cloud, the friends saw that they were on a narrow ledge, a bridge across some
endless chasm.
Similar bridges, none more than a few feet wide, criss-crossed above and
below them, and for what they could see, those were the only walkways in the
entire plane. No solid land mass showed itself in any direction, only the
twisting, spiraling bridges.
The friends' movements were slow, dreamlike, fighting against the weight of
the air. The place itself, a dim, oppressive world of foul smells and anguished
cries, exuded evil. Vile, misshapen monsters swooped over their heads and around
the gloomy emptiness, crying out in glee at the unexpected appearance of such
tasty morsels. The four friends, so indomitable against the perils of their own
world, found themselves without courage.
"The Nine Hells?" Catti-brie whispered in a tiny voice, afraid that her
words might shatter the temporary inaction of the multitudes gathering in the
ever-present shadows.
"Hades," Drizzt guessed, more schooled in the known planes. "The domain of
Chaos." Though he was standing right beside his friends, his words rang out as
distant, as had Catti-brie's.
Bruenor started to growl out a retort, but his voice faded away when he
looked at Catti-brie and Wulfgar, his children, or so he considered them. Now
there was nothing he could possibly do to help them.
Wulfgar looked to Drizzt for answers. "How can we escape?" he pressed
bluntly. "Is there a door? A window back to our own world?"
Drizzt shook his head. He wanted to reassure them, to keep their spirits up
in the face of the danger. This time, though, the drow had no answers for them.
He could see no escape, no hope.
A bat-winged creature, doglike, but with a face grotesquely and unmistakably
human, dove at Wulfgar, putting a filthy talon in line with the barbarian's
shoulder.
"Drop!" Catti-brie yelled to Wulfgar at the last possible second. The
barbarian didn't question the command. He fell to his face, and the creature
missed its mark. It swerved around in a loop and hung in midair for a split
second as it made a tight turn, then it came back again, hungry for living
flesh.
Catti-brie was ready for it this time, though, and as it neared the group,
she loosed an arrow. It reached out lazily toward the monster, cutting a dull
gray streak instead of the usual silver. The magic arrow blasted in with the
customary strength, though, scorching a wicked hole in the dog fur and
unbalancing the monster's flight. It rolled in just above them, trying to right
itself, and Bruenor chopped it down, dropping it in a spiraling descent into the
gloom below them.
The friends could hardly be pleased with the minor victory. A hundred
similar beasts flitted in and out of their vision above, below, and to the
sides, many of them ten times larger than the one Bruenor and Catti-brie had
felled.
"We can't be staying here," Bruenor muttered. "Where do we go, elf?"
Drizzt would have been just as content staying where they were, but he knew
that marching out a course would comfort his friends and give them at least some
feeling that they were making progress against their dilemma. Only the drow
understood the depth of the horror they now faced. Only Drizzt knew that
wherever they might travel on the dark plane, the situation would prove to be
the same: no escape.
"This way," he said after a moment of mock contemplation. "If there is a
door, I sense that it is this way." He took a step down the narrow bridge but
stopped abruptly as the smoke heaved and swirled before him.
Then it rose in front of him.
Humanoid in shape, it was tall and slender, with a bulbous, froglike head
and long, three-fingered hands that ended in claws. Taller even than Wulfgar, it
towered over Drizzt. "Chaos, dark elf?" it lisped in a guttural, foreign voice.
"Hades?"
Twinkle glowed eagerly in Drizzt's hand, but his other blade, the one forged
with ice-magic, nearly leaped out at the monster.
"Err, you do," the creature croaked.
Bruenor rushed up beside Drizzt. "Get yerself back, demon," he growled.
"Not demon," said Drizzt, understanding the creature's references and
remembering more of the many lessons he had been taught about the Planes during
his years in the city of drow. "Demodand."
Bruenor looked up at him curiously.
"And not Hades," Drizzt explained. "Tarterus."
"Good, dark elf," croaked the demodand. "Knowing of the lower planes are
your people."
"Then you understand of the power of my people," Drizzt bluffed, "and you
know how we repay even demon lords who cross us."
The demodand laughed, if that's what it was, for it sounded more like the
dying gurgle of a drowning man. "Dead drow avenge do not. Far from home are
you!" It reached a lazy hand toward Drizzt.
Bruenor rushed by his friend. "Moradin!" he cried, and he swiped at the
demodand with his mithril axe. The demodand was faster than the dwarf had
expected, though, and it easily dodged the blow, countering with a clubbing blow
of its arm that sent Bruenor skidding on his face farther down the bridge.
The demodand reached down at the passing dwarf with its wicked claws.
Twinkle cut the hand in half before it ever reached Bruenor.
The demodand turned on Drizzt in amazement. "Hurt me you did, dark elf," it
croaked, though no hint of pain rang out in its voice, "but better you must do!"
It snapped the wounded hand out at Drizzt, and as he reflexively dodged it, the
demodand sent its second hand out to finish the task of the first, cutting a
triple line of gashes down the sprawled dwarf's shoulder.
"Blast and bebother!" Bruenor roared, getting back to his knees. "Ye filthy,
slime-covered . . ." he grumbled, launching a second unsuccessful attack.
Behind Drizzt, Catti-brie bobbed and ducked, trying to get a clear shot with
Taulmaril. Beside her, Wulfgar stood at the ready, having no room on the narrow
bridge to move up beside the drow.
Drizzt moved sluggishly, his scimitars awkwardly twisting through an uneven
sequence. Perhaps it was because of the weariness of a long night of fighting or
the unusual weight of the air in the plane, but Catti-brie, looking on
curiously, had never seen the drow so lackluster in his efforts.
Still on his knees farther down the bridge, Bruenor swiped more with
frustration than his customary lust for battle.
Catti-brie understood. It wasn't weariness or the heavy air. Hopelessness
had befallen the friends.
She looked to Wulfgar, to beg him to intervene, but the sight of the
barbarian beside her gave her no comfort. His wounded arm hung limply at his
side, and the heavy head of Aegis-fang dipped below the low-riding smoke. How
many more battles could he fight? How many of these wretched demodand would he
be able to put down before he met his end?
And what end would a victory bring in a plane of unending battles? she
wondered.
Drizzt felt the despair most keenly. For all the trials of his hard life,
the drow had held faith for ultimate justice. He had believed, though he never
dared to admit it, that his unyielding faith in his precious principles would
bring him the reward he deserved. Now, there was this, a struggle that could
only end in death, where one victory brought only more conflict.
"Damn ye all!" Catti-brie cried. She didn't have a safe shot, but she fired
anyway. Her arrow razed a line of blood across Drizzt's arm, but then exploded
into the demodand, rocking it back and giving Bruenor the chance to scramble
back to Drizzt's side.
"Have ye lost yer fight, then?" Catti-brie scolded them.
"Easy, girl," Bruenor replied somberly, cutting low at the demodand's knees.
The creature hopped over the blade gingerly and started another attack, which
Drizzt deflected.
"Easy yerself, Bruenor Battlehammer!" Catti-brie shouted. "Ye've the gall to
call yerself king o' yer clan. Ha! Garumn'd be tossin' in his grave to see ye
fightin' so!"
Bruenor turned a wicked glare on Catti-brie, his throat too choked for him
to spit out a reply.
Drizzt tried to smile. He knew what the young woman, that wonderful young
woman, was up to. His lavender eyes lit up with the inner fire. "Go to Wulfgar,"
he told Bruenor. "Secure our backs and watch for attacks from above."
Drizzt eyed the demodand, who had noted his sudden change in demeanor.
"Come, farastu," the drow said evenly, remembering the name given to that
particular type of creature. "Farastu," he taunted, "the least of the demodand
kind. Come and feel the cut of a drow's blade."
Bruenor backed away from Drizzt, almost laughing. Part of him wanted to say,
"What's the point?" but a bigger part, the side of him that Catti-brie had
awakened with her biting references to his proud history, had a different
message to speak. "Come on and fight, then!" he roared into the shadows of the
endless chasm. "We've enough for the whole damn world of ye!"
In seconds, Drizzt was fully in command. His movements remained slowed with
the heaviness of the plane, but they were no less magnificent. He feinted and
cut, sliced and parried, in harmony to offset every move the demodand made.
Instinctively Wulfgar and Bruenor started in to help him, but stopped to
watch the display.
Catti-brie turned her gaze outward, plucking off a bowshot whenever a foul
form flew from the hanging smoke. She took a quick bead on one body as it
dropped from the darkness high above.
She pulled Taulmaril away at the last second in absolute shock.
"Regis!" she cried.
The halfling ended his half-speed plummet, plopping with a soft puff into
the smoke of a second bridge a dozen yards across the emptiness from his
friends. He stood and managed to hold his ground against a wave of dizziness and
disorientation.
"Regis!" Catti-brie cried again. "How did ye get yerself here?"
"I saw you in that awful hoop," the halfling explained. "Thought you might
need my help."
"Bah! More that ye got yerself thrown here, Rumblebelly," Bruenor replied.
"Good to see you, too," Regis shot back, "but this time you are mistaken. I
came of my own choice." He held the pearltipped scepter up for them to see. "To
bring you this."
Truly Bruenor had been glad to see his little friend even before Regis had
refuted his suspicion. He admitted his error by bowing low to Regis, his beard
dipping under the smoky swirl.
Another demodand rose up, this one across the way, on the same bridge as
Regis. The halfling showed his friends the scepter again. "Catch it," he begged,
winding up to throw. "This is your only chance to get out of here!" He mustered
up his nerve - there would only be one chance - and heaved the scepter as
powerfully as he could. It spun end over end, tantalizingly slow in its journey
toward the three sets of outstretched hands.
It could not cut a swift enough path through the heavy air, though, and it
lost its speed short of the bridge.
"No!" Bruenor cried, seeing their hopes falling away.
Catti-brie growled in denial, unhitching her laden belt and dropping
Taulmaril in a single movement.
She dove for the scepter.
Bruenor dropped flat to his chest desperately to grab her ankles, but she
was too far out. A contented look came over her as she caught the scepter. She
twisted about in midair and threw it back to Bruenor's waiting hands, then she
plummeted from sight without a word of complaint.
* * *
LaValle studied the mirror with trembling hands. The image of the friends
and the plane of Tarterus had faded into a dark blur when Regis had jumped
through with the scepter. But that was the least of the wizard's concerns now. A
thin crack, detectable only at close inspection, slowly etched its way down the
center of the Taros Hoop.
LaValle spun on Pook, charging his master and grabbing at the walking stick.
Too surprised to fight the wizard off, Pook surrendered the cane and stepped
back curiously.
LaValle rushed back to the mirror. "We must destroy its magic!" he screamed
and he smashed the cane into the glassy image.
The wooden stick, sundered by the device's power, splintered in his hands,
and LaValle was thrown across the room. "Break it! Break it!" he begged Pook,
his voice a pitiful whine.
"Get the halfling back!" Pook retorted, still more concerned with Regis and
the statuette.
"You do not understand!" LaValle cried. "The halfling has the scepter! The
portal cannot be closed from the other side!"
Pook's expression shifted from curiosity to concern as the gravity of his
wizard's fears descended over him. "My dear LaValle," he began calmly, "are you
saying that we have an open door to Tarterus in my living quarters?"
LaValle nodded meekly.
"Break it! Break it!" Pook screamed at the eunuchs standing beside him.
"Heed the wizard's words! Smash that infernal hoop to pieces!"
Pook picked up the broken end of his walking stick, the silver-shod,
