The Companions

by R. A. Salvatore

But the ground loomed ever nearer, by the heartbeat.

  The young girl began to recite a spell she had learned only a couple of tendays previously. Only because of that had Catti-brie dared to fly so high, for she was, of course, well aware that the magic of her shapechanging ability was a finite thing each day, and could leave her abruptly.

  She began to whisper. She fought the tug of the wind and reached into her small pouch, producing a feather.

  How Lady Avelyere’s eyes widened when the girl in the scrying pool suddenly slowed her descent, drifting down, floating down, so gently!

  “Mistress!” cried Eerika. “You saved her!”

  But Lady Avelyere knew that she had done no such thing. In her desperation, she had fumbled her spellcasting and had started over, and was no where near completing the levitation spell. In any case, she knew it wouldn’t have worked through a simple scrying device.

  Lady Avelyere’s thoughts whirled with possibilities—Diamone, one of the two students she had sent running, was quite proficient in the levitation spell. Indeed, Avelyere had tasked Diamone with cleaning the high windows of their keep in Shade Enclave for just that reason.

  Had Diamone gotten close enough and saved the girl?

  But Lady Avelyere could only shake her head as she considered the floating Ruqiah’s current position. Even if Diamone had been on the ground directly below her, Ruqiah would be long out of range of such a dweomer.

  There could be only one answer.

  “She cast the spell,” Lady Avelyere told the two behind her. “Our little Ruqiah has learned a new trick, apparently.”

  “More powerful than any arcane magic we have yet seen from her,” Rhyalle remarked.

  “But not more powerful than the druidic magic, surely,” Eerika countered. “Is there such a spell as that in a druid’s repertoire?”

  Not knowing the answer, Lady Avelyere quickly cast a detection spell aimed at the scrying pool, sensing the emanations around the floating child. “Arcane,” she announced.

  “We have watched her for many tendays,” Eerika said. “How could we have missed this ability, this level of arcane power? And to execute an intricate spell in the middle of such a fall!”

  “We haven’t witnessed it because it is new,” Lady Avelyere decided, and she turned and nodded to drive home the point to her two confused students. “Our little Ruqiah is being trained.”

  She was still several hundred feet above the ground, but now floating down, drifting on the winds as she sank gently, as if in deep water. She did a quick estimation of her height and her descent and came to the comforting conclusion that the spell’s duration would more than suffice to put her safely back to the ground.

  She had another spell on her lips to control her movement, but she changed her mind and shook her head. She didn’t want to be in control now.

  She wanted to fly, or to float at least, and let the wide winds take her where they may.

  Catti-brie noted the landmarks below her, and as the ground grew larger, she began to pick out movements here and there. She noted some wolves lying around in the sunlight, and some grazing deer far to the side.

  The wind was not so strong in her ears now in the gentle descent, but there wasn’t much to hear from this high perch. The absence of sound served to increase Catti-brie’s sense of freedom, and she came to see this wind-inspired ride, like the bird-flight before it, as a spiritual journey as much as a physical one. She could learn from the tickling wind. On the ground, the world seemed so static and firm, but up here, drifting and floating around on the gusts, it occurred to her that the world was ever in flux, ever in movement.

  She closed her eyes and let the sensations wash over her.

  Soon after, she touched down, and fell into a short trot. She looked back up at the brilliant sky and reflected on the feelings of freedom, of flight, of falling, of drifting on the breezes.

  This, then, was the beauty of her communion with Mielikki, she realized. Everything she experienced had the power to widen her vision, her thoughts, her possibilities.

  Truly, she felt blessed.

  Lady Avelyere was awakened from a nap a few days later by Rhyalle, with word that little Ruqiah was on the move.

  “Eerika, Diamone, and Sha’qua Bin have been dispatched to track her,” Rhyalle assured her.

  Still, Lady Avelyere was fast to her scrying pool, gathering more information from Rhyalle as she went. Soon enough, she had conjured up the image of the girl. Ruqiah, it seemed, was now a wolf, loping along in the general direction of the Desai encampment. Lady Avelyere nodded, not surprised.

  “She will go to look in on her tribe and her parents when night has fallen,” the diviner predicted, and she, Avelyere, would be there to watch. She had already inconspicuously visited the Desai several times, invisibly, and knew the layout of the camp and the location of Ruqiah’s parents.

  “How long shall we play this game, Mistress?” Rhyalle asked, and Avelyere turned to regard her curiously.

  “She is being trained,” Rhyalle explained. “She grows more powerful by the day, it seems. She will become harder to catch, and harder to control.”

  The words hit Lady Avelyere with the power of truth, and she found herself nodding in agreement.

  “And we grow weary of this brown plain,” Rhyalle admitted.

  “We?”

  “All of us,” said the student. “And yourself as well, I would guess?”

  Lady Avelyere found herself smiling at the accusation. She had not trained her students to be mindless pets, after all, cowed into telling her what they thought she would most like to hear. No, far from it. To join the Coven of Avelyere was to pronounce opinions without fear of retribution.

  And Lady Avelyere had to admit, in this instance, Rhyalle was right.

  “Go to her secret garden,” she instructed the younger woman. “Gather the rest of your peers, even those in pursuit of Ruqiah, and set the traps, as we discussed. It is time for us to bring little Ruqiah into our net. I have seen enough. We know her strengths and her weaknesses.”

  Rhyalle bowed and turned to the other two acolytes.

  Lady Avelyere went back to her scrying pool and watched the wolf’s progress. Soon enough, as the sun began to set, she saw through the pool the waving white and brown tents of the Desai.

  She dismissed the enchantment and prepared her next spell, a teleport, which put her very near to the Desai and very near to Ruqiah. A simple dweomer of invisibility, another to prevent magical detection, and into the camp walked the diviner, confident and quite pleased with herself.

  “What is it?” Rhyalle asked when Lady Avelyere joined her near the Desai child’s secret garden.

  Lady Avelyere shook her head and sighed. “Wizards, both,” she replied.

  “Both? Ruqiah and …?”

  “And both of her parents,” Lady Avelyere explained with a wide grin. She had watched Ruqiah in the tent with her parents. She had expected a quiet night of hugs and kisses, perhaps a comforting story or two. What she had seen instead was a training session in the magical arts as regimented and trying as anything she would inflict on her own, much older students. Ruqiah’s parents, particularly Kavita, the mother, had been instructing the child on “the glory of At’ar the Merciless, the Yellow Goddess, the bringer of light and fire.” Ruqiah could conjure a fan of flames with ease, and the power of her spell was substantial! Clearly this little child of only a few living years was on the verge of casting fireballs.

  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 m
erely 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, 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 offer 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 w
hat 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 didn’t ask. Parise eyed her slyly.

  “You know my title and my profession,” the diviner teased.

  The Netherese lord could only laugh at that. He trusted Avelyere—indeed, she knew much concerning his work with the ancient sonnet and with Draygo Quick in deciphering recent events.

  “Lord Draygo caught a curious drow some years ago,” Parise explained. “He is called Drizzt Do’Urden, and is rumored to be a favored child of Mielikki, and also rumored to be an unwitting Chosen of Lady Lolth.”

  “Quite a combination of admirers.”

  “Indeed,” Parise agreed with a laugh, and he took a sip of his liquor. “Lord Draygo lost his prisoner a couple of years ago, although after more than a year with that one residing as a … visitor, he had learned nothing of value, in any case.”

  “Perhaps our little Ruqiah is a better charm, then.”

  “What do we know of her?”

  “She can shapeshift—a gift of one of her two spellscars, I believe, and no small feat,” Lady Avelyere answered. “Only powerful druids can attain such levels of animal form.”

  Parise nodded.

  “She killed Untaris and Alpirs, as you suspected,” Avelyere added. “It was no random lightning bolt, but a directed and devastating strike by this child.”

  “The fools tried to murder her mother, so you said. How can I blame her for defending her family?”

  Lady Avelyere obviously found her forthcoming words stolen by the surprising response. She stammered and stared at her friend Parise.

  “Alpirs and Untaris were idiots, both of them,” the lord explained with a shrug.

  “And she saved her mother in that fight, with healing magic quite considerable.”