The Ghost King (Transitions #3) 3

PRIESTS OF NOTHING

We are nothing! There is nothing!" the priest screamed, storming about the audience hall in Spirit Soaring, accentuating every word with an angry stomp of his foot. His point was furthered by the blood matting his hair and caked about the side of his face and shoulder, a wound that looked worse than it was. Of the five who had been with him out and about the Snowflakes, he had been the most fortunate by far, for the only other survivor had lost a leg and the other seemed doomed to amputation - and only if the poor woman even survived.

"Sit down, Menlidus, you old fool!" one of his peers yelled. "Do you think this tirade helpful?"

Cadderly hoped Menlidus, a fellow priest of Deneir, would take that advice, but he doubted it, and since the man was more than a decade his senior - and looked at least three decades older than Cadderly - he hoped he wouldn't have to intervene to forcibly silence the angry man. Besides, Cadderly understood the frustration behind the priest's rant, and didn't wholly dismiss his despairing conclusions. Cadderly, too, had gone to Deneir and feared that his god had been lost to him forever, as if Deneir had somehow simply written himself into the numerical maze that was the Metatext.

"I am the fool?" Menlidus said, stopping his shouting and pacing, and tapping a finger to his chest as he painted a wry smile on his face. "I have called pillars of flame down upon those who are foes of our god. Or have you forgotten, Donrey?"

"Most surely, I have not," Donrey replied. "Nor have I forgotten the Time of Troubles, or any of the many desperate situations we have faced before, and have endured."

Cadderly appreciated those words, as apparently, he saw in looking around at the large gathering, did everyone else in the room.

Menlidus, though, began to laugh. "Not like this," he said.

"We cannot make that judgment until we know what this silence is truly all about."

"It is about the folly of our lives, friend," the defeated Menlidus said quietly. "All of us, and do look at us! Artists! Painters! Poets! Man and woman, dwarf and elf, who seek deeper meaning in art and in faith. Artists, I say, who evoke emotion and profundity with our paintings and our scribblings, who cleverly place words for the effect dramatic." His snicker cut deep. "Or are we illusionists, I wonder?"

"You do not believe that," said Donrey.

"Who believe our own illusions," Menlidus qualified. "Because we have to. Because the alternative, the idea that there is nothing more, that it is all a creation of imagination to maintain sanity, is too awful to contemplate, is it not? Because the truth that these gods we worship are not immortal beings, but tricksters promising us eternity to extract from us fealty, is ultimately jarring and inspiring despair, is it not?"

"I think we have heard enough, brother," said a woman, a renowned mage who also was possessed of significant clerical prowess.

"Have we?"

"Yes," she said, and there was no mistaking the edge to her voice, not quite threatening but certainly leading in that direction. "We are priests, one and all," Menlidus said.

"Not so," several wizards pointed out, and again the bloody priest gave a little laugh.

"Yes, so," Menlidus argued. "What we call divine, you call arcane - our altars are not so different!"

Cadderly couldn't help but wince at that, for the notion that all magic emanated from one source brought him back to his younger days in the Edificant Library. Then he had been an agnostic priest, and he too had wondered if the arcane and the divine were no more than different labels for the same energy.

"Save that ours accepts the possibility of change, as it is not rooted in dogma!" one wizard cried, and the volume began to rise about the chamber, wizards and priests lining up against each other in verbal sparring.

"Then perhaps I speak not to you," Menlidus said after Cadderly locked him with a scowl. "But for us priests, are we not those, above all others, who claim to speak the truth? The divine truth?"

"Enough, brother, I beg," Cadderly said then, knowing where Menlidus was going despite the man's temporary calm, and not liking it at all.

He moved toward Menlidus slowly, wearing a carefully maintained expression of serenity. Having heard nothing from Danica or his missing children, Cadderly was anything but serene. His gut churned and his thoughts whirled.

"Do we not?" Menlidus shouted at him. "Cadderly of Deneir, above all others, who created Spirit Soaring on the good word and power of Deneir, should not doubt my claim!"

"It is more complex than that," said Cadderly.

"Does not your experience show that our precepts are not foolish dogma, but rather divine truth?" Menlidus argued. "If you were but a conduit for Deneir in the construction of this awe-inspiring cathedral, this library for all the world, do you not laugh in the face of such doubts as expressed by our secular friends?"

"We all have our moments of doubt," Cadderly said.

"We cannot!" Menlidus exclaimed, stamping his foot. That movement seemed to break him, though, a sudden weariness pulling his broad shoulders down in a profound slump. "And yet, we must, for we are shown the truth." He looked across the room at poor Dahlania, one leg gone, as she lay near death. "I begged for a blessing of healing," he mumbled. "Even a simple one - any spell at all to alleviate her pain. Deneir did not answer that plea."

"There is more to this sad tale," Cadderly said quietly. "You cannot blame - "

"All my life has been in service to him. And this one moment when I call upon him for my most desperate need, he ignores me."

Cadderly heaved a sigh and placed a comforting hand on Menlidus's shoulder, but the man grew agitated and shrugged that touch away.

"Because we are priests of nothing!" Menlidus shouted to the room. "We feign wisdom and insight, and deceive ourselves into seeing ultimate truth in the lines of a painting or the curves of a sculpture. We place meaning where there is none, I say, and if there truly are any gods left, they must surely derive great amusement from our pitiful delusions."

Cadderly didn't have to look around the room at the weary and beleaguered faces to understand the cancer that was spreading among them, a trial of will and faith that threatened to break them all. He thought to order Menlidus out of the room, to chastise the man loudly and forcefully, but he dismissed that idea. Menlidus wasn't creating the illness, but was merely shouting it to the rafters.

Cadderly couldn't find Deneir - his prayers, too, went unanswered. He feared that Deneir had left him forever, that the too-inquisitive god had written himself into the Weave or had become lost in its eternal tangle. Cadderly had found power, though, in the fight against the fleshy beasts of shadow, casting spells as mighty as any he might have asked from Deneir.

But those spells, he believed - he feared - hadn't come from the one he had known as Deneir. He didn't know what being, if any being, had bestowed within him the power to consecrate the ground beneath his feet with such blessed magic.

And that was most troubling of all.

For Menlidus's point was well taken: If the gods were not immortal, then was their place for their followers any more lasting?

For if the gods were not powerful and wise enough to defeat the calamity that had come to Faerun, then what hope for men?

And worse, what was the point of it all? Cadderly dismissed that devastating thought almost as soon as it came to him, but it indeed fluttered through his mind, and through the minds of all those gathered there.

Menlidus spat his devastating litany one emphatic last time. "Priests of nothing."

"We are leaving," Menlidus said to Cadderly early the next morning, after an eerily quiet night. That respite had not set well with poor Cadderly, however, for Danica had not yet returned.

No word from his wife, no word of his missing children, and perhaps worst of all, Cadderly still found no answers to his desperate calls to Deneir.

"We?" he replied.

Menlidus motioned through the door, across the hall and into a side chamber, where a group of about a dozen men and women stood dressed for the road.

"You're all leaving?" Cadderly asked, incredulous. "Spirit Soaring is under a cloud of assault and you would desert - "

"Deneir deserted me. I did not desert him," Menlidus replied sharply, but with a calm surety. "As their gods deserted them, and as the Weave abandoned three of them, wizards all, who find their life's pursuit a sad joke, as is mine."

"It didn't take much of a test to shake your faith, Menlidus," Cadderly scolded him, though he wanted to take the words back as soon as he heard them escape his mouth. The poor priest had suffered a failing of magic at the very worst moment, after all, and had watched a friend die because of that failure. Cadderly knew that he was wrong to judge such despair, even if he didn't agree with the man's conclusion.

"Perhaps not, Cadderly, Chosen of Nothing," Menlidus replied. "I only know what I feel and believe - or no longer believe."

"Where are you going?"

"Carradoon first, then to Cormyr, I expect."

Cadderly perked up at that.

"Your children, of course," said Menlidus. "Fear not, my old friend, for though I no longer share your enthusiasm for our faith, I will not forget my friendship to Cadderly Bonaduce and his family. We will seek out your children, do not doubt, and make sure that they are safe."

Cadderly nodded, and wanted nothing more than that. Still, he felt compelled to point out the obvious problem. "Your road is a dangerous one. Perhaps you should remain here - and I'll not lie to you, we need you here. We barely repelled that last attack, and have no idea of what may come against us next. Our dark enemies are out there, in force, as many of our patrols painfully learned."

"We're strong enough to punch our way through them," Menlidus replied. "I would counsel you to convince everyone to come with us. Abandon Spirit Soaring - this is a library and a cathedral, not a fortress."

"This is the work of Deneir. I can no more abandon it than I can abandon that who I am."

"A priest of nothing?"

Cadderly sighed, and Menlidus patted him on the shoulder, a symbolic reversal of fortunes. "They should all leave with us, Cadderly, my old friend. For all our sakes, we should go down to Carradoon as one mighty group. Escape this place, I counsel, and raise an army to come back and - "

"No."

Menlidus looked at him hard, but there was no arguing against that tone of finality in Cadderly's voice.

"My place is Spirit Soaring," Cadderly said. "To the bitter end?" Cadderly didn't blink.

"You would condemn the others here to the same fate?" Menlidus asked.

"Their choices are their own to make. I do think we're safer here than out there on the open trails. How many patrol parties met with disaster, your own included? Here, we have a chance to defend. Out there, we're fighting on a battlefield of our enemy's choosing."

Menlidus considered Cadderly for just a moment longer, then snorted and waved his hand, motioning to the people across the hall. They hoisted bags, shields, and weapons and followed the man down the corridor.

"We're left with less than fifty to defend Spirit Soaring," Ginance remarked, coming to Cadderly as the angry fallen priest departed. "If the crawling beasts come at us with the ferocity of the first fight, we will be hard-pressed."

"We are more ready for an attack now," Cadderly replied. "Implements are more reliable than spells, it would seem."

"That is the consensus, yes," said Ginance. "Potions and wands did not fail in the field, even as spellcasting misfired or fell empty."

"We have many potions. We have wands and rods and staves, enchanted weapons and shields," said Cadderly. "Make certain that they are properly distributed as you sort our defenses. Power to every wall."

Ginance nodded and started away, but Cadderly stopped her by adding, "Catch up to Menlidus and offer him all that we can spare to take with him on his journey. I fear that his party will need all that we can give, and a fair measure of good luck, to get down the mountainside."

Ginance paused at the door, then smiled and nodded. "Simply because he abandons Deneir does not mean that Deneir should abandon him," she said.

Cadderly managed a weak smile at that, all the while fearing that Deneir, though perhaps inadvertently and through circumstances beyond his control, had already done exactly that, to all of them.

But Cadderly had no time to think about any of that, he reminded himself, no time to consider his absent wife and missing children. He had found some measure of powerful magic in his moment of need. For all their sakes, he had to learn the source of that magic.

He had barely begun his contemplation when shouts interrupted him.

Their enemies had not waited for sunset.

Cadderly rushed down the stairs, strapping on his weapons as he went, nearly running over Ginance at the bottom.

"Menlidus," she cried, pointing to the main doors, which stood open.

Cadderly ran there and fell back with a gasp. Menlidus and all the others of his band were returning, walking stiff-legged, arms hanging at their sides, vacant stares through dead eyes - for those who still had their eyes.

All around the zombies came the crawling beasts, dragging and hopping at full speed.

"Fight well!" Cadderly called out to his defenders. All about the first and second floors of Spirit Soaring, manning every wall, window, and doorway, priests and wizards lifted shields and weapons, wands and scrolls.

A couple of hundred yards ahead, a burst of flames erupted far above them - above the branches of distant trees on a high ridge on the mountain road. Drizzt, Jarlaxle, and Bruenor sat up straight on the wagon's jockey box, startled, and behind them, Danica stirred.

"That's Spirit Soaring," Drizzt remarked.

"What is?" Danica asked, scooting forward to the back of the seat and peering up between Drizzt and Bruenor.

A column of black smoke began to climb into the sky above the tree line.

"It is," Danica said breathlessly. "Drive them faster!"

Drizzt glanced at Danica and had to blink in amazement at how quickly the woman had healed. Her training and discipline, combined with Jarlaxle's potions and monk abilities, had restored the woman greatly.

Drizzt made a mental note to speak with Danica about her training, but he ended the line of thought abruptly and nudged Bruenor. Understanding his intent, the dwarf nodded and jumped off the side of the wagon, with Drizzt fast following. Bruenor called for Pwent as they ran around the back, setting themselves against the tailgate.

"Push them hard!" Drizzt called to Jarlaxle when the three were set, and the drow snapped the reins and clicked at the mules, while the three in back put their shoulders to the wagon and shoved with all their strength, legs pumping furiously, helping the wagon up the steep incline.

Danica was out beside them in a heartbeat, and though she winced when she braced her injured shoulder against the wagon, she kept pushing.

As they crested a ridge, Jarlaxle shouted, "Jump!" and the four grabbed on tightly and lifted their legs as the wagon gained speed. It was a short-lived burst, though, for another steep incline lay before them. The mules strained, the foursome strained, too, and the wagon moved along slowly.

The huddled forms of crawlers crept out on the trail before them, but before Jarlaxle could yell out a warning, another form, a dwarf on a fiery hell boar, burst through the brush on the opposite side of the road, wisps of smoke rising from the branches behind him. Athrogate plowed into the crawlers, the demon boar hopping and stomping its hooves, sending out rings of fiery bursts. One crawler was gored and sent flying, another trampled under smoking hooves, but a third, near the other side of the road, had time to react and use its powerful arms to twist and leap up high above the snorting boar, right in the path of Athrogate.

"Bwahaha!" the dwarf howled, his morningstars already spinning in opposing circles.

The weapons swung around at the monster simultaneously, right low, left high, both connecting to send the crawling thing into an aerial sidelong spin. Athrogate expertly curled his right arm under his left in the follow-through, then reversed his momentum and snapped that weapon back in a fierce backhand that smacked the creature in its ugly face - and to add a finishing touch, the dwarf enacted the morningstar's magic after the first strike, its nubby spikes secreting explosive oil onto the weapon head.

A pop and a flash revealed the magic to the onlookers. Even without the explosion, they quickly knew that added power was behind the strike as the creature executed several complete rotations before it hit the ground.

Hardly slowing, Athrogate charged his mount right through the brush on the far side, morningstars spinning, boar snorting fire.

He emerged after the wagon had passed, chasing and battering a crawler with every step, and as the creature fell dead, Athrogate squeezed his legs and twisted the boar into line, running fast after his companions.

He caught up to them just as the wagon came over the last ridge, the road twisting through a narrow tree line onto the open grounds of the magnificent Spirit Soaring.

The lawn was crawling with fleshy beasts, as were Spirit Soaring's walls. The upper corner of the building was burning, belching black smoke from several windows.

Athrogate skidded his boar to a stop beside Bruenor and Pwent. "Come on, ye dwarfs, and kick yer heels! We'll give 'em a beatin' that'll make 'em squeal!"

Bruenor gave only a cursory glance at the nodding Drizzt before scrambling around the side of the wagon bed, leaping up, and retrieving his many-notched axe. Pwent already carried his weapons, and was first to Athrogate's side.

"Ye protect me king!" Pwent demanded of him, and Athrogate gave a hearty "Bwahaha!" in reply. That was good enough for Thibbledorf Pwent, whose idea of "defend" was to charge ahead so quickly and madly that the many enemies flanking him could never catch up.

"Ye keepin' the pig?" Bruenor asked as he rambled up.

"Aye, she's a good way to introduce meself!"

Athrogate spearheaded the three-dwarf wedge, trotting his boar at a pace that the two runners could easily match.

Behind them, Jarlaxle kept firm control of the mules and the wagon, and looked to Danica and Drizzt.

"To the side door on the right side!" Danica called to the dwarves.

Drizzt, scimitars drawn, ran up beside Jarlaxle.

"Go, go, go," Danica bade them as she scrambled over the wagon rail and into the bed. "I'll keep the wagon clear and Catti-brie safe."

Drizzt gave her a pleading look, not wanting to drive the helpless Catti-brie into the middle of such a tumultuous fight.

"We've nowhere to run," Jarlaxle said, answering that concern. "We go forward or we go back, but if Cadderly loses here, our fate will surely be the same."

Drizzt nodded and turned to his companion.

"Clear a short path and move up the wagon," Jarlaxle explained. "Clear a bit more and move a bit more."

"When we get into the open, they'll swarm," Drizzt said with another nervous glance at the wagon bed, which held his defenseless beloved.

"More to kill, and more quickly, then," Jarlaxle said with a tip of his hat - a tip that left the giant feather in his hand. He snapped the dagger from his enchanted bracer into the same hand, then flicked his wrist several times to elongate the magical weapon into a long sword.

Drizzt grabbed the bridle of the nearest mule and tugged the creature along with him, breaking through the tree line and out into the open, in full view of the monstrous hordes.

Directly ahead, he watched Bruenor and the other dwarves wade in with abandon.

Athrogate howled, kicked his boar into a charge, and threw his arms up, rolling over backward, executing a perfect dismount that left him on his feet behind the snorting hell beast.

Monsters swarmed at them head on and from both sides. As the boar met the frontal assault with bursts of flame from its stomping hooves, and wild and vicious head swings, Athrogate diverted to the right, morningstars spinning. He clashed with the attackers and flesh splattered far and wide, crawlers verily exploding under the weight of his swings.

Not to be outdone, Thibbledorf Pwent hit a line of charging crawlers with a sidelong tackle, as if daring them to find a weakness in his devastating armor. The Gutbuster thrashed, kicked, punched, kneed, elbowed, and head-butted with gleeful ferocity, using all of his many weapons to tear at the enemy. Thibbledorf Pwent was known as the most ferocious warrior of Mithral Hall - no small claim!  -  and Athrogate had been similarly regarded many years before among an even larger clan of dwarves. One after another, the crawlers were mowed down before them.

But any watching who might have thought that the pair were warriors protecting their king were soon disavowed of any notion that this particular king needed any protection.

The demon-boar faltered under a tangle of clawing arms and biting fangs. A final burst of stinging fire singed black flesh as the boar faded back to its home plane. Before those crawlers could recover from its sudden evaporation, a new enemy was among them.

Bruenor hit the group with a heavy shield rush, his solid shield cracking into one fleshy beast with enough force to imprint its foaming mug heraldry into the creature's chest. The crawler was thrown back under the weight of the blow. Bruenor opened up, throwing his shield arm out to the left to slam a second creature, and coming across with a mighty chop of his axe that cracked the collarbone of a third enemy, driving it down with tremendous force. Barely had he finished that stroke when Bruenor tore free his axe and cut left to right with a devastating backhand. He hopped as he went out to the end of that swing, and strengthened his momentum with a sudden pirouette.

Another crawler fell away, mortally wounded.

Bruenor landed awkwardly, though, and a crawler got its arm over his shield to scratch at his face.

The dwarf just growled and threw his shield arm up, taking the crawler's arm high with it, and as the beast tried to slash at Bruenor with its free hand, so too did Bruenor bring his axe across. The heavy axe and the powerful dwarf easily parried that strike, and worse for the crawler, Bruenor's swing was hardly slowed by the collision, his fine weapon opening wide the crawler's midsection.

Bruenor gave a second hoist and shoved with his shield to throw that beast away, then chopped back the other way with his axe, cracking it into the skull of another attacker. A sudden twist and reangled tug broke apart the skull and freed the axe. Bruenor waded along, flanked by his devastating team.

Twenty strides behind the ferocious dwarves, Drizzt and Jarlaxle didn't have the luxury of watching the devastating display of martial prowess, for they, too, were quickly hard-pressed.

Drizzt broke center and right, Jarlaxle center and left, each facing their respective foes with typical drow speed and sword play. With his straight blades, Jarlaxle quick-stepped front and back, rolling his hands only so much as to align his blade tips for more deadly stabs. Every step of Jarlaxle's dance was punctuated by forward-prodding sword blades. Those crawlers who ventured too near to Jarlaxle fell back full of small, precise holes.

For Drizzt, with his curving blades, the dance was more one of swinging swaths, each blade slicing across with such force, precision, and momentum that all before it, reaching limbs and pressing monsters, fell back or fell to the ground. While Jarlaxle rarely turned in his battle, Drizzt rarely faced the same direction for more than a heartbeat or two. Quickly realizing that his best attribute against the monsters was his agility, the drow ranger twirled and leaped, spun and dropped low as he came around.

Then up into the air he went again, once even quick-stepping atop the heads of two crawlers that futilely tried to keep pace with his movements.

Drizzt landed right behind them, with more monsters coming at him, but it was all a ruse, for he was up in the air once more, leaping backward and high, tucking his legs in a back flip over the pair of crawlers he had just trod upon. Because they turned in their efforts to keep up with him, he found himself once again behind them.

Down came his scimitars and down went the two crawlers, skulls creased.

More were there to take their places, the fearless and ravenous beasts coming on with abandon. Though both drow fought brilliantly, the pair made little headway toward Spirit Soaring.

And despite their best efforts, crawlers slipped in behind them, rushing for the wagon.

Bruenor saw them first. "Me girl!" he screamed, glancing back at a beast pulling itself up the side of the wagon.

"We're too far!" he scolded his companions, dwarf and drow. "Turn back!"

Pwent and Athrogate, covered in the gore of splattered creatures, immediately spun around. Bruenor pivoted the formation, the three beginning a second and even more ferocious charge back the way they'd come.

"Drizzt! Elf!" Bruenor yelled with every step, desperate for his friend to reach Catti-brie's side.

Drizzt, too, understood that the beasts had been cunning enough to get in behind them. He attempted the same kind of turn that Bruenor and his companions had taken.

But he was hard-pressed, as was Jarlaxle, each alone with crawlers intent on keeping them from retreating to the wagon. Drizzt could only fight on and hope to find a gap, and yell back warnings to Danica.

A crawler pulled itself over the rail of the wagon's side and Drizzt sucked in his breath.

"Jarlaxle!" he begged.

Five strides away from him, Jarlaxle nodded and threw down the feather. Immediately a gigantic flightless bird stood beside the mercenary.

"Go!" Jarlaxle yelled, maneuvering to Drizzt's side as the bird commanded the field.

Side by side they went, trying to find some rhythm, some compliment to their varied styles. But Drizzt knew that they could not reach the wagon in time.

And Bruenor, screaming from behind him, knew it too.

But all five, drow and dwarves alike, breathed easier when a form stood tall before the crawler on the wagon, for up popped Danica, her sling hanging empty, her fists balled before her chest. Up went one leg, straight above her head, and her amazing dexterity was matched by her strength as she drove her foot down atop the crawler's head.

With a sickening crack, that head flattened even more and the beast dropped from the side of the wagon as surely and swiftly as if a mountain had fallen atop it.

All five of the companions fighting to approach the wagon shouted out to Danica as a crawler leaped over the other side of the wagon at her back. But she needed no such warning, coming out of her devastating stomp with a perfect pivot to back-kick the second beast in its ugly face. It, too, bounced away.

A third creature clambered over the rail and a circle kick suddenly filled its grinning maw. Danica remained up on her right leg and went up to the ball of her foot to execute a complete spin and slam a fourth crawler.

Yet another beast climbing up the side was met with a flurry of fists, a rapid explosion of ten short punches that turned its face to mush. Before it could fall away, Danica hooked it under the armpit and turned powerfully, launching it across the wagon to bowl over and dislodge another of its companions.

The woman turned fast and fell into a defensive crouch, seeing a pair of monsters up front on the jockey box. One jerked weirdly and the other followed, then fine drow swords exploded out of their chests. Both crawlers were jerked off opposite sides of the wagon and the swords slipped free. Jarlaxle stood on the seat alone.

With a smile, the drow snapped his right wrist up, and his magical blade transformed from sword to dirk. With a wink, Jarlaxle launched the dagger toward Danica - right past her, to impale a crawler and knock it off the wagon's backside.

He tipped his hat, flicked another dagger from his wrist, and turned to rejoin Drizzt, who had defeated a quartet of crawlers as they had tried to attack the mules.

"You three, with the wagon," Drizzt told the dwarves as they arrived.

As Jarlaxle leaped down beside him and gave a nod to his fellow drow, Drizzt led the way forward toward the screeching, pecking, stomping diatryma.

"You lead, I secure," Jarlaxle said, the command ringing clearly to Drizzt Do'Urden.

In that short charge and retreat, in that moment of desperation to rescue the wagon, the two had found a level of confidence and complement that Drizzt had never thought possible. His beloved wife was in that wagon, helpless, and yet he had stopped to engage the first line of crawlers near the mules, fully confident that Jarlaxle would secure the jockey box and reinforce Danica's desperate defense of Catti-brie.

So on they went, fighting as one. Drizzt led the way with his leaps and slashing cuts while a series of daggers reached out behind him, flew out around him. Every time he lifted a scimitar, a dagger whistled under his arm. Every time he dived and rolled right, a dagger shot past his left - or a stream of daggers, for Jarlaxle's bracers gave him an inexhaustible and ready supply.

To their side, the crawling beasts finally pulled down the diatryma, but it didn't matter, for behind the drow, Bruenor tugged the mules and wagon along while Pwent and Athrogate flanked him, throwing themselves at any monsters venturing too near. Danica held the wagon bed, striking with devastating effect at any who dared try to climb aboard.

Finally they were rolling along, their enemies thinning before them. Drizzt darted left and right, taking great chances, diving into rolls and leaping into spins, confident every time that a dagger would fly his way in support if any monster found a hole in his defenses.

Inside Spirit Soaring, word of the allies' charge began to spread among the priests and wizards, and they began to call out their support and to cheer with great relief the unexpected reinforcements. And from more than one came a cry of relief at the return of Lady Danica!

All around the library, the calls went out and the defenders took heart, none more so than Cadderly. With his hand crossbows and devastating darts, he had methodically cleared most of the second story balconies of invaders, and had left a dozen dead before the front door for good measure, shooting down from on high.

But with his wife in sight, flanked by heroes of great renown, the priest was so overcome that he forgot how to breathe. He stared at the wagon, creeping across the courtyard toward Spirit Soaring, where Drizzt Do'Urden and Jarlaxle - Jarlaxle!  -  sprinted back and forth, working as if they were a single, four-armed warrior, Drizzt leaping and spinning, mowing down crawlers whose arms went up to grab at him always a heartbeat too late.

And Jarlaxle came behind like god-thrown lightning, stabbing the beasts with short, deadly strokes and nimbly dancing through them as they fell to the ground, mortally wounded.

There were dwarves, too, and Cadderly recognized King Bruenor from that legendary one-horned helm and the foaming mug shield, working his axe with deadly efficiency and tugging the mules along, while two other dwarf warriors flanked the team. Any beasts that ventured too near were crushed by a blur of spinning morningstars on one side, or torn apart by the multitude of spikes and ridges adorning the wild dwarf on the other.

There was Danica, and oh, but she had never looked more beautiful to Cadderly than at that very moment. She had been battered, he could see, and that stung his heart, but her warrior spirit ignored her wounds, and she worked her dance magnificently about the wagon bed. Not a creature could get close to clearing the rails.

Below the balcony where he stood, Cadderly heard his fellow priests shouting to "Form up!" and he knew they meant to go out and meet the incoming band. When he took a moment to stop gawking at the magnificence of the six warriors in action, he realized that help would be sorely needed.

Many monsters became aware of fresh meat on the approaching wagon. The attack on the building had all but ceased. Every ravenous eye turned toward easy prey.

Cadderly realized the awful truth. For all the power of those six, they would never make it. A horde of monsters stood poised to wash over them like breaking waves on a low beach.

His beloved wife would never come home.

From the balcony, he turned into the cathedral, thinking to rush to the stairwell. He skidded to an abrupt stop, hearing a distant call - as he had in that previous moment of desperation when he had been caught alone on the upper floors with the attacking crawlers.

He turned, his eyes guided to a cloud in the sky above. He reached for that cloud and called to it, and a portion of it broke away. A chariot of cloud, pulled by a winged horse, raced down from on high. Cadderly climbed atop the balcony's rail and the speeding chariot swooped down before him. Hardly even thinking about his actions, for he was leaping onto a cloud, the priest jumped aboard. The winged horse followed his every mental command, sweeping down from the balcony right before the astonished eyes of the priests and wizards who were gathering to charge out the front door. As one, they gasped and fell back into the cathedral. Cadderly's chariot soared out above the frightened crawlers.

Some of the undead, Menlidus among them, turned to intercept the new foe, but Cadderly looked upon them and channeled the divinity flowing within him, releasing a mighty burst of radiance that knocked the undead monsters back and blasted them to ash.

He grimaced at the destruction of his dear friend, but Cadderly pushed away the sadness and continued on, fast nearing the wagon and the six warriors and the host of crawlers battling them. Again he cast a spell, though he knew not what it was, simply trusting the power he felt within. He looked at the largest mob of monsters and shouted a single word - not just any word, but a thunderous word, an explosion of vocal power aimed at enemies alone, for it did not affect the spiked-armored dwarf, who thrashed wildly in the middle of the throng.

But the wild dwarf was struck dumbfounded and confused when all the monsters clawing and biting at him were yanked away. Through the air they went, flailing helplessly against the weight of the priest's thunder. They landed hard some thirty steps distant, bouncing and tumbling, scrambling away, wanting no part of the godlike priest and his words of doom.

Cadderly paid them no more heed, bringing his chariot up beside the wagon and bidding his friends to climb aboard. He spoke another word of power and a great light ignited around him and the wagon. All of the crawlers caught within it began to thrash and burn, but the others, the drow, the dwarves, and the two women, felt no pain. Instead, they were washed with healing warmth, their many recent wounds mending in the brilliant yellow beams of magical light.

Bruenor yelled at Drizzt, who had told him to climb aboard the chariot. When the dwarf king hesitated, Athrogate and Pwent, running along beside him, hooked him under the arms and dragged him up.

Drizzt sprang aboard the wagon and into the bed, catching Danica's eye. "Watch those beasts for me," he said, trusting her fully. He sheathed his blades, went to his beloved, and scooped her into his arms. With Danica leading, they made the chariot easily.

Jarlaxle did not follow, but waved Cadderly away. He threw daggers into the nearest thrashing crawler for good measure, then brought forth his nightmare, summoning it before the terrified team. The drow ran around the mules, conjuring another sword from his enchanted bracer as he went, while his nightmare pounded the ground with fiery hooves. A few clever slashes set the mules free, and Jarlaxle, reigns in hand, ran between and past them, and jumped upon his nightmare.

He kicked the steed into a charge, galloping along the path cleared by Cadderly's cloud chariot. He tugged the mules along and guided them up on the porch and through the open front doors before any of the crawlers could intercept him.

Priests slammed the doors closed behind the drow and his four-legged escorts. Jarlaxle immediately dismissed his nightmare and handed the mules off to astonished onlookers.

"It would not do to waste a perfectly good team," he explained. "And these two have taken us a long way." He finished with a laugh - which lasted only as long as it took him to turn and come face to face with Cadderly.

"I told you never to return to this place," the priest said, ignoring the many curious onlookers crowding around him, demanding to know what sort of magic he had found to conjure a chariot of cloud, to speak thunder, to glow with the radiance of a healing god, to reduce the undead to ashes with a single word. They, who could not reliably cast the simplest of dweomers any longer, had witnessed a display of power that the greatest priests and wizards of Faerun could hardly imagine.

Jarlaxle bowed low in response, tipping his unfeathered hat. He didn't answer, though, other than to motion to Drizzt, who came fast to his side, as Danica was fast to Cadderly's.

"He is not our enemy," Danica assured her husband. "Not any more."

"I keep trying to tell you that," Jarlaxle agreed.

Cadderly looked to Drizzt, who nodded his agreement.

"Enough of that, and who truly cares?" a wizard yelled, bulling his way up to Cadderly. "Where did you find such power? What prayers were those? To throw a multitude of enemies aside with a mere word! A chariot of cloudstuff? Pray tell, good Cadderly. Is this Deneir, come to your call?"

Cadderly looked at the man hard, looked at them all, his face a mask of studious concentration. "I know not," he admitted. "I do not hear the voice of Deneir, yet I believe that he is involved somehow." He looked directly at Drizzt as he finished. "It is as if Deneir is giving this answer to me, one last gift ..."

"Last?" Ginance called out with alarm, and many others mumbled and grumbled.

Cadderly looked at them and could only shrug, for he truly didn't know the answer to the riddle that was his newfound power. He shifted his gaze to Jarlaxle. "I trust my wife, and I trust Drizzt, and so you are welcome here in this time of mutual need."

"With information you will find valuable," Jarlaxle assured him, but the drow was cut short by a sharp cry from the back of the gathering. All eyes turned toward Catti-brie. Drizzt had set her down on a divan at the side of the foyer, but she was floating in the air, her arms out as if she were under water, her eyes rolled to white and her hair floating around her, again as if she were weightless.

She turned her head and spat, then snapped back the other way as if someone had slapped her across the face. Her eyes once more shone blue, though they were surely seeing something other than that which was before her.

"She is demon-possessed!" a priest cried.

Drizzt donned the eye patch Jarlaxle had given to him and rushed to his wife, grabbing her in a hug and gently pulling her down.

"Take care, for she is in a dark place that welcomes new victims," Jarlaxle said to Cadderly as he moved to join Drizzt. Cadderly looked at him curiously but went in anyway, taking Catti-brie's hand.

Cadderly's form jolted as if shocked by lightning. His eyes twitched and his entire form changed, a ghostly superimposition of an angelic body, complete with feathery wings, over his normal human form.

Catti-brie cried out then and so did Cadderly. Jarlaxle grabbed the priest and tugged him back. The ghostly lines of Cadderly's form disappeared, leaving him gawking at the woman.

"She is caught between worlds," Jarlaxle said.

Cadderly looked at him, licked his suddenly dry lips, and did not disagree.