The Ghost King t-3

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  The dark elf rolled his head in wide circles, stretching his neck. He reached up high again, kneeling on his blankets. The breeze was chill across his naked form, but he didn’t mind. The cool wind invigorated him and made him feel alive with sensation.

  He slowly moved to stand, exaggerating every movement to flex away the kinks from the hard ground that had served as his mattress, then paced away from the small encampment and outside the ring of boulders to catch a view of Catti-brie.

  Dressed only in her colorful magical blouse, which had once been the enchanted robe of a gnome wizard, she stood on a hillside not far away, her palms together in front of her in a pose of deep concentration. Drizzt marveled at her simple charm. The colorful shift reached only to mid-thigh, and Catti-brie’s natural beauty was neither diminished nor outshone by the finely crafted garment.

  They were on the road back to Mithral Hall from the city of Silverymoon, where Catti-brie’s wizard mentor, the great Lady Alustriel, ruled. It had not been a good visit. Something was in the air, something dangerous and frightening, some feeling among the wizards that all was not well with the Weave of magic. Reports and whispers from all over Faerûn spoke of spells gone horribly awry, of magic misfiring or not firing at all, of brilliant spellcasters falling to apparent insanity.

  Alustriel had admitted that she feared for the integrity of Mystra’s Weave itself, the very source of arcane energy, and the look on her face, ashen, was something Drizzt had never before witnessed from her, not even when the drow had gone to Mithral Hall those many years ago, not even when King Obould and his great horde had crawled from their mountain holes in murderous frenzy. It was indeed a crestfallen and fearful look that Drizzt would never have thought possible on the face of that renowned champion, one of the Seven Sisters, Chosen of Mystra, beloved ruler of mighty Silverymoon.

  Vigilance, observation, and meditation were Alustriel’s orders of the day, as she and all others scrambled to try to discern what in the Nine Hells might be happening, and Catti-brie, less than a decade a wizard but showing great promise, had taken those orders to heart.

  That’s why she had risen so early, Drizzt knew, and had moved away from the distractions of the encampment and his presence, to be alone with her meditation.

  He smiled as he watched her, her auburn hair still rich in color and thick to her shoulders, blowing in the breeze, her form, a bit thicker with age, perhaps, but still so beautiful and inviting to him, swaying gently with her thoughts.

  She slowly spread her hands out wide as if in invitation to magic, the sleeves of her blouse reaching only to her elbows. Drizzt smiled as she rose from the ground, floating upward a few feet in easy levitation. Purple flames of faerie fire flickered to life across her body, appearing as extensions of the violet fabric of the blouse, as if its magic joined with her in a symbiotic completion. A magical gust of wind buffeted her, blowing her auburn mane out wide behind her.

  Drizzt could see that she was immersing herself in simple spells, in safe magic, trying to create more intimacy with the Weave as she contemplated the fears Alustriel had relayed.

  A flash of lightning in the distance startled Drizzt and he jerked his head toward it as a rumble of thunder followed.

  He crinkled his brow in confusion. The dawn was cloudless, but lightning it had been, reaching from high in the sky to the ground, for he saw the crackling blue bolt lingering along the distant terrain.

  Drizzt had been on the surface for forty-five years, but he had never seen any natural phenomenon quite like that. He had witnessed terrific storms from the deck of Captain Deudermont’s Sea Sprite, had watched a dust storm engulf the Calim Desert, had seen a squall pile snow knee-deep on the ground in an hour’s time. He had even seen the rare event known as ball lightning once, in Icewind Dale, and he figured the sight before him to be some variant of that peculiar energy.

  But this lightning traveled in a straight line, and trailed behind it a curtain of blue-white, shimmering energy. He couldn’t gauge its speed, other than to note that the curtain of blue fire expanded behind it.

  It appeared to be crossing the countryside to the north of his position. He glanced up at Catti-brie, floating and glowing on the hilltop to the east, and he wondered whether he should disturb her meditation to point out the phenomenon. He glanced at the line of lightning and his lavender eyes widened in shock. It had accelerated suddenly and had changed course, angling in his direction.

  He turned from the lightning to Catti-brie, to realize that it was running straight at her!

  “Cat!” Drizzt yelled, and started running. She seemed not to hear.

  Magical anklets sped Drizzt on his way, his legs moving in a blur. But the lightning was faster, and he could only cry out again and again as it sizzled past him. He could feel its teeming energy. His hair rose up wildly from the proximity of the powerful charge, white strands floating on all sides.

  “Cat!” he yelled to the hovering, glowing woman. “Catti-brie! Run!”

  She was deep in her meditation, though she did seem to react, just a bit, turning her head to glance at Drizzt.

  But too late. Her eyes widened just as the speeding ground lightning engulfed her. Blue sparks flew from her outstretched arms, her fingers jerking spasmodically, her form jolting with powerful discharges.

  The edge of the strange lightning remained for a few heartbeats, then continued onward, leaving the still-floating woman in the shimmering blue curtain of its wake.

  “Cat,” Drizzt gasped, scrambling desperately across the stones. By the time he got there, the curtain was moving along, leaving a scarred line crackling with power on the ground.

  Catti-brie still floated above it, still trembled and jerked. Drizzt held his breath as he neared her, to see that her eyes had rolled up into her head, showing only white.

  He grabbed her hand and felt the sting of electrical discharge. But he didn’t let go and he stubbornly pulled her aside of the scarred line. He hugged her close and tried unsuccessfully to pull her down to the ground.

  “Catti-brie,” Drizzt begged. “Don’t you leave me!”

  A thousand heartbeats or more passed as Drizzt held her, then the woman finally relaxed and gently sank from her levitation. Drizzt leaned her back to see her face, his heart skipping beats until he saw that he was staring into her beautiful blue eyes once more.

  “By the gods, I thought you lost to me,” he said with a great sigh of relief, one that he bit short as he noted that Catti-brie wasn’t blinking. She wasn’t really looking at him at all, but rather looking past him. He glanced over his shoulder to see what might be holding her interest so intently, but there was nothing.

  “Cat?” he whispered, staring into her large eyes—eyes that did not gaze back at him nor past him, but into nothingness, he realized.

  He gave her a shake. She mumbled something he could not decipher. Drizzt leaned closer.

  “What?” he asked, and shook her again.

  She lifted off the ground several inches, her arms reaching out wide, her eyes rolling back into her head. The purple flames began anew, as did the crackling energy.

  Drizzt moved to hug her and pull her down again, but he fell back in surprise as her entire form shimmered as if emanating waves of energy. Helplessly the drow watched, mesmerized and horrified.

  “Catti-brie?” he asked, and as he looked into her white eyes, he realized that something was different, very different! The lines on her face softened and disappeared. Her hair seemed longer and thicker—even her part changed to a style Catti-brie had not worn for years! And she seemed a bit leaner, her skin a bit tighter.

  Younger.

  “‘Twas a bow that found meself in the halls of a dwarven king,” she said, or something like that—Drizzt could not be certain—and in a distinctly Dwarvish accent, like she’d once had when her time had been spent almost exclusively with Bruenor’s clan in the shadows of Kelvin’s Cairn in faraway Icewind Dale. She still floated off the ground, but the faerie fire and the
crackling energy dissipated. Her eyes focused and returned to normal, those rich, deep blue orbs that had so stolen Drizzt’s heart.

  “Heartseeker, yes,” Drizzt said. He stepped back and pulled the mighty bow from his shoulder, presenting it to her.

  “Can’t be fishing Maer Dualdon with a bow, though, and so it’s Rumblebelly’s line I’m favorin’,” she said, still looking into the distance and not at Drizzt.

  Drizzt crinkled his face in confusion.

  The woman sighed deeply. Her eyes rolled back into her head, showing only white to Drizzt. The flames and energy reappeared and a gust of wind came up from nowhere, striking only Catti-brie, as if those waves of energy that had come forth from her were returning to her being. Her hair, her skin, her age—all returned, and her colorful garment stopped blowing in the unfelt wind.

  The moment passed and she settled to the ground, unconscious once more.

  Drizzt shook her again, called to her many times, but she seemed not to notice. He snapped his fingers in front of her eyes, but she didn’t even blink. He started to lift her, to carry her toward the camp so they could hurry on their way to Mithral Hall, but as he extended her arm, he saw a tear in her magical blouse just behind the shoulder. Then he froze as he noticed bruises under the fabric. With a shiver of panic, Drizzt gently slid the ripped section aside.

  He sucked in his breath in fear and confusion. He had seen Catti-brie’s bare back a thousand times, had marveled at her unblemished, smooth skin. But it was marked, scarred even, in the distinctive shape of an hourglass as large as Drizzt’s fist. The lower half was almost fully discolored, the top showing only a small sliver of bruising, as if almost all of the counting sand had drained.

  With trembling fingers, Drizzt touched it. Catti-brie did not react. “What?” he whispered helplessly.

  He carried Catti-brie along briskly, her head lolling as if she were half-asleep.

  CHAPTER 3

  REASONING THE INDECIPHERABLE

  It was a place of soaring towers and sweeping stairways, of flying buttresses and giant, decorated windows, of light and enlightenment, of magic and reason, of faith and science. It was Spirit Soaring, the work of Cadderly Bonaduce, Chosen of Deneir. Cadderly the Questioner, he had been labeled by his brothers of Deneir, the god who demanded such inquiry and continual reason from his devoted.

  Cadderly had raised the grand structure from the ruins of the Edificant Library, considered by many to be the most magnificent library in all of Faerûn. Indeed, architects from lands as far and varied as Silverymoon and Calimport had come to the Snowflake Mountains to glimpse this creation, to marvel in the flying buttresses—a recent innovation in the lands of Faerûn, and never before on so grand a scale. The work of magic, of divine inspiration, had formed the stained glass windows, and also rendered the great murals of scholars at work in their endless pursuit of reason.

  Spirit Soaring had been raised as a library and a cathedral, a common ground where scholars, mages, sages, and priests might gather to question superstition, to embrace reason. No place on the continent so represented the wondrous joining of faith and science, where one need not fear that logic, observation, and experimentation might take a learner away from edicts of the divine. Spirit Soaring was a place where truth was considered divine, and not the other way around.

  Scholars did not fear to pursue their theories there. Philosophers did not fear to question the common understanding of the pantheon and the world. Priests of any and all gods did not fear persecution there, unless the very concept of rational debate represented persecution to a closed and small mind.

  Spirit Soaring was a place to explore, to question, to learn—about everything. There, discussions of the various gods of the world of Toril always bordered on heresy. There, the nature of magic was examined, and so there, at a time of fear and uncertainty, at the time of the failing Weave, rushed scholars from far and wide.

  And Cadderly greeted them, every one, with open arms and shared concern. He looked like a very young man, much younger than his forty-four years. His gray eyes sparkled with youthful luster and his mop of curly brown hair bounced along his shoulders. He moved like a much younger man, loose and agile, a distinctive spring in his step. He wore a typical Deneirrath outfit, tan-white tunic and trousers, and added his own flair with a light blue cape and a wide-brimmed hat, blue to match the cape, with a red band, plumed on the right side.

  The time was unsettling, the magic of the world possibly unraveling, yet Cadderly Bonaduce’s eyes reflected excitement more than dread. Cadderly was forever a student, his mind always inquisitive, and he did not fear what was simply not yet explained.

  He just wanted to understand it.

  “Welcome, welcome!” He greeted a trio of visitors one bright morning, who were dressed in the green robes of druids.

  “Young Bonaduce, I presume,” said one, an old graybeard. “Not so young,” Cadderly admitted.

  “I knew your father many years ago,” the druid replied. “Am I right in assuming that we will be welcomed here in this time of confusion?” Cadderly looked at the man curiously. “Cadderly still lives, correct?”

  “Well, yes,” Cadderly answered, then grinned and asked, “Cleo?”

  “Ah, your father has told you of … me …” the druid answered, but he ended with wide eyes, stuttering, “C–Cadderly? Is that you?”

  “I had thought you lost in the advent of the chaos curse, old friend!” Cadderly said.

  “How can you be …?” Cleo started to ask, in utter confusion.

  “Were you not destroyed?” the youthful-seeming priest asked. “Of course you weren’t—you stand here before me!”

  “I wandered in the form of a turtle, for years,” Cleo explained. “Trapped by insanity within the animal coil I most favored. But how can you be Cadderly? I had heard of Cadderly’s children, who should be as old …”

  As he spoke, a young man walked up to the priest. He looked very much like Cadderly, but with exotic, almond-shaped eyes.

  “And here is one,” Cadderly explained, sweeping his son to him with an outstretched arm. “My oldest son, Temberle.”

  “Who looks older than you,” Cleo remarked dryly.

  “A long and complicated story,” said the priest. “Connected to this place, Spirit Soaring.”

  “You are wanted in the observatory, Father,” Temberle said with a polite salute to the new visitors. “The Gondsmen are declaring supremacy again, as gadget overcomes magic.”

  “No doubt, both factions think I side with their cause.”

  Temberle shrugged and Cadderly breathed a great sigh.

  “My old friend,” Cadderly said to Cleo, “I should like some time with you, to catch up.”

  “I can tell you of life as a turtle,” Cleo deadpanned, drawing a smile from Cadderly.

  “We have many points of view in Spirit Soaring at the time, and little agreement,” Cadderly explained. “They’re all nervous, of course.”

  “With reason,” said another of the druids.

  “And reason is our only way through this,” said Cadderly. “So welcome, friends, and enter. We have food aplenty, and discussion aplenty more. Add your voices without reserve.”

  The three druids looked to each other, the other two nodding approvingly to Cleo. “As I told you it would be,” Cleo said. “Reasonable priests, these Deneirrath.” He turned to Cadderly, who bowed, smiled widely, and took his leave.

  “You see?” Cadderly said to Temberle as the druids walked past into Spirit Soaring. “I have told you many times that I am reasonable.” He patted his son on the shoulder and followed after the druids.

  “And every time you do, Mother whispers in my ear that your reasonableness is based entirely on what suits your current desires,” Temberle said after him.

  Cadderly skipped a step and seemed almost to trip. He didn’t look back, but laughed and continued on his way.

  * * * * *

  Temberle left the building and walked to the sou
thern wall, to the great garden, where he was to meet with his twin sister, Hanaleisa. The two had planned a trip that morning to Carradoon, the small town on the banks of Impresk Lake, a day’s march from Spirit Soaring. Temberle’s grin widened as he approached the large, fenced garden, catching sight of his sister with his favorite uncle.

  The green-bearded dwarf hopped about over a row of newly-planted seeds, whispering words of encouragement and waving his arms—one severed at his elbow—like a bird trying to gain altitude in a gale. This dwarf, Pikel Bouldershoulder, was most unusual for his kind for having embraced the ways of the druids—and for many other reasons, most of which made him Temberle’s favorite uncle.

  Hanaleisa Maupoissant Bonaduce, looking so much like a younger version of their mother, Danica, with her strawberry blond hair and rich brown eyes, almond-shaped like Temberle’s own, looked up from the row of new plantings and grinned at her brother, as clearly amused by Pikel’s gyrations as was Temberle.

  “Uncle Pikel says he’ll make them grow bigger than ever,” Hanaleisa remarked as Temberle came through the gate.

  “Evah!” Pikel roared, and Temberle was impressed that he had apparently learned a new word.

  “But I thought that the gods weren’t listening,” Temberle dared say, drawing an “Ooooh” of consternation and a lot of finger-wagging from Pikel.

  “Faith, brother,” said Hanaleisa. “Uncle Pikel knows the dirt.”

  “Hee hee hee,” said the dwarf.

  “Carradoon awaits,” said Temberle.

  “Where is Rorey?” Hanaleisa asked, referring to their brother Rorick, at seventeen, five years their junior.

  “With a gaggle of mages, arguing the integrity of the magical strands that empower the world. I expect that when this strangeness is ended, Rorey will have a dozen powerful wizards vying to serve as his mentor.”