The Companions: The Sundering, Book I
Page 24
“Go ahead and look into it,” Pericolo said. “You are too large for the shard’s magic to activate in any substantive way.”
Donnola took the glass from Wigglefingers and peered at her reflection, or what part of it she could see in the shard, which was not more than three fingers’ breadth at its thickest point.
She saw half her smile and one brown eye … no, half her frown and a bloodshot brown eye. Perplexed, she drew back and looked at her companions.
Wigglefingers, smiling, held out his hand for the shard and Donnola handed it over.
“Were it the complete mirror and not just a sliver, I would never have allowed you to peer into it,” Pericolo said.
Donnola shrugged, growing more curious still as she looked to the wizard, who produced from one of the many pockets in his grand robe a small rat. The creature climbed around his hand as he rolled it over for Donnola to see. Wigglefingers bent to the floor at the side of the table, rat in one hand, mirror shard in the other, and placed both down so that the rat could get a look at itself.
Donnola gasped and nearly jumped out of her shoes as a second rat, identical to the first, ran out of the mirror, rushing wildly right for the first, who responded in kind. With sudden, seemingly insane ferocity, the rodents attacked each other, biting and rolling in a confused ball that quickly became bloody. Rat screeches filled the air.
“Stop it!” Donnola pleaded, horrified by the sight. She looked to Wigglefingers, who was already living up to his nickname, his hand waving in the air.
He cast a spell, a dispel actually, and the air shimmered with magical energy and one of the rats simply disappeared.
“What?” the young halfling woman asked with a gasp.
“A Mirror of Opposition,” Pericolo explained. “Any who look into it will find a replica of themselves stepping forth, and to do battle.”
“And it teems still with considerable magic, though it has obviously been shattered and has lain at the bottom of the sea for a hundred years,” Wigglefingers explained.
“Ebonsoul had one, so say the tales,” Pericolo remarked.
“And you found this …?” Donnola paused and poked her finger down on the spot on the nautical map.
Pericolo nodded somberly. “It is the Lichwreck. I have suspected it for some time. And now I have the means to get to it.”
Donnola nodded as she digested the words, then her eyes went wide as she came to understand them, as the end of that statement, “the means to get to it,” rang clear in her mind.
“You have come to love him as a son,” she protested, barely able to find her voice.
Pericolo looked at her, at first seeming surprised by her remark, but then with a clever smile. “And you more than that?” he retorted.
Donnola laughed it off, but her grandfather didn’t stop grinning.
“Do you deny that you love Spider?” Donnola asked.
“Why would I? I brought him into our family as truly as if he were my own chil—grandchild,” Pericolo replied. “His father resides in a house I purchased and survives on funds I deliver.”
“Yet you mean to send him to do this,” Donnola said dryly. “You will send him to the depths in search of this shipwreck.”
“Danger is a part of life, my girl, and an important part. Never forget that!”
“You will send him to his death!”
“I deny your description! For years, I have searched for Ebonsoul’s lost treasure, and now it is mine, within my grasp.”
“Because of Spider.”
“Yes.”
“So you value this treasure more than you value—” Donnola started to accuse, but a flash of anger in Pericolo’s eyes stopped her short.
“It is precisely my love of the boy that leads me to offer this to him,” the Grandfather argued. “Oh, but that I had his gift of the genasi! Of all the adventures I have known, of all the victories and the plunder, this would eclipse them as surely as a giant moon could block the sun!”
“And eclipse them in danger?”
Pericolo snorted at the thought. “I send you into the lair of sand jackals every tenday and I love you more dearly than any other.”
“That is different,” Donnola replied. “I am older and more worldly.”
“Not when you started,” Pericolo shot back. “Think back, my pretty granddaughter. How old were you when you attended your first ball in Delthuntle? It was before your sixteenth birthday, I believe, and Spider is nearly two years beyond that mark. By the time you had reached his age, you had attended scores of such festivities in the pits of intrigue, and more than one of those balls ended with a body found in a nearby alleyway, yes? And by your eighteenth birthday, you had, with my blessing and encouragement, robbed a dozen palaces, pickpocketed half the lords of Aglarond, and killed a trio of assassins, including two in one fight! Should I have hidden Donnola in a room as we do Spider?”
She sputtered but had no real response.
“Or do you now believe that I did not care for you, and was reckless?”
“That was different,” she said softly and without much conviction. “He is ready to earn his way, to step up to a position of authority and responsibility.”
“Different,” she whispered again, shaking her pretty head and swallowing hard.
“How so, girl?”
“I went to the homes of nobility, but you would send him to the depths in pursuit of the treasure vault of a lich.”
Pericolo looked at the nautical map spread before him, at the spot where his poking finger had dented the parchment, the spot where he believed Thepurl’s Diamond lay. For a long while, he said nothing, but then he looked up at Donnola and nodded.
“The greater the risk, the greater the reward.” He wore a determined smile.
“The risk to Spider, the reward to Pericolo?” she replied sarcastically.
The Grandfather narrowed his eyes. Donnola sucked in her breath, unused to seeing a threatening expression from him directed at her. “All glory to Spider if he succeeds,” he said evenly. “All glory and a pick of the treasures. What might I need with them, indeed? Nay, it is the adventure, the conquest, and I shall oversee it, and forevermore, when my name is spoken along the coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars, it will be mentioned that it was I, Pericolo Topolino, who salvaged the Lichwreck! And Spider will be mentioned, as well.
“Do you not understand, my girl?” he asked with great exasperation. “I offer Spider a chance at immortality, a chance to make a name that will resound around Aglarond for centuries hence!”
“And if he fails?”
“We mourn him and find another who might be up to the task,” the Grandfather answered without a moment’s hesitation. He gave a little chuckle and shook his head, staring hard at Donnola. “I will not live in a walled fortress, nor will you. Look past your personal feelings for Spider. Is caution what you truly desire, my beloved granddaughter? Have I taught you nothing, then?”
Donnola swallowed hard.
“What do you feel when you enter the window of a rich fool’s house unbidden?” he asked. “What does Donnola feel when the shadows around her reveal the presence of an assassin, or a deadly blade comes forth against her?”
The young halfling woman didn’t blink.
“Alive,” Pericolo answered for her. “You feel alive. This is what I have taught you, this is how you have lived. Indeed, this is how I have lived! Is there any other way?”
Donnola lowered her gaze in shame. The adventures she had known over the last decade came flooding back to her—how many times had she stood at the edge of her own grave? And Pericolo had known the razor-thin edge of disaster more than she in those last ten years, by far. From everything she had ever heard of her grandfather, of the Grandfather, the last ten years had been the quietest decade of his most adventurous life.
“Do you doubt my love for you?” Pericolo asked.
“Never,” Donnola answered without the slightest hesitation, her gaze shooting up so that she cou
ld look Pericolo in the eye as she answered him. “If I could offer you this dive, would you take it?”
The woman licked her lips. She didn’t answer, but both she, the Grandfather, and Wigglefingers, who was quietly chuckling, knew the answer, of course.
“Then do not doubt my love for Spider, either,” Pericolo begged. “I offer him the grandest adventure of all, Thepurl’s Diamond!”
“A cursed ship of mighty undead.”
“A sunken ship of grand treasures,” Pericolo corrected. “And I know where it is, and Spider, with the help of Wigglefingers, can get there. Ah, but how I envy the young one!”
Donnola started to reply, but stopped short. Would she make the dive to Thepurl’s Diamond, if that were possible?
Of course. Without hesitation.
A smile, not of defeat, but of acceptance, began to spread over Donnola’s face, and she found herself envying Spider more than a little, as well.
Regis entered the small but well-appointed cottage with a bit of trepidation, as he always did when he came here. He couldn’t shake the memory of those early days, when he had often found Eiverbreen passed out on the floor, smelling of whiskey.
He came upon his father in the living room, fast asleep in a chair, but by the look of his clothing—only a bit disheveled—he seemed to be taking an honest nap. Regis, who had lived his previous life lying on the banks of Maer Dualdon in Ten-Towns with an un-baited fishing line tied to his toe, could certainly relate to that.
He quietly stoked the fire in the hearth and took a seat opposite Eiverbreen, then patiently waited. His duties at Morada Topolino were done for the day, so he was in no hurry.
He watched the halfling across from him, studying Eiverbreen’s expressions. The man was dreaming, though not contentedly.
Had Eiverbreen Paraffin ever known contentment?
Regis silently chastised himself—a typical sensation of late—as he watched the man. He recalled when Eiverbreen had dunked him in the sea—and truly he thought that he would drown!—to learn if Regis was possessed of the same blessing as his lost mother. And then had come the dangerous dives in any and every weather. Eiverbreen had thrown his son to the sea, and above all else, Regis had to get the oysters—that single obsession fueled by the man’s need for drink at any cost to himself or to his son. For a long while, Regis had resented Eiverbreen, as any child born of such a troubled father might.
But Regis had been no child in Delthuntle. He had seen poverty before, and had felt the sting of hopelessness that so often accompanied it. In Calimport, in his first youth, Regis had known many Eiverbreens, indeed had quietly championed them even while he was rising within the guilds of the ruling pashas.
He couldn’t help but smile when he recalled one particularly lucrative heist: He wasn’t about to get away with it, he had soon enough realized, for the golden coins of the pasha he had robbed had all been cleverly marked. So Regis had taken that sack of coins to one of the most destitute reaches of Calimport in the dark of night and had strewn the treasure up and down the lane! The next day, every tavern and bakery in that region of the city became flooded with the dirty and the downtrodden.
Regis had known, and shown, mercy and compassion to the unfortunates of Calimport, and yet it had taken him many years to acquire the same level of compassion for this halfling now sitting before him.
The resentment had only worsened in the first years Eiverbreen had lived in this house, for Pericolo, on Regis’s demand, had indeed made it harder for Eiverbreen to purchase alcohol. No tavern would sell the liquor to him, on order from Pericolo, and Eiverbreen hadn’t taken well to that demand, and had blamed his son, Spider, most of all. Oh, he still found liquor, to this day, despite every attempt by Regis to tamp down the sources.
Only gradually had the two settled into a truce. They didn’t discuss Eiverbreen’s drinking, for there was no common ground to be found there, but Eiverbreen had stopped blaming his son, openly at least, and had even occasionally expressed gratitude that Regis had cared enough to try. And Regis had stopped resenting the downtrodden halfling, instead coming to see Eiverbreen in the same manner he had viewed those poor souls on the dirty streets of Calimport. He couldn’t “fix” Eiverbreen, but so be it.
The realization that Eiverbreen wasn’t actually his father had allowed the reborn halfling the emotional room he needed for objectivity.
Eiverbreen snorted and licked his lips, moving his head side to side suddenly, then opened one lazy eye to look back at Regis.
“Hey boy,” he said through sleep-sticky lips.
“Father,” Regis lied.
Eiverbreen rubbed a hand over his face, sitting up straighter in the process.
“I’m seein’ you less,” Eiverbreen slurred.
“I’ve much to do now.”
“With them Topolinos.”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you the fancylad!” Eiverbreen said with a laugh, but one that was only half-mocking. He sat up straighter still, rubbing the sleepiness from his eyes. “You still dancing with that pretty girl, are you?”
“She trains me with the blade.”
Eiverbreen issued a coarse laugh that sounded more like a wheeze than anything mirthful. “Well, I’d be stabbing that one, given the chance!” he said with a howl.
Regis steeled his posture and shut his mouth, reminding himself that Eiverbreen was harmless, that his crudity served as cover for despair. “She’s a friend,” Regis said instead.
“Aye, you and your important friends,” Eiverbreen said with a derisive snort.
“They’ve done well by you,” Regis said before he could bite it back.
Eiverbreen snorted louder and turned to look at the hearth.
“I’m sorry, Father,” Regis said. “But you seem well.”
Eiverbreen pulled himself to his feet, grabbed the poker, and began prodding at the logs. “I get by, boy,” he said absently.
“My name is Regis.” He wasn’t really sure why he had said it, but there it lay.
“So says you,” replied a clearly confused Eiverbreen.
“Indeed, and is there any other to argue my choice?”
“Not your choice!” Eiverbreen said harshly, even lifting the poker to aim its tip Regis’s way. “Your Ma’s choice!”
“She’s dead.”
“My choice, then! You could have spoken to me first, boy, to see if I approved.”
“You had your chance, but you didn’t bother,” Regis said, and Eiverbreen’s expression flashed with anger.
“You forgetting your place?” the older halfling asked.
Regis shook his head, denying Eiverbreen. The discussion had reminded him of why he had come here; he was eighteen years old now. The west was beginning to call, the bargain of Mielikki sounding louder and louder in his thoughts.
“Might that I’ll call you Earnst,” Eiverbreen said. “That was my brother’s name, your dead uncle, drowned in the storm of 1445. Just a boy, you know. Aye, I should have named you Earnst to honor him!”
“You should have, perhaps, but you didn’t.”
“Your name is what I tell you it is!” Eiverbreen growled, and he prodded the poker Regis’s way—or started to, for the halfling’s rapier came forth in the blink of a surprised eye, quickly parrying and rolling over the poker, where its blade caught under the item’s hook. With a subtle twist and shift, Regis pulled the poker from Eiverbreen’s hand and sent it bouncing aside.
Eiverbreen stared at him dumbfounded, then looked at the fallen poker. He began to laugh heartily. “Oh, but that Topolino lassie’s teaching you well, boy!” he said. “And what else is she teaching my boy?”
He fell back into his chair, his shoulders bobbing with amusement.
“Much,” was all Regis replied, and he did so with a wide grin, thinking there was no reason to dissuade Eiverbreen from his undoubtedly lewd notions.
Eiverbreen shrugged and snorted, waving his hand dismissively. “Where did you find this name?”
“It’s a name I heard, a long time ago,” he started, unsure. “Where? With them Topolinos?”
“Longer back.”
“Well, where then?” Eiverbreen said, his tone sharpening. Regis considered that question for a few moments. What would be gained by telling Eiverbreen? The old drunk probably wouldn’t even believe it, and if he did, well, to what gain? Others had told Regis that Eiverbreen was proud of him, in his own way, whispering about “his boy with the Grandfather” between bites of his meals at the local common rooms. Perhaps, Regis mused, he had just wanted to hurt the man, to steal from him the one boasting point in all of his miserable life.
But why? Because of the neglect? Because Eiverbreen had been a fairly pathetic father—even though Eiverbreen wasn’t even his father at all?
No, Regis decided then and there. He was allowing his own pettiness to sway him, but there was no place for such things. His entire purpose for returning to Toril awaited him just a trio of years down the road—the long road to Icewind Dale.
He looked at Eiverbreen and offered a disarming smile. He really didn’t want to hurt the halfling. It was that simple.
He laughed. “Grandfather calls me Spider. Spider Parrafin, son of Eiverbreen, student of Grandfather Pericolo Topolino.”
Eiverbreen looked at him even more curiously at first, as if wondering what in the Nine Hells had just transpired, and to what end. But then he nodded, even laughed a bit, echoing, “Spider, eh? I like that much better.”
Regis felt proud of himself for rising above pettiness, for being able to separate his own wounded feelings enough to find for this poor soul Eiverbreen the same compassion Regis had shown to others in his previous life.
The smile couldn’t spread too widely, though, as Regis reminded himself that he would indeed be wounding Eiverbreen, perhaps mortally, when he left Delthuntle, and that unsettling thought had him chewing his lip.