The Realms of the Elves

COMRADES AT ODDS

Winter, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR)

He looked out at the night sky with an expression of complete derision, for the rogue drow, Tos'un Armgo, had hoped he would never again look upon the vast ceiling of the overworld. Years ago, during the drow raid on Mithral Hall, Tos'un had lost his companions and his House, preferring desertion to the continued insanity and deadly war that had gripped Menzoberranzan.

He had found friends, a group of similar dark elf renegades, and together the four had forged a fine life along the upper tunnels of the Underdark, and even among the surface dwellers-notably King Obould of the ores. The four had played a major role in spurring the invasion that had taken Obould's army to the gates of Mithral Hall. The drow instigators had covertly formed an alliance between Obould and the frost giants of the northern mountains, and they had goaded the ore king with visions of glory.

But Tos'un's three drow companions were dead. The last to fall, the priestess Kaer'lic, had been slain before Tos'un's eyes by King Obould himself. Only his speed and sheer luck had saved Tos'un from a similar fate.

So he was alone. No, not alone, he corrected himself as he dropped a hand onto the crafted hilt of Khazid'hea, a sentient sword he had found beneath the devastated site where Obould had battled Drizzt Do'Urden.

Wandering the trails of Obould's newfound kingdom, with smelly, stupid ores encamped all around him, Tos'un had come to the conclusion that the time had come for him to leave the World Above behind, to go back to the deep tunnels of the Underdark, perhaps even to find his way back to Menzoberranzan and his kin. A deep cave had brought him to a tunnel complex, and trails through the upper Underdark led him to familiar ground, back to the old abode he had shared with his three drow compatriots. From there, Tos'un knew his way to the deeper tunnels.

And so he walked, but with every step his doubts grew. Tos'un was no stranger to the Underdark; he had lived the first century of his life as a noble soldier in the ranks of House Barrison dePArmgo of Menzoberranzan. He had led drow scouting parties out into the tunnels, and had even guarded caravans bound for the trade city of Ched Nasad.

He knew the Underdark.

He knew, in his heart, that he could not survive those tunnels alone.

Each step came more slowly and deliberately than the previous. Doubts clouded his thoughts, and even the small voice in his head that he knew to be Khazid'heq's empathetic communication urged him to turn back.

Out of the tunnel, the stars above him, the cold wind blowing in his face, Tos'un stood alone and confused.

We will find our place, Khazid'hea telepathically assured him. We are stronger than our enemies. We are more clever than our enemies.

Tos'un Armgo couldn't help but wonder if the sentient sword had included Drizzt Do'Urden and King Obould in those estimations.

A campfire flared to life off in the distance, or a cooking fire, and the site of it reminded the drow that he hadn't eaten in more than a day.

"Let us go and find some well-supplied ores," he said to his growling stomach. "I am hungry."

Khazid'hea agreed.

Khazid'hea was always hungry.

Sunlight glistened off the white-feathered wings of the equine creature as Drizzt Do'Urden brought the pegasus in a steep bank and turn. Astride her own pegasus to the north of the drow, the elf Innovindil caught the view in dramatic fashion, contrasted as it was by the great dark clouds hovering over the Trollmoors to the south. The pair had set out from Mithral Hall three days before, confident that the standoff between the dwarves of Clan Battlehammer and the invading ore army would hold throughout the brutal winter months. Drizzt and Innovindil had to go far to the west, all the way to the Sword Coast, to retrieve the body of Ellifain, a fallen moon elf and kin to Innovindil, slain at the hands of Drizzt in a tragic misunderstanding.

They had started out traveling south and southwest, thinking to pass the city of Nesme on the northern banks of the dreaded Trollmoors to see how the rebuilding was commencing after the carnage of the previous summer. They had thought to cross over Nesme, skirting the Trollmoors so that they could catch a more southerly route to the west and the distant city of Luskan.

It was bitterly cold up in the sky with winter beginning to blow. Sunrise and Sunset, their pegasi mounts, didn't complain, but Innovindil and Drizzt could only remain in the air for short periods of time, so cold was the wind on their faces. Bruenor had given both of them fine seal coats and cloaks, thick mittens and hoods, but the wind bit too hard at any and all exposed skin for the pair to remain aloft.

As Drizzt came around in his lazy turn, Innovindil began to motion for him to put down on a plateau directly west of his position. But the drow beat her to the movement, motioning west and a bit to the north instead-and not for her to descend, but only to look.

Her expression soured as soon as she turned that way, for she didn't miss the drow's target: a line of black specks-ores, she knew-moving south along a narrow trail.

Sunrise flew under her mount as Drizzt began a slow, circling descent. He put a hand to one of his scimitars and drew it a bit from its sheath then nodded, silently asking the elf if she was up for a fight.

Innovindil smiled back at him as she guided Sunset into Sunrise's wake, following Drizzt's descent.

"They will cross just to the west of us," Drizzt said as she put down on a wide, flat rock a few feet to the side of him.

She couldn't see the drow's white smile for he had pulled his scarf up over the bottom half of his face, but his intense lavender eyes surely smiled at her.

Innovindil loosened her collar and pulled her hood back. She shook free her long golden hair, returned Drizzt's look, and said, "We have hundreds of miles before us, and winter fast approaching. Would you delay us that we might kill a few ores?"

Drizzt shrugged, but as he pulled his scarf down, he still grinned with eagerness.

Innovindil could hardly argue against that.

"We should see what they're about," the drow explained. "I'm surprised to see any of the ores moving this far to the south now."

"With their king dead, you mean?"

"I would have thought that most of the ores would be turning back to the north and the security of their mountain holes. Do they mean to press forward with their attacks absent the unifying force that was Obould?"

Innovindil glanced to the west, though they had lost sight of the ores during their descent. "Perhaps some, at least, have grown overconfident. So much of the land came so easily to their overwhelming numbers, perhaps they've forgotten the mighty resistance aligned against them."

"We should remind them," said Drizzt. He lifted one leg over the pegasus so that he sat sideways on the beast, facing Innovindil, then threw himself backward in a roll over the mount's back, flipping as he went to land lightly on his feet on the other side. He moved around under Sunrise's neck, patting the muscled creature as he went. "Let us see what they're about," he said to the elf, "then send them running."

"Those we do not kill outright," Innovindil agreed. She slid down from her saddle and unfastened her great bow from the straps behind the seat.

Trusting that the intelligent pegasi would remain calm and safe, the pair moved off with all speed, stealthy and nimble across the uneven stones. They headed northwest, thinking to approach the long ravine a bit ahead of the ores, but the sound of metal against stone stopped them and turned them back to the southwest.

A short while later, Drizzt crawled out onto a high outcropping of stone, and while he understood then the source of the hammering, he grew even more confused. For there below him, at a bottleneck along the trail, he saw a group of ores hard at work building a wall of cut stones.

"A gate," Innovindil remarked, creeping up beside him.

The pair watched as several ores came up the trail from the south, carrying rocks.

"We need a better look," Innovindil said.

"The sun is fast setting," said Drizzt, pulling himself up and starting back to the east and the pegasi.

They had less than half an hour of daylight remaining, bat in that time they found much more than they had anticipated. Just a few hundred yards from the as yet unfinished gate sat a blockade of piled stones, and a second had been thrown together a hundred yards ahead of that one. Sentries manned both posts, while workers disassembled the one closest to the gate, carrying the stones for cutting and placement on the more formidable wall.

The coordination and tactics could not be denied.

"The fall of Obould has not yet corroded their unity and precision," Innovindil remarked.

"They wear uniforms," Drizzt said. It seemed as if he could hardly draw breath-and from more than the cold wind, Innovindil could plainly see.

His words rang true enough to the elf, for the sentries at all three points wore similar skull-shaped helms of white bone and nearly identical black tabards.

"Their tactics are perfect," the drow went on, for he had seen many similar scenes during his time in Menzoberranzan among bis warrior people. "They hastily set blockades to slow down any attackers so that they won't be caught vulnerable at their more permanent construction site."

"Ores have always been clever, if not cohesive," the elf reminded him.

It would seem that Obould has remedied the weakness of the latter point more completely than we had thought." The drow looked around, his gaze drifting in the direction of Mithral Hall. "We have to investigate this more fully and go back to Bruenor," he said as he looked back at his elf companion.

Innovindil held his stare for a short while then shook her head. "We have already decided our course."

"We could not know."

"We still do not know," the elf replied. "These southern ore scouts and laborers may not even yet know of Obould's demise. We cannot measure what we see here as what we R_A. can expect a month from now, or after the winter season. In any case, the stalemate will hold with the coming snow and cold, and nothing we can tell King Bruenor now will alter his preparations for the winter."

"You would still recover the body of Ellifain," said Drizzt.

Innovindil nodded and replied, "It is important-for my People, and for our acceptance of you."

"Is this a journey to recover a lost soul? Or is it to determine the veracity of a potential friend?"

"It is both."

Drizzt leaned back as if stung. Innovindil reached out for him.

"Not for me," she assured him. "You have nothing to prove to Innovindil, Drizzt Do'Urden. Our friendship is sincere. But I would have no doubts lingering among my sorely wounded and angry people. The People of the Moonwood are not many in number. Forgive us our caution."

"They bade you do this?"

"There was no need. I understand the importance of it, and do not doubt that I, that all of my people, owe this to the lost one. Ellifain's fall marks a great failing in the Moonwood, that we could not convince her of the error of her ways. Her heart was scarred beyond reason, but in offering her no remedy, we of the Moonwood can only see Ellifain's fall as our failing."

"How will retrieving her body remedy that?"

Innovindil shrugged and said, "Let us learn."

Drizzt had no answer for that, nor did he think it was his place to question further. He had agreed to fly beside Innovindil to the Sword Coast and so he would. He owed her that, at least. But more importantly, he owed it to Ellifain, the lost elf he had slain.

They returned to their mounts and moved higher up on the trails as darkness fell and the cold closed in, accepting the less accommodating climate so that they could try to get a better understanding of what the ores around them were up to. They found an overhang to block the biting northeastern wind and huddled close.

As they had expected, campfires came up. A line of lights ran off from the gate construction to the north. More curiously, every few minutes a flaming arrow soared into the night sky. For more than an hour, Drizzt measured the signal flares against the movements of the moon and the small star that chased it, and it wasn't long before he was nodding in admiration.

"Not random," he informed Innovindil. "They have devised a coded system of signaling."

For a long while, the elf didn't respond. Then she asked, "Is this how kingdoms are born?"

The next day dawned warmer and with less of a wind, so Drizzt and Innovindil wasted no time in getting their flying horses up into the air. They set down soon after, moving into position on the bluffs above the gate construction, and soon realized that their suppositions were right on the mark. The ores continued to coordinate the deconstruction of the protective barriers to the south with the construction of the more sophisticated gate. The caravan they'd first spotted arrived soon after, laden with supplies for the workers, and that, too, seemed quite extraordinary to the two onlookers.

No typically ore squabbling came from below regarding the food and drink; it was passed out in an orderly fashion, with enough set aside to feed those ores still working in the south upon their return.

Even more curiously, the guards rotated, with several caravan guards replacing those at the wall, who set out on the return journey to the north. The new guards, too, were dressed in the skull helmets and black tabards that seemed to be the uniform of Obould's minions.

Intrigued by the surprising orderliness of the ores, the two elves, moon and drow, moved back from the ledges R.A and put their mounts to the sky once again. They veered along a more northerly route, wanting to more fully explore the continuing organization of the ore army. They noted wooden pyres set on many hilltops-signal fires. They saw other well-guarded caravans moving out along the various trails like the tentacles of a gigantic octopus. The center of that creature, a huge encampment, was not hard to find.

They flew beyond it, continuing more north than west, and found new construction everywhere. Clusters of stone houses and incomplete walls showed across every snow-covered lea, and every other hilltop, it seemed, was set with the base stones of a new, fortified keep.

"Word does not spread quickly among the ores, it would seem," Innovindil said when they landed in a secluded vale.

Drizzt didn't reply, but his doubting expression spoke volumes. All those ores couldn't still be ignorant of an event as momentous as the fall of Obould Many-Arrows. Could it be that the cohesion Obould had spawned among his people would outlast him?

That possibility rattled Drizzt to his bones. The decapitation of the ore army, the death of Obould, was supposed to work like a cancer on the stupid beasts. Surely infighting and selfishness would destroy the integrity of their enemies. The nature of ores would accomplish what Bruenor's army had not been able to.

"The tale is early in the telling," Innovindil said, and Drizzt realized that his fears played out on his face.

"Not so early."

"Our enemies have not been tested since Obould's fall," Innovindil said. "Neither by sword nor winter's fury."

"They are preparing for both, it would seem."

Innovindil touched her hand to the drow's shoulder, and he looked into her blue eyes. "Do not abandon hope," she reminded him. "Nor make judgments on things we cannot yet know. How will these remainders of the ore too army fare when winter comes on in full? How will they manage when some tribe or another decides that it is time to return to the safety of its mountain hole? Will the others try to stop the retreat, and if they do, if ores begin to battle ores, how long will it take for the entire mass to feed upon itself?"

Drizzt glanced back to the distant trails and the working ores and let his gaze linger there for some time. "It is too early to make a judgment," he finally agreed. "Let us go to the west and finish our task. Perhaps the day will shine brighter upon our return."

Innovindil took his hand and walked him back to the waiting pegasi, and soon they were on their way again, flying due west, the miles to Luskan rolling out below them. They set their course and held it true, and they each tried to hold on to their reasoning that the events around them were not likely indicative of what they would find upon their return.

But they each glanced to the sides, and watched the continuing progress and cohesion of an ore force that was supposed to be disintegrating.

The sights of that day, the signal fires and coordinated flares of that night, and the sights of the next day, until they broke clear of the ores in the Haunted Pass to the west, did not bolster their confidence.

As a minor noble in a major House of Menzoberranzan, Tos'un Anngo had done many years of battle training at Melee-Magthere, the school of warriors. He had served under the brutal and legendary weapons master, Uthe-gental, who had distinguished himself among drow warriors with his fearsome, offensive style of battle. Never known for his subtlety, what Uthegental lacked in finesse he made up for in sheer strength and ferocity, and the Barrison del'Aringo warriors he commanded learned to strike hard and strike fast.

Tos'un was no exception. So when he descended upon a caravan of ores, Khazid'hea in his right hand and a second sword in his left, he did not hesitate. He came down from on high in a great leap, stabbed out with his left as he landed beside the lead ore, then spun across with Khazid'hea and cut the foolish creature shoulder to hip. A sudden reversal and backhand sent Khazid'hea slashing at the next ore in line, who lifted a sack of supplies to block.

The blade, with an edge as fine as any in all the world, slid in and out of the bag, through the ore's raised arm, and into its surprised face with such ease Tos'un wasn't even sure he had hit the creature.

Until, that is, it fell in a blood-spraying heap.

Tos'un planted his foot on the fallen ore as he leaped forward, scoring another kill by stabbing Khazid'hea through the planks of the caravan's lead cart and into the chest of the ore that had leaped behind it for cover.

More! the sentient sword screamed in his head. It sent waves of rage at the drow, telepathic impartations that agitated him and drove him on with fury.

A pair of ores moved to intercept, their swords out level to hinder him.

Out went Tos'un's second sword, tapping across left to right under the blade of the ore on his right. He rolled it under and tapped the underside of the other ore blade, then back again to the right and back to the left in a series of light parries. The ores didn't resist, for the hits were not strong, but neither did they realize that the drow was walking their blades up ever so slightly.

Tos'un stopped in mid-swing and tossed his second sword into the air to fly between the surprised ores. In the same fluid movement, the drow dropped low and spun, slipping forward to one knee and ducking under the ores' blades. Khazid'hea ripped across, shearing thick belts and leather tabards as if they were made of parchment.

Both ores howled and fell away, grabbing at their spilling entrails.

Khazid'hea howled, too, but in pleasure-in Tos'un's head.

Another pair of guards came at the drow, each circling to the side and prodding at him with metal-tipped spears. He analyzed their movements and ran through an internal debate about how to proceed, where to parry and which counter to follow through.

When the thrust came, Tos'un proved more than ready. With his superior agility and speed, he slipped his foot back and half-turned, dodging the stab that passed behind him and slapping aside the one in front.

One step forward had him in range, and Khazid'hea tasted more ore blood.

The other foolish ore pursued the drow from behind, and Tos'un executed a brilliant backhand, behind-the-back deflection with his more mundane blade, spun following his own blade as he continued to force the spear aside, and bore in to put Khazid'hea through the ore's heart.

The sword flooded Tos'un with appreciation.

The drow saw an opening to the left, where an ore began scrambling away. He started that way but then cut back having seen a pair of ores running right, abandoning the wagon to save their lives. He took a few steps in pursuit, but his delay had cost him any chance of catching them quickly, so he sheathed his swords and went to the carts instead to realize the spoils.

Khazid'hea went silent, but the sword was more intrigued than pleased. Tos'un was a fine wielder, a solid drow warrior, certainly superior to the human woman who had wielded the sword for several years before, a female warrior who too often favored her bow-a coward's weapon-over Khazid'hea's magnificent blade.

We have much to learn from each other, the sword related in Tos'un's thoughts.

The drow glanced down at Khazid'hea's hilt, and the sword could sense his trepidation.

You do not trust your instinctive warrior self, the sword explained.

Tos'un put down the food he had found and drew Khazid'hea from its sheath, holding the gleaming blade up before his red eyes.

You think too much, the sword imparted.

Tos'un paused for a bit, then re-sheathed the blade and went back to his food.

That was good enough for the time being, Khazid'hea believed. The drow had not dismissed the suggestion. The sword would be more prepared in their next fight to help the dark elf achieve a state of more fluid concentration, of heightened awareness, in which he could trust in his abilities, and fully understand his limitations.

Not long before, Khazid'hea had been wielded by Drizzt Do'Urden, a champion among drow. That dark elf had easily dismissed any of the sentient weapon's intrusions because he had achieved a perfect warrior state of mind, an instantaneous recognition of his enemies and evaluation of their abilities. Drizzt moved without conscious consideration, moved in a manner that perfectly blended his thoughts and actions.

Khazid'hea had felt that warrior instinct, the concentration that elevated Drizzt above even a superbly trained warrior such as Tos'un Armgo. The sentient sword had studied its wielder intently in the fight between Drizzt and Obould, and Khazid'hea had learned from the master.

And the sword meant to teach that technique to Tos'un. Though this drow would never be as powerful in heart and will as Drizzt Do'Urden, that was a good thing. For without that inner determination and overblown moral compass even as he gained in physical prowess, Tos'un would not be able to deny Khazid'hea, as had Drizzt. The sword could make Tos'un as physically formidable, but without the dead weight of free will.

Khazid'hea could not settle for second best.

"You have been very quiet these last days," Innovindil remarked to Drizzt when they pulled up to set their camp for the night.

The smell of brine filled their nostrils and the sunset that night shone at them across the great expanse of dark waters rolling in toward the Sword Coast. The weather had held and they put hundreds of miles behind them much more quickly than they'd anticipated. The two elves even dared to hope that, if good fortune held, they could be back in Mithral Hall before winter came on in full, before the deep snows filled Keeper's Dale and the icy winds forced them to travel exclusively on the ground. In the air, the pegasi could cover thirty miles in a single day with ease, and those thirty miles were in a direct line to their goal, not winding around hillocks or following rivers for hours and hours until a ford could be found. On the ground, along the winding trails and empty terrain of the wilderness, where they had to beware of monsters and wild beasts, they would be lucky to travel ten miles in any given day, and luckier still if more than a third of those were actually in the direction of their goal.

"Our progress has been amazing," Innovindil went on when Drizzt, standing on a bluff and staring out at the sea, made no move to reply. "Rillifain is with us," she said, referring to an elf forest god, one of the deities of her Moonwood clan. "His calming breath is keeping the wintry blows at bay, that we might recover Ellifain and return with all speed."

She continued on, speaking of the god Rillifain Ral-lathil and the various tales associated with him. The sun's lower rim seemed to touch the distant water and still she talked. The sky turned a rich blue as the fiery orb disappeared behind the waves, and she realized that Drizzt was not listening, that he had not been listening to her at all.

"What is it?" she said, moving up beside him. She asked again a moment later, and forced him to look at her.

"Are you all right, my friend?" Innovindil asked.

"What did Obould know that we do not?" Drizzt asked in reply.

Innovindil took a step back, her fair elf face scrunching up, for he had caught her off guard.

"Are there good ores and bad ores, do you suppose?" Drizzt went on.

"Good ores?"

"You are surprised that a goodly dark elf would ask such a question?"

Innovindil's eyes snapped open wide at that, and she stuttered over a reply until Drizzt let her off the hook with a disarming grin.

"Good ores," he said.

"Well I am sure that I do not know. I have never met one of goodly disposition."

"How would you know if you had?"

"Well then perhaps there are such creatures as goodly ores," an obviously flustered Innovindil conceded. "I'm sure I wouldn't know, but I'm also sure that if such beasts exist, they are not the norm for that race. Perhaps a few, but which are more predominant, your mythical goodly ore or those bent on evil?"

"It does not matter."

"Your friend King Bruenor would not likely agree with you this time."

«."No, no," Drizzt said, shaking his head. "If there are goodly ores, even a few, would that not imply that there are varying degrees of conscience within the ore heart and mind? If there are goodly ores, even a few, does that not foster hope that the race itself will move toward civilization, as did the elves and the dwarves… the halflings, gnomes, and humans?"

Innovindil stared at him as if she didn't understand.

"What did Obould know that we do not?" Drizzt asked again.

"Are you suggesting some goodness within King Obould Many-Arrows?" Innovindil asked with an unmistakably sharp edge to her voice.

Drizzt took a deep breath and held his next thoughts in check as he considered the feelings of his friend Innovindil, who had watched her lover cleaved in half by Obould.

"The ores are holding their discipline and creating the boundaries of their kingdom even without him," Drizzt said, and he looked back out to sea. "Were they ready to forge their own kingdom? Is that the singular longing Obould tapped into to rouse them from their holes?"

"They will fall to fighting each other, tribe against tribe," Innovindil replied, and her voice still held a grating edge to it. "They will feed upon each other until they are no more than a crawling mass of hopeless fools. Many will run back to their dark holes, and those that do not will wish that they had when King Bruenor comes forth, and when my people from the Moonwood join in the slaughter."

"What if they don't?"

"You doubt the elves?"

"Not them," Drizzt clarified, "the ores. What if the ores do not fall to fighting amongst themselves? Suppose a new Obould rises among them, holding their discipline and continuing the fortification of this new kingdom?"

"You can't believe that."

"I offer a possibility, and if so, a question that all of us-from Silverymoon to Sundabar, Nesm to Mithral Hall, the Moonwood to Citadels Felbarr and Adbar- would be wise to answer carefully."

Innovindil considered that for a moment then said, "Very well then, I grant you your possibility. If the ores do not retreat, what do we do?"

"A question we must answer."

"The answer seems obvious."

"Kill them, of course."

"They are ores," Innovindil replied.

"Would it truly be wiser for us to wage war upon them to drive them back?" Drizzt asked. "Or might allowing them their realm help foster any goodness that is within them? Allow it to blossom, for if they are to hold a kingdom, must they not necessarily find some measure of civilization? And would not the needs of such a civilization favor the wise over the strong?"

Innovindil's expression showed that she wasn't taking him very seriously, and truthfully, as he heard the words leaving his own mouth, Drizzt Do'Urden couldn't help but think himself a bit mad. Still, he knew he had to finish the thought, felt that he needed to speak it out clearly so that the notion might help him to sort things out in his own jumbled mind.

"If we are to believe in the general goodness of elf society-or dwarf, or human-it is because we believe that these peoples are able to progress toward goodness. Surely there are ample atrocities in all our respective histories, and still occurring today. How many wars have the humans waged upon each other?"

"One," Innovindil answered, "without end."

Drizzt smiled at the unexpected support and said, "But we believe that each of our respective people move toward goodness, yes? The humans, elves, dwarves-"

"And drow?"

Drizzt could only shrug at that notable exception and continue, "Our optimism is based on a general principle that things get better, that we get better. Are we wrong- shortsighted and foolish-to view the ores as incapable of such growth?"

Innovindil stared at him.

"To our own loss?" Drizzt asked.

The elf still could not answer. -Are we limiting our own understanding of these creatures we view as our enemies by thinking of them as no more than a product of their history?" Drizzt pressed. "Do we err, to our own loss, in thinking them incapable of creating their own civilization?"

"You presume that the civilization they have created over the eons is somehow contrary to their nature," Innovindil finally managed to say.

Drizzt shrugged and allowed, "You could be correct."

"Would you unfasten your sword belt and walk into an ore enclave in the hopes that they will be 'enlightened ores' and therefore will not slaughter you?"

"Of course not," Drizzt admitted. "But again, what did Obould know that we do not? If the ores do not cannibalize themselves, then by the admission of the council that convened in Mithral Hall, we have little hope of driving them back from the lands they have claimed."

"But neither will they move forward," Innovindil vowed.

"So they are left with this kingdom they claim as their own," said Drizzt. "And that realm will only thrive with trade and exchange with those other kingdoms around them."

Innovindil flashed him that incredulous look yet again.

"It is mere musing," Drizzt replied with a quiet grin. "I do that often."

"You are suggesting-"

"Nothing," Drizzt was quick to interrupt. "I am only wondering if a century hence-or two, or three-Obould's legacy might prove one that none of us has yet considered."

"Ores living in harmony with elves, humans, dwarves, and halflings?"

"Is there not a city to the east, in the wilds of Vaasa, comprised entirely of half-ores?" Drizzt asked. "A city that swears allegiance to the paladin king of the Bloodstone Lands?"

"Palishchuk, yes," the elf admitted. "They are descendants, one and all, of creatures akin to Obould."

"Yours are words of hope, and yet they do not echo pleasingly in my thoughts." "Tarathiel's death is too raw."

Innovindil shrugged.

"I only wonder if it is possible that there is more to these ores than we allow," Drizzt said. "I only wonder if our view of one aspect of the ores, dominant though it may be, clouds our vision of other possibilities."

Drizzt let it go at that, and turned back to stare out to sea.

Innovindil surprised him, though, when she added, "Was this not the same error that Ellifain made concerning Drizzt Do'Urden?"

– — A stream of empty white noise filled Tos'un's thoughts as he worked his spinning way through the ore encampment. He slashed and he stabbed, and ores fell away. He darted one way and cut back the other, never falling into a predictable routine. Everything was pure reaction for the dark elf, as if some rousing music carried him along, shifting his feet, moving his hands. What he heard and what he saw blended into a singular sensation, a complete awareness of his surroundings. Not at a conscious level, though, for at that moment of perfect clarity, Tos'un, paradoxically, was conscious of nothing and everything all at once.

His left-hand blade, a drow made sword, constantly turned, Tos'un altering its angle accordingly to defeat any attacks that might come his way. At one point as he leaped to the side of a stone then sprang away, that sword darted out to his left and deflected a thrown spear, then came back in to slap a second missile, turning the spear sidelong so that it rolled harmlessly past him as he continued on his murderous way.

As defensive as that blade was, his other, Khazid'hea, struck out hungrily. Five ores lay dead in the dark elfs wake, with two others badly wounded and staggering, and Khazid'hea had been the instrument of doom for all seven.

–

The sentient sword would not suffer its companion blade the pleasure of a kill.

The ambush of the ore camp had come fast and furious, with three of the ores going down before the others had even known of the assault. None in the camp of a dozen ores had been able to formulate any type of coordinated defense against Tos'un's blistering pace, and the last two kills had come in pursuit of fleeing ores.

Still, despite the lack of true opposition, Khazid'hea felt that Tos'un was fighting much better this day, much more efficiently and more reflexively. He wasn't near the equal of Drizzt Do'Urden yet, Khazid'hea knew, but the sword's continual work-blanketing the drow's thoughts with disruptive noise, forcing him to react to his senses with muscular memory and not conscious decisions-had him moving more quickly and more precisely.

Do not think.

That was the message Drizzt Do'Urden had taught to Khazid'hea, and the one that the sentient sword subtly imparted to Tos'un Armgo.

Do not think.

His reflexes and instincts would carry him through.

Breathing hard from the whirlwind of fury, Tos'un paused beside the wooden tripod the ores had used to suspend a kettle above a cooking fire. No spears came at him, and no enemies showed themselves. The drow surveyed his handiwork, the line of dead ores and the pair still struggling, squirming, and groaning. Enjoying the sounds of their agony, Tos'un did not move to finish them.

He replayed his movements in his mind, mentally retracing his steps, his leaps and his attacks. He had to look over by the boulder to confirm that he had indeed picked a pair of spears from mid-air.

There they lay in the dirt by the stone.

Tos'un shook his head, not quite understanding what had just happened. He had given in to his rage and hunger.

He thought back to Melee-Magthere. He had been a rather unremarkable student, and as such a disappointment to mighty Uthegental. At the school, one of the primary lessons was to let go of conscious thought and let the body react as it was trained to do.

Never before had Tos'un truly appreciated those lessons.

Standing amidst the carnage, Tos'un came to recognize the difference between ordinary drow warriors-still potent by the standards of any race-and the weapons masters.

He understood that he had fought that one battle as one such as Uthegental might have: a perfect harmony of instinct and swords, with every movement just a bit quicker than normal for him.

Though Tos'un didn't know how he had achieved that level of battle prowess, and wondered if he could do it again, he could tell without doubt that Khazid'hea was pleased.

– — Sinnafain moved from cover to cover amidst the ruined ore encampment. She paused behind a boulder then darted to the side of a lean-to where a pair of ores lay dead. That vantage point also afforded her a wide view of the trails to the west, the direction in which the dark elf had fled.

She scanned for a few seconds, her keen elf eyes picking out any movement, no matter how slight. A chipmunk scurried along some stones about thirty feet from her. To the side, a bit farther along, a breeze kicked up some dried leaves and sent them twirling above the snowy blanket. The drow was nowhere to be seen.

Sinnafain scampered to the next spot, the overturned cooking tripod. She crouched low behind the meager cover it offered and again paused.

The breeze brought wisps of flame from the dying embers beside her, but that was the only life in the camp. Nodding, the elf held up her fist, the signal to her companions.

Like a coven of ghosts the moon elves appeared from all around the dead camp, drifting in silently, as if floating, their white and dark brown cloaks blurring their forms against the wintry background.

"Seven kills and the rest sent running," remarked Albondiel, the leader of the patrol. "This drow is cunning and fast."

"As is his sword," another of the group of five added. When the others looked at him, he showed them one of the dead ores, its arm severed, its heavy wooden shield cleanly cut in half.

"A mighty warrior, no doubt," Sinnafain said. "Is it possible that we've found a second Drizzt Do'Urden?"

"Obould had drow in his ranks as well," Albondiel reminded her.

"This one is killing ores," she replied. "With abandon."

"Have drow ever been selective in their victims?" one of the others asked.

"I know of at least one who seems to be," Sinnafain was quick to remind. "I will not make the same errors as did my cousin Ellifain. I will not prejudge and be blinded by the whispers of reputation."

"Many victims have likely uttered similar statements," Albondiel said to her, but when she snapped her disapproving glare at him, she was calmed by his grin.

"Another Drizzt?" he asked rhetorically, and he shrugged. "If he is, then good for us. If not…"

"Then ill for him," Sinnafain finished for him, and Albondiel nodded and assured her, "We will know soon enough."

Drizzt brushed the last of the cold dirt away, fully revealing the blanket. Beneath it lay the curled form of Ellifain, the misguided elf who had posed as the male Le'Lorinel, and who had tried to kill him in her rage.

Drizzt stood and stared down at the hole and the wrapped body. She lay on her side, her legs tucked to her chest. She seemed very small to Drizzt, like a baby.

If he could take back one strike in all his life…

He glanced over his shoulder to see Innovindil fiddling with one of the saddlebags on Sunset. The elf produced a silver censer set on a triangle of thin, strong chains. Next came a sprinkler, silver handled, green-jeweled, and with a bulbous head set with a grid of small holes.

Innovindil went back to the saddlebag for the oil and the incense, and Drizzt looked at Ellifain. He replayed again the last moments of the poor elfs life, which would have been the last moments of his own life as well had not Bruenor and the others come barging in to his rescue, healing potion in hand.

His reputation had been her undoing, he knew. She could not stand to suffer his growing fame as a drow of goodly heart, because in her warped memories of that brutal evening those decades before, she saw Drizzt as just another of the vile dark elves who had slaughtered her parents and so many of their friends. Drizzt had saved Ellifain on that long-ago night by covering her with the blood and body of her slain mother, but the poor elf girl, too young on that night to remember, had never accepted that story.

Her anger had consumed her, and in a cruel twist of fate, Drizzt had been forced to inadvertently destroy that which he had once saved.

So intent was he as he looked down upon her and considering the winding roads that had so tragically brought them crashing together, Drizzt didn't even notice Innovindil's quiet song as she paced around the grave, sprinkling magical oil of preservation and swaying the censer out over the hole so that its scent would mask the smell of death.

Innovindil prayed to the elf gods with her song, bidding them to rescue Ellifain from her rage and confusion.

When Drizzt heard his own name he listened more intently to the elf s song. Innovindil bade the gods to let Ellifain look down upon the dark elf Drizzt, and see and learn the truth of his heart.

She finished her song so melodiously and quietly that her voice seemed to merge with, to become one with, the night-time breeze. The notes of that wind-driven song carried InnovindiFs tune long afterward.

She bade Drizzt to help her then gracefully slipped into the hole beside Ellifain. Together they brought the corpse out and placed a clean second blanket around her, wrapping her tightly and tying it off.

"Do you believe that she is at peace?" Drizzt asked when they were done, both standing back from the body, hand-in-hand.

"In her infirmity, she remained worthy of Corellon's gentle hand."

After a moment, she looked at Drizzt and saw the uncertainty clear upon his handsome features.

"You do not doubt that," she said. "You doubt Corellon himself."

Still Drizzt did not answer.

"Is it Corellon specifically?" Innovindil asked. "Or does Drizzt Do'Urden doubt the very existence of an afterlife?"

The question settled uncomfortably on Drizzt's shoulders, for it took him to places he rarely allowed his pragmatic views to go.

"I do not know," he replied somberly. "Do any of us really know?"

"Ghosts have been seen, and conversed with. The dead have walked the world again, have they not? With tales to tell of their time in the worlds beyond."

"We presume ghosts to be… ghosts," Drizzt replied. "And those returned from the dead are vague, at best, from all that I have heard. Such practices were not unknown among the noble Houses of Menzoberranzan, though it was said that to pull a soul from the embrace of Lolth was to invoke her wrath. Still, are their tales anything more than cloudy dreams?"

Innovindil squeezed his hand and paused for a long while, conceding his point. "Perhaps we believe because to do otherwise is self-defeating, the road to despair. But surely there are things we cannot explain, like the crackling magic about us. If this life is finite, even the long years an elf might know then…"

"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 ore 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 ore 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 ore jerked again then came forward. Tos'un started to move to block, but recognized that it was no attack. He stepped aside as the ore 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, 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. lean aid you in that, Khazid'hea explained, sensing his confusion and anticipating his question. True deception is a state of mind-even in the face of magical detection.

"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 altered 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 ores for their rotten foodstuffs, or venturing back into the wilds of the Under-dark 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 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.

He shuddered as he considered the brutal death of his lost drow friend, the priestess Kaer'lic. Obould had bitten out her throat.

We can defeat him, Khazid'hea interrupted. You can slay Obould and take his armies as your own. His kingdom will be yours!

Tos'un had to work hard to stop himself from laughing out loud, and his incredulity served as a calming blanket over the excited sword. With or without Khazid'hea, there was no way Tos'un Armgo would willingly do battle with the powerful ore king.

The drow considered the road to the Underdark again. He remembered the way, but would it be possible for him to battle back to Menzoberranzan? The mere thought of the journey had him shuddering yet again.

That left him with the elves. The hated surface elves, the traditional enemies of his people-might he really find a place among them? He wanted to kill them, every one, almost as badly as did his always-hungry sword, but he knew that acting on such an impulse would leave him without any options at all.

Is it possible that I will find my place among them? he asked the sword. Might Tos'un become the next Drizzt Do'Urden, a rogue from the Underdark living in peace among the surface races?

The sword didn't reply, but the drow sensed that it was not amused. So Tos'un let his own thoughts follow that unlikely course. What might his life be like if he played along with the surface elves? He eyed a female as he wondered, and thought that bedding her might not be a bad thing. And after all, among the surface elves, unlike in his own matriarchal society, he would not be limited by his gender.

But would he always be limited by his ebon skin?

Drizzt wasn't, he reminded himself. From everything he had learned over the past days, Tos'un knew that Drizzt lived quite well not only with the surface elves but with dwarves as well.

Could it be that Drizzt Do'Urden has created a path that I might similarly follow?

You hate these elves, Khazid'hea replied. can taste your venom.

But that does not mean that I cannot accept their hospitality, for my own sake and not for theirs.

Will you stop fighting?

Again Tos'un nearly laughed out loud, for he understood that the only thing Khazid'hea cared about was wetting its magnificent blade with fresh blood.

With them, I will slaughter Obould's ugly kin, he promised, and the sword seemed to calm.

And if I hunger for an elfs blood?

In time, Tos'un replied. When I grow tired of them, or when I find another more promising road…

It was all new, of course, and all speculative. The drow couldn't be certain of anything just then, nor was he working from any position of power that offered him true choices. But the inner dialogue and the possibilities he saw before him were not unpleasant. For the time being, that was enough.

Drizzt stood, hands on hips, staring in disbelief at the signpost:

BEWARE! HALT! The Kingdom of Many-Arrows Enter on word of King Obould Or enter and die!

It was written in many languages, including Elvish and Common, and its seemingly simple message conveyed so much more to Drizzt and Innovindil. They had spent a month or more traversing the wintry terrain to return to that spot, the same trail on which they had seen the ores constructing a formidable gate. That gate, which they had already carefully observed some fifty feet farther along the path to the north, showed design and integrity that would make a dwarf engineer proud.

"They have not left. Their cohesion remains," Drizzt stated.

"And they proclaim their king as Obould, and their kingdom takes his surname," Innovindil added. "It would seem that the unusual ore's vision outlasted his breath."

Drizzt shook his head, though he had no practical answers against her obvious observation. Still, it didn't make sense to him, for it was not the way of the ores.

After a long while, Innovindil said, "Come, the night will be colder and a storm is brewing. Let us be on our way."

Drizzt glanced back at her and nodded, though his thoughts were still focused on that sign and its implications.

"We can make Mithral Hall long before sunset," he asked.

"I wish to cross the Surbrin," Innovindil replied, and as she spoke she led Drizzt's gaze to the form of Ellifain strapped over Sunset's back, "to the Moonwood first, if you would agree."

With the weather holding and the sun still bright, though black clouds gathered in the northeast, they flew through Keeper's Dale and past the western door of King Bruenor's domain. Both of them took comfort in seeing that the gates remained solid and closed.

They crossed around the southern side of the main mountain of the dwarven homeland, then past the wall and bridge that had been built east of the complex. Several dwarf sentries spotted them and recognized them after a moment of apparent panic. Drizzt returned their waves and heard his name shouted from below.

Over the great river, partially covered in ice and its steel gray waters flowing swiftly and angrily, they set down, their shadows long before them.

The land was secure. Obould's minions had not pressed their attack, and predictably, as their campfire flared in the dark of night, the snow beginning to fall, they were visited by a patrol of elves, Innovindil's own people scouting the southern reaches of their domain.

There was much rejoicing and welcoming. The elves joined in song and dance, and Drizzt went along with it all, his smile genuine.

The storm grew stronger, the wind howling, but the troupe, nestled in the embrace of a thick stand of pines, were not deterred in their celebration, their joy at the return of Innovindil, and their somber satisfaction that poor Ellifain had come home.

Soon after, Innovindil recounted the journey to her kin, telling them of her disappointment and surprise to see that the ores had not gone home to their dark holes after the fall of King Obould.

"But Obould is not dead," one of the elves replied, and Innovindil and her drow companion sat intrigued and quiet.

Another elf stepped forward to explain, "We have found a kin of yours, Drizzt Do'Urden, striking at the ores much as you once did. His name is Tos'un."

Drizzt felt as if the wind, diminished as it was through the thick boughs of the pines, might just blow him over. He had killed two other dark elves in the fight with Obould's invading army, and had seen at least two more in his personal battle. In fact, one of those drow, a priestess, had brought forth a magical earthquake that had sent both Drizzt and the ore king tumbling, Drizzt, with good fortune, to a ledge not far below, and Obould, so Drizzt had thought, into a deep ravine where he surely would have met his demise. Might this Tos'un be one of those who had watched Drizzt's battle with the ore king?

"Obould is alive," the elf said again. "He walked from the carnage of the landslide."

Drizzt didn't think it possible, but given what he had seen of the ore army, could he truly deny the claim?

"Where is this Tos'un?" he asked, his voice no more than a whisper.

"Across the Surbrin to the north, far from here," the elf explained. "He fights beside Albondiel and his patrol, and fights well by all reports."

"You have become accepting," Drizzt remarked.

"We have been given good reason."

Drizzt was hardly convinced.

He is in the Moonwood, Khazid'hea reminded Tos'un one brilliant and brutally cold morning.

They were still out across the Surbrin, in the northern stretches of the newly-proclaimed Kingdom of Many-Arrows, just south of the towering easternmost peaks of the Spine of the World. The drow tried not to respond, but his thoughts flickered back to Sinnafain's announcement to him that Drizzt Do'Urden had returned from the west and stopped in the Moonwood.

He saw you on that day he battled Obould, Khazid'hea warned. He knows you were in league with the ores.

He saw two drow, Tos'un corrected. And from afar. He cannot know for certain that it was me.

And if he does? His eyes are much more attuned to the glare of the sun than are yours. Do not underestimate his understanding. He did battle with two of your companions, as well. You cannot know what Drizzt might have learned from them before he slew them.

Tos'un slid the sword away and glanced around the ring of boulders fronting the shallow cave that he and the elves had taken for their camp the previous night. He had suspected that Drizzt had been involved in the fall of Donnia Soldue and Adnon Khareese, but the sword's confirmation jarred him.

You will exact vengeance for your dead friends? Khazid'hea asked, and there was something in the sword's telepathy that led him to understand the folly of that course. In truth, Tos'un wanted no battle with the legendary rogue that had so upset the great city of Menzoberranzan. Kaer'lic had feared that Drizzt was actually in Lolth's favor, as chaos seemed to widen in his destructive wake, but even if that were not the case, the rogue's reputation still brought shudders up Tos'un's spine.

Could he bluff his way past Drizzt's doubts or would the rogue just cut him down?

Good, Khazid'hea purred in his thoughts. You understand that this is not a battle you are ready to fight. The sword led his gaze to Sinnafain, sitting on a rock not far away and staring out at the wide valley beyond.

Kill her quickly and let us be gone, Khazid'hea offered. The others are out or deep in Reverie-they will not arrive in time to stop you.

Despite his reservations, Tos'un's hand closed on the sword's hilt. But he let go almost immediately.

Drizzt will not strike me down. I can dissuade him. He will accept me.

At the very least, he will demand my return, Khazid'hea protested, so that he can give me back to that human woman.

I will not allow that.

How will you prevent it? And how will Tos'un answer the calls of the priests when Khazid'hea is not helping him to defeat their truth-seeking spells?

We are beyond that point, the drow replied.

Not if I betray you, the sword warned.

Tos'un sucked in his breath and knew he was caught. The thought of going back out alone in the winter cold did not sit well with him, but he had no answer for the wretched sword.

Nor was he willing to surrender Khazid'hea, to Drizzt or to anyone. Tos'un understood that his lighting skills were improving because of the tutoring of the blade, and few weapons in the world possessed a finer edge. Still, he did not doubt Khazid'hea's estimation that he was not ready to do battle with the likes of Drizzt Do'Urden.

Hardly aware of the movements, the drow walked up behind Sinnafain.

"It is a beautiful day, but the wind will keep us about the cave," she said, and Tos'un caught most of the words and her meaning. He was a quick student, and the Elvish language was not so different from that of the drow, with many similar words and word roots, and an identical structure.

She turned on the rock to face him just as he struck.

The world must have seemed to spin for Sinnafain. She lay on the ground, the drow standing above her, his deadly sword's tip at her chin, forcing her to arch her neck.

Kill her! Khazid'hea demanded.

Tos'un's mind raced. He wanted to plunge his sword into her throat and head. Or maybe he should take her hostage. She would be a valuable bargaining chip, and one that would afford him many pleasures before it was spent, to be sure.

But to what end?

Kill her! Khazid'hea screamed in his mind.

Tos'un eased the blade back and Sinnafain tilted her chin down and looked at him. The terror in her blue eyes felt good to him, and he almost pulled the sword back, just to give her some hope, before reversing and cutting out her throat.

But to what end?

Kill her!

"I am not your enemy, but Drizzt will not understand," Tos'un heard himself saying, though his command of the language was so poor that Sinnafain's face screwed up in confusion.

"Not your enemy," he said slowly, focusing on the words. "Drizzt will not understand."

He shook his head in frustration, reached down, and removed the helpless elfs weapons, tossing them far aside. He jerked Sinnafain to her feet and shoved her away, Khazid'hea at her back. He glanced back at the cave a few times, but soon was far enough away to understand that no pursuit would be forthcoming.

He spun Sinnafain around and forced her to the ground. "I am not your enemy," he said yet again.

Then, to Khazid'hea's supreme outrage, Tos'un Armgo ran away.

"It is Catti-brie's sword," Drizzt said when Sinnafain told him the tale of Tos'un a few days later, when she and her troupe returned to the Moonwood. "He was one of the pair I saw when I did battle with Obould."

"Our spells of truth-seeking did not detect his lie, or any malice," Sinnafain argued.

"He is drow," Innovindil put in. "They are a race full of tricks."

But Sinnafain's simple response, "He did not kill me," mitigated much of the weight of that argument.

"He was with Obould," Drizzt said again. "I know that several drow aided the ore king, even prompted his attack." He looked over at Innovindil, who nodded her agreement.

"I will find him," Drizzt promised.

"And kill him?" Sinnafain asked.

Drizzt didn't answer, but only because he managed to bite back the word, "Yes," before it escaped his lips.

– "You understand the concept?" Priest Jallinal asked Innovindil. "The revenant?"

"A spirit with unfinished business, yes," Innovindil replied, and she couldn't keep the tremor out of her voice. The priests would not undertake such a ritual lightly. Normally revenants were thankfully rare, restless spirits of those who had died in great tumult, unable to resolve central questions of their very being. But Ellifain was not a revenant-not yet. In their communion with their gods, the elf priests had come to believe that it would be for the best to create a revenant of Ellifain, something altogether unheard of. They were convinced of their course, though, and with their confidence, and given all that was at stake, Innovindil was hardly about to decline. She, after all, was the obvious choice.

"Possession is not painful," Jallinal assured her. "Not physically. But it is unsettling to the highest degree. You are certain that you can do this?"

Innovindil sat back and glanced out the left side of the wooden structure, to the hut where she knew Drizzt to be. She found herself nodding as she considered Drizzt, the drow she had come to love as a cherished friend. He needed it to happen as much as Ellifain did.

"Be done with it, and let us all rest more comfortably," Innovindil said.

Jallinal and the other clerics began their ritual casting, and Innovindil reclined on the floor pillows and closed her eyes. The magic filtered through her gently, softly, opening the conduit to the spirit the priests called forth. Her consciousness dulled, but was not expelled. Rather, her thoughts seemed as if filtered through those of her former friend, as if she was seeing and hearing everything reflected off the consciousness of Ellifain.

For Ellifain was there with her, she knew, and when her body sat up, it was through Ellifain's control and not Innovindil's.

There was something else, Innovindil recognized, for though it was Ellifain within her body along with her own spirit, her friend was different. She was calm and serene, at peace for the first time. Innovindil's thoughts instinctively questioned the change, and Ellifain answered with memories-memories of a distant past recently brought forth into her consciousness.

The view was cloudy and blocked-by the crook of an arm. Screams of agony and terror rent the air.

She felt warmth, wet warmth, and knew it to be blood.

The sky spun above her. She felt herself falling then landing atop the body of the woman who held her. Ellifain's mother, of course!

Innovindil's mind whirled through the images and sounds-confused, overwhelmed. But then they focused clearly on a single image that dominated her vision: lavender eyes.

Innovindil knew those eyes. She had stared into those same eyes for months.

The world grew darker, warmer, and wetter.

The image faded, and Innovindil understood what Ellifain had been shown in the afterlife: the truth of Drizzt Do'Urden's actions on that horrible night. Ellifain had been shown her error in her single-minded hatred of that dark elf, her mistake in refusing to believe his reported actions in the deadly attack.

Innovindil's body stood up and walked out of the hut, moving with purpose across the way to the hut wherein Drizzt rested. She went through the door without as much as a knock, and there sat Drizzt, looking at her curiously, recognizing, no doubt, that something was amiss.

She moved up and knelt before him. She stared closely into those lavender eyes, those same eyes she, Ellifain, had seen so intimately on the night of her mother's murder. She brought a hand up against Drizzt's cheek, then brought her other hand up so that she held his face, staring at her.

"Innovindil?" he asked, and his voice sounded uncertain. He drew in his breath.

"Ellifain, Drizzt Do'Urden," Innovindil heard her voice reply. "Who you knew as Le'lorinel."

Drizzt labored to catch his breath.

Ellifain pulled his head low and kissed him on the forehead, holding him there for a long, long while.

Then she pulled him back to arms length. Innovindil felt the warm wetness of tears rolling down her cheeks.

"I know now," Ellifain whispered.

Drizzt reached up and clasped her wrists. He moved his lips as if to respond, but no words came forth.

"I know now," Ellifain said again. She nodded and rose, then walked out of the hut.

Innovindil felt it all so keenly. Her friend was at last at peace.

The smile that was stamped upon Drizzt's face was as genuine as any he had ever worn. The tears on his cheeks were wrought of joy and contentment.

He knew that a troubled road lay ahead for him and for his friends. The ores remained, and he had to deal with a dark elf wielding the ever-deadly Khazid'hea.

But those obstacles seemed far less imposing to Drizzt Do'Urden that morning, and when Innovindil-the whole and unpossessed Innovindil-came to him and wrapped him in a hug, he felt as if nothing in all the world was amiss.

For Drizzt Do'Urden trusted his friends, and with the forgiveness and serenity of Ellifain, Drizzt Do'Urden again trusted himself.