The Ghost King

CHAPTER 22

 

  A WHISPER IN THE DARK

  The night was quiet, the forest beyond the wide courtyard of Spirit Soaring dark and still.

  Too quiet, Jarlaxle thought as he stared out from a second-story balcony, where he kept his assigned watch. He heard others in the hallways behind him expressing hope at the calm, but to Jarlaxle, the deceptive peace was just the opposite. The pause revealed to him that their enemies were not foolhardy. The last attack had become a massacre of fleshy crawling beasts - their burned and blasted lumps littered the lawn still.

  But they weren't finished, to be sure. Given Danica's report, given Jarlaxle's understanding of the hatred toward him and toward Cadderly and Danica, he saw no possibility that Spirit Soaring would suddenly be left in peace.

  This night was peaceful, though - undeniably so, paradoxically so, eerily so. And in that quiet, with not even the breath of wind accompanying it, Jarlaxle, and Jarlaxle alone, heard a call.

  His eyes widened despite his near-perfect control over his emotions, and he reflexively glanced around. He knew how tentative his - and Athrogate's - welcome was at Spirit Soaring, and he could hardly believe his misfortune as another ally, one who would not likely be accepted by any at Spirit Soaring, demanded an audience.

  He tried to push that quiet but insistent call away, but its urgency only heightened.

  Jarlaxle looked to the forest and focused his thoughts on one large tree, just behind the foliage border. Then, with another glance around, the drow slipped over the balcony railing and nimbly climbed to the ground. He disappeared into the darkness, making his careful way across the wide courtyard.

  * * * * *

  "Bah, just as I telled ye, elf," a sneering Bruenor Battlehammer said to Drizzt as they watched Jarlaxle slip down from his perch. "Ain't no friend to any other'n Jarlaxle, that one. "

  A profound sigh reflected Drizzt's deep disappointment.

  "I'll go get Pwent and bottle up that damned annoying dwarf ol' big-hat there brung with him. " Bruenor started to turn away, but Drizzt caught him by the shoulder.

  "We don't know what this is about," he reminded them. "More scouting? Did Jarlaxle see something?"

  "Bah!" Bruenor snorted, pulling away. "Go and see if ye got to see, but I'm already knowing. "

  "Await my return," Drizzt said.

  Bruenor glared at him.

  "Please, trust me in this," Drizzt begged. "There is too much at stake for all of us, for Catti-brie. If anyone can help us solve the riddle of her troubles, it is Jarlaxle. "

  "Thought it was Cadderly. Ain't that why we're here?"

  "Him, too," said Drizzt, and as Bruenor visibly relaxed, he slipped out the window and moved after Jarlaxle. Not a wary creature stirred at his silent passing.

  * * * * *

  Ever do I find you in curious places, Kimmuriel Oblodra's fingers waggled to Jarlaxle, using the intricate hand language of the drow. With Cadderly Bonaduce and his pathetic priests? Truly?

  In this time, we all share concerns, and profit from . . . accommodations of mutual benefit, Jarlaxle's fingers answered. The situation here is desperate, even grave.

  I know more about it than you do, Kimmuriel assured him, and Jarlaxle wore a puzzled expression.

  "About the failing of the Weave, perhaps . . . ?" he said quietly. Kimmuriel shook his head and responded aloud. "About your predicament. About Hephaestus and Crenshinibon. "

  "And the illithid," Jarlaxle added.

  "Because of the illithid," Kimmuriel corrected. "Yharaskrik, without form and dissipating, found me in Luskan. He is no more a part of this creature they call the Ghost King. He was cast out, to fade to nothingness. "

  "And he seeks revenge?"

  "Revenge is not the way of illithids," Kimmuriel explained. "Though no doubt Yharaskrik enjoyed the bargain I offered. "

  Do tell, said Jarlaxle, with his fingers and his amused expression.

  "Its only hope was to journey to the Astral Plane, a place of consciousness without corporeal restraint," Kimmuriel explained. "With the failure of conventional magic and divine magic, its best opportunity for such a journey was a fellow practitioner of psionics - me. Without its own body as anchor, the mind flayer could not facilitate the flight alone. "

  "You let it go?" Jarlaxle asked, raising his voice just a bit. He wasn't as angry as intrigued, however, revealed by the way he reached up to tug at the diatryma feather that was nearly fully regrown in his enchanted hat.

  "To survive as the years pass, Yharaskrik must find a mind hive of illithids. We of psionic power are not unaffected by that which is occurring across the multiverse, and having such allies. . . . "

  "They are wretched creatures. "

  Kimmuriel shrugged. "They are among the most brilliant of all the mortal beings. I know not what will happen to my powers, nor to magic, divine or arcane. I know only that the world is changing - has changed. Even shifting here through the dimensions proved a great risk, but one that I needed to take. "

  "To warn me. "

  "To warn and to instruct, for in return for passage, Yharaskrik revealed to me all it knows about the Ghost King, and about the remnants of the artifact, Crenshinibon. "

  "I am touched at your concern for me. "

  "You are necessary," said Kimmuriel, drawing a laugh from Jarlaxle. "Do tell me, then," Jarlaxle said. "How might I, might we, defeat this Ghost King?"

  Kimmuriel nodded and recounted it all in detail then, echoing Yharaskrik's lecture about the being that was both Hephaestus and Crenshinibon, about its powers and its limitations. He explained the minions and the gates that brought them to Faerun. He talked of one such rift he had sensed, though had not yet inspected, still opened wide in the lakeside town to the southeast. He spoke of human and dwarf refugees hiding in tunnels.

  "You trust this mind flayer?" Jarlaxle asked in the end.

  "Illithids are trustworthy," Kimmuriel replied. "Loathsome, at times, fascinating always, but as long as their goals are understood, their logic is easily followed. In this case, Yharaskrik's goal was survival. Its plight was real and immediate, and caused by the Ghost King. Knowing that truth, as I did, I trust in its recounting. "

  Jarlaxle believed that he held some insight into the mindset of illithids as well, for he had been a companion of Kimmuriel Oblodra for a long, long time, and if someone had ever deigned to put a squishy octopoid head on that particular drow, it surely would have fit Kimmuriel well.

  * * * * *

  In the brush not far away, Drizzt Do'Urden listened to it all with interest, though much of it was no more than a confirmation of that which they had already surmised about their mighty enemy. Then he listened to Jarlaxle's reply and instructions, with wide-eyed disbelief, and truly he felt vindicated in trusting Jarlaxle.

  "You cannot demand of me that I take such a risk with Bregan D'aerthe," he heard Kimmuriel argue.

  "It is worth the potential gain," Jarlaxle replied. "And think of the opportunity here for you to discern so much more of the mystery that is occurring all around us!"

  That last line apparently had the desired effect on Kimmuriel, for the drow bowed to Jarlaxle, turned to the side, and literally cut the air with an outstretched finger, leaving a sizzling vertical blue line in its wake. With a wave, Kimmuriel turned that two-dimensional blue line into a doorway and stepped through, disappearing from sight.

  Jarlaxle stood for a bit, hands on hips, digesting it all. Then, with a shake of his head, one of disbelief, even bemusement, the mercenary headed back for Spirit Soaring.

  By the time Drizzt arrived, only moments after Jarlaxle, the summons was already out for him and Bruenor to an audience with Cadderly.

  And Jarlaxle, of course.