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Drizzt crawled out of his hidden cha away He scanned the southern horizon and was again dis pangs of guilt when he saw the city of Targos burning, as though he had neglected his duty to bear witness to the suffering of Kessell’s helpless victi the hours of the meditative trance the elves called sleep He had journeyed back into the underworld of his distant memories in search of a particular sensation, the aura of a powerful presence he had once known Though he had not gotten close enough for a good look at the de about the creature had struck a fa, unnatural emanation surrounded creatures from the lower planes when they walked on the material world, an aura that the dark elves, nize Not only this type of demon, but this particular creature itself, was known to Drizzt It had served his people in Menzoberranzan for h his dreams

Drizzt knew the demon’s true name It would come to his call

The search to find an appropriate spot from which he could call the demon took Drizzt over an hour, and he spent several oal was to take away as ht in particular - as he could, though he sincerely hoped that theirwould not involve co, soainstpain of his whirring blades Deth, were a different story altogether Many ti his youth Drizzt had witnessed the wrath of such a s thron, solid stone torn by the great clawed hands He had seen hty human warriors strike the re, only to find, in their dying horror, that their weapons were useless against such a powerful being froainst de a measure of respect from them Demons often allied with drow on even terht, for they ary of the powerful weapons and ic the drow possessed But that was back in the underworld, where the strange emanations from the unique stone formations blessed the ical properties Drizzt had none of the weapons froic could not withstand the light of day, though he had been careful to keep them protected from the sun, they became useless shortly after he moved to the surface He doubted that the weapons he now carried would be able to harm Errtu at all And even if they did, demons of Errtu’s stature could not be truly destroyed away from their native planes If it came to blows, the most that Drizzt could hope to do was banish the creature from the Material Plane for one hundred years

He had no intentions of fighting

Yet he had to try sooal noas to gain soht reveal a weakness in the wizard, and histhat Errtu reh about the dark elves to make his story credible, yet not too ether

The place he had chosen for thewas a sheltered dell a few yards from the ing walls covered half of the area, the other half was open to the sky, but the entire place was set back into the h walls, safely out of view of Cryshal-Tirith Now Drizzt worked with a dagger, scraping runes of warding on the walls and floor in front of where he would sit His ical symbols had fuzzied over the n was far from perfect Yet he realized that he would need any possible protection that they ht offer if Errtu turned on hied under the roofed section, behind the protected area, and tossed out the small statuette that he carried in his pack Guenhwyvar would be a good test for his warding inscriptions

The great cat answered the summons It appeared in the other side of the cubby, its keen eyes scanning the area for any potential danger that threatened its lance on Drizzt

"Co with his hand The cat strode toward hih it had walked into a wall Drizzt sighed in relief when he saw that his runes held soth His confidence was bolstered considerably, though he realized that Errtu would push the power of the runes to their absolute lie head in an effort to understand what had deterred it The resistance hadn’t really been very strong, but theit away, had confused the cat It considered gathering its strength and walking right through the feeble barrier, but its master seemed pleased that it had stopped So the cat sat where it was and waited

Drizzt was busy studying the area, searching out the opti froh walls just beyond the portion that converged into a roof seemed to offer the best concealment He motioned the cat into position and instructed it not to attack until his signal Then he sat back and tried to relax, intent on his final mental preparations before he called the deical tower, Errtu crouched in a shadowy corner of Kessell’s hareuard over the evil wizard at play with hisfire of hatred burned in Errtu’s eyes as it looked upon the foolish Kessell The wizard had nearly ruined everything with his show of power that afternoon and his refusal to tear down the vacated towers behind hith

Errtu had been grimly satisfied when Kessell had coh the use of scrying mirrors, that the other ters had fallen to pieces Errtu had warned Kessell against raising a third tower, but the wizard, frail of ego, had grown n, envisioning the demon’s, or even Crenshinibon’s, advice as a ploy to undermine his absolute control

And so Errtu was quite receptive, even relieved, when it heard Drizzt’s call floating down the valley At first it denied the possibility of such a su spoken aloud sent involuntary shudders running along the deered at the i to utter its name, Errtu slipped away from the distracted wizard and ain, cutting through the har like a whitecapped wave on a still pond

Errtu spread its great wings and soared northward over the plain, speeding toward the suoblins fled fro shadow, for even in the faint glimmer of a thin moon, the creature of the Abyss left a wake of blackness that ht in comparison

Drizzt sucked in a tense breath He sensed the unerring approach of the demon as it veered away from Bremen’s Run and swept upward over the lower slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn Guenhwyvar lifted its head off of its paws and growled, also sensing the approach of the evil e and lay flat and still, awaiting its htened abilities of stealth could protect it even against the high sensitivities of a dehted on the ledge It immediately pinpointed the exact location of the suh it had to tuck its broad shoulders to pass through the narrow entrance to the dell, it charged straight in, intent on appeasing its curiosity and then killing the blaspheht to hold his edge of control when the huge de the sht before hierous course He had no place to run

The demon stopped suddenly in amazement It had been centuries since Errtu had looked upon a drow, and it certainly never expected to find one on the surface, in the frozen wastelands of the farthest north

Sos,low "I am Drizzt Do’Urden, of the house of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, ninth family to the throne of Menzoberranzan Welco way from home, drow," the dereat demon of the Abyss," Drizzt replied coolly "And lured to this high corner of the world for siuess"

"I knohy I am here," answered Errtu "The business of the drow has ever been outside !"

Drizzt stroked his slender chin and chuckled in feigned confidence His stos of a cold sweat coainst the fear If the dereatly diminished "Ah, but this time, for the first time in many years, it seehty purveyor of destruction My people have a curiosity, perhaps even a vested interest in the wizard that you apparently serve"

Errtu squared its shoulders, the first flickers of a dangerous flame evident in its red eyes "Serve?" it echoed incredulously, the even tone of its voice quivering, as though it bordered on the edge of an uncontrollable rage

Drizzt was quick to qualify his observation "By all appearances, guardian of chaotic intentions, the wizard holds soside Akar Kessell"

"I serve no hu the cave’s very foundation with an eht that he could not hope to as about to begin He considered calling out Guenhwyvar so that they could at least land the first blows

But the deuessed the reason for the unexpected presence of the drow, Errtu turned a scrutinizing eye on Drizzt "Serve the wizard?" it laughed "Akar Kessell is puny even by the low standards of humans! But you know this, drow, and do not dare to deny it You are here, as I am here, for Crenshinibon, and Kessell be daenuine enough to throw Errtu off balance The deuessed correctly, but it couldn’t understand why the drow didn’t co its clawed hand to the south "An ancient bastion of unspeakable power"

"The tower?" Drizzt asked

Errtu’s uncertainty bubbled up in the fornorance with me!" the demon bellowed "The drow lords knoell the power of Akar Kessell’s artifact, or else they would not have couessed at the truth," Drizzt conceded "Yet I had to be certain that the tower on the plain was indeed the ancient artifact that I seek My masters show little mercy to careless spies"

Errtu smiled wickedly as it remembered the unholy torture cha the dark elves had been enjoyable indeed!

Drizzt quickly pressed the conversation in a direction that ht reveal so has kept an, careful to continue his string of unduplicated coht does this wizard possess Crenshinibon?"

"None at all," Errtu said "Wizard, bah! Measured against your own people, he is barely an apprentice His tongue twitches uneasily when he utters even the siames And more to the enjoyment, I say! Let Akar Kessell have his brieftierous line of questions, but he accepted the risk Even with a ured that his chances for survival at this moment were better than those of his friends in Bryn Shander "Still my masters are concerned that the towerbattle with the humans," he bluffed

Errtu took another moment to consider Drizzt The appearance of the dark elves complicated the demon’s sihty drow lords of the huge city of Menzoberranzan truly had designs upon the relic, the deet it Certainly Kessell, even with the power of the shard behind him, could not withstand theed the demon’s perceptions of its relationship with Crenshinibon How Errtu wished that it could simply devour Kessell and flee with the relic before the dark elves were too involved!

Yet Errtu had never considered the drow as ene wizard Perhaps an alliance with the dark elves could prove beneficial to both sides

"Tell me, unequaled champion of darkness," Drizzt pressed, "is Crenshinibon in peril?"

"Bah!" snorted Errtu "Even the tower that is merely a reflection of Crenshinibon is iainst its mirrored walls and reflects theth, the very heart of Cryshal-Tirith, is vulnerable, and that is safely hidden away"

"Inside?"

"Of course"

"But if soet into the tower," Drizzt reasoned, "hoell protected would he then find the heart?"

"An impossible task!" the demon replied "Unless the simple fishermen of Ten-Towns have soh priest, or an arch- Surely your masters know that Cryshal-Tirith’s door is invisible and undetectable to any beings inherent to the present plane the tower rests upon No creature of this material world, your race included, could find its way in!"

"But" Drizzt pressed anxiously

Errtu cut hirowled, impatient with the relentless stream of impossible suppositions, "he would have to pass by me And the limit of Kessell’s poithin the tower is considerable indeed, for the wizard has beco outlet for the crystal shard’s unfathoth! The heart lies beyond the very focal point of Kessell’s interaction with the tower, and up to the very tip" The demon stopped, suddenly suspicious of Drizzt’s line of questioning If the lore-wise drow lords were truly intent upon Crenshinibon, eren’t they ths and weaknesses?

Errtu understood its ain, but with a different focus When it had first encountered the drow, stunned by the ion, it had searched for deception in the physical attributes of Drizzt, himself, to determine if his drow features were an illusion, a clever yet simple shapealteration trick within the power of even a e