Even ever-dour Entreri, sitting off to the side and polishing his dagger, couldn’t suppress a chuckle or two.
Because they were all free, Drizzt realized. This apparent and bizarre time-shift had only made the world a better place for these four fugitives. The dwarf and monk could go as they pleased with no fear of Cavus Dun, and for Effron and Entreri, the specter of Draygo Quick seemed lifted, and likely, too, the shadows of a hundred others with a vendetta against Artemis Entreri.
So, too, would this strange leap of years benefit Drizzt and Dahlia, he realized, but the elf warrior showed no mirth, sitting by herself, her expression grim, and glancing his way every now and again.
For Drizzt, there was just confusion. Had his sleep, had the enchanted forest, been a vision, a love letter to him from Mielikki? More likely, he realized, it had been a moment of closure. Awakening in the tiny secluded area of a land still grasped by the late winter signaled a farewell to Drizzt.
The forest was gone.
Somehow he knew that, in his heart and soul. The enchanted forest was gone, was no more, and so too were flown any ties to the world that had once been, before the Spellplague.
Thus, his past was gone, at long last.
He focused on that moment when the moon had opened his eyes, and thought it a passage. He thought of Innovindil (and stole a glance at Dahlia) and her insistence that an elf must live his life in shorter time spans, must reinvent his existence, his friends, his love, with each passing generation, to know vitality and happiness.
He glanced at Dahlia again, but his gaze inevitably lowered to his own hands, where he rolled a piece of scrimshaw over and over again.
By the time he looked back up, while the dwarf, monk, and warlock remained at play with the fire, Dahlia had gone to sit with Entreri, the two conversing privately.
Drizzt nodded, rose, and walked off into the night. He came to a high rock, overlooking Bryn Shander away to the southeast, and with the high peak of Kelvin’s Cairn to the northwest behind him. He stood there, the wind in his face and in his ears, remembering what was and pondering what might now be.
“We’re not staying,” came Dahlia’s voice behind him, and he wasn’t surprised-by her presence or her message. “We’ll go to the dwarves, perhaps, but for a short while only. We’re to ride with a caravan out of this forlorn place at the earliest opportunity.”
“To where?” Drizzt asked, but didn’t turn to face her.
“Does it matter? A decade and more’s gone by and our names have slipped past in the wind.”
“You underestimate the memories of those with a vendetta,” Drizzt said, and he turned in time to see Dahlia shrug, as if it hardly mattered.
“When we came here, you said it would be for the season. The seasons have come and gone fifty times and more. I’ve not thought of living my years out in the emptiness of Icewind Dale, and might any time prove safer for us to leave than right now, before rumors of our return filter to the south?”
Drizzt mulled over her words, looking for some way to argue the point. He was as confused as the rest of them, unsure of what had happened or what it might mean. Was it really 1484? Had the world passed them by while they had slept in some enchanted forest?
And if that was the enchanted forest of Nathan Obridock, the place named Iruladoon, then what of the auburn-haired witch and the halfling by the pond?
Drizzt couldn’t help but wince as he considered the place, for there it was again in his heart, the knowledge that he had witnessed the very end of Iruladoon when he had awakened in the one warm spot amidst the last snows. He had felt the magic drain away to nothingness. It wasn’t that the enchantment had moved along. Nay, it had dissipated all together. That place, whether it was Iruladoon or not, was no more, nevermore. He knew that with certainty, though he knew not how he understood it with certainty. Mielikki had signaled to him that it was no more, that it was gone, and with a pervading sense of comfort … that it was all right.
“Are you agreed?” Dahlia asked impatiently, and Drizzt realized from her tone and her stance that she was reiterating that question for more than the second time.
“Agreed?” he had to ask.
“First caravan out,” Dahlia said.
Drizzt chewed his lip and looked all around, but really tried to look within his own heart. Behind Dahlia loomed the blackness of Kelvin’s Cairn, and it did not elicit a cold emotion within Drizzt-quite the opposite.
“We can have the life up here that we spoke of before we went to Easthaven,” he said.
Dahlia looked at him incredulously, even laughed at him.
“It will be an easy life, and one of adventure.”
“They wouldn’t even let you in their town, you fool,” Dahlia reminded him.
“That will change, with time.”
But Dahlia shook her head resolutely, and Drizzt recognized that she didn’t disagree with his particular reasoning, but rejected the whole premise.
“We’re all for going, all five,” she said. “Even Ambergris.”
“To where?”
Again Dahlia laughed at him. “Does it matter?”
“If it doesn’t, then why not here?”
“No,” she stated flatly. “We are leaving this forlorn place of tedious winds and endless boredom. All of us. And I’ll not chase your ghosts back to Icewind Dale again, if all of Menzoberranzan, all of the Empire of Netheril, and all the demons of the Abyss are chasing us.”
“There are no ghosts left to chase,” Drizzt whispered under his breath, for he knew it to be true.
But even with that, spoken sincerely, there was no compromise to be found within her, Drizzt realized. She saw Icewind Dale as a surrogate to Catti-brie for him, a place of those memories, and she would not tolerate it.
But nor could Drizzt lie any longer, to himself or to Dahlia. He felt a twinge of guilt in coercing her up here in the first place, but reminded himself that he had done so only to protect her from Tiago Baenre. But now that threat seemed distant, and Dahlia was right, there was no compelling reason for any of them to remain in Icewind Dale any longer.
Any of the other five, at least.
“It is best that you go,” he agreed.
“That I go?” she asked, and a dark edge came over her voice and her posture. Drizzt nodded.
“But not you?”
“This is my home.”
“But not mine?” she asked.
“No.”
“So that you can chase your witch of the wood?”
Drizzt chuckled helplessly at that, for there was some measure of truth in it, he had to admit. Not literally, of course, but in this place, even without his old and dear friends by his side, he felt the warmth of hearth and home, and it was a feeling he would not allow to slip from his grasp yet again.
“Have I told you of Innovindil?” he asked, and Dahlia rolled her eyes. Drizzt pressed on anyway, though he remembered that yes, he had told her many stories of his lost elf friend. “Have I explained to you the idea that an elf who resides among the shorter-living races must live his life in bursts to accommodate their sensations of time?”
“Yes, yes, to let go of the past and press ahead to new roads,” Dahlia said absently, as if long bored of that particular lecture.
“I seem to be ignoring Innovindil’s advice,” said Drizzt.
“Then let us leave in the morning.”
“No.”
Dahlia shrugged, clearly confused by the seemingly pointless reference to Innovindil, given his answer.
“Innovindil was wrong,” Drizzt said. “Perhaps not entirely, and perhaps not for everyone, but for me, in this regard, I know now, and admit now, that Innovindil was wrong.”
“In this regard?”
“Regarding love,” Drizzt said.
“The auburn-haired witch of the wood.”