Cadderly rubbed his chin as the glabrezu passed along the information-information that he knew to be true, for he had enacted a spell to make certain the demon had not lied to him.
"I have done as you demanded," the glabrezu growled, clicking its pincer-ended appendages anxiously. "I am released from your bonds, Cadderly Bonaduce."
"Then begone, that I do not have to look upon your ugly face any longer," the young priest replied.
The demon narrowed its huge eyes threateningly and clicked its pincers. "I will not forget this," it promised.
"I would be disappointed if you did," Cadderly replied casually.
"I was told that you have young children, fool," Mizferac remarked, fading from view.
"Mizferac, ehugu-winance!" Cadderly cried, catching the departing demon before it had dissipated back to the swirling smoke of the Abyss. Holding it in place by the sheer strength of his enchantment, Cadderly twisted the demon's physical form painfully by the might of his spell.
"Do I smell fear, human?" Mizferac asked defiantly.
Cadderly smiled wryly. "I doubt that, since a hundred years will pass before you are able to walk the material plane again." The threat, spoken openly, freed Mizferac of the summoning binding-and yet, the beast was not freed, for Cadderly had enacted another spell, one of exaction.
Mizferac created magical darkness to fill the room. Cadderly fell into his own chanting, his voice trembling with feigned terror.
"I can smell you, foolish mortal," Mizferac remarked, and Cadderly heard the voice from the side, though he guessed correctly that Mizferac was using ventriloquism to throw him off guard. The young priest was fully into the flow of Deneir's song now, hearing every beautiful note and accessing the magic quickly and completely. First he detected evil, easily locating the great negative force of the glabrezu- then another mighty negative force as the demon gated in a companion.
Cadderly held his nerve and continued casting.
"I will kill the children first, fool," Mizferac promised, and it began speaking to its new companion in the guttural tongue of the Abyss-one that Cadderly, through the use of another spell that he had enacted before he had ever brought Mizferac to him this day, understood perfectly. The glabrezu told its fellow demon to keep the foolish priest occupied while it went to hunt the children.
"I will bring them before you for sacrifice," Mizferac started to promise, but the end of the sentence came out as garbled screams as Cadderly's spell went off, creating a series of spinning, slicing blades all around the two demons. The priest then brought forth a globe of light to counter Mizferac's darkness. The spectacle of Mizferac and its companion, a lesser demon that looked like a giant gnat, getting sliced and chopped was revealed.
Mizferac roared and uttered a guttural word-one designed to teleport him away, Cadderly assumed. It failed. The young priest, so strong in the flow of Deneir's song, was the quicker. He brought forth a prayer that dispelled the demon's magic before Mizferac could get away.
A spell of binding followed immediately, locking Mizferac firmly in place, while the magical blades continued their spinning devastation.
"I will never forget this!" Mizferac roared, words edged with outrage and agony.
"Good, then you will know better than ever to return," Cadderly growled back.
He brought forth a second blade barrier. The two demons were torn apart, their material forms ripped into dozens of bloody pieces, thus banishing them from the material plane for a hundred years. Satisfied with that, Cadderly left his summoning chamber covered in demon blood. He'd have to find a suitable spell from Deneir to clean up his clothes.
As for the Crystal Shard, he had his answers-and it seemed to him a good thing that he had bothered to check, since a dangerous assassin, an equally dangerous dark elf, and the even more dangerous Crystal Shard were apparently on their way to see him.
He had to talk to Danica, to prepare all the Spirit Soaring and the order of Deneir, for the potential battle.
Chapter 17
A CALL FOR HELP
There is something enjoyable about these beasts, I must admit," Jarlaxle noted when he and Entreri pulled up beside a mountain pass.
The assassin quickly dismounted and ran to the ledge to view the trail below-and to view the band of orcs he suspected were still stubbornly in pursuit. The pair had left the desert behind, at long last, entering a region of broken hills and rocky trails.
"Though if I had one of my lizards from Menzoberran-zan, I could simply run away to the top of the hill and over the other side," the drow went on. He took off his great plumed hat and rubbed a hand over his bald head. The sun was strong this day, but the dark elf seemed to be handling it quite well-certainly better than Entreri would have expected of any drow under this blistering sun. Again the assassin had to wonder if Jarlaxle might have a bit of magic about him to protect his sensitive eyes. "Useful beasts, the lizards of Menzoberranzan," Jarlaxle remarked. "I should have brought some to the surface with me."
Entreri gave him a smirk and a shake of his head. "It will be hard enough getting into half the towns with a drow beside me," he remarked. "How much more welcoming might they be if I rode in on a lizard?"
He looked back down the mountainside, and sure enough, the orc band was still pacing them, though the wretched creatures were obviously exhausted. Still, they followed as if compelled beyond their control.
It wasn't hard for Artemis Entreri to figure out exactly what might be so compelling them.
"Why can you not just take out your magical tent, that we can melt away from them?" Jarlaxle asked for the third time.
"The magic is limited," Entreri answered yet again. He glanced back at Jarlaxle as he replied, surprised that the cunning drow would keep asking the same question. Was Jarlaxle, perhaps, trying to garner some information about the tent? Or even worse, was the Crystal Shard reaching out to the drow, subtly asking him to goad Entreri in that direction? If they did take out the tent and disappear, after all, they would have to reappear in the same place. That being true, had the Crystal Shard figured out how to send its telepathic call across the planes of existence? Perhaps the next time Entreri and Jarlaxle used the plane- shifting tent, they would return to the material plane to find an orc army, inspired by Crenshinibon, waiting for them. "The horses grow weary," Jarlaxle noted. "They can outrun orcs," Entreri replied. "If we let them run free, perhaps." "They're just orcs," Entreri muttered, though he could hardly believe how persistent this group remained.
He turned back to Jarlaxle, no longer doubting the drow's claim. The horses were indeed tired-they had been riding a long day before even realizing the orcs were following their trail. They had ridden the beasts practically into the desert sands in an effort to get out of that barren, wide-open region as quickly as possible. Perhaps it was time to stop running. "There are only about a score of them," Entreri remarked, watching their movements as they crawled over the lower slopes.
"Twenty against two," Jarlaxle reminded. "Let us go and hide in your tent, that the horses can rest, and come out and begin the chase anew."
"We can defeat them and drive them away," Entreri insisted, "if we choose and prepare the battlefield."
It surprised the assassin that Jarlaxle didn't look very eager about that possibility. "They're only orcs," Entreri said again.
"Are they?" Jarlaxle asked.
Entreri started to respond but paused long enough to consider the meaning behind the dark elf's words. Was this pursuit a chance encounter? Or was there something more to this seemingly nondescript band of monsters?