“The town changed first,” Regis remarked.
“Of course!” said Harpell. “You don’t think we enjoy this, do you?” He bounded over to Drizzt and took the drow’s hand in a great shake—or started to before wrapping Drizzt in a powerful embrace that nearly lifted him off the ground.
“It’s grand to see you, my old pirate-hunting companion!” Harkle boomed.
“Bidderdoo seemed to enjoy his work,” Regis said, cutting Harkle’s turn toward him short.
“You come to pass judgment after so short a time?” Bidderdoo replied.
“I know what I saw,” said the halfling, not backing down an inch.
“What you saw without context, you mean,” said Bidderdoo.
Regis glared at him then turned his judgment upon Harkle.
“You understand, of course,” Harkle said to Drizzt, seeking support. But he found little in the drow’s rigid expression.
Harkle rolled his eyes and sighed then nearly fell over as one of his orbs kept on rolling, over and over, in its socket. After a few moments, the discombobulated wizard slapped himself hard on the side of the head, and the eye steadied into place.
“My orbs have never been the same since I went to look in on Bruenor,” he quipped with an exaggerated wink, referring, of course, to the time he’d accidentally teleported just his eyes to Mithral Hall to roll around on Bruenor’s audience chamber floor.
“Indeed,” said Regis, “and Bruenor bids you to never do so in such a manner ever again.”
Harkle looked at him curiously for a few moments then burst out laughing. Apparently thinking the tension gone, the wizard moved to wrap Regis in a tight hug.
The halfling stopped him with an upraised hand. “We make peace with orcs while the Harpells torture humans.”
“Justice, not torture,” Harkle corrected. “Torture? Hardly that!”
“I know what I saw,” said the halfling, “And I saw it with both of my eyes in my head and neither of them rolling around in circles.”
“There are a lot of rabbits on that small island,” Drizzt added.
“And do you know what you would have seen if we hadn’t dealt harshly with men like that priest Ganibo?”
“Priest?” both Drizzt and Regis said together.
“Aren’t they all and aren’t they always?” Bidderdoo answered with obvious disgust.
“More than our share of them, to be sure,” Harkle agreed. “We’re a tolerant bunch here in Longsaddle, as you know.”
“As we knew,” said Regis, and it was Bidderdoo who rolled his eyes, though having never botched a teleportation like his bumbling cousin, his eyes didn’t keep rolling.
“Our acceptance of…strangeness…” Harkle started.
“Embrace of strangeness, you mean,” said Drizzt.
“What?” the wizard asked, and looked curiously at Bidderdoo before catching on and giving a burst of laughter. “Indeed, yes!” he said. “We who so play in the extremes of Mystra’s Weave are not so fast to judge others. Which invited trouble to Longsaddle.”
“You are aware of the disposition of Malarites in general, yes?” Bidderdoo clarified.
“Malarites?” Drizzt asked.
“The worshipers of Malar?” asked the more surface-worldly Regis.
“A battle of gods?” Drizzt asked.
“Worse,” said Harkle. “A battle of followers.”
Drizzt and Regis looked at him curiously.
“Different sects of the same god,” Harkle explained. “Same god with different edicts, depending on which side you ask—and oh, but they’ll kill you if you disagree with their narrow interpretations of their beast god’s will! And how these Malarites always disagree, with each other and with everyone else. One group built a chapel on the eastern bank of Pavlel. The other on the western bank.”
“Pavlel? The lake?”
“We named it after him,” said Harkle.
“In memoriam, no doubt,” Regis said.
“Well, we don’t really know,” Harkle replied. “Since he and the mountain flew off together.”
“Of course,” said the halfling who knew he shouldn’t be surprised.
“The blue-robed and red-robed onlookers at the…punishment,” said Drizzt.
“Priests of Malar all,” Bidderdoo replied. “One side witnessing justice, the other accepting consequences. It’s important that we make a display of such punishment to deter future acts.”
“He burned down a house,” Harkle explained. “With a family inside.”
“And so he was punished,” Bidderdoo added.
“By being polymorphed into a rabbit?” asked Regis.
“At least they can’t hurt anyone in that state,” said Bidderdoo.
“Except for that one,” Harkle corrected. “The one with the big teeth, who could jump so high!”
“Ah, him,” Bidderdoo agreed. “That rabbit was smokepowder! It seemed as if he was possessed of the edge of a vorpal weapon, that one, giving nasty bites!” He turned to Drizzt. “Can I borrow your cat?”
“No,” the drow replied.
Regis growled with frustration. “You turned him into a rabbit!” he shouted, as if there could be no suitable reply.
Bidderdoo shook his head solemnly. “He remains happy and with bountiful leaves, brush, and flowers on the island.”
“Happy? Is he man or rabbit? Where is his mind?”
“Somewhere in between, at this point, I would expect,” Bidderdoo admitted.
“That’s ghastly!” Regis protested.
“Time’s passage will align his thoughts with his new body.”
“To live as a rabbit,” said Regis.
Bidderdoo and Harkle exchanged concerned, and guilty, glances.
“You killed him!” Regis shouted.
“He is very much alive!” Harkle protested.
“How can you say that?”
Drizzt put a hand on the halfling’s shoulder, and when he looked up to meet the drow’s gaze, Drizzt shook his head slowly, backing him down.
“Would that we could simply obliterate them all, that Longsaddle would know her days of old,” Bidderdoo mumbled and left the room.
“The task that has befallen us is not a pleasant one,” Harkle said. “But you don’t understand…”
Drizzt motioned for him to stop, needing no further elaboration, for indeed, the drow did understand the untenable situation that had descended upon his friends, the Harpells. A foul taste filled his throat and he wanted to scream in protest of it all, but he didn’t. Truly there was nothing to say, and nothing left for him to see in Longsaddle.
He informed Harkle, “We’re traveling down the road to Luskan and from there to Icewind Dale.”
“Ah, Luskan!” said Harkle. “I was to apprentice there once, long ago, but for some reason, they wouldn’t let me into the famed Hosttower. A pity.” He sighed profoundly and shook his head, but brightened immediately, as Harkle always did. “I can get you there in an instant,” he said, snapping his fingers in such dramatic fashion, waving his hand with such zest, that he knocked over a lamp.
Or would have, except that Drizzt, his speed enhanced by magical anklets, darted forward in a blur, caught the lamp, and righted it.
“We prefer to walk,” the drow said. “It’s not so far and the weather is clear and kind. It’s not the destination that matters most, after all, but the journey.”