Gauntlgrym (Neverwinter #1)(108)

Finally the fiend stepped from the bubbling pool, a huge, clawed foot scraping down upon solid stone, black claws screeching.

The beast wore only a green loincloth set with an iron skull in front, black leathery bracers tied tight around its muscular forearms, and macabre jewelry: a necklace of skulls, human sized but seeming smaller on the eight-foot-tall devil, and more skulls tied around its thrashing tail.

The Ashmadai wailed and prostrated themselves, face down, not daring to look upon the glorious devil.

It was not Asmodeus, of course, for to dare to even try to summon that one would have brought ruin upon them all. But Dor’crae’s estimation of Valindra jumped mightily at that terrible, glorious moment, and truly he felt the fool for ever doubting Sylora Salm. With the scepter, Valindra had called deep into the Nine Hells, and she had been heard.

Dor’crae was no student of devil-kin, but like anyone else who had spent time with dark wizards, he knew the primary beings of the lower planes. Valindra had been heard indeed, and she had been granted, for her efforts, the services of a pit fiend, one of the personal servants of the devil god, a duke of the Nine Hells, answerable only to the unspeakable archdevils themselves.

The beast surveyed its ghostly enemies, then half-turned to regard Valindra and the groveling Ashmadai. It reached out with its long arm toward the scepter, clawed fingers grasping for the item.

And again Dor’crae thought it was surely time for him to leave, but the pit fiend didn’t take the scepter from Valindra. Instead, it seemed to lend her its powers, to be funneled through the item.

The scepter glowed more brightly, and Dor’crae had to turn his shoulder and throw his elbow up high, bringing his cloak up to shield his face. He, too, was an undead thing. So many times had the vampire dominated unsuspecting humans, the weak willed who would give in to his demands. But he realized in that moment the horror of his former victims.

Despite himself, he was on his knees. He found that he could not look upon the pit fiend any longer, and he buried his face in his hands and bent to kiss the floor. Trembling, helpless, he could only die again right then and there. There was no escape. There was no hope.

“Dor’crae,” he heard, more in his thoughts than his ears, as Valindra reached out to him, her voice thin and far, far away.

“Dor’crae, arise,” she ordered.

The vampire dared to look up. Valindra still stood as she had, the scepter thrust up above her, its ends emitting wave after wave of energetic red light.

The pit fiend stood before her now, having let go of the artifact, and the scepter itself seemed greatly diminished, as the duke of devils seemed greatly enhanced.

Dor’crae’s pain subsided, as did his hopelessness. He dared rise to his knees, then to his feet.

“The primordial’s minions will not recognize that we also wish its release,” the vampire warned. “And there is the dragon—the red dragon from the depths below …”

Valindra smiled at him and shrugged, as all around her the Ashmadai struggled to their feet, and the vampire wondered if Valindra had called to each of them, individually and by name, and somehow all at once.

“Lead on, Beealtimatuche,” the lich said.

With the pit fiend thus leading, the procession moved past the writhing mass of prostrated dwarf ghosts, the creatures squirming in agony, and stalked out of the chamber.

The Ashmadai said nothing, but the looks on their faces spoke of awe and wonderment, and elation. But no such feelings washed through Dor’crae. He had known wizards to summon beings of the lower planes—usually minor demons or imps. He had heard of those who had dared bring forth more powerful minions, demons and devils, or elementals.

Those attempts at summoning greater servants had not typically ended well. He looked at the scepter, the source of the power for the summoning, and knew instinctively that the bulk of its stored energy had been spent in bringing forth the devil—a mighty devil that had to be tightly controlled.

Pit fiends were servants only to the archdevils themselves, and now, it seemed, a servant to Valindra Shadowmantle.

But for how long?





THE HERITAGE, THE FATE


DRIZZT LEANED AGAINST THE WALL OF A DEFENSIVE ALCOVE ALONG THE ten-foot-wide corridor. Dahlia stood across the way, in a similar alcove. They heard the pursuit and knew it to be elemental minions of the primordial. The drow glanced back the other way, where the corridor spilled into a square room, its door too broken to be used to slow the pursuing beasts.

“Hurry,” Drizzt whispered, aiming the remark at Bruenor and the others.

Bruenor had determined that that particular room held the first installation for one of the magical bowls, one of the magical connections to the tendrils of the Hosttower.

Drizzt glanced along the corridor, at the many metal placards evenly spaced along the wall, all decorated with various dwarven images, and none with an apparent clue as to which might be the correct choice. Then a noise back down the corridor brought Drizzt from his thoughts. He glanced across at Dahlia and nodded.

The woman, holding her tri-staff, eagerly grinned back at him. That grin disappeared almost at once, though, and Dahlia lifted her hand and worked her fingers through an intricate series of movements.

Your sword.

Drizzt looked down as his belted scimitar, Icingdeath, and discerned at once the cause of her concern. At the crease where the blade’s hilt sat on the scabbard, a line of blue light glowed. Icingdeath always had a bluish tint to it, and often glowed more powerfully, particularly when facing a creature of fire. The scimitar was one of the ancient frostbrands, after all, a weapon built to battle creatures of fire, a weapon hungry for fire elemental blood.