R. Salvatore: The Collected Stories, The Legend of Drizzt

“You’ve been generous with your aid,” he said to me, looping a rope about Nojheim’s neck the way some in crowded villages leash their dogs. “I know that you have business in Silverymoon, so let me give you my assurance that all is well in Pengallen once more.”

I had the distinct feeling that I had just been summarily dismissed.

“Please take a meal at our inn,” Rico quickly added, motioning for me to go through the now-open gate. Had my confusion been that obvious? “A meal and a drink,” he added cheerfully. “Tell the barkeep, Aganis, that I will pay.”

My intention had been to deliver the prisoner and head off at once, trying to get a good start on my way to Silverymoon. I was eager to see the wondrous city on the River Rauvin, to walk freely with the blessings of the ruling lady along the marvelous curving boulevards, to visit the many museums and the unparalleled library. My instincts told me to go in for that meal, though. Something about this whole scenario wasn’t quite right.

Aganis, a barrel-shaped, thick-bearded, and oft-smiling man, was indeed surprised to see the likes of a dark elf enter his establishment, a larger two-story building set in the middle of the village’s back wall. The place served as inn, trading post, and a variety of other public functions. As soon as he got over his initial reaction-I suppose that terror-stricken is the only word to properly describe his expression-he became quite anxious to please me, at least, judging from the large portions he set before me, portions far larger than those of a farmer sitting not so far down the end of the bar.

I let the obvious pandering go without comment. It had been a long night and I was hungry.

“So you’re Drizzit Do’Urden?” the farmer at the end of the bar asked. He was an older man with thinning gray hair and a wizened face that had seen countless days under the sun.

Aganis blanched at the question. Did he think I would take offense and tear apart his place of business?

“Drizzt,” I corrected, looking to the man.

“Jak Timberline,” the man said. He extended his hand, then retracted it and wiped it on his shirt before putting it back out. “I’ve heard of you, Drizzt.” He took extra care to pronounce the name correctly, and I’ll admit, I was flattered. “They say you’re a ranger.”

I accepted the shake firmly, and my smile was wide, I am sure.

“I’ll tell you right here, Drizzt-” again, the extra care with the name “-I don’t care what color a fellow’s skin might be. I heard of you, heard good things about what you and your friends’ve done up in Mithral Hall.”

His compliment was a bit condescending, and poor Aganis blanched again. I took no offense, though, accepting Jak’s clumsiness as inexperience. The greeting was actually quite tactful, weighed against so many others I have received since I came to the surface world-so many others that took place at the end of a drawn weapon.

“It is a good thing that the dwarves have reclaimed the halls,” I agreed.

“And a good thing, too, that you happened by Rico’s group,” Jak added.

“Tharman was a happy soul this morning,” put in the nervous barkeep.

It seemed so normal to me, and you have to understand that I was used to anything but normal in my dealings with the various surface races.

“Did you get Rico back his slave?” Jak asked bluntly.

My last bite of food suddenly refused to go down my throat.

“Nojheim,” Jak explained. “The goblin.”

I had seen slavery in all its brutality in Menzoberranzan, the city of my birth. Dark elves kept many slaves of many races, working them brutally until they were no longer useful, then torturing them, butchering them, breaking their bodies as they had broken their spirits. I had always felt slavery to be the most repulsive of acts, even when practiced against the so-called unredeemable races, such as goblins and orcs.

I nodded in answer to Jak, but my sudden grimace put the man off. Aganis nervously cleaned the same plate several times, all the while staring at me and occasionally putting his towel up to wipe his sweaty brow.

I finished the meal without much more conversation, except to innocently discover which farmhouse belonged to Rico. I wanted no answers from these two. I wanted to see for myself what I had done.

I was outside Rico’s fenced-in yard by dusk. The farmhouse was a simple structure of boards and logs, mud patted in against the cracks to keep the wind out and a roof angled to handle the winter snows. Nojheim was going about his chores-unshackled, I noticed-but no one else was in sight. I did see the curtains of the single window on this side of the farmhouse move a few times. Rico, or one of his family, was probably keeping an eye out for the goblin.

When he was done tending to a goat tied near the house, Nojheim considered the darkening sky and went into the small barn, barely more than a shed, a short distance from the house. Through the many cracks of this rough structure, I saw the light of a fire come up a moment later.

What was this all about? I could not reconcile any of it. If Nojheim had initially come to Pengallen at the head of a raiding force, then why was he allowed such freedom? He could have taken a brand from that fire he had burning in the barn and set the main house ablaze.

I decided not to get my answers from Rico-decided, since I knew in my heart what was going on, that I would get no honest answers from him.

Nojheim went into his pitiful slobbering as soon as I walked into the shadows of the dimly lit barn.

“Please, oh, please,” he whined in his squeaky goblin voice, his fat tongue smacking against his lips.

I pushed him away, and my anger must have been obvious, for he suddenly sat quietly across the fire from me, staring into the orange and yellow flames.

“Why did you not tell me?”

He glanced up at me curiously, his expression a clear image of resignation.

“Did you lead a raid against Pengallen?” I pressed.

He looked back to the flames, his face twisted incredulously as though that question should not even be justified with an answer. And I believed him.

“Then why?” I demanded, shifting over to grab his shoulder and force him to look me in the eye. “Why did you not tell me Rico’s reason for wanting you back?”

“Tell you?” he balked. His goblin accent had suddenly flown. “A goblin tell Drizzt Do’Urden of his plight? A goblin appeal to a ranger for compassion?”

“You know my name?” By the gods, he even pronounced it correctly.

“I have heard great tales of Drizzt Do’Urden, and of Bruenor Battlehammer and the fight to reclaim Mithral Hall,” he replied, and again, his command of the proper inflections of the language was astounding. “It is common talk among the farmers of the lower valleys, all of them hoping that the new dwarf king will prove generous with his abundant wealth.”

I sat back from him. He just continued to stare blankly at the flames, his eyes lowered. I do not know exactly how much time passed in silence. I do not even know what I was thinking.

Nojheim was perceptive, though. He knew.

“I accept my fate,” he replied to my unspoken question, though there was little conviction in his voice.

“You are no ordinary goblin.”

Nojheim spat on the fire. “I do not know that I’m a goblin at all,” he answered. If I had been eating at the time, I surely would have choked once more.

“I am like no goblin I’ve ever met,” he explained with a hopeless chuckle. Always resigned, I thought, so typical of his helpless predicament. “Even my mother … she murdered my father and my younger sister.” He snapped his fingers to mock his next point, to accentuate the sarcasm in his voice. “They deserved it, by goblin standards, for they hadn’t properly shared their supper with her.”