Umber

Svengali and Klavicus consider the metaphysics of Tharizdun’s prison.

“Are you quite finished with these unscheduled departures from my domicile?” Klavicus called irritably from his study when Svengali returned from seeing Glom Gargull back to Khundrakar. He entered the sitting room to find the shapeshifter already sprawled on the black dragonhide sofa. The sleeves of Svengali’s shirt were almost completely burned away and any patches of exposed fur were singed. “Well, you were quite nearly finished, weren’t you?” the balor remarked. “Try not to leave piles of ash on the furniture.” He went to the sideboard and poured two small glasses of a nearly opaque, ruby-colored liquid from an extremely expensive crystal decanter. “The finest product of Abyssal fermentation techniques.” When Svengali eyed it skeptically he added, “There are no grotesque ingredients, if that’s what concerns you.”
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Borch tells Geoffrey of the escape from the Dreaming Stone.

“Dryden was sawing at Hadrack’s bonds with an arrow?”

Sir Geoffrey and Sir Borch were sitting in Geoffrey’s study, the remains of a late supper between them. Although as always Borch had a long list of places to be, he stopped briefly in Montinelle to tell Geoffrey the news regarding Crater Ridge. “It was an arrow designed to negate the advantages of incorporeality,” Borch said. “In truth it was as effective as the sword with which Vayel was attempting to free Svengali, but both were as effective as they needed to be.”
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With Varachan and Sir Borch, the adventurers embark on a final, no-retreat assault on Crater Ridge. Brin and Varachan recount the battle for the restored Hadrack.

A few miles away from the erupting volcano that was once Crater Ridge the landscape was cluttered with people and gear. The archmages involved in rescuing the party had departed almost immediately, as had the Black, but a support staff of lesser wizards and clerics that Tenser had hastily marshaled from Greyhawk, Dunthrane and Veluna were on hand, the clerics healing any remaining injuries and the wizards largely bemoaning their instructions not to venture toward the volcano to study it at closer range.
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Borch and Geoffrey debate who will travel to Crater Ridge to aid in the final battle.

The gathering of paladins within the cathedral of Rel Domris ended on a sober note with the unmasking of the psionic infiltrators and the death of one of the knights. As the warriors filed back out the way they had come there were only sporadic pockets of murmured conversation, most leaving in orderly, thoughtful silence. Sir Geoffrey stopped to chastise a knot of young paladins he overheard questioning the king’s wisdom in preventing one psion’s suicide attempt. The discussion took longer than he intended, and by the time he emerged from the cathedral he had lost sight of the individual with whom he intended to speak.
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