The Companions

by R. A. Salvatore

  She looked at her right forearm, at the horn, the unicorn horn symbol of Mielikki, and gave thanks and praise, her blue eyes filling with tears of joy.

  The Year of the Six-Armed Elf (1464 DR) Netheril

  Ruqiah sat in the corner, pretending to play with the polished stones Niraj had given to her. It had been a long first year of life anew, full of deception that had greatly wearied this imposter child. She had crawled early, the Bedine believed, at only five months, and had walked before her tenth month, and quite capably, it seemed. In truth, the baby could have climbed from her crib a month after her birth, stood up and paced around the house with little trouble. In fact, she had done just that one quiet night, and had spent every moment she was not wrapped in swaddling cloth testing and strengthening her infant limbs.

  She hadn’t talked yet, though she had much to say, and she wasn’t even sure of when such conversation might be appropriate, for in her previous life, Catti-brie hadn’t had much contact with children.

  She knew it was important to seem somewhat appropriate to her age, both for her own sake and for that of her parents, whom she had already come to love as if they were actually her family.

  Catti-brie had learned much in the year she had spent as Ruqiah. The Bedine were prisoners in their own land, this land that had been Anauroch, but was now known as Netheril, the heart of Netherese power. These conquering Netherese would not suffer Bedine to be more than simple tribesmen and nomads, wandering the wasted ways of the still barren and windblown lands that had once been the great magical desert of northern Faerûn.

  Her outward appearances aside, Catti-brie was not a simple one-year-old child, and could not be. She had been studying the ways of arcane magic when the falling strands of Mystra’s Weave had assailed her in her previous life, and her time in Iruladoon, dancing and singing to the song of Mielikki, had given her greater insights into the magic she had previously known, and had also, of course, taught her how to call for the divine magic of the goddess who had come to hold her so close. Such skills required practice and repetition, as surely as the movements a warrior might make to defend and thrust forth his weapon.

  The little girl watched her parents carefully. Niraj left the tent, and Kavita was busy repairing some weapons—how ironic it was for Catti-brie to see the woman glancing around nervously, then calling upon some magic of her own to help her in mending the blade of a curving sword.

  Ironic, because her child was doing the same thing in the corner of the same room. Catti-brie held each of the polished stones close to her breast and whispered into them, imbuing them with symbols that only she could see with an enchantment she had cast upon herself. These invisible markings turned the stones into a sort of oracle, and the child began casting them forth, silently asking questions.

  With the stones providing guidance.

  She studied one answer for a long while, not really trusting what her magically enhanced eyes were telling her. It seemed too dangerous.

  She collected the stones and asked again, then tossed them out before her. The same response was given.

  Catti-brie nodded. She would find a way.

  That very night, her parents asleep across the room, Catti-brie cast an enchantment around the room, one designed to compel sleep. A bluish mist curled around her left arm with the magical enactment, but while it startled Catti-brie, she did not fear it. She slipped from the crib and quietly padded out of the tent on little bare feet.

  The camp was asleep. Somewhere out on the dusty plain, a wolf howled and was answered.

  The little girl was not afraid—certainly she did not feel threatened by any of Mielikki’s animal children. She moved past the tents and out into the wastes, following the path the oracle stones had shown to her.

  That night, in a secret and sheltered clearing, she planted her first garden shrine to the goddess. She returned to the place often, always at night, and when the tribe moved on, as was their way, the girl created another garden shrine, and another after that. In these sanctified places, hidden amongst the rocks, Catti-brie found Mielikki more keenly, and was taught about the land, this land.

  A land that had been, not so long ago, a great desert.

  A land that would be, not so long hence, a desert once more.

  The Year of the First Circle (1468 DR) Netheril

  Soaking wet from the downpour, her hair still muddy from being thrown by Tahnood into the mud pit, five-year-old Catti-brie stood defensively in front of her fallen mother, her eyes glowing fiercely, the blue strands of magic wafting out of the sleeves of her torn sarong like living serpents.

  She noted the boots of the Netherese assassin, smoke wafting from them. Her lightning bolt had jolted the man violently into the air, so abruptly and powerfully that he had left his shoes behind!

  She shivered, humbled and overwhelmed by the power she had created—nay, not created, she realized, but by the power she had been allowed to access through the magic of her spellscar.

  She wanted to turn back and enact more healing magic on Kavita, but she didn’t dare. Not yet. The immediate threat was no more, obviously, for the two Netherese assassins were surely dead, their smoking, lifeless husks lying motionless, the entire front section of the tent torn away behind them.

  She prepared another spell, reaching up once more to the thunderstorm she had earlier conjured, ready to pull more lightning from it to vanquish any new enemies that might appear. The view of the encampment lay open before her now, the flashes of lightning above showing the tents and baskets and piled supplies in stark detail.

  “Ruqiah!” Niraj cried, sliding into view and skidding to a stop in the mud just outside the opening. He danced around, turning circles, clearly overwhelmed as he surveyed the scene. “Kavita!”

  Catti-brie waved her arms, dissipating the streams of magical blue energy, as Niraj stumbled in, scrambling past the Netherese bodies, half-running, half-diving to get to his daughter and wife.

  Other Desai appeared outside, rushing around the corners of nearby tents.

  Catti-brie wasn’t sure what to do. How could she begin to explain this scene before her? What might the tribal elders think, and what danger would she be creating for them all, given her secret identity?

  All of those questions swirled around in her thoughts, slamming at her sensibilities, demanding immediate action. The woman kept her wits and used her decades of experience, forcing herself to remember the primary question: what would a five-year-old girl do?

  She began to wail.

  Niraj wrapped her in a hug, but pulled her down with him as he fell over Kavita. The woman stirred as he touched her. “Assassins,” she whispered. “What happened? My Kavita!”

  Other members of the tribe milled around the destroyed entryway, shaking their heads and mumbling.

  “Girl, what is this?” one man called to Ruqiah. He picked up a smoking boot, staring incredulously.

  “They hurt Ma,” the child blurted. Between sniffles she continued, “They wanted gold. They said they would hurt me if I didn’t get it.”

  “What gold?” Niraj asked, and he helped Kavita turn over, the woman groaning and dropping a hand over her bloody wound—bloody, Niraj noted, but not bleeding.

  Ruqiah shrugged and began to cry again. “The thunder hit them,” she said innocently, pointing to the sky and wearing an expression to show that she did not understand.

  “The blessing of the storm is twofold this night,” remarked one of the women outside.

  “Netherese,” a man inspecting the smaller body said. “Netherese thieves.”

  “N’asr take them, then,” declared another, referring to the merciless god of the dead.

  “He laughs with At’ar in their coupling,” a woman said. “Or perhaps he was sated enough for this one moment to take the time to kill these dogs!”

  Kavita sat up then, although Niraj tried to keep her still. The gentle Bedine woman stared at her daughter intently.

  “What is it?” Niraj whispered to
her, but she hushed him and shook her head. She brought her hand down her back to the wound, and continued to simply stare at Ruqiah.

  And more particularly, at her little hands, Catti-brie realized, for they were covered in Kavita’s blood from when she had healed the wound. She brought them down to her sides sheepishly and cried all the louder.

  “Search the camp!” one large man ordered. “There may be other assassins about.”

  Catti-brie had to sort it all out quickly, she knew, for the questions would only grow about what had actually happened, particularly when Kavita’s wound was more carefully inspected. The little girl put her head against Niraj’s shoulder, and very close to Kavita’s face.

  “I will explain everything when we are alone,” she said, in a somber tone no girl her age would ever use, and her parents stared at her all the more incredulously and wide-eyed then.

  Niraj grabbed her hard at the elbow. “Ruqiah? What do you know?”

  Catti-brie looked at him with sympathy, fully aware that she was about to shatter his conceptions of the world around him, and worse, those conceptions that he held for his beloved family.

  “Good fortune saved us,” she whispered to Niraj, and motioned behind him, for the chieftain of the Desai was approaching. She repeated more loudly and with great emphasis, “Good fortune.”

  She went back to her mother’s embrace, as Niraj turned to talk to the man. Niraj was truly shaken, but he relayed Ruqiah’s explanation, offered with the weight of a magical suggestion behind it, that good fortune alone had saved his wife and child.

  The chieftain looked around, shaking his head. “Are you well, Kavita?” he asked, and the woman nodded and climbed shakily to her feet.

  “A twice-blessed storm, then,” the chieftain said, and he went outside to join in the scouring of the encampment.

  In the ensuing hours, many came to help Niraj repair and clean the tent. Many more came with salves and herbs to the aid of Kavita, and to Ruqiah, offering calming words and assurances. The storm—magically conjured, though only Ruqiah knew that—had long blown away, and the night had passed its midpoint before the family was at last left alone.

  Niraj and Kavita stared at their little girl.

  “Ruqiah?” Niraj asked her repeatedly.

  Catti-brie considered whether she should dispel him of that moniker, but decided against it. Not now. She had her own nagging questions to deal with, after all, concerning the unexpected arrival of these Netherese. The assassins had come looking for her in particular, so it seemed obvious that they had learned at least part of the truth of her. But how? And why would they care?

  “She healed me,” Kavita said. “My wound … it was mortal.”

  “No, you were lucky,” Niraj replied. “The sword did not bite deeply.”

  “It did,” Kavita insisted, and she looked at Ruqiah, directing Niraj to do likewise. “From back to belly, and I felt my spirit departing. The wound was mortal, but then I felt the healing warmth.”

  “The gift of Mielikki,” their child told them.

  “You healed her?” Niraj asked, and Catti-brie nodded.

  “The lightning strike was no accident,” the child admitted.

  Niraj and Kavita sat across from her, staring, unblinking.

  The young girl pulled up her sleeves. “The stars of Mystra, the horn of Mielikki,” she explained. “I am twice-scarred, but this you knew.”

  Niraj swallowed hard, Kavita began to cry. “Who are you?” her father asked, and surely those words, that desperate tone, stabbed at Catti-brie’s heart.

  “I am Ruqiah, your daughter,” she answered.

  “Mielikki?” the tribesman asked, shaking his head helplessly. The Bedine did not worship Mielikki. Their goddess was At’ar the Merciless, the Yellow Goddess of the scorching desert sun. “I do not understand.”

  “I was born on the spring equinox, Mielikki’s most holy day,” the child explained. “The goddess blesses me, and teaches me—”

  “At’ar,” Kavita corrected.

  Catti-brie shook her head. “Come with me,” she bade them, starting for the makeshift tent flap. “I will show you.” Her parents hesitated.

  “There is a place, not too far from the camp—”

  “It is high night,” Niraj replied. “The time of N’asr. The lions are out and hunting.”

  The child laughed. “They will not bother us. Come.”

  When her parents still hesitated, she added, pleaded, “Please, do this for me. I must show you.”

  Niraj and Kavita looked to each other, then rose and followed their little girl out of the tent, out of the encampment, and onto the open plain. Catti-brie led them at a great pace, but they hadn’t gone far before Kavita rushed up and grabbed her child by the arm to stop her.

  “It’s too dangerous,” she said. “We will come back when the sun goddess has returned.”

  “Trust me,” Catti-brie said. Again there was magic behind her words. And on they went.

  They came to the high dune before sunrise, though the sky was beginning to lighten with its approach. Through a narrow entrance between windblown rocks, they came into Catti-brie’s secret garden, only to find one of their tribesmen lying dead beneath the lone tree, face down in a pool of his own blood.

  “Jhinjab,” Niraj said, turning the dead man over.

  Catti-brie kneeled beside Niraj.

  “No, child,” Kavita said. “This is not a sight for young girl.”

  But Catti-brie was not a young girl, nor was she listening. She had already fallen into spellcasting, blue tendrils of magic beginning to creep from her right sleeve as she called upon the power of Mielikki. She put her head close to Jhinjab’s chest and whispered something her parents could not hear, then nodded as if receiving an answer.

  Niraj stepped back, and Kavita took his arm, standing very close to him, both watching their little daughter with confusion and more than a little bit of horror.

  A few moments later, Catti-brie stood up and turned to face them. “Jhinjab betrayed me to the Netherese,” she explained. “They came for me.”

  “No!” Kavita cried.

  “How? Why?” Niraj said at the same time, both moving forward to embrace their daughter, who managed to stay away from them.

  “They learned that I am different, spellscarred, perhaps, but certainly … unusual,” she explained. “Jhinjab told them this. He just admitted as much to me, though the words of the dead are ever cryptic and not easily deciphered.”

  “This is madness,” Niraj wailed.

  “You spoke with the dead?” Kavita asked at the same time.

  “I am a disciple of Mielikki,” Catti-brie explained. “I am blessed with powers divine and arcane—not unlike either of you in the latter, though my spells date to a time long lost and to a goddess who is no more, I fear.”

  Both of her parents were shaking their heads in confusion. They looked to each other helplessly.

  “I am your daughter,” Catti-brie said to try to calm them. “I am Ruqiah, but I am more than that. I am not cursed—quite the opposite!”

  “The way you speak …,” Kavita said, shaking her head.

  “I am a child in body only,” Catti-brie replied. She considered going further with her explanation, but changed her mind, thinking that she would be bringing pain to these two, who certainly did not deserve it. Nor did she wish to endanger them, and it seemed obvious that knowledge could bring great peril.

  As could simple association she realized. She didn’t know why the Netherese were after her, of course, but they were, as the assassin had claimed and as the spirit of Jhinjab had just confirmed. Perhaps it was simply a matter of their ban on the Bedine using magic, and Jhinjab had betrayed her in that regard alone. But even then, attention to her would bring attention of Niraj and Kavita.

  Unwanted attention.

  Dangerous attention.

  Catti-brie wanted to go to her altar and pray to Mielikki. She looked to the tree and winced. No, she realized, not
to pray. She wanted to go there and have Mielikki tell her that she was wrong in what her instincts were telling her.

  But she was not wrong.

  “I must leave you,” she heard herself saying.

  Kavita wailed.

  “You cannot!” Niraj cried at her. “You are just a baby—”

  “I will find you again, I promise,” Catti-brie said. “But I’m in danger here.”

  “You cannot know that!” Kavita insisted.

  “But I do, and so do you. And I put you in danger—all of the Desai in danger. And so I must go, and if the Netherese come looking for me, tell them the truth—it matters not. For they will not find me.”

  “No, my Zibrija!” Niraj cried, coming forward.

  Catti-brie held up her hand, and enacted a simple spell, one that stopped Niraj in his tracks as surely as if he had walked into a mountainside.

  “I leave you with this,” said the child who was not a child. “Take heart, for you and all the Bedine. The old ways will return to Anauroch. The Yellow Goddess, who is Amaunator, who is Lathander, will return in all her glory, and desert sands will devour Netheril. This I foresee, and the Bedine will live once more as they had for centuries before the return of the archwizards.

  “Fear not for me, my parents,” she went on. “I go with the goddess, and my road is well-known to me. We will meet again.”

  The two continued to plead with her, and tried to come forward, but this time, Catti-brie used another spell to hold them at bay. She spun and she sang, and her waving arms became wings and her form became that of an owl.

  And away she flew, silently into the desert night.

  PART TWO

  THE CHILDHOOD PURPOSE

  The world moves along outside the purview or influence of my personal experience. To return to Icewind Dale is to learn that the place has continued, with new people replacing those who are gone, through immigration and emigration, birth and death. Some are descendants of those who lived here before, but in this transient place of those who flee the boundaries of polite society, many, many more are those who have come here anew from other lands.