“Nor are you a Delzoun dwarf,” Gromph said with a chuckle. “Yet there are few in the world more adept with magical implements than you. These bowls should pose little challenge to one of your skill.”
Jarlaxle stared at him doubtfully, and it took the wizard some time to catch on.
“Ah,” Gromph said at long last. “You have no desire to return to Gauntlgrym, yourself.”
Jarlaxle half-shrugged, but otherwise didn’t respond.
“Doesn’t Bregan D’aerthe have a few soldiers to spare?”
Jarlaxle continued to stare at his brother.
“I see,” said Gromph. “So you do not wish to risk your own assets in this endeavor. As I said, it is a matter of pride, not expense.”
Jarlaxle could only smile. Gromph, among all drow, was not one Jarlaxle thought it wise to try to deceive. “Both, perhaps,” he admitted.
“Good, now that we’ve taken care of that bit of nonsense, what do you wish of me? Surely you do not believe I will go to this Gauntlgrym place and do battle on your behalf against a primordial.” His smirk reinforced his remark. “Do you expect I’ve managed to survive these centuries because I’m foolish enough to allow any amount of gold to tempt me into battle against such a creature?”
“You indicated that the creature need not be faced directly.”
“You would need a primordial of water to do it for you, or a god, if you could find one available.”
Jarlaxle bowed, conceding the point. “I wish only to put the primordial back in its hole—back to sleep, if you will, as it was before that Thayan witch and her vampire lackey coerced Athrogate into releasing it.”
“As it was before? You do realize, I hope, that even before your smelly little companion pulled the lever and freed the water elementals, thus freeing the primordial, the magic was waning. The fall of the Hosttower of the Arcane cannot be undone by any magic known in this day.”
“I understand,” Jarlaxle replied. “But I would accept even that weakened prison if it would delay the beast’s release long enough to bleed the rest of what I can from Luskan.”
“Really? Or long enough to spite the Thayan witch by denying her her Dread Ring.”
“We’ll call that an added benefit.”
Gromph laughed—not a wicked chuckle, but an actual burst of laughter, and that was something rarely heard in Menzoberranzan.
“I told you how to do it,” the archmage said. “Ten bowls, no less, and their slaves re-gathered. When that is done, seal them with the lever.”
“I don’t know where to place them,” Jarlaxle admitted.
“But you have them?”
“I do.”
“I’m not going with you, nor do I have the minions to spare to accompany you on your journey. I value them more than you value the fodder of your mercenary army. By Lolth, have that wretched psionic creature of yours carry this out. He walks through stone as easily as you move through water.”
“Kimmuriel is unavailable,” Jarlaxle explained.
Gromph looked at him curiously, and soon enough a grin widened on the archmage’s face. “You haven’t told them, have you?” he asked. “None of them.”
“Bregan D’aerthe is rarely in Luskan anymore,” Jarlaxle replied. “With the coming of the Spellplague, there are so many other—”
“None of them!” Gromph roared, seeming quite pleased with himself, and he snickered all the more.
Jarlaxle could only sigh and take it, for the wise old mage had of course guessed the truth of it. Jarlaxle had not told Kimmuriel or any of his lieutenants of Bregan D’aerthe, had told no one other than Gromph himself, what had transpired in Gauntlgrym.
“Ah, your pride, Jarlaxle,” the archmage scolded, and he kept laughing but then stopped abruptly and added, “But I’m still not going to Gauntlgrym, nor do I have any soldiers to lend to you.”
Jarlaxle didn’t respond, but didn’t turn to leave, even though Gromph lowered his eyes to the glass and parchment and resumed his work. Only after many heartbeats did the archmage look up again. “What is it?”
Jarlaxle reached into a pouch and produced the skull gem.
“You brought that idiot back here?” asked an annoyed Gromph, who recognized the phylactery of Arklem Greeth. Gromph had interviewed the insane lich at great lengths over the course of many months back when Jarlaxle had first come to him to try to garner information about the freed primordial and the diminishing magic of the Hosttower.
“The primordial awakens,” Jarlaxle said, and he seemed back in control then, back on balance after Gromph’s biting observations. “I’ll not have it. Speak to Greeth again, I pray you—and yes, I will pay you, too. I would know the best way to find Gauntlgrym again, and of how to proceed once I do.”
“I told you how to proceed.”
“I need details, Gromph,” Jarlaxle insisted. “Where to place the bowls, for instance?”
“If those places weren’t forever sealed with magma after the first rage of the primordial,” Gromph replied. “And I know not where to place them, in any case, nor will Greeth. You can only hope that Gauntlgrym itself shows you the way, if and when you find it once more.”
Jarlaxle shrugged. “And when you’re finished, I would have you expel Arklem Greeth from his phylactery, into a … separate place, that I might have control of the skull gem once more.”
“No.”
“No?”
“The magic of that gem is the only thing containing the lich.”
“Surely there are other phylacteries.”
“None that will hold him unless they’re properly enchanted, and how that might be accomplished, I do not know. When you bring me such a container, Jarlaxle, and I am convinced that it will hold him, I will place the spirit of Arklem Greeth within it. Until then, he remains in the skull gem. I hardly endeared him to me in those months of interrogation, and I’ll not have a powerful lich seeking me out. I have played such a game before, and it was not a pleasant experience.”
“My efforts against the primordial will be more difficult without the gem,” Jarlaxle explained. “Undead, the ghosts of Gauntlgrym, are thick about the place.”
“Then you have a problem,” said Gromph.
Jarlaxle stared at the indomitable wizard for a few heartbeats, then tossed him the skull gem that he could begin a new round of interrogation.
“A tenday,” Gromph said. “And bring your gold.”
Jarlaxle knew better than to ask that he take less time, so he bowed and took his leave.
Gromph smiled as he watched the mercenary depart. He placed the skull gem off to the side of his desk and went back to his scribing.
Only for a moment, though. He sensed something curious about the gem. He stared at it for a few moments then went to his bookcase to find the spellbook containing the proper incantations.
That very night, Gromph had Jarlaxle back before him.
“You have recently encountered a spirit of Gauntlgrym,” the archmage said to the surprised mercenary.
“In Luskan,” Jarlaxle confirmed. “Several sought out my associate, the dwarf Athrogate, begging his help in saving what remains of their homeland.”
Gromph Baenre held up the skull gem. “Your phylactery captured one of them.”
Jarlaxle’s eyes widened.
“Or perhaps it was Greeth reaching forth to grab a ghost to sate his loneliness.”
“Then Greeth is free?” an alarmed Jarlaxle asked, but Gromph’s grin dismissed that disturbing possibility before he even answered.
“He’s still in there, but so is the dwarf. Good fortune smiles upon you … as always.”
“Help us! Help us!” Gromph recited in a very old dialect of Dwarvish. “Seat a king in the throne of Gauntlgrym and harness the beast, we beg!”
“What does that mean?”
The archmage shrugged. “I can only relate to you that which the dwarf ghost told me. Many questions did I ask of him, and to each, a different variation of that same response.”
“Can the dwarf lead me back to Gauntlgrym?” Jarlaxle asked.
“Even now, that spirit is being consumed by Arklem Greeth,” Gromph explained. “He’s feeding on it, as you or I might devour a rothé steak. Arklem Greeth will never let it go, and I do not intend to go in there and fight him for the sake of a dwarf.
“You have the magical bowls,” Gromph went on. “You have the phials of pure water. You have been to Gauntlgrym.”
“Will it work? Does enough residual magic of the Hosttower remain?”
Gromph shrugged and was quite amused that he didn’t know the answer to that particular question. “How lucky does my dear brother feel?”
Dahlia rushed across the field and through the trees lining the most active section of the expanding Dread Ring. She took care to avoid the black necromantic ash itself, for though her brooch would protect her from its life-draining powers, she always felt as if her mere presence in a Dread Ring gave Szass Tam and his principal agents, including the hated Sylora, some power over her.
Or maybe just insight into her, and either way, Dahlia was not pleased by the possibilities.
She caught up to Sylora standing on the edge of the ring, where its leeching powers touched some of the volcanic rock. Following Sylora’s gaze, she noted a semi-translucent gray hand reaching out of the stone, clenching and unclenching as if the Dread Ring was causing the ghost great distress.
“Not a zombie,” Dahlia remarked. “Is this a sign that the Dread Ring is strengthening? Can it bring forth wights and wraiths, specters and ghosts?”
“This one was a ghost before it arrived here, and the Dread Ring caught it and held it,” Sylora explained. “There are others, too: ghosts, traveling in a pack, on a mission.” She looked directly at Dahlia and added, “Dwarf ghosts.”
“From Gauntlgrym,” Dahlia reasoned.
“Yes, apparently some of that complex survived the primordial’s awakening. Close your eyes and open your mind, and you will hear them.”
Dahlia did as asked, and almost immediately felt the words Help us! form in her mind.
“They wish to be freed of the ring,” she reasoned, but Sylora shook her head.
Again Dahlia focused on the telepathic keen of the dwarf spirits. Help us, she heard again. The beast awakens. Help us!
Dahlia’s eyes popped open wide and she gawked at Sylora. “They come out of Gauntlgrym with a warning of the reawakening primordial?”
“So it would appear,” Sylora replied. “And if they came here, then it is likely they’ve traveled to other places as well. Who will heed their call, I wonder?”
“None,” Dahlia was quick to respond. “And could any even find Gauntlgrym again should they care to try?”
“I know of one, perhaps two, who could,” Sylora replied.
Dahlia mulled that over for a few moments before nodding in agreement. “Some ghosts might have found their way to Luskan’s undercity. The Hosttower’s tendrils lead there.”