R. Salvatore - The Companions

Is there any greater need within the social construct than that of trust? Is there any more important ingredient to friendship or to the integrity of a team?

And yet, throughout a person’s life, how many others might he meet who he can truly trust? The number is small, I fear. Yes, we will trust many with superficial tasks, but when we each dig down to emotions that entail true vulnerability, that number of honest confidants shrinks dramatically.

That has ever been the missing ingredient in my relationship with Dahlia and in my companionship with Artemis Entreri. As I consider it now, I can only laugh at the reality that I trust Entreri more than Dahlia, but only in that I trust him with matters of mutual benefit. Were I in dire peril, would either rush to my aid?

I think they would if there were any hope of victory, but if their help meant true sacrifice, wherein either of them had to surrender life to save mine … well, I would surely perish.

Is it possible themselvesI, given the passionate that I have grown so cynical that I can accept that?

Who am I, then, and who might I become? I have forgotten that I have known friends who would push me out of the way of a speeding arrow, even if that meant catching the missile in their own bodies. So it was with the Companions of the Hall, all of us for each of us.

Even Regis. So often did we tease Regis, who was ever hiding in the shadows when battle was joined, but we knew with full confidence that our halfling friend would be there when the tide turned against us, and indeed, I have no doubt that my little friend would leap high to intercept the arrow before it reached my bosom at the willing price of his own life.

I cannot say the same of this second group with whom I adventured. Entreri would not give his life for me, nor would Dahlia, I expect-though in truth, with Dahlia I never know what to expect. Afafrenfere the monk was capable of such loyalty, as was Ambergris the dwarf of Adbar, though whether I had earned that level of companionship with them or not I do not know. And Effron, the twisted warlock? I cannot be certain, though I surely doubt that one who dabbles in arts so dark is a man of generous heart.

Perhaps with time, this second adventuring group will grow as close as the Companions of the Hall, and perhaps in that tightening bond there would come selfless acts of the highest courage.

But should I spend a hundred years beside them, might I ever expect the same level of sacrifice and valor that I had known with Bruenor, Catti-brie, Regis, and Wulfgar? In a desperate battle against seemingly unwinnable odds, could I move ahead to flank our common enemy with full confidence that when it came to blows, these others would be there beside me, all in to victory or death?

No. Never.

This is the bond that would never materialize, the level of love and friendship that rises above all else-all else, even the most basic instinct of personal survival.

When I learned of Dahlia’s affair with Entreri, I was not surprised, and not merely because of my own role in driving her away. She made of me a cuckold, something Catti-brie would never have done, under any circumstance. And I was not surprised at the revelation, for this basic difference between the two women was clear for me to see all along. Perhaps I deluded myself in the beginning with Dahlia, blinded by intrigue and lust, or by the quaint notion that I could somehow repair the wounds within her, or most likely of all, by my need to replace that which I had lost.

But I always knew the truth.

When Effron told me of her dalliance with Entreri, I believed him immediately because it resonated with my honest understanding of my relationship and of this woman. I was neither surprised nor terribly wounded. However I lied to myself, however I tried to believe the best of the woman, this was who I knew Dahlia to be.

I wanted to remake the Companions of the Hall. More than anything in all the world, I wanted to know again the level of friendship and trust-honest and deep, to the heart and to the soul-that I had known for those years with my dearest friends. The world can never brighten for me until I have found that, and yet I fear that what I once knew was unique, derived of circumstances I cannot replicate.

In joining with Entreri and the others, I tried to salve that wound and recreate the joy of my life.

But in considering the new band of adventurers, there entails the inevitable comparison, and in that, all that I have accomplished is to rip the scab from the unhealed wound. looked at her curiously.ced,

I find that I am lonelier than ever before.