Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(107)
“With yourself as the evidence, I am sure,” Dahlia replied.
She pressed on faster, leaving an amused Drizzt in her wake.
“Every tunnel!” the Ashmadai commander cried as the whole of his group shrank back toward the entrance that had brought them into the room. The colorless forms of ghost dwarves flooded into the circular hall from every one of the exits in front of them, forming ranks with all the discipline of a living army.
“Can they touch us? Can they hurt us?” one woman asked, her teeth chattering, for indeed the room became very cold.
“They can tear you apart,” Dor’crae assured them.
“Then we fight!” the commander cried, and all around him gave a rousing battle cheer.
All except for Dor’crae, who was thinking that it might be time for him to take the form of a bat and fly away. And except for Valindra, who began to laugh wildly, loudly, and so hysterically that the cheering died away bit by bit, each Ashmadai voice going silent as a new set of eyes fell upon the lich.
“Fight them?” Valindra asked when at last she commanded the attention of all. She began to cackle again, uncontrollably it seemed. She brought forth her emaciated hand, palm up, closed her eyes, and her laughter became a chant.
The Ashmadai circled behind her, ready to run away, having seen the destructive power of her magic.
But no fireball filled the room. Instead, a scepter appeared in her hand. At a cursory glance, it looked much like those carried by the Ashmadai, and that brought more cheers. But as each of them came to view Valindra’s scepter more closely, those cheers turned to gasps.
The Ashmadai scepters, their staff-spears, were red in color when first presented, but that hue wore away with time and use, and most held weapons of uneven hue, more pink than red. But not the scepter Valindra held. It was ruby, and not just in color. It seemed to have been carved of one giant gemstone, rich red, its color so fluid and deep that several of the nearby Ashmadai held forth their arms, as if they meant to sink their fingers right into it.
Valindra grasped it powerfully and thrust it horizontally above her head, and its ends flared with a powerful red light.
“Who is your master?” she cried.
Confused, the Ashmadai glanced around at each other, some mouthing “Asmodeus,” others quietly and questioningly asking, “Valindra?”
“Who is your master!” Valindra yelled, her voice magically magnified to fill the chamber and echo about the stones, the ends of the scepter flaring again in response to her cry.
“Asmodeus!” the commander yelled back, and the others followed his lead.
“Pray to him!” Valindra ordered.
The fanatics scrambled to form a kneeling circle around the lich, and each looped his right arm over the shoulders of the person to his right, left arms reaching high for the amazing scepter. They began to chant, and their circle began to slowly rotate to the left as they crawled on the hard stone.
From a few steps back, Dor’crae watched it all with blank amazement. He knew that scepter. Szass Tam had kept it back in Thay, knowing well that it was the most treasured artifact of the Ashmadai. Dor’crae had suspected all along that Sylora Salm had brought it west with her, given that almost the entire cult of Ashmadai had come to Neverwinter Wood, and given their complete obedience to her. When Valindra had joined their ranks those years ago, Sylora’s power over the lich had only confirmed that suspicion.
Dor’crae could hardly believe that Sylora had given the scepter to Valindra, to that unstable and powerful undead creature.
Dor’crae shook those thoughts away. It was not the time. His warriors were on their knees, and the dwarves fast approached.
“Valindra!” he called to warn her, but she, too, was deep into her chanting and she seemed not to hear.
“Valindra, they come!” the vampire yelled, but again, the lich made no sign that she heard him.
The nearest ghosts took on a reddish hue as they came within the wide glow of the ruby scepter, and Dor’crae noted that they seemed to hesitate there, their faces twitching with discomfort, pain even. Smoke began to pour from the scepter’s ends, circling between Valindra and the closest dwarves, swirling across the stone floor, and sinking lower, as if reaching into the rock itself. The stone melted, liquefied, red bubbles forming and popping, releasing acrid yellow smoke into the air.
As one, the ghosts stopped and threw up their hands, shielding their eyes.
Through the floor it came, as if standing up in a shallow pond. The large head appeared first, spiked and crested with rows of jagged red bone. Hooked black horns reached out to either side and curved upward and over, where they narrowed into points facing each other. Wide eyes showed no pupils—pits of fire and nothing more, the eyes of an angry devil. A wide mouth curled back in a perpetual hiss, revealing huge canines and rows of teeth that could tear flesh from bone with ease. Taller it climbed as if scaling a ladder in the molten floor, its glorious, naked body coming forth from the lava with not a scratch or burn, its red, leathery wings spreading wide as they came free of the hole.
The whole of the creature was red, hot like the fires of all Nine Hells, its skin stretched over corded muscles and rows of bone. Black spikes lined its back in a sharp ridge narrowing at the base of its spine, where they gave way to a flashing red tail, barbed in a black tip and dripping lethal venom. The long claws of its hands, too, shone black, like polished obsidian. In its right hand, it held a gigantic mace, obsidian black and with a four-bladed head, each side a cleaver in and of itself. Smoke wafted from that weapon, and an occasional lick of flame appeared along its angry head.