The Companions

CHAPTER 2

The Year of the Reborn Hero (1463 DR) Netheril

Lord Parise Ulfbinder of the Empire of Netheril shifted uncomfortably in his seat, poring over each of a hundred parchments again and again. He kept glancing to the side, to his crystal ball, almost expecting another magical intrusion from his peer and friend, Lord Draygo Quick, who resided outside the city of Gloomwrought in the Shadowfell, the dark sister of the Prime Material Plane.

Everything Draygo Quick had just told him had only reinforced that which Parise feared. The gates between the Shadowfell and Toril were growing weaker, and the pockets of shadow on Toril seemed to be diminishing.

Most of Netheril’s scholars, and there were many among the learned Netherese, had viewed the stronger bonds between the worlds as a great change in the multiverse, a new and permanent paradigm, in the lifespan of a shade, at least.

Parise Ulfbinder was beginning to growOh, aye, again the time wandering of lonely world!

And waoo uncertain of that, and the pile of parchments, ancient writings of long dead scholars, Netherese and otherwise, whispered to him of things that seemed to be coming true all around him.

The gates were … thinning.

The vibrant young lord shifted the parchments before him, drawing forth his copy of the cornerstone of his theory, an ancient sonnet known as “Cherlrigo’s Darkness.”

Enjoy the play when shadows steal the day …

All the world is half the world for those who learn to walk.

To feast on fungus soft and peel the sunlit stalk;

Tarry not in place, for in their sleep the gods do stay.

But care be known, be light of foot and soft of voice.

Dare not stir divine to hasten Sunder’s day!

A loss profound but a short ways away;

The inevitable tear shall’t be of, or not of, choice.

Oh, aye, again the time wandering of lonely world!

With kingdoms lost and treasures past the finger’s tip,

And enemies that stink of their god’s particular flavor.

Sundered and whole, across the celestial spheres are hurled,

Beyond the reach of dweomer and the wind-walker’s ship;

With baubles left for the ones the gods do favor.

Parise and Lord Draygo had discussed this sonnet extensively and repeatedly, particularly the poem’s volte, the ninth line: Oh, aye, again the time wandering of lonely world!

“ ‘Of lonely world,’ ” Parise read aloud. “Of.”

To him, this resolution seemed a clear enough statement, more than a hint, that the magical proximity of Abeir and Toril was not likely as permanent as many believed.

“How long?” he wondered aloud and his eyes drifted up to the dual globe and calendar he had placed on the far edge of his desk.

Parise read the header of the calendar. “ ‘Dalereckoning, 1463.’ ”

He knew the current year as measured on Toril, of course. He was a mathematician, a scholar, and one quite interested in the movements of the heavenly spheres, which had played no small role in his current investigation regarding the fate of Abeir-Toril. So naming the year should not have come as a revelation to the learned Netherese Lord … and yet, it had.

“1463?” he muttered, and suddenly, he sucked in his breath.

He rushed from his chair so quickly that he sent it spinning and tumbling out behind him, and just as quickly, he flopped into the chair set before his crystal ball and frantically began reestablishing the connection to the Shadowfell, to Lord Draygo Quick.

He was greatly relieved to find that his friend was still in his study, and so heard his call.

“Well met again,” greeted Lord Draygo, a withered old warlock of great influence and magical power.

“You know a favored hero,” Parise said, “a chosen of one of the old gods, so you believe.”

“Yes,”Jelvus GrinchI, im Draygo Quick replied, for they had just been over this.

“Perhaps you err.”

Inside the crystal ball, the somewhat distorted image of Parise’s counterpart seemed taken aback. “I have never spoken with certainty-”

“Perhaps we err,” Parise Ulfbinder corrected, “in believing that the heroes of the old gods are out there, preparing.”

Now Draygo Quick looked simply perplexed.

“What year is it?” Parise asked.

“Year?”

“Yes, what year, in Toril’s calendar? In Dalereckoning?”

Draygo Quick’s face scrunched up as he considered the question, which Parise expected would take him a few moments to unravel, given that Lord Draygo lived in the Shadowfell, where time itself was measured differently.

“Too long are you upon the land of light, that you even care,” Draygo Quick remarked, before properly answering, “1463, I believe.”

“Not the date, the name.”

“1463 …,” Parise Ulfbinder replied, “the Year of the Reborn Hero.”

“What is the significance of this?” Draygo Quick asked.

Parise could only shrug. “Perhaps none,” he admitted. “It is a lead, not a clue. Potentially a lead, I should say. We should not alter our respective courses or investigations.”

“Regarding Drizzt Do’Urden?”

“Him or any others who catch our attention,” said Parise. “We will build our network to find and scout these favored mortals, these heroes. But as we go forth, perhaps we should tell our spies to pay particular attention to any seeming as Chosen who happened to be born this very year.”

“It is a remarkable coincidence,” Draygo Quick admitted, and he began poring through the listings of previous years. “But they may hold clues,” Draygo Quick pointed out.

Now it was time for Parise to sigh, for he had feared that he would open this very box of troubles. Scholars had spent their entire careers trying to make sense or order of the Roll of Years, the prophecies of Auguthra the Mad.

“It is work for acolytes,” Lord Parise suggested. “Take a cursory glance and nothing more, I pray you.”

“The Year of the Singing Skull,” Draygo Quick said, seeming to ignore Parise.

“What?”

“1297,” the older lord answered. “The year of Drizzt’s birth, I believe. The Year of the Singing Skull.”

“Do you see significance in that?”

“No.”

“Then why interrupt …?”

“Why would there be significance?” Draygo Quick asked. “He was just a drow, among tens of thousands.”

“Then why …?” Parise Ulfbinder let his voice trail off and let the thought dissipate. Indeed this had been his fear when first he had learned of the current year’s formal name. Perhaps it was coincidence-likely it was coincidence, and likely, too, that investigating the name would garner no information worthy of his time andOh, aye, again the time wandering of lonely world!

“Let our work continue as it was,” he suggested to Draygo Quick. “We have networks to build and spies to recruit.”

“Like Bregan D’aerthe.”

Parise nodded. “Like Bregan D’aerthe, practical and helpful in ways they will not even understand.”

“So you reopened our discussion here for nothing more than a n of all three