She looked south, guided by her mothering instincts, toward the road to Carradoon and her children, and there she desperately wanted to go. But she focused on an area not so far to the south, trying to get a sense of the valley in proportion to the direct north-south trail to Spirit Soaring.
Danica nodded, recognizing that she wouldn’t have to cross the mountainous barrier to find that road. Fairly certain of her location—she was in a deep valley several miles from the cathedral—she started away on unsteady legs, her ankle threatening to roll under her with each step.
Soon after, she was leaning on a walking stick, fighting the pain and dreading the trail up to her home. The road was much steeper than the trail from Carradoon, and she toyed with the idea of continuing all the way around to the port city, then using the more passable pathways instead.
She couldn’t help but laugh at herself for that feeble justification. She’d lose a day and more of travel time taking that route, a day and more Cadderly and the others didn’t have to spare.
She came upon the north-south road some time after highsun, her strength sapped, her clothes sticking to her with sweat. Again she looked southeast toward unseen Carradoon, and thought of her children. She closed her eyes and turned south, then looked upon the road home, the road she needed to take for all their sakes.
She recalled that the road continued fairly flat for about a quarter of a mile, then began an onerous climb up into the Snowflakes. She had to make that climb. It was not a choice, but a duty. Cadderly had to know.
And Danica meant to walk all through the night to tell him. She started off at a slow pace, practically dragging one foot and leaning heavily on the walking stick in her right hand, her left arm hanging loose at her side. Every step jolted that shoulder, and so Danica paused and tore off a piece of her already torn shirt, fashioning it into a makeshift sling.
With a sigh of determination, the woman started away again, a little more quickly, but with her strength fast waning.
She lost track of time, but knew the shadows were lengthening around her, then she heard something—a rider or a wagon—approaching from behind. Danica shuffled off the trail and threw herself down behind a bush and a rock, crawling into a place to watch the road behind her. She chewed hard on her bottom lip to keep from gasping out in pain, but even that notion and sensation were soon lost to her as her curious quarry came into view.
She saw the horse first, a skeletal black beast with fire around its hooves. It snorted smoke from its flared nostrils. A hell horse, a nightmare, and as Danica noted the wagon driver—or more particularly, the driver’s great, wide-brimmed and plumed hat, and the ebon color of his skin—she remembered him.
“Jarlaxle?” she whispered, and more curious still, he sat with another dark elf Danica surely recognized.
The thought of that rogue Jarlaxle riding along with Drizzt Do’Urden knocked Danica even more emotionally off-balance. How could it be?
And what did it mean, for her and for Cadderly?
As the wagon neared, she made out a couple of heads above the rail of the backboard. Dwarves, obviously. A squeal from the side turned her attention to a third dwarf riding a pig that looked like it grazed on the lower planes right beside the nightmare pulling the wagon.
Danica told herself that it couldn’t be Drizzt Do’Urden, and warned herself that it was not out of the realm of possibility that the fiendish Jarlaxle might be behind all of the trouble that had come to Erlkazar. She couldn’t risk going to them, she told herself repeatedly as the wagon bounced along the trail, nearing her hiding place.
Despite those very real and grounded reservations, as the wagon rolled up barely ten feet from her, the nightmare snorting flames and pounding the road with its fiery hooves, the desperate woman, realizing instinctively that she was out of options, pulled herself up to her knees and called out for help.
“Lady Danica!” Jarlaxle cried, and Drizzt spoke her name at the same time.
Together the two drow leaped down from the wagon and ran to her, moving to opposite sides of her and falling on bended knee. Together they gently cradled and supported her, and glanced at each other with equal disbelief that anything could have so battered the magnificent warrior-monk.
“What’d’ye know, elf?” one of the dwarves called, climbing from the back of the wagon. “That Cadderly’s girl?”
“Lady Danica,” Drizzt explained.
“You must …” the woman gasped. “You must get me to Cadderly. I must warn him …”
Her voice trailed off and she faltered, her consciousness slipping away. “We will,” Drizzt promised. “Rest easy.”
* * * * *
Drizzt looked at Jarlaxle, grave concern evident on his face. He wasn’t sure Danica could survive the journey.
“I have potions,” Jarlaxle assured him, but with less confidence than Drizzt would have hoped for. Besides, who could be sure what effects his potions might produce in such a time of wild magic?
They made Danica as comfortable as they could in the back of the wagon, laying her beside Catti-brie, who sat against the backboard and still seemed totally unaware of her surroundings. Jarlaxle stayed beside the monk, spooning magical healing potions into her mouth, while Bruenor drove the wagon as fast as the nightmare could manage. Drizzt and Pwent ran near flank, fearing that whatever had hit Danica might not be far afield. On Jarlaxle’s bidding, Athrogate and the hell boar stayed near, riding just in front of the nightmare.
“It’s getting steeper,” Bruenor warned a short time later. “Yer horse ain’t for liking it.”
“The mules are rested now,” Jarlaxle replied. “Go as far as we can, then we’ll put them back up front.”
“Night’ll be falling by then.”
“Perhaps we should ride through.”
Bruenor didn’t want to agree, but he found himself nodding despite his reservations.
“Elf?” the dwarf asked, seeing Drizzt approach from some brush to the side of the trail.
“Nothing,” Drizzt answered. “I have seen no sign of any monsters, and no trail to be found save Danica’s own.”
“Well, that’s a good thing,” Bruenor said. He reached over and grabbed at Drizzt’s belt to help the drow hop up the side of the rolling wagon.
“Her breathing is steady,” Drizzt noted of Danica, and Jarlaxle nodded.
“The potions have helped,” said Jarlaxle. “There is a measure of predictable magic remaining.”
“Bah, but she ain’t said a word,” said Bruenor.
“I’ve kept her in a stupor,” Jarlaxle explained. “For her own sake. A simple enchantment,” he added reassuringly when both Drizzt and Bruenor looked at him with suspicion. He pulled from his vest a pendant with a dangling ruby, remarkably like the one worn by Regis.
“Hey, now!” Bruenor protested and pulled hard on the reins, bringing the wagon up short.
“It’s not Regis’s,” Jarlaxle assured him.
“You had his, in Luskan,” Drizzt remembered.
“For a time, yes,” said Jarlaxle. “Long enough to have my artisans replicate it.” As Bruenor and Drizzt continued to stare at him hard, Jarlaxle just shrugged and explained, “It’s what I do.”
Drizzt and Bruenor looked at each other and sighed.
“I did not steal anything from him, and I could have, easily enough,” Jarlaxle argued. “I did not kill him, or you, and I could have—”
“Easily enough,” Drizzt had to agree.
“When can you free her of the trance?” Drizzt asked.
Jarlaxle glanced down at Danica, the monk seeming much more at ease, and he started to say, “Soon.” Before the word got out of his mouth, Danica’s hand shot up and grasped the dangling chain that held the ruby pendant. With a twist and turn that appeared so subtle and simple as she sat up from the wagon bed, she spun the startled Jarlaxle around and jerked the chain behind him, twisting it even more to hold the drow fast in a devastating chokehold.
“You were told never to
return, Jarlaxle Baenre,” Danica said, her mouth right beside the dark elf’s ear.
“Your gratitude overwhelms me, Lady,” the drow managed to gasp in reply.
He stiffened as Danica pulled and twisted. “Move your fingers a bit more into position to grasp a weapon, drow,” she coaxed. “I can snap your neck as easily as a dry twig.”
“A little help?” Jarlaxle whispered to Drizzt.
“Danica, let him go,” Drizzt said. “He is not our enemy. Not now.” Danica loosened her grip, just a bit, and stared skeptically at the ranger, then looked to Bruenor.
Drizzt nudged the silent dwarf.
“Good to meet ye at last, Lady Danica,” Bruenor said. “King Bruenor Battlehammer, at yer ser—” Drizzt elbowed him again.
“Aye, let the rat go,” Bruenor bade her. “‘Twas Jarlaxle that gived ye the potions that saved yer hide, and he’s been a help with me daughter there.”
Danica glanced from one to the other, then looked over at Catti-brie. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked as she released Jarlaxle, who shifted forward to get away from her.
“I never thought I would see Jarlaxle caught so easily,” Drizzt remarked.
“I share your surprise,” the mercenary admitted.
Drizzt smiled, briefly enjoying the moment. He came over the rail of the wagon then, stepping past Jarlaxle to go to Danica, who leaned against the tailgate.
“I’ll not underestimate that one again,” Jarlaxle promised quietly.
“You must get me to Spirit Soaring,” Danica said, and Drizzt nodded.
“That is where we were going,” he explained. “Catti-brie was touched by the falling Weave—some kind of blue fire. She is trapped within her own mind, it seems, and in a dark place of huddled, crawling creatures.”
Danica perked up at that description.
“You have seen them?” Jarlaxle remarked.
“Long-armed, short-legged—almost no-legged—gray-skinned beasts attacked Spirit Soaring in force last night,” she explained. “I was out scouting …” Her voice trailed off as she gave a great sigh.
“Ivan Bouldershoulder is dead,” she said. Bruenor cried out and Drizzt winced. From the side of the wagon, Thibbledorf Pwent wailed. “The dragon—a dracolich, an undead dragon … and something more …”
“A dracolich?” Jarlaxle said.
“Dead dragon walking—dead dragon talking, dead dragon furious, I’m thinking that curious!” Athrogate rhymed, and Thibbledorf Pwent nodded in appreciation, drawing a scowl from Bruenor.
A dumbfounded Danica stared at the bizarre Athrogate.
“You have to admit that one does not see a dracolich every day,” Jarlaxle deadpanned.
Danica seemed even more at a loss.
“Something stranger still, you mentioned?” Jarlaxle prompted.
“Its touch is death,” the monk explained. “I found it by following a trail of utter devastation, a complete withering of everything the beast had touched. Trees, grass, everything.”
“Never heared o’ such a thing,” said Bruenor.
“When I saw the beast, gigantic and terrible, I knew my guess to be correct. Its mere touch is death. It is death incarnate, and something more—a horn in its head, glowing with power,” Danica went on, her eyes closed as if she had to force herself to remember things she did not want to recall. “I think it was …”
“Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard,” said Jarlaxle, nodding with every word. “Yes.”
“That durned thing again,” Bruenor grumbled. “So there ye go, elf. Ye didn’t break it.”
“I did,” Jarlaxle corrected. “And that is part of the problem, I fear.” Bruenor just shook his hairy head.
Danica pointed to a tall peak not far behind them and to the north. “He controls them.” She looked directly at Jarlaxle. “I believe the dragon is Hephaestus, the great red wyrm whose breath destroyed the artifact, or so we thought.”
“It is indeed Hephaestus,” Jarlaxle assured her.
“Ye think ye might be tellin’ us what ye’re about anytime soon?” Bruenor grumbled.
“I already told you my fears,” Jarlaxle said. “The dragon and the liches, somehow freed of the prison artifact of their own creation—”
“The Crystal Shard,” said Danica, and she tapped her forehead. “Here, on the dracolich.”
“Joined by the magic of the collapsing Weave,” said Jarlaxle, “merged by the collision of worlds.”
Danica looked at him, incredulous.
“I know not either, Lady Danica,” Jarlaxle explained. “It’s all a guess. But this is all related, of that I am certain.” He looked at Catti-brie, her eyes wide open but unseeing. “Her affliction, these beasts, the dragon risen from the dead … all of it … all part of the same catastrophe, the breadth of which we still do not know.”
“And so we have come to find out,” said Drizzt. “To bring Catti-brie to Cadderly in the hope that he might help her.”
“And I’m thinking that ye’ll be needin’ our help, too,” Bruenor said to Danica.
Danica could only sigh and nod in helpless agreement. She glanced at the distant cliff, the lair of the dracolich and the Crystal Shard, the grave of Ivan Bouldershoulder. She tried not to look past that point, but she couldn’t help herself. She feared for her children.
CHAPTER 18
THE SEVERING
It was more than independent thought, Yharaskrik knew. It was independent desire.
Such a thing could not be tolerated. The seven liches that had created the Crystal Shard were represented by the singular power of Crenshinibon only. They had no say in the matter, and no opinions or wants that were pertinent.
But to the perceptive illithid, there was no missing the desire behind Fetchigrol’s request. The creature wasn’t acting purely on expediency or any compulsion to please its three masters joined as the Ghost King. Fetchigrol wanted something.
And Crenshinibon’s addition to the internal debate brewing within the Ghost King was nothing but supportive of the lich-turned-specter.
Yharaskrik telepathically appealed to Hephaestus to deny the lich, and tried to imbue a sense of the depth of his trepidation, but he had to walk a fine line, not wanting the Crystal Shard to recognize that concern.
The illithid couldn’t tell whether the dragon caught its subtle inflection of thought, or whether Hephaestus, still less than enamored with Yharaskrik, simply didn’t care. The dragon’s response came back in the form of eagerness, exactly as Fetchigrol had requested.
“How greatly might we tap the minions of the reformed Shadowfell before we cease to be their masters in this, our world?” Yharaskrik said aloud.
Hephaestus wrestled full control of the dracolich’s mouth to respond. “You fear these huddled lumps of flesh?”
“There is more to the Shadowfell than the crawlers,” Yharaskrik replied after a brief struggle to regain the use of the voice. “Better that we use the undead of our plane for our armies—their numbers are practically unlimited.”
“And they are ineffective!” the dracolich roared, shaking the stone of the chamber. “Mindless …”
“But controllable,” the illithid interrupted, the words twisting as both creatures fought for physical control.
“We are the Ghost King!” Hephaestus bellowed. “We are supreme.”
Yharaskrik started to fight back, but paused as he considered Fetchigrol standing before him and nodding. He could feel the satisfaction coming from the shadowy creature, and he knew that Crenshinibon had sided with Hephaestus, that permission had been given to Fetchigrol to fly back to Carradoon and raise a great army of crawlers to catch and slaughter those people who had fled into the tunnels.
The satisfaction of that creature! Why could not Hephaestus understand the danger in any independent emotions emanating from one of the seven? They were to have no satisfaction, other than in serving, but Fetchigrol was acting on his own personal ego, not a compulsion to serve the greater host. He had been shown up by So
lmé, who went to the Shadowfell to raise an army while Fetchigrol merely reanimated dead flesh to do his bidding. The escape of so many from Carradoon had added to that sense of failure in the specter, and so the creature was trying to rectify the situation.
But the specter should not have cared. Why could Hephaestus not understand that?
We are greater with competent generals, came a thought, and Yharaskrik knew it to be Crenshinibon, who would not speak aloud with the dragon’s voice. “They would not dare cross us,” Hephaestus agreed. Let us use their anger.
To what possible gain? Yharaskrik thought, but was careful to shield from the others. What gain would they garner by pursuing the fleeing Carradden? Why should any of them waste their moments concerned about the fate of refugees?
“Your caution grows wearying,” the dracolich said as Fetchigrol exited the cavern, bound for Carradoon. Yharaskrik’s initial recognition that it was Hephaestus speaking was given pause by the word choice and the timbre of the voice, reflecting more a reasoned remark than the bellow typical of Hephaestus. “Can we not simply destroy for the enjoyment of the act?”
The illithid had no physical body of its own, so it possessed no heels, but Yharaskrik surely fell back on its heels at that revealing moment. It had not adequately shielded its concerns from the other two. The mind flayer had no place to hide from …
From which?
The Ghost King, the mind of the dragon answered, reading every thought as if it were his own.
Yharaskrik understood at that moment that the bond between Hephaestus and Crenshinibon was tightening, that they were truly becoming one being, one mind.
The illithid couldn’t even begin to hide its fear that the same fate awaited it. As a mind flayer, Yharaskrik was well-versed in the notion of a hive mind—in its Underdark homeland, hundreds of its kind would join together in a common receptacle of intelligence and philosophy and theory-craft. But those were other illithids, equal beings of equal intelligence.
“And the Ghost King is greater than your kin,” the dracolich’s voice answered. “Is that your fear?”
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