Lost again.
It has become a recurring nightmare among my companions, both these old friends returned and the newer companions I traveled beside in recent times. So many times have I, have we, been thrown to a place of hopelessness. Turned to stone, captured by a powerful necromancer, captured by the drow, even dead for a hundred years!
And yet, here we are, returned. At times it seems to me as if the gods are watching us and intervening.
Or perhaps they are watching us and toying with us.
And now we have come to that point again, with Regis and Wulfgar lost to us in the tunnels of the Upperdark. There was an aura of finality to their disappearance, when the devilishly trapped wall stone snapped back into place. We heard Regis fall away, far away. It didn’t seem like a free fall, and orcs are known to prefer traps that capture victims rather than kill them outright.
That is not a reason to hope, however, given the way orcs typically deal with their captives.
In the first days of our return, I convinced King Connerad to double the guard along the lower tunnels, even to allow me to slip out from the guarded areas still secured as Mithral Hall, out into the regions we know to be under the control of the orcs. Bruenor begged to come with me, but better off am I navigating alone in the Underdark. Catti-brie begged me to remain in the hall, and claimed that she would go out with her magic to scout for our friends.
But I could not sit tight in the comfort of Mithral Hall when I feared they were out there, when I heard, and still hear, their cries for help in my every thought. A recurring nightmare invades my reverie: my dear friends frantic and fighting to get to the lower tunnels still held by the dwarves, but by way of an environment unsuited to a halfling and a human. One dead end after another, one ambush after another. In my thoughts, I see them battling fiercely, then fleeing back the way they had come, orc spears and orc taunts chasing them back into the darkness.
If I believe they are out there, how can I remain behind the iron walls?
I cannot deny that we in the hall have much to do. We have to find a way to break the siege and begin to turn the battles above, else the Silver Marches are lost. The misery being inflicted across the lands . . .
We have much to do.
Nesmé has fallen.
We have much to do.
The other dwarf citadels are fully besieged.
We have much to do.
The lone lifelines, the tunnels connecting Adbar, Felbarr, and Mithral Hall, are under constant pressure now.
We have much to do.
And so much time has passed in dark silence. We traveled to Citadel Felbarr and back, many tendays have passed without a hint from Wulfgar and Regis.
Are they out there, hiding in dark tunnels or chained in an orc prison? Do they cry out in agony and hopelessness, begging for their friends to come and rescue them? Or begging for death, perhaps?
Or are they now silenced forevermore?
All reason points to them being dead, but I have seen too much now to simply accept that. I hold out hope and know from experience that it cannot be a false hope wrought of emotional folly.
But neither is it more than that: a hope.
They fell, likely to their deaths, either immediately or in orc imprisonment. Even if that is not the case, and their drop through the wall took them to a separate tunnel free from the orcs and drow that haunt the region, so many tendays have passed without word. They are not suited to the Underdark. For all their wonderful skills, in that dark place, in this dark time, it is highly unlikely that Wulfgar and Regis could survive.
And so I hold out that finger of hope, but in my heart, I prepare for the worst.
I am strangely at peace with that. And it is not a phony acceptance where I hide the truth of my pain under the hope that it is mere speculation. If they are gone, if they have fallen, I know that they died well.
It is all we can ask now, any of us. There is an old drow saying—I heard it used often to describe Matron Mother Baenre in the days of my youth: “qu’ella bondel,” which translates to “gifted time” or “borrowed time.” The matron mother was old, older than any other, older than any drow in memory. By all reason, she should have been dead long before, centuries before Bruenor put his axe through her head, and so she had been living on qu’ella bondel.
My companions, returned from the magical forest of Iruladoon, through their covenant with Mielikki, are living on qu’ella bondel. They all know it, they have all said it.
And so we accept it.
If Wulfgar and Regis do not return to us, if they are truly gone—and Catti-brie has assured me that the goddess will not interfere in such matters again—then so be it. My heart will be heavy, but it will not break. We have been given a great gift, all of us. In saying hello once more, we all knew that we were making it all right to say farewell.
But still . . .
Would I feel this way if Catti-brie were down there?
* * *
“I am not a courageous goblin. I prefer to live, though oftentimes I wonder what my life is truly worth.”
Those words haunt me.
In light of the revelations Catti-brie has offered of my goddess, Mielikki, that all of goblinkin are irredeemably evil and should be rightfully put to the sword, those words haunt me.
For they were spoken to me by a goblin named Nojheim, a fellow of intelligence and wit, surprisingly so to me, who had never so deeply and honestly conversed with a goblin before. He claimed cowardice because he would not stand up to the humans who had captured him, beaten him, and enslaved him. He questioned the worth of his life because he was truly that, a slave.
They came for Nojheim and they caught him, and it is forever my shame that I was not able to help him, for when I next saw him, he had been hanged by the neck by his tormentors. Reeling from the scene, I stumbled back to my bed, and that very night I wrote, “There are events that are forever frozen in one’s memory, feelings that exude a more complete aura, a memory so vivid and so lasting. I remember the wind at that horrible moment. The day, thick with low clouds, was unseasonably warm, but the wind, on those occasions it had to gust, carried a chilling bite, coming down from the high mountains and carrying the sting of deep snow with it. That wind was behind me, my long white hair blowing around the side of my face, my cloak pressing tightly against my back as I sat on my mount and stared helplessly at the high cross-pole.
“The gusty breeze kept Nojheim’s stiff and bloated body turning slightly, the bolt holding the hemp rope creaking in mournful, helpless protest.
“I will see him forever.”
And so I do see him still, and whenever I manage to put that terrible memory out of thought, I am reminded of it.
Never more poignantly than now, with war brewing, with Bruenor deriding the Treaty of Garumn’s Gorge as his worst error, with Catti-brie, my beloved Catti-brie, insisting that on Mielikki’s word, on the sermon of the goddess we both hold dear, those humans in that long ago day, in that long-deserted village along the Surbrin whose name I cannot remember were justified in their actions.
I cannot reconcile it. I simply cannot.
The implications of Catti-brie’s claim overwhelm me and loosen the sand beneath my feet, until I am sinking into despair. For when I kill, even in battle, even in righteous defense, I feel that a part of my soul departs with the vanquished foe. I feel as if I am a bit less goodly. I mend my soul by reminding myself of the necessity of my actions, of course, and so I am not locked in the dark wings of guilt in any way.
But what if I carry Mielikki’s claims to their logical conclusions? What if I force my way into an orc or goblin settlement that has shown no aggression, no intent to wage war or commit any other crimes? What if I find that nursery as Catti-brie mocked in her dwarven brogue, with the old dwarven cry of “Where’s the babies’ room?”
Surely then, by the sermon of Mielikki, I am to slaughter the goblin children, infants even. And slaughter the elderly and infirm even if they have committed no crimes or no acts of aggression.
No.
I will not.
Such an act rings in my heart and soul as unjust and cruel. Such an act erases the line between good and evil. Such an act would stain my own conscience, whatever Mielikki’s claims!
And that, I believe, is the ultimate downfall of reasoning beings. What pain to the murderer, to the heart and soul of the one who would kill the elderly and infirm orc, or the goblin child? What stain, forevermore, to steal the confidence, the righteousness, the belief in oneself that is so critical for the sensibilities of the warrior?
If I must wage terrible battle, then so be it. If I must kill, then so be it.
If I must.
Only if I must!
My clear conscience protects me from a pit too dark to contemplate, and that is a place I hope Bruenor and Catti-brie never enter.
But what does this mean in my servitude to Mielikki, to the concept of a goddess I believed at peace with that which was in my own heart? What does this mean for the unicorn—her steed—that I call from the whistle about my neck? What does this mean for the very return of my friends, the Companions of the Hall? They are beside me once more, we all agree, by the blessing of, and at the suffrage of, Mielikki.
Catti-brie claims the voice of Mielikki with regards to the goblinkin; she is a priestess of Mielikki, with magical powers granted her by the goddess. How could she not speak truly on this matter?
Aye, Catti-brie relayed the truth of what the goddess told her.
That notion pains me most of all. I feel betrayed. I feel discordant, my voice shrill and out of tune with the song of the goddess.
Yet if my heart is not true to the word of Mielikki . . .
Fie these gods! What beings are these who would play so cruelly with the sensibilities of rational, conscientious mortals?
I have racked my brain and scoured my memories for evidence that I am wrong. I have tried to convince myself that the goblin named Nojheim was actually just manipulating me to try to save its skin.
Nojheim was no poor victim of the humans, but a vile and conniving murderer kept alive by their mercy alone.
So it must be.
And so I cannot believe. I simply cannot. I was not, I am not, wrong in my initial understanding about Nojheim. Nor was I wrong about Jessa, a half-orc, a friend, a companion, who traveled for years beside me; Thibbledorf Pwent; and Bruenor Battlehammer himself.
But I must believe that I was wrong, or must accept that Mielikki is. And how can that be?
How can the goddess I hold as the epitome of goodliness be wrong? How can Mielikki’s song chip the veneer of truth I hold in my heart?
Are these gods, then, fallible beings looking over us as if we were no more than pieces on a sava board? Am I a pawn?
Then my reason, my conscience, my independent thought and moral judgment must be cast aside, subjugated to the will of a superior being . . .
But no, I cannot do this. Surely not in matters of simple right and wrong. Whatever Mielikki might tell me, I cannot excuse the actions of that slaver Rico and the others who tormented, tortured, and ultimately murdered Nojheim. Whatever Mielikki might tell me, it must hold in accordance with that which I know to be true and right.
It must! This is not arrogance, but the cry that an internal moral compass, the conscience of a reasoning being, cannot be disregarded by edict. I call not for anarchy, I offer nothing in the way of sophistry, but I insist that there must be universal truths about right and wrong.
And one of those truths has to be that the content of character must outweigh the trappings of a mortal coil.
I feel lost. In this, the Winter of the Iron Dwarf, I feel sick and adrift.
As I ask of the dwarves, the humans, indeed even the elves, that they view my actions and not the reputation of my heritage, so I must afford the same courtesy, the same politesse, the same decent deference, to all reasoning beings.
My hands shake now as I read my writings of a century before, for then, with my heart full of Mielikki’s grace, so I believed, I revealed little doubt.
“Sunset,” I wrote, and I see that descending fiery orb as clearly now as on that fateful day a century and more removed. “Another day surrenders to the night as I perch here on the side of a mountain, not so far from Mithral Hall.
“The mystery of the night has begun, but does Nojheim know now the truth of a greater mystery? I often wonder of those who have gone before me, who have discovered what I cannot until the time of my own death. Is Nojheim better off now than he was as Rico’s slave?
“If the afterlife is one of justice, then surely he is.
“I must believe this to be true, yet still it wounds me to know that I inadvertently played a role in the unusual goblin’s death, both in capturing him and in going to him later, going to him with hopes that he could not afford to hold. I cannot forget that I walked away from Nojheim, however well-intentioned I might have been. I rode for Silverymoon and left him vulnerable, left him in wrongful pain.
“And so I learn from my mistake.
“Forever after, I will not ignore such injustice. If ever I chance upon one of Nojheim’s spirit and Nojheim’s peril again, then let his wicked master be wary. Let the lawful powers of the region review my actions and exonerate me if that is what they perceive to be the correct course. If not . . .
“It does not matter. I will follow my heart.”
Three lines stand clear to me now in light of the revelations offered by Catti-brie.
“If the afterlife is one of justice, then surely he is,” so I told myself, so I believed, and so I must believe. Yet if the afterlife is the domain of Mielikki, then surely Nojheim cannot have found a better place.
“Forever after, I will not ignore such injustice,” I vowed, and so I mean to hold true to that vow, for I believe in the content of the sentiment.
Yes, Bruenor, my dear friend. Yes, Catti-brie, my love and my life. Yes, Mielikki, to whom I ascribed the tenets that make me whole.
“It does not matter. I will follow my heart.”
* * *
Brother Afafrenfere was sitting on a large stone—reclining actually, and looking up at the blackened sky, where the stars should have been, though alas, there are no stars to be found in the Silver Marches at this dark time. He was not startled by my presence, for surely he knew that the stone he carried was a beacon to the dragon Ilnezhara, and so allowed her to use her magic to teleport me in beside him.
I greeted him, and he gave a slight nod, but he just kept staring up into the darkness. And he did so with an expression I surely recognized, for it is one I have often worn myself.
“What troubles you, Brother?” I asked.
He didn’t look over, didn’t sit up.
“I have found a power I do not quite understand,” he finally admitted.
He went on to explain to me that he had not come to the Silver Marches, to this war, alone—and that not even counting Amber, Jarlaxle, and the dragon sisters. He tapped a gemstone set in a band around his forehead and told me that it was a magical phylactery, now holding the disembodied spirit of a great monk named Kane, a legendary Grandmaster of Flowers of Afafrenfere’s Order of the Yellow Rose. With that phylactery, Kane had made the trip beside Afafrenfere, indeed, even within the thoughts of Afafrenfere.
“To guide me and to teach me, and so he has and so he is.”
Then Afafrenfere did sit up, and detailed for me his feats of battle, where swarms of goblins would disappear in front of his jabbing and spinning limbs, where he could strike and be on his way before his opponent could begin to counter, where he had killed a giant with a slap of his hand, then using that connection as a conduit so that he could fashion his own life energy as a missile and use it to break the life energy of the giant.
I didn’t quite understand the technique, but the man’s awe at his accomplishments spoke volumes to me. They reminded me of my own realizations that I had attained the highest levels of skill in the drow academy of Melee-Magthere, that I had somehow learned to be as fine a warrior as Zaknafein, my father.
I was more surprised than Zaknafein on that day so long ago when I finally defeated him in our sparring matches. I had planned the victory down to every block and every step, to every twist and angle, but still, when I at last realized the enormity of what I had accomplished, I had spent some long hours indeed simply staring and pondering.
And so I thought I understood what Afafrenfere was feeling, but soon I discovered that his dilemma was not merely surprise at his own prowess. No, he summed it up in one word, spoken humbly and with a clear tremor in his soft voice: “Responsibility.”
There is an emotional weight that accompanies the expectations of others. When desperate people look to you for help, and you know that if you cannot help them, no one else can . . .
Responsibility.
“We will guide the dwarves well in this battle day,” I remember saying to Afafrenfere, and remember, too, that he was shaking his head with dismissal even as the words left my mouth. Not because he doubted our mission this day—indeed, he was actually more confident in it than I—but because Afafrenfere was talking in grander terms.
He was talking about the man he had been, and now, with this growth, about the man he felt he now needed to be.
Afafrenfere’s situation was complicated by the sudden infusion of power, I expect. Grandmaster Kane was training him, intimately, and so he was rising to a skill level he had never before imagined, and the shock of that had awakened within him a realization that he was part of something bigger than himself, and responsible for things beyond his personal needs.
I hadn’t ever really thought of my own situation in those terms, not specifically and not with any confusion, but only because my very nature from the earliest days of self-reflection aligned me with those same beliefs and expectations for myself that Afafrenfere was apparently now experiencing as a sudden and confusing epiphany.
I hadn’t the time to sit and discuss it with him any longer, of course, for we were off immediately to find King Harnoth and his fighting band, that we could guide them to their place in the upcoming maelstrom.
But I couldn’t help but grin as I made my way through the pine-covered slope beside the monk from the Monastery of the Yellow Rose. He was now learning the same epiphany I had long hoped to see within Artemis Entreri.
I could see the trepidation on Brother Afafrenfere’s face, but I knew that it would soon enough fade, to be replaced by a sense of true contentment. He was given something, a blessing, that most people could never experience. Through the help of Grandmaster Kane, he was given a glimpse of his potential, and so he knew that potential to be true and attainable.
So many people never see that—they may quietly hope for it, or imagine it in their private moments, but they will never believe in it, in themselves, to go out and reach for it. Fear of failure, of judgment, of being mocked, even, will keep them curled in a bubble of security, averting risks by keeping their hands close to their vests.
So many people live small, afraid to try to do great things, conditioned from childhood to find their place in the order of things, the proverbial “pecking order,” and simply stay there, curled and small, their arms in close.
Wanting to reach, but afraid to grab—it is the comfort of familiarity, of a niche carved within the expectations and judgment of others.
“Know your place” is a common refrain, and so many other similarly destructive “truisms” chase us throughout our lives, particularly in those early years, exactly when we’re trying to determine that very place. Voices of doubt and warning, often spoken as advice, but always limiting, always designed to keep our arms in close, that we will not reach.
Because when we reach, when we seek that place we have seen only in our imagination, we threaten the order of things, and threaten most especially the place of those who have found a better roost.
And when we dare to reach, and when we excel, and when we gain from our reaching a level of power or wealth or privilege, then, too, comes the weight of that which Brother Afafrenfere was contemplating when I encountered him on the other end of Ilnezhara’s teleport spell: responsibility.
For now Brother Afafrenfere understood that he could accomplish much more than he had ever dreamed possible, and so now his heart demanded of him a measure of responsibility.
That weight, so clear in his eyes when I came upon him, reminded me that Brother Afafrenfere was a good man.