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 orcs 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.
If Ever They Happened Upon my Lair
Fill the buckets, grab a fish,” muttered Ringo Heffenstone, a dwarf with exceptionally broad shoulders, even for a dwarf, and a large, square head. Ringo was quite an exception among the group of dwarves who had ventured out into the mud lands of northeastern Vaasa in that he wore no beard. A gigantic handlebar mustache, yes, but no beard. An unfortunate encounter with a gnomish fire-rocket a few years before back in the hills of northwestern Damara, the southern and more civilized neighbor to Vaasa, had left a patch of scarred skin on Ringo’s chin from which no hairs would sprout.
It was a sad scar for a dwarf, to be sure, but with his typical pragmatism and stoicism, Ringo had just shrugged it off and redesigned his facial hair appropriately. Nothing ever really bothered Ringo. Certainly he could grump and mutter as well as the next dwarf about present indignities, such as his current position as water mule for the troop of dwarves, but in the end everything rolled out far and wide from him, eventually toppling off his broad shoulders.
He came to the bank of the pond, his friends a few hundred feet behind him tipping beers and recounting their more raucous adventures with ever-increasing volume.
A burst of howling laughter made Ringo cringe and look to the south. They weren’t far from Palishchuk, a city of half-orcs. They could have been there already, in fact, sleeping comfortably in a tavern. The half-orcs would gladly have taken their coin and invited them in. But though the half-orcs were no enemies of the dwarves, the troop had already decided they would avoid the Palishchukians if at all possible. Ringo and the others didn’t much like the way half-orcs smelled, and even though those particular half-orcs acted far more in accordance with their human heritage than that of their orc ancestors, they still carried the peculiar aroma of their kind.
Another burst of laughter turned Ringo back to the encampment. As several of his drunken friends unsuccessfully shushed those howling loudest, Ringo shook his head.
He turned back to the pond, a vernal pool that formed every spring and summer as the frozen tundra softened. He noted the movement of some fish, flitting in and out of the shadows to the side, and shook his head again, amazed that they could survive in such an environment. If they could live through the extended Vaasan winter, in the shadow of the Great Glacier itself, how could he bring himself to catch one?
“Bah, but ye’re safe, little fishies,” the dwarf said to them. “Ye keep winning against this place and old Ringo ain’t got no heart for killin’ ye and eatin’ ye.”
He reached up and picked a piece of his dinner, a large bread crumb, from the left handlebar of his mustache. He’d been saving it for later, but he glanced at it and tossed it to the fish instead.
The dwarf grinned as the fish broke the surface, inhaling the crumb. Several others came up, making plopping sounds and creating interconnected rings of ripples.
Ringo watched the spectacle for a few moments then picked up one of his buckets and moved down to the water’s edge. He knelt in the mud and turned the bucket sidelong in the shallows to fill it.
Just as he started to tip the bucket back upright, a wave washed in and sent water overflowing the pail, soaking the dwarf’s hands and hairy forearms.
“Bah!” Ringo snorted, falling back from the freezing water.
He fell into a sitting position, facing the lake, and curled his legs to get away from the cold wash of the encroaching wave. His gaze went out to the water, where more rings widened, their eastern edges rolling in toward him.
Ringo scratched his head. It was a small pond, and little wind blew. They weren’t near any hills, where a rock or a tree might have tumbled from on high. He had seen no shadow from a falling bird.
“Waves?”
The dwarf stood up and put his hands on his hips as the water calmed. A glance to the side told him that the fish were long gone.
The water stilled, and the hair on the back of Ringo’s neck tingled with nervous anticipation.
“Hurry it up with that water!” one of the dwarves from the camp called.
Ringo knew he should shout a warning or turn and run back to the camp, but he stood there staring at the still water of the dark pool. The meager sunlight filtered through the clouds in the west, casting lines of lighter hue on the glassy surface.