The Ghost King (32 page)

Even with the turbulence of the wider world and the current problems with magic—the types of problems that had never really concerned the likes of Ivan Bouldershoulder, who trusted his muscle more than any waggling fingers—Ivan hadn’t been ready for the onslaught of the Ghost King. And he’d certainly not been ready for the intrusion that had overwhelmed him and stolen from him his very body. But for nearly the entire time he had been possessed, Ivan had studied his possessor. Rather than flail against an opaque wall he could not penetrate, the dwarf had bided his time, gathering what information he could, trying to take from his possessor even as it continued to rob him.

Thus, when Yharaskrik had released him on that high mountain plateau, Ivan was ready for the fight—or more accurately, for the flight. And the illithid had inadvertently shown him the way: a crack in the floor beneath the dracolich that was more than a crack, that was indeed a shaft leading down into the mountains and, Ivan had hoped, into the catacomb of tunnels that wound through the lower stones.

With nowhere else to go, and doom certain if he stayed above, Ivan had scrambled straight for that route, counting on surprise to get him past the crushing claws of the great beast.

To his good fortune, when the dragon’s foot had stomped, a host of the fleshy beasts had been right behind him, and the splatter and spray of flesh and gore and blood had provided wonderful cover for his desperate dive.

To his ultimate good fortune, the shaft had not run straight down for very far, gradually winding to the side and easing the impact as he connected with the dirt and stone. And it had widened, allowing him to twist in his descent and get his heavy boots out in front of him, digging them in against the slide. The last drop had hurt—twenty feet straight down with nothing but dark air around him as he broke through the roof of an underground chamber, but even there, the dwarf had found that extra bit of heroism, the one heroes only rarely discussed openly: good luck.

He had landed in water. It wasn’t very deep and wasn’t very clean, but it was enough to cushion his fall. He had lost his antlered helm up above but had retrieved his axe, and he was alive, and in a place where the monstrous dracolich couldn’t follow.

Luck had given him a chance.

Soon after, though, Ivan Bouldershoulder figured that his luck had run out.

For the rest of the day, he had wandered in the darkness, splashing, for he could find no dry land in the chamber, and no exit. He had felt some movement around his legs in the thigh-deep murk, and figured there might be some fish or some other crawly things in the underground pool, so maybe he could catch them and figure out a way to survive for some time.

Either way, he believed that he would surely die alone and miserable in the dark.

So be it.

Then the illithid had come calling, whispering into his subconscious, trying to pry its way back into control.

Ivan put up a wall of anger and sheer dwarven stubbornness that held the creature at bay, and he knew with confidence that he could hold it indefinitely, that he would not be possessed again.

“Go away, ye silly beast,” he said. He focused and concentrated on every word as he spoke. “What’d’ye want with me in here, where there’s no way out?”

It seemed a logical enough refutation. Indeed, what did the illithid have to gain?

But still the creature seeped into his thoughts, demanding control.

“What, can ye make me fly, then, ye fool?” Ivan shouted into the darkness. “Fly me back up to yer dead dragon and the little beasties ye so love?”

He felt the anger then, and the revulsion, and understood that he had caught the mind flayer a bit off its guard, though just for a fleeting moment.

Ivan let his own guard slip, just a bit.

He felt the other being inside his mind clearly then, striving for dominance. A wave of utter disgust nearly buckled the dwarf’s knees. But he held fast, and purposely lowered his guard just a bit more.

He was soon walking toward the northern end of the wide chamber. He could barely make out the boulders piled along that wall. Guided by Yharaskrik’s will, counting on the illithid having a wider view of his surroundings than he, the dwarf climbed up onto the lower stones. He pulled one aside and felt the slightest breeze, and as his eyes adjusted to the more intense gloom beyond, he saw that a long, wide tunnel lay before him.

Done with ye!
his thoughts screamed and Ivan Bouldershoulder began the fight of his life. He pushed back against the overwhelming intellect and willpower of the mind flayer with every measure of stubbornness and anger a dwarf could muster. He thought of his brother, of his clan, of King Bruenor, of Cadderly and Danica and the kids, of everything that made him who he was, that gave joy to his life and strength to his limbs.

He denied Yharaskrik. He screamed at Yharaskrik, aloud and in his every thought. He thrashed physically, hurling himself against the stones, tearing at the tunnel opening to widen it, ignoring the falling rocks that banged off his arms and shoulders. And he thrashed mentally as well, screaming at the wretched beast to be gone from his mind.

From
his
mind!

Such rage enveloped him that Ivan tore the rocks free with bloody fingers and felt no pain. Such strength accompanied that rage that he flung
the stones, some half his weight, far behind him to splash into the murky pool. And still he ignored the bruises and cuts, and the strain on his corded muscles. He let the rage take him fully and hold him, a wall of denial, a demand that the illithid get out.

The hole was wide enough to crawl through—wide enough for two Ivans to crawl through side by side—and still the dwarf dug at the stones with his battered hands, using that physical sensation to give focus to his rage.

He had no idea how long he went on like that, a few heartbeats or a few thousand, but finally, an exhausted Ivan Bouldershoulder fell through the opening and rolled into the tunnel. He landed flat on his face and lay there, gasping, for a long while.

Despite the pain, a wry grin widened on his hairy face, for Ivan knew that he was truly alone.

The tentacle-faced beast had been denied.

He slept, then, right there in the mud, amidst the stones, keeping himself mentally ready to fend off another intrusion and hoping that no wandering creature of the Underdark would find him and devour him as he lay exhausted and battered in the darkness.

* * * * *

Rorick dived to the floor, just under the clawing feet of a huge black bat. “Uncle Pikel!” he screamed, beseeching the druid to do something.

Pikel balled up his fist, pumped his arms, and stamped his feet in frustration, for he had nothing, nothing at all, to offer. Magic was gone—even his natural affinity with animals had flown. He thought back to only a few days earlier, when he had coaxed the roots out of the walls to secure the barricades—a temporary thing, apparently, since pursuit came from that direction. The dwarf knew he couldn’t reach that level of magic, perhaps not ever again, and his frustration played out, in that dark chamber deep beneath the Snowflakes.

“Ooooh!” he whined, and he stamped his sandaled feet harder. His whine became a growl as he saw the same bat that had sent Rorick diving for cover angle its wings and come around directly at him.

Pikel blamed the bat. It made no sense, of course, but none of it made a lot of sense to Pikel just then. So he blamed the bat. That bat. Only that bat. That one bat had caused the failure of magic, and had chased away his god.

He squatted and picked up his cudgel. It wasn’t enchanted anymore, no longer a magical shillelagh, but it was still a solid club, as the bat found out.

The black leathery thing swooped at Pikel, and the dwarf leaped and spun, launching the most powerful strike he had ever managed with his strong arm, even from the days when he had the use of both. The hard wood crunched against bat skull, shattering the bone.

The nightwing fell as surely as if a huge boulder had fallen upon it from on high, crashing down atop Pikel, the two of them rolling away in a tumble of dwarf and black bat.

Pikel head-butted and kicked with abandon. He bit and poked with his stubby arm. He swung his cudgel with short but heavy strokes, battering the creature relentlessly.

Nearby, a man screamed as a nightwing swooped in and caught him by the shoulders in its huge clawed feet, but Pikel didn’t hear it. Several others cried out, and a woman shrieked in horror when the bat flew straight for a wall and let loose its prey, hurling the poor man against the rocks, where his bones shattered with a sickening crackle.

Pikel didn’t hear it. He was still swinging his club and kicking with fury, though the bat that enwrapped him with those great wings was already dead.

“Get up, Uncle Pikel!” Hanaleisa yelled at him as she leaped past.

“Huh?” the dwarf replied, and he pulled one wing down from in front of his face and followed the sound to see Hanaleisa sprinting toward Rorick, who was still flat on the ground. Standing above him, Temberle cut his greatsword back and forth in long sweeping arcs above his head, trying to cut at a stubborn nightwing that fluttered up and down above him as if to taunt him. He couldn’t hit the agile bat.

But Hanaleisa did, leaping high into the air as she rushed past Temberle, somersaulting as she went to enhance the power of her kick. She kicked the bat solidly in the side, sending it several feet away as she tumbled over and landed, still in a run.

The nightwing turned its attention her way as it righted itself in the air, and swooped to give chase.

With that distraction, Temberle’s sword at last caught up to it, slashing a leathery wing back to front. The nightwing flopped weirdly in the air and fluttered down, and Hanaleisa and Temberle were upon it before it managed to get the wounded wing out from under itself.

Hanaleisa was the first to break away, calling out orders, trying to establish some measure of order and supporting lines of defense. But the whole of the wide chamber was in a frenzy, with nightwings fluttering all around them, with wounded men and woman, backs torn wide, one scalped by a raking claw, screaming and running and diving for cover.

A group of more than a dozen grabbed up all of the precious torches stored at the far end of the hall, at the mouth of a tunnel the group had planned to traverse after their rest stop, and went running away.

Others followed in the chaos.

Temberle knocked down another bat, and Hanaleisa matched him. Other nightwings swept out of the chamber in pursuit down the tunnels.

When it finally ended, just over a score of refugees remained, with three of those badly wounded.

“It won’t hold,” Hanaleisa said to her brothers and uncle as they gathered together their scant supplies and few remaining torches. “We need to find a way out of here.”

“Uh-uh!” Pikel emphatically disagreed.

“Then light your staff!” Hanaleisa yelled at him.

“Ooooh,” said the dwarf.

“Hana!” Rorick scolded.

The monk held forth her hands and took a deep breath, composing herself. “I’m sorry. But we need to move along, and quickly.”

“We cannot stay here,” Temberle agreed. “We need to get as close to Spirit Soaring as we can manage, and we need to get out of these tunnels.”

He looked at Pikel, but the dwarf just shrugged, hardly confident.

“We have no other option,” Temberle assured him.

A commotion behind them turned them around, and Rorick said, “The scout returns!”

They rushed to the fisherman, Alagist, and even in the torchlight, they could see that he was thoroughly shaken. “We feared you dead,” Hanaleisa said. “When the bats came in—”

“Forget the damned bats,” the man replied, and the punctuation of his sentence came as a thump from the distant corridor, like a rumble of thunder.

“What—?” Temberle and Rorick said together.

“A footstep,” Alagist said.

“Uh-oh,” said Pikel.

“What magic?” Hanaleisa asked the dwarf. “Uh-oh,” he repeated.

“Gather up the wounded!” Temberle called to all still in the chamber. “Take everything we can carry! We must be gone from this place!”

“He can’t be moved,” a woman called from beside an unconscious man.

“We have no choice,” Temberle said to her, rushing over to help.

The chamber shuddered under the reverberations of another heavy footstep.

The woman didn’t argue as Temberle hoisted the wounded man over one shoulder.

Pikel, torch in hand, led the way out of the chamber.

* * * * *

“Come on, then!” Ivan yelled into the darkness. “Not with yer head, ye damned squid, but all o’ ye! Come and play!” He didn’t have his axe, but he hoisted a pair of rocks and banged them together with enthusiasm bordering on murderous glee.

That physical manifestation of anger echoed the dwarf’s sheer rage, and once more, the intrusions of Yharaskrik faded to nothingness. If the illithid had come to him that time with any hope of possessing him again, Ivan believed with confidence, that delusion had come to an end.

But the dwarf was still alone, battered and bloody and lost in the dark, with no real expectation that there was a way out of those forever-twisting tunnels. He glanced over his shoulder to the watery cavern, and considered for a moment going back and trying to figure out a way in which he could survive on the fish, or whatever those swimming things might be. Could he somehow strain or heat the murky water enough to make it potable?

“Bah!” he snorted into the darkness, and decided that it was better to die trying than to simply exist in a dark and empty hole!

So off Ivan trudged, rocks in hands, a scowl on his face, and a wall of rage within him just looking for an outlet.

He walked for hours, often stumbling and tripping, for though his eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, he still had to feel his way along. He found many side passages, some that led to dead ends, and others he took simply because they “felt” more promising. Even with his dwarf’s senses, so at home underground, Ivan had little idea of where he actually was in relation to the
World Above, and even in relation to where he had first dropped down into the murky underground pond. With every turn, Ivan held his breath, hoping he wasn’t just going in circles.