Robert Salvatore: STARLESS NIGHT

Jarlaxle understood what Matron Baenre wanted, but now he wondered what Lloth, backing the withered female's plans, had in mind.

"Chaos," he decided. Menzoberranzan had been quiet for a long, long time. Some houses fought—that was inevitable. House Do'Urden and House DeVir, both ruling houses, had been obliterated, but the general structure of the city had remained solid and unthreatened.

"Ah, but you are delightful," Jarlaxle said, speaking his thoughts of Lloth aloud. He suddenly suspected that Lloth desired a new order, a refreshing housecleaning of a city grown boring. No wonder that Triel, in line to inherit her mother's legacy, was not amused.

The bald mercenary, himself a lover of intrigue and chaos, laughed heartily and looked to Narbondel. The clock's heat was greatly diminished, showing it to be late in the Underdark night. Jarlaxle clicked his heels against the stone and set out for the Qu'ellarz'orl, the high plateau on Menzoberranzan's eastern wall, the region housing the city's most powerful house. He didn't want to be late for his meeting with Matron Baenre, to whom he would report on in his «secret» meeting with her eldest daughter.

Jarlaxle pondered how much he would tell the withered matron mother, and how he might twist his words to his best advantage.

Weary-eyed after yet another long, restless night, Catti-brie pulled on a robe and crossed her small room, hoping to find comfort in the daylight. Her thick auburn hair had been flattened on one side of her head, forcing an angled cowlick on the other side, but she didn't care. Busy rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she nearly stumbled over the threshold and paused there, struck suddenly by something she did not understand.

She ran her fingers over the wood of the door and stood confused, nearly overwhelmed by the same feeling she had felt the night before, that something was out of place, that something was wrong. She had intended to go straight to breakfast, but felt compelled to get Drizzt instead.

The young woman shuffled swiftly down the corridor to Drizzt's room and knocked on the door. After a few moments, she called, "Drizzt?" When the drow didn't answer, she gingerly turned the handle and pushed the door open. Catti-brie noticed immediately that Drizzt's scimitars and traveling cloak were gone, but before she could begin to think about that, her eyes focused on the bed. It was made, covers tucked neatly, though that was not unusual for the dark elf.

Catti-brie slipped over to the bed and inspected the folds. They were neat, but not tight, and she understood that this bed had been made a long while ago, that this bed had not been slept in the previous night.

"What's all this?" the young woman asked. She took a quick look around the small room, then made her way back out into the hall. Drizzt had gone out from Mithril Hall without warning before, and often he left at night. He usually journeyed to Silverymoon, the fabulous city a week's march to the east.

Why, this time, did Catti-brie feel that something was amiss? Why did this not-so-unusual scene strike Catti-brie as very out of place? The young woman tried to shrug it away, to overrule her heartfelt fears. She was just worried, she told herself. She had lost Wulfgar and now felt overprotective of her other friends.

Catti-brie walked as she thought it over, and soon paused at another door. She tapped lightly, then, with no response forthcoming (though she was certain that this one was not yet up and about), she banged harder. A groan came from within the room.

Catti-brie pushed the door open and crossed the room, sliding to kneel beside the tiny bed and roughly pulling the bedcovers down from sleeping Regis, tickling his armpits as he began to squirm.

"Hey!" the plump halfling, recovered from his trials at the hands of the assassin Artemis Entreri, cried out. He came awake immediately and grabbed at the covers desperately.

"Where's Drizzt?" Catti-brie asked, tugging the covers away more forcefully.

"How would I know?" Regis protested. "I have not been out of my room yet this morning!"

"Get up." Catti-brie was surprised by the sharpness of her own voice, by the intensity of her command. The uncomfortable feelings tugged at her again, more forcefully. She looked around the room, trying to discern what had triggered her sudden anxiety.

She saw the panther figurine.

Catti-brie's unblinking stare locked on the object, Drizzt's dearest possession. What was it doing in Regis's room? she wondered. Why had Drizzt left without it? Now the young woman's logic began to fall into agreement with her emotions. She skipped across the bed, buried Regis in a jumble of covers (which he promptly pulled tight around his shoulders), and retrieved the panther. She then hopped back and tugged again at the stubborn halfling's blanket shell.

"No!" Regis argued, yanking back. He dove facedown to his mattress, pulling the ends of the pillow up around his dimpled face.

Catti-brie grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, yanked him from the bed, and dragged him across the room to seat him in one of the two wooden chairs resting at opposite sides of a small table. Pillow still in hand, still tight against his face, Regis plopped his head straight down on the table.

Catti-brie took a firm and silent hold on the end of the pillow, quietly stood, then yanked it suddenly, tearing it from the surprised halfling's grasp so that his head knocked hard against the bare wood.

Groaning and grumbling, Regis sat straight in the chair and ran stubby fingers through his fluffy and curly brown locks, their bounce undiminished by a long night's sleep.

"What?" he demanded.

Catti-brie slammed the panther figurine atop the table, leaving it before the seated halfling. "Where is Drizzt?" she asked again, evenly.

"Probably in the Undercity," Regis grumbled, running his tongue all about his cottony-feeling teeth. "Why don't you go ask Bruenor?"

The mention of the dwarvish king set Catti-brie back on her heels. Go ask Bruenor? she silently scoffed. Bruenor would hardly speak to anyone, and was so immersed in despair that he probably wouldn't know it if his entire clan up and left in the middle of the night!

"So Drizzt left Guenhwyvar," Regis remarked, thinking to downplay the whole thing. His words fell awkwardly on the perceptive woman's ears, though, and Catti-brie's deep blue eyes narrowed as she studied the halfling more closely.

"What?" Regis asked innocently again, feeling the heat of that unrelenting scrutiny.

"Where is Drizzt?" Catti-brie asked, her tone dangerously calm. "And why do ye have the cat?"

Regis shook his head and wailed helplessly, dramatically dropping his forehead again against the table.

Catti-brie saw the act for what it was. She knew Regis too well to be taken in by his wily charms. She grabbed a handful of curly brown hair and rugged his head upright, then grabbed the front of his nightshirt with her other hand. Her roughness startled the halfling; she could see that clearly by his expression, but she did not relent. Regis flew from his seat. Catti-brie carried him three quick steps, then slammed his back against the wall.

Catti-brie's scowling visage softened for just a moment, and her free hand fumbled with the halfling's nightshirt long enough that she could determine that Regis was not wearing his magical ruby pendant, an item she knew he never removed. Another curious, and certainly out-of-place, fact that assailed her sensibilities, fed her growing belief that something indeed was terribly wrong.

"Suren there's something going on here thaf s not what if s supposed to be," Catti-brie said, her scowl returning tenfold.

"Catti-brie!" Regis replied, looking down to his furry-topped feet, dangling twenty inches from the floor.