I did not think it possible, but the world grows grayer still around me, and more confusing.
How wide was the line twixt darkness and light when first I walked out of Menzoberranzan. So full of righteous certitude was I, even when my own fate appeared tenuous. But I could thump my fist against the stone and proclaim, “This is the way the world works best. This is right and this is wrong!” with great confidence and a sense of internal contentment.
And now I travel with Artemis Entreri.
And now my lover is a woman of . . .
Thin grows that line twixt darkness and light; what once seemed a clear definition fast devolves into an obfuscating gray fog.
In which I wander, and with a strange sense of detachment.
It has always been there, of course. It is not the world that has changed, merely my understanding of it. There have always been, there will always be, thieves like Farmer Stuyles and his band of highwaymen. By the letter of the law, they are outlaws indeed, but does not the scale of immorality sink more strongly at the feet of the feudal lords of Luskan and even of Waterdeep, whose societal structures put men like Stuyles into an untenable position?
So on the surface, even that dilemma seems straightforward, and yet, when Stuyles and his band act, are they not assailing, assaulting, perhaps even killing, mere delivery boys of the puppet masters, similarly desperate men and women working within the shaken structures of society to feed their own?
Where then might the moral scale tip?
And perhaps more importantly, from my own perspective and my own choices in life, where then might I best follow the tenets and truths I hold dear? What scale best serves me, what scale must I seek, if options of scale abound?
Shall I be a singular player in a society of one, taking care of my personal needs in a manner attuned with that which I believe to be right and just? A hermit, then, living among the trees and the animals, akin to Montolio DeBrouchee, my long-lost mentor. This would be the easiest course, but would it suffice to assuage a conscience that has long declared community above self?
Shall I be a large player in a small pond, where my every conscience-guided move sends waves to the surrounding shores? Both of these choices seem best to describe my life to date, I think, through the last decades beside Bruenor, and with Thibbledorf and Jessa and Nanfoodle, where our concerns were our own. Our needs remained aside from the surrounding communities, for the most part, as we sought Gauntlgrym and carved our measures of personal need and occasional comforts.
Shall I venture forth to a lake, where my waves become ripples, or an ocean of society, where my ripples might well become indistinguishable among the tides of the dominant civilizations?
Where, I wonder and I fear, does hubris end and reality overwhelm? Is this the danger of reaching too high, or am I bounded by fear, which will hold me too low?
Once again I have surrounded myself with powerful companions, though less morally aligned than my previous troupe and so less easily controlled. With Dahlia and Entreri, this intriguing dwarf who calls herself Ambergris and this monk of considerable skill, Afafrenfere, I have little doubt that we might insert ourselves forcefully into some of the more pressing issues of the wider region of the northern Sword Coast.
But I do not deceive myself regarding the risk in this. I know who Artemis Entreri was, whatever I might hope he now will be. Dahlia, for all of those qualities that intrigue me, is a dangerous sort and haunted by demons of which scale I have only begun to comprehend. And now I find myself even more off-balance before her, for the revelation of this strange young tiefling as her son has put her into a place of dangerous turmoil.
Ambergris—Amber Gristle O’Maul of the Adbar O’Mauls—might be the most easily trusted of the bunch, and yet when first I met her, she was part of a band that had come to slay me and imprison Dahlia in support of forces dark indeed! And Afafrenfere . . . well, I simply do not know.
Which leads me to my road, my own road, a road of my conscious choosing and directed by my conscience and by my determination of the level of my responsibility to this world, to this community, about me. My own road—perhaps some of these new companions will choose to follow that lead, perhaps not.
What I do know with certainty, given what I have come to know of these companions, is that in terms of my moral obligations to those truths I hold dear, I cannot follow them. Whether I can or should convince them to follow me is a different question altogether.
* * *
Freedom. I talk about this concept often, and so often, in retrospect, do I come to know that I was confused about the meaning of the word. Confused or self-deluded, I fear.
“I am alone now, I am free!” I proclaimed when Bruenor lay cold under the stones of his cairn in Gauntlgrym.
And so I believed those words, because I did not understand that buried within my confusion over the battling shadows and sunlight of the new world about me, I was in fact heavily shackled by my own unanswered emotions. I was free to be miserable, perhaps, but in looking back upon those first steps out of Gauntlgrym, that would seem the extent of it.
I came to suspect this hidden truth, and so I pressed northward to Port Llast.
I came to hope that I was correct in my assessment and my plans when that mission neared completion and we set out from Port Llast.
But for all my hopes and suspicions, it wasn’t until the caravan led by myself and Farmer Stuyles approached the gate of Port Llast that I came to fully realize the truth of that quiet irritation which had driven me along. I asked myself of the road I would choose, but that question was wholly irrelevant.
For the road that I find before me determines my actions and not the other way around.
Had I not gone to Port Llast to try to help, had I not remembered the plight of Farmer Stuyles and so many others, then I would be abandoning that which is so clear in my heart, and there is no greater shackle than self-deception. A man who denies his heart through fear of personal consequence (whether regarding physical jeopardy, or self-doubt, or simply of being ostracized) is not free. To go against your mores, against that which you know is right and true, creates a prison stronger than adamantine bars and thick stone walls. Every instance of putting expediency above the cries of conscience throws another heavy chain out behind, to drag forevermore.
Perhaps I wasn’t wrong when I proclaimed my freedom after the last of my companions had departed this world, but I was surely only part of the way there. Now I am without obligation to anyone but myself, but that obligation to follow that which is in my heart is the most important one of all.
So now I say again, I am free, and say it with conviction. Because now I accept and embrace again that which is in my heart, and understand those tenets to be the truest guidepost along this road. The world may be shadowed in various shades of gray, but the concept of right and wrong is not so subtle for me, and has never been. And when that concept collides against the stated law, then the stated law be damned.
Never have I walked more purposefully than in my journey to find and retrieve Farmer Stuyles and his band. Never have fewer doubts slowed my steps.
It was the right thing to do.
My road presented this opportunity before me, and what a fraud I would have been to turn my back on these demands of my heart.
I knew all of that as I descended beside Stuyles along the road to Port Llast’s welcoming gate. The expressions from the wall, and those among the caravan, all confirmed to me that this seemingly simple solution for the problems of both these peoples was the correct, the just, and the best answer.
The road had brought me here. My heart had shown me the footsteps of Drizzt Do’Urden along that road. In following that conscience-dictated trail, I can claim now, with confidence, that I am free.
How amazing to me that an early confirmation of my trail came not in the cheers of the citizens of Port Llast, nor from the relief I noted so commonly among Stuyles’s refugee band that they would at last be finding a place to call a home, but in the slight nod and approving look of Artemis Entreri!
He understood my scheme, and when Dahlia publicly denounced it, he offered his quiet support—I know not why!—with but a look and a nod.
I would be a liar if I insisted that I wasn’t thrilled to have Artemis Entreri beside me for this journey. Is he a redeemed man? Unlikely, and I remain wary of him, to be sure. But in this one instance, he showed me that there is indeed something more there within his broken and scarred heart. He’ll never admit his own thrill at finding this solution, of course, no more than he returned from our first foray against the sahuagin with a satisfied grin upon his ever-dour face.
But that nod told me something.
And that something makes this choice of mine—nay, makes these choices of mine, for I coerced Entreri into coming north with me in the first place, as I accepted his offer of help against Herzgo Alegni previously, and even trusted his guidance through the sewers of Neverwinter—all the more important and supportive of that which I now know to be true.
I am choosing correctly because I am following my conscience above all else, because my fears cannot sway me any longer.
Thus, I am free.
Equally important, I am content, because my faith has returned that the great cycle of civilization inexorably moves the races of Faerun toward a better destination. Ever will there be obstacles—the Spellplague, the fall of Luskan to pirates, the advent of the Empire of Netheril, the cataclysm that leveled Neverwinter—but the bigger tale is one of trudging forward, of grudging resolve and determination, of heroes small and large. Press on, soldier on, and the world grows tamer and freer and more comfortable for more people.
This is the faith that guides my steps.
Where before I saw uncertainty and walked with hesitancy, now I see opportunity and adventure. The world is broken—can I fix it all?
I know not, but with a wide smile, I expect that trying to do so will be the grandest adventure of all.
* * *
My journey from Luskan to Calimport and back again proved, at the same time, to be the least eventful and most memorable of any voyage I have known. We encountered no storms, no pirates, and no trouble with the ship whatsoever. The activities on Minnow Skipper’s deck were nothing beyond routine throughout the entire journey.
But on an emotional level, I watched a fascinating exchange play out over the tendays and months, from the purest hatred to the deepest guilt to a primal need for a resolution that seemed untenable in a relationship irreparable.
Or was it?
When we battled Herzgo Alegni, Dahlia believed that she was facing her demon, but that was not the case. In this journey, standing before Effron, she found her demon, and it was not the broken young tiefling, but the tear in her own heart. Effron served as merely a symbol of that, a mirror looking back at her, and at what she had done.
No less was true from Effron’s perspective. He was not saddled with the guilt, perhaps, but surely he was no less brokenhearted. He had suffered the ultimate betrayal, that of a mother for her child, and had spent his lifetime never meeting the expectations and demands of his brutal father. He had grown under the shadow of Herzgo Alegni, without a buffer, without a friend. Who could survive such an ordeal unscarred?
Yet for all the turmoil, there is hope for both, I see. Capturing Effron in Baldur’s Gate (and we will all be forever indebted to Brother Afafrenfere!) forced Dahlia and her son together in tight quarters and for an extended period. Neither found anywhere to hide from their respective demons; the focal point, the symbol, the mirror, stood right there, each looking back at the other.
So Dahlia was forced to battle the guilt within herself. She had to honestly face what she had done, which included reliving days she would better leave unremembered. She remains in turmoil, but her burden has greatly lifted, for to her credit, she faced it honestly and forthrightly.
Isn’t that the only way?
And greater is her release because of the generosity—or perhaps it is a need he doesn’t even yet understand—of Effron. He has warmed to her and to us—he revealed to me the location of Guenhwyvar, which stands as a stark repudiation of the life he had known before his capture in Baldur’s Gate. I know not whether he has forgiven Dahlia, or whether he ever will, but his animosity has cooled, to be sure, and in the face of that, Dahlia’s step has lightened.
I observe as one who has spent the bulk of my days forcing honesty upon myself. When I speak quietly, alone under the stars or, in days former (and hopefully future), when I write in these very journals, there is no place for me to hide, and I want none! That is the point. I must face my failings most of all, without justification, without caveat, if ever I hope to overcome them.
I must be honest.
Strangely, I find that easier to do when I preach to an audience of one: myself. I never understood this before, and don’t know if I can say that this was true in the time of my former life, the life spent beside the brutally blunt Bruenor and three other friends I dearly trusted. Indeed, as I reflect on it now, the opposite was true. I was in love with Catti-brie for years before I ever admitted it, not just openly, but privately! Catti-brie knew it on our first journey to Calimport, when we sailed to rescue Regis, and her hints to me woke me to my own lie.
She woke me because I was willfully asleep, and I slumbered because I was afraid of the consequences of admitting that which was in my heart.
Did I owe her more trust than that? I think I did, and owed it to Wulfgar, too, and it is that price, the price the others had to pay, which compounds my responsibility.
Certainly there are times when the truth of one’s heart need not be shared, when the wound inflicted might prove worse than the cost of the deception. And so, as we see Luskan’s skyline once more, I look upon Dahlia and I am torn.
Because I know now the truth of that which is in my heart. I hid it, and fought it, and buried it with every ounce of rationale I could find, because to admit it is to recognize, once more, that which I have lost, that which is not coming back.
I found Dahlia because I was alone. She is exciting, I cannot deny, and intriguing, I cannot deny, and I am the better for having traveled beside her. In our wake, given the events in Neverwinter, in Gauntlgrym, in Port Llast, and with Stuyles’s band, we are leaving the world a better place than we found it. I wish to continue this journey, truly, with Dahlia and Ambergris, Afafrenfere, and even with Effron (perhaps most of all, with Effron!) and even with Artemis Entreri. I feel that I am walking a goodly road here.
But I do not love her.
I determined that I did love her because of that which burned too hotly within my loins, and even more so because of that which remained too cold within my heart. I heard again Innovindil’s advice, to live my life in shorter and more intense bursts, to be reborn with each loss into a new existence with new and exciting relationships.
There may be some truth to that advice—for some of the elven people, all of it might be true.
But not for me (I hope and I fear). I can replace my companions, but I cannot replace those friends, and most of all, I cannot fill the hole left by the passing of Catti-brie.
Not with Dahlia.
Not with anyone?
I have avoided sharing this truth because of Dahlia’s current emotional state. I believe Effron when he said that she sought Artemis Entreri’s bed. It did not surprise me, but what did surprise me was how little that information bothered me.
Catti-brie is with me still, in my thoughts and in my heart. I’ll not try to shield myself from her with the company of another.
Perhaps the passing of time and the turns in my road will show me the ultimate wisdom of Innovindil’s words. But there is a profound difference between following your heart and trying to guide it.
And now my road is clear, in any case, and that road is to retrieve another friend most dear. I am coming for you, Guenhwyvar. I will have you by my side once more. I will walk the starry nights beside you.
Or I will die trying.
That is my pledge.
* * *
I found, to my surprise, that I had lost the focal point of my anger.
The anger, the frustration, the profound sense of loss yet again, remained, simmering within me, but the target of that anger dispersed into a more general distaste for the unfairness and harshness of life itself.
I had to keep reminding myself to be mad at Draygo Quick!
What a strange realization that became, an epiphany that rolled over me like a breaking wave against Luskan’s beach. I remember the moment vividly, as it happened all at once (whereas the loss of the focal point took many months). I rested in my chamber at Draygo Quick’s grand residence, relaxing in luxury, eating fine food, and with my own small wine rack that Draygo’s staff had recently provided, when I was struck dumb by my affinity toward Draygo Quick—or if not affinity, perhaps, then my complete absence of anger toward him.
How had that happened?
Why had that happened?
This Netherese lord had imprisoned me in the most terrible of circumstances, chained in filth in a dark and rank dungeon cell. He hadn’t tortured me overtly, although the handling by his servants had often been harsh, including slaps and punches and more than a few kicks to my ribs. And weren’t the mere realities of my incarceration in and of themselves a manner of grotesque torture?
This Netherese lord had set a medusa upon my companions, upon my lover, and upon my only remaining tie to those coveted bygone days. They were gone. Dahlia, Entreri, Ambergris, and Afafrenfere, turned to stone and dead by the machinations of Draygo Quick.
Yet, we had invaded his home . . . that mitigating notion seemed ever present in my mind, and only grew in strength, day by day, as my own conditions gradually improved.
And that was the key of it all, I came to recognize. Draygo Quick had played a subtle and tantalizing game with my mind, and with Effron’s mind, slowly improving our lives. Bit by bit, and literally at first, bite by bite, with improving food in terms of both quality and quantity.
It is difficult for a starving man to slap the hand that is feeding him.
And when basic needs like sustenance dominate your thoughts, it is no less difficult to remember to maintain anger, or remember why.
Tasty bites delivered with soothing words steal those memories, so subtly, so gradually (although every improvement felt momentous indeed), that I remained oblivious to my own diminishing animosity toward the old warlock shade.
Then came the epiphany, that day in my comfortably appointed room in the castle of Draygo Quick. Yet even with the stark recollection of the unfolding events, I found it impossible to summon the level of rage I had initially known, and hard to find anything more than a simmer.
I am left to sit here, wondering.
Draygo Quick comes to me often, daily even, and there are weapons I might fashion—of a broken wine bottle, for example.
Should I make the attempt?
The possibility of gaining my freedom through violence seems remote at best. I haven’t seen Effron in tendays and have no idea of where or how to find him. I know not if he is even still within the castle, or if he is even still alive. I have no idea of how to find Guenhwyvar, nor do I even possess the onyx figurine any longer.
And even if I struck dead the old warlock and gained an escape from the castle, then what? How would I begin to facilitate my return to Faerun, and what would be there for me, in any case?
None of my old friends, lost to the winds. Not Dahlia, or even Artemis Entreri. Not Guenhwyvar or Andahar.
To strike at Draygo Quick would be the ultimate act of defiance, and one made by a doomed drow.
I look at the bottles nestled in their diagonal cubbies in the wine rack now and in them I see that the promise of deadly daggers is well within my reach. Draygo Quick comes to me alone now, without guard, and even if he had his finest soldiers beside him, I have been trained to strike faster than they could possibly block. Perhaps the old warlock has magical wards enacted about him to defeat such an attack, perhaps not, but in striking so, I would be making a cry of freedom and a denial against this warlock who took so much from me, who imprisoned Guenhwyvar and cost me my companions when we came for her.
But I can only shake my head as I stare at those potential daggers, for I will not so fashion the bottles. It is not fear of Draygo Quick that stays my hand. It is not the desperation of such an act, the near surety that even if successful, I would be surely bringing about my own demise, and likely in short order.
I won’t kill him, I know.
Because I don’t want to.
And that, I fear, might be the biggest epiphany of all.