“A century in the lands beyond Iruladoon, but only a matter of tendays within,” she replied. “This is the gift of Mielikki.”
“Or the curse,” muttered Wulfgar.,” Catti-brie agreedIes"›;src: url(kindle: embed:000
“Nay, the gift,” Catti-brie said. “And not a gift to us, but to Drizzt. The goddess has done this for our friend.”
“Eh?” Bruenor and Regis asked together.
“The old gods knew,” Catti-brie said. “With the advent of Shadow, the connection to the Shadowfell, this collision with this other world known as Abeir and our world of Toril … the old gods anticipated the chaos. Not all of it, to be sure, like the falling of the Weave and the Spellplague, but they understood indeed the greater truth of the worlds coming together.”
“Might be why they’re gods,” Bruenor muttered.
“And they know, too, that it is a temporary arrangement of the spheres,” said Catti-brie. “The advent will meet its sundering, and that time, the Sundering, is soon upon us.”
“And here I be, thinking we were dead,” Bruenor muttered sarcastically, mostly to Regis, but Catti-brie wasn’t listening, and didn’t slow in her story. She took on the role of a skald then, even beginning a bit of a dance as she continued, much like the dancing she had done around the flowery boughs of Iruladoon through the hours of the previous tendays.
“It will be a time of great despair and tumult, of chaos and realignment, both worldly and among the pantheon,” she proclaimed. “The gods will claim their realms and their followers-they will seek their champions among some, and make champions of others. They will find prizes among the mortal leaders of Faerun, among the Lords of Waterdeep and the Archwizards of Thay, among the chieftains of the great tribes and the heroes of the North, among the kings, dwarf and orc alike.
“Most will be as it ever has been,” she explained. “Moradin and Gruumsh will hold their tribes fast, but around the edges, there will be chaos. Who will lead the thieves, and to whom will the wizards credit their arcane blasts? And who will mortals, grieving and lost, choose to serve as the roadways of their journey winding ever wider?”
“What?” Regis asked in obvious exasperation.
“More riddles?” Wulfgar grumbled.
But Bruenor caught a bit of her meaning more clearly. “Drizzt,” he whispered. “Grieving and lost, ye say? Aye, but I left him with that Dahlia girl, and trouble’s sure to be brewin’ with that fiery child!”
“Grieving, and so, perhaps, easy prey,” said Catti-brie.
“He loves ye,” Bruenor was quick to answer, comfortingly. “He still loves ye, girl! Always has!”
Catti-brie’s laugh almost mocked the notion of carnal jealousy. “I speak of his heart, of his soul, and not of his physical desires.”
“In that, Drizzt is for Mielikki,” said Regis, but Catti-brie merely shrugged to dispel his certainty.
“He will choose, in the end,” she said. “And I hold faith in him that he will choose wisely. But more likely, his choice will cost him-everything. That is the warning of Mielikki, and so this is her gift.”
“Bah, but it’s not for her to be giving!” Bruenor said.
“My place is in the Halls of Tempus,” Wulfgar insisted, catching on to the dwarf’s meaning and rising to his feet Oh, aye, again the time wandering of lonely world!
“And so the choice is yours to make,” Catti-brie agreed, “for never would the goddess demand such service from the follower of another. Mielikki demands of you no fealty, but offers you, then, this choice.”
“I am here!” Wulfgar argued. “There is no choice!”
“Aye,” agreed Bruenor.
“There is,” Catti-brie replied with a smile that surely disarmed both. “For this place is not permanent and everlasting-indeed, its time of end is nearly upon us. The enchantment of Mielikki, Iruladoon, will soon be no more. Forever gone, not to return. And so we must choose and we must leave.”
“As I tried,” Wulfgar reminded.
“Indeed,” Catti-brie replied with a nod. “But you did so blindly, without preparation, without bargain, and so you were doomed. Better for you that your experience ended as soon as it began. Better for you that the midwife dashed you down upon the stones!”
“Without bargain?” Regis echoed under his breath, the halfling catching the curious phrase buried within Catti-brie’s explanation.
The blood drained from Wulfgar at Catti-brie’s remark, as memories of his brief experience outside of Iruladoon came flooding back to him-magically, he knew, through the words of Catti-brie. He had come forth into the arms of a giantess, so he thought, but in truth, into the arms of a midwife. And when he had protested, when he had called out in the voice of a babe, but in the words of one much older, the horrified midwife had done her duty and had thrown him down, dashing him on the warm stones heating the hut.
The memory of the weight of that terror, of the explosion as his soft head struck the unyielding rock, stunned him once more. He stumbled back into the pond a couple of steps and sat there in the shallow water for many heartbeats before dragging himself back to the bank.
“Aye,” Catti-brie explained to Bruenor and Regis as Wulfgar floundered, “the goddess revealed it all to me. Indeed, she likely incited the midwife to destroy the haunted child.”
“Not much of a merciful goddess!” Bruenor argued.
“The cycle of life and death is neither merciful nor merciless,” Catti-brie explained. “It is. It has ever been and will ever be. Wulfgar could not leave Iruladoon as he attempted-none of us can. That is not the pact or the choice Mielikki offers to us four. We are afforded two paths from this forest before the magic fades. The first is as Wulfgar chose, but on condition.” She looked directly at Wulfgar. “One you had not met, and so you were doomed to fail.”
Wulfgar stared back at her, his expression rife with suspicion.
“The second route from here is through that very pond,” Catti-brie finished.
“On condition?” Regis asked.
“To leave the forest, to return to Faerun, requires an oath to Mielikki.”
“You would proselytize?” Wulfgar protested.
“By Moradin’s hairy arse!” Bruenor similarly protested. “I love ye girl, and love Drizzt as me brother, but I ain’t for chasing flowers in a glade of Mielikki’s choosing!”
“An oath, a quest, not everlasting fealty,” Catti-brieextract{text-indent: 0anF8 explained. “To accept the blessing of Mielikki and depart Iruladoon to be born again upon the lands of Faerun, you must accept one condition alone: that you will act on the side of Mielikki in the darkest hour.”
“To be sure, I’m not knowin’ what that’s to mean, girl,” said Bruenor.
“In Drizzt’s darkest hour she means,” said Regis. When the others all looked to him he added, “A gift to Drizzt most of all, you said.”
“Are ye sayin’ that Drizzt will be needing our help?” asked Bruenor.
Catti-brie shrugged, appearing sincerely at a loss. “It seems likely.”
“So we can return to the aid of Drizzt, whatever that might mean, but we are free to honor and serve a god of our choosing?” Regis asked, and it was obvious from his tone that he was only asking the question to help clarify things for Bruenor and Wulfgar, whose faces continued to express grave doubts.
“When the cycle turns once more, when you die again, as you surely will,” Catti-brie replied, “you will find your way to the altar of the god of your choosing, at that god’s suffrage.” She whirled around to face Wulfgar and the pond, and added, “Indeed, that choice is the second option before you now.” She pointed into the pond. “For beneath the waters of this pond is a cave, a tunnel winding through the multiverse to the promised rewards of devoted followers. That path is open to you now, should you so choose. For you, Wulfgar, the road to Warrior’s Rest, and the children and friends you knew among your tribe who had predeceased you, or have died in the years since you entered Iruladoon. A place of honor is there for you, I am sure. For you, my father, Dwarfhome and your seat beside Moradin, and a grand seat it will be, for you have sat upon the throne of Gauntlgrym and have been touched by his favor and power. For you, Regis, the Green Fields, and more to roam in the ways of Brandobaris, and know that I will find you there when I am no more of this world, and Drizzt will find us both, for the Deep Wilds of Mielikki touch the Green Fields.”