in part to his grizzled beard, which seemed perpetually locked in two days’ growth, but more of that shadowy cloak was a result of the man’s demeanor. He alone among the five lived out on the river, on Closeguard Island, the gateway to Cutlass Island, which housed the Hosttower of the Arcane. With such a strategic position in the current conflict, many believed that Kurth held the upper hand.