Starlight Enclave

by R. A. Salvatore

  In the early afternoon on the fourth day out of Adbar, they came to a wide stream and pulled up for a rest. As always, Drizzt didn’t dismiss Andahar, wanting the steed about in case of the need for a fast retreat.

  He watched Brie splashing in a small side pool while he filled his waterskins. He marveled at the simple joy in her eyes. He wanted to keep that joy of life itself there forever. More than anything, he wanted his daughter to grow up strong and clever and full of confidence, and full even more with happiness. He never wanted her to lose her delight at the simplest things: the sun-dappled earth, the splash of water over stones, the sounds of the forest about her, the shapes of the clouds.

  “What’s my name?” he called to her.

  “Drizzy daddy!” she enthusiastically called back.

  “What’s my name?” he repeated in his scary voice, coming toward her, his arms up and rocking like the arms of a rearing bear.

  “Drizzy daddy!” Brie cried out, and laughed, and splashed away with a squeal.

  “Drizzy daddy!” she repeated again and again during the chase, finally ending in a laughing squeak when Drizzt caught her and scooped her up into his arms, turning her horizontal and bringing her up high. He put his lips against her exposed belly and blew hard, and Brie laughed riotously at the tickle and the sound.

  “Drizzy daddy farted,” she declared after Drizzt put her back down.

  “I ate your belly,” he corrected.

  “No,” she insisted, and stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry of her own.

  Drizzt chuckled, but felt a pang within that honest laughter. This was the childhood he had never experienced, the carefree creation of giggles that too few got to enjoy. He wished he had played this game with Zaknafein, though he couldn’t even imagine the possibility of any such playfulness with his mother, Malice.

  Such a waste of life itself, he thought, given what he knew now, what Kimmuriel had helped the priestess Yvonnel and Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre reveal of the hopeful beginnings of Menzoberranzan before it had descended into its current, joyless reality.

  Before the way of Lolth, where the tension and excitement of chaos swirled away the pleasures of simplicity and love.

  They ate a meal beside the flowing stream, watching the dance of sunlight on the rushing water, making up silly songs about Bruenor and Zaknafein and, mostly, Catti-brie. Drizzt trusted his wife and her skill, but he couldn’t help the fears within that perhaps she would never return, that Brie would grow up without that beautiful influence in her life. This was the first time in many years that Catti-brie had set out on such a dangerous mission without him, though danger had always been a part of their lives. Now though, with Brie, were they bound to change that? Should he have talked Catti-brie out of going? Would she have tried to talk him out of it had their opportunities been reversed?

  Because he would have wanted to go, he knew, and that realization made him dismiss his doubts and fears as his own selfishness. He thought, too, of the time this wonderful partner had gone alone into the Underdark, all the way to Menzoberranzan and House Baenre itself, to rescue him.

  “Moomooma?” Brie asked, as if reading his mind, the silly name she used for her mother. He looked down at her with surprise, and realized that, no, it wasn’t that. Brie was looking across the stream, where the branches of a tree still rustled from something, or someone, moving through them.

  Drizzt calmly and slowly slid his hand out to his bow. He gave a little wince, thinking that perhaps he should not have given Taulmaril back to Catti-brie for her adventure, that maybe he’d be better off now if he had with him the readily accessible bow that could shoot small bolts of lightning. He wished, too, that he could bring Guenhwyvar to his side now, to leap off across the stream and find out what had moved through that bush.

  The sound stopped.

  It was likely a squirrel, he told himself. He thought back to the first time he had seen Brie, to the feelings of vulnerability that had filled him like never before.

  To lose her . . .

  Drizzt shook that dark thought away, but also shook away their happy moments here by the stream. He gathered up his items and his daughter and set them in place on Andahar, then walked the unicorn across the water. Up he went and off they went, slowly at first, but gathering speed.

  Then more, as Drizzt noticed some scorched grass not far in, wisps of smoke still rising from it, and the faint scent of foulness, demonic foulness, in the air.

  The trail was less defined here, the trees more tightly packed, and Drizzt had to pay attention to the way directly ahead, while still glancing to the sides, watching for pursuit.

  Through the trees to the left, he saw the form of a rider, galloping hard, clad in black on a black mount that snorted demon flames.

  Then it was gone, behind a hillock, but he heard more hoofbeats over on the left, and then on the right.

  Doubts whispered about him.

  He brought his arm tighter about Brie and urged Andahar ahead, thinking of Taulmaril, thinking of Guenhwyvar, thinking of . . . the unthinkable.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered to the breeze, as if hoping that it would somehow send the message all the way to Catti-brie, wherever she might be.

  “That can’t be the way,” Artemis Entreri insisted, his teeth beginning to chatter.

  “North face,” Catti-brie replied, and she shuddered as a gust of wind swept down from above, carrying snow dust and a bite as ferocious as an Icewind Dale winter night. But it was not night, and it was not winter. The sun hung pale and meager before them, more to the left and much lower toward the horizon than it had been when they had left Luskan, but the sun nevertheless.

  “Too cold,” she added, looking to Jarlaxle, who was bent over. A moment later, he casually stepped up onto the deep snow, barely leaving a footprint, seeming unbothered by the wind. Only then did Catti-brie notice that the rogue had changed his shoes and was no longer wearing his signature high black boots, but instead a pair of mid-calf boots, furred and thick, and very out of place with the rest of his sleek outfit, the same clothes he would wear on a Calimport street in the heat of the desert summer. Catti-brie didn’t have to cast a spell to determine whether those boots were magical, and it was pretty easy for her to guess the enchantment upon them.

  “I didn’t expect it would be this cold. Have you a spell to counter it?” Jarlaxle asked her.

  Catti-brie nodded. “It is not a minor dweomer and I don’t know if it will last long enough to get us off the mountain. You have our heavier cloaks in your magical pouch.” She motioned for him to retrieve the winter clothing.

  “Cast your spell anyway,” Entreri bade her.

  “We’ll be fine,” Jarlaxle assured them, and he drew their eyes to Zaknafein, who was crouching low much as Jarlaxle had done, half-buried in the snow. Apparently noticing their glances, Zak looked up, then tugged his shoulders back, and Catti-brie understood him to be pulling on a similar pair of boots before he even stepped up atop the snowpack, confirming her suspicion.

  “It’s like sitting in the mouth of a white dragon,” Zak remarked as he pulled a pack off his back, fumbling with the drawstrings.

  “Soon enough, likely,” Entreri replied, his teeth violently chattering now.

  Zaknafein pulled out a thick blanket and tossed it to him, then another to Catti-brie. He kept fishing about as the two wrapped themselves in the coverings.

  Catti-brie cast her protection spell upon herself, then upon Entreri, who immediately took a deep breath and shuddered just one more time before steadying.

  “We’ve an hour to get down to shelter before the dweomer expires,” she warned the others.

  Jarlaxle held up his hand and stared at Zak, who finally pulled his head and hand out of his large backpack and brought forth a small coffer. He bit the glove off his hand before gingerly opening the container, then walked lightly across the snow and produced a ring for his daughter-in-law and another for Entreri.

  “Put them on and let th
e magic find its way to you,” Jarlaxle explained. “They should provide the protection you’ll need.”

  “Ready for anything,” Catti-brie dryly noted.

  “I saw the snow on the other side of Gromph’s gate,” Jarlaxle replied with a shrug.

  “Then why didn’t you give us the damned rings before we left?” Entreri complained.

  “I knew it would be cold, but I didn’t think it would be this cold,” Jarlaxle admitted. “But yes, always prepared. I did acquire some magical assistance from the more industrious wizards of the Hosttower in preparation. The same trinkets they use for journeys to Icewind Dale, I expect.”

  “Better your boots, then,” Catti-brie remarked, pointing her finger to note that while Jarlaxle and Zaknafein were standing atop the deep and powdery snow, she and Entreri most certainly were not.

  “Why didn’t you just give us the damned rings back in Luskan?” Entreri asked again.

  “You need to attune to them—”

  “Which could have been done in Luskan!”

  “Yes, but I do not own them, you see?” Jarlaxle replied. “They are on loan from Caecilia.”

  “The cloud giant?” Catti-brie asked.

  “Yes, and she is very particular about her magical toys. She’ll know every attunement when I return them to her.”

  “And so you’ll have to pay more,” said Entreri, shaking his head.

  “Another spell, then?” Jarlaxle asked, changing the subject. “A floating disk so that you two can drift down the mountainside—perhaps one for each of us? A levitation spell and a pair of ropes, so that Zak and I can fly you two like children’s kites as we skip our way down?”

  “Or maybe I just make you carry me on your back,” Entreri groused. “Or beat you senseless and swap your boots for this ring, or maybe keep both for myself.”

  Jarlaxle clapped his bare hands together. “You see, Zaknafein, my old friend. This is what I so dearly missed of the road. The camaraderie!”

  Artemis Entreri grunted, or perhaps it was a growl.

  “You two embrace the protective magic of the bands while Zak and I scout about,” Jarlaxle said.

  “That can’t be the way,” Entreri said, bringing them back to the original topic.

  “Gromph said that we’d land on the face of the northernmost mountains,” Catti-brie answered him, waving her arm out at the land spreading wide below them, down the mountainside and through small, rocky foothills before flattening out in a vast white plain.

  “But we left in late morning and the sun is low to our left, and if north is before us, then left is west.”

  Catti-brie took his point with a curious “Hmm,” and noted the perplexed look on Jarlaxle’s face, though Zaknafein seemed not to fully comprehend the point.

  “And it’s too low, in any case,” Entreri went on. “Does that much time pass when traveling through a magical portal? I’ve never seen such . . .”

  “No, we just stepped through,” Jarlaxle assured him.

  “The sun was higher in the Luskan sky than that,” Entreri insisted, and none could argue. “But lower in the sky than it would have been in Calimport,” he went on, thinking it through, and holding up a finger, tap-tapping it in the air as he pondered. “The sun was always higher in Calimport than in Luskan, and even more so than in Icewind Dale.”

  “And the days are shorter in Icewind Dale than in Calimport?” Jarlaxle asked more than stated.

  “In the winter, not in the summer,” Entreri replied. “Not by much, at least.”

  “But we’re still in summer, so you said,” Zak put in.

  The others exchanged glances. “How far north did we go?” Entreri asked.

  “Gromph didn’t say,” Jarlaxle replied.

  “Is there a limit on how far he might have thrown us?”

  Jarlaxle shrugged. “With that one, probably the outer reaches of the Astral Plane.”

  “Are we still on Toril?” an agitated Entreri asked.

  “Gromph said we would be,” said Jarlaxle.

  “But even if the days are shorter here, and they shouldn’t be in summer,” Catti-brie put in, stammering for an answer as more questions popped into her head. “It’s not yet even noon, at least, not in Luskan. So why is the sun so low in the west?”

  “Are we on top of the world?” Entreri asked.

  “Or over the top and on the other side?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “Wouldn’t left, looking north, still be west?” Entreri asked.

  “But then it would be night,” Catti-brie hesitantly remarked.

  “The Underdark is a much simpler place,” Zak dryly put in.

  “Aye, because if we stood about bantering this long, we’d already be dead,” Jarlaxle replied.

  “I don’t understand it,” Catti-brie said, staring out to the left. Her eyes widened as she noted that the sun had moved, but not so much in its proximity to the horizon as farther to the right. “But wouldn’t that be to the east?” she whispered, more to herself than to the others.

  “Zaknafein,” Jarlaxle said deliberately, “the milky-white orb, please.”

  Zak fished in his pack again and produced a small bag, then rolled a perfect orb, like a giant dull pearl, into his hand and tossed it to Jarlaxle. Jarlaxle closed his eyes and held it out and up before him, and the ball began to slowly rotate in the palm of his open hand.

  “Interesting,” Jarlaxle said a moment later, staring at the orb. “Yes, we are on Toril. We haven’t stepped through the planes of existence, for I was assured by Caecilia that the orb wouldn’t work anywhere but in our own plane and world.” He pointed down the snowy slope and a bit to the right. “It appears to be working, and that way is north.”

  “The giantess told you that?” Catti-brie asked.

  “And loaned me the item.”

  “Loaned?”

  “Is she charging you gold for each usage?” Entreri quipped.

  “Quite a hefty price,” Jarlaxle replied. “I suppose that when you’re flying castles about the world, direction is important.”

  “Doum’wielle wouldn’t have known the way, if this is anywhere near where Gromph dropped her,” Entreri said.

  “It was just a guess by Gromph when he re-created the portal,” Jarlaxle admitted.

  “Wonderful.”

  “She wouldn’t have known that, but would it have mattered?” Catti-brie said. “All she would have known was that she needed to find shelter and warmth.” She looked back over her shoulder, the mountain towering above them, and that only one in a great range of jagged, high peaks. “And she would have had no more choice in where to go than we do, because we aren’t getting over these mountains unless we find a proper pass.”

  “We have a choice,” Entreri reminded them, and looked to Catti-brie.

  “Where’s your sense of adventure, old man?” Jarlaxle quipped. “We know she’s alive.”

  “And likely half a world away,” Entreri interrupted, but Jarlaxle just scoffed and continued. “Let us find some proper shelter and we can begin our search using the sword. If Doum’wielle is near to us, I guess that Khazid’hea will sense it.”

  “So Catti-brie will sense it,” Entreri reasoned.

  “I feel like one of Jarlaxle’s toys,” the woman remarked.

  “We’d have to get rid of Drizzt first,” Jarlaxle quipped.

  Zaknafein punched him in the shoulder, or tried to, but missed and lost his balance as the snow collapsed a bit beneath his lead foot, sending him down to one knee.

  “Displacer cloak,” Jarlaxle explained. “But good try, my friend.”

  “Always prepared,” Entreri muttered, echoing the thoughts of both Catti-brie and Zaknafein, and drawing an even wider grin from the irascible Jarlaxle.

  He had tied Brie to him with a cord and now held a bow in hand, arrow nocked. Drizzt quietly urged Andahar on even faster, trusting the unicorn to navigate the woods while he cast his gaze all about, looking for enemies.

  He could hear them now, the runnin
g hooves left and right, and caught occasional glimpses through the thick summer canopy, but nothing more than black-clad riders on black mounts—he thought them hellsteeds, nightmares, the demon horses used by the cavalry of the lower planes. Drizzt knew them well from the magical figurines that both Jarlaxle and Entreri used.

  And just like Andahar, these mounts flanking him wouldn’t tire. And they were just as fast.

  He could only hope they were carrying minor fiends, and that he could encounter them a few at a time, that he might dispatch them before they got near to Brie.

  And, and, and . . .

  He lifted his bow, seeing movement behind some brush not far to the left, but then jerked and nearly dislodged the arrow as Andahar came over a sudden ridge, slowing as it moved down the steep decline. The unicorn deftly jumped a group of large stones at the small ravine’s nadir, only to struggle in the soft and sandy ground on the climb out the other side.

  Easy, my friend, take care of your child, Drizzt heard in his mind, and he thought he recognized the intruder even before he looked up to see a trio of drow, two astride nightmares, at the top of the climb before him.

  Drizzt lowered his bow and tugged Andahar’s mane to stop the unicorn.

  The center drow pulled back the cowl of his hood, revealing himself as Braelin Janquay, and motioned for Drizzt to come up.

  Knowing Braelin well, Drizzt did so, pacing Andahar easily up the hill while untying poor Brie, who was crying from the shaking of the gallop. By the time he reached Braelin, he had Brie up on one shoulder and was whispering into her ear.

  “You could have announced yourselves earlier,” Drizzt scolded the Bregan D’aerthe scout. “I don’t appreciate being shadowed for miles through a forest.”

  “We are but forward scouts, and were instructed not to approach you,” Braelin apologized.

  “What are these?” Drizzt asked, waving his free hand to indicate the hellsteeds that Braelin and one of the others sat astride. “Has Luskan begun trading with the Nine Hells?”