Drizzt, also noticing the metallic glint, stepped back from Bruenor, trying to appear unmenacing to Whisper, though in reality, he wanted to get a better angle on some suspicious cracks that he had noticed in the wall—cracks that might be the edgings of a secret door.
Bruenor approached the woman with his empty arms outstretched. “If that be the price,” he grumbled, “then we have no choice but to pay. But I’ll be seein’ the map first!”
Confident that she could put her dagger into the dwarf’s eye before either of his hands could get back to his belt for a weapon, Whisper relaxed and moved her empty hand to the parchment under her cloak.
But she underestimated her opponent.
Bruenor’s stubby legs twitched, launching him up high enough to slam his helmet into the woman’s face, splattering her nose and knocking her head into the wall. He went for the map, dropping the original purse of gems onto Whisper’s limp form and muttering, “As we agreed.”
Drizzt, too, had sprung into motion. As soon as the dwarf flinched, he had called upon the innate magic of his heritage to conjure a globe of darkness in front of the window harboring the crossbowmen. No bolts came through, but the angered shouts of the two archers echoed throughout the alley.
Then the cracks in the wall split open, as Drizzt had anticipated, and Whisper’s second line of defense came rushing through. The drow was prepared, scimitars already in his hands. The blades flashed, blunt sides only, but with enough precision to disarm the burly rogue that stepped out. Then they came in again, slapping the man’s face, and in the same fluidity of motion, Drizzt reversed the angle, slamming one pommel, and then the other, into the man’s temples. By the time Bruenor had turned around with the map, the way was clear before them.
Bruenor examined the drow’s handiwork with true admiration.
Then a crossbow quarrel ticked into the wall just an inch from his head.
“Time to go,” Drizzt observed.
“The end’ll be blocked, or I’m a bearded gnome,” Bruenor said as they neared the exit to the alley. A growling roar in the building beside them, followed by terrified screams, brought them some comfort.
“Guenhwyvar,” Drizzt stated, as two cloaked men burst out into the street before them and fled without looking back.
“Sure that I’d forgotten all about that cat!” cried Bruenor.
“Be glad that Guenhwyvar’s memory is greater than your own,” laughed Drizzt, and Bruenor, despite his feelings for the cat, laughed with him. They halted at the end of the alley and scouted the street. There were no signs of any trouble, though the heavy fog provided good cover for a possible ambush.
“Take it slow,” Bruenor offered. “We’ll draw less attention.”
Drizzt would have agreed, but then a second quarrel, launched from somewhere down the alley, knocked into a wooden beam between them.
“Time to go!” Drizzt stated more decisively, though Bruenor needed no further encouragement, his little legs already pumping wildly as he sped off into the fog.
They made their way through the twists and turns of Luskan’s rat maze, Drizzt gracefully gliding over any rubble barriers and Bruenor simply crashing through them. Presently, they grew confident that there was no pursuit, and they changed their pace to an easy glide.
The white of a smile showed through the dwarf’s red beard as he kept a satisfied eye cocked over his shoulder. But when he turned back to view the road before him, he suddenly dove down to the side, scrambling to find his axe.
He had come face up with the magical cat.
Drizzt couldn’t contain his laughter.
“Put the thing away!” Bruenor demanded.
“Manners, good dwarf,” the drow shot back. “Remember that, Guenhwyvar cleared our escape trail.”
“Put it away!” Bruenor declared again, his axe swinging at the ready.
Drizzt stroked the powerful cat’s muscled neck. “Do not heed his words, friend,” he said to the cat. “He is a dwarf, and cannot appreciate the finer magics!”
“Bah!” Bruenor snarled, though he breathed a bit easier as Drizzt dismissed the cat and replaced the onyx statue in his pouch.
The two came upon Half-Moon Street a short while later, stopping in a final alley to look for any signs of ambush. They knew at once that there had been trouble, for several injured men stumbled, or were carried, past the alley’s entrance.
Then they saw the Cutlass, and two familiar forms sitting on the street out in front.
“What’re ye doin’ out here?” Bruenor asked as they approached.
“Seems our big friend answers insults with punches,” said Regis, who hadn’t been touched in the fray. Wulfgar’s face, though, was puffy and bruised, and he could barely open one eye. Dried blood, some of it his own, caked his fists and clothes.
Drizzt and Bruenor looked at each other, not too surprised.
“And our rooms?” Bruenor grumbled.
Regis shook his head. “I doubt it.”
“And my coins?”
Again the halfling shook his head.
“Bah!” snorted Bruenor, and he stamped off toward the door of the Cutlass.
“I wouldn’t…” Regis started, but then he shrugged and decided to let Bruenor find out for himself.
Bruenor’s shock was complete when he opened the tavern door. Tables, glass, and unconscious patrons lay broken all about the floor. The innkeeper slumped over one part of the shattered bar, a barmaid wrapping his bloodied head in bandages. The man Wulfgar had implanted into the wall still hung limply by the back of his head, groaning softly, and Bruenor couldn’t help but chuckle at the handiwork of the mighty barbarian. Every now and then, one of the barmaids, passing by the man as she cleaned, gave him a little push, taking amusement at his swaying.
“Good coins wasted,” Bruenor surmised, and he walked back out the door before the innkeeper noticed him and set the barmaids upon him.
“Hell of a row!” he told Drizzt when he returned to his companions. “Everyone in on it?”
“All but one,” Regis answered. “A soldier.”
“A soldier of Luskan, down here?” asked Drizzt, surprised by the obvious inconsistency.
Regis nodded. “And even more curious,” he continued, “it was the same guard, Jierdan, that let us into the city.” Drizzt and Bruenor exchanged concerned looks.
“We’ve killers at our backs, a busted inn before us, and a soldier paying us more mind than he should,” said Bruenor.
“Time to go,” Drizzt responded for the third time.
Wulfgar looked at him incredulously. “How many men did you down tonight?” Drizzt asked him, putting the logical assumption of danger right out before him. “And how many of them would drool at the opportunity to put a blade in your back?”
“Besides,” added Regis before Wulfgar could answer, “I’ve no desire to share a bed in an alley with a host of rats!”
“Then to the gate,” said Bruenor.
Drizzt shook his head. “Not with a guard so interested in us. Over the wall, and let none know of our passing.”
* * *
An hour later, they were trotting easily across the open grass, feeling the wind again beyond the break of Luskan’s wall.
Regis summed up their thoughts, saying, “Our first night in our first city, and we’ve betrayed killers, fought down a host of ruffians, and caught the attention of the city guard. An auspicious beginning to our journey!”
“Aye, but we’ve got this!” cried Bruenor, fairly bursting with anticipation of finding his homeland now that the first obstacle, the map, had been overcome.
Little did he or his friends know, however, that the map he clutched so dearly detailed several deadly regions, one in particular that would test the four friends to their limits—and beyond.
4. The Conjuring
A landmark of wonder marked the very center of the City of Sails, a strange building that emanated a powerful aura of magic. Unlike any other structure in all the Forgotten Re
alms, the Hosttower of the Arcane seemed literally a tree of stone, boasting five tall spires, the largest being the central, and the other four, equally high, growing out of the main trunk with the graceful curving arc of an oak. Nowhere could any sign of the mason be seen; it was obvious to any knowledgeable viewer that magic, not physical labor, had produced this artwork.
The Archmage, undisputed Master of the Hosttower, resided in the central tower, while the other four housed the wizards closest in the line of succession. Each of these lesser towers, representing the four compass directions, dominated a different side of the trunk, and its respective wizard held responsibility for watching over and influencing the events in the direction he overlooked. Thus, the wizard west of the trunk spent his days looking out to sea, and to the merchant ships and pirates riding out on Luskan’s harbor.
A conversation in the north spire would have interested the companions from Ten-Towns this day.
“You have done well, Jierdan,” said Sydney, a younger, and lesser, mage in the Hosttower, though displaying enough potential to have gained an apprenticeship with one of the mightiest wizards in the guild. Not a pretty woman, Sydney cared little for physical appearances, instead devoting her energies to her unrelenting pursuit of power. She had spent most of her twenty-five years working toward one goal—the title of Wizard—and her determination and poise gave most around her little doubt about her ability to attain it.
Jierdan accepted the praise with a knowing nod, understanding the condescending manner in which it was offered. “I only performed as I was instructed,” he replied under a facade of humility, tossing a glance to the frail-looking man in brown mottled robes who stood staring out of the room’s sole window.
“Why would they come here?” the wizard whispered to himself. He turned to the others, and they recoiled instinctively from his gaze. He was Dendybar the Mottled, Master of the North Spire, and though he appeared weak from a distance, closer scrutiny revealed a power in the man mightier than bulging muscles. And his well-earned reputation for valuing life far less than the pursuit of knowledge intimidated most who came before him. “Did the travelers give any reason for coming here?”
“None that I would believe,” Jierdan replied quietly. “The halfling spoke of scouting out the marketplace, but I—”
“Not likely,” interrupted Dendybar, speaking more to himself than to the others. “Those four weigh more into their actions than simply a merchant expedition.”
Sydney pressed Jierdan, seeking to keep her high favor with the Master of the North Spire. “Where are they now?” she demanded.
Jierdan didn’t dare fight back against her in front of Dendybar. “On the docks…somewhere,” he said, then shrugged.
“You do not know?” hissed the young mage.
“They were to stay at the Cutlass,” Jierdan retorted. “But the fight put them out on the street.”
“And you should have followed them!” Sydney scolded, dogging the soldier relentlessly.
“Even a soldier of the city would be a fool to travel alone about the piers at night,” Jierdan shot back. “It does not matter where they are right now. I have the gates and the piers watched. They cannot leave Luskan without my knowledge!”
“I want them found!” Sydney ordered, but then Dendybar silenced her.
“Leave the watch as it is,” he told Jierdan. “They must not depart without my knowledge. You are dismissed. Come before me again when you have something to report.”
Jierdan snapped to attention and turned to leave, casting one final glare at his competitor for the mottled wizard’s favor as he passed. He was only a soldier, not a budding mage like Sydney, but in Luskan, where the Hosttower of the Arcane was the true, secretive force behind all of the power structures in the city, a soldier did well to find the favor of a wizard. Captains of the guard only attained their positions and privileges with the prior consent of the Hosttower.
“We cannot allow them to roam freely,” argued Sydney when the door had closed behind the departing soldier.
“They shall bring no harm for now,” replied Dendybar. “Even if the drow carries the artifact with him, it will take him years to understand its potential. Patience, my friend, I have ways of learning what we need to know. The pieces of this puzzle will fit together nicely before much longer.”
“It pains me to think that such power is so close to our grasp,” sighed the eager young mage. “And in the possession of a novice!”
“Patience,” repeated the Master of the North Spire.
* * *
Sydney finished lighting the ring of candles that marked the perimeter of the special chamber and moved slowly toward the solitary brazier that stood on its iron tripod just outside the magic circle inscribed upon the floor. It disappointed her to know that once the brazier was also burning, she would be instructed to depart.
Savoring every moment in this rarely opened room, considered by many to be the finest conjuring chamber in all the northland, Sydney had many times begged to remain in attendance.
But Dendybar never let her stay, explaining that her inevitable inquiries would prove too much of a distraction. And when dealing with the nether worlds, distractions usually proved fatal.
Dendybar sat cross-legged within the magic circle, chanting himself into a deep meditative trance and not even aware of Sydney’s actions as she completed the preparations. All of his senses looked inward, searching his own being, to ensure that he was fully prepared for such a task. He had left only one window in his mind open to the outside, a fraction of his awareness hinging on a single cue: the bolt of the heavy door being snapped back into place after Sydney had departed.
His heavy eyelids cracked open, their narrow line of vision solely fixed upon the fires of the brazier. These flames would be the life of the summoned spirit, giving it a tangible form for the period Dendybar kept it locked to the material plane.
“Ey vesus venerais dimin doer,” the wizard began, chanting slowly at first, then building into a solid rhythm. Swept away by the insistent pull of the casting, as though the spell, once given a flicker of life, drove itself to the completion of its dweomer, Dendybar rolled on through the various inflections and arcane syllables with ease, the sweat on his face reflecting eagerness more than nerves.
The mottled wizard reveled in summoning, dominating the will of beings beyond the mortal world through the sheer insistence of his considerable mental strength. This room represented the pinnacle of his studies, the indisputable evidence of the vast boundaries of his powers.
This time he was targeting his favorite informant, a spirit that truly despised him, but could not refuse his call. Dendybar came to the climactic point in the casting, the naming. “Morkai,” he called softly.
The brazier’s flame brightened for just an instant.
“Morkai!” Dendybar shouted, tearing the spirit from its hold on the other world. The brazier puffed into a small fireball, then died into blackness, its flames transmuted into the image of a man standing before Dendybar.
The wizard’s thin lips curled upward. How ironic, he thought, that the man he had arranged to murder would prove to be his most valuable source of information.
The specter of Morkai the Red stood resolute and proud, a fitting image of the mighty wizard he had once been. He had created this very room back in the days when he served the Hosttower in the role of Master of the North Spire. But then Dendybar and his cronies had conspired against him, using his trusted apprentice to drive a dagger into his heart, and thus opening the trail of succession for Dendybar himself to reach the coveted position in the spire.
That same act had set a second, perhaps more significant, chain of events into motion, for it was that same apprentice, Akar Kessell, who had eventually come to possess the Crystal Shard, the mighty artifact that Dendybar now believed in Drizzt Do’Urden’s hands. The tales that had filtered down from Ten-Towns of Akar Kessell’s final battle had named the dark elf as the warrior who had brought him down
.
Dendybar could not know that the Crystal Shard now lay buried beneath a hundred tons of ice and rock on the mountain in Icewind Dale known as Kelvin’s Cairn, lost in the avalanche that had killed Kessell. All that he knew of the tale was that Kessell, the puny apprentice, had nearly conquered all of Icewind Dale with the Crystal Shard and that Drizzt Do’Urden was the last to see Kessell alive.
Dendybar wrung his hands eagerly whenever he thought of the power that the relic would bring to a more learned wizard.
“Greetings, Morkai the Red,” Dendybar laughed. “How polite of you to accept my invitation.”
“I accept every opportunity to gaze upon you, Dendybar the Assassin,” replied the specter. “I shall know you well when you ride Death’s barge into the darkened realm. Then we shall be on even terms again…”
“Silence!” Dendybar commanded. Though he would not admit the truth to himself, the mottled wizard greatly feared the day when he would have to face the mighty Morkai again. “I have brought you here for a purpose,” he told the specter. “I have no time for your empty threats.”
“Then tell me the service I am to perform,” hissed the specter, “and let me be gone. Your presence offends me.”
Dendybar fumed, but did not continue the argument. Time worked against a wizard in a spell of summoning, for it drained him to hold a spirit on the material plane, and each second that passed weakened him a little bit more. The greatest danger in this type of spell was that the conjuror would attempt to hold control for too long, until he found himself too weak to control the entity he had summoned.
“A simple answer is all that I require from you this day, Morkai,” Dendybar said, carefully selecting each word as he went. Morkai noted the caution and suspected that Dendybar was hiding something.
“Then what is the question?” the specter pressed.
Dendybar held to his cautious pace, considering every word before he spoke it. He did not want Morkai to get any hint of his motives in seeking the drow, for the specter would surely pass the information across the planes. Many powerful beings, perhaps even the spirit of Morkai himself, would go after such a powerful relic if they had any idea of the shard’s whereabouts.
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