Read The Ghost King for Free Online Page B

outstretched arms, her fingers jerking spasmodically, her form jolting with powerful discharges.
    The edge of the strange lightning remained for a few heartbeats, then continued onward, leaving the still-floating woman in the shimmering blue curtain of its wake.
    “Cat,” Drizzt gasped, scrambling desperately across the stones. By thetime he got there, the curtain was moving along, leaving a scarred line crackling with power on the ground.
    Catti-brie still floated above it, still trembled and jerked. Drizzt held his breath as he neared her, to see that her eyes had rolled up into her head, showing only white.
    He grabbed her hand and felt the sting of electrical discharge. But he didn’t let go and he stubbornly pulled her aside of the scarred line. He hugged her close and tried unsuccessfully to pull her down to the ground.
    “Catti-brie,” Drizzt begged. “Don’t you leave me!”
    A thousand heartbeats or more passed as Drizzt held her, then the woman finally relaxed and gently sank from her levitation. Drizzt leaned her back to see her face, his heart skipping beats until he saw that he was staring into her beautiful blue eyes once more.
    “By the gods, I thought you lost to me,” he said with a great sigh of relief, one that he bit short as he noted that Catti-brie wasn’t blinking. She wasn’t really looking at him at all, but rather looking past him. He glanced over his shoulder to see what might be holding her interest so intently, but there was nothing.
    “Cat?” he whispered, staring into her large eyes—eyes that did not gaze back at him nor past him, but into nothingness, he realized.
    He gave her a shake. She mumbled something he could not decipher. Drizzt leaned closer.
    “What?” he asked, and shook her again.
    She lifted off the ground several inches, her arms reaching out wide, her eyes rolling back into her head. The purple flames began anew, as did the crackling energy.
    Drizzt moved to hug her and pull her down again, but he fell back in surprise as her entire form shimmered as if emanating waves of energy. Helplessly the drow watched, mesmerized and horrified.
    “Catti-brie?” he asked, and as he looked into her white eyes, he realized that something was different, very different! The lines on her face softened and disappeared. Her hair seemed longer and thicker—even her part changed to a style Catti-brie had not worn for years! And she seemed a bit leaner, her skin a bit tighter.
    Younger.
    “‘Twas a bow that found meself in the halls of a dwarven king,” she said, or something like that—Drizzt could not be certain—and in a distinctlyDwarvish accent, like she’d once had when her time had been spent almost exclusively with Bruenor’s clan in the shadows of Kelvin’s Cairn in faraway Icewind Dale. She still floated off the ground, but the faerie fire and the crackling energy dissipated. Her eyes focused and returned to normal, those rich, deep blue orbs that had so stolen Drizzt’s heart.
    “Heartseeker, yes,” Drizzt said. He stepped back and pulled the mighty bow from his shoulder, presenting it to her.
    “Can’t be fishing Maer Dualdon with a bow, though, and so it’s Rumblebelly’s line I’m favorin’,” she said, still looking into the distance and not at Drizzt.
    Drizzt crinkled his face in confusion.
    The woman sighed deeply. Her eyes rolled back into her head, showing only white to Drizzt. The flames and energy reappeared and a gust of wind came up from nowhere, striking only Catti-brie, as if those waves of energy that had come forth from her were returning to her being. Her hair, her skin, her age—all returned, and her colorful garment stopped blowing in the unfelt wind.
    The moment passed and she settled to the ground, unconscious once more.
    Drizzt shook her again, called to her many times, but she seemed not to notice. He snapped his fingers in front of her eyes, but she didn’t even blink. He started to lift her, to carry her toward the camp so they