The Halfling’s Gem frid-3

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  Regis tucked his thumbs into his jeweled belt. “I owed you that, at the least!”

  “Bah!” snorted Bruenor, an adventurous gleam in his eye. “Ten times more, Rumblebelly, ten times more!”

  * * *

  Drizzt looked out of his room’s single window at the dark streets of Calimport. They seemed quieter this night, hushed in suspicion and intrigue, anticipating the power struggle that would inevitably follow the downfall of a guildmaster as powerful as Pasha Pook.

  Drizzt knew that there were other eyes out there, looking back at him, at the guildhouse, waiting for word of the drow elf—waiting for a second chance to battle Drizzt Do’Urden.

  The night passed lazily, and Drizzt, unmoving from his window, watched it drift into dawn. Again, Bruenor was the first to his room.

  “Ye ready, elf?” the eager dwarf asked, closing the door behind him as he entered.

  “Patience, good dwarf,” Drizzt replied. “We cannot leave until the tide is right, and Captain Deudermont assured me that we had the bulk of the morning to wait.”

  Bruenor plopped down on the bed. “Better,” he said at length. “Gives me more time to speak with the little one.”

  “You fear for Regis,” observed Drizzt.

  “Ayuh,” Bruenor admitted. “The little one’s done well by me.” He pointed to the onyx statuette on the dressing table. “And by yerself. Rumblebelly said it himself: There’s wealth to be taken here. Pook’s gone, and it’s to be grab-as-grab-can. And that Entreri’s about—that’s not to me likin’. And more of them ratmen, not to doubt, looking to pay the little one back for their pain. And that wizard! Rumblebelly says he’s got him by the gemstones, if ye get me meaning, but it seems off to me that a wizard’s caught by such a charm.”

  “To me, as well,” Drizzt agreed.

  “I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him!” Bruenor declared. “Rumblebelly’s got him standing right by his side.”

  “Perhaps you and I should pay LaValle a visit this morning,” Drizzt offered, “that we might judge where he stands.”

  * * *

  Bruenor’s knocking technique shifted subtly when they arrived at the wizard’s door, from the gentle tapping he had laid on Drizzt’s door, to a battering-ram crescendo of heavy slugs. LaValle jumped from his bed and rushed to see what was the matter, and who was beating upon his brand new door.

  “Morning, wizard,” Bruenor grumbled, pushing into the room as soon as the door cracked open.

  “So I guessed,” muttered LaValle, looking to the hearth and beside it to the pile of kindling that was once his old door.

  “Greetings, good dwarf,” he said as politely as he could muster. “And Master Do’Urden,” he added quickly when he noticed Drizzt slipping in behind. “Were you not to be gone by this late hour?”

  “We have time,” said Drizzt.

  “And we’re not for leaving till we’ve seen to the safety of Rumblebelly,” Bruenor explained.

  “Rumblebelly?” echoed LaValle.

  “The halfling!” roared Bruenor. “Yer master.”

  “Ah, yes, Master Regis,” said LaValle wistfully, his hands going together over his chest and his eyes taking on a distant, glossy look.

  Drizzt shut the door and glared, suspicious, at him.

  LaValle’s faraway trance faded back to normal when he considered the unblinking drow. He scratched his chin, looking for somewhere to run. He couldn’t fool the drow, he realized. The dwarf, perhaps, the halfling, certainly, but not this one. Those lavender eyes burned holes right through his facade. “You do not believe that your little friend has cast his enchantment over me,” he said.

  “Wizards avoid wizards’ traps,” Drizzt replied.

  “Fair enough,” said LaValle, slipping into a chair.

  “Bah! Then ye’re a liar, too!” growled Bruenor, his hand going to the axe on his belt. Drizzt stopped him.

  “If you doubt the enchantment,” said LaValle, “do not doubt my loyalty. I am a practical man who has served many masters in my long life. Pook was the greatest of these, but Pook is gone. LaValle lives on to serve again.”

  “Or mighten be that he sees a chance to make the top,” Bruenor remarked, expecting an, angry response from LaValle.

  Instead, the wizard laughed heartily. “I have my craft,” he said. “It is all that I care for. I live in comfort and am free to go as I please. I need not the challenges and dangers of a guildmaster.” He looked to Drizzt as the more reasonable of the two. “I will serve the halfling, and if Regis is thrown down, I will serve he that takes the halfling’s place.”

  The logic satisfied Drizzt, and convinced him of the wizard’s loyalty beyond any enchantment the ruby could have induced. “Let us take our leave,” he said to Bruenor, and he started out the door.

  Bruenor could trust Drizzt’s judgment, but he couldn’t resist one final threat. “Ye crossed me, wizard,” he growled from the doorway. “Ye nearen killed me girl. If me friend comes to a bad end, ye’ll pay with yer head.”

  LaValle nodded but said nothing.

  “Keep him well,” the dwarf finished with a wink, and he slammed the door with a bang.

  “He hates my door,” the wizard lamented.

  * * *

  The troupe gathered inside the guildhouse’s main entrance an hour later, Drizzt, Bruenor, Wulfgar, and Catti-brie outfitted again in their adventuring gear, and Drizzt with the magical mask hanging loose around his neck.

  Regis, with attendants in tow, joined them. He would make the trip to the Sea Sprite beside his formidable friends. Let his enemies see his allies in all their splendor, the sly new guildmaster figured, particularly a drow elf!

  “A final offer before we go,” Regis proclaimed.

  “We’re not for staying,” Bruenor retorted.

  “Not to you,” Regis said. He turned squarely to Drizzt. “To you.”

  Drizzt waited patiently for the pitch as the halfling rubbed his eager hands together.

  “Fifty thousand gold pieces,” Regis said at length, “for your cat.”

  Drizzt’s eyes widened to double their size.

  “Guenhwyvar will be well cared for, I assure—”

  Catti-brie slapped Regis on the back of the head. “Find yer shame,” she scolded. “Ye know the drow better than that!”

  Drizzt calmed her with a smile. “A treasure for a treasure?” he said to Regis. “You know I must decline. Guenhwyvar cannot be bought, however good your intentions may be.”

  “Fifty thousand,” Bruenor huffed. “If we wanted it, we’d take it afore we left!”

  Regis then realized the absurdity of the offer, and he blushed in embarrassment.

  “Are you so certain that we came across the world to your aid?” Wulfgar asked him. Regis looked at the barbarian, confused.

  “Perhaps ‘twas the cat we came after,” Wulfgar continued seriously.

  The stunned look on Regis’s face proved more than any of them could bear, and a burst of laughter like none of them had enjoyed in many months erupted, infecting even Regis.

  “Here,” Drizzt offered when things had quieted once again. “Take this instead,” He pulled the magical mask off his head and tossed it to the halfling.

  “Should ye keep it until we get to the boat?” Bruenor asked.

  Drizzt looked to Catti-brie for an answer, and her smile of approval and admiration cast away any remaining doubts he might have had.

  “No,” he said. “Let the Calishites judge me for what they will.” He swung open the doors, allowing the morning sun to sparkle in his lavender eyes.

  “Let the wide world judge me for what it will,” he said, his look one of genuine contentment as he dropped his gaze alternately into the eyes of each of his four friends.

  “You know who I am.”

  Epilogue

  The Sea Sprite cut a difficult course northward up the Sword Coast, into the wintry winds, but Captain Deudermont and his grateful crew were determined to see the four friends safely and
swiftly back to Waterdeep.

  Stunned expressions from every face on the docks greeted the resilient vessel as it put into Waterdeep Harbor, dodging the breakers and the ice floes as it went. Mustering all the skill he had gained through years of experience, Deudermont docked the Sea Sprite safely.

  The four friends had recovered much of their health, and their humor, during those two months at sea, despite the rough voyage. All had turned out well in the end—even Catti-brie’s wounds appeared as if they would fully heal.

  But if the sea voyage back to the North was difficult, the trek across the frozen lands was even worse. Winter was on the wane but still thick in the land, and the friends could not afford to wait for the snows to melt. They said their goodbyes to Deudermont and the men of the Sea Sprite, tightened heavy cloaks and boots, and trudged off through Waterdeep’s gate along the Trade Way on the northeastern course to Longsaddle.

  Blizzards and wolves reared up to stop them. The path of the road, its plentiful markings buried under a year’s worth of snow, became no more than the guess of a drow elf reading the stars and the sun.

  Somehow they made it, though, and they stormed into Longsaddle, ready to retake Mithril Hall. Bruenor’s kin from Icewind Dale were there to greet them, along with five hundred of Wulfgar’s people. Less than two weeks later, General Dagnabit of Citadel Adbar led his eight thousand dwarven troops to Bruenor’s side.

  Battle plans were drawn and redrawn. Drizzt and Bruenor put their memories of the undercity and mine caverns together to create models of the place and estimate the number of duergar the army would face.

  Then, with spring defeating the last blows of winter, and only a few days before the army was to set out to the mountains, two more groups of allies came in, quite unexpectedly: contingents of archers from Silverymoon and Nesme. Bruenor at first wanted to turn the warriors from Nesme away, remembering the treatment he and his friends had received at the hands of a Nesme patrol on their initial journey to Mithril Hall, and also because the dwarf wondered how much of the show of allegiance was motivated in the hopes of friendship, and how much in the hopes of profit!

  But, as usual, Bruenor’s friends kept him on a wise course. The dwarves would have to deal extensively with Nesme, the closest settlement to Mithril Hall, once the mines were reopened, and a smart leader would patch the bad feelings there and then.

  * * *

  Their numbers were overwhelming, their determination unrivaled, and their leaders magnificent. Bruenor and Dagnabit led the main assault force of battle-hardened dwarves and wild barbarians, sweeping out room after room of the duergar scum. Catti-brie, with her bow, the few Harpells who had made the journey, and the archers from the two cities, cleared the side passages along the main force’s thrust.

  Drizzt, Wulfgar, and Guenhwyvar, as they had so often in the past, forged out alone, scouting the areas ahead of and below the army, taking out more than their share of duergar along the way.

  In three days, the top level was cleared. In two weeks, the undercity. By the time spring had settled fully onto the northland, less than a month after the army had set out from Longsaddle, the hammers of Clan Battlehammer began their smithing song in the ancient halls once again.

  And the rightful king took his throne.

  * * *

  Drizzt looked down from the mountains to the distant lights of the enchanted city of Silverymoon. He had been turned away from that city once before—a painful rejection—but not this time.

  He could walk the land as he chose, now, with his head held high and the cowl of his cloak thrown back. Most of the world did not treat him any differently; few knew the name of Drizzt Do’Urden. But Drizzt knew now that he owed no apologies, or excuses, for his black skin, and to those who placed unfair judgment upon him, he offered none.

  The weight of the world’s prejudice would still fall upon him heavily, but Drizzt had learned, by the insights of Catti-brie, to stand against it.

  What a wonderful friend she was to him. Drizzt had watched her grow into a special young woman, and he was warmed now by the knowledge that she had found her home.

  The thought of her with Wulfgar, and standing beside Bruenor, touched the dark elf, who had never experienced the closeness of family.

  “How much we all have changed,” the drow whispered to the empty mountain wind.

  His words were not a lament.

  * * *

  The autumn saw the first crafted goods flow from Mithril Hall to Silverymoon, and by the time winter turned again to spring, the trade was in full force, with the barbarians from Icewind Dale working as market bearers for the dwarven goods.

  That spring, too, a carving was begun in the Hall of Kings: the likeness of Bruenor Battlehammer.

  To the dwarf who had wandered so far from his home and had seen so many marvelous—and horrible—sights, the reopening of the mines, and even the carving of his bust, seemed of minor importance when weighed against another event planned for that year.

  “I told ye he’d be back,” Bruenor said to Wulfgar and Catti-brie, who both sat beside him in his audience hall. “Th’ elf’d not be missing such a thing as yer wedding!”

  General Dagnabit—who, with blessings from King Harbromme of Citadel Adbar, had stayed on with two thousand other dwarves, swearing allegiance to Bruenor—entered the room, escorting a figure who had become less and less noticeable in Mithril Hall over the last few months.

  “Greetings,” said Drizzt, moving up to his friends.

  “So ye made it,” Catti-brie said absently, feigning disinterest.

  “We had not planned for this,” added Wulfgar in the same casual tone. “I pray that there may be an extra seat at the table.”

  Drizzt only smiled and bowed low in apology. He had been absent quite often—for weeks at a time—lately. Personal invitations to visit the Lady of Silverymoon and her enchanted realm were not so easily refused.

  “Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “I told ye he’d come back! And back to stay, this time!”

  Drizzt shook his head.

  Bruenor cocked his in return, wondering what was getting into his friend. “Ye hunting for that assassin, elf?” he could not help but ask.

  Drizzt grinned and shook his head again. “I’ve no desire to meet that one again,” he replied. He looked at Catti-brie—she understood—then back to Bruenor. “There are many sights in the wide world, dear dwarf, that cannot be seen from the shadows. Many sounds more pleasant than the ring of steel, and many smells preferable to the stench of death.”

  “Cook another feast,” Bruenor grumbled. “Suren the elf has his eyes fixed on another wedding!”

  Drizzt let it go at that. Maybe there was a ring of truth in Bruenor’s words, for some distant date. No longer did Drizzt limit his hopes and desires. He would see the world as he could and draw his choices from his wishes, not from limitations he might impose upon himself. For now, though, Drizzt had found something too personal to be shared.

  For the first time in his life, the drow had found peace.

  Another dwarf entered the room and scurried up to Dagnabit. They both took their leave, but Dagnabit returned a few moments later.

  “What is it?” Bruenor asked him, confused by all the bustle.

  “Another guest,” Dagnabit explained, but before he could launch a proper introduction, a halfling figure slipped into the room.

  “Regis!” Catti-brie cried. She and Wulfgar rushed to meet their old friend.

  “Rumblebelly!” Bruenor yelled. “What in the Nine Hells—”

  “Did you believe that I would miss this occasion?” Regis huffed. “The wedding of two of my dearest friends?”

  “How’d ye know?” Bruenor asked.

  “You underestimate your fame, King Bruenor,” Regis said, dropping into a graceful bow.

  Drizzt studied the halfling curiously. He wore his gemstudded jacket and more jewelry, including the ruby pendant, than the drow had ever seen in one place. And the pouches hanging low on Regis�
�s belt were sure to be filled with gold and gems.

  “Might ye be staying long?” Catti-brie asked.

  Regis shrugged. “I am in no hurry,” he replied. Drizzt cocked an eyebrow. A master of a thieves’ guild did not often leave his place of power; too many were usually ready to steal it out from under him.

  Catti-brie seemed happy with the answer and happy with the timing of the halfling’s return. Wulfgar’s people were soon to rebuild the city of Settlestone, at the base of the mountains. She and Wulfgar, though, planned to remain in Mithril Hall, at Bruenor’s side. After the wedding, they planned to do a bit of traveling they’d had in mind, maybe back to Icewind Dale, maybe along with Captain Deudermont later in the year, when the Sea Sprite sailed back to the southlands.

  Catti-brie dreaded telling Bruenor that they would be leaving, if only for a few months. With Drizzt so often on the road, she feared that the dwarf would be miserable. But if Regis planned to stay on for a while…

  “Might I have a room,” Regis asked, “to put my things and to rest away the weariness of a long road?”

  “We’ll see to it,” Catti-brie offered.

  “And for your attendants?” Bruenor asked.

  “Oh,” stammered Regis, searching for a reply. “I…came alone. The southerners do not take well to the chill of a northern spring, you know.”

  “Well, off with ye, then,” said Bruenor. “Suren it be me turn to set out a feast for the pleasure of yer belly.”

  Regis rubbed his hands together eagerly and left with Wulfgar and Catti-brie, the three of them breaking into tales of their latest adventures before they had even left the room.

  “Suren few folk in Calimport have ever heared o’ me name, elf,” Bruenor said to Drizzt after the others had gone. “And who south o’ Longsaddle would be knowing of the wedding?” He turned a sly eye on his dark friend. “Suren the little one brings a bit of his treasure along with him, eh?”