The Companions s-1

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you the fancylad!” Eiverbreen said with a laugh, but one that was only half-mocking. He sat up straighter still, rubbing the sleepiness from his eyes. “You still dancing with that pretty girl, are you?”

  “She trains me with the blade.”

  Eiverbreen issued a coarse laugh that sounded more like a wheeze than anything mirthful. “Well, I’d be stabbing that one, given the chance!” he said with a howl.

  Regis steeled his posture and shut his mouth, reminding himself that Eiverbreen was harmless, that his crudity served as cover for despair. “She’s a friend,” Regis said instead.

  “Aye, you and your important friends,” Eiverbreen said with a derisive snort.

  “They’ve done well by you,” Regis said before he could bite it back.

  Eiverbreen snorted louder and turned to look at the hearth.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” Regis said. “But you seem well.”

  Eiverbreen pulled himself to his feet, grabbed the poker, and began prodding at the logs. “I get by, boy,” he said absently.?” she asked5N3 had givenesto

  “My name is Regis.” He wasn’t really sure why he had said it, but there it lay.

  “So says you,” replied a clearly confused Eiverbreen.

  “Indeed, and is there any other to argue my choice?”

  “Not your choice!” Eiverbreen said harshly, even lifting the poker to aim its tip Regis’s way. “Your Ma’s choice!”

  “She’s dead.”

  “My choice, then! You could have spoken to me first, boy, to see if I approved.”

  “You had your chance, but you didn’t bother,” Regis said, and Eiverbreen’s expression flashed with anger.

  “You forgetting your place?” the older halfling asked.

  Regis shook his head, denying Eiverbreen. The discussion had reminded him of why he had come here; he was eighteen years old now. The west was beginning to call, the bargain of Mielikki sounding louder and louder in his thoughts.

  “Might that I’ll call you Earnst,” Eiverbreen said. “That was my brother’s name, your dead uncle, drowned in the storm of 1445. Just a boy, you know. Aye, I should have named you Earnst to honor him!”

  “You should have, perhaps, but you didn’t.”

  “Your name is what I tell you it is!” Eiverbreen growled, and he prodded the poker Regis’s way-or started to, for the halfling’s rapier came forth in the blink of a surprised eye, quickly parrying and rolling over the poker, where its blade caught under the item’s hook. With a subtle twist and shift, Regis pulled the poker from Eiverbreen’s hand and sent it bouncing aside.

  Eiverbreen stared at him dumbfounded, then looked at the fallen poker. He began to laugh heartily. “Oh, but that Topolino lassie’s teaching you well, boy!” he said. “And what else is she teaching my boy?”

  He fell back into his chair, his shoulders bobbing with amusement.

  “Much,” was all Regis replied, and he did so with a wide grin, thinking there was no reason to dissuade Eiverbreen from his undoubtedly lewd notions.

  Eiverbreen shrugged and snorted, waving his hand dismissively. “Where did you find this name?”

  Regis paused and looked down from Eiverbreen, who was leaning forward in his chair now, seeming suddenly interested in the conversation. Perhaps it was time to tell Eiverbreen the truth.

  “It’s a name I heard, a long time ago,” he started, unsure. “Where? With them Topolinos?”

  “Longer back.”

  “Well, where then?” Eiverbreen said, his tone sharpening. Regis considered that question for a few moments. What would be gained by telling Eiverbreen? The old drunk probably wouldn’t even believe it, and if he did, well, to what gain? Others had told Regis that Eiverbreen was proud of him, in his own way, whispering about “his boy with the Grandfather” between bites of his meals at the local common rooms. Perhaps, Regis mused, he had just wanted to hurt the man, to steal from him the one boasting point in all of his miserable life.

  But why? Because of the neglect? Because Eiverbreen had been a fairly pathetic father-even though Eiverbreen wasn’t even his father at all?Alpirs and UntarisI ‘on

  No, Regis decided then and there. He was allowing his own pettiness to sway him, but there was no place for such things. His entire purpose for returning to Toril awaited him just a trio of years down the road-the long road to Icewind Dale.

  He looked at Eiverbreen and offered a disarming smile. He really didn’t want to hurt the halfling. It was that simple.

  He laughed. “Grandfather calls me Spider. Spider Parrafin, son of Eiverbreen, student of Grandfather Pericolo Topolino.”

  Eiverbreen looked at him even more curiously at first, as if wondering what in the Nine Hells had just transpired, and to what end. But then he nodded, even laughed a bit, echoing, “Spider, eh? I like that much better.”

  Regis felt proud of himself for rising above pettiness, for being able to separate his own wounded feelings enough to find for this poor soul Eiverbreen the same compassion Regis had shown to others in his previous life.

  The smile couldn’t spread too widely, though, as Regis reminded himself that he would indeed be wounding Eiverbreen, perhaps mortally, when he left Delthuntle, and that unsettling thought had him chewing his lip.

  How could he do this? How could he go to Icewind Dale, thousands of miles away, when he was needed here? How could he walk away from this life he had built on the shores of Aglarond?

  He thought of Drizzt, then, and of Catti-brie and Bruenor. It would be grand to see them again, of course.

  But he thought of Eiverbreen and Pericolo and of Donnola-yes, mostly of Donnola! — and of all that he had come to love about his life here in Delthuntle.

  The halflings of Delthuntle had been good to him, and to Eiverbreen. Even before Regis had signed on with Pericolo Topolino, he and Eiverbreen had known kindness from fellow halflings.

  And to think that here, in this city of tall and hardy men, a halfling like Pericolo could rise to such stature and prominence! Even the more formal thieves guilds in the city, including the most powerful of all, the Three-Fingered Ring, an organization known to frown upon any lesser guilds, afforded Pericolo and his halfling Morada great respect. Regis himself had witnessed the respectful bows of the Delthuntle Lord’s Guard, the Hobgoblins, whenever Pericolo Topolino walked past them.

  The halflings of Delthuntle were not treated as curiosity pieces, or lessers-whether that was because of Pericolo, or an attitude that had helped facilitate Pericolo’s rise.

  “A good halfling community,” he said aloud, though he was speaking to himself and not to Eiverbreen.

  The older halfling heard him, though. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “A good halfling community,” Regis stated more loudly. “Here in Delthuntle, I mean. As good as any I have ever known.”

  That brought a curious look from Eiverbreen.

  Regis laughed at his own foolishness. As far as Eiverbreen was concerned, Delthuntle was the only place Regis had ever known!

  Regis nodded, though he was not looking at Eiverbreen, and not even hearing the actual words as the older halfling pressed him on the point. He was considering his unexpected status, and to his surprise, he found that it was no small thing. Here in Delthuntle, halflings were not second class, and here in Delthuntle, he personally was not the tag-along. Far from it! Here he was the protege, growing strong and s in the general directs="indent" aid

  CHAPTER 18

  THE CHARMING NET

  The Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) Netheril

  The stars twinkled, a clear desert sky, and the sliver of a moon cast a thin glow over the woman’s private garden, but enough of one for the moistened soft petals of her many flowers to sparkle like the stars above.

  Catti-brie was in a fine mood-how could she not be when she felt so close to Mielikki?

  Her days of dancing in Iruladoon, of communing with the goddess, had taught her so much about the wa
ys of the celestial spheres and the eternal cycle of life and death. And the goodness of life, taken as a whole. She was part of those stars above, she understood, as were the flowers before her.

  She was at peace.

  And yet, she was not, for this place, this moment, reminded her of why she had returned to Faerun, and of the task before her, in not so many years. This day, the spring equinox of 1479, marked her sixteenth birthday, or “re-birthday,” as she had privately named it. She had spent some hours with Niraj and Kavita in the Desai encampment, and she was not due back at the Coven until the next morning.

  “Five more years,” she whispered to a flower before her. She lifted the plant’s wide and soft petals and gently brushed them. “Only five.”

  She conjured an image of Drizzt in her thoughts, and she smiled widely. She had been gone from him for just over sixteen years by her measure, but more than a century in his lifetime. Had his feelings faded for her? Would he even remember her in any meaningful way?

  Would she find him happily married, to an elf perhaps, and raising children of his own?

  The woman shrugged, not happy about the possibility, but accepting it as just that, a possibility, and one that she could not control. She thought of seeing him again, of his smile, of his touch. How she missed that touch! Many things could seem trivial to Catti-brie now that she had been in the arms of a goddess, now that she had looked at the multiverse with such profound understanding. But Drizzt’s touch was not one of those trivial things; their bond seemed as large as that of the celestial spheres, and as eternal as the cycle of life and death, no matter the interfering practicalities.

  If Drizzt had another wife, then so be it. Catti-brie knew that he still loved her, that he would always love her, as she would always love him.

  She would be no less dedicated to the coming battle Mielikki had described to her in her days of communing with the goddess in the enchanted forest. If Lady Lolth or her minions came for Drizzt, they would have to fight through Catti-brie to get to him!

  She pictured Kelvin’s Cairn in Icewind Dale, under a sky as sparkling as this one, the unending wind tossing her hair, the chill breeze tickling her skin.

  “Five more years,” she whispered again.

  “Five more years for what?” came a sharp voice behind her. Catti-brie froze in place, smile vanishing, eyes going wide. She knew that voice, too well! “For what?” Lady Avelyere asked again. “And do face me, child.” Catti-brie took a deep breath.

  “Your magic is no match for my own, child,” Lady Avelyere said, as if reading her thoughts. “And you’ll not shapechange fast enough to be away from me.”

  Catti-brie slowly turned around. Avelyere stood at the entrance to her secret garden, dressed in rich traveling robes of purple and white, and she seemed taller to Catti-brie at that moment, much taller and more imposing.

  “You lied to me,” she said quietly, but each word resonated in Catti-brie’s mind as if it had been shouted into her ear.

  “No, Lady …,” she stammered.

  “I took you in, opened my house to you, and you lied to me,” Lady Avelyere insisted. “No …”

  “Yes!”

  Catti-brie swallowed hard.

  “You didn’t know where your power of healing and shapeshifting came from, you told me,” Lady Avelyere went on. “You didn’t know that they were divinely inspired or themselvesIanythingon different at all. But you have deceived me all along, worshiping this … god?”

  “Goddess,” Catti-brie managed to say.

  “I spared your parents!” Lady Avelyere screamed at her. “A mere word from me about their magical activities and Shade Enclave would have captured them and tortured them in the town square. And this is how you repay me? By lying to me?”

  She swept forward as she spoke, moving very near to Catti-brie, staring down at her from on high.

  “This does not concern them,” Catti-brie stammered, rising, but keeping her head bowed. The thought that Avelyere might take out her wrath on Niraj and Kavita horrified the woman-how would she be able to live with herself after bringing such ruin on those wonderful people?

  But a comforting thread wove into her mind then, an assurance that Lady Avelyere would do no such thing, that Niraj and Kavita were not Avelyere’s concern and would not be exposed.

  Catti-brie looked up at the woman. Lady Avelyere reached out a hand and gently stroked Catti-brie’s thick hair. “Oh, dear girl,” she said, her voice as smooth as the flower’s petal. “Do you not understand that I have come to love you as if you were my own daughter?”

  “Yes, Lady,” Catti-brie heard herself replying.

  “I’m merely wounded, truly wounded, that you did not trust me with your secret.”

  “I didn’t think you would understand.”

  “Faith, child, faith,” Lady Avelyere cooed. “I am your mentor, not your enemy.” She drew Catti-brie to her side and looked all around. “Tell me about this place. It is your shrine to this … goddess, yes?”

  “Mielikki,” Catti-brie whispered.

  “Yes, well do tell me more. Surely you have been blessed by her! I have seen the marking.”

  Catti-brie’s hand reflexively went to her opposite forearm, to the unicorn-shaped spellscar she carried.

  “Your spellscar, yes, and the powers it affords you,” Lady Avelyere said, though Catti-brie noticed that Avelyere had not even looked down or followed Catti-brie’s inadvertent movement.

  “Tell me of it. Tell me of Mielikki,” Lady Avelyere purred. “And tell me of this dark elf and the mountain under the stars.”

  Had she been of her reasoning faculties at that moment, Catti-brie would have understood that Lady Avelyere had garnered much more information than she could surmise by the garden, for Catti-brie had not spoken openly of Drizzt, had merely thought of him and pictured him.

  “Tell me, Ruqiah,” Lady Avelyere prompted.

  “Catti-brie,” the disciple of Mielikki corrected.

  Lord Parise Ulfbinder sat in his grand chair, his hands together and before his pursed lips. He didn’t blink as Lady Avelyere poured forth the wild claims of young Ruqiah of the Desai.

  “She is Chosen of Mielikki,” Parise said a long while after the diviner had finished her lengthy tale.

  Lady Avelyere could only shrug. “It would seem.”

  “And you believe her?”Alpirs and UntarisIanythingon

  Again the woman shrugged, but this time she added a nod.

  “A Bedine child, a Chosen of Mielikki, who is not a Bedine goddess?” Parise asked skeptically.

  “But she says she is not a Bedine child,” Lady Avelyere said. “She claims her name is not Ruqiah, but Catti-brie.”

  It was Parise Ulfbinder’s turn to shrug, for the name meant nothing to him.

  “A woman from another time, before the Spellplague.”

  “That is quite a claim. Is it not more likely that she is merely trying to protect her outlaw parents?”

  “So I thought,” Lady Avelyere replied. “But her claims-”

  “Desperate claims for a desperate young woman …”

  “She was adopted by a dwarf in this previous life,” Lady Avelyere interrupted. “A dwarf king.”

  The end of his intended sentence caught in Parise’s throat. “A dwarf king?” he asked instead.

  “King Bruenor Battlehammer of Mithral Hall,” Lady Avelyere explained. “She told me this under my charm dweomer, under a spell of hypnosis, under the power of magical suggestion.”

  “She completed the concocted story,” Parise argued.

  “There is record of such a king in the library of Shade Enclave.”

  “So the girl visited the library.”

  “And a mention of his adopted daughter, Catti-brie-”

  “So the girl went to the library!” Lord Parise Ulfbinder shouted.

  “-who was taken in the night by the ghost of Mielikki’s unicorn,” Lady Avelyere talked over him.

  Parise fell back in his chair and meek
ly asked, “What do you mean?”

  “This human daughter of King Bruenor, driven mad by the Spellplague, died in the night and was spirited away from her bed by a celestial unicorn, so goes the legend.” She paused and painted a wry grin on her face. “Away from the bed of her dark elf husband, Drizzt Do’Urden.”

  Lord Parise Ulfbinder was among the most composed and dignified men in Shade Enclave, but the gulp and squeal that issued forth seemed more the cry of a startled child. He leaped up, his chair flying out behind him.

  “A name you have mentioned before, yes?” Lady Avelyere said, grinning wider still.

  “This is madness,” said Parise, rushing and stumbling around his desk to take a seat on it right before the woman. “Are you sure that you have not mentioned this name to her? Perhaps you inadvertently put her on the road to concoct this wild story!”

  “I don’t know that I have ever spoken that name before, or heard it, other than in this very room.”

  “But the child is magical. Perhaps she has slipped an insidious dweomer past your guards and read your thoughts.”

  “That would be quite a scouring. I do not concern myself with the dark elf. I did not even recall the name until Ruqiah-until Catti-brie spoke it to me, and even then, it barely sparked recognition. It was not until she mentioned this Drizzt creature’s race that I even recalled our long-agohe had returned to Faerunanvertical-align: im conversation about Lord Draygo’s drow prisoner.”

  “His lost prisoner.”

  “We may find him, then, for this child is determined to find him sometime after the Year of the Awakened Sleepers. Indeed, she has fellow conspirators in this, who she intends to rejoin on the night of the spring equinox in that same year.”

  “Bedine conspirators?”

  Lady Avelyere shook her head.

  “1484,” Lord Parise mumbled. “Five years, almost to the day.” He scratched at his goatee. “Interesting indeed.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Let her go!” Parise cried immediately. “And watch her, every step. We may witness a battle of Toril’s goddesses, and what a sight that will be!”

  Lady Avelyere didn’t openly respond to that, but her expression spoke volumes, most of all revealing her relief.