Starlight Enclave

by R. A. Salvatore

  “What is—” she started to ask, but shook her head. “A sister blade?”

  “That is Khazid’hea,” Jarlaxle replied. “I have had it for years now, though mostly it’s been kept hidden away, in the hands of a friend, a psionicist, who sought its secrets.”

  “Then why did you say you had come to speak with me of a sword you wished to find?” she asked sharply.

  “That is not what I said,” Jarlaxle replied. He took the sword from the table and slid it away, hoping to distance Sinnafein from the source of her obvious tension, and he was glad when she sat back down. “That is what you heard because I was indeed cryptic in the way I phrased my purpose. I had to know first if there would be approval on your part.”

  “Approval? I approve of nothing short of the destruction of that foul blade.”

  “Approval of me going to find your daughter,” Jarlaxle said, and if he had slapped Sinnafein across the face, she would have looked no different. “My friend is convinced from his examinations of the sword that Doum’wielle, your Little Doe, might well still be alive. Once this sword has dominated a person, it knows of that person, no matter the distance between them.”

  “Where is she?” Sinnafein demanded.

  “That, I fear, is a more complicated issue, for I do not know,” Jarlaxle admitted. “But I believe that I can find out, and intend to do so. Because I am not convinced your daughter deserved the fate delivered to her.” The mercenary gave a helpless little laugh. “Of course, she did some foul deeds, including the murder of her brother, your son . . .” He sighed.

  “Then why is it your place to go find her?”

  Jarlaxle shrugged. “I come from Menzoberranzan. I know the influences an overpowering demon—or demonic bent of a magical item—can hold over people. Over otherwise good people. It is the story of my city, after all, of my kin.”

  “I still don’t understand. I know nothing of where she is,” Sinnafein snapped, biting off every word. “Why come to me?”

  “Because when I find her—and I will—I want her to know that her mother will forgive her,” Jarlaxle said, and yet again, Sinnafein sucked in her breath.

  “Many times, you have said it was the sword, or at least you have made it clear that you want it to have been the sword,” Jarlaxle explained. “It was. I tell you that it was, and that your daughter did not deserve her magical banishment.”

  For many moments, Sinnafein held silent, her eyes darting all about as if she was looking for an escape, or for someone to rush in and help her.

  “This is not your affair,” she said at length. “Why are you making it your business?”

  Now it was Jarlaxle’s turn to settle back and let that simple question truly sink in. “I do not know,” he admitted. “Perhaps it is just my wanderlust now that things in the far west have at last quieted. Perhaps it is the test I put before he whom I intend to present with this sword.”

  Sinnafein sat up straighter, a scowl quickly flashing.

  He put his hand up. “I assure you that this person will never be dominated by the likes of Khazid’hea or any other magical weapon,” Jarlaxle said with a disarming grin. “He is a warrior with few peers in skill and experience, and fewer still in terms of determination and heart—perhaps rivaled only by his own son, whom you know well.”

  The elf didn’t seem convinced.

  “And perhaps it is because I believe that Doum’wielle can earn her redemption,” Jarlaxle at last admitted. “She is of House Barrison Del’Armgo, the Second House of Menzoberranzan, the house that may prove decisive in a coming civil war.”

  “You seek a spy,” Sinnafein cleverly deduced.

  “I seek an ally,” Jarlaxle said. “If Doum’wielle can help to avert a war and to turn the drow away from Lolth, would that not be a good thing? Would that not be recompense for the trouble that she—under the influence of Khazid’hea, of course—caused?”

  Sinnafein’s expression shifted repeatedly, finally settling on a look of understanding. News of the war in the west had long since reached the Moonwood, including the unexpected ending that spoke of a great heresy by powerful drow against Lady Lolth. “I know not where Little Doe is,” the elf quietly repeated. “I thought her long dead, or residing in the city of Menzoberranzan with her father.”

  “I do not know, either,” Jarlaxle said again, and rose from his chair. “But I will. Now that I know what I can tell Doum’wielle of the Moonwood when again I see her, I assure you that if she is indeed alive, I will. And if she is not alive, I will report that to you.”

  He couldn’t read Sinnafein’s expression in that moment, and understood that a great turmoil roiled within her heart and soul. The tragedy visited on this woman, her family, this community, was no small thing.

  Jarlaxle took some comfort in her lack of reaction. He was determined to find Doum’wielle Armgo for power and gain, as was his way. Perhaps the young elf would prove to be a key component in his greater hopes.

  But now, looking at Sinnafein and thinking that maybe, just maybe, the return of a healed Doum’wielle who was freed of the influence of Khazid’hea might bring some comfort here made the rogue all the more determined. More than he had imagined, even. He thought of Brienne Do’Urden. The comparisons to Doum’wielle Armgo were fairly obvious, and if Brienne was to be Jarlaxle’s hope of the future, was Doum’wielle truly to be his fear?

  Those unsettling thoughts stayed with Jarlaxle as he moved out of the treehouse, down the tree, and out of the Moonwood altogether, back to Zymorven Hall, where Dab’nay waited. The thoughts stayed with him all the way back to Mithral Hall and the magical gate that would transport him back to Gauntlgrym and Zaknafein—more than stayed with him. They haunted him. All of his life, Jarlaxle had done the pragmatic thing, trying to simply survive. He had always tried not to do the wrong thing regarding those around him who didn’t deserve it, and mostly he succeeded, but rarely had he tried to do the right thing for anyone else above himself and his immediate needs.

  It was a small needle, but Jarlaxle had threaded it pretty well over the centuries, he believed.

  Now, though, somewhere inside him, he couldn’t deny that he was beginning to place the needs of others at least at the level of his own needs, and if his feelings at this very moment were to be believed, perhaps even above his own needs. He tried to shake that unsettling notion away by reminding himself that he had stayed alive precisely because of the previous balance.

  But no, he could not, and when he exited the portal back in Gauntlgrym, he offered only a nod and not a word to the dwarven guards. He made his way to his own chamber, the ghosts of Brienne-inspired hopes and Doum’wielle-inspired fears close behind.

  Chapter 2

  The Word of a Goddess

  “It would be a visit, nothing more,” Drizzt answered Catti-brie’s scowl. His wife hadn’t been happy with his suggestion that he take Brienne to the east, to Damara and the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, to meet Grandmaster Kane. “I owe them the full recounting of Brother Afafrenfere.”

  “She only started walking a season ago, and now you want her to learn how to kick through a board?” Catti-brie countered.

  Drizzt started to reply, but just chuckled instead and shook his head. “Come with us,” he simply suggested again.

  “This isn’t just a visit, Drizzt. I know what you want,” she said. “You want her to go there and train there and learn there.”

  “Eventually,” Drizzt admitted. “I cannot tell you how much those months with Grandmaster Kane have done for me in the way I see the world around me. And after my . . . ‘transcendence’ is what the monks call it, but I find that word insufficient.”

  “I’m not concerned about what words you use to describe that experience.”

  “Fair enough. After my departure from this world, this life and existence, I have come to see so much more. How could I not wish to share that with my child?”

  “The same way that I wish to share with Brienne my love of Mielikki?” Catti-bri
e asked rather sharply, which brought a wince from Drizzt.

  He knew the stubbornness behind her refusal here, for she and Drizzt had been quite at odds regarding the goddess Mielikki since Drizzt’s companions had returned from the enchanted forest years ago. The argument had started over a discussion that seemed more theoretical than of material or practical importance, a dispute regarding the nature of orcs and goblins and the like. Drizzt had come to believe that these goblinkin races were not evil by nature, as the drow were not, but were bent to such acts and practices by the influence of powerful godlike forces, as were so many of the races of Toril.

  But no, Mielikki had denied such a theory to Catti-brie. His wife knew that drow were not evil creatures by nature, of course. She had married Drizzt, after all, and he knew with confidence that she loved him with all of her heart and soul. So how could she hold such a prejudice? No, that idea was impossible.

  But goblinkin were different, she had insisted, both in her opinion and according to the edicts of her goddess. Mielikki had told the priestess, indeed a chosen priestess, that goblinkin were evil incarnate, brought to the world to cause misery. Nothing more. Yes, she had conceded, Drizzt had met an exception once long ago in a small town called Pengallen, but while Catti-brie hadn’t doubted his memory or his sincerity, she had relayed that she thought his judgment in that particular situation regarding a goblin named Nojheim to be skewed. He hadn’t seen the full picture, perhaps, she had gently offered.

  Drizzt wasn’t sure of his convictions on this matter, but what he was certain of was that he would not be guided against his conscience by a supposed goddess, any goddess. Once, he too had followed Mielikki, but he had always thought of her, of all the gods, as manifestations of that which was in the hearts of their respective followers—they were just names given to conscience—or if more, no matter, for following them meant following that which you believed to be true, not the words relayed. Or in this case, not even the words directly conveyed.

  This debate hadn’t come up much over the last few years, but the implications had clearly persisted and resurfaced now that they had a child to raise, with all the questions such a daunting task entailed. They were to guide the life of another sentient, independent, growing being. They were to shape Brienne’s earliest understanding of the world, and such influence, both Drizzt and Catti-brie understood, could be a guiding beacon or a stifling anchor to Brienne’s journey.

  Drizzt started to respond several times, but faltered with each attempt. He had to take care with his words here, for he was speaking to the very soul of himself and of Catti-brie. They didn’t have to align on every issue, of course, but this was a fundamental belief that went even beyond the nature of goblinkin and to the very concept of god and creation and the purpose of life itself.

  “She will know of the goddess,” Catti-brie said.

  “I know.”

  “Can you say with all of your heart that you feel equally strongly that she will know Grandmaster Kane and the Order of Saint Sollars?”

  “I am not of the Order of Saint Sollars,” Drizzt reminded her.

  “Aren’t you, though? You ably performed their most spiritual and accomplished act in leaving the Material Plane of your own volition.”

  “The philosophy of Grandmaster Kane is one of self-discovery through meditation and perfection of the body through repetition. This is the teaching of the man they call Saint Sollars, yes.”

  “Saint,” Catti-brie echoed, making clear the implication.

  “Philosopher-warrior,” Drizzt corrected. “These teachings are showing me a way in the manner of Melee-Magthere, and before it, the training of my father, Zaknafein. Yet I do not deify him.”

  “You do not deify anyone or anything anymore, it would seem.”

  Drizzt let that sink in for several long breaths. “Am I any different in that regard than when I left Menzoberranzan?”

  “Did you not lead me to Mielikki?”

  Drizzt had to pause on that. “I told you what was in my heart, and the name I had given it was Mielikki.”

  “Because she was the embodiment of your ethical beliefs,” Catti-brie replied.

  “Yes.”

  “But she is a living goddess, and so when she speaks in communion, are not those declarations commandments you must follow?”

  “No.” It actually surprised Drizzt how quickly the answer left his mouth, and the conviction behind the response. “I don’t know that I can call her a goddess, or the divine beings of Toril gods at all,” he said, speaking as much to clarify the thoughts in his own mind as in explanation to Catti-brie. “Perhaps they are no more than caretakers of destinations that might best fit their followers. Perhaps they are illusions, or self-deceptions, because of our fears of what is next, if anything.”

  “You have died and returned!” Catti-brie reminded him. “Am I deluded in that?”

  “Did I? Or did I find some magic of the mind that transcended my physical form and would thus leave me in a temporary state as I dissipated into nothingness?”

  “Or everythingness?”

  “That, my love, is my hope,” Drizzt admitted with a smile.

  “You said that you felt the joy of true peace. Yet still you doubt.”

  “Perhaps that was my own deception to ease the transition.”

  Catti-brie’s chuckle wasn’t meant to mock him, but it did. “My doubting husband. It is real. There is more. I have seen it. I have lived it in Iruladoon, though that was merely a place of holding. But I was there, with Wulfgar, Bruenor, and Regis, after we had died. And Zaknafein, lost for scores of years and now is returned.”

  “I know,” Drizzt said. “There remain so many things beyond my ability to truly understand.”

  “That’s why it is called faith.”

  Drizzt conceded the point with a shrug.

  “Yet you doubt the word of Mielikki,” Catti-brie said. “She has told me the nature of goblinkin, and that nature is one of evil.”

  “I hold true to that which is in my heart,” Drizzt countered. “I hold faith that my conscience guides me—”

  “You put yourself above Mielikki.” Catti-brie’s voice took on a sharper edge, but she softened it immediately, Drizzt noted, as weary of this recurring argument as he.

  “And so you would not wish me to introduce our daughter to Mielikki?” she asked at length.

  “Of course I would. If you do not, then I would. I would give her the whole world to see and devour, so she may pick those morsels that are within her heart.”

  “And if she chose Mielikki, to become a priestess, above your training with Grandmaster Kane?”

  “Why are they exclusionary?”

  After a long sigh, Catti-brie admitted, “They probably aren’t, though the latter has led you further from the former.”

  “Perhaps you alone should take Brienne to the Monastery of the Yellow Rose and hear the lessons of Grandmaster Kane,” Drizzt offered with a smirk. “You were once formidable with the blade, and deadly with the bow, I recall.”

  “Deadlier now,” his wife replied, narrowing her eyes and turning them just enough to the side to emphasize the quiet, lighthearted threat.

  Drizzt leaped over to her and wrapped her in a hug, kissing her cheek, then whispering in her ear, “I find that quite alluring.”

  “It is a dance, after all,” Catti-brie whispered back, turning within his grasp to kiss him fully.

  “Want Genn!” came a tiny voice from the door.

  “Perhaps we should have Kimmuriel take her to the illithids,” Drizzt said through his helpless smile. “For the child can read minds.”

  “I’m not so sure reading your mind is that difficult at this point,” Catti-brie teased, swaying against him just a bit. “Call the panther. Let her play with her Genn for a while.”

  “While we finish our discussion?”

  Catti-brie widened a smile and chuckled, but her expression changed suddenly into a feigned stern look. “Don’t ruin it,” she warned.


  “You seem a bit . . . disheveled today?” Jarlaxle slyly remarked, and he tried too obviously to hide his grin, telling Catti-brie that she was blushing.

  “Every day is a trial with a toddler,” she said.

  “Very busy, I imagine.”

  “A constant chase, yes.”

  “I do hope you have found some time for yourself,” the mercenary quipped. “That is always important.”

  “Yes, Jarlaxle, I’ve examined your fiery whip,” an exasperated Catti-brie finally said in an attempt to end this one’s endless games of cryptic remarks and even double entendre. Yes, it was obvious that she had just come from Drizzt’s bed, she knew, and so she would expect nothing less from this cavalier drow so dedicated to the pleasures of life.

  She moved across the dais of the small chapel she had consecrated not far from the suite she, Drizzt, and Brienne shared in Gauntlgrym and reached behind a bench to produce the marvelous whip Jarlaxle had given her.

  “Did your ring offer any insights?” Jarlaxle asked.

  “Not really. It does cut into the Plane of Fire, yes. The magic is true, but we already knew that.”

  “Do you understand the dweomer? Is it a form of extraplanar gate spell, perhaps?”

  Catti-brie shrugged. “I expect there is something of that sort, yes. But there is nothing I can detect, or understand. This is an old weapon, of that I am sure. And I doubt it was created by human or elven or dwarven hands.”

  “Or even on this plane?”

  “Probably. More likely it was fashioned in the Abyss or the Nine Hells, and by a being of greater magical knowledge than I.”

  “You speak of the lower planes. Did you sense any malevolence within the whip?”

  “No. It is just a bullwhip, with a marvelous magical edge that can cut lines into the Plane of Fire.”

  Jarlaxle blew a long sigh.

  “What?”

  “Will it work, I wonder? Or will I be destroying a most marvelous tool?”

  “I do not know.”