R. Salvatore - The Companions

And now this confusing day, and what it would ultimately mean, Lady Avelyere could not be sure.

But whatever might come from this magical hiccup-for that was the only word she could think of to describe this day’s events-Lady Avelyere meant to benefit from it.

The clever ones always did.

Painful spasms drew Catti-brie back to consciousness. She lay on the ground, blood all around, one leg bent weirdly, surely broken, and one arm throbbing, likely also broken. The sun was very low in the western sky, so she understood that she had lain!” Bruenor warned.5N3Delly Curtieon there for many hours. She was lucky to be alive, she realized.

Her levitation had failed her-why hadn’t she been able to recall the words and cadence of the spell? And why had her spellscar power of shapeshifting worn away so quickly?

The spinning questions brought her back to her fear that Lady Avelyere had found her, and had brought her down. She propped herself up on one elbow and looked all around, desperate, though turning her head caused her more discomfort.

Catti-brie used all of the discipline she could muster, training earned in two lifetimes, forcing aside her fears, forcing herself to focus. She thought of other incantations she had prepared, but none seemed helpful at that moment, and worse, none came clear in her thoughts. If Avelyere arrived before her, would she even be able to muster the slightest of cantrips to defend herself?

She fell back to her greatest safeguard, her most favored dweomer, and concentrated on the weather. She would bring in a storm, yes, and if any enemies appeared, she would strike them dead with powerful bolts of lightning.

She enacted the magic, so she believed, but she needed time for the clouds to gather and the storm to coalesce.

And more than that, she realized, as she began to swoon, she needed to stop her bleeding.

She began to pray, calling to the goddess for spells of healing, and to her great relief, unlike the arcane magical spells, these words, these prayers, did flow through her. She saw the light blue mist gathering at her wounded right arm, flowing from under the wide sleeve of her robe.

The spell came forth and Catti-brie felt a rush of gentle warmth, smooth as satin and decidedly comforting, flowing through her body, sweeping through her like a cresting wave and then breaking with a burst of hot energy upon her broken right arm, upon the very spellscar of the goddess whose favor had granted her this power.

With a trembling left hand, Catti-brie pulled back the sleeve of her robe. She looked upon the spellscar, the head of Mielikki’s unicorn, as the mist dissipated, and she blinked repeatedly, wondering if it was a trick of the light, perhaps, or of her own light-headedness with her loss of blood. For while the scar remained, it seemed even more distinct than before, more like a tattoo now than a birthmark, a unicorn’s golden horn and with the creature’s head similarly outlined in gold.

Another wave of pain brought a grimace and a reminder, and Catti-brie began again her chant, asking the goddess for more. The mist came forth from the unicorn, her divine powers intact and, she thought, even more powerful than before.

She cast a third minor healing spell, and then, her thoughts clearing, brought forth a spell to heal more serious wounds, focusing her energy on her leg. She felt better immediately within the warm cocoon of the blue-bathing light, like the softest of ocean waters sweeping away the weeds. She sat up straighter, and even flexed her knee as the leg straightened out before her.

She would survive her fall. And she would likely walk again the very next day, once her divine powers had renewed, and she could enact further healing upon her battered form.

Catti-brie took a deep breath and held it, then peeled back the sleeve of her left arm.

The seven-pointed star remained, and like the unicorn head, it seemed more distinct now, like the work of an ink artist, except that its sketching was not golden, but blood red, like a web of angry veins pulsing out the marker of Mystra.

Whatline-height: Isummon did it mean?

Catti-brie tried to recall an arcane spell from her repertoire, but alas, like the levitation earlier, those memorized dweomers were lost to her, a jumble of nonsensical words.

On a hunch, she considered one, her favored fireball. She closed her eyes and thought back to the very first time she had cast that spell, in another body a century before, and she tried to fight her way through the incantation jumble.

Now the words sorted, and she heard her own chant, part ancient, part new, and a fiery pea appeared in her hand. She threw it out and willed it out from her, into the air and away from the trees, and there it exploded appropriately, a burgeoning fireball, and the blue tendrils of magical energies glowed around her left arm, around the symbol of the seven-pointed star.

Catti-brie stared at it and shook her head.

What could it mean?

As she continued to stare upon the spot, the flames dissipating to nothingness, something else caught her eye, and brought her more questions. She saw the first twinkles of starlight as twilight descended upon the land.

But where was her conjured storm?

She looked all around. The sky was perfectly clear. Her spell had failed, utterly.

What could it mean?

“What does it mean?” Lady Avelyere asked Lord Parise Ulfbinder the very next day. She and her minions were managing to enact some magical spells, but only barely and only selectively.

“Instability,” Parise replied, and he seemed, and sounded, quite shaken, Lady Avelyere noted. “I spoke with Lord Draygo Quick this morning. It is, perhaps, as we feared.”

“Explain.”

The Netherese lord shook his head. “Something is upon the world-both worlds! — but there is nothing I can yet explain. The Twelve Princes have sought out the wisdom of the priests.”

“The old ways? The old gods?”

“Where is your former student?” Parise asked. “You have located her?”

“Ruqiah?” Lady Avelyere held up her hands helplessly.

“You said that you did not believe her to have perished in the fire.”

“No, certainly it was not her withered body that we found among the rubble.”

“Then where is she?”

“Nowhere near to us, I am sure,” Lady Avelyere replied. “I have magically surveyed all of Netheril-”

“West,” Parise interrupted. “Search in the west. The Sword Coast. Luskan. Icewind Dale.”

Lady Avelyere looked at him curiously. “What do you know?”

“Of course I did my own research and inquiries after you came to me with that most interesting tale,” he answered. “A lone mountain, you described.”

“It could be anywhere.”

“It could be Icewind Dale.”

Lady Avelyere shrugged, for the name meant nothing to her.

“A stretch of barren tundra through the Spine of the World Mountains north of the DesaiIsummon of the city of Luskan,” Parise explained. “Few live there, fewer still travel there, but it was once the home of Drizzt Do’Urden, Bruenor Battlehammer, and his adopted daughter, Catti-brie.”

“As was Mithral Hall …”

“And the towns of Icewind Dale are built in the shadow of a singular mountain, rising from the tundra.”

Lady Avelyere licked her lips and digested the news. It could be.

“Direct your search between Shade Enclave and Icewind Dale,” Parise commanded. “You will likely find this missing girl.”

“And then?”

“Watch her. Do not return her to Shade Enclave. Let us learn what we may, but safely from afar.”

“We remain five years from her appointed meeting,” Lady Avelyere reminded him.

“A speck of time in the cosmic calendar. But more than enough time for clever Lady Avelyere and her Coven to find this wayward child, yes?” The woman nodded.