Passage to Dawn

'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.