The Companions

CHAPTER 20

The Year of the Grinning Halfling (1481 DR) Delthuntle

His headband had been enchanted with a continual light spell, illuminating the water all around him. While that light enabled Regis to see where he was swimming at this substantial depth and in murky waters, he was also keenly aware of the fact that it made of him quite the target.

Did sharks lurk in this area, miles from the Aglarond coast? Or minions of Umberlee, perhaps, like the vicious sahuagin or dangerous mermen?

He carried some formidable weapons with him, and he knew how to fight, even underwater, but this dive did not carry with it the usual feeling of freedom. He was much farther out, in much darker water, and diving deeper than ever before.

He stayed with the anchor line as he made his way carefully and slowly down. He could still make out the outline of the sizable boat above, where Wigglefingers, Donnola, Pericolo, and a few other crewmen waited. He came to another band that had been strapped around the anchor line, this one telling him that he had fifty more feet to go to the bottom. He paused there and stared downward into the darkness, the ocean floor still well beyond the lighted area.

Down he went, slowly, hesitantly.

Too long, he realized, and he shook his head and started back up, again slowly to allow his body to more easily adapt to the changing pressure. He surfaced right beside the boat, gasping for air.

“ a long while to realizem his head sight her fatherWell, did you see it?” Pericolo demanded immediately, coming to the rail and leaning over eagerly.

“Wasn’t deep enough.”

“Then why have you returned?” the Grandfather snapped. Donnola put a hand on Pericolo’s shoulder to calm him.

“I was gauging the depths and the distance,” Regis explained, spitting water with every word, for the sea had grown somewhat rougher now.

“You will run out of daylight,” Wigglefingers warned.

“There is none down there in any case,” Regis was quick to reply. “I will get to the bottom on this dive, but whether the shipwreck we seek is there, I cannot say.”

Pericolo sighed loudly.

“It will take many dives, likely, and many days of searching,” Wigglefingers reminded the old halfling.

“More if Spider doesn’t even get to the bottom with each!” Pericolo said.

“It is a long way,” Regis said, but he did so resignedly, for he knew that these halflings could not understand the trials of the depths, however he might try to explain them. He was going half-again deeper than he had ever done before, and in water far more dangerous, with stronger currents and limited visibility.

He swam over to the anchor line and checked the loop on the second line tied to it, and also fastened to the harness he wore. A hundred feet of elven cord, light and strong, would secure him to the lifeline. Once he got to the bottom, he could search in a radius of that length and no more, unless he dared to free himself from the tether in these dangerous waters.

Pericolo started to protest again, but Regis didn’t stick around to hear it. He inhaled deeply and disappeared under the dark water, moving more swiftly this time so that he was very soon at the marking on the line, fifty feet from the seabed and anchor, and thrice that distance and more from the surface.

Down the halfling went, hand over hand. He felt the pressure in his ears, but felt, too, his body quickly adapting. This was the gift of the genasi bloodline, the gift of long breath and of a body more malleable to the pressures of the depths.

He spotted the anchor set against a rocky ridge. He was surprised at how much colder it was down here, suddenly, and knew that he wouldn’t be able to stay for long. He tested the safety line on the main anchor line again, then set off, swimming to the end of its length, then circling around.

This was the spot, Pericolo had assured him, but he saw no signs of a wreck. He came to a smooth and sandy bed among the rocks and glided across it. Feeling quite vulnerable, he shifted his gaze this way and that as if he expected a giant shark to sweep in from the darkness and gobble him up in a single bite.

The surprise came from below instead, as the ground suddenly erupted, sand flying up all around him. He thrashed and gurgled with surprise, and nearly swallowed the seawater.

His eyes went wider still as a gigantic flat fish flapped its mighty wings and rushed away, its powerful wake spinning him around. Regis had never seen such a beast, with massive mandibles and a stringy tail running out behind it.

The sand settled and so did he as the ray moved out of sight.

On he went, more cautiously now, watching the ground and rocks, particularly the small caves in those rocks, more carefully than looking ahead, more concernAlpirs and UntarisIment of oned with keeping himself alive than with any shipwreck.

The big winged fish returned, and it was not alone.

Regis held himself very still as the gigantic rays glided all around him. He could sense their curiosity, and knew at once that it was his illuminated headband attracting them. They glided in from the darkness, appearing all of a sudden, their white underbellies bright in his eyes. One after another, they floated past, and despite the fact that every one of them-and there had to be a dozen or more-was much larger than he was and could likely buffet him to death with ease, the halfling found himself giggling at the surreal scene. He felt as if he wasn’t in the water then, but rather, floating up in the night sky, with magical celestial behemoths flying around him.

After a long while, he reminded himself of his mission, and of the tremendous amount of water between him and the surface. On he went, the giant winged fish hovering around like a protective escort-and indeed, the halfling came to think of them in that manner, for he came to understand that they meant him no harm, that curiosity, not aggression or hunger, kept them near to him.

He had almost completed his wide circuit of the anchor line, coming over one dark ridge, when he found the seabed falling away from him, farther into darkness. Worse, the current in this ravine proved quite strong, and Regis held onto the rocks of the ridge and thought to backtrack instead of continuing along.

He was just about to do exactly that when he noted a crossbeam against the stones just below and before him. It hardly registered to him initially, and he started back, and indeed had gone some distance before he even realized what he had seen.

A mast.

Regis rushed back to the ridge and moved lower, toward the beam. Yes, it was a mast, lying against the stone. Using its reclined angle as a pointer, the halfling crept farther, to the very end of his tether. He couldn’t quite make out the markings, but it seemed to him that there was something there, a hull, lying on its side against the rocks before and below him. He reached back and pulled the elven cord, but it had no more length to give to him.

He looked up, at the long and dark ascent, at the rays gliding all around.

It would take a long time to get back up there, hoist the anchor, and reposition the boat, and the thought of coming back down here after the sun had set was not a comforting one.

Regis fiddled with his harness, producing one of Wigglefingers’s potions. How many times had the wizard told him not to use these unless absolutely necessary? They were expensive and took a long time to brew, after all. But Regis wasn’t about to return to the surface and come back down this day. He put the vial in his mouth and bit off the cork, the cool liquid affording him the ability to breathe underwater. Even with that, it took all of his courage to continue. He untied his tether line and started down, holding the rocks as securely as if he was scaling down the side of a mountain. The current tugged at him, and if it caught him, he feared he would be washed far, far away, and probably held under long enough that he would drown.

But now he saw the hull, battered and broken, cracked amidships.

He couldn’t be sure that this was the boat he had been seeking, of course, for the Sea of Fallen Stars was littered with shipwrecks.

And yet, he was sure.

And it called to him like a siren’s song, but caught in the entrancement of the magical melody, Regis merely thought it his own a long while to realizeju{margin-top: 1em;text-align: centerim curiosity pushing him along.

He crept closer, but had no direct path to the broken hull. He planted himself against the ridge and pushed off, swimming furiously.

The current grabbed him and rushed him along to the shipwreck, then right past it! At the last instant, the halfling lunged out with his hand and caught the taffrail and held on for all his life.

Finally he pulled himself aboard and spider-walked along the side of the hull to the wide crack.

He peered in, his light shining on a scene that had known only darkness for many decades.

Fish scampered all around, and past their flickering scales, Regis noted crates lying around the hold, many broken, but some intact, and one in particular catching his eye, for it gleamed of silver in his headband’s light.

He pulled himself into the hull and, relieved of the current’s pull, rummaged around. He opened a bag Pericolo had given him, a magical bag of holding, and eased into it a pair of small boxes and a coffer, all the while making his way to the large silver crate.

No, not a crate, he realized as he arrived just above it.

A coffin.

A coffin made of silver, and with chunks of broken mirrored glass atop it and beside it. Regis caught his own reflection in one large shard, but looked away immediately, remembering the story of bloody rats Donnola had told him.

Too late.

A halfling, a copy of Regis himself, slid out from the mirror, drawing a rapier identical to the one on Regis’s belt.

Regis cried out, bubbles escaping, and fell back, crashing against crates and boxes, thinking only of escape. But he couldn’t get away; the magical image was too close, and too intent on destroying him.

He saw the tip of the rapier, darting for his face.

“He’s been gone too long.” Donnola crouched down at the rail, peering intently into the dark water.

“At ease, lass,” Wigglefingers interjected. “Yer little friend’s got potions if he needs them. He’s been down longer than this just catching shellfish.”

Donnola didn’t respond, other than to shake her head. She knew that Wigglefingers was stretching the truth, for Spider had never been down this long, she was sure.

“Can you enlighten us with a magic vision, perhaps?” Pericolo asked his wizard, clearly as nervous as his granddaughter.

Wigglefingers nodded and fumbled around his cloak, producing one scroll tube after another until he settled on the appropriate one. He pulled the parchments forth, cleared his throat, and began his incantation. A few moments later, an eye, huge and bulbous, its pupil alone as large as the halfling’s head, appeared in the air beside him, floating as if in water.

Wigglefingers cast an enchantment upon the eye, giving it light, then sent it forth into the sea, and willed it down along the anchor line. Soon after, it neared the bottom.

“I see his tether,” the wizard announced, for only he could view the scene through his wizard’s eye. “Spider is on the bottom, out that way.” He pointed to the northeast, back toward the coast, though the hills of Aglarond were long out of sight. At the same time, the wizard eye rushed along the tether. asked, and Catti-brie nodded.we, particularlyim

The wizard could see that the rope was slack, but he kept that information quiet for the moment.

“He is off the tether,” Wigglefingers finally announced, and Donnola and Pericolo both gasped, and a couple of the others nearby began whispering in ominous tones. “A ledge … the water goes deeper.”

“Follow along the directional line of the tether, then!” Pericolo demanded, but indeed, Wigglefingers was already doing exactly that.

“Thepurl’s Diamond!” the wizard gasped. “And Spider’s light within!”

Regis fell back in a swirl of bubbles and thrashing arms, trying desperately to keep the rapier away. He felt its bite and started to yelp reflexively, throwing himself backward with abandon. He crashed into a pile of crates, old wood breaking apart at the impact, and tumbled backward into a narrow cubby.

He could barely move and had nowhere farther to retreat, and no way to dart out to the side.

And the doppelganger Regis came on methodically, unemotionally, rapier leading and thrusting.

Fear reached up around Regis like dark black wings, enveloping him, paralyzing him. He wouldn’t get to Icewind Dale! All of the training and preparation he had done would be for naught.

He would never see Donnola again.

Half-standing, half-sitting, he managed to draw out his rapier and awkwardly lift it in defense. But his opponent, a mirror image of himself, was equally skilled and had the upper hand. As soon as Regis’s blade came up, the doppelganger’s rapier matched its angle, rolled around it in a watery swirl, and stabbed Regis hard in the hand. A subtle turn and flick took the rapier away.

Regis tried to back-paddle, churning splintered wood and the contents of the broken crates-and he hardly even noticed those treasures! Gems and jewels rolled aside on piles of coins. Silver plates and golden goblets danced and bounced away.

Regis reached back, trying to feel his way along, but he was out of room. His fingers closed on the ridged top of a crate and as the rapier darted forward, he yelped again and instinctively brought his arm defensively around, the broken crate cover in hand.

The makeshift shield blocked the doppelganger’s thrust, the rapier tip prodding through and stabbing Regis hard in the finger. He let go of the wooden plank, but it stayed up before him, stuck fast to his enemy’s blade.

An image of Donnola flashed through his mind-if he ever wanted to see her again, he had to move now!

He brought his right hand down atop the debris and half-turned, thinking to bull his way forward out of the tight cubby. He felt a cylindrical grip under that hand, a hilt, and instinctively closed his fingers and brought the item around.

It was a dagger, a three-bladed parrying dagger, with a long, silvery, double-edged main blade flanked by a pair of exquisitely designed side blades that seemed as if they were made of jade or some other deep green crystal. Carved as serpents, they rolled out from the pommel to form a crosspiece, then curled back around, one going before, one behind, the main blade. Out to the side they went a second time, then curled forward so that the open maws of the carved snakes reached fully a third of the way up the length of the main blade, which was as long as a halfling’s forearm.

Regis didn’t have time to admire the craftsmanship, of course. Desperate and running out of time, he leaned against the stuck plank of wood and bulled forward, stabbing out wildly with powerful overhead chops.

The doppelganger retreated, but the water quickly darkened with blood between the combatants.

Regis pushed forward, coming into the clearer liquid, but realizing that his opponent had moved cleverly to the side. He turned, waving his arms to control his floating movements, and pressed forward, then tried to stop as the doppelganger freed its blade, the wooden plank fluttering aside.

In came the rapier, the doppelganger going right back on the offensive.

Regis stabbed across with his newfound dagger to parry, and caught the rapier between the main blade and one of the snakes. He started to twist, hoping to lock the blade, and his eyes went wide indeed as the snakes on his dagger came alive, or animated somehow at least, and tightened the catch on the rapier.

Regis turned his wrist hard, and the dagger twisted to help him, and the rapier blade snapped in half.

He retracted and charged in at the doppelganger. Now, as if sensing that he was going for the kill, the snakes of his dagger rolled back over his hand, forming a defensive basket.

Regis felt a dull thud against his belly, but didn’t slow. Again and again he pumped his arm, his long dagger striking home and gliding easily though flesh and bone.

The water darkened once more, but Regis didn’t relent, stabbing furiously. Over and over again, driven by terror, afraid to stop, Regis plunged home the blade.

And then like an illusion, the doppleganger was gone, folding in on itself until it was nothingness, even taking the blood from the water with it. Gone, all of it, all trace of it, even the broken rapier tip, as if it had never been, except for Regis’s own blood, trailing up from his hand.

Regis looked at the wound, but instead found himself staring at the dagger, at the altered dagger. He pictured its previous, three-bladed form, and as if to his call, the snakes unwound from his hand and curled across and forward once more into their original form.

And there they hardened, inanimate side-blades once more. Intrigued, the halfling continued his focus on the weapon and changed the image in his mind, thinking then that he preferred the stronger and reinforced grip. The serpentine side-blades of the dagger complied, coming to life and curling tightly but comfortably around his right hand. He had found quite a prize, he knew, but he knew, too, that he had no time to consider that now. He had to get out of there!

He turned for his rapier, but it was back in the cubby area, which was all a mess of broken woods and tumbled crates. He glanced to the side, to his dropped bag lying near the silver coffin. He picked up the plank of wood instead and made his way carefully back to the coffin, placing the plank down atop the enchanted glass.

He had to get out of there, he knew as he retrieved the bag of holding and slung it over his shoulder. He had to …

He had to open the coffin.

The thought seemed ridiculous to him, of course, but he found that he couldn’t easily dismiss it.

It was not a fleeting thought, he learned, as he tried unsuccessfully to turn away.

He stared at the coffin. Was this the resting place of the great lich Ebonsoul?

He had to open the coffin. He in the general direction, and paarC3to had to know.

He treaded water just above the tomb. Only then did he realize how long he had tarried, and he reached for the second potion on his belt, understanding then that the first was nearing its end.

But even as he brought the vial up before him, he noted that the silver coffin cover seemed to thin out below him, growing less and less opaque. To his shock, he made out a form within the casket.

The cover became translucent.

He looked upon the corpse, the leering, rotted, bloated, horrific form.

It smiled at him, dead eyes opening.

It reached for him, a skeletal arm, flaps of flesh waving in the watery currents, coming forward for him, coming out of the tomb, as if the cover of the coffin was no more!

Regis dropped the vial and scrambled wildly for the break in the hull, his breath bursting forth in a rush of confusing bubbles. He thrashed and he swam, and had the snakes of the dagger not been curled around him, he surely would have dropped the blade!

Out in the open water, caught in the current, he paddled upward with all his strength. He rose too quickly, but didn’t care. He knew better than to come up fast from such a depth, but at that moment, he knew nothing except that he had to get away!

“There! There! Oh, dear child!” Wigglefingers yelled, jumping up and down and pointing to the northeast. He was still looking through his wizard eye, and had seen Spider come forth from the hull, trailing blood and eyes wide with terror, and lungs near to bursting, if his expression was to be believed.

“Up anchor!” Pericolo yelled and the other halflings grabbed the line and began hoisting.

The wizard eye dweomer expired.

“Faster!” Wigglefingers implored the crew, slapping his forehead and silently cursing his spell’s ill-timing. “Oh, Spider!”

He and Pericolo leaned over the rail, staring off into the distance. The water roiled as Spider broke through, gasping and splashing, and sinking right back under.

“Faster!” Pericolo demanded. “Hold on, boy!” he cried. He and Wigglefingers turned, hearing a thump behind them, and they had barely registered it as Donnola’s boots falling to the deck as the young woman rushed between them and dived overboard.

“Donnola!” Pericolo cried. He turned to the crew and yelled at them to go faster, then jumped down beside them and began pulchor line.

“Do something, mage!” he yelled at Wigglefingers.

“I have nothing to offer, Grandfather!”

“A servant! A rope trick! Speed for Donnola! Something!”

But the mage could only shrug helplessly. “Nothing,” he said in a defeated tone, but he perked up immediately and cried, “She has him!” jumping up and down on the deck with glee.

Pericolo scrambled back to the rail and got there just as he heard the anchor come up over the side.

It didn’t matter, though, for Donnola was now approaching, one arm locked tightly around Spider’s chest.

“Is he dead? Oh, child!” Pericolo wailed, for the younger halfling showed no signs of life.

“Help me, asked, and Catti-brie nodded.we, particularlyim” Donnola begged, spitting water and clearly exhausted. She shoved Spider forward, where Pericolo and Wigglefingers grabbed him by the tunic and roughly pulled him aboard.

Despite the immediate concerns, neither failed to gasp at the sight of the fabulous dagger affixed to Spider’s hand. They laid him out in the bottom of the boat, while others helped Donnola aboard.

“Row fast, sail fast, to Delthuntle!” Pericolo demanded. “We must find a priest for the boy.”

“Spider, Spider,” Donnola pleaded, climbing across to lie atop the prostrate halfling. “Oh Spider, don’t you die on me!”

Regis, falling backward into a great darkness, could not ignore that plea. He opened one eye, coughed up some seawater, and managed a little smile.

Then he fell into unconsciousness, letting go within the tender embrace of Donnola Topolino.

“It saved my life,” Regis said, taking the three-bladed dagger from Grandfather Pericolo. “I had lost my rapier.”

“Easily replaced,” Pericolo said. “And not worth the effort to return to the wreck to retrieve it.”

“I won’t go back there,” Regis said flatly. Beside him, Donnola put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“No, no, of course not. Be at ease, my dear Spider,” Pericolo replied with a warm smile. “Your extraordinary courage and competence soared beyond my expectations-my high expectations, I assure you! I would not ask you to return, and have no plans to do so, in any case.”

He grinned wryly.

“You will sell the location of the wreck,” Regis said, and both Donnola and Wigglefingers looked at him with surprise, but then nodded their agreement and turned to Pericolo, who was smiling even wider.

“You see?” the Grandfather asked. “My faith in Spider is not misplaced. Well reasoned, my boy! Yes, we have our treasures”-he waved his arm to the side, to a table covered in gems and jewels, potion bottles and assorted trinkets-“and likely the best of the lot to be found. I have all the proof of the wreck I need to auction the location, and no matter what comes further from it, I have-”

“You have secured your legacy as the person who discovered Ebonsoul’s resting place,” Regis interrupted.

Pericolo nodded and patted his young protege’s other shoulder. “You were promised your pick of the treasures, and surely you earned that, at least.”

Regis turned and glanced at the table.

“The dagger is powerful,” Wigglefingers said. “More so than you have yet discovered. It is possessed of many enchantments, I suspect, and better than that, it is not possessed of its own identity and pride, which is oft the downfall of mighty weapons.”

Regis nodded, and marked well the truth of the wizard’s words, remembering Khazid’hea, the Cutter, and what it had done to Catti-brie more than a century before. She hadn’t been ready to do mental battle with the blade, and the evil thing had overwhelmed her.

“What else might it do?” Regis asked, but Wigglefingers just shrugged and shook his head.

“For your secondhe had returned to Faerunan{margin-top: 1em;text-align: centerim choice, I suggest this,” said Pericolo, and he brought forth a curious ring, iron-banded and set with a prism-shaped gemstone. “You will find it useful in many of your tasks, I expect.”

Regis took it and lifted it up before his eyes, and found one use immediately, for turning the triangular prism stone just so and peering through it greatly magnified the immediate field of view.

“Again an item full of magic,” said Wigglefingers. “And quite useful.”

“What else will it do?”

“You will sort it out when you need it,” the mage assured him. “That is the way with magic rings.”

Regis slipped the ring on and shivered, for a chilly wave of energy flowed through him. He looked down at the ring with some concern.

“There are spells which see heat and creatures who view the world in that way,” Wigglefingers explained, something Regis knew well, of course, but that Spider likely would not. “With that ring, I believe that you are invisible to such dweomers.”

“Not very snuggly, though,” Donnola remarked, hugging herself as she backed away from Regis, and they all laughed.

Regis closed his eyes and called to the ring, and the chill passed, and he heard the hints of other possibilities contained within. It occurred to him that when he enacted the chill, he would find himself protected from heat, from fire even. And there was more within that gemstone prism, he realized, and he couldn’t help but smile.

A bank of fog wafted up from the depths and gathered atop the Sea of Fallen Stars, above Thepurl’s Diamond, in the dark of night. It hovered there for some time, its edges rolling in the sea breeze, but not dissipating in the least.

Then it began to drift, but not on the breeze-indeed, counter to the breeze, making its way slowly to the northeast, toward the shore of Aglarond and the city of Delthuntle.

Regis awakened to the sound of the most horrific, bloodcurdling scream he had ever imagined. So jarring was it that the halfling tumbled out of his bed and onto the floor, tangling in his blankets and bedclothes.

He finally extricated himself, grabbed his dagger, and crouched in the corner, trying to figure out his next move. He didn’t dare light a candle.

He looked out the window, thinking to go outside and circle around for a better position. He tried to sort out the scream. Who was it? From where had it emanated?

He caught his breath as his bedroom door burst open, torchlight spilling in from beyond. He recognized the silhouette of Donnola, stumbling in, and rushed to her.

“Run!” she said, and she thrust some items at him.

“Quickly, Lady,” said Donnola’s guard, coming into the room with the torch.

In the light, Regis noted the gifts Donnola had offered: a sword belt and pouch. His eyes widened indeed when he noted Pericolo’s fabulous rapier hanging in that belt, and across from it on the right hip, the smaller holster for the magical hand crossbow.

“Run, and do not look back,” Donnola said, thrusting the gifts into Regis’s hand.

“The led them at a great pace o" aid="F89onGrandfather?” Regis asked breathlessly, and he understood then who it was that had screamed.

“And this,” Donnola added, producing a blue beret, the prized cap of Grandfather Pericolo Topolino.

Without doubt, then, in that terrible moment, Regis knew that the great halfling was surely dead.

“I cannot leave,” he whispered.

“You have no choice, boy,” said Wigglefingers, coming up to the door. “For your sake and for all of our sakes!”

“What is the meaning of this?” Regis demanded.

Donnola grabbed him by the shoulders and squared him up to face her, then gently kissed him. “Ebonsoul,” she whispered, pulling back. “He is here … for you. Be gone, I beg! Out your window, out of Delthuntle, at once.”

“No time, boy,” Wigglefingers added. “We cannot contain him, we cannot defeat him.”

His expression reflecting his shock, the dumbfounded halfling took the beret from Donnola and glanced at his window.

Donnola threw herself over him, kissing him again, deeply and passionately, sweetly and sadly.

How could he leave her?

But he thought back to the image he had seen in the Lichwreck, the leering, emaciated form of the lich, and his legs went weak beneath him.

He strapped the sword belt around him, set his dagger into it opposite the grand rapier and right beside the hand crossbow, and was out the window quickly, scrambling along the side of the mansion as nimbly as any spider. He didn’t go straight to the ground, as he should have, but instead, seeing a light from within, he crept along the side of the second story to the master chamber.

He spotted Pericolo immediately when he looked in, the old halfling sitting before the hearth. Old indeed! The Grandfather’s silver hair had thinned greatly, and turned pure white, and his face! All wrinkled it was,