Chapter One
Redemption is in Your Hands
Dinin Do'Urden did not know where he was, he did know that he was falling. Eternal, never ending falling. Shear terror had left him many…hours?... ago, replaced by blind uncertainty and the knowledge that this was hell. He admitted to himself that this was much better than being a drider, and that hell was not as bad a place as he had thought. He spoke to soon.
The…tunnel… that he had been falling in suddenly grew much brighter. When he was able to turn himself around to see what was making the light, he wished he had not.
Bellow him was the end of the tunnel and a gigantic lake of seething fire and molten rock. Tendrils of fire spiraled up as if beckoning him to come to their fiery embrace. He never noticed the blood curdling scream that escaped his mouth.
The heat was getting unbearable less than half way down. Dinin was sure his clothes were being burned off. The fiery tendrils had rapped themselves around him, pulling him even faster toward the lake.
He suddenly stopped. The tendrils tugged and pulled, scorching his skin, but they could not pull him any further. His screams of agony tripled when, being pulled back up into the tunnel, the tendrils burned into his flesh. When they finally released him, he shot upwards at a blinding speed. His wounds were thankful for the air rushing over them.
The trip up the tunnel seemed an even longer eternity than the trip down, but Dinin was not complaining. He had no idea what was going on, but anywhere away from the fiery lake was good.
He did not know he had passed out until he was jolted awake by his burns being smacked against cold rock. A moaned in protest, but did not have the strength to move any of his limbs.
He lay there half dead for hours, slowly gaining enough energy to move his face off the stone floor. He looked around to find he was again in the tunnel where he was slain by his brother. The seen of battle, half blurred by hallucinations, again played out in his mind. He remembered losing his legs to the darting drow warrior, and the pain of death. Pain seemed to be all he could remember.
He awoke again a few hours later to find his wounds gone. Still bone tired, he pushed his way back to his feet. He walked in the direction he remembered coming up to the dwarvan mines. On he walked, occasionally hearing the voices of far off dwarves, still looking for any remaining dark elves. He pushed his pace even further past his current limits. He made it to the tunnel shut that would take him to the lower levels when he saw the dwarves. They blocked his escape…
"You won't find redemption that way Dinin Do'Urden." Called a voice so sweet he thought he would die again. "That lies on a new path."
Breaking away from the voices hypnotic pull, he crouched as best he could, looking for the voices owner. "Who's there?" he demanded hoarsely.
The voice laughed softly. "I am the goddess Mieliki which your brother, the Ranger Drizzt follows."
"You lie." He was now on his knees, his moments rest letting exhaustion catch up to him.
"You doubt the one who saved you from the depths of hell?"
"That was you?" he asked warily of the deity.
"I have a quest for you, warrior Dinin."
Now he laughed. "What would a goddess of light want of a drow?"
"It is not what I want of you, but of what you want. You are of the few beings of this world who have seen what awaits those of evil hearts at the end of lifes journey. You, however, are being given a choice. I have given you your life back. What you chose to do with it is your own choice."
"Then I will be on my way back to my home."
"To a life you already know where it leads?" Mieliki asked. "If you wish to return to that life, then you may, but remember that it will still end in that lake of fire."
Dinin's mind was flowing now. Never had he believed Lolth would lead him down that path. "What other path do I have to chose?"
"The path of Redemption. Your life has been steeped in blood and hate, yet there is a part of you that even you do not know is there. A part that saw the serenity of Zakneifin's soul, and Drizzt's unwavering devotion to justice. They have left an imprint upon you. That imprint sees your life as a waste and a torture."
"I do not see this tortured side." Dinin spat.
"Nor will you until you allow it to surface. It is your path to redemption, and it is the only reason you have been given this chance. If you choose to follow this hidden side of your existence, you may be given the chance to redeem yourself."
"Why would you give me this chance?"
"Because another drow dear to my heart believes you had a chance of becoming something more. Come with me. Choose the path of redemption and live your life the way it was ment to."
"And what of the side that wishes this… torture?"
"Only you can subdue it. You will face trials that will test your resolve to become something better than what you are now. You will know pain beyond that which you have ever encountered. But your reward will be complete redemption. You will have escaped your fate in the lake of fire."
Dinin thought for a long time. To lose all that which I am to gain an escape from hell, or go on as I am and revisit the nine hells. "What most I do?"