Illusk was entirely unpleasant to the sensibilities of the average man. To the lich, however, there was something special there. It was the place where Arklem Greeth had at last managed the transformation from living man to undead lich. In that ancient place with its ancient graves, the boundary between life and death was a less tangible barrier. It was a place of ghosts and ghouls, and the people of Luskan knew that well. Among the Hosttower’s greatest accomplishments, the first real mark the wizards had put upon Luskan during its founding so long ago, was an enchantment of great power that kept the living dead in their place, in Illusk. That was a favor that had, of course, elicited great favor among the people of the City of Sails for the founders of the Hosttower of the Arcane.

Arklem Greeth had studied that dweomer in depth before his transformation, and though he too was an undead thing, the power of the dweomer could not touch him.

He came back to corporeal form in the center of the ruins, and sensed immediately that he was being watched by a hungry ghoul, but the realization only humored him. Few undead creatures would dare approach a lich of his power, and fewer still could refuse to approach him if he so beckoned.

Still grinning wickedly, Arklem Greeth moved to the northwestern tip of the ruins, on the banks of the Mirar. He unfastened a large belt pouch and carefully pulled it open, revealing powdered bone.

Arklem Greeth walked along the bank to the south, chanting softly and sprinkling the bone dust as he went. He took greater care when he came around to the southern edge of the ruins, making certain he wasn’t being watched. It took him some time, and a second belt pouch full of bone dust, to pace the entirety of the cordoned area—to set the countering magic in place.

The ghouls and ghosts were free. Greeth knew it, but they didn’t.

He went to a mausoleum near the center of the ruins, the very structure in which he’d completed his transformation so long ago. The door was heavily bolted and locked, but the lich rattled off a spell that transformed him once more into a gaseous cloud and he slipped through a seam in the door. He turned corporeal immediately upon entering, wanting to feel the hard, wet stones of the ancient grave beneath his feet.

He padded down the stairs, his undead eyes having no trouble navigating through the pitch dark. On the landing below, he found the second portal, a heavy stone trapdoor. He reached his arm out toward it, enacted a spell of telekinesis, and reached farther with magical fingers, easily lifting the block aside.

Down he went, into the dank tunnel, and there he sent out his magical call, gathered the ghouls and ghosts, and told them of their freedom.

And there, when the monsters had gone, Arklem Greeth placed one of his most prized items, an orb of exceptional power, an artifact he had created to reach into the netherworld and bring forth the residual life energies of long dead individuals.

Cities of men had been situated on that location for centuries, and before the cities, tribes of barbarians had settled there. Each settlement had been built upon the bones of the previous—the bones of the buildings, and the bones of the inhabitants.

Called by the orb of Arklem Greeth, the latter part of the foundation of Luskan began to stir, to awaken, to rise.

CHAPTER 14

FOLLOW THE SCREAMS

D rizzt? Drizzt?” a nervous Regis asked. With his eyes fixated on the door of the house across the lane, he reached back to tug at his friend’s sleeve. “Drizzt?” he asked again, flailing his hand around. He finally caught on to the truth and turned around to see that his friend was gone.

Across the lane, the woman screamed again, and the tone of her shriek, bloodcurdling and full of primal horror, told Regis exactly what was happening there. The halfling summoned his courage and took up his little mace in one hand, his ruby pendant in the other. As he forced himself across the lane, calling softly for Drizzt with every step, he reminded himself of the nature of his enemy and let the useless pendant drop back to the end of its chain.

The screaming was replaced by gasping and whimpering and the shuffling of furniture as Regis neared the house. He saw the woman rush by a window to the right of the door, her arm whipping out behind her—likely upending a chair to slow her pursuer.

Regis darted to that window and saw that her impromptu missile had some effect, tripping up a wretched ghoul.

Regis fought hard trying to breathe at the sight of the hideous thing. It had once been a man, but was hardly recognizable now, with its emaciated appearance, skin stretched tight over bone, lips rotted away to reveal fangs clotted with strips of freshly devoured flesh. The ghoul grabbed the chair in both hands, nails as long as fingers scraping at the wood, and brought it up to its mouth. Snarling and grumbling with rage, needing to bite something, it seemed, the ghoul tore into the chair before flinging it aside.

The woman screamed again.

The ghoul charged, but so intent was it on the woman that it never noticed the small form crouched on the window pane.

As the ghoul rushed past, Regis leaped out. Both hands clutching his mace, he used his flight and all his strength to whip the weapon across the back of the passing ghoul’s head. Bone crackled and withered skin tore free. The ghoul stumbled and fell off to the side, crashing down amidst more chairs.

Regis, too, landed hard, overbalanced from his heavy swing. He caught himself quickly, though, and set with a wide stance facing the fallen ghoul, praying that he had hit it hard enough to keep it down.

No such luck—the ghoul pulled itself back up and turned its lipless grin at the halfling.

“Come on, then, and be done with it,” Regis heard himself say, and as if in response, the ghoul leaped at him.

The halfling batted aside its flailing arms, knowing that the poison and filth, the essence of undeath in those clawlike fingernails could render a man or halfling immobile. Back and forth he whipped his mace, slapping against the ghoul’s arms, defeating the weight of every attack.

But he still got scratched, and felt his knees wobble against the vile poison. And while his swings were stinging the ghoul, perhaps, he wasn’t really hurting it.

Desperation drove Regis to new tactics and he dived in between the ghoul’s wide swings, repeatedly bashing his mace about the undead monster’s face and chest.

He felt the tearing of his shoulders, arms and back, felt the weakness of paralyzation creeping through him like the cold of death. But he stubbornly resisted the urge to fall down, and kept swinging, kept pounding.

Then his strength was gone and he crumbled to the floor.

The ghoul fell in front of him, its head a mass of blasted pulp.

The woman was holding Regis then, though he couldn’t feel her touch. He heard her grateful thanks then her renewed scream of terror as she leaped past him and ran for the door.

Regis couldn’t turn to follow her movements. He stared helplessly forward, then saw only their legs—four legs, two ghouls. He tried to find comfort in the knowledge that his paralysis likely meant that he wouldn’t feel the wretched things eating him.

“Out to the streets!” Deudermont yelled, running along a lane, his forces behind him, and Robillard beside him. “Come out, one and all! There is safety in unity!”

The people of Luskan heard that call and ran to it, though some houses echoed only with screams. Deudermont directed his soldiers into those houses, to battle ghouls and rescue victims.

“Arklem Greeth freed them from Illusk,” Robillard said. He’d been grumbling since sunset, since the onslaught of undead. “He seeks to punish the Luskar for allowing us, his enemies, to take the streets.”