The captain hadn't believed the charge then—that was the only reason Wulfgar was still alive—though he had recognized that something terrible had happened to the noble warrior, that some unspeakable event had dropped Wulfgar to the bottom of the lowest gutter. Deudermont had been pleased indeed when Wulfgar had arrived at the dock in Waterdeep, asking to come aboard and join the crew, asking Deudermont to help him in retrieving the mighty warhammer that Bruenor Battlehammer had crafted for him.
Now it was clear to the captain, though, that the scars of Wulfgar's pain had not yet fully healed. His charge back there had been reckless and foolish and could have endangered the entire crew. That, Captain Deudermont could not tolerate. He would have to speak with Wulfgar, and sternly.
More than that, the captain decided then and there that he would make finding Sheila Kree and her elusive ship a priority, would get Wulfgar back Aegis-fang, and would put him back ashore in Waterdeep.
To the benefit of all.
Chapter 3 BELLS AND WHISTLES
Great gargoyles leered down from twenty feet; a gigantic stone statue of a humanoid lizard warrior—a golem of some sorts, perhaps, but more likely just a carving—guarded the door, which was set between its wide-spread legs. Just inside that dark opening, a myriad of magical lights danced and floated about, some throwing sparks in a threatening manner.
Le'lorinel was hardly impressed by any of it. The elf knew the schools of magic used by this one, studies that involved illusion and divination, and feared neither. No, E'kressa the Seer's guards and wards did not impress the seasoned warrior. They were more show than substance. Le'lorinel didn't even draw a sword and even removed a shining silver helmet when crossing through that darkened opening and into a circular corridor.
“E'kressa diknomin tue?” the elf asked, using the tongue of the gnomes. Le'lorinel paused at the base of a ladder, waiting for a response.
“E'kressa diknomin tue?” the elf asked again, louder and more insistently.
A response drifted through the air on unseen breezes.
“What adventures dark and fell, await the darker side of Le'lorinel?” came a high-pitched, but still gravelly voice, speaking in the common tongue. “When dark skin splashes blade with red, then shall insatiable hunger be fed? When Le'lorinel has noble drow dead, will he smile, his anger fled?”
Le'lorinel did smile then, at the display of divination, and at the obvious errors.
“May I—?” the elf started to ask.
“Do come up,” came a quick interruption, the tone and abrupt manner telling Le'lorinel that E'kressa wanted to make it clear that the question had been foreseen.
With a chuckle, Le'lorinel trotted up the stairs. At the top, the elf found a door of hanging blue beads, a soft glow coming from behind them. Pushing through brought Le'lorinel into E'kressa's main audience chamber, obviously, a place of many carpets and pillows for sitting, and with arcane runes and artifacts: a skull here, a gigantic bat wing there, a crystal ball set on a pedestal along the wall, a large mirror, its golden edges all of shaped and twisted design.
Never had Le'lorinel seen so many trite wizardly items all piled together in one place, and after years of working with Mahskevic the elf knew indeed that they were minor things, window dressing and nothing more—except, perhaps, for the crystal ball.
Le'lorinel hardly paid them any heed, though, for the elf was watching E'kressa. Dressed in robes of dark blue with red swirling patterns all about them, and a with a gigantic conical hat, the gnome seemed almost a caricature of the classic expectations of a wizard, except, of course, that instead of being tall and imposing, E'kressa barely topped three feet. A large gray beard and bushy eyebrows stuck out from under that hat, and E'kressa tilted his head back, face aimed in the general direction of Le'lorinel, but not as if looking at the elf.
Two pure white orbs showed under those bushy eyebrows.
Le'lorinel laughed out loud. “A blind seer? How perfectly typical.”
“You doubt the powers of my magical sight?” E'kressa replied, raising his arms in threat like the wings of a crowning eagle.
More than you could ever understand,” Le'lorinel casually replied.
E'kressa held the pose for a long moment, but then, in the face of Le'lorinel's relaxed posture and ridiculing smirk, the gnome finally relented. With a shrug, E'kressa reached up and took the phony white lenses out of his sparkling gray eyes.
“Works for the peasants,” the illusionist seer explained. “Amazes them, indeed! And they always seem more eager to drop an extra coin or two to a blind seer.”
“Peasants are easily impressed,” said Le'lorinel. “I am not.”
“And yet I knew of you, and your quest,” E'kressa was fast to point out.
“And you know of Mahskevic, too,” the elf replied dryly.
E'kressa stomped a booted foot and assumed a petulant posture that lasted all of four heartbeats. “You brought payment?” the seer asked indignantly.
Le'lorinel tossed a bag of silver across the expanse to the eager gnome's waiting hands. “Why not just use your incredible powers of divination to get the count?” Le'lorinel asked, as the gnome started counting out the coins.
E'kressa's eyes narrowed so that they were lost beneath the tremendous eyebrows. The gnome waved his hand over the bag, muttered a spell, then a moment later, nodded and put the bag aside. “I should charge you more for making me do that,” he remarked.
“For counting your payment?” Le'lorinel asked skeptically.
“For having to show you yet another feat of my great powers of seeing,” the gnome replied. “For not making you wait while I counted them out.”
“It took little magic to know that the coins would all be there,” the elf responded. “Why would I come here if I had not the agreed upon price?”
“Another test?” the gnome asked.
Le'lorinel groaned.
“Impatience is the folly of humans, not of elves,” E'kressa reminded. “I foresee that if you pursue your quest with such impatience, doom will befall you.”
“Brilliant,” came the sarcastic reply.
“You're not making this easy, you know,” the gnome said in deadpan tones.
“And while I can assure you that I have all the patience I will need to be rid of Drizzt Do'Urden, I do not wish to waste my hours standing here,” said Le'lorinel. “Too many preparations yet await me, E'kressa.”
The gnome considered that for a moment, then gave a simple shrug. “Indeed. Well, let us see what the crystal ball will show to us. The course of your pursuit, we hope, and perhaps whether Le'lorinel shall win or whether he shall lose.” He rambled down toward the center of the room, waddling like a duck, then veered to the crystal ball.
“The course, and nothing more,” Le'lorinel corrected.
E'kressa stopped short and turned about slowly to regard this curious creature. “Most would desire to know the outcome,” he said.
“And yet, I know, as do you, that any such outcome is not predetermined,” Le'lorinel replied.
“There is a probability. .”
“And nothing more than that. And what am I to do, O great seer, if you tell me I shall win my encounter with Drizzt Do'Urden, that I shall slay him as he deserves to be slain and wipe my bloodstained sword upon his white hair?”
“Rejoice?” E'kressa asked sarcastically.
“And what am I to do, O great seer, if you tell me that I shall lose this fight?” Le'lorinel went on. “Abandon that which I can not abandon? Forsake my people and suffer the drow to live?”
“Some people think he's a pretty nice guy.”
“Illusions do fool some people, do they not?” Le'lorinel remarked.
E'kressa started to respond, but then merely sighed and shrugged and continued on his waddling way to the crystal ball. “Tell me your thoughts of the road before you,” he instructed.