Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(29)

She landed in a crouch and glanced all around to find Dor’crae back in human form and waiting for her near another hole. Down they went again, to a crossing corridor and through a door into a side chamber. Several staircases, ladders, and narrow chutes later, they came into a labyrinth of tunnels and corridors, ancient structures, walls and doors and broken stairs, the oldest incarnation of the city that had come to be known as Luskan.

“That corridor,” Dor’crae indicated, pointing west, “will take us out to the islands.”

Dahlia walked over, leading with her illuminated walking stick, studying the walls and floor.

“Along its ceiling, you’ll find a mystery of the Hosttower,” Dor’crae explained.

Dahlia opened her staff to its full length and allowed the crackling light to wander to the tip once more. Then she thrust it above her, nearly touching the remarkably high ceiling of the tunnel.

“What is it?” she asked, running the staff tip along what seemed like veins in the ceiling.

“Roots?” Dor’crae asked as much as answered.

Dahlia looked at him curiously, but recalled the tree-shaped appearance of the now destroyed Hosttower of the Arcane.

Then a hissing sound from the tunnel spun her around, staff at the ready as some undead beast rushed at her, its long tongue darting between pointy yellow teeth.

Dahlia put her staff into a spin, but Dor’crae intervened, stepping forward and lifting his hand toward the ghoul and staring at it intently.

The ghoul slowed and stopped, staring back at the vampire, a greater being among the enigmatic pecking order of the undead. With a howl of protest, the stinking creature skulked back into the shadows the way it had come.

“The catacombs are full of the ravenous things,” Dor’crae explained. “Ghouls and lacedons, half-eaten zombies.…”

“Lovely,” Dahlia remarked, and she lamented that the undead seemed to follow her wherever she went.

“Most are small, but there are at least two large ones,” the vampire explained, turning his attention and the conversation back to the curious roots. “Hollow tubes, one running out from the foundation of the ruined Hosttower to the open sea, the other running back inland to the east, southeast.”

“How far?”

The vampire shrugged. “Well beyond the city walls.”

“What magic is this?” Dahlia asked, lifting the light and peering again at the nearly translucent greenish tube and the streaks of red.

“Ancient.”

Dahlia shot the vampire an unappreciative look.

“If I had to guess, I’d say dwarven,” Dor’crae elaborated.

“Dwarven? It’s too delicate.”

“But the stonework around it is impeccable, all the way to the Hosttower’s foundation stones, which certainly showed the mark of dwarf craftsmen.”

“You’re asserting that the Hosttower of the Arcane, one of the most magnificent and magical structures in all of Faer?n, a wizards’ guildhouse from beyond the memory of the oldest elves, was made by dwarves?”

“I think it likely that dwarves worked with the ancient architects of the Hosttower,” Dor’crae replied, “who were likely not dwarves but elves, I would guess, given the history of the region, and the treelike shape of the place before its fall.”

Dahlia didn’t argue, though she suspected that more than a few humans would have needed to be involved to bring the elves and dwarves together.

“Roots?” Dahlia asked. “And you think these are import—“She stopped as she noticed some movement above, then screwed up her face curiously when she saw some kind of liquid sloshing through the tube above her.

“The tide,” Dor’crae explained. “When it rises, some water is forced along the tunnels—the roots, the veins, whatever you wish to call them. It’s not much, though, and goes back out with the tide.”

Dahlia had no idea what any of this surprising information might mean. She and Dor’crae had come to Luskan to learn if the destruction of the Hosttower had anything to do with the earthquakes that had been wracking the Sword Coast North since its fall. Magical wards had burst in the fall of the tower, it was said, and somehow, given the timing of the quakes, those wards affected not only Luskan but the forested hills known as the Crags.

She turned to follow the line of the strange “root” back to the southeast.

“What else have you learned?” the warrior elf asked.

“Come, I will take you to the lich Valindra, and an older and more powerful being—or one who was more powerful, before he was driven insane in the Spellplague.”

He started away, but Dahlia didn’t immediately follow, silently recounting what she knew of the recent history of Luskan, something she had studied intently before leaving Thay.

“Arklem Greeth?” she asked, referring to the lich who had once commanded the Hosttower in the name of the Arcane Brotherhood, and who had been defeated in its fall. Defeated, but not likely destroyed, she knew, for that was the manner of liches, after all.

Dor’crae grinned, showing his approval.

“A formidable foe,” Dahlia warned. “Even with Szass Tam’s brooch protecting me.”

Dor’crae shook his head. “Once, perhaps, but no more. The drow have taken care of that matter for us.”