“Then it is a cruel joke?” Drizzt asked.
“It would seem.”
Drizzt was shaking his head before she finished. “If this moment of self-awareness is short,” he said, “a flicker in the vastness of all that is, all that has been, and all that will be, then it can still have a purpose, still have pleasure and meaning.”
“There is more, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Innovindil said.
“You know, or you pray?”
“Or I pray because I know.”
“Belief is not knowledge.”
“As perception is not reality?”
Drizzt considered the sarcasm of that question for a long while, then offered a smile of defeat and of thanks all at once.
“I believe that she is at peace,” Innovindil said.
“I have heard of priests resurrecting the dead,” Drizzt said, a remark borne of his uncertainty and frustration. “Surely the life and death of Ellifain is not the ordinary case.”
His hopeful tone faded as he turned to regard his frowning companion.
“I only mean-”
“That your own guilt weighs heavily on you,” Innovindil finished for him.
“No.”
“Do you inquire about the possibility of resurrection for the sake of Ellifain, or for the sake of Drizzt Do’Urden?” Innovindil pressed. “Would you have the priests undo that which Drizzt Do’Urden did, that about which Drizzt Do’Urden cannot forgive himself?”
Drizzt rocked back on his heels, his gaze going back to the small form in the blankets.
“She is at peace,” Innovindil said again, moving around to stand in front of him, forcing him to look her in the eye. “There are spells through which the priests-or wizards, even-can speak with the dead. Perhaps we can impose on the priests of the Moonwood to hold court with the spirit of Ellifain.”
“For the sake of Drizzt Do’Urden?”
“A worthy reason.”
They let it go at that, and set their last camp before they would turn for home. Beyond the mountain ridge to the west, the endless waves crashed against the timeless stones, mocking mortality.
Innovindil used the backdrop of that rhythm to sing her prayers yet again, and Drizzt joined in as he assimilated the words, and it occurred to him that whether or not the prayers drifted to the physical form of a true god, there was in them power, peace, and calm.
In the morning, with Ellifain secured across the wide rump of Sunset, the pair turned for home. The journey would be a longer one, they knew, for winter grew thicker and they would have to walk their mounts more than fly them.
The orc overbalanced as Tos’un knew it would, throwing its cumbersome broadsword out too wildly across its chest. It stumbled to the side and staggered ahead, and Tos’un reversed his retreat to begin a sudden, finishing thrust.
But the drow stopped short as the orc jerked unexpectedly. Tos’un fell back into a defensive crouch, concerned that his opponent, the last of a small group he had ambushed, had feigned the stumble.
The orc jerked again then came forward. Tos’un started to move to block, but recognized that it was no attack. He stepped aside as the orc fell face down, a pair of long arrows protruding from its back. Tos’un looked past the dead brute, across the small encampment, to see a pale-skinned, black-haired elf woman standing calmly, bow in hand.
With no arrow set.
Kill her! Khazid’hea screamed in his head.
Indeed, Tos’un’s first thought heartily concurred. His eyes flashed and he almost leaped ahead. He could get to her and cut her down before she ever readied that bow, he knew, or before she could draw out the small sword on her hip and ready a proper defense.
The drow didn’t move.
Kill her!
The look on her face helped the drow resist both the sword’s call and his own murderous instincts. Before he even glanced left and right, he knew. He might get one step before a barrage of arrows felled him. Perhaps two, if he was quick enough and lucky enough. Either way, he’d never get close to the elf.
He lowered Khazid’hea and turned back its stream of curses by filling his mind with fear and wariness. The sword quickly caught on and went silent in his thoughts.
The elf said something to him, but he did not understand. He knew a bit of the Elvish tongue, but couldn’t decipher her particular dialect. A sound from the side finally turned him, to see a trio of elf archers slipping out of the shadows, bows drawn and ready. On the other side, three others made a similar appearance.
And more were still under cover, the drow suspected. He did his best to silently inform Khazid’hea.
The sword replied with a sensation of frustrated growling.
The elf spoke again, but in the common tongue of the surface. Tos’un recognized the language, but he understood only a few of her words. He could tell she wasn’t threatening him, and that alone showed the drow where he stood.
He offered a smile and slid Khazid’hea into its scabbard. He held his hands up unthreateningly, then moved them out and shrugged. To either side of him, the archers relaxed, but only a bit.
Another moon elf moved out from the shadows, this one wearing the ceremonial robes of a priest. Tos’un bit back his initial revulsion at the site of the heretic, and forced himself to calm down as the cleric went through a series of gyrations and soft chanting.
He is casting a spell of languages, to better communicate with you, Khazid’hea silently informed the drow.
And a spell to discern truth from lies, if his powers are anything akin to the priestesses of Menzoberranzan, Tos’un replied.
As he completed the thought, the drow felt a strange calm emanating from the sentient sword.
I can aid you in that, Khazid’hea explained, sensing his confusion and anticipating his question. True deception is a state of mind. Even from magical detections.
“I will know your intent and your purpose,” the elf cleric said to Tos’un in words the drow understood perfectly, jarring him from his private conversation with the sword.
But that connection had not been fully severed, Tos’un realized. A continuing sense of pervading calm filtered through his thoughts and filtered the timbre of his vocal reply.
And so he passed through the priest’s line of questioning, answering sincerely though he knew well that he was not being honest.
Without Khazid’hea’s help, he would have felt the bite of a dozen elven arrows that day, he knew.
And where am I to run? Tos’un asked Khazid’hea much later. What is there for me beyond the perimeter of this camp? You would have me hunting orcs for their rotten foodstuffs, or venturing back into the wilds of the Underdark where I cannot survive.
You are drow, the sword answered. You have stated before your hated of elves, the oppressors of your people. They are unsuspecting and off their guard, because of my help to you.
Tos’un wasn’t so sure of that. Certainly those elves nearest to him seemed at ease. He might get through a few of them. But what others lurked in the shadows? he wondered, and so the sword felt his question.
Khazid’hea had no answer.
Tos’un watched the elves moving around their camp. Despite their proximity to enemies, for they were across the Surbrin and in Obould’s claimed territory, laughter rang out almost constantly. One took up a song in Elvish, and the rhythm and melody, though he could not know the words, carried Tos’un’s thoughts back to Menzoberranzan.
Would you have me choose between these people and Obould’s ugly kin? the drow asked.
Still the sword remained quiet in his thoughts.
The drow sat back, closed his eyes, and let the sounds of the elves’ camp filter around him. He considered the roads before him, and truly none seemed promising. He didn’t want to continue on his own. He knew the limitations and mortality of that route. Eventually, King Obould would catch up to him.