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  “I been down in the pit with the thing,” Catti-brie admitted, and Bruenor’s mouth fell open.

  “What?” Bruenor managed to whisper.

  “Me Da, trust me,” Catti-brie implored him.

  “Ye didn’t reach in last time ye worked on me shield and axe. Aye, but ye used a poker, like any smart smithy, eh? And ye had on the fire gloves, didn’t ye?”

  “This is … different,” Catti-brie said, looking back to the enticing, alluring white fires within the oven of the Great Forge of Gauntlgrym.

  “Ye’re goin’ to melt yer durn hand off!”

  Catti-brie shook her head, never taking her eyes from the flames, and the confidence that came over her was reflected so clearly in her expression that Bruenor did indeed back off.

  Catti-brie’s spirit moved back for the white hot fires again. She felt the magic of the Forge, heard the voice of the primordial. She opened her hand wide just in front of the flames, and echoing through the ring, she heard more clearly.

  Into the oven went Orbbcress, the magnificent shield forged by the drow master craftsman Gol’fanin in this very place.

  Catti-brie paused for a long while, and in her mind, she saw the shield in an entirely new way. Images of its various components—the spiraling bars, the webs, the soft but impossibly strong material floated in her mind’s eye like separate magic spells waiting to be cast.

  Without opening her eyes, without releasing the images of Orbbcress’s enchantments, Catti-brie worked her other hand back to the tray and found Bruenor’s shield. No longer did she harbor any doubts, and so she brought the shield forward and into the oven without hesitation.

  The enchantments of Bruenor’s shield, too, came clear to her, swirling with Orbbcress’s. Many floated separately, distinct.

  “And …” Catti-brie whispered.

  The material of Bruenor’s shield faded in and out of her mind’s eye with the softer webbing of Orbbcress, and Catti-brie understood a choice that needed to be made—a choice that she, not the primordial, would make.

  “Or …” she whispered. She smiled and cast a powerful spell, one the primordial had shown to her.

  She waved her fingers, still just outside the white flames that now engulfed the two shields. She could feel the heat, so intense, but it did not hurt her and instead warmed her to her very heart. There was a beauty here almost beyond her comprehension, another form of existence all together, as eternal as the gods … nay, as the stars.

  She found herself grateful to the primordial, humbled that this immortal being of near unimaginable power, and of such universal intelligence, was welcoming her. She knew again that this godlike being could have so easily consumed her in the pit when she had gone to retrieve Charon’s Claw for Jarlaxle. And it could melt her now, with hardly an effort. Her hand was so close, was inside the protective magical barrier of the Forge, exposed to the bite of the primordial if the beast so chose.

  She was naked in front of the godlike creature, and was not consumed only because it did not want to consume her.

  Instead it wanted to use her, to teach her, to find some sort of magical release through her.

  A long time later, Catti-brie opened her eyes and stepped back from the Forge. She was covered in sweat, and fully exhausted, and had to lean on the tray for support and breathe deeply to keep herself from falling into darkness.

  And Bruenor was there beside her, holding her, calling to her. “Girl? Girl?”

  After a few steadying breaths, Catti-brie managed to open her eyes, and open her lips into a wide smile.

  “What’d ye do?” Bruenor asked solemnly.

  Catti-brie shrugged and shook her head, and that was an honest answer. It had all been beyond her understanding, beyond her mortal comprehension. It was a beautiful thing, an amazing glimpse into immortality that had touched her so profoundly that it was all she could manage to keep from giggling like a charmed child.

  She motioned to the tongs hanging on the side of the table, an instrument as heavily enchanted as the greatest weapons in Faerûn. Any normal metal going to this fire pit would be consumed almost immediately, but these tongs had been constructed and enchanted at the time of the creation of this place.

  Bruenor put on the heavy gloves hanging beside the tool and took up the tongs. Squinting against the white glare, he poked the tongs into the flames and felt around. His surprise became quite clear when he found not two shields but one.

  “What’d ye do, girl?” he asked again, hesitantly, and he slowly began to pull back the tongs.

  There on the tray lay his shield, but not his shield. The foaming mug standard remained, shining like silvery mithral now, with the foam milky white. It wasn’t just an image now, but a bas relief. The shield upon which it sat seemed familiar, and yet different, for now Bruenor could see within the metal and ironwood, the etchings of filaments, a beautiful, symmetrical spider web.

  He dared touch it with his gloved hand, then looked at it curiously and pulled off his gloves.

  “Ain’t hot?” he asked as much as stated.

  Catti-brie simply smiled. She couldn’t yet find the strength to speak.

  Bruenor picked up his new shield. “So light,” he said. Then, his face alarmed, he slid it over his shield arm then fumbled about only to breathe a great sigh of relief as he produced a foaming mug of dark golden ale with a smooth and frothy head spilling over the side.

  Bruenor stared through the translucent glass, his smile widening with every bubble that floated up to reinforce the head.

  He brought the glass to his lips and took a hearty swig, covering half his beard with the white foam. His nod affirmed his approval.

  “Feels the same, makes the same, looks …” Bruenor paused and took a closer look at the shield, tracing the spidery lines with his finger. “Looks a bit different,” he said, nodding and not wearing any sour expression of disapproval. “What else did ye do then, girl?”

  “Perhaps we will learn together,” Catti-brie replied, somewhat absently, for her thoughts remained with the Art of the crafting, for it was a level of magical manipulation she had never before experienced, not even when crafting a buckle-bow out of Taulmaril for Drizzt.

  And she was looking ahead, for another challenge was strong in her thoughts, and she very much intended to return to the Great Forge that very night.

  WITH THE HELP of Kimmuriel, it didn’t take Jarlaxle long to get back to his tavern, One-Eyed Jax, back in Luskan, and the mercenary leader set Kimmuriel to work immediately on this most important task. Outside the room where Kimmuriel was busily entering Dahlia’s thoughts, Jarlaxle and Artemis Entreri waited, the assassin pacing anxiously.

  “I have never seen you like this, my friend,” Jarlaxle said.

  Entreri turned to him, glowering.

  “What?” the mercenary drow asked innocently. “Have I not done as you asked? And at great personal risk?”

  Entreri stopped his pacing and stared at the drow. “I would say that it is the least you could do.”

  “Are we back to that?”

  “Were we ever not?”

  “I had no choice,” Jarlaxle said quietly.

  “I spent decades as a slave to Lord Alegni!”

  “You would have been murdered, likely, had I not …”

  “I would have preferred that!”

  “Truly?” Jarlaxle asked him. “After all you’ve been through, after rescuing Dahlia, you wish that I had let you die a century ago?”

  “I wish that a man I considered a friend had not so betrayed me,” Entreri replied.

  “I made you a king!” Jarlaxle said with flourish. “Artemis Entreri, King of Vaasa!” He smiled as he finished the pronouncement—the same pronouncement that had nearly gotten the pair slain by the legendary Gareth Dragonsbane, the King of Damara, a long, long time before.

  But Entreri was not joining in with that mirth.

  “I tried to help you,” Jarlaxle said more somberly.

  “You saved yourself,”
Entreri accused.

  “Of course! So that I could continue to work for your release.”

  “You saved yourself. You betrayed me to save yourself.”

  “I saved Calihye,” Jarlaxle replied, and that set Entreri back on his heels. Calihye had been the first woman to steal Entreri’s heart, a fellow rogue from the Bloodstone Lands, and she was stolen from him by the dark elves.

  By Jarlaxle’s dark elves.

  Entreri, angry, stuttered, trying to find a response.

  “She would have killed you,” Jarlaxle reminded him, for indeed, the half-elf had attacked Entreri in a fit of rage. And in that dangerous encounter Entreri had thrown her through the window of their room, into an alley, where he had left her for dead.

  But the action, the entire tragic encounter, had broken Entreri’s heart. This black-haired, blue-eyed half-elf had stolen his heart—she was the first woman he had ever loved. He could hear her voice, then, in his thoughts, that lisp he had found so endearing the result of a battle scar.

  “Kimmuriel saved her—we saved her,” Jarlaxle explained. “We gave her back her hope and her life. Indeed, Kimmuriel worked with her in much the same way he now works with Dahlia in the adjoining room. And she lived a long life, my friend.”

  Entreri looked at him curiously, and Jarlaxle nodded.

  “She is still alive, I expect,” Jarlaxle admitted. “She is not so old for a half-elf.”

  Entreri’s knees went weak. “You only now tell me this?” he asked, spitting every word with incredulity and outrage.

  “I cannot be certain.”

  “Bregan D’aerthe had her! A slave!”

  “No!” Jarlaxle shot back. “We had her not for long, and never a slave.”

  “I witnessed it! I killed those Bregan D’aerthe drow who brought her to Memnon.”

  “I gave you those drow—they were simply orcs transformed for the event—so that you would find some time with Calihye,” Jarlaxle explained.

  Entreri’s expression showed that he was hardly convinced.

  “And then she left,” Jarlaxle said. Entreri had freed her and he and Calihye had spent several tendays together in the Calishite city of Memnon, but then, one morning, Entreri had awakened to find himself once more alone.

  “You took her, you mean, when you guided the Netherese to me.”

  “I took her,” Jarlaxle admitted. “As was her desire. She cared not to stay with you. With the help of Kimmuriel, she had rid herself of her anger, and the life you—the life we lived at that time was not appealing to her. She asked me for some time with you so she could say farewell …”

  “This is not the truth!” Entreri insisted. “This is not the tale that was told to me at the time. Do you think the years have blurred my recollections? Do you think me old, my brain feeble?”

  “You were told a tale to keep you in line,” Jarlaxle said. “And that, too, I allowed, because otherwise, they were going to kill you, do not doubt.”

  “Better that than you giving me to Alegni.”

  “That is a separate matter.”

  “It was the day after Calihye was taken from me!”

  “For her sake, of course. The Netherese had found you, through no help of Bregan D’aerthe, I assure you, but because of that sword you now carry once more. It is a Netherese blade—we knew that, and they came for it, with overwhelming forces. I saved your beloved by granting her wish and issuing her away.”

  “You saved yourself by giving me to them.”

  Jarlaxle shrugged. “They had you in any case, and had me, too, had I not cooperated.”

  Entreri started to growl a bit at that, even came forward a step, but Jarlaxle held up his hands and pressed on.

  “I thought I could get back to you, and quickly, and with sufficient force to break you free—indeed, I had made many plans with Matron Mother Zeerith for just that event,” he explained. “But I did not know the whole of it at that time. I did not foresee the fall of the Weave and the Spellplague. Matron Mother Zeerith was in no position to help me. Few were! We were all scrambling to secure our own positions and lives. And so yes, my friend, I did betray you, and for that I am ever sorry. But I tell you in all honesty that it was never my intent to leave you with those fiends, certainly not with Herzgo Alegni—and I pray that some foul devil has taken his soul as a plaything …

  “But now I have tried to pay you back. Retrieving Dahlia was no small—”

  He stopped as the door handle to the adjoining room turned, and right before Kimmuriel walked in, Entreri offered Jarlaxle a forgiving nod, though the man seemed a tattered mess. The details Jarlaxle had at last included in the old story had Entreri’s thoughts swirling.

  “What have you learned?” Jarlaxle asked Kimmuriel as soon as he appeared.

  “The illithid Methil’s work was quite impressive,” Kimmuriel replied. “So many cues would throw her back to madness. Her moments of sanity were few.”

  “Were? Then you have corrected …” Entreri began to reason.

  “No, of course not,” Kimmuriel replied. “Not yet. It will take some time, but the hive mind will aid in my efforts—they remain grateful that Archmage Gromph invited them to the reconstruction of the Hosttower of the Arcane.” He looked past Jarlaxle to Entreri. “You should go and see her while her brief hold of clarity remains.”

  Artemis Entreri didn’t have to be asked twice. He rushed past the two dark elves and through the door, shutting it behind him.

  “You heard?” Jarlaxle quietly asked.

  “I thought you might need my assistance.”

  “He believed what I told him, and what I told him was true enough,” said Jarlaxle. He shifted from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable.

  “Incomplete, but true enough,” Kimmuriel agreed.

  “The agreements signed between Bregan D’aerthe and the Netherese need not be revealed,” Jarlaxle reminded him. “That was long ago, and they are no more, for the Sundering has sundered more than the worlds of Toril and Abeir!”

  He left it at that, satisfied by Kimmuriel’s unconcerned shrug, but Jarlaxle understood that it all might not be as clear-cut as he had pretended.

  With Artemis Entreri, nothing ever was.

  DRIZZT WANTED TO enjoy the celebration in the Throne Room that night—it was in his honor, after all.

  He entered to a rousing song, every dwarf in the place with foam on his or her beard and lips, and every one hoisted a drink to the roar of “Elf!”

  Bruenor was there, of course, and in fine spirits, with Athrogate, Ambergris, and Ragged Dain sitting beside him at the grand table they had brought in for the celebration. Notably, the two seats to Bruenor’s right remained empty—for Drizzt and Catti-brie, of course.

  Drizzt found himself wishing that two more were empty, and he thought of Wulfgar and Regis. The scene in front of him threw him back across time and space, to the celebration after the reclamation of Mithral Hall.

  “Where’s me girl, then, elf?” Bruenor asked as Drizzt approached.

  “She said she would be along later,” the ranger replied. “She has much to do, it would seem.”

  “All of ’em,” said Bruenor. “Never stoppin’. They’re meaning to put that durned tower back in place.”

  “Aye, and save Gauntlgrym in doing it,” Ragged Dain added. That proclamation brought lifted mugs and a chorus of cheers.

  Drizzt took his seat and accepted a mug of ale from Bruenor. The conversation and song continued around him in full force, but the drow ranger felt strangely detached.

  Was he conjuring this perceived reality from memory? Transposing those real times in Mithral Hall to this place and time, wherever he might actually be?

  Or were even those memories nothing more than the creation of his perception, or the intrusion of whatever being was now playing the puppeteer to his fragile sensibilities?

  He looked across the room, taking some comfort in the statues, the sarcophagi, that flanked Bruenor’s throne. There stood King Emerus Warcro
wn of Felbarr and King Connerad Brawnanvil, who had succeeded Bruenor to the throne of Mithral Hall.

  A third sarcophagus drew his attention more fully, though, and despite his troubled state, Drizzt couldn’t help but smile when he looked upon that one, set up on the wall some dozen long strides from the throne.

  Thibbledorf Pwent, ever vigilant, ever loyal, ever fierce, ever crazy.

  It surprised Drizzt how much he missed that wild fellow. Pwent had been a very old dwarf when Drizzt and Bruenor had left him in Icewind Dale, and yet, when the call came, Pwent had come roaring back to Bruenor’s side, fighting like a young warrior.

  Then had come a second existence for Pwent, but surely not a second life. The undead battlerager had haunted these very halls, where he had fallen, as a vampire.

  Now he was at rest, and Drizzt couldn’t think of a better sentry than that statue, looking down at Bruenor’s throne, looking down at all who would stand beside and behind Bruenor, reminding them ever of true and selfless loyalty.

  Drizzt winced again when it occurred to him that Pwent, too, might be nothing more than his own deluded creation. Either he was being horribly and forever deceived, the most cruel taunt of all, or he was god, an insane god, creating out of desire and fear and whim—and that possibility, Drizzt believed, would be the biggest lie of all.

  He tried not to sneer, tried not to wail, and buried his voice in a deep swallow of frothy beer.

  But why hide it? It was his game, or one being perpetrated upon him. But just a game nonetheless. Why hide his sneer?

  He turned an angry glance on Bruenor, but before the dwarf even noted the inappropriate scowl, Drizzt’s expression melted to curiosity. For only then did Drizzt notice that Bruenor wore a curious item strapped to his forearm, a tiny buckler or a badge, perhaps, that very much resembled his foaming mug shield.

  “Bwahaha! A beautiful thing, eh, elf?” the dwarf said when he noted the stare. He lifted the arm so that Drizzt could better see.

  “What?” Drizzt started to ask, but his word was stolen along with his breath as the buckler began to wind outward, growing into a small shield.

  Drizzt had seen that trick before.