He suspected that his friends had some monumental secret, and the dwarf figured that he knew what it was. How ironic, Bruenor privately considered, for a dwarf to have a drow elf for a son-in-law!
The group went quiet for a while, Drizzt and Catti-brie's tales having been told in full, at least, as in full as they were apparently going to be told at this sitting. Regis went out into the hall and returned in a moment with news that the sun was high in the eastern sky.
"Good food and warm beds!" Bruenor proclaimed, and so off they went, Drizzt dismissing Guenhwyvar and promising to recall the cat as soon as she was rested.
After the short sleep, they were back together-except for Regis, who considered anything less than ten hours too short— talking and smiling. Drizzt and Catti-brie revealed nothing new about the last few weeks of their adventure, though, and Bruenor didn't press the point, holding faith in his dear friend and his daughter.
For that brief moment, at least, all the world seemed bright and carefree.
Chapter 21 WHENEVER
Drizzt reclined in the shade on the smooth and slanted side of a boulder, crossing his hands behind his head and closing his eyes, enjoying the unusually warm day-for it did not often get so warm in Icewind Dale, even in late summer.
Though he was far from the entrance to the dwarven mines, Drizzt did not fear his lapse of readiness, for Guenhwyvar reclined nearby, always alert. The drow was just about asleep when the panther issued a low growl, her ears going flat.
Drizzt sat up, but then Guenhwyvar calmed, even rolled over lazily and he knew that whoever was approaching was no threat. A moment later, Catti-brie walked around a bend in the trail to join her friends. Drizzt was pleased to see her-Drizzt was always pleased to see her-but then he noted the troubled look upon her fair features.
She walked right up and sat down on the boulder beside the dark elf. "I'm thinking that we have to tell them," she said immediately, ending any suspense.
Drizzt understood exactly what she was talking about. When
they had recounted their adventures to Bruenor, it had been Drizzt, and Drizzt alone, who had fabricated the ending tales, Catti-brie going conspicuously silent. She was uncomfortable in lying to her father. So was Drizzt, but the drow wasn't certain of what he might say to Bruenor to explain the events that had brought them to the dale. He did not want to inject any unnecessary tension and as far as he knew, it could be years, even decades, before Errtu found his way to them.
"Eventually," Drizzt replied to Catti-brie.
"Why're ye wanting to wait?" the woman asked.
Drizzt paused-good question. "We need more information," he explained at length. "We do not know whether Errtu means to come to the dale, and have no idea of when that might be. Fiends measure time differently than do we; a year is not so long to one of Errtu's race, nor is a century. I see no need to alarm Bruenor and Regis at this time."
Catti-brie thought on that for a long while. "How're ye thinking to get more information?" she asked.
"Stumpet Rakingclaw," Drizzt replied.
"Ye hardly know her."
"But I will get to know her. I know enough of her, of her exploits in Keeper's Dale and in Menzoberranzan against the invading dark elves, to trust in her power and her sense."
Catti-brie nodded-from everything she had heard of Stumpet Rakingclaw, the cleric was an excellent choice. Something else bothered Catti-brie, though, something that the drow had hinted at. She sighed deeply, and that told Drizzt what was on her mind.
"We have no way of knowing how long it will be," the drow ranger admitted.
"Then are we to become guardians for a year?" Catti-brie asked, rather sharply. "Or a hundred years?" She saw the drow's pained look and regretted the words as soon as she had spoken them. Surely it would be difficult for Catti-brie, lying in wait as the months rolled by for a fiend that might not even show up. But how much worse it must be for Drizzt! For Drizzt was not just waiting for Errtu, but for his father, his tortured father, and every day that passed meant another day that Zaknafein was in Errtu's evil clutches.
The woman bowed her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I should've been thinkin' of yer father."
Drizzt put a hand on her shoulder. "Fear not," he replied, "I think of him constantly."
Catti-brie lifted her deep blue eyes to look deeply into the drow's lavender orbs. "We'll get him back," she promised grimly, "and pay Errtu for all the pain he's given yer father."
"I know," Drizzt said with a nod. "But there is no need to raise the alarm just yet. Bruenor and Regis have enough to concern them with winter fast approaching."
Catti-brie agreed and sat back on the warm stone. They would wait as long as they had to, and then let Errtu beware!
And so the friends fell into the routine of everyday life in Icewind Dale, working with the dwarves over the next couple of weeks. Drizzt secured a cave to serve as an outer camp for his many forays onto the open tundra, and Catti-brie spent quite a bit of time there as well, beside her friend, silently comforting him.
They spoke little of Errtu and the crystal shard, and Drizzt hadn't yet approached Stumpet, but the drow thought of the fiend, and more particularly, of the fiend's prisoner, almost constantly.
Simmering.
*****
"You must come quicker when I call to you!" the wizard growled, pacing anxiously about the room. He hardly seemed imposing to the twelve-foot glabrezu. The fiend had four arms, two ending with mighty hands and two with pincers that could snap a man in half.
"My fellows, they do not tolerate delays," the wizard went on. The glabrezu, Bizmatec, curled up his canine lips in a sly smile. This wizard, Dosemen of Sundabar, was all in disarray, battling hard to win a foolish contest against his fellow guild members. Perhaps he had erred in preparing the circle …
"Do I ask much of you?" Dosemen wailed. "Of course I do not! Just a few answers to minor questions, and I have given much in return."
"I do not complain," Bizmatec replied. While the fiend spoke, he scrutinized the circle of power, the only thing holding back the glabrezu's wrath. If Dosemen had not properly prepared the circle, Bizmatec meant to devour him.
"But neither do you give to me the answers!" Dosemen howled. "Now, I will ask once more, and you will have three hours, just three hours, to return with my answers."
Bizmatec heard the words distinctly, and considered their implications in a new and respectful light, for by that time, the fiend had come to know that the circle was complete and perfect. There could be no escape.
Dosemen began rattling off his seven questions, seven unimportant and obscure questions, worthless except that finding their answers was the contest the wizard's guild had begun. Dosemen's voice showed his urgency; he knew that at least three of his fellows had garnered several of the answers already.
Bizmatec was not listening, though, was trying to recall something he had heard in the Abyss, a proposition put forth by a tanar'ri much greater than he. The glabrezu looked at the perfect circle again and scowled doubtfully, and yet, Errtu had said that the power of the summoner or the perfection of the magical binding circle was not an issue.
"Wait!" Bizmatec roared, and Dosemen, despite his confidence and his anger, fell back and fell silent.
"The answers you require will take many hours to discover," the fiend explained.
"I do not have many hours!" Dosemen retorted, gaining back a bit of his composure with his rising ire.
"Then I have for you an answer," the glabrezu replied with a sly and wicked grin.
"You just said …"