The Companions

by R. A. Salvatore

  “What is it?” Catti-brie asked a young couple she encountered at the base of the hill.

  “None seem to know,” the man answered. “But our Harpell wizards appear to be in a festive and fine mood this evening!”

  Catti-brie moved around the gathering, gaining the road that led up to the gate of the house on the hill. It appeared as no more than a ten-stride reach of fence, unattached on either end, but Catti-brie knew better. For stretching out from either side was an invisible wall encircling the whole of the hill and mansion.

  She arrived at the gate and called out, but none heard or reacted. She could see them, then, wizards atop the hill, many on the mansion’s roof, cheering and throwing their spells, one after another.

  Catti-brie called out again, and when that didn’t work, the woman began to whisper a spell of her own. Up in the air above flew the fiery pea, erupting into a fireball of her own making.

  The people below her cried out and fell back in surprise—and fear, no doubt. And from above her came shouts and warnings, and the wizards scrambled. In short order, she was confronted by the town guard from below, and soon after that, by a group of Harpells from the other side of the gate.

  “Who are you, who throws magic unbidden in Longsaddle?” one wiry old mage in rumpled robes asked.

  In response, Catti-brie lifted her arms and shook them, her sleeves falling clear of the markings. “A friend,” she said. “Though I’ve not been here in many years.”

  The wiry old mage came closer and looked her over. “I don’t know you.”

  “No,” she agreed, shaking her head. “But I know of you, of the Harpells, at least, and some once knew me as a friend. When I tell you my tale, you will understand.”

  “Go on, then!” he demanded.

  Catti-brie glanced over her shoulder at the town guard, then back at the mage doubtfully.

  “Come along then!” demanded a man behind her, but as he approached, the wiry wizard held up his hand.

  “Once I knew of Harkle,” Catti-brie dared to admit, hoping that name from yesteryear would spark some recognition. “Once I knew of Bidderdoo.”

  “The Bidderdoos?” the man behind her gasped, and fell back, shaking his head.

  Catti-brie glanced at him curiously, not quite understanding the reference, or why he had used the plural form of the name. She shook her head and looked back to the mage, to find him already fumbling with the gate. He and the others waved her in and escorted her up the hill.

  “I am Penelope,” the middle-aged woman introduced herself, coming into a comfortable room where the others had left Catti-brie, bidding her to be at ease. Catti-brie started to rise from her chair, but the older woman waved at her to remain seated and took the seat opposite.

  “Ca—Ru—” Catti-brie started to respond, but she had to pause and laugh at herself, for what should have been a simple greeting apparently was not. To use her real name would be to open potential questions much larger than her arrival here at the Ivy Mansion, and to use her Desai name might well make it easier for Lady Avelyere to regain her trail.

  “Delly,” she replied with an inviting smile, borrowing another name from her distant past. “Delly Curtie.”

  “Well met, then, Ca-ru-delly,” Penelope Harpell replied, smiling knowingly.

  “Delly Curtie,” Catti-brie said flatly.

  “And what brings Delly Curtie to Longsaddle, pray tell?”

  “Your display of magic this night, mostly. I was on the road and noted it, and since I, too, am practiced in the Art—”

  “Then you already knew of Longsaddle, no doubt, and needed no fire and lightning display to lure you here.”

  Catti-brie stared hard at the woman, who returned the look. She started to concoct some explanation, but realized that she was only digging herself deeper with her lies, beneath the careful gaze of Penelope. These were the Harpells, Catti-brie reminded herself, goodly folk, if quite … eccentric. Ever had the Harpells been allies of the Companions of the Hall, and of Mithral Hall. Indeed, they had come running to Bruenor’s aid when the drow had invaded the dwarf tunnels.

  “I was bound for the coast,” Catti-brie said. “But recent events slowed me, and perplexed me, I admit.”

  “Do go on.”

  “Changes,” Catti-brie replied. “With magic.” She shrugged and threw in her chips, once again pulling up the sleeves of her robe to reveal her two spellscars, now seeming as different colored tattoos.

  Penelope’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the woman’s marked forearms, and she leaned out of her seat and moved closer, even reaching down to turn Catti-brie’s arm a bit to get a better look at the seven-pointed star on the left arm.

  “What artist did this?” Penelope asked.

  “No artist.”

  Penelope looked her in the eye once more. “They are spellscars?”

  “Or were.”

  Penelope stood straight and glanced around. She moved to the door and closed it, then walked back to stand before Catti-brie. She hiked up her robe and turned sideways, revealing a marking on her left hip, a blob of brown and blue discolored skin.

  “Would that my own had taken a more attractive appearance, as have yours!” she said. “You did nothing to touch up the scar?”

  “It only just happened, when I was alone on the road.”

  “And what were you doing alone on the road?”

  “Heading for the coast, as I told you.”

  “These are dangerous lands for anyone to be traveling alone, even a mage.”

  “I was flying,” Catti-brie admitted. “Through the power of the scars, I was flying as a bird. And then I was falling.”

  Penelope sucked in her breath.

  “What is happening?” Catti-brie asked.

  “Are you going to tell me your real name, Delly Curtie?”

  “You would not believe me, so no, not yet. In time, perhaps, when we have both come to a place of greater trust.”

  Penelope walked around her chair. “You mentioned the Bidderdoos, I am told.”

  “Bidderdoo,” Catti-brie corrected.

  “A Bidderdoo, then. Which?”

  Catti-brie gave a confused little laugh. “Bidderdoo,” she replied. “Bidderdoo Harpell.”

  “There is no Bidderdoo Harpell.”

  “There was. And what are Bidderdoos, then?”

  “Bidderdoo has been dead for a century,” Penelope answered. “His legacy lives on, in the forest around Longsaddle.”

  Catti-brie thought about that for a few moments. “Werewolves,” she whispered.

  “Yes, the Bidderdoos, so we call them. The townsfolk are quite afraid of them, but in truth, they guard the town and do us no harm. I am surprised that you were not confronted on the road, coming in at night so suspiciously, as you were. But then, perhaps the Bidderdoos were enjoying our celebration.”

  “It was quite extraordinary,” Catti-brie agreed.

  “An extraordinary display for exciting times,” Penelope admitted. “Strange things have been happening all across the Ivy Mansion.”

  Catti-brie laughed at that understatement. “The reputation of the Harpells precedes you, good lady.”

  Penelope paused as if to consider her reply, then couldn’t suppress her own grin. “Yes, I expect it does. A well-earned reputation.” She sat in the chair again, her expression growing serious.

  “How could you know of Bidderdoo Harpell? And you mentioned another at the gate.”

  “Harkle.”

  “How could you know of Harkle?”

  “I was raised in Mithral Hall.”

  Penelope sat up straight and took note. “Raised among the Battlehammer dwarves? And you learned the ways of magic?”

  “I am fairly trained,” said Catti-brie. “No archmage, certainly!”

  “I saw your fireball,” Penelope replied. “You favor evocation?”

  “I like blowing things up,” Catti-brie said with a wry grin. “Spoken like a Harpell!”

  “I like blowing
things up when I’m not standing next to those things I blow up,” Catti-brie clarified, and Penelope laughed aloud and slapped her knee.

  “Maybe not a true Harpell, then,” she replied. “Tell me, have you any other spells in your repertoire this day?”

  Catti-brie thought for a moment, then nodded. “A fan of flames,” she said, tapping her thumbs together and waggling her fingers.

  Penelope looked around, then motioned for Catti-brie to follow her to a clear spot in the room, where she might enact burning hands without setting the place on fire. “One moment,” the older woman said, then left the room, returning a short time later with two others, a man around the same age as Penelope and one much older.

  “My husband, Dowell, and Kipper Harpell, the oldest of the clan.”

  Both nodded cordially, and Dowell unrolled a parchment, holding it up before Kipper with a nod to Penelope.

  Penelope motioned to the empty space before Catti-brie and bade her, “Please proceed with your spell.”

  Catti-brie lifted her hands and began the incantation.

  “Louder, please, dear child,” Kipper requested.

  Catti-brie cleared her throat and went at it again, and a few moments later, a fan of flames spread out from her fingers, a solid dweomer, if not overpowering. She turned to regard the three witnesses, to find them all grinning, and Kipper nodding.

  “And look at her arm!” Penelope said, noting the blue mist gathered around Catti-brie’s left forearm. She rushed over and tugged Catti-brie back to the others, pulling back the sleeve to show the seven-starred marking.

  “What?” Catti-brie asked.

  “Mystra,” Kipper said reverently and bowed his head.

  “It is true, then,” Dowell added, grinning widely.

  “What?” Catti-brie asked again.

  “Your spellcasting,” Penelope started to explain, but Kipper cut her short.

  “You drew your power from the old ways,” he said. “Is this how you were trained?”

  Catti-brie didn’t know how to respond. It was how she had been trained, but in another life. In this one, not so. “What does it mean?” she asked, deflecting the other’s question.

  “The Weave, girl,” Kipper asked, “do you feel it?”

  Catti-brie thought back to the moment when her spellscar magic had failed, that flash in the sky, like an eclipse, like a web. Like the Weave of Magic.

  She looked at Penelope, her expression quite dumbfounded. “Your celebration,” she managed to whisper, and she put it all together. “Has the effect of the Spellplague ended?”

  Penelope hugged her suddenly and unexpectedly. “So we pray,” she whispered. “So we pray.”

  Catti-brie glanced out the window of her room at the Ivy Mansion months later, looking back to the east, toward Netheril. Her spellscar powers, the shapeshifting and storm-calling, like those of the other marked wizards at the Ivy Mansion, had not returned, and by all indications, the Spellplague was indeed no more. At long last.

  But what did that mean for Niraj and Kavita? Or, Catti-brie wondered, for Avelyere and the Coven?

  The Harpells seemed quite overjoyed by the news, even though they had all begun retraining. The library of the Ivy Mansion dated far back before the Spellplague, of course, and so they were well-equipped for this strange shift of magic. And when she thought about it, Catti-brie realized that she was better equipped than almost any! For she had been trained in the old ways initially, after all, and could any other mages in the Realms, other than elves and drow, say the same?

  A few, she realized, for the Harpells had not fully abandoned their previous ways.

  There were other differences of note between herself and the other wizards around her, and Catti-brie could only attribute it to the special days she had spent in Iruladoon. When she called upon her magic, her spellscars reacted, but that was not true for Penelope or the few others similarly scarred. Even for Catti-brie, the reaction seemed a cosmetic thing only, for her magic was not exceptionally potent—indeed, were she to engage in a spell battle against Penelope, Catti-brie was certain that she would be obliterated in short order.

  Still, Catti-brie had a lot to teach the Harpells, even as they invited her to stay on and train under their masters. She was more adept at converting the spells back to the old ways than any, and Kipper and the others truly appreciated her efforts in that regard, and shared some of their best dweomers with her in return.

  So for the fourth time since Catti-brie had moved from her warrior ways to that of a wizard, she had found a new school. First she had trained with the great Lady Alustriel of Silverymoon, then with Niraj and Kavita, then at the Coven, and now here at the Ivy Mansion. What student of the arcane arts could ever ask for more? She had been fortunate indeed!

  “No, the fifth time,” she said aloud, correcting the thought as she recalled her greatest instructor, the one from whom she received her divine abilities. She looked down at her right forearm, at the unicorn head, and heard again the magical song of Mielikki.

  The young woman nodded determinedly, thinking of her coming reunion with her beloved Drizzt, and thinking, too, of the purpose of her return. What might be in store for her, she wondered? Might the demon queen actually come hunting for Drizzt, and there to battle the avatar of Mielikki? What might she do in the face of such bared power? Would it be a proxy fight, perhaps, minions against minions? Aye, but in any such battle, Catti-brie surely liked the odds for the Companions of the Hall.

  Catti-brie realized that she was smiling widely—indeed, she felt as if her grin would take in her ears! To be on the road again with Drizzt! With Bruenor and Regis—and oh, how she hoped they would find their way to Kelvin’s Cairn on the Sping Equinox of 1484! In that moment, she was certain that she would find Drizzt; in that exhilarating moment, Catti-brie found courage and heart, and indeed her own heart pounded in her chest.

  She knew that Drizzt could be long dead, of course, or either Bruenor or Regis might have fallen along their journey. She knew her own path was far from secured, with many dangerous miles to go and her powers reduced, and perhaps with a dangerous sorceress and her many minions close on her trail.

  But in that moment, Catti-brie knew that she would find her love. And she would stand beside him, prepared to do battle. Her expression shifting from joy to a look of grim resolve, the young woman dived back to her studies.

  Summer turned to autumn and autumn to winter, and the Year of the Ageless One became the Year of Deep Water Drifting. Bruenor rode a caravan out of Mithral Hall, bound for Mirabar, and Regis crossed the Sea of Fallen Stars, but Catti-brie couldn’t know any of that.

  The year turned again, to the Year of the Grinning Halfling, and the seasons turned once more, with Bruenor crossing through Mirabar and bound for Baldur’s Gate, while Regis rode with the Grinning Ponies along the Trade Way, neither of them so far from Longsaddle. But Catti-brie’s eyes remained in her books—furthering her power served her goddess’s wishes, and would serve her and Drizzt well.

  She would stay in Longsaddle another year or two, she hoped, and perhaps even a bit longer if she could approach the level of proficiency needed to master a teleportation spell that could set her immediately into Icewind Dale.

  That was her plan, at least, but one gray morning before the turn of 1483, Penelope called her to her chambers, where Catti-brie found Penelope’s husband and old Kipper already seated around the sorceress’s desk.

  “We have come to think of you as a friend, even family,” Penelope told her as soon as she had taken the indicated seat. “Many have whispered that you should be formally ordained as a Harpell.”

  Catti-brie thought to ask if that meant she would have to turn herself into a statue, or a werewolf, or burn herself with an errant fireball or some other such catastrophe, but, gauging the somber atmosphere around her, she wisely kept her jokes private.

  “We have opened our home and books to you,” Kipper added.

  “You have been most generous, all
of you,” Catti-brie agreed.

  “Do you think it is time to tell us the truth of Delly Curtie?” Penelope asked bluntly.

  Catti-brie stood and stared at Penelope, her friend and mentor, unsure, and not because she hadn’t come to trust and care for her hosts. Far from it! “You hesitate.”

  “Does that particular point of truth matter?” Catti-brie asked.

  “It does,” Dowell said with unexpected and jarring seriousness.

  “Kipper has detected some unwanted magic, aimed at the Ivy Mansion,” Penelope explained. “Detection spells, divination, distance vision. Someone seeks something here, or someone.”

  Catti-brie closed her eyes and took another steadying breath. Even though the years had turned, she knew in her heart that it had to be Lady Avelyere.

  “So will you tell us the truth?” Dowell asked.

  “No,” Catti-brie answered without hesitation.

  “For our own sake?” Penelope asked, and Catti-brie nodded.

  “You are being hunted by a powerful adversary then,” said Kipper, and he nodded when Catti-brie looked to him. “Good that you are here, then. You are among powerful friends.”

  “No,” Catti-brie replied, again without having to even think about it. “Good for me, perhaps, but not so for you.”

  “We are formidable—”

  “It matters not,” said Catti-brie. She was thinking beyond the walls of the Ivy Mansion. If Avelyere was hunting her, the woman and her Netherese cohorts wouldn’t move on the Ivy Mansion. They would watch and they would learn, and they would have a hot trail to follow when Catti-brie at last departed.

  “I am not in danger,” Catti-brie explained. “Nor are you in having me here. But it is best that I take my leave, for now at least. I had never meant to so detour from my journey, though I would not trade the last years. The generosity of the Harpells exceeds even the eccentricities of the Harpells, and that is no small thing!”

  “You have a great tale to tell!” Penelope argued. “Of Harkle and Bidderdoo and Mithral Hall and Delly Curtie. I wish to hear—”