Hero by R. A. Salvatore
Drizzt let it go, just stared into the candle, just stared into himself. He thought only of his own breath, and let the boredom of that rhythm take him to a deeper, more contented place.
He closed his eyes, but wasn’t aware of it. His posture was indeed perfectly balanced and at rest, but he wasn’t aware of it.
He found a place of nothingness, and there, a sanctuary, a place of peace.
And Catti-brie was there beside him, so beautiful and warm, and it was wonderful.
And she smiled at him, and her teeth were sharpened, canine and vicious, and she laughed, a wicked, screeching sound.
Drizzt tried to fight the image away, and his legs began to ache once more, the muscles burning again.
He opened his eyes to find the candle, his focus, but the light danced wildly, and that commotion only added to his uneasiness.
His own panting breath was moving the candle flame as he tried to hold something so elusive.
His legs ached and he fell back to sit on the floor, gasping.
The candle had burned somewhat, he noted, much more than in his previous attempts, but still, that seemed a meager accomplishment to the drow, and not one he would ever care about.
He had found a place of peace, the most secret and personal place of peace.
And there, too, he had been invaded by his tormentors.
There was no rest to be found.
Drizzt Do’Urden knew then, even more certainly than before, that he was lost. He slumped back to his small chamber and fell upon the straw mattress, praying that unconsciousness would overcome him and give him reprieve.
“YOU DID BETTER with your meditation,” Kane said to Drizzt the next day, the grandmaster coming to Drizzt’s chamber to awaken him very early, before the sun had crested the eastern horizon.
Drizzt stared at him, not knowing how to respond.
Drizzt didn’t care, and he was quite certain at that moment that any words coming out of his mouth would not have pleased this man … or demon, or whoever or whatever this supposed Grandmaster Kane might be.
“Were you of the Order of the Yellow Rose, you would now be called Immaculate Brother Drizzt,” Kane went on.
Drizzt’s expression showed how little that meant to him.
“Well on your way to the title of Master, likely,” Kane continued, unbothered. “It is not a high-ranking title, perhaps, but one that few brothers or sisters will ever attain. In you, though, I see that possibility. The discipline is there, though you bury it in unease …”
“Enough!” Drizzt demanded. He cut short his next biting retort and shook his head, calming himself, and repeated, “Enough.”
“You have trained for decades, and it shows,” Grandmaster Kane said, and he, too, shook his head.
“A pity,” Grandmaster Kane muttered, and he turned and left.
CHAPTER 21
Revealed
TO KILL HIM WOULD HAVE RUINED EVERYTHING, AND MALCANTHET was beginning to recognize the potential for enjoyment in this forlorn and ugly little corner of the world. She had only agreed with the Hunzrin plan to bring her to the surface because with Demogorgon destroyed and Graz’zt reportedly stalking the Underdark, it seemed a safer place by far. She had always thought she would return to the Underdark as soon as Graz’zt had gone home to the Abyss—she had many connections in more than one dark elf city, after all.
But now she wasn’t so sure. These humans were so easily manipulated …
“My head hurts me so badly that I cannot even keep my eyes open,” she said, dramatically draping her forearm across her forehead.
“I care not!” King Yarin said, and he grabbed her by the shoulders. “I must have you!”
He tried to shove her onto the bed.
He would have had better luck trying to push over the castle.
Surprised, Yarin looked into his queen’s red eyes.
Red?
“I said that I am not up to these … duties,” Malcanthet said, and King Yarin shrank back and swallowed hard.
Her eyes reverted to Concettina’s blue, and she offered an apologetic smile. “I will send for you as soon as I am feeling better, my love.”
King Yarin stumbled back then whirled around, staggering out of the room, shaking his head and trying to sort out what had just happened. Malcanthet watched him go past the guards, including the dwarf, who glanced back at her knowingly.
She gave a slight nod to Ivan and closed the door.
“Daring games,” Inchedeeko the quasit said when she turned around. “You let the human see the truth.”
“He has no idea what he saw,” Malcanthet replied.
“And now you bring in the barbarian?”
The succubus grinned wickedly. “I am bored.”
“And so you begin trouble? Big trouble?”
“Perhaps,” Malcanthet replied with a shrug. “Does that please you?”
The quasit giggled, then scampered under the bed when there came a soft knock on the queen’s door.
IVAN STOOD GUARD in the hallway, keeping as far from Queen Concettina’s room as possible without being away from his post. He leaned on a railing at the landing atop the back stairway, just to the side of the hallway and out of sight of the queen’s door. He pretended to polish a bit of a spot from the shining armor that had once—so it was rumored, though few believed it—belonged to King Gareth Dragonsbane himself.
“Oh milady, oh milady, oh milady,” he heard from below, the voice growing stronger to indicate that someone, a woman, was running up the stairs.
The dwarf winced—he had thought this tryst extra dangerous that particular night, a nagging doubt that had only heightened given the king’s bad humor when he left Concettina’s room. But Queen Concettina’s nod to him as the king departed could not be ignored, on her word.
“Oh milady, the guards, milady!” the voice said.
Ivan gasped and started for the hallway, but fell back behind the statue in surprise.
“The guards come—take care, milady!”
Acelya Frostmantle, the king’s sister, rushed past him, too focused on Concettina’s door to even notice him.
“Acelya?” the dwarf mouthed quietly. Her apparent concern made no sense to him. Acelya hated Concettina and made no secret of it. Why would she be running to warn the queen of the approach of hostile guards? And how could Acelya even know of Wulfgar’s presence within the room?
Or did she?
“MILADY, THE GUARDS!” came a frantic voice, followed by even more frantic knocking.
Queen Concettina was pulling off Wulfgar’s shirt, roughly kissing him—then she casually shoved the barbarian away, sending him stumbling across the room.
“What?” he asked, eyes going wide.
“Guards!” came the cry from the door. “Coming fast, milady!”
“You have to get me out of here!” Wulfgar said.
Not waiting for an answer, the barbarian rushed for the window, but the woman was there before him, cutting him off.
“You have nowhere to go,” she said.
The door banged open and Princess Acelya stumbled in. “Milady!”
“Shut up!” the queen ordered in a deeper, more sinister voice. “And shut the door, you idiot.”
Acelya obediently did as she was told.
“What—?” Wulfgar asked again, but the word caught in his throat when the woman he thought was Queen Concettina turned to glower at him. Her eyes were red and her forehead had sprouted small horns, like a goat’s.
“We’ll not play this night,” she said.
Wulfgar slugged her and looked to the small table beside the bed where his warhammer rested. He started to call for it, but his breath was blasted out as the demonic imposter hit him back—and with the strength of a giant.
He staggered back but she was there with him, grappling with him. He managed to call for Aegis-fang and the hammer appeared in his hand, but to no good use. The false queen held Wulfgar too close for him to execute a proper attack.
He grabbed the hammer with both hands and tried to shove her away but she, too, grabbed the weapon, her hands inside his grip. She gave a sudden twist that brought the mighty barbarian to one knee.
The creature tore the hammer from Wulfgar’s grip with ease and tossed it aside before she slapped him so hard across the face he reeled and nearly swooned.
He was standing again, then, caught with one hand on the front of his shirt by the false queen.
“You are fortunate I enjoy playing with you,” she said. Then she threw Wulfgar across the room, where he slammed into the hearth and stumbled aside.
He set himself and called upon his years of experience, letting his sensibilities catch up to the unbelievable situation that had so suddenly come over him. He reached for the distant hammer, about to call.
But the creature, the being he had thought simply Queen Concettina, stood at the bottom of the bed, grinning at him. Great bat wings unfolded behind her. She brought her arm around and a dark cord—a whip—swung out at him. Baleful arcs of lightning issued from its length as it snapped, cracking against Wulfgar’s arm.
Stunning fires erupted within him, a wave of dizziness surging through him, stealing the word to call his warhammer before he ever uttered it. The dizziness swept through him, leaving numbness in its wake.
His arm fell dead at his side.
The demonic creature laughed and pursed her lips and gave a little blow, and Wulfgar felt a jet of air rush past him. He heard the flutter of a hanging cloak behind him.
The whip cracked again and he shied away, turning defensively and trying hard to hold his footing on weakened legs. And then he noticed the cloak that had been hanging beside the hearth flopping to the side, revealing the leering demon face and the mirror secured within its gaping maw.
Wulfgar saw himself in that mirror only briefly before some strange energy reached out at him from within the item, grabbing him, engulfing him. He felt stretched and understood only that he was leaning in at the looking glass.
The room around him elongated and then he was gone, sucked into the mirror, leaving the demon laughing.
“HE WILL COME with me,” Malcanthet announced to Acelya, who stared in horror at where the man had been standing.
A commotion in the hallway told them that the guards had come.
“Take me!” Acelya cried.
Malcanthet moved for Wulfgar’s hammer, but it disappeared as she reached for it. She glanced back at the mirror, nodding, though surprised that her slave could call for the magical weapon through the extra-planar, life-trapping mirror.
A gauntleted fist pounded heavily on the door.
“In the name of the king!” came a roar.
Malcanthet waved her hand at the door and the wood swelled, tightening it in its jamb.
“Milady, it is Rafer!” Acelya pleaded, grabbing Malcanthet by the arm. “Take me, please!”
Acelya turned for the mirror, but the succubus cupped her chin and would not let her view herself, would not let her be caught within the glass.
“No, dear girl,” Malcanthet answered, gently stroking Acelya’s face.
“DAMNED THING’S LOCKED!” Rafer Ingot yelled. He slammed his shoulder into the door.
“No lock on that door!” another of the guards replied, and he kicked at the door as Rafer smashed into it again. This time the jamb groaned and the wood creaked and cracked a bit.
Ivan didn’t know what to do. He kept turning for the stairs and back to the door. He couldn’t leave Wulfgar so vulnerable to the guards, but would he be helping the man if it was discovered that he was part of the conspiracy? There was no way for Wulfgar to get out of that room, and found by the king’s loyal guards in a compromising situation with Queen Concettina, the barbarian would get a fast trip to the back garden and King Yarin’s head-chopper!
Grimacing at his lack of options, Ivan came up behind the mob.
“Show some courtesy for the queen!” he yelled, but they seemed not to hear.
Rafer Ingot did notice him, though, and slapped his hand out in the air in front of the dwarf.
“The axe!” he demanded.
Ivan recoiled and started to argue, but several others grabbed him all at once, and before he knew what was what, Rafer had his axe and was chopping at the door.
Wood flew all about and as soon as the middle board fully splintered, the swelled seams sagged and Rafer shouldered the door again, breaking it in. The brutish man tossed Ivan’s axe aside, went for his more comfortable sword, and led the charge into the room. He cried out almost in pain as Ivan, trying to collect his axe in the jumble of rushing guards, heard the snap of a whip.
The dwarf shook his head, confused, and expected to hear the bellow of Wulfgar, and what was he to do when that happened?
He couldn’t let Rafer and the others kill the barbarian, surely, or even beat him down, but among this very group of castle guards were men and women who Ivan had come to know as friends.
When he finally managed to get through the press at the door and into the room, though, the dwarf saw that it didn’t matter. It wasn’t Wulfgar brawling with the guards, but someone—something—all together different.
She looked somewhat like Concettina, only larger, and with horns and bat wings and an awful sparking whip that crackled as it curled and struck with such fury that all those near the snapping tip had to shield their eyes and turn away in painful shock, like from a mage’s lightning bolt.
The weapon snapped and the man beside Ivan fell limp right on top of the dwarf, knocking him to the floor. Down there, the dwarf noted Rafer, lying over by the bed, squirming weirdly, shrieking, and trying to reach for his face with an arm that seemed to have no strength at all. The murderous man rolled over and Ivan gasped. That first whip crack had taken out one of his eyeballs. Worse, it still rolled around on his cheek at the end of its stalk.
Ivan tried to get up, determined to leap into the fight, but a flying body hit him and sent him tumbling back to the floor, pinning him against the wall just beside the door. Half a dozen soldiers were down, and a seventh went up into the air in the grip of the monstrous demon’s left hand. Casually, carelessly almost, she launched the poor fellow across the room, spinning head over heels like some child’s doll to smash through the window, taking the glass and iron lacing with him as he crashed free into the empty night air.
Ivan heard his diminishing screams as he fell the forty feet to the ground.
“Ah, ye beast,” the dwarf growled as he stubbornly tried to extract himself.
And then he froze in place, looking at the naked demon, then past her to the back wall, to a green demon face and a mirror. And in that mirror he saw Wulfgar, hands against the glass—the inside of the glass. The barbarian’s mouth opened in a silent scream as his image swirled and disappeared.
Another pair of guards charged through the door only to be stopped short by the snap of that lightning whip.
The demon—Concettina, or whatever or whoever it was—leaped away, gathering up the mirror under one arm and tearing it from the wall with horrifying strength. Before Ivan could get out from under the body of the lifeless man pinning him, and before the two newcomers could launch at her once more, she was out the window, leaping high, her great batlike wings spreading to catch the winds.
Ivan stumbled to the window sill, staring out at the night. The fiend glided down to the garden then leaped once more high into the night, flying off to the north and right out over the city wall.
The dwarf spun around to survey the chaos of the room. Men groaned, others ran around tending them, and there was even more commotion out in the hall.
Ivan pushed through, exiting the room, and made for the stairs.
“To check on the king!” he snorted to one guard that questioned his departure.
But Ivan lied. King Yarin was the least of his concerns at that desperate moment. He sprinted down the stairs, taking them three at a time, then sneaked and quick-footed his way out of the pala
CHAPTER 22
Swallowing a Demon
OF COURSE I ACCEPT YOUR WISDOM,” BROTHER AFAFRENFERE SAID. He was obviously fighting hard to maintain his composure, a reminder to the others that though he had progressed so quickly and so high up the ranks of the Order of the Yellow Rose, he was still a young man, and perhaps not so tempered.
“But you do not agree,” Grandmaster Kane replied.
“I do!” Afafrenfere blurted. “It is just that … I do not know what it is, Grandmaster, except that I am quite fond of this curious drow. I am sure that I owe him a great debt. I was lost and he was among those who found me.
“When the dwarf Ambergris saved me at my first meeting, my battle against Drizzt, and so pulled me from the Plane of Shadow, Drizzt did not have to forgive and accept me. He did not have to help guide me along a more proper road—indeed, he would have been well within his rights, legal and moral, to slay me, or to have me jailed, at least. Yet he did not. He took me into his group and under his eye, and in our travels together, he trusted me, and that was perhaps the greatest gift I have ever received.”
The other few monks in the room raised their eyebrows at that claim, particularly given the amazing gifts Grandmaster Kane had bestowed upon this particular brother by possessing him and teaching him as a true and full partner that which others would spend years, decades even, trying to learn—and usually futilely.
But Kane clearly understood Afafrenfere’s point. He nodded, offering a genuine smile.
“It has not been that long,” Afafrenfere pleaded.
“Long enough to know,” said Kane. “We have done all that we can for Drizzt Do’Urden, and it is not enough, but so be it. It is time for him to go home.”