[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.“Nothing greater than a nalfeshnie,” Cadderly quickly clarified, seeing the impish smile growing and wanting to limit the power of whatever being he next summoned.A nalfeshnie was no minor demon, but was certainly within Cadderly’s power to control, at least long enough for him to get what he needed.“Oh, I has a name for you, priest of Deneir.” the imp started to say, but it jerked spasmodically as Cadderly began to chant a spell of torment.The imp fell to the floor, writhing and spitting curses.“The name?” Cadderly asked.“And I warn you, if you deceive me and try to trick me into summoning a greater creature, I will dismiss it promptly and find you again.This torment is nothing compared to that which I will exact upon you!”He said the words with conviction and with strength, though in truth, it pained the gentle man to be doing even this level of torture, even upon a wretched imp.He reminded himself of the importance of his quest and bolstered his resolve.“Mizferac!” the imp screamed out.“A glabrezu, and a stupid one!”Cadderly released the imp from his spell of torment, and the creature gave a beat of its wings and righted itself, staring at him coldly.“I did your bidding, evil priest of Deneir.Let me go!”“Be gone, then,” said Cadderly, and even as the little beast began fading from view, offering a few obscene gestures, Cadderly had to toss in, “I will tell Mizferac what you said concerning its intelligence.”He did indeed enjoy that last expression of panic on the face of the little imp.Cadderly brought Mizferac in later that same day and found the towering pincer-armed glabrezu to be the embodiment of all that he hated about demons.It was a nasty, vicious, conniving, and wretchedly self-serving creature that tried to get as much gain as it could out of every word.Cadderly kept their meeting short and to the point.The demon was to inquire of other extra-planar creatures about the whereabouts of a dark elf named Jarlaxle, who was likely on the surface of Faerun.Furthermore, Cadderly put a powerful geas on the demon, preventing it from actually walking the material world, but retreating only back to the Abyss and using sources to discern the information.“That will take longer,” Mizferac said.“I will call on you daily,” Cadderly replied, putting as much anger without adding any passion whatsoever as he could into his timbre.“Each passing day I will grow more impatient, and your torment will increase.” “You make a terrible enemy in Mizferac, Cadderly Bonaduce, Priest of Deneir,” the glabrezu replied, obviously trying to shake him with its knowledge of his name.Cadderly, who heard the mighty song of Deneir as clearly as if it was a chord within his own heart, merely smiled at the threat.“If ever you find yourself free of your bonds and able to walk the surface of Toril, do come and find me, Mizferac the fool.It will please me greatly to reduce your physical form to ash and banish your spirit from this world for a hundred years.”The demon growled, and Cadderly dismissed it, simply and with just a wave of his hand and an utterance of a single word.He had heard every threat a demon could give and many times.After the trials the young priest had known in his life, from facing a red dragon to doing battle with his own father, to warring against the chaos curse, to, most of all, offering his very life up as sacrifice to his god, there was little any creature, demonic or not, could say to him that would frighten him.He recalled the glabrezu every day for the next tenday, until finally the fiend brought him some news of the Crystal Shard and the drow, Jarlaxle, along with the surprising information that Jarlaxle no longer possessed the artifact, but traveled in the company of a human, Artemis Entreri, who did.Cadderly knew that name well from the stories that Drizzt and Catti-brie had told him in their short stay at the Spirit Soaring.The man was an assassin, a brutal killer.According to the demon, Entreri, along with the Crystal Shard and the dark elf Jarlaxle, was on his way to the Snowflake Mountains.Cadderly rubbed his chin as the glabrezu passed along the information-information that he knew to be true, for he had enacted a spell to make certain the demon had not lied to him.“I have done as you demanded,” the glabrezu growled, clicking its pincer-ended appendages anxiously.“I am released from your bonds, Cadderly Bonaduce.”“Then begone, that I do not have to look upon your ugly face any longer,” the young priest replied.The demon narrowed its huge eyes threateningly and clicked its pincers.“I will not forget this,” it promised.“I would be disappointed if you did,” Cadderly replied casually.“I was told that you have young children, fool,” Mizferac remarked, fading from view.“Mizferac, ehugu-winance!” Cadderly cried, catching the departing demon before it had dissipated back to the swirling smoke of the Abyss.Holding it in place by the sheer strength of his enchantment, Cadderly twisted the demon’s physical form painfully by the might of his spell.“Do I smell fear, human?” Mizferac asked defiantly.Cadderly smiled wryly.“I doubt that, since a hundred years will pass before you are able to walk the material plane again
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]