Looking out through her balcony window, Catti-brie couldn’t help but be charmed. After a fresh snow, Pikel and Ivan Bouldershoulder had come to visit the Ivy Mansion, and more specifically, to visit Brie. The three of them were outside on the hill, where Ivan was using his masonry tools to help Pikel calculate and fashion the appropriate banks in the long ice slide they were building.
Catti-brie grinned wider when Pikel waved his new arm, stark white and seemingly made of pressed ice, to create a wash of water over the course, then ran along beside it, Brie galloping behind and falling on her face in the snow every third step. Pikel kept that new arm, the gift of Qadeej, out over the course, freezing the water below with its frosty magic.
It was all so simple, so gloriously play, and just that: play. Whatever the current darkness presented, Catti-brie held faith that her little love would be surrounded by so many good people.
But the darkness was there, hovering about her. She had been visited by dreams the previous night, ominous and foreboding and so seemingly final in their terrible outcome. Drizzt would face Lolth again, she feared, and she would not be there beside him.
She had a role to play in that fight, she felt in her heart, and one she would not fulfill.
Drizzt wouldn’t have a chance.
“It was just a dream,” she whispered, trying to shake the fluttering black wings away.
She took a deep breath, focusing on the events outside and wondering then why she was just standing here and letting the dwarves have all the fun with her little Brie.
A quick spell to keep the cold away and she went through the balcony doors and over the rail, enacting another spell that let her drift down the side of the hill like a feather on an autumn breeze.
She landed just in time to see Pikel and Brie go careening down the ice slide.
“Not enough bank for the both of ye!” Ivan yelled in warning from across the way, and sure enough, the dwarf and the toddler went up high on the next curve—too high, and over the bank, to go sailing down into a snowbank.
Brie’s shrieks of joy became cries of fear.
“Pikel!” Catti-brie called, running down.
“Hehehe,” the dwarf giggled, looking at the child, who was covered in snow. “Snowgirl Bweezy.” The dwarf snapped the fingers of his magical white hand and a burst of warm wind rushed over Brie, blowing away the snow and turning her terrified wails into a gasp, and one that calmed her down enough, clearly, to realize that she wasn’t hurt at all.
“Hehehe,” Pikel laughed.
“Hehehe,” Brie echoed, and her entire face was smiling once more.
“Ye gotta put another two feet and an overhanging curve to it if ye’re to be sliding down together, ye dolt,” Ivan bellowed, coming over.
“A little too daring there, Pikel?” Catti-brie asked, moving beside them. “Perhaps less of a slope?”
“Hehehe,” both the dwarf and the toddler said together, and Brie added, looking straight at Catti-brie defiantly, “No!”
“Brie,” Catti-brie said in her best mother voice.
The toddler looked away.
“Brie,” Catti-brie repeated to no response. “Brie. Brie!”
“No!” the toddler said.
“Bweezy,” Pikel called and the little girl swung about, her smile wide.
“Bweezy?” Catti-brie asked.
“Bweezy!” insisted Brie.
“Brie?”
“No, Bweezy! Not Brie!”
Catti-brie started to respond, but stopped mid-correction, mid-explanation. What was the point? Some battles weren’t worth fighting.
“Breezy,” she said instead and the little girl beamed and Pikel issued another “hehehe.”
“Ye gonna stand there missin’ all the fun, or ye gonna take a run?” Ivan asked Catti-brie.
Catti-brie only considered it for a heartbeat, before announcing, “I’m going to take a run.”
So she did. And then again. And again with Breezy. And one with Ivan leading all four of them in a chain that had Catti-brie at the back of the line whipping around the corners and almost—almost—going over the banks on the curve.
These were the moments, Catti-brie realized then, and it was a reminder, not an epiphany.
This simple little play was what made life worth it. Not Bruenor’s gold or Jarlaxle’s network, and not some adventure or war—those were fortunate luxuries and painful necessities—but this, this simple, childish, joyful play, was what truly made it all worth it to Catti-brie. Because this was love, this was friendship, this was family.
It wasn’t perfect because Drizzt wasn’t here, but moments like this were the perfection they hoped to secure.
That Drizzt was literally fighting to obtain for them—the culmination of the journey that had followed him out of Menzoberranzan nearly two centuries before—and Catti-brie wasn’t with him.
She was surrounded by laughter and love and light.
But the darkness still lingered.
“It will be a glorious journey,” Grandmaster Savahn told the two women she had come to see at the Ivy Mansion in Longsaddle. “Ilnezhara will arrive in the morning and your darling Brie will enjoy the world opened wide before her, flying in a season that she has not seen from so far above.”
“Breezy,” Catti-brie said.
“Yes, quite. The dragon sisters do love to fly up high, where the winds are strong. Fear not, for we have saddles with tethers . . .”
She stopped when she noted that Catti-brie was smiling.
“What is it?” Savahn asked. “There are great winds up there.”
“I think she means the name,” Penelope remarked, though she seemed no less lost about what Catti-brie had found so humorous.
“The name?”
“My daughter,” Catti-brie said. “She has decided not to answer to Brie any longer. We are to call her Breezy. In familial situations, at least, though I suspect it won’t be worth your—either of your—trouble to refuse.”
“She is headstrong,” Penelope agreed.
“Breezy?” Savahn paused and considered that for a bit, then nodded her approval.
“Uncle Pikel’s doing, only with him and with her, it is Bweezy.”
All three shared a laugh at that.
“So fitting,” Savahn agreed. “Very well, then, Breezy it is, and your little Breezy will know a glorious ride with me back to the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, if you agree.”
“I’m not sure that I do,” Catti-brie said, drawing looks of surprise from both Grandmaster Savahn and Penelope.
“She will be perfectly safe, I assure—”
“Of course, she will,” Catti-brie immediately answered, her tone and expression making it clear that she had nothing but trust in the monk. “It is just that—”
“That you’re missing Drizzt, and feeling guilty about letting him walk into darkness without you,” Penelope interjected.
Catti-brie shot her a scowl, confirming that the Harpell wizard had been correct.
“Because you should be there with him,” Penelope pressed, and Catti-brie’s expression turned to one of surprise.
“It is my understanding that your reason for returning to this life those few years ago was to wage exactly this battle beside Drizzt Do’Urden,” Savahn added.
“I returned to do battle with the avatar of Lolth in the service of my goddess Mielikki,” Catti-brie replied. “And so I did.”
“This is not part of that same battle?” Penelope asked.
“I know not, but things have changed.”
“Because of your child,” Savahn said.
“Of course, and because my relationship with Mielikki, and more than that, Drizzt’s relationship with Mielikki, has changed.”
“It is the child,” Penelope stated.
“Breezy,” Savahn said with a disarming smile, lowering the tension in the room.
“Of course it is,” Catti-brie admitted.
“But not for her safety,” Savahn stated.
“Nor her training,” Penelope added.
“You fear that she will not remember you,” said Savahn. “Every parent has those moments of fear, and every grandparent, surely. The notion that you will become just a distant whisper to a child you so dearly love is not a comforting one. I am sure it is with heavy heart that Drizzt went to meet his destiny, for certainly he feels the same as you do now.”
“And I am here to make sure that Breezy will know him should he not return,” Catti-brie said.
“As if King Bruenor would let that happen!” Penelope said. “Or Regis and Donnola, or Wulfgar. Or either of us here.”
“Are you telling me to go to Menzoberranzan?”
“Hardly that,” said Savahn. “But we are showing you that the possibility is there, should you choose to go. Fear not for Breezy, no more than Drizzt does. She has many who love her, many who see her promise, many who love her parents. Were it not for Breezy, where would Catti-brie now be?”
“Banishing and destroying demons in Menzoberranzan.”
“And with all we’ve just discussed?”
Catti-brie shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. Her heart was telling her to go and not to go at the same time.
“Should you decide to go, Gromph has the item known as Agatha’s Mask,” Penelope said. “It was offered to Artemis Entreri, but the man would not travel to the Underdark with Jarlaxle.”
“I appreciate all you both have to say, but I have a lot to think about. Do not leave with my daughter, not yet. I’m not sure of my course, and even less sure of the farewell I should offer to her if I decide to go.”
“Do not be distressed, my friend,” Savahn said, but the words were nothing more than puffs of air to Catti-brie, who was truly torn. She found Breezy and retired to her room with her child.
Thinking.
Gromph slowly closed the lid on the magnificent coffin in the secret side room of the mansion he had constructed in a dimensional pocket accessed from his chambers in the Hosttower of the Arcane. The mansion was now a permanent fixture, solidified by daily renewals that Gromph had cast for a year. The entrance, protected with many wards and non-detection spells, was cleverly hidden behind a secret bookcase in his appointed rooms.
Tens of thousands of gold pieces had gone into constructing this sarcophagus, to say nothing of the physical and emotional pain Gromph had endured in creating that which lay within it.
The chimes rang again, a melody pure, a cadence mournful.
With a sigh, Gromph left the chamber and moved along that dark corridor, then up the stairs to pass through a wall that only appeared to be a wall, stepping out through a glass case filled with illusionary trinkets and into the dining hall of his fantastic home. A dozen nearly translucent, ghostly figures moved about, setting the table for the guests he anticipated would arrive this very night.
One ghostly servant moved up to him slowly. While others were dressed in the attire one might expect of serving waiters or cooks, this one wore the image of a formal suit seen at the courts of noblemen in Waterdeep.
“It is Lord Parise Ulfbinder?” Gromph asked.
The servant nodded and Gromph breathed a sigh of relief. He needed to speak with the man, a Shadovar lord and a trusted resident of the reconstructed Hosttower, privately, and he feared that the ever-curious and perceptive Lady Avelyere might arrive at the mansion before Parise.
Avelyere knew that something was going on, Gromph had come to believe. He felt bad for deceiving her, which surprised him, for though he had come to think of Avelyere as a friend, Gromph Baenre had never been bothered by lying.
In Menzoberranzan, lying was surviving.
That thought left a grin on his face as he followed the ghostly servant through the chamber and down the hall past the sitting room to the foyer.
Two guards stood by the doorway of shimmering purple light. Unlike the magical creations that served him in this place—preparing his food, making his bed, bringing him whatever clothing, items, or books he desired—these two were something different, something far more tangible. Twelve feet tall and carrying huge spike shields and serrated blades, the formidable constructs had taken Gromph four months each to complete, but what wizard worth the status of archmage shouldn’t have a couple of iron golems guarding the mansion that took him a full year of diligent and persistent spellcasting to make permanent?
When the chimes rang again, Gromph nodded to his butler, who pulled down on the golden-stranded rope hanging to the side of the purple entryway.
Something unseen behind the swirling violet hue shifted, two walls of iron sliding back, allowing a man to come through the thick fog.
He came in glancing left and right nervously, as he always did, as almost everyone who was not Jarlaxle or Kimmuriel always did when passing between the metal sentries.
“Archmage, it is good to see you,” Lord Parise Ulfbinder said with a bow.
Always the polite one, Gromph thought, seeing the flattery for what it was, but appreciating the respect nonetheless.
“I am glad that you managed to return early,” Gromph replied.
“I rode back to Luskan on a cloud,” Lord Parise replied with a chuckle. “Good fortune alone put Caecilia on the same road as I—well, above the road, if you will, as she, too, hurried back for the council you have called for this evening.”
“And you found the Twisted One?”
“Indeed, Archmage. He was in Baldur’s Gate, as you predicted.”
“With?”
“Again, as you predicted,” Lord Parise replied.
Gromph nodded. “How did you explain them to Caecilia? I assume you did as I bade and brought them beside you.”
“As I was instructed. And the giantess asked no questions about it. She knows Jarlaxle’s associate, of course, and has heard the whispers as to why he would not venture to the deep Underdark beside Drizzt and Jarlaxle, and so understood or at least suspected why the two might be together, and together with me returning to Luskan.”
“Jarlaxle’s friend knows nothing of this other matter with the Twisted One?”
“Of course not. Nor would he care.”
“And Avelyere?”
“She is intrigued by the tasks I have put to her, as you asked of me,” Lord Parise admitted. “But she is no fool and knows that the business of the Archmage of the Hosttower is yours alone to share.”
“Do you understand your role in my designs?”
“The role of caretaker, nothing more, and I am humbled that you have chosen me for this most trusted duty.”
“You are protecting more than my possessions.”
“Eagerly, my friend. Eagerly.”
Gromph nodded to Parise’s left arm, and the man pulled up the loose sleeve of his voluminous robe nearly all the way to his shoulder, revealing a wound more than two inches square that had been cut out of his flesh, just behind his bicep.
“I am growing old, Archmage, and feeble, and I do not much like it.”
“What is that common saying among you humans?”
“Growing old is better than not growing old,” Parise said with a laugh, but he cut it short and in a serious tone added, “But now I know better. And now you have shown me a possibility I cannot resist.”
“Thank the Twisted One. This school of the arcane arts is his specialty. He taunts death and intends to cheat it.”
“I already have thanked him. I will bring him when the last of your guests this evening have departed, as you instructed.”
Gromph nodded.
“May I see it?”
Gromph considered the request for a moment, particularly given the impatience and eagerness in the tone behind the words. Not for the first time, the powerful drow wondered if he should have trusted this duty to one less . . . ambitious and accomplished.
A few heartbeats later, he shook the notion away, reminding himself that this place he had created from no more than magical strands, and more especially for the golems and treasures he kept within the pocket dimension, needed to be maintained and protected. His caretakers had to be powerful of their own accord, and influential within the hierarchy of the Hosttower of the Arcane. The possibilities for him to fill the needed posts formed a very short list, and given the dark nature of the plan to be concealed and protected, even shorter.
Kimmuriel would have been his first choice, but Kimmuriel was gone to Menzoberranzan, along with his second choice, Jarlaxle.
Catti-brie would have been his third, except that her heart was still tied to Mielikki, though the bonds were strained. And that goddess, called the Forest Queen, for all her own recent meddling with the realm of death, would probably not approve of Gromph’s little game here.
That left Lord Parise Ulfbinder, a Shadovar man Gromph had come to think of as exceedingly honorable and good to his word. Also, Parise was a man rich enough in coin and yet not quite powerful enough in spellcasting—though powerful enough to understand the concept—to be tempted by the promise Gromph was able to make.
Because of course, the other factors weighing on Lord Parise Ulfbinder were also of consequence, particularly his approaching mortality.
Having lived under a true and vicious tyranny, having thrived there by convincing his nemeses that they would be better off using other tactics in dealing with him, Gromph understood that the best way to assure allegiance and the fulfillment of duties was the concept of mutual benefit. Lord Parise had the means to do that which Gromph was doing, but he did not have the ability.
Gromph had the ability, and had promised to help him as soon as this current messy business was attended, however it played out. Parise wouldn’t let that one chance go to waste, Gromph knew, and thus, his home, his treasures, and his meticulous and expensive preparations would be capably protected.
“You will not know everything about the most important chamber, of course,” Gromph threw out there anyway. “From Kimmuriel and the Hive Mind, I have learned ways to hide certain . . . dweomers from any sort of detection, sense, or spell a thief might utilize.”
Parise stiffened a bit at that. Gromph had used a tone to make it sound like a warning, not a threat, but the dire consequences implied made it both.
“Will you remain or return for the feast and council?” Gromph gently asked the man.
“May I remain for a bit?” Parise asked, clearly overwhelmed by the apparent invitation. Lord Parise was an important man at the Hosttower of the Arcane, but he was not among the elite wizards who comprised the Seven Scholars.
“Of course. You should become familiar with the home and to the staff, particularly to the door guards, who are not so forgiving.”
Parise chuckled at that, but only a bit, and with more than a little nervousness behind it.
Gromph was glad of that reaction. He was welcoming the man, promising the man a great gift, offering his trust in the man. But it was a good thing, he knew, for Parise to be a little bit afraid of straying from his directed course.
Even the clarity of mutual benefit could only take a bargain so far.
“You think her dead,” the half-elf tiefling asked in a raspy voice that seemed deprived of air.
Artemis Entreri looked to the younger man’s staff, which was made of bone and set with a tiny humanoid head atop it, to remind himself that the feebleness of that voice could be so very deceptive. He had seen this one’s destructive power in action in the forest of Neverwinter Wood a long time ago. Very little unnerved Artemis Entreri, but the manner of death facilitated by the necromantic spells of Effron Sin’dalay was not anything he ever wanted to experience.
Effron shifted his uneven shoulders to unravel himself from the fold of his dark robes, then managed to pull himself up from the seat of the too low, too cushiony chair. He grasped his staff in his right hand for support, his left arm hanging limply behind him.
“You love her,” Effron said.
Entreri shrugged. “Once,” he admitted. “But now, it seems more a duty that I owe to her.”
“A duty you think I should share.”
“We are all broken. She is not an exception.”
“So?”
“So without us, what does she have?” He wanted to add, forcefully, that she was Effron’s mother, but he understood that the truth of the relationship was likely why Effron was having a hard time in seeing any of this from his point of view, and was resisting any notion that he should aid Entreri in his search for Dahlia.
“She is dead,” Effron stated.
Entreri had only recently met up with the man, and had had to this point only a single and short conversation with him regarding Dahlia and the discovery of her signature weapon out in the wreck off the Sword Coast.
“You know this? You did as I asked and used your magic to search the nether realms?”
“I know only what you told me. The conclusion seems rather obvious.”
“But you could not even bring yourself to make the attempt, as I asked.”
“It is not so easy a task,” Effron snapped back, clearly not enjoying Entreri’s presumptuous tone, “and one that could take many tendays. Those realms of the dead are vast, and populated by the often bitter and uncooperative souls of many millennia.”
Entreri started to respond, but the door to the small room pushed open and Lord Parise entered.
“Come, Effron, you and I have much to discuss before I return you,” he said.
“I will be back in Baldur’s Gate this very night,” the tiefling insisted.
“Before then, of course,” said Lord Parise. “I have an engagement with the other masters of this tower this evening, and we will long be finished before I prepare for that event.”
“You will try as I asked?” Entreri said to Effron as the twisted man shambled for the door.
“I am in such demand,” he replied with a snort. “Everyone has a request.”
“Some of us pay very well,” said Lord Parise.
Entreri rolled his fingertips against his palms. Not too long ago, he might have cut down the pompous ass on the spot, taken his wealth, and thus paid Effron very well for the trouble of searching the nether realms.
Now, though, he just offered a withering glare.
“After the gathering this evening—” Parise began.
“Am I invited?” Entreri asked.
“Of course not.”
“Good.”
“After, when we are done, Archmage Gromph would speak with you.”
Lord Parise ushered Effron through the door, then closed it behind him, leaving Entreri alone in the room. He had come along willingly back to Luskan with Effron and Lord Parise, thinking that this was all about his search.
Now, he was beginning to realize that it was mere coincidence that had put him with the Twisted One, or perhaps that Gromph and Parise had used his street knowledge and ability to find Effron to lead them to the necromancer. Or perhaps just the opposite, and Effron had led them to him.
Whatever might be going on, Entreri wasn’t happy about it at that moment. The room was comfortable, the hearth warm, the food delicious and ample.
But Dahlia was out there, perhaps alone and trapped.
Or more likely, she was dead.
And instead of enjoying the comforts of an archmage’s hospitality, he had to know.