“Hee hee hee,” said Pikel.
The area had been significantly reworked. Mithral now reinforced the walls of this smallish room, and the door, magical and secret, was wholly made of the hard metal now. Portcullises and new mithral doors had been added outside the room as well, along with defensive positions all around the corridors leading to the throne room.
Now that the magical gate was working, the dwarves had made sure that any enemies coming through uninvited had nowhere to go.
A wide smile crossed Drizzt’s face when they entered that throne room, for a feast had been prepared for this day—and such a feast! Thousands of dwarves were already seated, along with many halflings, including Regis, who bounced up to his friends arm-in-arm with a most lovely halfling woman, and offered the long overdue introduction to Donnola Topolino.
“I had heard you would not arrive in time,” Catti-brie said to the halfling couple. “And that thought broke my heart!”
“Hard riding,” Regis replied.
“There were many arrangements to be made for such a journey,” Donnola added.
Drizzt took in the room again, focusing on the halflings, and he realized to his surprise that he recognized some of those in attendance as members of the Kneebreakers of Damara. Before he could question that, however, he spotted another guest of King Bruenor, and he nudged Catti-brie to direct her gaze to Wulfgar.
The couple exchanged knowing nods, and understood then Penelope’s choice of attire.
And Wulfgar was there, and Drizzt and Catti-brie nodded and glanced at Penelope, who had already taken a seat at a table near to Bruenor’s main table, next to Gromph.
“The work here is remarkable,” Drizzt said to Bruenor.
“Bah, but ye ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” the dwarf promised and he started for the outer door, gesturing for them to follow. “Come along, all of ye, and see.”
The cavern outside of Gauntlgrym’s main door had been shaped beyond recognition. The underground pool had been cleaned, both magically and through hard dredging, and low lights all around it showed the flickers of many fish in the water.
Indeed, on the railings of the bridge that spanned the water sat several dwarves with fishing poles, bobbers floating below them.
Just past the other end of the bridge, beyond the lake, loomed another new construction: a giant platform of some sort, with ramps climbing up left and right, and both running out for the far end of the cavern.
“I’ll get ye the pole I promised ye later, Rumblebelly,” Bruenor promised with a wink. “We bringed in knucklehead, too, from Maer Dualdon.”
Regis wore a wistful smile, but neither he nor Donnola seemed surprised by any of this, and Drizzt got the distinct feeling that they were in on the surprise.
“Truly remarkable,” said Drizzt.
“Bah, but ye ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Bruenor said again, more boisterously, and he started over the bridge, under the new raised platform and then across the main cavern floor, past the shaped defensive stalagmite and stalactite fortifications and to an area where a tremendous construction project was well underway.
Two new tunnels led out of the cavern, angling steeply upward.
“Next cart’s comin’ in soon,” Bruenor explained, motioning to the tunnel on the left, and looking there, the others noted that rails had been set, from within the tunnel and all the way to the platform near the lake, bordered by low walls that had allowed them to escape notice until Bruenor had pointed them out. Interestingly, those rails disappeared into water along that left-hand run, and the four tourists could only shrug.
Even more interesting, when they looked back to the right, across the way, they found another set of rails coming from the platform behind them. But as this line neared the second tunnel, those rails went up and rolled over, and continued out of the cavern on the ceiling of the second tunnel.
“What?” Drizzt and Catti-brie asked together, and Regis and Donnola laughed.
“They sound just like us,” Donnola said.
“Aye, and good!” said Bruenor, leading the way for his clearly impatient friends. “I telled ’em to wait to set the next length.”
At that tunnel, they saw many dwarves working, but they were standing on the ceiling, upside down.
“Harpells,” Catti-brie immediately figured.
“Aye, was their idea, and a fine one,” said Bruenor. He gave a sharp whistle and a group of dwarves a little farther up the tunnel but standing on the floor and not the ceiling jumped into action. Singing a song for cadence, they hefted and carried a length of metal rail farther up the slope, just beyond where the rails on the ceiling ended.
Then they rushed back and another stepped forward, a human, a woman, and it took Drizzt and Catti-brie a moment to recognize Kennedy Harpell, who turned back and offered a friendly wave.
Then she looked ahead into the tunnel and cast a spell, and those new rails the dwarves had placed fell upward to clang against the ceiling.
“Be quick, boys!” yelled the leader of the dwarf gang, and they rushed past Kennedy, flipping over as they plunged into her dweomer, falling to their feet some eight feet or so to the ceiling. There, they went to lining up the rails with the rest of the track and setting them firmly in place with long spikes.
“Team’s only got a short while to get up … err, down, there to set the rails in place, then get out afore the spell dies,” Bruenor explained. “They can lay a hunnerd feet a day on the upside, but Gromph can only make it lasting at ten feet a day.”
“Lasting?” asked the drow.
“Fore’er,” Bruenor said with a proud grin.
“You’re building an upside-down tunnel?” Drizzt asked incredulously, for he seemed the only one of the four who could find his voice.
“Yep,” said Bruenor. “Callin’ it the Causeway.”
“Wait,” Catti-brie interjected, “so a cart can roll down from the surface—” she pointed to the tunnel on the left—“then roll back up to the surface?”
“Easier than pullin’ it,” said Bruenor.
Somewhere up the left-hand tunnel, a cowbell began to ring.
“Ye might want to move back a bit,” Bruenor told Donnola, who was closest to the low wall of the left-hand run.
The ground began to tremble, and moments later, a cart full of dwarves came screeching into the cavern, rushing along back toward the lake. Water sprayed from the wake of the wheels out both sides over the low walls, the drag slowing the cart so that it barely began the climb up the ramp to the platform. There it clicked over some gear, which locked it in place so that it wouldn’t roll back.
The dwarves who’d been fishing moved to a ladder and went up to the platform, and began turning cranks that carried the cart up to the top where the newcomers could disembark.
“By the gods,” breathed Drizzt.
“She’s a beautiful thing,” Bruenor agreed. “We’re goin’ to have to pull it all the way back up the same tunnel it came down, for now, but we’ll have the return run finished afore the summer’s end, don’t ye doubt.”
“How did you even dig these?” Drizzt asked.
Bruenor shook his head.
“Passwalls,” Catti-brie explained, nodding. “That’s why Penelope has been here so often of late.”
“And all forever,” said Bruenor.
Drizzt leaned over the small wall and watched the work of the dwarves affixing the rails to the ceiling far ahead. He tried to imagine riding a cart upside down on the ceiling of a tunnel, rolling up to a steep hill to the surface above.
He had seen a lot of strange and incredible things these last tendays, including the Prince of Demons and the Queen of the Demonweb Pits. He had felt the power of Menzoberranzan combined within him and released to destroy mighty Demogorgon. He had ridden on the back of a dragon across half of Faerûn and had met and been tutored by a man who had transcended his mortal coil.
And now this.
And he found, and was glad, that he was still surpri
sed.
BRUENOR SAT TO his left, Catti-brie to his right. Wulfgar was there, Regis was there, Jarlaxle was there. Guenhwyvar curled up on the floor behind Bruenor, as if to warn him that she might wish a softer bed even if dwarves were not all that much softer than a stone floor.
Almost everyone he cared most about was in that room, singing and toasting and feasting and laughing and looking ahead to a future that seemed so full of promise that Drizzt’s heart felt as if it might burst from overflowing.
He had met Lolth and had denied her—had she really accepted that denial? But even if not, then what did it matter? In his heart, Drizzt had, at long last, found complete peace, had walked his road into a circle of understanding and acceptance for this world and his place in it.
He looked to this strange young woman named Yvonnel and didn’t quite know what to make of her. He considered her as the scales of justice, with Menzoberranzan itself on trial, and while he wasn’t convinced of her honesty as magistrate, he saw within her greater hopes than he could ever have imagined.
Had he passed the torch to her?
He laughed at the notion and squeezed Catti-brie’s leg, just to feel the solidity, the reality. He could hardly believe the dark road he had just walked, lost in doubts that now, to his healed mind, seemed so completely absurd. His world had come to a place of peace and goodness, surrounded by friends and love.
A flicker of warning flashed in his thoughts then, but he laughed it away.
The sound of silverware tapping glasses and mugs began to ring about the great hall, calls for a speech by the most excellent host.
Bruenor cleared his throat and rose. “I’m too busy eatin’!” he said to many laughs. “So “I’ve asked another to speak for me.”
He sat back down and, to Drizzt’s surprise, Regis rose from his seat and climbed up on the table, lifting his glass high.
“My friends, my family,” he said, gathering his thoughts. “It has been my greatest pleasure to connect the homes I’ve known, to introduce to Clan Battlehammer and the Companions of the Hall, my other family, Morada Topolino!”
The halflings whistled and the dwarves cried “Huzzah!”
“To Wigglefingers, and to Donnola, my love and soon to be my wife!”
The announcement sent the cheers to new levels.
“To Doregardo and Showithal of the heroic Grinning Ponies!” Regis cried above the cheers. “To Tecumseh Bracegirdle and the legendary Kneebreakers!”
“Huzzah!”
“To Penelope and Kipper and all the Harpells!”
“Huzzah!”
“You are all invited to our wedding!” Regis declared. “All of you, and all of Clan Battlehammer!”
“Am I to be insulted?” Jarlaxle yelled, dramatically.
“You, too!” Regis replied. “And your dark elf friends!”
It took a bit longer, but the “Huzzah!” did arise.
“Do you think you might leave behind your weapons?” Regis quipped to much laughter.
“Do you think we would need them?” Gromph replied to that, silencing the mirth—until the archmage grinned and lifted his glass in toast.
Possibilities, Drizzt thought. Possibilities.
“Let’s do it now!” one dwarf cried from the back.
“I’ll bring the beer!” another promised.
“King Bruenor’s shield!” a third reminded the gathering, and laughter shook the room.
But Regis changed his aspect, lowered his glass and his gaze, his shoulders slumping a bit.
“You may reconsider your laughter and your response, for I have an admission to make, and it is one of great treachery,” he said.
The room went silent.
Drizzt studied his friend carefully, hesitatingly, but Bruenor noticed his look and offered a reassuring wink.
“For I have planted a spy within your midst these last few months, one paving the way for some great changes that will come to this land.” He motioned to the side, and Pikel Bouldershoulder stood up on his table and cried, “Oo oi!”
“Our friend, my spy, Pikel here, has been in secret contact with me and with Donnola for these last months, making preparations, and promising the finest of wine for the celebration of our wedding. And judging from what he has brought this very day, I doubt him not.” He motioned to Penelope Harpell and the cheers erupted anew in appreciation of her vintage.
“So, silly halfling, do you mean to presume that King Bruenor will abandon his throne to travel halfway across Faerûn to celebrate the wedding day of his dear friend?” Jarlaxle asked loudly, and, it seemed, rudely. A hush fell over the gathering, and only the sly grin of Regis tipped Drizzt off that this interruption had been practiced and coordinated within Regis’s toast.
“Bah, I’m going nowhere!” Bruenor harrumphed. “Me own bed’s where I’ll be sleepin’!”
“And your bed will be waiting for your hairy arse that same night, my friend!” Regis promised.
“Are you planning a flame-gate to Aglarond?” a horrified Catti-brie asked them all. The creation of the gates from Gauntlgrym to other points, like the Ivy Mansion, was a tremendous undertaking, both in process and in implication.
Drizzt knew her words were not pre-planned, and were surely heartfelt.
Even Bruenor blanched at the thought. “One gate for yerself in Longsaddle, and one more to Mithral Hall!” he insisted. “And might be one to Icewind Dale, but that’s for another time.”
“Why then, my friend, we will have to bring Morada Topolino to you,” Regis explained. “All of it!”
He jumped down and Donnola Topolino took his place atop the table.
“Tonight we announce Bleeding Vines,” she explained. “A new home for Morada Topolino, on the back doorstep of Gauntlgrym, on land granted my family by generous King Bruenor!”
Stunned silence became overwhelming cheers and boisterous huzzahs and resounding chimes as glasses and mugs tapped enthusiastically.
“And Bleeding Vines will serve, too, as home base for the Kneebreakers and the Grinning Ponies, who have decided to join their forces to patrol the Sword Coast, Neverwinter to Suzail,” Donnola announced.
“The Causeway,” Catti-brie quietly remarked, and Drizzt chuckled, because indeed, those tram tunnels led up to the rocky vale, the back door of Gauntlgrym.
“Ever know better traders than a bunch o’ halflings?” Bruenor asked. “Even Jarlaxle there’ll have his hands full with Donnola’s tricksters.”
“You taste the wine Lady Penelope Harpell has brought this day,” Donnola added to many cheers. “She has spent years developing the grapes, indeed, but only recently has she found the missing ingredient to perfection. And she has agreed to share this ingredient with us, that the wine of Morada Topolino will be known and cherished throughout the Realms, cultivated in both Bleeding Vines and Longsaddle.”
“Seems we’ve got conspirators all around us,” Drizzt whispered to Catti-brie.
“And this ingredient?” Donnola asked. She hopped down from the table and scurried over to Pikel and kissed him on the head. “Him!” she explained.
“Huzzah!” one dwarf cried, but he was cut short by Ivan Bouldershoulder.
“No!” Ivan yelled, silencing all. “Not huzzah.” He looked to his beaming brother and yelled, “Oo oi!”
And all the room, in unison responded, “Oo oi!”
Drizzt leaned back and took full heart that his world had come to a place of peace and goodness, surrounded by friends and love.
BRUENOR ENDED THE feast before the next dawn by blowing the cracked silver horn in tribute to one who was not there.
All paid solemn homage to the specter of Thibbledorf Pwent.
The great hall, the throne room of Gauntlgrym, began to empty soon after, or, in many cases, began to resonate with the contented snores of stuffed dwarves.
None noted the ghostly mist that breezed through the chamber, past the throne and to the statue set on a ledge on the wall in front of the royal seat. The lava rock
entombing the body within had cracked, and the ghostly mist crept in.
And then returned, more substantial, floating to the Throne of the Dwarven Gods.
And there did Thibbledorf Pwent sit, and it was not the fighting specter produced by the horn.
The vampire looked up at his own sarcophagus and mused … was there a way?
The Throne of the Dwarven Gods did not reject him.
THE SNOW IS DEEP, THE WOODS SILENT, SAVE THE CREAK AND GROAN of naked trees, the mournful north wind, and the occasional howl of a Bidderdoo.
Tomorrow is the first day of the Year of Dwarvenkind Reborn, and Guenhwyvar, my dear companion, never have I looked forward to a year more.
And why not, for there is so much good that will be done, and so much joy that will be realized.
Regis and his friends will have their town fully in place, the Causeway completed, the grapes planted, and so the growing alliance of the northern Sword Coast will strengthen even more.
The Hosttower nears completion, its wizard complement as diverse as Effron, Gromph, and Lady Avelyere. It is no threat, but another source of stability, working so closely with the Ivy Mansion that Penelope maintains a grand workshop and library there. Jarlaxle’s continued transformation of Luskan is a wondrous thing to behold, a hopeful road being walked.
Can I say any less about my own anticipated journey? You and I will continue our good and exciting work of catching the Bidderdoo werewolves and bringing them into the Ivy Mansion so that Catti-brie can help them control their feral impulses and make them more akin to their namesake.
Master Afafrenfere arrived the day after last we spoke, Guen. He was defeated by Savahn in their challenge, but is of good spirits, and Kane sent him on the road to find me and offer more insights into the ways of the Yellow Rose. It is a personal journey I welcome!
How the world has turned, bringing me back to a place I once knew and with a perspective to live it again more pleasurably.
A place I once knew, but that is so very different now, as the Companions of the Hall have become, so it seems, the Legions of the Hall.