Коллектив авторов - The Realms of the Elves

The drow didn't move.

Kill her!

The look on her face helped the drow resist both the sword's call and his own murderous instincts. Before he even glanced left and right he knew. He might get one step before a barrage of arrows felled him. Perhaps two, if he was quick enough and lucky enough. Either way, he'd never get close to the elf.

He lowered Khazid'hea and turned back its stream of curses by filling his mind with fear and wariness. The sword quickly caught on and went silent in his thoughts.

The elf said something to him, but he did not understand. He knew a bit of the Elvish tongue, but couldn't decipher her particular dialect. A sound from the side finally turned him, to see a trio of elf archers slipping out of the shadows, bows drawn and ready. On the other side, three others made a similar appearance.

And more were still under cover, the drow suspected. He did his best to silently inform Khazid'hea.

The sword replied with a sensation of frustrated growling.

The elf spoke again, but in the common tongue of the surface. Tos'un recognized the language, but he understood only a few of her words. He could tell she wasn't threatening him, and that alone showed the drow where he stood.

He offered a smile and slid Khazid'hea into its scabbard. He held his hands up, then moved them out and shrugged. To either side of him, the archers relaxed, but only a bit.

Another moon elf moved out from the shadows, this one wearing the ceremonial robes of a priest. Tos'un bit back his initial revulsion at the site of the heretic, and forced himself to calm down as the cleric went through a series of gyrations and soft chanting.

He is casting a spell of languages, to better communicate with you, Khazid'hea silently informed the drow.

And a spell to discern truth from lies, if his powers are anything akin to the priestesses of Menzoberranzan, Tos'un replied.

As he completed the thought, the drow felt a strange calm emanating from the sentient sword. lean aid you in that, Khazid'hea explained, sensing his confusion and anticipating his question. True deception is a state of mind-even in the face of magical detection.

"I will know your intent and your purpose," the elf cleric said to Tos'un in words the drow understood perfectly, jarring him from his private conversation with the sword.

But that connection had not been fully severed, Tos'un realized. A continuing sense of pervading calm filtered through his thoughts and altered the timbre of his vocal reply.

And so he passed through the priest's line of questioning, answering sincerely though he knew well that he was not being honest.

Without Khazid'hea's help, he would have felt the bite of a dozen elven arrows that day, he knew.

And where am I to run? Tos'un asked Khazid'hea much later. What is there for me beyond the perimeter of this camp? You would have me hunting ores for their rotten foodstuffs, or venturing back into the wilds of the Under-dark where I cannot survive?

You are drow, the sword answered. You have stated before your hated of elves, the oppressors of your people. They are unsuspecting and off their guard, because of my help to you.

Tos'un wasn't so sure of that. Certainly those elves nearest to him seemed at ease. He might get through a few them. But what others lurked in the shadows? he wondered, and so the sword felt his question.

Khazid'hea had no answer.

Tos'un watched the elves moving around their camp. Despite their proximity to enemies, for they were across the Surbrin and in Obould's claimed territory, laughter rang out almost constantly. One took up a song in Elvish, and the rhythm and melody, though he could not know the words, carried Tos'un's thoughts back to Menzoberranzan.

Would you have me choose between these people and Obould's ugly kin? the drow asked.

Still the sword remained quiet in his thoughts.

The drow sat back, closed his eyes, and let the sounds of the elves' camp filter around him. He considered the roads before him, and truly none seemed promising. He didn't want to continue on his own. He knew the limitations and mortality of that route. Eventually, King Obould would catch up to him.

He shuddered as he considered the brutal death of his lost drow friend, the priestess Kaer'lic. Obould had bitten out her throat.

We can defeat him, Khazid'hea interrupted. You can slay Obould and take his armies as your own. His kingdom will be yours!

Tos'un had to work hard to stop himself from laughing out loud, and his incredulity served as a calming blanket over the excited sword. With or without Khazid'hea, there was no way Tos'un Armgo would willingly do battle with the powerful ore king.

The drow considered the road to the Underdark again. He remembered the way, but would it be possible for him to battle back to Menzoberranzan? The mere thought of the journey had him shuddering yet again.

That left him with the elves. The hated surface elves, the traditional enemies of his people-might he really find a place among them? He wanted to kill them, every one, almost as badly as did his always-hungry sword, but he knew that acting on such an impulse would leave him without any options at all.

Is it possible that I will find my place among them? he asked the sword. Might Tos'un become the next Drizzt Do'Urden, a rogue from the Underdark living in peace among the surface races?

The sword didn't reply, but the drow sensed that it was not amused. So Tos'un let his own thoughts follow that unlikely course. What might his life be like if he played along with the surface elves? He eyed a female as he wondered, and thought that bedding her might not be a bad thing. And after all, among the surface elves, unlike in his own matriarchal society, he would not be limited by his gender.

But would he always be limited by his ebon skin?

Drizzt wasn't, he reminded himself. From everything he had learned over the past days, Tos'un knew that Drizzt lived quite well not only with the surface elves but with dwarves as well.

Could it be that Drizzt Do'Urden has created a path that I might similarly follow?

You hate these elves, Khazid'hea replied. can taste your venom.

But that does not mean that I cannot accept their hospitality, for my own sake and not for theirs.

Will you stop fighting?

Again Tos'un nearly laughed out loud, for he understood that the only thing Khazid'hea cared about was wetting its magnificent blade with fresh blood.

With them, I will slaughter Obould's ugly kin, he promised, and the sword seemed to calm.

And if I hunger for an elfs blood?

In time, Tos'un replied. When I grow tired of them, or when I find another more promising road…

It was all new, of course, and all speculative. The drow couldn't be certain of anything just then, nor was he working from any position of power that offered him true choices. But the inner dialogue and the possibilities he saw before him were not unpleasant. For the time being, that was enough.

Drizzt stood, hands on hips, staring in disbelief at the signpost:

BEWARE! HALT! The Kingdom of Many-Arrows Enter on word of King Obould Or enter and die!

It was written in many languages, including Elvish and Common, and its seemingly simple message conveyed so much more to Drizzt and Innovindil. They had spent a month or more traversing the wintry terrain to return to that spot, the same trail on which they had seen the ores constructing a formidable gate. That gate, which they had already carefully observed some fifty feet farther along the path to the north, showed design and integrity that would make a dwarf engineer proud.

"They have not left. Their cohesion remains," Drizzt stated.

"And they proclaim their king as Obould, and their kingdom takes his surname," Innovindil added. "It would seem that the unusual ore's vision outlasted his breath."