The Ghost King

CHAPTER 2

 
THE BROKEN CONTINUUM
Drizzt Do'Urden slipped out of his bedroll and reached his bare arms up high, fingers wide, stretching to the morning sky. It was good to be on the road, out of Mithral Hall after the dark winter. It was invigorating to smell the fresh, crisp air, absent the smoke of the forges, and to feel the wind across his shoulders and through his long, thick white hair. It was good to be alone with his wife.
The dark elf rolled his head in wide circles, stretching his neck. He reached up high again, kneeling on his blankets. The breeze was chill across his naked form, but he didn't mind. The cool wind invigorated him and made him feel alive with sensation.
He slowly moved to stand, exaggerating every movement to flex away the kinks from the hard ground that had served as his mattress, then paced away from the small encampment and outside the ring of boulders to catch a view of Catti-brie.
Dressed only in her colorful magical blouse, which had once been the enchanted robe of a gnome wizard, she stood on a hillside not far away, her palms together in front of her in a pose of deep concentration. Drizzt marveled at her simple charm. The colorful shift reached only to mid-thigh, and Catti-brie's natural beauty was neither diminished nor outshone by the finely crafted garment.
They were on the road back to Mithral Hall from the city of Silverymoon, where Catti-brie's wizard mentor, the great Lady Alustriel, ruled. It had not been a good visit. Something was in the air, something dangerous and frightening, some feeling among the wizards that all was not well with the Weave of magic. Reports and whispers from all over Faerun spoke of spells gone horribly awry, of magic misfiring or not firing at all, of brilliant spellcasters falling to apparent insanity.
Alustriel had admitted that she feared for the integrity of Mystra's Weave itself, the very source of arcane energy, and the look on her face, ashen, was something Drizzt had never before witnessed from her, not even when the drow had gone to Mithral Hall those many years ago, not even when King Obould and his great horde had crawled from their mountain holes in murderous frenzy. It was indeed a crestfallen and fearful look that Drizzt would never have thought possible on the face of that renowned champion, one of the Seven Sisters, Chosen of Mystra, beloved ruler of mighty Silverymoon.
Vigilance, observation, and meditation were Alustriel's orders of the day, as she and all others scrambled to try to discern what in the Nine Hells might be happening, and Catti-brie, less than a decade a wizard but showing great promise, had taken those orders to heart.
That's why she had risen so early, Drizzt knew, and had moved away from the distractions of the encampment and his presence, to be alone with her meditation.
He smiled as he watched her, her auburn hair still rich in color and thick to her shoulders, blowing in the breeze, her form, a bit thicker with age, perhaps, but still so beautiful and inviting to him, swaying gently with her thoughts.
She slowly spread her hands out wide as if in invitation to magic, the sleeves of her blouse reaching only to her elbows. Drizzt smiled as she rose from the ground, floating upward a few feet in easy levitation. Purple flames of faerie fire flickered to life across her body, appearing as extensions of the violet fabric of the blouse, as if its magic joined with her in a symbiotic completion. A magical gust of wind buffeted her, blowing her auburn mane out wide behind her.
Drizzt could see that she was immersing herself in simple spells, in safe magic, trying to create more intimacy with the Weave as she contemplated the fears Alustriel had relayed.
A flash of lightning in the distance startled Drizzt and he jerked his head toward it as a rumble of thunder followed.
He crinkled his brow in confusion. The dawn was cloudless, but lightning it had been, reaching from high in the sky to the ground, for he saw the crackling blue bolt lingering along the distant terrain.
Drizzt had been on the surface for forty-five years, but he had never seen any natural phenomenon quite like that. He had witnessed terrific storms from the deck of Captain Deudermont's Sea Sprite, had watched a dust storm engulf the Calim Desert, had seen a squall pile snow knee-deep on the ground in an hour's time. He had even seen the rare event known as ball lightning once, in Icewind Dale, and he figured the sight before him to be some variant of that peculiar energy.
But this lightning traveled in a straight line, and trailed behind it a curtain of blue-white, shimmering energy. He couldn't gauge its speed, other than to note that the curtain of blue fire expanded behind it.
It appeared to be crossing the countryside to the north of his position. He glanced up at Catti-brie, floating and glowing on the hilltop to the east, and he wondered whether he should disturb her meditation to point out the phenomenon. He glanced at the line of lightning and his lavender eyes widened in shock. It had accelerated suddenly and had changed course, angling in his direction.
He turned from the lightning to Catti-brie, to realize that it was running straight at her!
"Cat!" Drizzt yelled, and started running. She seemed not to hear.
Magical anklets sped Drizzt on his way, his legs moving in a blur. But the lightning was faster, and he could only cry out again and again as it sizzled past him. He could feel its teeming energy. His hair rose up wildly from the proximity of the powerful charge, white strands floating on all sides.
"Cat!" he yelled to the hovering, glowing woman. "Catti-brie! Run!"
She was deep in her meditation, though she did seem to react, just a bit, turning her head to glance at Drizzt.
But too late. Her eyes widened just as the speeding ground lightning engulfed her. Blue sparks flew from her outstretched arms, her fingers jerking spasmodically, her form jolting with powerful discharges.
The edge of the strange lightning remained for a few heartbeats, then continued onward, leaving the still-floating woman in the shimmering blue curtain of its wake.
"Cat," Drizzt gasped, scrambling desperately across the stones. By the time he got there, the curtain was moving along, leaving a scarred line crackling with power on the ground.
Catti-brie still floated above it, still trembled and jerked. Drizzt held his breath as he neared her, to see that her eyes had rolled up into her head, showing only white.
He grabbed her hand and felt the sting of electrical discharge. But he didn't let go and he stubbornly pulled her aside of the scarred line. He hugged her close and tried unsuccessfully to pull her down to the ground.
"Catti-brie," Drizzt begged. "Don't you leave me!"
A thousand heartbeats or more passed as Drizzt held her, then the woman finally relaxed and gently sank from her levitation. Drizzt leaned her back to see her face, his heart skipping beats until he saw that he was staring into her beautiful blue eyes once more.
"By the gods, I thought you lost to me," he said with a great sigh of relief, one that he bit short as he noted that Catti-brie wasn't blinking. She wasn't really looking at him at all, but rather looking past him. He glanced over his shoulder to see what might be holding her interest so intently, but there was nothing.
"Cat?" he whispered, staring into her large eyes - eyes that did not gaze back at him nor past him, but into nothingness, he realized.
He gave her a shake. She mumbled something he could not decipher. Drizzt leaned closer.
"What?" he asked, and shook her again.
She lifted off the ground several inches, her arms reaching out wide, her eyes rolling back into her head. The purple flames began anew, as did the crackling energy.
Drizzt moved to hug her and pull her down again, but he fell back in surprise as her entire form shimmered as if emanating waves of energy. Helplessly the drow watched, mesmerized and horrified.
"Catti-brie?" he asked, and as he looked into her white eyes, he realized that something was different, very different! The lines on her face softened and disappeared. Her hair seemed longer and thicker - even her part changed to a style Catti-brie had not worn for years! And she seemed a bit leaner, her skin a bit tighter.
Younger.
"'Twas a bow that found meself in the halls of a dwarven king," she said, or something like that - Drizzt could not be certain - and in a distinctly Dwarvish accent, like she'd once had when her time had been spent almost exclusively with Bruenor's clan in the shadows of Kelvin's Cairn in faraway Icewind Dale. She still floated off the ground, but the faerie fire and the crackling energy dissipated. Her eyes focused and returned to normal, those rich, deep blue orbs that had so stolen Drizzt's heart.
"Heartseeker, yes," Drizzt said. He stepped back and pulled the mighty bow from his shoulder, presenting it to her.
"Can't be fishing Maer Dualdon with a bow, though, and so it's Rumblebelly's line I'm favorin'," she said, still looking into the distance and not at Drizzt.
Drizzt crinkled his face in confusion.
The woman sighed deeply. Her eyes rolled back into her head, showing only white to Drizzt. The flames and energy reappeared and a gust of wind came up from nowhere, striking only Catti-brie, as if those waves of energy that had come forth from her were returning to her being. Her hair, her skin, her age - all returned, and her colorful garment stopped blowing in the unfelt wind.
The moment passed and she settled to the ground, unconscious once more.
Drizzt shook her again, called to her many times, but she seemed not to notice. He snapped his fingers in front of her eyes, but she didn't even blink. He started to lift her, to carry her toward the camp so they could hurry on their way to Mithral Hall, but as he extended her arm, he saw a tear in her magical blouse just behind the shoulder. Then he froze as he noticed bruises under the fabric. With a shiver of panic, Drizzt gently slid the ripped section aside.
He sucked in his breath in fear and confusion. He had seen Catti-brie's bare back a thousand times, had marveled at her unblemished, smooth skin. But it was marked, scarred even, in the distinctive shape of an hourglass as large as Drizzt's fist. The lower half was almost fully discolored, the top showing only a small sliver of bruising, as if almost all of the counting sand had drained.
With trembling fingers, Drizzt touched it. Catti-brie did not react. "What?" he whispered helplessly.
He carried Catti-brie along briskly, her head lolling as if she were half-asleep.