There comes a point in a life well lived where the gaze goes beyond the next horizon, to that inevitable time when this mortal coil feeds the worms. Life is a journey, a beauteous walk surrounded by such vastness of time and space that we cannot even truly comprehend, and so we make sense of what we can. We order our corner of the world and build security if we are fortunate, and perhaps, too, a family as part of a larger community.
The immediate needs consume so much of our time, the day-to-day trials that must be overcome. There is a measure of satisfaction in every small victory, in every meal earned, in the warmth of shelter on a cold winter’s night.
This is the climb of life, but for those who are lucky enough, there comes a place where the mountain is topped and the needs are satisfied, and so the view grows grander. It is a subtle shift in the omnipresent question of a rational being, from “What can I build?” to “What will I leave behind?”
What will be the legacy of Drizzt Do’Urden? For those who remember my name when I am no more, what will they think? How much better might be the lives of those who follow me—my progeny, perhaps, if Catti-brie and I fruitfully go that route—because of my works here? I watched Bruenor bring forth the sarcophagi of King Connerad and King Emerus, the lava-encased bodies flanking the throne of Gauntlgrym. No less will they be remembered in Mithral Hall and Citadel Felbarr—all the Silver Marches for that matter—for many centuries to come.
Am I destined to become such a statue?
On a practical level, I doubt it, since I expect that much of my remaining life will be spent outside of Bruenor’s domain. I will never forget him, nor he me, I am sure, but I sense that my days beside him are nearing their end. For all the love and respect I hold for King Bruenor, I would not plan to raise my children in a dwarven mine. Nor would Catti-brie, I am sure.
The road is wide open in front of us—to Longsaddle, of course, but only for now. One thing I have come to know in my two centuries of life is that the span of a few years is not a long time, and yet it is often an eventful time, with unanticipated twists and turns. Wherever that meandering road might take me, though, beside me goes an understanding now that my journey is less and less often what I need to do, and much more about what I want to do.
So many options, unbound by the shackles so many must wear. I am a fortunate man—that, I do not deny! I have sufficient wealth now and I am at peace. I have love all around me and am responsible to myself alone—and responsible to my wife only because I choose to be.
And so what will I do? What road shall I choose? What legacy shall I foment?
These are good questions, full of the promise of sublime reward, and I only wish that every man and woman of all the goodly races could find a moment such as this, a time of opportunities and of options. That I am here in this place of luxury is nothing short of remarkable. I do not know the odds of such an outcome for a homeless drow, a hunted rogue in the wilds of the Underdark, but I would bet them long indeed. So many fortunate twists and turns have I found on my journey, encounters with grand friends and marvelous mentors: Zaknafein, my father, and Montolio DeBrouchee! And Catti-brie, who helped me to find my heart and a courage of a different sort—the courage to stubbornly exist in a place where my people are not welcome.
And Bruenor, yes Bruenor—perhaps Bruenor above all others. It is incomprehensible that I was befriended by a dwarf king and taken in as a brother. Yes, it has been a reciprocal friendship. I helped Bruenor regain his throne, and walked beside him on his wider journey to bring his people together under the great homeland of Gauntlgrym. Between us, it seems, sits the very definition of friendship.
With all of this, here I am. So many battles I have fought, so many obstacles overcome, yet I cannot deny that good fortune has played a tremendous role in leading me to this place and this time. Every man, every woman, will find battles, will find enemies to overcome, be they goblins or disease, an ill child, a wound that will not heal, a dearth of food, the chill of winter, unrequited love, the absence of a friend. Life is a journey from trial to test, from love to hate, from friendship to grief. We each deal with unsettling uncertainty and we each march on, ever on, following the road that will ultimately lead to our grave.
What grand things might we do along that road? What side avenues will we build, that might start our children on their own walk, perhaps?
So I have found this turn of perspective. I have scaled the peak and look now upon a grand, grand view. I can thank a woman whose warm embrace brings me peace. I can thank the greatest friends any man might ever know. I can thank a dwarf king who found a rogue on the side of a lonely mountain in a forsaken land and called him friend, and took him in.
But I am an elf, and lo, there looms another mountain, I fear. I think often of Innovindil, who told me to live my life in shorter spans, in the expected days of those shorter-lived races about me. Should Catti-brie and I have children, I will likely outlive them, as I will almost surely outlive Catti-brie.
It is a confusing thought, a paradox entwining the greatest joy with the most excruciating agony.
And so here, on this mountaintop, surveying the grand view, I remain aware that I might witness the dawn of another few centuries. By the counting of elves, I have lived but a fraction of my life, yet at this still-early moment, it feels so full!
I am a fortunate man.
Should I see those distant dawns, there are surely dark valleys ahead, and after such certain moments of profound loss will I find the strength to climb the next mountain, and the one after that, and the one after that?
I will, I know, because in my grief the first time, when I thought these friends lost, my love lost, my life lost, I came to understand the truth: that the road will roll beneath your feet whether you step lightly with hope and swiftly with determination, or whether you plod in misery, scraping the dirt with heavy boots.
Because the perspective of that journey is a choice, and I choose happiness, and I choose to climb the next mountain.
* * *
Who is this maestro, this puppet master, pulling the strings of so many marionettes?
Including my own!
Jarlaxle’s maneuvers reach far into the shadows and involve great powers—and these are merely the plots of which I am aware. No doubt he reaches much farther still, to the darkest shadows of Menzoberranzan, to the heart of dragonkind, to the hive mind of the illithids, to places I can only imagine, or dream rather, in my worst nightmares.
Who is he to wrangle together my wife, the Harpells, a thousand dwarves, and the archmage of Menzoberranzan in an effort to resurrect a structure of such ancient power?
Who is he to secretly control the city of Luskan, through great deception and great hidden power?
Who is he to goad me and Artemis Entreri to Menzoberranzan, to rescue Dahlia, to assault House Do’Urden and thus invoke the wrath of the matron mother of the City of Spiders?
Who is he to convince Matron Mother Zeerith of House Xorlarrin to surrender Gauntlgrym to Bruenor?
Who is he to bring dragons onto the field of battle in the Silver Marches?
Who is this maestro, turning the wheels of Faerun, playing the music of fate to the ears of all who would listen?
I call him a friend and yet I cannot begin to decipher the truth of this most interesting and dangerous drow. He moves armies with silent commands, coerces alliances with promises of mutual benefit, and engages the most unlikely companions into willing adventures that seem suicidal.
He elicits a measure of trust that goes beyond reason—and indeed, often runs headlong against reason.
And yet, here I am, walking the ways of the Underdark beside Jarlaxle and Artemis Entreri, bound for the city of my birth, where I am perhaps the greatest fugitive from Lolth’s damning injustice. If I am caught in Menzoberranzan, I will never see Catti-brie or Bruenor or the sunlit world again. If Matron Mother Baenre finds me, she will turn my two legs into eight and torment me as a drider for the rest of my wretched life. If Tiago and his allies discover me, he will surely deliver my head to the matron mother.
And here I walk, willingly, to that possible fate.
I cannot deny my debt to Jarlaxle. Would we have won in the Silver Marches had he not arrived with Brother Afafrenfere, Ambergris, and the dragon sisters? Perhaps, but the cost would have been much greater.
Would Bruenor have won out in Gauntlgrym had Jarlaxle not convinced Matron Mother Zeerith to flee? Likely, yes, but again only with horrific cost.
Could we rebuild the Hosttower of the Arcane, and thus preserve the magic that fuels Gauntlgrym’s forges, and indeed, contain the violence that would blast the complex to rubble, without the efforts of Jarlaxle and his band of rogue dark elves? I find that very unlikely. Perhaps Catti-brie, Gromph, and the others will not succeed now in this momentous endeavor, but at least now, because of Jarlaxle, we have a chance.
None of us, not even Gromph, can deny our debt to the maestro.
I must admit, to myself if no one else, that there is more driving me now than that simple debt I know I owe to Jarlaxle. I feel a responsibility to Dahlia to at least try to help her in her desperate need, particularly when Jarlaxle, ever the clever one, assures me that we can somehow manage this rescue. And so, too, do I feel that responsibility to Artemis Entreri. Perhaps I will never call him “friend,” but I believe that if the situation was reversed, that if it were Catti-brie trapped down there, he would venture with me to rescue her.
Why in the Nine Hells would I believe that?
I have no answer, but there it remains.
Jarlaxle has hinted, too, that all of this is connected to a higher goal, from the defeat of the drow and their orc minions in the Silver Marches to the taking of Gauntlgrym to the surrender of Matron Mother Zeerith to the rebuilding of the Hosttower to the rescue of Dahlia.
Bruenor’s Gauntlgrym is Jarlaxle’s buffer to Luskan, allowing him a refuge for male drow, and one housing the former archmage of Menzoberranzan in a tower to rival the power of Sorcere. Jarlaxle’s treachery against Matron Mother Baenre in the Silver Marches facilitated not only a rebuke of the high priestesses of Menzoberranzan, but a stinging rebuke of the Spider Queen herself. And so, too, will the web of Matron Mother Baenre be unwound when Dahlia is taken from her grasp.
And Jarlaxle uses me—he has admitted as much—as a beacon to those drow males oppressed by the suffocating discrimination of the female disciples of Lady Lolth. I escaped, and thrived—that is my heresy.
Matron Mother Baenre proved that point all too well when she reconstituted House Do’Urden, and tried to use that banner to destroy my reputation among the people who had come to accept me in the Silver Marches. I am not arrogant enough to believe that I was the only reason for Menzoberranzan’s assault on the Silver Marches, but in so absurdly trying to stamp my name and my coat of arms upon the invasion, the drow priestess tipped Lolth’s hand for all to see.
And in that hand is the revelation that Jarlaxle’s maneuvers frighten the powers that rule in Menzoberranzan.
And in that fear, I cannot help but see hope.
Even aside from all that, from the debt to friends and companions and the greater aspirations of an optimistic Jarlaxle, if I cannot admit that there is something else, something more, luring me to continue this journey, then I am lying to myself most of all. Yes, I deny Menzoberranzan as my home, and hold no desire to live there whatsoever. Nor am I returning, as I so foolishly did once before, to surrender to the darkness. Perhaps, though, I will explore that darkness to see if light is to be found, for I cannot so easily eliminate the memories of the decades I spent in the City of Spiders. In Menzoberranzan, I was trained to fight and was taught the ways of the drow, and it is precisely the rejection of those mores and tenets that has made me who I am today.
Menzoberranzan shaped me, mostly by showing me what I did not want and could not accept.
Does that not put upon me a debt to my people, to the Viernas and the Zaknafeins who might now reside under the suffocating abominations of the Spider Queen?
My sister Vierna was not evil, and Zaknafein, my father, was possessed of a heart similar to my own.
How many more of similar weal, I wonder, huddle in the shadows because they believe there is no escape? How many conform to the expectations of that cruel society because they believe that there is no other way possible for them? How many feel the bite of the snake-whips, or look upon the miserable driders, and so perform as expected?
Is it possible that my very existence, that my unusual journey, can bring even a bit of change to that paradigm? Jarlaxle believes so. He has not told me this bluntly, but as I piece together the strands of the web he is building, from Gromph in Luskan to Matron Mother Zeerith—who he assures me is unlike the other matron mothers in this important regard—I can only conclude that this is his play.
Given that, given Jarlaxle’s machinations, is it possible?
I know not, but am I not duty-bound by those same principles and ethics that guide my every step to at least try?
And am I not, for the sake of my own reflection, duty-bound to confront these ghosts that so shaped me and to learn from that honest look in the mirror of my earliest days?
How might I truly understand my life’s purpose, I wonder, if I cannot honestly confront who and what placed me upon this road I walk?
* * *
I have heard powerful men with imperial designs claim that reality is what they choose it to be. That they make their own reality, and so decide the reality for those in their way, and while others are trying to decipher what is truth, they move on to the next conquest, the next creation, the next deception of malleable reality.
That is all I could call it—a grand illusion, a lie wrapped as truth, and so declared as truth by the controlling puppet masters of the powerful.
I rejected—and still do, to great extent—the notion. If there is no truth, then it seems to me that there is no basis of reality itself. If perception is reality, then reality is a warped and malleable thing, and to what point? I must ask.
Are we all gods within our own minds?
To entertain the notion is to invite the purest chaos, I fear—but then, is it not to also offer the purest harmony?
I choose to be happy, and happiness is indeed a choice. Every day I can rise from my reverie and gnash my teeth at what I do not have. Or I can smile contentedly in appreciation of what I do possess. To this level, then, I must agree with the hubristic conqueror. In this emotional level, perception can indeed be the reality of one’s feelings, and properly corralling that perception might well be the key to happiness and contentment. I know many poor men who are happy, and many rich men full of discontent. The failings of the heart—pride, envy, greed, and even lust, if such will result in pain for another—are choices as well, to be accepted or denied. Acceptance will lead to discontent, and so these are, in the words of many texts of many cultures and races, considered among the deadliest of sins.
But aside from the false justifications of the conqueror and the choices of honest perception, is there another level of contortion where perception and reality cross? Where perception, perhaps, is so powerful and so distorted that it masks reality itself, that it replaces reality itself? And in such a state, is there a puppet master who can shatter perception as easily as a powerful smith might punch his sledge through thin glass?
This is my fear, my terror. My nightmare!
All the world beneath my feet shifts as the sands of a desert, and what those sands might conceal . . .
Were it not for Wulfgar, I would not now recognize what has been cast upon me. When he fell those many years ago in Mithral Hall, beneath a cave collapse in the tentacle arms of a yochlol, Wulfgar was taken to the Abyss, and there enslaved by the demon named Errtu.
Wulfgar told me of his trials, and of the worst of the tortures—the very worst, torment beyond any possible physical pain. With his demonic magic, Errtu gave to the battered and beaten-down Wulfgar a new reality, a grand illusion that he was free, that he was married to Catti-brie, that together they had produced fine children.
And then Errtu ate those children in front of Wulfgar’s eyes, and murdered Catti-brie. This is the very essence of diabolical torture, the very epitome of evil. The demon created reality within a beautiful deception, and destroyed that reality right in front of the helpless victim.
All Wulfgar could do was scream and tear at his own ears and eyes as the sights and sounds ripped open his heart.
It broke him. When rescue finally came, when Wulfgar once more walked in the shared reality of Faerun among his friends, those dreams did come. The deception of Errtu remained, and waited for him in every unguarded moment and drove him to the bottle and to the edge of absolute despair.
I know of this from Wulfgar, and so I am better prepared. Now I recognize the awful truth of my life.
I do not know how far back this grand diabolical game began upon my own sensibilities, but to that dark night at the top of Kelvin’s Cairn, at least.
Perhaps I died there.
Perhaps there Lolth found me and took me.
And so the deception, and when I step back from it, I am amazed at how blind and foolish I could have been! I am stunned at how easily what I so desperately wanted to be true was made true in my mind! I am humbled at how easily I was fooled!
A century has passed. I saw the deaths of Catti-brie and Regis in Mithral Hall. I know that Wulfgar grew old and died in Icewind Dale. I held a dying Bruenor in my own arms in Gauntlgrym.
“I found it, elf,” the dwarf said to me, and so Bruenor Battlehammer died content, his life fulfilled, his seat at Moradin’s table assured.
They were all gone. I saw it. I lived it. I grieved it.
But no, they are all here! Miraculously so!
And Artemis Entreri, too, walked through the century. A human of middle age when the Spellplague began, and yet here he is a century removed, a human of middle age once more, or still—I cannot be certain and it does not matter.
Because it isn’t real.
Too many!
I am told that the Companions of the Hall returned because of the blessing of Mielikki, and that Entreri survived because of a curse and a sword, and oh, how I wanted and want to believe those coincidences and miraculous circumstances! And so my desire is my undoing. It tore the shield from in front of my heart. This is not the blessing of Mielikki.
This is the curse of Lolth.
The grand deception!
She has made my reality to lighten my heart, so that she can shatter my reality, and in so doing, shatter, too, the heart of Drizzt Do’Urden.
I see it now—how could I have been such a fool?—but seeing it will not protect me. Expecting it will not shield my heart. Not yet.
I must act quickly, else Lolth will break me this time, I know. When all of this is shown to be the conjured dream of a scheming demon goddess, Drizzt Do’Urden will die of heartbreak.
Unless I can rebuild that shield, strip by hardened strip. I must accept again the death of my friends, of my beloved Catti-brie. I must return my heart to that calloused place, accept that pain and the grief and the emptiness.
Alas, but even should I succeed, to what end, I must ask? When this grand illusion is destroyed, with what am I left?
And knowing now that perception and reality are so intimately twined, then I ask again, to what end?