“Easy, girl,” Bruenor replied somberly, cutting low at the demodand’s knees. The creature hopped over the blade gingerly and started another attack, which Drizzt deflected.

“Easy yerself, Bruenor Battlehammer!” Catti-brie shouted. “Ye’ve the gall to call yerself king o’ yer clan. Ha! Garumn’d be tossin’ in his grave to see ye fightin’ so!”

Bruenor turned a wicked glare on Catti-brie, his throat too choked for him to spit out a reply.

Drizzt tried to smile. He knew what the young woman, that wonderful young woman, was up to. His lavender eyes lit up with the inner fire. “Go to Wulfgar,” he told Bruenor. “Secure our backs and watch for attacks from above.”

Drizzt eyed the demodand, who had noted his sudden change in demeanor.

“Come, farastu,” the drow said evenly, remembering the name given to that particular type of creature. “Farastu,” he taunted, “the least of the demodand kind. Come and feel the cut of a drow’s blade.”

Bruenor backed away from Drizzt, almost laughing. Part of him wanted to say, “What’s the point?” but a bigger part, the side of him that Catti-brie had awakened with her biting references to his proud history, had a different message to speak. “Come on and fight, then!” he roared into the shadows of the endless chasm. “We’ve enough for the whole damn world of ye!”

In seconds, Drizzt was fully in command. His movements remained slowed with the heaviness of the plane, but they were no less magnificent. He feinted and cut, sliced and parried, in harmony to offset every move the demodand made.

Instinctively Wulfgar and Bruenor started in to help him, but stopped to watch the display.

Catti-brie turned her gaze outward, plucking off a bowshot whenever a foul form flew from the hanging smoke. She took a quick bead on one body as it dropped from the darkness high above.

She pulled Taulmaril away at the last second in absolute shock.

“Regis!” she cried.

The halfling ended his half-speed plummet, plopping with a soft puff into the smoke of a second bridge a dozen yards across the emptiness from his friends. He stood and managed to hold his ground against a wave of dizziness and disorientation.

“Regis!” Catti-brie cried again. “How did ye get yerself here?”

“I saw you in that awful hoop,” the halfling explained. “Thought you might need my help.”

“Bah! More that ye got yerself thrown here, Rumblebelly,” Bruenor replied.

“Good to see you, too,” Regis shot back, “but this time you are mistaken. I came of my own choice.” He held the pearltipped scepter up for them to see. “To bring you this.”

Truly Bruenor had been glad to see his little friend even before Regis had refuted his suspicion. He admitted his error by bowing low to Regis, his beard dipping under the smoky swirl.

Another demodand rose up, this one across the way, on the same bridge as Regis. The halfling showed his friends the scepter again. “Catch it,” he begged, winding up to throw. “This is your only chance to get out of here!” He mustered up his nerve—there would only be one chance—and heaved the scepter as powerfully as he could. It spun end over end, tantalizingly slow in its journey toward the three sets of outstretched hands.

It could not cut a swift enough path through the heavy air, though, and it lost its speed short of the bridge.

“No!” Bruenor cried, seeing their hopes falling away.

Catti-brie growled in denial, unhitching her laden belt and dropping Taulmaril in a single movement.

She dove for the scepter.

Bruenor dropped flat to his chest desperately to grab her ankles, but she was too far out. A contented look came over her as she caught the scepter. She twisted about in midair and threw it back to Bruenor’s waiting hands, then she plummeted from sight without a word of complaint.

LaValle studied the mirror with trembling hands. The image of the friends and the plane of Tarterus had faded into a dark blur when Regis had jumped through with the scepter. But that was the least of the wizard’s concerns now. A thin crack, detectable only at close inspection, slowly etched its way down the center of the Taros Hoop.

LaValle spun on Pook, charging his master and grabbing at the walking stick. Too surprised to fight the wizard off, Pook surrendered the cane and stepped back curiously.

LaValle rushed back to the mirror. “We must destroy its magic!” he screamed and he smashed the cane into the glassy image.

The wooden stick, sundered by the device’s power, splintered in his hands, and LaValle was thrown across the room. “Break it! Break it!” he begged Pook, his voice a pitiful whine.

“Get the halfling back!” Pook retorted, still more concerned with Regis and the statuette.

“You do not understand!” LaValle cried. “The halfling has the scepter! The portal cannot be closed from the other side!”

Pook’s expression shifted from curiosity to concern as the gravity of his wizard’s fears descended over him. “My dear LaValle,” he began calmly, “are you saying that we have an open door to Tarterus in my living quarters?”

LaValle nodded meekly.

“Break it! Break it!” Pook screamed at the eunuchs standing beside him. “Heed the wizard’s words! Smash that infernal hoop to pieces!”

Pook picked up the broken end of his walking stick, the silver-shod, meticulously crafted cane he had been given personally by the Pasha of Calimshan.

The morning sun was still low in the eastern sky, but already the guildmaster knew that it would not be a good day.

Drizzt, trembling with anguish and anger, roared toward the demodand, his every thrust aimed at a critical spot. The creature, agile and experienced, dodged the initial assault, but it could not stay the enraged drow. Twinkle cut a blocking arm off at the elbow, and the other blade dove into the demodand’s heart. Drizzt felt a surge of power run through his arm as his scimitar sucked the life-force out of the wretched creature, but the drow contained the strength, burying it within his own rage, and held on stubbornly.

When the thing lay lifeless, Drizzt turned to his companions.

“I did not…” Regis stammered from across the chasm. “She…I…”

Neither Bruenor nor Wulfgar could answer him. They stood frozen, staring into the empty darkness below.

“Run!” Drizzt called, seeing a demodand closing in behind the halfling. “We shall get to you!”

Regis tore his eyes from the chasm and surveyed the situation. “No need!” he shouted back. He pulled out the statuette and held it up for Drizzt to see. “Guenhwyvar will get me out of here, or perhaps the cat could aid—”

“No!” Drizzt cut him short, knowing what he was about to suggest. “Summon the panther and be gone!”

“We will meet again in a better place,” Regis offered, his voice breaking in sniffles. He placed the statuette down before him and called out softly.

Drizzt took the scepter from Bruenor and put a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder. He then held the magic item to his chest, attuning his thoughts to its magical emanations.

His guess was confirmed; the scepter was indeed the key to the portal back to their own plane, a gate that Drizzt sensed was still open. He scooped up Taulmaril and Catti-brie’s belt. “Come,” he told his two friends, still staring at the darkness. He pushed them along the bridge, gently but firmly.

Guenhwyvar sensed the presence of Drizzt Do’Urden as soon as it came into the plane of Tarterus. The great cat moved with hesitancy when Regis asked it to take him away, but the halfling now possessed the statuette and Guenhwyvar had always known Regis as a friend. Soon Regis found himself in the swirling tunnel of blackness, drifting toward the distant light that marked Guenhwyvar’s home plane.