The Companions

by R. A. Salvatore

  “From the hair on his head to the hair on his feet,” she replied. “His teeth, as well,” she added before Pericolo could. “And I used your wand upon him, twice, to detect any items or dweomers. There is no magic around him.”

  “As I expected.”

  “Then how might he dive so deep and so long?” Wigglefingers asked.

  “His mother’s blood,” said Pericolo. “Her family has a bit of the genasi in them, several generations back, so say the rumors. Apparently, Jolee Parrafin was an equally impressive diver, although she never gained enough notice outside of her small group for anyone to properly exploit her talents, or to properly reward her.”

  “Genasi?” Wigglefingers said with a gasp. He thought about it for a few moments, then burst out laughing. “Planetouched offspring of human and djinn, and now playing the eight-limbed beast with a halfling? Ha, but that’s grand!”

  “And profitable,” said Donnola, and the clever pickpocket rolled her fingers around again and produced, again seemingly out of nowhere, another perfect pink pearl, of the type Pericolo’s people knew how to coax from the deepwater oysters. Pink and perfect and, because so few could get to them, quite rare. And rarer still, because Pericolo’s group alone understood the true value of these particular oysters. They harvested pink pearls, while others slobbily ate the creatures!

  “Let me know when he wakes up,” the Grandfather instructed Donnola. “Obviously our little guest is in need of a good lesson or ten.”

  He looked to Wigglefingers. “You have a pair of fine pearls to prepare, I do believe,” he said, and the mage seemed all too happy to comply, bowing and springing back lightly, then rushing to his work.

  “This new recruit will prove to be a difficult project,” Pericolo warned Donnola when they were alone. “Headstrong and angry, I fear. I came upon him when he was taunting a group of far-older children—seeking a fight he could not win. Alas, his mother died giving birth to him.”

  “And his father is a drunkard,” Donnola remarked. “Perhaps he has a reason for his anger.”

  “Oh, indeed. And that, my dear granddaughter is the first thing we must coax out of him.”

  Donnola rocked back on her heels and took a good long gander at Pericolo. “So you think there is more value about him than just a deep diver,” she stated flatly.

  “He is full of talents,” Pericolo admitted. “He earns the name Spider as surely as a moniker of ‘Dolphin’ would fit. And of those boys he taunted … well, let’s just say that the ringleader of those bullies still walks a bit awkwardly, and though he has grown from boy to man, his voice, of late, has reverted to a childlike pitch …”

  Regis’s eyes popped open, and he frantically slapped at his arms and torso, trying desperately to put out the biting flames. He stopped abruptly, though not even realizing that there were no flames and no burns, and instead grabbed his head on either side, groaning loudly and closing his eyes very tight.

  “Yes, it is not unlike the morning after a night of very heavy drinking,” he heard, and he slowly opened his eyes, squinting against the pain. He glanced to the side of his bed, to see a fabulously dressed, meticulously groomed older halfling relaxing in a comfortable chair. Regis knew this one, of course, and was not surprised.

  “It will pass quickly.” Pericolo reached to a night table beside his chair and handed Regis a cup of water.

  Regis just stared at him, not releasing his head, not reaching for the water. He did glance down at his bare arms, his expression one of puzzlement.

  “Do not berate yourself too unkindly,” Pericolo said. “My wizard friend has spent years perfecting that fiery illusion—and that of the dogs, as well. The explosion would fool a seasoned assassin, let alone a mere child, and with the added benefit of the magical winds he imbued upon the door, how could you guess the dogs to be an illusion?”

  Regis gradually released his grip on his throbbing head and accepted the cup from the Grandfather—the Grandfather of Assassins, he reminded himself, well aware of the implications of such a title, given his previous life in the murder-ridden city of Calimport. He looked at the clear liquid suspiciously, but then realized that if Pericolo Topolino had wanted him dead, he would already be dead.

  He emptied the cup in one gulp.

  “I was quite surprised, though pleasantly so do not doubt, that you would be so bold as to try to rob me,” Pericolo said. “Saves me the trouble of hunting you down, for you are a difficult one to find. Although I admit that I am confused as to why the sudden good fortunes of your family, at my purse, would bring you to such treachery.”

  “Good fortunes?”

  “You lived in a lean-to of rotting wood. Your father haunted the alleyways behind taverns to find discarded scraps of food. Now you have the comfort of a reputable inn to call home, and all the food you can eat.”

  “And all the liquor Eiverbreen Parrafin can drink,” Regis added solemnly, staring hard at the Grandfather.

  “Well, that is his choice, of course.”

  “Your generosity will kill him.”

  Pericolo sat up straighter, a clear tell to Regis. The Grandfather knew the truth of his generosity and had been caught off his guard that this mere child understood that truth.

  “I’m not in the habit of telling others how to live their lives,” Pericolo said.

  “Aren’t you, then? It is said that Grandfather Pericolo controls the docks of Delthuntle.”

  Another surprised look came from Pericolo, and he slowly nodded … perhaps, Regis thought, in congratulations.

  “My father was not unlike your own,” the Grandfather said, and it was Regis’s turn to wear a surprised look, both at the revelation and the tone of sympathy. He silently warned himself to stay on his guard, for Pericolo Topolino was certainly bound to be a master of deception, given his station.

  But surely Pericolo seemed sincere as he continued, “I was more fortunate than you, my little Spider, for I did not lose my mother so young.”

  “I never knew her.”

  “I know,” Pericolo said. “Which makes your ascent all the more impressive. Your work is outstanding, and truly a boon to your family.”

  They had walked a rhetorical circle, right back where they had started. Regis let his expression show that he did not much care for that.

  “I watched you that day long ago when you taunted the older boys,” Pericolo said, catching him off his guard. “The glue on the whistle! Oh, but that was a grand and clever trick!”

  “Truly I feel as if I have been spied upon,” Regis answered with dripping sarcasm.

  “But you have, Spider!”

  Regis reflexively began to correct the Grandfather regarding his name, almost blurting out his true name. Almost, but he stopped short, and not for any fear. Spider, he thought, and found that he more than accepted that particular moniker.

  “What is it?” Pericolo asked, and Regis shook his head. “Your name is not Spider, then?” the too-perceptive Grandfather asked. “I have heard no other. Eiverbreen did not say …”

  “Perhaps he doesn’t know.”

  Pericolo looked at him curiously.

  “If he did not care to give me a name, it is my right to choose my own, yes?” Pericolo laughed heartily. “Granted!” he said. “So choose!”

  “Spider,” Regis replied with a wry grin and not the slightest hesitation. “Spider Parrafin.”

  “You do me honor,” said Pericolo, and he stood up and bowed. “Indeed, I do like the name for you, given how easily you scaled the side of my house.” Regis considered it some more, but found himself nodding, fully accepting it. “Very well then, Spider it is, as we move forward.”

  Regis nodded again as Pericolo sat back down, before a puzzled expression crossed his cherubic young face. “Move forward?” he echoed tentatively. “Of course.”

  “You mean when you turn me over to the city guard, or when you read the judgment over me.”

  “Hardly,” Pericolo said with another hearty laugh. �
�Judgment? Why, Spider, I have long judged you quite worthy! You may number me among your admirers.”

  “I broke into your house, and perhaps not merely to steal—”

  “Loyalty to your father!” Pericolo exclaimed. “Another commendable trait, though I hope you come to accept that Eiverbreen’s choices are Eiverbreen’s to make, and not Pericolo Topolino’s.”

  “You are killing him,” Regis said grimly. “He is senseless most of the day, full of booze and choking on his own vomit.”

  “I am merely fulfilling my end of our bargain. In exchange for the oysters you fish.”

  “Then you will get no more oysters from me.”

  “You would go back to the rotting lean-to?”

  “Yes,” Regis answered without the slightest hesitation. The easy path didn’t seem so alluring to Regis if it meant such distress for Eiverbreen.

  “Well then, what would you ask of me?” Pericolo asked, seeming genuine. “I agreed to compensate Eiverbreen in return for the oysters.”

  “Bring him here,” Regis said.

  “That cannot be,” Pericolo replied, and Regis began shaking his head.

  “But perhaps …,” the Grandfather went on, pausing and tapping his finger against his lips. “There are houses farther from the taverns that I might appropriate for him.”

  “That would be a start.”

  “I cannot forbid him from his vice,” Pericolo explained. “That is not my business.”

  “Then I cannot dive.”

  The Grandfather laughed. “Well, perhaps I can dissuade the local tavernkeepers from doing business with Eiverbreen. That is the most I can promise. Are we agreed?”

  Regis stared at him for a long while before finally nodding his agreement. “And what of Spider?” Pericolo asked. “What do you wish for your efforts? You are doing all of the work, after all.”

  “Take care of my father.”

  “Oh come now, there must be more. That is already agreed. But what for Spider?”

  Regis didn’t quite know how to answer. He could think of many rewards off the top of his head. He had been the champion of luxury in his previous life, after all, and Pericolo’s lifestyle afforded such things in abundance.

  “I look at you and I see myself,” Pericolo said before Regis could formulate any requests. “Such potential! And more than from your extraordinary ability in the water. I rather admire your courage, and your skill is without question.”

  Regis shrugged and worked hard to prevent Pericolo from seeing the inner smile that beamed through him. “You have something in mind.”

  Pericolo laughed again. “And your perception!” he said. “So let us change the bargain, you and I. I will open my pockets deeper and purchase for Eiverbreen a home of his own, and will open them wider for you, and purchase the cooperation of the tavernkeepers in limiting, nay denying, Eiverbreen the drink he so craves. And in exchange, you work for me.”

  “I already do.”

  “Not just diving for oysters,” Pericolo clarified. “You come and join in my … organization. There is much you should learn, and much I can teach you.”

  “Like?” Regis prompted.

  Pericolo stood, and turned just a bit to better display the amazing jewel-studded basket of the fabulous rapier that hung easily on his left hip. “How to fight,” he said. “And how to get that which you desire without fighting—that is the more important skill.”

  The jarring offer reminded Regis of his true purpose in coming back to live once more upon the sands of Faerûn, and of the resolve that had brought him here. He had spent the majority of his spare moments from the instant of his rebirth trying to prepare himself, and now it was all he could do not to openly lick his lips at the Grandfather’s offer.

  “Good,” Pericolo remarked, for Regis wasn’t that skilled at hiding his feelings, obviously. “But I do demand one more thing of you—two, actually.”

  Regis nodded.

  “First, your loyalty. I warn you only once that if you betray me, if you steal from me, your end will not be pleasant.” Regis swallowed hard and nodded.

  “And second, I will call you Spider hereafter, and you cannot choose to change it—for me at least! I rather like that name.”

  On the surface, it seemed quite a silly thing to Regis, but as he thought about it, as he remembered his time working for the pashas of Calimport, he understood the seemingly odd request. Pericolo was asking about controlling more than Regis’s name: he was asking to control Regis’s identity.

  So be it, the young halfling decided. He looked at Pericolo’s rapier once more and considered what he might learn from this accomplished halfling. This was the solution to achieving his purpose in stepping forth from Iruladoon, held before him within his grasp.

  He nodded, smiled, and asked, “And I am to call you Grandfather?”

  “I would quite like that, yes.”

  “Only ten,” Wigglefingers explained to Regis a few days later, when the youngster was ready to dive once more. The mage had escorted him to a private wharf and a private boat, which Wigglefingers captained out from Delthuntle and to a remote location, guiding Regis as he rowed. All the way, the halfling mage kept casting spells, peering intently at the water as he finished, and often correcting Regis’s course.

  Clairvoyance, Regis understood. Wigglefingers was hunting for oysters with his magical sight.

  Finally the mage signaled for Regis to put up the oars, and sat nodding as he unrolled a long elven cord that was secured to a metal eyelet on the craft. He tied the other end to a small harness, and handed it to Regis.

  “Only ten,” he reiterated as Regis strapped the harness around his torso. He noted then that a small vial hung on one side of the vest, secured with a slipknot.

  “Ten?”

  “Ten oysters, no more. We’ll not fish them out, and ten is enough.” Regis looked at him curiously. “Then we move on to another spot?”

  “Then we go home,” the mage corrected.

  Regis’s expression became incredulous. He normally returned to Delthuntle with more than twice that number, sometimes several times that number, in his considerable pouches.

  “Ten is enough to fit our needs,” Wigglefingers explained.

  “I could eat ten myself!”

  “Eat?” Wigglefingers laughed. “Nay, on days when we intend to eat them, we’ll get more, but these are not for eating.”

  Regis started to question the mage on that one, but Wigglefingers held up a hand to silence him. The mage began to cast a spell then, and Regis felt the soothing magical energy fall over him. Another spell quickly followed.

  “You will swim faster and your breath will hold for longer now,” the mage explained. “If you find that you have tarried too long down deep, do not panic, as that potion on your vest will also imbue water breathing, if necessary. If necessary, I say, and try not to make it so! Such potions are not made cheaply or quickly.”

  “We are far out,” Regis noted, glancing back toward the distant shore.

  “To keep away those who might try to steal our catch, of course. The Sea of Fallen Stars has no shortage of pirates.”

  “Or killer fish,” said Regis. “I usually stay near to the reefs …”

  Wigglefingers grasped him by the shoulders and moved him toward the edge of the boat. “I am watching. Be quick, then. Only ten.”

  Before Regis could respond, the mage shoved him overboard.

  He returned in short order, ten oysters in his belt pouch, and though he was tired from the deeper-than-normal dive, Wigglefingers put him right back to the oars and started them for home.

  “When we return, I will teach you to be more discerning in your choice of oysters,” Wigglefingers said, examining the catch and sighing often. “Yes, you have much to learn, much to learn.”

  Regis kept rowing and said no more. He had stepped into it deeply, he knew then; his position with Grandfather Pericolo was not to be without serious responsibilities, so it then seemed.

&nb
sp; So it went that Regis found his days quite structured over the coming months. Each morning, he was taken to the boat beside Wigglefingers, who, he came to learn, was quite adroit at clairvoyance and used the skill to position them far from shore, always over beds rich with oysters.

  Their return had him doing the bidding of the mage for the rest of each morning, and there he learned the truth of the oysters Pericolo desired. The Grandfather wasn’t selling them as exotic food delicacies, for these particular deepwater shellfish had the highest rate of producing pearls, beautiful pink pearls that Wigglefingers knew how to entice from them.

  That first day back with the catch, Regis was taken to one of the mage’s private laboratories, where watery tanks lined several tables. Another table sported a complete alchemy lab, it seemed.

  Wigglefingers taught Regis to gently cut a slit in the mantle tissue of the oysters, and to then gather a small dropper and smoothly add in the potion of irritant. As the days moved along, he even taught Regis how to brew the irritant, and then began to instruct him in many other aspects of alchemy.

  What had seemed a chore each morning, other than the diving, which he loved, quickly became an entirely new and important talent for the youngster to perfect.

  When the sun reached its zenith each midday, Regis was handed off from Wigglefingers to Donnola, to become her personal page and attendant. So began his training with weapons, and Donnola was quite the swordswoman! And devilishly clever with a knife, too.

  “Fighting is about your balance and your position,” she told him early on in their sessions.

  Regis nodded, allowing himself to become a sponge for all that she had to say, although, having lived and traveled beside one of the finest finesse warriors of the Realms for most of his previous life, he realized that he would find much of her philosophical lessons redundant. He listened to them anyway, carefully cataloguing Donnola’s insights alongside his own experiences.

  There was no small amount of drudgery involved in the lessons. Every day, Regis had to stand against a doorjamb for a long, long while, merely thrusting his rapier into the wood before him, into the other side of the doorway. The wood at his back forced him to hold his posture perfectly upright. Again and again, a thousand times a thousand times, month after month and into the passage of years, he would thrust that rapier.