The Companions

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Stop giving him the liquor, then,” Regis pleaded.

  “He’d get it anyway, if not from me then on the street. Are you to tell every tavernkeeper in Delthuntle to stop? And what of those allies he finds on the street to come in to places like my own and buy the bottles for him?”

  “If he doesn’t have the coin, then he can’t get the bottles,” Regis said. “Back to refusing your work, then?”

  “If that is what it takes,” Regis said, and he snorted and turned and started away.

  Shasta’s strong hand clamped down on his shoulder and spun him back to face her, pulling him back roughly to the bar in the turn.

  “Now you hear me good, Spider,” she said, “and only because I’ve taken to liking you that I’m even telling you this.” She paused and glanced left and right, as if to ensure that no one might be eavesdropping, and that, of course, added weight to her words as she continued. “You’re not for understanding Grandfather Pericolo, so let me tell you. Don’t you cross that one. Don’t you ever cross that one, or you’ll pay in ways you cannot begin to understand.”

  Regis looked at her curiously. “I’ve seen you with him,” he replied. “Full of smiles and lighthearted banter.”

  “Aye, and I’m meaning to stay on his good side. And you should, too, for your own sake, and for your Da’s.”

  “My Da cannot continue like this!”

  “His end will come swifter and so will your own,” Shasta warned. “You work for Pericolo now. When you work for Pericolo, you always work for Pericolo. Forevermore. Get that in your head now before you go and do something stupid.”

  Regis stared at her hard, but had no answer. She thought him a neophyte in such matters as this, no doubt, but he had grown up on the tough streets of Calimport, where characters like Pericolo Topolino ran rampant.

  He silently cursed. For a few moments, he allowed himself the fantasy of being older, in a mature and trained body, where he could take on the likes of Pericolo Topolino!

  But what would he really do, he wondered? He thought of Bregnan Prus and of how he had faced his fears and gone to battle with the older and larger boy, and had done so fully expecting that he would take a beating. Yes, it had been a brave action. This, though, was something entirely different, something far more dangerous.

  “You have to be upon Kelvin’s Cairn,” he reminded himself under his breath.

  “What’s that then?” Shasta asked.

  Regis shook his head and walked away. He was heading for the door when a shout on the stairway caught his attention. His father entered the common room, calling out “Drinks all around!” to the cheers of the other patrons.

  Shasta Furfoot was quick to tamp down that enthusiasm, though, loudly reminding Eiverbreen that his tab was only good for his own libations. That brought some jeering, and a few half-hearted insults thrown Eiverbreen’s way.

  Regis moved near the door. For a brief moment, he locked his gaze with his father, who smiled widely as he climbed onto a stool. Then Eiverbreen turned away from Regis, to Shasta, and he slapped his hand down on the counter.

  She was already moving to fill a glass of whiskey for him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Regis told himself as he departed the tavern. None of this mattered. He was only here to prepare himself for his journey to Icewind Dale and his return to the Companions of the Hall. And he would be ready, he silently insisted.

  Nothing here mattered.

  But he glanced back at the tavern and a wave of emotions rolled over him. Eiverbreen was his father, and had been kind enough to him—in his own broken way. He had never beaten Regis, and had found occasion to show him tenderness. Eiverbreen had lived a miserable life, more miserable still since his wife had died in birthing Regis. But only once in his decade with Eiverbreen had Regis ever heard his father place blame upon Regis for his miserable predicament, and even in that instance, a sober Eiverbreen had tearfully apologized the very next day.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Regis said again, but more quietly, and contritely, for he recognized the lie.

  Of course it mattered. It had to matter. If it did not, then what claim might a miserable and ungrateful Regis ever have to stand beside the Companions of the Hall?

  But what could he do?

  He glanced to the north, in the general direction of the fine Morada Topolino. Shasta’s warning echoed in his thoughts, and he knew that she wasn’t exaggerating. Pericolo was the Grandfather to all who knew him, and that meant that he was the Grandfather of Assassins. One didn’t easily attain such a title as that.

  Regis entertained a fantasy of returning to Delthuntle from Icewind Dale with Drizzt and the others beside him, to properly repay the Grandfather.

  It was just a fantasy, however, for Eiverbreen couldn’t wait that long, and the Grandfather himself was not a young halfling.

  Regis moved to a different track, wondering if he could indeed stop, or at least slow, the take of oysters. Perhaps if he claimed only a couple each day, Pericolo would see his “gift” to the Parrafins as a losing business proposition.

  Even that seemed a fleeting possibility—for what then would be left for Regis and his father? If he tried it, the Grandfather would monitor them closely. They would have to remain utterly destitute or invoke his wrath.

  Regis sighed. He looked again in the general direction of Morada Topolino, but hopelessly.

  The situation didn’t improve over the next few tendays. With a bottle ever in hand, Eiverbreen stumbled around the tavern and the streets, covered in vomit and a multitude of small wounds, from tumbling into a chair or a wall or onto the street. He had more than a few bruises and cuts from knuckles, as well, as in his drunken stupor, he often insulted others.

  Regis returned to their room one afternoon, his pouch half-filled, to find his father in a very agitated state. Broken glass and a puddle of semi-translucent brown liquid near one wall offered a clue.

  “Ah, good that you’re ’ere,” Eiverbreen slurred. He laughed and nearly fell over from his seated position near the mess. “My legs’re a bit wobbly,” he said, struggling to stand.

  Regis helped him to his feet, though Eiverbreen fell immediately against the wall for better support.

  “Be a good brat and go get me another bottle,” Eiverbreen instructed.

  “No,” Regis replied, and hearing the word escaping his lips only bolstered his resolve. He couldn’t do much about the larger situation around him, but perhaps he could resolve the problem more directly.

  “No?” Eiverbreen stared down at him hard.

  “Too much, Da,” Regis said calmly.

  “Eh?”

  “You are too much in the bottle, Da,” Regis said. “You need to slow down. More food and less drink, yes?”

  He noted that Eiverbreen wasn’t blinking.

  “And you need to get out of this tavern—you hardly ever go outside anymore!” Regis said, trying to sound as cheery as possible. “Oh, but it’s a wonderful season, full of sun and a cool wind off the sea. Let me get you some food. We’ve time before sunset for a walk to the shore—”

  The last word came out with a yelp attached, for in an explosion Regis had never before witnessed, so sudden and primal in its ferocity, Eiverbreen sprang at him and slapped him hard across the face, sending him sprawling to the floor.

  “Go fetch me a bottle!” Eiverbreen yelled, storming closer and stamping his foot heavily against the wooden floor. “You little rat! Don’t ever tell me what to do!” He reached down and grabbed the stunned Regis by the collar and hoisted him from the floor, lifting him right up off his feet before dropping him back down. Eiverbreen didn’t let go, shaking him violently and howling at him with spittle flying.

  Regis hardly heard the words, he was so stunned by this abrupt transformation. Eiverbreen finally let go, sending Regis spinning back against the room’s door.

  “Go!” Eiverbreen demanded.

  Tears welling in his eyes, Regis scrambled out of the room. He rushed down the
stairs, but didn’t go to the bar. Instead, he burst out of the tavern’s door, onto the street.

  Before he had even realized his course, the young halfling found himself in the alleyway beside the fabulous Morada Topolino.

  He waited for the sun to set, waited for the dark of night to fully fall, then Spider began to climb. His love for Eiverbreen drove him upward.

  He moved right to the roof and crept to the window of the widow’s walk, his vision following the moonbeams inside.

  “What am I doing here?” he quietly asked. What could he hope to accomplish? What difference might anything he did in Morada Topolino make to the death spiral of Eiverbreen?

  He would steal—a lot—and with that wealth, he would take Eiverbreen away to a better place, and to a situation not dependent upon the whims of a heartless Grandfather and an uncaring barkeep.

  “Yes,” he said and nodded.

  He ran his sensitive young fingers around the window encasement, feeling for trip wires or other potential traps. How he wished he had a glass cutter, and even more so when he realized that the window was locked.

  Regis pulled a small knife from his pouch, one he used to pry up oysters stuck under rocks in the depths of the Sea of Fallen Stars. The window was divided into two panes that could slide past each other to allow the sea breeze to enter. The higher pane was inside the lower, he noted.

  He eased his knife into the tight crease between them.

  Slowly, very slowly, his face pressed against the glass below as he pushed the blade down.

  And there it was: a tripwire.

  Regis nodded, having seen this particular trap design many times in Calimport. The movement of the sliding windows would set it off, one or the other taking the wire with it. Each pane’s frame would have on it a small sharp edge, designed to cut the wire when it pulled tight.

  Regis worked his knife around the top lip of the top pane, and found just such a blade, cleverly embedded. He removed it with ease.

  Back in went the knife, this time tapping the locking mechanism. With a subtle twist, Regis threw the lock.

  Slowly he lowered the top pane. He would have preferred to lift the lower one, obviously, for easier access, but he couldn’t easily get to the embedded blade on that one, for, as that pane was in front of the other, the blade would be between them. No matter, though. His name was Spider, after all, and it was a moniker he had properly earned.

  The window half down, Regis glanced around to ensure that no one was watching, then up he went, climbing the side of the dormer, then twisting over, inserting himself into the room above the window.

  He clung there, in the room at the top of the window, for some time, inspecting the floor. Likely there was a pressure trap in place, he told himself, and so, still up on the wall, he moved to the side before dropping down lightly.

  The room was sparsely furnished, with just a chair facing out the window, overlooking the vast sea, and a small table beside it—for a dinner tray, perhaps.

  Behind the chair was a trap door, open now, and with a secured ladder leading down into the main house.

  The main house and the Grandfather’s treasures.

  Down went Regis, creeping into the darkness. He padded around on bare feet, getting a lay of the various hallways and doors, stopping and listening at each. Around a corner to the narrow corridor leading to the back of the house, he saw a small light peeking around the edges of a slightly opened door. Every step taken with care, every movement in complete silence, the burglar peeked into the room.

  A single candle burned, and burned low. He could see a grand desk across the way, one too ornate to be that of a minor clerk. Thinking this to be the place of the Grandfather’s business, the halfling dared push the door a bit further and peer in.

  To his great relief, the room was empty.

  To his great delight, the room was full of statues and baubles, a trio of chests, and an assortment of other interesting, and likely profitable, articles.

  It had been too easy—somewhere in the back of his mind, Regis knew that. He had dealt with characters such as Pericolo in his previous life in Calimport, and never could he have come this far without some resistance. Perhaps it was just the difference between the two cities, he thought. Perhaps here in smaller and quieter Delthuntle, reputation alone was enough to ensure security.

  He stood up straight, smiling widely. He reminded himself to check for a trap around the door jamb, but before he even started, he heard a low and ominous growl.

  Not from inside the room, but behind him.

  Slowly Regis turned his head around. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness now, but still the first image that came to him were two sets of eyes shining back at him, at a level just below his own. The halfling held his breath and moved into the room a bit farther. The opening door let the meager light spill out enough for Regis to make out the massive canine forms behind those eyes, enough for Regis to see the shining fangs of the guard mastiffs.

  He didn’t dare move, other than to ease his hand behind him to grab at the edge of the opened door.

  The dogs growled, long and low, barely ten halfling strides away.

  Regis knew that he had to move first and fast. His brain screamed at him to flee. But he couldn’t, and he couldn’t tear his gaze from those threatening sets of eyes.

  One of the dogs barked, breaking the spell, and both mastiffs leaped as Regis fell into the room. He almost had the door closed when the nearest dog crashed into it, and there they struggled, the dog scraping and barking and pushing back hard.

  The desperate halfling threw his shoulder against the door, and luck was with him, for he hit it just as the dog backed off—but only so that the beast could leap back in hard.

  The door shook from the impact and Regis stumbled backward. Now both dogs barked and howled and slammed and scraped.

  He had to get out of there! He ran across the room to the one window, and threw it open, but only to find the opening barred.

  He fumbled for a locking mechanism, but found none. He heard more noise outside the door, down the hall.

  He rushed around.

  The door rattled hard.

  He blew out the candle, though he didn’t know why. The door burst in.

  With a yelp, Spider dived to the corner and scrambled up the wall, feeling the hot breath of pursuit. He got up ahead of the dogs, out of their snapping reach, but to what end? What might he do next?

  Then it didn’t matter as the darkness flew away in the thunderous retort of a fireball, all the room filling with flame. Regis saw it more than felt it, his brain screaming at him that he was surely burning.

  For everything around him was burning, including the very wall where he held on. With a terrified shriek, he let go, pitching hard to the floor, nearly knocking himself unconscious.

  He felt a sharp sting, and now felt the intense heat mounting all around him. He had to get out, but he couldn’t. He rolled to his back and looked up at the fiery ceiling.

  He thought of his poor father.

  He thought of Drizzt and Catti-brie and Bruenor, of his pledge to meet them on the mountain, of the glories they would again find together.

  But Iruladoon wasn’t waiting for him, he knew. Not this time.

  The heavy, burning timbers collapsed atop him with a tremendous roar and rush of flame.

  He didn’t even hear his own scream.

  CHAPTER 12

  MISTRESS

  The Year of the Splendors Burning (1469 DR) Netheril

  IT FELT TO HER LIKE A COMMON NIGHTMARE, FALLING HELPLESSLY, THE deafening wind thundering in her ears. She tumbled and tried to right herself, which only made her twist and spin as she turned head-over-heels.

  Dizzy and disoriented, Catti-brie felt her face flapping from the pressure of her speeding descent. Only then did she realize that she was screaming at the top of her lungs, though she couldn’t really even hear her voice through the drumbeat of the rushing air.

  She noted the spin
of colors before her, brown and blue, brown and blue, and used that to get her bearings, up from down.

  She stretched out to her full length and threw her arms out wide, and gradually managed to stop her tumble.

  But then, knowing ground from sky once more, another reality struck her profoundly: the ground was much closer and she was speeding toward it and hadn’t the energy to transform into a bird, or anything else.

  She was just a human girl, whose bones would shatter to mush when she slammed into the ground.

  Lady Avelyere gasped and threw her hand over her mouth as she watched the scene unfolding in the waters of her scrying pool. She looked to the east, but the child was too far away for Avelyere to spot her with the naked eye.

  “Go! Go! Help her!” Lady Avelyere yelled to a pair of her students who lingered nearby. The young women—Diamone and Sha’qua Bin—glanced into the scrying pool, yelped, and rushed away.

  “No, no, no,” Lady Avelyere said to the child who could not hear her. She didn’t want it to end like this! There was something here with this young one, something magnificent and intriguing.

  And now it was ending before her very eyes. She scoured her brain, seeking some spell she might throw through the scrying pool—was it even possible?

  She heard a gasp from behind her and turned to look over her shoulder to see Rhyalle and Eerika, both wide-eyed and horrified. Eerika began to weep in sympathy.

  Lady Avelyere didn’t even want to turn back, for tearing her eyes from the horrifying scene had broken her fixation. There was nothing she could do, she told herself, and so too told herself not to watch the morbid, unfolding catastrophe.

  But she couldn’t resist, and bit her lip as she turned her gaze once more to the plummeting Ruqiah.

  She began to cast a dweomer of levitation. It was probably useless.

  But she had to try.

  She didn’t even feel as if she was falling anymore. It seemed as if she were standing in a strong wind, her arms out wide to catch as much of the breeze as she could.