The Ghost King (9 page)

But leaving his daughter there on her bed was one of the toughest things Bruenor Battlehammer had ever done. To the dwarf’s great relief, after ensuring that the woman was sleeping soundly, Drizzt went out with him, leaving the reliable Regis to watch over her.

* * * * *

The black-bearded dwarf stood in line, third from the front, trying to remember his lines. He was an emissary, a formal representative to a king’s
court. It was not a new situation to Athrogate, for he had once lived a life that included daily audiences with regional leaders. Once, long ago.

“Don’t rhyme,” he warned himself quietly, for as Jarlaxle had pointed out, any of his silly word games would likely tip off Drizzt Do’Urden to the truth about the disguised dwarf. He cleared his throat loudly, wishing he had his morningstars with him, or some other weapon that might get him out of there if his true identity were discovered.

The first representative had his audience with the dwarf king and moved out of the way.

Athrogate rehearsed his lines again, telling himself that it was really simple, assuring himself that Jarlaxle had prepared him well. He went through the routine over and over.

“Come forward, then, fellow dwarf,” King Bruenor said, startling Athrogate. “I’ve too much to do to be sittin’ here waitin’!”

Athrogate looked at the seated Bruenor, then at Drizzt Do’Urden, who stood behind the throne. As he locked gazes with Drizzt, he saw a hint of recognition, for they had matched weapons eight years before, during the fall of Deudermont’s Luskan.

If Drizzt saw through his disguise, the drow hid it well.

“Well met, King Bruenor, for all the tales I heared of ye,” Athrogate greeted enthusiastically, coming forward to stand before the throne. “I’m hopin’ that ye’re not put out by me coming to see yerself directly, but if I’m returning to me kinfolk without having had me say to yerself, then suren they’d be chasing me out!”

“And where might home be, good …?”

“Stuttgard,” Athrogate replied. “Stuttgard o’ the Stone Hills Stuttgard Clan.”

Bruenor looked at him curiously and shook his head.

“South o’ the Snowflakes, long south o’ here,” the dwarf bluffed.

“I am afraid that I know not of yer clan, or yer Stone Hills,” said Bruenor. He glanced at Drizzt, who shrugged and shook his head.

“Well, we heared o’ yerself,” Athrogate replied. “Many’re the songs o’ Mithral Hall sung in the Stone Hills!”

“Good to know,” Bruenor replied, then he prompted the emissary with a rolling motion of his hand, obviously in a rush to be done with the formalities. “And ye’re here to offer trade, perhaps? Or to set the grounds for an alliance?”

“Nah,” said Athrogate. “Just a dwarf walkin’ the world and wantin’ to meet King Bruenor Battlehammer.”

The dwarf king nodded. “Very well. And ye’re wishing to remain with us in Mithral Hall for some time?”

Athrogate shrugged. “Was heading east, to Adbar,” he said. “Got some family there. I was hopin’ to come to Mithral Hall on me return back to the west, and not plannin’ to stop through now. But on the road, I heared whispers about yer girl.”

That perked Bruenor up, and the drow behind him as well.

“What of me girl?” Bruenor asked, suspicion thick in his voice.

“Heared on the road that she got touched by the falling Weave o’ magic.”

“Ye heared that, did ye?”

“Aye, King Bruenor, so I thought I should come through as fast as me short legs’d be taking me.”

“Ye’re a priest, then?”

“Nah, just a scrapper.”

“Then why? What? Have ye anything to offer me, Stuttgard o’ the Stone Hills?” Bruenor said, clearly agitated.

“A name, and one I think ye’re knowin’,” said Athrogate. “Human name o’ Cadderly.”

Bruenor and Drizzt exchanged glances, then both stared hard at the visitor.

“His place’s not too far from me home,” Athrogate explained. “I went right through it on me way here, o’ course. Oh, but he’s got a hunnerd wizards and priests in there now, all trying to get what’s what, if ye get me meaning.”

“What about him?” Bruenor asked, obviously trying to remain calm but unable to keep the urgency out of his tone—or out of his posture, as he leaned forward in his throne.

“He and his been workin’ on the problems,” Athrogate explained. “I thinked ye should know that more’n a few that been brain-touched by the Weave’ve gone in there, and most’ve come out whole.”

Bruenor leaped up from his seat. “Cadderly is curing those rendered foolish by the troubles?”

Athrogate shrugged. “I thinked ye’d want to be knowin’.”

Bruenor turned fast to Drizzt.

“A month and more of hard travel,” the drow warned.

“Magical items’re working,” Bruenor replied. “We got the wagon me boys’re building for Silverymoon journeys. We got the zephyr shoes …”

Drizzt’s eyes lit up at the reference, for indeed the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer had been working on a solution to their isolation, even before the onset of magical afflictions. Without the magical teleportation of their neighboring cities, or creations of magic like Lady Alustriel’s flying chariots of fire, the dwarves had taken to a more mundane solution, constructing a wagon strong enough to handle the bumps and stones of treacherous terrain. They had sought out magical assistance for teams that might be pulling the vehicle.

The drow was already starting off the dais before Bruenor could finish his sentence. “On my way,” Drizzt said.

“Can I wish ye all me best, King Bruenor?” Athrogate asked.

“Stuttgard o’ the Stone Hills,” Bruenor repeated, and he turned to the court scribe. “Write it down!”

“Aye, me king!”

“And know that if me girl finds peace in Spirit Soaring, that I’ll be visiting yer clan, good friend,” Bruenor said, looking back to Athrogate. “And know that ye’re fore’er a friend o’ Mithral Hall. Ye stay as long as ye’re wantin’, and all costs fall to meself! But beggin’ yer pardon, the time’s for me to be goin’.”

He bowed fast and was running out of the room before Athrogate could even offer his thanks in reply.

* * * * *

Full of energy and enthusiasm for the first time in a few long days, the hope-filled Drizzt and Bruenor charged down the hall toward Catti-brie’s door. They slowed abruptly as they neared, seeing the sizzling purple and blue streaks of energy slipping through the cracks in the door.

“Bah, not again!” Bruenor groaned. He beat Drizzt to the door and shoved it open.

There was Catti-brie, standing in mid air above the bed, her arms out to her sides, her eyes rolled to white, trembling, trembling….

“Me girl …” Bruenor started to say, but he bit back the words when he noted Regis against the far wall, curled up on the floor, his arms over his head.

“Elf!” Bruenor cried, but Drizzt was already running to Catti-brie, grabbing her and pulling her down to the bed. Bruenor grumbled and cursed and rushed over to Regis.

Catti-brie’s stiffness melted as the fit ended, and she fell limp into Drizzt’s arms. He eased her down to a sitting position and hugged her close, and only then did he notice the desperate Regis.

The halfling flailed wildly at Bruenor, slapping the dwarf repeatedly and squirming away from Bruenor’s reaching hands. Clearly terrified, he seemed to be looking not at the dwarf, but at some great monster.

“Rumblebelly, what’re ye about?” Bruenor asked.

Regis screamed into the dwarf’s face in response, a primal explosion of sheer terror. As Bruenor fell back, the halfling scrambled away, rising up to his knees, then to his feet. He ran headlong, face-first, into the opposite wall. He bounced back and fell with a groan.

“Oh, by the gods,” said Bruenor, and he reached down and scooped something up from the floor. He turned to Drizzt and presented the item for the drow to see.

It was the halfling’s ruby pendant, the enchanted gemstone that allowed Regis to cast charms upon unwitting victims.

Regis recovered from his self-inflicted wallop and leaped to his feet. He screamed again and ran past Bruenor, flailing his arms insanely. When Bruenor tried to intercept him, the halfling slapped him and punched him, pinched him and even bit him, and all the while Bruenor called to him, but Regis seemed not to hear a word. The dwarf might as well have been a demon or devil come to eat the little one for dinner.

“Elf!” Bruenor called. Then he yelped and fell back, clutching his bleeding hand.

Regis sprinted for the door. Drizzt beat him there, hitting him with a flying tackle that sent them both into a roll into the hall. In that somersault, Drizzt deftly worked his hands so that when they settled, he was behind Regis, his legs clamped around the halfling’s waist, his arms knifed under Regis’s, turning and twisting expertly to tie the little one in knots.

There was no way for Regis to break out, to hit Drizzt, or to squirm away from him. But that hardly slowed his frantic gyrations, and didn’t stop him from screaming insanely.

The hallway began to fill with curious dwarves.

“Ye got a pin stuck in the little one’s arse, elf?” one asked.

“Help me with him!” Drizzt implored.

The dwarf came over and reached for Regis, then quickly retracted his hand when the halfling tried to bite it. “What in the Nine Hells?”

“Just ye take him!” Bruenor yelled from inside the room. “Ye take him and tie him down—and don’t ye be hurting him!”

“Yes, me king!”

It took a long time, but finally the dwarves dragged the thrashing Regis away from Drizzt.

“I could slug him and put him down quiet,” one offered, but Drizzt’s scowl denied that course of action.

“Take him to his chamber and keep him safe,” the drow said. He went back into the room, closing the door behind him.

“She didn’t even notice,” Bruenor explained as Drizzt sat on the bed beside Catti-brie. “She’s not knowing the world around her.”

“We knew that,” Drizzt reminded.

“Not even a bit! Nor’s the little one now.”

Drizzt shrugged. “Cadderly,” he reminded the dwarf king.

“For both o’ them,” said the dwarf, and he looked at the door. “Rumblebelly used the ruby on her.”

“To try to reach her,” Drizzt agreed.

“But she reached him instead,” the dwarf said.

I
t will be at Spirit Soaring,” the Ghost King proclaimed. The specter chasing Jarlaxle had worked out the drow’s intentions even before the clever dark elf’s dastardly trick had sent the creature on its extra-planar journey. And anything the specters knew, so knew the dracolich.

The enemies of Hephaestus, Yharaskrik, and mostly of Crenshinibon would congregate there, in the Snowflake Mountains, where a pair of the Ghost King’s specters were already causing mischief.

Then there would be only one more, the human southerner. The Crystal Shard knew he could be found, though not as easily as Jarlaxle. After all, Crenshinibon had shared an intimate bond with the dark elf for many tendays. With Yharaskrik’s psychic powers added to the shard’s, locating the familiar drow had proven as simple as it was necessary. Jarlaxle had become the focus of anger that served to bring the trio of mighty beings together, united in common cause. The human, however tangential, would be revealed soon enough.

Besides, to at least one of the three vengeful entities—the dragon—the coming catastrophe would be enjoyable.

To Yharaskrik, the destruction of its enemies would be practical and informative, a worthy test for the uncomfortable but likely profitable unification.

And Crenshinibon, which served as conduit between the wildly passionate dragon and the ultimately practical mind flayer, would share in all
the sensations the destruction of Jarlaxle and the others would bring to both of them.

* * * * *

“Uncle Pikel!” Hanaleisa called when she saw the green-bearded dwarf on a street in Carradoon late the next morning. He was dressed in his traveling gear, which meant that he carried a stick and had a cooking pot strapped on his head as a helmet.

Pikel flashed her a big smile and called into the shop behind him. As the dwarf advanced to give Hanaleisa a great hug, Hanaleisa’s younger brother Rorick exited the shop.

“What are you doing here?” she called over Pikel’s shoulder as her grinning sibling approached.

“I told you I wanted to come along.”

“Then spent the rest of the morning arguing with wizards about the nature of the cosmos,” Hanaleisa replied.

“Doo-dad!” Pikel yelled, pulling back from the young woman, and when both she and Rorick looked at him curiously, he just added, “Hee hee hee.”

“He has it all figured out,” Rorick explained, and Hanaleisa nodded.

“And do the wizards and priests have it all figured out as well?” Hanaleisa asked. “Because of your insights, I mean?”

Rorick looked down.

“They kicked you out,” Hanaleisa reasoned.

“Because they couldn’t stand to be upstaged by our little brother, no doubt!” greeted Temberle, rounding the corner from the blacksmith he’d just visited. His greatsword had taken a nasty nick the previous night when bouncing off the collarbone of the undead bear.

Rorick brightened a bit at that, but when he looked up at his brother and sister, an expression of confusion came over him. “What happened?” he asked, noting that Temberle had his greatsword in hand and was examining the blade.