“This was worn by Kensidan, who was once long ago called High Captain Kurth. It passed from him to his descendants-to Dahlia, surprisingly. Drizzt knows this cloak. Put it on. You will understand.”
The woman swept the cloak around her back and found the ties.
“It perfectly complements your outfit,” Jarlaxle said with a nod of approval. “So beautiful.”
“A statement of fashion?” she asked skeptically.
“Much more than that,” he replied. “Let it speak to you.”
With a final doubtful look at Jarlaxle, Catti-brie closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift to the cloak. Like so many magical items, this garment, the Cloak of the Crow, seemed to want its wearer to understand its properties. It was one of the more curious aspects of magic, Catti-brie often thought, that even the insentient magical items wanted their magic to be used.
She let her thoughts reach deeper into the cloak and lifted her arms out wide-to find that they were not arms any longer, but shining black-feathered wings. She could feel the updrafts of heat from the pit more acutely then, playing among her feathers. So sure was she that she didn’t question Jarlaxle further, nor did she cast any contingency spells in case the cloak should fail. She just leaned forward and let the updrafts lift her from the ground.
Down went the giant crow, cutting tight circles within the encircling and swirling dance of the water elementals. Even with her ring and the additional spells, Catti-brie could feel the heat growing as she neared the bottom of that watery barricade.
She broke through, under the wetness and the mist, and it seemed to her as if she had gone to another plane of existence, or another world perhaps, or to Toril in the earliest days of its formation.
Yes, that was it, she somehow understood. This molten field of bubbling magma and powerful stench-she felt as if she had been thrown into a boiling cauldron of rotten eggs-this was the way the world had been in the earliest days, before the elves even, perhaps before all life on Toril.
She drifted in the orange glow for just a moment before spotting and then landing on a solid block of veined stone. She touched down tentatively, ready to fly away if the stone proved too hot for her multiple dweomers of protection to counter. But to her relief, she felt no burning pain.
With a thought and a shrug, Catti-brie came out of crow form, and paused a moment to ponder her earliest days in this second life she had found, when the spellscar of Mielikki had granted to her shape-shifting powers. How often had she flown over the plains of Netheril in the shape of a great bird. How free she had been on the updrafts with the world spread wide below her.
All those thoughts blew away on a hot breeze when the primordial’s voice came into her thoughts, seeping through her ring. She sensed the creature’s confusion-dangerous confusion-and so she answered back in the language of the Plane of Fire, whispering assurances and seeking common benefit.
The primordial responded to her with sensations. She felt the beast stretching its tendrils to the Forge, to the inactive portal, to the spouts she had found when they had retaken the complex, like the lava mound where Catti-brie had transformed her staff.
On impulse she banged her staff on the stone, shifting it to its fiery form.
She felt the pleasure of the primordial.
Then she began to probe. She looked up and focused on the water elementals, and she felt the primordial’s frustration and anger-but it was not as burning an anger as she had imagined. And she was glad. Perhaps there were ways to lessen the preternatural desires of the beast, ways to siphon off some of its explosive and deadly energy.
For a long time, Catti-brie stood there in communion with the primordial, viewing Gauntlgrym from its perspective, and in that mental bonding she gained some insights into the magic that had put the beast in the pit and kept it there, insights she knew would aid her in the repair of the Hosttower of the Arcane.
She did well to keep those thoughts properly suppressed. If the primordial so desired, she would be dead, buried in lava and burned to nothingness long before she could get near to the protection of the water elementals.
But the primordial wasn’t going to do that. It seemed to her that the beast almost enjoyed the company.
No, that wasn’t it. Creatures like this didn’t harbor such emotions. But still, there was no displeasure revealed. Clearly the beast understood that it was in control and that she was no threat, and so it tolerated her. It accepted the diversion with some modicum of pleasurable distraction.
On recognizing that, Catti-brie would have liked to remain, but the thought was accompanied by a stumble, a near swoon, that would have dropped her into the lava. It wasn’t the heat but the smell, the lack of breathable air. She knew then that she had to be attentive to her task and quickly away.
She put the gauntlet on her hand and held it out in display to her godlike host. She didn’t know whether it was the gauntlet or the beast, but she sensed something not so far away.
Becoming a crow again she fluttered over to another mound of stone, quickly reverting to her human form. She stared down into the bubbling, popping red magma. Dare she reach in? The woman shook her head before her hand even moved, certain that the molten stone would incinerate the glove and her hand, whatever enchantments she might try.
But still she stared, leaning low, mesmerized by the bubbling red lava.
And something substantial came forth, rising up from the magma. Catti-brie recoiled, taken aback by what appeared to be the skull and bleached bones of a small humanoid skeleton: a backbone and ribcage to a pelvis with boney legs spread wide to either side.
The item rose a bit more, bobbing in the heavy liquid, and Catti-brie gasped as she realized this to be the hilt and crosspiece of a sword, the slender, etched blade shining red in the glow of the lava.
With her gauntleted hand, she grasped the backbone hilt inside the basket of the ribcage and drew forth the sword, holding it up in front of her astonished eyes.
She felt the power of Charon’s Claw. She felt its wickedness and had to work hard to resist the urge to throw it back into the magma.
The molten power of the primordial had not eaten Charon’s Claw, had marred that perfect blade not at all.
Catti-brie called upon the cloak again and shifted to the crow. With a cursory telepathic salute to the primordial, she lifted away, beating her strong wings to circle once more inside the elemental swirl. Rising, she broke through on the other side and lit on the ledge near the sarcophagus stone. Jarlaxle was patiently waiting for her there.
“I knew it,” he said, his eyes sparkling, when Catti-brie reverted to her human form, revealing the treasure she held in her gauntleted hand.
The woman examined the sword again and realized it wasn’t the lava that had given Charon’s Claw its red hue. The blade itself was red, with a black blood trough running down the center. She marveled at the workmanship, at the masterful etchings of hooded figures and tall scythes all along the blade.
“It has few equals in the world,” Jarlaxle said, startling her. She looked over at the mercenary.
“A most remarkable blade,” he said.
“And full of evil intent,” she replied.
“A thirst for blood,” he admitted. “Is that not the purpose of a weapon?”
“There is a power here …” She shook her head, nearly overwhelmed. She had once wielded Khazid’hea, the blade that now hung on Jarlaxle’s belt, but even that marvelous weapon of destruction seemed to pale beside the wicked magnificence of this creation.
“Weapons are designed to kill, my good lady,” Jarlaxle motioned to the floor and pointed to the gauntlet. “Do not touch the sword without it,” he warned.
Catti-brie set the sword on the stone and pulled off the gauntlet, handing it over. As Jarlaxle set it upon his hand, the woman moved to remove the cloak, but Jarlaxle held up his hands and shook his head.