The Companions

by R. A. Salvatore

  He gave a little chuckle and remembered standing atop a stone in Keeper’s Dale, swatting aside orcs with abandon.

  “Aye, orcs, ye sleep with one eye open, ye hear? Because that monster under yer bed’s holding the axe o’ King Bruenor Battlehammer.”

  CHAPTER 20

  A TASTE OF EBONSOUL

  The Year of the Grinning Halfling (1481 DR) Delthuntle

  HIS HEADBAND HAD BEEN ENCHANTED WITH A CONTINUAL LIGHT SPELL, illuminating the water all around him. While that light enabled Regis to see where he was swimming at this substantial depth and in murky waters, he was also keenly aware of the fact that it made of him quite the target.

  Did sharks lurk in this area, miles from the Aglarond coast? Or minions of Umberlee, perhaps, like the vicious sahuagin or dangerous mermen?

  He carried some formidable weapons with him, and he knew how to fight, even underwater, but this dive did not carry with it the usual feeling of freedom. He was much farther out, in much darker water, and diving deeper than ever before.

  He stayed with the anchor line as he made his way carefully and slowly down. He could still make out the outline of the sizable boat above, where Wigglefingers, Donnola, Pericolo, and a few other crewmen waited. He came to another band that had been strapped around the anchor line, this one telling him that he had fifty more feet to go to the bottom. He paused there and stared downward into the darkness, the ocean floor still well beyond the lighted area.

  Down he went, slowly, hesitantly.

  Too long, he realized, and he shook his head and started back up, again slowly to allow his body to more easily adapt to the changing pressure. He surfaced right beside the boat, gasping for air.

  “Well, did you see it?” Pericolo demanded immediately, coming to the rail and leaning over eagerly.

  “Wasn’t deep enough.”

  “Then why have you returned?” the Grandfather snapped. Donnola put a hand on Pericolo’s shoulder to calm him.

  “I was gauging the depths and the distance,” Regis explained, spitting water with every word, for the sea had grown somewhat rougher now.

  “You will run out of daylight,” Wigglefingers warned.

  “There is none down there in any case,” Regis was quick to reply. “I will get to the bottom on this dive, but whether the shipwreck we seek is there, I cannot say.”

  Pericolo sighed loudly.

  “It will take many dives, likely, and many days of searching,” Wigglefingers reminded the old halfling.

  “More if Spider doesn’t even get to the bottom with each!” Pericolo said.

  “It is a long way,” Regis said, but he did so resignedly, for he knew that these halflings could not understand the trials of the depths, however he might try to explain them. He was going half-again deeper than he had ever done before, and in water far more dangerous, with stronger currents and limited visibility.

  He swam over to the anchor line and checked the loop on the second line tied to it, and also fastened to the harness he wore. A hundred feet of elven cord, light and strong, would secure him to the lifeline. Once he got to the bottom, he could search in a radius of that length and no more, unless he dared to free himself from the tether in these dangerous waters.

  Pericolo started to protest again, but Regis didn’t stick around to hear it. He inhaled deeply and disappeared under the dark water, moving more swiftly this time so that he was very soon at the marking on the line, fifty feet from the seabed and anchor, and thrice that distance and more from the surface.

  Down the halfling went, hand over hand. He felt the pressure in his ears, but felt, too, his body quickly adapting. This was the gift of the genasi bloodline, the gift of long breath and of a body more malleable to the pressures of the depths.

  He spotted the anchor set against a rocky ridge. He was surprised at how much colder it was down here, suddenly, and knew that he wouldn’t be able to stay for long. He tested the safety line on the main anchor line again, then set off, swimming to the end of its length, then circling around.

  This was the spot, Pericolo had assured him, but he saw no signs of a wreck. He came to a smooth and sandy bed among the rocks and glided across it. Feeling quite vulnerable, he shifted his gaze this way and that as if he expected a giant shark to sweep in from the darkness and gobble him up in a single bite.

  The surprise came from below instead, as the ground suddenly erupted, sand flying up all around him. He thrashed and gurgled with surprise, and nearly swallowed the seawater.

  His eyes went wider still as a gigantic flat fish flapped its mighty wings and rushed away, its powerful wake spinning him around. Regis had never seen such a beast, with massive mandibles and a stringy tail running out behind it.

  The sand settled and so did he as the ray moved out of sight.

  On he went, more cautiously now, watching the ground and rocks, particularly the small caves in those rocks, more carefully than looking ahead, more concerned with keeping himself alive than with any shipwreck.

  The big winged fish returned, and it was not alone.

  Regis held himself very still as the gigantic rays glided all around him. He could sense their curiosity, and knew at once that it was his illuminated headband attracting them. They glided in from the darkness, appearing all of a sudden, their white underbellies bright in his eyes. One after another, they floated past, and despite the fact that every one of them—and there had to be a dozen or more—was much larger than he was and could likely buffet him to death with ease, the halfling found himself giggling at the surreal scene. He felt as if he wasn’t in the water then, but rather, floating up in the night sky, with magical celestial behemoths flying around him.

  After a long while, he reminded himself of his mission, and of the tremendous amount of water between him and the surface. On he went, the giant winged fish hovering around like a protective escort—and indeed, the halfling came to think of them in that manner, for he came to understand that they meant him no harm, that curiosity, not aggression or hunger, kept them near to him.

  He had almost completed his wide circuit of the anchor line, coming over one dark ridge, when he found the seabed falling away from him, farther into darkness. Worse, the current in this ravine proved quite strong, and Regis held onto the rocks of the ridge and thought to backtrack instead of continuing along.

  He was just about to do exactly that when he noted a crossbeam against the stones just below and before him. It hardly registered to him initially, and he started back, and indeed had gone some distance before he even realized what he had seen.

  A mast.

  Regis rushed back to the ridge and moved lower, toward the beam. Yes, it was a mast, lying against the stone. Using its reclined angle as a pointer, the halfling crept farther, to the very end of his tether. He couldn’t quite make out the markings, but it seemed to him that there was something there, a hull, lying on its side against the rocks before and below him. He reached back and pulled the elven cord, but it had no more length to give to him.

  He looked up, at the long and dark ascent, at the rays gliding all around.

  It would take a long time to get back up there, hoist the anchor, and reposition the boat, and the thought of coming back down here after the sun had set was not a comforting one.

  Regis fiddled with his harness, producing one of Wigglefingers’s potions. How many times had the wizard told him not to use these unless absolutely necessary? They were expensive and took a long time to brew, after all. But Regis wasn’t about to return to the surface and come back down this day. He put the vial in his mouth and bit off the cork, the cool liquid affording him the ability to breathe underwater. Even with that, it took all of his courage to continue. He untied his tether line and started down, holding the rocks as securely as if he was scaling down the side of a mountain. The current tugged at him, and if it caught him, he feared he would be washed far, far away, and probably held under long enough that he would drown.

  But now he saw the hull, battered
and broken, cracked amidships.

  He couldn’t be sure that this was the boat he had been seeking, of course, for the Sea of Fallen Stars was littered with shipwrecks.

  And yet, he was sure.

  And it called to him like a siren’s song, but caught in the entrancement of the magical melody, Regis merely thought it his own curiosity pushing him along.

  He crept closer, but had no direct path to the broken hull. He planted himself against the ridge and pushed off, swimming furiously.

  The current grabbed him and rushed him along to the shipwreck, then right past it! At the last instant, the halfling lunged out with his hand and caught the taffrail and held on for all his life.

  Finally he pulled himself aboard and spider-walked along the side of the hull to the wide crack.

  He peered in, his light shining on a scene that had known only darkness for many decades.

  Fish scampered all around, and past their flickering scales, Regis noted crates lying around the hold, many broken, but some intact, and one in particular catching his eye, for it gleamed of silver in his headband’s light.

  He pulled himself into the hull and, relieved of the current’s pull, rummaged around. He opened a bag Pericolo had given him, a magical bag of holding, and eased into it a pair of small boxes and a coffer, all the while making his way to the large silver crate.

  No, not a crate, he realized as he arrived just above it.

  A coffin.

  A coffin made of silver, and with chunks of broken mirrored glass atop it and beside it. Regis caught his own reflection in one large shard, but looked away immediately, remembering the story of bloody rats Donnola had told him.

  Too late.

  A halfling, a copy of Regis himself, slid out from the mirror, drawing a rapier identical to the one on Regis’s belt.

  Regis cried out, bubbles escaping, and fell back, crashing against crates and boxes, thinking only of escape. But he couldn’t get away; the magical image was too close, and too intent on destroying him.

  He saw the tip of the rapier, darting for his face.

  “He’s been gone too long.” Donnola crouched down at the rail, peering intently into the dark water.

  “At ease, lass,” Wigglefingers interjected. “Yer little friend’s got potions if he needs them. He’s been down longer than this just catching shellfish.”

  Donnola didn’t respond, other than to shake her head. She knew that Wigglefingers was stretching the truth, for Spider had never been down this long, she was sure.

  “Can you enlighten us with a magic vision, perhaps?” Pericolo asked his wizard, clearly as nervous as his granddaughter.

  Wigglefingers nodded and fumbled around his cloak, producing one scroll tube after another until he settled on the appropriate one. He pulled the parchments forth, cleared his throat, and began his incantation. A few moments later, an eye, huge and bulbous, its pupil alone as large as the halfling’s head, appeared in the air beside him, floating as if in water.

  Wigglefingers cast an enchantment upon the eye, giving it light, then sent it forth into the sea, and willed it down along the anchor line. Soon after, it neared the bottom.

  “I see his tether,” the wizard announced, for only he could view the scene through his wizard’s eye. “Spider is on the bottom, out that way.” He pointed to the northeast, back toward the coast, though the hills of Aglarond were long out of sight. At the same time, the wizard eye rushed along the tether.

  The wizard could see that the rope was slack, but he kept that information quiet for the moment.

  “He is off the tether,” Wigglefingers finally announced, and Donnola and Pericolo both gasped, and a couple of the others nearby began whispering in ominous tones. “A ledge … the water goes deeper.”

  “Follow along the directional line of the tether, then!” Pericolo demanded, but indeed, Wigglefingers was already doing exactly that.

  “Thepurl’s Diamond!” the wizard gasped. “And Spider’s light within!”

  Regis fell back in a swirl of bubbles and thrashing arms, trying desperately to keep the rapier away. He felt its bite and started to yelp reflexively, throwing himself backward with abandon. He crashed into a pile of crates, old wood breaking apart at the impact, and tumbled backward into a narrow cubby.

  He could barely move and had nowhere farther to retreat, and no way to dart out to the side.

  And the doppelganger Regis came on methodically, unemotionally, rapier leading and thrusting.

  Fear reached up around Regis like dark black wings, enveloping him, paralyzing him. He wouldn’t get to Icewind Dale! All of the training and preparation he had done would be for naught.

  He would never see Donnola again.

  Half-standing, half-sitting, he managed to draw out his rapier and awkwardly lift it in defense. But his opponent, a mirror image of himself, was equally skilled and had the upper hand. As soon as Regis’s blade came up, the doppelganger’s rapier matched its angle, rolled around it in a watery swirl, and stabbed Regis hard in the hand. A subtle turn and flick took the rapier away.

  Regis tried to back-paddle, churning splintered wood and the contents of the broken crates—and he hardly even noticed those treasures! Gems and jewels rolled aside on piles of coins. Silver plates and golden goblets danced and bounced away.

  Regis reached back, trying to feel his way along, but he was out of room. His fingers closed on the ridged top of a crate and as the rapier darted forward, he yelped again and instinctively brought his arm defensively around, the broken crate cover in hand.

  The makeshift shield blocked the doppelganger’s thrust, the rapier tip prodding through and stabbing Regis hard in the finger. He let go of the wooden plank, but it stayed up before him, stuck fast to his enemy’s blade.

  An image of Donnola flashed through his mind—if he ever wanted to see her again, he had to move now!

  He brought his right hand down atop the debris and half-turned, thinking to bull his way forward out of the tight cubby. He felt a cylindrical grip under that hand, a hilt, and instinctively closed his fingers and brought the item around.

  It was a dagger, a three-bladed parrying dagger, with a long, silvery, double-edged main blade flanked by a pair of exquisitely designed side blades that seemed as if they were made of jade or some other deep green crystal. Carved as serpents, they rolled out from the pommel to form a crosspiece, then curled back around, one going before, one behind, the main blade. Out to the side they went a second time, then curled forward so that the open maws of the carved snakes reached fully a third of the way up the length of the main blade, which was as long as a halfling’s forearm.

  Regis didn’t have time to admire the craftsmanship, of course. Desperate and running out of time, he leaned against the stuck plank of wood and bulled forward, stabbing out wildly with powerful overhead chops.

  The doppelganger retreated, but the water quickly darkened with blood between the combatants.

  Regis pushed forward, coming into the clearer liquid, but realizing that his opponent had moved cleverly to the side. He turned, waving his arms to control his floating movements, and pressed forward, then tried to stop as the doppelganger freed its blade, the wooden plank fluttering aside.

  In came the rapier, the doppelganger going right back on the offensive.

  Regis stabbed across with his newfound dagger to parry, and caught the rapier between the main blade and one of the snakes. He started to twist, hoping to lock the blade, and his eyes went wide indeed as the snakes on his dagger came alive, or animated somehow at least, and tightened the catch on the rapier.

  Regis turned his wrist hard, and the dagger twisted to help him, and the rapier blade snapped in half.

  He retracted and charged in at the doppelganger. Now, as if sensing that he was going for the kill, the snakes of his dagger rolled back over his hand, forming a defensive basket.

  Regis felt a dull thud against his belly, but didn’t slow. Again and again he pumped his arm, his long dagger
striking home and gliding easily though flesh and bone.

  The water darkened once more, but Regis didn’t relent, stabbing furiously. Over and over again, driven by terror, afraid to stop, Regis plunged home the blade.

  And then like an illusion, the doppleganger was gone, folding in on itself until it was nothingness, even taking the blood from the water with it. Gone, all of it, all trace of it, even the broken rapier tip, as if it had never been, except for Regis’s own blood, trailing up from his hand.

  Regis looked at the wound, but instead found himself staring at the dagger, at the altered dagger. He pictured its previous, three-bladed form, and as if to his call, the snakes unwound from his hand and curled across and forward once more into their original form.

  And there they hardened, inanimate side-blades once more. Intrigued, the halfling continued his focus on the weapon and changed the image in his mind, thinking then that he preferred the stronger and reinforced grip. The serpentine side-blades of the dagger complied, coming to life and curling tightly but comfortably around his right hand. He had found quite a prize, he knew, but he knew, too, that he had no time to consider that now. He had to get out of there!

  He turned for his rapier, but it was back in the cubby area, which was all a mess of broken woods and tumbled crates. He glanced to the side, to his dropped bag lying near the silver coffin. He picked up the plank of wood instead and made his way carefully back to the coffin, placing the plank down atop the enchanted glass.

  He had to get out of there, he knew as he retrieved the bag of holding and slung it over his shoulder. He had to …

  He had to open the coffin.

  The thought seemed ridiculous to him, of course, but he found that he couldn’t easily dismiss it.

  It was not a fleeting thought, he learned, as he tried unsuccessfully to turn away.

  He stared at the coffin. Was this the resting place of the great lich Ebonsoul?

  He had to open the coffin. He had to know.