“Yet you rely on the memories of Yvonnel the Eternal?”
“No, that is quite different. With my help, you could access more memories than you can recall separately, throughout your life. Memory is not a reliable thing, but what the illithids did with Yvonnel the Eternal’s brain was extract the memories of events as they happened.”
“Or did they alter those events for their own purposes?”
“Again, does it matter?”
“Of course the truth matters!”
“A truth that cannot be known,” Kimmuriel declared. “And in this moment, when our kin might at last shrug off the poison that is Lolth, is that truly your biggest concern? The histories sung by bards are unreliable—have you not heard songs of your own legend, often attributing things to you that never occurred, or embellishing others?”
Drizzt couldn’t argue against that point.
“Like death?” he asked. “For the living, I mean. A truth that cannot be known.”
“Or the gods,” Dab’nay interjected.
“And the histories taught by those in command most often serve their privileged status,” Kimmuriel explained. “Do you believe that if what Yvonnel and Matron Mother Quenthel learned from the memories of Yvonnel the Eternal was the truth of Menzoberranzan, the leaders of the city, even Yvonnel the Eternal herself, would ever let that be taught at the Academy, a place designed to subjugate free will to the will of Lolth as expressed by the Matron Mother and the Ruling Council? Of course not. They use history like a snake-headed scourge, flashing it to their own benefit.”
“But you know better?”
“My family knew better,” Kimmuriel stated. “For we long communed with the hive mind, and the hive mind knows better. That is probably the single greatest library in the multiverse, Drizzt Do’Urden.”
“So it serves the illithids to make you believe.”
Kimmuriel held up his hands in surrender. “We all have our own truths, I fear,” he said. “Perhaps someday, I will take you there.”
“I’ve been there,” Drizzt sourly reminded him.
“As my guest and not a prisoner,” Kimmuriel assured him.
Now Drizzt held up his own hands.
“Let us assume that the memories are true, that Menzoberranzan was founded based on the concept of common good and a desire to be away from the whims and wars of kings and queens,” Kimmuriel suggested. “What, then, is Drizzt Do’Urden’s play?”
“My play?”
“Do you really have no responsibility here? Do you not understand how your example, the drow who escaped and thrived, has brought so many to this cause? Do you think Jarlaxle would manage Luskan now without the example of Drizzt? Or that he ever would have thought to go on grand adventures with Artemis Entreri across the surface of Toril? Do you think Gromph Baenre would be satisfied with his position in the Hosttower of the Arcane had he not learned that another drow refugee had come to true acceptance on the surface?”
Drizzt pondered that for a bit, letting it sink in. He didn’t know if this was his greatest victory or his greatest catastrophe, given the rumblings of a civil war in Menzoberranzan that had been growing louder of late.
“Now you claim that I am a catalyst for the ejection of Lolth from the drow,” he said at length. “Did you not earlier claim that I am no heretic in her eyes? Am I her golem then that grew beyond her control?”
“Perhaps, or maybe she just doesn’t care as much who wins in Menzoberranzan as we do. Consider, the cult of Lolth will not be fully erased from the families of Menzoberranzan no matter the outcome. There will be glorious chaos in a war that will likely span decades, and even when settled, it won’t be settled. It will never be settled.”
“Then why fight it?”
“You tell me, Drizzt. You have been fighting it—fighting Lolth—all of your life. Does that weary you?”
“No.” The quickness with which he answered surprised Drizzt, but the answer was obvious to him. He had never once regretted turning away from the Spider Queen. He had never once thought her deserving of his fealty or love or obedience.
“Neither shall we regret it,” Kimmuriel promised, with Dab’nay and Braelin Janquay nodding in agreement. “Neither shall we.”
“The snow is getting thicker and harder,” Zak cried. “We shouldn’t have brought her!”
Jarlaxle and his hellsteed had made more progress than Zak and his sword, but they still seemed far away from reaching their trapped companions, who were likely suffocating if they were even still alive. He couldn’t deny Zak’s words, either, for the snow had indeed grown denser under the weight.
But they had to try. Jarlaxle jumped down from his hellsteed and ordered it to keep pawing. He threw the feather from his great hat, summoning the huge flightless bird, and ordered it to peck and claw at the mound. He summoned daggers from his magical bracers, one in each hand, and went at the snow furiously, throwing it aside.
He knew, though, that they wouldn’t make it, a point driven home when he looked at the rocky ridge and realized that he wasn’t even sure if they were digging in the right place.
“Use the magical hole,” Zak told him.
“It doesn’t work like that. It’s an extradimensional space.”
“I’ve seen you use it to go through wall, or into rock. Surely it can do the same with snow.”
Jarlaxle thought about that for a moment. It might work. If he just created a hole, like the opening he had put in walls, they would be much closer.
Still, doubts spun about him as he reached for his hat. What if he put the hole in the wrong place? They would dig right by their friends and never know it. What if he put the hole onto one of his friends? Would it disappear flesh, an outstretched arm or leg perhaps, as it vanished stone? Even if so, Jarlaxle couldn’t imagine a good outcome when that vanished limb returned with the dismissal of the hole!
Still, he decided to try, and pulled off his hat. A cry from Zaknafein stopped him short, however, and Jarlaxle jumped about and yelped out in shock and fear.
Until he recognized the monster standing before him, a giant black panther digging furiously at the snowpack.
“Get her, Guenhwyvar,” he whispered. “For all that is good in the world, get them both.”
The drow were gone in the morning, but Drizzt was not alone with Brie as Andahar trotted along the open road. Questions followed him and spoke to him, prodding him as much as the little girl sitting before him was arguing against their urgency. Drizzt didn’t know what he was going to do. The prospect of joining a war in Menzoberranzan was certainly not appealing, but how might he live with his choice if he ignored the call of his people in this great conflict that seemed to be coming to a climax, and one that might well determine the security not only of Menzoberranzan, but of Gauntlgrym and the northlands as well?
He repeatedly tried to remind himself that this decision was for another day, that he was riding a road in an untamed region of a dangerous and strife-ridden land, and that his daughter’s future was the purpose of this journey. And yet, that very future seemed to be the purpose of his thoughts . . .
The forests had given way to vast fields and copses of trees, or lonely trees beside the road, used as waypoints for travelers. Sometimes in the distance Drizzt noted thin streams of smoke. Cooking fires, likely. And every now and again, he saw a distant cluster of cottages. They were crossing Netheril, a land of great empires and great falls. This was a very different place than the one Drizzt had known only a few years before, for the great Netherese Empire, with its massive floating cities, had crashed once more, both figuratively and literally.
Drizzt knew the land fairly well, both because he had crossed it before and because of long conversation with Netherese lord Parise Ulfbinder and the sorceress Lady Avelyere. He had memorized their maps, and knew the mountains and features to guide him true.
He slowed Andahar’s pace when he came over a rise to see the land spreading wide below him, the road curving and forking about a l
arge and ancient oak. He shielded his eyes as he studied that tree. Something seemed amiss.
He went down slowly, walking the unicorn, and secured Brie tightly before him. He nocked an arrow, lifted and leveled, when he spotted a large humanoid form hanging upside down from a low branch.
His confusion lasted only a few moments, for he noted the seared patches of grass, the hoof marks of hellsteeds. He buried Brie’s face against his chest and pulled his cloak over her, shielding her from what he feared would be a gruesome sight.
Indeed, there was some blood, and a line of burned grass leading off to the south—the drow were in pursuit, he knew.
Chasing highwaymen, he realized as he came nearer the tree, or highwaybugbears, he decided, for the hanging figure, quite dead, wore a necklace of pierced handcrossbow bolts. Likely, it had fallen asleep and swung over, hanging, and there, one of Bregan D’aerthe’s formidable soldiers had delivered a swift and bloody end, cutting the would-be thief from hip to shoulder.
Drizzt picked up his pace, the questions gone, and focused on the road ahead, suddenly anxious to get his beloved little girl to the shelter of the Monastery of the Yellow Rose.
They probably weren’t in physical danger with this drow force flanking them, but there were more scars than those of the flesh. Brie didn’t need those. Not now, not yet.
If Drizzt had his way, not ever.
Guenhwyvar burrowed into the snow mound, disappearing from sight, snow flying out behind her. Jarlaxle tried to help, diving down into the panther’s tunnel, pulling more snow out, trying to gauge the cat’s progress.
Guen went down several yards, then leveled out and burrowed in, all but disappearing from sight, with just her twitching heavy tail flickering in the first tunnel. The drow heard Catti-brie’s groan—she was alive!—then saw more of Guen’s haunches, the panther backing out, then backing up the slope.
Jarlaxle went out of the mound and waited, calling Zak to the other side of the opening.
The panther’s back end appeared, then more, and Jarlaxle and Zak dropped and grabbed at Catti-brie, helping to pull her free.
“Get Entreri, Guenhwyvar,” Jarlaxle pleaded, and the panther disappeared into the hole.
Twisted, battered, her limbs locked in place by a coating of ice, Catti-brie was in rough shape here.
“We have to find some shelter,” Zak said.
“Get her up on the nightmare,” Jarlaxle instructed.
They almost had her secured in place across the hellsteed’s shoulders when Guen appeared again, dragging Artemis Entreri.
Jarlaxle went to the man tentatively, fearing that he was dead. Surely he looked dead, blue in the face and unmoving. But as he neared, Jarlaxle noted the quiver of the man’s lip. Jarlaxle fumbled about Entreri’s pouch, producing a second hellsteed, and tossed it to Zak, who quickly summoned it.
“Go find us shelter, wonderful Guenhwyvar,” Jarlaxle instructed. With a low growl, the panther turned and surveyed the land below them.
“A cave,” Zak clarified.
“Even an overhang of stone,” Jarlaxle said. “Anything, anywhere we can make a fire.”
“With what kindling?” Zak asked, but Jarlaxle’s responding look reminded the weapon master not to ask silly questions. For of course Jarlaxle had brought along a supply of fuel.
Guen was long out of sight by the time the two had secured Entreri. Up Zak went on the hellsteed behind Entreri, but to his surprise, Jarlaxle instead again went into the burrow Guenhwyvar had dug.
“What now?” Zak asked, but before an answer came back to him, Jarlaxle was crawling out. He stood and brushed off the snow, stuffing something into his belt pouch. He climbed up behind Catti-brie and led the way, walking the hellsteed down the hill in the direction in which the cat had run off.
“With the time we’ve been here, daylight has to be waning,” Jarlaxle said, looking to the north, then more to the east. Curiously, the sun was a bit higher in the sky, he thought, and more fully out over the white plain to the north. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, and wondered if perhaps he had used the orb incorrectly and was really looking south instead.
But still, why was the sun higher in the sky?
They resisted the urge to move across the mountainside, preferring the route where the top layers of snow had already rumbled away. They were still on the mountain, but much lower, when they heard Guenhwyvar’s growl, far off to the left. Zak spotted her on a high bluff of stone. The sun still seemed no lower, but fearing darkness and the deeper cold that would surely accompany it, Jarlaxle picked up the pace, following Guen, who kept coming up high on bluffs so they might see her. After putting several miles behind them, they finally caught up to the cat, standing on a high rock, a dark opening of what seemed like a deep cave below her.
The sun was much lower to the horizon now, seeming to almost touch the land, and farther to the right. The two drow went into the cave and helped Catti-brie to the floor, then lifted Entreri, who was not dead but still unresponsive, from the hellsteed, which was dismissed.
Jarlaxle went right back to the cave opening, Zak following, and looked again to the sun. Beside him, Zak did likewise, and when that fiery ball continued to move—not to set, but almost as if rolling along the horizon—they exchanged blank glances. Where in the multiverse had they gone, after all?
Chapter 10
All Out of Sorts
Catti-brie struggled to stand, putting her left hand on her injured hip for support. The movement sent her thoughts back across the centuries, to that other time when she had been gravely injured in this same hip. This wound was not nearly as bad as that, she was certain, and yet her healing spell had not brought her the comfort and strength she had expected.
It still ached, and barely supported her.
“What is it?” Zak asked, showing her that her discomfort was obvious.
Catti-brie shook her head. “The cold, perhaps. I don’t know. I used a powerful spell, but the healing didn’t quite revive me.”
“The wound is worse than you believed?” Jarlaxle asked from deeper in the cave, where he sat beside Artemis Entreri, who was still unconscious. When she turned to regard the mercenary, he pulled his hand from his magical belt pouch, looked at the chunk of ice he was holding, and threw it aside with a huff.
“The pack seems to have opened when I dug and crawled into the snowpack,” he explained, and thrust his hand back in, this time pulling forth a log, covered in snow. “I am quite sure I have enough of that avalanche in my bag to construct a mountain giant made of snow alone,” he lamented.
He brushed the log, then tossed it to the floor before him.
“It is this place, perhaps,” Jarlaxle told her while he continued retrieving the firewood from his pouch. “I have heard that magic might work differently this far north, as it is different in the Underdark. Perhaps there are limitations.”
“I don’t know,” Catti-brie said again. “There is something . . .” She shook her head and looked out of the cave at the vast white plain down the rocky hill before her.
“Amiss?” Jarlaxle asked.
“Different,” Catti-brie corrected, and she was still shaking her head, as if she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “Like the path of the sun out there.”
“I’ve felt it, too,” Zak admitted.
They left it at that, for none of them seemed to be able to express the sensations any more clearly. Catti-brie followed Zak to the pile of wood—kindling perfectly sized and split.
Zak took out his blade of light and ignited the sword as they went, but didn’t immediately plunge it into the wood pile when he stood beside it. For Catti-brie put a hand on his shoulder and directed him to move away, then kneeled quite gingerly beside the pile and began properly arranging the firewood to best take and burn. With great effort, and an assist from Zak, she stood back up and stepped aside.
Zak thrust in the fiery blade. The wood, wet from the snow and ice, crackled and popped, and barely caught.
“Back up,” the weapon master bade Catti-brie, and stepped away beside her, transforming his bright blade into a bullwhip.
Up it rolled over his shoulder, and Zak brought it snapping down across the firewood, cutting a line of fire down the side of the pile.
Catti-brie immediately reached through that planar tear with her ring, feeling the heat and power of the fiery plane, and sensing the preternatural sentience beyond the cut.
She coaxed forth a bit of that sentience as the tiny balls of fire dripped from the planar tear onto the logs, and she grinned as she dominated those living flames, instructing them to attack the wet kindling.
When the fire had more fully caught, Catti-brie called one of the living balls of flame off the pile and sent its light deeper into the cave, leaving puddles that quickly hardened on the floor, which was rock and ice. She limped along behind it for a bit, moving it deeper still—the cave seemed endless, a winding, slightly descending tunnel going deeper into the mountains—until the tiny elemental finally expired.
“Ice everywhere, even in here. How is it so cold?” Zaknafein asked. “It’s summer.”
“Icewind Dale can get quite cold in the summer,” said Catti-brie. “But not like this.”
“But the Sea of Moving Ice is always mostly frozen, and more so the farther north you go,” Jarlaxle added. “My guess is that we’re farther north than that, even.”
“And it is still light outside,” Zak remarked, motioning to the cave exit. “We’ve been here for many hours and it’s not even twilight.”
A sudden epiphany sent Catti-brie moving toward the daylight. She paused and cast yet another healing spell upon her bruised hip, sighing in relief as the warmth flowed through her. Jarlaxle nodded, and she returned the nod, then started on her way again, the two drow close behind.
Staring at the shining whiteness outside, the perplexed woman tried to get her bearings. The ground fell away before her still, moving toward that same white plain she remembered from the mountain, but the sun seemed to be moving west to east if she was indeed looking north. How was that possible?
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