“I hope you understand the upset your arrival has caused, and will cause, with the powers that be in the region,” General Sabine replied.
“Not just Lord Neverember,” Jelvus Grinch added. “I expect that many of the Waterdhavian lords will not be as welcoming as you hope.”
“But what would you do if you were still first citizen?” Drizzt asked, his tone revealing that he knew the answer.
“I’d be going into Gauntlgrym beside you to chase the dark elves and the rest away,” he answered after only a slight hesitation to glance at General Sabine. His words could be construed as a treasonous act under the court of fiery Neverember. Jelvus Grinch had no authority to speak against the Lord Protector of Neverwinter, and certainly not in the presence of Neverwinter’s captain of the guard, and yet he was.
That told Drizzt and the others a lot about Jelvus Grinch, but more importantly, it told Drizzt and Bruenor about the reliability and integrity of General Sabine. Jelvus Grinch would not have spoken so openly if he didn’t trust the woman, which in Drizzt and Bruenor’s eyes told them that they could trust her as well.
“With the dwarves claiming Gauntlgrym, Neverwinter will be far more secure,” Jelvus Grinch went on. “And more prosperous, I would assume, with a mighty trading partner so near. You will want our food and our cloth.”
“And our markets for your wares,” General Sabine added.
Bruenor nodded, but thought that the dwarves would have nothing to do with Neverwinter’s products, craftsmen, or markets if Neverember tried to slap a tariff on the dwarves for bringing their goods out through what the Lord Protector considered Neverwinter land.
As far as Bruenor was concerned—and he was sure that King Emerus and King Connerad felt the same way—in that situation, they’d either tunnel out a new exit farther to the north or to the east, or they’d just disregard any such demands of taxation.
And they’d cut Neverwinter out of any trading partnerships or military alliances.
Bruenor Battlehammer did not march to Gauntlgrym with such a force from the Silver Marches to bow down to the human lords of the Sword Coast.
“WE NEED HER alive,” the human said.
Jarlaxle sighed. “We did not go to all the trouble of finding the troubled young elf just to see her slaughtered.”
“You went to find Tiago at the command of Gromph,” the man pressed.
“We went to do both.” Jarlaxle turned to Kimmuriel. “A fortunate coincidence that they were together.”
Kimmuriel’s expression showed that he could not have cared less.
Jarlaxle sighed again, an audible lament to the extremes of his two companions, one who apparently couldn’t see past his own immediate desires, and the other, who was so removed from emotion that none of this seemed at all important to him. The mercenary grinned and let it go; this had ever been his role in Bregan D’aerthe, after all, balancing the immediate desires with the long-term implications.
Fortunately for him this time, Gromph’s—and by extension, Matron Mother Baenre’s—demands that Bregan D’aerthe locate and track Tiago also played into some more important developments and likelihoods that Jarlaxle had expected farther down the line.
Beniago and the human left then, leaving the co-leaders of Bregan D’aerthe alone in the room at the inn called One-Eyed Jax in Luskan.
“We don’t need her at all,” Kimmuriel pointed out. “Our excitable friend believes that since she, too, is darthiir, she will ultimately lead us where he desires to go.”
“He sees us as if we all look alike, my friend,” Jarlaxle replied. “Are we not guilty of the same prejudices against his kind? Or against Doum’wielle’s, for that matter?”
Kimmuriel stared at him for a few moments. “You are,” said the ultimately pragmatic psionicist, who spent more time with the otherworldly mind flayers than with his own kind, and when he considered the truth of Kimmuriel’s words, Jarlaxle realized that he really couldn’t disagree.
Still, Jarlaxle was less inclined toward xenophobia and prejudice than most others of his race, so he could take Kimmuriel’s point well without taking it personally.
“When do you meet with Gromph again for his next lesson?” Jarlaxle asked.
“In a tenday, in Sorcere,” the psionicist replied.
“We see where this is leading, and I don’t think the archmage will approve. Nor will he harbor the risk of knowing our plans without going straight to the wretched matron mother.”
“Archmage Gromph has more on his mind than something Bregan D’aerthe might do with a minor House in Menzoberranzan sometime in the future,” Kimmuriel insisted.
“He is not removed from this,” Jarlaxle reminded him. “He has been tasked with ensuring Tiago’s safe return to Menzoberranzan. That puts us side by side, but not with similar end goals.”
“He is more removed than you believe,” Kimmuriel said. “But I will take great care when I present this to the archmage.” He held up a large crystal, one attuned to the necklace Beniago had hung around Doum’wielle’s neck.
This item was a psionic creation more than an arcane one, scrying through the sheer power of the mind. If Doum’wielle had been so trained, she could use the gem hanging around her neck to look back the other way, but of course, she’d never recognize such a power. But Gromph, training under Kimmuriel and growing quite adept at the strange psionic powers, would be able to utilize the connection between the gems.
And the great Kimmuriel, holding the third gem, would be able to psionically walk beside Tiago and Doum’wielle as surely as if he were actually standing with them.
“Keep a close watch,” Jarlaxle bade him. “If Gromph moves on Tiago and Doum’wielle, we must be quick to act.” Jarlaxle considered that closed the business between he and Kimmuriel, and rose from his seat, but Kimmuriel’s next words stopped him before he took a step.
“For the sake of your human friend?”
Jarlaxle laughed under his breath at the sarcastic remark, so characteristic of the often too-clever Kimmuriel.
“For all our sakes, as the wider events unfold.”
“We find a good profit simply working under the commands of the matron mother,” Kimmuriel reminded him.
“Until Quenthel grows tired of us, or wishes to make a point against us.”
“Against her brother, you mean.”
Jarlaxle spun and glared at Kimmuriel. “You accuse me of using Bregan D’aerthe to further my own designs?”
Kimmuriel shrugged and returned Jarlaxle’s look with a disarming grin. “Is that not why we have Bregan D’aerthe?”
That stark admission caught Jarlaxle off guard. He had elevated Kimmuriel to co-leader of the band precisely to make sure that he, Jarlaxle, did not wrongly use the band in pursuit of goals that did not serve Bregan D’aerthe.
“In this instance, I do not disagree that your needs and those of Bregan D’aerthe are one and the same,” Kimmuriel explained. “When your sister imprisoned you as a guard of House Do’Urden—”
“Along with half of our foot soldiers,” Jarlaxle interjected, and Kimmuriel nodded.
“She also sublimated our Luskan operation to House Xorlarrin and their fledgling city,” Kimmuriel finished.
“We should remain a proxy group for House Baenre,” the psionicist went on, “but only partly that, and only so long as it serves us.”
“Keep a close watch, I beg,” Jarlaxle said again.
“Of course.”
As soon as Jarlaxle exited the room, Kimmuriel pulled forth that third crystal, the one with which he could monitor Doum’wielle and Tiago.
Unknown to Jarlaxle and to the archmage, with this gemstone Kimmuriel would be able to watch Gromph as well.
That breathtaking reality unnerved the psionicist as much as anything he had undertaken in the centuries of his life, for if Gromph Baenre ever got a hint that Kimmuriel was spying on him, his retribution would likely leave Kimmuriel tortured and begging for death next to K’yorl in the prisons of E
rrtu in the Abyss.
Yes, this was a dangerous game Kimmuriel was playing, and he had to admit to himself that spying on Gromph was as much a fulfillment of his personal desires to savor in the beauty of House Baenre’s downfall as Kimmuriel’s destroyed House was at long last avenged as it was any hope of practical gain.
The pieces were already in play, after all, and in a tenday, Kimmuriel would quietly insinuate more powerful words of the spell K’yorl had given him to facilitate Gromph’s unwitting actions, returning her to Menzoberranzan where she could wreak revenge upon House Baenre.
Kimmuriel didn’t have to monitor that—in fact, it was far more logical, and indeed much safer for him to remain as far removed from the coming chaos as he could. Still, despite all of that, despite his life’s efforts in remaining purely pragmatic, in being driven purely by reason and not by emotion …
Indeed, despite all of that, Kimmuriel Oblodra simply couldn’t help himself.
OF ALL THE travelers from the Silver Marches, Tiago and Doum’wielle were the first to enter the tunnels that would take them to the ancient dwarven complex, now the drow city of Q’Xorlarrin. Tiago knew this region well, having come forth to raid Port Llast in search of Drizzt, and he knew, too, that he and his companion would almost certainly find the upper reaches of the complex empty of drow.
“Remain alert,” he told Doum’wielle when they went into the long approach tunnels. “We will likely encounter enemies, goblins and kobolds at the least, in the upper chambers. Matron Mother Zeerith does not have the resources to secure the whole of the vast tunnels and chambers of the ancient dwarven homeland, particularly after her losses in the Silver Marches War, and I am sure that she remains in the lower tunnels.”
“We will go to her?”
“No,” Tiago sharply replied. “Once the dwarves are in the Underdark, Drizzt will almost surely serve as scout. We’ll find our place, and we’ll find him alone. Then we’ll go and see Zeerith, and perhaps she will accompany me to the Ruling Council in Menzoberranzan, where I will present the matron mother with the heretic’s head.”
He should be warning his family of the dwarves’ approach, Doum’wielle thought, but knew better than to say. Somehow, the necklace made her bolder about such thoughts.
She felt a sting of disapproval from Khazid’hea, a reminder to her that her own future likely hinged on this expected confrontation with the rogue Do’Urden.
She looked at Tiago and smiled and nodded, then obediently followed him down into the darkness.
Doum’wielle suppressed her wicked smile, secure in the notion that she, not he, would be the one presenting the head of Drizzt Do’Urden to Matron Mother Baenre.
With her father Tos’un dead, this was her only chance to find a place where she was not simply iblith, to be abused and discarded by the merciless drow.
PART 2
Seeking Destiny
THE WINDS OF CHANGE HAVE LIFTED THE HAIR FROM MY NECK. THEY tickle me and tease me, and take me to a place unexpected.
My road has wound in circles these last years, from hearth and home, to the open road, to trying to build anew with a group that was not of my own heart. And now the circle completes, back to where I began, it seems, but not so.
For these friends returned are not the friends I knew. They are very much akin in heart and duty, of course, and surely recognizable to me, but yet, they are different, in that they have seen a new light and way, a new perspective on mortality and death, and on the meaning of life itself. This attitude manifests itself most subtly, usually, but I see it there, in every Bruenor grumble, in every Catti-brie confidence, in every Regis fight, and in every Wulfgar laugh.
And now I see it in myself as well. For these last decades, after the passing of Catti-brie and the others, and even before Bruenor fell in Gauntlgrym, I was restless, and quite content to be. I wanted to know what was around the next bend, any bend in the road, be it the quest to find Gauntlgrym or the years afterward when I led the band of Artemis Entreri, Dahlia, and the others. My home was in my memories—I neither wanted nor needed a replacement. For those memories were enough to sustain me and nourish me. I nearly lost myself in that long and winding journey to that ultimate conclusion, and would have, I know, had I not refused Dahlia on that hillside in Icewind Dale. There, again, I found myself, and so in the end, I survived. Drizzt Do’Urden, this person I strive to be, survived the trials.
And now I find myself on the road of adventure again with Catti-brie and Bruenor, and could anything be better? Ours is a noble quest, as much so as the one that reclaimed Mithral Hall that century and more ago. We march with songs and the cadence of dwarven boots, under the flags of three kings and with the flagons of five thousand grinning dwarf warriors.
Could anything be better?
Perhaps so if Wulfgar and Regis were still with us, and truly I miss them every day. But at the same time, I am happy for them, and hold confidence that we will meet again. I noted the sparkle in Regis’s eyes whenever he spoke of Donnola Topolino, and I can only applaud the road he has chosen—and only be happier that mighty Wulfgar walks that road beside him! Woe to any ill-intentioned rogues who cross the path of that formidable pair!
They will come back. I have fretted on this for a while, but now I am convinced. This is not like the time long ago when Wulfgar abandoned us to return to Icewind Dale. Nay, on that occasion, I doubted that we would ever see Wulfgar again, and we would not have, none of us, except that Regis and I ventured to Icewind Dale. Even then, the reunion was … strange. For when Wulfgar left us those decades ago, he did so emotionally as well as physically.
That is not the case this time.
They will come back, and we will be victorious in Gauntlgrym. These things I believe, and so I am at peace, and excited and anxious all at once.
And nervous, I admit, and I am surprised by that truth. When we rejoined together atop Kelvin’s Cairn that dark night, there was only elation. And as the shock of my friends returned from the dead wore away, I was left simply giddy, feeling blessed and fortunate beyond what anyone should ever expect.
In the early days back together, even when we returned to the Silver Marches and found ourselves embroiled in a war, we all had the sense that the Companions of the Hall survived on time borrowed from the gods, and that our end, for any of us, could come at any moment, and it would be all right, because we had found each other again and had left no words unsaid. Even though my four friends had begun a new life, living two decades and more with new identities, with new family, new friends, and for Regis at least, a new love in his life, our existence was to be enjoyed and appreciated day by day.
And it was … all right.
Soon after, Catti-brie, Bruenor, and I had come to believe that Wulfgar and Regis had fallen in the tunnels of the Upperdark on our journey back to Mithral Hall. For months we had thought them lost to us forevermore, that they had journeyed once again into the realm of death, this time not to return.
And it was … all right.
The pain was there, to be sure, but still, we had been given the great gift of time together once more, and in the knowledge that our companionship was indeed rooted in mortality! I cannot emphasize that gift enough! Many times, I claim that a person must know he is going to die, must recognize and accept that basic truth of life, in order to defeat his fears and press on with a true sense of purpose in life. My friends knew that, and know that now, better than most.
They have seen the other side.
And when they are called again from this life, they go with acceptance, each, and not because they know a truth of immortality and eternity beyond the mortal coil—indeed, Wulfgar, and even Regis, remain skeptical of the gods, even after their ordeal in the enchanted forest of Iruladoon.
The close brush with death, indeed their decades in the clutches of something other than life, has given them, has given us all, both urgency and acceptance. It is a blessing, twice over.
Perhaps because of the passage of ti
me, perhaps because of our victories and survival in the War of the Silver Marches, but now I have come to sense a change. That borrowed time seems less to me as I grow comfortable with the return of my friends, alive and vibrant, and hopefully with many decades ahead of them—indeed, even discounting the possibility of an enemy blade cutting one of us low, Bruenor could well outlive me in natural years!
Or our end, any of us or all of us, could come this very day, or tomorrow. I’ve always known this, and make it a part of my daily routine to remind myself of it, but now that the newness of my friends’ return has worn off, now that I have come to believe that they are here—they are really here, as surely and tangibly as they were when I first met Catti-brie on the slopes of Kelvin’s Cairn, and she introduced me to Bruenor and Regis, and then Wulfgar came to us when he was defeated in battle by Bruenor.
It is new again, it is fresh, and it is, in terms of an individual’s life, lasting.
And so I am nervous about going into battle, because now I am seeing the future once more as the comfort of home and of friends, and my Catti-brie, all about, and it is a future I long to realize!
In a strange way, I now see myself moving in the opposite direction of Wulfgar. He has returned carefree, ready to experience whatever the world might throw before him—in battle, in game and in love. He lives for each moment, without regret.
Fully without regret, and that is no small thing. “Consequence” is not a word that now enters Wulfgar’s conversation. He is returned to life to play, with joy, with lust, with passion.
I try to mirror that exuberance, and hope to find that joy, and know my lust in my love for Catti-brie, but while Wulfgar embraces the life of the free-spirited nomad, a rapscallion even, finding adventure and entertainment where he may, I find myself suddenly intrigued by the permanency of hearth and home, a husband, among friends.
A father?
—Drizzt Do’Urden
CHAPTER 8
A Seat of Reverence
THE TUNNELS DID NOT SEEM CRAMPED TO THEM. THE LOW CEILINGS and tons of stone above them did not bow their shoulders with apprehension. For the Delzoun dwarves, from the moment they entered the tunnel from the rocky dale, traveling down the long and winding subterranean corridor that Bruenor told them would take them to the outer wall of Gauntlgrym, the way, the smell, the aura, all spoke not of danger or foreign discomfort, or the threatening hush of a waiting predator, or the shadows of death fluttering all about.