She couldn’t shapeshift. She couldn’t become an eagle, a mouse, or a wolf. The notion struck her profoundly. She remained hundreds of miles from Icewind Dale, and now, so suddenly, the road appeared much more perilous and uncertain.
Catti-brie forced herself to calm down, and rationally played through her options. Even without the shapeshift, and without the storm calling and lightning bolts, she was a disciple of Mielikki, with powers divine. And she was a mage, trained in Silverymoon, trained in Shade Enclave. She was not a lost little child on the open road. She was Catti-brie, who had passed this way before, in another life. She could fight and she could enact magic both divine and arcane. She glanced around, then began to climb one of the pines for a better view. Her injured leg ached for the effort and the deep bending, despite the magic she had enacted upon it.
She thought back to the previous day, when she had been flying on high. Just to the west of her lay a road, she recalled, and she nodded, for she knew that road, the Long Road, it had once been named.
And she smiled as she considered where that road might take her, and what she might learn when she got to that particular destination.
She found an appropriate length of wood to use as a walking stick and set out determinedly. She was Catti-brie. She had returned by the will of Mielikki and for a great purpose, and she would not falter.
She made the road, or what was left of it-for now it was an old and little-used trail-that afternoon and turned to the north. Her leg ached, but she did not stop and did not slow.
The sunlight began to fade, the night descending upon the land, and Catti-brie began to search for an appropriate campsite. She moved off the road, up the side of a small hillock. She had just begun to construct a fire pit, complete with rocks around its edges to shield flames from distant eyes, when the sky to the north lit up suddenly with a great burst of orange flames.
Catti-brie rushed to the northern edge of the hillock and peered off into the distance.
A lightning bolt split the night sky. A fireball followed, and then a star-burst of multicolored sparks and flares of such magnificence that it made the woman giggle in appreciation.
She heard the distant sound of the explosions a few moments later, along with what sounded like a cacophony of cheers.
Another fireball ignited, this one lower to the ground, illuminating the land below to reveal a large mansion set upon a hill.
“Longsaddle!” Catti-brie cried, and it wasn’t so far. All thoughts of camping flew from her then, and she started off with renewed determination.
The night darkened around her, the Long Road seemed in places little more than a wagon rut, but the explosions continued in the north, guiding her way, and soon after she entered the village of Longsaddle, home of the Harpells, a place she had visited in her previous life on several occasions.
All of the townsfolk were outside, it seemed, hundreds of people cheering and dancing at the spectacle on the hill, the spectline-height: Isummonacle on the grounds of the Ivy Mansion, home of the Harpells, where the wizards plied their trade in a grand celebration, it seemed, throwing fire and lightning and all sorts of spectacular dweomers up into the air in a great and splendid display.
“What is it?” Catti-brie asked a young couple she encountered at the base of the hill.
“None seem to know,” the man answered. “But our Harpell wizards appear to be in a festive and fine mood this evening!”
Catti-brie moved around the gathering, gaining the road that led up to the gate of the house on the hill. It appeared as no more than a ten-stride reach of fence, unattached on either end, but Catti-brie knew better. For stretching out from either side was an invisible wall encircling the whole of the hill and mansion.
She arrived at the gate and called out, but none heard or reacted. She could see them, then, wizards atop the hill, many on the mansion’s roof, cheering and throwing their spells, one after another.
Catti-brie called out again, and when that didn’t work, the woman began to whisper a spell of her own. Up in the air above flew the fiery pea, erupting into a fireball of her own making.
The people below her cried out and fell back in surprise-and fear, no doubt. And from above her came shouts and warnings, and the wizards scrambled. In short order, she was confronted by the town guard from below, and soon after that, by a group of Harpells from the other side of the gate.
“Who are you, who throws magic unbidden in Longsaddle?” one wiry old mage in rumpled robes asked.
In response, Catti-brie lifted her arms and shook them, her sleeves falling clear of the markings. “A friend,” she said. “Though I’ve not been here in many years.”
The wiry old mage came closer and looked her over. “I don’t know you.”
“No,” she agreed, shaking her head. “But I know of you, of the Harpells, at least, and some once knew me as a friend. When I tell you my tale, you will understand.”
“Go on, then!” he demanded.
Catti-brie glanced over her shoulder at the town guard, then back at the mage doubtfully.
“Come along then!” demanded a man behind her, but as he approached, the wiry wizard held up his hand.
“Once I knew of Harkle,” Catti-brie dared to admit, hoping that name from yesteryear would spark some recognition. “Once I knew of Bidderdoo.”
“The Bidderdoos?” the man behind her gasped, and fell back, shaking his head.
Catti-brie glanced at him curiously, not quite understanding the reference, or why he had used the plural form of the name. She shook her head and looked back to the mage, to find him already fumbling with the gate. He and the others waved her in and escorted her up the hill.
“I am Penelope,” the middle-aged woman introduced herself, coming into a comfortable room where the others had left Catti-brie, bidding her to be at ease. Catti-brie started to rise from her chair, but the older woman waved at her to remain seated and took the seat opposite.
“Ca-Ru-” Catti-brie started to respond, but she had to pause and laugh at herself, for what should have been a simple greetinline-height: Isummong apparently was not. To use her real name would be to open potential questions much larger than her arrival here at the Ivy Mansion, and to use her Desai name might well make it easier for Lady Avelyere to regain her trail.
“Delly,” she replied with an inviting smile, borrowing another name from her distant past. “Delly Curtie.”
“Well met, then, Ca-ru-delly,” Penelope Harpell replied, smiling knowingly.
“Delly Curtie,” Catti-brie said flatly.
“And what brings Delly Curtie to Longsaddle, pray tell?”
“Your display of magic this night, mostly. I was on the road and noted it, and since I, too, am practiced in the Art-”
“Then you already knew of Longsaddle, no doubt, and needed no fire and lightning display to lure you here.”
Catti-brie stared hard at the woman, who returned the look. She started to concoct some explanation, but realized that she was only digging herself deeper with her lies, beneath the careful gaze of Penelope. These were the Harpells, Catti-brie reminded herself, goodly folk, if quite … eccentric. Ever had the Harpells been allies of the Companions of the Hall, and of Mithral Hall. Indeed, they had come running to Bruenor’s aid when the drow had invaded the dwarf tunnels.
“I was bound for the coast,” Catti-brie said. “But recent events slowed me, and perplexed me, I admit.”
“Do go on.”
“Changes,” Catti-brie replied. “With magic.” She shrugged and threw in her chips, once again pulling up the sleeves of her robe to reveal her two spellscars, now seeming as different colored tattoos.
Penelope’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the woman’s marked forearms, and she leaned out of her seat and moved closer, even reaching down to turn Catti-brie’s arm a bit to get a better look at the seven-pointed star on the left arm.