"How small is this island of Caerwich?" Catti-brie asked Deudermont. Another week of sailing had slipped past, this one uneventfully. Another week of emptiness, of solitude, though the schooner was fully crewed and there were few places where someone could be out of sight of everyone else. That was the thing about the open ocean, you were never physically alone, yet all the world seemed removed. Catti-brie and Drizzt had spent hours together, just standing and watching, each lost, drifting on the rolls of the azure blanket, together and yet so alone.
"A few square miles," the captain answered absently, as though the response was an automatic reflex.
"And ye're thinkin' to find it?" An unmistakable edge showed in the woman's voice, drawing a lazy stare from Drizzt, as well as from Deudermont.
"We found the Gull Rocks," Drizzt reminded Catti-brie, trying to brighten her mood though he, too, was getting that unmistakable edge of irritation to his voice. "They are not much larger."
"Bah, they're known to all," Catti-brie retorted. "A straight run west."
"We know where we are, and where we must go," Deudermont insisted. "There is the matter of the map; we're not sailing blindly."
Catti-brie glanced over her shoulder and cast a scowl at Dunkin, the provider of the map, who was hard at work scrubbing the poop deck. The woman's sour expression alone answered Deudermont's claim, told the captain how reliable she believed that map might be.
"And the wizards have new eyes that see far," Deudermont said. True enough, Catti-brie realized, though she wondered how reliable the "eyes" in question might be. Harkle and Robillard had taken some birds from the Gull Rocks, and claimed that they could communicate with them through use of their magic. The gulls would help, the two wizards declared, and each day, they set them flying freely, ordering them to report back with their findings. Catti-brie hadn't thought much about the wizards and in truth, all but two of the ten birds they had taken had not returned to the Sea Sprite. Catti-brie figured the birds had more likely flown all the way back to the Gull Rocks, probably laughing at the bumbling wizards all the way.
"The map is all we have had since we left Mintarn," Drizzt said softly, trying to erase the young woman's fears and the anger that was plain upon her fair, sunburned features. He sympathized with Catti-brie, because he was sharing those negative thoughts. They had all known the odds, and thus far, the journey had not been so bad-certainly not as bad as it might have been. They had been out for several weeks, most of that time on the open ocean, yet they had not lost a single crewman and their stores, though low, remained sufficient. Thank Guenhwyvar and Harkle for that, Drizzt thought with a smile, for the panther and the wizard had cleared the ship of the bulk of her pesky rats soon after they had departed from Wyngate.
But still, despite the logical understanding that the journey was on course and going well, Drizzt could not help the swells of anger that rose up in him. It was something about the ocean, he realized, the boredom and the solitude. Truly the drow loved sailing, loved running the waves, but too long in the open ocean, too long in looking at emptiness as profound as could be found in all the world, grated on his nerves.
Catti-brie walked away, muttering. Drizzt looked to Deudermont, and the experienced captain's smile relieved the drow of a good measure of his worry.
"I have seen it before," Deudermont said quietly to him. "She will relax as soon as we sight Mintarn, or as soon as we make the decision to turn back to the east."
"You would do that?" Drizzt asked. "You would forsake the words of the doppleganger?"
Deudermont thought long and hard on that one. "I have come here because I believe it to be my fate," he answered. "Whatever the danger that is now pursuing me, I wish to meet it head-on and with my eyes wide open. But I'll not risk my crew more than is necessary. If our food stores become too diminished to safely continue, we will turn back."
"And what of the doppleganger?" Drizzt asked.
"My enemies found me once," Deudermont replied casually, and truly the man was a rock for Drizzt and for all the crew, something solid to hold onto in a sea of emptiness. "They will find me again."
"And we will be waiting," Drizzt assured him.
*****
As it turned out, the wait, for Caerwich at least, was not a long one. Less than an hour after the conversation, Harkle Harpell bounded out of Deudermont's private quarters, clapping his hands excitedly.
Deudermont was the first to him, followed closely by a dozen anxious crewmen. Drizzt, at his customary spot on the forward beam, came to the rail of the flying bridge to survey the gathering. He realized what was going on immediately, and he glanced upward, to Catti-brie, who was peering down intently from the crow's nest.
"Oh, what a fine bird, my Reggie is!" Harkle beamed.
"Reggie?" Deudermont, and several others nearby, asked.
"Namesake of Regweld, so fine a wizard! He bred a frog with a horse-no easy feat that! Puddlejumper, he called her. Or was it Riverjumper? Or maybe ..."
"Harkle," Deudermont said dryly, his tone bringing the wizard from the rambling confusion.
"Oh, of course," babbled Harkle. "Yes, yes, where was I? Oh, yes, I was telling you about Regweld. What a fine man. Fine man. He fought valiantly in Keeper's Dale, so say the tales. There was one time ..."
"Harkle!" Now there was no subtle coercion in Deudermont's tone, just open hostility.
"What?" the wizard asked innocently.
"The damned seagull," Deudermont growled. "What have you found?"
"Oh, yes!" Harkle replied, clapping his hands. "The bird, the bird. Reggie. Yes, yes, fine bird. Fastest flyer of the lot."
"Harkle!" a score of voices roared in unison.
"We have found an island," came a reply from behind the flustered Harpell. Robillard stepped onto the deck and appeared somewhat bored. "The bird returned this day chattering about an island. Ahead and to port, and not so far away."
"How large?" Deudermont asked.
Robillard shrugged and chuckled. "All islands are large when seen through the eyes of a seagull," he answered. "It could be a rock, or it could be a continent."
"Or even a whale," Harkle piped in.
It didn't matter. If the bird had indeed spotted an island out here, out where the map indicated that Caerwich should be, then Caerwich, it must be!
"You and Dunkin," Deudermont said to Robillard, and he motioned to the wheel. "Get us there."
"And Reggie," Harkle added happily, pointing to the seagull, which had perched on the very tip of the mainmast, right above Catti-brie's head.
Drizzt saw a potential problem brewing, given the bird's position, the woman's sour mood and the fact that she had her bow with her. Fortunately, though, the bird flew off at Harkle's bidding without leaving any presents behind.
Had it not been for that bird, the Sea Sprite would have sailed right past Caerwich, within a half mile of the place without ever sighting it. The island was circular, resembling a low cone, and was just a few hundred yards in diameter. It was perpetually shrouded in a bluish mist that looked like just another swell in the sea from only a short distance away.
As the schooner approached that mist, drifting quietly at half
sail, the wind turned colder and the sun seemed somehow less substantial. Deudermont did a complete circle of the island, but found no particularly remarkable place, nor any area that promised an easy docking.
Back in their original spot, Deudermont took the wheel from Dunkin and turned the Sea Sprite straight toward Caerwich, slowly slipping her into the mist.
"Ghost wind," Dunkin remarked nervously, shuddering in the sudden chill. "She's a haunted place, I tell you." The small man tugged at his ear ferociously, suddenly wishing that he had gotten off the schooner at Wyngate. Dunkin's other ear got tugged as well, but not by his own hand. He turned about to look eye to eye with Drizzt Do'Urden. They were about the same height, with similar builds, though Drizzt's muscles were much more finely honed. But at that moment, Drizzt seemed much taller to poor Dunkin, and much more imposing.
"Ghost wi-" Dunkin started to say, but Drizzt put a finger to his lips to silence him.
Dunkin leaned heavily on the rail and went silent.
Deudermont ordered the sails lower still and brought the schooner to a creeping drift. The mist grew thick about them and something about the way the ship was handling, something about the flow of the water beneath them, told the captain to be wary. He called up to Catti-brie, but she had no answers for him, more engulfed by blinding mist than he.
Deudermont nodded to Drizzt, who rushed off to the forward beam and crouched low, marking their way. The drow spotted something a moment later, and his eyes widened.
A pole was sticking out of the water, barely fifty yards ahead of them.
Drizzt eyed it curiously for just an instant, then recognized it for what it was: the top of a ship's mast.
"Stop us!" he yelled.
Robillard was into his spellcasting before Deudermont agreed to heed the warning. The wizard sent his energy out directly in front of the Sea Sprite, brought up a ridgelike swell of water that halted the ship's drifting momentum. Down came the Sea Sprite's sails, and down dropped the anchor with a splash that seemed to echo ominously about the decks for many seconds.
"How deep?" Deudermont asked the crewmen manning the anchor. The chain was marked in intervals, allowing them to gauge the depth when they put the anchor down.
"A hundred feet," one of them called back a moment later.
Drizzt rejoined the captain at the wheel. "A reef, by my guess," the drow said, explaining his call for a stop. "There is a hulk in the water barely two ship-lengths ahead of us. She's fully under, except for the tip of her mast, but standing straight. Something brought her down in a hurry."
"Got her bottom torn right off," Robillard reasoned.
"I figure us to be a few hundred yards from the beach," Deudermont said, peering hard into the mist. He looked to the stern. The Sea Sprite carried two small rowboats, one hanging on either side of the poop deck.
"We could circle again," Robillard remarked, seeing where the captain's reasoning was leading. "Perhaps we will find a spot with a good draw."
"I'll not risk my ship," Deudermont replied. "We will go in using the rowboat," he decided. He looked to a group of nearby crewmen. "Drop one," he instructed.
Twenty minutes later, Deudermont, Drizzt, Catti-brie, the two wizards, Waillan Micanty and a very reluctant and very frightened Dunkin glided away from the Sea Sprite, filling their row-boat so completely that its rim was barely a hand above the dark water. Deudermont had left specific instructions with those remaining on the Sea Sprite. The crew was to put back out of the mist a thousand yards and wait for their return. If they had not returned by nightfall, the Sea Sprite was to move out away from the island, making one final run at Caerwich at noon the next day.
After that, if the rowboat had not been spotted, she was to sail home.
The seven moved away from the Sea Sprite, Dunkin and Waillan on the oars and Catti-brie peering over the prow, expecting to find a reef at any moment. Farther back, Drizzt knelt beside Deudermont, ready to point out the mast he had spotted.
Drizzt couldn't find it.
"No reef," Catti-brie said from the front. "A good and deep draw, by me own guess." She looked back to Drizzt and especially to Deudermont. "Ye might've bringed her in right up to the damned beach," she said.
Deudermont looked to the drow, who was scanning the mist hard, wondering where that mast had gone to. He was about to restate what he had seen when the rowboat lurched suddenly, her bottom scraping on the rocks of a sharp reef.
They bumped and ground to a halt. They might have gotten hung up there, but a spell from Robillard brought both wizards, Deudermont and Catti-brie floating above the creaking planks of the boat, while Drizzt, Dunkin and Waillan cautiously brought the lightened boat over.
"All the way in?" Drizzt remarked to Catti-brie.
"It wasn't there!" the young woman insisted. Catti-brie had been a lookout for more than five years, and was said to have the best eyes on the Sword Coast. So how, she wondered, had she missed so obvious a reef, especially when she was looking for exactly that?
A few moments later, Harkle, at the very stern of the rowboat, gave a startled cry and the others turned to see the mast of a ship sticking out of the water right beside the seated wizard.
Now the others, especially Drizzt, were having the same doubts as Catti-brie. They had practically run over that mast, so why hadn't they seen it?
Dunkin tugged furiously at his ear.
"A trick of the fog," Deudermont said calmly. "Bring us around that mast." The command caught the others off guard. Dunkin shook his head, but Waillan slapped him on the shoulder.
"Hard on the oar," Waillan ordered. "You heard the captain."
Catti-brie hung low over the side of the rowboat, curious to learn more about the wreck, but the mist reflected in the water, leaving her staring into a gray veil whose secrets she could not penetrate. Finally, Deudermont gave up on gathering any information out here, and commanded Waillan and Dunkin to put straight in for the island.
At first, Dunkin nodded eagerly, happy to get off the water. Then, as he considered their destination, he alternated pulls on the oar with pulls on his ear.
The surf was not strong, but the undertow was and it pulled back against the rowboat's meager progress. The island was soon in sight, but it seemed to hang out there, just beyond their grasp, for many moments.
"Pull hard!" Deudermont ordered his rowers, though he knew that they were doing exactly that, were as anxious as he to get
this over with. Finally, the captain looked plaintively to Robillard, and the wizard, after a resigned sigh, stuck his hand into his deep pockets, seeking the components for a helpful spell.
Still up front, Catti-brie peered hard through the mist, studying the white beach for some sign of inhabitants. It was no good; the island was too far away, given the thick fog. The young woman looked down instead, into the dark water.
She saw candles.
Catti-brie's face twisted in confusion. She looked up and rubbed her eyes, then looked back to the water.
Candles. There could be no mistake about it. Candles . . . under the water.
Curious, the woman bent lower and looked more closely, finally making out a form holding the closest light.
Catti-brie fell back, gasping. "The dead," she said, though she couldn't get more than a whisper out of her mouth. Her sharp movements alone had caught the attention of the others, and then she hopped right to her feet, as a bloated and blackened hand grabbed the rim of the rowboat.
Dunkin, looking only at Catti-brie, screamed as she drew out her sword. Drizzt got to his feet and scrambled to get by the two oarsmen.
Catti-brie saw the top of the ghost's head come clear of the water. A horrid, skeletal face rose to the side of the boat.
Khazid'hea came down hard, hitting nothing but the edge of the boat and driving right through the planking until it was at water level.
"What are you doing?" Dunkin cried. Drizzt, at Catti-brie's side, wondered the same thing. There was no sign of any ghost, there was just Catti-brie's sword wedged deeply into the planking of the rowboat.
"Get us in!" Catti-brie yelled back. "Get us in!"
Drizzt looked at her hard, then looked all around. "Candles?" he asked, noticing the strange watery lights.
That simple word sparked fear in Deudermont, Robillard, Waillan and Dunkin, sailors all, who knew the tales of sea ghosts, lying in wait under the waves, their bloated bodies marked by witchlight candles.
"How pretty!" said an oblivious Harkle, looking overboard.
"Get us to the beach!" Deudermont cried, but he needn't have bothered, for Waillan and Dunkin were pulling with all of their strength.
Robillard was deep into spellcasting. He summoned a wave right behind the small craft and the rowboat was lifted up and sent speeding toward shore. The jolt of the sudden wave knocked Catti-brie to the deck and nearly sent Drizzt right over.
Harkle, entranced by the candles, wasn't so fortunate. As the wave crested, coming right over the tide line, he tumbled out.
The rowboat shot ahead, sliding hard onto the beach.
In the surf, ten yards offshore, a drenched Harkle stood up.
A dozen grotesque and bloated forms stood up around him.
"Oh, hello . . ." the friendly Harpell started, and then his eyes bulged and nearly rolled from their sockets.
"Eeyah!" Harkle screamed, plowing through the undertow and toward the shore.
Catti-brie was already up and in position, lifting Taulmaril and fitting an arrow. She took quick aim and let fly.
Harkle screamed again as the arrow streaked right past him. Then he heard the sickening thump and splash as an animated corpse hit the water, and understood that he was not the woman's target.
Another arrow followed closely, taking out the next nearest zombie. Harkle, as he came to more shallow water, tore himself free of grabbing weeds and quickly outdistanced the other monsters. He had just cleared the water, putting a few feet of moist sand behind him, when he heard the roar of flames and glanced back to see a curtain of fire separating him from the water, and from the zombies.
He ran the rest of the way up the beach to join the other six by the rowboat and expressed his thanks to Robillard, shaking the wizard so hard that he broke the man's concentration.
The curtain of blocking fire fell away. Where there had been ten zombies, there were now a score, and more were rising from the water and the weeds.
"Well done," Robillard said dryly.
Catti-brie fired again, blasting away another zombie.
Robillard waggled the fingers of one hand and a bolt of green energy erupted from each of them, soaring down the beach. Three hit one zombie in rapid succession, dropping it to the water. Two sped past, burning into the next monster in line and likewise sending it down.
"Not very creative," Harkle remarked.
Robillard scowled at him. "You can do better?"
Harkle snapped his fingers indignantly, and so the challenge was on.
Drizzt and the others stood back, weapons ready, but knowing better than to charge down at their foes in the face of wizardly magic. Even Catti-brie, after a couple of more shots, lowered her bow, giving the competing spellcasters center stage.
"A Calimshan snake charmer taught me this one," Harkle proclaimed. He tossed a bit of twine into the air and chanted in a cracking, high-pitched voice. A line of seaweed came alive to his call, rose up like a serpent and immediately wrapped itself about the nearest zombie, yanking the thing down under the surf.
Harkle smiled broadly.
Robillard snorted derisively. "Only one?" he asked, and he launched himself into the throes of another spell, spinning and dancing and tossing flakes of metal into the air. Then he stopped and pivoted powerfully, hurling one hand out toward the shore. Shards of shining, burning metal flew out, gained a momentum all their own, and sent a barrage into the zombies' midst. Several were hit, the ignited metals clinging to them stubbornly, searing through the weeds and the remnants of clothing, through rotted skin and bone alike.
A moment later, a handful of the gruesome zombies tumbled down.
"Oh, simple evocation," Harkle chided and he answered Robillard's spell by pulling out a small metal rod and pointing it toward the water.
Seconds later, a lightning bolt blasted forth. Harkle aimed it at the water and the bolt blasted in, spreading wide in a circular pattern, engulfing many monsters.
How weird, even funny, that sight appeared! Zombie hair popped up straight and the stiff-moving things began a strange, hopping dance, turning complete circles, rolling this way and that before spinning down under the waves.
When it was over, the zombie ranks had been cut in half, though more were rising stubbornly all along the beach.
Harkle smiled widely and snapped his fingers again. "Simple evocation," he remarked.
"Indeed," muttered Robillard.
Catti-brie had eased her bowstring by this point, and was smiling, sincerely amused, as she regarded her companions. Even Dunkin, so terrified a moment before, seemed ready to laugh aloud at the spectacle of the battling wizards. In looking at the pair, Deudermont was glad, for he feared that the sight of such horrid enemies had defeated his team's heart for this search.
It was Robillard's turn and he focused on a single zombie that had cleared the water and was ambling up the beach. He used no material components this time, just chanted softly and waved his arms in specific movements. A line of fire rushed out from his pointing finger, reaching out to the unfortunate target monster and then shrouding it in flames, an impressive display that fully consumed the creature in but a few moments. Robillard, concentrating deeply, then shifted the line of fire, burning away a second monster.
"The scorcher," he said when the spell was done. "A remnant from the works of Agannazar."
Harkle snorted. "Agannazar was a minor trickster!" he declared, and Robillard scowled.
Harkle reached into a pocket, pulling forth several components. "Dart," he explained, lifting the item. "Powdered rhubarb and the stomach of an adder."
"Melf!" Robillard cried happily.
"Melf indeed!" echoed Harpell. "Now there was a wizard!"
"I know Melf," said Robillard.
Harkle stuttered and stopped his casting. "How old are you?" he asked.
"I know Melf's work," Robillard clarified.
"Oh," said Harkle and he went back to casting.