Catti-brie heaved a great sigh.
“Yes, the drow are evil,” Drizzt said with a grand flourish. “Let us presume that to be the truth.”
“Let us presume whatever you want without your condescension,” Catti-brie returned.
Drizzt rubbed his face and silently reminded himself that his actions and tone were wrought from his own frustrations, and not anything to do with this generous person standing before him.
“Then what of Prisoner’s Carnival in Luskan, where the magistrates torture helpless victims to a death they welcome as an escape from the agony, and all to the cheers of the massive crowds?” he asked calmly and seriously.
“The magistrates are evil,” Catti-brie said.
“They follow the law,” Drizzt argued.
“Then the law is wrong.”
“Yes! And what of the pirates who catch a merchant ship unguarded off the Sword Coast and walk their victims off the planks into the jaws of waiting sharks?”
“We hunted them together with Deudermont. How many found mercy?”
“Exactly! We hunted them and put them to the depths, as we should have. Because they committed and would continue to commit evil deeds.”
“Yes.”
“And most were human, so humans are evil.”
“What? No!”
“Of course not. And that is my point, and that is my frustration.”
Catti-brie stared at him hard for a short while before slowly shaking her head in confusion.
“Good and evil,” Drizzt said. “Or better, kindness and meanness, mercy and brutality. We were brutal to the pirates, but what was our intent?”
“To stop them from continuing their way of terror and murder.”
“And that mattered. Don’t you see?”
“Of course I see it!”
“That mattered,” Drizzt said again, because he had to play this out for his own sake. “Determining goodness and evil can’t be simply an issue of perception based solely upon the identity of the perpetrator—a drow? A moon elf? A halfling? A dwarf? A human?—or the alliance of the perpetrator’s people. The judgment lies in intent. So, yes, the drow have done evil. The raid I was taken upon when I was still a young man was evil. But what of the raid that Wulfgar’s people waged on Ten Towns on that occasion when Bruenor captured Wulfgar? How many would have been slaughtered if Wulfgar’s Uthgardt kin had proven victorious?”
“I assure you that I have considered that point.”
“But we—and Ten Towns—were living on the ancient land of those tribes, and taking scarce resources as our own.” When Catti-brie didn’t answer, he continued, “We thought it a great act of mercy that Bruenor saved Wulfgar—a boy then, but a man you came to love, a man I came to love. But what of the hundreds of his people dead on the field? What of the dwarves who could have shown such mercy but did not? None of us would have judged Bruenor ill if he had chosen differently that day, but Wulfgar would have become just another notch on his old axe.”
“I don’t know where you’re going with this,” Catti-brie admitted, and she didn’t seem very happy.
“We’re never to see peace—none of us—until we come to recognize that a child of a culture that is not our own is as precious as one who is. And I don’t know if that will ever be possible. No peace, not for humans or dwarves or halflings or drow or elves.”
Catti-brie cocked her head a bit and Drizzt detected a hint of a sly grin. “Or orcs?” she asked when he paused to look at her.
“I do not know,” he admitted.
“Is this about orcs again?”
“No, this is about . . . everything. It is about the arc of justice and peace,” he replied, his voice heavy. “What purpose, I wonder, has the road I have walked and the road I walk now—or that you would have me walk now—if any steps forward are fleeting, if at the end, there can be no peace?”
“You can’t believe that,” Catti-brie said, and she stepped forward and stared at him, her hands going up to his shoulders. She kept staring, and he locked that gaze, the two studying each other and moving back from their ledges. Drizzt was relieved indeed when Catti-brie gave him a much-needed hug.
“I don’t know what I believe because of what I have seen.” He pulled her back to arm’s length and stared again into those deep blue eyes that had so fully captured his heart and had never let it go. “I think this is part of what Grandmaster Kane warned me about when he and I spoke of transcendence of the physical body and the physical world. So much of that which motivates us here becomes . . .”
“Trite?” she whispered to him.
He could only shrug.
Catti-brie stepped back, her expression going distinctly colder. “They would have conquered Gauntlgrym if not for the actions of Yvonnel and Quenthel Baenre,” she said. “Brie was in here. You can well imagine what would have happened to her, particularly if they realized she was the daughter of Drizzt the heretic. Is that trite to you?”
“Of course not.”
“They would have killed her, or worse. They would have killed all of us, or worse. Had not Yvonnel and Quenthel turned on Zhindia Melarn—”
“I know,” Drizzt interrupted, “and maybe that’s Bruenor’s answer.”
Catti-brie looked at him with obvious anticipation.
“Maybe that truth makes it worth the risk,” Drizzt explained.
“And what is Drizzt’s answer? When this war starts, if it does, what will Drizzt do?”
“I don’t know,” he said without the slightest hesitation. “And that is my pain.”
“I would have thought that you would lead the revolution,” Catti-brie told him, putting her hand on his shoulder. “You and Jarlaxle, with your father by your side, fighting to free your people from the grip of Lolth. Or is that what scares you most of all?”
Drizzt looked up at her curiously, and for a long while, the two just held each other’s gaze.
“Because this isn’t about the houses. It is about Lolth. And that’s what you believe, what you have believed for many decades, right?” Catti-brie elaborated. “That these foul deeds are the result of Lolth’s influence and machinations and not the truth of the drow people. And now perhaps that question will be answered, and that answer scares you.”
He didn’t respond, other than to firm his jaw.
“Is it that you’ve been living among those who would blame you for so long that you fear that there might be more truth than simple ignorance to the source of their hatred?” Catti-brie was clearly surprised by her own words.
“No,” Drizzt answered her, but haltingly.
“Good,” she answered. “Because you shouldn’t.”
“Doubt is not the source of my melancholy—not doubt about the people of Menzoberranzan, at least. There, it is Lolth. The story Kimmuriel and Yvonnel told us of the founding and the corruption by the Spider Queen makes sense to me with all that I saw in my decades in Menzoberranzan before I managed to escape. It makes sense to me when I look at Jarlaxle and what he has accomplished away from the influences of Lolth’s corrupting priestesses—Luskan is a better place under Jarlaxle’s leadership. A fairer place, and one better for all who live there. And this makes sense to me when I consider Jarlaxle, and when I remember my sister Vierna.”
“Whom you killed,” Catti-brie reminded him, and Drizzt grimaced.
And Catti-brie grimaced in response.
“She denied Lolth with her last breaths,” he said grimly, and he took a deep breath, blew it out, and continued. “Even in what I have seen from Gromph Baenre—did you not tell me that it was Gromph who pulled the lever at the Hosttower to return the magical energy to control the fire primordial?”
“So you have faith in your people. Then what?” she pleaded, grabbing his arms. “What is it? You have to talk to me.”
Drizzt took another necessary deep breath, trying to find the words to explain it all—even to himself. Everything seemed too small to him at that time, and at the same time too overwhelming. So m
any of the endless wars and ridiculous prejudices rang to him as trite—yes, that word was exactly right!—and yet, that ran against everything he had striven to accomplish all of his life.
“It’s the road,” he said again. “And the point of it all if that road winds into nothing but a circle.” He paused. “I know in my head that I should have been at the meeting, supporting those who deserve nothing less from me. But I also know that my heart was not in it. I’m not ready to reconcile what I recently learned with that which has carried me through all the steps of my journey to the point before my transcendence.”
“You should have been at the meeting,” Catti-brie flatly replied. “Because you think you’ve seen a better future beyond this life doesn’t mean that what you’ve done in this life was without meaning. If you believe that, then you’re not the man I married, and not the father Brie deserves.”
Her words hit him like a punch. He even staggered back a step.
“You know that I’m right,” she said sternly, not blinking, not backing down an inch.
He knew her.
He saw it.
Unlike his earlier flippancy, yes, even condescension, Catti-brie had been deadly serious. She had meant every word and there was no second-guessing that last admonishment. And that’s when it rang true to Drizzt, a bell so clear that he could hardly believe he hadn’t heard it all along. This was the friend who had traveled alone into the Underdark to rescue him from the dungeons of House Baenre. These were the friends all around him, the Companions of the Hall, who had come back from death itself to support him in his trials, indeed, who had saved him when he kneeled broken, physically and emotionally, atop Kelvin’s Cairn.
He felt the warm blush of shame flush his cheeks. Of course he should have been at that meeting.
Catti-brie’s stern stare made clear that she wasn’t going to let him off the hook here when she and those they both loved needed him to find clarity.
And purpose.
Yes, he needed to rediscover his purpose, and not just for those around him, not just for his daughter.
For himself.
“This is why you are so anxious to go see Grandmaster Kane,” Catti-brie stated, not asked. She paused for a long while, staring into Drizzt’s lavender eyes.
Yes, he thought, for Kane had transcended, many times, and yet the old monk’s life remained one of earthly purpose.
“This is why you must go to the monastery,” she whispered, and kissed him, then turned and walked for the door.
“And eat yer durned dinner, ye damned pointy-eared, stubborn elf,” she called from the door in her best Bruenor’s-daughter voice.
Drizzt returned a much-needed chuckle.
Chapter 5
Shark Delight
Pelican’s crew stood nervously before the rail, the shark-infested waters at their backs—waters bloody red once more as Pelican’s gnolls had been summarily thrown overboard. The remaining pirates had no weapons, their wizards had their fingers tied together, and a crew of drow stood before them, handcrossbows and swords at the ready.
And among those armed guards stood the drow warrior who had destroyed their powerful Captain Arrongo, a leader who had held them in thrall and in fear for a long time.
They shuffled nervously as the drow leader in the outrageous hat began his review, accompanied by a drow woman dressed in the formal robes of a priestess.
“This is my friend, one I trust dearly,” Jarlaxle told them. “She is not young, certainly not so by the reckoning of a human, and she has spent more years than any among you have been alive studying the divine domain of knowledge. Part of that . . . well, you will see.”
He looked to Dab’nay, and she nodded. Jarlaxle’s claim about her was no false boast, for though she had been raised as a priestess in the service of Lolth, her studies had always been more along the lines of the domain of knowledge. She had been the eyes of her old house. And while other priestesses around her were focusing on the magic of duplicity and disguise, the divine domains of trickery or tempest or war, Dab’nay’s most important duties had been to uncover such subterfuge from potential rivals or enemies. So that’s what she was going to do now. She lifted her holy symbol and began to chant under her breath, bringing forth her magic, opening the minds of these prisoners that they could not hide behind false words.
Jarlaxle began to slowly walk the line of prisoners.
“I ask you all,” he told them, “to consider which among you tortured prisoners on behalf of Captain Arrongo.”
He stopped at the first, a panicked young man, and glanced back at Dab’nay.
She studied the young man for just a moment, then shook her head.
Jarlaxle clutched the man by the front of his shirt and tugged him away from the rail, sending him scrabbling to the middle of the deck. A pair of drow grabbed him there and brought him to the far rail.
So it went down the line, Jarlaxle repeating his request—they couldn’t help but hear it and react to it. They needn’t speak an answer aloud, for just hearing the question in their minds brought forth the memories and thoughts, the nonverbal tics and other physical indications.
Observing them and in their minds was Dab’nay, not like Kimmuriel might have done, but enough to confidently nod or shake her head to Jarlaxle’s questioning gaze.
Those she believed less guilty got the head shake, and were dispatched to the guarding drow. Those whose thoughts made Dab’nay know that they partook in the torture with relish remained where they were.
All but five of the Pelican’s two dozen captured pirates remained at the rail.
When he was done, Jarlaxle tipped his hat to Dab’nay, who went to the hatch and lifted the door, helping the pirates’ captives out onto the deck. She led them to Jarlaxle.
“Any in particular?” he asked them.
For a bit, none of the poor souls dared to answer, but finally one young man, barely more than a boy, lifted a shaking arm and pointed to a filthy fellow standing halfway down the line.
Jarlaxle walked up to him and paused, looked back at the boy, and pointed to the pirate.
The boy nodded. Two other victims did as well.
Jarlaxle pushed the man over the rail.
He was still screaming and thrashing when the next torturer was identified, then a third, then two more.
Over they went, all five, to the delight of the sharks.
“It’s not so much fun when it’s someone you know, is it?” Jarlaxle said to the remaining pirates. “And less still when you know that you might well be next. And you might, any of you. I make no promises, except to tell you that I am of an open mind on letting you live. You will work, untangling the ships and making Pelican seaworthy that we can sail her back to Luskan. And you will be judged from now until we arrive. One mistake, one threat, one attack, and you will join Captain Arrongo and the others in the bellies of sharks.”
He stepped to the rail and looked over. “Although I would guess that Captain Arrongo has found several new homes, at least, within which he can . . . digest what he has done.”
He spun back with the pun, staring at Zaknafein and Entreri, holding his hands up in surprise that they were not laughing.
“What?” he said innocently.
The other two just walked away.
The ships were separated in short order—it helped that Deudermont’s Revenge was designed and built for ramming, tangling, and quickly extracting. And for fast repair. So by the time the captured pirates laboring under the watchful eyes and commands of Bregan D’aerthe and a Revenge engineer had untangled the lines of the fallen mast on Pelican, Revenge’s sails were back in place and ready to catch the wind.
It took another two days to get Pelican able to sail, and even then, it would be with a noticeable limp, as Jarlaxle put it. But sail they did, straight back to the east, Deudermont’s Revenge nearby, both running protection from other pirates that might be about and reminding those captured Pelican crew that any resistance would be met with an
overwhelming—and now merciless—response.
Jarlaxle, Zak, and Entreri all remained on Pelican, something surely not lost on the captured pirates. They would never regain this ship, let alone manage to somehow outrun and evade Revenge.
“You are a crew, my crew now,” Jarlaxle told them repeatedly as he walked the deck. “I’ll feed you well and keep you well, as long as you do as I say. Those sharks following us? They are my sharks, my pets, and I promised them that I would feed them well if you don’t.”
“He’s the blustering one,” Zak said to Entreri, the two sitting against the rail, inspecting their weapons and taking a meal.
“The conqueror, ever adding to his collection of assets,” Entreri replied.
“‘Assets’?” Zak asked, shaking his head. “I don’t know this word.”
“His treasure, don’t you see?” said Entreri. “They, we two, Bregan D’aerthe, Luskan itself—we are all Jarlaxle’s treasure. He’s like a dragon, but he hoards people and power instead of gold and gems.”
“And dragons themselves,” Zak quipped. “Two of the strangest wyrms I’ve ever heard tell of. Where are Tazmikella and Ilnezhara, I wonder? They’d make this pirate hunting a lot easier, on my stomach at least.”
“They flew back to Vaasa, I was told, but I’m sure that we’ll see them again. Jarlaxle’s not one to let that kind of power evade him for long.”
He noticed that Zak was looking at him with some suspicion then, so Entreri lowered Charon’s Claw across his lap and turned to meet the weapon master’s gaze.
“You speak of him as a villain, yet you remain by his side.”
“Hardly a villain,” Entreri replied.
“He hoards people?”
“Aye, because they want to be there,” said Entreri, following Zak’s gaze to Jarlaxle, who was approaching. “That’s his charm, don’t you see? He understands the concept of creating situations that both sides will appreciate, understanding the mutual benefit. That’s why he’ll have Luskan fully for as long as he wants it. Because the folk of Luskan will want him to have the city. If the kings and queens of the world spent as much time and gold on caring for those they rule as they do on armies and weapons they keep ready in case those people rise up against them, they’d be richer and more secure by far.”
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