The Companions

CHAPTER 18

The Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) Netheril

The stars twinkled, a clear desert sky, and the sliver of a moon cast a thin glow over the woman’s private garden, but enough of one for the moistened soft petals of her many flowers to sparkle like the stars above.

Catti-brie was in a fine mood-how could she not be when she felt so close to Mielikki?

Her days of dancing in Iruladoon, of communing with the goddess, had taught her so much about the ways of the celestial spheres and the eternal cycle of life and death. And the goodness of life, taken as a whole. She was part of those stars above, she understood, as were the flowers before her.

She was at peace.

And yet, she was not, for this place, this moment, reminded her of why she had returned to Faerun, and of the task before her, in not so many years. This day, the spring equinox of 1479, marked her sixteenth birthday, or “re-birthday,” as she had privately named it. She had spent some hours with Niraj and Kavita in the Desai encampment, and she was not due back at the Coven until the next morning.

“Five more years,” she whispered to a flower before her. She lifted the plant’s wide and soft petals and gently brushed them. “Only five.”

She conjured an image of Drizzt in her thoughts, and she smiled widely. She had been gone from him for just over sixteen years by her measure, but more than a century in his lifetime. Had his feelings faded for her? Would he even remember her in any meaningful way?

Would she find him happily married, to an elf perhaps, and raising children of his own?

The woman shrugged, not happy about the possibility, but accepting it as just that, a possibility, and one that she could not control. She thought of seeing him again, of his smile, of his touch. How she missed that touch! Many things could seem trivial to Catti-brie now that she had been in the arms of a goddess, now that she had looked at the multiverse with such profound understanding. But Drizzt’s touch was not one of those trivial things; their bond seemed as large as that of the celestial spheres, and as eternal as the cycle of life and death, no matter the interfering practicalities.

If Drizzt had another wife, then so be it. Catti-brie knew that he still loved her, that he would always love her, as she would always love him.

She would be no less dedicated to the coming battle Mielikki had described to her in her days of communing with the goddess in the enchanted forest. If Lady Lolth or her minions came for Drizzt, they would have to fight through Catti-brie to get to him!

She pictured Kelvin’s Cairn in Icewind Dale, under a sky as sparkling as this one, the unending wind tossing her hair, the chill breeze tickling her skin.

“Five more years,” she whispered again.

“Five more years for what?” came a sharp voice behind her. Catti-brie froze in place, smile vanishing, eyes going wide. She knew that voice, too well! “For what?” Lady Avelyere asked again. “And do face me, child.” Catti-brie took a deep breath.

“Your magic is no match for my own, child,” Lady Avelyere said, as if reading her thoughts. “And you’ll not shapechange fast enough to be away from me.”

Catti-brie slowly turned around. Avelyere stood at the entrance to her secret garden, dressed in rich traveling robes of purple and white, and she seemed taller to Catti-brie at that moment, much taller and more imposing.

“You lied to me,” she said quietly, but each word resonated in Catti-brie’s mind as if it had been shouted into her ear.

“No, Lady …,” she stammered.

“I took you in, opened my house to you, and you lied to me,” Lady Avelyere insisted. “No …”

“Yes!”

Catti-brie swallowed hard.

“You didn’t know where your power of healing and shapeshifting came from, you told me,” Lady Avelyere went on. “You didn’t know that they were divinely inspired or themselvesIanythingon different at all. But you have deceived me all along, worshiping this … god?”

“Goddess,” Catti-brie managed to say.

“I spared your parents!” Lady Avelyere screamed at her. “A mere word from me about their magical activities and Shade Enclave would have captured them and tortured them in the town square. And this is how you repay me? By lying to me?”

She swept forward as she spoke, moving very near to Catti-brie, staring down at her from on high.

“This does not concern them,” Catti-brie stammered, rising, but keeping her head bowed. The thought that Avelyere might take out her wrath on Niraj and Kavita horrified the woman-how would she be able to live with herself after bringing such ruin on those wonderful people?

But a comforting thread wove into her mind then, an assurance that Lady Avelyere would do no such thing, that Niraj and Kavita were not Avelyere’s concern and would not be exposed.

Catti-brie looked up at the woman. Lady Avelyere reached out a hand and gently stroked Catti-brie’s thick hair. “Oh, dear girl,” she said, her voice as smooth as the flower’s petal. “Do you not understand that I have come to love you as if you were my own daughter?”

“Yes, Lady,” Catti-brie heard herself replying.

“I’m merely wounded, truly wounded, that you did not trust me with your secret.”

“I didn’t think you would understand.”

“Faith, child, faith,” Lady Avelyere cooed. “I am your mentor, not your enemy.” She drew Catti-brie to her side and looked all around. “Tell me about this place. It is your shrine to this … goddess, yes?”

“Mielikki,” Catti-brie whispered.

“Yes, well do tell me more. Surely you have been blessed by her! I have seen the marking.”

Catti-brie’s hand reflexively went to her opposite forearm, to the unicorn-shaped spellscar she carried.

“Your spellscar, yes, and the powers it affords you,” Lady Avelyere said, though Catti-brie noticed that Avelyere had not even looked down or followed Catti-brie’s inadvertent movement.

“Tell me of it. Tell me of Mielikki,” Lady Avelyere purred. “And tell me of this dark elf and the mountain under the stars.”

Had she been of her reasoning faculties at that moment, Catti-brie would have understood that Lady Avelyere had garnered much more information than she could surmise by the garden, for Catti-brie had not spoken openly of Drizzt, had merely thought of him and pictured him.

“Tell me, Ruqiah,” Lady Avelyere prompted.

“Catti-brie,” the disciple of Mielikki corrected.

Lord Parise Ulfbinder sat in his grand chair, his hands together and before his pursed lips. He didn’t blink as Lady Avelyere poured forth the wild claims of young Ruqiah of the Desai.

“She is Chosen of Mielikki,” Parise said a long while after the diviner had finished her lengthy tale.

Lady Avelyere could only shrug. “It would seem.”

“And you believe her?”Alpirs and UntarisIanythingon

Again the woman shrugged, but this time she added a nod.

“A Bedine child, a Chosen of Mielikki, who is not a Bedine goddess?” Parise asked skeptically.

“But she says she is not a Bedine child,” Lady Avelyere said. “She claims her name is not Ruqiah, but Catti-brie.”

It was Parise Ulfbinder’s turn to shrug, for the name meant nothing to him.

“A woman from another time, before the Spellplague.”

“That is quite a claim. Is it not more likely that she is merely trying to protect her outlaw parents?”

“So I thought,” Lady Avelyere replied. “But her claims-”

“Desperate claims for a desperate young woman …”

“She was adopted by a dwarf in this previous life,” Lady Avelyere interrupted. “A dwarf king.”

The end of his intended sentence caught in Parise’s throat. “A dwarf king?” he asked instead.

“King Bruenor Battlehammer of Mithral Hall,” Lady Avelyere explained. “She told me this under my charm dweomer, under a spell of hypnosis, under the power of magical suggestion.”

“She completed the concocted story,” Parise argued.

“There is record of such a king in the library of Shade Enclave.”

“So the girl visited the library.”

“And a mention of his adopted daughter, Catti-brie-”

“So the girl went to the library!” Lord Parise Ulfbinder shouted.

“-who was taken in the night by the ghost of Mielikki’s unicorn,” Lady Avelyere talked over him.

Parise fell back in his chair and meekly asked, “What do you mean?”

“This human daughter of King Bruenor, driven mad by the Spellplague, died in the night and was spirited away from her bed by a celestial unicorn, so goes the legend.” She paused and painted a wry grin on her face. “Away from the bed of her dark elf husband, Drizzt Do’Urden.”

Lord Parise Ulfbinder was among the most composed and dignified men in Shade Enclave, but the gulp and squeal that issued forth seemed more the cry of a startled child. He leaped up, his chair flying out behind him.

“A name you have mentioned before, yes?” Lady Avelyere said, grinning wider still.

“This is madness,” said Parise, rushing and stumbling around his desk to take a seat on it right before the woman. “Are you sure that you have not mentioned this name to her? Perhaps you inadvertently put her on the road to concoct this wild story!”

“I don’t know that I have ever spoken that name before, or heard it, other than in this very room.”

“But the child is magical. Perhaps she has slipped an insidious dweomer past your guards and read your thoughts.”

“That would be quite a scouring. I do not concern myself with the dark elf. I did not even recall the name until Ruqiah-until Catti-brie spoke it to me, and even then, it barely sparked recognition. It was not until she mentioned this Drizzt creature’s race that I even recalled our long-agohe had returned to Faerunanvertical-align: im conversation about Lord Draygo’s drow prisoner.”

“His lost prisoner.”

“We may find him, then, for this child is determined to find him sometime after the Year of the Awakened Sleepers. Indeed, she has fellow conspirators in this, who she intends to rejoin on the night of the spring equinox in that same year.”

“Bedine conspirators?”

Lady Avelyere shook her head.

“1484,” Lord Parise mumbled. “Five years, almost to the day.” He scratched at his goatee. “Interesting indeed.”

“What do I do?”

“Let her go!” Parise cried immediately. “And watch her, every step. We may witness a battle of Toril’s goddesses, and what a sight that will be!”

Lady Avelyere didn’t openly respond to that, but her expression spoke volumes, most of all revealing her relief.

“Why Lady,” Parise said teasingly, “you have come to love the girl.”

Lady Avelyere rocked back on her heels and considered the words. Her first impulse was to staunchly deny the accusation, but she quickly put that aside and honestly searched deep within herself. “She has such promise and skill,” she replied. “A curiosity and a hope, from her earliest days.”

“It is more than professional curiosity,” said her friend, who knew her well.

Lady Avelyere nodded.

“You think her a protege.”

“Thought,” Lady Avelyere was quick to reply, correcting the tense. “Now I understand that is impossible. Her loyalty is not to me and never has been.”

“But she has not crossed you.”

“True enough,” said Lady Avelyere. “And thus I am content to do as you say, and not to punish her for her duplicity and secret devotion to this foreign goddess.”

Parise Ulfbinder wore a sly grin, which elicited an exasperated sigh from Lady Avelyere. He was seeing right through her, of course. He recognized that she was wounded to think that this girl she had brought in and all but raised as her own might have a higher loyalty than to her and the Coven. To think that Ruqiah would walk away after all that she had done for her! And to think that Ruqiah would accept so much training, diverting the precious resources of the Coven toward one who knew that she would not remain!

So indeed there was a measure of anger within Lady Avelyere, a sense of being wronged by this girl. But more than that, she had to admit, there was sadness and disappointment. Ruqiah had been quite the project for her, and yes, quite the protege! Lady Avelyere had great affection for all of the sisters of her Coven, but none more than the curious little Bedine girl she had captured in a web years before.

It would not be easy to let her go.

Catti-brie rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and moved to the window, surprised that sunlight was streaming in. It was a west-facing window, after all, and usually remained quite dark until late in the day.

She pulled aside the sash and stared at the sun lowering in the western sky.

"The woman backed up a step and turn?” she asked to regard her unkempt bed. How could it be late in the afternoon? How could she have slept throughout the whole of the day?

She thought back to the previous night and tried to recall going to bed.

But she could not.

She tried to recall what day it was, and when she was supposed to meet again with her parents in the Desai encampment. She had a vague recollection of speaking with them recently, but that didn’t make any sense to her.

She dressed quickly, brushed her hair, and headed out, ready to apologize profusely for abandoning her duties that day.

Just a short way down the hallway, she ran into Rhyalle, who greeted her with a big smile and a gentle touch.

“Oh, but you are up!” Rhyalle said before Catti-brie could begin her apology. “We have been so worried about you.”

“I was only in my room,” Catti-brie replied hesitantly. She half turned to point back the way she had come.

“For a tenday,” Rhyalle replied. “We feared that you would never awaken, though Lady Avelyere assured us that your affliction would pass.”

“Avelyere? Affliction?” Catti-brie stammered.

“Yes, of course-oh, but you probably remember little of your fevered dreams. It was the spellscar, Lady Avelyere believes.” She grabbed Catti-brie’s arm and pulled back the sleeve, revealing the spellscar that resembled the seven stars of Mystra. “Others with such marks have suffered similar afflictions recently, from what we’ve been told. But it will pass-indeed, it has passed. You look so well!”

Catti-brie couldn’t begin to sort through all of that confusing information. One thing did leap out at her, however: The last memory that would come to her was that of her parents, in their tent. Was it there that she had fallen? And if that was the case, how had she come back to her bed in the Coven?

Catti-brie half-turned back the way she had come, then changed her mind and pushed past Rhyalle. “I must speak with Lady Avelyere,” she explained.

But Rhyalle tightened her grip on Catti-brie’s arm and held her back, then shifted to block her way.

“You need to remain in your room,” she said. “Lady Avelyere will come to you presently.”

“No, I-”

“Yes!” Rhyalle forcefully corrected. “I was coming this very moment to check in on you. Lady Avelyere has made these instructions quite clear. Come, back to your room.”

Catti-brie hesitated.

Rhyalle pushed her more forcefully. “No argument,” she insisted. “You are to await the lady in your room. You are not to leave your room until she has granted you permission.”

She pushed again and Catti-brie relented.

A few moments later, she was sitting on the edge of her bed, alone in her room, her thoughts spinning, her memories drifting in and around.

“A tenday?” she asked aloud, and she couldn’t begin to sort that out. Even her memory was playing tricks on her now-first she had thought her last memories to be of the Desai encampment, but now she wondered if those were older recollections. For it seemed now that her most recent memories were of doing her chores around the Coven and anticipating her next visitAlpirs and UntarisIanythingon to the Desai encampment. Yet even these seemed strangely removed, or had greatly receded at least.

None of it made any sense to her. Something was wrong, very wrong. She pulled back both her sleeves and looked at her scars, even running her fingers over each. Nothing seemed amiss with them.

Lady Avelyere came to her some time later, rushing to embrace her. She reiterated everything Rhyalle had told her, pausing every so often to gently kiss the young woman on the cheek and stroke her hair.

“I don’t …,” Catti-brie started to say, and she paused and shook her head. “Nothing of the last days … of the last …” She shook her head again. “Nothing makes any sense.”

“I know, dear,” Lady Avelyere replied. “Fevered dreams. You were quite ill, though I am not sure of your affliction. I sense it was tied to the spellscars you carry. We have heard of others-”

“Yes, I have been told,” Catti-brie interrupted.

“In all of those cases, the affliction passed quickly and showed no sign of returning,” Lady Avelyere added. “So it will be with you, I expect.” She kissed Catti-brie on the forehead again. “Now back to your rest, I demand.”

Catti-brie didn’t resist as Lady Avelyere eased her back onto the bed.

“I am expected soon in the home of my parents,” Catti-brie said.

“Oh, no, no, no, girl,” Lady Avelyere replied. “You will not be going out of the Coven for many days. No, no. Not until I am certain that your affliction has truly passed. You were fortunate that you were struck down here, among friends with great means to help you to heal. Had you been outside of here, you likely would have died.”

“They will worry-”

“I will find a way to get word to them that you are well and will visit when you are able,” Lady Avelyere promised. She gave Catti-brie one last hug and quietly left the room, leaving Catti-brie alone with her jumbled thoughts.

She chewed her lips and kept looking at her window, wanting nothing more than to be out of there and off to one of her secret gardens, where she might commune with Mielikki to garner some answers. Beyond the confusion of her apparent loss of memory, and of a tenday, something seemed wrong; somewhere, just below her consciousness, contradictions nagged at Catti-brie’s sensibilities.

Catti-brie searched through the conversations with Rhyalle and Lady Avelyere over and over again, seeking some clues. One thing stood out: Why would Catti-brie have likely died had she been struck with her affliction outside of the Coven? Hadn’t both Rhyalle and Avelyere just told her that others had been similarly afflicted, and that in those instances, the affliction had passed with no serious ramifications?

Catti-brie winced. Had Avelyere just lied to her?

She focused her mind, determined to remember more, or to at least put some of the flitting memories floating through her thoughts into some sort of context and order.

She looked to the door again, then to a small, decorative plant set in the corner of the room.

Her gaze went back to the door as she chewed anew on her lip. Dare she?

Caution bade her not to do it. The projection of Ruqiah bade her not to do it.

" But the wisdom of?” she asked but something nagged at her, told her that something was truly amiss.

She went to the plant and dragged it across to the opposite wall, out of sight of the door, which opened into the room and would shield anyone entering.