Starlight Enclave

by R. A. Salvatore

  “We survive with preparation,” Entreri continued. “I know how to relieve a guard of her spear or sword, as do you.”

  He looked to all three of his companions, his expression intense, and repeated, “And they have spiders.”

  Jarlaxle, then Catti-brie, let go of their argument, for neither could deny the prudence of Entreri’s reminder. They were, in truth, captives in a very unusual place. For all the pretty dressing and the apparent delight of those folk about them, the four companions, so far from home, had to keep that in mind.

  It proved a difficult task, though, as they made their way through the streets and plazas of Scellobel, for the most prominent sound that came to them was that of laughter. Not mocking, cruel laughter, but a sense of pure joy. Every aevendrow or kurit or orok they passed gave them curious looks, of course, particularly aimed at Entreri and Catti-brie, who, they had been informed, didn’t look anything like the Ulutiun humans of Callidae, but all offered a nod and many even added a passing greeting, with “A fine day to dance” being the most common.

  “Have you noticed the details on their buildings?” Zaknafein asked at one point as they neared a plaza where a large group of drow had gathered. “On every surface?”

  “Yes,” Jarlaxle answered. He glanced at Catti-brie and Entreri, then guided them to a nearby archway leading to a house with a small garden.

  Catti-brie understood Zak’s observation quite clearly as she moved to the base of that arcing trellis, for like most of the structures about them, it was fashioned of pressed ice, blue-white here, and covered in delicate carvings. At first, those designs just looked like a mishmash of lines, but as they drew her eyes in deeper, she made out shapes: a battle on one panel, aevendrow against giant; a dance of kurit on another; an aevendrow riding a great bearlike creature on a third.

  “This is hopeful,” she said, pointing out the giant fight.

  “None told the inquisitors?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “Maybe we should have,” said Zak. “It could prove important.”

  “We’ll trust them when they trust us,” Entreri said, again a voice of prudence and caution.

  “They’ve let us walk freely through their city,” Catti-brie argued.

  “If you think we’re not being shadowed, you should pay more attention,” Entreri countered.

  “Again, that is to be expected,” Jarlaxle said, ending the debate.

  They moved toward the plaza, politely veering to travel around the edge of the place when they realized that a gathered group—all standing, dressed in matching blue-white robes trimmed in a deeper blue—were posing for an artist feverishly painting behind a huge easel.

  “Wait! Wait!” one aevendrow called as the foursome passed behind the painter (who was doing a remarkable fast and fine portrayal, and seemed near completion).

  “Who are you?” asked another, a tall woman with purple-and-white hair and a generally soft purplish tone to her skin, particularly bright about her cheeks.

  “Visitors to Scellobel?” asked a third, a tall, thin, muscular orc.

  “Spies from Ardin, no doubt!” another said, to great laughter.

  “No, we’ve never been to Ardin, or any other borough,” Jarlaxle answered. “We are new to Callidae and have just come from the inquisition.”

  That brought many excited discussions among the two dozen or so gathered for the occasion.

  “Bring them in!” cried the one who had called them Ardin spies. “It will mark this year forever, a triumph for Biancorso!”

  “Especially her,” said the first who had called out to the companions. He was short and wiry, thinner than most of the drow Catti-brie had seen up here, with very angular features. His bright white hair was cut short on the sides and the back, but long in front, parted to the side and covering his right eye. “The beautiful one!” He rushed out from the group, moving toward the foursome.

  “Why, thank you,” said Jarlaxle with a slight bow.

  “They said ‘her,’” Entreri said.

  “Catti-brie,” Zak agreed.

  “Come and join us, all, it will not take long,” the aevendrow said, waving them to him in a very animated manner as he quickly approached. “All of you, but you most surely, beautiful lady.” He hopped up and flipped his hair back from his face, then took Catti-brie’s hand and brought it to his lips. “Magnificent! What are you?”

  “What?” Zak repeated.

  “She’s a woman,” said Entreri.

  “A married woman,” said Zak.

  “Of course she’s a woman,” said the aevendrow.

  “Human, from the south,” Catti-brie explained.

  “A married woman,” Entreri reiterated.

  “To you?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Do you not think her beautiful?”

  A flummoxed Entreri didn’t answer.

  “Of course you do,” said the aevendrow. He looked closely at Catti-brie. “The color of your eyes! I have never seen such blue as that. Are you part kurit?”

  Catti-brie started to reply, but thought of Bruenor and found herself just giggling at the unexpected complexity of the question.

  The aevendrow turned to the artist. “Giville, make sure you get the eyes.”

  The artist stepped over, looked at Catti-brie, then nodded. “Humans from the south?” he said, glancing from Catti-brie to Entreri and back again. “Welcome.”

  “Come,” said the female aevendrow from the group. “Please, join us. It will not take long.”

  “We don’t wish to intrude,” said Jarlaxle.

  The man with them held up his hands, smiled and scoffed at the ridiculous notion. “We do this every Twilight Autunn on the eve of our war, so that the painting can be displayed behind the victory cup.”

  “Victory!” cried the orc from the group, and all the others joined in.

  “We are Biancorso, the Scellobel Whitebears,” the drow explained. “I am Vessi, or Alvinessy, but they call me Vessi. You may call me Vessi. We would like very much for you to join us for this. We do not get many visitors to Callidae, and having you in our portrait will mark it as particularly significant when we vanquish our enemies in cazzcalci.”

  The four companions looked around at each other curiously.

  “Come, come,” Vessi insisted, and he pulled Catti-brie forward by the hand, to the cheers of those behind him.

  Giville the painter came over and posed them, front and center, then rushed back to his work. As promised, it didn’t take very long at all, but still, Catti-brie had to keep being reminded to look forward, for she couldn’t help but study those around her.

  Particularly the tall woman with the purple-and-white hair, very striking, with features that seemed both angular and soft. The aevendrow bore a wide, joyful smile, and shining eyes similar to those of a drow man Catti-brie knew so very well—purple eyes to match the streaks in her hair! The woman gave a wink and blew a kiss, catching Catti-brie off guard, until she realized that the aevendrow was matching stares with Zaknafein at the time.

  “You have just arrived, then?” Vessi said when the painting was done and the group began to scatter. All of the others made a point to come by the companions and pat them on the shoulder or the back before they left, though, and to promise victory for Biancorso in honor of the gracious visitors.

  The woman with the purple eyes moved up beside Vessi, dropping her forearm familiarly upon his shoulder.

  “We have just arrived, yes,” Jarlaxle answered Vessi, though his stare never left the woman.

  “All of you?” the woman asked, surprised. “Even you two?” she added, pointing out Jarlaxle and Zak. “You are not of Callidae?”

  “No,” Zak and Jarlaxle answered together, and that seemed to shake the two aevendrow profoundly.

  “From Chult, then?” asked Vessi.

  Zak shrugged and shook his head in obvious confusion, but Catti-brie caught a glimmer in Jarlaxle’s eye. He knew of the southern forests of Chult, as did she. Had this aeven
drow just informed them that there was another surface drow city in that southern jungle land?

  “It is a long story,” Jarlaxle replied. “But we’ve yet to introduce ourselves. I am Jarlaxle, and my friends are Catti-brie, Artemis Entreri, and Zaknafein Do’Urden, the great weapon master.”

  “A warrior?” Vessi asked, his face brightening as he looked to Zak. “This is my friend Azzudonna, and she, too, is a great warrior, as you will see in cazzcalci.”

  “Twice you have mentioned that,” said Catti-brie. “Cazzcalci?”

  “The battle of Quista Canzay,” Vessi answered. “We fight it every year, borough against borough.”

  “The representatives of the borough,” Azzudonna clarified, clueing Catti-brie in to the somewhat trepidatious expression that she—and likely her friends—wore at that moment. “Biancorso, the Whitebears, champion Scellobel.”

  “A joust,” Zak offered.

  “I do not know that word,” Azzudonna said.

  “A . . . game, a tournament,” Zak tried to clarify.

  “Yes, yes, a tournament,” said Azzudonna.

  “Should I look forward to it?”

  “Once you have seen cazzcalci, you will think your life empty if you cannot see it again,” the woman promised.

  The tone between the two had changed, Catti-brie noted, and when she looked to her other friends, Jarlaxle’s knowing grin and Entreri’s resignation showed her that they hadn’t missed the flirting, either.

  “Where are you going?” Azzudonna boisterously asked them all, breaking the spell.

  “We’re just looking around, trying to learn the ways of Scellobel,” Jarlaxle answered. “Priestess Ilina told us to see what we could see.”

  The woman smiled—rather slyly, Catti-brie thought—and whispered something in Vessi’s ear. He, too, beamed.

  “Do you like wine?”

  “Quite!” Jarlaxle answered.

  “Making it is more fun than drinking it,” Azzudonna told them.

  “Ah, but making it after you have had too much of it to drink is the most fun of all,” said Vessi, and the two laughed.

  “Come,” Azzudonna bade them. “They have filled the barrel. Perhaps your warrior will find an opportunity to prove himself.”

  “Filled the barrel?” Jarlaxle quietly asked when they started off, the four friends trailing their two drow escorts.

  “An old pirate joke,” Catti-brie said.

  Entreri snickered.

  “I hope that’s not what they mean,” she added.

  “If it is, better Zaknafein than me,” Entreri agreed.

  “What are you talking about?” Zaknafein demanded.

  “You don’t want to know,” Catti-brie assured him, and Entreri laughed again.

  Catti-brie, too, chuckled, and her reaction gave her pause. She was at ease. Up here, helpless in a city she did not understand, she found that beneath her forced caution, she was at ease, as were her friends, and even Entreri, it seemed, was giving in to the celebratory atmosphere so obvious around them.

  What might Drizzt and Brie make of this place, Callidae? The thought intrigued her, but also reminded that her two greatest loves were not here beside her.

  Vessi and Azzudonna led them into a vineyard, the smell of grapes both white and red thick in the air. A crowd of folk, mostly drow but with all others as well, had gathered near two buildings set beside the glacier wall. One was a house, similar to the others scattered throughout Scellobel, but the other, much larger, seemed more like a barn. Beside this barn on a slightly raised platform was what looked like the bottom quarter of a gigantic barrel, covering an area the size of a small room.

  As they neared, Catti-brie noted that large buckets were being passed shoulder-to-shoulder from the barn to the platform, to be dumped into the barrel.

  Grapes, Catti-brie realized. They were filling the barrel with grapes.

  “This is a dance, then,” she said aloud.

  “Ah.” Vessi sighed. “White. Less fun, and harder to judge.”

  “Red a bit later,” said a nearby drow, and Vessi smiled at the news.

  Jarlaxle, Zak, and Entreri all looked to Catti-brie for answers.

  “The halflings of Bleeding Vines dance on the grapes in casks much like that to make their wine,” she explained.

  “How would that prove the worth of a warrior?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “It is no dance,” Vessi told them. He pointed to a group of around a dozen aevendrow standing off to the side and talking among themselves. “Those are the scouts for Biancorso and the B’shett Boscaille, for the Ardin Tivatrice and the Mona Chess Guardreale.”

  It took Catti-brie a moment to translate, but she had a feeling that Vessi was naming the teams of cazzcalci: the Whitebears, the Lumberjacks, the Farmers, and the Royal Guards.

  “We of Biancorso discovered Azzudonna in a barrel,” Vessi added with a laugh.

  “But you wouldn’t fight me in one,” the grinning woman replied. “Not then and not now.”

  “Perhaps I did not wish to ruin your chances of joining Biancorso,” he returned, batting his eyes, “because I thought you so beautiful and wanted you near to me.”

  She swatted at him, but he ducked aside.

  “They will be leaving, of course, for they can only watch the fighting when the warriors are of their own boroughs,” Azzudonna explained. “You must fight in cazzcalci for the borough of your home, with your heart and your pride. You live for cazzcalci. You carry the scars of cazzcalci. Some have died for cazzcalci, and it is a fate that we all accept.”

  The bucket brigade ended then, with a kurit climbing up on a platform behind the barrel and signaling that there were enough grapes. To great cheering, two drow women climbed to the platform, moving to either side of the huge barrel. They wore bits of clothing that left little to the imagination, just short white shifts of light material, and white ribbons wound about their upper legs and arms. They raised their hands, accepting the cheers, their names and nicknames being roared all about by their adoring fans.

  The dwarf on the platform lifted a small gong and banged on it. One of the aevendrow combatants placed her hands on the rim of the barrel and inverted into a handstand, revealing quite a bit, before flipping over gracefully to land on her feet on the grapes.

  The other hopped up into a sitting position on the edge of the barrel, where she sat facing the crowd for just a moment before straightening her arms and lifting up just a bit, then bending her legs out to either side to hook her feet over the edge. Remarkably, she released her grip and lifted her hands up beside her head.

  The crowd hushed in anticipation.

  “That can’t feel good,” Entreri muttered, for she was balanced there on a narrow ledge by only the fronts of her ankles.

  Down went the woman’s hands, then up again, when she threw her arms and threw herself, springing off her ankles into the air, into a backflip that landed her on her feet within the barrel.

  The crowd roared with approval, many chanting, “Biancorso!” as if they expected the team to recruit the woman before the fight had even begun.

  “Just an acrobat’s trick,” Azzudonna quietly remarked.

  “You know her?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “I know her opponent,” Azzudonna replied. “Qvisi. This one will need more than gymnastics to beat Qvisi.”

  “You cannot bite,” the kurit told the competitors. “You cannot claw. You cannot kick the head if the other has fallen.”

  He looked to the crowd and lifted his hands. “Tell me!”

  “Zio!” came the roaring reply, and the fight was on.

  The fighters ran together into a crashing clench, like the clash of rutting elk, followed by a desperate, full-bodied tug-of-war. They growled and ground, each pushing forward with all her strength while the dwarf counted. He held his fists up to either side and whenever a fighter gained a step, he raised a finger.

  “Arktos oroks always win this part of the fight when they enter the barrel,” Vessi t
old the friends.

  “Except when one fights a clever kurit,” Azzudonna added. “Then it is quite amusing.”

  Catti-brie was hardly listening, staring transfixed at the sheer intensity of the fighters. They ground their chins into each other’s collars, occasionally snapping their heads to butt. Their arms worked to either side, each trying to tie the other up. And all the while, they bulled and bucked, anything to push the other backward.

  She glanced at the dwarf. Four to two, and the one Azzudonna had named as Qvisi was winning.

  The acrobat jumped backward just as the dwarf raised his fifth finger for Azzudonna’s friend, and Qvisi pitched forward, nearly slipping down, and the acrobat hit her with a vicious right hook to her cheek. She turned to the side, went down to at least one knee—Catti-brie couldn’t really see their legs from this angle—and came up immediately, turning as the acrobat jumped onto her back, trying to drive her down.

  But Qvisi, so strong, stood straight instead, even snapped her head back against the face of the acrobat.

  “She should let go,” Azzudonna remarked.

  Qvisi began to spin about and the crowd began clapping a cadence for her. She nearly slipped several times, but somehow held her balance, finally turning for the center of the barrel, putting her head down and rushing forward. She reached up and slapped her hands at the acrobat’s head, but the lithe woman managed to fend off one, at least.

  Qvisi pitched forward in a somersault, such a tight turn that her opponent couldn’t get away from her fast enough and so served as a cushion for the landing.

  “Beautiful,” Vessi whispered, his remark buried under the roar of the onlookers.

  The two came up almost immediately, near each other, facing each other, their fists flying, their light shifts plastered wet against them—and the acrobat’s showing the blood dripping from her nose.

  “Sanguine white,” Vessi said. “This will be a fine batch.”

  “You want their blood in the wine?” Entreri asked him.

  “Of course,” he answered. “Brings it strength.”

  Catti-brie realized that her jaw was hanging open. She wanted to look away from the sheer viciousness of the exchange continuing in the barrel, but she couldn’t. They were fighting with fists the way Drizzt and Entreri had fought with swords: rapid strikes, slaps, and blocks, but the precision was less apparent since they were slipping about on squishing grapes. As many swings wholly missed as hit, but the attempts to block were also less effective.