“She trains me with the blade.”
Eiverbreen issued a coarse laugh that sounded more like a wheeze than anything mirthful. “Well, I’d be stabbing that one, given the chance!” he said with a howl.
Regis steeled his posture and shut his mouth, reminding himself that Eiverbreen was harmless, that his crudity served as cover for despair. “She’s a friend,” Regis said instead.
“Aye, you and your important friends,” Eiverbreen said with a derisive snort.
“They’ve done well by you,” Regis said before he could bite it back.
Eiverbreen snorted louder and turned to look at the hearth.
“I’m sorry, Father,” Regis said. “But you seem well.”
Eiverbreen pulled himself to his feet, grabbed the poker, and began prodding at the logs. “I get by, boy,” he said absently.?” she asked5N3 had givenesto
“My name is Regis.” He wasn’t really sure why he had said it, but there it lay.
“So says you,” replied a clearly confused Eiverbreen.
“Indeed, and is there any other to argue my choice?”
“Not your choice!” Eiverbreen said harshly, even lifting the poker to aim its tip Regis’s way. “Your Ma’s choice!”
“She’s dead.”
“My choice, then! You could have spoken to me first, boy, to see if I approved.”
“You had your chance, but you didn’t bother,” Regis said, and Eiverbreen’s expression flashed with anger.
“You forgetting your place?” the older halfling asked.
Regis shook his head, denying Eiverbreen. The discussion had reminded him of why he had come here; he was eighteen years old now. The west was beginning to call, the bargain of Mielikki sounding louder and louder in his thoughts.
“Might that I’ll call you Earnst,” Eiverbreen said. “That was my brother’s name, your dead uncle, drowned in the storm of 1445. Just a boy, you know. Aye, I should have named you Earnst to honor him!”
“You should have, perhaps, but you didn’t.”
“Your name is what I tell you it is!” Eiverbreen growled, and he prodded the poker Regis’s way-or started to, for the halfling’s rapier came forth in the blink of a surprised eye, quickly parrying and rolling over the poker, where its blade caught under the item’s hook. With a subtle twist and shift, Regis pulled the poker from Eiverbreen’s hand and sent it bouncing aside.
Eiverbreen stared at him dumbfounded, then looked at the fallen poker. He began to laugh heartily. “Oh, but that Topolino lassie’s teaching you well, boy!” he said. “And what else is she teaching my boy?”
He fell back into his chair, his shoulders bobbing with amusement.
“Much,” was all Regis replied, and he did so with a wide grin, thinking there was no reason to dissuade Eiverbreen from his undoubtedly lewd notions.
Eiverbreen shrugged and snorted, waving his hand dismissively. “Where did you find this name?”
Regis paused and looked down from Eiverbreen, who was leaning forward in his chair now, seeming suddenly interested in the conversation. Perhaps it was time to tell Eiverbreen the truth.
“It’s a name I heard, a long time ago,” he started, unsure. “Where? With them Topolinos?”
“Longer back.”
“Well, where then?” Eiverbreen said, his tone sharpening. Regis considered that question for a few moments. What would be gained by telling Eiverbreen? The old drunk probably wouldn’t even believe it, and if he did, well, to what gain? Others had told Regis that Eiverbreen was proud of him, in his own way, whispering about “his boy with the Grandfather” between bites of his meals at the local common rooms. Perhaps, Regis mused, he had just wanted to hurt the man, to steal from him the one boasting point in all of his miserable life.
But why? Because of the neglect? Because Eiverbreen had been a fairly pathetic father-even though Eiverbreen wasn’t even his father at all?Alpirs and UntarisI ‘on
No, Regis decided then and there. He was allowing his own pettiness to sway him, but there was no place for such things. His entire purpose for returning to Toril awaited him just a trio of years down the road-the long road to Icewind Dale.
He looked at Eiverbreen and offered a disarming smile. He really didn’t want to hurt the halfling. It was that simple.
He laughed. “Grandfather calls me Spider. Spider Parrafin, son of Eiverbreen, student of Grandfather Pericolo Topolino.”
Eiverbreen looked at him even more curiously at first, as if wondering what in the Nine Hells had just transpired, and to what end. But then he nodded, even laughed a bit, echoing, “Spider, eh? I like that much better.”
Regis felt proud of himself for rising above pettiness, for being able to separate his own wounded feelings enough to find for this poor soul Eiverbreen the same compassion Regis had shown to others in his previous life.
The smile couldn’t spread too widely, though, as Regis reminded himself that he would indeed be wounding Eiverbreen, perhaps mortally, when he left Delthuntle, and that unsettling thought had him chewing his lip.
How could he do this? How could he go to Icewind Dale, thousands of miles away, when he was needed here? How could he walk away from this life he had built on the shores of Aglarond?
He thought of Drizzt, then, and of Catti-brie and Bruenor. It would be grand to see them again, of course.
But he thought of Eiverbreen and Pericolo and of Donnola-yes, mostly of Donnola! — and of all that he had come to love about his life here in Delthuntle.
The halflings of Delthuntle had been good to him, and to Eiverbreen. Even before Regis had signed on with Pericolo Topolino, he and Eiverbreen had known kindness from fellow halflings.
And to think that here, in this city of tall and hardy men, a halfling like Pericolo could rise to such stature and prominence! Even the more formal thieves guilds in the city, including the most powerful of all, the Three-Fingered Ring, an organization known to frown upon any lesser guilds, afforded Pericolo and his halfling Morada great respect. Regis himself had witnessed the respectful bows of the Delthuntle Lord’s Guard, the Hobgoblins, whenever Pericolo Topolino walked past them.
The halflings of Delthuntle were not treated as curiosity pieces, or lessers-whether that was because of Pericolo, or an attitude that had helped facilitate Pericolo’s rise.
“A good halfling community,” he said aloud, though he was speaking to himself and not to Eiverbreen.
The older halfling heard him, though. “What’s that?” he asked.
“A good halfling community,” Regis stated more loudly. “Here in Delthuntle, I mean. As good as any I have ever known.”
That brought a curious look from Eiverbreen.
Regis laughed at his own foolishness. As far as Eiverbreen was concerned, Delthuntle was the only place Regis had ever known!
Regis nodded, though he was not looking at Eiverbreen, and not even hearing the actual words as the older halfling pressed him on the point. He was considering his unexpected status, and to his surprise, he found that it was no small thing. Here in Delthuntle, halflings were not second class, and here in Delthuntle, he personally was not the tag-along. Far from it! Here he was the protege, growing strong and s in the general directs="indent" aid
CHAPTER 18
The Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) Netheril
The stars twinkled, a clear desert sky, and the sliver of a moon cast a thin glow over the woman’s private garden, but enough of one for the moistened soft petals of her many flowers to sparkle like the stars above.
Catti-brie was in a fine mood-how could she not be when she felt so close to Mielikki?
Her days of dancing in Iruladoon, of communing with the goddess, had taught her so much about the ways of the celestial spheres and the eternal cycle of life and death. And the goodness of life, taken as a whole. She was part of those stars above, she understood, as were the flowers before her.