Boundless

by R. A. Salvatore

  “It’s not as confusin’ as it seems,” Bruenor explained to Jarlaxle and Zaknafein when the three of them scaled the tram station to look out over the vast underground chamber. “We got throwers—side-slinger catapults, mostly—aiming down every straight run. Throwing scattershot, flamin’ if we want it, but against demons, probably not, eh?”

  “There don’t seem to be many such straight avenues,” Zaknafein replied.

  “More than ye think,” Bruenor assured him. “We cut ’em, but so they’re hard to see, and we got others with walls shaped to bank the shot around corners.”

  Zaknafein looked to Jarlaxle, and Bruenor gave a great laugh when Jarlaxle just shrugged and nodded.

  “Ain’t no one better at makin’ killin’ zones, elf. No one,” the dwarf king insisted. “We got every spot on the floor sighted, ready to light it, ready to melt it.”

  “How many dwarves are out there?” Zaknafein asked.

  “A dozen catapult flingers, half again that ballista crews, half-a-hunnerd crossbow boys, all set up high, and always a dozen Gutbusters covering any retreat,” Bruenor said. “We got tunnels cut about the ceiling to get most of ’em to this side o’ the lake, and a hunnerd guards on th’other side o’ that wall behind us in the throne room, ready to come out and lend a boot. And I can get another five hunnerd up here in short order, don’t ye doubt.” Quite satisfied with himself, Bruenor crossed his arms defiantly over his burly chest.

  “You’ll need them,” Zaknafein said before he had even completed the action.

  “Eh?”

  “What do you know?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “Shh,” Zaknafein bade his companions. “I hear them.”

  No sooner had he said that than the far side of the cavern erupted in flames and shrieks, and elongated shadows of misshapen monsters flickered and flitted about the patches of fiery, and then magical, light.

  “Lot of ’em,” Bruenor agreed. “What d’ye got for me, elf?”

  Jarlaxle looked to Zaknafein.

  “Cavern looks like a challenge,” Zaknafein said slyly. “Lots of uneven walls and millions of ledges, wide enough for those who can sense them.” He gave Jarlaxle a wink and drew out his swords. “Do you think you can still vault and hurdle, flip and spin?”

  Despite the obviously grave situation, the shouts and explosions growing nearer by the moment, a wide smile spread over Jarlaxle’s face. “I’m older now, so it will hurt in the morning, I am sure. But I can sure keep up with you.”

  “Not on your life.”

  “It may just be,” Jarlaxle said with a laugh.

  “Boys,” Bruenor interrupted. “We got a fight out there.”

  “Obviously. Your best killing lane, King Bruenor?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “Eh?” Bruenor shook his head, then pointed out into the cavern to the left-hand side of the tram station. “Long and wide run, and with lots o’ crews . . .”

  The dwarf paused and shook his head again, for the two drow were already gone, over the station wall and down to the stone below. Bruenor caught one last glimpse of them: Jarlaxle running up the side of a stalagmite to the left, Zaknafein doing likewise to the right. The dwarf started with surprise as both leaped off toward each other, turning flips and spins that Bruenor couldn’t quite follow, crossing paths in midair, then each replacing the other as they ran on.

  “It all started when me girl found Drizzt on the side of a hill in Icewind Dale,” Bruenor muttered, and he called for his guard commanders, pulled a mug of ale from his magical shield, drained it in one swallow, then sent both the tankard and a loud belch flying.

  Chapter 9

  Epler Veien

  “The Melarni have marched,” Kimmuriel told Gromph, the two of them in the archmage’s suite at the Hosttower. “In force, all of them, and House Hunzrin beside them, I expect.”

  “When?” Gromph demanded. “And where have you been?” He was feeling especially edgy this day, with whispers all about Luskan of an approaching hostile fleet and the news from the south of the advance of demon hordes.

  “I was sent to speak with priestess Ash’ala.”

  “That was tendays ago.”

  “What she hinted to me required confirmation, and so I sought confirmation, but not any that could be found on this plane of existence.”

  “You went to the illithid hive mind,” Gromph stated.

  Kimmuriel nodded.

  “Over the disposition of puny Matron Zhindia Melarn?” the great wizard asked incredulously. “Does she make you so unsettled that you run to the mind flayers? Would you like me to find her and destroy her?”

  Kimmuriel’s expression did not change in the face of Gromph’s sarcasm, or the great wizard’s boast, which, under normal circumstances, would be a perfectly reasonable one.

  “Well?” the agitated Gromph prompted.

  “Arachna’chinin’lihi’elders,” Kimmuriel replied. “Matron Zhindia is not alone.”

  Gromph stared curiously at the diminutive psionicist for a few heartbeats, replaying the strange word in his thoughts. It was in an old language, older than he, older than Menzoberranzan. His eyes widened as he at last deciphered it.

  “A retriever? Zhindia has been granted a retriever?” Gromph paused and took a deep and steadying breath, then shook his head. “You are certain?”

  Kimmuriel didn’t blink.

  “Then it was not Lolth who brought Zaknafein back from his eternal sleep, no,” Gromph reasoned. “And now the Spider Queen will have him back, and she has chosen Matron Zhindia Melarn as her spear?” He shook his head again. “Zaknafein, yes? It must be Zaknafein.”

  “It is an old word,” Kimmuriel replied. “Perhaps I misspoke.”

  “Then take better care,” Gromph scolded. “Do not throw such a prospect as a retriever—”

  “Arachna’chinin’lihi’eldernai,” Kimmuriel corrected, the proper way to pluralize the demonic constructs.

  “Eldernai?” Gromph echoed breathlessly. “Plural?”

  “Two,” Kimmuriel confirmed.

  “Then Lolth is truly with her,” said Gromph. “And we must consider that our lives and allegiances—”

  “We do not know that it is Lolth at all,” Kimmuriel interrupted.

  “Then who?” Gromph said dismissively, but the question slammed back against him before Kimmuriel had even responded.

  “There is another demon lord, who titles himself the Prince of Demons, who is not pleased,” the psionicist reminded him.

  Demogorgon, the archmage realized, brought to the material plane by Gromph, and destroyed in its corporeal form through the power of Menzoberranzan channeled through the might of the illithid hive mind—channeled, in no small part, by these very same two drow.

  “You assume the targets to be Zaknafein and, possibly, Drizzt Do’Urden, of course,” Kimmuriel said. “But there are others who have gained the enmity of demons powerful enough to create retrievers. I find it unlikely that Drizzt is so hunted, though Matron Zhindia surely loathes him, since Lolth had him in the tunnels of Damara and did not destroy him. Perhaps they are both for Zaknafein.”

  Now it was Gromph’s turn to shake his head. “You cannot aim two such beasts at the same target, for they would attack each other for interference, so singularly are they focused on one task alone.”

  Gromph played all angles out in his thoughts. Matron Zhindia was leading this charge—that was the only thing giving him hope here that he was not one of the targets. Zhindia hated Drizzt and Jarlaxle, and the human Entreri, for they three had attacked her in her house and had murdered her only daughter—with Entreri’s awful dagger, so said the whispers, and so she could not be resurrected. But would Zhindia, would Lolth, waste a retriever on the likes of a mere human?

  Gromph didn’t think that likely.

  “It is not Artemis Entreri,” Kimmuriel said to him, an unsubtle reminder that the psionicist was reading his thoughts.

  “We must learn who, then,” Gromph demanded, growing angry. “It must be
confirmed. Did you learn anything among the mind flayers?”

  “The hive mind does not exist to answer my questions on my timetable,” he replied.

  “Press them.”

  “Press? One does not press illithids.”

  “Need I remind you that it was Kimmuriel who brought the power of the hive mind to bear against Demogorgon? It is quite possible that these unstoppable golems are here for you.”

  Kimmuriel shrugged again.

  “You will flee to the illithids if that is the case!” Gromph accused.

  “As would, as will, Gromph if he learns similarly.”

  “This is no play in which I wish to partake,” the archmage said. “We must learn the alliances behind this rise of darkness. Who granted the arachna’chinin’lihi’eldernai, and why?”

  “Whoever it was, and for whatever target, our world has changed, Archmage,” Kimmuriel stated, and to that Gromph could only nod his agreement. If either of these beasts had Gromph as its target, he would spend the coming decades, centuries even, in constant flight, plane-walking, unless and until he was caught or somehow found a way to defeat that which was virtually unbeatable and unstoppable.

  Penelope Harpell crawled onto the side of her large bed in her comfortable chambers at the Hosttower.

  She paused and stared at her lover’s naked back, huge and strong, thick but hard as granite, and with clear defining lines separating the many muscles. It seemed to Penelope that if he stood and bent forward, arms wide to either side, you could put the whole world on that back and he would hold it aloft. The woman waited a moment longer before she crawled up behind him as he sat on the bed, near the bottom, legs crossed before him and seemingly unaware that she had returned.

  Wulfgar had a lot on his mind, she knew. The news from the south, from Gauntlgrym, where his adoptive dwarven father was king and where many of his dearest friends resided, was not promising. And Bleeding Vines, the village he had helped build with his friend Regis, had been utterly sacked, the vineyards torn asunder, the tram station to the Causeway ruined.

  And Wulfgar had been here through all of that sudden assault and the ensuing press on Gauntlgrym, visiting Penelope, wanting to share her bed. All seemed relatively secure in Gauntlgrym at the moment, at least, and Bruenor had sent word through the magical portal for Wulfgar to remain in Luskan as Bruenor’s emissary. That, too, had weighed heavily on this warrior, Penelope understood. He wanted nothing more than to go through that gate and join the fight on the front lines beside his friends. He wouldn’t disobey King Bruenor on this, however, and so he had returned to Penelope.

  That thought, that Wulfgar had sought comfort and distraction with her, sent shivers down the woman’s spine, particularly now as she looked at his huge and chiseled body, a body that was somewhere around twenty years of age, though the man’s consciousness was much older than that, older than Penelope by far. She was closer to fifty than forty, with gray beginning to show in her dark hair and a few more lines in her face, particularly around the eyes from all the squinting she did when studying spellbooks and old scrolls. She was still quite strong and healthy, though thicker than she liked in a few places, and not as firm in others as she had once been. She didn’t really care too much about all that, but it felt good to know that she could still turn the eye of a man like Wulfgar.

  He kept coming back to her bed, eagerly, happily.

  She crawled over to kneel behind him and brought her hands to either side of his neck, digging in her thumbs to massage the corded bands of muscle that ran to his shoulders.

  “My magnificent man,” she said, “why are you here in my bed once more?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” he responded, bringing his left hand up and across to place it atop her right.

  “Is there a woman on the Sword Coast who wouldn’t open for you? Is there a young and pretty girl who would not love to be safely enwrapped in your strong arms?” As she asked, she ran her hands down over his shoulders to his giant biceps. “And yet you are here, with me.”

  Wulfgar gave a little laugh. “Penelope Harpell, the grand dame of the Ivy Mansion, doubts herself?” He swiveled his head to let her see his incredulous look. “Few things surprise me, woman, but yes, I am surprised.”

  “Not a doubt,” she returned with a playful slap on his shoulder. “Merely simple honesty.” She shuffled around the side of him to better look into his crystal-blue eyes—ah, those eyes! Even Wulfgar’s eyes spoke of the startling and wonderful contrasts of this man. He was dark and he was light, hard and strong but oh so gentle.

  “You are a young man,” she said, “and I am not a young woman.”

  “I was a century and four years when I was killed by a yeti,” Wulfgar reminded her with a sincere and warm laugh.

  “Yes, but you were reborn, and given youth and strength and all the beauty that comes with them. You could have almost any woman, but here you are. Why?”

  “Epler veien,” Wulfgar answered after a brief pause.

  “Epler . . .” Penelope, too, paused, and considered the root of the language—she knew most of the dialects in the north, and recognized this as an Uthgardt barbarian phrase, certainly. She became even more confused as she did sort it, though, and it showed on her face.

  “Trail apples,” Wulfgar said.

  “You think me deer poo?”

  “I think you honest,” Wulfgar replied. “Not just to others, but to yourself. I think you wonderfully and refreshingly selfish.”

  “The compliments just flow from your pretty lips,” Penelope answered with a grin and a shake of her head. She leaned back from the side of his shoulder and looked at him a bit sidelong.

  “Perhaps selfish is the wrong word, but I do not mean it as an insult,” Wulfgar told her. “Quite the opposite. Penelope Harpell knows what she wants and moves to get it. You are honest with yourself and brave enough to proclaim that honesty to all around you. You tear free the bindings of convention and tradition and . . . signs.”

  “Signs?”

  “Aye,” said Wulfgar, nodding and gaining clarity in his own thoughts now. “Signs. They are everywhere, written or spoken, rules and laws, and some matter, and some are there because they are there, because somewhere, sometime, someone put them there.”

  “Like trail apples.”

  Wulfgar laughed. “Exactly. And no one has had the courage or the sense to tear them down. But you don’t step in them, no. There is no pretense to Penelope. There is no hidden Penelope. Do you not understand, my beautiful and wonderful friend? You are not just who I desire, you are what I desire of myself.”

  Penelope spent a heartbeat trying to digest that. “Am I your lover or your teacher?” she asked.

  “Yes, and more!” Wulfgar proclaimed. He playfully reached down and touched the inside of Penelope’s knee as she knelt beside him, then ran his fingers lightly, so lightly—perhaps they weren’t even touching her, but just calling to her skin!—up the inside of her thigh.

  “You are my truth,” he said earnestly. “You are my hero.”

  Penelope swung around before him and straddled him, never letting go of his intense gaze. She gasped as he thrust forward to join them together.

  “But there are so many pretty girls,” she said, and now she was just playing with him. “Do you not wish to . . . ?”

  “Have you ever told me that I should not?”

  Penelope pulled her head back and stared at him slyly.

  “Are you jealous?” Wulfgar asked with a playful grin.

  She returned the look. “Only if I am not there with you,” she teased, and came forward to kiss him, and they held the kiss all through their lovemaking, a long and single kiss, then melted together to the blankets to fall asleep in each other’s arms.

  Ringing bells awakened Wulfgar and Penelope sometime later.

  “What?” the big man asked, and when he realized the location of the bells, right outside Penelope’s door, he laughed. “Of course,” he said to her as she pushed herself up
on her elbows and shook the hair out of her face. “You would not accept a simple knock upon your door.”

  “That is not my doing,” the woman assured him. She rolled over on her back, sat up, and pulled the bedcovers up.

  “May we enter, lady?” Gromph Baenre asked from beyond the door.

  Wulfgar was confused. Penelope’s chambers, like those of many of the great wizards housed here at this most unusual abode, were extraplanar, pockets of extradimensional space much larger than the physical area they inhabited at the Hosttower.

  But it sounded to him as if Gromph was right outside the physical door—despite the fact that this physical door was not even on the same plane of existence as the archmage at the time.

  Or was it?

  “Wizards are confusing creatures,” the man grumbled.

  “Enter,” Penelope answered, and waved her hand. The door swung open, revealing two of Wulfgar’s least favorite people: Gromph Baenre and Kimmuriel Oblodra. With only a very few exceptions, wizards unnerved Wulfgar because he didn’t understand them, but compared to Kimmuriel, Gromph would be a welcomed dinner companion.

  The two walked right up to the foot of the bed, Kimmuriel looking straight at Wulfgar and offering a clearly derisive snort.

  “We’ve trouble brewing,” Gromph said.

  “We’ve heard,” said Penelope.

  “You’ve heard of Bleeding Vines and the press on Gauntlgrym, but we are speaking of a different event,” Kimmuriel corrected.

  “There is a fleet bound for Luskan, a great war armada,” Gromph explained. “Port Llast was sacked, we believe, though there has been no word directly from the town, and the fleet sailed out from there to the north.”

  “For Luskan,” Penelope said.

  “So it would seem. High Captain Kurth is rallying the ships to sail out to meet the challenge, that we might at least learn their intent,” Gromph went on. “We suspect they mean to attack straightaway, but we need to know more about their disposition, and their strength.”