Robert Salvatore: The Ghost King

To the relief of them all, no monsters remained to confront them as they escaped the building. The courtyard was littered with dead, killed by Drizzt or by the ferocious assault of the Ghost King. The lawn, once so serene and beautiful, showed the blackened scar of dragonfire, great brown swaths of dead grass from the dracolich’s touch, and the massive trench dug by the diving wyrm.

Jarlaxle and Bruenor led the way out of the structure, and when they looked back at the grand cathedral, at the life’s work of Cadderly Bonaduce, they understood better why the assault had taken such a toll on the priest. Fires leaped from several places, most dramatically from the wing they had just departed. Where the initial assault of dragonfire had been muted by the power of the cathedral’s magic, the protective spells had worn thin. The fire wouldn’t consume the place entirely, but the damage was extensive.

“Put her down, friend,” Jarlaxle said, taking Drizzt’s arm.

Drizzt shook his head and pulled away, and at that moment, Catti-brie’s eyes flickered, and for a moment, just a moment, Drizzt thought he saw clarity there, thought he saw, within her—she recognized him!

“Me girl!” Bruenor cried, obviously seeing the same.

But a fleeting thing it was, if anything at all, and Catti-brie settled almost immediately back into the same lethargic state that had dominated her days since the falling Weave had wounded her.

Drizzt called to her repeatedly and shook her gently. “Catti! Catti-brie! Wake up!”

But he received no response.

As the weight of her condition sank in, Athrogate gave a cry, and all eyes went to him, then followed his gaze to the cathedral’s open doorway.

Out walked Cadderly. Not flesh and blood, but a translucent, ghostly form of the old priest, hunched but walking with a purpose. He approached them and walked right through them, and everyone shuddered with a profound sense of coldness as he neared and passed.

They called to him, but he could not hear, as if they didn’t exist. And so, they knew, in Cadderly’s new reality, they did not.

The old priest ambled to the tree line, the other six following, and against the backdrop of leaping orange flames, Cadderly began to walk and whisper, bending low, his hand just off the ground. Behind him, a line of blue-white light glowed softly along the grass, and they realized that Cadderly was laying that line as he went.

“A ward,” Jarlaxle realized. He tentatively stepped over it, and showed relief indeed when it did not harm him.

“Like the barrier in Luskan,” Drizzt agreed. “The magic that was put down to seal off the old city, where the undead walk.”

Cadderly continued his circuit, indeed walking the perimeter of Spirit Soaring.

“If the Ghost King returns, it must be to this spot,” Jarlaxle said, though he seemed less than confident of his assessment and his reasoning sounded more like a plea. “The undead will not be able to cross out of this place.”

“But how long’s he got to weave it?” Bruenor asked.

“He knew,” Drizzt gasped. “His words for Danica …”

“Forever,” Jarlaxle whispered.

It took a long while for the priest to complete his first circuit, and he began his second anew, for the magic ward where he had started was already fading. Barely after Cadderly commenced the second pass, a voice called out from the darkness of the forest. “Father!” cried Rorick Bonaduce. “He is old! Mother, why does he look so old?”

Out of the trees rushed Danica and her children, with Ivan and Pikel. Joyful greetings and reunions had to wait, though, dampened by the pain that lay evident on the faces of three young adults, and on the woman who had so loved Cadderly.

Drizzt felt Danica’s pain profoundly as he stood holding Catti-brie.

“What happened?” Danica asked, hurrying to join them.

“We drove it off, and hurt it badly,” said Jarlaxle.

“Cadderly chased it when it left,” said Bruenor.

Danica looked past them to the burning Spirit Soaring. She knew why her ghostly husband seemed so old, of course. Spirit Soaring was ruined, its magic diminished to near nothingness, and that magic supported Cadderly as surely as it held strong the timbers, stone, and glass of Deneir’s cathedral. The magic had made Cadderly young, and had kept him young.

The spell had been destroyed.

Her husband had been destroyed, too, or … what? She looked at him and did not know.

“His last thoughts were of you,” Drizzt said to her. “He loved you. He loves you still, as he serves Deneir, as he serves us all.”

“He will come back from this,” Hanaleisa said with determination. “He will finish his task and return to us!”

No one contradicted her, for what was to be gained? But a look from Danica told Drizzt that she, too, sensed the truth. Cadderly had become the Ghost King. Cadderly, his service to Spirit Soaring and to the wider world, was eternal.

The ghostly priest was halfway through his third circuit when dawn broke over the eastern horizon, and the others, exhausted, continued to follow him.

His glow diminished with the rising sun until he was gone from sight entirely, to the gasps—hopeful and horrified—of his children. “He’s gone!” Temberle cried. “He’s coming back to us,” Rorick declared.

“Not gone,” Jarlaxle said a moment later, and he motioned the others over to him. The glowing line continued on its way, and near to its brightest point, its newest point, the air was much colder. Cadderly was still there, unseen in the daylight.

The fires had diminished greatly in Spirit Soaring, but the group did not go back inside the cathedral, instead setting a camp just outside the front door. Weariness alone brought them some sleep, in cautious shifts, and as dusk descended, the Ghost King, the apparition of Cadderly, returned to view, walking, forever walking, his lonely circuit.

Soon after, some crawlers returned, a small group seeming intent on again attacking Spirit Soaring. They broke out of the forest and shrieked as one as they neared Cadderly’s glowing line. Off they ran, into the darkness.

“Cadderly’s ward,” Bruenor said. “A good one.”

The group rested a little easier after that.

“We have to leave this place,” Jarlaxle remarked to them all later that night, and that drew many looks, few appreciative. “We do,” the drow insisted. “We have to tell the world what has happened here.”

“You go and tell them, then,” Hanaleisa growled at him, but Danica put her hand on her daughter’s forearm to quiet her.

“The monsters have retreated, but they remain out there,” Jarlaxle warned.

“Then we stay in here where they can’t get at us,” Rorick argued.

“The dracolich can return inside that ward,” Jarlaxle warned. “We must lea—”

Drizzt stopped him with an upraised hand and turned to Danica. “In the morning, first light,” he bade her.

“This is our home. Where will we go?”

“Mithral Hall, and Silverymoon from there,” Drizzt answered. “If there is an answer to be found, look to Lady Alustriel.”

Danica turned to her children, who frowned as one, but had no words to counter the obvious reality. The food they could salvage from inside the structure couldn’t sustain them forever.

As a compromise, they waited another two nights, but by then, even Hanaleisa and Rorick had to admit that their father was not coming back to them.

And so it was a solemn caravan that made its way out of Spirit Soaring one bright morning. The wagon hadn’t been badly damaged out in the courtyard, and with five skilled dwarves supplying the know-how, they managed to repair it completely. Even better news followed when they found the poor mules, frightened and hungry but very much alive, roaming a distant corridor of the cathedral’s first floor, their magical shoes intact.