“You are right to feel that way,” Jarlaxle replied. “We haven’t gathered nearly enough of the information to accomplish the task before us. We have a Chosen of Mielikki, a great accomplished drow mage, a cadre of lesser wizards, and an assemblage of the greatest dwarf masons and builders of this era. Also, and of no small importance, my associate communes with an illithid hive-mind. But still, there remain missing pieces.”
Catti-brie studied him carefully. “But you know how to find those pieces,” she stated instead of asked.
Jarlaxle laughed. “All of the elder, great races partook in the creation of the Hosttower of the Arcane, I believe, so yes, I have some ideas. Tazmikella and Ilnezhara will arrive shortly.”
“The dragon sisters?”
“Dragon magic is among the most ancient, most powerful, and most lasting.”
Catti-brie nodded her agreement.
“And we’ll not stop there,” Jarlaxle explained. “And so I bid you to leave this place today. I have already spoken with Kipper Harpell and he has agreed to send you on your way.” He smiled wider as he finished, “I need an ambassador.”
“To where?”
“A place you know well,” he replied. “Or … knew well.”
With that, Jarlaxle tipped his hat. “This is my last work here at this time, perhaps for many tendays. My associates-your husband among them-await my return, and so I bid you farewell, Catti-brie.”
He offered that typical disarming smile and started to turn, but Catti-brie held him with her look. She bent down and picked up a bag that had been sitting at her feet, pulled it open, and produced a most remarkable black leather belt, set on one side with a brown cylindrical pouch, and possessed of a striking mithral buckle that Jarlaxle had seen before, shining silver and with the relief of a slightly recurving longbow on its face. That raised image had been cut out when Athrogate had taken the item from the Great Forge.
“What is it?” he asked, taking it and studying the carving more closely. “It resembles the Heartseeker.”
“A memento,” Catti-brie replied. “You will give it to Drizzt?”
The mercenary nodded.
“On your word?”
Another nod, and a reassuring smile. “May Mielikki walk with you these difficult days and guide your steps toward what is best for you, for your father, and …”
“And for you,” she finished.
Jarlaxle laughed, stepped forward, and kissed her on the cheek.
“Yes,” he admitted. “And is it not a wondrous thing that all of our interests are so perfectly aligned? We are, it would seem, of like heart!”
He tipped his hat again and strode out of the tent, making a straight line for the bridge to Closeguard Isle, which would bring him to another bridge to the mainland and the entryway to Illusk and the deeper Underdark, where Drizzt and Entreri waited.
Soon after, Catti-Brie stood in a familiar garden, sheltered by rocks from the great brown plain of Netheril.
She lingered some time there, feeling the soft petals of the plants, rubbing her hand along the smooth back of the same young cypress tree that had given her the limb for the staff she now carried. She couldn’t come to this place without being transported back in time, to her earliest days in this second life she now enjoyed. This was her secret garden, her secret refuge, the place where young Ruqiah had come to understand that Mielikki was with her still, and that the goddess would help her on her difficult journey.
On a sudden impulse, Catti-brie took out the onyx figurine of Guenhwyvar and called for the panther. She wanted Guenhwyvar to see this place, to know this place.
The gray mist became a black panther. Guenhwyvar went off her guard almost immediately, and Catti-brie was glad. The gentleness of this garden refuge she had created could not be denied-not even by the blood that had been spilled here. The sense of peace permeated the air and filled her nostrils, and so filled Guenhwyvar’s, too.
“Let me tell you a story, Guen,” Catti-brie said, sitting down among the flowers. “Of a little girl named Ruqiah and the wonderful friends she once knew.”
Guenhwyvar seemed to understand-of course she did!-and she settled in front of the woman, lying down and stretching, but never taking her large eyes or her attention from Catti-brie.
Sometime later, Catti-brie moved out from the rocks, and climbed atop a large one to afford herself a look over the land.
Shade Enclave, the grand floating city she had once called home, was no more-not up in the sky to the north, at least-indeed, not up in the sky at all. The magic had been stolen by the advent of the Sundering, and the great city and the floating stone upon which it sat had fallen from the sky to crash upon the ground.
Thousands had died in that cataclysm, so Kipper had told her-after Jarlaxle had explained it all to him, apparently. The carnage had been tremendous, both for those living in the floating city and those living on the ground in its shadow.
But they had not all died, and so up there, amid the broken stones and fallen towers, an enclave of Netherese remained, and thrived anew.
“Lord Parise Ulfbinder,” Catti-brie quietly muttered, and not for the first time, as she strove to commit that name to memory, or to search her own memories to try to recall anything she might have learned of the great man in her days in Shade Enclave.
He was alive, so Jarlaxle had relayed through Kipper, and it was up to Catti-brie to convince him to journey beside her back to Luskan.
A strong wind blew down from the north, carrying stinging sand. Catti-brie pulled her black cloak tighter about her as a shield. Then she pulled it tighter still, so much so that its magic began to tingle all around her, as she and the cloak became as one.
The woman-turned-crow leaped off and spread her wings, the strong winds lifting her higher and higher.
She beat her wings and bucked the headwinds, making her way to what remained of Shade Enclave, and looking, too, for something else, for somewhere else.
For a home more dear.
PART 2
Who is this maestro, this puppet master, pulling the strings of so many marionettes?
Including my own!
Jarlaxle’s maneuvers reach far into the shadows and involve great powers-and these are merely the plots of which I am aware. No doubt he reaches much farther still, to the darkest shadows of Menzoberranzan, to the heart of dragonkind, to the hive-mind of the illithids, to places I can only imagine, or dream rather, in my worst nightmares.
Who is he to wrangle together my wife, the Harpells, a thousand dwarves, and the Archmage of Menzoberranzan in an effort to resurrect a structure of such ancient power?
Who is he to secretly control the city of Luskan, through great deception and great hidden power?
Who is he to goad me and Artemis Entreri to Menzoberranzan, to rescue Dahlia, to assault House Do’Urden and thus invoke the wrath of the Matron Mother of the City of Spiders?
Who is he to convince Matron Mother Zeerith of House Xorlarrin to surrender Gauntlgrym to Bruenor?
Who is he to bring dragons onto the field of battle in the Silver Marches?
Who is this maestro, turning the wheels of Faerun, playing the music of fate to the ears of all who would listen?
I call him a friend and yet I cannot begin to decipher the truth of this most interesting and dangerous drow. He moves armies with silent commands, coerces alliances with promises of mutual benefit, and engages the most unlikely companions into willing adventures that seem suicidal.