“Your argument is noted,” Jarlaxle conceded, “but still, you could have simply withheld the whistle, could you not? Or spoken to me of it, perhaps offering a geas agreement as you fashioned with my friend here. You didn’t have to go to such lengths to replicate it, unless of course, you did so as a test. Tell me, Galathae—Holy Galathae—did you have a mukteff on watch and at the ready to alert you if I chose to use the device?”
Catti-brie held her breath, but relaxed almost immediately as Galathae and many others of the assembly took no offense and indeed, laughed in reply.
“Well reasoned, Jarlaxle,” the paladin congratulated him. “A small test, as it turns out, and one where you confirmed our confidence in these weighty matters when you simply admitted to having such a necklace, and one you have not used. Mostly, we held your whistle longer simply because we cannot construe the magic of it, and now that our own spellpowers have fully returned, we wish to unravel the mystery.”
“It is a curious item, I freely admit” was all Jarlaxle said of their befuddlement. “I can contact only a single person with it, and then only if he happens to be listening at the time.” He paused and chuckled a bit. “And if he chooses not to ignore me.”
He hadn’t mentioned psionics, Catti-brie noted, for that was the basis of Kimmuriel’s whistle. She thought his omission of the mind magic curious, but began to wonder if there might be some other reason Jarlaxle would not want the aevendrow to know about the true nature of the item.
Given what she and her companions already suspected to be the terms of departure, she had a hunch of what that reason might be.
“It will be returned to you, likely,” Galathae told him. “But yes, with conditions.”
Jarlaxle swept another bow, and Catti-brie joined in the giggling. Ilina put her hand on Catti-brie’s then, simply to lend support. A small but hardly unimportant gesture.
“You have told us several times that you seek Doum’wielle, our lost Little Doe,” Galathae said. “You tell us that you are convinced she is alive, and so you must go seek her.”
“The sword—” Jarlaxle began, but Galathae stopped him.
“You need not explain it again, and I have relayed to all of the Temporal Convocation that which you have told me of that sword and the connection you believe leads you to Doum’wielle. Their response, in unity, is the same that I said to you: perhaps she is alive, but even if so, she is not what she was. We have seen this before. Once encased by the cante, the victim becomes merely a physical extension of the monstrous magic, and the new joined being, uninhabited and victim, transforms into what we call the n’divi, the overtaken, an undead creature controlled by the slaadi. Doum’wielle was encased, and that was many months ago, soon after the last Conception Verdant.”
“But you can’t be certain,” Jarlaxle said.
Galathae conceded that with a shrug.
“Doum’wielle was never a good friend to any of us,” Jarlaxle admitted. “Though we, mostly Catti-brie, know of her, and know well her family, who live in a great forest we call the Moonwood.”
“Doum’wielle told us of them,” Galathae replied.
“Yes, and she likely told you that she could never return because of her crimes,” said Jarlaxle.
“She did, to some degree. We knew that it was not a good series of events that brought her to us.”
“It was terrible,” Jarlaxle assured them. “But that is her story to tell, not mine. What I will say is that it was not Doum’wielle who did these things, but Doum’wielle under the domination of the sword Khazid’hea. The very same sword you returned to Zaknafein.”
“A prideful and powerful blade,” Galathae admitted.
“And now, because of circumstance, Doum’wielle, freed of the sword, might find some redemption, and do great good,” said Jarlaxle. “Good for a drow city with almost as many people as this one, a city on the edge of civil war. The crux of that war is the Second House, Barrison Del’Armgo, the house of Doum’wielle Armgo, and of her father, who was a noble of the house but is dead now. She can sway them. She can turn them.”
“By telling them of us, so you believe,” Mona Valrissa Zhamboule sharply interrupted.
Jarlaxle seemed to have lost his voice.
“I . . . I . . .”
“That, she cannot do,” Mona Valrissa flatly stated. “That, none of you will ever do. Understand that.”
“You must understand,” Jarlaxle countered. “What I speak of is everything to our people. Our people, yours and not just mine! In my homeland—”
“We know quite a lot about your home, Jarlaxle,” Mona Valrissa replied.
“But it is more than that,” Jarlaxle protested. “Do you know of Gauntlgrym, home again to the Delzoun dwarves?”
The aevendrow and others looked about, most shaking their heads.
“Of Luskan, the City of Sails?” Jarlaxle asked.
“Luskan, yes,” said Mona Valrissa. “That sounds somewhat familiar.”
“It is a city just south of the frozen lands on the Sword Coast,” Jarlaxle told them. “A great port, which is now under my direction. And with that guidance, it is becoming a center of commerce. Wondrous trade of wondrous items from such varied sources as would never have considered such arrangements before. With your white and blue ice magic, with your alterations of simple conjurations, with the clothing you wear alone, I could create great avenues of trade for you.”
“There is nothing we desire from the world beyond Callidae,” Mona Valrissa answered. “What do you suppose you can offer? We have no need of your money or jewels or weapons or anything else. That which you treasure is not what we cherish. We survive, we thrive, we live in the highest joy, because we have made of this place that which we desire, as one and as each of us.”
“But there is so much,” pressed Jarlaxle, ever the salesman. “From my home alone—”
“From Menzoberranzan, the City of the Spider Queen Lolth,” Mona Valrissa cut him short. “We know, Jarlaxle, of Menzoberranzan, or at least, of how it came to be and how it was doomed to fall . . .” She struggled for a word. “Virtuperd,” she decided. “Doomed to corruption. In the Grand Dispersion, so say the histories, when the drow peoples fled their elven cousins, they tried to leave the world that was ever shaken by the whims of kings and queens, of lords who claimed divinity, of churches that demanded fealty, of purest greed and callous projection, of damnable differences instead of celebratory diversity. In this time, several of the great clans traveled downward, what they believed the obvious path to security, into the Underdark. The stone ceilings and tunnel mazes provided ways for them to guard against great armies, of course, but alas, as with the cleaving of many of the dwarven peoples, sheltering in the Underdark meant settling near the barrier between our world and the lower planes, and so they were corrupted. Virtuperd.”
“Yvonnel and Quenthel,” Catti-brie whispered, and her friends heard her and turned to her. This was a bit of a confirmation, so it seemed, that the recounting of the memories of Yvonnel the Eternal was not far-fetched.
“Alas for the drow and for the duergar . . .” Mona Valrissa was saying when Catti-brie turned her attention back to the aevendrow, but the mona’s voice trailed off.
“And now they have the chance to break free of that spell,” Jarlaxle pleaded with her, with them all. “Doum’wielle might prove critical in that effort. To shake off the curse of Lolth!”
“It is not our fight,” Galathae said. “It cannot be our fight. But we will not stop you in your quest to find Doum’wielle. We will take you there, to the lower caverns beneath the fortress of the slaadi, where she and many others were lost to us. There will be but one condition. Prepare your word of recall, Catti-brie, but your destination will be Callidae and not the southland, and accept the geas that will hold you to that. When we are agreed upon that, you may go to find your lost friend.”
“And then?” Catti-brie asked.
“We will speak of that at the end of the congress,” Mona Valris
sa reminded her.
Catti-brie tried to hide her grimace. Thoughts of Drizzt and Brie flooded through her; she knew that when she returned to Callidae from their rescue of Doum’wielle, she would demand that the aevendrow do whatever ritual or spell they needed to blur her memories of this place, and then, when they were satisfied, she would fly away to her home with whichever of her companions decided to join her.
It was a pleasant thought and it was not, for the idea of forgetting this place, of never returning here with Drizzt and Brie, stabbed at her heart.
Galathae nodded. “Now we ask something of you in exchange for our hospitality. We would have you tell us your stories, of your homelands, of how you came to be together. Of who you are, that our scribes may record your tales for our library, that our bards might put proper context on perte miye Zaknafein.”
The unsubtle reminder made the request seem perfectly reasonable to all of them, of course.
“Are we wrong in expecting that your own tale might prove the longest and most . . . interesting?” she asked Jarlaxle.
“He’ll make it seem so,” Entreri muttered, to laughter.
“I am sure,” Galathae replied.
“I do not wish to bore the assembly,” Jarlaxle said with obviously feigned humility.
“We do not know much about you, Jarlaxle, but we strongly doubt that ‘boring’ is a word often associated with you.”
“Would that it were,” said Zaknafein.
“We’ll starve in this room,” Entreri moaned.
Catti-brie just watched Jarlaxle taking it all in, truly in his glory here.
“Very well,” he said. “I will tell you great tales of many lands, of heroic adventures, and terrific battles, of dragons loved and demon lords destroyed. But I have a price.”
“Truly?” asked a perplexed Galathae.
“I would think it already paid,” Mona Valrissa stated evenly. “But speak your ransom.”
Jarlaxle waited, the hall thick with curiosity, if not tension. To either side of the floor, aevendrow filed in and lined the walls, books in hand, ready to record. When they were all in place, pens at the ready, Jarlaxle let the suspense linger just a few moments longer before blurting out his price.
“Persimmons!” he shouted. “Persimmons with kurit muskox cheese, chased by Scellobelee ice wine. That is my price.”
“He is so good at this,” Catti-brie mumbled as the whole of the Siglig reverberated with cheers and laughter. In a moment of tension, Jarlaxle had struck the perfect chord, and while he had them tittering and settling, before any could slow him, he launched into a long tale, the story of Jarlaxle, the story he enjoyed telling most of all.
He began with his days as a houseless rogue in Menzoberranzan, explaining in detail the structures of the noble families and the lesser families striving to become more powerful—but being ever careful, for if they gained too much, they would be obliterated in short order by those who desired no rivals.
Catti-brie watched the faces of the representatives, mostly of the aevendrow, and she came to believe that, though they knew of Menzoberranzan and had found out bits of information here and there, never before had they, this particular group at least, heard such details of the wild ways of the City of Spiders.
Jarlaxle stressed how he had survived, forming Bregan D’aerthe—Catti-brie was truly surprised that he disclosed his organization so openly!
But then, what did he have to lose?
The rogue turned about to regard Zaknafein as he described the battle between houses wherein he had rescued Zak at the behest of yet another matron, and though he turned back to the assembly, Catti-brie let her gaze remain on Zak as Jarlaxle detailed their time together, right up to the point when he alluded to Zak’s sacrifice for the sake of his son.
Zak nodded through it all. It was clear to Catti-brie that he thought Jarlaxle to be offering an honest recounting, even if the rogue was surely leaving out a few details, like Zak’s gory actions on the night Drizzt had been born.
As soon as he finished that bit, Jarlaxle pivoted to the events that had led him to a life more focused on the surface world.
At that point, Galathae stopped him. “The mona has called a recess for dinner,” she announced to the chamber, and to the four visitors, she added, “You have a side room prepared where your food will be brought. This seems a good time for a break in the tale. Come.”
When the mona formally dismissed the assembly, Galathae led them to one of the smallest rooms they had seen in the Siglig, although it was still quite large and comfortable. A long table was set with a dozen chairs, with plenty of room between them. Fine settings of white and blue ice were etched in various ways: beautiful designs of sled dogs and dancers, frozen waterfalls, and even a pair of grapplers in a grape-crushing battle.
“You heard them, yes? The Grand Dispersion, they called it,” Jarlaxle said after the aevendrow servers filled the table with a wondrous bounty and departed. “I don’t know the timeline of this event, but it would seem that these drow have a view of history similar to what we heard from Yvonnel and Quenthel.”
“It makes sense,” Catti-brie said. She took a large serving plate from Zak, then paused a moment to consider the fatty slabs of baked meat, topped with a red and green sauce she did not know that smelled delicious. “Why would the drow of Menzoberranzan have gone down that path of violence and deceit if so many are of different weal? How many did you know among you in all those years who truly loved Lolth and the daily horrors of a city caught in her grasp?”
“There were plenty of zealots, do not doubt,” Zak warned. “They relished the power the infernal Lolth brought to them and their cruelty was to them nothing more than a joyful expression of that power.”
“But most, I expect, just went along, secretly loathing it all,” Jarlaxle put in. “What choice was there for so many? For Zak, for me, for priestess Dab’nay, who doesn’t even understand why Lolth grants her spells?”
“But there was a choice,” Catti-brie reminded him. “I am married to one who took a different path.”
“Drizzt wasn’t unique in leaving, and certainly not in wanting to leave,” Jarlaxle replied. “What was unique, to us at least as far as we know, is that he made it and thrived.”
“Unique until your recent efforts,” Catti-brie said. She hoped Jarlaxle wouldn’t bow at the compliment—after what Ilina had hinted, she never wanted to see him bow again.
“My son survived by sheer will, and then because he found such wonderful friends,” Zak added with a warm smile to his daughter-in-law.
“This steak is delicious,” Entreri told them through a mouthful of food. “I don’t even want to know what it is, and I really don’t want to know what is on top of it.”
“Probably the hagfish mucus,” Catti-brie teased, and all three told her to shut up at the same time.
Galathae entered the room then, declaring, “The ransom paid,” and Azzudonna, Emilian, Ilina, and Vessi came in close behind, each with a bottle of ice wine in one hand, two or three smaller blue ice plates in the other, and after them Ayeeda, pushing a rolling cart overflowing with blocks of white cheese and persimmons.
“Simply amazing,” Catti-brie heard Zak quietly say.
The conversation turned lighthearted when the aevendrow accepted the invitation to sit and join in the feast, and it really struck Catti-brie just how easy all of this was, as if it were a joyous dinner with old friends. Too much so, she feared. She and her companions had come upon this place so unexpectedly, relatively a short time ago, and yet already it seemed as if bonds were being formed.
Was it all just an elaborate ruse?
But to what end? From the first meeting, the adventuring companions had never been in a position of advantage over their hosts. The aevendrow could have killed them out in the tunnels before they even got to Cascatte, and quite easily.
But here they were, and there was no reason for such a display, for any of this, if the aevendrow were not as they appeared,
if Callidae itself were some grand illusion, or worse, some grand deception.
When she looked at Azzudonna talking with Zak, the aevendrow woman so near to him, smiling and with a certain look so obvious in her lavender eyes, Catti-brie knew she was being foolish here with her doubts. She had seen such fears as her own manifested before, after all, when Drizzt had been afflicted by the Faerzress and had come to believe that everything he was being shown was a trick of the eyes.
“The secret is to dry the persimmon just so,” she heard behind her, and she turned about to see Galathae holding another cheese-covered fruit chip toward her. The paladin motioned with her hand that she meant for Catti-brie to take it, so she did, gladly, and Galathae produced a second one and held it up between them.
“I look forward to hearing your story most of all,” she toasted.
Catti-brie likewise lifted her treat, then took a small bite, savoring the explosion of flavors.
“Why mine? Jarlaxle has lived a most incredible and long life, as has Zaknafein, and none have grown in soul more than Artemis Entreri.”
“Because we are the most alike, and not simply because we are both women. Jarlaxle has not mentioned his faith in his telling thus far, and I do not expect that to change. He only mentions the goddess Lolth at all to rightly cast aspersions on the fiend. And I expect little on the matter of the gods from Zaknafein or Artemis Entreri.”
“I would agree with that,” Catti-brie told her.
“But from you, I will hear the voice of Mielikki, a sister goddess to one I have pledged my life to serve, and through that perspective, I believe I will come to understand your friends and your land so much better.”
“Though you’ll never be able to visit that land.”
“Who can say?” Galathae replied, piquing Catti-brie’s interest. “Perhaps a decade hence, I will wander the ways of your land and see again the face of Catti-brie.”
Starlight Enclave Page 41