Servant of the Shard

CHAOS

With skills honed to absolute perfection, Danica had avoided the flames by a short distance, close enough so that her skin was bright red on the left side of her face. No magic would aid Danica now, she knew, only her thousands and thousands of hours of difficult training, those many years she had spent perfecting her style of fighting and, more importantly, dodging. Danica had no intention of battling the great wyrm, of striking out in any offensive manner against a beast she doubted she could even hurt, let alone slay. All her abilities, all her energy and concentration, was solely on the defensive now, her posture a balanced crouch that would allow her to skitter out to either side, ahead, or back.

Hephaestus's fang-filled jaws snapped down at her with a tremendous clapping noise, but the dragon hit only air as the monk dived out to the right. A claw followed, a swipe that surely would have cut Danica into pieces, except that she altered the momentum of her roll to go straight back in a sudden retreat.

Then came the breath, another burst of fire that seemed to go on and on forever.

Danica had to dive and roll a couple of times to put out the flames on the back side of her clothing. Sensing that

Hephaestus had noted her escape and would adjust the line of fiery breath, she cut a fast corner around a jag in the wall, throwing herself flat against the stone behind the protective rock.

She noted two figures then. Artemis Entreri was running her way, but leaping short of her position into a wide crevice that had opened with Cadderly's earthquake. The strange dark elf, Jarlaxle, skittered behind the dragon, and to Danica's astonishment, launched a spell Hephaestus's way. A sudden arc of lightning caught the dragon's attention and gave Danica a moment of freedom. She didn't waste it.

Danica ran flat out, leaping even as the spinning Hephaestus swept its great tail around to squash her. She disappeared into the same crevice as had Artemis Entreri.

She knew as soon as she crossed the lip of the crack that she was in trouble-but still far less trouble, she supposed, than she would have found back in the dragon's lair. The descent twisted and turned, lined with broken and often sharp-edged, stone. Again Danica's training came into play, her hands and legs working furiously to buffer the blows and slow her descent. Some distance down, the crack opened into a chamber, and Danica had nothing to hold onto for the last twenty feet of her drop. Still, she coordinated her movements so that she landed feet first, but with her legs turned slightly, propelling her into a sidelong somersault. She tumbled over and over again, her roll absorbing the momentum of the fall.

She came up to her feet a few moments later, and there before her, leaning on a wall looking bruised but hardly battered, stood Artemis Entreri. He was staring at her intently and held a lit torch in his hand but tossed it aside as soon as Danica took note of him.

"I had thought you consumed by the first of Hephaestus's fires," the assassin remarked, coming away from the wall and drawing both sword and dagger, the smaller blade glowing with a white, fiery light.

"One cannot always get what one most wants," the woman answered coldly.

"You have hated me since the moment you saw me," the assassin remarked, ending with a chuckle to show that he hardly cared.

"Long before that, Artemis Entreri," Danica replied coldly, and she advanced a step, eyeing the assassin's weapons intently.

"We know not what enemies we will find down here," Entreri explained, but he knew even as he said the words, as he looked upon Danica's mask of hatred, that no explanation would suffice, that anything short of his surrender to her would invite her wrath. Artemis Entreri had little desire to battle the woman, to do any unnecessary fighting down here, but neither would he shy from any fight.

"Indeed," was all that Danica answered. She continued coming forward.

This had been coming for some time, both knew, and despite the fact that they were both separated from their respective companions, despite the fact that an angry dragon was barely fifty feet above their heads, and all of it in a cavern that seemed on the verge of complete collapse, Danica saw this encounter as more than an opportunity but a necessity.

For all his logic and common sense, Artemis Entreri really wasn't disappointed by her feelings.
* * * * *

As soon as Hephaestus began its stunningly fast spin, Jarlaxle had to question the wisdom of his distracting lightning bolt. Still, the drow had reacted as any ally would, taking the beast's attention so that both Entreri and the woman might escape.

In truth, after the initial shock of seeing an outraged red dragon turning at him, Jarlaxle wasn't overly worried. Despite the powerful dispel that had saturated the room- too powerful a spell for any dragon to cast, the mercenary leader recognized-Jarlaxle remained confident that he possessed enough tricks to get away from this one.

Hephaestus's great jaws snapped down at the drow, who was standing perfectly still and seemed an easy target. The magic of Jarlaxle's cloak forced the wyrm to miss, and Hephaestus roared all the louder when its head slammed into a solid wall.

Next, predictably, came the fiery breath, but even as Hephaestus began its great exhale, Jarlaxle waggled a ringed finger, opening a dimension door that brought him behind the dragon. He could have simply skittered away then, but he wanted to hold the beast at bay a little bit longer. Out came a wand, one of several the drow carried, and it spewed a gob of greenish semiliquid at the very tip of Hephaestus's twitching tail.

"Now you are caught!" Jarlaxle proclaimed loudly as the fiery breath at last ceased.

Hephaestus spun around again, and indeed, the wyrm's tail looped about, its end stuck fast by the temporary but incredibly effective goo.

Jarlaxle let fly another wad from the wand, this one smacking the dragon in the face.

Of course, then Jarlaxle remembered why he had never wanted to face such a beast as this again, for Hephaestus went into a terrific frenzy, issuing growls through its clamped mouth that resonated through the very stones of the cavern. It thrashed about so wildly its tail tore the stone from the floor.

With a tip of his wide-brimmed hat, the mercenary drow called upon his magical ring again, one of the last portal- enacting enchantments it could offer, and disappeared back behind the wyrm, a bit further along the wall than he had been before his first dimension door. There was another exit from the room back there, one that Jarlaxle suspected would bring him to some old friends.

Some old friends who likely had the Crystal Shard, he knew, for certainly it had not been destroyed by Hephaestus's first breath, certainly it had been magically stolen away right before the powerful magic-defeating spell had filled the room.

The last thing Jarlaxle wanted was for Rai-guy and Kimmuriel to get their hands on the Crystal Shard and, undoubtedly, come looking for him once more.

He was out of the cavern a moment later, the thunderous sounds of Hephaestus's thrashing thankfully left behind. He reached up into his marvelous hat and brought forth a piece of black cloth in the shape of a small bat. He whispered a few magical words and tossed it into the air. The cloth swatch transformed into a living, breathing creature, a servant of its creator that fluttered back to Jar-laxle's shoulder. The drow whispered some instructions into its ear and tossed it up before him again, and his little scout flew off into the gloom.

"We will take Hephaestus as our own," Rai-guy whispered to the Crystal Shard, the drow considering all the great gains that might be made this day. Logically, the dark elf knew he should be well on his way out of the place, for could Kim-muriel and the others really defeat Jarlaxle and the powerful companions he had brought to the dragon's lair?

Rai-guy smiled, hardly afraid, for how could he be fearful with Crenshinibon in his possession? Soon, very soon, he knew, he would be allied with a great wyrm. He turned and started down the wide tunnel toward the main chamber of Hephaestus's lair.

He noticed some movement off to the side, in an alcove, and Crenshinibon screamed a warning in his head.

Yharaskrik stepped out, not ten paces away. The tentacles around the illithid's mouth were waving menacingly.

"Kimmuriel's friend, no doubt," the dark elf remarked, "who betrayed Kohrin Soulez."

Betrayal implies alliance, Yharaskrik telepathically answered. There was no betrayal.

"If you were to venture here with us, then why not do so openly?" the drow asked.

I came for you, not with you, the ever-confident illithid answered.

Rai-guy understood well what was going on, for the Crystal Shard was making its abject hatred of the creature quite apparent in his thoughts.

"The drow and your race have been allied many times in the past," Rai-guy remarked, "and rarely have we found reason to do battle. So it should be now."

The wizard wasn't trying to talk the illithid out of any rash actions out of fear-far from it. He was thinking he might have, perhaps, made another powerful connection here, one that could be exploited.

The screaming in his mind, Crenshinibon's absolute hatred of the mind flayer, made that alliance seem less likely.

And even less likely a moment later, when Yharaskrik lit the magical lantern and aimed its glow Crenshinibon's way. The protests in the drow wizard's mind faded far, far away.

The artifact will be brought back before the dragon, came Yharaskrik's telepathic call. It was a psionically enhanced command, and one that had Rai-guy involuntarily taking a step toward the main chamber once more.

The cunning dark elf had survived more than a century in the hostile territory of his own homeland, and he was no novice to any type of battle. He fought back against the compelling suggestion and rooted his feet to the floor, turning back to regard the octopus-headed creature, his red- glowing eyes narrowing threateningly.

"Release the Crystal Shard and perhaps we will let you live," Rai-guy said.

It must be destroyed! Yharaskrik screamed into his mind. It is an item of no gain, of loss to all, even to itself. As the creature finished, it held the lantern up even higher and advanced a step, its tentacles wriggling out, reaching for Rai-guy hungrily though the drow was still too far away for any physical attack, but not out of range for psionic attacks, the drow found out a split second later, even as he began casting his own spell.

A blast of stunning and confusing energy washed over him, reached into him, and scrambled his mind. He felt himself falling over backward, watched almost helplessly as his line of vision rolled up the wall, and to the high ceiling.

He called for Crenshinibon, but it was too far away, lost in the swirl of the magical lantern's glow. He thought of the illithid, of those horrid tentacles burrowing under his skin, reaching for his brain.

Rai-guy steadied himself and fought desperately, finally regaining his balance and glancing back to see Yharaskrik very close-too close, those tentacles almost touching him.

He nearly exploded into the motion of yet another spell- casting, but he recognized that he had to be more subtle here, that he had to make the creature believe he was defeated. That was the secret of battling illithids, as many drow had been trained. Play upon their arrogance. Yharaskrik, like all of its kind, would hardly be able to comprehend that an inferior creature like a drow had somehow resisted its psionic attacks.

Rai-guy worked a simple spell, with subtle movements, and all the while feigning helplessness.

It must be done! the illithid screamed in his thoughts. The tentacles moved toward Rai-guy's face, and Yha-raskrik's hand reached for the Crystal Shard.

Rai-guy released his spell. It was not a devastating blast, not a rumble of some great explosion, not a bolt of lightning nor a gout of fire. A simple gust of wind came from the drow's hand, a sharp and surprising burst that snapped Yha-raskrik's tentacles back across its ugly face, that blew the creature's robes back behind it and forced it to retreat a step.

That blew out the lantern.

Yharaskrik glanced down, thought to summon some psionic energy to relight the lantern, and looked up and thought to strike Rai-guy with another psionic blast of scrambling energy, fearing some second spellcasting.

As quickly as the illithid could begin to do either of those things, a wave of crushing emotions washed over it, a Crenshinibon-imparted flood of despair and hopelessness, and, paradoxically of hope, with subtle promises that all could be put right, with greater glory gained for all.

Yharaskrik's psionic defenses came up almost immediately, dulling the Crystal Shard's demanding call.

A jolt of energy, the shocking grasp of Rai-guy, caught the illithid on the chest, lifted it from the ground, and sent it sprawling backward to the floor.

"Fool!" Rai-guy growled. "Do you think I need Cren- shinibon to destroy the likes of you?"

Indeed, when Yharaskrik looked back at the drow wizard, thinking to attack mentally, he stared at the end of a small black wand. The illithid let go the blast anyway, and indeed it staggered Rai-guy backward, but the drow had already enacted the power of the wand. It was a wand similar to the one Jarlaxle had used to pin down Hephaestus's tail and momentarily clamp the dragon's mouth shut.

It took Rai-guy a long moment to fight through this burst of scrambling energy, but when he did stand straight again, he laughed aloud at the spectacle of the illithid splayed out on the floor, held in place by a viscid green glob.

The mental domination from Crenshinibon began on the creature anew, wearing at its resolve. Rai-guy walked to tower over Yharaskrik, to look the helpless mind flayer in the bulbous eye, letting it know in no uncertain terms that this fight was at its end.

She had no apparent weapon, but Entreri knew better than to ask for her surrender, knew well enough what this skilled warrior was capable of. He had battled fighting monks before, though not often, and had always found them full of surprises. He could see the honed muscles of Danica's legs twitching eagerly, the woman wanting badly to come at him.

"Why do you hate me so?" the assassin asked with a wry grin, halting his advance a mere three strides from Danica. "Or is it, perhaps, that you simply fear me and are afraid to show it? For you should fear me, you understand."

Danica stared at him hard. She did indeed hate this man, and had heard much about him from Drizzt Do'Urden, and even more-and even more damning-testimony from Catti-brie. Everything about him assaulted her sensibilities. To Danica, finding Artemis Entreri in the company of dark elves seemed more an indictment of the dark elves.

"But perhaps we would do better to settle our differences when we are far, far from this place," Entreri offered. "Though our fight is inevitable in your eyes, is it not?"

"Logic would so dictate to both," Danica replied. As she finished the sentence, she came forward in a rush, slid down to the floor beneath Entreri's extending blade, and swept him from his feet. "But neither of us is a slave to wise thinking, are we, foul assassin?"

Entreri accepted the trip without resistance, indeed, even helped the flow of Danica's leg along by tumbling backward, throwing himself into a roll, and lifting his feet up high to get them over her swinging leg. He didn't quite get all the way back to his feet before reversing momentum, planting his toes, and throwing himself forward in a sudden, devastating rush.

Danica, still prone, angled herself to put her feet in line with the charging Entreri, then rolled back suddenly and with perfect timing to get one foot against the assassin's inner thigh as he fell over her, his sword reaching for her gut. With precision born of desperation, Danica rolled back up onto her shoulders, every muscle in her torso and legs working in perfect coordination to drive Entreri away, to keep that awful sword back.

He went up and over, flying past Danica and dipping his head at the last moment to go into a forward roll. He came back to his feet with a spin, facing the monk, who was up and charging, and stopping cold in her tracks as she faced again the deadly sword and its dagger companion.

Entreri felt the adrenaline coursing through his body, the rush of a true challenge. As much as he realized the foolishness of it all, he was enjoying this.

So was the woman.

The sound of a voice came from the side, the melodious call of a dark elf. "Do slay each other and save us the trouble," Berg'inyon Baenre explained, entering the small area along with a pair of dark elf companions. All three of them carried twin swords that gleamed with powerful enchantments.
* * * * *

Coughing and bleeding from a dozen scrapes, Cadderly pulled himself out of the rockslide and stumbled across a small corridor. He fished in a pouch to bring forth his light tube, a cylindrical object with a continual light spell cast into it, the enchantment focused into an adjustable beam out one end. He had to find Danica. He had to see her again. That last image of her, the dragon's fiery breath falling over her, had him dizzy with fear.

What would his life be without Danica? What would he say to the children? Everything about the life of Cadderly Bonaduce was wrapped inextricably around that wonderful and capable woman.

Yes, capable, he pointedly told himself again and again, as he staggered along in the dusty corridor, pausing only once to cast a minor spell of healing upon a particularly deep cut on one shoulder. He bent over and coughed again, and spat out some dirt that had gotten into his throat.

He shook his head, muttered again that he had to find her, and stood straight, pointing his light ahead-pointing his light so that it reflected off of the black skin of a drow.

That beam stung Kimmuriel Oblodra's sensitive eyes, but he was not caught unawares by it.

It all fell into place quickly for the intelligent priest. He had learned much of Jarlaxle in speaking with the drow and his assassin companion and had deduced much more with information gleaned from denizens of the lower planes. He was indeed surprised to see another dark elf- who could not be?  -  but he was far from overwhelmed.

The drow and Cadderly stood ten paces apart, staring at each other, sizing each other up. Kimmuriel reached for the priest's mind with psionic energy-enough energy to crush the willpower of a normal man.

But Cadderly Bonaduce was no normal human. The manner in which he accessed his god, the flowing song of Deneir, was somewhat akin to the powers of psionics. It was a method of the purest mental discipline.

Cadderly could not lash out with his mind, as Kimmuriel had just done, but he could surely defend against such an attack, and furthermore, he surely recognized the attack for what it was.

He thought of the Crystal Shard then, of all he knew about it, of its mannerisms and its powers.

The drow psionicist waved a hand, breaking the mental connection, and drew out a gleaming sword. He enacted another psionic power, one that would physically enhance him for the coming fight.

Cadderly did no similar preparations. He just stood staring at Kimmuriel and grinning knowingly. He cast one simple spell of translation.

The drow regarded him curiously, inviting an explanation.

"You wish Crenshinibon destroyed as much as I," the priest remarked, his magic translating the words as they came out of his mouth, "You are a psionicist, the bane of the Crystal Shard, its most hated enemy."

Kimmuriel paused and stared hard, with his physical and his mental eye. "What do you know, foolish human?" he asked.

"The Crystal Shard will not suffer you to live for long," Cadderly said, "and you know it."

"You believe I would help a human against Rai-guy?" Kimmuriel asked incredulously.

Cadderly didn't know who this Rai-guy might be, but Kimmuriel's question made it obvious that he was a dark elf of some power and importance.

"Save yourself, then, and leave," Cadderly offered, and he said it with such calm and confidence that Kimmuriel narrowed his eyes and regarded him even more closely.

Again came the psionic intrusions. This time Cadderly let the drow in somewhat, guided his probing mind's eye to the song of Deneir, let him see the truth of the power of the harmonious flow, let him see the truth of his doom should he persist in this battle.

The psionic connection again went away, and Kimmuriel stood up straight, staring hard at Cadderly.

"I am not normally this generous, dark elf," Cadderly said, "but I have greater problems before me. You hold no love for Crenshinibon and wish it destroyed perhaps more passionately than do I. If it is not, if your companion, this

Rai-guy you spoke of, is allowed to possess it, it will be the end of you. So help me if you will in destroying the Crystal Shard. If you and your kin intend to return to your lightless home, I will in no way interfere."

Kimmuriel held his impassive pose for a short while, and smiled and shook his head. "You will find Rai-guy a formidable foe," he promised, "especially with Crenshinibon in his possession."

Before Cadderly could begin to respond, Kimmuriel waved his hand and became something less than corporeal. That transparent form turned and simply walked through the stone wall.

Cadderly waited a long moment and breathed a huge sigh of relief. How he had improvised there and bluffed. The spells he had prepared this day were for dealing with dragons, not dark elves, and the power of that one was substantial indeed. He had felt that keenly with the psionic intrusions.

Now he had a name, Rai-guy, and now his fears about the truth of Hephaestus's breathing had been confirmed. Cadderly, like Jarlaxle, understood enough about the mighty relic to know that if the breath had destroyed Crenshinibon, everyone in the area would have known it in no uncertain terms. Now Cadderly could guess easily enough where and how the Crystal Shard had gone. Knowing that there were other dark elves about, compounding the problem of one very angry red dragon, didn't make him feel any better about the prospects for his three missing friends.

He started away as fast as he dared, and fell again into the song of Deneir, praying for guidance to Danica's side.

"Always I seem doomed to protect those I most despise," Entreri whispered to Danica, motioning with his hand for the woman to shift over to the side.

The dark elves broke ranks. One moved to square off against Danica, and Berg'inyon and one other headed for the assassin. Berglnyon waved his companion aside.

"Kill the woman, and quickly," he said in the drow tongue. "I wish to try this one alone."

Entreri glanced over at Danica and held up two fingers, pointing to the two that would go for her, and pointing to her. The woman gave a quick nod, and a great deal passed between them in that instant. She would try to keep the two dark elves busy, but both understood that Entreri would have to be done with the third quickly.

"I have often wondered how I would fare against Drizzt Do'Urden," Berg'inyon said to the assassin. "Now that I will apparently never get the chance, I will settle for you, Drizzt's equal by all accounts."

Entreri bowed. "It is good to know that I serve some value for you, cowardly son of House Baenre," he said.

He knew as he came back up that Berg'inyon wouldn't hesitate in the face of those words. Still, the sheer ferocity of the drow's attack nearly had Entreri beaten before the fight ever really began. He leaped back, staying up on his heels, skittering away as the two swords came in hard, side by side down low, then low again, then high, then at his belly. He jumped back once, twice, thrice, then managed to bat his sword across those of Berg'inyon on the fourth double-thrust, hoping to drive the blades down low. This was no farmer he faced, and no orc or wererat, but a skilled, veteran drow warrior. Berg'inyon kept his left- handed sword pressing up against the assassin's blade, but dropped his right into a quick circle, then came up and over hard.

The jeweled dagger hooked it and turned it aside at the last second. Entreri rolled his other hand over, the tip of his own sword going toward Berg'inyon. He didn't follow through with the thrust, though, but continued the roll, bringing his blade down and around under the drow's, and stabbing straight ahead.

Berg'inyon quickly turned his left-hand blade across his body and down, disengaged his right from the dagger and brought it across over the left, further driving Entreri's sword down. In the same fluid motion, the skilled drow rolled his right-hand blade up and over his crossing left, the blade going forward at the assassin's head, a brilliant move that Berg'inyon knew would be the end of Artemis Entreri.
* * * * *

Across the way, Danica fared no better. Her fight was a mixture of pure chaos and lightning fast, almost violent movement. The woman crouched and dropped, sprang up hard, and rushed side to side, avoiding slash after slash of drow blades. These two were nowhere near as good as the one across the way battling her companion, but they were dark elves after all, and even the weakest of drow warriors was skilled by surface standards. Furthermore, they knew each other well and complemented each other's movements with deadly precision, preventing Danica from getting any real counterattacks. Every time one came ahead in a rush that seemed to offer the woman some hope of rolling past his double-thrusting blades, or even skittering in under them and kicking at a knee, the companion drow beat her to the potential attack zone, two gleaming swords holding her at bay.

With those long blades and precise movements, they were working her to exhaustion. She had to react, to overreact even, to every thrust and slash. She had to leap away from a blade sent across by a mere flick of a drow wrist.

She looked over at Entreri and the other drow, their blades ringing in a wild song and with the dark elf seeming, if anything, to be gaining an advantage. She knew she had to try something dangerous, even desperate.

Danica came ahead in a rush, and cut left suddenly, bursting out to the side though she had only three strides to the wall. Seeing her apparently caught, the closest dark elf cut fast in pursuit, stabbing at... nothing.

Danica ran right up the wall, turning over as she went and kicking out into a backward somersault that brought her down and to the side of the pursuing dark elf. She fell low as she landed and spun around viciously, one leg extended to kick out the dark elf s legs.

She would have had him, but there was his companion, swords extended, blade driving deeply into Danica's thigh. She howled and scrambled back, kicking futilely at the pursuing dark elves.

A globe of darkness fell over her. She slammed her back against the stone and had nowhere left to go.

He ran along, with the less-than-corporeal Kimmuriel Oblodra following close behind.

"You seek an exit?" the drow psionicist asked with a voice that seemed impossibly thin.

"I seek my friends," Cadderly replied.

"They are out of the mountain, likely," Kimmuriel remarked, and that slowed the priest considerably.

For indeed, would not Danica and the dwarves search for a way out of the mountain-and there were many easy exits from the lower tunnels, Cadderly knew from his searching of the place before this journey. Dozens of corridors crisscrossed down there, but a quiet pause and a lifted and wetted finger would show the drafts of air. Certainly Ivan and Pikel would have little trouble in finding their way out of the underground maze, but what of Danica?

"Something comes this way," Kimmuriel warned, and Cadderly turned to see the drow shrink back against the wall, and stand perfectly still, seeming simply to disappear.

Cadderly knew the drow wouldn't aid him in any fight and would likely even join in if the approaching footsteps were those of Kimmuriel's dark elf companions.

They were not, Cadderly knew almost as soon as that worry cropped up, for these were not the steps of any stealthy creature.

"Ye stupid doo-dad!" came the roar of a familiar voice. "Droppin' me in a hole, and one full o' rocks!"

"Ooo oi!" Pikel replied as they came bounding around the bend in the tunnel, right into the path of Cadderly's light beam.

Ivan shrieked and started to charge, but Pikel grabbed him and pulled him down, whispering into his ear.

"Hey, ye're right," the yellow-bearded dwarf admitted. "Damned drows don't use light."

Cadderly came up beside them. "Where is Danica?"

Any relief the two dwarves had felt at the sight of their friend disappeared immediately.

"Help me find her!" Cadderly said to the dwarves and to Kimmuriel, as he spun around.

Kimmuriel Oblodra, apparently fearing that Cadderly and his companions would not be safe traveling company, was already long gone.

His smile, a wicked grin indeed, widened as one of his blades came up over the other, for he knew that Entreri had nothing left with which to parry. Out went Berg'inyon's killing stab.

But the assassin was not there!

Berg'inyon's thoughts whirled frantically. Where had he gone? How were his weapons still in place with the previous parries? He knew Entreri could not have moved far, and yet, he was not there.

The angle of the sudden disengage clued Berg'inyon in to the truth, told the drow that in the same moment Berg'inyon had executed the roll, Entreri had also come forward, but down low, using Berg'inyon's own blade as the visual block.

The dark elf silently congratulated the cunning human, this man rumored to be the equal of Drizzt Do'Urden, even as he felt the jeweled dagger sliding into his back, reaching for his heart.

"You should have kept one of your lackeys with you," Entreri whispered in the drow's ear, easing the dying Berg'inyon Baenre to the floor. "He could have died beside you."

The assassin pulled free his dagger and turned around to consider the woman. He saw her get slashed, saw her skitter away, saw the globe fall over her.

Entreri winced as the two dark elves-too far away for him to offer any timely assistance-rolled out in opposite directions, flanking the woman and rushing into that darkness, swords before them.
* * * * *

Just a split second before the darkness fell, the dark elf standing before Danica to the right began to execute a roll farther that way, spinning a circle to bring him around quickly and with momentum, the only clue for Danica.

The other one, she guessed, was moving to her left, but both were surely coming in at a tight enough angle to prevent her from rushing straight ahead between them. Those three options: left, right, and ahead, were unavailable, as was moving back, for the stone of the wall was solid indeed.

She sensed their movements, not specifically, but enough to realize that they were coming in fast for the kill.

One option presented itself. One alone.

Danica leaped straight up, tucking her legs under her, so full of desperation that she hardly felt the burn of the wound in her thigh.

She couldn't see the double-thrust low attack of the drow to her right, nor the double-thrust high attack from the one on the left, but she felt the disturbance below her as she cleared both sets of blades. She came up high in a tuck, and kicked out to both sides with a sudden and devastating spreading snap of her legs.

She connected on both sides, driving a foot into the forehead of the drow on her right, and another into the throat of the drow on her left. She pressed through to complete extension, sending both dark elves flying away. She landed in perfect balance and burst ahead three running steps. A forward dive brought her rolling out of the darkness. She came up and around-to see the dark elf now on her left, and the one she had kicked on the forehead, still staggering backward out of the darkness globe and into the waiting grasp of Artemis Entreri.

The drow jerked suddenly, violently, and Entreri's fine sword exploded through his chest. The assassin held it there for a moment, let Charon's Claw work its demonic power, and the dark elf s face began to smolder, burn, and roll back from his skull.

Danica looked away, focusing on the darkness, waiting for the other dark elf to come rushing out. Blood was pouring from her wounded leg, and her strength was fast receding.

She was too lightheaded a moment later to hear the final gurgling of the drow dying in the darkness globe, its throat too crushed to bring in anymore air, but even if she had heard that reassuring sound, it would have done little to bolster her hopes.

She could not hold her footing, she knew, or her consciousness.

Artemis Entreri, surely no ally, was still very much alive, and very, very close.
* * * * *

Yharaskrik was overwhelmed. The combination of Rai-guy's magic and the continuing mental attack of the Crystal Shard had the illithid completely overmatched. Yharaskrik couldn't even focus its mental energies enough at that moment to melt away through the stone, away from the imprisoning goo.

"Surrender!" the drow wizard-cleric demanded. "You cannot escape us. We will take your word that you will promise fealty to us," the drow explained, oblivious to the shadowy form that darted out behind him to retrieve an item. "Crenshinibon will know if you lie, but if you speak of honest fealty, you will be rewarded!"

Indeed, as the dark elf proclaimed those words, Crenshinibon echoed them deep in Yharaskrik's mind. The thought of servitude to Crenshinibon, one of the most hated artifacts for all of the mind flayers, surely repulsed the bulbous-headed creature, but so, too, did the thought of obliteration. That was precisely what Yharaskrik faced. The illithid could not win, could not escape. Crenshinibon would melt its mind even as Rai-guy blasted its body.

I yield, the illithid telepathically communicated to both of its attackers.

Rai-guy relented his magic and considered Crenshinibon. The artifact informed him that Yharaskrik had truthfully surrendered.

"Wisely done," the drow said to the illithid. "What a waste your death would be when you might bolster my army, when you might serve me as liaison to your powerful people."

"My people hate Crenshinibon and will not hear those calls," Yharaskrik said in its watery voice.

"But you understand differently," said the drow. He spoke a quick spell, dissolving the goo around the illithid. "You see the value of it now."

"A value above that of death, yes," Yharaskrik admitted, climbing back to its feet.

"Well, well, my traitorous lieutenant," came a voice from the side. Both Rai-guy and Yharaskrik turned to see Jarlaxle perched a bit higher on the wall, tucked into an alcove.

Rai-guy growled and called upon Crenshinibon mentally to crush his former master. Even as he started that silent call, up came the magical lantern. Its glow fell over the artifact, defeating its powers.

Rai-guy growled again. "You need do more than defeat the artifact!" he roared and swept his arm out toward Yharaskrik. "Have you met my new friend?"

"Indeed, and formidable," Jarlaxle admitted, tipping his wide-brimmed hat in deference to the powerful illithid. "Have you met mine?" As he finished, his gaze aimed to the side, further along the wide tunnel.

Rai-guy swallowed hard, knowing the truth before he even turned that way. He began waving his arms wildly, trying to bring up some defensive magic.

Using his innate drow abilities, Jarlaxle dropped a globe of darkness over the wizard and the mind flayer, a split second before Hephaestus's fiery breath fell over them, immolating them in a terrible blast of devastation.

Jarlaxle leaned back and shielded his eyes from the glow of the fire, the reddish-orange line that so disappeared into the blackness.

Then there came a sudden sizzling noise, and the darkness was no more. The tunnel reverted to its normal blackness, lightened somewhat by the glow of the dragon. That light intensified a hundred times over, a thousand times over, into a brilliant glow, as if the sun itself had fallen upon them.

Crenshinibon, Jarlaxle realized. The dragon's breath had done its work, and the binding energy of the artifact had been breached. In the moment before the glare became too great, Jarlaxle saw the surprised look on the reptilian face of the great wyrm, saw the charred corpse of his former lieutenant, and saw a weird image of Yharaskrik, for the illithid had begun to melt into the stone when Hephaestus had breathed. The retreat had done little good, since Hephaestus's breath had bubbled the stone.

It was soon too bright for the eyes of the drow. "Well fired... er, breathed," he said to Hephaestus.

Jarlaxle spun around, slipped through a crack at the back of the alcove, and sprinted away not a moment too soon. Hephaestus's terrible breath came forth yet again, melting the stone in the alcove, chasing Jarlaxle down the tunnel, and singeing the seat of his trousers.

He ran and ran in the still-brightening light. Cren- shinibon's releasing power filled every crack in every stone. Soon Jarlaxle knew he was near the outside wall, and so he utilized his magical hole again, throwing it against the wall and crawling through into the twilight of the outside beyond.

That area, too, brightened immediately and considerably, seeming as if the sun had risen. The light poured through Jarlaxle's magical hole. With a snap of his wrist, the drow took the magic item away, closing the portal and dimming the area to natural light again-except for the myriad beams shooting out of the glowing mountain in other places.

"Danica!" came Cadderly's frantic call behind him. "Where is Danica?"

Jarlaxle turned to see the priest and the two bumbling dwarves-an odd pair of brothers if ever the drow had seen one-running toward him.

"She went down the hole after Artemis Entreri," Jarlaxle said in a comforting tone. "A fine and resourceful ally."

"Boom!" said Pikel Bouldershoulder.

"What's the light about?" Ivan added.

Jarlaxle looked back to the mountain and shrugged. "It would seem that your formula for defeating the Crystal Shard was correct after all," the drow said to Cadderly.

He turned with a smile, but that look was not reflected on the face of the priest. He was staring back at the mountain with horror, wondering and worrying about his dear wife.