“A major breach,” Tiago replied. “The forge room was overwhelmed by flames and lava and creatures of the Plane of Fire.”

Jearth rode his lizard right past the young Baenre and down the corridor leading back to the forge room, rushing out of sight.

“Where is Brack’thal?” Ravel asked, and the look he tossed at Tiago made it clear that he hoped his brother was still in the room, preferably dead.

“You tell me,” Tiago replied, his voice thick with intrigue, for all of them were surely thinking that Brack’thal, broken and angry, might have had a hand in this disaster. “I’ve not seen him.”

“Find him!” Berellip snapped at the nearby commoner drow, and they nearly fell over each other as they started scrambling away.

“We lost a small group of bugbears, all of the goblins in the room, and a few drow as well, I fear,” said the young Baenre, but his casual tone belied his claim that he feared any such thing. In fact, he didn’t care. Gol’fanin had survived, the recipe had survived, and all the pieces and ingredients needed to finish Lullaby and Spiderweb had survived. Did anything else really matter?

All eyes turned back behind the Xorlarrin nobles, where Yerrininae moved past his drider rear guard and up to join the conversation. “The Shadovar approach in great numbers,” he warned.

Berellip nodded and started to speak, but Ravel beat her to it.

“Let us fade back to the deeper tunnels,” he said. “Let them deal with the danger in the forge room, and then deal with our magic and our blades as we see fit.”

“And our negotiations,” Berellip said.

“It would not do well for House Xorlarrin to begin a war between Menzoberranzan and the Netherese Empire,” Tiago warned in support of the priestess.

Berellip gave him a quick glance and a nod—a nod of appreciation for his support, Tiago realized.

Nothing could eliminate drow infighting quicker than an external enemy.

Ravel took the lead then, ordering and arranging his forces so they could begin their quick retreat from the area. As that ensued, Berellip moved near to Tiago, and she had just reached him when Jearth returned with news that a great battle was underway in the forge room, water against fire.

“This is a most marvelous design,” Ravel declared loudly. “Do not underestimate the skill of dwarves and the ancient magic their allies employed.”

He reminds us that it was he who led us to this place we will soon call our home, Berellip’s fingers flashed to Tiago.

Tiago’s hand subtly replied with a single question: Saribel?

Berellip looked at her sister—at her sister who had schemed against her. Saribel was hard at work issuing commands to those around her, seemingly oblivious to Berellip’s hateful glare.

Tiago saw the sting on Berellip’s face, and understood where the necessity of the desperate situation was forcing her even before she answered, Stand down.

She couldn’t let Tiago kill Saribel at that time, not until they knew the extent of Brack’thal’s role in this great breach. Saribel had double-crossed Berellip with her intent to side with Ravel over Brack’thal, but if their suspicions about the Xorlarrin Elderboy proved true and Matron Zeerith learned of Brack’thal’s ultimate treachery, how strong would Berellip’s claim against Saribel sound?

Indeed, given the victory by Ravel, Tiago had held no intention of killing Saribel in any case, not that he would have told Berellip that little truth.

Besides, Berellip might be the more important priestess, but Saribel was by far the better lover. A minor detail in the greater scheme of things, perhaps, but those minor details often allowed Tiago greater enjoyment in life, and to him, that, after all, was the whole point of . . . everything.

Brack’thal instinctively tried to make himself smaller, curling down and defensively bringing his arms in tightly. He almost laughed at that reflexive movement, for it would do him little good when this mighty elemental decided to crush him into a smoldering pile of gore.

The blow did not fall.

Gradually, Brack’thal summoned the courage to peek out at the beast, which stood towering above him, very near. But it made no move against him, and so the mage slowly unwound himself to stand up straight before it.

Only then did he hear the voice of the lava beast, calling him through the power of his ring.

“Master.”

The primordial had given this gift to him, the mage thought, and he nearly squealed with glee.

His giddiness proved short-lived, though, as a rumble from without, from the forge room, told him that the creatures of water had won out and were now fast returning. At that same time, a huge spray of water began from above the primordial pit, the magical tendrils bringing even more water into the complex in response to the primordial’s attempt to break free.

And among that falling water came more than one new water elemental, diving into the pit and once more strengthening the swirl of containing waters around its walls.

Brack’thal looked through the mounting steam toward the room across the way, where the lever remained fully engaged. He could never free his god-beast as long as that lever kept open the connection between Gauntlgrym’s devices and the power of the sea.

He had to find a way to throw that lever! He would need a dwarf . . .

A rush of water in the corridor to the forge room broke him from his contemplation, and he realized that he had to get out of that chamber at once.

And as he realized it, so too did his lava elemental. The mighty creature moved with incredible grace, the joints of its rocky appendages molten and fluid. It rushed to the wall beside the corridor, and there it seemed to flatten and widen as it pressed into the stone. Whether it was some powerful magic, like the dweomer known as passwall, or simply the intense heat, or perhaps a bit of both, Brack’thal could not tell, but the stone hissed and melted. Even as the returning water elementals began to pour in from the other corridor, the lava elemental departed, burrowing through the stone as easily as Brack’thal might move through water. Lava streamed behind the beast and dripped all around, and the stone seemed to simply part, leaving a sizable glowing corridor in its wake.

Given the protective magic of his ring, the dripping molten stone would not bother him, and so the mage ran off after his pet, winding its way from the room in a tunnel of its own making.

Chapter 23: Intersection

Drizzt started around the corner, but fell back abruptly and turned to his companions, his expression one of concern and surprise.

“What?” asked Entreri, who was growing more impatient and agitated with every step. Even as he finished the question, though, he and Dahlia both understood the drow’s hesitance, for a wall of steamy fog rolled along the perpendicular corridor. The temperature in the area climbed dramatically, the air growing so humid that the greenish tendrils of the Hosttower above began to sweat and drip almost immediately.

“It is passable,” Drizzt informed them.

“Then go,” Entreri snapped back.

Drizzt continued to hold his position. He glanced around the corner again, and when he turned back, beads of sweat showed on his face.

“This tunnel continues to bend around the forge room,” Drizzt replied. “Perhaps there would be an easier way in.”

“Or a less obvious advance than the main corridor,” Dahlia agreed. Entreri started to argue, clearly wanting to be done with all of this, wanting to be done with everything, but when Drizzt held up his hand, the assassin went quiet, for he, too, had heard a distant rumble. On Drizzt’s motion, they backtracked quickly the way they had come, taking up a mostly concealed position some twenty strides back.

The unmistakable sound of an approaching force grew around them, then rumbled down the corridor against the rolling steam. The first forms, ghostly in the fog, crossed the corridor. Even before a couple happened out into their side tunnel, in clear view, the three companions understood the composition of the force. These were Shadovar, making directly for the forge room.

“We could have gone in before them,” Entreri whispered, his jaw clenched, the veins standing out on his forehead.

But both Drizzt and Dahlia, who knew the layout of the forge room, knew of the small archway and single tunnel leading to the primordial pit, understood the futility of that argument. Had they gone in, they would have had to flee immediately out another exit of the forge room, or would have surely found themselves trapped in the primordial chamber.

“We go in behind them, then,” Entreri said.

“We would never make it to the archway,” Dahlia replied, and though he didn’t know the specifics of what she might be talking about, her point was clearly made. “What, then?” he asked.

“We go past the steam corridor,” Drizzt suggested. “Let us learn the layout of this entire region, and learn it well. We’ll find our way in, but we can’t rush in there behind the shade forces and hold any hope of getting to our goal, to say nothing of getting back out.”

Even though that last part of the statement seemed to hold little persuasion to Entreri, Drizzt noted, the assassin didn’t argue. If they went in there and were stopped by the multitude of shades, Entreri would find himself right back in the position of Barrabus the Gray, or worse.

They had to wait a long while for the Shadovar forces to pass by, then they moved quickly, crossing the steamy corridor and moving with all prudent speed. Drizzt again took the lead, opening a wide distance between himself and his two companions. He dropped his hand into his belt pouch and quietly called out for Guenhwyvar again and again, hoping against hope that the Netherese forces had been foolish enough to bring her along, and that she would hear his call and appear to him. He thought of the strange woman he had met, with her enticing offer. Nay, not enticing, for in truth, Drizzt could not put a man, any man, even Artemis Entreri, back into slavery again, whatever his gain. He simply couldn’t do it. And in his heart, Drizzt knew that he wouldn’t get Guenhwyvar back that way, anyway. The trickster would never have willingly given the magnificent panther to him. He could not bargain in good faith with the Netherese.

He thought of the shadow gate he had seen in the forest. His answer lay there, he believed. He would have to go to the Shadowfell when he was done with this ugly business, when Charon’s Claw—and Artemis Entreri—was destroyed.

Flanked by Effron and Glorfathel, Herzgo Alegni glimpsed the forge room through a thick cloud of steam. Fires burned all around the place as the battle of the opposing elemental monsters raged.

“Destroy them,” he instructed his spellcasters.

“Not easily done,” said Effron.

“A slow process,” Glorfathel agreed.

“Bah, but I’ll be turnin’ the tide for ye,” said Ambergris from behind, and she pushed her way through the trio, even daring to shove past Alegni himself.

He looked at her curiously, too surprised to lash out, and more curiously still when he saw what the cleric held: a small jug of curious design. It seemed to be polished from one piece of wood, its thick neck offset from center, and stoppered with a large cork fastened to the decanter with a gold link chain. Circles and triangles of red and green ran around the circumference of the jug in a repeating, but hardly perfect, pattern, as if this item had been crafted by some village woman in a remote jungle.