Inside the room, the lady motioned, and Catti-brie’s escort opened the door and stepped aside, then closed the door behind her, leaving Catti-brie alone in the room with the middle-aged woman.
“Ah, Catti-brie,” Lady Avelyere greeted. She motioned to a chair set across a small table from where she was a seated, and where a glass of white wine was set. “Or should I call you Ruqiah?”
Catti-brie took a deep breath to compose herself, and to remind herself that she was not the little-skilled child who had been in Lady Avelyere’s care. She was Chosen of Mielikki, and a powerful wizard trained by the Harpells. She had faced down Archmage Gromph Baenre, who could likely reduce this woman sitting in front of her to ashes with a snap of his dark fingers.
“I prefer Catti-brie,” she replied.
“Even then, no doubt, when you lied to me under my own roof.”
“When I was a prisoner, you mean, stolen from my family.”
Avelyere started to respond, but just tipped her wine glass.
“I did not kill the body I put in the House to disguise my escape,” Catti-brie told her-for some reason she didn’t yet understand, she wanted Lady Avelyere to know that truth.
“I know.”
“What else do you know?” Catti-brie asked. She picked up the wine and started to bring it to her lips, then paused and looked at it suspiciously.
Then she looked at Avelyere and nodded, and took a sip.
“You fear it poisoned?”
“Lady Avelyere is far too clever and charming for such things. Besides, why would you be angry with me?”
“You left without my permission, and in complete deception.”
“And I return without your permission, and indeed, not even to see you. I came to speak with Lord Parise Ulfbinder, as I was bidden by a mutual friend. I accommodate you by visiting now, but if you wish, I will be on my way to Lord Parise.”
“And if I tried to stop you?”
“I would burn your house down.”
Lady Avelyere stared at her hard and long. “You believe you can do exactly that, don’t you?”
“I believe my road has been difficult enough without your judgment.”
Lady Avelyere continued to stare for only a short while, then smiled and held up her hands. “I am glad that you accepted my invitation, Ruqi-Catti-brie,” she said.
“Then I am, too,” Catti-brie replied. “There are too many questions along too many hallways. But I know in my heart that I bear you no ill will. Believe it or not, good Lady Avelyere, but I am truly glad that you are alive, that you survived the catastrophe that befell Shade Enclave.”
“I believe you, Ruqiah,” the older woman, who was not really older, replied. “And forgive me, but that name still brings joy to me. We watched you, you know.”
“When I was here?” a confused Catti-brie asked.
“When you left. We found you in Longsaddle, or rather, when you were leaving Longsaddle. I watched you climb the lone mountain in Icewind Dale, and reunite with Drizzt Do’Urden. Our lives became complicated, and war came to our door, but still I found time to look in on you from afar during your struggles in the Silver Marches.”
“We saw your victory over the drow and the orcs,” said another voice, a man’s voice. A well-groomed, smartly-dressed man with a beautifully-kempt gray beard and piercing eyes entered the room.
“This is the man you came to speak with,” Lady Avelyere explained.
“Through a scrying mirror, we watched the light emanate from Drizzt Do’Urden, destroying the roiling blackness the drow had placed over the Silver Marches,” Lord Parise Ulfbinder explained. “We witnessed the victory of Mielikki over Lolth, and it was a grand display indeed.”
“Should I feel violated?” Catti-brie asked as she rose and offered the lord her hand. He took it gently and kissed it.
“Lovely lady, we watched only from afar. How could we not, knowing that two goddesses were waging a proxy war through you?”
Catti-brie stepped back and took her seat, lifting the wine for another sip as she tried to figure out what was going on here.
“Did you witness my fight with the woman named Dahlia?” she asked at length.
The two looked at each other, then back at her, and she knew they had not.
“That, I expect, was the truest battle, waged between myself and the troubled elf named Dahlia, with me serving as proxy for Mielikki, and Dahlia championing Lolth, though I doubt the poor woman even understood her role.”
“Will you tell us?” Lord Parise asked, his eagerness not hard to discern.
“An entertaining tale,” Catti-brie promised. “Unless, of course, Lady Avelyere has poisoned my wine here and I will fall dead before I can complete it.”
“Oh, do not be foolish,” Avelyere protested with a sarcastic sigh.
She looked Avelyere right in the eye and remarked, “You never brought pain to my parents.”
“There was a war,” Parise said from the side, where he gathered up a chair and a glass of wine for himself. At the table, Lady Avelyere didn’t let go of Catti-brie’s stare.
“I do not take pleasure in inflicting pain,” Avelyere replied.
“I know, and that is why I was indeed very glad to learn that you had survived the troubles that happened here, in this fallen city, and in the war. I am not your enemy, nor have I ever been.”
“And I did not poison the wine.”
With that, Catti-brie lifted her glass in toast, and Lady Avelyere tapped it with her own.
“It is so good to be among people who understand that life is more complex than darkness and light,” Lord Parise remarked.
In both her lives combined, few words had Catti-brie ever heard that brought a truer sense of comfort. Lord Parise had spoken a simple truth, and a sad one.
Would that more people understood.
Again Catti-brie told her tale of the fight in Gauntlgrym, and the return to Gauntlgrym, where Bruenor was now king. She used that last battle to segue into the issues at hand, the rebuilding of the Hosttower of the Arcane, and at that point, she handed the Jarlaxle’s missive to Lord Parise.
“Wonderful,” he remarked repeatedly as he read the parchment, and when he finished and handed it to Lady Avelyere, he added, “What an amazing opportunity!”
“You will join our efforts, then?”
“I would be forever angry if you did not allow me to do so!” Lord Parise said. He glanced at Avelyere. “Perhaps in this, Ruqiah can be the teacher.”
“The invitation is for you,” Avelyere replied.
“It is a request, not an invitation,” said Catti-brie. “I do not know the level of magic that will be needed on every piece of the Hosttower as we reconstruct it, but we are not afforded the luxury of turning away powerful spellcasters.” She paused and reached across the table to squeeze Avelyere’s hand. “Particularly if they are trustworthy.”
“I would like to join in this quest, then,” Avelyere said. “And I have a few students who might prove useful.”
“This could take years,” Lord Parise warned.
“Perhaps decades,” said Catti-brie. “The work on the Hosttower might continue long after we are all dead.”
“Still, it is the journey of life that matters, and not the goal,” said Lord Parise. “And this journey will prove exhilarating, I expect. To converse with the Archmage of Menzoberranzan! And dragons! Jarlaxle’s missive speaks of dragons!”
“Tazmikella and Ilnezhara,” Catti-brie explained. “Copper dragons, and sisters, and both very powerful in the ways of the Art. A very unusual duo.”
“Splendid!” Lord Parise said, and clapped his hands together. “What wondrous things we might learn.”
Lady Avelyere nodded, but then put on a curious expression as she regarded Catti-brie. “What of your Desai parents?”