SMOTHERED BY A SECURITY BLANKET
Perhaps I'm just getting older and harder to impress," Regis said to Drizzt as they walked across a wide fields of grass. "She's not so great a city, not near the beauty of Mithral Hall - and surely not Silverymoon - but I'm glad they let you in through the gates, at least. Folk are stubborn, but it gives me hope that they can learn."
"I was no more impressed by Mirabar than you were," Drizzt replied, tossing a sidelong glance at his halfling friend. "I had long heard of her wonders, but I agree they're lacking beside Mithral Hall. Or maybe it's just that I like the folk who live in Mithral Hall better."
"It's a warmer place," Regis decided. "From the king on down. But still, you must be glad of your acceptance in Mirabar."
Drizzt shrugged as though it didn't matter, and of course, it didn't. Not to him, anyway; he could not deny his hope that Marchion Elastul would truly make peace with Mithral Hall and his lost dwarves. That development could only bode well for the North, particularly with an orc kingdom settled on Mithral Hall's northern border.
"I'm more glad that Bruenor found the courage to go to Obould's aid for a cause of common good," the drow remarked. "We've seen a great change in the world."
"Or a temporary reprieve."
Again Drizzt shrugged, but the gesture was accompanied by a look of helpless resignation. "Every day Obould holds the peace is a day of greater security than we could have expected. When his hordes rushed down from the mountains, I believed we would know nothing but war for years on end. When they surrounded Mithral Hall, I feared we would be driven from the place forever more. Even in the first months of stalemate, I, like everyone else, expected that it would surely descend into war and misery."
"I still expect it."
Drizzt's smile showed that he didn't necessarily disagree. "We stay vigilant for good reason. But every passing day makes that future just a bit less certain. And that's a good thing."
"Or is every passing day nothing more than another day Obould prepares to finish his conquest?" Regis asked.
Drizzt draped his arm over the halfling's shoulders.
"Am I too cynical for fearing such?" Regis asked.
"If you are, then so am I, and so is Bruenor - and Alustriel, who has spies working all through the Kingdom of Many-Arrows. Our experience with the orcs is long and bitter, full of treachery and war. To think that all we've known to be true is not necessarily an absolute is unsettling and almost incomprehensible, and so to walk the road of acceptance and peace often takes more courage than the way of the warrior."
"It always is more complicated than it seems, isn't it?" Regis asked with a wry grin. "Like you, for example."
"Or like a halfling friend of mine who fishes with one foot and flees with the other, fights with a mace in his right hand and pickpockets an unsuspecting fool with his left, and all the while manages to keep his belly full."
"I have a reputation to uphold," Regis answered, and handed Drizzt back the purse he'd just lifted from the drow's belt.
"Very good," Drizzt congratulated. "You almost had it off my belt before I felt your hand." As he took the purse, he handed Regis back the unicorn-headed mace he'd deftly slid from the halfling's belt as the rogue was lifting his purse.
Regis shrugged innocently. "If we steal one-for-one, I will end up with the more valuable items of magic."
Drizzt looked across the halfling and out to the north, leading Regis's gaze to a huge black panther moving their way. Drizzt had summoned Guenhwyvar from her Astral home that afternoon and let her go to run a perimeter around them. He hadn't brought the panther forth much of late, not needing her in the halls of King Bruenor and not wanting to spark some tragic incident with any of the orcs in Obould's kingdom, who might react to such a sight as Guenhwyvar with a volley of spears and arrows.
"It's good to be on the road again," Regis declared as Guenhwyvar loped up beside him, opposite Drizzt. He ruffled the fur on the back of the great cat's neck and Guenhwyvar tilted her head and her eyes narrowed to contented slits of approval.
"And you are complicated, as I said," Drizzt remarked, viewing this rarely seen side of his comfort-loving friend.
"I believe I was the one to say that," Regis corrected. "You just applied it to me. And it's not that I'm a complicated sort. It's just that I ever keep my enemies confused."
"And your friends."
"I use you for practice," said the halfling, and as he gave a rather vigorous rub of Guenhwyvar's neck, the panther let out a low growl of approval that resonated across the dales and widened the eyes of every deer within range.
The fields of tall grass and wild flowers gave way to cultivated land as the sun neared the horizon before them. In the waning twilight, with farmhouses and barns dotting both sides, the path had become a road. The companions spotted a familiar hill in the distance, one sporting the zigzagging silhouette of a house magnificent and curious, with many towers tall and thin, and many more short and squat. Lights burned in every window.
"Ah, but what mysteries might the Harpells have in store for us this visit?" Drizzt asked.
"Mysteries for themselves as well, no doubt," said Regis. "If they haven't all killed each other by accident by now."
As lighthearted as the quip was meant to be, it held an undeniable ring of truth for them both. They'd known the eccentric family of wizards for many years, and never had visited, or been visited by, any of the clan, particularly one Harkle Harpell, without witnessing some strange occurrence. But the Harpells were good friends of Mithral Hall. They had come to the call of Bruenor when the drow of Menzoberranzan assaulted his kingdom, and had fought valiantly among the dwarven ranks. Their magic lacked predictability, to be sure, but there was no shortage of power behind it.
"We should go straight to the Ivy Mansion," Drizzt said as darkness closed in on the small town of Longsaddle. Even as he finished speaking, almost in response, it seemed, a shout of anger erupted in the stillness, followed by an answering bellow and a cry of pain. Without hesitation, the drow and halfling turned and headed that way, Guenhwyvar trotting beside them. Drizzt's hands stayed near his sheathed scimitars, but he didn't draw them.
Another shout, words too distant to be decipherable, followed by a cheer, followed by a cacophony of shouted protests...
Drizzt sprinted out ahead of Regis. He scrambled down a long embankment, picking a careful route over fallen branches and between the tightly-packed trees. He broke out of the copse and skidded to a stop, surprised.
"What is it?" Regis asked, stumbling down past him, and the halfling would have gone headlong into a small pond had Drizzt not caught him by the shoulder and held him back.
"I don't remember this pond," Drizzt said, and glanced back in the general direction of the Ivy Mansion to try to get his bearings. "I don't believe it was here the last time I came through, though it was only a couple of years back."
"A couple of years is an eternity where the Harpells are concerned," Regis reminded him. "Had we come here and found a deep hole where the town had once stood, would you have been surprised? Truly?"
Drizzt was only half listening. He moved to a clear, flat space and noted the dark outline of a forested island and the light of a larger fire showing through breaks in the thick foliage.
Another ruckus of arguing sounded from the island.
Cheers came from the right bank, the protests from the left, both groups hidden from Drizzt's view by thick foliage, with only a few campfire lights twinkling through the leaves.
"What?" the perplexed Regis asked, a simple question that accurately reflected Drizzt's confusion as well. The halfling poked Drizzt's arm and pointed back to the left, to the outline of a boat dock with several craft bobbing nearby.
"Be gone, Guenhwyvar," Drizzt commanded his panther companion. "But be ready to return to me."
The cat began to pace in a tight circle, moving faster and faster, and dissipating into a thick gray smoke as she returned to her extraplanar home. Drizzt replaced her small onyx likeness in his belt pouch and rushed to join Regis at the dock. The halfling already had a small rowboat unmoored and was readying the oars.
"A spell gone awry?" Regis asked as yet another yell of pain sounded from the island.
Drizzt didn't answer, but for some reason, didn't think that to be the case. He motioned Regis aside and took up the oars himself, pulling strongly.
Then they heard more than bickering and screams. Whimpers filled in the gaps between the arguing, along with feral snarls that prompted Regis to ask, "Wolves?"
It was not a large lake and Regis soon spotted a dock at the island. Drizzt worked to keep the boat in line with it. They glided in unnoticed and scrambled onto the wharf. A path wound up from it between trees, rocks, and thick brush, which rustled almost constantly from some small animals rushing to and fro. Drizzt caught sight of a fluffy white rabbit hopping away.
He dismissed the animal with a shake of his head and pressed onward, and once over a short rise, he and Regis finally saw the source of the commotion.
And neither understood a bit of it.
A man, stripped to the waist, stood in a cage constructed of vertical posts wrapped with horizontal ropes. Three men dressed in blue robes sat behind him and to the left, with three in red robes similarly seated, only behind and to the right. Directly before the caged man stood a beast, half man and half wolf, he seemed, with a canine snout but eyes distinctly human. He jumped about, appearing on the very edge of control, snarling, growling, and chomping his fangs right in front of the wide eyes of the terrified prisoner.
"Bidderdoo?" Drizzt asked.
"Has to be," said Regis, and he stepped forward - or tried to, for Drizzt held him back.
"No guards," the drow warned. "The area is likely magically warded."
The werewolf roared in the poor prisoner's face, and the man recoiled and pleaded pathetically.
"You did!" the werewolf growled.
"He had to!" shouted one of the blue-robed men.
"Murderer!" argued one wearing red robes.
Bidderdoo whirled and howled, ending the conversation abruptly. The Harpell werewolf spun back to the prisoner and began chanting and waving his arms.
The man cried out in alarm and protest.
"What...?" Regis asked, but Drizzt had no answer.
The prisoner's babbling began to twist into indecipherable grunts and groans, pain interspersed with protest. His body began to shake and quiver, his bones crackling.
"Bidderdoo!" Drizzt yelled, and all eyes save those of the squirming, tortured man and the concentrating Harpell wizard, snapped the drow's way.
"Dark elf!" yelled one of the blue-robed onlookers, and all of them fell back, one right off his seat to land unceremoniously on the ground.
"Drow! Drow!" they yelled.
Drizzt hardly heard them, his lavender eyes popping open wide as he watched the prisoner crumble before him, limbs transforming, fur sprouting.
"No stew will ever be the same," Regis muttered helplessly, for no man remained in the wood and rope prison.
The rabbit, white and fluffy, yipped and yammered, as if trying to form words that would not come. Then it leaped away, easily passing through the wide ropes as it scurried for the safety of the underbrush.
Spell completed, the werewolf snarled and howled as it spun on the intruders. But the creature quickly calmed, and in a voice too cultured for such a hairy and wild mein said, "Drizzt Do'Urden! Well met!"
"I want to go home," Regis mumbled at Drizzt's side.
A warm fire burned in the hearth, and there was no denying the comfort of the overstuffed chair and divan set before it, but Drizzt didn't recline or even sit, and felt little of the room's warmth.
They had been ushered into the Ivy Mansion, accompanied by the almost continual flash of lightning bolts, searing the darkness with hot white light on either side of the pond below. Shouts of protest dissipated under the magical explosions, and the howl of a lone wolf - a lonewerewolf - silenced them even more completely.
The people of Longsaddle had come to understand the dire implications of that howl, apparently.
For some time, Drizzt and Regis paced or sat in the room, with only an occasional visit by a maid asking if they wanted more to eat or drink, to which Regis always eagerly nodded.
"That seemed very un-Harpell-like," he mentioned to Drizzt between bites. "I knew Bidderdoo was a fierce one - he killed Uthegental of House Barrison Del'Armgo, after all - but that was simply tor - "
"Justice," interrupted a voice from the door, and the pair turned to see Bidderdoo Harpell enter from the hallway. He no longer looked the werewolf, but rather like a man who had seen much of life - too much, perhaps. He stood in a lanky pose that made him look taller than his six-foot frame, and his hair, all gray, stood out wildly in every conceivable direction, giving the impression that it had not been combed or even finger-brushed in a long, long time. Strangely, though, he was meticulously clean-shaven.
Regis seemed to have no answer as he looked at Drizzt.
"Harsher justice than we would expect to find at the hands of the goodly Harpells," Drizzt explained for him.
"The prisoner meant to start a war," Bidderdoo explained. "I prevented it."
Drizzt and Regis exchanged expressions full of doubt.
"Fanaticism requires extreme measures," the Harpell werewolf - a curse of his own doing due to a badly botched polymorph experiment - explained.
"This is not the Longsaddle I have known," said Drizzt.
"It changed quickly," Bidderdoo was fast to agree.
"Longsaddle, or the Harpells?" Regis asked, crossing his arms over his chest and tapping his foot impatiently.
The answer, "Both," came from the hallway, and even the outraged halfling couldn't hold his dour posture and expression at the sound of the familiar voice. "One after the other, of course," Harkle Harpell explained, bounding in through the door.
The lanky wizard was dressed all in robes, three shades of blue, ruffled and wrinkled, with sleeves so long they covered his hands. He wore a white beret topped by a blue button that matched the darkest hue of his robes, as did his dyed beard, which had grown - with magical assistance, no doubt - to outrageous proportions. One long braid ran down from Harkle's chin to his belt, flanked by two short, thick scruffs of wiry hair hanging below each jowl. The hair on his head had gone gray, but his eyes held the same luster and eagerness the friends had seen flash so many times in years gone by - usually right before some Harkle-precipitated disaster had befallen them all.
"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."
"True, I suppose," Harkle muttered, seeming disappointed for just a moment before again brightening. "But then, we could not have draggedSea Sprite across the miles to Carradoon, could we?"
"Fog of fate?" Regis asked Drizzt, recalling the tale of how Drizzt and Catti-brie wound up in a landlocked lake with Captain Deudermont and his oceangoing pirate hunter. Harkle Harpell had created a new enchantment, which, as expected, had gone terribly awry, transporting the ship and all aboard her to a landlocked lake in the Snowflake Mountains.
"I have a new one!" Harkle squealed. Regis blanched and fell back, and Drizzt waved his hands to shut down the wizard before he could fully launch into spellcasting.
"We will walk," the drow said again. He looked down at Regis and added, "At once," which brought a curious expression from the halfling.
They were out of Longsaddle soon after, hustling down the road to the west, and despite Drizzt's determined stride, Regis kept pausing and glancing left and right, as if expecting the drow to turn.
"What is it?" Drizzt finally asked him.
"Are we really leaving?"
"That was our plan."
"I thought you meant to come out of town then circle back in to better view the situation."
Drizzt gave a helpless little chuckle. "To what end?"
"We could go to the island."
"And rescue rabbits?" came the drow's sarcastic reply. "Do not underestimate Harpell magic - their silliness belies the strength of their enchantments. For all the folly of Fog of Fate, not many wizards in the world could have so warped Mystra's Weave to teleport an entire ship and crew. We go and collect the rabbits, but then what? Seek audience of Elminster, who perhaps alone might undue the dweomer?"
Regis stammered, logically cornered.
"And to what end?" Drizzt asked. "Should we, new to the scene, interject ourselves in the Longsaddle's justice?" Regis started to argue, but Drizzt cut him short. "What might Bruenor do to one who burned a family inside a house?" the drow asked. "Do you think his justice would be less harsh than the polymorph? I think it might come at the end of a many-notched axe!"
"This is different," Regis said, shaking his head in obvious frustration. Clearly the sight of a man violently transformed into a rabbit had unnerved the halfling profoundly. "You cannot...that's not what the Harpells...Longsaddle shouldn't..." Regis stammered, looking for a focus for his frustration.
"It's not what I expected, and no, I'm not pleased by it."
"But you will accept it?"
"It's not my choice to make."
"The people of Longsaddle call out to you," Regis said.
The drow stopped walking and moved to a boulder resting on the side of the trail, where he sat down, gazing back the way they'd come.
"These situations are more complicated than they appear," he said. "You grew up among the pashas of Calimport, with their personal armies and thuggish ways."
"Of course, but that doesn't mean I accept the same thing from the Harpells."
Drizzt shook his head. "That's not my point. In their respective neighborhoods, how were the pashas viewed?"
"As heroes," Regis said.
"Why?"
Regis leaned back against a stone, a perplexed look on his face.
"In the lawless streets of Calimport, why were thugs like Pasha Pook seen as heroes?"
"Because without them, it would have been worse," Regis said, and caught on.
"The Harpells have no answer to the fanaticism of the battling priests, and so they respond with a heavy hand."
"You agree with that?"
"It's not my place to agree or disagree," said Drizzt. "The Harpells are the lid on a boiling cauldron. I don't know if their choice of justice is the correct one, but I suspect from what we were told that without that lid, Longsaddle would know strife beyond anything you or I can imagine. Sects of opposing gods battling for supremacy can be terrifying indeed, but when the fight is between two interpretations of the same god, the misery can reach new proportions. I saw this intimately in my youth, my friend. You cannot imagine the fury of opposing matron mothers, each convinced that she, and not her enemy, spoke the will of Lolth!
"You would have me descend upon Longsaddle and use my influence, even my blades, to somehow alter the situation. But what would that, even if I could accomplish anything, which I strongly doubt, loose upon the common folk of Longsaddle?"
"Better to let Bidderdoo continue his brutality?" Regis asked.
"Better to let the people with a stake in the outcome determine their own fate," Drizzt answered. "We've not the standing or the forces to better the situation in Longsaddle."
"We don't even know what that situation really is."
Drizzt took a deep, steadying breath, and said, "I know enough to recognize that if the problems in Longsaddle are not as profound as I - as we - fear, then the Harpells will find their way out of it. And if it is as dangerous then there's nothing we can do to help. However we intervene, one or even both sides will see us as meddling. Better that we go on our way. I think we are both unnerved by the unusual nature of the Harpells' justice, but I have to say that there is a temperate manner to it."
"Drizzt!"
"It is not a permanent punishment, for Bidderdoo can undo that which he has enacted," the drow explained. "He is neutering the warring offenders by rendering them harmless - unless, of course, he is turning the other side into carrots."
"That's not funny."
"I know," Drizzt admitted with an upraised hand and a smirk. "But who are we to intervene, and haven't the Harpells earned our trust?"
"You trust in what you saw?"
"I trust that if the situation alters and calls for a recanting of the justice delivered, the Harpells will undo the transformations and return the no-doubt shaken and hopefully repentant men to their respective places. Easier that than the dwarves of Mithral Hall sewing a head back on a criminal there."
Regis sighed and seemed to let it all go. "Can we stop back here on our return to Mithral Hall?"
"Do you want to?"
"I don't know," Regis answered honestly, and he too looked back toward the distant town, profound disappointment on his normally cheery face. "It's like Obould Many-Arrows," Regis mumbled.
Drizzt looked at him curiously.
"Everything is like Obould lately," the halfling went on. "Always the best of a bad choice."
"I will be certain to relay your feelings to Bruenor."
Regis stared blankly for just a moment then a grin widened and widened until it was followed by a belly-laugh, both heartfelt and sadly resigned.
"Come along," Drizzt bade him. "Let us go and see if we can save the rest of the world."
And so the two friends lightened their steps and headed down the western trail, oblivious to the prophecy embedded in Drizzt Do'Urden's joke.