No! Crenshinibon screamed in Entreri's head, so powerful and angry a call that the assassin grabbed at his ears and stumbled aside, dazed.

The artifact's call was abruptly cut off.

Hephaestus's head came forward, a great line of fire roaring down, mocking Jarlaxle's globe, mocking Cadderly and all his spells.

Even as the globe of darkness came up over the Crystal Shard, Rai-guy grabbed at it with a spell of telekinesis, a sudden and powerful burst of snatching power that sent the item flying fast across the way, past Hephaestus, who was seemingly oblivious to it, and down the corridor to the hiding wizard-cleric's waiting hand.

Rai-guy's red-glowing eyes narrowed as he turned to regard Kimmuriel, for it had been Kimmuriel's task to so snatch the item-a task the psionicist had apparently neglected.

I was not fast enough, the psionicist's fingers waggled at his companion.

But Rai-guy knew better, and so did Crenshinibon, for the powers of the mind were among the quickest of magic to enact. Still staring hard at his companion, Rai-guy began spellcasting once more, aiming for the great chamber.

On and on went the fiery maelstrom, and in the middle of it stood Cadderly, his arms out wide, praying to Deneir to see him through.

Danica, Ivan, and Pikel stared at him intently, praying as well, but Jarlaxle was more concerned with his darkness, and Entreri was looking more to Jarlaxle.

"I hear not the continuing call of Crenshinibon!" Entreri cried hopefully above the fiery roar.

Jarlaxle was shaking his head. "The darkness should have been consumed by the artifact's destruction," he cried back, sensing that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

The fires ended, leaving a seething Hephaestus still staring at the unharmed priest of Deneir. The dragon's eyes narrowed to threatening slits.

Jarlaxle dispelled his darkness globe, and there remained no sign of Crenshinibon among the bubbling, molten stone.

"We done it!" Ivan cried.

"Home!" Pikel pleaded.

"No," insisted Jarlaxle.

Before he could explain, a low humming sound filled the chamber, a noise the dark elf had heard before and one that didn't strike him as overly pleasant at that dangerous moment.

"A magical dispel!" the dark elf warned. "Our enchantments are threatened!"

This left them, they all realized, in a room with an outraged, ancient, huge red dragon without many of their protections in place.

"What d' we do?" Ivan growled, slapping the handle of his battle axe across his open palm.

"Wee!" Pikel answered.

'Wee?" the perplexed yellow-bearded dwarf echoed, his face screwed up as he stared at his green-haired brother.

"Wee!" Pikel said again, and to accentuate his point, he grabbed Ivan by the collar and ran him a short distance to the side, to the edge of a crevice, and leaped off, taking Ivan on the dive with him.

Hephaestus's great wings beat the air, lifting the huge wyrm's front half high above the floor. Its hind legs clawed at the floor, digging deep gullies in the stone.

"Run away!" Cadderly cried, agreeing wholeheartedly with Pikel's choice. "All of you!"

Danica rushed forward, as did Jarlaxle, the woman rolling into a ready crouch before the wyrm. Hephaestus wasted not a second in snapping its great maw down at her. She scrambled aside, coming up from her roll in a crouch again, taunting the beast.

Cadderly couldn't watch it, reminding himself that he simply had to trust in her. She was buying him precious moments, he knew, that he might launch another magical attack or defensive spell, perhaps, at Hephaestus. He fell into the song of Deneir again and heard its notes more clearly this time, as he sorted through an array of spells to launch.

He heard a scream, Danica's scream, and he looked up to see Hephaestus's fiery breath drive down upon her, striking the stone floor and spraying up in an inverted fan of fires.

Cadderly, too, cried out, and reached desperately into the song of Deneir for the first spell he could find that would alter that horrible scene, the first enchantment he could think of to stop it.

He brought forth an earthquake.

Even as it started-a violent shudder and rumbling, like waves on a pond, lifting and rolling the floor-Jarlaxle drew the dragon's attention his way by hitting the beast with a stream of stinging daggers.

Entreri, too, moved-and surprised himself by going ahead instead of back, toward the spot where Hephaestus had just breathed.

There, too, there was only bubbling stone.

Cadderly called out for Danica, desperately, but his voice fell away as the floor collapsed beneath him.

"Let us begone, and quickly," Kimmuriel remarked, "before the great wyrm recognizes that there were more than those six intruders in its lair this day."

He and the other drow had already moved some distance down the tunnel, away from the main chamber. Leaving altogether seemed a prudent suggestion, one that had Berg'inyon Baenre and the other five drow soldiers nodding eagerly, but one that, for some reason, did not seem acceptable to the stern Rai-guy.

"No," he said firmly. "They must all die, here and now."

"As the dragon will likely kill them," Berg'inyon agreed, but Rai-guy was shaking his head, indicating that such a probability simply wasn't good enough for him.

Rai-guy and Crenshinibon were already fully into their bonding by then. The Crystal Shard demanded that Cadderly and the others, these infidels who understood the secret to its destruction, be killed immediately. It demanded that nothing concerning the group be left to chance. Besides, it telepathically coaxed Rai-guy, would not a red dragon be an enormous asset to add to Bregan D'aerthe?

"Find them and kill them, every one!" Rai-guy demanded emphatically.

Berg'inyon considered the command, and broke his soldiers into two groups and ran off with one group, the other heading a different direction. Kimmuriel spent a longer time staring hard at Rai-guy, seeming less than pleased. He, too, disappeared eventually, seemed simply to fall through the floor.

Leaving Rai-guy alone with his newest and most beloved ally.

In an alcove off to the side of the tunnel where Rai-guy stood, Yharaskrik's less-than-corporeal form slid through the stone and materialized, the illithid's Crenshinibon- defeating lantern in its hand.

With skills honed to absolute perfection, Danica had avoided the flames by a short distance, close enough so that her skin was bright red on the left side of her face. No magic would aid Danica now, she knew, only her thousands and thousands of hours of difficult training, those many years she had spent perfecting her style of fighting and, more importantly, dodging. Danica had no intention of battling the great wyrm, of striking out in any offensive manner against a beast she doubted she could even hurt, let alone slay. All her abilities, all her energy and concentration, was solely on the defensive now, her posture a balanced crouch that would allow her to skitter out to either side, ahead, or back.

Hephaestus's fang-filled jaws snapped down at her with a tremendous clapping noise, but the dragon hit only air as the monk dived out to the right. A claw followed, a swipe that surely would have cut Danica into pieces, except that she altered the momentum of her roll to go straight back in a sudden retreat.

Then came the breath, another burst of fire that seemed to go on and on forever.

Danica had to dive and roll a couple of times to put out the flames on the back side of her clothing. Sensing that

Hephaestus had noted her escape and would adjust the line of fiery breath, she cut a fast corner around a jag in the wall, throwing herself flat against the stone behind the protective rock.