Drizzt and Bruenor looked at each other and sighed.

“I did not steal anything from him, and I could have, easily enough,” Jarlaxle argued. “I did not kill him, or you, and I could have—”

“Easily enough,” Drizzt had to agree.

“When can you free her of the trance?” Drizzt asked.

Jarlaxle glanced down at Danica, the monk seeming much more at ease, and he started to say, “Soon.” Before the word got out of his mouth, Danica’s hand shot up and grasped the dangling chain that held the ruby pendant. With a twist and turn that appeared so subtle and simple as she sat up from the wagon bed, she spun the startled Jarlaxle around and jerked the chain behind him, twisting it even more to hold the drow fast in a devastating chokehold.

“You were told never to return, Jarlaxle Baenre,” Danica said, her mouth right beside the dark elf’s ear.

“Your gratitude overwhelms me, Lady,” the drow managed to gasp in reply.

He stiffened as Danica pulled and twisted. “Move your fingers a bit more into position to grasp a weapon, drow,” she coaxed. “I can snap your neck as easily as a dry twig.”

“A little help?” Jarlaxle whispered to Drizzt.

“Danica, let him go,” Drizzt said. “He is not our enemy. Not now.” Danica loosened her grip, just a bit, and stared skeptically at the ranger, then looked to Bruenor.

Drizzt nudged the silent dwarf.

“Good to meet ye at last, Lady Danica,” Bruenor said. “King Bruenor Battlehammer, at yer ser—” Drizzt elbowed him again.

“Aye, let the rat go,” Bruenor bade her. “‘Twas Jarlaxle that gived ye the potions that saved yer hide, and he’s been a help with me daughter there.”

Danica glanced from one to the other, then looked over at Catti-brie. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked as she released Jarlaxle, who shifted forward to get away from her.

“I never thought I would see Jarlaxle caught so easily,” Drizzt remarked.

“I share your surprise,” the mercenary admitted.

Drizzt smiled, briefly enjoying the moment. He came over the rail of the wagon then, stepping past Jarlaxle to go to Danica, who leaned against the tailgate.

“I’ll not underestimate that one again,” Jarlaxle promised quietly.

“You must get me to Spirit Soaring,” Danica said, and Drizzt nodded.

“That is where we were going,” he explained. “Catti-brie was touched by the falling Weave—some kind of blue fire. She is trapped within her own mind, it seems, and in a dark place of huddled, crawling creatures.”

Danica perked up at that description.

“You have seen them?” Jarlaxle remarked.

“Long-armed, short-legged—almost no-legged—gray-skinned beasts attacked Spirit Soaring in force last night,” she explained. “I was out scouting …” Her voice trailed off as she gave a great sigh.

“Ivan Bouldershoulder is dead,” she said. Bruenor cried out and Drizzt winced. From the side of the wagon, Thibbledorf Pwent wailed. “The dragon—a dracolich, an undead dragon … and something more …”

“A dracolich?” Jarlaxle said.

“Dead dragon walking—dead dragon talking, dead dragon furious, I’m thinking that curious!” Athrogate rhymed, and Thibbledorf Pwent nodded in appreciation, drawing a scowl from Bruenor.

A dumbfounded Danica stared at the bizarre Athrogate.

“You have to admit that one does not see a dracolich every day,” Jarlaxle deadpanned.

Danica seemed even more at a loss.

“Something stranger still, you mentioned?” Jarlaxle prompted.

“Its touch is death,” the monk explained. “I found it by following a trail of utter devastation, a complete withering of everything the beast had touched. Trees, grass, everything.”

“Never heared o’ such a thing,” said Bruenor.

“When I saw the beast, gigantic and terrible, I knew my guess to be correct. Its mere touch is death. It is death incarnate, and something more—a horn in its head, glowing with power,” Danica went on, her eyes closed as if she had to force herself to remember things she did not want to recall. “I think it was …”

“Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard,” said Jarlaxle, nodding with every word. “Yes.”

“That durned thing again,” Bruenor grumbled. “So there ye go, elf. Ye didn’t break it.”

“I did,” Jarlaxle corrected. “And that is part of the problem, I fear.” Bruenor just shook his hairy head.

Danica pointed to a tall peak not far behind them and to the north. “He controls them.” She looked directly at Jarlaxle. “I believe the dragon is Hephaestus, the great red wyrm whose breath destroyed the artifact, or so we thought.”

“It is indeed Hephaestus,” Jarlaxle assured her.

“Ye think ye might be tellin’ us what ye’re about anytime soon?” Bruenor grumbled.

“I already told you my fears,” Jarlaxle said. “The dragon and the liches, somehow freed of the prison artifact of their own creation—”

“The Crystal Shard,” said Danica, and she tapped her forehead. “Here, on the dracolich.”

“Joined by the magic of the collapsing Weave,” said Jarlaxle, “merged by the collision of worlds.”

Danica looked at him, incredulous.

“I know not either, Lady Danica,” Jarlaxle explained. “It’s all a guess. But this is all related, of that I am certain.” He looked at Catti-brie, her eyes wide open but unseeing. “Her affliction, these beasts, the dragon risen from the dead … all of it … all part of the same catastrophe, the breadth of which we still do not know.”

“And so we have come to find out,” said Drizzt. “To bring Catti-brie to Cadderly in the hope that he might help her.”

“And I’m thinking that ye’ll be needin’ our help, too,” Bruenor said to Danica.

Danica could only sigh and nod in helpless agreement. She glanced at the distant cliff, the lair of the dracolich and the Crystal Shard, the grave of Ivan Bouldershoulder. She tried not to look past that point, but she couldn’t help herself. She feared for her children.

CHAPTER 18

THE SEVERING

It was more than independent thought, Yharaskrik knew. It was independent desire.

Such a thing could not be tolerated. The seven liches that had created the Crystal Shard were represented by the singular power of Crenshinibon only. They had no say in the matter, and no opinions or wants that were pertinent.

But to the perceptive illithid, there was no missing the desire behind Fetchigrol’s request. The creature wasn’t acting purely on expediency or any compulsion to please its three masters joined as the Ghost King. Fetchigrol wanted something.

And Crenshinibon’s addition to the internal debate brewing within the Ghost King was nothing but supportive of the lich-turned-specter.

Yharaskrik telepathically appealed to Hephaestus to deny the lich, and tried to imbue a sense of the depth of his trepidation, but he had to walk a fine line, not wanting the Crystal Shard to recognize that concern.

The illithid couldn’t tell whether the dragon caught its subtle inflection of thought, or whether Hephaestus, still less than enamored with Yharaskrik, simply didn’t care. The dragon’s response came back in the form of eagerness, exactly as Fetchigrol had requested.

“How greatly might we tap the minions of the reformed Shadowfell before we cease to be their masters in this, our world?” Yharaskrik said aloud.

Hephaestus wrestled full control of the dracolich’s mouth to respond. “You fear these huddled lumps of flesh?”

“There is more to the Shadowfell than the crawlers,” Yharaskrik replied after a brief struggle to regain the use of the voice. “Better that we use the undead of our plane for our armies—their numbers are practically unlimited.”

“And they are ineffective!” the dracolich roared, shaking the stone of the chamber. “Mindless …”

“But controllable,” the illithid interrupted, the words twisting as both creatures fought for physical control.

“We are the Ghost King!” Hephaestus bellowed. “We are supreme.”