He unsheathed only Icingdeath, however, his eyes sparking with sudden inspiration.
He felt his bones cracking like the beams of Spirit Soaring itself. His back twisted in a painful hunch, and his arms trembled from the effort of trying to hold them up before him.
But Cadderly knew that the moment of truth was at hand, the moment of Cadderly and Spirit Soaring and Deneir—somehow he sensed that it was the Scribe of Oghma’s last moment, his god’s final act.
* * * * *
He needed power then, and he found it, and as he had done in the previous battle with the Ghost King, the priest seemed to reach up and bring the sun itself down upon him. Allies drew strength and healing energy—so much so that Athrogate hardly groaned as he leaped down from the balcony, his twisted ankles untwisting before the pain even registered.
The Ghost King felt the brutal sting of Cadderly’s light, and the priest advanced. The dracolich filled the room with dragonfire, but Cadderly’s ward held strong and the sting did not stop the assault.
The Ghost King focused on Drizzt instead, determined to be rid of that wretched warrior, but again it could not bite quickly enough to catch the dancing elf, and as it tried to position its strikes to corner Drizzt against the rubble of the broken wall, it found itself cornered instead.
Drizzt leaped up against the dracolich and caught hold with his free hand on the monster’s rib, exposed by the wide hole blown into it by the dwarven bolt, and before the Ghost King or anyone else could begin to analyze the drow’s surprising move, Drizzt pulled himself right inside the beast, right into the lung, torn wide.
The Ghost King shuddered and thrashed with abandon, out of its mind with agony as the drow, both weapons drawn, began tearing it apart from the inside. So violent was its movements, so shattering its cries, so furious its breath that the other combatants staggered to a stop and pressed hands over their ears, and even Pwent fell off the creature.
But inside, Drizzt played out his fury, and Cadderly held forth his radiant light to bolster his allies and consume his enemy.
The Ghost King pushed away from the wall, stumbling and kicking, smashing a foot right through the floor to crash down into the catacombs below. It shrieked and breathed its fire, and the weakened magic of Spirit Soaring could not resist the bite of those flames. The smoke grew thick, dulling the blinding brilliance of Cadderly’s light, but not weakening its effect.
“Kill it, and quickly!” Jarlaxle yelled as the beast shuddered and shook with agony. Bruenor raised his axe and charged, Athrogate set his morningstars to spinning, and Thibbledorf Pwent leaped onto a leg and thrashed as only a battlerager could.
A blue glow overwhelmed the yellow hue of Cadderly’s radiance, and the three dwarves felt their weapons hitting only emptiness.
Drizzt fell through the insubstantial torso, landing lightly on the floor, but sliding and slipping on the blood and gore that covered him. Pwent tumbled face down with an “Oomph!”
“It flees!” Jarlaxle shouted, and behind him, in the small room, Catti-brie cried out. In the main hall, the Ghost King vanished.
Cadderly was first to the anteroom, though every step seemed to pain the old man. He pulled the latch and threw open the door, and from under his white shirt produced the ruby pendant Jarlaxle had loaned to him.
Before him, Catti-brie trembled and cried out. Behind him, Drizzt pulled out the onyx figurine. Cadderly looked at Drizzt and shook his head.
“Guenhwyvar will not get you there,” said the priest.
“We cannot allow it to escape us again,” Drizzt said. He moved inexorably toward Catti-brie, drawn to her in her pain.
“It will not,” Cadderly promised. He gave a profound sigh. “Tell Danica that I love her, and promise me that you will find and protect my children.”
“We will,” Jarlaxle answered, and Drizzt, Bruenor, and Cadderly all looked at him in astonishment. Had not the weight of the situation been pressing so enormously upon all of them at that moment, all three would have burst out in laughter.
It was a fleeting moment of relief, though. Cadderly nodded his appreciation to Jarlaxle and turned back to Catti-brie, bringing the ruby pendant up before her. With his free hand he gently touched her face and he moved very near to her, falling into her thoughts and seeing through her eyes.
A collective gasp sounded from the two drow and the three dwarves, and Cadderly began to glow with the same bluish-white hue of the departing Ghost King. That gasp became a cry as the priest faded to nothingness.
Catti-brie cried out again, but more in surprise, it seemed, than in fear.
With a determined grunt, Drizzt again reached for Guenhwyvar, but Jarlaxle grabbed his wrist. “Don’t,” the mercenary bade him.
A crash behind them stole the moment, and all turned to see a giant support beam lying diagonally from the balcony to the floor, thick with flames.
“Out,” Jarlaxle said, and Drizzt moved to Catti-brie and scooped her up in his arms.
* * * * *
It was a shadow image of the world he had left, absent the fabricated structures, a land of dull resolution and often utter darkness, of huddled ugly beasts and terrifying monsters. But in those clouds of shadowstuff shone a singular brilliance, the light of Cadderly, and before him loomed the most profound darkness of all, the Ghost King.
And there the two did battle, light against darkness, the radiance of Deneir’s last gift to his Chosen against the combined powers of perversion. For a long, long while, light seared through shadows, and the flowing shadows rolled back to cover the radiance. For a long, long while, neither seemed to gain an advantage, and the other creatures of the dark plane looked on in awe.
Then those creatures fell back, for the shadow could not grow against that radiance, that unrelenting warmth of Cadderly Bonaduce. Possessed of great draconic intelligence and the wisdom of centuries, the Ghost King knew the truth as well.
For the king had been usurped and the new Ghost King stood amidst the darkness, and in that final struggle, Cadderly could not be defeated.
With a cry of protest, the dracolich lifted away and fled, and Cadderly, too, did not remain. For it was not his place, and there, he cared not if the evil beast lived or died.
But he could not allow the creature to return to his homeland.
He knew the sacrifice before him. He knew that he could not cross back through the membrane between worlds, that he was trapped by duty to Deneir, to what was right, and to his family and friends.
With a smile of contentment, certain of a life well-lived, Cadderly left that world of darkness for a place almost, but not quite, his home.
CHAPTER 30
THE LAST MEMORIES OF CHANGING GODS
She did not lie limp in Drizzt’s arms, but rather seemed to be watching an awe-inspiring spectacle, and from her twitches and gasps, Drizzt could only imagine the battle his friend Cadderly was waging with the Ghost King.
“Kill it,” he found himself whispering as he stumbled out of the ruined cathedral, through the double doors and onto the wide porch. What he really meant was a private prayer to Cadderly to find a way to bring Catti-brie back to him. “Kill it,” meant all of it, from the tangible and symbolic dracolich to the insanity that had gripped the world and had entrapped Catti-brie. It was his last chance, he believed. If Cadderly could not find a way to break the spell over his beloved wife, she would remain forever lost to him.
To the relief of them all, no monsters remained to confront them as they escaped the building. The courtyard was littered with dead, killed by Drizzt or by the ferocious assault of the Ghost King. The lawn, once so serene and beautiful, showed the blackened scar of dragonfire, great brown swaths of dead grass from the dracolich’s touch, and the massive trench dug by the diving wyrm.
Jarlaxle and Bruenor led the way out of the structure, and when they looked back at the grand cathedral, at the life’s work of Cadderly Bonaduce, they understood better why the assault had taken such a toll on the priest. Fires l
eaped from several places, most dramatically from the wing they had just departed. Where the initial assault of dragonfire had been muted by the power of the cathedral’s magic, the protective spells had worn thin. The fire wouldn’t consume the place entirely, but the damage was extensive.
“Put her down, friend,” Jarlaxle said, taking Drizzt’s arm.
Drizzt shook his head and pulled away, and at that moment, Catti-brie’s eyes flickered, and for a moment, just a moment, Drizzt thought he saw clarity there, thought he saw, within her—she recognized him!
“Me girl!” Bruenor cried, obviously seeing the same.
But a fleeting thing it was, if anything at all, and Catti-brie settled almost immediately back into the same lethargic state that had dominated her days since the falling Weave had wounded her.
Drizzt called to her repeatedly and shook her gently. “Catti! Catti-brie! Wake up!”
But he received no response.
As the weight of her condition sank in, Athrogate gave a cry, and all eyes went to him, then followed his gaze to the cathedral’s open doorway.
Out walked Cadderly. Not flesh and blood, but a translucent, ghostly form of the old priest, hunched but walking with a purpose. He approached them and walked right through them, and everyone shuddered with a profound sense of coldness as he neared and passed.
They called to him, but he could not hear, as if they didn’t exist. And so, they knew, in Cadderly’s new reality, they did not.
The old priest ambled to the tree line, the other six following, and against the backdrop of leaping orange flames, Cadderly began to walk and whisper, bending low, his hand just off the ground. Behind him, a line of blue-white light glowed softly along the grass, and they realized that Cadderly was laying that line as he went.
“A ward,” Jarlaxle realized. He tentatively stepped over it, and showed relief indeed when it did not harm him.
“Like the barrier in Luskan,” Drizzt agreed. “The magic that was put down to seal off the old city, where the undead walk.”
Cadderly continued his circuit, indeed walking the perimeter of Spirit Soaring.
“If the Ghost King returns, it must be to this spot,” Jarlaxle said, though he seemed less than confident of his assessment and his reasoning sounded more like a plea. “The undead will not be able to cross out of this place.”
“But how long’s he got to weave it?” Bruenor asked.
“He knew,” Drizzt gasped. “His words for Danica …”
“Forever,” Jarlaxle whispered.
It took a long while for the priest to complete his first circuit, and he began his second anew, for the magic ward where he had started was already fading. Barely after Cadderly commenced the second pass, a voice called out from the darkness of the forest. “Father!” cried Rorick Bonaduce. “He is old! Mother, why does he look so old?”
Out of the trees rushed Danica and her children, with Ivan and Pikel. Joyful greetings and reunions had to wait, though, dampened by the pain that lay evident on the faces of three young adults, and on the woman who had so loved Cadderly.
Drizzt felt Danica’s pain profoundly as he stood holding Catti-brie.
“What happened?” Danica asked, hurrying to join them.
“We drove it off, and hurt it badly,” said Jarlaxle.
“Cadderly chased it when it left,” said Bruenor.
Danica looked past them to the burning Spirit Soaring. She knew why her ghostly husband seemed so old, of course. Spirit Soaring was ruined, its magic diminished to near nothingness, and that magic supported Cadderly as surely as it held strong the timbers, stone, and glass of Deneir’s cathedral. The magic had made Cadderly young, and had kept him young.
The spell had been destroyed.
Her husband had been destroyed, too, or … what? She looked at him and did not know.
“His last thoughts were of you,” Drizzt said to her. “He loved you. He loves you still, as he serves Deneir, as he serves us all.”
“He will come back from this,” Hanaleisa said with determination. “He will finish his task and return to us!”
No one contradicted her, for what was to be gained? But a look from Danica told Drizzt that she, too, sensed the truth. Cadderly had become the Ghost King. Cadderly, his service to Spirit Soaring and to the wider world, was eternal.
The ghostly priest was halfway through his third circuit when dawn broke over the eastern horizon, and the others, exhausted, continued to follow him.
His glow diminished with the rising sun until he was gone from sight entirely, to the gasps—hopeful and horrified—of his children. “He’s gone!” Temberle cried. “He’s coming back to us,” Rorick declared.
“Not gone,” Jarlaxle said a moment later, and he motioned the others over to him. The glowing line continued on its way, and near to its brightest point, its newest point, the air was much colder. Cadderly was still there, unseen in the daylight.
The fires had diminished greatly in Spirit Soaring, but the group did not go back inside the cathedral, instead setting a camp just outside the front door. Weariness alone brought them some sleep, in cautious shifts, and as dusk descended, the Ghost King, the apparition of Cadderly, returned to view, walking, forever walking, his lonely circuit.
Soon after, some crawlers returned, a small group seeming intent on again attacking Spirit Soaring. They broke out of the forest and shrieked as one as they neared Cadderly’s glowing line. Off they ran, into the darkness.
“Cadderly’s ward,” Bruenor said. “A good one.”
The group rested a little easier after that.
“We have to leave this place,” Jarlaxle remarked to them all later that night, and that drew many looks, few appreciative. “We do,” the drow insisted. “We have to tell the world what has happened here.”
“You go and tell them, then,” Hanaleisa growled at him, but Danica put her hand on her daughter’s forearm to quiet her.
“The monsters have retreated, but they remain out there,” Jarlaxle warned.
“Then we stay in here where they can’t get at us,” Rorick argued.
“The dracolich can return inside that ward,” Jarlaxle warned. “We must lea—”
Drizzt stopped him with an upraised hand and turned to Danica. “In the morning, first light,” he bade her.
“This is our home. Where will we go?”
“Mithral Hall, and Silverymoon from there,” Drizzt answered. “If there is an answer to be found, look to Lady Alustriel.”
Danica turned to her children, who frowned as one, but had no words to counter the obvious reality. The food they could salvage from inside the structure couldn’t sustain them forever.
As a compromise, they waited another two nights, but by then, even Hanaleisa and Rorick had to admit that their father was not coming back to them.
And so it was a solemn caravan that made its way out of Spirit Soaring one bright morning. The wagon hadn’t been badly damaged out in the courtyard, and with five skilled dwarves supplying the know-how, they managed to repair it completely. Even better news followed when they found the poor mules, frightened and hungry but very much alive, roaming a distant corridor of the cathedral’s first floor, their magical shoes intact.
They set a slow pace down to empty, ruined Carradoon, then north to the road to Mithral Hall. They knew they would find enemies in the Snowflakes, and so they did, but with the combined strength of the five dwarves, the Bonaduce family, and the two drow, no sufficient number of crawlers, giant bats, or even nightwalkers could pose any real threat.
They set an easier pace than the fury that had brought them south, and two tendays later, they crossed the Surbrin and entered Mithral Hall.
* * * * *
Hunched and uncomplaining, the Ghost King Cadderly circled the ruins of Spirit Soaring that night. And every night, forevermore.
* * * * *
It was all a blur, all a swirl, an overriding grayness that defied lucidity. Flashes of images, most of them terrifyi
ng, stabbed at her sensibilities and jolted her from memory to memory, to senses of the life she had known.
It was all an ungraspable blur.
But then Catti-brie saw a dot within that sea of movement, a focal point, like the end of a rope reaching out to her through the fog. In her mind and with her hand she reached out for that point of clarity and to her surprise, she touched it. It was firm and smooth, the purest ivory.
The clouds swirled out, retreating from that point, and Catti-brie saw with her eyes clearly then, and in the present, for the first time in tendays. She looked to her lifeline, a single horn. She followed it.
A unicorn.
“Mielikki,” she breathed.
Her heart pounded. She tried to fight through the confusion, to sort out all that had transpired.
The strand of the Weave! She remembered the strand of the Weave touching her and wounding her.
It was still there, inside of her. The gray clouds roiled at the edges of her focus.
“Mielikki,” she said again, knowing beyond doubt that it was she, the goddess, who stood before her.
The unicorn bowed and went down on its front knees, inviting her.
Catti-brie’s heart beat furiously; she thought it would jump out of her chest. Tears filled her eyes as she tried to deny what was coming next, and she silently begged to delay.
The unicorn looked at her, great sympathy in its large dark eyes. Then it stood once more and backed away a step.
“Give me this one night,” Catti-brie whispered.
She rushed out of the room and padded on bare feet to the next door in Mithral Hall, the one she knew so well, the one she shared with Drizzt.
He lay on the bed in fitful sleep when she entered the room, and she released the bindings of her magical garment and let it drop to the floor as she slid in beside him.
He started, and turned, and Catti-brie met him with a passionate kiss. They fell together, overwhelmed, and hade love until they collapsed into each other’s arms.
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