past the umber hulks lurking at the wide entrance to the underground cavern. The young monk, Brother Anthus, who led their troop had been here before, several times, and yet his skittishness couldn’t be denied. His breathing was so labored that Valindra expected him to topple over into unconsciousness.
And the lich certainly understood why.
Valindra didn’t breathe, of course, but no matter, for this spectacle of power—a dozen mighty umber hulks lined up in perfect order and discipline—would have intrigued her in life as much as now. With that thought, the lich looked to Sylora, a sorceress not so unlike herself in her former life. The Thayan seemed composed enough, but surely there was a bit of hesitation in her step.
And why not? The cavern beyond reeked of slime and the murky pond illuminated by the underground lichen wasn’t the most inviting of sights.
Valindra, Sylora, and Brother Anthus entered, moving between the lines of umber hulk guards, the loyal and fanatical Ashmadai contingent dutifully following.
The water stirred. Brother Anthus, a scrawny young man whose brown hair was already thinning from his constant fretfulness, shifted nervously and glanced back at Sylora and Valindra.
“The Sovereignty ambassador,” he whispered reverently.
The water stirred and the ambassador’s head appeared, an oblong mound on the water, two black eyes staring at the visitors.
A second form rose up out of the water as well, walking out of the shallows nearest them. It was a man, or had been a man, naked and wearing a perfectly blank expression on his face and in his strangely distant eyes. His skin was nearly translucent and covered with a slimy, membranous substance.
“Welcome,” he said in a voice that seemed to come from somewhere else, almost as if it was being channeled through him. Behind him, the aboleth stirred, rings of water rolling out from its large form.
The ambassador’s mind slave, its servitor, then spoke the creature’s name, and it was surely unpronounceable by any of those listening—and surely would have been unpronounceable to the speaker if he was trying to form those sounds all on his own, with combinations of consonant sounds that no human or elf tongue could hope to replicate. Still, despite the stark reminder of how foreign an entity this type of creature truly was, they all, from Sylora to the Ashmadai soldiers, felt a sense of calm, of warmth, of home.
Despite her eagerness and curiosity, Valindra didn’t share that warmth, and she couldn’t help but feel a bit of disgust as the aboleth’s piscine head rose up from the water. Rounded on top, flat underneath, not unlike a bottom-feeding catfish, the large mottled head climbed up several feet. Limp whiskers, like lines of black rope hanging below, dripped fetid dark water back into the pond.
“You are the one of whom we were told,” the servitor said, aiming the words at Valindra.
“Yes,” the lich hesitantly replied.
“We sense your confusion,” said the slimy man.
He bowed, and somehow that movement made Valindra much more comfortable.
“Welcome to all of you,” the servitor went on, and he began speaking to each of them individually, conveying great knowledge of who they were and why they had come.
Valindra tried to listen at first, very curious to get as strong a read on this strange creature as she could. The ambassador was the promise to her, the potential way through the fog that continually clouded her thoughts, or twisted them in directions she never desired. But soon into the remarks by the servitor, the lich felt something else, something too personal for her to ignore.
She felt the creature—not the servitor, but the aboleth itself—probing her thoughts. She “heard” its vibrations and instinctively hesitated and threw up mental barriers. Only for a moment, though, for in truth, the lich feared her continuing mental affliction more than she feared the aboleth. She consciously let her guards down, inviting the creature in.
“Ark-lem!” she called out, her natural reaction to stressful situations. “Ark-lem! Greeth! Gree …”
She bit off the last word as a moment of clarity invaded her confused mind. And not just simple clarity of thought—Valindra had experienced those brief moments, of course, particularly on the battlefield—but clarity combined with insight and memory, and more importantly still, a true memory of the former Archmage of the Hosttower of the Arcane. Suddenly, and for the first time, Valindra remembered the disembodied spirit of Arklem Greeth after the Spellplague, and recalled the sister skull gem, Greeth’s multi-dimensional and magically multi-faceted phylactery. Greeth’s essence remained within that gem, trapped and helpless, but