RESPECTABLE OPPONENTS

It was Entreri," Sharlotta Vespers said with a sly grin as she examined the orc corpse on the side of the mountain a couple days later. "The precision of the cuts... and see, a dagger thrust here, a sword slash there."

"Many fight with sword and dirk," the wererat, Gord Abrix, replied. The wretch, wearing his human form at that time, moved his hands out wide as he spoke, revealing his own sword and dagger hanging on his belt.

"But few strike so well," Sharlotta argued.

"And these others," Berg'inyon Baenre agreed in his stilted command of the common tongue. He swung his arm about to encompass the many orcs lying dead around the base of a large boulder. "Wounds consistent with a dagger throw-and so many of them. Only one warrior that I know of carries such a supply as that."

"You are counting wounds, not daggers!" Gord Abrix argued.

"They are one and the same in a fight this frantic," Berg'inyon reasoned. "These are throws, not stabs, for there is no tearing about the sides of the cuts, just a single fast puncture. And I think it unlikely that anyone would throw a few daggers at one opponent, somehow run down and pull them free, then throw them at another."

"Where are these daggers, then, drew?" the wererat leader asked doubtfully.

"Jarlaxle's missiles are magical in nature and disappear," Berg'inyon answered coldly. "His supply is nearly endless. This is the work of Jarlaxle, I know-and not his best work, I warn both of you."

Sharlotta and Gord Abrix exchanged nervous glances, though the wererat leader still held that doubting expression.

"Have you not yet learned the proper respect for the drow?" Berg'inyon asked him pointedly and threateningly.

Gord Abrix went back on his heels and held his empty hands up before him.

Sharlotta eyed him closely. Gord Abrix wanted a fight, she knew, even with this dark elf standing before him. Sharlotta hadn't really seen Berg'inyon Baenre in action, but she had seen his lessers, dark elves who had spoken of this young Baenre with the utmost respect. Even those lessers would have had little trouble in slaughtering the prideful Gord Abrix. Yes, Sharlotta realized then and there, her own self-preservation would depend upon her getting as far away from Gord Abrix and his sewer dwellers as possible, for there was no respect here, only abject hatred for Artemis Entreri and a genuine dislike for the dark elves. No doubt, Gord Abrix would lead his companions, wererat and otherwise, into absolute devastation.

Sharlotta Vespers, the survivor, wanted no part of that. "The bodies are cold, the blood dried, but they have not been cleanly picked," Berg'inyon observed.

"A couple of days, no more," Sharlotta added, and she looked to Gord Abrix, as did Berg'inyon.

The wererat nodded and smiled wickedly. "I will have them," he declared. He walked off to confer with his wererat companions, who had been standing off to the side of the battleground.

"He will have a straight passageway to the realm of death," Berg'inyon quietly remarked to Sharlotta when the two were alone.

Sharlotta looked at the drow curiously. She agreed, of course, but she had to wonder why, if the dark elves knew this, they were allowing Gord Abrix to hold so critical a role in this all-important pursuit.

"Gord Abrix thinks he will get them," she replied, "both of them, yet you do not seem so confident."

Berg'inyon chuckled at the remark-one he obviously believed absurd. "No doubt, Entreri is a deadly opponent," he said.

"More so than you understand," Sharlotta, who knew the assassin's exploits well, was quick to add.

"And yet he is still, by any measure the easier of the prey," Berg'inyon assured her. "Jarlaxle has survived for centuries with his intelligence and skill. He thrives in a land more violent than Calimport could ever know. He ascends to the highest levels of power in a warring city that prevents the ascent of males. Our wretched companion Gord Abrix cannot understand the truth of Jarlaxle, nor can you, so I tell you this now-out of the respect I have gained for you in these short tendays-beware that one."

Sharlotta paused and stared long and hard at the surprising drow warrior. Offering her respect? The notion pleased her and made her fearful all at once, for Sharlotta had already learned to try to look beneath every word uttered by her dark elf comrades. Perhaps Berg'inyon had just paid her a high and generous compliment. Perhaps he was setting her up for disaster.

Sharlotta glanced down at the ground, biting her lower lip as she fell into her thoughts, sorting it all out. Perhaps Berg'inyon was setting her up, she reasoned again, as Rai-guy and Kimmuriel had set up Gord Abrix. As she thought of the mighty Jarlaxle and the item he possessed, she came to realize, of course, that there was no way Rai- guy could believe Gord Abrix and his ragged wererat band could possibly bring down the great Entreri and the great Jarlaxle. If that came to pass, then Gord Abrix would have the Crystal Shard in his possession, and what trouble might he bring about before Rai-guy and Kimmuriel could take it away from him? No, Rai-guy and Kimmuriel did not believe that the wererat leader would get anywhere near the Crystal Shard, and furthermore, they didn't want him anywhere near it.

Sharlotta looked back up at Berg'inyon to see him smiling slyly, as if he had just followed her reasoning as clearly as if she had spoken it aloud. "The drow always use a lesser race to lead the way into battle," the dark elf warrior said. "We never truly know, of course, what surprises our enemies might have in store."

"Fodder," Sharlotta remarked.

Berg'inyon's expression was perfectly blank, was absent of any sense of compassion at all, giving Sharlotta all the confirmation she needed.

A shudder coursed up Sharlotta's spine as she considered the sheer coldness of that look, dispassionate and inhuman, a less-than-subtle reminder to her that these dark elves were indeed very different, and much, much more dangerous. Artemis Entreri was, perhaps, the closest creature she had ever met in temperament to the drow, but it seemed to her that, in terms of sheer evil, even he paled in comparison. These long-lived dark elves had perfected the craft of efficient heartlessness to a level beyond human comprehension, let alone human mimicry. She turned to regard Gord Abrix and his eager wererats, and made a silent vow then to stay as far away from the doomed creatures as possible.

The demon writhed on the floor in agony, its skin smoking, its blood boiling.

Cadderly did not pity the creature, though it pained him to have to lower himself to this level. He did not enjoy torture-even the torture of a demon, as deserving a creature as ever existed. He did not enjoy dealing with the denizens of the lower planes at all, but he had to for the sake of the Spirit Soaring, for the sake of his wife and children.

The Crystal Shard was coming to him, was coming for him, he knew, and his impending battle with the vile artifact might prove to be as important as his war had been against Tuanta Quiro Miancay, the dreaded Chaos Curse.

It was as important as his construction of the Spirit Soaring, for what lasting effect might the remarkable cathedral hold if Crenshinibon reduced it to rubble?

"You know the answer," Cadderly said as calmly as he could. "Tell me, and I will release you."

"You are a fool, priest of Deneir!" the demon growled, its guttural words broken apart as spasm after spasm wracked its physical form. "Do you know the enemy you make in Mizferac?"

Cadderly sighed. "And so it continues," he said, as if he were speaking to himself, though well aware that Mizferac would hear his words and understand the painful implications of them with crystalline clarity.

"Release me!" the glabrezu demanded.

"Yokk tu Mizferac be-enck do-tu," Cadderly recited, and the demon howled and jerked wildly about the floor within the perfectly designed protective circle.

"This will take as long as you wish," Cadderly said coldly to the demon. "I have no mercy for your kind, I assure you."

"We... want... no... mercy," Mizferac growled. Then a great spasm wracked the beast, and it jerked wildly, rolling about and shrieking curses in its profane, demonic language.

Cadderly just quietly recited more of the exaction spell, bolstering his resolve with the continual reminder that his children might soon be in mortal danger.
* * * * *

"Ye wasn't lost! Ye was playing!" Ivan Bouldershoulder roared at his green-bearded brother.

"Doo-dad maze!" Pikel argued vehemently.

The normally docile dwarf's tone took his brother somewhat by surprise. "Ye getting talkative since ye becomed a doo-dad, ain't ye?" he asked.

"Oo oi!" Pikel shrieked, punching his fist in the air.

"Well, ye shouldn't be playin' in yer maze when Cad- deriy's at such dark business," Ivan scolded.

"Doo-dad maze," Pikel whispered under his breath, and he lowered his gaze.

"Yeah, whatever ye might be callin' it," grumbled Ivan, who had never been overly fond of his brother's woodland calling and considered it quite an unnatural thing for a dwarf. "He might be needin' us, ye fool." Ivan held up his great axe as he spoke, flexing the bulging muscles on his short but powerful arm.

Pikel responded with one of his patented grins and held up a wooden cudgel.

"Great weapon for fighting demons," Ivan muttered. "Sha- la-" Pikel started.

"Yeah, I'm knowin' the name," Ivan cut in. "Sha-la-la. I'm thinking that a demon might be callin' it kind-lind- ling." Pikel's grin drooped into a severe frown. The door to the summoning chamber pulled open and a very weary Cadderly emerged-or tried to. He tripped over something and sprawled facedown to the floor. "Oops," said Pikel.

"Me brother put one o' his magic trips on the doorway," Ivan explained, helping the priest back to his feet. "We was worryin' that a demon might be walkin' out."

"So of course, Pikel would trip the thing to the floor and bash it with his club," Cadderly said dryly, pulling himself back to his feet.

"Sha-la-la!" Pikel squealed gleefully, completely missing the sarcasm in the young cleric's tone.

"Ain't one coming, is there?" Ivan asked, looking past Cadderly.

"The glabrezu, Mizferac, has been dismissed to its own foul plane," Cadderly assured the dwarves. "I brought it forth again, thus rescinding the hundred year banishment I had just exacted upon it, to answer a specific question, and with that done, I had-and have, I hope-no further need of it."

"Ye should've kept him about just so me and me brother could bash him a few times," said Ivan. "Sha-la-la!" Pikel agreed.

"Save your strength, for I fear we will need it," Cadderly explained. "I have learned the secret to destroying the Crystal Shard, or at least, I have learned of the creature that might complete the task."

"Demon?" Ivan asked.

"Doo-dad?" Pikel added hopefully.

Cadderly, shaking his head, started to reply to Ivan, but paused to put a perfectly puzzled expression over the green-bearded dwarf. Embarrassed, Pikel merely shrugged and said, "Ooo."

"No demon," he said to the other dwarf at length. "A creature of this world."

"Giant?"

Think bigger."

Ivan started to speak again, but paused, taking in Cad- derly's sour expression and studying it in light of all that they had been through together.

"Let me guess one more time," the dwarf said.

Cadderly didn't answer.

"Dragon," Ivan said.

"Ooo," said Pikel.

Cadderly didn't answer.

"Red dragon," Ivan clarified.

"Ooo," said Pikel.

Cadderly didn't answer.

"Big red dragon," said the dwarf. "Huge red dragon! Old as the mountains."

"Ooo," said Pikel, three more times.

Cadderly merely sighed.

"Old Fyren's dead," Ivan said, and there was indeed a slight tremor in the tough dwarf's voice, for that fight with the great red dragon had nearly been the end of them all.

"Fyrentennimar was not the last of its kind, nor the greatest, I assure you," Cadderly replied evenly.

"Ye're thinking that we got to take the thing to another of the beasts?" Ivan asked incredulously. "To one bigger than old Fyren?"

"So I am told," explained Cadderly. "A red dragon, ancient and huge."

Ivan shook his head, and snapped a glare over Pikel, who said, "Ooo," once again.

Ivan couldn't help but chuckle. They had met up with mighty Fyrentennimar on their way to find the mountain fortress that housed the minions of Cadderly's own wicked father. Through Cadderly's powerful magic, the dragon had been "tamed" into flying Cadderly and the others across the Snowflake Mountains. A battle deeper in those mountains had broken the spell though, and old Fyren had turned on its temporary masters with a vengeance. Somehow, Cadderly had managed to hold onto enough magical strength to weaken the beast enough for Vander, a giant friend, to lop off its head, but Ivan knew, and so did the others, that the win had been as much a feat of luck as of skill.

"Drizzt Do'Urden telled ye about another of the reds, didn't he?" Ivan remarked.

"I know where we can find one," Cadderly replied grimly.

Danica walked in, then, her smile wide-until she noted the expressions on the faces of the other three.

"Poof!" said Pikel and he walked out of the room, muttering squeaky little sounds.

A puzzled Danica watched him go. Then she turned to his brother.

"He's a doo-dad," Ivan explained, "and fearin' no natural creature. There ain't nothin' less natural than a red dragon, I'm guessing, so he's not too happy right now." Ivan snorted and walked out behind his brother.

"Red dragon?" Danica asked Cadderly.

"Poof," the priest replied.