“But they do not yet know what that might be,” Parise reasoned.
“They sense a disjointedness in the multiverse. They warn of chaos and of celestial changes.”
“Cryptic words are useless words.”
“For now,” Draygo Quick replied abruptly. “Give them time.”
“Have you located your former prisoner? Have you determined if this drow, Drizzt Do’Urden, is indeed a favored mortal?”
“None have found him, though many look, including Jarlaxle of Bregan D’aerthe. It is as if Drizzt has simply disappeared from the known universe. But no matter. He was not of paramount importance to me, and surely not now when I have entered into this bargain with Kimmuriel, who will provide greater answers to me than Drizzt Do’Urden ever could.”
“Do we need another prisoner who might of in the general direction moment Lord Ulfbinderonfer answers?”
“Do we need any, or did we ever?” Draygo Quick replied. “I have not gone after Drizzt again, nor have I sought revenge on this drow organization with which we both still do business.”
Parise Ulfbinder tapped his fingertips together nervously. “Have you shared ‘Cherlrigo’s Darkness’ with Kimmuriel?”
“Surely not!” Draygo Quick answered. “Our bargain was that I would forgive the assault of Bregan D’aerthe upon my home in exchange for the information Kimmuriel garners from his time with the mind flayers. There was no reciprocating action on my part intended or offered, other than my willingness to allow our trading agreement with the drow mercenaries to continue, to the mutual profit and benefit of us both.”
“But it is possible that our sonnet will hold clues the illithids might find valuable in their search for the celestial truth.”
Draygo Quick paused, and Parise could see that he had caught the older lord off guard.
“Perhaps in the future, then, but only with your agreement, I assure you,” Draygo Quick decided.
Parise nodded-that was what he had been hoping to hear. He bid Draygo Quick farewell, replaced his cloth over the crystal ball, then rose and turned back to the anteroom, where he had left his guest.
He poured a drink for Lady Avelyere and one for himself when he returned to that room, and took the chair across from his guest before the burning hearth.
“A Chosen or a prodigy?” he asked absently, a question he had posed in their previous discussion, before dismissing himself to attend to some business.
“I don’t think we can know,” said Lady Avelyere. “Truly she is gifted in the Art-more divine than arcane, it would seem.”
“And divine would indicate …”
“It would seem,” Lady Avelyere said pointedly. “There is no telling with spellscars. It is possible that this Ruqiah child is afflicted in ways we have never witnessed, at least to this magnitude, but that hardly means she is blessed by any particular god.”
“She is worth watching,” Parise said, and Lady Avelyere breathed a clear sign of relief.
“You thought I would have her killed?” the Netherese lord asked incredulously.
“The thought did cross my mind.”
“To what end?”
“To what end in bothering with the little one at all? To what end in hunting these favored mortals you seem to fear-and if you fear them, does it not follow that you would wish to destroy them?”
Parise Ulfbinder shook his head. “I wish to learn, nothing more. You are acquainted with my friend Draygo Quick?”
“The lord who resides outside of Gloomwrought?”
“Yes.”
“With whom you just spoke,” she stated and donfident and q
PART THREE
I could not have planned my journey. Not any particular journey to a town or a region, but the journey of my life, the road I’ve walked from my earliest days. I’ve often heard people remark that they have no regrets about choices they’ve made because the results of those choices have made them who they are.
I can’t say that I agree fully with such sentiments, but I certainly understand them. Hindsight is easy, but decisions made in the moment are often much more difficult, the “right” choice often much harder to discern.
Which circles me back to my original thought: I could not have planned out this journey I have taken, these decades of winding roads and unexpected twists and turns. Even on those occasions when I purposely strode in a determined direction, as when I walked out of Menzoberranzan, I could not begin to understand the long-term ramifications of my choice. Indeed on that occasion, I thought that I would likely meet my death, and soon enough. It wasn’t a suicidal choice, of course-never that! — but merely a decision that the long odds were worth the gamble when weighed against the certainty of life in Menzoberranzan, which seemed to me emotional suicide.
Never did I think those first steps would lead me out of the Underdark to the surface world. And even when that course became evident, I could not have foreseen the journeys that lay ahead-the love of Montolio, and then the home and family I found in Icewind Dale. On that day I walked away from Menzoberranzan, the suggestion that my best friend would be a dwarf and I would marry a human would have elicited a perplexed and incredulous look indeed!
Imagine Drizzt Do’Urden of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon sitting at the right hand of King Bruenor Battlehammer of Mithral Hall, fighting beside King Bruenor against the raiding drow of Menzoberranzan! Preposterous!
But true.
This is life, an adventure too intricate, too interconnected to too many variables to be predictable. So many people try to outline and determine their path, rigidly unbending, and for them I have naught but a sigh of pity. They set the goal and chase it to the exclusion of all else. They see the mark of some imagined finish line and never glance left or right in their singular pursuit.
There is only one certain goal in life: death.
It is right and necessary and important to set goals and chase them. But to do so singularly, particularly regarding those roads which will take many months, even years, to accomplish is to miss the bigger point. It is the journey that is important, for it is the sum of all those journeys, planned or unexpected, that makes us who we are. If you see life as a journey to death, if you truly understand that ultimate goal, then it is the present that becomes most important, and when the present takes precedence above the future, you have truly learned to in the general di Lord Ulfbind
CHAPTER 13
The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR) Citadel Felbarr
"Yer Da favored the hammer and the sword,” Ragged Dain said as the group neared the outer gate. Dain had been so nicknamed for his scrappy fighting style, typically leading with his face, which was crisscrossed now by battle scars.
“I ain’t me Da,” Bruenor gruffly answered, hoisting his battle-axe to rest on his shoulder.
“Fine tone for a beardless one, eh?” Ognun Leatherbelt, the battle commander, chimed in. He gave Little Arr Arr a shove on the shoulder and a playful half-punch on the jaw. His eyes widened as he did, though, and as he took closer notice of his youngest foot soldier. “Here now! Little Arr Arr’s got the beginnin’s of a beard, does he?”
“Reginald,” Bruenor corrected, and how he wanted to throw aside this whole facade, then and there. He was Bruenor Battlehammer, Eighth King of Mithral Hall, Tenth King of Mithral Hall, champion of Icewind Dale. How he wanted to shout that out, loud and clear!
But Ognun’s observations were true enough, for Bruenor had indeed begun to see-finally-the beginnings of a beard, a fiery red one much like the one he’d worn in his previous existence. He wondered if he would look the same as he had in that other life. He hadn’t really thought about it very much, but now with the beard coming in, it occurred to him that he might well indeed be a physical twin for the king he had been.