Starless Night
Chapter 9 CAGED

 
Plodding along a slow and rocky trail, they had to walk the horses more than ride them. Every passing inch tor  mented Catti-brie. She had seen the light of a campfire the previous night and knew in her heart that it had been Drizzt. She had gone straight to her horse, meaning to saddle up and head out, using the light as a beacon to the drow, but Fret had stopped her, explaining that the magical horseshoes that their mounts wore did not protect the beasts from exhaustion. He reminded her, too, of the dangers she would likely encounter in the mountains at night.
Catti-brie had gone back to her own fire then, thoroughly miser  able. She considered calling for Guenhwyvar and sending the pan  ther out for Drizzt, but shook the notion away The campfire was just a dot somewhere on the higher trails, many miles away, and she had no way of knowing, rationally, that it was indeed Drizzt.
Now, though, crossing along the higher trails, making their steady but painfully slow way in that very same direction, Catti-brie feared that she had erred. She watched Fret, scratching his white beard, looking this way and that at the unremarkable landscape,  and wished they had that campfire to guide them.
"We will get there!" the tidy dwarf often said to her, looking back into her disgusted expression.
Morning turned into afternoon; long shadows drifted across the landscape.
"We must make camp, " Fret announced as twilight descended.
"We're going on, " Catti-brie argued. "If that was Drizzt's fire,  then he's a day up on us already, no matter for yer magical horse  shoes!"
"I cannot hope to find the cave in the darkness!" the dwarf retorted. "We could find a giant, or a troll, perhaps, and I'm sure that many wolves will be about, but a cave?" Looking into Catti  brie's deepening scowl, Fret began to ponder the wisdom of his sar  casm.
"Oh, all right!" the tidy dwarf cried. "We will keep looking until the night is full."
They pressed on, until Catti-brie could hardly see her horse walking beside her and Fret's pony nearly stumbled over the edge of a ravine. Finally, even stubborn Catti-brie had to relent and agree to make camp.
After they had settled in, she went and found a tree, a tall pine,  and climbed nearly to its top to keep her vigil. If the light of a camp  fire came up, the young woman determined, she would set out, or would at least send the panther.
There were no campfires that night.
As soon as the dawn's light permitted, the two set off again. Barely an hour out, Fret clapped his clean hands together excitedly,  thinking that he had found a familiar trail. "We are not far, " he promised.
Up and down went the trail, into rocky, tree filled valleys, and up again across bare, windswept stone. Fret tethered his pony to a tree branch and led the way up the steep side of one mound, telling Catti-brie that they had found the place, only to discover, two hours of climbing later, that they had scaled the wrong mountain.
In midafternoon they discovered that Fret's earlier promise that they were "not far, " was accurate. When he had made that state  ment, the cave the dwarf sought was no more than half a mile from their location. But finding a specific cave in mountain territory is no easy task, even for a dwarf, and Fret had been to the place only once, nearly twenty years before.
He found it, finally, as the shadows again grew long in the mountains. Catti-brie shook her head as she examined the entrance and the fire pit that had been used two nights before. The embers had been tended with great care, such as a ranger might do.
"He was here, " the young woman said to the dwarf, "two nights ago." Catti-brie rose from the fire pit and brushed her thick auburn locks back from her face, eyeing the dwarf as though he was to blame. She looked out from the cave, back across the mountains,  to where they had been, to the location from which they had seen this very fire.
"We could not have gotten here that night, " the dwarf answered. "You could have run off, or ridden off, into the darkness with all speed, and, "
"The firelight would've shown us through, " Catti-brie inter  rupted.
"For how long?" the dwarf demanded. "We found one vantage point, one hole through the towering peaks. As soon as we went into a ravine, or crossed close to the side of a mountain, the light would have been lost to us. Then where would we be, stubborn daughter of Bruenor?"
Again Catti-brie's scowl stopped the dwarf short. He sighed profoundly and threw up his hands.
He was right, Catti-brie knew. While they had gone no more than a few miles deeper into the mountains since that night, the trails had been treacherous, climbing and descending, winding snakelike around the many rocky peaks. She and the dwarf had walked a score of miles, at least, to get to this point, and even if she had summoned Guenhwyvar, there was no way the panther could have caught up to Drizzt.
That logic did little to quell the frustration boiling within Catti  brie. She had vowed to follow Drizzt, to find him and bring him home, but now, standing at the edge of a forlorn cave in a wild place, she faced the entrance to the Underdark.
"We will go back to Lady Alustriel, " Fret said to her. "Perhaps she has some allies, she has so many of those!, who will be better able to locate the drow."
"What're ye saying?" Catti-brie wanted to know.
"It was a valiant chase, " Fret replied. "Your father will be proud of your effort, but, "
Catti-brie rushed up to the dwarf, pushed him aside, and stum  bled down toward the back of the cave, toward the blackness of a descending tunnel entrance. She stubbed her toe hard against a jag in the floor, but refused to cry out, even to grunt, not wanting Fret to think her ridiculous. In fumbling with her pack, though, trying to get to her tinderbox, lantern, and oil, Catti-brie thought herself so just the same.
"Do you know that she likes you?" Fret asked casually
The question stopped the young woman. She looked back to regard the dwarf, who was just a short, dark silhouette before the lighter gray of the outside night.
"Alustriel, I mean, " Fret clarified.
Catti-brie had no answer. She hadn't felt comfortable around the magnificent Lady of Silverymoon, far from it. Intentionally or not, Alustriel had made her feel little, perfectly insignificant.
"She does, " Fret insisted. "She likes you and admires you."
"In an orc's thoughts, " Catti-brie huffed. She thought she was being mocked.
"You remind her of her sister, " Fret went on, without missing a beat, "Dove Falconhand, a spirited woman if ever there was one."
Catti-brie did not reply this time. She had heard many tales of Alustriel's sister, a legendary ranger, and had indeed fancied herself somewhat like Dove. Suddenly the dwarf's claims did not seem so outrageous.
"Alas for Alustriel, " Fret remarked. "She wishes that she could be more like you."
"In an orc's thoughts!" Catti-brie blurted, unable to stop herself. The notion that Alustriel, the fabulous Lady of Silverymoon, could be the least bit jealous of Catti-brie seemed absurd.
"In a human's thoughts, I say!" Fret replied. "What is it about your race that none of you can seem to properly weigh your own value? Every human seems to think more of herself than she should,  or less of herself than is sensible! Alustriel likes you, I say, even admires you. If she did not, if she thought you and your plans were silly, then why would she go to this trouble? Why would she send me, a valuable sage, along with you? And why, daughter of Bruenor Battlehammer, would she give you this?"
He lifted one hand, holding something delicate that Catti-brie could not make out. She paused a moment to digest what he had said, then walked back over to him.
The dwarf held a fine silver chain, a circlet headdress, with a gemstone set into it.
"It is beautiful, " Catti-brie admitted, studying the pale green gem, a line of black running  through its center.
"More than beautiful, " Fret said, and he motioned for Catti-brie to put it on.
She clasped it in place, the gem set against the middle of her forehead, and then she nearly swooned, for the images around her suddenly blurred and wavered. She could see the dwarf, not just his silhouette, but actually Fret's features! She glanced about in dis  belief, focusing on the back of the cave. It seemed as if it was bathed in starlight, not brightly, but Catti-brie could make out the jags and the nooks clearly enough.
Catti-brie could not see it, of course, but the thin black line along the middle of the gemstone had widened like a pupil.
"Walking into the Underdark under a blazing torch is not the wisest move, " Fret remarked. "A single candle would mark you as out of place and would leave you vulnerable. And how much oil could you carry in any case? Your lantern would be useless to you before the first day had ended. The Cat's Eye eliminates the need,  you see."
"Cat's eye?"
"Cat's Eye agate, " Fret explained, pointing to the gemstone. "Alustriel did the enchanting herself. Normally a gem ensorcelled such would show you only shades of gray, but the lady does favor starlight. Few in the Realms could claim the honor of receiving such a gift."
Catti-brie nodded and didn't know how to reply Pangs of guilt accompanied her scrutiny of her feelings for the Lady of Silvery  moon, and she thought herself ridiculous for ever doubting, and for ever allowing jealousy to cloud her judgment.
"I was instructed to try to dissuade you from the dangerous course, " the dwarf went on, "but Alustriel knew that I would fail. You are indeed so like Dove, headstrong and stubborn, and feeling positively immortal. She knew that you would go, even into the Underdark, " Fret said. "And, although Alustriel fears for you, she knows that nothing could or should stop you."
The dwarf's tone was neither sarcastic nor demeaning, and again Catti-brie was caught off guard, unprepared for the words.
"Will you stay the night in the cave?" Fret asked. "I could start a fire."
Catti-brie shook her head. Drizzt was already too far ahead of her.
"Of course, " the tidy dwarf muttered quietly
Catti-brie didn't hear him; she was already walking toward the back of the cave, toward the tunnel. She paused and summoned Guenhwyvar, realizing that she would need the panther's support to get going. As the cat materialized, Catti-brie looked back to the cave entrance to tell the dwarf to relay her thanks to Alustriel, but Fret was already gone.
"Come along, Guen, " the young woman said, a strained smile on her face. "We have to find Drizzt." The panther poked about the tunnel entrance for a bit, then started down, apparently on the trail.
Catti-brie paused a long moment, staring back to the cave entrance and the starry sky beyond. She wondered if she would ever see those stars again.