第16部分

*****

"What do you mean?" Robillard roared. He slapped his hands together fiercely and translated his question into the watery, gurgling language of the water elemental.

The reply came without hesitation, and Robillard knew enough of such a creature to understand that it had the means to know the truth of the matter. This one had been cooperative, as elemental creatures go, and Robillard did not believe that it was lying to him.

The Sea Sprite was gone, vanished from the sea.

Robillard breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the next reply, that the ship had not sunk, had simply drifted out of the waters.

"Harkle Harpell," the wizard reasoned aloud. "He has gotten them into a port. Well done!" Robillard considered his own situation then, alone and so far from land. He commanded the elemental to keep him moving in a generally easterly direction, and explained that he would need the creature until the next dawn. Then he took out his spellbook, a fabulous leatherbound and watertight work, and moved its golden tassel bookmark to the page containing his teleportation spell.

Then the wizard sat back and relaxed. He needed to sleep, to gather his strength and his energy. The elemental would see to his safety for now, and in the morning he would use his spell to put him in his private room in the guild hall in Waterdeep. Yes, the wizard decided, it had been a difficult and boring few weeks, and now was a good time for some restful shore leave.

Deudermont would just have to catch up with him later.

*****

The Sea Sprite drifted in a surreal stillness, no sound of water or wind, for many minutes. The fog was so thick about them that Drizzt had to hang very low over the rail to even see the water. He didn't dare reach out and touch that gray liquid, not knowing what Harkle's spell, if this was indeed Harkle's spell, might be doing.

At last they heard a splash, the lap of a wave against the prow of the ship. The fog began to thin almost immediately, but though they couldn't see their surroundings, everyone on board sensed that something had changed.

"The smell," Catti-brie remarked, and the heads of all those near her bobbed in agreement. Gone was the salty aroma, so thick that it left a taste in your mouth, replaced by a crisp summer scent, filled with trees, flowers, and the slick feel of an inlet swamp. The sounds, too, had changed, from the empty, endless whistle of the wind and the muted splashes of deep water to the gentle lapping of lesser waves and the trilling of . . .

"Songbirds?" Drizzt asked.

The fog blew away, and all of the crew breathed a sigh of relief, for they were near to land! To the left loomed a small island, tree-covered, centered by a small castle and dotted with large mansions. A long bridge stretched in front of the Sea Sprite, reaching from the island to the shore, to the docks of a fair-sized, walled town. Behind the town, the ground sloped up into tall mountains, a landmark that no sailor could miss, but that Deudermont did not know. Many boats were about, though none much bigger than the rowboats the Sea Sprite carried astern. All the crews stood, staring blankly at the magnificent sailing ship.

"Not Waterdeep," Deudermont remarked. "Nor anywhere near to the city that I know of."

Drizzt surveyed the area, studying the coastline that curled back behind them. "Not the open sea," he replied.

"A lake," Catti-brie reasoned.

All three of them looked at each other for a moment, then yelled out, "Harkle!" in unison. The Harpell, expecting the call, scrambled out of the hatch and bounded right up beside them, his expression full of cheer.

"Where are we?" Deudermont demanded.

"Where the fates wanted us to be," the mage said mysteriously, waving his arms, the voluminous sleeves of his robe flying wide.

"I'm thinking ye'll have to do better than that," Catti-brie put in dryly.

Harkle shrugged and lowered his arms. "I do not know for sure, of course," he admitted. "The spell facilitates the move梟ot a random thing梑ut wherever that might be, I cannot tell."

"The spell?" Deudermont asked.

"The fog of fate," Drizzt answered before Harkle could. "The same spell that brought you to us."

Harkle nodded through the drow's every word, his smile wide, his expression one of pride and accomplishment.

"You put us in a lake!" Deudermont roared angrily.

Harkle stammered for a reply, but a call from the water cut the private conversation short. "Yo ho, Sea Sprite!"

The four went to the rail, Drizzt pulling the hood of his cloak over his head. He didn't know where they were, or what reception they might find, but he felt it likely that the greeting would be less warm if these sailors discovered that the Sea Sprite carried a drow elf.

A fair-sized fishing boat had pulled up alongside, its crew of six studying the schooner intently. "You've seen battle," an old graybeard, seeming to be the skipper of the fishing boat, reasoned.

"A storm," Deudermont corrected. "As fierce a blow as I've ever known."

The six fishermen exchanged doubting looks. They had been on the water every day for the last month and had seen no storms.

"Far from here," Deudermont tried to explain, recognizing the doubting expressions.

"How far can you get?" the old graybeard asked, looking about at the ever-present shoreline.

"Ye'd be surprised," Catti-brie answered, casting a sidelong glance at the blushing Harkle.

"Where did you put in?" the graybeard asked.

Deudermont held his hands out wide. "We are the Sea Sprite, out of Waterdeep."

The doubting expressions turned into open smirks. "Waterdeep?" the graybeard echoed.

"Are we in another world?" Catti-brie whispered to Drizzt, and the drow found it hard to honestly comfort her, especially with Harkle Harpell behind it all.

"Waterdeep," Deudermont said evenly, seriously, with as much conviction as he could muster.

"You're a long way from home, captain," another of the fishermen remarked. "A thousand miles."

"Fifteen hundred," the graybeard corrected.

"And all of it land," another added, laughing. "Have you wheels on the Sea Sprite?" That brought a chuckle from the six and from several other crews of boats moving close to investigate.

"And a team of horses I'd like to see," a man on another boat put in, drawing more laughter.

Even Deudermont managed a smile, relieved that he and his ship were apparently still in the Realms. "Wizard's work," he explained. "We sailed the Sea of Swords, five hundred miles southwest of the Moonshaes, when the storm found us and left us drifting. Our wizard"桪eudermont looked over to Harkle?cast some enchantment to get us into port."

"He missed," howled a man.

"But he got us off of the open sea," Deudermont said when the laughter died away. "Where we surely would have perished. Pray tell me, good sailors, where are we?"

"This is Impresk Lake," the graybeard replied, then pointed to shore, to the walled town. "Carradoon."

Deudermont didn't recognize the names.

"Those are the Snowflakes," the skipper continued, indicating the mountains.

"South," Catti-brie said suddenly. All eyes turned to her. "We are far south of Waterdeep," she said. "And if we sailed south from the lake, we'd get to the Deepwash, then to Vilhon Reach in the Inner Sea."

"You have the place," the graybeard announced. "But you'd not draw enough water to get that ship to Shalane Lake."

"And unless you've wings with those wheels, you won't be sailing over the Cloven Mountains!" the man beside the graybeard roared. But the laughter was subdued now, all the sailors, on the Sea Sprite and on the fishing boats, digesting the gravity of the situation.

Deudermont blew a long sigh and looked to Harkle, who cast his gaze to the deck. "We'll worry about where we are going later," Deudermont said. "For now, the task is to repair the Sea Sprite." He turned to the graybeard. "I fear that your lake hasn't enough draw," he said. "Is there a long wharf, where we might put in for repairs?"

The skipper pointed to Carradoon Island, and one long dock jutting out in the direction of the Sea Sprite.

"The draw is deeper on the northern side of the island," the man next to him remarked.

"But the long dock is privately owned," a third fisherman put in.

"We'll get permission to put her in," the graybeard said firmly.

"But the task is not so easy," Deudermont interjected. "We've not the sails, nor the steering to navigate. And I do not know these waters, obviously."

"Put out some lines, Captain . . ."

"Deudermont," the Sea Sprite's captain replied. "Captain Deudermont."

"My name's Terraducket," the graybeard said. "Well met." He signaled to all the other boats as he spoke, and already they were swarming about the Sea Sprite, trying to get in position.

"We'll get you in to the docks, and Carradoon has a fair number of shipwrights to help in your repairs," Terraducket went on. "Even on that mast, though we'll have to find a tall tree indeed to replace it! Know that it will cost you a fair number of stories about your sailing adventures on the Sea of Swords, if I know my fellows!"

"We've a fair number to tell!" Deudermont assured him.

The ropes went out and the fishing fleet put in line and began to guide and tow the great schooner.

"The brotherhood of sailors extends to those upon the lakes," Drizzt remarked.

"So it would seem," Deudermont agreed. "If we had crew to replace, I'd know where to begin my search." The captain looked over to Harkle, who was still staring forlornly at the deck. "You did well, Master Harpell," Deudermont said, and the wizard's face brightened as he looked up at the man. "We would have perished in the uncharted waters so far from the Moonshaes, and now we shall live."

"But on a lake," Harkle replied.

Deudermont waved that notion away. "Robillard will find us, and the two of you will find a way to put us back where we belong, I do not doubt. For now, my ship and my crew are safe, and that is all that matters. Well done!"

Harkle verily glowed.

"But why are we here?" Catti-brie had to ask.

"The fog of fate," Drizzt and Harkle said in unison.

"And that means that there is something here that we need," the wizard went on.

"Need for what?" Catti-brie asked.

"For the quest, of course!" Harkle roared. "That is what this is all about, is it not?" He looked around as if that should explain everything, but saw that the stares coming back at him were not looks of comprehension. "Before the storm, we were heading for . . ."

"Waterdeep," Deudermont answered. "Your spell has not put us closer to Waterdeep."

Harkle waved his hands frantically. "No, no," he corrected. "Not for Waterdeep, but for a priest, or perhaps a wizard, in Waterdeep."

"And you think that we're more likely to find a spellcaster of the power we need here than in Waterdeep?" Drizzt asked incredulously. "In this tiny town so far from home?"

"Good Captain Terraducket," Harkle called.

"Here," came the reply from farther away than before, for Terraducket's fishing boat had moved forward to join in the towing line.

"We seek a priest," Harkle said. "A very powerful priest . . ."

"Cadderly," Terraducket interrupted without hesitation. "Cadderly Bonaduce. You'll not find a more powerful priest in all the Realms!" Terraducket boasted, as if this Cadderly was the property of all of Carradoon.

Harkle cast a superior glance at his friends. "Fog of fate," he remarked.

"And where might we find this Cadderly?" Deudermont asked. "In Carradoon?"

"No," came Terraducket's reply. "Two day's march out, into the mountains, in a temple called the Spirit Soaring."

Deudermont looked to Harkle, no more doubting questions coming to surface.

Harkle clapped his hands together. "Fog of fate!" he said again. "Oh, and it all fits so well," he said excitedly, as though another thought had just popped into his head.

"Fits like the Sea Sprite in a lake," Catti-brie put in sarcastically, but Harkle just ignored her.

"Don't you see?" the wizard asked them all, excited once more and flapping those winglike arms. "Sea Sprite and Spirit Soaring. SS and SS, after all! And fog of fate, ff."

"I'm needin' a long sleep," Catti-brie groaned.

"And HH!" Harkle bellowed. Drizzt looked at him curiously. "Harkle Harpell!" the excited wizard explained, then he poked a finger the drow's way. "And DD for Drizzt Do'Urden! FF for fog of fate, and SS and SS, HH and DD! And you . . ." he pointed at Catti-brie.

"Doesn't work," the young woman assured him.

"Doesn't matter," Drizzt added. Deudermont was biting hard on his lip, trying not to steal Harkle's moment of glory with a burst of laughter.

"Oh, there's something in the letters," Harkle said, speaking to himself more than to the others. "I must explore this!"

"Explore yer mind," Catti-brie said to him, and then she added under her breath, so that only Drizzt and Deudermont could hear, "Better take a big lantern and a dwarf's cave pack."

That brought a snicker.

"But your father!" Harkle yelled suddenly, leaping at Catti-brie. She barely held back from slugging him, so great was her surprise.

"Me father?" she asked.

"BB!" Harkle, Drizzt, and Deudermont all said together, the drow and the captain feigning excitement.

Catti-brie groaned again.

"Yes, yes. Bruenor Battlehammer," Harkle said to himself, and started walking away. "BB. Oh, I must explore the correlation of the letters, yes, I must."

"While ye're thinkin' on it, find the correlation of BF," Catti-brie said to him. The distracted wizard nodded and rambled along, making a straight path to Deudermont's private quarters, which Harkle had practically taken over.

"BF?" the captain asked Catti-brie.

"Babbling fool," she and Drizzt replied together, drawing yet another laugh from those nearby. Still, neither Drizzt nor Catti-brie, Deudermont nor any of the others could dismiss the fact that the "babbling fool" had apparently saved the Sea Sprite, and had put them closer to their goal.

Part 3

THE NATURE OF EVIL

They are the absolutes, the pantheon of ideals, the goodly gods and the evil fiends, forever locked in the struggle for the souls of the mortals. The concept that is Lloth is purely evil; that of Mielikki, purely good. As opposite as black and white, with no shades of gray in between. Thus are the concepts, good and evil. Absolute, rigid. There can be no justification for a truly evil act; there is no shade of gray. While an act of good often brings personal gain, the act itself is absolute as its measure is based on intent. This is epitomized by our beliefs in the pantheon, but what of the mortal races, the rational beings梩he humans and the races of elvenkind and dwarvenkind, the gnomes and the halflings, the goblinoids and giantkin? Here the question muddles, the absolutes blend.

To many, the equation is simple: I am drow, drow are evil, thus I am evil.

They are wrong. For what is a rational being if not a choice? And there can be no evil, nor any good, without intent. It is true that in the Realms there are races and cultures, particularly the goblinoids, which show a general weal of evil, and those, such as the surface elves, which lean toward the concept of good. But even in these, which many consider personifications of an absolute, it is the individual's intents and actions that ultimately decide. I have known a goblin who was not evil; I am a drow who has not succumbed to the ways of his culture. Still, few drow and fewer goblins can make such claims, and so the generalities hold.

Most curious and most diverse among the races are the humans. Here the equation and the expectations muddle most of all. Here perception reins supreme. Here intent is oft hidden, secret. No race is more adept than humans at weaving a mask of justification. No race is more adept than humans at weaving a mask of excuses, at ultimately claiming good intent. And no race is more adept at believing its own claims. How many wars have been fought, man against man, with both armies espousing that god, a goodly god, was on their side and in their hearts?

But good is not a thing of perception. What is "good" in one culture cannot be "evil" in another. This might be true of mores and minor practices, but not of virtue. Virtue is absolute.

It must be. Virtue is the celebration of life and of love, the acceptance of others and the desire to grow toward goodness, toward a better place. It is the absence of pride and envy, the willingness to share our joys and to bask in the accomplishments of others. It is above justification because it is what truly lies in each and every heart. If a person does an evil act, then let him weave his mask, but it will not hide the truth, the absolute, from what is naked within his own heart.

There is a place within each of us where we cannot hide from the truth, where virtue sits as judge. To admit the truth of our actions is to go before that court, where process is irrelevant. Good and evil are intents, and intent is without excuse.

Cadderly Bonaduce went to that place as willingly and completely as any man I have known. I recognize that growth within him, and see the result, the Spirit Soaring, most majestic and yet most humble of human accomplishments.

Artemis Entreri will go to that place. Perhaps not until the moment of his death, but he will go, as we all must eventually go, and what agony he will realize when the truth of his evil existence is laid bare before him. I pray that he goes soon, and my hope is not born of vengeance, for vengeance is an empty prayer. May Entreri go of his own volition to that most private place within his heart to see the truth and, thus, to correct his ways. He will find joy in his penance, true harmony that he can never know along his present course.

I go to that place within my heart as often as I am able in order to escape the trap of easy justification. It is a painful place, a naked place, but only there might we grow toward goodness; only there, where no mask can justify, might we recognize the truth of our intents, and thus, the truth of our actions. Only there, where virtue sits as judge, are heroes born.

桪rizzt Do'Urden

Chapter 13

THE SPIRIT SOARING

Drizzt, Catti-brie, Deudermont, and Harkle encountered no trouble as they left Carradoon for their trek into the Snowflake Mountains. The drow kept the cowl of his cloak pulled low, and everyone in town was so excited by the presence of the schooner that none paid too much attention to the group as they departed.

Once they got past the gate, the foursome found the going easy and safe. Guided around any potential problems by the drow ranger, they found nothing remarkable, nothing exciting.

Given what they had all been through over the last few weeks, that was just the way they wanted it.

They chatted easily, mostly with Drizzt explaining to them the nature of the wildlife about them梬hich birds went with which chatter, and how many deer had made the beds of flattened needles near to one grove of pines. Occasionally the conversation drifted to the task at hand, to the blind seer's poem. This put poor Harkle in quite a predicament. He knew that the others were missing obvious points, possibly critical points in the verse, for with his journal, he had been able to scrutinize the poem thoroughly. The wizard wasn't sure how much he could intervene, though. Fog of fate had been created as a passive spell, a method for Harkle to facilitate, and then witness dramatic unfolding events. If he became an active participant in those events by letting another of the players in this drama glance at his enchanted journal, or by using what the journal had shown to him, he would likely ruin the spell.

Certainly Harkle could use his other magical abilities if fate led them to battle, and certainly he could use his intuition, as in the discussion on the Sea Sprite when they had first agreed that they needed to see a sorcerer or a priest. But direct intervention, using information given by the facilitation of the spell, would alter the future perhaps, and thus defeat the intentions of fate. Harkle's spell had never been created for such a purpose; the magic had its edges. Poor Harkle didn't know how far he could push that boundary. In living his forty years surrounded by wizards at least as outrageous as he, he understood all too well the potentially grave side effects of pushing magic too far.

So Harkle let the other three babble through their discussions of the poem, nodding his head and agreeing with whatever seemed to be the most accepted interpretation of any given line. He avoided any direct questions, though his halfhearted shrugs and mumbled responses brought many curious looks.

The trails climbed higher into the mountains, but the going remained easy, for the path was well-worn and oft-traveled. When the foursome came out from under the gloom of the mountain canopy, off the path and onto a flat meadow near to the edge of one steep drop, they understood why.

Drizzt Do'Urden had seen the splendors of Mithril Hall, so had Catti-brie. With his magic, Harkle Harpell had visited many exotic places, such as the Hosttower of the Arcane in Luskan. Deudermont had sailed the Sword Coast from Water-deep to exotic Calimport. But none of those places had ever taken the breath from any of the four like the sight before them now.

It was called the Spirit Soaring, a fitting name indeed for a gigantic temple梐 cathedral梠f soaring towers and flying buttresses, of great windows of colored glass and a gutter system finished at every corner with an exotic gargoyle. The lowest edges of the cathedral's main roof were still more than a hundred feet from the ground, and three of the towers climbed to more than twice that height.

The Baenre compound was larger, of course, and the Host-tower was more obviously a free-flowing creation of magic. But there was something more solemn about this place, more reverent and holy. The stone of the cathedral was gray and brown, unremarkable really, but it was the construction of that stone, the earthly, and even greater, strength of the place that gave them awe. It was as though the cathedral's roots were deep in the mountains and its soaring head touched the heavens themselves.

A beautiful melody, a voice rich and sweet, wafted out of the temple, reverberated off the stones. It took the four a moment to even realize that it was a voice, a human voice, for the Spirit Soaring seemed to have a melody all its own.

The grounds were no less spectacular. A grove of trees lined a cobblestone walk that led up to the temple's massive front doors. Outside that perfectly straight tree line was a manicured lawn, thick and rich, bordered by perfectly-shaped hedgerows and filled with various flower beds, all red and pink, purple and white. Several leafy bushes dotted the lawn as well, and these had been shaped to resemble various woodland animals梐 deer and a bear, a huge rabbit and a group of squirrels.

Catti-brie blinked several times when she spotted the gardener, the most unusual dwarf she, who had been raised by dwarves, had ever seen. She poked Drizzt, pointing out the little fellow, and the others noticed, too. The gardener saw them, and began bobbing their way, smiling widely.

His beard was green梘reen!梥plit in half and pulled back over his large ears, then twisted with his long green hair into a single braid that dangled more than halfway down his back. He wore a thin sleeveless robe, pale green in color, that hung halfway to the knee, leaving bare his bowed legs, incredibly hairy and powerfully muscled. Bare too were the dwarf's large feet, except for the thin straps of his open-toed sandals.

He cut an intersecting course, coming onto the cobblestones thirty feet ahead of the foursome. There he skidded to a stop, stuck two fingers in his mouth, looked back over his shoulder and gave a shrill whistle.

"What?" came a call a moment later. A second dwarf, this one looking more like what the foursome would expect, rose up from the shade of the tree closest to the temple door. He had broad, square shoulders and a yellow beard. Dressed all in brown, he wore a huge axe strapped on his back and a helmet adorned with deer antlers.

"I telled ye I'd help ye!" the yellowbeard roared. "But ye promised me sleep time!" Then this second dwarf noticed the foursome and he stopped his tirade immediately and bobbed down the path toward the group.

The green-bearded dwarf got there first. He said not a word, but gave a dramatic bow, then took up Catti-brie's hand and kissed it. "Hee hee hee," he squeaked with a blush, moving in turn from Catti-brie to Deudermont, to Drizzt, to . . .

Back to Drizzt, where the little one ducked low, peeking up under the full hood.

The drow obliged him, pulling back the hood and shaking out his thick white mane. First meetings were always difficult for Drizzt, especially so far from those places where he was known and accepted.

"Eek!" the little one squealed.

"A stinkin' drow!" roared the yellowbeard, running down the path, tearing the axe off of his back as he came.

Drizzt wasn't surprised, and the other three were more embarrassed than startled.

The greenbeard continued to hop up and down and point, benign enough, but the yellowbeard took a more direct and threatening course. He brought his axe up high over his head and bore down on Drizzt like a charging bull.

Drizzt waited until the last possible second, then, using the magical anklets and his honed reflexes, he simply sidestepped. The yellowbeard stumbled as he passed, running headlong into the tree behind the drow.

The greenbeard looked to the other dwarf, then to Drizzt, seeming for a moment as if he, too, meant to charge. Then he looked back to the other dwarf, noting the axe now stuck in the tree. He walked toward the yellowbeard, bracing himself and slapping the dwarf hard on the side of the head.

"A stinkin' drow!" the yellowbeard growled, taking one hand from his axe handle to fend off the continuing slaps. Finally he managed to yank his axe free, but when he leaped about, he found three of the four, the drow included, standing impassively. The fourth, though, the auburn-haired woman, held a bow taut and ready.

"If we wanted ye dead, we'd've cut ye down afore ye got up from yer nap," she said.

"I mean no ill," Drizzt added. "I am a ranger," he said, mostly to the greenbeard, who seemed the more levelheaded of the two. "A being of the forest, as are you."

"Me brother's a druid," the yellowbeard said, trying to appear firm and tough, but seeming rather embarrassed at the moment.

"Doo-dad!" the greenbeard agreed.

"Druid dwarf?" Catti-brie asked. "I've lived most o' me life with dwarves, and have never heared of a druid among the race."

Both dwarves cocked their heads curiously. Surely the young woman sounded dwarfish with her rough accent.

"What dwarves might that be?" the yellowbeard asked.

Catti-brie lowered Taulmaril. "I am Catti-brie," she said. "Adopted daughter of Bruenor Battlehammer, Eighth King of Mithril Hall."

The eyes of both dwarves popped open wide, and their mouths similarly dropped open. They looked hard at Catti-brie, then at each other, back to Catti-brie, and back to each other. They bumped their foreheads together, a firm, smacking sound, then looked back to Catti-brie.

"Hey," the yellowbeard howled, poking a stubby finger Drizzt's way. "I heared o' ye. Ye're Drizzt Dudden."

"Drizzt Do'Urden," the drow corrected, giving a bow.

"Yeah," the yellowbeard agreed. "I heared o' ye. Me name's Ivan, Ivan Bouldershoulder, and this is me brother, Pikel."

"Me brudder," the greenbeard agreed, draping an arm across Ivan's sturdy shoulders.

Ivan glanced back over his shoulder, to the deep cut he had put in the tree. "Sorry about me axe," he said. "I never seen a drow elf."

"Ye come to see the cathedr . . . the catheter . . . the cathe . . . the durned church?" Ivan asked.

"We came to see a man named Cadderly Bonaduce," Deudermont answered. "I am Captain Deudermont of the Sea Sprite, sailing out of Waterdeep."

"Ye sailed across land," Ivan said dryly.

Deudermont had his hand up to wave away that expected response before the dwarf ever began it.

"We must speak with Cadderly," Deudermont said. "Our business is most urgent."

Pikel slapped his hands together, put them aside his tilted head, closed his eyes and gave a snore.

"Cadderly's takin' his nap," Ivan explained. "The little ones wear him out. We'll go and see Lady Danica and get ye something to eat." He winked at Catti-brie. "Me and me brother're wanting to hear more about Mithril Hall," he said. "Word says an old one's running the place since Bruenor Battlehammer packed up and left."

Catti-brie tried to hide her surprise, even nodded as though she was not surprised by what Ivan had to say. She glanced at Drizzt, who had no response. Bruenor had left? Suddenly both of them wanted to sit and talk with the dwarves as well. The meeting with Cadderly could wait.

The inside of the Spirit Soaring was no less majestic and awe-inspiring than the outside. They entered the main area of the cathedral, the central chapel, and though there were at least a score of people within, so large was the place that the four strangers each felt alone. All of them found their eyes inevitably moving up, up to the soaring columns, past several ledges lined with decorated statues, past the glow coming in through the stained glass windows, to the intricately carved vaulting of the ceiling more than a hundred feet above them.

When he finally managed to move the stricken four through the main area, Ivan took them through a side door, into rooms more normally sized. The construction of the place, the sheer strength and detail of the place, continued to overwhelm them. No supporting arch or door was without decoration, and one door they went through was so covered in runes and sculptures that Drizzt believed he could stand and study it for hours and hours without seeing every detail, without deciphering every message.

Ivan knocked on a door, then paused for an invitation to enter. When it came, he swung the door open. "I give ye Lady Danica Bonaduce," the dwarf said importantly, motioning for the others to follow.

They started in, Deudermont in the lead, but the captain stopped short, was nearly tripped, as two young children, a boy and a girl, cut across his path. Seeing the stranger, both skidded to a halt. The boy, a sandy-haired lad with almond-shaped eyes, opened his mouth and pointed straight at the drow.

"Please excuse my children," a woman across the room said.

"No offense taken," Drizzt assured her. He bent to one knee, and motioned the pair over. They looked to each other for support, then moved cautiously to the drow, the boy daring to reach up and touch Drizzt's ebony skin. Then he looked at his own fingers, as if to see if some of the coloring had rubbed off.

"No black, Mum," he said, looking to the woman and holding up his hand. "No black."

"Hee hee," Pikel chuckled from the back.

"Get the brats outa here," Ivan whispered to his brother.

Pikel pushed through so that the children could see him, and their faces brightened immediately. Pikel stuck a thumb into each ear and waggled his fingers.

"Oo, oi!" the children roared in unison, and they chased "Uncle Pike" from the room.

"Ye should be watching what me brother's teaching them two," Ivan said to Danica.

She laughed and rose from her chair to greet the visitors. "Surely the twins are better off for having a friend such as Pikel," she said. "And such as Ivan," she graciously added, and the tough-as-iron dwarf couldn't hide a blush.

Drizzt understood that the woman was a warrior simply by the way she walked across the room, lightly, silently, in perfect balance through the complete motion of every step. She was slight of build, a few inches shorter than Catti-brie and no more than a hundred and ten pounds, but every muscle was honed and moved in harmony. Her eyes were even more exotic than those of her children, almond-shaped and rich brown, full of intensity, full of life. Her hair, strawberry blond and as thick as the drow's white mane, bounced gaily about her shoulders as though the abundance of energy that flowed within this woman could not be contained.

Drizzt looked from Danica to Catti-brie, saw a resemblance there in spirit, if not in body.

"I give ye Drizzt Dudden," Ivan began, pulling the deer-antlered helmet from his head. "Catti-brie, daughter of Bruenor of Mithril Hall, Captain Deudermont of the Sea Sprite, outa Waterdeep, and . . ." The yellow-bearded dwarf stopped and looked curiously at the skinny wizard. "What'd ye say yer name was?" he asked.

"Harpell Harkle . . . er, Harkle Harpell," Harkle stuttered, obviously enchanted by Danica. "Of Longsaddle."

Danica nodded. "Well met," she said to each of them in turn, ending with the drow.

"Drizzt Do'Urden," the ranger corrected.

Danica smiled.

"They came to speak to Cadderly," Ivan explained.

Danica nodded. "Go and wake him," she said, still holding Drizzt's hand. "He will not want to miss an audience with such distinguished visitors."

Ivan hopped away, rambling down the hallway.

"Ye've heared of us?" Catti-brie asked.

Danica looked at her and nodded. "Your reputation precedes you," she assured the young woman. "We have heard of Bruenor Battlehammer and the fight to reclaim Mithril Hall."

"And the war with the drow elves?" Drizzt asked.

Danica nodded. "In part," she replied. "I hope that before you leave you will find the time to tell us the story in full."

"What do ye know o' Bruenor's leavin'?" Catti-brie asked bluntly.

"Cadderly knows more of that than I," Danica replied. "I have heard that Bruenor abdicated his reclaimed throne to an ancestor."

"Gandalug Battlehammer," Drizzt explained.

"So it is said," Danica went on. "But where the king and the two hundred loyal to him went, that I do not know."

Drizzt and Catti-brie exchanged glances, both having a fair guess as to where Bruenor might have gone.

Ivan returned then, along with an old, but sprightly man dressed in a tan-white tunic and matching trousers. A light blue silken cape was pulled back from his shoulders, and a wide-brimmed hat, blue and banded in red topped his head. At the front center of the hat band sat a porcelain and gold pendant that depicted a candle burning above an eye, which all of the four recognized as the holy symbol of Deneir梩he god of literature and art.

The man was of average height, around six feet, and was muscular, despite his advanced age. His hair, what was left of it, was mostly silver in hue, with a hint of brown. Something about his appearance seemed strangely out of place to the companions. Drizzt finally recognized it to be the man's eyes, striking gray orbs that seemed full of sparkle, the eyes of a younger man.

"I am Cadderly," he said warmly with a humble bow. "Welcome to the Spirit Soaring, the home of Deneir and of Oghma, and of all the goodly gods. You have met my wife, Danica?"

Catti-brie looked from the old Cadderly, to Danica, who could not have been much older than Catti-brie, certainly not yet out of her twenties.

"And yer twins," Ivan added with a smirk, eyeing Catti-brie as she studied Danica. It seemed to perceptive Drizzt and Deudermont that the dwarf was familiar with such confusion upon such an introduction, a fact that led them both to think that Cadderly's advanced age was no natural thing.

"Ah, yes, the twins," Cadderly said, shaking his head and unable to contain a smirk at the mere thought of his boisterous legacy.

The wise priest studied the expressions of the four, appreciating their gracious withholding of the obvious questions. "Twenty-nine," he remarked offhandedly. "I am twenty-nine years old."

"Thirty in two weeks," Ivan added. "Though ye're not looking a day over a hunnerd and six!"

"It was the task of building the cathedral," Danica explained, and there was just a hint of sorrow and anger in her controlled tones. "Cadderly gave to the place his life force, a choice he made for the glory of his god."

Drizzt looked long and hard at the young woman, the dedicated warrior, and he understood that Danica, too, had been forced into a great sacrifice because of Cadderly's choice. He sensed an anger within her, but it was buried deep, overwhelmed by her love for this man and her admiration for his sacrifice.

Catti-brie didn't miss any of it. She, who had lost her love, surely empathized with Danica, and yet, she knew that this woman was undeserving of any sympathy. In those few sentences of explanation, in the presence of Cadderly and of Danica, and within the halls of this most reverent of structures, Catti-brie understood that to give sympathy to Danica would belittle the sacrifice, would diminish what Cadderly had accomplished in exchange for his years.

The two women looked into each other's eyes, locking gazes, Danica's exotic almond-shaped orbs and Catti-brie's large eyes, the richest shade of blue. Catti-brie wanted to say, "At least you have your lover's children," wanted to explain to Danica the emptiness of her own loss, with Wulfgar gone before . . .

Before so much, Catti-brie thought with a sigh.

Danica knew the story, and simply in sharing that long look with Catti-brie, she understood and appreciated what was in the woman's heart.

The eight梖or Pikel soon returned, explaining that the children were sleeping in the gardens and being watched over by several priests梥pent the next two hours exchanging tales. Drizzt and Cadderly seemed kindred spirits and indeed, had shared many adventures. Both had faced a red dragon and lived to tell the tale, both had overcome legacies of their past. They hit it off splendidly, as did Danica and Catti-brie, and though the dwarven brothers wanted to hear more of Mithril Hall, they found it hard in cracking into the conversation between the women, and the one between Drizzt and Cadderly. Gradually they gave up, and spent their time engaged with Harkle. He had been to Mithril Hall and had participated in the drow war, and turned out to be quite the storyteller, highlighting his tales with minor illusions.

Deudermont felt strangely removed from it all. He found himself missing the sea and his ship, longing to sail again out of Waterdeep Harbor to chase pirates on the open waters.

It might have gone on for all of the afternoon, except that a priest knocked on the door, informing Danica that the children were awake. The woman started to leave with the dwarves, but Drizzt stopped her. He took out the panther figurine and called to Guenhwyvar.

That set Ivan back on his heels! Pikel squealed, too, but in glee, the dwarfish druid always willing to meet with such a magnificent animal, despite the fact that the animal could tear the features from his face.

"The twins will enjoy their time with Guenhwyvar," the drow explained.

The great cat ambled out of the room, Pikel in close pursuit, grabbing the panther's tail that Guenhwyvar might pull him along.

"Not as much as me brother," Ivan, still a bit shaken, remarked.

Danica was going to ask the obvious question of safety, but she held the thought in check, realizing that if the panther wasn't to be trusted, Drizzt would never have brought it in. She smiled and bowed graciously, then left with Ivan. Catti-brie would have gone, but Drizzt's posture, suddenly formal, told her that it was time to speak of business.

"You have not come here merely to exchange tales, fine though they may be," Cadderly said, and he sat up straight, folding his hands in front of him, ready to hear their most important story in full.

Deudermont told it, Drizzt and Catti-brie adding in points they thought necessary, and Harkle constantly highlighting the story with remarks that really had nothing to do with anything as far as the other four could tell.

Cadderly confirmed that he had read of Caerwich and the blind seer. "She speaks in riddles that are not always what they seem," he warned.

"So we have heard," Deudermont agreed. "But this is one riddle my friends cannot ignore."

"If the seer spoke truthfully, then a friend lost, my father Zaknafein, is in the clutches of an evil being," Drizzt explained. "A minion of Lloth, perhaps, or a matron mother of one of Menzoberranzan's ruling houses."

Harkle bit hard on his lip. He saw a mistake here, but had to consider the limitations of his spell. He had read the blind seer's poem, word by word, at least a score of times, committing it fully to memory. But that was privileged information, beyond the scope of his spell. The fog of fate facilitated what would be, but if Harkle used the information that the spell privately gave to him, then he might be altering fate. What that might mean, catastrophe or better conclusion, the wizard could only guess.

Cadderly nodded, not disagreeing with Drizzt's reasoning, but wondering where he might fit in all of this, wondering what role the visitors expected him to play.

"I expect it is a handmaiden," Drizzt went on. "An extraplanar being of the Abyss."

"You wish me to use my powers to confirm this," Cadderly reasoned. "Perhaps to bring forth the beast that you might bargain or battle for your father's soul."

"I understand the depth of my request," Drizzt said firmly. "A yochlol is a powerful being . . ."

"I learned long ago not to fear evil," Cadderly calmly assured him.

"We have gold," Deudermont offered, thinking the price would be high.

Drizzt knew better. In the short time he had been with Cadderly, the drow understood the man's heart and motivations. Cadderly would not take gold, would take no payment at all. He was not surprised when Cadderly answered simply, "One soul is worth saving."

Chapter 14

THE FLUSTERED WIZARD

"Where's Deudermont?" Catti-brie asked of Harkle when the wizard stumbled into a small side room where the young woman was sitting with Drizzt.

"Oh, out and about, out and about," the distracted Harpell replied. There were two chairs in the room, both set before a large window that looked out over the majestic Snowflakes. Drizzt and Catti-brie occupied these, half-facing each other and half-looking out to the beautiful view. The dark elf reclined, his feet up on the window's wide sill. Harkle considered the scene for just a moment, then seemed to collect his wits and moved right between the two. He motioned Drizzt to take his feet away, then hopped up to sit on the window sill.

"Do join us," Catti-brie said with obvious sarcasm梠bvious to Drizzt at least, for Harkle smiled dumbly.

"You were discussing the poem, of course," the wizard reasoned. It was partially true. Drizzt and Catti-brie were talking as much about the news that Bruenor had left Mithril Hall as about the all-important poem.

"Of course you were," Harkle said. "That is why I have come."

"Have you deciphered any more of the verse?" Drizzt asked, not too hopeful. The drow liked Harkle, but had learned not to expect too much from the wizard. Above all else, Harkle and his kin were unpredictable sorts, oftentimes of great help, as in the fight for Mithril Hall, and at other times more a detriment than an advantage.

Harkle recognized the drow's ambivalent tone, and he found that he wanted to prove himself at that moment, wanted to tell the drow all of the information in his magical journal, to recite the poem word by word, exactly as the seer had told it. Harkle bit back the words, though, fearful of the limitations of his spell and the potential consequences.

"We're thinking it's Baenre," Catti-brie said. "Whoever's holding the Baenre throne, I mean. 'Given to Lloth and by Lloth given,' is what she said, and who better than the one sitting on Baenre's throne for the Spider Queen to give such a gift?"

Harkle nodded, letting Drizzt take up the thought, but believing that they were slipping off track.

"Catti-brie thinks that it is Baenre, but the seer spoke of the Abyss, and that makes me believe that Lloth has engaged a handmaiden," said Drizzt.

Harkle bit hard on his lip and nodded unconvincingly.

"Cadderly has an informant in the Abyss," Catti-brie added. "An imp, or something akin to that. He'll summon the beastie and try to find us a name."

"But I fear that my road . . ." Drizzt began.

"Our road," Catti-brie corrected, so firmly that Drizzt had to concede the point.

"I fear that our road will once again lead to Menzoberranzan," Drizzt said with a sigh. He didn't want to go back there, that much was obvious, but it was clear also that the ranger would charge headlong into the accursed city for the sake of a friend.

"Why there?" Harkle asked, his voice almost frantic. The wizard saw where the seer's poem had guided Drizzt, and knew that the second line, the one concerning Drizzt's father's ghost, had forced the ranger to think of Menzoberranzan as the source of it all. There were references in the poem to Menzoberranzan, but there was one word in particular that led Harkle to believe that the drow city was not their ultimate goal.

"We have already discussed that," Drizzt replied. "Menzoberranzan would seem to be the dark road the seer spoke of."

"You think it is a handmaiden?" Harkle asked Drizzt.

The drow half-nodded, half-shrugged.

"And you agree?" Harkle questioned Catti-brie.

"Might be that it is," Catti-brie replied. "Or might be a matron mother. That'd be me own guess."

"Aren't handmaidens female?" Harkle's question seemed irrelevant.

"All of Lloth's closest minions are female," Catti-brie replied. "That's why the Spider Queen's one to be fearin'," she added with a wink, trying to break some of the tension.

"As are all of the matron mothers," Harkle reasoned.

Drizzt looked to Catti-brie, neither of them quite understanding what the unpredictable wizard might be getting at.

Harkle flapped his arms suddenly, looking as if he was about to burst. He hopped down from the window, nearly overturning Drizzt in his chair. "She said he!" the flustered wizard cried. "The blind hag said he! 'The traitor to Lloth is sought by he who hates him most!' " Harkle stopped and gave a great, exasperated sigh. Then there came a hissing sound and a line of gray smoke began wafting out of his pocket.

"Oh, by the gods," the wizard moaned.

Drizzt and Catti-brie both jumped to their feet, more because of the wizard's surprisingly acute reasoning than because of the present smoky spectacle.

"What foe, Drizzt?" Harkle pressed with all urgency, the wizard suddenly suspecting that his time was short.

"He," Catti-brie echoed over and over, trying to jog her memory. "Jarlaxle?"

" 'Who is most unshriven,' " Harkle reminded her.

"Not the mercenary, then," said Drizzt, for he had come to the conclusion that Jarlaxle was not as evil as many. "Berg'inyon Baenre, perhaps. He has hated me since our days in the Academy."

"Think! Think! Think!" Harkle shouted as a great gout of smoke rose up from his pocket.

"What are you burning?" Catti-brie demanded, trying to pull the Harpell around so that she could better see. To her surprise and horror, her hand went right through the wizard's suddenly-less-than-corporeal form.

"Never mind that!" Harkle snapped at her. "Think, Drizzt Do'Urden. What foe, who is most unshriven, who festers in the swirl of Abyss and hates you above all? What beast must be freed, that only you can free?" Harkle's voice seem to trail away as his form began to fade.

"I have exceeded the limits of my spell," the wizard tried to explain to his horrified companions. "And so I am out of it, I fear, sent away . . ."

Harkle's voice came back strong, unexpectedly. "What beast, Drizzt? What foe?" And then he was gone, simply gone, leaving Drizzt and Catti-brie standing and staring blankly in the small room.

That last call, as Harkle faded from view, reminded Drizzt of another time when he had heard such a distant cry.

"Errtu," the drow whispered breathlessly. He shook his head even as he spoke the obvious answer, for, though Harkle's reasoning seemed sound, it didn't make sense to Drizzt, not in the context of the poem.

"Errtu," Catti-brie echoed. "Suren that one's hating ye above all, and Lloth'd likely know him, or know of him."

Drizzt shook his head. "It cannot be, for never did I meet the tanar'ri in Menzoberranzan, as the blind seer declared."

Catti-brie thought on that one for a moment. "She never said Menzoberranzan," the woman replied. "Not once."

"In the home that was . . ." Drizzt began to recite, but he nearly gagged on the words, on the sudden realization that his interpretation of their meaning might not be correct.

Catti-brie caught it, too. "Ye never called that place yer home," she said. "And ye often telled me that yer first home was . . ."

"Icewind Dale," Drizzt said.

"And it was there that ye met Errtu, and made o' him an enemy," Catti-brie reasoned, and Harkle Harpell seemed a wise man indeed at that moment.

Drizzt winced, remembering well the power and wickedness of the evil balor. It pained the ranger to think of Zaknafein in Errtu's clutches.

*****

Harkle Harpell lifted his head from his huge desk and stretched with a great yawn.

"Oh, yes," he said, recognizing the pile of parchments spread on the desk before him. "I was working on my spell."

Harkle sorted them out and studied them more closely.

"My new spell!" he cried in glee. "Oh, it is finally completed, the fog of fate! Oh, joy, oh happy day!" The wizard leaped up from his chair and twirled about the room, his voluminous robes flying wide. After so many months of exhausting research, his new spell was finally complete. The possibilities rolled through Harkle's mind. Perhaps the fog of fate would take him to Calimshan, on an adventure with a pasha, perhaps to Anauroch, the great desert, or perhaps even to the wastelands of Vaasa. Yes, Harkle would like to go to Vaasa and the rugged Galena Mountains.

"I will have to learn more of the Galenas and have them fully in mind when I cast the spell," he told himself. "Yes, yes, that's the trick." With a snap of his fingers, the wizard rushed to his desk, carefully sorted and arranged the many parchments of the long and complicated spell and placed them in a drawer. Then he rushed out, heading for the library of the Ivy Mansion, to gather information on Vaasa and neighboring Damara, the famed Bloodstone Lands. He could hardly keep his balance, so excited was he about what he believed to be the initial casting of his new spell, the culmination of months of labor.

For Harkle had no recollection of the true initial casting. All of the last few weeks had been erased from his mind as surely as the pages of the enchanted journal that accompanied the spell were now blank once more. As far as Harkle knew, Drizzt and Catti-brie were sailing off the coast of Waterdeep, in a pirate hunting ship whose name he did not know.

*****

Drizzt stood beside Cadderly in a square room, gorgeously decorated, though not a single piece of furniture was in it. The walls were all of polished black stone, bare, except for twisted iron wall sconces, one set in the exact center of each wall. The torches in these were not burning, not in the conventional sense. They were made of black metal, not wood, each with a crystal ball set at its top. The light梚t seemed that Cadderly could conjure whatever colored light he chose梕manated from the balls. One was glowing red now, another yellow, and two green, giving the room a strange texture of colors and depth, with some hues seeming to penetrate more deeply into the glassy surface of the polished walls than others.

All of that held Drizzt's attention for a while, an impressive spectacle indeed, but it was the floor that most amazed the dark elf, who had seen so many amazing sights in his seven decades of life. The perimeter of the floor was black and glassy, like the walls, but the bulk of the floor area was taken up by a mosaic, a double-lined circle. The area between the lines, about a foot wide, was filled with arcane runes. A sign was etched inside, its star-like tips touching the innermost circle. All of these designs had been cut into the floor, and were filled with crushed gemstones of various colors. There was an emerald rune beside a ruby star, both of which were between the twin diamond lines of the outer circles.

Drizzt had seen rooms like this in Menzoberranzan, though certainly not as fabulously made. He knew its function. Somehow it seemed out of place to him in this most goodly of structures, for the twin circles and the sign were used for summoning otherworldly creatures, and because those runes that decorated the edges were of power and protection, the creatures summoned were not likely of a goodly weal.

"Few are allowed to enter this place," Cadderly explained, his voice grave. "Just myself, Danica, and Brother Chaunticleer among the residents of the library. Any guests that require the services of this place must pass the highest of scrutiny."

Drizzt understood that he had just been highly complimented, but that did not dissuade the many questions that bobbed about in his thoughts.

"There are reasons for such callings," Cadderly went on, as if reading the drow's mind. "Sometimes the cause of good can be furthered only by dealing with the agents of evil."

"Is not the summoning of a tanar'ri, or even a minor fiend, in itself an act of evil?" Drizzt asked bluntly.

"No," Cadderly replied. "Not in here. This room is perfect in design and blessed by Deneir himself. A fiend called is a fiend trapped, no more a threat in here than if the beast had remained in the Abyss. As with all questions of good and evil, the intent of the calling is what determines its value. In this case, we have discovered that a soul undeserving of such torture has fallen into the hands of a fiend. We may retrieve that soul only by dealing with the fiend. What better place and better way?"

Drizzt could accept that, especially now, when the stakes were so high and so personal.

"It is Errtu," the drow announced with confidence. "A balor."

Cadderly nodded, not disagreeing. When Drizzt had informed him of his new suspicions given his talk with Harkle Harpell, Cadderly had called upon a minor fiend, a wicked imp, and had sent it on a mission seeking confirmation of the drow's suspicions. Now he meant to call back the imp and get his answers.

"Brother Chaunticleer communed with an agent of Deneir this day," Cadderly remarked.

"And the answer?" the ranger asked, though Drizzt was a bit surprised by the apparent route Chaunticleer had taken.

"No agent of Deneir could give such an answer," Cadderly replied at once, seeing that the drow's reasoning was off course. "No, no, Chaunticleer desired information about our missing wizard friend. Fear not, for Harkle Harpell, it seems, is back at the Ivy Mansion in Longsaddle. We have ways of contacting him, even of retrieving him, if you so desire."

"No!" Drizzt blurted, and he looked away, a bit embarrassed by his sudden outburst. "No," he repeated more quietly. "Harkle Harpell has certainly done enough already. I would not endanger him in this issue that does not truly concern him."

Cadderly nodded and smiled, understanding the truth of the drow's hesitance. "Shall I call now to Druzil, that we might get our answer?" he asked, though he didn't even wait for a response. With a word to each sconce, Cadderly turned all the lights in the room to a velvety purple hue. A second chant made the designs in the floor glow eerily.

Drizzt held his breath, never comfortable in the midst of such a ceremony. He hardly listened as Cadderly began a soft, rhythmic chant, rather he focused on the glowing runes, concentrated on his suspicions and on the possibilities the future might hold.

After several minutes there came a sharp hissing sound in the middle of the circles, and then an instant of blackness as the fabric of the planes tore asunder. A sharp crackle ended both the hissing and the tear, leaving a very angry looking bat-winged and dog-faced imp sitting on the floor, cursing and spitting.

"Well, greetings my dear Druzil," Cadderly said cheerily, which of course made the wicked imp, the unwilling servant, grumble all the more. Druzil hopped to his feet, his small horns hardly reaching the height of Drizzt's knee, and folded his leathery wings about him.

"I wanted you to meet my friend," Cadderly said casually. "I haven't yet decided whether or not I will have him cut you into little pieces with those fine blades of his."

The evil gaze from Druzil's black eyes locked onto Drizzt's lavender orbs. "Drizzt Do'Urden," the imp spat. "Traitor to the Spider Queen."

"Ah, good," Cadderly said, and his tone told the imp that he had unwittingly offered up a bit of information by admitting his recognition of the drow. "You know of him, thus you have spoken with some fiend who knows the truth."

"You desired a specific answer, and only one," Druzil rasped. "And promised a year of peace from you in return!"

"So I did," Cadderly admitted. "And have you my answer?"

"I pity you, foolish drow," Druzil said, staring again intently at Drizzt. "I pity you and laugh at you. Foolish drow. The Spider Queen cares little for you now, because she has given out your punishment as a reward to one who helped her in the Time of Troubles."

Drizzt pulled his gaze from Druzil to regard Cadderly, the old priest standing perfectly calm and collected.

"I pity any who so invokes the rage of a balor," Druzil went on, giving a wicked little laugh.

Cadderly saw that the imp's attitude was difficult for Drizzt, who was under such intense stress from this all. "The balor's name!" the priest demanded.

"Errtu!" Druzil barked. "Mark it well, Drizzt Do'Urden!"

Fires simmered behind Drizzt's lavender eyes, and Druzil could not bear their scrutiny.

The imp snapped his evil gaze over Cadderly instead. "A year of peace, you promised," he rasped.

"Years are measured in different ways," Cadderly growled back at him.

"What treachery? Druzil started to say, but Cadderly slapped his hands together, uttering a single word, and two black lines, rifts in the fabric of the planes, appeared, one on either side of the imp, and came together as forcefully as Cadderly's hands came together. With a boom of thunder and a waft of smoke, Druzil was gone.

Cadderly immediately brightened the light in the room, and remained quiet for some time, regarding Drizzt, who stood with his head bowed, digesting the confirmation.

"You should utterly destroy that one," the drow said at length.

Cadderly smiled widely. "Not so easy a task," he admitted. "Druzil is a manifestation of evil, a type more than an actual being. I could tear apart his corporeal body, but that merely sends him back to the Abyss. Only there, in his smoking home, could I truly destroy Druzil, and I have little desire to visit the Abyss!" Cadderly shrugged, as if it really mattered very little. "Druzil is harmless enough," the priest explained, "because I know him, know of him, know where to find him, and know how to make his miserable life more miserable still if the need arises."

"And now we know that it is truly Errtu," Drizzt said.

"A balor," Cadderly replied. "A mighty foe."

"A foe in the Abyss," said Drizzt. "A place where I also have no desire to ever go."

"We still need answers," Cadderly reminded. "Answers that Druzil would not be able to provide."

"Who, then?"

"You know," Cadderly answered quietly.

Drizzt did know, but the thought of summoning in the fiend Errtu was not a pleasant one to Drizzt.

"The circle will hold the balor," Cadderly assured him. "You do not have to be here when I call to Errtu."

Drizzt waved that notion away before Cadderly ever finished the sentence. He would be there to face the one who hated him most, and who apparently held captive a friend.

Drizzt gave a deep sigh. "I believe that the prisoner the hag spoke of is Zaknafein, my father," he confided to the priest, for he found that he truly trusted Cadderly. "I am not yet certain of how I feel about that."

"Surely it torments you to think your father in such foul hands," Cadderly replied. "And surely it thrills you to think that you might meet with Zaknafein once more."

Drizzt nodded. "It is more than that," he said.

"Are you ambivalent?" Cadderly asked, and Drizzt, caught off his guard by the direct question, cocked his head and studied the old priest. "Did you close that part of your life, Drizzt Do'Urden? And now are you afraid because it might again be opened?"

Drizzt shook his head without hesitation, but it was an unconvincing movement. He paused a long while, then sighed deeply. "I am disappointed," the drow admitted. "In myself, for my selfishness. I want to see Zaknafein again, to stand beside him and learn from him and listen to his words." Drizzt looked up at Cadderly, his expression truly serene. "But I remember the last time I saw him," he said, and he told Cadderly then of that final meeting.

Zaknafein's corpse had been animated by Matron Malice, Drizzt's mother, and then imbued with the dead drow's spirit. Bound in servitude to evil Malice, working as her assassin, Zaknafein had then gone out into the Underdark in search of Drizzt. At the critical moment, the true Zaknafein had broken through the evil matron mother's will for a fleeting moment, had shone forth once again and spoken to his beloved son. In that moment of victory, Zaknafein's spirit had proclaimed its peace, and Zaknafein had destroyed his own animated corpse instead, freeing Drizzt and freeing himself from the grasp of evil Malice Do'Urden.

"When I heard the blind hag's words and spent the time to consider them, I was truly sorry," Drizzt finished. "I believed that Zaknafein was free of them now, free of Lloth and all the evil, and sitting in a place of just rewards for the truth that was always in his soul."

Cadderly put a hand on Drizzt's shoulder.

"To think that they had captured him once again . . ."

"But that may not be the case," Cadderly said. "And if it is true, then hope is not lost. Your father needs your help."

Drizzt set his jaw firmly and nodded. "And Catti-brie's help," he replied. "She will be here when we call to Errtu."

Chapter 15

DARKNESS INCARNATE

His smoking bulk nearly filled the circle. His great leathery wings could not extend to their fullest, else they would have crossed the boundary line where the fiend could not pass. Errtu clawed at the stone and issued a guttural growl, threw back his huge and ugly head and laughed maniacally. Then the balor suddenly calmed, and looked forward, his knowing eyes boring into the gaze of Drizzt Do'Urden. Many years had passed since Drizzt had looked upon mighty Errtu, but the ranger surely recognized the fiend. His ugly face seemed a cross between a dog and an ape, and his eyes梕specially those eyes梬ere black pits of evil, sometimes wide with outrage and red with flame, sometimes narrowed, slanted, intense slits promising hellish tortures. Yes, Drizzt remembered Errtu well, remembered their desperate fight on the side of Kelvin's Cairn those years before.

The ranger's scimitar, the one he had taken from the white dragon's lair, seemed to remember the fiend, too, for Drizzt felt it calling to him, urging him to draw it forth and strike at the balor again that it might feed upon Errtu's fiery heart. That blade had been forged to battle creatures of fire, and seemed particularly eager for the smoking flesh of a fiend.

Catti-brie had never seen such a beast, darkness incarnate, evil embodied, the most foul of the foul. She wanted to take up Taulmaril and shoot an arrow into the beast's ugly face, and yet she feared that to do so would loose wicked Errtu upon them, something the young woman most certainly did not desire.

Errtu continued to chuckle, then with terrifying speed, the great fiend lashed out toward Drizzt with its many-thonged whip. The weapon snapped forward, then stopped fast in midair, as though it had hit a wall, and indeed it had.

"You cannot send your weapons, your flesh, or your magic through the barrier, Errtu," Cadderly said calmly梩he old priest seemed not shaken in the least by the true tanar'ri.

Errtu's eyes narrowed wickedly as the balor dropped his gaze over Cadderly, knowing that it was the priest who had dared to summon the balor. Again came that rumbling chuckle and flames erupted at Errtu's huge, clawed feet, burning white and hot, blazing so high that they nearly blocked the companions' view of the balor. The three friends squinted against the intense, stinging heat. At last, Catti-brie fell away with a shout of warning, and Drizzt heeded that call, went with her. Cadderly remained in place, though, standing impassively, confident that the rune-etched circles would stop the fires. Sweat beaded on his face, droplets falling from his nose.

"Desist!" Cadderly yelled above the crackle. Then he recited a string of words in a language that neither Drizzt nor Catti-brie had ever heard before, an arcane phrase that ended with the name of Errtu, spoken emphatically.

The balor roared as if in pain, and the fire walls fell away to nothingness.

"I will remember you, old man," the great balor promised. "When I walk again on the plane that is your world."

"Do pay me a visit," Cadderly replied evenly. "It would be my pleasure to banish you back to the filth where you truly belong."

Errtu said no more, but growled and focused once more upon the renegade drow, the most-hated Drizzt Do'Urden.

"I have him, drow," the fiend teased. "In the Abyss."

"Who?" Drizzt demanded, but the balor's response was yet another burst of maniacal laughter.

"Who do you have, Errtu?" Cadderly asked firmly.

"No questions must I answer," the balor reminded the priest. "I have him, that you know, and the one way you have of getting him back is to end my banishment. I will take him to this, your land, Drizzt Do'Urden, and if you want him, then you must come and get him!"

"I will speak with Zaknafein!" Drizzt yelled, his hand going to the hilt of his hungry scimitar. Errtu mocked him, laughed at him, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of Drizzt's frustration. It was just the beginning of the drow's torment.

"Free me!" the fiend roared, silencing the questions. "Free me now! Each day is an eternity of torture for my prisoner, your beloved fa? Errtu stopped abruptly, letting the teasing word hang in the air. The balor waggled a finger at Cadderly. "Have I been tricked?" Errtu said, feigning horror. "Almost did I answer a question, something that is not required of me."

Cadderly looked to Drizzt, understanding the ranger's dilemma. The priest knew that Drizzt would willingly leap into the circle and fight Errtu here and now for the sake of his lost father, of a friend, or of any goodly person, but to free the fiend seemed a desperate and dangerous act to the noble drow, a selfish act for the sake of his father that might jeopardize so many others.

"Free me!" roared the balor, his thunderous voice echoing about the chamber.

Drizzt relaxed suddenly. "That I cannot do, foul beast," he said quietly, shaking his head, seeming to gain confidence in his decision with every passing second.

"You fool!" Errtu roared. "I will flail the skin from his bones! I will eat his fingers! And I will keep him alive, I promise, alive and conscious through it all, telling him before each torture that you refused to help him, that you caused his doom!"

Drizzt looked away, relaxed no more, his breathing coming in hard, angry gasps. He knew the truth of Zaknafein, though, understood his father's heart, and knew that the weaponmaster would not wish Drizzt to free Errtu, whatever the cost.

Catti-brie took Drizzt's hand, as did Cadderly.

"I'll not tell you what to do, good drow," the old priest offered, "but if the fiend imprisons a soul undeserving of such a fate, then it is our responsibility to save . . ."

"But at what price?" Drizzt said desperately. "At what cost to the world?"

Errtu was laughing again, wildly. Cadderly turned to quiet the fiend, but Errtu spoke first. "You know, priest," the fiend accused. "You know!"

"What does the ugly thing mean?" Catti-brie asked.

"Tell them," Errtu bade Cadderly, who seemed uncomfortable for the first time.

Cadderly looked at Drizzt and Catti-brie and shook his head.

"Then I shall tell them!" Errtu shouted, the balor's tremendous, throaty voice echoing again about the stone room, paining their ears.

"You shall be gone!" Cadderly promised, and he began a chant. Errtu jerked suddenly, violently, then seemed smaller, seemed as if he was falling back in on himself.

"I am free now!" the balor proclaimed.

"Wait," Drizzt bade Cadderly, and the priest obeyed.

"I shall go where I please, foolish Drizzt Do'Urden! By your will I have touched the ground of the Prime Material Plane, and thus my banishment is at its end. I can return to the call of any!"

Cadderly began his chant again, more urgently, and Errtu began to fade away.

"Come to me, Drizzt Do'Urden," the balor's now-distant voice beckoned. "If you would see him again. I'll not come for you."

Then the fiend was gone, leaving the three companions exhausted in the empty room. Most weary among them was Drizzt, who slumped back against the wall, and it seemed to the others as if the solid stone was the only thing keeping the weary ranger on his feet.

"Ye didn't know," Catti-brie reasoned, understanding the guilt that so weighed on her friend's shoulders. She looked to the old priest who hardly seemed bothered by the revelations.

"Is it true?" Drizzt asked Cadderly.

"I cannot be certain," the priest replied. "But I believe that our summoning of Errtu to the Prime Material Plane might have indeed ended the balor's banishment."

"And ye knew it all along," Catti-brie said in accusing tones.

"I suspected," Cadderly admitted.

"Then why did you let me call to the beast?" Drizzt asked, completely surprised. He would never have figured that Cadderly would end the banishment of such an evil monster. When he looked at the old priest now, though, it seemed to Drizzt as if Cadderly wasn't bothered in the least.

"The fiend, as is always the case with such denizens, can get to the Prime Material Plane only with assistance from a priest or a wizard," Cadderly explained. "Any of that ilk who so desired such a beast could find many, many waiting for their call, even other balors. The freeing of Errtu, if indeed Errtu is free, is not so much a travesty."

Put in that context, it made sense to Drizzt and to Catti-brie. Those who desired to call a fiend to their service would find no shortage; the Abyss was full of powerful denizens, all eager to come forth and wreak havoc among the mortals.

"The thing I fear," Cadderly admitted, "is that this particular balor hates you above all, Drizzt. He may, despite his last words, seek you out if he ever gets back to our world."

"Or I will seek out Errtu," Drizzt replied evenly, unafraid, and that brought a smile to Cadderly's lips. It was just the response he had hoped to hear from the courageous drow. Here was a mighty warrior in the war for good, Cadderly knew. The priest held great faith that if such a battle were to come about, Drizzt and his friends would prevail, and the torment of Drizzt's father would come to an end.

*****

Waillan Micanty and Dunkin Tallmast arrived at the Spirit Soaring later that day, and found Captain Deudermont outside the structure, relaxing in the shade of a tree, feeding strange nuts to a white squirrel.

"Percival," Deudermont explained to the two men, holding his hand out to the squirrel. As soon as Percival snatched the treat, Deudermont pointed out Pikel Bouldershoulder, hard at work as always, tending his many gardens. "Pikel over there informs me that Percival is a personal friend of Cadderly's."

Waillan and Dunkin exchanged doubting looks, neither having a clue as to what Deudermont might be talking about.

"It is not important," the captain remarked, rising to his feet and brushing the twigs from his trousers. "What news on the Sea Sprite?"

"The repairs are well underway," replied Waillan. "Many of Carradoon's fishermen have joined in to help. They have even found a tree suitable to replace the mast."

"A friendly lot, these men of Carradoon," Dunkin put in.

Deudermont regarded Dunkin for a while, pleased at the subtle changes he had witnessed in the man. This was not the same surly and conniving emissary who had first come to the Sea Sprite in the name of Lord Tarnheel Embuirhan in search of Drizzt Do'Urden. The man was a fine sailor and a fine companion according to Waillan, and Deudermont planned to offer him a full-time position as a crewman aboard the Sea Sprite as soon as they figured out how to get the ship back in the Sea of Swords where she belonged.

"Robillard is in Carradoon," Waillan said unexpectedly, catching the captain off guard, though Deudermont never doubted that the wizard had survived the storm and would eventually find them. "Or he was. He might have gone back to Waterdeep by now. He says that he can get us back where we belong."

"But it will cost us," added Dunkin. "For the wizard will need help from his brotherhood, an exceptionally greedy lot, by Robillard's own admission."

Deudermont wasn't very concerned about that. The Lords of Waterdeep would likely reimburse any expenses. The captain did note Dunkin's use of the word "us," and that pleased him more than a little.

"Robillard said that it would take him some time to organize it all," Waillan finished. "But we're two weeks from repairing the Sea Sprite in any case, and with the help, it's easier fixing her here than in Waterdeep."

Deudermont only nodded. Pikel came bobbing over then, stealing the attention of Waillan and Dunkin. That was fine with Deudermont. The details of returning the Sea Sprite where she belonged would work themselves out, he did not doubt. Robillard was a competent and loyal wizard. But the captain saw a parting of the ways in his immediate future, for two friends (three, counting Guenhwyvar) wouldn't likely go back with the ship, or if they did, they wouldn't likely remain with her for long.

Chapter 16

THE BAIT

"Icewind Dale," Drizzt said, before the three had even left the room of summoning.

Cadderly looked surprised, but as soon as Catti-brie heard the words, she understood what Drizzt was talking about and agreed with his reasoning. "Ye're thinking that the fiend'll go after the crystal shard," she explained, more for Cadderly's sake than for any need of confirmation.

"If ever Errtu does get back to our world, then he will certainly go for the artifact," Drizzt replied.

Cadderly knew nothing about this crystal shard they referred to, but he realized that the pair believed they were on to something important. "You are sure of this?" he asked Drizzt.

The drow nodded. "When first I met Errtu, it was on a windswept mountain above the Spine of the World, in the place called Kelvin's Cairn in Icewind Dale," he explained. "The fiend had come to the call of the wizard who possessed Crenshinibon梩he crystal shard梐 most powerful artifact of evil."

"And where is this artifact?" Cadderly asked, suddenly seeming quite concerned. The priest had some experience in dealing with evil artifacts, had once put his own life and the lives of those he loved in jeopardy for the sake of destroying such an item.

"Buried," Catti-brie replied. "Buried under a mountain o' snow and rock by an avalanche down the side o' Kelvin's Cairn." She looked more at Drizzt than the priest as she spoke, her expression showing that she was beginning to doubt the drow's reasoning.

"The item is sentient," the ranger reminded her. "A malignant tool that will not accept such solitude. If Errtu gets back to our world, he will go to Icewind Dale in search of Crenshinibon, and if he is near to the thing, it will call out to him."

Cadderly agreed. "You must destroy this crystal shard," he said so determinedly that he caught them by surprise. "That is paramount."

Drizzt wasn't sure that he agreed with that priority, not with his father apparently held prisoner by the balor. But he did agree that the world would be a better place without the likes of Crenshinibon.

"How does one destroy so powerful an artifact?" the ranger dared to ask.

"I do not know. Each artifact has specific ways in which it may be undone," Cadderly replied. "A few years ago, when I was young, it was asked by my god to destroy the Ghearufu, a sentient and evil thing. I had to seek . . . to demand assistance from a great red dragon."

"A few years ago when I was young," Catti-brie repeated under her breath, so that neither of the others could hear.

"Thus I put it upon you now to find and destroy Crenshinibon, this artifact that you call the crystal shard."

"I'm not knownin' any dragons," Catti-brie remarked dryly.

Drizzt actually did know of another red, but he kept that quiet, having no desire to face the great wyrm called Hephaestus again and hoping that Cadderly would offer an alternative.

"When you have the item in your possession and Errtu is dealt with, then bring it back to me," Cadderly said. "Together, with the guidance of Deneir, we will discover how the crystal shard might be destroyed."

"Ye make it sound so easy," Catti-brie added, and again, her tone was ripe with sarcasm.

"Hardly," Cadderly said. "But I hold fast my faith. Would it please you more if I said 'if' instead of 'when'? "

"I'm gettin' yer point," Catti-brie replied.

Cadderly smiled broadly and draped an arm about the young woman's sturdy shoulders. Catti-brie didn't shy away from that embrace in the least, finding that she truly liked the priest. There was nothing about Cadderly that made her uncomfortable, except perhaps the casual way in which Cadderly dealt with such powers as Errtu and the crystal shard. Now that was confidence!

"We can't be gettin' the crystal shard out from under the pile," Catti-brie reasoned to Drizzt.

"Likely, it will find its own way out," Cadderly said. "Likely, it already has."

"Or Errtu will discover it," said Drizzt.

"So we're to go to Icewind Dale and wait?" Catti-brie huffed, suddenly realizing the depth of the task before them. "Ye're wanting to sit and serve as guardians? For how many centuries?"

Drizzt also wasn't pleased by the prospect, but the responsibility seemed clear to him, now that Errtu was apparently freed. The thought of seeing Zaknafein again would hold the drow even if it meant centuries of servitude.

"We will take it as the fates give it to us," Drizzt told Catti-brie. "We have a long road ahead of us, and yes, perhaps a long wait after that."

"There is a temple of Deneir in Luskan," Cadderly interjected. "That is near to this place called Icewind Dale, is it not?"

"The closest city south of the mountains," Drizzt replied.

"I can get you there," Cadderly said. "Together the three of us can walk the wind to Luskan."

Drizzt considered the prospects. It was nearly midsummer and many merchants would be on their way through Luskan, bound for Ten-Towns to trade for the valuable knucklehead trout scrimshaw. If Cadderly could get them to Luskan quickly, they would have little trouble in joining a caravan to Icewind Dale.

Only then did Drizzt realize yet another obstacle. "What of our friends?" he asked.

Catti-brie and Cadderly looked to each other. In the excitement, they had both nearly forgotten about Deudermont and the stranded Sea Sprite.

"I cannot take so many," Cadderly admitted. "And certainly, I cannot take a ship!"

Drizzt thought it over for a moment. "But we must go," he said to Catti-brie.

"I'm thinking that Deudermont's to like sailin' on a lake," Catti-brie retorted sarcastically. "Not many pirates about, and if he opened the Sea Sprite's sails wide, then suren he'd find himself a mile into the stinkin' woods!"

Drizzt seemed to deflate under the weight of her honest words. "Let us go and find the captain," he replied. "Perhaps we will retrieve Harkle Harpell. He put the Sea Sprite in Impresk Lake, let him get her back where she belongs!"

Catti-brie mumbled something under her breath, her tone too low for Drizzt to decipher the actual words. He knew what she thought of Harkle though, and could imagine them readily enough.

The three found Deudermont, Waillan and Dunkin sitting with Ivan and Pikel along the walk outside of the Spirit Soaring's front doors. Deudermont told them the news of Robillard and the plan to get back where they belonged, which came as a great relief to both Drizzt and Catti-brie. The two looked to each other, and Deudermont knew them well enough to understand the gist of what was going on.

"You are leaving us," he reasoned. "You cannot wait the two or three weeks it will take Robillard to facilitate our return."

"Cadderly can get us to Luskan," Drizzt replied. "In less than two or three weeks, I hope to be in Ten-Towns."

The news put a pall on the previously lighthearted conversation. Even Pikel, who hardly knew what the others were talking about, issued a long and forlorn, "Ooooo."

Deudermont tried to find a way out of this, but he recognized the inevitable. His place was with the Sea Sprite, and given the high stakes, Drizzt and Catti-brie had no choice but to follow the words of the blind seer. Besides, Deudermont had not missed their expressions when Ivan had informed them that Bruenor had left Mithril Hall. Drizzt said he was going back to Ten-Towns, to Icewind Dale, and that was likely where Bruenor had gone.

"Perhaps if we get back to the Sword Coast before the weather turns toward winter, I'll sail the Sea Sprite around the bend and into the Sea of Moving Ice," Deudermont said, his way of bidding his friends farewell. "I would like to visit this Icewind Dale."

"My home," Drizzt said solemnly.

Catti-brie nodded to Drizzt and to Deudermont. She was never comfortable with goodbyes and she knew that was exactly what this was.

It was time to go home.

Chapter 17

THE FEEL OF POWER

Stumpet Rakingclaw plodded through the snow halfway up the side of Kelvin's Cairn. The dwarf knew that her course was risky, for the melt in Icewind Dale was on in full and the mountain was not so high that its temperature remained below the point of freezing. The dwarf could feel the wetness seeping through her thick leather boots, and more than once she heard telltale rumblings of the complaining snow.

The stubborn dwarf plowed on, thrilled by the potential danger. This whole slope could go tumbling down; avalanches were not uncommon on Kelvin's Cairn, where the melt came fast. Stumpet felt like a true adventurer at that moment, braving ground she believed no one had trod in many years. She knew little of the region's history, for she had gone to Mithril Hall along with Dagna and the thousands from Citadel Adbar and had been too busy working in the mines to pay attention to the stories the members of Clan Battlehammer told of Icewind Dale.

Stumpet did not know the story of the most famous avalanche on this very mountain. She did not know that Drizzt and Akar Kessel had waged their last battle here before the ground had fallen out from under them, burying Kessel.

Stumpet stopped and reached into a pouch, producing a bit of lard. She uttered a minor enchantment and touched the lard to pursed lips, enacting a spell to help her ward off the chill. The season was fast turning to summer down below, but the wind up here was cold still and the dwarf was wet. Even as she finished, she heard another rumble and looked up to the mountain's peak, which was still two hundred feet away. For the first time she wondered if she could really get there.

Kelvin's Cairn was certainly not a large mountain. If it had been near Adbar, Stumpet's birthplace, or near Mithril Hall, it wouldn't even have been called a mountain at all. It was just a hillock, a thousand-foot-high clump of rock. But out here on the flat tundra, it seemed a mountain, and Stumpet Rakingclaw was a dwarf who considered the challenge of climbing to be the primary purpose of any mountain. She knew that she could have waited until late summer, when there would have been little snow remaining on Kelvin's Cairn and the ground would be more accessible, but the dwarf had never been known for her patience. Anyway, the mountain wouldn't be much of a challenge without the dangerous, shifting snow.

"Don't ye be falling on me," Stumpet said to the mountain. "And don't ye take me all the way back down!"

She spoke too loudly and, as if in answer, the mountain gave a tremendous groan. Suddenly Stumpet was sliding backward.

"Oh, damn ye!" she cursed, taking up her huge pick, looking for a hold. She tumbled over backward, but kept herself oriented enough to dodge a jutting stone and to set her pick firmly into its side. Her muscles strained as the snow washed past, but it was not too deep and the force of it not too strong.

A moment later all was quiet again, save the distant echoes, and Stumpet pulled herself out of the giant snowball that she and the supporting rock had become.

Then she noticed a curious shard of ice lying on the now bare ground. Coming free of the snow pile, the dwarf gave the strangely shaped item little thought. She moved up to a spot of bare ground and brushed herself off as thoroughly as possible before the snow could melt on her and further wet her already sopping clothing.

Her eyes kept roving back to the crystal. It didn't seem so extraordinary, just a hunk of ice. And yet, the dwarf got the distinct feeling deep in her gut that it was more than that.

For a few moments, Stumpet managed to fend off the unreasonable urges and concentrate on getting herself ready to continue her climb.

The piece of crystal kept calling to her, just below her conscious level, beckoning her to pick it up.

Before she realized what she was doing, she had the item in hand. Not ice, she realized immediately, for it was warm to the touch, warm and somehow comforting. She held it up to the light. It appeared to be a square-sided icicle, barely a foot long. Stum-pet paused and removed her gloves.

"Crystal," she muttered in confirmation, for the warm item did not have the slick feel of ice. Stumpet closed her eyes, concentrating on her tactile sense, trying to feel the true temperature of the item.

"Me spell," the dwarf whispered, thinking she had figured out the mystery. She chanted again, dispelling the magic she had just enacted to fend off the cold.

Still the crystal shard felt warm. Stumpet rubbed her hands across its side and its warmth spread out even to her wet toes.

The dwarf scratched the stubble on her chin and looked around to see if anything else might have dislodged in the small avalanche. She was thinking clearly now, reasoning through this unexpected mystery. But all she saw was white and gray and brown, the unremarkable tapestry that was Kelvin's Cairn. That didn't deter her suspicions. Again she held the crystal shard aloft, watching the play of sunlight through its depths.

"A magical ward against the cold," she said aloud. "A merchant brought ye on a trip to the dale," she reasoned. "Might be that he was seeking some treasure up here, or just that he came up here to get a better look around, thinking that ye'd protect him. And from the cold, ye did," she reasoned confidently, "but not from the snowfall that buried him!"

There, she had it figured out. Stumpet felt herself lucky indeed to have found such a useful item in the empty wasteland that was Kelvin's Cairn. She looked to the south, where the tall peaks of the Spine of the World, perpetually covered in snow, loomed in a gray mist. Suddenly, the dwarven priestess was thinking of where this crystal shard might take her. What mountain would be beyond her if she carried such protection? She could climb them all in a single journey, and her name would be revered among the dwarves!

Already Crenshinibon, the crystal shard, the sentient and insidious artifact was at work, imparting subtle promises of Stumpet's deepest desires upon her. Crenshinibon recognized this wielder, not only a dwarf, but a dwarven priestess, and was not pleased. Dwarves were a stubborn and difficult lot, and resistant to magic. But still, the most evil of artifacts was glad to be out of the snow, glad that someone had returned to Kelvin's Cairn to bear Crenshinibon away.

The crystal shard was back among the realm of the living now, back where it might cause more havoc.

*****

He crept along the tunnels, measuring his steps by the rhythmic pounding of dwarven hammers. The fit of the tight place was not comfortable, not for one used to the stars as his ceiling, and tall Kierstaad sometimes had to get down on his knees to pass through low archways.

Hearing footsteps, he paused at one corner and flattened himself as much as possible against the wall. He was unarmed, but he would not be welcomed here in the dwarven mines, not after Bruenor's unsavory encounter with Berkthgar. Kierstaad's father, Revjak, had been better in dealing with the dwarf, welcoming Bruenor's return, but even in that meeting, the strain had been obvious. Berkthgar and his followers were putting tremendous pressure on Revjak for a complete return to the ancient ways of mistrusting anyone who was not of the tribe. Revjak was wise enough to know that if he fought Berkthgar too boldly on this issue, he might lose control of the tribe altogether.

Kierstaad saw it, too, and his feelings were mixed. He remained loyal to his father, and believed that the dwarves were his friends, but Berkthgar's arguments were convincing. The ancient ways梩he hunt across the tundra, the prayers to the spirits of those animals who were taken梥eemed so refreshing to the young man who had spent the last few years of his life dealing with wretched merchants or battling dark elves.

The approaching dwarves turned away at the intersection, never noticing Kierstaad, and the barbarian breathed easier. He paused a moment to get his bearings, recalling which tunnels he had already passed through and where he believed the personal quarters of the leader would be. Many of the dwarves were out of the mines this day, having gone to Bryn Shander to collect the supplies Bruenor had purchased. Those remaining were in the deeper tunnels, eagerly opening up veins of precious minerals.

Kierstaad encountered no others as he made his way, often backtracking, sometimes going in circles. At last he came to a small corridor with two doors on either side and another at the very end. The first room seemed very undwarflike. Plush carpets and a bed stacked high with mattresses and higher still with warm comforters told the barbarian who it was that used this room.

"Regis," Kierstaad said with a soft chuckle, nodding as he spoke the name. The halfling was supposedly everything the barbarian people despised, lazy, fat, gluttonous, and worst of all, sneaky. Yet, Kierstaad's smile (and the smiles of many other barbarians) had widened every time Regis had come bobbing into Settlestone. Regis was the only halfling Kierstaad had ever met, but if "Rumblebelly," as many called him, was indicative of the race, Kierstaad thought that he would like to meet many more. Gently he closed the door, with one last smirk at the pile of mattresses桼egis often boasted that he could make himself comfortable any place, at any time.

Indeed.

Both rooms across the hall were unoccupied, each holding a single bed more suited to a human than a dwarf. This, too, Kierstaad understood, for it was no secret that Bruenor hoped that Drizzt and Catti-brie would someday return to his side.

The end of the hall was likely a sitting room, the barbarian reasoned. That left one door, the door to the chambers of the dwarven king. Kierstaad moved slowly, tentatively, fearing that a cunning trap had been set.

He cracked open the door, just an inch. No pits opened below his feet, no stones fell from the ceiling onto his head. Gaining confidence, the young barbarian pushed the door wide.

Bruenor's room, there could be no doubt. A scattering of parchments sat atop a wooden desk across the way, extra clothes were piled nearly as high as Kierstaad in one corner. The bed was not made, was a tumble of blankets and pillows.

Kierstaad hardly noticed any of it. The moment the door had opened, his eyes had fixed upon a single object set on the wall at the head of Bruenor's bed.

Aegis-fang. Wulfgar's warhammer.

Hardly breathing, Kierstaad crossed the small room to stand beside the mighty weapon. He saw the gorgeous runes etched into its gleaming mithril head梩he twin mountains, the symbol of Dumathoin, dwarven god and keeper of secrets. Looking closer, Kierstaad made out portions of another rune buried under the twin mountain disguise. So perfect was the overlay that he could not determine what it might be. He knew the legend of Aegis-fang, though. Those hidden runes were the marks of Moradin, the Soul Forger, greatest of the dwarven gods on one side, and the axe of Clangeddin, the dwarven battle god, on the other.

Kierstaad stood for a long time, staring, thinking of the legend that was Wulfgar, thinking of Berkthgar and Revjak. Where would he fit in? If the conflict exploded between the former leader of Settlestone and the current leader of the Tribe of the Elk, what role might Kierstaad play?

A greater one, he knew, if he held Aegis-fang in his hands. Hardly considering the movement, Kierstaad reached out and clasped the warhammer, lifting it from its hooks.

How heavy it seemed! Kierstaad brought it in close, then, with great effort, lifted it above his head.

It banged against the low ceiling, and the young man nearly fell sidelong as it bounced out too wide for him to properly control its momentum. When he at last regained his balance, Kierstaad laughed at his foolishness. How could he hope to wield mighty Aegis-fang? How could he hope to follow in the giant footsteps of mighty Wulfgar?

He brought the fabulous warhammer in close to his chest again, wrapping his arms about it reverently. He could feel its strength, its perfect balance, could almost feel the presence of the man who had wielded it so long and so well.

Young Kierstaad wanted to be like Wulfgar. He wanted to lead the tribe in his own vision. He didn't agree with Wulfgar's course any more than he now agreed with Berkthgar's, but there was a place in between, a compromise that would give the barbarians the freedom of the old ways and the alliances of the new. With Aegis-fang in hand, Kierstaad felt as if he could do that, could take control and lead his people on the best possible course.

The young barbarian shook his head and laughed again, mocking himself and his grand dreams. He was barely more than a boy, and Aegis-fang was not his to wield. That thought made the young man glance back over his shoulder, to the open door. If Bruenor returned and found him in here holding the warhammer, the taciturn dwarf would likely cut him in half.

It wasn't easy for Kierstaad to replace the hammer on its hooks, and it was harder still for him to leave the room. But he had no choice. Empty-handed, he quietly and cautiously snuck back out of the tunnels, back under the open sky, and ran all the way back to his tribe's encampment, some five miles across the tundra.

*****

The dwarf reached as high as she possibly could, her stubby fingers brushing aside the crusty snow and grasping desperately at the rock. The last ledge, the doorway to the top, the very top.

Stumpet groaned and strained, knowing it to be an impossible obstacle, knowing that she had overreached her bounds and was surely destined to fall thousands of feet to her death.

But then, somehow, she found the strength. Her fingers latched on firmly and she pulled with all her might. Little legs kicked and scraped at the rock, and suddenly she was over, onto the flat plateau at the top of the tallest mountain in all the world.

The resilient dwarf stood tall on that high place and surveyed the scene below her, the world conquered. She noted the crowds then, thousands and thousands of her bearded minions, filling all the valleys and all the trails. They were cheering, bowing before her.

Stumpet came awake drenched in sweat. It took her several moments to orient herself, to realize that she was in her own small room in the dwarven mines in Icewind Dale. She gave a slight smile as she recalled the vivid dream, the breathtaking last surge that got her over the top. But that smile was lost in confusion as she considered the subsequent scene, the cheering dwarves.

"Why'd I go and dream that?" Stumpet wondered aloud. She never climbed for glory, simply for the personal satisfaction that conquering a mountain gave to her. Stumpet didn't care what others thought of her climbing prowess, and she rarely even told anyone where she was going, where she had been, or whether or not the climb had been a success.

The dwarf wiped her forehead and slipped back to her hard mattress, the images of the dream still vividly clear in her mind. A dream or a nightmare? Was she lying to herself about the truth of why she climbed? Was there indeed a measure of personal satisfaction, a feeling of superiority, when she conquered a mountain? And if that was the case, then was that feeling a measure of superiority not only over the mountain, but over her fellow dwarves?

The questions nagged the normally-unshakable cleric, the usually humble priestess. Stumpet hoped the thoughts weren't true. She thought more of herself, her true self, than to be concerned with such pettiness. After a long while of tossing and turning, the dwarf finally fell back to sleep.

*****

No more dreams came to Stumpet that long night. Crenshinibon, resting in a locker at the foot of the dwarf's bed, sensed Stumpet's dismay and realized that it had to be careful in imparting such dreams. This dwarf was not an easy one to entice. The artifact had no idea of what treasures it could promise to weaken the will of Stumpet Rakingclaw.

Without those insidious promises, the crystal shard could grab no firm hold over the dwarf. But if Crenshinibon became more overt, more forceful, it could tip Stumpet off to the truth of its origins and its designs. And certainly the artifact did not want to arouse the suspicions of one who could call upon the powers of goodly gods, perhaps even learning the secrets of how to destroy Crenshinibon!

The crystal shard closed in its magic, kept its sentient thoughts deep within its squared sides. Its long wait was not quite over, it realized, not while it was in the hands of this one.

Part 4

ICEWIND DALE

I remember well that occasion when I returned to Menzoberranzan, the city of my birth, the city of my childhood. I was floating on a raft across the lake of Donigarten when the city came into view, a sight I had feared and longed for at the same time. I did not ever want to return to Menzoberranzan, and yet, I had to wonder what going there would feel like. Was the place as bad as my memories told me?

I remember well that moment when we drifted past the cavern's curving wall, the sculpted stalagmites coming into view.

It was a disappointment.

I did not feel any anger, nor any awe. No warmth of nostalgia, true or false, washed over me. I did not dwell in the memories of my childhood, not even in the memories of my good times with Zaknafein.

All that I thought of in that critical moment was the fact that there were lights burning in the city, an unusual and perhaps significant event. All that I thought of was my critical mission, and how I must move fast to get the job done. My fears, for indeed they remained, were of a rational nature. Not the impulsive and unreasonable fears wrought of childhood memories, but the very real trepidations that I was walking into the lair of a powerful enemy.

Later, when the situation allowed, I reflected on that moment, confused as to why it had been so disappointing, so insignificant. Why hadn't I been overwhelmed by the sight of the city that had been my home for the first three decades of my life?

Only when I turned around the northwestern corner of the Spine of the World mountain range, back into Icewind Dale, did I realize the truth. Menzoberranzan had been a place along my journey, but not a home, never a home. As the blind seer's riddle had inferred, Icewind Dale had been my home that was first. All that had come before, all that had led to that windswept and inhospitable place梖rom Menzoberranzan, to Blingdenstone, to the surface, even to the enchanted grove of my ranger mentor, Montolio DeBrouchee梙ad been but a road, a path to follow.

These truths came clear to me when I turned that corner, facing the dale for the first time in a decade, feeling the endless wind upon my face, the same wind that had always been there and that gave the place its name.

It is a complicated word: home. It carries varied definitions to nearly every person. To me, home is not just a place, but a feeling, a warm and comfortable sensation of control. Home is where I need make no excuses for my actions or the color of my skin, where I must be accepted because this is my place. It is both a personal and a shared domain, for it is the place a person most truly belongs, and yet it is so only because of those friends around him.

Unlike my first glimpse of Menzoberranzan, when I looked upon Icewind Dale I was filled with thoughts of what had been. There were thoughts of sitting on the side of Kelvin's Cairn, watching the stars and the fires of the roaming barbarian tribes, thoughts of battling tundra yeti beside Bruenor. I remembered the dwarfs sour expression when he licked his axe and first learned that the brains of a tundra yeti tasted terrible! I remembered my first meeting with Catti-brie, my companion still. She was but a girl then, a trusting and beautiful spirit, wild in nature yet always sensitive.

I remembered so very much, a veritable flood of images, and though my mission on that occasion was no less vital and pressing than the one that had taken me to Menzoberranzan, I thought nothing of it, didn't consider my course at all.

At that moment, it simply didn't matter. All that I cared about was that I had come home.

桪rizzt Do'Urden

Chapter 18

WALKING THE WIND

Drizzt and Catti-brie accompanied Deudermont, Waillan and Dunkin back to Carradoon to say their farewells to the crewmen they had worked beside for more than five years, friends all. Drizzt was impatient and didn't want to delay his return to Icewind Dale any longer than necessary, but this short trip was important. It was a fond farewell with promises that they would meet again.

The two friends桪rizzt called in Guenhwyvar later梔ined with Deudermont and Robillard that night. Robillard, seeming more animated and friendly than usual, promised to use his magic to whisk them back to the Spirit Soaring, to get them on their way.

"What?" the wizard asked as the other three exchanged knowing glances and grins, all of them thinking exactly the same thing.

Robillard had changed in the last few weeks, especially since the wild battle on the beach of Caerwich. The fact was, Harkle had rubbed off on him.

"What?" Robillard demanded again, more forcefully.

Deudermont laughed and lifted his glass of wine in a toast. "To Harkle Harpell," the captain said, "and the good he has left in his wake!"

Robillard snorted, ready to remind them that the Sea Sprite was locked tight in a lake hundreds of miles from the Sword Coast. But as he considered the continuing smirks on his companions' faces, the wary wizard realized the truth of Deudermont's toast, realized that it was aimed at him.

Robillard's first instinct was to yell out a protest, perhaps even to rescind his offer to take Drizzt and Catti-brie back to the cathedral. But they were right, the wizard finally had to admit to himself, and so he lifted his glass. Though he kept quiet, Robillard was thinking that maybe he would go to the famed Ivy Mansion in Longsaddle and pay his eccentric friend a visit.

It was difficult for Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Deudermont to say goodbye. They shared hugs and promised that they would meet again, but they all knew the depth of the task facing Drizzt and Catti-brie. There was a very real possibility that neither of them would ever leave Icewind Dale alive.

They all knew this, but none of them mentioned that possibility, acting as though this was merely a short interruption to their friendship.

*****

Twenty minutes later, Drizzt and Catti-brie were back at the Spirit Soaring. Robillard said his farewells, and then disappeared in a flash of magical energy.

Ivan, Pikel and Danica greeted them. "Cadderly's gettin' ready," the stout, yellow-bearded dwarf remarked. "Takes the old man longer, ye know!"

"Hee hee hee," Pikel piped in.

Danica feigned a protest, but in truth梐nd Catti-brie saw it梥he was glad that the dwarves continued to taunt Cadderly's advanced age. They did it only because they believed that the priest was growing stronger, even younger, and their taunts were filled with hope, not malice.

"Come," Danica bade Catti-brie. "We have not had enough time together." The woman cast a sour look at Ivan and Pikel, bobbing along on their heels. "Alone," she finished pointedly.

"Ooooo," moaned Pikel.

"Does he always do that?" Drizzt asked Ivan, who sighed and nodded.

"Ye think ye got long enough to tell me o' Mithril Hall?" Ivan asked. "I heared o' Menzoberranzan, but I'm not for believing what I heared."

"I will tell what I may," Drizzt replied. "And you will indeed have a difficult time in believing many of the splendors I describe."

"And what of Bruenor?" Ivan added.

"Booner!" put in the excited Pikel.

Ivan slapped his brother on the back of the head. "We'd go with ye, elf," the yellow-bearded dwarf explained, "but we've got chores to do here right now. Takin' care o' the twins and all that, and me brother with his gardens." As soon as he mentioned Pikel, Ivan turned fast to regard his brother, as if expecting another silly remark. Pikel did seem like he wanted to say something, but he began to whistle instead. When Ivan turned back to Drizzt, the drow had to shake his head and bite his lip. For, in looking over the yellow-bearded Ivan, Drizzt caught the face, thumbs in ears, fingers wagging, tongue stuck out to its limits, that Pikel offered.

Ivan spun back, but Pikel was standing calm again, whistling away. They went through three more such exchanges before Ivan finally gave up.

Drizzt had known these two for only two days, but he was thinking that they were grand fun, and he was imagining the good times the Bouldershoulders would inflict on Bruenor if ever they met!

*****

For Danica and Catti-brie, that last hour together was much more serious and controlled. They went to Danica and Cadderly's private quarters, a grouping of five rooms near the rear of the great structure. They found Cadderly in the bedroom, praying and preparing, so they quietly left him alone.

Their talk at first was general in nature, Catti-brie telling of her past, of how she had been orphaned when very young and then taken under the wing of Bruenor, to be raised among the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer. Danica spoke of her training in the teachings of Grandmaster Penpahg D'Ahn. She was a monk, a disciplined warrior, not so unlike Catti-brie.

Catti-brie wasn't used to dealing with women of her own age and of a similar mind. She liked it, though, liked Danica quite a bit, and could imagine a great friendship between the two if time and the situation would permit. In truth, the situation was also awkward for Danica, her life had been no easier and her contact with women of her own age no more common.

They spoke of the past and finally, of the present, of their hopes for the future.

"Do you love him?" Danica dared to ask, referring to the dark elf.

Catti-brie blushed, and really had no answer. Of course she loved Drizzt, but she didn't know if she loved him in the way that Danica was speaking of. Drizzt and Catti-brie had agreed to put off any such feelings, but now, with Wulfgar gone for so many years and Catti-brie approaching the age of thirty, the question was beginning to resurface.

"He is a handsome one," Danica remarked, giggling like a little girl.

Indeed, that's what Catti-brie felt like, reclining on the wide davenport in Danica's sitting room: a girl. It was like being a teenager again, thinking of love and of life, allowing herself to believe that her biggest problem was in trying to decide if Drizzt was handsome or not.

Of course, the weight of reality for both these women was fast to intrude, fast to steal the giggles. Catti-brie had loved and lost, and Danica, with two young children of her own, had to face the possibility that her husband, unnaturally aged by the creation of the Spirit Soaring, would soon be gone.

The conversation gradually shifted, then died away, and then Danica sat quiet, staring intently at Catti-brie.

"What is it?" Catti-brie wanted to know.

"I am with child," Danica said, and Catti-brie knew at once that she was the first person the monk had told, even before Cadderly.

Catti-brie waited a moment, waited to see the smile widen on Danica's face to make sure that, for the young monk, being pregnant was indeed a good thing, and then she grinned broadly and wrapped Danica in a tight hug.

"Do not say anything to Cadderly," Danica begged. "I've already planned how I will tell him."

Catti-brie sat back. "And yet ye told me first," she said, the gravity of that reality evident in her solemn tones.

"You are leaving," Danica answered matter-of-factly.

"But ye hardly know o' me," Catti-brie reminded her.

Danica shook her head, her strawberry blonde hair flying wide and her exotic almond-shaped eyes locking fast with Catti-brie's deep blue eyes. "I know you," Danica said softly.

It was true enough, and Catti-brie felt that she knew Danica as well. They were much alike, and both came to realize that they would miss each other a great deal.

They heard Cadderly stirring in the room next door; it was almost time to go.

"I will come back here someday," Catti-brie promised.

"And I will visit Icewind Dale," Danica responded.

Cadderly entered the room and told them that it was time for Catti-brie and Drizzt to leave. He smiled warmly, and was gracious enough to say nothing of the moisture that rimmed the eyes of the two young women.

*****

Cadderly, Drizzt and Danica stood atop the highest tower of the Spirit Soaring, nearly three hundred feet above the ground, the wind whipping against their backs.

Cadderly chanted quietly for some time, and gradually, both friends began to feel lighter, somehow less substantial. Cadderly grabbed a hand of each and continued his chant, and the threesome faded away. Ghostlike, they walked off the tower top with the wind.

All the world sped past, blurry, in a fog, a dreamlike vision. Neither Drizzt nor Catti-brie knew how long they were flying, but dawn was breaking along the eastern horizon when they slowed and then stopped, becoming more substantial again.

They were in the city of Luskan, along the northernmost stretch of the Sword Coast, just south of the western lip of the Spine of the World mountains and barely two hundred miles, by horse or by foot, from Ten-Towns.

Cadderly didn't know the city, but the priest's aim was perfect and the three came out of their enchantment right in front of the temple of Deneir. Cadderly was well received by his fellow priests. He quickly secured rooms for his friends and while they were sleeping, went out with one of the Luskan priests to make the arrangements for Drizzt and Catti-brie to hook up with a caravan heading for Icewind Dale.

It was easier than Cadderly expected, and that made him glad, for he feared that Drizzt's heritage would outweigh any words he might offer. But Drizzt was known among many of the merchants in Luskan, as was Catti-brie, and their fighting prowess would be a welcome addition to any caravan traveling north to the dangerous land that was Icewind Dale.

The two were awake when Cadderly got back to the Deneirian temple, speaking with the other priests and gathering supplies for the long road ahead. Drizzt accepted one gift reverently, a pair of waterskins filled with blessed water from the temple's font. The drow didn't see any practical use for the water, but the significance that a human priest of a goodly god had given it to him, a drow elf, was not lost on him.

"Your fellows are a good lot," Drizzt remarked to Cadderly, when he, the old priest, and Catti-brie were at last alone. Cadderly had already explained the provisions that had been made, including the time and place, where Drizzt and Catti-brie were to meet with the caravan. The merchants were putting out this very day, giving the pair less than an hour to get out on the road. They knew that this was yet another parting.

"They do Deneir proud," Cadderly agreed.

Drizzt was busy with his pack then, and so Catti-brie quietly pulled Cadderly aside. Her thoughts were on Danica, her friend.

Cadderly smiled warmly, seeming to understand what this private conversation might be about.

"Ye've got many responsibilities," Catti-brie began.

"My god is not so demanding," Cadderly said coyly, for he knew that Catti-brie was not speaking of his duties to Deneir.

"I'm meaning the twins," Catti-brie whispered. "And Danica."

Cadderly nodded. No argument there.

Catti-brie paused for a long while, seeming to struggle with the words. How might she put things so as not to insult the old priest?

"Ivan telled me something about yer . . . condition," Catti-brie admitted.

"Oh?" Cadderly replied. He wasn't going to make this easy for the young woman.

"The dwarf says ye expected to die as soon as the Spirit Soaring was completed," Catti-brie explained. "Says ye looked like ye would, too."

"I felt like I would," Cadderly admitted. "And the visions I had of the cathedral made me believe that to be the truth."

"That was more than a year ago," Catti-brie remarked.

Cadderly nodded again.

"The dwarf says ye look like ye're getting younger," Catti-brie pressed. "And stronger."

Cadderly's smile was wide. He understood that Catti-brie was looking out for Danica's interests and her apparently deep friendship with his wife warmed his heart profoundly. "I cannot be certain of anything," he said to her, "but the dwarf's observations seem to be accurate. I am stronger now, much stronger and more energetic than when the cathedral was first completed." Cadderly reached up and pulled straight a few strands of hair, mostly gray, but with several sandy-colored strands mixed in. "Brown hairs," the old priest went on. "It was white, all white, when first the cathedral was completed."

"Ye're gettin' younger!" Catti-brie proclaimed with much enthusiasm.

Cadderly blew a long and deep sigh, and then, couldn't help but nod. "So it would seem," he admitted.

"I cannot be sure of anything," he said as if he was afraid of speaking his hopes out loud. "The only explanation that I can figure is that the visions shown to me梫isions of my impending death梐nd the fatigue I felt at the completion of the Spirit Soaring were a test of my ultimate loyalty to the precepts and commandments of Deneir. I honestly expected to die as soon as the first service in the new cathedral was completed, and indeed, when it was done, a great weariness overcame me. I went to my room桰 was practically carried by Danica and Ivan梐nd went to sleep, expecting to never again open my eyes upon this world. I accepted that." He paused and closed his eyes, recalling that fateful date.

"But now," Catti-brie prompted.

"Perhaps Deneir tested me, tested my loyalty," Cadderly said. "It might be that I passed that test, and so now my god has chosen to spare me."

"If he's a goodly god, then the choice is made," Catti-brie said firmly. "No good god'd take ye from Danica and the twins, and . . ."

She paused and bit her lip, not wanting to give away Danica's secret.

"Deneir is a goodly god," Cadderly replied with equal determination. "But you speak of the concerns of mortals and we cannot understand Deneir's will or his ways. If Deneir takes me from Danica and my children, then that does not make him anything less than the goodly god that he truly is."

Catti-brie shook her head and didn't seem convinced.

"There are higher meanings and higher principles than we humans can understand," Cadderly said to her. "I hold faith that Deneir will do what is ultimately right by his needs and his designs, which outweigh my own."

"But ye hope it's true," Catti-brie said, her tone showing the words to be an accusation. "Ye hope ye get young again, as young as yer bride, that ye might live out yer life beside her and with yer kids!"

Cadderly laughed aloud. "True enough," he finally admitted, and Catti-brie was appeased.

So was Drizzt, listening in with those keen drow ears of his, only half his attention focused upon the task of packing his haversack.

Catti-brie and Cadderly shared a hug, and then the old priest, who seemed not so old, went to Drizzt and offered a sincere handshake. "Bring to me the artifact, this crystal shard," Cadderly said. "Together we will discover a way to rid the world of its evil.

"And bring your father as well," Cadderly went on. "I feel that he would enjoy a stay at the Spirit Soaring."

Drizzt gripped Cadderly's hand all the tighter, thankful for the priest's confidence that he would succeed. "The artifact will give me . . . give us," he corrected, looking to Catti-brie, "the excuse we need to make the journey back to Carradoon."

"A journey I must make now," Cadderly said, and so he left the pair.

They said nothing when they were alone, just went about finishing their preparations for the road.

The road home.

Chapter 19

AND ALL THE WORLD IS THEIRS

Revjak knew that it would come to this, had guessed it as soon as he had realized that Berkthgar did not mean to split off from the Tribe of the Elk to recreate one of the other tribes. So now Revjak stood facing the brutish barbarian within a ring of all their people. Everyone in the tribe knew what was to come, but it had to be done properly, by the rules of ancient traditions.

Berkthgar waited for the gathering to quiet. He could be patient because he knew that the whispers were leaning in his favor, that the arguments for his ascension were gaining momentum. Finally, after what seemed to Revjak to be many minutes, the crowd went silent.

Berkthgar lifted his arms high to the sky, his hands reaching wide. Behind him, strapped diagonally across his back, loomed Bankenfuere, his huge flamberge. "I claim the Right of Challenge," the huge barbarian declared.

A chorus of cheers rose up, not a strong as Berkthgar would have liked, but showing that he had quite a bit of support.

"By what birthright do you make such a claim?" Revjak responded properly.

"Not by blood," Berkthgar promptly answered, "but by deed!" Again came the cheers from the younger man's supporters.

Revjak shook his head. "There is no reason, if blood does not demand a challenge," he protested, and his supporters, though not as vocal as Berkthgar's, gave their own burst of cheering. "I have led in peace and in strength," Revjak finished firmly, a claim that was all too true.

"As have I!" Berkthgar was quick to interrupt. "In Settlestone, so far from our home. I have brought our people through war and peace, and have led the march all the way back to Icewind Dale, our home!"

"Where Revjak is King of the Tribe of the Elk," the older man put in without hesitation.

"By what birthright?" Berkthgar demanded.

Revjak had a problem here, and he knew it.

"What birthright does Revjak, son of Jorn the Red, who was not a king, claim?" Berkthgar asked slyly.

Revjak had no answer.

"The position was given to you," Berkthgar went on, telling a tale that was nothing new to his people, but from a slightly different perspective than they normally heard. "It was handed to you, through no challenge and no right, by Wulfgar, son of Beornegar."

Kierstaad watched it all from the sidelines. At that moment, the young man came to understand the real reason why Berkthgar had launched a campaign to discredit Wulfgar. If the legend of Wulfgar still loomed larger than life to the barbarians, then his father's claim as king would be strong indeed. But with Wulfgar somewhat discredited . . .

"Who rightly claimed the kingship from Heafstaag, who was by birthright, rightly king," Revjak reasoned. "How many here," he asked the general gathering, "remember the battle wherein Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, became our king?"

Many heads bobbed, mostly of the older folk who had remained in Icewind Dale through all the years.

"I, too, remember the battle." Berkthgar growled defiantly. "And I do not doubt Wulfgar's claim, nor all the good he did for my people. But you have no claim of blood, no more than my own, and I would lead, Revjak. I demand the Right of Challenge!"

The cheers were louder than ever.

Revjak looked to his son and smiled. He could not avoid Berkthgar's claim, no more than he could possibly defeat the huge man in combat. He turned back to Berkthgar. "Granted," he said, and the cheers were deafening then, from both Berkthgar's supporters and Revjak's.

"In five hours, before the sun runs low along the horizon," Berkthgar began.

"Now," Revjak said unexpectedly.

Berkthgar eyed the man, trying to discern what trick he might be pulling. Normally a Right of Challenge would be answered later in the day on which it was made, after both combatants had the time to prepare themselves mentally and physically for the combat.

Berkthgar narrowed his blue eyes and all the crowd hushed in anticipation. A smile widened on the huge man's face. He didn't fear Revjak, not now, not ever. Slowly, the huge man's hand went up over his shoulder, grasping the hilt of Bankenfuere, drawing the massive blade up from its scabbard. That sheath had been cut along its top edge so that Berkthgar could draw the weapon quickly. He did so, hoisting the heavy blade high into the sky.

Revjak took up his own weapon, but, to his observant and worried son, he did not seem ready for combat.

Berkthgar approached cautiously, feeling the balance of Bankenfuere with every step.

Then Revjak held up his hand and Berkthgar stopped, waiting.

"Who among us hopes for Revjak to win?" he asked, and a loud cheer of many voices went up.

Thinking the question to be no more than a ruse to lower his confidence, Berkthgar issued a low growl. "And who would see Berkthgar, Berkthgar the Bold, as King of the Tribe of the Elk?"

The cheer was louder still, obviously so.

Revjak moved right up to his opponent, unthreateningly, one hand up and his axe's head low to the ground. "The challenge is answered," he said, and he dropped his weapon to the ground.

All eyes widened in disbelief, Kierstaad's perhaps widest of all. This was dishonor! This was cowardice among the barbarians!

"I cannot defeat you, Berkthgar," Revjak explained, speaking loudly so that all would hear. "Nor can you defeat me."

Berkthgar scowled mightily. "I could cut you in half!" he declared, taking up his sword in both hands so powerfully that Revjak half expected him to do so right then and there.

"And our people would suffer the consequences of your actions," Revjak said quietly. "Whoever might win the challenge would be faced with two tribes, not one, split apart by anger and wanting revenge." He looked to the general gathering again, speaking to all his people. "We are not strong enough yet to support that," he said. "Whether we are to strengthen the friendship with Ten-Towns and the dwarves who have returned, or whether we are to return to our ways of old, we must do so together, as one!"

Berkthgar's scowl did not relent. Now he understood. Revjak could not defeat him in combat梩hey both knew that梥o the wily older man had usurped the very power of the challenge. Berkthgar truly wanted to cut him in half, but how could he take any actions against the man?

"As one," Revjak repeated, and he held out his hand, bidding his opponent to clasp his wrist.

Berkthgar was wild with rage. He hooked his foot under Revjak's dropped axe and sent it spinning across the circle. "Yours is the way of the coward!" he roared. "You have proven that this day!" Up went Berkthgar's huge arms, up and out wide as if in victory.

"I have no claim of blood!" Revjak yelled, commanding attention. "Nor do you! The people must decide who will rule and who will step aside."

"The challenge is of combat!" Berkthgar retorted.

"Not this time!" Revjak shot back. "Not when all the tribe must suffer your foolish pride." Berkthgar moved again as if to strike, but Revjak ignored him and turned to the gathering. "Decide!" he commanded.

"Revjak!" yelled one man, but his voice was buried by a band of young warriors who cried out for Berkthgar. They, in turn, were outdone by a large group calling for Revjak. And so it went, back and forth, mounting cries. Several fights broke out, weapons were drawn.

Through it all, Berkthgar glowered at Revjak, and when the older man matched that intense stare, Berkthgar merely shook his head in disbelief. How could Revjak have done such dishonor to their people?

But Revjak held faith in his choice. He was not afraid to die, never that, but he truly believed that a fight between himself and Berkthgar would split the tribe and bring hardship to both groups. This was the better way, as long as things didn't get out of hand.

And they seemed to be heading in just that direction. Both sides continued to yell out, but now each cry was accompanied by a lifting of sword and axe, open threats.

Revjak watched the crowd carefully, measuring the support for him and for Berkthgar. Soon enough he understood and admitted the truth.

"Stop!" he commanded at the top of his voice, and gradually, the shouting match did diminish.

"With all your strength, who calls out for Berkthgar?" Revjak asked.

A great roar ensued.

"And who for Revjak?"

"Revjak who would not fight!" Berkthgar quickly added, and the cheers for the son of Jorn were not as loud, or as enthusiastic.

"Then it is settled," Revjak said, more to Berkthgar than to the crowd. "And Berkthgar is King of the Tribe of the Elk."

Berkthgar could hardly believe what had just transpired. He wanted to strike down the wily older man. This was to be his day of glory, a victory of mortal combat, as had been the way since the dawn of the tribes. But how could he do that? How could he slay an unarmed man, one who had just proclaimed him as the leader of all his people?

"Be wise, Berkthgar," Revjak said quietly, moving close, for the buzz of the astonished gathering was loud indeed. "Together we will discover the true way for our people, what is best for our future."

Berkthgar shoved him aside. "I will decide," he corrected loudly. "I need no advice from a coward!"

He walked out of the circle then, his closest supporters falling in line behind him.

Stung by the rejection of his offer, but not really surprised, Revjak took comfort in the fact that he had tried his best to do what was right for his people. That counted little, though, when the man looked upon his son, who had just completed the rights of passage into manhood.

Kierstaad's expression was one of disbelief, even of shame.

Revjak lifted his head high and walked over to the young man. "Understand," he commanded. "This is the only way."

Kierstaad walked away. Logic might have shown him the truth of his father's bravery this day, but logic played a very minor role in the young man's consciousness. Kierstaad felt ashamed, truly ashamed, and he wanted nothing more than to run away, out onto the open tundra, to live or to die.

It hardly seemed to matter.

*****

Stumpet sat on the very highest peak of Kelvin's Cairn, which seemed an easy climb to her. Her waking thoughts, like most of her dreams, were now squarely focused on the south, on the towering peaks of the Spine of the World. Fleeting images of glory and of victory raced through the dwarf's mind. She pictured herself standing atop the tallest mountain, surveying all the world.

The impracticality of the image, the sheer irrationality of it, did not make its way into Stumpet Rakingclaw's conscious thoughts. The constant barrage of images, the stream of delusion, began to erode the normally-pragmatic dwarf's rational sensibilities. For Stumpet, logic was fast losing to desires, desires that were not truly her own.

"I'm on me way, towering peaks," the dwarf said suddenly, addressing those distant mountains. "And not a one o' ye's big enough to keep me down!"