Boundless

by R. A. Salvatore

  Then became a dwarf again, flesh and not stone.

  “Me Pwent!” Zaknafein heard King Bruenor yell from not far behind.

  “Me king!” the dwarf, Pwent, yelled in response, punching at the golem’s eyes with his spiked gauntlets, drawing shrieks of protest from the spider as it worked furiously to expel him, and drawing cheers and cries of “Press harder!” from the scores of dwarves manning the juicers.

  Pwent fell fully into his battle-rage, pounding with abandon, ignoring the mandibles as they clenched about him once again. Zaknafein furiously attacked the nearest leg, trying to break its hold.

  “Ah, ye dog!” the dwarf yelled.

  Zaknafein glanced up. Lightning arced between the spider’s eyes and the weapon master could feel the buildup of another explosive bolt. He saw it on the dwarf’s face, and knew it, too: this brave fool was doomed.

  Just before the bolt came forth, though, a glob of goo flew between the dwarf and the spider’s face, green and glutinous, binding the dwarf to the monster arachnid, both his arms fully encompassed.

  Zaknafein spun his head to see the source, Jarlaxle, with King Bruenor and his two queens running right beside him.

  A king running in to near-certain death for the sake of his friends.

  That thought stunned Zaknafein. What matron mother would do that?

  And to Zaknafein’s further surprise, King Bruenor seemed no dwarf then, but a giant, and one growing larger with every stride.

  Zaknafein had to dodge to the side when Bruenor charged in, shield-rushing the first juicer in line, hitting it with tremendous force—more than the press of all the other dwarves pushing it.

  Up higher went the retriever, and the dwarves pressed on all along the line, turning the monster up on its side and then over.

  Down it tumbled, the wild Pwent still attached, several juicers falling over behind it. One struck the spider monster as it tried to catch the wall, another coincidentally intercepting a line of webbing the spider managed to pull forth and launch.

  Zaknafein twisted and contorted, his swords falling free, to leave him hanging by his fingers on the edge of the chasm.

  Is this death, then?

  So this is death-mystery-obliteration-annihilation, the final fall, the ring around the rosy, the crack of the neck at the end of the rope, the head falling from the axeman’s blade, the last breath of crushed lungs, the last link of guts removed. Fouler than life, ohfieohdamnohcurseyoualleternally! The piffy end of the dream, not great, all whisper of curses.

  Foulfoulfoulfoulbloodycursesall!

  Damn life! Touched briefly, too briefly, so briefly! Joy of Calihye, warmth of Dahlia, embrace of Jarlaxle, respect of Drizzt? Oh fie, I know not, ohfieohdamnohcurseyoualleternally!

  Life, the dream, pfft, gone . . . and filledfilledfilled by stench, nostrils thick. Just stench, always stench. I deny the stench, but no, and now I am guilty? How am I? What justice? Coldhearted world of pale pains, moonlit monochrome with sunlit days too short. Eyeblink of light. Just an eyeblink. Snap! An image, a moment. Stolen!

  Ohfieohdamnohcurseyoualleternally!

  Too long . . . too long! Heartbeats of sparkles, hours of hate and guilt.

  So much blood, warming my wrist, my arm, caked on my eyes.

  So much poison, so much pain.

  One hope, one ask, just one, but no, I cannot die to escape the pain—nay! Nay, now I know, no escape, and now there is only hopelessness-deep-emptiness-darkness-darkness-evermore. Beyond the bites of a thousand-million-thousand wasps, little fires, unceasing pain . . .

  The sting, the burn, the images flashflashflash. Calihye! The victim, the victim, the victim. Dahlia! The victim, the victim, the victim. Jarlaxle! The victim, the victim, the victim. So many, the victims. My victims, so many!

  You knew! Drizzt, you knew. Ohfieohdamnohcurseyoueternally!

  But no.

  No.

  No!

  I cannot!

  Would that I had used my dagger upon myself! No existence . . . no existence . . . that, so I learn too late, my only heaven.

  Ohfieohdamnohcursemyselfeternally—

  . . .

  Hanging from the ledge, Zaknafein looked down through the heavy mist to the orange glow of the lavalike primordial. He saw one of the juicers, breaking apart from bouncing off the wall, hit the lava, immediately bursting into flames. He saw the spider golem hit, on its back, shrieking and scrabbling and trying to throw a web out.

  Some darkness that he thought a cloud of smoke rose up, but then took form as a large bat, flying up from the pit.

  The spider almost righted itself, but a tendril of lava rose beside it, near enough for Zaknafein to feel the sudden and sharp increase in heat, then broke like a wave over the abyssal monster, also splashing the rising bat.

  The shrieking stopped immediately, drowned out under the heavy molten substance, and the lava flattened as if digesting the golem.

  Zaknafein tried to hold, tried to dig in a boot to help him climb.

  He felt a hand clamp over his own left, then another over his right, and he looked up to see not one but two rescuers, the queens of Gauntlgrym grabbing him and hoisting him.

  Back on his feet on the ledge, Zaknafein digested the scene around him, with dwarves scrambling every which way to help their injured, and there were many. To his left, Jarlaxle rushed at him, but then stopped abruptly and fell back a step.

  Zaknafein understood when he heard the shriek behind him, then turned and ducked fast as the large bat, one wing licked with flames, fluttered past, then down to the right and out of the chamber.

  “Thibbledorf,” he heard Queen Mallabritches say.

  “The Pwent,” added her sister, Tannabritches.

  It was all beyond Zaknafein, but he was surely impressed by the dwarves’ display of camaraderie and desire, nay desperation, to help their fallen.

  “It was coming for you,” Jarlaxle said, moving beside him as he turned back.

  “The bat?”

  “The spider,” Jarlaxle explained. “I’ve no doubt. I watched it closely when it entered the chamber, and its reaction was most telling when its many eyes settled upon Zaknafein.”

  Zaknafein glanced back behind him to the orange glow. “Well, it’s gone now.”

  “So it would seem.”

  Zaknafein bent over and looked down into the chasm again, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He began to nod before he opened his eyes, then said to Jarlaxle, “It was coming for me, and it is gone. I feel it inside, a lightness, though I didn’t even notice any heaviness there before.”

  Jarlaxle reached out and patted his friend on the shoulder. “We should go up top and kill some demons. The dwarves are driving them back out of Gauntlgrym.”

  Zaknafein nodded, but glanced around. “First we help the wounded,” he said.

  He got more out of Andahar than he had expected, but was still far from the place he had hoped to be when the unicorn began to suddenly slow, indicating that it was time for Drizzt to dismount. Despite his straight and hours-long run from Yvonnel and Athrogate, the last high ground had shown Drizzt that the demon golem wasn’t all that far behind. He thought that a good thing, since it meant that the retriever had likely ignored his friends, but now that Andahar’s magic was expiring, he knew that his plans were in jeopardy.

  He slid down from the unicorn and dismissed Andahar, wondering if he’d ever see the fine mount again. Then Drizzt collected himself and took his bearings. He had many miles left to run.

  So he did. He took his first step, ramping himself up to speed, trying to gauge how fast he might go without tiring long before he arrived.

  He thought of the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, of Grandmaster Kane, of his training there where he had learned to better join mind and body.

  He did that now with every stride, concentrating on the movement of his muscles, not just of his legs. No, he went to the deeper level, contractions and stretches, and felt the interplay of his hips, hamstrings,
ankles, feet—all of it, even the movement of his arms.

  And with each step, his stride improved. Soon he was working less and running faster, his breathing perfectly coordinated, his arms pumping for maximum momentum in the desired direction.

  He fell within himself, into a mantra, as a mile passed, then three, then five, ten, a dozen. Had he relinquished his concentration at all, he would have marveled at how long and fast he had run, for in that trance, Drizzt had simply blocked out the pain and the exhaustion. They did not exist to him, at least not consciously.

  He paused only once, atop a nearby hill, both to look ahead (and take heart that his destination was in sight) and to look behind, to see that the incessant spider had greatly closed the distance and was now not far behind.

  Drizzt looked to his destination, then back to the spider. Yes, he could beat it to that place, he was confident.

  Now he wanted to make sure that he barely beat it to that place.

  He took a deep breath, trying once more to block the exhaustion—it occurred to him that in his trance he might run and run and run until he simply fell over dead.

  It didn’t matter. In the wide world, to his friends and all of those he loved, to the goodly people of the northern Sword Coast regions, it didn’t matter.

  He crossed a known road, moving to rocky ground, backdropped by the rolling waves of the ocean. He moved more slowly then, looking behind more often than ahead, letting the retriever draw near and picking his careful way among the rocks to keep himself concealed from any who might be ahead of him.

  The golem drew closer. Drizzt finally spotted it, and it him, and the spider monster hissed and shrieked loudly and charged.

  Drizzt sprinted across the last expanse, to the outer wall of the ruined keep known as Thornhold, the spider quickly closing behind him. Up the wall he went, brilliantly and swiftly, and at the top, despite the shouts arising from the remaining Stoneshaft dwarves at the place, he didn’t hesitate, flipping right over.

  “Here now!” one sentry shouted, charging at the half-naked, seemingly unarmed drow, spear lowered for a skewer.

  An upraised backhand slap from Drizzt’s right hand and a slight turn, right shoulder dropping back, sent the strike harmlessly wide. The dwarf didn’t slow, trying to barrel the lighter drow over or tackle him, but that shoulder turn had also strengthened the drow’s own strike, a stiff-handed stab that caught the poor fellow right in the throat, halting him as surely as if he had run into a stone wall. He dropped the spear and staggered backward a step before dropping to his knees, gasping desperately.

  Drizzt hoped he hadn’t killed the fellow, but he hadn’t the time to make sure he was okay, for the spider was on the wall and more dwarves were charging at him along the parapet from the other direction. He backflipped off the parapet, straightened feet-down and half twisted before he landed the twenty feet below, then came down not flat on his feet, but with his legs turned just enough to transfer the energy of the landing into a sidelong roll, which became a backward roll, which became a second backward roll and a third, where Drizzt pressed up as he rolled past his shoulders, extending and lifting into the air to land gracefully on his feet looking back at the wall.

  The parapet crumbled, dwarves tumbled, and over the top came the retriever.

  Drizzt turned and sprinted for the keep, moving right past the door, which started to open just ahead of a tremendous lightning blast from the closing arachnid.

  Drizzt skidded to a stop and threw himself to the ground just ahead of the bolt, so near that he could feel his long hair lifting up and dancing wildly. The lightning blew the door from its hinges, so up and in he went, fast-hopping past a trio of Stoneshaft dwarves lying just inside, their clothes smoking from the blast.

  From far away along the north road, but within sight of the keep, two pairs of eyes watched the spider eclipse the wall.

  “Ah, but he’s takin’ them dirty dwarfs with him,” Athrogate muttered. With her magic, Yvonnel had brought him in pursuit of the spider, both of them wanting to witness the last play of Drizzt Do’Urden. Behind the spider, they were confident that the single-minded golem would not turn, after all, and when it was done its task, Yvonnel had assured Athrogate, the beast would not remain on this plane of existence.

  Both winced and Athrogate sucked in his breath sharply at the sudden flash and booming thunder, thinking it might already be over.

  Far away along the south road, another pair of eyes watched the giant spider crossing the rocky ground, then climbing the wall of Thornhold.

  “The world has gone mad,” Dahlia said to Regis, slurring every word through her swollen lips.

  “It’s broken,” Regis agreed. “It’s all broken.”

  “We will live evermore in the stench and shadows of demons,” said Dahlia, speaking as much to herself, and, her turn of the head showed, to the bag of demonic despair in the carriage, as to the halfling. “More and varied creatures than we have ever seen, even in our nightmares.”

  After a long pause, Regis straightened in his seat and stated, loudly and evenly, without a whisper of a shake in his voice, “No. I’m not giving up.”

  As soon as the drow pair exited the chamber, moving side by side into the forge room, they learned that going to the higher chambers would not be their next move. Bruenor had gone out before them and now stood by the Great Forge, which had been closed. The dwarf king appeared more than a little concerned.

  He looked up at Jarlaxle and Zaknafein and began motioning immediately for them to come to him, and as if to accentuate his point, the whole chamber suddenly shuddered, a deep grumble from far, far below.

  “What do you know, King Bruenor?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “Ye’ve got to go to Luskan, and quick,” Bruenor answered.

  “Get me to the magical gates.”

  “They ain’t workin’,” Bruenor answered. “At all. And we shut down the forges so that damned spider didn’t break ’em open and let tendrils of the fire beast out—seen that before and not wanting to see it again. But now we can’t get ’em restarted.”

  “What do you suspect?”

  “Holding the primordial in the pit starts in Luskan, under the tower Gromph now rules,” Bruenor explained. “That tower’s not givin’ us the magic we need. If it keeps slowin’, won’t matter if the demons get in or not, for the whole place’ll blow up, don’t ye doubt.”

  Jarlaxle looked to Zaknafein, conveying his clear worry here, for he understood all about the connection between the Hosttower of the Arcane and the fire primordial.

  Another dwarf ran up to Bruenor and pulled him aside for a whispered conversation. A few moments later, that dwarf ran off, signaling for others to follow.

  “What’re ye knowin’, Jarlaxle?” Bruenor asked directly.

  “I do not understa—”

  “Why’s the Hosttower shuttin’ us down?”

  “I did not know it was, but I will go, as you wish—”

  “And why’re they here?” Bruenor added.

  “The demons?”

  “The drow.”

  “What drow?”

  “The drow army,” said Bruenor. “Big force, and with banners o’ many houses, nearin’ our lower gates.”

  Jarlaxle’s jaw hung open, a rare sight indeed. Bruenor gestured for him to follow and led him and Zaknafein to a nearby room, heavily fortified and guarded. Inside they found dwarven clerics, many standing before crystal balls. They went to a nearby one and the priest working the divining magic motioned for Bruenor to glance into the sphere.

  The king looked back up with something that sounded half sigh and half growl, then glanced at Jarlaxle and pointed at the magical item.

  And Jarlaxle knew they were doomed, for in the crystal ball he saw the march of Menzoberranzan, the banners of House Baenre, the procession of House Barrison Del’Armgo—the presence of those two longtime enemies marching together alone told Jarlaxle that the bulk of the city had come through the tunnels.

  And
that, in turn, made him believe that he knew well why the Hosttower of the Arcane, and particularly its less-than-dependable archmage, was now apparently compromising King Bruenor’s position.

  “Well?” King Bruenor asked.

  “Well what?” Jarlaxle innocently replied.

  “Why’re they here, elf?”

  “I know not.”

  “When you asked me to trust King Bruenor, I had not realized that such faith would prove so unrequited,” Zaknafein interrupted before Bruenor could respond.

  Bruenor stuttered over that response, and stared hard at Zaknafein, who merely shrugged in reply.

  “Maybe we should all go to Luskan,” Jarlaxle suggested. “At least to Luskan.”

  “Or maybe we should go and hunt some priestesses,” Zaknafein declared. “You did not really believe that our lovely sisters in Menzoberranzan would allow an opportunity as great as this to merely pass them by, did you? A waiting demon army, a compromised dwarven stronghold . . .”

  Jarlaxle sighed at his friend’s unending and, sadly, usually on point cynicism.

  Through the corridors and rooms of the keep, the tunnels and chambers of the catacombs below, and back through the keep above once more, Drizzt led the retriever on a grand chase, the spider leaving a trail of destruction and dwarves turned to stone in its ruined wake.

  As he neared the exit of the structure, Drizzt found a small cubby, a crack in the stone, and placed his necklace and whistle within, offering a last smile to Andahar and hoping that no evil thing would find the wondrous unicorn.

  Back out into the courtyard he ran, but he stopped there and did not go on to the wall.

  Out came the spider, cracking the jamb and stones around the door in its rush, bearing down on Drizzt, who stood calmly, centered, arms by his side.

  The retriever reared, front legs waving to defend any strikes, eyes glowing with power and then releasing a bolt of brilliant violet over its target.

  Drizzt didn’t move—he knew there was no point, and was glad that he had angered the golem so much that capturing him was not enough.