R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

Catti-brie took the gift and nodded. She slipped it over her head, her hand touching the beautiful sculpture hanging upon her chest.

“And here,” Drizzt added, reaching into his pouch to bring forth the onyx figurine of the panther Guenhwyvar.

Catti-brie’s eyes widened in shock. “I’m thinkin’ ye’ll be needin’ that one!” she argued, holding forth her palm in denial of the gift.

“I’ve thought long on this,” Drizzt assured her. “I am not bringing Guenhwyvar back to Menzoberranzan. She was created in Myth Drannor, so says the tale, but she was long in the city of drow. Many know of her and many coveted her, including the family of those from whom I took her. I cannot risk it.”

Catti-brie started to protest, but Drizzt put his finger over her lips to silence her.

“If I am to die, then so be it,” he said. “This is the life I have chosen and the code of behavior that I must follow. I can accept that. But I cannot accept Guenhwyvar in the hands of a dark elf. I cannot reduce my dear companion to an existence as a tool of murder and chaos. She deserves better. If I am to die, then she deserves nothing less than you.”

“I’m thinkin’ ye’re more likely to die without her at yer side!”

Drizzt didn’t disagree, but neither did he retract his hand. “I am with fine allies. Worthy fighters, both, and Jarlaxle with a million tricks I have not yet witnessed. If we are captured, he may be able to somehow buy us out of our dilemma, but never would we be allowed to take the precious Guenhwyvar with us.”

He motioned the figurine toward her.

“I cannot.”

“You must. I go with a heavy heart, but I accept that because I must do this. And because I know that if I am to perish in the City of Spiders, then so be it, because I say with all hope and faith that my friends are safe and thriving without me, that Bruenor will sit on his throne and you will secure that seat. That Wulfgar and Regis have found adventure and enjoyment in the distant land of Delthuntle, and that Guenhwyvar … Aye, there’s the rub. I cannot accept that my grand risk might condemn her to such an existence.” He pushed the figurine at Catti-brie again and nodded more than once until she at last took it from him.

“Keep her safe,” he said.

“If I have to come get you, then know that Guenhwyvar will be by my side,” Catti-brie said, a clear reference to the last time Drizzt had walked into Menzoberranzan.

“With ten thousand dwarves around you, I hope.”

“Aye,” she replied with a grin.

He offered her his hand and started away, but Catti-brie tugged back hard, halting him.

“One more thing,” she said when Drizzt turned back to regard her curiously.

She paused and he shrugged, confused.

“Taulmaril,” she said.

Drizzt looked at her curiously.

She held up her free hand and beckoned with it. “The bow. It is a hindrance to you as you flee about the tunnels. It was mine. I took it in Mithral Hall and so Bruenor, and so you all, gave it to me then. I would like it now.”

Drizzt stared at her incredulously, but she just smiled calmly and beckoned again.

Drizzt let go of her hand and stepped back. “The bow … has been of great help to me … in the tunnels,” he stammered.

“And I will have it,” Catti-brie demanded. She motioned to the bow with her hand again. “You said you were with fine allies.”

“And better to keep enemies at bay,” Drizzt argued.

“And so I shall, if it comes to that,” the woman said evenly. “And Jarlaxle will do the same for you, no doubt.”

“You would take …” Drizzt stammered and stuttered and shook his head when he found he had no response. He pulled Taulmaril over his shoulder. “I have used this in my adventures against the demons in the lower tunnels off of Mithral Hall,” he explained again.

“Aye, and you used Guenhwyvar, too.”

“Not the same …” the confused drow ranger replied. “Are you trying to dissuade …?”

“No!” Catti-brie said with finality, then more gently, “No.”

The woman beckoned again. “Trust me.”

Now Drizzt’s expression turned to one of curiosity, as he caught on that she had something in mind. He handed over Taulmaril then reached around and removed the magical quiver that would afford him an endless supply of arrows to be enchanted and loosed by the magic of the great bow.

Catti-brie nodded and slung the bow and quiver over her shoulder.

They said no more then. There was nothing more to say. She would trust him as he trusted her. That was their unspoken agreement,. They did not inhibit each other’s journey, but rather trusted and encouraged those choices.

But Drizzt knew there remained a loaded weight in that level of trust. It implied that he would make his choices well. And on the surface, this particular choice to travel beside Jarlaxle to Menzoberranzan could not seem a wise decision. Even for the sake of Dahlia.

And still, Drizzt knew that he was walking the right road. There was something more, something nagging at his very soul, some whispering notion that this road would prove an important part of his own journey, a measure of closure that he needed so that he could honestly go on with his life as planned.

This was fated, he felt, though Drizzt had never been one to believe in fate, or in the pre-planning of the gods, or any other such notions. He believed in free will and reason above all-he lived his life by that credo. Even in matters of faith, Drizzt placed his moral compass above any external edicts, and indeed, Mielikki was merely a name to what he knew was in his heart-though he had come to doubt that label of late.

Still, this offer of adventure Jarlaxle had placed before him felt to him more like some road to lasting peace. If he succeeded, he suspected he would finally and forever put Menzoberranzan behind him, or at least lock his awful experiences in that dark cavern into proper perspective.

And yes, it was a great risk.

Perhaps he would be slain, perhaps turned into a drider, perhaps sent into the Abyss to serve as a slave to Lolth forevermore.

But even in the face of those grim possibilities, he had to do this.

He and Catti-brie spent a long time alone then, expressing their love and respect as if it might be the last time.

They went together, and found Jarlaxle to bring along, to tell King Bruenor, whose excited response was, of course, perfectly predictable.

“Call out the boys!” the dwarf proclaimed. “Oh, but we’ll march with ye, elf, all of us, and we’ll tear down every drow House and put a blade up every ugly, skinny drow bum!” He paused in his rant and looked at Jarlaxle. “Well, exceptin’ those ye tell us to let be, and then we’ll be lettin’ ’em be only if they keep them skinny bums out o’ our way!”

“Bruenor, no,” Drizzt was finally able to say, and forcefully enough to halt the dwarf’s momentum. Standing on the Throne of the Dwarven Gods then, King Bruenor looked at Drizzt curiously and said, “Huh?”

“You have your work here,” Drizzt said. “No less important. The tunnels are full of demons, the drow may return to Gauntlgrym, and the Hosttower must be rebuilt or it is all for naught anyway.”

“Bah! But ye think I’m to let ye walk off along to Menzoburysomedrow?”

The play on the name gave Drizzt pause, enough for Jarlaxle to verbally wade into the conversation with, “Yes, that is exactly what we think, and what we demand.”

All around the group, dwarves gasped at the dark elf visitor’s impertinence, especially with King Bruenor standing atop the throne.

“Were you to empty your halls, indeed all the halls of the Silver Marches, you’d not win a fight with Menzoberranzan, good dwarf,” Jarlaxle explained. “Not there, not where all the Houses would unite against you. You’d not get near to our goal.”