I am past the sunset of my second century of life and yet I feel as if the ground below me is as the shifting sands. In so many ways, I find that I am no more sure of myself than I was those many decades ago when I first walked free of Menzoberranzan—less sure, in truth, for in that time, my emotions were grounded in a clear sense of right and wrong, in a definitive understanding of truth against deception.
Perhaps my surety then was based almost solely on a negative; when I came to recognize the truth of the city of Menzoberranzan about me, I knew what I could not accept, knew what did not ring true in my heart and soul, and demanded the notion of a better life, a better way. It was not so much that I knew what I wanted, for any such concepts of the possibilities beyond Menzoberranzan were surely far beyond my experience.
But I knew what I did not want and what I could not accept.
Guided by that inner moral compass, I made my way, and my beliefs seemed only reinforced by those friends I came to know, not kin, but surely kind.
And so I have lived my life, a goodly life, I think, with the power of righteousness guiding my blades. There have been times of doubt, of course, and so many errors along the way. Again, there stood my friends, to guide me back to the correct path, to walk beside me and support me and reinforce my belief that there is a community greater than myself, a purpose higher and more noble than the simple hedonism so common in the land of my birth.
Now I am older.
Now, again, I do not know.
For I find myself enmeshed in conflicts I do not understand, where both sides seem equally . . . wrong.
This is not Mithral Hall defending her gates against marauding orcs. This is not the garrison of Ten Towns holding back a barbarian horde, or battling the monstrous minions of Akar Kessell. In all the Realms now, there is conflict and shadow and confusion, and a sense that there is no clear path to victory. The world has grown dark, and in a dark place, so dark rulers can arise.
I long for the simplicity of Icewind Dale.
For down here in the more populous lands, there is Luskan, full of treachery and deceit and unbridled greed. There are a hundred “Luskans” across the Realms, I fear, for in the tumult of the Spellplague and the deeper and more enduring darkness of the Shadowfell, the return of the shades and the Empire of Netheril, those structures of community and society could not hold unscathed. Some see chaos as an enemy to be defeated and tamed; others, I know from my earliest days, see chaos as opportunity for personal gain.
For down here, there are the hundreds of communities and clusters of farms depending on the protection of the city garrisons, who will not come. Indeed, under the rule of despot kings or lords or high captains alike, those communities so oft become the prey of the powerful cities.
For down here, there is Many Arrows, the orc kingdom forced upon the Silver Marches by the hordes of King Obould in that long-ago war—though even now, a century hence, it remains a trial, a test, whose outcome cannot be predicted. Did King Bruenor, with his courage in signing the Treaty of Garumn’s Gorge, end the war, or merely delay a larger one?
It is always confusion, I fear, always those shifting sands.
Until I draw my blades, and that is the dark truth of who I have become. For when my scimitars are in hand, the battle becomes immediacy, the goal survival and the greater politic that once guided my hand is a fleeting vision, a thin and drifting campfire’s smoke out on the horizon. I live in a land of many Akar Kessells, but so few, it seems, places worth defending!
Perhaps among the settlers of Neverwinter City there exists such a noble defense as that I helped wage in Ten Towns, but there live, too, in the triad of interests, the Thayans and their undead hordes and the Netherese, many persons no less ruthless and no less self-interested. Indeed, no less wrong.
How might I engage my heart in such a conflict as the morass that is Neverwinter? How might I strike with conviction, secure in the knowledge that I fight for the good of the land?
I cannot. Not now. Not with competing interests equally dark.
But no more am I surrounded by friends of similar weal, it seems. Were it my choice alone, I would flee this land, perhaps to the Silver Marches and (hopefully) some sense of goodliness and hope. To Mithral Hall and Silverymoon, who cling still to the heartsong of King Bruenor Battlehammer and Lady Alustriel, or perhaps to Waterdeep, shining still, where the lords hold court for the benefit of their city and citizens.
But Dahlia will not be so persuaded to leave. There is something here, some old grudge that is far beyond my comprehension. I followed her to Sylora Salm willingly, settling my own score as she settled hers. And now I follow her again, or I abandon her, for she will not turn aside. When Artemis Entreri mentioned that name, Herzgo Alegni, such an anger came over Dahlia, and such a sadness, I think, that she will hear of no other goal.
Nor will she hear of any delay, for winter is soon to be thick about us. No storm will slow her, I fear; no snow will gather deep enough that stubborn Dahlia will not drive through it, to Neverwinter City, to wherever she must go to find this Netherese lord, this Herzgo Alegni.
I had thought her hatred of Sylora Salm profound, but nay, I know now, it cannot measure against the depths of Dahlia’s loathing of this tiefling Netherese warlord. She will kill him, so she says, and when I threatened to leave her to her own course, she did not blink and did not hesitate, and did not care enough to offer me a fond farewell.
So again I am drawn into a conflict I do not understand. Is there a righteous course to be found here? Is there a measure of right and wrong between Dahlia and the Shadovar? By the words of Entreri, it would seem that this tiefling is a foul beast deserving of a violent end, and surely the reputation of Netheril supports that notion.
But am I now so lost in my choice of path that I take the word of Artemis Entreri as guidance? Am I now so removed from any sense of correctness, from any communities so designed, that it falls to this?
The sands shift beneath my feet. I draw my blades, and in the desperation of battle, I will wield them as I always have. My enemies will not know the tumult in my heart, the confusion that I have no clear moral path before me. They will know only the bite of Icingdeath, the flash of Twinkle.
But I will know the truth of it.
Does this reluctance to pursue Alegni reflect in me a distrust of Dahlia, I wonder? She is certain in her course—more certain than I have ever seen her, or seen anybody, for that matter. Even Bruenor, in his long-ago quest to regain Mithral Hall, did not stride so determinedly. She will kill this tiefling or she will die trying. A sorry friend, a sorrier lover, am I indeed if I do not accompany her.
But I do not understand. I do not see the path clearly. I do not know what greater good I serve. I do not fight in the hopes of betterment of my corner of the world.
I just fight.
On the side of Dahlia, who intrigues me.
On the side of Artemis Entreri, so it would seem.
Perhaps in another century, I will return to Menzoberranzan, not as an enemy, not as a conqueror, not to tear down the structures of that society I once held as most vile.
Perhaps I will return because I will belong.
This is my fear, of a life wasted, of a cause misbegotten, of a belief that is, in the end, an empty and unattainable ideal, the foolish designs of an innocent child who believed there could be more.
Bruenor has not been gone from my side for long, but oh, how dearly do I miss him!
* * *
My thoughts slip past me; slithering snakes they seem, rushing all about, winding over each other and unwinding, coiling and darting. Always just ahead, a turning thread, just out of reach.
Diving down dark holes where I cannot follow.
One of the most common truths of life is that we all take for granted things that simply are. Whether it’s a spouse, a friend, family, or home, after enough time has passed, that person, place, or situation becomes the accepted norm of our lives, and so, the expected norm of our lives.
It is not until we confront the unexpected, not until the normal is no more, that we truly come to appreciate what once we had.
I have said this, I have known this, I have felt this so many times . . .
But I find myself off-balance again, and the snakes slide past, teasing me, and I cannot catch them, cannot sort through their intertwined bodies.
So it is with the ill person who suddenly must face mortality, when the paralyzing shackles of the concept of forever are sundered, and every drip of sand in the hourglass crystallizes into a moment of importance. I have met several people in my travels who, when told by a cleric that they had not long to live, insisted to me that their disease was the greatest event of their existence, insisted that colors became more vivid, sounds more acute and meaningful and pleasurable, and friendships more endearing.
The shattering of the normal routine brings life to this person, so paradoxically, considering that the catalyst is, after all, the anticipated imminence of death.
But though we know, though we are seasoned, we cannot prepare. The snakes move too quickly!
I felt this tearing of the fabric of the static canvas that had become my life when Catti-brie became afflicted by the Spellplague, and then, even more profoundly, when she and Regis were taken from me. All my sensibilities screamed at me; it wasn’t supposed to be like that. So many things had been sorted through hard work and trial, and we four remaining Companions of the Hall were ready for our due and just reward: adventures and leisure of our choosing.
I don’t know that I took those two dear friends for granted, though losing them so unexpectedly and abruptly surely tore apart the romantic tapestry I had painted about me.
A tapestry full of holes, and with snakes, flowing rivers of discordant thought, sliding all about. I remember my confusion, my rage, helpless rage . . . I grabbed Jarlaxle because I needed something to hold, some solid object and solid hope to stop the stones from shifting under my feet.
So too with the departure of Wulfgar, whose choice to leave us was not really unexpected.
So too with Bruenor. We walked a road together that we knew would end as it ended. The only question was whether he or I would die first at the end of an enemy’s spear.
I feel that I long ago properly insulated myself against this trap of simply accepting what was with the false belief that what was would always be.
In almost every case.
Almost, I see now.
I speak of the Companions of the Hall as if we were five, then four when Wulfgar departed. Even now as I recognize my error, I found at my fingertips the same description when I penned, “we four.”
We were not five in the early days, but six.
We were not four when Wulfgar departed, but five.
We were not two when Catti-brie and Regis were taken from us, but three.
And the one whom I seldom consider, the one whom I fear I have too often taken for granted, is the one most joined to the heart of Drizzt Do’Urden.
And now the snakes return, tenfold, just out of grasp, and I stagger because the ground beneath my feet is not firm, because the stones buckle and roll, because the balance I have known has been torn from me.
I cannot summon Guenhwyvar.
I do not understand—I have not lost hope!—but for the first time, with the onyx figurine in hand, the panther, my dear friend, will not come to my call, nor do I sense her presence, roaring back at me across the planescape. She went through to the Shadowfell with Herzgo Alegni, or went somewhere, disappearing into the black mist on the winged bridge of Neverwinter.
I sensed the distance soon after, a vast expanse between us, too far to reach with the magic of the idol.
I do not understand.
Was not Guenhwyvar eternal? Was she not the essence of the panther? Such essence cannot be destroyed, surely!
But I cannot summon her, cannot hear her, cannot feel her about me and in my thoughts.
What road is this, then, that I find myself upon? I have followed a trail of vengeance beside Dahlia—nay, behind Dahlia, for little can I doubt that it is she who guides my strides. So do I cross the leagues to kill Sylora Salm, and I cannot consider that an illegitimate act, for it was she who freed the primordial and wreaked devastation on Neverwinter City. Surely defeating Sylora was a just and worthy cause.
And so back again have I traveled to Neverwinter City to exact revenge upon this tiefling, Herzgo Alegni—and I know not the crime, even! Do I justify my battle with my knowledge of his enslavement of Artemis Entreri?
In the same breath, can I justify freeing Artemis Entreri? Perhaps it is that his enslavement was really imprisonment, atonement for a life ill lived. Was this Alegni then a gaoler tasked with controlling the assassin?
How can I know?
I shake my head as I consider the reality of my road, that I have as my lover an elf I do not understand, and one who has no doubt committed acts beside which I would never willingly associate myself. To delve into Dahlia’s past would reveal much, I fear—too much, and so I choose not to probe.
So be it.
And so it is true with Artemis Entreri, except that I have chosen simply to allow for his redemption, to accept what he was and who he was and hope that perhaps, by my side, he will make amends. There was always within him a code of honor, a sense of right and wrong, though horribly stilted through the prism of his pained eyes.
Am I a fool, then? With Dahlia? With Entreri? A fool of convenience? A lonely heart alone in a world too wide and too wild? An angry heart too scarred to linger on hopes I now know to be false?
There’s the rub, and the most painful thought of all.
These are the questions I would ask of Guenhwyvar. Of course she could not answer, and yet, of course she could. With her eyes, her simple glance, her honest scrutiny reminding me to look within my own heart with similar honesty.
The cobblestones twist and turn beneath my feet. I should fear that unexpected winding, these turns left and right to places not of my own choosing.
I should, and yet I cannot deny the thrill of it all, of Dahlia, more wild than the road, and of Entreri, that tie to another life, it seems, in another world and time. The presence of Artemis Entreri surely complicates my life, and yet it brings me to a simpler time.
I have heard their banter and seen their glances to each other. They are more alike, Entreri and Dahlia, than either to me; they share something I do not understand.
My heart tells me that I should leave them.
But it is a distant voice, as distant, perhaps, as Guenhwyvar.