R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

Catti-brie fumbled over her thoughts in light of the dramatic request. “And if I reveal to it my own intentions?” she asked. “Will this great and ancient beast not merely consume me and be done with it? Surely the primordial desires release.”

“We cannot know what such a creature desires,” Jarlaxle said.

Catti-brie had to concede that point. This was not a creature of similar mind to any living being walking the ways of Faerun. This was an ancient, devouring magic, whose goals were unknown and perhaps unknowable to a human or a drow.

“Perhaps there are other ways the beast might find that release,” Jarlaxle offered. “Ways less devastating than a volcanic eruption. Ways that afford us all, even the beast, what we desire. And you are a Chosen of Mielikki, who would understand such a natural catastrophe as a primordial of fire better than perhaps any other god. Surely you can use that discipline and standing to direct the conversation with the primordial in a manner of your own choosing.”

Catti-brie held up the gauntlet. “And since I will be down there anyway …” she said dryly.

“I would be forever grateful,” Jarlaxle said. “Indeed, I will make it worth your while many times over.”

“I am the daughter of a dwarven king,” she reminded him. “Your riches do not interest me.”

Jarlaxle’s smile said otherwise. “I do not speak idly, my good lady. It is a small thing I ask of you, and that in accord with a short journey that may well help us all.”

Catti-brie looked down, her expression doubtful. Even with her magical ring, she could feel the heat of the primordial’s fiery breath, but still she began to cast a spell, using her divine powers to protect her even more from the heat and the flames.

“How am I to even get down there? Where am I to stand in a sea of liquid stone?” She turned back to Jarlaxle as she asked the second question, to find the mercenary holding out to her some black cloth, a folded garment perhaps. Catti-brie looked at it, then at Jarlaxle, for just a moment, then took it and unfolded it to find a shimmering black cape with a high, stiff collar.

“This was worn by Kensidan, who was once long ago called High Captain Kurth. It passed from him to his descendants-to Dahlia, surprisingly. Drizzt knows this cloak. Put it on. You will understand.”

The woman swept the cloak around her back and found the ties.

“It perfectly complements your outfit,” Jarlaxle said with a nod of approval. “So beautiful.”

“A statement of fashion?” she asked skeptically.

“Much more than that,” he replied. “Let it speak to you.”

With a final doubtful look at Jarlaxle, Catti-brie closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift to the cloak. Like so many magical items, this garment, the Cloak of the Crow, seemed to want its wearer to understand its properties. It was one of the more curious aspects of magic, Catti-brie often thought, that even the insentient magical items wanted their magic to be used.

She let her thoughts reach deeper into the cloak and lifted her arms out wide-to find that they were not arms any longer, but shining black-feathered wings. She could feel the updrafts of heat from the pit more acutely then, playing among her feathers. So sure was she that she didn’t question Jarlaxle further, nor did she cast any contingency spells in case the cloak should fail. She just leaned forward and let the updrafts lift her from the ground.

Down went the giant crow, cutting tight circles within the encircling and swirling dance of the water elementals. Even with her ring and the additional spells, Catti-brie could feel the heat growing as she neared the bottom of that watery barricade.

She broke through, under the wetness and the mist, and it seemed to her as if she had gone to another plane of existence, or another world perhaps, or to Toril in the earliest days of its formation.

Yes, that was it, she somehow understood. This molten field of bubbling magma and powerful stench-she felt as if she had been thrown into a boiling cauldron of rotten eggs-this was the way the world had been in the earliest days, before the elves even, perhaps before all life on Toril.

She drifted in the orange glow for just a moment before spotting and then landing on a solid block of veined stone. She touched down tentatively, ready to fly away if the stone proved too hot for her multiple dweomers of protection to counter. But to her relief, she felt no burning pain.

With a thought and a shrug, Catti-brie came out of crow form, and paused a moment to ponder her earliest days in this second life she had found, when the spellscar of Mielikki had granted to her shape-shifting powers. How often had she flown over the plains of Netheril in the shape of a great bird. How free she had been on the updrafts with the world spread wide below her.

All those thoughts blew away on a hot breeze when the primordial’s voice came into her thoughts, seeping through her ring. She sensed the creature’s confusion-dangerous confusion-and so she answered back in the language of the Plane of Fire, whispering assurances and seeking common benefit.

The primordial responded to her with sensations. She felt the beast stretching its tendrils to the Forge, to the inactive portal, to the spouts she had found when they had retaken the complex, like the lava mound where Catti-brie had transformed her staff.

On impulse she banged her staff on the stone, shifting it to its fiery form.

She felt the pleasure of the primordial.

Then she began to probe. She looked up and focused on the water elementals, and she felt the primordial’s frustration and anger-but it was not as burning an anger as she had imagined. And she was glad. Perhaps there were ways to lessen the preternatural desires of the beast, ways to siphon off some of its explosive and deadly energy.

For a long time, Catti-brie stood there in communion with the primordial, viewing Gauntlgrym from its perspective, and in that mental bonding she gained some insights into the magic that had put the beast in the pit and kept it there, insights she knew would aid her in the repair of the Hosttower of the Arcane.

She did well to keep those thoughts properly suppressed. If the primordial so desired, she would be dead, buried in lava and burned to nothingness long before she could get near to the protection of the water elementals.

But the primordial wasn’t going to do that. It seemed to her that the beast almost enjoyed the company.

No, that wasn’t it. Creatures like this didn’t harbor such emotions. But still, there was no displeasure revealed. Clearly the beast understood that it was in control and that she was no threat, and so it tolerated her. It accepted the diversion with some modicum of pleasurable distraction.

On recognizing that, Catti-brie would have liked to remain, but the thought was accompanied by a stumble, a near swoon, that would have dropped her into the lava. It wasn’t the heat but the smell, the lack of breathable air. She knew then that she had to be attentive to her task and quickly away.

She put the gauntlet on her hand and held it out in display to her godlike host. She didn’t know whether it was the gauntlet or the beast, but she sensed something not so far away.

Becoming a crow again she fluttered over to another mound of stone, quickly reverting to her human form. She stared down into the bubbling, popping red magma. Dare she reach in? The woman shook her head before her hand even moved, certain that the molten stone would incinerate the glove and her hand, whatever enchantments she might try.

But still she stared, leaning low, mesmerized by the bubbling red lava.

And something substantial came forth, rising up from the magma. Catti-brie recoiled, taken aback by what appeared to be the skull and bleached bones of a small humanoid skeleton: a backbone and ribcage to a pelvis with boney legs spread wide to either side.