T
he wagon bounced along the west road, the coffin, tied down as it was, still managing to grumble and bang—so much like the battlerager it carried. They had collected Thibbledorf Pwent for his final journey.
Penelope Harpell and Catti-brie drove the wagon, with Drizzt astride his magical unicorn, Andahar, close beside them. They were bound for Gauntlgrym, after four tendays spent in Longsaddle, where they had dropped old Kipper and the other Harpells who had helped King Bruenor retake and secure the dwarven homeland. They could have used some sort of a teleport to bring the battlerager’s body home to Gauntlgrym, but the winter of the Year of the Rune Lords Triumphant, or 1487 by Dalereckoning, had broken early and so they had decided to take an easy ride instead. Besides, big changes were afoot in the North, so it was said, with upheavals in Waterdeep and grumblings that Lord Neverember had angered more than King Bruenor with his blustery ways.
“I miss him,” Catti-brie said to Penelope on the second morning out from Longsaddle. Drizzt had urged his unicorn ahead to scout, leaving the two women alone. The auburn-haired woman glanced back over her shoulder and cast a wistful grin. “I did not know him much in the latter days of his life. I saw him not at all, alive at least, in these years of my rebirth. And still, I cannot but feel a sense of loss with him back there in that box.”
“Never a more loyal friend than Thibbledorf Pwent, so claims King Bruenor,” Penelope replied, and she put a comforting hand on Cattibrie’s forearm.
“So he truthfully claims,” said Catti-brie. “Pwent would have caught a ballista spear flying for any of us. His life was to serve.”
“A good life, then, if after all these years you still feel the pang of loss at his passing.”
“I do.” She gave a helpless little chuckle. “It is a strange thing of this second life I know. Many of those dearest to me are here again. My beloved husband, the Companions of the Hall, but still there are times when I feel out of place, as if the world I knew has been left behind and this new world is meant not for me, but for those who have yet to write their tales.”
“You are half my age,” Penelope reminded her. “There is a large book in front of you, dear Catti-brie, and one with half the pages yet blank.”
Catti-brie laughed again and nodded. “It just feels strange sometimes, out of place.”
“I understand.”
“What does?” Drizzt asked, riding back to join them.
“The world,” said Penelope.
“Particularly you,” Catti-brie teased.
“It would seem as if I have missed a profound discussion,” Drizzt said, falling into line beside the wagon. “One worthy of repeating?”
“Not really,” Catti-brie said. “Just the lament of a silly young woman.”
“Bah, but you’re not so young,” Drizzt teased, and Catti-brie shot him a phony glare.
“We were discussing the books we write of our lives,” Penelope explained. “It would seem that Catti-brie has a few chapters to add.”
Drizzt nodded. “I understand,” he said, and he did indeed. “We have just climbed a great mountain in reclaiming Gauntlgrym. The scope of that achievement remains hard to fathom. Perhaps now is the time to let out our breath and to wonder what the next great adventure might be.”
Catti-brie and Penelope exchanged a glance then, tipping the drow off.
“So you are plotting your course,” Drizzt said.
“We know what we must do,” Penelope said seriously.
“The Hosttower?”
“It must be rebuilt, or Gauntlgrym will prove a short-lived victory,” said Catti-brie. “There is no doubt that without the power of the ancient magic delivering the water elementals to the prison, the fiery primordial will soon enough break free. The resulting eruption will ruin Bruenor’s kingdom . . . and what else? Will Neverwinter again be buried under a mountain of ash? Waterdeep, perhaps?”
“You know this?”
“I know this.” Catti-brie held up her hand to display the Ring of Elemental Command that Drizzt had taken from the body of the drow wizard, Brack’thal Xorlarrin, and given to her.
“How long do we have?”
“A decade?” She didn’t seem very certain.
“And how long to rebuild the Hosttower of the Arcane?” Drizzt asked. “Can you even hope to accomplish such a task? Is the magic still understood? Do the spells remain to access? It was built many ages ago, by all that I have heard, and we have since passed the Time of Troubles, the Spellplague, the return of Abeir . . .”
“I do not know,” Catti-brie bluntly admitted.
“We cannot know until we begin,” Penelope added. “But all of the Ivy Mansion will join in as we can. We will open our library and cast our spells as needed.”
“We cannot know the course until the first stones are reassembled,” Catti-brie agreed.
“You cannot know that you will know the course even then,” said Drizzt, and the women had no rebuke for that logic. They were in wholly unexplored territory here, dealing with magic that the world had not seen in millennia.
“We will find assistance from many quarters,” Penelope replied. “Your friend Jarlaxle controls the city, and he understands the urgent need for this. He believes, too, that rebuilding the Hosttower will serve his own needs.”
“The Harpells will ally with Bregan D’aerthe?”
“Jarlaxle allied with Bruenor,” Catti-brie reminded him.
Drizzt started to reply, but bit it back and just heaved a confused sigh instead. What else might be said of Jarlaxle other than a confused sigh, after all? Once again, Jarlaxle had saved Drizzt’s life when Doum’wielle, wielding Khazid’hea, had mortally wounded him. Surely the level of Jarlaxle’s involvement in securing the Forge and the lower levels of Gauntlgrym went well beyond what the friends had witnessed, and could not be understated. Jarlaxle had convinced House Xorlarrin that to wage war against Bruenor’s legions would not serve them well, and had he not done so, how many dwarves would have gone to their graves under the barrage of Xorlarrin magic?
“I expect that Jarlaxle will provide great insight,” Drizzt had to admit. “He has contacts across Faerûn and beyond. He consorts with dragons! Likely, he will prove to be your greatest resource in this journey.”
Again the two women exchanged a look, and Drizzt stared at them curiously.
“He will be valuable, but more so will be the Archmage Gromph Baenre, I expect,” said Catti-brie.
Drizzt felt as if he would simply slide off Andahar’s side and crumble to the ground. “Gromph Baenre?” he mouthed in reply.
“He has lived more than eight centuries and has ready access to, and intimate knowledge of, spells that were long forgotten before the Time of Troubles even. Is there anyone in the Realms, save perhaps Elminster himself, wherever he might be, more prepared for such a task as this?”
“He is Baenre,” Drizzt said evenly, as if that should be enough—and normally, it most certainly would be.
“He is indebted to Jarlaxle, and cannot return to Menzoberranzan. Or so said Jarlaxle, though I know not why.”
Drizzt had heard as much. He tried to focus on those truths and set aside his deeper fears—fears of House Baenre that every dark elf who was not Baenre had judiciously whipped into him from his earliest days.
“You really intend to pursue this?” he asked at length.
“I have no choice.”
“You have every choice!” Drizzt insisted. “This is a Baenre, and a wizard beyond the power of all but a very few. Elminster himself would deal carefully with the likes of Archmage Gromph Baenre! He is drow through and through, and he is Baenre through and through, and so not to be trusted.”
“He needs Jarlaxle.”
“For now. But that may change, and if it does, what will it concern Gromph to destroy you, all of you, and take the tower for his own?”
“He can have the tower as his own!” Catti-brie retorted. “As long as the magic is flowing to Gauntlgrym to keep the beast in its pit.”
“And what blackmail might Gromph demand of King Bruenor when such power as that is in his control?” Drizzt asked.
The responding expressions, winces of discomfort from both, showed that the two were well aware of that possibility.
“Jarlaxle will prevent that,” Catti-brie said.
“Jarlaxle has little power over the Archmage of Menzoberranzan!”
“What choice do we have?” Catti-brie yelled back at Drizzt. “What choice, my love? Are we to abandon this quest and so abandon Gauntlgrym, and so let the primordial roar forth once more to lay devastation about the Sword Coast?”
Drizzt didn’t really have an answer to that.
“Jarlaxle has assured us that Gromph’s position is compromised right now,” Penelope added. “This will be to Gromph’s benefit as well, and he is pragmatic above all else. And Luskan is fully under Jarlaxle’s control—even Gromph does not dispute that. Would the archmage deem it worthwhile to do battle with the whole of Jarlaxle’s band?”
Drizzt was hardly listening by that point, his stare locked by Catti-brie, the woman silently pleading with him to trust her with these decisions. And Drizzt knew that he should. Catti-brie’s understanding of what needed to be done was much greater than anything he might discern.
But he feared that she did not as well understand the webs of the drow, how easily she might be caught in those ultimately sticky filaments, and how difficult it would be to ever escape.
“Any guilt you might feel is surely misplaced. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else,” Jarlaxle remarked to Gromph when he caught up to the archmage in a suite of rooms Gromph had taken as his own in Illusk, the ancient Undercity buried beneath the common graveyard of Luskan.
Gromph arched an eyebrow at the mercenary, his expression uncertain, but certainly not appreciative.
“We have word of other demon lords walking the ways of the Underdark,” Jarlaxle explained. “Zuggtmoy, the Lady of Fungi, is rumored to be holding court among a large gathering of myconids. Orcus is said to be about, as is Graz’zt. The Underdark is less inviting than before, it would seem, and that is no small feat.”
“Rumors,” Gromph muttered, denying the premise.
That made sense to Jarlaxle and confirmed many of his suspicions. Gromph knew what he had done. The archmage understood that his mighty spell had wrenched Demogorgon from the Abyss and in doing so, had likely broken the protective planar barrier formed within the magic of the Faerzress.
“It would seem that your summoning was part of a larger invasion by the Abyssal lords,” Jarlaxle said.
“Rumors!” Gromph emphatically roared. “Have you considered that perhaps Demogorgon brought them forth?”
“He would not,” Jarlaxle replied, shaking his head resolutely. “No, there is something bigger afoot.”
“Concern yourself with the matters of Luskan, Jarlaxle,” Gromph warned, his voice ominous and threatening. “Leave the greater truths to those of greater understanding.”
Jarlaxle bowed at that, as much to hide his knowing grin as to mollify his volatile brother.
“Where is that creature you claim as a peer?” Gromph demanded.
The one you consider your tutor? Jarlaxle thought, but very wisely did not say. “Seeking answers, I would hope.”
“In the Abyss?”
Jarlaxle nearly laughed out loud. “Where Kimmuriel always seeks his answers,” he replied. “At the hive-mind, of course. The illithids know everything in the multiverse, if one is to believe Kimmuriel.”
“Bring him to me.”
Jarlaxle’s expression grew doubtful.
“I wish to speak with him,” Gromph added. “Bring him here, as soon as you can.”
“Of course,” Jarlaxle replied, though of course he had no intention of doing any such thing. Kimmuriel had gone to the hive-mind of the illithids to search for answers, and that was no place Jarlaxle ever intended to visit. But the psionicist had also gone there, posthaste, to get away from Gromph. Jarlaxle hadn’t pieced it all together yet, but he was quite suspicious that Kimmuriel had played more than a little role in the disaster Gromph had brought about by inadvertently summoning Demogorgon to Menzoberranzan.
It might prove beneficial to keep Kimmuriel at the hive-mind for the time being in any case, and not just for Kimmuriel’s own sake. If any race in the multiverse could aid in rediscovering the magic that had created the Hosttower of the Arcane, it would be the illithids. Time itself, the passing of millennia even, seemed no barrier to those strange creatures and their vast repository of knowledge.
“Perhaps Kimmuriel will garner some information as to how we might be rid of the demon lords,” Jarlaxle offered, and that, too, was an honest hope.
“Demon lord,” Gromph corrected. “We know of one, Demogorgon. The rest is speculation.”
“Even if it is just one . . .” Jarlaxle conceded with a shrug And that one alone was catastrophe on a monumental scale. Who was going to remove Demogorgon, the Prince of Demons, from the Underdark? Not Gromph, who had fled the scene screaming and tearing at his own eyes. Not Jarlaxle, who had no intention of doing battle with any demon lord. Jarlaxle was quite enamored of his current life.
“You will tell me everything Kimmuriel learns,” the archmage said at length. “And when he returns, you will deliver him to me immediately.”
“Deliver him?” Jarlaxle shrugged and offered a meek smile.
“What?” Gromph demanded.
“Kimmuriel is a leader of Bregan D’aerthe, dear Gromph, and as such, he is free to make his own choices,” Jarlaxle explained. “I will inform him of your desire to speak with him, but . . .”
Gromph’s nostrils flared and for a heartbeat, Jarlaxle feared that he might have gone a bit too far in his overt backtracking. But Gromph quickly calmed—no doubt he reminded himself that he needed Bregan D’aerthe right now more than they needed, or feared, him. Jarlaxle could get word of Gromph’s whereabouts to Matron Mother Baenre very quickly, after all, and the mercenary leader had a good idea that Quenthel and Gromph were not on particularly good terms at this time.
“I wish to speak with him,” Gromph said calmly.
“Perhaps it would help if you would tell me why,” Jarlaxle offered.
“Perhaps I might burn my explanation onto your naked back and leave you face down and dead on the floor for Kimmuriel to read.”