"You can fly now?" the mage said.

"Levitate," Jarlaxle corrected.

"Straight up and down."

"Weightlessly," the drow explained, and he took the end of his second cord from Athrogate and looped it around the lead of the housebreaker harness. "We will be no drag on you at all, good dwarf."

Athrogate figured it all out and howled all the louder. Canthan was tentatively edging out toward him by then, so the dwarf reached up and grabbed the wizard by the belt, roughly pulling him out.

"Got me a drow elf kite!" Athrogate declared with a hearty guffaw.

"Hook your arms through the harness and hold on," Jarlaxle bade the wizard. "Free up the dwarf's arms, I beg, else this castle will catch us before we reach the other side."

Canthan continued to stare at the surprising drow, and he saw clearly in Jarlaxle's returned gaze that the dark elf's instructions had emanated from more than mere prudence. A line was being drawn between them, Canthan knew.

But the time to cross over that line and dare Jarlaxle to defy him had not yet come. He had kept plenty of spells handy and was far from exhausted, but trouble just then could cost him dearly against the castle's hordes, whatever the outcome of his personal battle with the drow.

Still staring at Jarlaxle, the wizard moved to the lip of the wall and tentatively bent over to find a handhold on Athrogate's harness. He yelped with surprise when the dwarf grabbed him again and yanked him over, holding him in place until he could wrap his thin arms securely through some of the straps. Then he yelped again as Athrogate planted his heavy boots against the stone wall, pushed off, and began hand-walking the rope.

Jarlaxle took up the slack quickly and moved to the lip with Arrayan.

"Do hold on," the dark elf bade her, and to her obvious shock, he just stepped off.

Perhaps to ease the grasping woman's nerves, the drow used his power of levitation to rise up a bit higher, putting more room between them and the undead monsters. Canthan had heard tell that all drow were possessed of the ability to levitate, but he suspected that Jarlaxle was in fact using some enchanted item—perhaps a ring or other piece of jewelry. He was well aware that the mysterious drow had more than a few magic items in his possession, and not knowing precisely what they were made the wizard all the more reluctant to let things go much farther between them.

"We're coming fast, Ellery!" Athrogate called to the woman up ahead. "Ye're gonna get yerself a dwarf head! Bwahaha!"

Ellery, no fool, seemed to pick up a bit of speed at that proclamation.

The rooftop was clear, but the fight was still on at the keep, for the undead had begun scaling the tower—or trying to, at least—and more gargoyles were awakening to the intrusion and flying to the central structure.

Mariabronne worked his bow furiously, running from wall to wall, shooting gargoyles above and skeletons scrambling up from below. Olgerkhan, too, moved about the rooftop, though sluggishly. He carried many wounds from the initial fight after Athrogate had unceremoniously tossed him over the wall, most of them received because the large warrior, so bone-weary by then, had simply been too slow to react. Still, he tried to help out, using gargoyle corpses as bombs to rain down on the climbing undead.

Artemis Entreri tried to block it all out. He had moved about eight feet down the small staircase along the back wall to a landing with a heavy iron door. The door was locked, he soon discovered, and cleverly so. A quick inspection had also shown him more than one trap set around the portal, another clear reminder that the Zhengyian construct knew how to protect itself. He was in no hurry, anyway—he didn't intend to open the door until the others had arrived—so he carefully and deliberately went over the details of the jamb, the latch, potential pressure plates set on the floor…

"We've got to get in quickly!" Mariabronne cried out to him, and the ranger accentuated his warning with the twang of his great bow.

"Just keep the beasts off me," Entreri countered.

As if on cue, Olgerkhan cried out in pain.

"Breach!" Mariabronne shouted.

Cursing under his breath, Entreri turned from the door and rushed back up the stairs, to see Mariabronne ferociously battling a pair of gargoyles over to his right, near where the rope had been set. A third creature was fast approaching.

Behind the ranger, Olgerkhan slumped against the waist-high wall stones.

"Help me over!" the dwarf priest called from beyond the wall.

Olgerkhan struggled to get up, but managed to get his hand over.

Entreri hit the back of one gargoyle just as Pratcus gained the roof. The dwarf moved for Olgerkhan first, but just put on a disgusted look and walked past him as he began to cast his healing spell, aiming not for the more wounded half-orc, but for Mariabronne, who was beginning to show signs of battle wear, as claws slipped through his defenses and tore at him.

"We have it," the ranger cried to Entreri, and as the dwarf's healing washed over him, Mariabronne stood straighter and fought with renewed energy. "The door! Breach the door!"

Entreri paused long enough to glance past the trio to see Ellery's painfully slow progress on the rope and the other four working toward him in a strange formation, with Jarlaxle and Arrayan floating behind Athrogate and the hanging wizard.

He shook his head and ran back to the keep's uppermost door. He considered the time remaining before the rest arrived, and checked yet again for any more traps.

As usual, the assassin's timing was near perfect, and he clicked open the lock just as the others piled onto the stairwell behind him. Entreri swung the door in and stepped back, and Athrogate moved right past him.

Entreri grabbed him by the shoulder, stopping him.

"Eh?" the dwarf asked, and he meant to argue more, but Entreri had already put a finger over his pursed lips.

The assassin stepped past Athrogate and bent low. After a cursory inspection of the stones beyond the threshold, Entreri reached into a pouch and pulled forth some chalk dust. He tossed it out to cover a certain section of the stones.

"Pressure plate," he explained, stepping back and motioning for Athrogate to go on.

"Got yer uses," the dwarf grumbled.

Entreri waited for Jarlaxle, who brought up the rear of the line. The drow looked at him and grinned knowingly, then purposely stepped right atop the assassin's chalk.

"Make them believe you are more useful than you are," Jarlaxle congratulated, and Entreri merely shrugged.

"I do believe you are beginning to understand it all," Jarlaxle added. "Should I be worried?"

"Yes."

The simplicity of the answer brought yet another grin to Jarlaxle's coal-black face.