The Companions s-1

by R. A. Salvatore

  Fireballs, though she was just a child!

  The thought of it took Lady Avelyere’s breath away.

  “Her parents practice the Art?” Rhyalle asked. “But they are Bedine. That is forbidden!”

  Lady Avelyere waved her hand to silence her student, for the point was moot, wholly irrelevant even. Lady Avelyere was well aware of the fact that the Bedine counted magic-users among their ranks, whatever the edicts of Shade Enclave. It didn’t matter-to Avelyere or to the Netherese rulers-the ban was in place merely to keep these magic-users in the shadows instead of in a leading role among potentially insurgent tribes.

  Rhyalle kept talking, but Lady Avelyere waved her hand all the harder, bidding her to silence. The diviner was considering their plans in light of the new information she had just garnered about Ruqiah. She worked through the expected sequence.

  Speed would be the key.

  Catti-brie, exhausted from her lessons, didn’t return to her garden that night, or until late the next day, when she trotted among the wind-blown rock walls in the guise of a wolf once more. This had become her favored animal form. She felt so light on her … paws! And her senses were so keen, her hearing and smell particularly, that she felt quite safe loping around the plains.

  And she liked the way the world looked through the eyes of a canine, with their broader field of vision. While she missed the vibrant colors of her human eyes, the clarity of the “duller” world amazed her in the distinct structures of the grasses and her ability to detect even the slightest movement.

  Still, she saw nothing out of place as she trotted into her refuge.

  But something was amiss, she realized quickly, as foreign smells tickled her nose. She glanced all around, then reverted to her human form and continued her scan, beginning a spell to detect any magic that might be around.

  Before she had hardly begun it, a wave of dispelling energy washed over her, and a voice from behind her said, “No tricks, little one.”

  Catti-brie swung around, to see a beautiful woman dressed in flowing purple and blue robes staring back at her.

  And others came into view as well, their mass invisibility dismissed, five similarly dressed but younger women floating just above her garden, their arms outstretched.

  “Surrender easily, young one,” a seventh woman said, coming into view beside the oldest of the group, who began to murmur, as if in spellcasting.

  Catti-brie’s eyes went wide in the realization that the dreaded Netherese had found her once again.

  “We wish to speak with you, Ruqiah,” the newest of the seven said sweetly-too sweetly, and Catti-brie felt the weight of magical suggestion behind the voice. “We are not enemies to you.”

  She wanted to believe it-she almost believed it! — but she realized that was the point of the magical enhancement, of course.

  Seven against one-seven waiting for her. She could not fight here.

  Catti-brie became a bird and flew away.

  Or tried to sure what to make oeverythingon, for she came to understand the hard way that the floating five wizards were actually anchor points. The oldest of the group released her spell and the expanse between those five filled with webbing, just as Catti-brie started to fly through it.

  She slammed in to the web, quickly entangled. She thought of her mother’s lesson, and knew that fire was her only chance-although she would surely get singed in the effort. Before she could launch any spells, though, she saw sparks all around her, as the five floating wizards ignited their hands, burning free of the web, which now, without anchors, fell to the ground, taking Catti-brie down with it.

  She landed hard and felt the breath blown out of her, and in the stunning impact, reverted to her human form, though she found herself no less entangled.

  But then the webbing was gone, only a moment later, and a trio of young women rushed over to her.

  She became a bear, thinking to tear them apart-or she tried to, for even as she began her enchantment, several waves of dispelling magic assailed her.

  Then came a more insidious spell, striking at her mind, numbing her body to the calls of her thoughts, holding her in place. She battled it, and even managed to keep herself somewhat free of its paralyzing grasp. The distraction cost her, though. She felt her hands yanked behind her, magical bindings immediately applied.

  She cried out and struggled, but she had only recently turned six and so was no physical match for the older women. A hood went over her head and she was thrown to the ground, and she felt a thick sack being pulled down over her. She kicked out, and took some pleasure in hearing one of the sorceresses yelp in pain. She was already caught, however, and too far into the sack. The others stuffed her legs in behind her, and the drawstring tightly closed.

  She struggled, and got kicked hard. Stunningly hard, brutally hard, and then again when she moved some more.

  “Speak not and move not!” said the same woman who had first addressed her. “For every word and every shift will bring a beating to you, I promise.”

  Stubborn Catti-brie started to protest, and promptly got kicked again. Then someone sat on her, crushing her down, holding her still.

  “Kimmuriel is a drow of his word,” Draygo Quick informed Parise Ulfbinder through their crystal ball connection. “He studies with the illithids, and they are very aware that something is indeed transpiring.”

  “But they do not yet know what that might be,” Parise reasoned.

  “They sense a disjointedness in the multiverse. They warn of chaos and of celestial changes.”

  “Cryptic words are useless words.”

  “For now,” Draygo Quick replied abruptly. “Give them time.”

  “Have you located your former prisoner? Have you determined if this drow, Drizzt Do’Urden, is indeed a favored mortal?”

  “None have found him, though many look, including Jarlaxle of Bregan D’aerthe. It is as if Drizzt has simply disappeared from the known universe. But no matter. He was not of paramount importance to me, and surely not now when I have entered into this bargain with Kimmuriel, who will provide greater answers to me than Drizzt Do’Urden ever could.”

  “Do we need another prisoner who might of in the general direction moment Lord Ulfbinderonfer answers?”

  “Do we need any, or did we ever?” Draygo Quick replied. “I have not gone after Drizzt again, nor have I sought revenge on this drow organization with which we both still do business.”

  Parise Ulfbinder tapped his fingertips together nervously. “Have you shared ‘Cherlrigo’s Darkness’ with Kimmuriel?”

  “Surely not!” Draygo Quick answered. “Our bargain was that I would forgive the assault of Bregan D’aerthe upon my home in exchange for the information Kimmuriel garners from his time with the mind flayers. There was no reciprocating action on my part intended or offered, other than my willingness to allow our trading agreement with the drow mercenaries to continue, to the mutual profit and benefit of us both.”

  “But it is possible that our sonnet will hold clues the illithids might find valuable in their search for the celestial truth.”

  Draygo Quick paused, and Parise could see that he had caught the older lord off guard.

  “Perhaps in the future, then, but only with your agreement, I assure you,” Draygo Quick decided.

  Parise nodded-that was what he had been hoping to hear. He bid Draygo Quick farewell, replaced his cloth over the crystal ball, then rose and turned back to the anteroom, where he had left his guest.

  He poured a drink for Lady Avelyere and one for himself when he returned to that room, and took the chair across from his guest before the burning hearth.

  “A Chosen or a prodigy?” he asked absently, a question he had posed in their previous discussion, before dismissing himself to attend to some business.

  “I don’t think we can know,” said Lady Avelyere. “Truly she is gifted in the Art-more divine than arcane, it would seem.”

  “And divine would indicate …”

  �
��It would seem,” Lady Avelyere said pointedly. “There is no telling with spellscars. It is possible that this Ruqiah child is afflicted in ways we have never witnessed, at least to this magnitude, but that hardly means she is blessed by any particular god.”

  “She is worth watching,” Parise said, and Lady Avelyere breathed a clear sign of relief.

  “You thought I would have her killed?” the Netherese lord asked incredulously.

  “The thought did cross my mind.”

  “To what end?”

  “To what end in bothering with the little one at all? To what end in hunting these favored mortals you seem to fear-and if you fear them, does it not follow that you would wish to destroy them?”

  Parise Ulfbinder shook his head. “I wish to learn, nothing more. You are acquainted with my friend Draygo Quick?”

  “The lord who resides outside of Gloomwrought?”

  “Yes.”

  “With whom you just spoke,” she stated and donfident and q

  PART THREE

  UNINTENDED BONDS

  I could not have planned my journey. Not any particular journey to a town or a region, but the journey of my life, the road I’ve walked from my earliest days. I’ve often heard people remark that they have no regrets about choices they’ve made because the results of those choices have made them who they are.

  I can’t say that I agree fully with such sentiments, but I certainly understand them. Hindsight is easy, but decisions made in the moment are often much more difficult, the “right” choice often much harder to discern.

  Which circles me back to my original thought: I could not have planned out this journey I have taken, these decades of winding roads and unexpected twists and turns. Even on those occasions when I purposely strode in a determined direction, as when I walked out of Menzoberranzan, I could not begin to understand the long-term ramifications of my choice. Indeed on that occasion, I thought that I would likely meet my death, and soon enough. It wasn’t a suicidal choice, of course-never that! — but merely a decision that the long odds were worth the gamble when weighed against the certainty of life in Menzoberranzan, which seemed to me emotional suicide.

  Never did I think those first steps would lead me out of the Underdark to the surface world. And even when that course became evident, I could not have foreseen the journeys that lay ahead-the love of Montolio, and then the home and family I found in Icewind Dale. On that day I walked away from Menzoberranzan, the suggestion that my best friend would be a dwarf and I would marry a human would have elicited a perplexed and incredulous look indeed!

  Imagine Drizzt Do’Urden of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon sitting at the right hand of King Bruenor Battlehammer of Mithral Hall, fighting beside King Bruenor against the raiding drow of Menzoberranzan! Preposterous!

  But true.

  This is life, an adventure too intricate, too interconnected to too many variables to be predictable. So many people try to outline and determine their path, rigidly unbending, and for them I have naught but a sigh of pity. They set the goal and chase it to the exclusion of all else. They see the mark of some imagined finish line and never glance left or right in their singular pursuit.

  There is only one certain goal in life: death.

  It is right and necessary and important to set goals and chase them. But to do so singularly, particularly regarding those roads which will take many months, even years, to accomplish is to miss the bigger point. It is the journey that is important, for it is the sum of all those journeys, planned or unexpected, that makes us who we are. If you see life as a journey to death, if you truly understand that ultimate goal, then it is the present that becomes most important, and when the present takes precedence above the future, you have truly learned to in the general di Lord Ulfbind

  CHAPTER 13

  A CHIP OFF THE OLD … AXE

  The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR) Citadel Felbarr

  "Yer Da favored the hammer and the sword,” Ragged Dain said as the group neared the outer gate. Dain had been so nicknamed for his scrappy fighting style, typically leading with his face, which was crisscrossed now by battle scars.

  “I ain’t me Da,” Bruenor gruffly answered, hoisting his battle-axe to rest on his shoulder.

  “Fine tone for a beardless one, eh?” Ognun Leatherbelt, the battle commander, chimed in. He gave Little Arr Arr a shove on the shoulder and a playful half-punch on the jaw. His eyes widened as he did, though, and as he took closer notice of his youngest foot soldier. “Here now! Little Arr Arr’s got the beginnin’s of a beard, does he?”

  “Reginald,” Bruenor corrected, and how he wanted to throw aside this whole facade, then and there. He was Bruenor Battlehammer, Eighth King of Mithral Hall, Tenth King of Mithral Hall, champion of Icewind Dale. How he wanted to shout that out, loud and clear!

  But Ognun’s observations were true enough, for Bruenor had indeed begun to see-finally-the beginnings of a beard, a fiery red one much like the one he’d worn in his previous existence. He wondered if he would look the same as he had in that other life. He hadn’t really thought about it very much, but now with the beard coming in, it occurred to him that he might well indeed be a physical twin for the king he had been.

  Without the scars, at this point, of course, and without, he lamented, glancing at his new axe, the many notches he had earned in battle.

  He brought the axe down before him, ignoring the continuing banter at his expense, and instead studying the clean and smooth curving blade of the weapon. He thought of his first notch in his previous existence, in the great ettin adventure in the tunnels around Mithral Hall, and realized that he had been much older in that fight than he was now. Reginald Roundshield’s fifteenth birthday was just three months behind him, which put him a decade and more short of Bruenor’s first true adventure in his former life. Indeed, Reginald Roundshield, Little Arr Arr, was much more accomplished among the soldiers of Citadel Felbarr atStaIes Lord Ulfbinder this age than a teenaged Bruenor had been among the fighters of Clan Battlehammer, even though all of Reginald’s exploits thus far had been on the training grounds. But of course, in counterbalance, in that previous life as the prince of Mithral Hall, Bruenor had been presented with great opportunities to do great things that he, as Reginald, would never know.

  His memories swirled through the years, to the many battles-leaping upon the back of Shimmergloom, freeing Wulfgar from the demon Errtu, splitting the skull of Matron Baenre when the drow came a’calling, splitting the waves of Obould’s minions like a stone against the incoming tide in Keeper’s Dale-and Bruenor blew a profound and resigned sigh. Could he really live that journey again? Could he really begin over, not a scratch on his axe, and forge a name worthy of Clan Battlehammer?

  And the most troubling question of all, to what end?

  “So the gods can just wipe it clean and pretend it never happened, eh?” he mumbled.

  “What’s that now, boy?” Ragged Dain asked. “Wipe it clean? Nah, that’s the real hair ye got there, yer beard comin’ in thick and red. No more Little Arr Arr then! Just Arr Arr, as was yer Da.”

  “Reginald,” Bruenor calmly replied, and Ragged Dain burst out laughing, as did the other five dwarves on this scouting patrol. They’d never give in and stop the teasing, Bruenor knew.

  Not that it bothered him. What did it matter? His name could be Moradin itself and that too would become bones and stones and nothing more.

  He felt a snarl coming to his lips but he suppressed it.

  “One day at a time, one step at a time,” he told himself, his growing litany against the whispering despair.

  “Through the gate, we’re turnin’ north, lads and lasses,” Ognun told his battle group. “Into the Rauvins and Warcrown Trail. Been word o’ some goblinkin getting a bit too comfortable there.”

  “Heigh-ho, then, for a fight!” said Tannabritches Fellhammer, the “Fist” of Fist and Fury.

  “Heigh-ho!” Ragged Dain joined in the cheer, but in a mocking way. Every patr
ol that walked out of Felbarr was told to expect trouble, but, alas, trouble was rarely found.

  “Now, don’t ye get all Mallabritches on me,” Ognun Leatherbelt said with a laugh, referring to Tannabritches’s twin, who was aptly nicknamed Fury. The two had been split up, and Mallabritches had been sent back for more training after she had punched a traveling human merchant in the nose when he laughed at her suggestion that he might be selling his wares to orcs.

  Mallabritches’s demotion had given Bruenor his spot on the battle group, something that hadn’t sat well with Tannabritches, who was three years Bruenor’s senior, as she had reminded him often with the constant refrain of, “Don’t ye get yerself too comfortable, Little Arr Arr. Me sister’s to return and ye’re to be put back with yer own dwarfling friends.”

  “Ah, but then might I tell them all again o’ how I whomped yer skinny butt, eh?” Bruenor always responded, and time and again, it had almost come to blows. Almost, for it became obvious that the blustering Tannabritches wanted no part of Little Arr Arr one-against-one.

  “We’ll be half-a-tenday in the mountains,” Bruenor heard Ognun explain in the general direction, and palim as he focused back to the present conversation. “And we’ll be watchin’ all about us every heartbeat o’ them five days, don’t ye doubt. If them goblins are up there, we’re to make sure King Emerus knows it.”