R. Salvatore - Archmage

He noted a footprint in some soot residue.

“Drow?” he whispered under his breath, for the boot was too thin, its edges too refined, to be something he would expect from a kobold, and the step appeared far too light to be that of an orc or even a human.

He searched the small room and happened upon a curious parchment, a wrapper, he knew, much like those surface elves used to preserve their foodstuffs when they journeyed the open road.

Some scratches in the wall not far from that caught his eye. No, not scratches, he realized upon closer inspection-someone had purposely and efficiently cut deep lines-letters! — into the hard stone.

Drizzt recognized the lettering as Elvish, surface Elvish and not Drow, though he did not know the word they spelled out.

“ ‘Tierf,’ ” he read aloud, his expression quizzical.

He looked back at the cuts, marveling at the sharp edges and clean lines. Some fabulous tool had been employed.

Drizzt stood back up as if he had been slapped.

“Tierflin?” he asked more than said, his thoughts going to Sinnafein’s dead son, and by extension, to Tos’un Armgo, whom he knew to be in possession of Khazid’hea, a sword that could so gracefully and easily mar any but the hardest of stones. Was Tos’un Armgo in this place?

No, it could not be. Tos’un had died on the mountainside of Fourthpeak, crashing down with the smaller white dragon sent spiraling to the mountainside by Tazmikella and Ilnezhara and finished off by Brother Afafrenfere. Drizzt had seen that firsthand.

Doum’wielle, perhaps, the daughter of Tos’un and Sinnafein, who had reportedly run off with the sword?

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.