I look upon the hillside, quiet now except for the birds.
That’s all there is. The birds, cawing and cackling and poking their beaks into unseeing eyeballs. Crows do not circle before they alight on a field strewn with the dead. They fly as the bee to a flower, straight for their goal, with so great a feast before them. They are the cleaners, along with the crawling insects, the rain, and the unending wind. And the passage of time. There is always that. The turn of the day, of the season, of the year.
When it is done, all that is left are the bones and the stones. The screams are gone, the smell is gone. The blood is washed away. The fattened birds take with them in their departing flights all that identified these fallen warriors as individuals.
Leaving the bones and stones, to mingle and mix. As the wind or the rain break apart the skeletons and filter them together, as the passage of time buries some, what is left becomes indistinguishable, perhaps, to all but the most careful of observers. Who will remember those who died here, and what have they gained to compensate for all that they, on both sides, lost?
The look upon a dwarf’s face when battle is upon him would argue, surely, that the price is worth the effort, that warfare, when it comes to a dwarven nation, is a noble cause.
Nothing to a dwarf is more revered than fighting to help a friend; theirs is a community bound tightly by loyalty, by blood shared and blood spilled.
And so, in the life of an individual, perhaps this is a good way to die, a worthy end to a life lived honorably, or even to a life made worthy by this last ultimate sacrifice.
I cannot help but wonder, though, in the larger context, what of the overall? What of the price, the worth, and the gain? Will Obould accomplish anything worth the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his dead? Will he gain anything long-lasting? Will the dwarven stand made out here on this high cliff bring Bruenor’s people anything worthwhile? Could they not have slipped into Mithral Hall, to tunnels so much more easily defended?
And a hundred years from now, when there remains only dust, will anyone care?
I wonder what fuels the fires that burn images of glorious battle into the hearts of so many of the sentient races, my own paramount among them. I look at the carnage on the slope and I see the inevitable sight of emptiness. I imagine the cries of pain. I hear in my head the calls for loved ones when the dying warrior knows his last moment is upon him. I see a tower fall with my dearest friend atop it. Surely the tangible remnants, the rubble and the bones, are hardly worth the moment of battle, but is there, I wonder, something less tangible here, something of a greater place? Or is there, perhaps—and this is my fear—something of a delusion to it all that drives us to war, again and again?
Along that latter line of thought, is it within us all, when the memories of war have faded, to so want to be a part of something great that we throw aside the quiet, the calm, the mundane, the peace itself? Do we collectively come to equate peace with boredom and complacency? Perhaps we hold these embers of war within us, dulled only by sharp memories of the pain and the loss, and when that smothering blanket dissipates with the passage of healing time, those fires flare again to life. I saw this within myself, to a smaller extent, when I realized and admitted to myself that I was not a being of comfort and complacency, that only by the wind on my face, the trails beneath my feet, and the adventure along the road could I truly be happy.
I’ll walk those trails indeed, but it seems to me that it is another thing altogether to carry an army along beside me, as Obould has done. For there is the consideration of a larger morality here, shown so starkly in the bones among the stones. We rush to the call of arms, to the rally, to the glory, but what of those caught in the path of this thirst for greatness?
Who will remember those who died here, and what have they gained to compensate for all that they, on both sides, lost?
Whenever we lose a loved one, we resolve, inevitably, to never forget, to remember that dear person for all our living days. But we the living contend with the present, and the present often commands all of our attention. And so as the years pass, we do not remember those who have gone before us every day, or even every tenday. Then comes the guilt, for if I am not remembering Zaknafein, my father, my mentor, who sacrificed himself for me, then who is? And if no one is, then perhaps he really is gone. As the years pass, the guilt will lessen, because we forget more consistently and the pendulum turns in our self-serving thoughts to applaud ourselves on those increasingly rare occasions when we do remember! There is always the guilt, perhaps, because we are self-centered creatures to the last. It is the truth of individuality that cannot be denied. In the end, we, all of us, see the world through our own, personal eyes. I have heard parents express their fears of their own mortality soon after the birth of a child. It is a fear that stays with a parent, to a great extent, through the first dozen years of a child’s life. It is not for the child that they fear, should they die—though surely there is that worry, as well—but rather for themselves. What father would accept his death before his child was truly old enough to remember him? For who better to put a face to the bones among the stones? Who better to remember the sparkle in an eye before the crow comes a’calling?
I wish the crows would circle and the wind would carry them away, and the faces would remain forever to remind us of the pain. When the clarion call to glory sounds, before the armies anew trample the bones among the stones, let the faces of the dead remind us of the cost. It is a sobering sight before me, the red-splashed stones.
It is a striking warning in my ears, the cawing of the crows.
* * *
From a high ridge east of Keeper’s Dale, I watched the giants construct their massive battering ram. I watched the orcs practice their tactics—tight lines and sudden charges. I heard the awful cheering, the bloodthirsty calls for dwarf blood and dwarf heads, the feral screams of battle lust.
From that same ridge, I watched the huge ram pulled back by a line of giants, then let loose to swing hard and fast at the base of the mountain on which I stood, at the metal doorway shell of Mithral Hall.
The ground beneath my feet shuddered.
The booming sound vibrated in the air.
They pulled it back and let fly again and again.
Then the shouts filled the air, and the wild charge was on.
I stood there on that ridge, Innovindil beside me, and I knew that my friends, Bruenor’s kin, were battling for their homeland and for their very lives right below me. And I could do nothing.
I realized then, in that awful moment, that I should be in there with the dwarves, killing orcs until at last I, too, was cut down. I realized then, in that awful moment, that my decisions of the last few tendays, formed in anger and even more in fear, betrayed the trust of the friendship that Bruenor and I had always held.
Soon after—too soon!—the mountainside quieted. The battle ended.
To my horror, I came to see that the orcs had won the day, that they had gained a foothold inside Mithral Hall.
They had driven the dwarves from the entry hall at least. I took some comfort in the fact that the bulk of the orc force remained outside the broken door, continuing their work in Keeper’s Dale. Nor had many giants gone in.
Bruenor’s kin were not being swept away; likely, they had surrendered the wider entry halls for the more defensible areas in the tighter tunnels.
That sense of hope did not wash away my guilt, however.
In my heart I understood that I should have gone back to Mithral Hall, to stand with the dwarves who for so long had treated me as one of their own.
Innovindil would hear nothing of it, though. She reminded me that I had not, had never, fled the battle for Mithral Hall.
Obould’s son was dead because of my decision, and many orcs had been turned back to their holes in the Spine of the World because of my—of our, Innovindil, Tarathiel, and myself—work in the North.
It is difficult to realize that you cannot win every battle for every friend. It is difficult to understand and accept your own limitations, and with them, the recognition that while you try to do the best you can, it will often prove inadequate.
And so it was then and there, on that mountainside watching the battle, in that moment when all seemed darkest, that I began to accept the loss of Bruenor and the others. Oh, the hole in my heart did not close. It never will. I know and accept that. But what I let go then was my own guilt at witnessing the fall of a friend, my own guilt at not having been there to help him, or there to hold his hand in the end.
Most of us will know loss in our lives. For an elf, drow or moon, wild or avariel, who will see centuries of life, this is unavoidable—a parent, a friend, a brother, a lover, a child even. Profound pain is often the unavoidable reality of conscious existence. How less tolerable that loss will be if we compound it internally with a sense of guilt.
Guilt.
It is the easiest of feelings to conjure, and the most insidious.
It is rooted in the selfishness of individuality, though for goodly folks, it usually finds its source in the suffering of others.
What I understand now, as never before, is that guilt is not the driving force behind responsibility. If we act in a goodly way because we are afraid of how we will feel if we do not, then we have not truly come to separate the concept of right and wrong. For there is a level above that, an understanding of community, friendship, and loyalty. I do not choose to stand beside Bruenor or any other friend to alleviate guilt. I do so because in that, and in their reciprocal friendship, we are both the stronger and the better. Our lives become worth so much more.
I learned that one awful day, standing on a cold mountain stone watching monsters crash through the door of a place that had long been my home.
I miss Bruenor and Wulfgar and Regis and Catti-brie. My heart bleeds for them and yearns for them every minute of every day. But I accept the loss and bear no personal burden for it beyond my own emptiness. I did not turn from my friends in their hour of need, though I could not be as close to them as I would desire. From across that ravine when Withegroo’s tower fell, when Bruenor Battlehammer tumbled from on high, I offered to him all that I could: my love and my heart.
And now I will go on, Innovindil at my side, and continue our battle against our common enemy. We fight for Mithral Hall, for Bruenor, for Wulfgar, for Regis, for Catti-brie, for Tarathiel, and for all the goodly folk. We fight the monstrous scourge of Obould and his evil minions.
At the end, I offered to my falling friends my love and my heart. Now I pledge to them my enduring friendship and my determination to live on in a manner that would make the dwarf king stare at me, his head tilted, his expression typically skeptical about some action or another of mine.
“Durned elf,” he will say often, as he looks down on me from Moradin’s halls.
And I will hear him, and all the others, for they are with me always, no small part of Drizzt Do’Urden.
For as I begin to let go, I find that I hold them all the tighter, but in a way that will make me look up to the imagined halls of Moradin, to the whispered grumbling of a lost friend, and smile.
* * *
“Do you know what it is to be an elf, Drizzt Do’Urden?”
I hear this question all the time from my companion, who seems determined to help me begin to understand the implications of a life that could span centuries—implications good and bad when one considers that so many of those with whom I come into contact will not live half that time.
It has always seemed curious to me that, while elves may live near a millennium and humans less than a century, human wizards often achieve levels of understanding and power to rival those of the greatest elf mages. This is not a matter of intelligence, but of focus, it seems clear. Always before, I gave the credit for this to the humans, for their sense of urgency in knowing that their lives will not roll on and on and on.
Now I have come to see that part of the credit for this balance is the elven viewpoint of life, and that viewpoint is not one rooted in falsehood or weakness. Rather, this quieter flow of life is the ingredient that brings sanity to an existence that will see the birth and death of centuries. Or, if preferable, it is a segmented flow of life, a series of bursts.
I see it now, to my surprise, and it was Innovindil’s recounting of her most personal relationships with partners both human and elf that presented the notion clearly in my mind. When Innovindil asks me now, “Do you know what it is to be an elf, Drizzt Do’Urden?” I can honestly and calmly smile with self-assurance. For the first time in my life, yes, I think I do know.
To be an elf is to find your distances of time. To be an elf is to live several shorter life spans. It is not to abandon forward-looking sensibility, but it is also to find emotionally comfortable segments of time, smaller life spans in which to exist. In light of that realization, for me the more pertinent question thus becomes, “Where is the range of comfort for such existences?”
There are many realities that dictate such decisions—decisions that, in truth, remain more subconscious than purposeful. To be an elf is to outlive your companions if they are not elves; even if they are, rare is the relationship that will survive centuries. To be an elf is to revel in the precious moments of your children—should they be of only half-elf blood, and even if they are of full blood—and to know that they may not outlive you. In that instance, there is only comfort in the profound and ingrained belief that having these children and these little pockets of joyful time was indeed a blessing, and that such a blessing outweighs the profound loss that any compassionate being would surely feel at the death of an offspring. If the very real possibility that one will outlive a child, even if the child sees the end of its expected life span, will prevent that person from having children, then the loss is doubly sad.
In that context, there is only one answer: to be an elf is to celebrate life.
To be an elf is to revel in the moments, in the sunrise and the sunset, in the sudden and brief episodes of love and adventure, in the hours of companionship. It is, most of all, to never be paralyzed by your fears of a future that no one can foretell, even if predictions lead you to the seemingly obvious, and often disparaging, conclusions.
That is what it is to be an elf.
The elves of the surface, contrary to the ways of the drow, often dance and sing. With this, they force themselves into the present, into the moment, and though they may be singing of heroes and deeds long past or of prophecies yet to come, they are, in their song, in the moment, in the present, grasping an instant of joy or reflection and holding it as tightly as any human might.
A human may set out to make a “great life,” to become a mighty leader or sage, but for elves, the passage of time is too slow for such pointed and definitive ambitions. The memories of humans are short, so ’tis said, but that holds true for elves as well. The long-dead human heroes of song no doubt bore little resemblance to the perceptions of the current bards and their audience, but that is true of elves, too, even though those elf bards likely knew the principals of their songs!
The centuries dull and shift the memories, and the lens of time alters images.
A great life for an elf, then, results either from a historical moment seized correctly or, more often, it is a series of connected smaller events that will eventually add up to something beyond the parts. It is a continuing process of growth, perhaps, but only because of piling experiential understanding.
Most of all, I know now, to be an elf is not to be paralyzed by a future one cannot control. I know that I am going to die. I know that those I love will one day die, and in many cases—I suspect, but do not know!—they will die long before I. Certitude is strength and suspicion is worthless, and worry over suspicion is something less than that.
I know, now, and so I am free of the bonds of the future.
I know that every moment is to be treasured, to be enjoyed, to be heightened as much as possible in the best possible way.
I know, now, the failing of the bonds of worthless worry.
I am free.
* * *
There is a balance to be found in life between the self and the community, between the present and the future. The world has seen too much of tyrants interested in the former, selfish men and women who revel in the present at the expense of the future. In theoretical terms, we applaud the one who places community first and looks to the betterment of the future.
After my experiences in the Underdark, alone and so involved in simple survival that the future meant nothing more than the next day, I have tried to move myself toward that latter, seemingly desirable goal. As I gained friends and learned what friendship truly was, I came to view and appreciate the strength of community over the needs of the self.
And as I came to learn of cultures that have progressed in strength, character, and community, I came to try to view all of my choices as an historian might centuries from now. The long-term goal was placed above the short-term gain, and that goal was based always on the needs of the community over the needs of the self.
After my experiences with Innovindil, after seeing the truth of friends lost and love never realized, I understand that I have only been half right.
“To be an elf is to find your distances of time. To be an elf is to live several shorter life spans.” I have learned this to be true, but there is something more. To be an elf is to be alive, to experience the joy of the moment within the context of long-term desires. There must be more than distant hopes to sustain the joy of life.
Seize the moment and seize the day. Revel in the joy and fight all the harder against despair.
I had something so wonderful for the last years of my life.
I had with me a woman whom I loved, and who was my best of friends. Someone who understood my every mood, and who accepted the bad with the good. Someone who did not judge, except in encouraging me to find my own answers.
I found a safe place for my face in her thick hair. I found a reflection of my own soul in the light in her blue eyes. I found the last piece of this puzzle that is Drizzt Do’Urden in the fit of our bodies.
Then I lost her, lost it all.
And only in losing Catti-brie did I come to see the foolishness of my hesitance. I feared rejection. I feared disrupting that which we had. I feared the reactions of Bruenor and later, when he returned from the Abyss, of Wulfgar.
I feared and I feared and I feared, and that fear held back my actions, time and again.
How often do we all do this? How often do we allow often irrational fears to paralyze us in our movements? Not in battle, for me, for never have I shied away from locking swords with a foe. But in love and in friendship, where, I know, the wounds can cut deeper than any blade.
Innovindil escaped the frost giant lair, and now I, too, am free. I will find her. I will find her and I will hold on to this new friendship we have forged, and if it becomes something more, I will not be paralyzed by fear.
Because when it is gone, when I lay at death’s door or when she is taken from me by circumstance or by a monster, I will have no regrets.
That is the lesson of Shallows.
When first I saw Bruenor fall, when first I learned of the loss of my friends, I retreated into the shell of the Hunter, into the instinctual fury that denied pain. Innovindil and Tarathiel moved me past that destructive, self-destructive state, and now I understand that for me, the greatest tragedy of Shallows lies in the lost years that came before the fall.
I will not make that mistake again. The community remains above the self; the good of the future outweighs the immediate desires. But not so much, perhaps. There is a balance to be found, I know now, for utter selflessness can be as great a fault as utter selfishness, and a life of complete sacrifice, without joy, is, at the end, a lonely and empty existence.