Once there was a louder, rumbling clatter, and a surprised male voiced a cry.
Suddenly, a glimmer of yellow light appeared, flickering between two rocks. The light grew as more rocks were lifted away.
'We should hide!' Shandril whispered, drawing Narm down into a crouch among the stones.
Torchlight blazed at them before they could move. 'Narm?' a voice came from the darkness. 'Lady?'
'Florin?' Narm replied eagerly, rising and drawing Shandril to his side.
'Well met!' came the glad reply, as the man scaled the rocks toward them. Shandril recognized him as the kingly warrior who had walked with Elminster in the mists between the company and the mysterious men who guarded the mules. 'I heard screaming,' he said. 'Is all well with you?'
'We're fine,' Narm replied, 'but she who screamed-the sorceress-is not. She will work her art no more.'
'Aye? So it is,' Florin's face was impassive. 'Danger sought, danger found. You did well. Our foe lies buried, but may yet live.' He stopped for a moment to squint at Narm. 'Hold, what's that?' he asked. 'A balhiir!' he exclaimed, drawing back in alarm. But he was too late.
The swirling, sparkling cloud around Narm boiled up like the plume of a campfire when wind draws it into long flames. The cloud struck at the ranger's blade.
'A balhiir!' Florin gasped again, swinging his sword away. But the mist was already swirling around his blade in cold silence. The weapon grew heavier in his grasp as its magical blue light twinkled once and then dwindled away. The twinkling mist remained and seemed a little brighter.
'Whence came this balhiir?' the ranger asked.
'Is that what it is? I struck down the sorceress with a crystal sphere,' Shandril told him. 'The sphere broke, and this came out.'
The ranger gazed at his blade in consternation, and then smiled. 'By the bye, I am Florin Falconhand, of Shadowdale, and the Knights of Myth Drannor. Might I know you?'
Smiling, she said, 'Shandril Shessair, until recently of Deepingdale and the Company of the Bright Spear, though I fear the company is no more.'
'Your servant, Lady,' Florin said with a bow. 'You have loosed an ill thing on the world. This creature feeds on magic. Only the one who loosed a balhiir can destroy it. Will you aid me in this task, Lady?'
'Is it dangerous?' Narm asked, feeling his anger rise.
'Your lives both bid to be filled with danger,' Florin replied gently, 'whether you kill this creature or not. Striving for something worthwhile and going to your graves is better than drifting in cowardice to your graves, is it not?'
'Fair speech, indeed,' Shandril replied, meeting his eyes. 'I will aid you,' she said firmly, calming Narm. 'But tell me more of this thing.'
'In truth,' the ranger told her calmly, 'I know little more. Lore holds that the one who releases a balhiir is the only one who can destroy it. Elminster of Shadowdale knows how to deal with such creatures, but like all who use the art, he dare not come near something that drains magic. Items of power all seem to fare poorly against the creature; it foils spells, too.'
'Well,' Shandril asked, 'why should such a creature be destroyed? Doesn't it leash dangerous art?'
'Fair question,' Florin replied. 'Others might answer you differently, but I say we need art. There are prices to be paid for it, but the shrewd use of the magical art helps a great many people. The threat of art rising, unlooked for, keeps many a tyrant sword from taking what can be taken by brute force.'
Shandril met his level gray gaze and slowly relaxed. She could trust this tall, battered man. At her side, Narm stirred.
'The balhiir was about me for some time. It drained both my cantrips and the sorceresses' spells. Do you know if I will be able to work the art again?'
'Indeed, so long as the balhiir is not present. It will move to absorb unleashed magic if it can.' Even as Florin spoke, the twinkling cloud stirred about his blade, spiraled up, and left him. In a long, snakelike mist of lights, the balhiir drifted back the way the ranger had come. Florin started after it. 'Follow me, if you will. If not, I'll leave the torch.'
The two hurried after him. Shandril glanced back once at The Shadowsil lying among the rocks, but all she could see was one foot jutting upward. As they passed through the escape hole Florin had dug, the foot seemed to move in the dancing torchlight. Shandril shivered despite herself.
The cavern where the dracolich had laired was much changed. The ceiling had broken away and fallen. The gleam of treasure was gone, covered by rubble and dust. There was a mighty rumbling and clattering of stones to their right, as the eternal dracolich rose slowly from under a castle's worth of fallen rock. Far across the wide chamber, a woman was raising her hands in magical passes.
Bright pulses of magic burst from her hands as Narm and Shandril climbed over the rocks. They saw magic missiles streak across the chamber and strike the dracolich. The winking cloud of mist streaked down hungerly.
Rauglothgor roared anew in pain and fury. Its deep bellows echoed about the cavern. The battered dracolich rose up and hissed, 'Death to you all! Drink this!'
There was a flicker of the art, but nothing else occurred. The balhiir had reached Rauglothgor. The dracolich roared again in surprise and rage. Its great claws raked huge boulders aside as a cat scrapes loose sand. 'What is this?' it raged. Its hollow neck arched, its jaws parted, and flames gouted out in a great arc.
Fire rolled out with terrifying speed and washed over the lady on the far slope. The air was filled with the stench of burning. As the flames died the lady still stood, apparently untouched, her hands moving in the casting of a spell. About her the sparkling mist danced. The balhiir had ridden the fire across the chamber.
'Jhessail,' Florin called. 'A balhiir-the art is useless!'
'So I see,' Jhessail calmly replied, ignoring the roars of Rauglothgor across the cavern. 'Well fought, Narm. How is your companion? She looks worth our trouble.'
Shandril found herself smiling. 'Well met, Lady Jhessail.'
Jhessail came up and hugged her. 'You show a good eye, Narm. Let us proceed elsewhere now, lest we not see another meal to get acquainted over.'
Florin and the elf, Merith, stood with drawn blades facing the dracolich. The mist swirled away from Jhessail and moved toward the elf's weapon.
'Your blade,' Florin warned.
'If drained, then so be it,' Merith's merry voice came back to them. Both of the fighters charged the skeletal monster.
Again and again the elf avoided the raking bones of the dracolich, with Florin also rolling and leaping in the same dance of death.
Shandril and Narm looked about in time to see a gray streak of motion, a slim, fast man leaped down the rocks toward them.
'Beware!' Jhessail shouted.
There was a sudden flash, and a roar, and the ground leaped to meet all of them.
Someone was shaking him. 'Up, Narm,' Jhessail said firmly. 'We cannot stand in this place longer.'
'I have Shandril,' Lanseril's voice said from somewhere. 'She's heavier than I expected.'
Narm struggled to move, to rise. A warm hand was on his shoulder. 'The dracolich?'
'Rauglothgor lives.' Jhessail's voice was rueful. 'The balhiir hampers both sides in this struggle. The dracolich's lair has traps and harbors creatures subject to its will. It has moved to block our escape to the upper caverns.'
'Are you not its match in art?' Narm asked, then he realized what he had said. 'Oh, my pardon, La-'
'None needed,' Jhessail replied, guiding them around tumbled boulders. 'I doubt it, here in its lair. Alone, spell to spell, perhaps. My spells are more numerous and stronger, but its are unusual and suited to defense.'
They climbed up one side of the cavern toward where Merith stood waiting. His drawn sword no longer glowed. 'Well fought,' he said, kissing Jhessail.
'Where is Torm?' Narm asked, politely waiting until the kiss was done.
Merith and Jhessail exchanged glances and chuckled. 'We think he used something from a little bag of tricks he carries to teleport out of here when he saw the balhiir, no doubt to save all of the magic he carries. I hope he
