“Prepare more spells of clairvoyance and clairaudience,” he instructed. “And any others you may have that can help us learn more of why the drow have come.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Braelin almost agreed, but as he considered it, he found that it wasn’t obvious at all. Jarlaxle’s conquest of Luskan and King Bruenor’s position in Gauntlgrym had all been accomplished without scorn from House Baenre, and indeed, Matron Mother Quenthel served to gain from the new arrangement.
Thus, he had no idea of what was going on here, of why the tunnels were full of forces that should have remained in Menzoberranzan. This disturbed him.
Braelin was a disciple of Jarlaxle. He didn’t like having no idea.
Kimmuriel called upon everything he had learned at the hive mind in that critical first moment all the while rushing behind a bunk bed to try to shield himself and not give Asbeel or Brevindon a clear enough view to recognize him. He focused particularly on the deepest thoughts of Ouwoonivisc the Infected.
Yes, he had understood that mind flayer and its fall, for it had been lured by the same pattern of lies and descending stairway of little sins for personal gains into a hole of no return and no redemption.
He used that now—as a drow who had grown up in Menzoberranzan, he was well suited for the task.
But this was a demon, an incarnation of evil. There would be no remorse within Asbeel, and no doubt, and so Kimmuriel understood that he had to be near-perfect.
He reached out telepathically to Wulfgar, the man already rushing in to engage the demonic creature.
Let me in! he implored the man.
If Wulfgar had hesitated in that instant, he would have been in desperate straits, but to his credit, he trusted Kimmuriel in that critical moment.
Immediately Kimmuriel sensed his plans, his movements, and now reached out, too, to the demon possessing the body of Brevindon Margaster, and did so in the thought identity of Ouwoonivisc.
Wulfgar hadn’t missed with his swing on the boat; nay, Asbeel had dodged because the infected illithid had acted just as Kimmuriel was acting now, relaying the movements of Asbeel’s opponent so that the monster could move with perfect anticipation.
So now did Kimmuriel, offering Asbeel an advantage. He could feel the pleasure of the beast.
You have been missed, he felt in response, confirmation that he had been right in all of this.
Kimmuriel projected a series of false movements from Wulfgar, but aggressive ones that would keep Asbeel on defense and thus not offer him a chance to put that huge, wavy sword through Wulfgar’s skull.
Wulfgar’s next swing missed as the demon backed up and moved deeper into the room.
“The door!” Wulfgar said to Bonnie Charlee. He charged at Asbeel, forcing the beast farther from the entrance, as Bonnie Charlee ran behind him to close the room’s door.
The barbarian pressed on, and the momentary confusion Asbeel signaled to the being he thought Ouwoonivisc was answered by the demon itself, silently congratulating the human on changing his tactics in order to prevent reinforcements from coming in.
Who is this drow? Asbeel did ask.
A witness from the powers of Menzoberranzan to judge the battle of Luskan, Kimmuriel answered, thinking quickly.
But the demon didn’t believe him.
The demon had seen him too clearly.
The demon remembered him from the boat.
The demon, no doubt through the vile work of the traitorous Ouwoonivisc, understood the kinetic barrier Kimmuriel had offered to Wulfgar in that previous encounter.
Kimmuriel had planned to goad Asbeel with half-truths about Wulfgar’s intended movements, coming just close enough to elicit confidence before blowing the whole thing up and forcing the demon to turn left when it should have turned right.
But now he felt the wall of denial, severing his influence over the body of Asbeel’s slave, and Asbeel was no minor enemy.
Wulfgar and the demon squared off on a level battlefield.
And for the first time in forever, Kimmuriel felt doubt.
“Stay back!” Wulfgar ordered Bonnie Charlee. He admired her courage, but her small knife wasn’t going to do much against this demon with that huge sword.
The woman backed from Wulfgar’s side, and not a moment too soon as Asbeel leaped across the room, lifted by his wings so that he covered the distance easily.
Wulfgar rushed sidelong to intercept, Aegis-fang and the demon’s sword ringing loudly as they crashed together. A slight turn of Asbeel’s wrist hooked the blade under the hammer’s head, the powerful creature giving a sudden jerk then to try to disarm the man.
Wulfgar tugged back, his great strength more than enough to match that of his adversary. He silently cursed himself even as he won that embedded match, though, thinking that he might have used the opportunity to appear unarmed, the trick that so often worked to his benefit.
He let the thought go, concerned with the moment, and tugged again violently to break Aegis-fang free, then immediately sent the hammer into a series of short chops, back and forth before him as he advanced.
Asbeel backed from the first, struck the second (and nearly lost his sword), and surprisingly came forward for the third, accepting the brutal hit on the side to get up close to the man.
Wulfgar was quicker than most assumed for a man of his size, and that saved him then as he let go of Aegis-fang with his left hand, and shot his arm out and up to tangle Asbeel’s lifted arm and prevent the demon from bringing his sword to bear.
Now they clenched and struggled, Asbeel biting at Wulfgar, Wulfgar jerking the demon back and forth like a wolf snapping a rabbit’s spine.
He felt the sharp teeth of the fiend sinking into his cheek and howled, tearing his head back, then flashing forward with his forehead, slamming Asbeel in the face with tremendous force.
The demon staggered backward, lifted his sword in both hands, and started to bring it straight down, but Wulfgar stabbed Aegis-fang first, the top of the hammer head thumping Asbeel’s face and driving him back too far for his downward slash to connect.
On came Wulfgar, leaping, swinging, following through so that the warhammer came up and around over his head and right back across, one, two, three, and more.
Asbeel continued its staggered retreat, Wulfgar barely missing with every swing.
Wulfgar watched the demon’s feet—that remained the most important lesson of fighting Drizzt Do’Urden had ever taught him. Watch your opponent’s feet.
Because of that lesson, he saw and reacted to the intended counter coming before it had ever begun, Asbeel balancing himself to dart in high behind the next swing.
Across came Aegis-fang and down went Wulfgar to his knees, with a spin that brought the hammer across yet again even as Asbeel’s stab went right above him. He clipped the demon across the legs, flinging Asbeel over sideways. Wulfgar scrambled ahead and now had to let go with his top hand to press Asbeel back and keep the demon from re-angling the sword.
He had hurt the demon, he knew, and badly, but now Asbeel surprised him by letting go of the sword and punching Wulfgar on the side of the head instead.
There was magic in that punch, which hit the big man more like the charge of a ram than any fist.
Wulfgar fell to the side and crunched his own fingers under the handle of Aegis-fang in a desperate attempt to prevent him from falling fully prone, which would have been the end of him. He planted his trailing foot immediately and sprang away—and heard the cut of Asbeel’s sword right behind him.
Scrambling, stumbling, he forced himself to his feet and around to face Asbeel, expecting the demon to be coming hard and fast.
But no, Asbeel had barely moved and was now standing up very straight.
With Bonnie Charlee on his back.
The woman put her dagger to work, but not on Asbeel’s neck.
Not on Asbeel at all.
With admiration and fear for her safety, Wulfgar watched as she broke the chain ho
lding the pendant, and flung it toward Wulfgar, even as she kicked off the demon’s back, lessening the punch of a spinning Asbeel—one that still sent her slamming into the wall, where she crumpled and lay very still.
Wulfgar set himself, glancing at the fallen pendant and back at the demon, trying to gauge his next best move.
“Huh?” escaped his lips as he watched the demon, red-skinned and then not, horned and then not. Asbeel did take a step forward, but then fell back one.
Wulfgar recognized an internal battle here, the human and the demon fighting for control with the phylactery thrown aside. He knew that he could run in and land a devastating blow on his enemy, but he remembered vividly Kimmuriel’s instructions to him, and the most important role he had to play.
He lifted his warhammer and roared, then spun to the side and brought Aegis-fang down hard with tremendous force, shattering the gemstone.
From the moment Bonnie Charlee dislodged the phylactery, Kimmuriel knew that the fight was his to win or lose.
He threw his mental energy into the body of Brevindon Margaster like a javelin, jolting the man and the demon possessing him as surely as any physical weapon ever could. He had one objective with his initial attack: to separate the two warring spirits within that one body.
As soon as that was accomplished, the moment he felt the struggle between Brevindon Margaster and Asbeel, Kimmuriel turned his attention to Wulfgar—and breathed a sigh of relief that the violent man had followed instructions instead of his vicious and crass human instincts. In that intangible realm of the spirit, Kimmuriel sensed the destruction of the phylactery keenly. He knew that Asbeel would, as well.
So he went right back in, inserting himself into the fight between the two entities possessing the one body.
And pointedly imparting to Brevindon Margaster the future awaiting him if he lost this struggle.
There was nowhere for him to go, no phylactery to hold a spirit that it might fight another day.
For Asbeel, to lose was banishment. For Brevindon, to lose was to die.
Asbeel knew it and attacked the man with all of his willpower, hammering him, confusing him, driving him out once and for all. The demon did not want banishment any more than the human would welcome death. And because of that desire, Brevindon hadn’t a chance of winning . . . except for the chance named Kimmuriel Oblodra.
Kimmuriel bolstered the man. Kimmuriel led the counterattack, assailing Asbeel. It held for heartbeats, which seemed an eternity in the realm of pure thought. Kimmuriel knew that he was at a disadvantage here and now, because Asbeel was already within the corporeal form and Kimmuriel was an outside attacker.
He fought defensively, then, bolstering Brevindon more than trying to weaken Asbeel, but he did throw one other possibility out there, hoping that Asbeel would grab it.
Their spiritual battle was a spiritual connection, and so one that Asbeel could use to move swiftly behind Kimmuriel, into Kimmuriel’s body instead. While Kimmuriel could join with Brevindon here in this body, Brevindon could not join with Kimmuriel in Kimmuriel’s body!
With no ground being gained and the expectation that the barbarian would soon destroy this body anyway, Asbeel made his move.
And found Kimmuriel moving just ahead of him, waiting for him, letting him take the fight to Kimmuriel’s body.
As soon as he fully broke his lifeline to Brevindon’s body, Asbeel realized his mistake, and Kimmuriel smiled.
Now Kimmuriel had the upper hand.
Asbeel was no minor foe, to be sure, but Kimmuriel had spent a life learning the hive mind. To him, being surrounded by other minds was natural. To be overwhelmed by those minds would have meant madness or, more likely, death.
Clearly he had survived those minds. Had thrived among them.
And this was just one mind he now contended with.
The spirit of Asbeel was a spirit unhoused, with only two options: banishment or possessing Kimmuriel.
Thus, in truth, Asbeel had only one option.
The fiend’s time on the material plane came to a swift and prolonged end.
Wulfgar approached with the intent to obliterate the struggling form, but he was given pause, for the creature continued to shift color and details as the internal struggle continued.
Then, suddenly, it was a human, fully so.
Brevindon Margaster howled in pain, grabbed at his broken ribs, and tumbled as his wounded legs would not support him. On the floor he writhed and yelled and squirmed.
Wulfgar looked to Kimmuriel for guidance, looked across at Bonnie Charlee for hope.
Neither offered what he desired.
He turned back to Brevindon, to see the man calmed, lying on his side, his right arm extended up in the air, palm out to fend off Wulfgar.
“Please, please,” he begged.
Bonnie Charlee stirred and sat up. That alone stayed Wulfgar’s killing strike.
There came a flash, then a last, primal scream accompanying a ghostly image of a red-skinned demonic elven form, and then all three dissipated fast to nothingness.
“Gather him,” Kimmuriel said from behind Wulfgar. “We need him and we must leave this place now.”
Chapter 24
Echoes of Memory
Snapping his right hand out like a viper’s strike, Afafrenfere caught a swinging axe by the handle just under the head, only a finger’s breadth from his face, and so strong was his determined armlock that he stopped the swing cold. Up came Afafrenfere’s right foot, going high and across to the left, then swinging back to the right over the dwarf’s caught arms and down.
The stubborn dwarf was strong enough to prevent the monk from yanking the axe from his hands, but he should have simply let go, for as he was driven forward and down by the monk’s pressing leg, his arms bent awkwardly, and Afafrenfere punched out with his right, driving the pointed back of the axe into the dwarf’s forehead.
The dwarf howled in pain and fell away, leaving its axe behind in the monk’s grasp.
Feeling pressure closing, the monk flipped the weapon back over his shoulder, spinning it through the air, and turned fast to see it clip off a second attacker’s shoulder, doing no real damage as the dwarf spun to the left to bat it aside.
But it was enough, for the charging dwarf never got fully back around, and as he neared, Afafrenfere’s foot hit him squarely in the face, snapping back his head. He staggered and Afafrenfere came on furiously, battering him about the head, sending him sprawling away.
Afafrenfere turned again at the last moment, snatching a thrown spear right out of the air, bringing it around, reversing his grip, and launching it right back at the dwarf who had thrown it.
That dwarf, too, fell away, grabbing at the spear that stuck from her shoulder.
The monk felt a punch in the side and spun back, but no one was there.
It wasn’t a punch, he only then realized, but a crossbow quarrel, for he saw yet another dwarf and a fifth beside it—the one who had shot him reloading his crossbow, the other one leveling hers.
Afafrenfere set himself, feeling the tug in his side from the deeply embedded crossbow bolt.
The dwarf woman fired.
Afafrenfere’s hand snapped up and out, deflecting the quarrel high, but the movement brought a great wince of pain as the embedded bolt tore at his insides. Instinctively, he reached down to grab at it, then he threw his left arm up defensively as the one he had clipped with the thrown axe came charging in, warhammer swinging.
The monk took the blow, his arm going numb under the weight of it, and returned a stunning open palm into the dwarf’s face.
But now two crossbows were leveled his way.
He started to set, then arched suddenly as a spear drove hard into his back.
The dwarf drove in with all her strength.
Afafrenfere looked down to see the spear tip poking out from his belly. He tasted blood in his mouth. He looked up just in time to see two crossbow quarrels flying for his chest.
His
arms would not answer his call. He couldn’t catch these missiles, or deflect them, or block them.
He was only slightly aware of the spear being ripped out of his back, only distantly cognizant that he was then staring up at the sky, lying on his back, fighting for his breath.
He knew that he had to get up immediately.
But . . .
Brevindon Margaster had spent many licentious nights in Waterdeep, surrounded by too many women and far too many drinks. As he had grown older, he always shook his head after he came out of near-unconsciousness the next morning and cradled his face, which felt many sizes too large for his body, and swore that he would never again imbibe that much alcohol.
He felt that way now on an unimaginable scale—as if he had swallowed the contents of every bottle at a raucous party, then been kicked repeatedly on the side of his head, then had fingers jabbing his eyes without pause.
“Just kill the fool and be done with it,” he heard a woman’s voice.
Brevindon opened his eyes—it took him several attempts—and took in the unfamiliar room. He felt the mustiness about him, the ancient dust. Where was he? He couldn’t make sense of any of this, except that he certainly recognized three of the five of the people in the room with him. The woman, the huge man, the small drow man . . . they had all been on the boat in the harbor fight. That warhammer carried by the giant man had broken the mast with an incredible strike.
“Wulfgar, son of Beornegar,” Brevindon mumbled, for who else might it be?
“See, he knows ye, and sure that he’ll be finding a way to pay you back,” the woman said. “Just kill him.”
“If you say another word, someone in this room may well die,” said the drow man, “but it won’t be him.”
Brevindon felt a hand on his shoulder and turned his head to see a drow woman, eyes closed, casting. He tensed, wondering if this was the end of him, but then relaxed as waves of healing magic swept through him.
“Sit up,” the small drow man said, and when Brevindon didn’t immediately respond, the woman beside him grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him upright.
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