The Companions s-1

by R. A. Salvatore

  Yoger cried out, then began to gasp and choke, but Regis never looked at him. Regis just kept walking toward Kermillon, his rapier and dirk still in his belt. Kermillon grabbed a small log from near the fire and began shouting out, warning the halfling back.

  But Regis kept coming.

  He heard Yoger fall over behind him, thrashing and kicking. He heard others from the nearby wagons calling out, confused, but he kept his focus on Kermillon, who waved the log threateningly.

  Just as he stepped into range, just as the man began to swing, Regis activated his prism ring and warp-stepped past. Regis knew what to expect from it this time, and he leaped and twisted as he moved, spinning around. He landed just behind and to the side of Kermillon, and with his rapier in hand. He promptly stabbed up under the man’s ear, puncturing the skin, but just barely.

  “Kindly drop the log,” he said, and when Kermillon hesitated, he stabbed the rapier in a bit more.

  “Oh, please, Sir Spider!” Kermillon gasped, leaning over away from the pressing rapier tip.

  “Kneel,” Regis ordered, and Kermillon slumped to his knees.

  Regis looked past him then, to Yoger who continued to thrash and kick and squirm for all his life, but to no avail. Others came into the firelight just as Yoger went straight out, his legs twitching in the spasms of death.

  “Here now, what?” another driver called to Regis and Kermillon. Others ran to Yoger.

  “What’s this about then, little one?” another man demanded. “Tell them,” Regis said to Kermillon. The man said nothing.

  “Tell them or I will slide my blade into your head, and explain my actions to them while I am wiping your brains off onto your shirt.”

  Drivers, passengers, and merchants from the marketplace alike began to gather, forming a wall around the small fire and the combatants.

  “You best be talking,” one demanded.

  “Aye, and we best like your explaining!” another added.

  Regis prodded his blade and Kermillon gave a little cry.

  “Speak truthfully and I will lobby for leniency,” Regis said.

  “I don’t know …,” Kermillon started.

  “Two dead across the way!” announced a newcomer, a halfling dressed for the road and for battle it seemed. He walked into the light, a trio of other halflings similarly adorned right behind him. “Stuffings is dead in his tent,” the halfling went on. “Stuffings and the tall one. It would appear as if they tried to take advantage of a guest this night, and would I be right in assuming that we have that guest standing right before us?”

  “Stuffings?” Regis asked.

  “Stuffantle Tinderkeg to any who cared,” the halfling replied. “Just Stuffings to all the rest.”

  “Aye, he coaxed me into his lair with the promise of a bed and a bath, and on coin from these two.” He prodded a bit and Kermillon yelped and leaned to the side. “Do tell them.”

  “On your life, driver,” the other halfling said and he drew out a gleaming short sword.

  “We did! We did!” Kermillon babbled. “But not to kill him! No, just to rob … and this one!” He fell away as the rapier was withdrawn, and turned back, poking a finger Regis’s way. “This one! All boasts and endless coin! Ah, but he’s a rat, I tell you! Insufferable rat!”

  Regis laughed and snapped his rapier across, taking the man’s poking fingerline-height: Idweon before tucking it away in his belt as Kermillon curled up on the ground, howling in pain.

  “Well, this one’s dead,” said a man over by Yoger.

  “Three less murderers to worry about,” Regis said, and he looked at Kermillon as he added, “And likely, soon to be four.”

  Some of the other drivers came in and grabbed up Kermillon and dragged him away.

  Such scenes were not uncommon in the markets around Boareskyr Bridge, and the interest died away quickly, the onlookers moving off, some discussing which would inherit Kermillon’s wagon and goods, while others, merchants, talking about the prime tent that would now be open if the one-eyed dwarf was really deceased.

  The quartet of halflings came over to Regis, though, the leader bowing before him gracefully. “You handle yourself well, Master Topolino,” he said.

  “You know my name,” Regis replied. He locked gazes with the halfling, while quietly lifting the hand crossbow and deftly slipping it away into his magical belt pouch.

  “Knew it before we ever met you, though didn’t know you wore it,” the other replied.

  Regis looked at him curiously.

  “Grandfather Pericolo,” said one of the three behind him. “I have been to Delthuntle on many occasions and know him well.”

  “Ah, but where are my manners?” said the leader. “I know your name, but have not offered my own. I am Doregardo of the Grinning Ponies.” He bowed low.

  “The Grinning Ponies?” Regis asked, trying not to laugh.

  “Named for our mounts and the year,” answered the one who had claimed knowledge of the Grandfather.

  CHAPTER 24

  WEAVING

  The Year of the Agele ss One (1479 DR) Luruar

  Theeagle rode the updrafts of an incoming front, gliding easily to the west, and now with the hilly region known as the Crags in sight. Beyond those rolling hills sat Luskan and the Sword Coast, Catti-brie knew, and the mountain pass that would take her home to Icewind Dale.

  Given the limitations of her magic, she expected to pass by Luskan within a few days, and into Icewind Dale to Ten-Towns merely a tenday beyond that.

  She was thinking of her more recent home, of Niraj and Kavita, and hoping that they were all right. Had they heard of her death? Had Lady Avelyere gone to the Desai encampment to interrogate them? Or worse, had Avelyere punished them?

  The thought unsettled Catti-brie and stole from her the peace of this moment of high solitude. Maybe she should have stayed in Netheril to protect her parents, she thought, to fight, and likely die, beside them if Avelyere came calling.

  Certainly die, she nodded. With that slight movement of her head, Catti-brie noticed a strange twinge, a pressure in her limbs akin to what she felt when executing the shapeshifting. Her vision shifted suddenly, too, as if from eagle eyes to human, or something strange in between, and for just a fleeting heartbeat, the sky around her darkened, then seemed backlit, and in the moment between blue daylight and nighttime stars, she saw or imagined a great web of giant strands enwrapping the whole world.

  She didn’t know what to make of it; she couldn’t begin to unravel the meaning of the strange sight or of the pressure in her limbs or the strangeness of her vision. The world below seemed suddenly so much farther away then, and for a moment, the woman wondered if some great updraft had lifted her higher.

  But no, it was an illusion, Catti-brie realized, and one facilitated by the change in her vision, back to mere human eyes. Her shapeshift was failing!

  She focused then on her arcane magic, putting her memorized levitation spell into her thoughts-but they were jumbled thoughts, and she couldn’t sort through the haze. The spell wasn’t making sense to her, the words weren’t coming clear. Something was wrong, very wrong! The flight became strained-she could feel her wings crackling with reversion.

  Normally, Catti-brie would have climbed before the reversion, giving her farther to fall, and thus more time to enact her levitation. But the words to that spell simply wouldn’t come to her.

  It was Lady Avelyere. The diviner had found her and was attacking her magically, dispelling her dweomers, jumbling her thoughts.

  Down she sped, angling steeply, even tucking her wings in a full stoop, knowing that she had to get to the ground as quickly as possible. She noted a stand of pine trees and soared out that way while maintaining the dive.

  She felt the magic evaporating and pulled up with all her strength to break her dive. It worked, but a moment later, she felt her arms, not wings, at her sides. Still some fifty feet from the ground, she began to tumble, a human again, and in a place where no human should
be. She fought to recite the levitation, but couldn’t remember the words in any sensible order, and hadn’t the time anyway.

  She crashed into a thick pine, breaking branches and limbs, bouncing down through the tangle to the lowest branch, where she caught a handhold, but only for a moment before falling free the last dozen feet, to land flat on her back on the ground, where she knew no more.

  “The city is in disarray!” Rhyalle reported, bursting into the room alongside Eerika.

  Lady Avelyere regarded them briefly before turning back to the window, and offered no immediate response. She could see the tumult in the streets below the Coven, with couriers running all around, no doubt delivering messages from one lord to another.

  Something had happened. Something a long while to realize ees …on powerful and dramatic, and not just within the Coven, where they had felt the shift keenly. “What does it mean, Lady?” Eerika dared to ask.

  “We don’t know what it is, so how could she answer that question?” Rhyalle scolded.

  “Have you done as I asked?” Lady Avelyere asked, turning around to aim her question at Eerika. The younger woman nodded. “Then proceed.”

  Eerika looked to Rhyalle for support. They hadn’t started their run to Avelyere’s chambers together, but had met up in the wide foyer of the main building, Rhyalle returning from the streets, Eerika from the old library.

  “Lady, the words do not easily form-” Eerika started.

  “Try,” Lady Avelyere ordered. “It is a minor dweomer.”

  Eerika took a deep breath, then lifted her hand up, palm upward, and began to quietly recite a spell. A few heartbeats later, a burst of light formed in her hand, glowing brightly for just a moment, then growing dimmer. Eerika lowered her hand, but the globe of light remained, hovering in the air before her.

  “By the gods,” Lady Avelyere breathed, and she turned back to the window, but looking up to the sky and not to the streets below. Earlier that day, the sisters had found confusion, where spells they had prepared had become jumbled and useless. If that wasn’t curious enough, now Eerika, a young magic-user unskilled in the old ways, had just enacted a spell of light creation, and from an incantation a century and more thought lost to the world.

  “What does it mean, Lady?” Eerika asked.

  “We are a magocracy,” Lady Avelyere quietly replied. “It means that we will know confusion, then we will find transition, then we will know renewed power.”

  The two younger women looked to each other with great concern.

  “Mental agility,” Lady Avelyere said to them, turning around to offer them a comforting look. “The Empire of Netheril stands above because we are wiser and more clever. We have felt such cosmic … curiosities, before.” She nodded and motioned to the door. “Go and rest, and when you are renewed, prepare your spells anew. Let us see what tomorrow brings.”

  The two women bowed and departed, and Lady Avelyere turned back to her window. Something was going on here beyond her comprehension, beyond anything she had known in her life, she sensed, and feared, and hoped. The world was always in flux-her dear Parise had shared some concerns of “Cherlrigo’s Darkness,” had even hinted that the fabric of magic might yet grow unsteady. Yes, something was in flux, and had not Lady Avelyere herself discovered the rebirth of this favored mortal of the goddess Mielikki?

  And now this confusing day, and what it would ultimately mean, Lady Avelyere could not be sure.

  But whatever might come from this magical hiccup-for that was the only word she could think of to describe this day’s events-Lady Avelyere meant to benefit from it.

  The clever ones always did.

  Painful spasms drew Catti-brie back to consciousness. She lay on the ground, blood all around, one leg bent weirdly, surely broken, and one arm throbbing, likely also broken. The sun was very low in the western sky, so she understood that she had lain!” Bruenor warned.5N3Delly Curtieon there for many hours. She was lucky to be alive, she realized.

  Her levitation had failed her-why hadn’t she been able to recall the words and cadence of the spell? And why had her spellscar power of shapeshifting worn away so quickly?

  The spinning questions brought her back to her fear that Lady Avelyere had found her, and had brought her down. She propped herself up on one elbow and looked all around, desperate, though turning her head caused her more discomfort.

  Catti-brie used all of the discipline she could muster, training earned in two lifetimes, forcing aside her fears, forcing herself to focus. She thought of other incantations she had prepared, but none seemed helpful at that moment, and worse, none came clear in her thoughts. If Avelyere arrived before her, would she even be able to muster the slightest of cantrips to defend herself?

  She fell back to her greatest safeguard, her most favored dweomer, and concentrated on the weather. She would bring in a storm, yes, and if any enemies appeared, she would strike them dead with powerful bolts of lightning.

  She enacted the magic, so she believed, but she needed time for the clouds to gather and the storm to coalesce.

  And more than that, she realized, as she began to swoon, she needed to stop her bleeding.

  She began to pray, calling to the goddess for spells of healing, and to her great relief, unlike the arcane magical spells, these words, these prayers, did flow through her. She saw the light blue mist gathering at her wounded right arm, flowing from under the wide sleeve of her robe.

  The spell came forth and Catti-brie felt a rush of gentle warmth, smooth as satin and decidedly comforting, flowing through her body, sweeping through her like a cresting wave and then breaking with a burst of hot energy upon her broken right arm, upon the very spellscar of the goddess whose favor had granted her this power.

  With a trembling left hand, Catti-brie pulled back the sleeve of her robe. She looked upon the spellscar, the head of Mielikki’s unicorn, as the mist dissipated, and she blinked repeatedly, wondering if it was a trick of the light, perhaps, or of her own light-headedness with her loss of blood. For while the scar remained, it seemed even more distinct than before, more like a tattoo now than a birthmark, a unicorn’s golden horn and with the creature’s head similarly outlined in gold.

  Another wave of pain brought a grimace and a reminder, and Catti-brie began again her chant, asking the goddess for more. The mist came forth from the unicorn, her divine powers intact and, she thought, even more powerful than before.

  She cast a third minor healing spell, and then, her thoughts clearing, brought forth a spell to heal more serious wounds, focusing her energy on her leg. She felt better immediately within the warm cocoon of the blue-bathing light, like the softest of ocean waters sweeping away the weeds. She sat up straighter, and even flexed her knee as the leg straightened out before her.

  She would survive her fall. And she would likely walk again the very next day, once her divine powers had renewed, and she could enact further healing upon her battered form.

  Catti-brie took a deep breath and held it, then peeled back the sleeve of her left arm.

  The seven-pointed star remained, and like the unicorn head, it seemed more distinct now, like the work of an ink artist, except that its sketching was not golden, but blood red, like a web of angry veins pulsing out the marker of Mystra.

  Whatline-height: Isummon did it mean?

  Catti-brie tried to recall an arcane spell from her repertoire, but alas, like the levitation earlier, those memorized dweomers were lost to her, a jumble of nonsensical words.

  On a hunch, she considered one, her favored fireball. She closed her eyes and thought back to the very first time she had cast that spell, in another body a century before, and she tried to fight her way through the incantation jumble.

  Now the words sorted, and she heard her own chant, part ancient, part new, and a fiery pea appeared in her hand. She threw it out and willed it out from her, into the air and away from the trees, and there it exploded appropriately, a burgeoning fireball, and the blue tendrils of magical en
ergies glowed around her left arm, around the symbol of the seven-pointed star.

  Catti-brie stared at it and shook her head.

  What could it mean?

  As she continued to stare upon the spot, the flames dissipating to nothingness, something else caught her eye, and brought her more questions. She saw the first twinkles of starlight as twilight descended upon the land.

  But where was her conjured storm?

  She looked all around. The sky was perfectly clear. Her spell had failed, utterly.

  What could it mean?

  “What does it mean?” Lady Avelyere asked Lord Parise Ulfbinder the very next day. She and her minions were managing to enact some magical spells, but only barely and only selectively.

  “Instability,” Parise replied, and he seemed, and sounded, quite shaken, Lady Avelyere noted. “I spoke with Lord Draygo Quick this morning. It is, perhaps, as we feared.”

  “Explain.”

  The Netherese lord shook his head. “Something is upon the world-both worlds! — but there is nothing I can yet explain. The Twelve Princes have sought out the wisdom of the priests.”

  “The old ways? The old gods?”

  “Where is your former student?” Parise asked. “You have located her?”

  “Ruqiah?” Lady Avelyere held up her hands helplessly.

  “You said that you did not believe her to have perished in the fire.”

  “No, certainly it was not her withered body that we found among the rubble.”

  “Then where is she?”

  “Nowhere near to us, I am sure,” Lady Avelyere replied. “I have magically surveyed all of Netheril-”

  “West,” Parise interrupted. “Search in the west. The Sword Coast. Luskan. Icewind Dale.”

  Lady Avelyere looked at him curiously. “What do you know?”

  “Of course I did my own research and inquiries after you came to me with that most interesting tale,” he answered. “A lone mountain, you described.”