One line in particular stood out in the drow’s mind. He had heard the phrase “Been yet not been” in his childhood days in Menzoberranzan. They referred to Urgutha Forka, a vicious demon that had ravaged the planet with a particularly virulent plague in the ancient times when Drizzt’s ancestors had walked on the surface. The surface elves had always denied the existence of Urgutha Forka, blaming the plague on the drow, but the dark elves knew better. Something in their physical make-up had kept them immune to the demon, and after they realized how deadly it was to their enemies, they had worked to fulfill the suspicions of the light elves by enlisting Urgutha as an ally.
Thus the reference “Been yet not been” was a derogatory line in a longer drow tale, a secret joke on their hated cousins who had lost thousands to a creature they denied even existed.
The riddle would have been impossible to anyone unaware of the tale of Urgutha Forka. The drow had found a valuable advantage. He scanned the reflection of the tapestry for some image that had a connection to the demon. And he found it in on the far edge of the mirror at belt height: a portrayal of Urgutha itself, revealed in all of its horrible splendor. The demon was depicted smashing the skull of an elf with a black rod, its symbol. Drizzt had seen this same portrayal before. Nothing seemed out of place or hinted at anything unusual.
The trolls had turned the final corner of their ascent. Drizzt was nearly out of time.
He turned and searched the source of the image for some discrepancy. It struck him at once. In the original tapestry Urgutha was striking the elf with its fist; there was no rod!
“Seen and not seen.”
Drizzt spun back on the mirror, grasping at the demon’s illusory weapon. But all he felt was smooth glass. He nearly cried out in frustration.
His experience had taught him discipline, and he quickly regained his composure. He moved his hand back away from the mirror, attempting to position his own reflection at the same depth he judged the rod to be at. He slowly closed his fingers, watching his hand’s image close around the rod with the excitement of anticipated success.
He shifted his hand slightly.
A thin crack appeared in the mirror.
The leading troll reached the top of the stairs, but Drizzt and Guenhwyvar were gone.
The drow slid the strange door back into its closed position, leaned back, and sighed with relief. A dimly lit stairway led up before him, ending with a platform that opened into the tower’s second level. No door blocked the way, just hanging strands of beads, sparkling orange in the torchlight of the room beyond. Drizzt heard giggling.
Silently, he and the cat crept up the stairs and peeked over the rim of the landing. They had come to Kessell’s harem room.
It was softly lit with torches glowing under screening shades. Most of the floor was covered with overstuffed pillows, and sections of the room were curtained off. The harem girls, Kessell’s mindless playthings, sat in a circle in the center of the floor, giggling with the uninhibited enthusiasm of children at play. Drizzt doubted that they would notice him, but even if they did, he wasn’t overly concerned. He understood right away that these pitiful, broken creatures were incapable of initiating any action against him.
He kept alert, though, especially of the curtained boudoirs. He doubted that Kessell would have put guards here, certainly none as unpredictably vicious as trolls, but he couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.
With Guenhwyvar close at his side, he slipped silently from shadow to shadow, and when the two companions had ascended the stairs and were on the landing before the door to the third level, Drizzt was more relaxed.
But then the buzzing sound that Drizzt had heard when he first entered the tower returned. It gathered strength as it continued, as though its song came from the vibrations of the very walls of the tower. Drizzt looked all around for a possible source.
Chimes hanging from the room’s ceiling began to tinkle eerily. The fires of the torches on the walls danced wildly.
Then Drizzt understood.
The structure was awakening with a life of its own. The field outside remained under the shadow of night, but the first fingers of dawn brightened the tower’s high pinnacle.
The door suddenly swung open into the third level, Kessell’s throne room.
“Well done!” cried the wizard. He was standing beyond the crystal throne across the room from Drizzt, holding an unlit candle and facing the open door. Regis stood obediently at his side, wearing a blank expression on his face.
“Please enter,” Kessell said with false courtesy. “Fear not for my trolls that you injured, they will surely heal!” He threw his head back and laughed.
Drizzt felt a fool; to think that all of his caution and stealth had served no better purpose than to amuse the wizard! He rested his hands on the hilts of his sheathed scimitars and stepped through the doorway.
Guenhwyvar remained crouched in the shadows of the stairway, partly because the wizard had said nothing to indicate that he knew of the cat, and partly because the weakened cat didn’t want to expend the energy of walking.
Drizzt halted before the throne and bowed low. The sight of Regis standing beside the wizard disturbed him more than a little, but he managed to hide that he recognized the halfling. Regis likewise had shown no familiarity when he had first seen the drow, though Drizzt couldn’t be sure if that was a conscious effort or if the halfling was under the influence of some type of enchantment.
“Greetings, Akar Kessell,” Drizzt stammered in the broken accent of denizens of the underworld, as though the common tongue of the surface was foreign to him. He figured that he might as well try the same tactics he had used against the demon. “I am sent from my people in good faith to parley with you on matters concerning our common interests.”
Kessell laughed aloud. “Are you indeed!” a wide smile spread across his face, replaced abruptly with a scowl. His eyes narrowed evilly. “I know you, dark elf! Any man who has ever lived in Ten-Towns has heard the name of Drizzt Do’Urden in tale or in jest! So keep your lies unspoken!”
“Your pardon, mighty wizard,” Drizzt said calmly, changing tactics. “In many ways, it seems, you are wiser than your demon.”
The self-assured look disappeared from Kessell’s face. He had been wondering what had prevented Errtu from answering his summons. He looked at the drow with more respect. Had this solitary warrior slain a major demon?
“Allow me to begin again,” Drizzt said. “Greetings, Akar Kessell.” He bowed low. “I am Drizzt Do’Urden, ranger of Gwaeron Windstrom, guardian of Icewind Dale. I have come to kill you.”
The scimitars leaped out of their sheaths.
But Kessell moved, too. The candle he held suddenly flickered to life. Its flame was caught in the maze of prisms and mirrors that cluttered the entire chamber, focused and sharpened at each reflecting spot. Instantaneously with the lighting of the candle, three concentrated beams of light enclosed the drow in a triangular prison. None of the beams had touched him, but he sensed their power and dared not cross their path.
Drizzt clearly heard the tower humming as daylight filtered down its length. The room brightened considerably as several of the wall panels which had appeared mirrorlike in the torchlight showed themselves to be windows.
“Did you believe that you could walk right in here and simply dispose of me?” Kessell asked incredulously. “I am Akar Kessell, you fool! The Tyrant of Icewind Dale! I command the greatest army that has ever marched on the frozen steppes of this forsaken land!”
“Behold my army!” He waved his hand and one of the scrying mirrors came to life, revealing part of the vast encampment that surrounded the tower, complete with the shouts of the awakening camp.