ACCEPTABLE LOSSES

Valindra Shadowmantle's green eyes opened wide as she noted the approaching mob. She turned to rush to Arklem Greeth's chambers, but found the lich standing behind her, wearing a wicked grin.

"They come," Valindra gasped. "All of them."

Arklem Greeth shrugged as if he was hardly concerned. Gripped by her fear, the archmage's casual reaction served only to anger Valindra.

"You have underestimated our enemies at every turn!" she screamed, and several lesser wizards nearby sucked in their breath and turned away, pretending not to have heard.

Arklem Greeth laughed at her.

"You find this amusing?" she replied.

"I find it...predictable," Greeth answered. "Sadly so, but alas, the cards were played long ago. A Waterdhavian lord and the hero of the Sword Coast, the hero of Luskan, aligned against us. People are so fickle and easy to sway; it's no wonder that they rally to the empty platitudes of an idiot like Captain Deudermont."

"Because you raised the undead against them," Valindra accused.

The lich laughed again. "Our options were limited from the beginning. The high captains, cowards all, did little to hold back the mounting tide of invasion. I feared we could never depend upon those fools, those thieves, but again alas, you accept what you have and make the best of it."

Valindra stared at her master, wondering if he'd lost his mind. "The whole of the city is rallied against us," she cried. "Thousands! They gather on Closeguard, and will fight their way across."

"We have good wizards guarding our bridge."

"And they have powerful spellcasters among their ranks, as well," said Valindra. "If Deudermont wanted, he could send the least of his warriors against us, and our wizards would expend their energies long before he ran out of fodder."

"It will be amusing to watch," Arklem Greeth said, grinning all the wider.

"You have gone mad," Valindra stated, and beyond Arklem Greeth several lesser wizards shuffled nervously as they went about their assigned tasks, or at least, feigned going about them.

"Valindra, my friend," Greeth said, and he took her by the arm and walked her deeper into the structure of the Hosttower, away from the disquieting sights in the east. "If you play this correctly, you will find great entertainment, a fine practice experience, and little loss," the archmage arcane explained when they were alone. "Deudermont wants my head, not yours."

"The traitor Arabeth is with him, and she is no ally of mine."

The lich waved the notion away. "A minor inconvenience and nothing more. Let them lay the blame fully upon Arklem Greeth - I welcome the prestige of such notoriety."

"You seem to care little about anything at the moment, Archmage," the overwizard replied. "The Hosttower itself is in dire peril."

"It will fall to utter ruin," Arklem Greeth predicted with continuing calm.

Valindra held out her hands and stuttered repeatedly, unable to fashion a response.

"All things fall, and all things can be rebuilt from the rubble," the lich explained. "Surely they're not going to destroy me - or you, if you're sufficiently cunning. I'm nimble enough to survive the likes of Deudermont, and will take great enjoyment in watching the 'reconstruction' of Luskan when he proclaims his victory."

"Why did we ever allow it to come to such a state as this?"

Arklem Greeth shrugged. "Mistakes," he admitted. "My own, as well. I struck out for the Silver Marches at precisely the worst time, it would seem, though by coincidence and bad luck, or more devious coordination on the part of my enemies, I cannot know. Mirabar turned against us, as have even the orcs and their fledgling king. Deudermont and Brambleberry on their own would prove to be formidable opponents, I don't doubt, but with such an alignment of enemies mounting against us, it would do us ill to remain in Luskan. Here we are immobile, an easy target."

"How can you say such things?"

"Because they are true. Aha! I know not all of the conspirators behind this uprising, but surely there are traitors among the ranks of those I thought allies."

"The high captains."

Arklem Greeth shrugged again. "Our enemies are vast, it would seem - even more so than the few thousand who flock to Deudermont's side. They are merely fodder, as you said, while the real power behind this usurpation lays hidden and in wait. We could fight them hard and stubbornly, I expect, but in the end, that would prove to be the more dangerous course for those of us who really matter."

"We are to just run away?"

"Oh no!" Greeth assured her. "Not just run away. Nay, my friend, we're going to inflict such pain upon the people of Luskan this day that they will long remember it, and while they may call my abdication a victory, that notion will prove short lived when winter blows in mercilessly on the many households missing a father or mother. And their victory will not claim the most coveted prize, rest assured, for I have long anticipated this eventuality, and long prepared."

Valindra relaxed a bit at that assurance.

"Their victory will reveal the conspirators," said Greeth, "and I will find my way back. You put too much value in this one place, Valindra, this Hosttower of the Arcane. Have I not taught you that the Arcane Brotherhood is much greater than what you see in Luskan?"

"Yes, my master," the elf wizard replied.

"So take heart!" said Arklem Greeth. He cupped her chin in his cold, dead fingers and made her look up into his soulless eyes. "Enjoy the day - ah the excitement! I surely will! Use your wiles, use your magic, use your cunning to survive and escape...or to surrender."

"Surrender?" she echoed. "I don't understand."

"Surrender in a manner that exonerates you enough so that they don't execute you, of course." Arklem Greeth laughed. "Blame me - oh, please do! Find your way out of this, or trust in me to come and retrieve you. I surely will. And from the ashes we two will find enjoyment and opportunity, I promise. And more excitement than we have known in decades!"

Valindra stared at him for a few moments then nodded.

"Now be gone from this multi-limbed target," said Greeth. "Get to the coast and our wizards set in defense, and take your shots as you find them. Make them hurt, Valindra, all of them, and hold faith in your heart and in your magnificent mind that this is a temporary setback, one intended to lead to ultimate and enduring victory."

"When?"

The simple question rocked Arklem Greeth back on his heels a bit, for Valindra's tone had made it clear that she understood that her timetable and that of a lich might not be one and the same.

"Go," he bade her, and nodded toward the door. "Make them hurt."

Half-dazed with confusion, Valindra Shadowmantle, Overwizard of the North Tower, in many eyes the second ranking wizard of the great Hosttower of the Arcane of Luskan, ambled toward the door of the mighty structure, fully believing that when she left it, she would never again enter. It was all too overwhelming, these dramatic and dangerous changes.

They crossed the bridge from Closeguard to Cutlass in full charge, banners flying, swords banging against shields, voices raised in hearty cheers.

On the other side of the bridge loomed the eastern wall of the Hosttower's courtyard, ground unblemished by the naval bombardment, and atop that wall, two score wizards crouched and waited, accompanied by a hundred apprentices armed with bows and spears.

They unleashed their fury as one, with the leading edge of Brambleberry's forces barely a dozen running strides from the wall. Men and ladders went up in flames, or flew away under the jolt of lightning bolts. Spears and arrows banged against shields and armor, or found a seam and sent an enemy writhing and screaming to the ground.

But Lord Brambleberry had brought wizards of his own, mages who had enacted wards on shield and man alike, who had brought forth watery elementals to quickly defeat the fireballs' flames. Men and women died or fell to grave wounds, to be sure, but not nearly to the devastating effect the Hosttower's front line of defense had hoped, and needed.

Volleys of arrows skipped in off the battlements, and concentrations of lightning blasts shook the wall, chipping and cracking the stone. The front row of Brambleberry's forces parted and through the gap ran a concentration of strong men wielding heavy hammers and picks. Lightning blasts led them to specific points on the wall, where they went to work, smashing away, further weakening the integrity of the structure.

"Pressure the top!" Lord Brambleberry yelled, and his archers and wizards let fly a steady stream of devastation, keeping the Hosttower defenders low.

"What ho!" one hammer team commander cried, and his group fell back as some of the Waterdhavian wizards heard the beckon and sent a trio of powerful blasts at the indicated spot. The first rebounded off the broken stone and sent the commander himself flying to the ground. The second bolt, though, broke through, sending stone chips flying into the courtyard, and the third blew out the section's support, dropping blocks and creating an opening through which a man could easily pass.

"What ho!" another team leader called from another spot, and a different trio of wizards was ready to finish the work of the sledges.

At the same time, far to the left and right, ladders went up against the walls. Initial resistance from the defenders fast gave way to calls for retreat.

The Hosttower's first line of defense had killed Brambleberry's men a dozen to one or more, but the swarm of Luskar, following Brambleberry and Deudermont, enraged by the ghouls sent by Arklem Greeth, and excited by the smell of blood and battle, rolled through.

As soon as the charge across the bridge had begun, the warships, too, went into swift action. Knowing that the Hosttower's focus had to be on the eastern wall, half a dozen vessels weighed anchor and filled their sails, crashing in against the current. They let fly long and far, over the western wall and courtyard to the Hosttower itself, or even beyond it to the eastern courtyard. Crewed by a bare minimum of sailors and gunners, they knew their role as one of diversion and pressure, to keep the defenders outside of the Hosttower confused and frightened, and perhaps even to score a lucky throw and kill a few in the process.

To the south of them, another half a dozen ships led by Sea Sprite sailed for the battered surrounds of Sea Tower, leading their assault with pitch and arrows, littering the rocky shore with destruction in case any of the Hosttower's wizards lay in wait there.

More than one such defender showed himself, either lashing out with a lightning bolt, or trying to flee back to the north.

Robillard and Arabeth welcomed such moments, and though both hoped to hold their greatest energies for the confrontation with Arklem Greeth and the main tower, neither could resist the temptation to reply to magic with greater evocations of their own.

"Hold and lower!" ordered Robillard, who remained in command of Sea Sprite while Deudermont rode at Brambleberry's side.

The ship dropped her sails and the anchor splashed into the dark waters as other crewmen ran to the smaller boats she carried and put them over the side. Taking their cues from Sea Sprite, the other five ships acted in concert.

"Sails south!" the man in the crow's nest shouted down to Robillard.

Eyes wide, the wizard ran aft and grabbed the rail hard, leaning out to get a better view of the leading craft, then of another two ships sailing hard their way.

"Thrice Lucky," Arabeth said, coming up beside the wizard. "That's Maimun's ship."

"And what side does he choose?" Robillard wondered. He murmured through a quick spell and tapped thumb and forefinger against his temples, imbuing his eyes with the sight of an eagle.

It was indeed Maimun leading the way, the man standing forward at the prow of Thrice Lucky, his crew readying boats behind him. More tellingly, the ship's catapult was neither armed nor manned, and no archers stood ready.

"The boy chose well," Robillard said. "He sails with us."

"How can you know?" Arabeth asked. "How can you be certain enough to continue the landing?"

"Because I know Maimun."

"His heart?"

"His purse," Robillard clarified. "He knows the force arrayed against Arklem Greeth and understands that the Hosttower cannot win this day. A fool he would be to stand back and let the city move on without his help, and Maimun is many things, but a fool is not among them."

"Three ships," Arabeth warned, looking at the trio expertly navigating the familiar waters under full sail, and closing with great speed. "As our crews disembark, they could do profound damage. We should hold three at full strength to meet them if they attack."

Robillard shook his head. "Maimun chose well," he said. "He is a vulture seeking to pick the bones of the dead, and he understands which bones will be meatier this day."

He turned and strode back amidships, waving and calling for his crew to continue. He enacted another spell as he neared the gangplank and gingerly hopped down onto the water - onto and not into, for he didn't sink beneath the waves.

Arabeth copied his movements and stood beside him on the rolling sea. Side by side, they walked swiftly toward the rocky shore, small boats overcrowded with warriors bobbing all around them.

Two of the newcomers dropped sail near the fleet and Sea Sprite, their crews similarly manning the smaller boats. But one, Thrice Lucky,sailed past, weaving in through the narrow, rocky channel.

"The young pirate knows his craft," Valindra marveled.

"He learned from Deudermont himself," said Robillard. "A pity that's all he learned."

The wall had fallen in short order, but Lord Brambleberry's forces quickly came to realize that the defenders of the Hosttower had fallen back by design. The wall defense had been set only so the tower's wizards could have time to prepare.

As the fierce folk of Luskan crashed into the courtyard, the full fury of the Hosttower of the Arcane fell upon them. Such a barrage of fire, lightning, magical bolts, and conical blasts of frost so intense they froze a man's blood solid fell over them that of the first several hundred who crossed the wall, nine of ten died within a few heartbeats.

Among those survivors, though, were Deudermont and Brambleberry, protected from the intense barrage by powerful Waterdhavian wizards. Because the pennants of their leaders still stood, the rest of the army continued its charge undeterred. The second volley didn't match the first in intensity or duration, and the warriors pushed on.

Undead rose from the ground before them, ghouls, skeletons, and rotting corpses given a grim semblance of life. And from the tower came golems and gargoyles, magical animations sent to turn back the tide.

The folk of Luskan didn't turn in fear, didn't run in horror, with the undead monsters only bitterly reminding them of why they'd joined the fight in the first place. And while Lord Brambleberry was there astride a large roan stallion, a spectacular figure of strength, two others inspired them even more.

First was Deudermont, sitting tall on a blue-eyed paint mare. Though he was no great rider, his mere presence brought hope to the heart of every commoner in the city.

And there was the other, the friend of Deudermont. As the explosions lessened and the Hosttower's melee force came out to meet the charge, so it became the time of Drizzt.

With quickness that mocked allies and foes alike, with anger solidly grounded in the image of his halfling friend lying injured on a bed, the drow burst through the leading ranks and met the enemy monsters head on. He whirled and twirled, leaped and spun through a line of ghouls and skeletons, leaving piles of torn flesh and shattered bones in his wake.

A gargoyle leaped off a balcony from above, swooping down at him, leathery wings wide, clawed hands and feet raking wildly.

The drow dived into a roll, somehow maneuvered out to the side when the gargoyle angled its wings to intercept, and came back to his feet with such force that he sprang high into the air, his blades working in short and devastating strokes. So completely did he overwhelm the creature that it actually hit the ground before he did, already dead.

"Huzzah for Drizzt Do'Urden!" cried a voice above all the cheering, a voice that Drizzt surely knew, and he took heart that Arumn Gardpeck, proprietor of the Cutlass, was among the ranks.

Magical anklets enhancing his speed, Drizzt sprinted for the central tower of the great structure in short, angled bursts, and often with long, diving rolls. He held only one scimitar then, his other hand clutching an onyx figurine. "I need you," he called to Guenhwyvar, and the weary panther, home on the Astral Plane, heard.

Lightning and fire rained down around Drizzt as he continued his desperate run, but every blast came a little farther behind him.

"He moves as if time itself has slowed around him," Lord Brambleberry remarked to Deudermont when they, like everyone else on the field, took note of the dark elf's spectacular charge.

"It has and it does," Deudermont replied, wearing a perfectly smug expression. Lord Brambleberry hadn't taken well to hearing that a drow was joining his ranks, but Deudermont hoped Drizzt's exploits would earn him some inroads into the previously unwelcoming city of Waterdeep.

He'd be making quite an impression on the minions of Arklem Greeth in short order, as well, by Deudermont's calculations.

If he hadn't already.

Even more importantly, Drizzt's charge had emboldened his comrades, and the line moved inexorably for the tower, accepting the blasts and assaults from wizards, smashing the reaching arms of skeletons and ghouls, shooting gargoyles from the air with so many arrows they darkened the sky.

"Many will die," Brambleberry said, "but the day is ours."

Watching the progress of the insurgent army, Deudermont couldn't really disagree, but he knew, too, that they were battling mighty wizards, and any proclamations of victory were surely premature.

Drizzt came around the side of the main structure, skidding to a fast stop, his face a mask of horror, for he found himself wide open to a balcony on which stood a trio of wizards, all frantically waving their arms in the midst of some powerful spellcasting.

Drizzt couldn't turn, couldn't dodge, and had no apparent or plausible defense.

Resistance at the Sea Tower proved almost nonexistent, and the force of Robillard, Arabeth, and the sailors quickly secured the southern end of Cutlass Island. To the north, fireballs and lightning bolts boomed, cheers rose in combination with agonized screams, and horns blew.

Valindra Shadowmantle watched it all from concealment in a cubby formed of Sea Tower's fallen blocks.

"Come on, then, lich," she whispered, for though the magical display seemed impressive, it was nothing of the sort that could result in the explosive ending Arklem Greeth had promised her.

Which made her doubt his other promise to her, that all would be put aright in short order.

Valindra was no novice to the ways and depths of the Art. Her lightning bolts didn't drop men shaking to the ground, but sent their souls to the Fugue Plane and their bodies to the ground in smoldering heaps.

She looked to the beach, where the sailors were putting up their boats and preparing to march north to join the battle.

Valindra knew she could kill many of them, then and there, and when she noted the wretched Arabeth Raurym among their ranks, her desire to do so multiplied many times over, though the sight of the mighty Robillard beside the wretched Mirabarran witch tempered that somewhat.

But she held her spells in check and looked to the north, where the sound of battle - and the horns of Brambleberry and the Luskar insurgents - grew ever stronger.

Would Arklem Greeth be able to save her if she struck against Arabeth and Robillard? Would he even try?

Her doubts holding her back, Valindra stared and pictured Arabeth lying dead on the ground - no, not dead, but writhing in the agony of a slow, burning, mortal wound.

"You surprise me," said a voice behind her, and the overwizard froze in place, eyes going wide. Her thoughts whirled as she tried to discern the speaker, for she knew that she had heard that voice before.

"Your judgment, I mean," the speaker added, and Valindra recognized him then, and spun around to face the pirate Maimun - or more specifically, to face the tip of his extended blade.

"You have thrown in with...them?" Valindra asked incredulously. "With Deudermont?"

Maimun shrugged. "Seemed better than the alternative."

"You should have stayed at sea."

"Ah, yes, to then sail in and claim allegiance with whichever side won the day. That is the way you would play it, isn't it?"

The moon elf mage narrowed her eyes.

"You reserve your magic when so many targets present themselves," Maimun added.

"Prudence is not a fault."

"Perhaps not," said the grinning young pirate captain. "But 'tis better to join in the fight with the apparent winner than to claim allegiance when the deed is done. People, even celebratory victors, resent hangers-on, you know."

"Have you ever been anything but?"

"By the seas, a vicious retort!" Maimun replied with a laugh. "Vicious...and desperate."

Valindra moved to brush the blade away from her face, but Maimun deftly flipped it past her waving hand and poked her on the tip of her nose.

"Vicious, but ridiculous," the pirate added. "There were times when I found that trait endearing in you. Now it's simply annoying."

"Because it reeks of truth."

"Ah, but dear, beautiful, wicked Valindra, I can hardly be called an opportunist now. I have an overwizard in my grasp to prove my worth. A prisoner I suspect a certain Lady Raurym will greatly covet."

Valindra's gaze threw daggers at the slender man. "You claim me as a prisoner?" she asked, her voice low and threatening.

Maimun shrugged. "So it would seem."

Valindra's face softened, a smile appearing. "Maimun, foolish child, for all your steel and all your bluster, I know you won't kill me." She stepped aside and reached for the blade.

And it jumped back from her hand and came forward with sudden brutality, stabbing her hard in the chest, drawing a gasp and a whimper of pain. Maimun pulled the stroke up short, but his words cut deeper.

"Mithral, not steel," he corrected. "Mithral through your pretty little breast before the next beat of your pretty little heart."

"You have...chosen," Valindra warned.

"And chosen well, my prisoner."

Guenhwyvar leaped past Drizzt to shield him from the slings and arrows of enemies, from blasts magical and mundane. Lightning bolts reached down from the balcony as Guenhwyvar soared up toward it, and though they stung her, they didn't deter her.

On the scarred field below, Drizzt stumbled forward and regained his balance and looked on with admiration and deep love for his most trusted friend who had, yet again, saved him.

Saved him and vanquished his enemies all at once, the drow noted with a wince, as flailing arms and horrified expressions appeared to him every so often from around the ball of black fury.

He had no time to dwell on the scene, though, for more undead creatures approached him, and more gargoyles swooped down from above.

And lightning roared and his allies died in their charge behind him. But they kept coming, outraged at the lich and his ghoulish emissaries. A hundred died, two hundred died, five hundred died, but the wave rolled for the beach and wouldn't be deterred.

In the middle of it all rode Deudermont and Brambleberry, urging their charges on, seeking battle side by side wherever it could be found.

Drizzt spotted their banners, and whenever he found a moment's reprieve, he glanced back at them, knowing they would eventually lead him to the most coveted prize of all, to the lich whose defeat would end the carnage.

It was to Drizzt's complete surprise, then, that Arklem Greeth did indeed come upon the field to face his foes, but not straightaway to Deudermont and Brambleberry, but straightaway to Drizzt Do'Urden.

He appeared as no more than a thin black line at first, which widened and flattened to a two-dimensional image of the archmage arcane then filled out to become Arklem Greeth in person.

"They are always full of surprises," the archmage said, considering the drow from about five strides away. Grinning wickedly, he lifted his hands and waggled his fingers.

Drizzt sprinted at him with blinding speed, intent on taking him down before he could complete the spell. He dived at the powerful wizard, scimitars leading, and driving right through the image of the lich.

It was just an image - an image masking a magical gate through which tumbled the surprised dark elf. He tried to stop, skidding along the ground, and when it was obvious that he was caught, on pure instinct and a combination of desperate hope and the responsibility of friendship, he tore free his belt pouch and threw it back behind him.

Then he was tumbling in the darkness, a wretched, sulfuric smell thickening around him, great dark shapes moving through the smoky shadows of a vast, dark field of sharp-edged rocks and steaming lines of blood red lava.

Gehenna...or the Nine Hells...or the Abyss...or Tarterus.... He didn't know, but it was one of the lower planes, one of the homes of the devils and demons and other wicked creatures, a place in which he could not long survive.

He didn't even have his bearings or his feet back under him when a black beast, dark as the shadows, leaped upon him from behind.

"Pathetic," Arklem Greeth said, shaking his head, almost disappointed that the champion of the lords who had come against him had been so easily dispatched.

Staying close to the central tower, the archmage arcane moved along and spotted the banners of his principle enemies, the invading Lord Brambleberry, so far from home, and the fool Deudermont, who had turned the city against him.

He studied the field for a short while, mentally measuring the distance with supernatural precision. The tumult all around him, the screaming, dying, and explosions, seemed distant and unremarkable. A spear flew his way and struck solidly, except that his magical protections simply flattened its metal tip and dropped it harmlessly to the ground before it got near to his undead flesh.

He didn't even wince. His focus remained on his principle enemies.

Arklem Greeth rubbed his hands together eagerly, preparing his spells.

In a flash he was gone, and when he stepped through the other side of the dimensional portal in the midst of a fighting throng, he tapped his thumbs together before him and brought forth a fan of fire, driving away friend and foe alike. Then he thrust his hands out wide to his sides and from each came a mighty forked lightning bolt, angled down to thump into the ground with such force that men and zombies, dwarves and ghouls went bouncing wildly away, leaving Arklem Greeth alone in his own little field of calm.

Everyone noticed him - how could they not?  -  for his display of power and fury was so far beyond anything that had been brought to the field thus far, by either Brambleberry or the Hosttower.

Barely controlling their mounts at that point, both Brambleberry and Deudermont turned to regard their foe.

"Kill him!" Brambleberry cried, and even as the words left his mouth, so too came the next of Arklem Greeth's magical barrages.

All around the two leaders, the ground churned and broke apart, soil spraying, rocks flying, roots tearing. Down they tumbled side by side, their horses twisting and breaking around them. Brambleberry's landed atop him with a sickening cracking of bones, and though he was luckier to fall aside from his thrashing and terrified horse, Deudermont still found himself at the bottom of a ten-foot hole, thick with mud and water.

Up above, Arklem Greeth wasn't finished. He ignored the sudden reversal his assault on Brambleberry, and particularly upon beloved Deudermont, had wrought in the army around them, their fear quickly turning to outrage aimed at Greeth alone. Like the one point of calm in a world gone mad, Arklem Greeth followed his earth-shaking spell with an earthquake that had all around him stumbling and falling. The line of the tremor was aimed perfectly for the loose mounds at the sides of the chasm he had created. He meant to bury the Waterdhavian lord and the good captain alive.

All around them realized it, though, and came at Greeth with fury, a roiling throng of outrage closing in on him from every side, throwing spears and rocks - even swords - anything to distract or wound that being of ultimate evil.

"Fools, all," the archmage arcane muttered under his breath.

With one last burst of power that broke apart one side of the deep hole, Greeth fell back into his wraith form, flattening to two dimensions. He narrowed to a black line and slipped down into the ground, running swiftly through narrow cracks until he stood again in his own chamber in the Hosttower of the Arcane.

Exhaustion followed him there, for the lich had not utilized such a sudden and potent barrage of magic in many, many years. He heard the continuing roar outside his window and didn't need to go there to understand that any gains he'd made would prove temporary.

Dropping the leaders had not turned the mob, but had only incensed it further.

There were simply too many. Too many fools...too much fodder.

"Fools all," he said again, and he thought of Valindra out along the southern rocks of Cutlass Island. He hoped she was dead already.

With a heavy sigh that crackled across the collection of hardened mucus in Arklem Greeth's unbreathing lungs, the lich went to his private stash of potent drinks - drinks he had created himself, fashioned mostly of blood and living things. Drinks that, like the lich himself, transcended death. He took a long, deep sip of one potent mixture.

He thought of his decades at the Hosttower, a place he had so long called home. He knew that was over, for the time being at least, but he could wait.

And he could make it hurt.

The chamber would come with him - he had fashioned it with magic for just such a sudden and violent transportation, for he had known from the moment he'd achieved lichdom that the day would surely befall him when he'd have to abandon his tower home. But he, and the part he most coveted, would be saved.

The rest would be lost.

Arklem Greeth moved through a small trapdoor, down a ladder to a tiny secret room where he kept one of his most prized possessions: a staff of incredible power. With that staff, a younger, living Arklem Greeth had waged great battles, his fireballs and lightning bolts greater in number and intensity. With that staff, full of its own power to taste of Mystra's Weave, he had escaped certain doom many times on those occasions when his own magical reservoir had been drained.

He rubbed a hand over its burnished wood, considering it as he would an old friend.

It was set in a strange contraption of Greeth's design. The staff itself was laid across a pyramid-shaped stone, the very center of the six-foot long staff right at the narrow tip of the great block. Hanging from chains at either end of the staff were two large metal bowls, and up above those bowls, over the staff and on stout stands of thick iron, sat two tanks of dense silver liquid.

With another sigh, Greeth reached up and pulled a central cord, one that uncorked plugs from the mercury-filled reservoirs, and dropped out chutes directly over the corresponding bowls.

The heavy fluid metal began to flow, slowly and teasingly dripping into the bowls, like the sands of an hourglass counting down the end of the world.

Such staves as that, so full of magical energy, could not be broken without a cataclysmic release.

Arklem Greeth went back to his secure but mobile chamber with confidence that the explosion would send him exactly where he wanted to go.

They were winning the field, but the Luskar and their Waterdhavian allies didn't feel victorious, not with their leaders Brambleberry and Deudermont buried! They set a defensive perimeter around the churned area, and many fell over the loose dirt, digging with sword and dagger, or bare hands. A torn fingernail elicited no more than a grimace among the determined, frantic group. One man inadvertently drove his dagger through his own hand, but merely growled as he went back to tearing at the ground for his beloved Captain Deudermont.

Fury rained upon the field: fire and lightning, monsters undead and magically created. The Luskar matched that fury; they were fighting for their very lives, for their families. There could be no retreat, no withdrawal, and to a man and woman they knew it.

So they fought, and fired their arrows at the wizards on the balconies, and though they died ten-to-one, perhaps more, it seemed that their advance could not be halted.

But then it was, with the snap of a magical staff.

Someone tugged hard at his arm, and Deudermont gasped his first breath in far too long a time as another hand scraped the dirt away from his face.

Through bleary eyes, he saw his rescuers, a woman brushing his face, a strong man yanking at his one extended arm, and with such force that Deudermont feared he would pull his shoulder right out of its socket.

His thoughts went to Brambleberry, who had fallen beside him, and he took heart to see so many clawing at the ground, so much commotion to rescue the Waterdhavian lord. Though he was still fully immersed in the soil, other than that one extended arm, Deudermont somehow managed to nod, and even smile at the woman cleaning off his face.

Then she was gone - a wave of multicolored energy rolled out like a ripple on a pond, crossing over Deudermont with the sound of a cyclone.

The sleeve burned from his extended arm, his face flushed with stinging warmth. It seemed to go on for many, many heartbeats, then came the sound of crashing, like trees falling. Deudermont felt the ground rumble three or four times - too close together for him to accurately take a count.

His arm fell limp to the ground. As he regained his sensibilities, Deudermont saw the boots of the man who had been tugging at his arm. The captain couldn't turn his head enough to follow up the legs, but he knew the man was dead.

He knew that the field was dead.

Too still.

And too quiet, so suddenly, as if all the world had ended.

Robillard kept his forces tight and organized as they made their way north along Cutlass Island. He was fairly certain that they'd meet no resistance until they got within the Hosttower's compound, but he wanted the first response from his force to be coordinated and devastating. He assured those around him that they would clear every window, every balcony, every doorway on the North Spire with their first barrage.

Behind Robillard came Valindra, her arms tightly bound behind her back, flanked by Maimun and Arabeth.

"The archmage arcane falls this day," Robillard remarked quietly, so that only those close to him could hear.

"Arklem Greeth is more than ready for you," Valindra retorted.

Arabeth reacted with a suddenness that shocked the others, spinning a left hook into the face of their moon elf captive. Valindra's head jolted back and came forward, blood showing below her thin, pretty nose.

"You will pay for - " Valindra warned, or started to, until Arabeth hit her again, just as viciously.

Robillard and Maimun looked to each other incredulously, but then both just grinned at Arabeth's initiative. They could clearly see the years of enmity between the two overwizards, and separately reasoned that the taller and more classically beautiful Valindra had often been a thorn in Arabeth's side.

Each man made a mental note to not anger the Lady Raurym.

Valindra seemed to get the message as well, for she said no more.

Robillard led them up a tumble of boulders to get a view over the wall. The fighting was thick and vicious all around the five-spired tower. The ship's wizard quickly formulated an approach to best come onto the field, and was about to relay it to his charges when the staff broke.

The world seemed to fall apart.

Maimun saved Robillard that day, the young pirate reacting with amazing agility to pull the older wizard down behind the rocks beside him. Similarly, Arabeth rescued Valindra, albeit inadvertently, for as she, too, dived back, she brushed the captive enough to send her tumbling down as well.

The wave of energy rolled over them. Rocks went flying and several of Robillard's force fell hard, more than one mortally wounded. They were on the outer edge of the blast and so it passed quickly. Robillard, Maimun, and Arabeth all scrambled to their feet quickly enough to peer over and witness the fall of the Hosttower itself. The largest, central pillar, Greeth's own, was gone, as if it had either been blown to dust or had simply vanished - and it truth, it was a bit of both. The four armlike spires, the once graceful limbs, tumbled down, crashing in burning heaps and billowing clouds of angry gray dust.

The warriors on the field, man and monster alike, had fallen in neat rows, like cut timber, and though groans and cries told Robillard and the others that some had survived, none of the three believed for a heartbeat that number to be large.

"By the gods, Greeth, what have you done?" Robillard asked into the empty and suddenly still morning air.

Arabeth gave a sudden cry of dismay and fell back, and neither Maimun nor Robillard considered her quickly enough to stop her as she leaped down at the face-down and battered Valindra and drove a dagger deep into the captured wizard's back.

"No!" Robillard cried at her when he realized her action. "We need..." He stopped and grimaced as Arabeth retracted the blade and struck again, and again, and Valindra's screams became muffled with blood.

Maimun finally got to Arabeth and pulled her back; Robillard called for a priest.

He waved back the first of the clerics that came forward, though, knowing that it was too late, and that others would need his healing prayers.

"What have you done?" Robillard asked Arabeth, who sobbed, but looked at the devastated field, not at her gruesome handiwork.

"It was better than she deserved," Arabeth replied.

Glancing over his shoulder at the utter devastation of the Hosttower of the Arcane, and the men and women who had gone against it, Robillard found it hard to disagree.