The Spine of the World

by Philip Athans

The two thieves spent a few moments going through the coach, finding, to Morik’s delight, a purse of gold. Wulfgar searched about for a log to use as a lever.

  “You don’t intend to upright the carriage, do you?” Morik asked incredulously.

  “Yes, I do,” Wulfgar replied.

  “You can’t do that,” the rogue argued. “She’ll drive right up to the stone keep and have a host of soldiers pursuing us within the hour.”

  Wulfgar wasn’t listening. He found some large rocks and placed them near the roof of the fallen carriage. With a great tug, he brought the thing off the ground. Seeing no help forthcoming from Morik, he braced himself and managed to free one hand to slide a rock into place under the rim.

  The horses snorted and tugged, and Wulfgar almost lost the whole thing right there. “At least go and calm them,” he instructed Morik. The rogue made no move. Wulfgar looked to the woman, who ran to the team and steadied them.

  “I can’t do this alone,” Wulfgar called again to Morik, his tone growing more angry.

  Blowing out a great, long-suffering sigh, the rogue ambled over. Studying the situation briefly, he trotted off to where Wulfgar had left the rope, which he looped about the tree then brought one end back to tie off the upper rim of the coach. Morik passed by the woman, who jumped back from him, but he scarcely noticed.

  Next, Morik took the horses by their bridle and pulled them around, dragging the coach carefully and slowly so that its wheels were equidistant from the tree. “You lift, and I will set the rope to hold it,” he instructed Wulfgar. “Then brace yourself and lift it higher, and soon we will have it upright.”

  Morik was a clever one, Wulfgar had to admit. As soon as the rogue was back in place at the rope and the woman had a hold of the team again, Wulfgar bent low and gave a great heave, and up the carriage went.

  Morik quickly took up the slack, tightening the rope around the tree, allowing Wulfgar to reset his position. A moment later, the barbarian gave another heave, and again Morik held the coach in place at its highest point. The third pull by Wulfgar brought it over bouncing onto its four wheels.

  The horses nickered nervously and stamped the ground, tossing their heads in protest so forcefully that the woman couldn’t hold on. Wulfgar was beside her instantly, though, grabbing the bridles and pulling hard, steadying the beasts. Then, using the same rope, he tied them off to the tree and went to the fallen driver.

  “What’s his name?” he asked of the woman. Seeing her hesitation he said, “We can’t do anything worse to you than we have already, just by knowing your name. I feel strange helping him but not knowing what to call him.”

  The woman’s expression lightened as she saw the sense of his remark. “His name’s Liam.” Apparently having found some courage, she came over and crouched next to her driver, concern replacing fear on her face. “Is he going to be all right?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  Poor Liam seemed far from consciousness, but he was alive, and upon closer inspection his injuries didn’t appear too serious. Wulfgar lifted him gently and brought him to the coach, laying him on the bench seat inside. The barbarian went back to the woman, taking her arm and pulling her along behind him.

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt me,” she protested and tried to fight back. She would have had an easier time holding back the two horses.

  Morik’s smile grew wide when Wulfgar dragged her by. “A change of heart?” the rogue asked.

  “She’s coming with us for a while,” Wulfgar explained.

  “No!” the young woman protested. Balling up her fist, she leaped up and smacked Wulfgar hard across the back of his head.

  He stopped and turned to her, his expression amused and a little impressed at her spunk. “Yes,” he answered, pinning her arm as she tried to hit him again. “You’ll come with us for just a mile,” he explained. “Then I’ll let you loose to return to the coach and the driver, and you may go wherever you please.”

  “You won’t hurt me?”

  “Not I,” Wulfgar answered. He glowered at Morik. “Nor him.”

  Realizing she had little choice in the matter, the young woman went along without further argument. True to his word, Wulfgar released her a mile or so from the coach. Then he and Morik and their purse of gold melted into the mountains.

  Meralda ran the whole way back to poor Liam. Her side was aching by the time she found the old gnome. He was awake but hardly able to climb out of the coach, let alone drive it.

  “Stay inside,” the woman bade him. “I’ll turn the team around and get us back to Castle Auck.”

  Liam protested, but Meralda just shut the door and went to work. Soon she had them moving back west along the road, a bumpy and jostling ride, for she was not experienced in handling horses and the road was not an easy one. Along the way, the miles and the hours rolling out behind her, an idea came to the woman, a seemingly simple solution to all her troubles.

  It was long after sunset when they pulled back into Auckney proper at the gates of Castle Auck. Lord Feringal and Priscilla came out to greet them, and their jaws dropped when they saw the bedraggled woman and the battered coachman within.

  “Thieves on the road,” Meralda explained. Priscilla climbed to her side, uncharacteristically concerned. In a voice barely above a whisper, Meralda added, “He hurt me.” With that, she broke into sobs in Priscilla’s arms.

  The wind moaned around him, a sad voice that sang to Wulfgar about what had been and what could never be again, a lost time, a lost innocence, and friends he sorely missed yet could not seek out.

  Once more he sat on the high bluff at the northern end of the pass through the Spine of the World, overlooking Icewind Dale, staring out to the northeast. He saw a sparkle out there. It might have been a trick of the light, or maybe it was the slanted rays of late afternoon sunlight reflecting off of Maer Dualdon, the largest of the three lakes of the Ten-Towns region. Also, he thought he saw Kelvin’s Cairn, the lone mountain north of the range.

  It was probably just his imagination, he told himself again or a trick of the light, for the mountain was a long way from him. To Wulfgar, it seemed like a million miles.

  “They have camped outside the southern end of the pass,” Morik announced, moving to join the big man. “There are not so many. It should be a clean take.”

  Wulfgar nodded. After the success along the shore road to the west, the pair had returned to the south, the region between Luskan and the pass, and had even bought some goods from one passing merchant with their ill-found gold. Then they had come back to the pass and had hit another caravan. This time it went smoothly, with the merchant handing over a tithe and no blood spilled. Morik had spotted their third group of victims, a caravan of three wagons heading north out of Luskan, bound for Icewind Dale.

  “Always you are looking north,” the rogue remarked, sitting next to Wulfgar, “and yet you will not venture there. Have you enemies in Ten-Towns?”

  “I have friends who would stop us if they knew what we were about,” Wulfgar explained.

  “Who would try to stop us?” cocky Morik replied.

  Wulfgar looked him right in the eye. “They would stop us,” he insisted, his grave expression offering no room for argument. He let that look linger on Morik for a moment, then turned back to the dale, the wistfulness returning as well to his sky-blue eyes.

  “What life did you leave behind there?” Morik asked.

  Wulfgar turned back, surprised. He and Morik didn’t often talk about their respective pasts, at least not unless they were drinking.

  “Will you tell me?” Morik pressed. “I see so much in your face. Pain, regret, and what else?”

  Wulfgar chuckled at that observation. “What did I leave behind?” he echoed. After a moment’s pause, he answered, “Everything.”

  “That sounds foolish.”

  “I could be a king,” Wulfgar went on, staring out at the dale again as if speaking to himself. Perhaps he was. “Chieftain of the combined tribes of Ic
ewind Dale, with a strong voice on the council of Ten-Towns. My father—” He looked at Morik and laughed. “You would not like my father, Morik. Or at least, he would not like you.”

  “A proud barbarian?”

  “A surly dwarf,” Wulfgar countered. “He’s my adoptive father,” he clarified as Morik sputtered over that one. “The Eighth King of Mithral Hall and leader of a clan of dwarves mining in the valley before Kelvin’s Cairn in Icewind Dale.”

  “Your father is a dwarven king?” Wulfgar nodded. “And you are out on the road beside me, sleeping on the ground?” Again the nod. “Truly you are a bigger fool than I had believed.”

  Wulfgar just stared out at the tundra, hearing the sad song of the wind. He couldn’t disagree with Morik’s assessment, but neither did he have the power to change things. He heard Morik reaching for his pack, then heard the familiar clink of bottles.

  BIRTH

  e think we understand those around us. The people we have come to know reveal patterns of behavior, and as our expectations of that behavior are fulfilled time and again we begin to believe that we know the person’s heart and soul.

  I consider that to be an arrogant perception, for one cannot truly understand the heart and soul of another, one cannot truly appreciate the perceptions another might hold toward similar or recounted experiences. We all search for truth, particularly within our own sphere of existence, the home we have carved and those friends with whom we choose to share it. But truth, I fear, is not always evident where individuals, so complex and changing, are concerned.

  If ever I believe that the foundations of my world are rooted in stone, I think of Jarlaxle and I am humbled. I have always recognized that there is more to the mercenary than a simple quest for personal gain—he let me and Catti-brie walk away from Menzoberranzan, after all, and at a time when our heads would have brought him a fine price, indeed. When Catti-brie was his prisoner and completely under his power, he did not take advantage of her, though he has admitted, through actions if not words, that he thinks her quite attractive. So always have I seen a level of character beneath the cold mercenary clothing, but despite that knowledge my last encounter with Jarlaxle has shown me that he is far more complex, and certainly more compassionate, than ever I could have guessed. Beyond that, he called himself a friend of Zaknafein, and though I initially recoiled at such a notion, now I consider it to be not only believable, but likely.

  Do I now understand the truth of Jarlaxle? And is it the same truth that those around him, within Bregan D’aerthe, perceive? Certainly not, and though I believe my current assessment to be correct, I’ll not be as arrogant as to claim certainty, nor do I even begin to believe that I know more of him than my surface reasoning.

  What about Wulfgar, then? Which Wulfgar is the true Wulfgar? Is he the proud and honorable man Bruenor raised, the man who fought beside me against Biggrin and in so many subsequent battles? The man who saved the barbarian tribes from certain extermination and the folk of Ten-Towns from future disasters by uniting the groups diplomatically? The man who ran across Faer n for the sake of his imprisoned friend? The man who helped Bruenor reclaim his lost kingdom?

  Or is Wulfgar the man who harmed Catti-brie, the haunted man who seems destined, in the end, to fail utterly?

  He is both, I believe, a compilation of his experiences, feelings, and perceptions, as are we all. It is the second of that composite trio, feelings, brought on by experiences beyond his ability to cope, that control Wulfgar now. The raw emotion of those feelings alter his perceptions to the negative. Given that reality, who is Wulfgar now, and more importantly, if he survives this troubled time, who will he become?

  How I long to know. How I wish that I could walk beside him on this perilous journey, could speak with him and influence him, perhaps. That I could remind him of who he was, or at least, who we perceived him to be.

  But I cannot, for it is the heart and soul of Wulfgar, ultimately, and not his particular daily actions, that will surface in the end. And I, and anyone else, could no more influence that heart and soul as I could influence the sun itself.

  Curiously, it is in the daily rising of that celestial body that I take my comfort now when thinking about Wulfgar. Why watch the dawn? Why then, why that particular time, instead of any other hour of daylight?

  Because at dawn the sun is more brilliant by far. Because at dawn, we see the resurgence after the darkness. There is my hope, for as with the sun, so it can be true of people. Those who fall can climb back up, then brighter will they shine in the eyes of those around them.

  I watch the dawn and think of the man I thought I knew, and pray that my perceptions were correct.

  — Drizzt Do’Urden

  e kicked at the ground, splashing mud, then jammed his toe hard against an unyielding buried rock that showed only one-hundredth of its actual size. Jaka didn’t even feel the pain, for the tear in his heart— no, not in his heart, but in his pride—was worse by far. A thousand times worse.

  The wedding would take place at the turn of the season, the end of this very tenday. Lord Feringal would have Meralda, would have Jaka’s own child.

  “What justice, this?” he cried. Reaching down to pick up the rock he learned the truth of its buried size. Jaka grabbed another and came back up throwing, narrowly missing a pair of older farmers leaning on their hoes.

  The pair, including the old long-nosed dwarf, came storming over, spitting curses, but Jaka was too distracted by his own problems, not understanding that he had just made another problem, and didn’t even notice them.

  Until, that is, he spun around to find them standing right behind him. The surly dwarf leaped up and launched a balled fist right into Jaka’s face, laying him low.

  “Damn stupid boy,” the dwarf grumbled, then turned to walk away.

  Humiliated and hardly thinking, Jaka kicked at his ankles, tripping him up.

  In an instant, the slender young man was hauled to his feet by the other farmer. “Are you looking to die then?” the man asked, giving him a good shake.

  “Perhaps I am,” Jaka came back with a great, dramatic sigh. “Yes, all joy has flown from this coil.”

  “Boy’s daft,” the farmer holding Jaka said to his companion. The dwarf was coming back over, fists clenched, jaw set firm under his thick beard. As he finished, the man whipped Jaka around and shoved him backward toward the other farmer. The dwarf didn’t catch Jaka but instead shoved him back the other way, high up on the back so that the young man went face down in the dirt. The dwarf stepped on the small of Jaka’s back, pressing down with his hard-soled boots.

  “You watch where you’re throwing stones,” he said, grinding down suddenly and for just an instant, blowing the breath out of Jaka.

  “The boy’s daft,” the other farmer said as he and his companion walked away.

  Jaka lay on the ground and cried.

  “All that good food at the castle,” remarked Madam Prinkle, an old, gray woman with a smiling face. The woman’s skin, hanging in wrinkled folds, seemed too loose for her bones. She grabbed Meralda’s waist and gave a pinch. “If you change your size every tenday, how’s my dress ever to fit you? Why, girl, you’re three fingers bigger.”

  Meralda blushed and looked away, not wanting to meet the stare of Priscilla, who was standing off to the side, watching and listening intently.

  “Truly I’ve been hungry lately,” Meralda replied. “Been eating everything I can get into my mouth. A bit on the jitters, I am.” She looked anxiously at Priscilla, who had been working hard with her to help her lose her peasant accent.

  Priscilla nodded, but hardly seemed convinced.

  “Well, you best find a different way for calming,” Madam Prinkle replied, “or you’ll split the dress apart walking to Lord Feringal’s side.” She laughed riotously then, one big, bobbing ball of too-loose skin. Meralda and Priscilla both laughed self-consciously as well, though neither seemed the least bit amused.

  “Can you alter it correctly?” Pr
iscilla asked.

  “Oh, not to fear,” replied Madam Prinkle. “I’ll have the girl all beautiful for her day.” She began to gather up her thread and sewing tools. Priscilla moved to help her while Meralda quickly removed the dress, gathered up her own things, and rushed out of the room.

  Away from the other two, the woman put her hand on her undeniably larger belly. It was over two and a half months now since her encounter with Jaka in the starlit field, and though she doubted that the baby was large enough to be pushing her belly out so, she certainly had been eating volumes of late. Perhaps it was nerves, perhaps it was because she was nourishing two, but whatever the cause, she would have to be careful for the rest of the tenday so as not to draw more attention to herself.

  “She will have the dress back to us on the morrow,” Priscilla said behind her, and the young woman nearly jumped out of her boots. “Is something wrong, Meralda?” the woman asked, moving beside her and dropping a hand on her shoulder.

  “Would you not be scared if you were marrying a lord?”

  Priscilla arched a finely plucked brow. “I would not be frightened, because I would not be in such a situation,” she replied.

  “But if ye—you, were?” Meralda pressed. “If you were born a peasant, and the lord—”

  “Preposterous,” the woman interrupted. “If I had been born a peasant, I would not be who I am, and so your whole question makes little sense.”

  Meralda stared at her, obviously confused.

  “I am not a peasant because I’ve not the soul nor blood of a peasant,” Priscilla explained. “You people think it an accident that you were born of your family, and we of nobility born of ours, but that is not the case, my dear. Station comes from within, not without.”

  “So you’re better, then?” Meralda asked bluntly.

  Priscilla smiled. “Not better, dear,” she answered condescendingly. “Different. We each have our place.”

  “And mine’s not with your brother,” the younger woman posited.