The Ghost King t-3

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  “No,” Cadderly replied. “I have not found any new magic. It has found me. I can’t even begin to explain it, and so how can I claim ownership of it? I know not from where it comes, or if it will be there when I need it in the next crisis.”

  “Let us hope,” said Jarlaxle.

  Outside the room’s south window came a commotion, horses whinnying and men calling out orders.

  “They’re all leaving,” Jarlaxle said. “Even your friend Ginance.”

  “I told her to go,” said Cadderly. “This is not her fight.”

  “You would flee, too, if you could,” Jarlaxle gathered from his tone.

  With a heavy sigh, Cadderly stood up and walked to the window to glance at the activity in the courtyard. “This battle has confirmed an old fear,” he explained. “When I built Spirit Soaring, weaving the magic Deneir allowed to flow through this mere mortal coil, it aged me. As the cathedral neared completion, I became an old man.”

  “We had already said our farewells,” Danica added.

  “I thought I had reached the end of my life, and that was acceptable to me, for I had fulfilled my duty to my god.” He paused and looked at Jarlaxle curiously. “Are you religious?” he asked.

  “The only deity I grew up knowing was one I would have preferred not to know,” the drow answered.

  “You are more worldly than that,” said Cadderly.

  “No,” Jarlaxle answered. “I follow no particular god. I thought to interview them first, to see what paradise they might offer when at last I have left this life.”

  Danica crinkled her face at that, but Cadderly managed a laugh. “Always a quip from Jarlaxle.”

  “Because I do not consider the question a serious one.”

  “No?” Cadderly asked with exaggerated surprise. “What could be more serious than discovering that which is in your heart?”

  “I know what is in my heart. Perhaps I simply do not feel the need to find a name for it.”

  Cadderly laughed again. “I would be a liar if I told you I didn’t understand.”

  “I would be a liar if I bothered to answer your ignorance. Or a fool.”

  “Jarlaxle is no fool,” Danica cut in, “but of the former charge, I reserve judgment.”

  “You wound me to my heart, Lady Danica,” said the drow, but his grin was wide, and Danica couldn’t resist a smile.

  “Why haven’t you left?” Cadderly asked bluntly. It was that question, Jarlaxle knew, that was the reason he’d been asked to join the couple. “The road is clear and our situation seems near to hopeless, and yet you remain.”

  “Young man …”

  “Not so young,” Cadderly corrected.

  “By my standards, you will be young when you have passed your one-hundredth birthday, and young still when you have spent another century rotting in the ground,” said Jarlaxle. “But to the point, I have nowhere to run that this Ghost King cannot find me. It found me in the north, outside of Mirabar. And as it found me, I knew it would find you.”

  “And Artemis Entreri?” Danica asked, to which Jarlaxle shrugged.

  “Years have passed since I last spoke with him.”

  “So you came here hoping that I would have an answer to your dilemma,” said Cadderly.

  Again the drow shrugged. “Or that we might work together to find a solution to our common problem,” he answered. “And I did not come without powerful allies to our cause.”

  “And you feel no guilt in involving Drizzt, Bruenor, Catti-brie, and that Pwent creature in such a desperate struggle?” Danica asked. “You would march them to near-certain doom?”

  “Apparently I have more faith in us than you do, Lady,” Jarlaxle quipped, and turned to Cadderly. “I was not disingenuous when I proposed to Bruenor and Drizzt that they would do well in bringing Catti-brie to this place. I knew that many of the great minds of our time had no doubt come to Spirit Soaring in search of answers—and what could provide a greater clue to the reality that has descended upon us than the affliction of Catti-brie? Even regarding the Ghost King, I believe it is all connected—more so now that Drizzt has told us that she is watching the beast in that other world in which her mind is trapped.”

  “They are connected,” Cadderly agreed, speaking before Danica could respond. “Both are manifestations of the same catastrophe.”

  “In one, we may find clues to the other,” said Jarlaxle. “We already have! Thank your god that Catti-brie was here, that we could discern the truth of the Ghost King’s defeat, and know that the beast would return.”

  “If I could find my god, I would thank him,” Cadderly replied dryly. “But you are correct, of course. So now we know, Jarlaxle. The beast will return, whole, angry, and wiser than in our first battle. Do you intend to remain to battle it again?”

  “Such a course offers me the best chance to prevail, I expect, and so yes, good sir Cadderly, with your permission, I and my dwarf companion would like to stand beside you for that next battle.”

  “Granted,” Danica said, cutting Cadderly short, and when she looked at him, he flashed her a smile of appreciation. “But do you have any ideas? They say you are a clever one.”

  “You have not witnessed enough of me to come to that conclusion on your own?” Jarlaxle said to her, and he patted his heart as if she had wounded him profoundly.

  “Not really, no,” she replied.

  Jarlaxle burst out in laughter, but only briefly. “We must kill it quickly—that much is obvious,” he said. “I see no way to hinder its ability to walk between the worlds, and so we must defeat it abruptly and completely.”

  “We struck at it with every magic I could manage,” said Cadderly. “I merely hope to be able to replicate some of those spells—I hold no illusions that there are greater powers to access.”

  “There are other ways,” Jarlaxle said, and he nodded his chin toward Cadderly’s hand crossbow and bandolier.

  “I shot it repeatedly,” Cadderly reminded him.

  “And a hundred bees might sting a man to little effect,” the drow replied. “But I have been to a desert where the bees were the size of a man. Trust me when I tell you that you would not wish to feel the sting of but one of those.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Danica.

  “My companion, Athrogate, is a clever one, and King Bruenor more so than he,” Jarlaxle replied.

  “Would that Ivan Bouldershoulder were still with us!” said Cadderly, his tone more full of hope than of lament.

  “Siege weapons? A ballista?” Danica asked, and Jarlaxle shrugged again.

  “Drizzt, Bruenor, and his battlerager will remain as well,” Jarlaxle informed Cadderly, and the drow stood up from his chair. “Ginance and some others offered to take Catti-brie away, but Drizzt refused.” He looked Cadderly directly in the eye as he added, “They don’t intend to lose.”

  “Catti-brie should have been allowed to go,” said Danica.

  “No,” Cadderly replied, and when both looked at him, they saw him staring out the window. Danica could see that he was suddenly deep in thought. “We need her,” he said in a tone that revealed him to be certain of his claim, though not yet sure why.

  * * * * *

  “Copper for yer thoughts, elf,” Bruenor said. He moved behind Drizzt, who stood on a balcony overlooking the courtyard of Spirit Soaring, staring out at the ruined forest where the dracolich had passed.

  Drizzt glanced back at him and acknowledged him with a nod, but didn’t otherwise reply—just gazed into the distance.

  “Ah, me girl,” Bruenor whispered, moving up beside him, for how could Drizzt be thinking of anything else? “Ye think she’s lost to us.”

  Still Drizzt didn’t reply.

  “I should smack ye one for losing faith in her, elf,” Bruenor said.

  Drizzt looked at him again, and he withered under that honest gaze, the level of the dwarf’s own confidence overwhelming his bluster.

  “Then why’re we stayin’?” Bruenor managed to ask, a last gas
p of defiance to the drow’s irresistible reasoning.

  Drizzt wore a puzzled look.

  “If not for bringing me girl back, then why’re we staying here?” Bruenor clarified.

  “You would leave a friend in need?”

  “Why’re we keepin’ her here, then?” Bruenor went on. “Why not put her on one o’ them wagons rolling away, bound for a safer place?”

  “I don’t believe half of them will make it out of the forest alive.”

  “Bah, that’s not what ye’re thinking!” Bruenor scolded. “Ye’re thinking that we’ll find a way. That as we kill this dragon thing, we’ll also find a way to get me girl back. It’s what ye’re thinking, elf, and don’t ye lie to me.”

  “It is what I’m hoping,” Drizzt admitted, “not thinking. The two are not the same. Hoping against reason.”

  “Not so much, else ye wouldn’t keep her here, where we’re all likely to die.”

  “Is there a safe place in all the world?” Drizzt asked. “And something else. When the dracolich began to shift to the other plane, Guenhwyvar fled.”

  “Smart cat would’ve run off long before that,” said Bruenor.

  “Guenhwyvar fears no battle, but she understands the dilemma of dimensions joined. Remember when the crystal tower in Icewind Dale collapsed?”

  “Aye,” said Bruenor, his face brightening just a bit. “And Rumblebelly rode the damned cat to her home.”

  “Remember Pasha Pook’s palace in Calimport?”

  “Aye, a sea o’ cats following yer Guenhwyvar from her home. What’re ye thinking, elf? That yer cat might get you to me girl on the other plane, and might bring ye both back?”

  “I don’t know,” Drizzt admitted.

  “But ye’re thinking there might be a way?” Bruenor asked in a tone as desperately hopeful as any the drow had ever heard from his dwarf friend.

  He fixed Bruenor with a stare and a grin. “Isn’t there always a way?”

  Bruenor managed a nod at that, and as Drizzt turned his gaze outward from the balcony, he looked to the trees.

  “What are they doing?” Drizzt asked a moment later, when Thibbledorf Pwent and Athrogate bobbed out of the forest, carrying a heavy log shoulder to shoulder.

  “If we’re meaning to stay and fight, then we’re meaning to win,” said Bruenor.

  “But what are they doing, exactly?” Drizzt asked.

  “I’m afraid to ask them two,” Bruenor admitted, and he and Drizzt shared a much-needed chuckle.

  “Ye going to bring in the damned cat again this fight?” Bruenor asked.

  “I fear to. The seam between these worlds, between life and death as well, is too unpredictable. I would not lose Guen as I have lost …”

  His voice trailed off, but he didn’t need to finish the thought for Bruenor to understand.

  “World’s gone crazy,” the dwarf said.

  “Or maybe it always was.”

  “Nah, but don’t ye start talking like that,” Bruenor scolded. “We’ve put a lot o’ good years and good work under our girdles, and ye know it.”

  “And we even made peace with orcs,” said Drizzt, and Bruenor’s face tightened and he let out a little growl.

  “Ye’re a warm fire on a cold winter night, elf,” he muttered.

  Drizzt smiled all the wider, stood up straight, and stretched his arms and back. “We’re staying and we’re fighting, my friend. And one more thing we’re doing …”

  “Winning,” said Bruenor. “We might get me girl back and we might not, elf, but I’m meaning to stay mad for a bit.” He punched Drizzt in the shoulder. “Ye ready to kill us a dragon, elf?”

  Drizzt didn’t answer, but the look he gave to Bruenor, his lavender eyes full of a fire the dwarf king had seen so many times before, made Bruenor almost pity the dracolich.

  Down on the courtyard below, Pwent, who was leading the pair, stumbled and the two dwarves crashed down in a heap with their heavy cargo.

  “If them two don’t kill us all with their plannin’, that wyrm ain’t getting back to its hiding place,” Bruenor declared. “Or if it does, then I’m meaning to find a way to chase it there and be done with it!”

  Drizzt nodded, more than ready for the fight, but mixed with his expression of determination was a bit of intrigue at that last statement. His hand went to his belt pouch, to Guenhwyvar, and he wondered.

  He had traveled the planes with the cat before, after all.

  “What’re ye thinking, elf?” Bruenor asked.

  Drizzt flashed him those eyes again, so full of determination and simmering anger.

  Bruenor nodded and smiled, no less determined and no less angry.

  * * * * *

  “Is there no way to learn?” Danica asked Cadderly.

  Cadderly shook his head. “I’ve tried. I’ve asked, of Deneir or of any sentience I might find anywhere.”

  “I can’t do this any more,” Danica admitted. She slumped in her chair and put her hands over her face. Cadderly was at her side in a heartbeat, hugging her, but he had little to offer. He was no less tormented than she.

  Their children were out there somewhere, maybe alive and maybe, very possibly, dead.

  “I have to go back out,” Danica said, straightening and taking a deep, steadying breath. “I have to go to Carradoon.”

  “You tried already, and it nearly killed you,” Cadderly reminded. “The forest is no less—”

  “I know!” Danica snapped at him. “I know and I don’t care. I can’t stay here and just wait and hope.”

  “I cannot go!” Cadderly shouted back at her.

  “I know,” Danica said softly, tenderly, and she reached up and ran her fingers across Cadderly’s cheek. “You are bound here, tied to this place, I know. You cannot desert it, because if it falls, you fall, and our enemies win. But I have recovered from my wounds, and we have driven off the beast for now.” Cadderly started to interrupt, but Danica silenced him by putting a finger over his lips. “I know, my love,” she said. “The Ghost King will return and attack Spirit Soaring once more. I know. And it is a fight I welcome, for I will see that creature destroyed. But …”

  “But our children are out there,” Cadderly finished for her. “They’re alive—I know they are! If any of them had fallen, Spirit Soaring would feel the loss.”

  Danica looked at him, curious.

  “They are of me, as this place is of me,” Cadderly tried to explain. “They are alive, I am sure.”

  Danica fell back a bit and stared at her husband. She understood his confidence, but knew, too, that it was based more on a need to believe that the children were alive and well than on anything substantive.

  “You cannot stay here,” Cadderly said, surprising her, and she sat up straight, her eyes wide.

  “You are about to fight the most desperate battle of your life, and you would send me away?”

  “If the Ghost King returns and is to be defeated …” Cadderly paused there, seeming almost embarrassed.

  “It will be by the power of Cadderly, and not the fists of Danica,” she reasoned.

  Cadderly shrugged. “We are a powerful team, we seven, each armed in our own ways to do battle with such a beast as the Ghost King.”

  “But I least of all,” the woman said. She held up her empty hands. “My weapons are less effective than Bruenor’s axe, and I haven’t the tricks of Jarlaxle.”

  “There is no one I would rather have fighting beside me than you,” Cadderly said. “But truly, there is no one in all the world who might better elude the monsters in the forest and find our children. And if we don’t have them, then …”

  “Then what is the point?” Danica finished for him. She leaned in and kissed him passionately.

  “They are alive,” Cadderly said.

  “And I will find them,” Danica whispered back.

  She was out of Spirit Soaring within the hour, moving among the trees alongside the road to Carradoon, invisible and silent in the dark night.

  CH
APTER 26

  DAWN

  Why aren’t we fighting?” Temberle whispered to Ivan. Even his hushed tone seemed to echo in the too-quiet tunnels. “Not for knowin’,” Ivan replied to Temberle and to all the remaining refugees in the group, which numbered less than twenty. “Hoping it’s your da’s work.”

  “Boom,” Pikel said hopefully, and loudly, drawing gasps from all the others. “Oops,” the green-bearded dwarf apologized, slapping his hand over his mouth.

  “Or they’re setting a trap for us,” Hanaleisa interjected. Ivan was nodding as she spoke, about to make the same observation. “Perhaps they’ve learned from the slaughter.”

  “So what are we to do?” asked Rorick, and when she looked at her younger brother, Hanaleisa saw real fear there, and put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  “We go on, for what choice do we got?” said Ivan, and he purposely lifted his voice. “If they be lying in wait for us, then we’ll just kill ‘em and walk on over their rottin’ bodies.”

  Ivan slapped his bloodstained axe across his open hand and nodded with determination, then stomped away.

  “Oo oi!” Pikel agreed, and adjusted his cooking pot helmet and scrambled to follow.

  Not far from that site, the beleaguered band entered a room that presented yet another puzzle, but a welcome one at first glance. The chamber floor was littered with dead crawlers and dead giant bats, and even a dead giant.

  The group scanned for clues, mostly looking for the bodies of those who had fought the beasts. Was it another fleeing refugee group?

  “Did they kill each other?” Temberle asked, voicing a question they were all asking themselves.

  “Not unless they use tiny bows,” one of the refugees answered. Temberle and the others moved to the man’s position, bringing the meager torchlight to bear. They found him holding a small dart, like those Cadderly used with his hand crossbows.

  “Father!” Rorick said hopefully.

  “If it was, he was busy,” said Hanaleisa as she moved around, finding the same darts littering the floor and the bodies. She shook her head with doubt. Only two such hand crossbows were kept at Spirit Soaring, but dozens, perhaps hundreds, of darts had been fired in that fight. She pulled one from the corpse of a crawler and held it up, shaking her head even more. None of the darts showed her father’s added feature: the collapsible center where the tiny vials of explosive oil were stored.