“Evah!” Pikel roared, and Temberle was impressed that he had apparently learned a new word.

“But I thought that the gods weren’t listening,” Temberle dared say, drawing an “Ooooh” of consternation and a lot of finger-wagging from Pikel.

“Faith, brother,” said Hanaleisa. “Uncle Pikel knows the dirt.”

“Hee hee hee,” said the dwarf.

“Carradoon awaits,” said Temberle.

“Where is Rorey?” Hanaleisa asked, referring to their brother Rorick, at seventeen, five years their junior.

“With a gaggle of mages, arguing the integrity of the magical strands that empower the world. I expect that when this strangeness is ended, Rorey will have a dozen powerful wizards vying to serve as his mentor.”

Hanaleisa nodded at that, for she, like Temberle, knew well their younger brother’s propensity and talent at interjecting himself into any debate. The young woman brushed the dirt from her knees and slapped her hands together to clean them.

“Lead on,” she bade her brother. “Uncle Pikel won’t let my garden die, will you?”

“Doo-dad!” Pikel triumphantly proclaimed and launched into his rain dance … or fertility dance … or dance of the sunshine … or whatever it was that he danced about. As always, the Bonaduce twins left their Uncle Pikel with wide, sincere smiles splayed on their young faces, as it had been since their toddler days.

Her forearms and forehead planted firmly on the rug, the woman eased her feet from the floor, drawing her legs perpendicular to her torso. With great grace, she let her legs swing wide to their respective sides, then pulled them together as she straightened in an easy and secure headstand.

Breathing softly, in perfect balance and harmony, Danica turned her hands flat and pressed up, rising into a complete handstand. She posed as if underwater, or as if gravity itself could not touch her in her deep meditative state. She moved even beyond that grace, seeming as if some wire or force pulled her upward as she rose up from palms to fingers.

She stood inverted, perfectly still and perfectly straight, immune to the passage of time, unstrained. Her muscles did not struggle for balance, but firmly held her in position so her weight pressed down uniformly onto her strong hands. She kept her eyes closed, and her hair, showing gray amidst the strawberry hues, hung to the floor.

She was deep in the moment, deep within herself. Yet she sensed an approach, a movement by the door, and she opened her eyes just as Ivan Bouldershoulder, yellow-bearded brother of Pikel, poked his hairy head through.

Danica opened her eyes to regard the dwarf.

“When all their magic’s gone, yerself and meself’ll take over the world, girl,” he said with an exaggerated wink.

Danica rolled down to her toes and gracefully stood upright, turning as she went so that she still faced the dwarf.

“What do you know, Ivan?” she asked.

“More’n I should and not enough to be sure,” he replied. “Yer older brats went down to Carradoon, me brother’s telling me.”

“Temberle enjoys the availability of some young ladies there, or so I’ve heard.”

“Ah,” the dwarf mused, and a very serious look came over him. “And what o’ Hana?”

Danica laughed at him. “What of her?”

“She got some boy sniffin’ around?”

“She’s twenty-two years old, Ivan. That would be her business.”

“Bah! Not until her Uncle Ivan gets to talk to the fool, it won’t!”

“She can handle herself. She’s trained in the ways of—”

“No, she can’no’!”

“You don’t show the same concern for Temberle, I see.”

“Bah. Boys’ll do what boys’re supposed to be doin’, but they best not be doin’ it to me girl, Hana!”

Danica put a hand up over her mouth in a futile attempt to mask her laughter.

“Bah!” Ivan said, waving his hand at her. “I’m takin’ that girl to Bruenor’s halls, I am!”

“I don’t think she’d agree to that.”

“Who’s askin’? Yer young ones be runnin’ wild, they be!”

He continued to grumble, until the laughing Danica finally managed to catch her breath long enough to inquire, “Was there something you wished to ask me?”

Ivan stared at her blankly for a moment, confused and flustered. “Yeah,” he said, though he seemed uncertain. After another moment of reflection, he added, “Where’s the little one? Me brother was thinkin’ o’ jogging down to Carradoon, and he missed them older brats when they left.”

“I haven’t seen Rorick all day.”

“Well, he didn’t go with Temberle and Hana. Is it good by yerself that he goes with his uncle?”

“I cannot think of a safer place for any of my children to be, good Ivan.”

“Aye, and that’s what’s what,” the dwarf agreed, hooking his thumbs under the suspenders of his breeches.

“I fear that I cannot say the same for my future children-in-law, however….”

“Just the son-in-law,” Ivan corrected with a wink.

“Don’t break anything,” Danica begged. “And don’t leave any marks.”

Ivan nodded, then brought his hands together and cracked his knuckles loudly. With a bow, he took his leave.

Danica knew Ivan was harmless, at least as far as suitors to her daughter were concerned. It occurred to her just then that Hanaleisa would have a hard time indeed maintaining any relationships with Ivan and Pikel hovering over her.

Or maybe, those two would serve as a good test of a young man’s intentions. His heart would surely have to be full for him to stick around once the dwarves started in on him.

Danica giggled and sighed contentedly, reminding herself that, other than the few years they had been away serving King Bruenor in Mithral Hall, Ivan and Pikel Bouldershoulder had been the best guardians any child could ever know.

The shadowy being, once Fetchigrol the archmage of a great and lost civilization, didn’t even recognize himself by that name, having long ago abandoned his identity in the communal joining ritual that had forged the Crystal Shard. He had known life; had known undeath as a lich; had known a state of pure energy as part of the Crystal Shard; had known nothingness, obliteration.

And even from that last state, the creature that was once Fetchigrol had returned, touched by the Weave itself. No more was he a free-willed spirit, but merely an extension, an angry outreach of that curious triumvirate of power that had melded into a singular malevolent force in a fire-blasted cavern many miles to the southeast.

Fetchigrol served the anger of Crenshinibon-Hephaestus-Yharaskrik, of the being they had become, the Ghost King.

And like all seven of the shadowy specters, Fetchigrol searched the night, seeking those who had wronged his masters. In the lower reaches of the Snowflake Mountains, overlooking a large lake shining under the moonlight to the west, and on a trail leading deeper into the mountains and to a great library, he sensed that he was close.

When he heard the voices, a thrill coursed Fetchigrol’s shadowy substance, for above all, the undead specter sought an outlet for his malevolence, a victim of his hatred. He drifted to the deeper shadows behind a tree overlooking the path as a pair of young humans came into view, walking tentatively in the dim light among the roots that crisscrossed the trail.

They passed right before him, not noticing at all—though the young woman did cock her head curiously and shiver.

How the undead creature wanted to leap out and devour them! But Fetchigrol was too far removed from their world, was too much within the Shadowfell, the intruding realm of shadow and darkness that had come to Faerûn. Like his six brothers, he had not the substance to affect material creatures.

Only spirits. Only the diminishing life energies of the dead.

He followed the pair down the mountain until they at last found a place they deemed suitable for an encampment. Confident that they would stay there at least until pre-dawn, the malevolent spirit rushed into the wilds, seeking a vessel.