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They camped at dawn with the southernmost lake and its surrounding towns just visible along the northern horizon. Zaknafein privately wondered why they didn’t press on, with their goal so clearly in sight.
“Things on the tundra are rarely so near as they seem,” Jarlaxle said in an off-hand tone, as if he’d read Zaknafein’s thoughts.
Zaknafein turned to regard his friend. “You’ve learned something from Kimmuriel.”
Jarlaxle, in the midst of fiddling with a round flask in his bandolier, laughed. “Hardly. I knew it from the twitch of your fingers and the furrow on your brow.”
A half-smile tugged at the corner of Zaknafein’s mouth as he turned to the lake again. They’d fallen so quickly back into their old familiarity. No matter what bizarre challenges the Surface threw at him, he felt secure in the knowledge that at his side he had the truest friend a drow could ever claim.
Behind him, he heard the now-familiar pop of Jarlaxle uncorking the flask, and the whoosh of fabric as an entire tent emerged from the bottleneck in a rush of wind and color, assembling itself by magic. The first time Zaknafein saw it, he’d been impressed. Now, after so long on the road, and with the object of their quest so near, Zaknafein had eyes only for what lay ahead.
Unfortunately what lay ahead was a blinding white shaft of light cresting over the mountains to the east. It pierced Zaknafein’s eyes as if the glint of firelight off the edge of a dagger could cut as surely as the blade itself.
Zaknafein hissed in pain and turned bodily away from the light, throwing his arms up and burying his face in his elbows to block out the agonizing rays. Twelve cycles of Narbondel—twelve days—and still he hadn’t grown accustomed to the sting of sunlight. He wondered if he ever would. He felt determined to try regardless. If Jarlaxle and his own son could manage it…
“Give it another few years,” Jarlaxle’s voice approached along with the crunch of his boots on the frozen grass. A nimble hand alighted upon Zak’s shoulder and guided him towards the shadows of the tent. “I’ll take first watch.”
Blind, Zaknafein smiled his thanks as he settled in to trance the day away. He’d be awake again before half of it had passed by, which would leave him to sit and wait for sunset, either shuffling Jarlaxle’s gambling cards or rolling knucklebone dice or juggling the sundry other trinkets Jarlaxle had collected to fill his extra-dimensional tent. He spent most days polishing and sharpening the sword and daggers Jarlaxle had given him upon his resurrection—Lolth, true to her capricious nature, had not armed Zaknafein when she released him from her Abyssal clutches to walk the living world once more. The tent, while more spacious within than it appeared from without, didn’t have enough room for Zaknafein to practice his martial art. He’d have like to spend the time in Jarlaxle’s company, but due to the magical nature of the construct, closing the flap of the tent was akin to closing a portal between dimensions. They could no more hear each other through the fabric than they could hear each other from opposing worlds. And so he waited, which wasn’t too difficult for one of his discipline.
At long last the flap of the tent opened and Jarlaxle, yawning, came in.
Zaknafein stood to meet him. “Any trouble?”
“Nothing of note,” Jarlaxle reported. “We could press on now, if you’re willing.”
Zaknafein, bursting with excitement at the prospect of seeing his son again, nevertheless cast a careful eye over the figure of his friend. could pick out the beginnings of bloodshot in his friend’s eyes. Just the slightest tell of the consequences for drow who stood out in full sunlight for twelve hours or more. Though Jarlaxle would never say as much—he could hardly afford to betray weakness, being the leader of such a ruthless band of mercenaries as Bregan D’aerthe—Zaknafein knew his friend must feel a pounding in his head and a burn in his eyes which could only be cured by the trance, a few hours spent in the dark and quiet. No matter how much he wanted to see his son, he wouldn’t force Jarlaxle to push past his limits. He shook his head.
Jarlaxle shrugged and laid himself out across a rug made from some sleek, black-furred beast, pulling his wide-brimmed hat over his face. In the space of a wink, he was out.
Satisfied his friend would find his much-deserved rest in peace, Zaknafein braced himself and stepped outside.
The wide expanse of the tundra accentuated the infinite expanse of sky in place of a stone ceiling. Zaknafein had grown to appreciate the presence of clouds where stalactites ought to be—they blocked the feverish rays of the sun, and on days when they filled the sky Zaknafein could almost bear to look around and appreciate the scenery Jarlaxle pointed out for his benefit. While his fondness for clouds grew from practicality, his awe of the sparkling stars had no such explanation. It left him breathless the first moment he witnessed it. His reaction drew a laugh from Jarlaxle. Not borne of malice, but of sympathetic delight.
“Your son feels much the same,” Jarlaxle had said, giving Zaknafein’s shoulder a firm clasp.
The knowledge brought a rush of warmth to Zaknafein’s heart.
This hereditary trait was doubtless why Jarlaxle had offered Zaknafein the second watch. It would allow Zaknafein to witness the sunset, the moonrise, and the very first stars appearing as the sun finally sank below the western horizon. His eyes could almost bear to see sunsets, if he kept his eyelids narrowed and used his peripheral vision.
Tonight’s sunset held the same brilliant changing hues, from blue to yellow to maroon to purple and finally, again, to the deep blue-black of twilight, at which point Zaknafein could finally open his eyes and fully take in his surroundings. The stars hid behind a blanket of clouds. But the moon—nearly full, or “waxing” as Jarlaxle had called it—shone down its soft light, far more forgiving than the searing, dizzying glare of the sun. Under the moon’s reign, the rolling expanse of the tundra glowed a faint bluish-white.
Which made the presence of two dancing shadows upon it all the more apparent.
Zaknafein at first assumed the dancing shadows—mere spots, really—were the result of damage the sunset had wreaked upon his eyes. But as he furiously blinked to clear them, he realized the fault was not in his vision, but upon the plain.
They had come from the southernmost town on the lake, Zaknafein thought, and by now had more than halved the distance between the town and Jarlaxle’s campsite. One upright on two legs, the other loping along on four. More than that, he could not yet discern.
A glance towards the tent told him Jarlaxle had not yet risen. The tent itself remained hidden; partly due to the weave of its spider-silk fabric sharing the same light-dispersing properties of a piwafwi, and partly because of the shimmering powder Jarlaxle sprinkled over it every morning. Zaknafein could only glimpse its outline due to his fore-knowledge of its existence. Whatever these two shadows were, he doubted they would prove more perceptive.
He did spare a thought towards waking his companion; nothing stirred the blood quite like the prospect of the deadly dance they might weave together against these two unknown foes. But Jarlaxle needed his rest. And Zaknafein felt confident he could at the very least safely scout the potential threat alone.
Besides, he’d not had a chance to properly test his new blades, and had a great curiosity as to how they might fare in battle.
With the point of his sword’s scabbard, he scratched a symbol into the frozen earth by the entrance to the tent. To the eyes of any Surface dweller not versed in the a corrupted elvish runes that composed the drow’s written language, it would be a meaningless scribble. To Jarlaxle’s eyes, it would read: Two figures. Scouting ahead.
Satisfied, he turned and crept low across the windy plain towards the approaching pair. His own piwafwi, with its hood pulled down low over his face, combined with his natural stealth honed by centuries in the shadows of Menzoberranzan, would hide him from the sight of his prey.
The prey in question appeared, to his eyes, to be meandering across the tundra. Closer now, he could see that one shadow appeared to move on two legs, like himself. The other slunk along on four, its long tail whipping back-and-forth behind. While he had first assumed that the shadows were traveling together, due to their proximity, the second glance made him feel less certain. The two-legged figure danced ahead, whilst the four-legged creature crept after it, as if it were stalking prey.
Not unlike Zaknafein himself.
The wind howled around them all in the bowl of the tundra between the eastern mountains and the western sea. The tip of Zaknafein’s nose stung, and even the hood of his piwafwi couldn’t shield his pointed ears from the cold. The Underdark had no sky, no great expanse, and thus, no wind. He’d first felt it on the docks of Luskan as Jarlaxle showed him the magnificent spread of the ocean—another Surface feature utterly foreign to Zaknafein’s eyes, a body of water without a visible opposing shore. The breeze off the Luskan docks was nothing compared to the force and the fury that gave Icewind Dale its name.
Zaknafein strained his ears for any hint of sound from the twin shadows. He heard nothing save the moaning of the wind.
His eyes, meanwhile, perceived more and more as twilight darkened into night and he moved closer to the shadows, even as they danced and stalked closer to him. The dancing figure wore a cloak of dark hide with a fur-lined hood, and enormous furred boots like the local barbarian tribes Zaknafein and Jarlaxle had slipped past on their journey north. But the figure itself hadn’t the height or the girth of one of the tall, broad humans who made this icy waste their home. The dancing figure’s short stature bore greater resemblance to a dwarf or even a halfling. Yet their limbs looked to be of a far slighter build than either of those short races. More like a human child or youth, though the grace of their movements despite their heavy garb led Zaknafein to believe they might be an elf.
The crouching animal continued to creep across the tundra behind the dancing figure. It resembled no creature Zaknafein had known in the Underdark—except perhaps what the wizards called a displacer beast. He’d only fought one, but it had been a memorable battle. However, while the creature creeping across the tundra before him shared the same black fur, snarling face, ferocious claws, and thrashing tail, it lacked the twin spiny tentacles rising up from between its shoulder blades. Furthermore, he could see it. Clearly. Just one. Which meant if it were a displacer beast, something had interrupted its ability to “displace” itself. Perhaps its tentacles had been torn from its shoulders, and their loss inhibited its innate powers.
The dancing figure leapt, drawing Zaknafein’s attention again. The furred hood flew back from the figure’s face. What it revealed struck true fear into Zaknafein’s heart.
A drow female.
Centuries of torment flashed through Zaknafein’s mind, the memories of a lifetime of oppression, followed by an afterlife in the clutches of the Spider Queen herself. He knew well the gleam of vicious glee in a high priestess’s eye.
Yet something about the smile gracing the lips of the female before him gave him pause. It lacked the sadistic curl he’d come to expect along with the lash of snake-headed whips. The drow turned her face up to the moon with an expression of open joy. Not a hint of malice marred her features.
Zaknafein had heard rumors in the bowels of Menzoberranzan, rumors of drow who escaped the Underdark and danced in the moonlight like their Surface cousins. Some daring souls had gone so far as to whisper the name Eilistraee. Perhaps this drow who skipped across the tundra counted herself amongst their number.
As Zaknafein watched and wondered, he noticed more curious idiosyncrasies. The strange female’s face had a youthful cast to it, edging closer to adolescence than maturity. Even in the relative darkness of the night—bright by Underdark standards—her skin appeared dusky gray as opposed to the blue-black of Zaknafein’s own flesh. Her white hair didn’t fall straight, but with a bouncing curl to it. And her eyes…
A flash of movement came from her left. She skipped on, oblivious. But Zaknafein’s gaze flicked towards it in time to witness the crouching monster, now within reach of its prey.
Just as it pounced.
Powerful hind legs launched it into the air in total silence. Its claws, unsheathed, glittered in the moonlight. Its snarling maw opened to reveal gleaming white fangs ready to sink into the girl’s throat.
All this occurred too swiftly for Zaknafein to shout a warning. Not that he’d ever raised a hand to save a drow child before.
The beast fell on the girl like a living shadow. She crumpled to the ground under six hundred pounds of fur, fangs, and muscle. The howling wind carried her screams to Zaknafein’s ears, her shrill shrieks…
…of laughter?
Zaknafein, whose hands had reflexively flown to the hilts of his weapons as he darted towards the impending tragedy, paused mid-step.
For the panther had not locked its mighty jaws around the girl’s throat, nor had it disemboweled her with the ferocious kicking of its hind claws.
Indeed, the beast seemed to be playfully head-butting her, and curling around her protectively, and batting her limbs gently with its paws as its rough tongue licked her laughing cheeks.
Zaknafein stared in confusion.
Then the wind shifted. The sound of the girl’s laughter vanished as the wind no longer blew from her to Zaknafein, but from Zaknafein towards her.
And carried his scent with it.
All at once, the beast’s aspect changed. Its ears flattened against its skull as it whipped its head around to stare precisely where Zaknafein stood. Enchanted cloak or no, he could not hide from the green flash of its narrowed eyes.
The girl, who had thrown her arms around the beast’s neck and furrowed her brow in confusion at its sudden behavioral shift, turned to follow its gaze.
A wise scout would dart into the shadows and flee back to camp for reinforcements. Zaknafein stood up to his full height and threw back the hood of his piwafwi.
The girl’s eyes locked onto his. Few would consider Zaknafein an easily-cowed individual. Yet he found himself struck dumb and frozen in place by her eyes.
Her violet eyes.
The snarling of the beast interrupted Zaknafein’s introspection. The beast itself had put the bulk of its lithe yet muscular body between him and the girl, and began nudging the girl with its powerful shoulders as if it were herding her away from him. But the girl nimbly darted around her protector to stride boldly towards where Zaknafein stood dumbfounded. She lifted her chin, threw back her shoulders, and opened her mouth.
“What’re ye fer?”
If her eyes hadn’t stunned him, her voice would’ve finished the job. The naturally mellifluous voice of any elf, which would’ve leant a musical cadence to her Common speech, belted out her words with an unmistakeably dwarvish brogue. The contrast between her slight, graceful figure and her brusque interjection baffled Zaknafein.
The girl, apparently unimpressed with his failure to answer her, narrowed her eyes. “I am Elaoin Battlehammer of Clan Battlehammer! Me mother be Catti-brie Battlehammer and me grandfather be King Bruenor Battlehammer of Mithril Hall! Now give me yer name, stranger, or ye’ll taste me blades and the blades of all me ancestors!”
As she spoke, she dropped her slender hands to the two hilts at her belt; a dagger to her left and a short, curved sword to her right. She gripped them with the sure grasp of one training underneath a master. A master who had studied under Zaknafein himself.
Zaknafein withheld the smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth. He bowed—simply, with one hand held in front and the other behind, nothing as showy as Jarlaxle’s wrist-twirling flourishes, yet more deeply than he ever had before, even to the most formidable matrons—and replied, “I am Zaknafein Do’Urden.”
He straightened and watched carefully for the girl’s reaction. Did she know her grandfather’s name? Had her father told her—or had he cast aside his subterranean heritage entirely, and considered his daughter’s bloodline to be only that of her mother and her dwarvish ancestors?
The girl jerked her pointed chin to indicate a spot over his shoulder. “And who’s yer friend?”
Zaknafein spun to discover Jarlaxle mid-step some yards behind him.
Jarlaxle’s uncovered eye glanced from left-to-right. Then his mouth split into a wide grin as he straightened from his creeping posture and bowed, sweeping his wide-brimmed hat from his bald head with customary flourish.
“Jarlaxle Baenre,” Zaknafein said before Jarlaxle could rise.
If the interruption of his theatrics annoyed Jarlaxle, he knew better than to show it. He re-donned his hat, turned his twinkling eye from Zaknafein to Elaoin, and said brightly, “We seek an audience with your father and mother, my lady. May we accompany you back to your home?”
Elaoin’s brow furrowed in confusion. She glanced to the beast as if for guidance. Its feline countenance appeared equally baffled.
“Hail and well met, Guenhwyvar,” Jarlaxle added.
The beast’s ears flicked up as it whipped its head to stare at him, as if it understood. Zaknafein cast a puzzled glance towards his friend. Jarlaxle’s benign smile told him nothing.
Then the beast—Guenhwyvar, apparently—bumped its massive head against Elaoin’s hip, nudging her back the way they’d come. Towards the lake, and the little houses upon its shore. Towards home.
Elaoin cast another suspicious glance towards Zaknafein and Jarlaxle before following Guenhwyvar’s lead, keeping the bulk of the beast between her and them.
“Smart lass,” Jarlaxle murmured as they began to follow her. “I suspect she takes after her mother.”
Zaknafein, knowing better than to fall for his friend’s misdirection, nudged Jarlaxle with his elbow and signed in the drow hand code, “How do you know the beast?”
“Panther,” Jarlaxle corrected him aloud. “You remember the wizard Masoj?”
Zaknafein switched from hand-signs to speech and admitted, “Dimly.”
Jarlaxle raised his eyebrows and smirked. “You should ask your son about it when we meet him.”
Elaoin darted a glance over her shoulder at them. Zaknafein had deliberately pitched his voice low, and Jarlaxle had matched him, but evidently their words hadn’t escaped her keen elvish ears.
~
Catti-brie waved her hand over the silver basin, dissolving the image of her daughter crossing the tundra. She’d watched her progress from the window when she’d first left the cottage, and then switched to scrying once Elaoin had traveled too far for her human eyes to perceive. These nighttime excursions didn’t worry her overmuch. Elaoin, with thirteen summers under her belt, was fiercely independent. She had her father’s talent with a blade, and her mother’s stubborn nature. Combined, few in Ten-Towns would stand in her way. And no beast of the tundra stood a chance. Particularly not with Guenhwyvar by her side.
Still, Catti-brie felt more assured when she could see her daughter’s safe passage for herself.
The arrival of the drow had sent a spike of fear into Catti-brie’s heart. She noticed him just as Guenhwyvar pointed him out and began herding Elaoin away. Catti-brie had nearly cried out, had almost grabbed her husband from where he sat transcribing his adventures and teleported them both to the lonely tundra where their daughter stood imperiled.
Then the second drow had arrived. And Catti-brie, instantly recognizing the wide-brimmed hat with its enormous feather—to say nothing of the eyepatch—relaxed.
Now, with twin visions of her daughter’s travels in both her scrying bowl and her cottage window, Catti-brie felt secure in dismissing the magical image. She went to the door to greet her guests. Her fingers alighted upon the handle at the very same instant a gentle knock resounded through the wood. Catti-brie opened the door.
There stood her daughter, one hand on the scruff of Guenhwyvar’s neck, the other on the hilt of her sword. Behind her, like twin shadows, stood Jarlaxle and the other drow.
Relief washed over Catti-brie’s heart as she pulled her daughter close and felt her safe in her arms once more.
Elaoin returned the gesture and pulled back. “We have guests, Mother.”
The mercenary swept his wide-brimmed hat from his head and bowed deeply to her with an entirely unnecessary amount of wrist-twirling flourishes. The other drow appeared bemused before following Jarlaxle’s lead to bow far more simply.
“It has been far too long, my lady,” Jarlaxle said as he straightened.
“Then let us not tarry with the door open,” Catti-brie retorted, acutely aware of the freezing wind outside, though her enchanted hearth meant her cottage never dropped below a comfortable warmth. But Jarlaxle didn’t need to know that. She couldn’t help smiling as she continued. “Come inside, the lot of ye!”
Guenhwyvar’s head bumped affectionately into her hip as the panther pushed past her and continued on through the kitchen towards the door at the back of the room leading to the little library, where Catti-brie’s magical tomes lined the shelves, and where Drizzt now sat at her desk.
Meanwhile, the door to the outside world finally shut as the unknown drow entered the cottage and closed it behind himself. Still, he remained standing beside it, with his hand yet on the handle, as if he were loathe to leave it behind. His red eyes glanced nervously over the room.
“Who’s yer friend?” Catti-brie asked Jarlaxle pointedly.
Jarlaxle opened his mouth, but Elaoin got there first.
“This is Jarlaxle Baenre,” the girl interrupted. “And his friend is—”
A crash came from the library. All heads turned towards the doorway where Drizzt now stood, his empty hands held in front of him, his journal having just fallen out of them to the floor, spine cracked and pages bent. His violet eyes opened wide and his lips parted in astonishment. Beside him sat Guenhwyvar, tail twitching, looking as smug as the cat who’d got the cream, at least to Catti-brie’s eyes.
Catti-brie followed her husband’s gaze towards not their daughter, nor their mutual friend, but towards the drow who remained a stranger to her. On his face she saw the same wide-eyed expression of shock. Almost the exact same face, with the same sharp cheekbones and pointed chin, the same aquiline nose and arched brows. The only difference was in the color of their eyes.
And then she knew, even before her daughter finished saying…
“—Zaknafein Do’Urden.” Elaoin glanced between her father and her new friend, one silver eyebrow arched in adolescent confusion.
Catti-brie grabbed her daughter’s arm and drew her out of the way as Drizzt leapt across the room—agile as ever—to meet his father, who opened his arms just in time to meet his frantic embrace.
The two drow hugged for a long moment. Catti-brie glanced away to give them some semblance of privacy, instead taking in her daughter’s bewildered look along with Jarlaxle’s smug one.
At last, father and son parted, all eyes shining with tears of joy. Drizzt turned to his wife.
“Cat,” he began, “this is…”
“I know,” she finished for him as she heard his voice catch.
He let out a breath of disbelieving laughter and turned again to his father. “How…?”
Zaknafein seemed equally choked up and couldn't answer.
Drizzt cleared his throat and reached for his family with uncharacteristic clumsiness. “This is my wife, Catti-brie—and my daughter, Elaoin—”
Catti-brie came forward along with her daughter, though she knew better than to try and hug her father-in-law now. He appeared almost frail in his overwhelmed, overjoyed state.
Behind them all, Jarlaxle cleared his throat. “I told you you’d be proud.”