“Wizard,” Belwar put in impatiently.
Clacker took no offense, even appreciated the assistance.
“The w-wizard has a t-tower,” the excited hook horror tried o explain. “A g-great iron t-tower that he takes with him, setting it up wherever it is c-c-convenient,” Clacker looked up at the ruined ceiling. “Even if it does not always fit.”
“He carries a tower?” Belwar asked, his long nose crinkling right up over itself.
Clacker nodded excitedly, but then didn’t take the time to explain further, for he had found the wizard’s trail, a clear boot print in a bed of moss leading down another of the corridors.
Drizzt and Belwar had to be satisfied with their friend’s incomplete explanation, for the chase was on. Drizzt took up the lead, using all the skills he had learned in the drow Academy and had heightened during his decade alone in the Underdark. Belwar, with his innate racial understanding of the Underdark and his magically lighted brooch, kept track of their direction, and Clacker, in those instances when he fell more completely back into his former self, asked the stones for guidance. The three of them passed another blasted chamber, and another chamber that showed clear signs of the tower’s presence, though its ceiling was high enough to accommodate the structure.
A few days later, the three companions turned into a wide and high cavern, and far back from them, beside a rushing stream, loomed the wizard’s home. Again Drizzt and Belwar looked at each other helplessly, for the tower stood fully thirty feet high and twenty across, its smooth metallic walls mocking their plans. They took separate and cautious routes to the structure and were even more amazed, for the tower’s walls were pure adamantite, the hardest metal in all the world.
They found only a single door, small and barely showing its outline in the perfection of the tower’s craftsmanship. They didn’t have to test it to know that it was secure against unwelcome visitors.
“The w-w-w-he is in there,” Clacker snarled, running his claws over the door in desperation.
“Then he will have to come out,” Drizzt reasoned. “And when he does, we will be waiting for him.”
The plan did not satisfy the pech. With a rumbling roar that echoed throughout the region, Clacker threw his huge body against the tower door, then jumped back and slammed it again. The door didn’t even shudder under the pounding, and it quickly became obvious to the deep gnome and the drow that Clacker’s body would certainly lose the battle.
Drizzt tried vainly to calm his giant friend, while Belwar moved off to the side and began a familiar chant.
Finally, Clacker tumbled down in a heap, sobbing in exhaustion and pain and helpless rage. Then Belwar, his mithril hands sparking whenever they touched, waded in.
“Move aside!” the burrow-warden demanded. “I have come too far to be stopped by a single door!” Belwar moved directly in front of the small door and slammed his enchanted hammer-hand at it with all his strength. A blinding flash of blue sparks burst out in every direction. The deep gnome’s muscled arms worked furiously, scraping and bashing, but when Belwar had exhausted his energy, the tower door showed only the slightest of scratches and superficial burns.
Belwar banged his hands together in disgust, showering himself in harmless sparks, and Clacker agreed wholeheartedly with his frustrated sentiments. Drizzt, though, was more angry and concerned than his friends. Not only had the wizard’s tower stopped them, but the wizard inside undoubtedly knew of their presence. Drizzt moved about the structure cautiously, noting the many arrow slits. Creeping below one, he heard a soft chant, and though he couldn’t understand the wizard’s words, he could guess easily enough the human’s intent.
“Run!” he yelled to his companions, and then, in sheer desperation, he grabbed a nearby stone and hauled it up into the opening of the arrow slit. Luck was with the drow, for the wizard completed his spell just as the rock slammed against the opening. A lightning bolt roared out, shattered the stone, and sent Drizzt flying, but it reflected back into the tower.
“Damnation! Damnation!” came a squeal from inside the tower. “I hate vhen that hoppens!”
Belwar and Clacker rushed over to help their fallen friend. The drow was only stunned, and he was up and ready before they ever got there.
“Oh, you ist going to pay dearly for that one, yest you ist!” came a cry from within.
“Run away!” cried the burrow-warden, and even the outraged hook horror was in full agreement. But as soon as Belwar looked into the drow’s lavender eyes, he knew that
Drizzt would not flee. Clacker, too, backed away a step from the fires gathering within Drizzt Do’Urden.
“Magga cammara, dark elf, we cannot get in.’ the svirfneblin prudently reminded Drizzt.
Drizzt pulled out the onyx figurine and held it against the arrow slit, blocking it with his body. “We shall see,” he growled, and then he called to Guenhwyvar.
The black mist swirled about and found only one empty path clear from the figurine.
“I vill keell you alll” cried the unseen wizard.
The next sound from within the tower was a low panther’s growl, and then the wizard’s voice rang out again. “I cood be wrong!”
“Open the door!” Drizzt screamed. “On your life, foul wizard!”
“Never!”
Guenhwyvar roared again, then the wizard screamed and the door swung wide.
Drizzt led the way. They entered a circular room, the tower’s bottom level. An iron ladder ran up its center to a trap door, the wizard’s attempted escape route. The human hadn’t quite made it, however, and he hung upside-down off the back side of the ladder, one leg hooked at the knee through a rung. Guenhwyvar, appearing fully healed from the ordeal in the acid lake and looking again like the most magnificent of panthers, perched on the other side of the ladder, casually mouthing the wizard’s calf and foot.
“Do come een!” the wizard cried, throwing his arms out wide, then drawing them back to pull his drooping robe up from his face. Wisps of smoke rose from the remaining tatters of the lightning-blackened robe. “I am Brister Fendlestick. Velcome to my hoomble home!”
Belwar kept Clacker at the door, holding his dangerous friend back with his hammer-hand, while Drizzt moved up to take charge of the prisoner. The drow paused long enough to regard his dear feline companion, for he hadn’t summoned Guenhwyvar since that day when he had sent the panther away to heal.
“You speak drow,” Drizzt remarked, grabbing the wizard by the collar and agilely spinning him down to his feet. Drizzt eyed the man suspiciously; he had never seen a human before the encounter in the corridor by the stream. To this point, the drow wasn’t overly impressed.
“Many tongues ist known to me,” replied the wizard, brushing himself off. And then, as if his proclamation was meant to carry some great importance, he added, “I am Brister Fendlestick!”
“Do you name pech among your languages?” Belwar growled from the door.
“Pech?” the wizard replied, spitting the word with apparent distaste.
“Pech.’ Drizzt snarled, emphasizing his response by snapping the edge of a scimitar to within an inch of the wizard’s neck.
Clacker took a step forward, easily sliding the blocking svirfneblin across the smooth floor.
“My large friend was once a pech,” Drizzt explained. “You should know that.”
“Pech.’ the wizard spat. “Useless leetle things, and always they ist in the way,” Clacker took another long stride forward.
“Be on with it, drow,” Belwar begged, futilely leaning against the huge hook horror.
“Give him back his identity,” Drizzt demanded. “Make our friend a pech again. And be quick about it.”
“Bah!” snorted the wizard. “He ist better off as he ist!” the unpredictable human replied. “Why would anyone weesh to remain a pech?”
Clacker’s breath came in a loud gasp. The sheer strength of his third stride sent Belwar skidding off to the side.
“Now, wizard,” Drizzt warned. From the ladder, Guenhwyvar issued a long and hungry growl.
“Oh, very vell, very vell!” the wizard spouted, throwing up his hands in disgust. “Wretched pech!” He pulled an immense book from of a pocket much too small to hold it.
Drizzt and Belwar smiled to each other, thinking victory at hand. But then the wizard made a fatal mistake.
“I shood have killed him as I killed the others,” he mumbled under his breath, too low for even Drizzt, standing right beside him, to make out the words.
But hook horrors had the keenest hearing of any creature in the Underdark.
A swipe of Clacker’s enormous claw sent Belwar spiraling across the room. Drizzt, spinning about at the sound of heavy steps, was thrown aside by the momentum of the rushing giant, the drow’s scimitars flying from his hands. And the wizard, the foolish wizard, padded Clacker’s impact with the iron ladder, a jolt so vicious that it bowed the ladder and sent Guenhwyvar flying off the other side.
Whether the initial crushing blow of the hook horror’s five-hundred-pound body had killed the wizard was academic by the time either Drizzt or Belwar had recovered enough to call out to their friend. Clacker’s hooks and beak slashed and snapped relentlessly, tearing and crushing. Every now and then came a sudden flash and a puff of smoke as another of the many magical items that the wizard carried snapped apart.
And when the hook horror had played out his rage and looked around at his three companions, surrounding him in battle-ready stances, the lump of gore at Clacker’s feet was no longer recognizable.
Belwar started to remark that the wizard had agreed to change Clacker back, but he didn’t see the point. Clacker fell to his knees and dropped his face into his claws, hardly believing what he had done.
“Let us be gone from this place,” Drizzt said, sheathing his blades.
“Search it,” Belwar suggested, thinking that marvelous treasures might be hidden within. But Drizzt could not remain for another moment. He had seen too much of himself in the unbridled rage of his giant companion, and the smell of the bloodied heap filled him with frustrations and fears that he could not tolerate. With Guenhwyvar in tow, he walked from the tower.
Belwar moved over and helped Clacker to his feet, then guided the trembling giant from the structure. Stubbornly practical, though, the burrow-warden made his companions wait around while he scoured the tower, searching for items that might aid them, or for the command word that would allow him to carry the tower along. But either the wizard was a poor man-which Belwar doubted-or he had his treasures safely hidden away, possibly in some other plane of existence, for the svirfneblin found nothing beyond a simple water skin and a pair of worn boots. If the marvelous adamantite tower had a command word, it had gone to the grave with the wizard.
Their journey home was a quiet one, lost in private concerns, regrets, and memories. Drizzt and Belwar did not have to speak their most pressing fear. In their discussions with Clacker, they both had learned enough of the normally peaceable race of pech to know that Clacker’s murderous outburst was far removed from the creature he once had been.
But, the deep gnome and the drow had to admit to themselves, Clacker’s actions were not so far removed from the creature he was fast becoming.