Drizzt and Catti-brie accompanied Deudermont, Waillan and Dunkin back to Carradoon to say their farewells to the crewmen they had worked beside for more than five years, friends all. Drizzt was impatient and didn’t want to delay his return to Icewind Dale any longer than necessary, but this short trip was important. It was a fond farewell with promises that they would meet again.
The two friends-Drizzt called in Guenhwyvar later-dined with Deudermont and Robillard that night. Robillard, seeming more animated and friendly than usual, promised to use his magic to whisk them back to the Spirit Soaring, to get them on their way.
“What?” the wizard asked as the other three exchanged knowing glances and grins, all of them thinking exactly the same thing.
Robillard had changed in the last few weeks, especially since the wild battle on the beach of Caerwich. The fact was, Harkle had rubbed off on him.
“What?” Robillard demanded again, more forcefully.
Deudermont laughed and lifted his glass of wine in a toast. “To Harkle Harpell,” the captain said, “and the good he has left in his wake!”
Robillard snorted, ready to remind them that the Sea Sprite was locked tight in a lake hundreds of miles from the Sword Coast. But as he considered the continuing smirks on his companions’ faces, the wary wizard realized the truth of Deudermont’s toast, realized that it was aimed at him.
Robillard’s first instinct was to yell out a protest, perhaps even to rescind his offer to take Drizzt and Catti-brie back to the cathedral. But they were right, the wizard finally had to admit to himself, and so he lifted his glass. Though he kept quiet, Robillard was thinking that maybe he would go to the famed Ivy Mansion in Longsaddle and pay his eccentric friend a visit.
It was difficult for Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Deudermont to say goodbye. They shared hugs and promised that they would meet again, but they all knew the depth of the task facing Drizzt and Catti-brie. There was a very real possibility that neither of them would ever leave Icewind Dale alive.
They all knew this, but none of them mentioned that possibility, acting as though this was merely a short interruption to their friendship.
*****
Twenty minutes later, Drizzt and Catti-brie were back at the Spirit Soaring. Robillard said his farewells, and then disappeared in a flash of magical energy.
Ivan, Pikel and Danica greeted them. “Cadderly’s gettin’ ready,” the stout, yellow-bearded dwarf remarked. “Takes the old man longer, ye know!”
“Hee hee hee,” Pikel piped in.
Danica feigned a protest, but in truth-and Catti-brie saw it- she was glad that the dwarves continued to taunt Cadderly’s advanced age. They did it only because they believed that the priest was growing stronger, even younger, and their taunts were filled with hope, not malice.
“Come,” Danica bade Catti-brie. “We have not had enough time together.” The woman cast a sour look at Ivan and Pikel, bobbing along on their heels. “Alone,” she finished pointedly.
“Ooooo,” moaned Pikel.
“Does he always do that?” Drizzt asked Ivan, who sighed and nodded.
“Ye think ye got long enough to tell me o’ Mithril Hall?” Ivan asked. “I heared o’ Menzoberranzan, but I’m not for believing what I heared.”
“I will tell what I may,” Drizzt replied. “And you will indeed have a difficult time in believing many of the splendors I describe.”
“And what of Bruenor?” Ivan added.
“Booner!” put in the excited Pikel.
Ivan slapped his brother on the back of the head. “We’d go with ye, elf,” the yellow-bearded dwarf explained, “but we’ve got chores to do here right now. Takin’ care o’ the twins and all that, and me brother with his gardens.” As soon as he mentioned Pikel, Ivan turned fast to regard his brother, as if expecting another silly remark. Pikel did seem like he wanted to say something, but he began to whistle instead. When Ivan turned back to Drizzt, the drow had to shake his head and bite his lip. For, in looking over the yellow-bearded Ivan, Drizzt caught the face, thumbs in ears, fingers wagging, tongue stuck out to its limits, that Pikel offered.
Ivan spun back, but Pikel was standing calm again, whistling away. They went through three more such exchanges before Ivan finally gave up.
Drizzt had known these two for only two days, but he was thinking that they were grand fun, and he was imagining the good times the Bouldershoulders would inflict on Bruenor if ever they met!
*****
For Danica and Catti-brie, that last hour together was much more serious and controlled. They went to Danica and Cadderly’s private quarters, a grouping of five rooms near the rear of the great structure. They found Cadderly in the bedroom, praying and preparing, so they quietly left him alone.
Their talk at first was general in nature, Catti-brie telling of her past, of how she had been orphaned when very young and then taken under the wing of Bruenor, to be raised among the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer. Danica spoke of her training in the teachings of Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn. She was a monk, a disciplined warrior, not so unlike Catti-brie.
Catti-brie wasn’t used to dealing with women of her own age and of a similar mind. She liked it, though, liked Danica quite a bit, and could imagine a great friendship between the two if time and the situation would permit. In truth, the situation was also awkward for Danica, her life had been no easier and her contact with women of her own age no more common.
They spoke of the past and finally, of the present, of their hopes for the future.
“Do you love him?” Danica dared to ask, referring to the dark elf.
Catti-brie blushed, and really had no answer. Of course she loved Drizzt, but she didn’t know if she loved him in the way that Danica was speaking of. Drizzt and Catti-brie had agreed to put off any such feelings, but now, with Wulfgar gone for so many years and Catti-brie approaching the age of thirty, the question was beginning to resurface.
“He is a handsome one,” Danica remarked, giggling like a little girl.
Indeed, that’s what Catti-brie felt like, reclining on the wide davenport in Danica’s sitting room: a girl. It was like being a teenager again, thinking of love and of life, allowing herself to believe that her biggest problem was in trying to decide if Drizzt was handsome or not.
Of course, the weight of reality for both these women was fast to intrude, fast to steal the giggles. Catti-brie had loved and lost, and Danica, with two young children of her own, had to face the possibility that her husband, unnaturally aged by the creation of the Spirit Soaring, would soon be gone.
The conversation gradually shifted, then died away, and then Danica sat quiet, staring intently at Catti-brie.
“What is it?” Catti-brie wanted to know.
“I am with child,” Danica said, and Catti-brie knew at once that she was the first person the monk had told, even before Cadderly.
Catti-brie waited a moment, waited to see the smile widen on Danica’s face to make sure that, for the young monk, being pregnant was indeed a good thing, and then she grinned broadly and wrapped Danica in a tight hug.
“Do not say anything to Cadderly,” Danica begged. “I’ve already planned how I will tell him.”
Catti-brie sat back. “And yet ye told me first,” she said, the gravity of that reality evident in her solemn tones.
“You are leaving,” Danica answered matter-of-factly.
“But ye hardly know o’ me,” Catti-brie reminded her.
Danica shook her head, her strawberry blonde hair flying wide and her exotic almond-shaped eyes locking fast with Catti-brie’s deep blue eyes. “I know you,” Danica said softly.
It was true enough, and Catti-brie felt that she knew Danica as well. They were much alike, and both came to realize that they would miss each other a great deal.
They heard Cadderly stirring in the room next door; it was almost time to go.
“I will come back here someday,” Catti-brie promised.
“And I will visit Icewind Dale,” Danica responded.
Cadderly entered the room and told them that it was time for Catti-brie and Drizzt to leave. He smiled warmly, and was gracious enough to say nothing of the moisture that rimmed the eyes of the two young women.
*****
Cadderly, Drizzt and Danica stood atop the highest tower of the Spirit Soaring, nearly three hundred feet above the ground, the wind whipping against their backs.
Cadderly chanted quietly for some time, and gradually, both friends began to feel lighter, somehow less substantial. Cadderly grabbed a hand of each and continued his chant, and the threesome faded away. Ghostlike, they walked off the tower top with the wind.
All the world sped past, blurry, in a fog, a dreamlike vision. Neither Drizzt nor Catti-brie knew how long they were flying, but dawn was breaking along the eastern horizon when they slowed and then stopped, becoming more substantial again.
They were in the city of Luskan, along the northernmost stretch of the Sword Coast, just south of the western lip of the Spine of the World mountains and barely two hundred miles, by horse or by foot, from Ten-Towns.
Cadderly didn’t know the city, but the priest’s aim was perfect and the three came out of their enchantment right in front of the temple of Deneir. Cadderly was well received by his fellow priests. He quickly secured rooms for his friends and while they were sleeping, went out with one of the Luskan priests to make the arrangements for Drizzt and Catti-brie to hook up with a caravan heading for Icewind Dale.
It was easier than Cadderly expected, and that made him glad, for he feared that Drizzt’s heritage would outweigh any words he might offer. But Drizzt was known among many of the merchants in Luskan, as was Catti-brie, and their fighting prowess would be a welcome addition to any caravan traveling north to the dangerous land that was Icewind Dale.
The two were awake when Cadderly got back to the Deneirian temple, speaking with the other priests and gathering supplies for the long road ahead. Drizzt accepted one gift reverently, a pair of waterskins filled with blessed water from the temple’s font. The drow didn’t see any practical use for the water, but the significance that a human priest of a goodly god had given it to him, a drow elf, was not lost on him.
“Your fellows are a good lot,” Drizzt remarked to Cadderly, when he, the old priest, and Catti-brie were at last alone. Cadderly had already explained the provisions that had been made, including the time and place, where Drizzt and Catti-brie were to meet with the caravan. The merchants were putting out this very day, giving the pair less than an hour to get out on the road. They knew that this was yet another parting.
“They do Deneir proud,” Cadderly agreed.
Drizzt was busy with his pack then, and so Catti-brie quietly pulled Cadderly aside. Her thoughts were on Danica, her friend.
Cadderly smiled warmly, seeming to understand what this private conversation might be about.
“Ye’ve got many responsibilities,” Catti-brie began.
“My god is not so demanding,” Cadderly said coyly, for he knew that Catti-brie was not speaking of his duties to Deneir.
“I’m meaning the twins,” Catti-brie whispered. “And Danica.”
Cadderly nodded. No argument there.
Catti-brie paused for a long while, seeming to struggle with the words. How might she put things so as not to insult the old priest?
“Ivan telled me something about yer ... condition,” Catti-brie admitted.
“Oh?” Cadderly replied. He wasn’t going to make this easy for the young woman.
“The dwarf says ye expected to die as soon as the Spirit Soaring was completed,” Catti-brie explained. “Says ye looked like ye would, too.”
“I felt like I would,” Cadderly admitted. “And the visions I had of the cathedral made me believe that to be the truth.”
“That was more than a year ago,” Catti-brie remarked.
Cadderly nodded again.
“The dwarf says ye look like ye’re getting younger,” Catti-brie pressed. “And stronger.”
Cadderly’s smile was wide. He understood that Catti-brie was looking out for Danica’s interests and her apparently deep friendship with his wife warmed his heart profoundly. “I cannot be certain of anything,” he said to her, “but the dwarf’s observations seem to be accurate. I am stronger now, much stronger and more energetic than when the cathedral was first completed.” Cadderly reached up and pulled straight a few strands of hair, mostly gray, but with several sandy-colored strands mixed in. “Brown hairs,” the old priest went on. “It was white, all white, when first the cathedral was completed.”
“Ye’re gettin’ younger!” Catti-brie proclaimed with much enthusiasm.
Cadderly blew a long and deep sigh, and then, couldn’t help but nod. “So it would seem,” he admitted.
“I cannot be sure of anything,” he said as if he was afraid of speaking his hopes out loud. “The only explanation that I can figure is that the visions shown to me-visions of my impending death-and the fatigue I felt at the completion of the Spirit Soaring were a test of my ultimate loyalty to the precepts and commandments of Deneir. I honestly expected to die as soon as the first service in the new cathedral was completed, and indeed, when it was done, a great weariness overcame me. I went to my room-I was practically carried by Danica and Ivan-and went to sleep, expecting to never again open my eyes upon this world. I accepted that.” He paused and closed his eyes, recalling that fateful date.
“But now,” Catti-brie prompted.
“Perhaps Deneir tested me, tested my loyalty,” Cadderly said. “It might be that I passed that test, and so now my god has chosen to spare me.”
“If he’s a goodly god, then the choice is made,” Catti-brie said firmly. “No good god’d take ye from Danica and the twins, and ...”
She paused and bit her lip, not wanting to give away Danica’s secret.
“Deneir is a goodly god,” Cadderly replied with equal determination. “But you speak of the concerns of mortals and we cannot understand Deneir’s will or his ways. If Deneir takes me from Danica and my children, then that does not make him anything less than the goodly god that he truly is.”
Catti-brie shook her head and didn’t seem convinced.
“There are higher meanings and higher principles than we humans can understand,” Cadderly said to her. “I hold faith that Deneir will do what is ultimately right by his needs and his designs, which outweigh my own.”
“But ye hope it’s true,” Catti-brie said, her tone showing the words to be an accusation. “Ye hope ye get young again, as young as yer bride, that ye might live out yer life beside her and with yer kids!”
Cadderly laughed aloud. “True enough,” he finally admitted, and Catti-brie was appeased.
So was Drizzt, listening in with those keen drow ears of his, only half his attention focused upon the task of packing his haversack.
Catti-brie and Cadderly shared a hug, and then the old priest, who seemed not so old, went to Drizzt and offered a sincere handshake. “Bring to me the artifact, this crystal shard,” Cadderly said. “Together we will discover a way to rid the world of its evil.
“And bring your father as well,” Cadderly went on. “I feel that he would enjoy a stay at the Spirit Soaring.”
Drizzt gripped Cadderly’s hand all the tighter, thankful for the priest’s confidence that he would succeed. “The artifact will give me ... give us,” he corrected, looking to Catti-brie, “the excuse we need to make the journey back to Carradoon.”
“A journey I must make now,” Cadderly said, and so he left the pair.
They said nothing when they were alone, just went about finishing their preparations for the road.
The road home.