would invoke the true power of the scroll, using offkey inflections of tone
to distort Morkai's name and disrupt the harmony of his spirit, thus
racking him to the core of his being.
"How long shall I search for your answers?" Morkai asked.
Dendybar smiled at his victory, though the drain on him continued to
heighten. "Two hours," he replied without delay, having carefully decided
the length of the search before the summoning, choosing a time limit that
would give Morkai enough opportunity to find some answers, but not long
enough to allow the spirit to learn more than he should.
Morkai smiled, guessing the motives behind the decision. He snapped
backward suddenly and was gone in a puff of smoke, the flames that had
sustained his form relegated back to their brazier to await his return.
Dendybar's relief was immediate. Although he still had to concentrate
to keep the gate to the planes in place, the pull against his will and the
drain on his power lessened considerably when the spirit had gone. Morkai's
willpower had nearly broken him during their encounter, and Dendybar shook
his head in disbelief that the old master could reach out from the grave so
mightily. A shudder ran up his spine as he pondered his wisdom in plotting
against one so powerful. Every time he summoned Morkai, he was reminded
that his own day of reckoning would surely come.
Morkai had little trouble in learning about the four adventurers. In
fact, the specter already knew much about them. He had taken a great
interest in Ten-Towns during his reign as Master of the North Spire, and
his curiosity had not died with his body. Even now, he often looked in on
the doings in Icewind Dale, and anyone who concerned himself with Ten-Towns
in recent months knew something of the four heroes.
Morkai's continued interest in the world he had left behind was not an
uncommon trait in the spirit world. Death altered the ambitions of the
soul, replacing the love of material or social gains with an eternal hunger
for knowledge. Some spirits had looked down upon the Realms for centuries
untold, simply collecting information and watching the living go about
their lives. Perhaps it was envy for the physical sensations they could no
longer feel. But whatever the reason, the wealth of knowledge in a single
spirit often outweighed the collected works in all of the libraries in the
Realms combined.
Morkai learned much in the two hours Dendybar had alotted him. His turn
now came to choose his words carefully. He was compelled to satisfy the
summoner's request, but he intended to answer in as cryptic and ambiguous a
manner as he possibly could.
Dendybar's eyes glinted when he saw the brazier's flames begin their
telltale dance once again. Had it been two hours already? he wondered, for
his rest seemed much shorter, and he felt that he had not fully recovered
from his first encounter with the specter. He could not refute the dance of
the flames, though. He straightened himself and tucked his ankles in
closer, tightening and securing his cross-legged, meditative position.
The ball of fire puffed in its climactic throes and Morkai appeared
before him. The specter stood back obediently, not offering any information
until Dendybar specifically asked for it. The complete story behind the
visit of the four friends to Luskan remained sketchy to Morkai, but he had
learned much of their quest, and more than he wanted Dendybar to find out
about. He still hadn't discerned the true intentions behind the mottled
wizard's inquiries, but felt certain that Dendybar was up to no good,
whatever his goals.
"What is the purpose of the visit?" Dendybar demanded, angry at
Morkai's stalling tactics.
"You yourself have summoned me," Morkai responded slyly. "I am
compelled to appear."
"No games!" growled the mottled wizard. He glared at the specter,
fingering the scroll of torment in open threat. Notorious for answering
literally, beings from other planes often flustered their conjurors by
distorting the connotative meaning of a question's exact wording.
Dendybar smiled in concession to the specter's simple logic and
clarified the question. "What is the purpose of the visit to Luskan by the
four travelers from Icewind Dale?"
"Varied reasons," Morkai replied. "One has come in search of the
homeland of his father, and his father before him."
"The Drow?" Dendybar asked, trying to find some way to link his
suspicions that Drizzt planned to return to the underworld of his birth
with the Crystal Shard. Perhaps an uprising by the dark elves, using the
power of the shard? "Is it the drow who seeks his homeland?"
"Nay," replied the specter, pleased that Dendybar had fallen off on a
tangent, delaying the more specific, and more dangerous line of
questioning. The passing minutes would soon begin to dissipate Dendybar's
hold upon the specter, and Morkai hoped that he could find a way to get
free of the mottled wizard before revealing too much about Bruenor's
company. "Drizzt Do'Urden has forsaken his homeland altogether. He shall
never return to the bowels of the world, and certainly not with his dearest
friends in tow!"
"Then who?" "Another of the four flees from danger at his back," Morkai
offered, twisting the line of inquiry.
"Who seeks his homeland?" Dendybar demanded more emphatically.
"The dwarf, Bruenor Battlehammer," replied Morkai, compelled to obey.
"He seeks his birthplace, Mithril Hall, and his friends have joined in his
quest. Why does this interest you? The companions have no connection to
Luskan, and pose no threat to the Hosttower."
"I did not summon you here to answer your questions!" Dendybar scolded.
"Now tell me who is running from danger. And what is the danger?"
"Behold," the specter instructed. With a wave of his hand, Morkai
imparted an image upon the mind of the mottled wizard, a picture of a
black-cloaked rider wildly charging across the tundra. The horse's bridle
was white with lather, but the rider pressed the beast onward relentlessly.
"The halfling flees from this man," Morkai explained, "though the
rider's purpose remains a mystery to me." Telling Dendybar even this much
angered the specter, but Morkai could not yet resist the commands of his
nemesis. He felt the bonds of the wizard's will loosening, though, and
suspected that the summoning neared its end.
Dendybar paused to consider the information.
Nothing of what Morkai had told him gave any direct link to the Crystal
Shard, but he had learned, at least, that the four friends did not mean to
stay in Luskan for very long. And he had discovered a potential ally, a
further source of information. The black-cloaked rider must be mighty
indeed to have set the halfling's formidable troupe fleeing down the road.
Dendybar was beginning to formulate his next moves, when a sudden
insistent pull of Morkai's stubborn resistance broke his concentration.
Enraged, he shot a threatening glare back at the specter and began
unrolling the parchment. "Impudent!" he growled, and though he could have
stretched out his hold on the specter a bit longer if he had put his
energies into a battle of wills, he started reciting the scroll.
Morkai recoiled, though he had consciously provoked Dendybar to this
point. The specter could accept the racking, for it signaled the end of the
inquisition. And Morkai was glad that Dendybar hadn't forced him to reveal
the events even farther from Luskan, back in the dale just beyond the
borders of Ten-Towns.
As Dendybar's recitations twanged discordantly on the harmony of his
soul, Morkai removed the focal point of his concentration across hundreds
of miles, back to the image of the merchant caravan now one day out from
Bremen, the closest of the Ten Towns, and to the image of the brave young
woman who had joined up with the traders. The specter took comfort in the
knowledge that she had, for a while at least, escaped the probings of the
mottled wizard.
Not that Morkai was altruistic; he had never been accused of an
abundance of that trait. He simply took great satisfaction in hindering in
any way he could the knave who had arranged his murder.
* * * * *
Catti-brie's red-brown locks tossed about her shoulders. She sat high
up on the lead wagon of the merchant caravan that had set out from
Ten-Towns on the previous day, bound for Luskan. Unbothered by the chill
breeze, she kept her eyes on the road ahead, searching for some sign that
the assassin had passed that way. She had relayed information about Entreri
to Cassius, and he would pass it along to the dwarves. Catti-brie wondered
now if she had been justified in sneaking away with the merchant caravan
before Clan Battlehammer could organize its own chase.
But only she had seen the assassin at work. She knew well that if the
dwarves went after him in a frontal assault, their caution wiped away in
their lust of revenge for Fender and Grollo, many more of the clan would
die.
Selfishly, perhaps, Catti-brie had determined that the assassin was her
own business. He had unnerved her, had stripped away years of training and
discipline and reduced her to the quivering semblance of a frightened
child. But she was a young woman now, no more a girl. She had to personally
respond to that emotional humiliation, or the scars from it would haunt her
to her grave, forever paralyzing her along her path to discover her true
potential in life.
She would find her friends in Luskan and warn them of the danger at
their backs, and then together they would take care of Artemis Entreri.
"We make a strong pace," the lead driver assured her, sympathetic to
her desire for haste.
Catti-brie did not look at him; her eyes rooted on the flat horizon
before her. "Me heart tells me 'tisn't strong enough," she lamented.
The driver looked at her curiously, but had learned better than to
press her on the point. She had made it clear to them from the start that
her business was private. And being the adopted daughter of Bruenor
Battlehammer, and reputedly a fine fighter in her own right, the merchants
had counted themselves lucky to have her along and had respected her desire
for privacy. Besides, as one of the drivers had so eloquently argued during
their informal meeting before the journey, "The notion of staring at an
ox's ass for near to three-hunnerd miles makes the thought o' having that
girl along for company sit well with me!"
They had even moved up their departure date to accommodate her.
"Do not worry, Catti-brie," the driver assured her, "we'll get you
there!"
Catti-brie shook her blowing hair out of her face and looked into the
sun as it set on the horizon before her. "But can it be in time?" she asked
softly and rhetorically, knowing that her whisper would break apart in the
wind as soon as it passed her lips.
5
The Crags
Drizzt took the lead as the four companions jogged along the banks of
the river Mirar, putting as much ground between themselves and Luskan as
possible. Although they hadn't slept in many hours, their encounters in the
City of Sails had sent a burst of adrenaline through their veins and none
of them was weary.
Something magical hung in the air that night, a crispy tingling that
would have made the most exhausted traveler lament closing his eyes to it.
The river, rushing swiftly and high from the spring melt, sparkled in the
evening glow, its whitecaps catching the starlight and throwing it back
into the air in a spray of bejeweled droplets.
Normally cautious, the friends could not help but let their guard down.
They felt no danger lurking near, felt nothing but the sharp, refreshing
chill of the spring night and the mysterious pull of the heavens. Bruenor
lost himself in dreams of Mithril Hall; Regis in memories of Calimport;
even Wulfgar, so despondent about his ill-fated encounter with
civilization, felt his spirits soar. He thought of similar nights on the
open tundra, when he had dreamed of what lay beyond the horizons of his
world. Now, out beyond those horizons, Wulfgar found only one element
missing. To his surprise, and against the adventuring instincts that denied
such comfortable thoughts, he wished that Catti-brie, the woman he had
grown to cherish, was with him now to share the beauty of this night.
If the others had not been so preoccupied with their own enjoyment of
the evening, they would have noticed an extra bounce in Drizzt Do'Urden's
graceful step as well. To the drow, these magical nights, when the heavenly
dome reached down below the horizon, bolstered his confidence in the most
important and difficult decision he had ever made, the choice to forsake
his people and his homeland. No stars sparkled above Menzoberranzan, the
dark city of the black elves. No unexplainable allure tugged at the
heartstrings from the cold stone of the immense cavern's lightless ceiling.
"How much my people have lost by walking in darkness," Drizzt whispered
into the night. The pull of the mysteries of the endless sky carried the
joy of his spirit beyond its normal boundaries and opened his mind to the
unanswerable questions of the multiverse. He was an elf, and though his
skin was black, there remained in his soul a semblance of the harmonic joy
of his surface cousins. He wondered how general these feelings truly ran
among his people. Did they remain in the hearts of all drow? Or had eons of
sublimation extinguished the spiritual flames? To Drizzt's reckoning,
perhaps the greatest loss that his people had suffered when they retreated
