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.”
Catti-brie looked at the garment-it was more a shift than a blouse, and had been a robe for its previous wearer, a most wicked little gnome named Jack.
“Do you know what it is?”
“I know its properties.”
“Its name?”
Catti-brie shook her head, but then answered, “The Robe of the Archmage?” for she had heard it referred to as such.
“Indeed,” Kipper replied. “And this. .” he took the sapphire from her and held it up so she could clearly see it. “This was the heart of a Staff of the Magi. I never finished my work with it, because. . well, because I am old Kipper and my reputation for distraction is well earned, like so many of my family. And because I never found a suitable staff. Yet here you go, disappearing from me for just a few moments, and poof, you return with something I’ve long wanted, but hardly remembered that I wanted!” It took Catti-brie a long while to sort that jumble of words out, and she shook her head, mostly in amusement at Kipper’s animated state. But then her expression turned deadly serious. “I cannot,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“What, girl?”
“I. . I cannot give it to you,” she tried to explain. “The staff, it is a gift from Mielikki.”
Kipper held up the silvery staff. He focused more intently upon it this time. He brought the gem up close to his face and whispered to it, and then his eyes widened indeed.
“It’s already enchanted,” he said.
“I feel the warmth of divine healing within it,” Catti-brie said. “I am sorry, my friend.”
“Sorry? No, no, I did not mean for you to give me your staff, of course!” Kipper explained. “No, I meant to complete my work on your staff. For you!”
Catti-brie was taken aback. “I could not. .”
“Of course you could! Of course you would, and why not? My adventuring days are all but over, and I’ve little desire to get into any dragon’s lairs or troll caves any longer. Why, if I could use you as my protégé and send you forth properly armed-ha! — why then I’d feel as if old Kipper did something truly worthwhile.”
“Kipper,” Catti-brie said, and she moved over and hugged the man. He pushed her back, though, just a bit, a mischievous smile on his wrinkled face. He held up the blue sapphire and the silver staff and arched his eyebrows.
“Dare we?” he asked.
It was nearly midsummer, long into the seventh month of Flamerule, when the dwarves at last broke camp and resumed their march. Their feet healed, their bellies full, their spirits high, the dark tide of dwarven warriors flowed out of Longsaddle, like a river down the road to the southwest, heading with grim determination for the Crags.