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.