We are beyond that point, the drow replied.
Not if I betray you, the sword warned.
Tos'un sucked in his breath and knew he was caught. The thought of going back out alone in the winter cold did not sit well with him, but he had no answer for the wretched sword.
Nor was he willing to surrender Khazid'hea, to Drizzt or to anyone. Tos'un understood that his lighting skills were improving because of the tutoring of the blade, and few weapons in the world possessed a finer edge. Still, he did not doubt Khazid'hea's estimation that he was not ready to do battle with the likes of Drizzt Do'Urden.
Hardly aware of the movements, the drow walked up behind Sinnafain.
"It is a beautiful day, but the wind will keep us about the cave," she said, and Tos'un caught most of the words and her meaning. He was a quick student, and the Elvish language was not so different from that of the drow, with many similar words and word roots, and an identical structure.
She turned on the rock to face him just as he struck.
The world must have seemed to spin for Sinnafain. She lay on the ground, the drow standing above her, his deadly sword's tip at her chin, forcing her to arch her neck.
Kill her! Khazid'hea demanded.
Tos'un's mind raced. He wanted to plunge his sword into her throat and head. Or maybe he should take her hostage. She would be a valuable bargaining chip, and one that would afford him many pleasures before it was spent, to be sure.
But to what end?
Kill her! Khazid'hea screamed in his mind.
Tos'un eased the blade back and Sinnafain tilted her chin down and looked at him. The terror in her blue eyes felt good to him, and he almost pulled the sword back, just to give her some hope, before reversing and cutting out her throat.
But to what end?
Kill her!
"I am not your enemy, but Drizzt will not understand," Tos'un heard himself saying, though his command of the language was so poor that Sinnafain's face screwed up in confusion.
"Not your enemy," he said slowly, focusing on the words. "Drizzt will not understand."
He shook his head in frustration, reached down, and removed the helpless elfs weapons, tossing them far aside. He jerked Sinnafain to her feet and shoved her away, Khazid'hea at her back. He glanced back at the cave a few times, but soon was far enough away to understand that no pursuit would be forthcoming.
He spun Sinnafain around and forced her to the ground. "I am not your enemy," he said yet again.
Then, to Khazid'hea's supreme outrage, Tos'un Armgo ran away.
"It is Catti-brie's sword," Drizzt said when Sinnafain told him the tale of Tos'un a few days later, when she and her troupe returned to the Moonwood. "He was one of the pair I saw when I did battle with Obould."
"Our spells of truth-seeking did not detect his lie, or any malice," Sinnafain argued.
"He is drow," Innovindil put in. "They are a race full of tricks."
But Sinnafain's simple response, "He did not kill me," mitigated much of the weight of that argument.
"He was with Obould," Drizzt said again. "I know that several drow aided the ore king, even prompted his attack." He looked over at Innovindil, who nodded her agreement.
"I will find him," Drizzt promised.
"And kill him?" Sinnafain asked.
Drizzt didn't answer, but only because he managed to bite back the word, "Yes," before it escaped his lips.
– – "You understand the concept?" Priest Jallinal asked Innovindil. "The revenant?"
"A spirit with unfinished business, yes," Innovindil replied, and she couldn't keep the tremor out of her voice. The priests would not undertake such a ritual lightly. Normally revenants were thankfully rare, restless spirits of those who had died in great tumult, unable to resolve central questions of their very being. But Ellifain was not a revenant-not yet. In their communion with their gods, the elf priests had come to believe that it would be for the best to create a revenant of Ellifain, something altogether unheard of. They were convinced of their course, though, and with their confidence, and given all that was at stake, Innovindil was hardly about to decline. She, after all, was the obvious choice.
"Possession is not painful," Jallinal assured her. "Not physically. But it is unsettling to the highest degree. You are certain that you can do this?"
Innovindil sat back and glanced out the left side of the wooden structure, to the hut where she knew Drizzt to be. She found herself nodding as she considered Drizzt, the drow she had come to love as a cherished friend. He needed it to happen as much as Ellifain did.
"Be done with it, and let us all rest more comfortably," Innovindil said.
Jallinal and the other clerics began their ritual casting, and Innovindil reclined on the floor pillows and closed her eyes. The magic filtered through her gently, softly, opening the conduit to the spirit the priests called forth. Her consciousness dulled, but was not expelled. Rather, her thoughts seemed as if filtered through those of her former friend, as if she was seeing and hearing everything reflected off the consciousness of Ellifain.
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.