“I know, dear,” Lady Avelyere replied. “Fevered dreams. You were quite ill, though I am not sure of your affliction. I sense it was tied to the spellscars you carry. We have heard of others-”
“Yes, I have been told,” Catti-brie interrupted.
“In all of those cases, the affliction passed quickly and showed no sign of returning,” Lady Avelyere added. “So it will be with you, I expect.” She kissed Catti-brie on the forehead again. “Now back to your rest, I demand.”
Catti-brie didn’t resist as Lady Avelyere eased her back onto the bed.
“I am expected soon in the home of my parents,” Catti-brie said.
“Oh, no, no, no, girl,” Lady Avelyere replied. “You will not be going out of the Coven for many days. No, no. Not until I am certain that your affliction has truly passed. You were fortunate that you were struck down here, among friends with great means to help you to heal. Had you been outside of here, you likely would have died.”
“They will worry-”
“I will find a way to get word to them that you are well and will visit when you are able,” Lady Avelyere promised. She gave Catti-brie one last hug and quietly left the room, leaving Catti-brie alone with her jumbled thoughts.
She chewed her lips and kept looking at her window, wanting nothing more than to be out of there and off to one of her secret gardens, where she might commune with Mielikki to garner some answers. Beyond the confusion of her apparent loss of memory, and of a tenday, something seemed wrong; somewhere, just below her consciousness, contradictions nagged at Catti-brie’s sensibilities.
Catti-brie searched through the conversations with Rhyalle and Lady Avelyere over and over again, seeking some clues. One thing stood out: Why would Catti-brie have likely died had she been struck with her affliction outside of the Coven? Hadn’t both Rhyalle and Avelyere just told her that others had been similarly afflicted, and that in those instances, the affliction had passed with no serious ramifications?
Catti-brie winced. Had Avelyere just lied to her?
She focused her mind, determined to remember more, or to at least put some of the flitting memories floating through her thoughts into some sort of context and order.
She looked to the door again, then to a small, decorative plant set in the corner of the room.
Her gaze went back to the door as she chewed anew on her lip. Dare she?
Caution bade her not to do it. The projection of Ruqiah bade her not to do it.
" But the wisdom of?” she asked but something nagged at her, told her that something was truly amiss.
She went to the plant and dragged it across to the opposite wall, out of sight of the door, which opened into the room and would shield anyone entering.
CHAPTER 19
The Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) Mithral Hall
The torchlight flickered, casting wild shadows in the vast empty chamber as the solitary in the general direction figure made his way along the narrow bridge. A massive drop to his left and right only accentuated the loneliness of the scene: a single dwarf, walking hesitantly, his torch only barely chasing away the darkness.
His step slowed even more as he approached the central platform on this great bridge that spanned the chasm known as Garumn’s Gorge. His footsteps echoed, hard boots on stone. The shuddering torchlight showed that he was trembling.
He paused at the front rim of the circular platform. Across from him, in the darkness, he heard the sound of water-Bruenor’s Falls-which marked the final run to the eastern gate of Mithral Hall.
For Bruenor, the return proved only bitter, not bittersweet.
He had come this way with the caravan only a tenday before, but hadn’t slowed and hadn’t even dared look at the podium on the northern side of this ceremonial platform. In his short time in Mithral Hall, he had not come back this way to the east, spending his days in the great Undercity, and even venturing to the western gate and to Keeper’s Dale beyond, arguably the place of his greatest triumph.
Keeper’s Dale was heavily guarded now, with fortified positions and war machines all around the higher peaks. Guarded against orcs, Bruenor … Reginald Roundshield of Citadel Felbarr … had been told, for the troublesome creatures had become very active of late.
Yet again.
How strange it had been for Bruenor to hear the discussions about him, questioning his own judgment as king that century before, when he had made peace with King Obould Many-Arrows. Back and forth went the arguments, and they sounded to Bruenor much like the same debates he had heard, and had been party to, in the days of the treaty!
Nothing had been resolved. The land had known relative peace, but to many of the current dwarves of Mithral Hall, it clearly seemed more the crouch of the tiger before the killing spring than any true and lasting alliance, partnership, or even tolerance between Mithral Hall and the orcs. And worse, they whispered, now the orcs had made inroads into the kingdoms all around their own land, and knew the defenses and, perhaps, how to exploit those defenses.
Bruenor’s gaze locked on the podium, on the parchment spread atop it, secured by a heavy piece of clear crystal. He swallowed hard and inched up.
He saw the signature, his signature, and the crude mark of King Obould.
“Did ye lead me wrong, elf?” he asked quietly, as if speaking to Drizzt, who had counseled him on this very important decision, who indeed had lobbied him strongly to sign the treaty.
“Ah, but I can’no know,” Bruenor whispered.
“What’s to know then, eh?” came a voice behind him, startling him-and all the more surprising because it was not accompanied by the light of a second torch. He turned around to see Ragged Dain, who had obviously followed him out here, secretly and stealthily.
“If this paper’ll hold in these times,” Bruenor replied.
“Bah, that treaty,” said the old warrior. “I remember when it was signed. Never did much like it.”
“King Bruenor was wrong, then?”
“Hush yer mouth, boy!” Ragged Dain scolded. “Ye don’t be talking ill o’ the king o’ them whose hall ye’re walking about!” in the general direction, and paouC3to
“It was a long time ago,” Bruenor replied.
Ragged Dain came up beside him and put his hand on the crystal mount, sliding his fingers slowly over the signatures of Bruenor and Obould. “Aye, it was, but be sure that I’m rememberin’, and so’s King Emerus Warcrown, don’t ye doubt, particularly now when these new orcs are in a fightin’ mood all across the Silver Marches.”
“Are ye thinking it was wrong for King Bruenor to sign the treaty?”
Ragged Dain didn’t answer for a bit, but just stared at the parchment. Then he shrugged. “Who can know? Meself was arguin’ against it, to be sure. Telled King Emerus that personally, though I was but a young fighter of little renown at the time.”
“King Emerus stood here for the signing,” Bruenor said, and he remembered well the look Emerus had given him before he had moved up to add his signature, an expression more of resignation than of antipathy.
“Aye, he did,” said Ragged Dain. “Weren’t his choice, mind ye.”
“He would have preferred war.”
“Most dwarves would’ve!”
“But not King Bruenor.” Bruenor purposely said it in a way that could be construed as accusatory, to gauge Ragged Dain’s expression.
The old veteran merely shrugged and wore no such agreeing scowl. “Alas for King Bruenor, then. He weren’t for findin’ any support for a war. Not from Silverymoon, not from Sundabar.” He paused and took a deep breath, and Bruenor knew well what was coming next. “Not even from Felbarr.”
“King Emerus wouldn’t stand with Mithral Hall?” Bruenor asked, trying to feign surprise.
Ragged Dain offered another shrug. “Without Sundabar and Silverymoon, we wouldn’t’ve been doin’ much again them orc thousands,” he said. “Tens of thousands! Tens of tens of thousands!”