His smoking bulk nearly filled the circle. His great leathery wings could not extend to their fullest, else they would have crossed the boundary line where the fiend could not pass. Errtu clawed at the stone and issued a guttural growl, threw back his huge and ugly head and laughed maniacally. Then the balor suddenly calmed, and looked forward, his knowing eyes boring into the gaze of Drizzt Do’Urden. Many years had passed since Drizzt had looked upon mighty Errtu, but the ranger surely recognized the fiend. His ugly face seemed a cross between a dog and an ape, and his eyes-especially those eyes-were black pits of evil, sometimes wide with outrage and red with flame, sometimes narrowed, slanted, intense slits promising hellish tortures. Yes, Drizzt remembered Errtu well, remembered their desperate fight on the side of Kelvin’s Cairn those years before.
The ranger’s scimitar, the one he had taken from the white dragon’s lair, seemed to remember the fiend, too, for Drizzt felt it calling to him, urging him to draw it forth and strike at the balor again that it might feed upon Errtu’s fiery heart. That blade had been forged to battle creatures of fire, and seemed particularly eager for the smoking flesh of a fiend.
Catti-brie had never seen such a beast, darkness incarnate, evil embodied, the most foul of the foul. She wanted to take up Taulmaril and shoot an arrow into the beast’s ugly face, and yet she feared that to do so would loose wicked Errtu upon them, something the young woman most certainly did not desire.
Errtu continued to chuckle, then with terrifying speed, the great fiend lashed out toward Drizzt with its many-thonged whip. The weapon snapped forward, then stopped fast in midair, as though it had hit a wall, and indeed it had.
“You cannot send your weapons, your flesh, or your magic through the barrier, Errtu,” Cadderly said calmly-the old priest seemed not shaken in the least by the true tanar’ri.
Errtu’s eyes narrowed wickedly as the balor dropped his gaze over Cadderly, knowing that it was the priest who had dared to summon the balor. Again came that rumbling chuckle and flames erupted at Errtu’s huge, clawed feet, burning white and hot, blazing so high that they nearly blocked the companions’ view of the balor. The three friends squinted against the intense, stinging heat. At last, Catti-brie fell away with a shout of warning, and Drizzt heeded that call, went with her. Cadderly remained in place, though, standing impassively, confident that the rune-etched circles would stop the fires. Sweat beaded on his face, droplets falling from his nose.
“Desist!” Cadderly yelled above the crackle. Then he recited a string of words in a language that neither Drizzt nor Catti-brie had ever heard before, an arcane phrase that ended with the name of Errtu, spoken emphatically.
The balor roared as if in pain, and the fire walls fell away to nothingness.
“I will remember you, old man,” the great balor promised. “When I walk again on the plane that is your world.”
“Do pay me a visit,” Cadderly replied evenly. “It would be my pleasure to banish you back to the filth where you truly belong.”
Errtu said no more, but growled and focused once more upon the renegade drow, the most-hated Drizzt Do’Urden.
“I have him, drow,” the fiend teased. “In the Abyss.”
“Who?” Drizzt demanded, but the balor’s response was yet another burst of maniacal laughter.
“Who do you have, Errtu?” Cadderly asked firmly.
“No questions must I answer,” the balor reminded the priest. “I have him, that you know, and the one way you have of getting him back is to end my banishment. I will take him to this, your land, Drizzt Do’Urden, and if you want him, then you must come and get him!”
“I will speak with Zaknafein!” Drizzt yelled, his hand going to the hilt of his hungry scimitar. Errtu mocked him, laughed at him, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of Drizzt’s frustration. It was just the beginning of the drow’s torment.
“Free me!” the fiend roared, silencing the questions. “Free me now! Each day is an eternity of torture for my prisoner, your beloved fa-” Errtu stopped abruptly, letting the teasing word hang in the air. The balor waggled a finger at Cadderly. “Have I been tricked?” Errtu said, feigning horror. “Almost did I answer a question, something that is not required of me.”
Cadderly looked to Drizzt, understanding the ranger’s dilemma. The priest knew that Drizzt would willingly leap into the circle and fight Errtu here and now for the sake of his lost father, of a friend, or of any goodly person, but to free the fiend seemed a desperate and dangerous act to the noble drow, a selfish act for the sake of his father that might jeopardize so many others.
“Free me!” roared the balor, his thunderous voice echoing about the chamber.
Drizzt relaxed suddenly. “That I cannot do, foul beast,” he said quietly, shaking his head, seeming to gain confidence in his decision with every passing second.
“You fool!” Errtu roared. “I will flail the skin from his bones! I will eat his fingers! And I will keep him alive, I promise, alive and conscious through it all, telling him before each torture that you refused to help him, that you caused his doom!”
Drizzt looked away, relaxed no more, his breathing coming in hard, angry gasps. He knew the truth of Zaknafein, though, understood his father’s heart, and knew that the weaponmaster would not wish Drizzt to free Errtu, whatever the cost.
Catti-brie took Drizzt’s hand, as did Cadderly.
“I’ll not tell you what to do, good drow,” the old priest offered, “but if the fiend imprisons a soul undeserving of such a fate, then it is our responsibility to save ...”
“But at what price?” Drizzt said desperately. “At what cost to the world?”
Errtu was laughing again, wildly. Cadderly turned to quiet the fiend, but Errtu spoke first. “You know, priest,” the fiend accused. “You know!”
“What does the ugly thing mean?” Catti-brie asked.
“Tell them,” Errtu bade Cadderly, who seemed uncomfortable for the first time.
Cadderly looked at Drizzt and Catti-brie and shook his head.
“Then I shall tell them!” Errtu shouted, the balor’s tremendous, throaty voice echoing again about the stone room, paining their ears.
“You shall be gone!” Cadderly promised, and he began a chant. Errtu jerked suddenly, violently, then seemed smaller, seemed as if he was falling back in on himself.
“I am free now!” the balor proclaimed.
“Wait,” Drizzt bade Cadderly, and the priest obeyed.
“I shall go where I please, foolish Drizzt Do’Urden! By your will I have touched the ground of the Prime Material Plane, and thus my banishment is at its end. I can return to the call of any!”
Cadderly began his chant again, more urgently, and Errtu began to fade away.
“Come to me, Drizzt Do’Urden,” the balor’s now-distant voice beckoned. “If you would see him again. I’ll not come for you.”
Then the fiend was gone, leaving the three companions exhausted in the empty room. Most weary among them was Drizzt, who slumped back against the wall, and it seemed to the others as if the solid stone was the only thing keeping the weary ranger on his feet.
“Ye didn’t know,” Catti-brie reasoned, understanding the guilt that so weighed on her friend’s shoulders. She looked to the old priest who hardly seemed bothered by the revelations.
“Is it true?” Drizzt asked Cadderly.
“I cannot be certain,” the priest replied. “But I believe that our summoning of Errtu to the Prime Material Plane might have indeed ended the balor’s banishment.”
“And ye knew it all along,” Catti-brie said in accusing tones.
“I suspected,” Cadderly admitted.
“Then why did you let me call to the beast?” Drizzt asked, completely surprised. He would never have figured that Cadderly would end the banishment of such an evil monster. When he looked at the old priest now, though, it seemed to Drizzt as if Cadderly wasn’t bothered in the least.
“The fiend, as is always the case with such denizens, can get to the Prime Material Plane only with assistance from a priest or a wizard,” Cadderly explained. “Any of that ilk who so desired such a beast could find many, many waiting for their call, even other balors. The freeing of Errtu, if indeed Errtu is free, is not so much a travesty.”
Put in that context, it made sense to Drizzt and to Catti-brie. Those who desired to call a fiend to their service would find no shortage; the Abyss was full of powerful denizens, all eager to come forth and wreak havoc among the mortals.
“The thing I fear,” Cadderly admitted, “is that this particular balor hates you above all, Drizzt. He may, despite his last words, seek you out if he ever gets back to our world.”
“Or I will seek out Errtu,” Drizzt replied evenly, unafraid, and that brought a smile to Cadderly’s lips. It was just the response he had hoped to hear from the courageous drow. Here was a mighty warrior in the war for good, Cadderly knew. The priest held great faith that if such a battle were to come about, Drizzt and his friends would prevail, and the torment of Drizzt’s father would come to an end.
*****
Waillan Micanty and Dunkin Tallmast arrived at the Spirit Soaring later that day, and found Captain Deudermont outside the structure, relaxing in the shade of a tree, feeding strange nuts to a white squirrel.
“Percival,” Deudermont explained to the two men, holding his hand out to the squirrel. As soon as Percival snatched the treat, Deudermont pointed out Pikel Bouldershoulder, hard at work as always, tending his many gardens. “Pikel over there informs me that Percival is a personal friend of Cadderly’s.”
Waillan and Dunkin exchanged doubting looks, neither having a clue as to what Deudermont might be talking about.
“It is not important,” the captain remarked, rising to his feet and brushing the twigs from his trousers. “What news on the Sea Sprite?”
“The repairs are well underway,” replied Waillan. “Many of Carradoon’s fishermen have joined in to help. They have even found a tree suitable to replace the mast.”
“A friendly lot, these men of Carradoon,” Dunkin put in.
Deudermont regarded Dunkin for a while, pleased at the subtle changes he had witnessed in the man. This was not the same surly and conniving emissary who had first come to the Sea Sprite in the name of Lord Tarnheel Embuirhan in search of Drizzt Do’Urden. The man was a fine sailor and a fine companion according to Waillan, and Deudermont planned to offer him a full-time position as a crewman aboard the Sea Sprite as soon as they figured out how to get the ship back in the Sea of Swords where she belonged.
“Robillard is in Carradoon,” Waillan said unexpectedly, catching the captain off guard, though Deudermont never doubted that the wizard had survived the storm and would eventually find them. “Or he was. He might have gone back to Waterdeep by now. He says that he can get us back where we belong.”
“But it will cost us,” added Dunkin. “For the wizard will need help from his brotherhood, an exceptionally greedy lot, by Robillard’s own admission.”
Deudermont wasn’t very concerned about that. The Lords of Waterdeep would likely reimburse any expenses. The captain did note Dunkin’s use of the word “us,” and that pleased him more than a little.
“Robillard said that it would take him some time to organize it all,” Waillan finished. “But we’re two weeks from repairing the Sea Sprite in any case, and with the help, it’s easier fixing her here than in Waterdeep.”
Deudermont only nodded. Pikel came bobbing over then, stealing the attention of Waillan and Dunkin. That was fine with Deudermont. The details of returning the Sea Sprite where she belonged would work themselves out, he did not doubt. Robillard was a competent and loyal wizard. But the captain saw a parting of the ways in his immediate future, for two friends (three, counting Guenhwyvar) wouldn’t likely go back with the ship, or if they did, they wouldn’t likely remain with her for long.