Archmage

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Just him,” Penelope said to Catti-brie, who looked back at her curiously. “You and I have so much to catch up on. Please remain.”

  “Of course,” Catti-brie said, and she gave Drizzt a kiss and sent him off. She had barely settled in a comfortable chair beside Penelope when they saw the drow thundering down the hillside on his magnificent white unicorn.

  “I’m honored that you and your army chose to come through Longsaddle on your march,” Penelope said. “I expect that you played no small role in that decision.”

  “It seemed a reasonable respite, and one much needed.”

  “And?”

  “You see right through me, lady,” Catti-brie said.

  “I know you well, Delly Curtie,” Penelope replied, using the woman’s old name, the one she had worn when first she had come to Longsaddle those few years before. “Or Ruqiah, perhaps?”

  Catti-brie laughed. “I do wish to spend some time in the libraries of the Ivy Mansion,” she admitted. “And to discuss some thoughts with the greatest of the Harpell wizards, yourself and Kipper, surely, who is so well versed in the matters of teleporting.”

  “You don’t think we can transport an army, I hope,” Penelope replied with a laugh.

  “No, no,” Catti-brie answered, laughing too. “But when Gauntlgrym is retaken, and I have no doubt that it will be … the dwarves have responsibilities in other lands.”

  “Ah,” Penelope purred, nodding as she figured it out. “You wish to magically connect Gauntlgrym to Mithral Hall with something akin to a permanent gateway.”

  “And to Adbar and Felbarr, perhaps Icewind Dale, and perhaps other Delzoun dwarf fortresses,” Catti-brie admitted. “How much more secure would my father’s people—”

  “Your father?”

  “Bruenor,” Catti-brie explained. “My adoptive father.”

  “In another life.”

  “In this one, as well.”

  Penelope spent a moment pondering that, then shrugged, and Catti-brie got the distinct impression that the carefree woman didn’t have a high opinion of that arrangement remaining intact, even through decades of the sleep of death and Mielikki’s magical reincarnation.

  “So you wish to facilitate a magical portal, through which the dwarves can trade, and can send armies whenever and wherever they are needed?”

  “It would be a boon.”

  “Or a curse,” said Penelope. “Even if I could facilitate such an impressive feat as that, you couldn’t easily close it down. If one dwarven fortress fell, your enemies would have an open doorway to the other citadels.”

  Catti-brie mulled that grim possibility for a while. She wanted to deny it, but Penelope had a strong point. If the drow of Menzoberranzan came back to Gauntlgrym and chased out Bruenor, would any of the other kingdoms be safe ever again?

  “Something to consider,” Penelope said. “So let us explore the possibilities together with Kipper in the coming days. If anyone here at the Ivy Mansion has any idea of how such a gate might be facilitated, it would be him, no doubt.”

  “I am not so sure …”

  “Wait until you see the possibilities before you douse the torch, my friend,” Penelope advised. “You will gain insight on your choices through this exploration.”

  “I do not expect that it will be an easy choice if the possibility exists.”

  “Perhaps we all have some difficult, though exciting decisions ahead of us,” Penelope said with a laugh, and she leaped from her chair and held out her hand to Catti-brie. “Come, my nose tells me that you need to bathe, and perhaps we can find, or magically weave, a proper gown for one of your beauty.”

  “Too kind!” Catti-brie agreed, for she wasn’t about to say no to a bath. They had been marching the dusty road through the heat of summer, and Penelope wasn’t the only one aware of Catti-brie’s fragrance! She took the woman’s hand and jumped up beside her, smiling widely. But behind that grin, Catti-brie was trying to make some sense of Penelope’s other curious statements regarding difficult and exciting decisions.

  DAY AFTER DAY dragged by, and Tiago grew frustrated, for Drizzt rarely left the Ivy Mansion, and when he did, it was only to travel the short distance to the dwarven encampment. Tiago certainly wasn’t going near to a house of human wizards, and the dwarves presented an equal challenge, for though tendays had passed, through the hottest days of summer, the camp was truly a fortress, with the bearded folk on full alert at all times. It was because of the werewolves. The creatures were everywhere, their howls ever-present in the night.

  The couple had found protection from the beasts in an abandoned home—likely a halfling house, for it was more below ground than above. The walls outside the hill that contained the bulk of the place were solid and well fortified. Tiago and Doum’wielle had not been bothered since that first day, though they had on several occasions found tracks near their windows.

  Doum’wielle enjoyed the respite, and the training time it afforded her with Khazid’hea. The sword understood Drizzt, and she was being trained specifically to fight him, she knew. She soon came to recognize that she had not been the first one the sentient Cutter had trained in this manner, and for the same purpose.

  “You have a vendetta against that particular dark elf,” she whispered to the sword one sunny afternoon. Tiago had remained inside the house, out of the uncomfortable sun, while Doum’wielle wanted to bask in the bright sunlight, well aware that she might not again know this sensation for many years, perhaps never again.

  I was once wielded by Catti-brie, the sword explained. She was not worthy.

  Doum’wielle digested the thoughts, not disagreeing, but still unable to make the connection, considering the sword’s obvious anger toward the drow ranger. This preparation and training, this plan Khazid’hea had formulated, wasn’t just about her, Doum’wielle had come to believe. There was something else here, something personal.

  But why would a sword care?

  He rejected you, she thought, and the sensation returned by Khazid’hea told her that she had indeed sorted out the riddle.

  “You wished Drizzt to wield you when Catti-brie could not properly do so,” she whispered.

  She felt the sword’s anger—not directed at her.

  Doum’wielle understood clearly then that she had just confirmed that she was not the first the sentient blade had trained specifically to kill Drizzt Do’Urden. She was about to inquire of that when a noise to the side, along with a warning from Khazid’hea, put her on her guard. She backstepped to the house’s door, expecting a group of werewolves, or perhaps a dwarf patrol, to leap out upon her.

  But it was not a werewolf that came forth, nor a dwarf, but a drow, and one Doum’wielle did not recognize.

  “Well met, Little Doe,” he said, but then put his hand to his lips and gasped. “Pardon, Doum’wielle Armgo,” he corrected with a low and respectful bow. “Or should I call you Doum’wielle Do’Urden now?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am of Bregan D’aerthe,” the drow answered.

  “The mercenary band?”

  “Who serve at the pleasure of Matron Mother Baenre,” the drow clarified. “Like your partner, I am Baenre. Beniago, at your service.”

  Doum’wielle thought she had heard the name before, but she couldn’t be sure.

  “I am here at the command of the matron mother, and of Archmage Gromph,” Beniago went on. “They tasked Bregan D’aerthe with finding you—well, to be honest, with finding Tiago, who is a noble son of House Baenre. But we expected that you would not be far from his side.”

  “You have come to bring us back to Menzoberranzan?”

  “No. Not immediately, at least. I know nothing of that. I was tasked with finding you and delivering to you a gift from the archmage.”

  He began to approach, and held up his hands as if he were holding something, a cape or a cord, perhaps, though Doum’wielle could see nothing. She shied back a step or two.

  He is no enemy, Khazid’hea imparted
to her and she let Beniago catch up to her, and only flinched a bit as his hands went up high. He moved them out over her head, as if he were placing a crown, or perhaps a necklace upon her, and indeed as he brought his hands down, Doum’wielle felt the weight of a heavy chain.

  “Wh-what …?” she stammered, falling back and reaching up, and indeed feeling a chain around her neck, as thick as a finger, and with a circular pendant hanging low between her breasts.

  “With that around your neck, Archmage Gromph can know your place,” Beniago explained.

  “Know my place?”

  “The matron mother will send him to retrieve you and Tiago when she so chooses,” Beniago bluntly replied. “She is not one to forgive tardiness.”

  Despite the warning, this whole scenario seemed an invasion to Doum’wielle, and she reflexively went to remove the invisible necklace.

  “Do not,” Beniago warned, the tone of his voice changing dramatically. “You are instructed to wear it, and to say nothing of it to Tiago, and nothing of this visit at all. To Tiago or anyone else.”

  At the mention of Tiago, Doum’wielle glanced back at the house, where all was quiet.

  “Nothing,” Beniago warned her again.

  Doum’wielle was about to protest, but Beniago cut her short, and stole any argument she might have offered, by saying, “On penalty of …” He paused and smiled. “You can well imagine. The Archmage of Menzoberranzan is already aware of your location, bastard darthiir of House Do’Urden. Gromph Baenre is already aware that you wear the necklace. And he will know if you try to remove it.”

  Doum’wielle understood then that this wasn’t a request. It was a command, and one that carried great and deadly consequence if it was not followed. She looked down and cupped the pendant in her hand, trying to make out some slight reflection of the thing. But it was perfectly invisible.

  Doum’wielle looked back up, but Beniago was already gone.

  She turned back to the house and considered Tiago.

  He cannot protect you from the wrath of Archmage Gromph, Khazid’hea said in her thoughts, and if the sword had been reading her mind, it would have known that she understood that truth very, very well.

  They have likely been searching for Tiago since he fell from the wyrm, Khazid’hea explained.

  Then he should wear the necklace.

  You would tell that to Archmage Gromph?

  The necklace seemed heavier to Little Doe, then, and its chain, a shackle.

  “WELL, WHERE WOULD you like to go?” Kipper asked.

  “I know not,” a flustered and somewhat nervous Catti-brie answered. Old Kipper had just taught her the basics of a spell she feared, one that she wanted to spend some more time studying, and here he was prodding her to give it a try!

  “Just think of a place, girl!” Kipper scolded. “Imagine a place of safety and security, a place where you could hide and feel as if nothing in the world could harm you.”

  Catti-brie looked at him curiously.

  “Best for a teleport,” Kipper explained. “For there, in your most secure hearth and home, is a place you know best. Every corner, every finger of it is locked into your mind’s eye so perfectly that you won’t miss with your spell. And so you can trust that you’ll never appear too high up in the air and take a nasty fall, or, shudder to say it, magically appear too low, in the midst of stone and dirt!” He paused and scrutinized her carefully. “Mithral Hall, perhaps?”

  But Catti-brie’s thoughts, spurred by Kipper’s description were not, to her surprise, recalling a place anywhere near Mithral Hall. No, she pictured a place she had cultivated, a place of Mielikki. She had known violence in that place, and had once been discovered there, and yet, to her, the secret garden she had cultivated as the child Ruqiah seemed to her the place of her spirit’s warmest rest.

  She saw it now, so clearly that she felt as if she could touch it.

  She began reciting the spell, though she was hardly aware of the words spilling forth.

  She could smell the flowers, she could touch them.

  Indeed, she was touching them before she even realized that she had successfully cast the spell, and was then standing in the secret garden in the lands that had been Netheril—and indeed, still might be, for Catti-brie had not been there in several years, and on that occasion had only passed through.

  She stood there for a long while, remembering Niraj and Kavita and the Desai tribe. She hoped they were well, and vowed to find them again when she was done with Bruenor’s war.

  She glanced back at the narrow entrance to the place, through the shielding stones, and thought of Lady Avelyere, who had called to her from that very entrance, angry that her student had so deceived her. Catti-brie smiled, for that was not really a bad memory, though surely she had been startled and afraid when powerful Avelyere had caught her.

  But soon after, because of that confrontation, she had come to know that the woman truly cared for her. She nodded, and hoped that Avelyere, too, was well, and thought that she should visit the Coven, Avelyere’s school of sorcery, if it could be safely arranged.

  Catti-brie remembered that Kipper had placed a contingency spell upon her, one that would return her to the Ivy Mansion in a short while. She let go of external memories and focused instead on the warmth of the place as she made her way through the flowers to the cypress tree shading the far end of the garden. She moved beneath it, under the glare of the Netherese sun, and gently ran her fingers along the light gray bark, tracing the silvery lines that coursed it like veins.

  She closed her eyes and remembered the magic she had brought to this place to cultivate it, until it was able to stand on its own—and indeed, it had. She slid the right sleeve of her black robe and the colorful blouse beneath up enough to reveal her divine spellscar, shaped like the head of a unicorn. In this place Catti-brie had truly come to understand her relationship with Mielikki. In this place, she felt whole and warm.

  She felt the first tugs of Kipper’s spell of return then, and sighed, opening her eyes and scanning the tree so that she could burn its every twist and turn into her memory forevermore.

  That’s when she noted something very curious.

  There was one branch that was not leafy, and seemed like an aberration, a stub. It was as thick around as her wrist, but only extended a few feet from the trunk before rounding off in an abrupt ending. She reached up to touch it, wondering if it had been broken by a strike of lightning, perhaps, or by some animal.

  It came free and fell, and she barely managed to catch it before Kipper’s spell caught her.

  The look of surprise on Catti-brie’s face was genuine when she found herself back in Kipper’s private library at the Ivy Mansion, the branch in hand.

  “Well now, what have you found?” she heard Kipper asking before she properly reoriented herself.

  She wanted to answer “a branch,” but as she continued to touch the silvery-gray bark, she realized that answer to be a woefully inadequate.

  This wasn’t just a branch from the cypress tree, she realized, but a gift from the tree—from Mielikki? She clasped it in both hands, like a staff, and brought it closer, and noticed then that the bluish mist of her spellscar was swirling around her forearm, and extending to swirl about the staff, as well.

  Catti-brie looked at Kipper and shook her head, at a loss to explain.

  Kipper wasn’t waiting for an explanation anyway. He was already casting a spell to magically examine the staff. He nodded and opened his eyes some time later.

  “A fine item to focus your energies,” he said. “I’ve always said that a wizard should never be without a staff! A young wizard, at least, so that when she errs badly, she can at least knock those laughing at her over the head.”

  He held out his hand and motioned for the item, and Catti-brie, though she didn’t really want to surrender it, handed it to him.

  Kipper put it through some movements—sidelong as if in a block, then in one outstretched hand, as if he was loosing a
mighty blast of power. He nodded again. Muttering “well-balanced,” he examined the head of the item, which was a bit bulbous and also slightly concave.

  Kipper laughed and brought his free hand to his lips, glancing all about. He rushed to his desk, fumbled with some keys, and finally opened a drawer.

  “A lock?” Catti-brie asked dryly. “A bit mundane, don’t you think?”

  Kipper laughed again and bent low, rummaging through the cluttered drawer. He came back up holding a large blue gemstone, a sapphire. He brought it to the tip of the staff, settling it into the concave end, nodding. “I can have it properly set,” he said, as much to himself as to Catti-brie.

  “What is it?”

  “It holds spells for you,” he replied. “Oh, but it has a lot to offer! I spent many years crafting this one, I did!” He tossed it to Catti-brie.

  She caught it easily and held it up in front of her sparkling eyes—sparkling because she could feel the sapphire teeming with energy. It had enchantments upon it, she knew immediately, bringing many spells into her thoughts with only that cursory examination.

  “Well, to be fair, I didn’t create the orb,” Kipper admitted. “It was more in the way of repairing it.”

  “Repairing what?”

  “A staff,” he replied. “One that I took from a wizard after defeating her in a duel, and breaking her staff in the process. Finest lightning bolt I ever threw, I tell you!” He chuckled and nodded, enjoying the memory, apparently. “It’s an item of the old magic, before the Spellplague, before the Time of Troubles, even. I’d thought to make it anew, and indeed, even during the Spellplague I managed to repair the orb. But then I never finished, like so much of my life’s work. Maybe I just never found a staff suitable for it.”

  “It sounds like you have great respect for the item this wizard held.”

  “She was no match for me except for that staff, oh no!” Kipper declared. He looked at Catti-brie more closely. “That blouse you wear, it, too, is from the old times.”