If Le'lorinel was impressed by the reasoning, it did not show. “The tales of his fighting style and prowess are common in the northland.”
“Common, and likely exaggerated,” Tunevec reminded.
Le'lorinel's bald head was shaking before Tunevec finished the statement, for the elf had many times detailed the prowess of Drizzt to his half-elf sparring partner.
“I pay you well for your participation in these training sessions,” Le'lorinel said. “You would do well to consider every word I have told you about Drizzt Do'Urden to be the truth and to emulate his fighting style to the best of your meager abilities.”
Tunevec, who was naked to the waist, toweled off his thin and muscular frame. He held the towel out to Le'lorinel, who just looked at him with contempt, which was usual after such a failure. The elf walked past, right to the trapdoor that led down to the top floor of the tower.
“Your enchantment of stoneskin is likely used up,” the elf said with obvious disgust.
Alone on the roof, Tunevec gave a helpless chuckle and shook his head. He moved to retrieve his shirt but noted a shimmering in the air before he ever got there. The half-elf paused, watching as old Mahskevic the wizard materialized into view.
“Did you please him this day?” the gray-bearded old man asked in a voice that seemed pulled out of his tight throat. Mahskevic's somewhat mocking smile, full of yellow teeth, showed that he already knew the answer.
“Le'lorinel is obsessed with that one,” Tunevec answered. More so than I would ever have believed possible.”
Mahskevic merely shrugged, as if that hardly mattered. “He has labored for me for more than five years, both to earn the use of my spells and to pay you well,” the wizard reminded. “We searched for many months to even find you, one who seemed promising in being able to emulate the movements of this strange dark elf, Drizzt Do'Urden.”
“Why waste the time, then?” the frustrated half-elf retorted. “Why do you not accompany Le'lorinel to find this wretched drow and be done with him once and for all. Far easier that would seem than this endless sparring.”
Mahskevic chuckled, as if to tell Tunevec clearly that he was underestimating this rather unusual drow, whose exploits, as Le'lorinel and Mahskevic had uncovered them, were indeed remarkable. “Drizzt is known to be the friend of a dwarf named Bruenor Battlehammer,” the wizard explained. “Do you know the name?”
Tunevec, putting on his gray shirt, looked to the old human and shook his head.
“King of Mithral Hall,” Mahskevic explained. “Or at least, he was. I have little desire to turn a clan of wild dwarves against me—bane of all wizards, dwarves. Making an enemy of Bruenor Battlehammer does not seem to me to be an opportunity for advancement of wealth or health.
“Beyond that, I have no grudge against this Drizzt Do'Urden,” Mahskevic added. “Why would I seek to destroy him?”
“Because Le'lorinel is your friend.”
“Le'lorinel,” Mahskevic echoed, again with that chuckle. “I am fond of him, I admit, and in trying to hold my responsibilities of friendship, I often try to convince him that his course is self-destructive folly, and nothing more.”
“He will hear none of that, I am sure,” said Tunevec.
“None,” agreed Mahskevic. “A stubborn one is Le'lorinel Tel'e'brenequiette.”
“If that is even his name,” snorted Tunevec, who was in a rather foul mood, especially concerning his sparring partner.” 'I to you as you to me, “ he translated, for indeed Le'lorinel's name was nothing more than a variation on a fairly common Elvish saying.
“The philosophy of respect and friendship, is it not?” asked the old wizard.
“And of revenge,” Tunevec replied grimly.
Down on the tower's middle floor, alone in a small, private room, Le'lorinel pulled off the mask and slumped to sit on the bed, stewing in frustration and hatred for Drizzt Do'Urden.
“How many years will it take?” the elf asked, and finished with a small laugh, while fiddling with an onyx ring. “Centuries? It does not matter!”
Le'lorinel pulled off the ring and held it up before glittering eyes. It had taken two years of hard work to earn this item from Mahskevic. It was a magical ring, designed to hold enchantments. This one held four, the four spells Le'lorinel believed it would take to kill Drizzt Do'Urden.
Of course, Le'lorinel knew that to use these spells in the manner planned would likely result in the deaths of both combatants.
It did not matter.
As long as Drizzt Do'Urden died, Le'lorinel could enter the netherworld contented.
Part 1 HINTS OF DARKNESS
It is good to be home. It is good to hear the wind of Icewind Dale, to feel its invigorating bite, like some reminder that I am alive.
That seems such a self-evident thing—that I, that we, are alive—and yet, too often, I fear, we easily forget the importance of that simple fact. It is so easy to forget that you are truly alive, or at least, to appreciate that you are truly alive, that every sunrise is yours to view and every sunset is yours to enjoy.
And all those hours in between, and all those hours after dusk, are yours to make of what you will.
It is easy to miss the possibility that every person who crosses your path can become an event and a memory, good or bad, to fill in the hours with experience instead of tedium, to break the monotony of the passing moments. Those wasted moments, those hours of sameness, of routine, are the enemy, I say, are little stretches of death within the moments of life.
Yes, it is good to be home, in the wild land of Icewind Dale, where monsters roam aplenty and rogues threaten the roads at every turn. I am more alive and more content than in many years. For too long, I struggled with the legacy of my dark past. For too long, I struggled with the reality of my longevity, that I would likely die long after Bruenor, Wulfgar, and Regis.
And Catti-brie.
What a fool I am to rue the end of her days without enjoying the days that she, that we, now have! What a fool I am to let the present slip into the past, while lamenting a potential—and only potential—future!
We are all dying, every moment that passes of every day. That is the inescapable truth of this existence. It is a truth that can paralyze us with fear, or one that can energize us with impatience, with the desire to explore and experience, with the hope—nay, the iron will! — to find a memory in every action. To be alive, under sunshine or under starlight, in weather fair or stormy. To dance every step, be they through gardens of bright flowers or through deep snows.
The young know this truth so many of the old, or even middle-aged, have forgotten. Such is the source of the anger, the jealousy, that so many exhibit toward the young. So many times have I heard the common lament, “If only I could go back to that age, knowing what I now know!” Those words amuse me profoundly, for in truth, the lament should be, “If only I could reclaim the lust and the joy I knew then!”
That is the meaning of life, I have come at last to understand, and in that understanding, I have indeed found that lust and that joy. A life of twenty years where that lust and joy, where that truth is understood might be more full than a life of centuries with head bowed and shoulders slumped.
I remember my first battle beside Wulfgar, when I led him in, against tremendous odds and mighty giants, with a huge grin and a lust for life. How strange that as I gained more to lose, I allowed that lust to diminish!
It took me this long, through some bitter losses, to recognize the folly of that reasoning. It took me this long, returned to Icewind Dale after unwittingly surrendering the Crystal Shard to Jarlaxle and completing at last (and forever, I pray) my relationship with Artemis Entreri, to wake up to the life that is mine, to appreciate the beauty around me, to seek out and not shy away from the excitement that is there to be lived.