"I wish to go back to the boat," Dunkin said sternly. "One of the wizards can get me there." As he spoke, the man was clutching the rail so tightly that the knuckles on both his hands had whitened for lack of blood.
"Come along," Drizzt said to him.
Dunkin didn't move.
"You have been given a chance to witness what few men have ever seen," the ranger said. As he spoke, Drizzt took out the panther figurine and dropped it on the sand.
"You know more about Caerwich than any other aboard the Sea Sprite," Deudermont added. "Your knowledge is needed."
"I know little," Dunkin retorted.
"But still more than any other," Deudermont insisted.
"There is a reward for your assistance," Drizzt went on, and Dunkin's eyes brightened for an instant-until the drow explained what he meant by the word "reward."
"Who knows what adventure we might find here?" Drizzt said excitedly. "Who knows what secrets might be unveiled to us?"
"Adventure?" Dunkin asked incredulously, looking to the carnage along the beach, and to the zombies still frozen in the water. "Reward?" he added with a chuckle. "Punishment, more likely, though I have done nothing to harm you, any of you!"
"We are here to unveil a mystery," Drizzt said, as though that fact should have piqued the man's curiosity. "To learn and to grow. To live as we discover the secrets of the world about us."
"Who wants to know?" Dunkin snapped, deflating the drow and dismissing his grandiose speech. Waillan Micanty, inspired by the drow's words, had heard enough of the whining little man. The young sailor moved to the side of the beached rowboat, tore Dunkin's hands free of the rail and dragged the man onto the sand.
"I could have done that with much more flair," Robillard remarked dryly.
"So could Tenser," said Harkle.
"Not the Tenser," Robillard insisted.
"Not the Tenser?"
"Not the Tenser," Robillard reiterated, in even tones of finality. Harkle whimpered a bit, but did not respond.
"Save your magic," Waillan said to both of them. "We may need it yet."
Now it was Dunkin's turn to whine.
"When this is over, you will have a tale to widen the eyes of every sailor who puts in at Mintarn Harbor," Drizzt said to the small man.
That seemed to calm Dunkin somewhat, until Catti-brie added, "If ye live."
Drizzt and Deudermont both scowled at her, but the woman merely grinned innocently and walked away.
"I will tell his tyrancy," Dunkin threatened, but no one was listening to him anymore.
Drizzt called to Guenhwyvar and when the panther came onto the beach, the seven adventurers gathered around Deudermont. The captain drew a rough outline of the island in the sand. He put an X on the area indicating their beach, then another one outside his drawing, to show the location of the Sea Sprite.
"Ideas?" he asked, looking particularly at Dunkin.
"I've heard people speak of 'the Witch of the Moaning Cave, " the small man offered sheepishly.
"There might be caves along the coast," Catti-brie reasoned. "Or up here." She put her finger down onto Deudermont's rough drawing, indicating the one mountain, the low cone that comprised the bulk of Caerwich.
"We should search inland before we put back out into the sea," Deudermont reasoned, and none of them had to follow his gaze to the frozen zombies to be reminded of the dangers along the shore
of Caerwich. And so off they trudged, inland, through a surprisingly thick tangle of brush and huge ferns.
Almost as soon as they had left the openness of the beach behind, sounds erupted all about them-the hoots and whistles of exotic birds, and throaty howling calls that none of them had heard before. Drizzt and Guenhwyvar took up the point and flanks, moving off to disappear into the tangle without a sound.
Dunkin groaned at this, not liking the fact that his immediate group had just become smaller. Catti-brie chuckled at him, drawing a scowl. If only Dunkin knew how much safer they were with the drow and his cat moving beside them.
They searched for more than an hour, then took a break in a small clearing halfway up the low conical mountain. Drizzt sent Guenhwyvar off alone, figuring that the cat could cover more ground in the span of their short break than they would search out the rest of the day.
"We will come down the back side of the cone, then move southward, all the way around and back to the boat," Deudermont explained. "Then back up and over the cone, and then to the north."
"We may have walked right past the cave without ever seeing it," Robillard grumbled. It was true enough, they all knew, for the tangle was so very thick and dark, and the mist had not diminished in the least.
"Well, perhaps our two wizards could be of use," Deudermont said sarcastically, "if they hadn't been so absorbed in wasting their spells to prove a point."
"There were enemies to strike down," Harkle protested.
"I could've cut 'em down with me bow," said Catti-brie.
"And wasted arrows!" Harkle retorted, thinking he had her in a logic trap.
Of course, the others all knew, Catti-brie's quiver was powerfully enchanted. "I don't run out of arrows," she remarked, and Harkle sat back down.
Drizzt interrupted then, abruptly, by hopping to his feet and staring hard into the jungle. His hand went to the pouch that held the onyx figurine.
Catti-brie jumped to her feet, taking up Taulmaril, and the others followed suit.
"Guenhwyvar?" the woman asked.
Drizzt nodded. Something had happened to the panther, but he wasn't sure of what that might be. On a hunch, he took out the figurine, placed it on the ground, and called to the panther once more. A moment later, the gray mist appeared, and then took form, Guenhwyvar pacing nervously about the drow.
"There's two of them things?" Dunkin asked.
"Same cat," Catti-brie explained. "Something sent Guen home."
Drizzt nodded and looked to Deudermont. "Something that Guenhwyvar could find again," he reasoned.
Off they went, through the tangle, following Guenhwyvar's lead. Soon they came to the northern slopes of the cone, and behind a curtain of thick hanging moss, they found a dark opening. Drizzt motioned to Guenhwyvar, but the panther would not go in.
Drizzt eyed her curiously.
"I'm going back to the boat," Dunkin remarked. He took a step away, but Robillard, tired of the man's foolishness, drew out a wand and pointed it right between Dunkin's eyes. The wizard said not a word, he didn't have to.
Dunkin turned back to the cave.
Drizzt crouched near to the panther. Guenhwyvar would not enter the cave, and the drow had no idea of why that might be. He knew that Guenhwyvar was not afraid. Might there be an enchantment on the area that prevented the panther from entering?
Satisfied with that explanation, Drizzt drew out Twinkle, the fine scimitar glowing its customary blue, and motioned for his friends to wait. He slipped past the mossy curtain, waited a moment so that his eyes could adjust to the deeper gloom, then moved in.
Twinkle's light went away. Drizzt ducked to the side, behind the protection of a boulder. He realized that he was not moving as quickly as expected, his enchanted anklets were not aiding him.
"No magic," he reasoned, and then it seemed perfectly clear to him why Guenhwyvar would not enter. The drow turned to go back out, but found his impatient friends already slipping in behind him. Both Harkle and Robillard wore curious expressions. Catti-brie squinted into the gloom, one hand fiddling with the suddenly useless cat's eye pendant strapped to her forehead.
"I have forgotten all of my spells," Harkle said loudly, his voice echoing off the bare wall of the large cave. Robillard slapped his hand over Harkle's mouth.
"Ssssh!" the calmer wizard hissed. When he thought about what Harkle had said, though, Robillard had his own outburst. "As have I!" he roared, and then he slapped his hand over his own mouth.
"No magic in here," Drizzt told them. "That is why Guenhwyvar could not enter."
&nbs
p; "Might be that is what sent the cat home," Catti-brie added.
The discussion ended abruptly, and all heads swung about to regard Waillan as the light of a makeshift torch flared brightly.
"I'll not walk in blindly," the young sailor explained, holding high the burning branches he had strapped together.
None of them could argue. Just the few feet they had gone past the cave's entrance had stolen most of the light, and their senses hinted to them that this was no small place. The cave felt deep, and cool. It seemed as if the sticky humidity of the island air had been left behind outside.
As they moved in a bit farther, the torchlight showed them that their senses were telling the truth. The cave was large and roughly oval in shape, perhaps a hundred feet across at its longest point. It was uneven, with several different levels across its broken floor and gigantic stalactites leering down at them.
Drizzt was about to suggest a systematic exploration, when a voice cut the stillness.
"Who would seek my sight?" came a cackle from the rear of the cave, where there appeared to be a rocky tier a dozen feet above the party's present level. All of the group squinted through the gloom. Catti-brie tightened her grip on Taulmaril, wondering how effective the bow might be without its magic.
Dunkin turned back for the door, and out came Robillard's wand, though the wizard's gaze was firmly set ahead, upon the tier of boulders. The small man hesitated, then realized that Robillard had no power against him, not in here.
"Who would seek my sight?" came the cackling question again.
Dunkin bolted out through the moss.
As one, the group looked back to the exit.
"Let him go," Deudermont said. The captain took the torch from Waillan and moved forward slowly, the other five following
in his wake. Drizzt, ever cautious, moved to the shadows offered by the side wall of the cave.
The question came a third time, in rehearsed tones as though the witch was not unaccustomed to visits by sailors. She showed herself to them then, moving out between a tumble of boulders. The hag was old, ancient, wearing a tattered black shift and leaning heavily on a short and polished staff. Her mouth was open-she seemed to be gasping for breath-showing off a single, yellow tooth. Her eyes, appearing dull even from a distance, did not blink.
"Who will bear the burden of knowledge?" she asked. She kept her head turned in the general direction of the five for a short while, then broke into cackling laughter.
Deudermont held his hand up, motioning for the others to halt, then boldly stepped forward. "I will," he announced. "I am Deudermont of the Sea Sprite, come to Caerwich …"
"Go back!" the hag yelled at him so forcefully that the captain took a step backward before he realized what he was doing. Catti-brie bent her bow a bit more, but kept it low and unthreatening.
"This is not for you, not for any man!" the hag explained. All eyes shifted to regard Catti-brie.
"It is for two, and only two," the hag went on, her croaking voice rhythmic, as though she was reciting a heroic poem. "Not for any man, or any male whose skin browns under the light of the sun."
The obvious reference sent Drizzt's shoulders slumping. He came out of the shadows a moment later, and looked to Catti-brie, who seemed as crestfallen as he in the sudden realization that this was, after all, about Drizzt once more. Deudermont had almost been killed in Waterdeep, and that the Sea Sprite and her crew were in peril, a thousand miles from their usual waters, because of his legacy.
Drizzt sheathed his blades and walked over to Catti-brie, and together they moved past the startled captain, and out in front to face the blind witch.
"My greetings, renegade of Daermon N'a'shezbaernon," the blind witch said, referring to Drizzt's ancient family name, a name that few outside of Menzoberranzan would know. "And to you, daughter of a dwarf, who hurled the mightiest of spears!"
That last sentence caught the pair off guard, and confused them for just a moment, until they realized the reference. The witch must be speaking of the stalactite that Catti-brie had dropped, the great «spear» that drove through the dome of House Baenre's chapel! This was about them, about Drizzt's past, and the enemies they thought they had left behind.
The blind hag motioned for them to come closer, and so they did, walking with as much heart as they could muster. They were barely ten feet from the ugly woman when they stopped. They were several feet below her as well, a fact that made her-someone who knew what she should not have known-seem all the more imposing. The crone pulled herself up as high as she could, showing great effort in trying to straighten her bowed shoulders, and aligned her sightless orbs straight with those of Drizzt Do'Urden.
Then she recited, quietly and quickly, the verse Errtu had given her:
No path by chance but by plot,
Further steps along the road of his father's ghost.
The traitor to Lloth is sought
By he who hates him most.
The fall of a house, the fall of a spear,
Puncture the Spider Queen's pride as a dart.
And now a needle for Drizzt Do'Urden to wear
'Neath the folds of his cloak, so deep in his heart.
A challenge, renegade of renegade's seed,
A golden ring thee cannot resist!
Reach, but only when the beast is freed
From festering in the swirl of Abyss.
Given to Lloth and by Lloth given
That thee might seek the darkest of trails.
Presented to one who is most unshriven
And held out to thee, for thee shall fail!
So seek, Drizzt Do'Urden, the one who hates thee most.
A friend, and too, a foe, made in thine home that was first.
There thee will find one feared a ghost
Bonded by love and by battle's thirst.
The blind hag stopped abruptly, her sightless eyes lingering, her entire body perfectly still, as though the recital had taken a great deal of her strength. Then she drifted back between the stones, moving out of sight.
Drizzt hardly noticed her, just stood, shoulders suddenly slumped, strength sapped by the impossible possibility. "Given to Lloth," he muttered helplessly, and only one more word could he speak, "Zaknafein."
Chapter 10 KIERSTAAD'S HEART
They came out of the cave to find Guenhwyvar sitting calmly atop a pinned Dunkin. Drizzt waved the cat off the man and they departed.
Drizzt was hardly conscious of the journey back across the island to the rowboat. He said nothing all the way, except to dismiss Guenhwyvar back to her astral home as soon as they realized that they would face no resistance on the beach this time. The ice was gone and so were the zombies. The others, respecting the drow's mood, understanding the unnerving information the hag had given him, remained quiet as well.
Drizzt repeated the blind seer's words over and over in his mind, vainly trying to commit them to memory. Every syllable could be a clue, Drizzt realized, every inflection might offer him some hint as to who might be holding his father prisoner. But the words had come too suddenly, too unexpectedly.
His father! Zaknafein! Drizzt could hardly breathe as he thought of the sudden possibility. He remembered their many sparring matches, the years they had spent in joyful and determined practice. He remembered the time when Zaknafein had
tried to kill him, and he loved his father even more for that, because Zaknafein had come after him only in the belief that his beloved Drizzt had gone over to the dark ways of the drow.
Drizzt shook the memories from his mind. He had no time for nostalgia now; he had to focus on the task so suddenly at hand. As great as was his elation at the thought that Zaknafein might be returned to him, so was his trepidation. Some powerful being, either a matron mother, or perhaps even Lloth herself, held the secret, and the hag's words implicated Catti-brie as well as Drizzt. The ranger cast a sidelong glance at Catti-brie, who was lost in apparently similar contemplations. The hag had intimated that all of this, the atta
ck in Waterdeep and the journey to this remote island, had been arranged by a powerful enemy who sought revenge not only upon Drizzt, but upon Catti-brie.
Drizzt slowed and let the others get a few steps ahead as they dragged the rowboat to the surf. He released Catti-brie from his gaze, and, momentarily at least, from his thoughts, going back to privately reciting the hag's verse. The best thing he could do for Catti-brie, and for Zaknafein, was to memorize it, all of it, as exactly as possible. Drizzt understood that consciously, but still, the possibility that Zaknafein might be alive, overwhelmed him, and all the verses seemed fuzzy, a distant dream that the ranger fought hard to recollect. Drizzt was not alert as they splashed back off the beach of Caerwich. His eyes focused only on the swish of the oars under the dark water, and so intent was he that if a horde of zombies had risen up against them from the water, Drizzt would have been the last to draw a weapon.
As it turned out, they got back to the Sea Sprite without incident and Deudermont, after a quick check with Drizzt to assure that they were done with their business on the island, wasted no time in putting the ship back out to sea. Deudermont called for full sails the moment they got out of the enveloping fog of Caerwich, and the swift schooner soon put the misty island far, far behind. Only after Caerwich was out of sight did Deudermont call Drizzt, Catti-brie, and the two wizards into his private quarters for a discussion of what had just transpired.
"You knew what the old witch was speaking about?" the captain asked Drizzt.
"Zaknafein," the drow replied without hesitation. He noticed that Catti-brie's expression seemed to cloud over. The woman
had been tense all the way back from the cave, almost giddy, but it seemed to Drizzt that she was now merely crestfallen.
"And our course now?" Deudermont asked.
"Home, and only home," Robillard put in. "We have no provisions, and we still have some damage to repair from the storm that battered us before we made the Gull Rocks."
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