Archmage (25 page)

Why would she be in here? How could she be in here? Drizzt shook his head. More likely the dark elves had taken the blade from her—it was a drow sword, after all—but then, how would they know, or care, to so inscribe those letters into the stone?

Drizzt shook his head yet again, not quite certain how it could be. Those were Elvish letters, and they had been cut with a fine tool, such as Khazid’hea, but . . .

He shook his head a third time, thoroughly flummoxed and trying hard to convince himself that he had jumped to errant conclusions. Likely the lettering had been cut into that wall in ages past, and for reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom. No matter, though, for the camp was not that old, and it was not the camp of kobolds, but of some form of elves—almost certainly drow.

So they, some at least, were near.

Drizzt drew his blades.

The unseen and unheard shadow crept from the room.

The Hunter went to hunt.

“Perhaps it turns, up ahead,” Kipper offered. “Or the primal beast’s tendril winds about and rejoins later on.”

But Catti-brie remained resolute. “No,” she said, her hands moving across the side wall of the natural tunnel. The primordial power, the vein of the creature, passed right under them, crossing the corridor beneath their feet.

“A parallel tunnel then, doubling back beside this one,” Penelope offered. Again Catti-brie shook her head.

She felt the stone all around, and noted that one section seemed different, seemed somehow flatter than the more curving walls of the tunnel. “A chamber, hidden,” she said, as much to herself as to the others. “Here.”

“Hidden?” Kipper asked, moving over. Behind him, Penelope began to cast a spell.

“Sealed, you must mean,” Kipper said when Catti-brie directed his hands to the flatter area.

“A summoned wall of stone,” Penelope announced a moment later, and both turned to regard her. She nodded her chin to indicate the exact area they had been inspecting. “The magic still resonates, quietly, though it is very, very ancient, I sense.”

“The tendril goes in there?” Kipper asked again.

But this time, Catti-brie shook her head. “The tendril ends in there,” she clarified, and she was as surprised by the notion as the others.

“Another passwall, Kipper?” Penelope asked.

“I’ve only a pair remaining, for a quick escape, if needed, or to get us back out the way we came in,” the old wizard said.

“Use one,” Penelope bade him. “When we are finished, I will summon an extradimensional room where we can rest safely through the night, and you can regain your escape spells for use tomorrow.”

Kipper nodded and cleared his throat.

“It won’t work,” Catti-brie said with certainty before Kipper could begin his spellcasting.

“Too wide a block of stone?” Penelope asked.

“Too heavily warded,” Catti-brie replied, and again she was feeling about the stone. “Protected from any magic that might remove it."

“How can you know this?”

Catti-brie thought about that for a moment, then surprised the others—and herself a bit—by replying, “The primordial told me.”

“Our girl’s gone crazy, Penelope,” Kipper said with a snort. “Sure to make herself a proper Harpell, I suppose.”

“How can the primordial know . . . ?” Penelope started to say, but she stopped when she noted that Catti-brie was chanting, her voice thick with her brogue and her words unrecognizable, though they sounded Dwarvish.

“Ainm an dee,”
Catti-brie recited.
“Aghaidh na Dumathoin . . .”

The young auburn-haired mage closed her eyes and let the words flow through her. The beast was giving them to her! The ghosts of Gauntlgrym, the very memories resonating within the walls of this most ancient dwarven homeland, were offering them to her.

Or perhaps they were fooling her, she worried for just an instant, playing her for a fool so that she would enact a spell that would doom them all.

Catti-brie was in the thrall of the enchantment now. She felt like nothing more than a conduit—and that, too, made her worry that the primordial was using her to facilitate its breakout.

She fell back as the last
“ dachaigh fior-charade brathair”
passed her lips, the last syllable resonating about the stones and corridor, hanging in the air magically like the mournful call of a lost age.

The ground began to shake. Catti-brie fell back in fear, and Penelope and Kipper caught her by the arms and ushered her back the way they had come, Kipper crying, “Run away!” with every step.

A great scraping sound echoed around them and the ground trembled more forcefully, but forcefully, too, did Catti-brie break free of the others, skidding to a stop and whirling around. Kipper and Penelope rushed back to grab her again, but then they, too, stopped.

The wall began to rise, dust and debris, and the rock that had formed above the summoned wall of stone over the ages, the natural cladding, broke away and crashed down upon the floor. The summoned stone almost disappeared into the ceiling.

Catti-brie walked to the black opening, unafraid, though truly it seemed the gaping maw of an ancient and massive beast, like the chamber of Gauntlgrym itself was waiting to devour her.

“Well, what did you say?” Kipper demanded.

“I’m not for knowing,” Catti-brie admitted, not even looking back. She raised one hand and cast a quick spell, bringing a globe of light up in front of her, beyond the opened portal.

Even with the magical light, the small chamber beyond was not brightly lit, as if its very age was somehow battling the spell.

Catti-brie went in anyway, finding herself in a perfectly rectangular, nondescript room, ten strides left and right, west and east, in front of her, but only half that wide to the other wall, the north wall, directly across from her.

No, not nondescript, she realized when she stepped in and surveyed the whole of the place, for down to her right, deeper into the tunnel, along the short western wall, where three large beams of square stone, two upright and one across the top of them, and slightly askew, like a door jamb that had tilted to the left. They were against the flat wall, either leaning on it or set into it—Catti-brie couldn’t be sure.

Hardly thinking of the action, Catti-brie slowly walked toward the strange formation.

“Wait, girl!” she heard Kipper cry, and with such sudden alarm that she heeded his call and even looked back at him and Penelope, who had come into the small room.

“What is it?” Penelope asked.

Kipper blew a deep sigh and reached into his pouch for the skullsized gemstone. “It’s the ancient gate,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper—he could not find the strength to lift his voice above a whisper.

“How can you know?” Penelope asked, and Catti-brie asked at the same time, “How can ye be knowin’?”

But then, before Kipper could answer, Catti-brie spoke for him. “The primordial’s powering it,” she said.

Both women looked at Kipper.

“The beast granted them some magic?” Kipper asked. “Perhaps, yes, it would make sense. The dwarves used it to give them the power for their waygate, and the beast gained a measure of freedom for its troubles—a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“You can’t know that,” said Penelope.

“We can’t know anything for sure,” Kipper shot back. “We are speaking of construction and magic that is older than the oldest elves. Millennia, we are talking, not centuries!”

“But your guess is correct,” Catti-brie said. “At least partially so.”

“The primordial told you that, as well?” Penelope asked, and Catti-brie shrugged and nodded.

“One way to know for sure,” Kipper announced, and he moved forward, past Catti-brie, gemstone in hand. He studied the two standing stone beams for a moment, then gave a laugh and set the skull-sized gem into the one on the left.

The space within the jamb burst into flame, and Kipper fell back, yelping in terror. Catti-brie and Penelope caught him, the three watching in amazement as the fires burned and roiled within the confines of the jamb, but then gradually diminished before flying away entirely, as if sucked into the opposing beam.

“The second gem,” Kipper realized. “We need the second gem to keep the magic contained within the portal.”

“We do not have a second gem,” Catti-brie reminded him.

“Well of course not!” said Kipper. “But that is what we need to activate and hold open the portal.”

“The fire, you mean,” Penelope corrected. “Who would walk into such a thing as that?”

But Catti-brie was thinking along different lines, remembering the clairvoyance spells she had enacted when staring into the flames. Others saw fires as individual events, contained in the stones of an oven, perhaps, or in a campfire, or on a torch.

But Catti-brie, with her ring and with the primordial of Gauntlgrym whispering to her, understood differently. All the flames were alive— indeed, all part of a singular living entity, the Elemental Plane of Fire. They could phase into her plane of existence, coaxed by flint and steel or the strike of lightning, or any other manner, but even though those summoned flames seemed like individual events, they retained their ties to that other plane of existence, where they were all one.

So Catti-brie could look into a hearth in Mithral Hall and see through it, through the Elemental Plane of Fire, and to the hearth of King Emerus in Citadel Felbarr.

So here, a dwarf could enter the portal and travel through the flames to a corresponding gate in another location, could literally step into the Elemental Plane of Fire and step out again back to the Prime Material Plane on the other end.

So the primordial was telling her. So her instincts and her memories of her clairvoyance spell were telling her.

But still she shook her head, not convinced that this wasn’t some trick. Would she find a way to empower the gate, only to have Bruenor or another step in and get incinerated?

“Retrieve your gem,” she told Kipper, “and let us be gone from here, back to Bruenor and the others to relay our discovery.”

“Shouldn’t we inspect it a bit more?” Kipper asked, his eager tone showing that he clearly believed they should.

“Me Da will get answers on the Throne of the Dwarf Gods,” Catti-brie said. “We have other riddles to solve.”

“Like?”

“Like finding the other gem,” the young woman said.

Kipper retrieved the gemstone and the three went back into the hallway, Catti-brie turning back to the doorway and casting another spell, her accent returning heavily, a brogue so thick and words so foreign that it seemed to the others, even to her, as if she wasn’t actually speaking the words but rather that they were being spoken through her.

The wall grumbled and groaned and slowly lowered back into place, sealing without a seam to be found.

“But the cladding is gone from it,” Penelope said when Catti-brie motioned for them to leave. “Anyone coming this way will see the revealed magical stone.”

“And none will get through it,” Catti-brie assured her.

“None save those who have become intimate with the primordial guardian of Gauntlgrym, it would seem,” old Kipper whispered sarcastically, but loud enough for both his companions to hear.

“More fightin’ in the east,” Bruenor said.

“Aye, the boys’re battlin’ for every room,” Emerus agreed. “Kobolds, goblins, orcs, and them damned ugly birdman creatures. Stubborn things.

But not a drow yet to be seen.”

“They’re holding tight about the Forge and the lower mines, not to doubt,” said Bruenor.

“Them orcs we caught’re sayin’ as much,” Ragged Dain interjected. “So fightin’ now and tougher fightin’ ahead,” Bruenor acknowledged.

“We never thinked it’d be any different, eh?”

“Eh,” Emerus agreed.

“Good news coming from th’ other way, though,” said Ragged Dain.

“Connerad’s got the tunnel cleared and almost secured all the way to the dale. Once he’s done with his fortifyin’, we’ll get another five hunnerd warriors back to clean the rooms!”

The door to the war room opened then and Catti-brie entered, flanked by Penelope and Kipper.

“What do ye know, girl?” Bruenor asked. “We got many wounded needing yer spells!”

“Aye, I saw Ambergris on me way here,” Catti-brie answered, and both Penelope and Kipper turned to regard her curiously as she slipped once more into her Dwarvish accent.

“So where ye been?” Bruenor asked. “Chasin’ the durned elf?"

“Chasing the spreading veins of the primordial, more accurately,”

Penelope replied, drawing concerned looks from all the dwarves in the room.

“A tendril that’s been in place since the founding o’ Gauntlgrym, I’d guess,” Catti-brie quickly added. “And one that’s showin’ me and me friends here clues about the powers yer ancestors gained from their fiery pet.”

“What do ye know?” Emerus asked.

Catti-brie shrugged and shook her head. “Nothing to tell right now.

But soon, I’m hoping.”

“But we’re not to fear this . . . vein o’ fire?” Emerus pressed. “The being’s not breaking free,” Catti-brie assured him. In her mind, she completed the thought with “not yet, at least,” but she held that part silent.

“Just finding a bit of exercise,” Penelope added. “The primordial seems to see your girl here as a bit of an ally.”

“My guess would be that the primordial isn’t happy about having the dark elves holding its home in their thrall,” said Kipper. “From what Catti-brie has told us of their altar right in the primordial’s chamber, I suspect the ancient being might consider their religious antics akin to a bit of sacrilege."

“Are ye sayin’ the beast might be helpin’ us, then?” Bruenor and Emerus asked together, and both with equally hopeful tones.

Catti-brie quickly dispelled that notion. “The primordial’s not viewing the world as we mortals might. Through some fortunate magic, I been able to gain some insights from the great being—I find meself less inclined to call it a beast!”

“She’s talking to it,” Kipper explained.

“In fits and starts and nothing much more,” Catti-brie added before Kipper had even finished. She wanted no misperceptions, and no false hope. There might be ways in which she could turn her connection to the primordial and to the Elemental Plane of Fire into a benefit in these battles, as she had done with the kobolds, but it was nothing she wished the dwarves to factor into their planning, for indeed it was nothing Cattibrie would even dare depend upon.