I was deluding myself, I now know.
For I hadn’t let go of my dear friends. I hadn’t lost hope that someday, one day, some way, I would raze a giant’s lair beside Wulfgar once more, or would fish beside Regis on a lazy summer’s day on the banks of Maer Dualdon, or I would spend the night in Catti-brie’s warm embrace. I tasked Jarlaxle with finding them, not out of any real hope that he would, but because I couldn’t bear to relinquish the last flicker of hope for these moments, these soft joys, these truest smiles, I once knew.
And now Bruenor is gone and the Companions of the Hall are no more .
I watched him take his last breath. There is closure. There is finality. And only through Bruenor had I kept the dream of Catti-brie and Regis, and even Wulfgar, alive. Only through his determination and steadfastness did I allow myself to believe that somehow, some magical way, they might still be out there. Our journey to Icewind Dale should have disavowed me of that notion, and did so to some extent (and also pushed Bruenor, at long last, into a state of resignation), and whatever little flickers remained within my heart were snuffed out when I watched my dearest friend breathe his last.
So I am alone. The life I had known is ended.
I surely feel the sadness, the regret at things that couldn’t be, the loneliness. At every turn, I want to call out to Bruenor to tell him my news, only to remember that, alas, he is not there. All of it is there, all of the pain that one would expect.
But there is something else, something unexpected, something surprising, something bringing with it more than a bit of confusion and even guilt.
True guilt, and I feel, and fear, myself a cad.
Yet I cannot deny it.
As I turned my back on Gauntlgrym and the grave of King Bruenor Battlehammer, pushing up in my emotions beside the pain and the rage and the helplessness and the replaying of the scenario over and over again to wonder what I might have done differently, was… a deep sense of relief.
I am ashamed to admit this, but to deny it would be to lie, and worse, to lie to myself. For at long last I have a sense of finality. It is time for the past to rest and for me to move forward. It is time, as Innovindil explained to me in a forest far from here, for me to begin anew.
Certainly I’m not relieved that Bruenor has passed. Nor Thibbledorf Pwent, for that matter! A better friend than Bruenor I have never known, and I would wish him back to my side in an instant, were that possible.
But in the larger sense, the greater perspective of my life, there is a sense of relief. I have been ready to let go of Catti-brie and Regis and Wulfgar for a long time now-not to forget them! I’ll never forget them, never want to forget them! They are embedded in my heart and soul and walk with Drizzt Do’Urden every step of his road. But I accepted their loss-my loss-years, even decades, ago, and it was only the stubbornness of an old dwarf, refusing to let go, insisting that they were still to be found and that our wondrous years together would be restored, that forced me, too, to hang on.
I am alone now. I am free? What an awful thought! How disloyal am I, then, to feel any eagerness in looking forward, to a new road, a third life, taking the painful lessons of my first existence in Menzoberranzan along with the wondrous joys of my second life beside the Companions of the Hall. Now I am hardened by the whips of the drow matrons, and softened by the honest love of friends, and settled in what I know is, what should be, and what should never be. As my second life so exceeded my first in joy and purpose, could my third not climb higher yet?
I don’t know, and truly I understand how fortunate I was in finding these four amazing companions to share a road. Will I find such friends, ready to sacrifice all for me, again? Will I love again? Even if I do, will it be the same intensity of that which I knew with Catti-brie?
I know not, but I’m not afraid to find out. That’s my freedom now, to walk my road with eyes wide and heart open, without regret and with a true understanding of how blessed my existence beside these companions has been.
And there is one other freedom now: For the first time in decades, I awaken to discover that I am not angry. Strangely so. I feel as if the rage that has for so long kept my muscles tightened has at last relaxed.
This too stings me with pangs of guilt, and I am sure that those around me will often hear me muttering to myself in confusion. Perhaps I am simply deluding myself. Perhaps the loss of Bruenor has pushed me past the bounds of sensibility, where the level of pain has become intolerable and so I trick myself into something wholly converse.
Perhaps.
Perhaps not.
I can only shrug and wonder.
I can only feel and accept.
I am alone now.
I am free.
– Drizzt Do’Urden
1
Sylora Salm stood outside the ash cloud of the budding Dread Ring, shifting from foot to foot. She knew the stakes. Her scouts had returned confirming her fears: The primordial had been trapped once more by a host of water elementals and the residual magic of the fallen Hosttower of the Arcane. There would be no second eruption of primordial magnitude. The ground was no longer trembling daily beneath her feet.
Her enemies had averted catastrophe.
Sylora stared into the ash and could almost feel it diminish. She had been counting on a volcanic cataclysm to strengthen her magical beast, this Dread Ring that fed upon death.
She continued to shift from foot to foot. If she understood her failure, then so did the being approaching her behind the gray-black veil.
Sylora could hear her heart thumping in her chest. Behind her, Jestry Rallevin, the Ashmadai zealot who had become her closest advisor, swallowed hard.
“I feel him,” he whispered. Jestry Rallevin was no ordinary Ashmadai. Though young, barely into his twenties and quite inexperienced, the man still commanded the attention and respect of all the other zealots, both because of his striking appearance-with his large shoulders, dark hair, and brooding dark eyes-and his willingness to throw himself into the cause with absolute abandon. And he could fight-so perfectly in balance, striking with precision and power. If only she had known of his prowess before the few recent skirmishes with the Netherese forces, Sylora silently lamented. She could have used Jestry to tempt that vile Dahlia and then destroy the witch altogether.
That notion reminded Sylora of Temberle, another strong male consort whom she had shared with Dahlia, and one Dahlia had slain before coming west. She glanced at Jestry, measuring him against Temberle.
No comparison, she believed. This one, a true zealot, would have carved Temberle to pieces had they come to blows. Might he have done, might he do, the same with Dahlia? It was a pleasant and intriguing thought, to be sure.
“Sylora, he’s coming,” Jestry repeated.
Sylora nodded but didn’t reply, afraid to break the muted silence of the dead ash. She had understood the coming of Szass Tam from the moment he had focused his magical energies on her Dread Ring. She slumped her shoulders and waited outside the edge. She wouldn’t go in there to meet him. Within the Dread Ring, the power of Szass Tam was simply too terrible to behold.
Behind her, she heard Jestry licking his lips nervously. She wanted him to stop, desperately so, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him.
An emaciated humanoid under a heavy black hooded robe approached. Somehow he was darker than the Dread Ring through which he glided.
“I haven’t felt the pleasure of a thousand souls crying out their last,” the lich said in his uneven and scratchy voice. Two dots of angry fire within the shades of blackness stared at Sylora and his form wavered, blurred by the swirl of magical ash. “I haven’t felt the strengthening of my new domain, as you promised.”