The small man’s mirth faltered as he moved out of Herzgo Alegni’s sight. Truly, he hated that tiefling more than he’d ever hated any living or undead being. But Alegni had the sword, so Barrabus could not go against him. That wretched sword, so attuned to him, knowing his every move before he made it. That vile artifact, so easily dominating him, so easily destroying him if it, or its wielder, so chose.
Were it simply a matter of dying, Barrabus would have forced Alegni’s hand long ago and gladly gone to his elusive “reward.” The sword, now known simply as Claw, would do more than merely kill him, he knew. It would obliterate him and enslave the fragments of his soul for eternity. It would feed upon his life force, and only grow stronger because of the kill.
Or it would kill him and resurrect him, so that it could torment him yet again.
Yes, Barrabus hated Alegni, and hated the red-bladed sword, and hated most of all his helplessness, his servitude. Only once before in the many decades of his life had Barrabus the Gray known such a feeling of helplessness: in Menzoberranzan, the city of the drow. Upon his escape from that dark place, he swore that he would never again serve in such a manner.
The blade they called Claw and the Netherese lords who claimed the sword as their own had ripped that vow from him along with his freedom.
“For now,” Barrabus the Gray promised himself as he wandered through Neverwinter Wood.
He thought of his dagger, a weapon that had been his trademark for most of his life, a weapon that had wrought fear in the hearts of sturdy warriors and other assassins from Calimport to Luskan and everywhere in between. He knew Alegni would never give it back to him—even though he held Claw, Herzgo Alegni was wary of Barrabus the Gray, and wouldn’t lend him any assistance in the form of such formidable magic. Still, he entertained the thought of the great struggle should he ever retrieve that blade. He would use it to draw out Alegni’s life force even as Claw diminished his own. He would be the stronger, he believed, and even if they both died in the battle, it would be an end Barrabus the Gray would consider most fitting.
“For now,” Barrabus said again.
“Sylora doesn’t know I have this,” Valindra Shadowmantle whispered, giggling.
She held up the fist-sized gemstone, shaped as a skull. The fires of her undead existence flared in her eyes and reflected in the hollowed orbs of the gemstone.
“I took it from her,” Valindra explained, apparently to herself, and she giggled all the more.
The skull was her phylactery, her soul’s escape from the frailties of her withering mortal coil. Should Valindra’s body be destroyed, there she would reside until another body could be found.
But this particular gem was much more than that. It was an ancient artifact, one of a pair, and served as a great conduit of magical power. Arklem Greeth—Valindra’s beloved Greeth!—resided in the other, though Valindra knew not where the sister gemstone and Greeth might be.
She had tried to discern that location—that was why she’d dared steal this artifact from Sylora in the first place. She’d looked into the phylactery and her vision had gone forth from there, in the fugue between the lands of the living and the dead, seeking Greeth, but had found someone else instead, a powerful undead spirit, recently disembodied. Fast had that spirit flown, away from this plane of existence, to its just reward or punishment, but faster had Valindra, through the gemstone, reached out to grab the terrified spirit and offer it a home, an anchor, a phylactery.
“Come forth, friend,” Valindra bade, and she rubbed the skull gem. “Come, I have need of you. I know, I know—Greeth, Greeth!—that you cannot fly free of the gemstone for long, but long enough, I think!”
Nothing happened.
“Come forth, or I’ll come in there to find you,” the lich warned, her voice suddenly grim.
The eye sockets of the skull gem flared with red fires and a cold wind blew forth from its skeletal mouth.
The spirit shimmered in the air in front of Valindra, a pitiful thing, terrified and full of rage—helpless rage, for it was just an immaterial ghost, a malevolent, impotent whisper of anger.
“Korvin Dor’crae!” Valindra cackled with glee. “Oh, you must help me!”
Why would I? the disembodied vampire spoke in Valindra’s thoughts.