R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

Drizzt could hardly wrap his mind around any of this. All the memories of Dahlia, once his lover and traveling companion, came flooding back to him. They had been close, very close, and though he had never grown to love her as he had loved, and once again loved, Catti-brie, Drizzt could not deny that he still cared for Dahlia, or at least that he cared what happened to her.

Of course, he also couldn’t deny that she had attacked him on the slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn, and had inflicted a wound that would have surely proven mortal had not Catti-brie and the others found him up there, dying under the stars.

“And it will be a great service to another you have come to know as a friend,” Jarlaxle went on.

Had his thoughts been focused on Jarlaxle’s words, Drizzt would have easily guessed that Jarlaxle referred to Artemis Entreri, particularly given the weapon hanging at his hip.

But Drizzt wasn’t focusing on much at that stunning moment, his mind bouncing from past to present and back again, as all the years of his journey compressed into this one moment.

He could go with Jarlaxle, but what if he did and they failed, and he was caught in the city of his birth? What if he was slain trying to rescue a former lover, and so was taken from his beloved wife for the sake of Dahlia?

“Catti-brie is engaged in her own struggle,” Jarlaxle said as if reading his mind-which Drizzt realized would be no great feat. He was surely echoing every thought with his expressions. “Archmage Gromph assists her only because of me, of course, and because of my stake in Luskan, which offers to him, and to King Bruenor and all his designs, the only true hope.”

“Again you hint that I owe this-”

“No, no,” Jarlaxle said, holding up his hands and shaking his head emphatically. “I only hope that you see me as I see you. As a friend, and one to be trusted.”

Before Drizzt could digest the words, before he could respond, there came a louder roar from the corridor, followed by a shriek of Jarlaxle’s monstrous pet bird, one that told the pair that their meal was about to be interrupted.

“Come,” Jarlaxle said, leaping up, taking up Khazid’hea, and drawing Charon’s Claw as well. “To the play!”

Drizzt and Jarlaxle went out together, side-by-side, Guenhwyvar close behind. They found a cluster of a dozen demons-balgura; manes; and even a pair of gigantic, four-armed glabrezu-waiting for them.

The demons were sorely outnumbered.

“Ye canno’ begin to be thinking o’ such a thing!” Catti-brie said, and her reversion to that thick Dwarvish brogue warned Drizzt to tread lightly. Aye, but she had that look in her eye, and when it came to this, her tongue could be a greater weapon than the scimitars on his belt.

“Have ye lost yer mind then, ye durned fool?” she lashed out.

Drizzt started to reply, to explain that Jarlaxle was doing a great service to the dwarves, and that he was deserving of their trust, even in this seemingly suicidal mission. But the ranger gave up after a few whispered words, realizing it was futile.

He had just hit his wife with his intention to stroll into the City of Spiders. She deserved to express a few moments of outrage.

“Oh, but ain’t we a couple o’ sly and clever dark elves, me and me friend Jarlaxle?” Catti-brie went on, imitating Drizzt’s posture and striking a most unflattering pose. “Just walking into Menzoberranzan so casual and easy that they’ll think we belong and won’t be cutting our heads off. Bah! But if I e’er heared a more stupid plan, then I’m not for rememberin’ it!”

“I remember one time when you walked into Menzoberranzan alone,” Drizzt said, and as soon as the words left his mouth, he wished he could have taken them back. On that dark occasion, she had done so only because of his own foolishness.

Catti-brie slugged him in the shoulder. “Ye’re a damned fool,” she said, her voice suddenly more resonant with fear and sorrow than with anger.

“Ye canno’ go,” she decided, and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Did you not just float into the pit of a primordial beast of fire?”

“Not the same thing.”

“No, worse!”

“Not so!”

“Of course it is so!” Drizzt argued. “For all your tricks and magic, and that ring I gave you, you cannot know the heart of the primordial! And for all your wards, for all your power, we both know that the beast could have incinerated you”-he paused and tried to assume a more understanding and sympathetic posture, but still indignantly snapped his fingers in the air-“like that !” he said. “And you would have been no more than a charred pile of bones to be swallowed by the magma. I would not even have known, nor would Bruenor nor anyone else, unless Jarlaxle chose to share the information-and would he have admitted it to us, had he caused your fiery death?”

“Ye just said ye trusted him.”

Drizzt couldn’t hold his stern expression in light of the way Catti-brie had made the off-hand remark. Despite it all he giggled just a bit, and so did Catti-brie, and she threw her arms around him and wrapped him in a hug.

“I’m just scared,” she whispered in his ear.

“I know,” he said with a growl. Then, “I know,” in a more conciliatory and understanding tone. “How do you think I feel knowing that you’ll be working beside the mighty and merciless Archmage of Menzoberranzan, trying to reignite some ancient magic that is …” He sighed and buried his face in her hair.

“But I’m trustin’ ye,” Catti-brie said.

Drizzt pushed her out to arms’ length, locked her rich blue eyes with his lavender ones, and slowly nodded his understanding and acceptance.

“I’m not wantin’ to go through this life without ye,” the woman said.

“I have already seen life without you,” Drizzt replied. “It is not something I wish to experience again.”

Catti-brie hugged him tighter. “Do ye think ye can save her? Dahlia?”

“I don’t know,” Drizzt admitted. “She is in the spidery claws of Matron Mother Baenre.”

“So were you once,” Catti-brie said, and Drizzt squeezed her a bit tighter.

“I have to try,” Drizzt said. “I … we owe this to Jarlaxle, and I owe it to Entreri.”

“I’m not thinking ye’re owing anything to that one. Ye spared him his life on more than one occasion, and that’s better than he’s deserving.”

Drizzt really had no retort, even though he disagreed. So complicated was his relationship with the former assassin! And indeed, despite everything that had occurred, both ways, he did feel that he owed it to Entreri to make this try, desperate as it seemed.

“And are ye thinking ye owe it to Dahlia?” Catti-brie asked.

Drizzt pulled back and shrugged. “She does not deserve this fate.”

“Ah, me husband, righting all the wrongs o’ the world.”

Drizzt shrugged again, searching for an answer.

“And that is why I love you,” Catti-brie said slowly and clearly, and she came forward again and gave Drizzt a deep and long kiss. “You go free her, and bring her home, and if there is anything I can do to help heal her broken mind, you’ll need not even to ask.”

Drizzt felt as if his heart would explode at that moment. He pulled Catti-brie tight, so tight. He wanted to join with her then, as if he could somehow merge their souls into one brighter being, and he held her for a long, long while.

He stepped back after a few moments, recalling another issue, and an important one. “Here,” he said, pulling the magical necklace with the unicorn head and golden horn over his head and handing it to her. “I’ll have no need of Andahar in the Underdark, and not in Menzoberranzan, where the brilliant essence of a unicorn would surely announce my arrival.”