Drizzt sprang out to the nearest pillar and started making his way around, using Wulfgar’s frozen squint as a guide. Angered at the interruption, Bruenor pulled a small hatchet from his belt and stood ready beside the barbarian, and Regis behind them.

Then they heard Drizzt call out, “Catti-brie!” and were too relieved and elated to pause and consider what might have possibly brought their friend all the way from Ten-Towns, or how she had ever found them.

Their smiles disappeared when they saw her, bruised and bloodied and stumbling toward them. They rushed to meet her, but the drow, suspecting that someone might be in pursuit, slipped along through the monoliths and took up a lookout.

“What bringed ye?” Bruenor cried, grabbing Catti-brie and hugging her close. “And who was it hurt ye? He’ll feel me hands on his neck!”

“And my hammer!” Wulfgar added, enraged at the thought of someone striking Catti-brie.

Regis hung back now, beginning to suspect what had happened.

“Fender Mallot and Grollo are dead,” Catti-brie told Bruenor.

“On the road with ye? But why?” asked the dwarf.

“No, back in Ten-Towns,” Catti-brie answered. “A man, a killer, was there, looking for Regis. I chased after him, trying to get to ye to warn ye, but he caught me and dragged me along.”

Bruenor spun a glare upon the halfling, who was even farther back now, and hanging his head.

“I knew ye’d found trouble when ye came running up on the road outside the towns!” He scowled. “What is it, then? And no more of yer lying tales!”

“His name is Entreri,” Regis admitted. “Artemis Entreri. He came from Calimport, from Pasha Pook.” Regis pulled out the ruby pendant. “For this.”

“But he is not alone,” Catti-brie added. “Wizards from Luskan search for Drizzt.”

“For what reason?” Drizzt called from the shadows.

Catti-brie shrugged. “They been taking care not to tell, but me guess is that they seek some answers about Akar Kessell.”

Drizzt understood at once. They sought the Crystal Shard, the powerful relic that had been buried beneath the avalanche on Kelvin’s Cairn.

“How many?” asked Wulfgar. “And how far behind?”

“Three they were,” Catti-brie answered. “The assassin, a mage, and a soldier from Luskan. A monster they had with them. A golem, they called it, but I’ve ne’er seen its likes before.”

“Golem,” Drizzt echoed softly. He had seen many such creations in the undercity of the dark elves. Monsters of great power and undying loyalty to their creators. These must be mighty foes indeed, to have one along.

“But the thing is gone,” Catti-brie continued. “It chased me on me flight, and would have had me, no doubting, but I pulled a trick on it and sent a mountain of rock on its head!”

Bruenor hugged her close again. “Well done, me girl,” he whispered.

“And I left the soldier and the assassin in a terrible fight,” Catti-brie went on. “One is dead, I guess, and the soldier seems most likely. A pity, it is, for he was a decent sort.”

“He’d have found me blade for helping the dogs at all!” Bruenor retorted. “But enough of the tale; there’ll be time for telling. Ye’re at the hall, girl, do ye know? Ye’re to see for yerself the splendors I been telling ye about all these years! So go and rest up.” He turned around to tell Wulfgar to see to her, but noticed Regis instead. The halfling had problems of his own, hanging his head and wondering if he had pushed his friends too far this time.

“Fear not, my friend,” said Wulfgar, also seeing Regis’s distress. “You acted to survive. There is no shame in that. Though you should have told us the danger!”

“Ah, put yer head up, Rumblebelly!” Bruenor snapped. “We expect as much from ye, ye no-good trickster! Don’t ye be thinkin’ we’re surprised!” Bruenor’s rage, an angry possessor somehow growing of its own volition, suddenly mounted as he stood there chastising the halfling.

“How dare ye to put this on us?” he roared at Regis, moving Catti-brie aside and advancing a step. “And with me home right before me!”

Wulfgar was quick to block Bruenor’s path to Regis, though he was truly amazed at the sudden shift in the dwarf. He had never seen Bruenor so consumed by emotion. Catti-brie, too, looked on, stunned.

“‘Twas not the halfling’s fault,” she said. “And the wizards would’ve come anyway!”

Drizzt returned to them then. “No one has made the stair yet,” he said, but when he took a better notice of the situation, he realized that his words had not been heard.

A long and uncomfortable silence descended upon them, then Wulfgar took command. “We have come too far along this road to argue and fight among ourselves!” he scolded Bruenor.

Bruenor looked at him blankly, not knowing how to react to the uncharacteristic stand Wulfgar had taken against him. “Bah!” the dwarf said finally, throwing up his hands in frustration. “The fool halfling’ll get us killed…but not to worry!” he grumbled sarcastically, moving back to the wall to search for the door.

Drizzt looked curiously at the surly dwarf, but was more concerned with Regis at this point. The halfling, thoroughly miserable, had dropped to a sitting position and seemed to have lost all desire to go on. “Take heart,” Drizzt said to him. “Bruenor’s anger will pass. The essence of his dreams stands before him.”

“And about this assassin who seeks your head,” Wulfgar said, moving to join the two. “He shall find a mighty welcome when he gets here, if ever he does.” Wulfgar patted the head of his warhammer. “Perhaps we can change his mind about this hunt!”

“If we can get into the mines, our trail might be lost to them,” Drizzt said to Bruenor, trying to further soothe the dwarf’s anger.

“They’ll not make the stair,” said Catti-brie. “Even watching your climb down, I had trouble finding it!” .

“I would rather stand against them now!” Wulfgar declared. “They have much to explain, and they’ll not escape my punishment for the way they have treated Catti-brie!”

“Ware the assassin,” Catti-brie warned him. “His blades mean death, and no mistaking!”

“And a wizard can be a terrible foe,” added Drizzt. “We have a more important task before us—we do not need to take on fights that we can avoid.”

“No delays!” said Bruenor, ending any rebuttals from the big barbarian. “Mithril Hall stands before me, and I’m meaning to go in! Let them follow, if they dare.” He turned back to the wall to resume his search for the door, calling for Drizzt to join him. “Keep the watch, boy,” he ordered Wulfgar. “And see to me girl.”

“A word of opening, perhaps?” Drizzt asked when he stood alone again with Bruenor before the featureless wall.

“Aye,” said Bruenor, “there be a word. But the magic that holds to it leaves it after a while, and a new word must be named. None were here to name it!”

“Try the old word, then.”

“I have, elf, a dozen times when we first came here.” He banged his fist on the stone. “Another way there be, I know,” he growled in frustration.

“You will remember,” Drizzt assured him. And they set back to inspecting the wall.

Even the stubborn determination of a dwarf does not always pay off, and the night fell and found the friends sitting outside the entrance in the darkness, not daring to light a fire for fear of alerting their pursuers. Of all their trials on the road, the waiting so very close to their goal was possibly the most trying. Bruenor began to second-guess himself, wondering if this was even the correct place for the door. He recited the song he had learned as a child in Mithril Hall over and over, searching for some clues he might have missed.

The others slept uneasily, especially Catti-brie, who knew that the silent death of an assassin’s blade stalked them. They would not have slept at all, except that they knew that the keen, ever vigilant eyes of a drow elf watched over them.