Chapter 2 - Breaking of the Companions
Drizzt strayed, strayed from thought and time. There was darkness all about....or was there? He thought it was blackness, but then he thought it might be simply nothing.
Was this death?
He was fully conscious, so he doubted it. He could move around in the void. Well, not in a physical sense, but if he willed himself to go someplace, there he would be.
Suddenly a face reared out of the blackness as if it were a dense fog. Drizzt's heart froze in his chest as he saw who it was.
Ellifain!
Then the rest of her elven figure materialized.
"Drizzt Do'Urden," she snarled in disgust.
Drizzt couldn't speak. He didn't seem to have a mouth to do so.
"The mighty drow, fighter of rightousness!" she mocked.
How could she be speaking to him? She was dead, wasn't she?
"Did you think that killing me would erase the memory of me, O pitiful drow?" shouted Ellifain. It appeared that she could read thoughts as well.
I never wanted to hurt you, Ellifain! shouted Drizzt in his mind. I tried to save you!
"LIAR!!" shrieked Ellifain. "You killed my parents, you destroyed my villiage!"
That was not of my doing, Ellifain!
"You were there!"
I-started Drizzt.
"Look at your life, drow! Look at what you have done!"
She reached out her hands towards Drizzt, who stepped back and drew out Twinkle in a flash of blue, slashing down through Ellifain's right arm.
The blade passed through her arm as if it weren't there.
She reached him and pressed her fingertips against his skull.
The blackness around the two elves faded and images began to flash past, Drizzt in Menzoberranzan, the raid on Ellifain's villiage, Drizzt fleeing the vast drow city, Drizzt in the Underdark. His arrival on the surface world and his training.
His meeting Bruenor and the dwarves. The fear and hatred towards him in the Dale in the early days. The assult of the Crystal Shard on Icewind Dale, Drizzt's defeat of Errtu the Balor, the following defeat and quest for Mithril Hall and the meeting of Entreri.
"Had you not stayed where you belong, you would never have met Entreri," screamed Ellifain. "Had you never met, he would not have continually threatened your friends!"
The journey to Calimport and the horrible confrontation in order to save Regis.
The reclaiming of Mithril Hall. The coming of Drizzt's evil sister to Mithril Hall, bent on revenge and bringing a small army of drow warriors...and Artemis Entreri.
Drizzt saw Wulfgar fall, buried in a great avalanch.
"If you had not left Menzoberranzan, Baenre would never have come to Mithril Hall!" Ellifain shouted triumphantly, feeling the misery in Drizzt increase. "And had you not angered the demon Errtu, Wulfgar would not have been tortured in the Abyss!"
After defeating his sister's assult, and Entreri had escaped, Matron Mother Baenre had herself come to Mithril Hall, with the entire host of the Drow city, to conquor and destroy the dwarves.
Subsequent images rocketed past, until Drizzt was watching, seemingly in slow-motion, the death of Ellifain.
"And had you, drow, stayed where you belonged and had not destroyed my villiage, my death would not have been your fault!" whispered Ellifain, her face inches away from Drizzt's. "Had you stayed whre you belonged, drow, none of these events would have happened!"
Her words cut him worse than if she had hacked him apart, limb by limb.
"He is returning," said a faint, muffled voice, seemingly from nowhere.
And then Ellifain began squeezing her fingers together. Unfortunately Drizzt's head was in the way. She grimaced and dug her fingernails into the flesh of his temples. Drizzt roared in rage and pain and drove his hand into her chest, at the solar plexus. The blow picked her off the ground and flung her thirty feet away.
And Drizzt awoke, erupting from the coma into bright light.
"Glad te see ye decided te come back," said a gruff voice.
***
I am lost. I know not my place in this world, nor do I know my responsibilities anymore. I have somehow lost sight of them though I know not where.
Catti-brie lies deep in the halls of the dwarven mines in a coma. She is between places, between this life and the next. The slightest illness or further injury, perhaps even the slightest neglect on the parts of the clerics tending her, and that careful balance could tip away from the material world.
Away from me.
I now carry a heavy burden. The fault of her injuries is mine, I know. Am I then to become more protective of those I love? Wulfgar made that mistake when he and Catti-brie were to be wed those many years ago. He fell in love with Catti-brie's free spirit, her unbreakable independent streak, as have I, but he became protective of her, as if she were his posession to be bought and then kept on a shelf.
I saw his faults then, and I have tried to not fall into the same traps he did. And yet...the sight of Catti-brie so grievously wounded, her life- blood flowing from her veins onto the dirt, nearly broke me.
I understand the risks involved with our work as we keep bandits and other criminals from waylaying innocent travelers on the way through the Spine of the World. I understand that at any time any of us, Bruenor, Regis, Wulfgar, Catti-brie, or I, could be struck down by one of the many dangers of Icewind Dale, but somehow that possibility, after facing and defeating so many might foes like Errtu the Balor, or Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, or the Matron Mother Baenre, that something so normally defeated like yetis would be able to touch us.
And yet here I am, sitting at Catti-brie's bedside, a bed which could very well be her deathbed, and all that I have ever trusted, all that I have contemplated and know to be right, is thrown to the winds, shattered by a single act.
I want nothing more than to shield Catti-brie from the dangers of the Dale, from the reality of life in the wilderness, and yet I know that to do so would be to kill her indomitable spirit, and by relation kill the very thing in her I love.
What is it about love that makes one feel so powerful and yet so vulnerable? For that is how I feel. When I think of Catti-brie, I know that I am made whole, made stronger, and I feel as if I could conquoer the world with a thought, and at the same time to lose her would mean the end of my life. I would lose the will to live.
It is strange, but Ellifain, or whatever apparition took her form, was right when she spoke to me in my unconsciousness. I would never have believed I would one day say that. Whatever it was that spoke to me there, perhaps Ellifain, perhaps some sort of spirit, or more likely the fevered illusion of a delusional mind, it was correct. Had I never come to the surface, none of these horrible events would have occured.
I am lost.
I know not my way.
--Drizzt Do'Urden
***
"You have been in here for days! What is your problem, human?" Jarlaxle snapped in frustration. "Drizzt Do'Urden is alive. So be it. You have conquored your demons, Entreri!"
Artemis sat on his small, uncomfortable bed, several days growth of beard on his face, looking haggard and defeated.
It was true. He had been in this room ever since he had learned that Drizzt still breathed. He did not leave, no one came to him but Jarlaxle, he didn't sleep, he barely ate enough to live, so lost was he in his own inner turmoil.
He looked up at the angry drow dully, his expression remaining the same dettached look he had been wearing for three days.
Jarlaxle knew that look well. It was the look of someone who had lost the will to live, to continue on the fight.
"My demons live with Drizzt Do'Urden," Entreri whispered hoarsely.
Jarlaxle leaned close, leering into Entreri's face.
"Then kill him," the drow snarled.
***
Drizzt Do'Urden sat dozing in a chair next to the large bed. Catti-brie breathed still, if shallowly, the thin sheet covering her barely rising and falling.
The room was large and spacious, the walls roughly carved out of the dark rock, torches casting their warm, bronze glow across the bed, bathing it in flickering firelight. Several clerics tended her, whispering their prayers.
The wooden door to the room swung open and Bruenor Battlehammer entered. He glanced at the dozing Drizzt, then moved quietly to the bedside and spoke with one of the dwarven clerics.
"She be gravely injured, me King," said the cleric. "She be hoverin' betw'en the gates of life and death."
Bruenor sighed, a sigh of utter frustration and fear mingled with heavy sorrow. It was as if a great weight was hanging about his shoulders.
"Keep ye trying," he said, and knelt at the bedside, taking the hand of his adopted daughter in his. It was clammy and chilled, and was the pale gray color of death. The pulse was extremely faint. Bruenor did not think himself a strong or powerful dwarf--he knew he was, it was a simple fact-- but seeing this human girl like this nearly broke him.
He choked, trying to keep the emotions buried. He was a dwarven king! He should not show weakness! Oft does the heart refuse to obey what the mind commands. It follows its own road. Bruenor bowed his head until his brow laid upon the cold arm of Catti-brie.
"Come back to me, ye girl...' he whispered. "Don't ye be leavin' me! Don't ye be doin' that!"
And Bruenor Battlehammer wept.
***
Jarlaxle pulled the cowl of his cloak tighter about his face. He walked briskly through the dark streets of Luskan, deep in thought. He was walking this chilly night in an attempt to let off some of the welling frustration inside him.
Humans were such strange creatures, he thought. So caught up in their own petty emotions as to miss the things which were truly important. Most humans spent their entire lives so caught up in the moment, looking forward only far enough to see the next step, that they were often led into disaster. It came from not living their lives in Menzoberranzan, Jarlaxle believed. In the great Drow city, any one of the humans in Luskan, or Calimport, or the Realms, would not survive half of a day, perhaps not even half an hour. In Menzoberranzan, intriuge and conspiracy were as normal as this horrible sun these pathetic humans so relied upon. It was a necessary thing to be continually on your toes, always thinking ahead of your enemies by several steps, like a chess game, carefully considering what every move will accomplish and what the reactions to it will be.
Jarlaxle and his band of renegades had survived in the Underdark, in Menzoberranzan, for many years because they were the most cunning of the cunning (at least in Jarlaxle's opinion). To Jarlaxle, some things were important and some things were not, down there, you learned what was required for survival and that was the path you followed, it was very simple. Having a pride issue with a drow warrior was not one of them. He thought Entreri weak for his self-destructive obsession. It was, he reflected, exactly the same as before. He though himself rightfully frustrated. After all, hadn't he arranged so much in order for Entreri to confront the drow, and hadn't he arranged for the drow to be defeated? All for Entreri, so that the dangerous assassin could work with Jarlaxle, have a chance at a productive life instead of worrying about that blasted drow. And now Entreri had gone full circle, returned to his original status as The-Most-Highly-Depressed.
Entreri was like the drow, calculating, cunning, and lived for the challenge and danger of the edge. Jarlaxle knew Entreri well enough to determine that. Entreri was calculating, always five steps ahead of his foes-until Drizzt Do'Urden got involved. And then it was as if his mind simply shut down and Entreri became worse than a simpleton.
Jarlaxle cursed the renegade drow, wondering why the world had to be plauged with beings who held to moral ideals. If it weren't for that blasted drow, Jarlaxle's plans would be proceeding! What magic did this drow possess that would so curse Entreri? What spell could do such a thing?
Yes, Entreri was like the drow; cold, calculating. But he was still human, and still retained the human traits. Stupidity was hereditary, Jarlaxle had concluded, among the human population.
He turned into a dark alleyway without thinking about where he was going, so lost in thought and frustration, still finding no way of releaving his tention and anger, no way to vent.
There was the ever-so-soft crunch of a foot coming down on gravel from behind Jarlaxle. Cowl still tight about his face, he smiled grimly.
Jarlaxle turned around and regarded the stranger from within the shadows of his hood. He stood confidently, back straight, eyes making two lavander pricks in the night from beneath the shadowy cowl.
Two more ruffians emerged from dark shadows behind Jarlaxle, cutting off the theoretical escape route, though the angry drow was hardly going to run away from three pieces of human trash.
"You mean to rob me, then," stated the drow from the depths of his cloak.
The man standing at the mouth of the alleyway stepped closer and into a beam of moonlight.
"It's nothing personal," he said, shrugging, drawing a short sword from his belt and grinning in anticipation.
"Of course it isn't," said Jarlaxle. "Neither is this."
He exploded into motion. His hand snapped out towards the thief, little more than a blur. There was a short whistling sound.
It took the thief a few moments to realize that there was a throwing knife embedded in his chest. His grin faded and he gaped at the drow, the pain messeges just now reaching his brain. He grasped at the knife with both hands and regarded Jarlaxle strangely, as if he weren't actually seeing Jarlaxle but merely staring that direction. His legs grew weak, his knees buckled and he slumped to the cobbles.
"Right," said Jarlaxle, his frustration somewhat abated, turning to the other two thieves knives simply appearing in his clenched fists. "Who's next?"
The battle lust was flowing in him already, he could feel the call and appeal of a fight. He began concentrating on focusing his aggression and frustration and anger into the coming fight. If they charged, he would meet them, if they ran he would pursue, and if they did nothing, they would find knives in their throats.
The two thieves glanced at each other and back to Jarlaxle, who sprang upon that moment to pull back his hood and reveal his drowish features.
The color drained from their faces and there was an awkward silence in the alleyway.
Then the thieves turned tail and ran.
***
Drizzt came awake.
He blinked into the torch-light and glanced about the room to get his bearings. The memories of all that had happened flooded back to him suddenly and he felt his stomach sink. He sat up and saw the motionless form of Catti-brie laying under the thin sheet, a sheen of sweat glowing on her face in the torch light and her red hair plastered to her pale, gray brow. Her face wore the gray of death.
Bruenor knelt still by her bedside, her hand firmly gripped in his.
"I am sorry," Drizzt rasped from a mouth that seemed unused to obeying commands. His mouth felt thick and his tongue swollen.
Bruenor slowly turned to regard the elf.
"She be traveling to th' other side..." Bruenor said, his eyes sunken and voice hollow. It was as if the light of life in those eyes, once on fire with passion and energy, had somehow gone out. He sighed. "I knew it would a'ways be dangerous. I jus' never expected....."
His words struck a painful cord in Drizzt's heart and soul. Bruenor might well have simply taken up his axe and driven it through Drizzt's heart, for all the pain that it caused to him. The elf bowed his head, eyes closed, fight back the emotions.
"S'not your fault," Bruenor said quietly. "Couldn't be avoided. We always been living the dangerous life. Sooner o' later, I knew reality'd catch us up."
"No," croaked Drizzt, rising to his feet and looking at the pale form of Catti-brie. "You're wrong. I caused this. I am the cause of all your troubles, my friends. My mere presence on the surface world is a hindrence and detriment to you all."
Drizzt took a final long glance at Catti-brie, etching her features into his memory forever, then turned and left the room before Bruenor could say another word.
He headed for his quarters, collected his things, and departed the dwarven mines soon after.
***
The thieves ran down the dark alleyways of Luskan, not caring where they ended up, nor by what route they got there, they just wanted away from the drow.
Drow! In Luskan! It was an extremely frightening thought, and an entirely unwelcome one. Where there was one drow, there were almost always more. Except for that rouge drow they had heard about, Drizzt Do'Urden, and he was rumored to be some kind of "hero" in the northern lands.
They charged through turns, breathing becoming labored, shoving past the occasional walker in the alleys. Their boots clopped on the cobblestones of the alleyway with loud echos.
Finally they stopped, panting for breath.
"I think we lost 'im!" said the one.
There was the rustle of a cloak from the darkness and the thieves caught sight of a black cloak whip across between alleyways.
"Wha' was that?" shouted the other, each figgiting and nervously grasping their weapons, only a knife and short sword each.
Meanwhile, Jarlaxle thought he would take a less traditional approach. He concentrated on the spot where the two were standing.
An orb of darkness appeared over them. The thieves gave shouts of alarm from within.
Then Jarlaxle charged, a dozen twirling knives leading him into the orb.
He entered the orb and lost all vision, but not his other, hightened senses. He grasped a dagger in each hand.
He felt a presence coming up on his left and so spun to the right, right past the unsuspecting thief, and then as he spun, brought out his right arm, dagger extended horizontally. The dagger sliced through flesh, grating against ribs, and slid home with, Jarlaxle thought, a satisfyingly wet sound.
The air exploded from the lungs of the hapless thief, whose right lung instantly deflated and began filling with blood.
Wrenching the dagger free, Jarlaxle was already bringing the other knife down, to sink into the thief's right shoulder. Keeping that dagger firmly embedded, the drow brought up the other, already bloodied, dagger, and ran it across the thief's throat.
The limp body was already falling away when Jarlaxle felt the other thief coming in from behind. He cocked his head slightly, tensed his legs, and when the thief was nearly upon him, sprang into the air back over the head of the oncoming human, his feet rising over his head, performing a spectacular heels-over-head flip, dagger carving a bloody line across the human's scalp as he flipped by, to land easily behind the human.
Before the human could even cry out or touch the wound on his head, Jarlaxle snaked his left arm around from behind the human and plunged the dagger into the thief's throat, wriggling it about. Then, for good measure, he stabbed the human in the back, the blade slipping between ribs and gouging the lung.
The orb of darkness fell away.
The body slumped to the ground.
Jarlaxle sighed, his anger abated, then turned and walked away, wiping his daggers clean on the clothes of the victims as he did so. It was, Jarlaxle thought as he slipped quietly away into the shadows and then from rooftop to rooftop, almost too easy.
***
Drizzt stormed out of the entrance to Mithril Hall and into the blazing glory of the sunset and squinted into the light. The sight triggered a memory of Catti-brie and Drizzt sitting upon a similar hill and watching the sunrise together. He felt the sorrow well up in himself again, but used a wall of blind rage and confusion to suppress it.
"Where are ye going?" came a shout from behind him. Drizzt closed his eyes. He had just wanted to get away. He didn't care where and he didn't care how. He turned, slowly, to regard Bruenor.
Drizzt smiled wryly.
"Does it matter?" he said.
"It does te me," said Bruenor.
"In that case, away from here, away from the surface," stated Drizzt hollowly.
"Why?"
Drizzt shook his head, knowing the Bruenor could never understand what he had caused, how he felt.
"You have no idea what pain I have caused by my mere presence on the surface world," Drizzt nearly shouted. "You will never have the guilt that I carry! Never have to look at another elf and see the face of Ellifain before you! But I? I seem to be destined for sorrow and for pain! Perhaps that is my payment for defying my race and coming to the surface!"
Bruenor stared at him in surprise, taken entirely aback.
"I thought perhaps I could find love with Catti-brie, but now I've killed her too!"
Drizzt's voice cracked, and he could continue no longer.
"I told ye tha' wasn't yer fault!" shouted Bruenor.
Drizzt turned away in disgust, and began moving off, down the path towards the Spine of the World.
"An' she's no' dead yet!" cried Bruenor at Drizzt's receeding back.
Drizzt didn't stop but kept walking.
"Ye damn fooled elf! Don't ye leave me now! Don't ye leave HER!" bellowed Bruenor.
Drizzt slowed and then halted. He closed his eyes.
"She'll be needing ye before this is over, elf. Don't ye leave me now," continued Bruenor softly. "I'm losing me daughter."
He paused for a long moment.
"I don't want te lose me son as well."
Drizzt opened his eyes and turned to Bruenor.
"I cannot," he whispered. "My journey appears to be one destined to be for me alone."
"Always the excuse, isn't it?" snapped Bruenor.
"What?"
"Destiny this and Destiny that. Is it really Destiny that causes your lonliness, or is it that ye're afraid to get close to someone....too close to someone? I seen the look in yer eyes, elf. I know ye love me daughter, and I happen to know tha' she loves you too."
Bruenor shook his head and sighed.
"But ye be doin' what ye want, because I know ye'll be doin' tha' anyway."
Slowly, Drizzt began to walk away. It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.
He was alone again.
It was like when he had first come to the surface world from Menzoberranzan.
He was alone again.
***
Entreri paced back and forth in his quarters, boots thunking hollowly on the stone floor. He was agitated. He was frozen into inaction by this surprising and horrifying turn of events, and was attempting to quell his agitation by pacing.
It wasn't working.
"Then kill him."
Jarlaxle's words haunted him, echoing in his mind to the point of annoyance. He felt the anger behind them, even now, the frustration. He knew that Jarlaxle was disappointed with his inablitly to handle the situation promptly, but then again, the drow would never understand the connection between Drizzt Do'Urden and Artemis Entreri, couldn't understand the level of loathing and pity they held for each other.
Entreri wanted to rush out and fight Drizzt again, one last time, but he knew also that he had done that before and knew that the very feeling showed him to be the unworthy of the two.
In their last confrontation Drizzt had come away clearly the victor, he tried to convince himself.
No, his mind responded. Drizzt Do'Urden had clearly taken the moral victory, but hadn't Entreri defeated the drow? Hadn't he shoved his hand through the blasted dark elf's chest when he had foolishly turned his back on the skilled assassin? Hadn't he left the drow to die, crushed and bested?
Only the tiniest part of his mind dared to remind Entreri the circumstances of that "victory."
But he wouldn't have listened anyway.
The human stopped his pacing and smiled. He collected his belongings, strapping his enchanted sword and dagger to his waist, storing some supplies in a pouch, hastily scratched a note to Jarlaxle, and quickly paid a visit to Rambaret, the wizard. There were a few quick words he needed to have with the wizard.
Soon after, he was out in the dark streets of Lusken and before five minutes had passed had scaled the wall near the gates and moved, silent and deadly as a ghost, into the dark night, heading north.
Jarlaxle found the note two days later.
***
Well, my drow friend, you were right all along. Drizzt Do'Urden, in our last meeting, won clearly the moral victory. But not the victory of skill. I did. I left him battered and bleeding on the floor.
The fact that I was aided in my fight by my allies matters not. Drizzt Do'Urden surrounded himself with the most powerful of friends and allies-- as did I. And compared to the power of Crenshinibon, Jarlaxle and his drow band, all of Drizzt's friends who looked on helpless as I drove my hand through his chest were not worthy enough to confront Artemis Entreri.
For many months after that victory, I had thought myself bested, though I had thought him dead. I felt that I had won unfairly, that I had cheated for my victory--but only beause I always worked alone then. Now I understand. And I also understand some of which Dirzzt meant by the concept of friend.
Do'Urden was under the belief that because he had friends, that he loved and was loved, that he would always be better because he had something worthwhile to fight for. I understand that idea now. It is indeed worthwhile to cultivate friendships and alliances with those of lesser or equal power and skill, to better work as a team and achieve a communal victory, that all feel satisfied that they had worked their best in unison to achieve the desired outcome.
That is, I admit, and did admit before, when we destroyed Crenshinibon, a truly....satisfying feeling. Perhaps I was mistaken to have worked alone all those years, to deny the feeling of companionship and mutual respect connected with friends.
Now I must work alone one last time.
This is a personal battle between two warriors, not two companionships. This is something I must do, for my own peace of mind, and for his, I think likely. Whether I live or die is immaterial. I actually do not care, for I am secure in the knowlege that my life is no longer a lie.
This is not a vengeful vendeta, nor a futile pursuit, or a confrontation between rivals. This, I believe, is the key to the one epiphany, the last revelation before I can truly embrace my past, my present, and who I am to become.
This is the final duel.
--Artemis Entreri
Next Chapter: "Seperate Demons, Seperate Journeys"
Drizzt strayed, strayed from thought and time. There was darkness all about....or was there? He thought it was blackness, but then he thought it might be simply nothing.
Was this death?
He was fully conscious, so he doubted it. He could move around in the void. Well, not in a physical sense, but if he willed himself to go someplace, there he would be.
Suddenly a face reared out of the blackness as if it were a dense fog. Drizzt's heart froze in his chest as he saw who it was.
Ellifain!
Then the rest of her elven figure materialized.
"Drizzt Do'Urden," she snarled in disgust.
Drizzt couldn't speak. He didn't seem to have a mouth to do so.
"The mighty drow, fighter of rightousness!" she mocked.
How could she be speaking to him? She was dead, wasn't she?
"Did you think that killing me would erase the memory of me, O pitiful drow?" shouted Ellifain. It appeared that she could read thoughts as well.
I never wanted to hurt you, Ellifain! shouted Drizzt in his mind. I tried to save you!
"LIAR!!" shrieked Ellifain. "You killed my parents, you destroyed my villiage!"
That was not of my doing, Ellifain!
"You were there!"
I-started Drizzt.
"Look at your life, drow! Look at what you have done!"
She reached out her hands towards Drizzt, who stepped back and drew out Twinkle in a flash of blue, slashing down through Ellifain's right arm.
The blade passed through her arm as if it weren't there.
She reached him and pressed her fingertips against his skull.
The blackness around the two elves faded and images began to flash past, Drizzt in Menzoberranzan, the raid on Ellifain's villiage, Drizzt fleeing the vast drow city, Drizzt in the Underdark. His arrival on the surface world and his training.
His meeting Bruenor and the dwarves. The fear and hatred towards him in the Dale in the early days. The assult of the Crystal Shard on Icewind Dale, Drizzt's defeat of Errtu the Balor, the following defeat and quest for Mithril Hall and the meeting of Entreri.
"Had you not stayed where you belong, you would never have met Entreri," screamed Ellifain. "Had you never met, he would not have continually threatened your friends!"
The journey to Calimport and the horrible confrontation in order to save Regis.
The reclaiming of Mithril Hall. The coming of Drizzt's evil sister to Mithril Hall, bent on revenge and bringing a small army of drow warriors...and Artemis Entreri.
Drizzt saw Wulfgar fall, buried in a great avalanch.
"If you had not left Menzoberranzan, Baenre would never have come to Mithril Hall!" Ellifain shouted triumphantly, feeling the misery in Drizzt increase. "And had you not angered the demon Errtu, Wulfgar would not have been tortured in the Abyss!"
After defeating his sister's assult, and Entreri had escaped, Matron Mother Baenre had herself come to Mithril Hall, with the entire host of the Drow city, to conquor and destroy the dwarves.
Subsequent images rocketed past, until Drizzt was watching, seemingly in slow-motion, the death of Ellifain.
"And had you, drow, stayed where you belonged and had not destroyed my villiage, my death would not have been your fault!" whispered Ellifain, her face inches away from Drizzt's. "Had you stayed whre you belonged, drow, none of these events would have happened!"
Her words cut him worse than if she had hacked him apart, limb by limb.
"He is returning," said a faint, muffled voice, seemingly from nowhere.
And then Ellifain began squeezing her fingers together. Unfortunately Drizzt's head was in the way. She grimaced and dug her fingernails into the flesh of his temples. Drizzt roared in rage and pain and drove his hand into her chest, at the solar plexus. The blow picked her off the ground and flung her thirty feet away.
And Drizzt awoke, erupting from the coma into bright light.
"Glad te see ye decided te come back," said a gruff voice.
***
I am lost. I know not my place in this world, nor do I know my responsibilities anymore. I have somehow lost sight of them though I know not where.
Catti-brie lies deep in the halls of the dwarven mines in a coma. She is between places, between this life and the next. The slightest illness or further injury, perhaps even the slightest neglect on the parts of the clerics tending her, and that careful balance could tip away from the material world.
Away from me.
I now carry a heavy burden. The fault of her injuries is mine, I know. Am I then to become more protective of those I love? Wulfgar made that mistake when he and Catti-brie were to be wed those many years ago. He fell in love with Catti-brie's free spirit, her unbreakable independent streak, as have I, but he became protective of her, as if she were his posession to be bought and then kept on a shelf.
I saw his faults then, and I have tried to not fall into the same traps he did. And yet...the sight of Catti-brie so grievously wounded, her life- blood flowing from her veins onto the dirt, nearly broke me.
I understand the risks involved with our work as we keep bandits and other criminals from waylaying innocent travelers on the way through the Spine of the World. I understand that at any time any of us, Bruenor, Regis, Wulfgar, Catti-brie, or I, could be struck down by one of the many dangers of Icewind Dale, but somehow that possibility, after facing and defeating so many might foes like Errtu the Balor, or Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, or the Matron Mother Baenre, that something so normally defeated like yetis would be able to touch us.
And yet here I am, sitting at Catti-brie's bedside, a bed which could very well be her deathbed, and all that I have ever trusted, all that I have contemplated and know to be right, is thrown to the winds, shattered by a single act.
I want nothing more than to shield Catti-brie from the dangers of the Dale, from the reality of life in the wilderness, and yet I know that to do so would be to kill her indomitable spirit, and by relation kill the very thing in her I love.
What is it about love that makes one feel so powerful and yet so vulnerable? For that is how I feel. When I think of Catti-brie, I know that I am made whole, made stronger, and I feel as if I could conquoer the world with a thought, and at the same time to lose her would mean the end of my life. I would lose the will to live.
It is strange, but Ellifain, or whatever apparition took her form, was right when she spoke to me in my unconsciousness. I would never have believed I would one day say that. Whatever it was that spoke to me there, perhaps Ellifain, perhaps some sort of spirit, or more likely the fevered illusion of a delusional mind, it was correct. Had I never come to the surface, none of these horrible events would have occured.
I am lost.
I know not my way.
--Drizzt Do'Urden
***
"You have been in here for days! What is your problem, human?" Jarlaxle snapped in frustration. "Drizzt Do'Urden is alive. So be it. You have conquored your demons, Entreri!"
Artemis sat on his small, uncomfortable bed, several days growth of beard on his face, looking haggard and defeated.
It was true. He had been in this room ever since he had learned that Drizzt still breathed. He did not leave, no one came to him but Jarlaxle, he didn't sleep, he barely ate enough to live, so lost was he in his own inner turmoil.
He looked up at the angry drow dully, his expression remaining the same dettached look he had been wearing for three days.
Jarlaxle knew that look well. It was the look of someone who had lost the will to live, to continue on the fight.
"My demons live with Drizzt Do'Urden," Entreri whispered hoarsely.
Jarlaxle leaned close, leering into Entreri's face.
"Then kill him," the drow snarled.
***
Drizzt Do'Urden sat dozing in a chair next to the large bed. Catti-brie breathed still, if shallowly, the thin sheet covering her barely rising and falling.
The room was large and spacious, the walls roughly carved out of the dark rock, torches casting their warm, bronze glow across the bed, bathing it in flickering firelight. Several clerics tended her, whispering their prayers.
The wooden door to the room swung open and Bruenor Battlehammer entered. He glanced at the dozing Drizzt, then moved quietly to the bedside and spoke with one of the dwarven clerics.
"She be gravely injured, me King," said the cleric. "She be hoverin' betw'en the gates of life and death."
Bruenor sighed, a sigh of utter frustration and fear mingled with heavy sorrow. It was as if a great weight was hanging about his shoulders.
"Keep ye trying," he said, and knelt at the bedside, taking the hand of his adopted daughter in his. It was clammy and chilled, and was the pale gray color of death. The pulse was extremely faint. Bruenor did not think himself a strong or powerful dwarf--he knew he was, it was a simple fact-- but seeing this human girl like this nearly broke him.
He choked, trying to keep the emotions buried. He was a dwarven king! He should not show weakness! Oft does the heart refuse to obey what the mind commands. It follows its own road. Bruenor bowed his head until his brow laid upon the cold arm of Catti-brie.
"Come back to me, ye girl...' he whispered. "Don't ye be leavin' me! Don't ye be doin' that!"
And Bruenor Battlehammer wept.
***
Jarlaxle pulled the cowl of his cloak tighter about his face. He walked briskly through the dark streets of Luskan, deep in thought. He was walking this chilly night in an attempt to let off some of the welling frustration inside him.
Humans were such strange creatures, he thought. So caught up in their own petty emotions as to miss the things which were truly important. Most humans spent their entire lives so caught up in the moment, looking forward only far enough to see the next step, that they were often led into disaster. It came from not living their lives in Menzoberranzan, Jarlaxle believed. In the great Drow city, any one of the humans in Luskan, or Calimport, or the Realms, would not survive half of a day, perhaps not even half an hour. In Menzoberranzan, intriuge and conspiracy were as normal as this horrible sun these pathetic humans so relied upon. It was a necessary thing to be continually on your toes, always thinking ahead of your enemies by several steps, like a chess game, carefully considering what every move will accomplish and what the reactions to it will be.
Jarlaxle and his band of renegades had survived in the Underdark, in Menzoberranzan, for many years because they were the most cunning of the cunning (at least in Jarlaxle's opinion). To Jarlaxle, some things were important and some things were not, down there, you learned what was required for survival and that was the path you followed, it was very simple. Having a pride issue with a drow warrior was not one of them. He thought Entreri weak for his self-destructive obsession. It was, he reflected, exactly the same as before. He though himself rightfully frustrated. After all, hadn't he arranged so much in order for Entreri to confront the drow, and hadn't he arranged for the drow to be defeated? All for Entreri, so that the dangerous assassin could work with Jarlaxle, have a chance at a productive life instead of worrying about that blasted drow. And now Entreri had gone full circle, returned to his original status as The-Most-Highly-Depressed.
Entreri was like the drow, calculating, cunning, and lived for the challenge and danger of the edge. Jarlaxle knew Entreri well enough to determine that. Entreri was calculating, always five steps ahead of his foes-until Drizzt Do'Urden got involved. And then it was as if his mind simply shut down and Entreri became worse than a simpleton.
Jarlaxle cursed the renegade drow, wondering why the world had to be plauged with beings who held to moral ideals. If it weren't for that blasted drow, Jarlaxle's plans would be proceeding! What magic did this drow possess that would so curse Entreri? What spell could do such a thing?
Yes, Entreri was like the drow; cold, calculating. But he was still human, and still retained the human traits. Stupidity was hereditary, Jarlaxle had concluded, among the human population.
He turned into a dark alleyway without thinking about where he was going, so lost in thought and frustration, still finding no way of releaving his tention and anger, no way to vent.
There was the ever-so-soft crunch of a foot coming down on gravel from behind Jarlaxle. Cowl still tight about his face, he smiled grimly.
Jarlaxle turned around and regarded the stranger from within the shadows of his hood. He stood confidently, back straight, eyes making two lavander pricks in the night from beneath the shadowy cowl.
Two more ruffians emerged from dark shadows behind Jarlaxle, cutting off the theoretical escape route, though the angry drow was hardly going to run away from three pieces of human trash.
"You mean to rob me, then," stated the drow from the depths of his cloak.
The man standing at the mouth of the alleyway stepped closer and into a beam of moonlight.
"It's nothing personal," he said, shrugging, drawing a short sword from his belt and grinning in anticipation.
"Of course it isn't," said Jarlaxle. "Neither is this."
He exploded into motion. His hand snapped out towards the thief, little more than a blur. There was a short whistling sound.
It took the thief a few moments to realize that there was a throwing knife embedded in his chest. His grin faded and he gaped at the drow, the pain messeges just now reaching his brain. He grasped at the knife with both hands and regarded Jarlaxle strangely, as if he weren't actually seeing Jarlaxle but merely staring that direction. His legs grew weak, his knees buckled and he slumped to the cobbles.
"Right," said Jarlaxle, his frustration somewhat abated, turning to the other two thieves knives simply appearing in his clenched fists. "Who's next?"
The battle lust was flowing in him already, he could feel the call and appeal of a fight. He began concentrating on focusing his aggression and frustration and anger into the coming fight. If they charged, he would meet them, if they ran he would pursue, and if they did nothing, they would find knives in their throats.
The two thieves glanced at each other and back to Jarlaxle, who sprang upon that moment to pull back his hood and reveal his drowish features.
The color drained from their faces and there was an awkward silence in the alleyway.
Then the thieves turned tail and ran.
***
Drizzt came awake.
He blinked into the torch-light and glanced about the room to get his bearings. The memories of all that had happened flooded back to him suddenly and he felt his stomach sink. He sat up and saw the motionless form of Catti-brie laying under the thin sheet, a sheen of sweat glowing on her face in the torch light and her red hair plastered to her pale, gray brow. Her face wore the gray of death.
Bruenor knelt still by her bedside, her hand firmly gripped in his.
"I am sorry," Drizzt rasped from a mouth that seemed unused to obeying commands. His mouth felt thick and his tongue swollen.
Bruenor slowly turned to regard the elf.
"She be traveling to th' other side..." Bruenor said, his eyes sunken and voice hollow. It was as if the light of life in those eyes, once on fire with passion and energy, had somehow gone out. He sighed. "I knew it would a'ways be dangerous. I jus' never expected....."
His words struck a painful cord in Drizzt's heart and soul. Bruenor might well have simply taken up his axe and driven it through Drizzt's heart, for all the pain that it caused to him. The elf bowed his head, eyes closed, fight back the emotions.
"S'not your fault," Bruenor said quietly. "Couldn't be avoided. We always been living the dangerous life. Sooner o' later, I knew reality'd catch us up."
"No," croaked Drizzt, rising to his feet and looking at the pale form of Catti-brie. "You're wrong. I caused this. I am the cause of all your troubles, my friends. My mere presence on the surface world is a hindrence and detriment to you all."
Drizzt took a final long glance at Catti-brie, etching her features into his memory forever, then turned and left the room before Bruenor could say another word.
He headed for his quarters, collected his things, and departed the dwarven mines soon after.
***
The thieves ran down the dark alleyways of Luskan, not caring where they ended up, nor by what route they got there, they just wanted away from the drow.
Drow! In Luskan! It was an extremely frightening thought, and an entirely unwelcome one. Where there was one drow, there were almost always more. Except for that rouge drow they had heard about, Drizzt Do'Urden, and he was rumored to be some kind of "hero" in the northern lands.
They charged through turns, breathing becoming labored, shoving past the occasional walker in the alleys. Their boots clopped on the cobblestones of the alleyway with loud echos.
Finally they stopped, panting for breath.
"I think we lost 'im!" said the one.
There was the rustle of a cloak from the darkness and the thieves caught sight of a black cloak whip across between alleyways.
"Wha' was that?" shouted the other, each figgiting and nervously grasping their weapons, only a knife and short sword each.
Meanwhile, Jarlaxle thought he would take a less traditional approach. He concentrated on the spot where the two were standing.
An orb of darkness appeared over them. The thieves gave shouts of alarm from within.
Then Jarlaxle charged, a dozen twirling knives leading him into the orb.
He entered the orb and lost all vision, but not his other, hightened senses. He grasped a dagger in each hand.
He felt a presence coming up on his left and so spun to the right, right past the unsuspecting thief, and then as he spun, brought out his right arm, dagger extended horizontally. The dagger sliced through flesh, grating against ribs, and slid home with, Jarlaxle thought, a satisfyingly wet sound.
The air exploded from the lungs of the hapless thief, whose right lung instantly deflated and began filling with blood.
Wrenching the dagger free, Jarlaxle was already bringing the other knife down, to sink into the thief's right shoulder. Keeping that dagger firmly embedded, the drow brought up the other, already bloodied, dagger, and ran it across the thief's throat.
The limp body was already falling away when Jarlaxle felt the other thief coming in from behind. He cocked his head slightly, tensed his legs, and when the thief was nearly upon him, sprang into the air back over the head of the oncoming human, his feet rising over his head, performing a spectacular heels-over-head flip, dagger carving a bloody line across the human's scalp as he flipped by, to land easily behind the human.
Before the human could even cry out or touch the wound on his head, Jarlaxle snaked his left arm around from behind the human and plunged the dagger into the thief's throat, wriggling it about. Then, for good measure, he stabbed the human in the back, the blade slipping between ribs and gouging the lung.
The orb of darkness fell away.
The body slumped to the ground.
Jarlaxle sighed, his anger abated, then turned and walked away, wiping his daggers clean on the clothes of the victims as he did so. It was, Jarlaxle thought as he slipped quietly away into the shadows and then from rooftop to rooftop, almost too easy.
***
Drizzt stormed out of the entrance to Mithril Hall and into the blazing glory of the sunset and squinted into the light. The sight triggered a memory of Catti-brie and Drizzt sitting upon a similar hill and watching the sunrise together. He felt the sorrow well up in himself again, but used a wall of blind rage and confusion to suppress it.
"Where are ye going?" came a shout from behind him. Drizzt closed his eyes. He had just wanted to get away. He didn't care where and he didn't care how. He turned, slowly, to regard Bruenor.
Drizzt smiled wryly.
"Does it matter?" he said.
"It does te me," said Bruenor.
"In that case, away from here, away from the surface," stated Drizzt hollowly.
"Why?"
Drizzt shook his head, knowing the Bruenor could never understand what he had caused, how he felt.
"You have no idea what pain I have caused by my mere presence on the surface world," Drizzt nearly shouted. "You will never have the guilt that I carry! Never have to look at another elf and see the face of Ellifain before you! But I? I seem to be destined for sorrow and for pain! Perhaps that is my payment for defying my race and coming to the surface!"
Bruenor stared at him in surprise, taken entirely aback.
"I thought perhaps I could find love with Catti-brie, but now I've killed her too!"
Drizzt's voice cracked, and he could continue no longer.
"I told ye tha' wasn't yer fault!" shouted Bruenor.
Drizzt turned away in disgust, and began moving off, down the path towards the Spine of the World.
"An' she's no' dead yet!" cried Bruenor at Drizzt's receeding back.
Drizzt didn't stop but kept walking.
"Ye damn fooled elf! Don't ye leave me now! Don't ye leave HER!" bellowed Bruenor.
Drizzt slowed and then halted. He closed his eyes.
"She'll be needing ye before this is over, elf. Don't ye leave me now," continued Bruenor softly. "I'm losing me daughter."
He paused for a long moment.
"I don't want te lose me son as well."
Drizzt opened his eyes and turned to Bruenor.
"I cannot," he whispered. "My journey appears to be one destined to be for me alone."
"Always the excuse, isn't it?" snapped Bruenor.
"What?"
"Destiny this and Destiny that. Is it really Destiny that causes your lonliness, or is it that ye're afraid to get close to someone....too close to someone? I seen the look in yer eyes, elf. I know ye love me daughter, and I happen to know tha' she loves you too."
Bruenor shook his head and sighed.
"But ye be doin' what ye want, because I know ye'll be doin' tha' anyway."
Slowly, Drizzt began to walk away. It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.
He was alone again.
It was like when he had first come to the surface world from Menzoberranzan.
He was alone again.
***
Entreri paced back and forth in his quarters, boots thunking hollowly on the stone floor. He was agitated. He was frozen into inaction by this surprising and horrifying turn of events, and was attempting to quell his agitation by pacing.
It wasn't working.
"Then kill him."
Jarlaxle's words haunted him, echoing in his mind to the point of annoyance. He felt the anger behind them, even now, the frustration. He knew that Jarlaxle was disappointed with his inablitly to handle the situation promptly, but then again, the drow would never understand the connection between Drizzt Do'Urden and Artemis Entreri, couldn't understand the level of loathing and pity they held for each other.
Entreri wanted to rush out and fight Drizzt again, one last time, but he knew also that he had done that before and knew that the very feeling showed him to be the unworthy of the two.
In their last confrontation Drizzt had come away clearly the victor, he tried to convince himself.
No, his mind responded. Drizzt Do'Urden had clearly taken the moral victory, but hadn't Entreri defeated the drow? Hadn't he shoved his hand through the blasted dark elf's chest when he had foolishly turned his back on the skilled assassin? Hadn't he left the drow to die, crushed and bested?
Only the tiniest part of his mind dared to remind Entreri the circumstances of that "victory."
But he wouldn't have listened anyway.
The human stopped his pacing and smiled. He collected his belongings, strapping his enchanted sword and dagger to his waist, storing some supplies in a pouch, hastily scratched a note to Jarlaxle, and quickly paid a visit to Rambaret, the wizard. There were a few quick words he needed to have with the wizard.
Soon after, he was out in the dark streets of Lusken and before five minutes had passed had scaled the wall near the gates and moved, silent and deadly as a ghost, into the dark night, heading north.
Jarlaxle found the note two days later.
***
Well, my drow friend, you were right all along. Drizzt Do'Urden, in our last meeting, won clearly the moral victory. But not the victory of skill. I did. I left him battered and bleeding on the floor.
The fact that I was aided in my fight by my allies matters not. Drizzt Do'Urden surrounded himself with the most powerful of friends and allies-- as did I. And compared to the power of Crenshinibon, Jarlaxle and his drow band, all of Drizzt's friends who looked on helpless as I drove my hand through his chest were not worthy enough to confront Artemis Entreri.
For many months after that victory, I had thought myself bested, though I had thought him dead. I felt that I had won unfairly, that I had cheated for my victory--but only beause I always worked alone then. Now I understand. And I also understand some of which Dirzzt meant by the concept of friend.
Do'Urden was under the belief that because he had friends, that he loved and was loved, that he would always be better because he had something worthwhile to fight for. I understand that idea now. It is indeed worthwhile to cultivate friendships and alliances with those of lesser or equal power and skill, to better work as a team and achieve a communal victory, that all feel satisfied that they had worked their best in unison to achieve the desired outcome.
That is, I admit, and did admit before, when we destroyed Crenshinibon, a truly....satisfying feeling. Perhaps I was mistaken to have worked alone all those years, to deny the feeling of companionship and mutual respect connected with friends.
Now I must work alone one last time.
This is a personal battle between two warriors, not two companionships. This is something I must do, for my own peace of mind, and for his, I think likely. Whether I live or die is immaterial. I actually do not care, for I am secure in the knowlege that my life is no longer a lie.
This is not a vengeful vendeta, nor a futile pursuit, or a confrontation between rivals. This, I believe, is the key to the one epiphany, the last revelation before I can truly embrace my past, my present, and who I am to become.
This is the final duel.
--Artemis Entreri
Next Chapter: "Seperate Demons, Seperate Journeys"