R.A. Salvatore - Maestro

“Trust them, me Da,” Catti-brie said. She looked over at Drizzt and nodded. “They will not fail in this.”

Bruenor was clearly unable to come up with any answer that satisfied him or assuaged his all-too-obvious fears. He slowly melted back into the throne and heaved a great sigh.

“We’re almost there, elf,” he said quietly. “Can ye no feel it?”

“I do,” Drizzt said. “And we are. To that place we’ve talked of since our days together on Kelvin’s Cairn. Almost there. The winding road shows the end straightaway.”

“The door to home’s in sight,” Bruenor said.

Many hugs later, Drizzt and Jarlaxle walked together into the Underdark, side-by-side. Oftentimes, Jarlaxle lifted a hand to put it comfortingly on Drizzt’s shoulder, and more than once, the mercenary whispered Bruenor’s last words, “The door to home’s in sight.”

With a thousand dwarves marching behind her, Catti-Brie, astride the mighty unicorn Andahar, led the way to the gates of Luskan. Athrogate and Ambergris rode at her side, the two of them assigned by Bruenor to serve as her personal bodyguards. Many threatening looks came at the woman, and particularly at her entourage, from the scalawags serving as gate guards-rogues in the service of one or another of the five competing Captains of Luskan. But Jarlaxle’s hold on the city was so powerful not a single word was spoken, not even a request for the leaders to identify the approaching army.

The gates were pulled open without a word, and Catti-brie led the way into the city.

“Take me to the Hosttower,” she ordered one of the nearby guards, a woman so dark from the sun and dirty from the streets she looked as if she had the shadow of a beard.

Still without a word of response, she escorted them up Reaver’s Run, the main boulevard that led all the way to the city’s main market. Beyond that lay the bridge to Closeguard Island, which housed the Ship of High Captain Kurth, who was of course Jarlaxle’s lieutenant, Beniago.

Indeed, Beniago waited at the far end of the bridge, bidding the newcomers to cross. He took up beside Catti-brie and led the way to the next bridge, from Closeguard to Cutlass Island, where once had stood the Hosttower of the Arcane. Large tents had already been constructed all around the ruins of that once-grand structure.

“Food will be brought to you daily,” Beniago assured Catti-brie.

“Enough to keep me belly fat?” Athrogate demanded.

Beniago, who knew Athrogate well, merely laughed and nodded.

“Aye, better be,” the dwarf grunted.

Catti-brie moved over to the roots of the ruined structure as the dwarves settled in. The devastation had been so complete that she could look down into what had once been the basement of the tower, and even below that broken stone and metal to the deep roots trailing down into the Underdark. These were the roots that ran to Gauntlgrym, delivering seawater to the elementals that held the fire primordial in its pit.

She looked up at the darkening sky. The sun had slipped below the horizon, but only recently. The clouds to the west flared pink and orange in the dying light. The wind was off the water, wet and chill in her face, and Catti-brie pulled her black cloak-the cloak Jarlaxle had given her-tighter about her.

“A daunting task,” Gromph Baenre said and the woman jumped-and nearly transformed into a raven and flew away. The drow was suddenly there, out of nowhere it seemed, standing perfectly calm beside her.

She gave him an incredulous look, and he returned a smile that reminded her of their respective powers. She knew Gromph’s appearance and demeanor was meant to intimidate her so she calmed herself quickly and presented herself more forcefully.

She did a good job of hiding the winding line of terror that continued to twist inside her. Catti-brie trusted in her powers and her relationship with Mielikki. She had returned to this world with clear goals, and that guiding purpose had dominated her existence over the more than two decades of her second life. She had trained with powerful wizards, studied in the extensive library of the Harpells, communed closely with a goddess …

But this was Gromph Baenre, recently the Archmage of Menzoberranzan. He had magically appeared right beside her without a hint of warning or a tingle that anything was amiss.

Catti-brie understood that he could very likely destroy her just as easily and unexpectedly.

“I have examined pieces of the fallen tower already,” Gromph explained. “All the materials are available. We have paintings and have uncovered design sketches of the tower in the bowels of Illusk, below this city. The dwarves should have no trouble replicating the physical structure.”

“That is the easy part,” Catti-brie said.

Gromph stared at the hole in the ground and nodded.

“Why are you doing this?” Catti-brie asked bluntly, and he looked up to match her blue eyes with his amber orbs, the two locking stares intently.

“If I wished you to know-”

“Amuse me,” she heard herself saying, and couldn’t believe the words as they came forth.

Gromph was the one who seemed amused, and he looked back to the hole.

“You intend to inhabit the tower when it is rebuilt,” Catti-brie said in a voice that sounded far too accusatory.

“If it suits me,” Gromph answered. “I intend to live wherever I desire to live. Would you wish to try to stop me?”

“In this city, run by drow?”

Gromph looked up at her again and flashed a wicked smile. “Here or anywhere,” he clarified.

Catti-brie swallowed hard, but she did not allow herself to blink and did not look away.

“You fear for the dwarves,” Gromph surmised. “You fear that if I am in control of the new Hosttower, I might use that position against the magic that preserves Gauntlgrym.”

Catti-brie saw no need to answer.

“It is a reasonable fear, of course,” said Gromph. “Or it would be, except for two important matters. First, the magic of the Hosttower isn’t enacted like that of a wand. I will not call upon the tower to fuel the elementals enslaving the primordial any more than I can tell the tower not to do so. I expect you will understand this as we go through the process. Surely no instrument of such power would have ever been left to the whims of whomever happened to be serving as the leader of the Hosttower at any particular time in its millennia of existence, particularly not since the dwarves helped build the original tower, from all that I can tell.

“And second, I am not a simple and capricious murderer. What reason would I have to destroy Gauntlgrym, even if that was within my power?”

“Why did the drow attack Mithral Hall? Why does Tiago pursue Drizzt? Why-?”

“Gauntlgrym in the hands of a dwarf king serves me well at this time,” Gromph stated.

“And if that changes?”

“I assure you, human woman, I am not one you wish to anger. And I do not need a Hosttower beneath my feet to rain destruction, wherever I choose.”

“You say such things and expect me to trust you in this most important endeavor?”

“I speak the simple truth, and know that you have no choice in the matter. If you believe that you can reconstruct the Hosttower of the Arcane without my aid, then you prove the drow matron mothers correct when they proclaim the stupidity of humans.”

Catti-brie was very relieved at that moment when Beniago walked up to stand beside her. Jarlaxle and his many henchmen would protect them all from the wrath of Gromph.

“Braelin Janquay has returned to serve in House Do’Urden?” Gromph asked in the drow tongue, and Catti-brie was glad to learn that she could still understand the language well enough to keep up with the fast-speaking wizard.