“Dear Ruqiah, what is this fascination you have with flame?”
Catti-brie licked her lips, honestly considering the question, for in truth, she had wondered that herself. Of all the schools of arcane magic available to her in her training, she admittedly found herself most comfortable with, and most proficient with, those of evocation, shaping spells of explosive and deadly force. And of those many spells, she did indeed fancy those concerned with the element of fire—at least for her arcane studies. She already knew how to bring down a bolt of lightning, after all, and had been able to do that with lethal force since her earliest days. Indeed, ten years had passed since she had killed two Netherese agents with such a bolt from the cloudy heavens above.
Perhaps that was it, she pondered, though she would not tell Avelyere, of course, but deep inside, Catti-brie sensed that perhaps it was even something more. Her divinely inspired spells, which she still kept secret from Lady Avelyere and the others at the Coven, exercising her powers only on those occasions when she went to visit Niraj and Kavita, and even then, only in secluded places where she created gardens to honor Mielikki, allowed her formidable protection from the elements. In that advantage, she found fire especially appealing. She needn’t worry about unexpected blowback from a fireball with Mielikki’s protection wards glistening around her frame.
Besides, she found that she truly enjoyed the eruption of a fireball, the flash of warmth and brilliance back at her, the explosive and cleansing power. She smiled, even though it wasn’t an appropriate response to Lady Avelyere, for she was thinking of Bruenor, her adoptive father. In her true formative years, Catti-brie had been raised as a warrior, a woman of action who would not shy from, who would indeed charge into, battle. The power of a fireball enthralled her, for it wasn’t subtle and it wasn’t quiet. Not in nature, but in nurture, Catti-brie had more than a bit of the dwarf in her.
Lady Avelyere’s sigh brought her back to the present situation, to realize that the older woman was shaking her head in obvious disappointment.
“I had hoped for more sophistication from you, my young protégé,” she said. “You remain the youngest student I ever allowed into my guild, and my hopes were high indeed. But you waste your time with explosions and kicking dummies in the knee. Perhaps I should send you out to train with the town guard!”
That remark, obviously intended as an insult, sat quite well with Catti-brie. How she would love to hold a sword in her hand once more, or to let fly with Taulmaril, her magical bow from another life!
Lady Avelyere’s visage softened and she came forward a step, reaching out to run her hand through Catti-brie’s thick reddish-brown hair—hair that had grown more auburn, as in her previous life, as she had grown into adolescence. The great woman’s touch didn’t make Catti-brie recoil at all. She had come to trust Avelyere, after all.
“My power is knowledge,” Lady Avelyere explained. “And with the help of that knowledge, with coercion, I get what I want without the blasts of flame and lightning, you see? My way suits us in Shade Enclave, in the world in which you now live.”
The way Avelyere explained things, the tone of her voice in particular, informed Catti-brie that this was about more than her penchant for explosive spellcasting. Lady Avelyere—and the title bestowed upon her was certainly fitting—was more disappointed in Catti-brie’s lack of decorum and her willful ignorance of the etiquette of the social circles. Dignitaries often visited the Coven, after all, and Ruqiah had never impressed them. Amused them, perhaps, and brought more than a few deprecating chuckles from time to time, but never impressed. It was not the kind of life that Ruqiah, that Catti-brie, had either fancied or in which she had, even in her previous existence, thrived.
She thought of her first encounters with Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon—indeed, Lady Avelyere somewhat reminded her of Alustriel. Catti-brie had been so uncomfortable, had felt so diminished, beside that woman, whose social graces seemed so easily brought forth, shining ever brightly.
Again Catti-brie thought of Bruenor, and again she was comforted. Bruenor could hoist a tankard of ale with anyone, but put him in a room of fine wine glasses with the gentlemen of, say, Waterdeep, and … well, it was not a calm and gracious scene.
A comical scene, likely, but never gracious.
“You find my disappointment humorous?” Lady Avelyere asked.
“No, Lady, no,” Catti-brie blurted, and she meant it, of course. “It is only … you are so beautiful and so graceful. You float through ballrooms as easily as the shadows of dancers, and every head turns your way. Every woman is jealous of you and every man wants to possess you.”
She could tell immediately that her flattery had diffused any anger, and even though she was using the pretty words as a dodge against revealing her memories, she wasn’t lying.
“But I am no such swan,” she went on. “And so perhaps my choice in magic is more fitting to who I am. Your appearance and grace enhances your skills with the spells you describe, for few could resist your charms even without the magic you employ. But I am afraid that my own …” She paused and held up her hands, as if to let her appearance speak for itself. “My own graces and charm would hinder such a devotion to schools of coercion.”
Lady Avelyere, her hands on her hips, looked Catti-brie over from head to toe. “Well, you are a bit gangly, and no more shapely than a young boy, but you are barely a woman.” She reached out and grabbed at Catti-brie’s shirt and ruffled it a bit. “Indeed, I believe you will fill out nicely as you move into womanhood. And you are not ugly, though a bit, well, ruddy. Yet you hardly resemble the beastliness so common among those your heritage—in many lands, none would even think you Bedine.”
Catti-brie could only reply with a smile against that prejudiced viewpoint, for in her own estimation, Kavita was among the most beautiful women she had ever seen, in both lifetimes, with her smooth brown skin, impossibly thick and long and lustrous raven-black hair and those dark eyes that could pierce and even mock the soul of another with their implied depth.
“Thank you, gracious Lady,” she said, and dipped a polite curtsey.
“Go and practice your more subtle repertoire,” Lady Avelyere instructed. “None in our sisterhood has found need of a fireball in many years. I daresay that your impressive and explosive display shows me that you are already capable in this arena, in the unlikely case that such need befalls you.”
“Yes, Lady,” Catti-brie replied, and she started to bow, caught herself, and curtseyed again, then rushed away, glad to be done with that confrontation.
It occurred to her, though, that this would not be the last uncomfortable conversation she would have with Lady Avelyere, and thoughts of the trial that might come in a few years, when it was time for her to abandon Shade Enclave and the Coven, sent chills through her spine.
CHAPTER 16
DISMAYED GLORY
The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR) Citadel Felbarr
BRUENOR’S HEAVY EYELIDS EASED OPEN, LEAVING A FUZZY GRAYNESS WHERE before there had been only darkness. Gradually, painfully, the air around began to take shape, images coming into view in the low firelight, including two wide-eyed faces leaning in close, looking back at him intently.
Bruenor noted an older dwarf male and a younger female, both dressed as clerics. The names Parson and Mandarina hovered around his thoughts, just out of reach. The two continued to study him, their expressions shifting from surprise to concern to, finally, relief and joy.
“Blessed by Moradin,” said the woman, and she bent low and kissed young Reginald Roundshield on the cheek. “I’d thought we’d lost ye.”
The other dwarf nodded his agreement. “And she’s been with ye since yer fall,” he explained to the dizzy and dazed dwarf lying on the cot in Citadel Felbarr. “Ain’t left yer side for a moment, that one.”
“Arr Arr saved us all out there, don’t ye doubt,” said the woman—yes, it was Mandarina Dobberbright. “What a sorry and ungrateful friend meself’d be if I left
him with healing to be done!”
The other, Parson Glaive, nodded again. “Aye, but I thought ye’d be meetin’ yer father, me young friend.”
“Bangor?” the confused Bruenor whispered under his breath, his lips sticking together with dryness.
“Eh, what’s that then?” asked Parson Glaive, leaning forward.
Only then did Bruenor’s sensibilities begin to return to the present. He considered what the female cleric had called him, “Arr Arr,” and remembered then that he was not King Bruenor, son of Bangor, anymore.
At least, not yet.
That last thought bounced around in his head for a little while, slowly replaced by the returning details of the battle in the mountains, particularly those last few desperate moments when all had seemed lost in the shadow of a towering mountain giant.
“Been days,” Parson Glaive went on when no answer seemed forthcoming from the patient. “And Mandarina’s been at yer side the whole time, all the way back from the mountains.”
“The others?” Bruenor managed to whisper more audibly.
“Ye won the day,” Mandarina said, though it didn’t seem to Bruenor as if she was doing so in response to his question. “When that durned giant tumbled down, how the ground shook! And how them orcs turned tail and run away! Bwahaha, but ye should’ve seen ’em, I tell ye, fallin’ all over each other and screeching every step. And Ragged Dain, he weren’t about to let ’em go, but chased them a mile an’ more, choppin’ and kickin’ and bitin’ all the way!”
“Ognun Leatherbelt’s talked to King Emerus about ye,” Parson Glaive added. “Ye get yer rest, I tell ye, because ye’ve a party waitin’ in yer honor.”
Bruenor, still trying to sort out the fight—he remembered throwing his axe and charging the giant, but what he recalled most of all was the explosive pain in his gut—tried to prop himself up on his elbows.
He realized immediately that that was a bad idea.
Waves of agony laid him low, replaced only gradually by waves of nausea. He began to cough and choke, and Mandarina and Parson Glaive were quick to roll him to his side so that he could safely throw up.
He looked at the puddle on the side of his bed with shock and even fear, for more than a little blood was mixed in with the bile.
“It’s all right, boy,” Parson Glaive said as they settled him onto his back. “Better than it’s been. Not to worry.”
“Aye, we’ll have ye up and about in a tenday or two, but we’ll hold yer party off for a month, I’m thinkin’,” added Mandarina.
“Aye, a month at least afore this one can drink the toasts he’ll be getting!” Parson Glaive agreed with great zest and a wide smile. He looked down at Little Arr Arr and nodded, then produced a small vial, which he moved to his patient’s lips. “Ye drink it, boy,” he coaxed, tipping the sweet-tasting liquid in.
It did not make Bruenor gag—quite the opposite—it felt warm and soft and steadying. And as the magical potion went down, so too did Bruenor’s eyelids, the darkness taking him to a land of confusing and troubled dreams.
Bruenor was the last to arrive of the six battle group members who had gone scouting in the Rauvin Mountains, and to the loudest cheers of all—of all the others combined, those in attendance understood. For this was Reginald Roundshield’s moment of glory, with hundreds of Felbarr tankards hoisted high as Parson Glaive led him into the Hall of Ceremony, a grand and high, partly natural, partly carved cavern. On one wall loomed a giant hearth, a bonfire blazing within, lighting all the place with great waves of orange glow, and to the side of it, far enough to avoid the blast of heat from the conflagration, sat King Emerus Warcrown on a great throne on a raised dais.
A second throne had been placed beside his own, less ornate, perhaps, but no less high in position or stature. To this second chair, Parson Glaive led the hero of the evening, and when Bruenor went to respectfully bow to the king, he found that Emerus dipped first.
The king then stood and turned the hero around to face the community, who raised mugs in toast and voices in a great “Huzzah!”
And there in the front row of that crowd, her face wet with tears, stood Uween Roundshield, nodding and sniffling.
Bruenor knew the decorum and ignored it. He wasn’t quite sure why Uween’s face touched him so at that particular moment, but he could not resist the urge. He broke from King Emerus’s grasp and leaped from the dais and across the way to wrap Uween in a tremendous embrace.
“For your Da,” she whispered to him amidst the thunderous applause.
Bruenor shed a tear, the first for his dead father. And he hugged Uween all the more and for a long, long while, lifting her from the floor and swaying her back and forth gently.
When he finally broke and turned back for the dais, a dozen hands reached for him, to pat him on the shoulder, and one voice lifted above the others to draw his attention.
“Ye saved me sister,” said Mallabritches Fellhammer. Bruenor locked gazes with her. “She telled ye to leave her, but ye would no’.” The tough warrior aptly nicknamed Fury had more than a little moisture in her eyes as she solemnly nodded her gratitude and approval.
Back on the dais, King Emerus signaled for Bruenor to take his seat, then called for the testimonials. One by one, starting with Ognun Leatherbelt, the other five members of the Rauvin scouting group stepped up to stand before the king and the hero, and offered to the gathering stirring tales of the battle. And each of those tales outdid the previous—clearly, they had rehearsed the roles each would play in this historical retelling. Ognun set the stage, then Tannabritches told of the opening volley, and of Arr Arr’s great courage in saving her. Mandarina came next, to confirm that “Fist” would have died if Arr Arr had chosen differently.
Magnus Leatherbelt brought out the “oos” and “ahs” with his description of the arrival of the giant, and the great behemoth surely sounded even bigger in his retelling than it had loomed on the field that day!
Last came Ragged Dain, the old warrior. He looked Bruenor in the eye, to offer a nod of respect and a wink of salute.
And then, with the sobriety of a veteran who had fought a hundred battles, the temperance of a dwarf who had seen many enemies killed, and the grim resolve of a dwarf who had fully expected to die in the foothills of the Rauvins, Ragged Dain showed himself to be as fine a bard as he was a warrior. He had the crowd hushed for a long while, hanging on his every word, and when he finished with, “And so I’m tellin’ ye here and tellin’ ye true, if not for Little Arr Arr …”
His dramatic pause right there brought an audible gasp from the crowd. “Nah,” he corrected. “Ain’t no ‘little’ left in that one.”
This pause brought the most raucous cheers of all.
“If not for Reginald—son o’ one o’ me dearest friends, Moradin keep him drunk!—then know that not one of us’d be standing with ye tonight, and ye’d not know that orcs and a giant prowled just to the north o’ Felbarr’s gates!”
The room exploded as Ragged Dain walked over to Bruenor and presented him with a flagon of Gutbuster, as sure a passage into adulthood as any dwarf could offer a teenager. He took Bruenor’s arm and coaxed him out of the chair, leading him to the center of the stage.
With a wink at Uween and a nod to Ragged Dain, then to King Emerus, Bruenor drained the flagon.
Up came Emerus, and from a pouch he produced a grand golden medal, fashioned in the shape of a round shield, and hung it around Reginald’s neck with a fine mithral chain.
“Grant a wish!” Mallabritches Fellhammer cried from the crowd, and the chant was taken up all across the hall.
“Grant a wish!”
King Emerus wore a surprised expression, but it was feigned, Bruenor could tell. The king had expected this, as Bruenor surely would have in one of the similar feasts of honor he had presided over in Mithral Hall. And indeed, Bruenor had granted more than a few such “wishes.”
The most common request, of course, would be for a tub of beer, a flask of brandy
and the hand of a lovely lass for a dinner date, or a sturdy lad when a female was being so honored.
“Take the girl, Little Arr Arr!” someone yelled out from the back, and all started laughing at that.
“Ain’t so little if he takes the girl!” another cried.
“Fist!” yelled one.
“Fury!” argued another.
And so it went, with both Fellhammer lasses furiously blushing, and Bruenor wearing a little grin through it all.
“Might be the pair o’ them, if Fist ’n’ Fury’re meaning anything!” Ragged Dain shouted and the room exploded with laughter, King Emerus most of all.
Finally, Emerus quieted it all and put his arm around the hero. “Well there, Reginald,” he said. “It’s seemin’ that we’re all in agreement here. Ye’re deservin’ of a wish, be it a weapon or a suit o’ mithral or a tub o’ beer, as I can order. If it’s a girl yer wantin’ for a dance or a dinner, well, that’s for her to agree, course, and if it’s for the two o’ them Fellhammers, then I’m thinking their Da might have a word with ye.”
That brought more laughter, and even Bruenor joined in this time.
“But the wish is yers to ask and ourn to grant,” King Emerus proclaimed. “Ye name it. Moradin’s blessed ye and who’re ourselfs to argue?”
The smile left Bruenor’s face in the blink of an eye at that, replaced by a frozen expression as he tried to hide his grimace. Emerus’s words, “Moradin’s blessed ye,” bounced around in his head with the force of a giant-hurled boulder, assaulting his sensibilities, reminding him of the futility, the sad joke, that was the reality of Little Arr Arr.
A roiling anger twisted his belly and stabbed at his heart. Moradin’s blessed ye? It was all Bruenor could do to keep from cursing Moradin in front of all of them, then and there!
“Reginald?” King Emerus asked, and Bruenor only then realized that a long while had passed. He looked up from the king to the gathering, to Uween, then to Ragged Dain and Ognun and the others of the battle group, including Fist and Fury, standing side-by-side and smiling widely at him, their eyes sparkling with anticipation.
The Companions: The Sundering, Book I Page 22
