Robert Salvatore - The Silent Blade

It was a place Jarlaxle had no intention of ever allowing them to see.

"Yes, a pleasure meetin' ye! Oh, a pleasure, King Bruenor, and to yer kin, me blessin's," Bumpo Thun-derpuncher, a rotund and short little dwarf with a fiery orange beard and a huge and flat nose that was pushed over to one side of his ruddy face, said to Bruenor for perhaps the tenth time since Bottom Feeder had put out of Baldur's Gate. The dwarven vessel was a square-bottomed, shallow twenty-footer with two banks of oars-though only one was normally in use-and a long aft pole for steering and for pushing off the bottom, Bumpo and his equally rotund and bumbling brother Donat had fallen all over themselves at the sight of the Eighth King of Mithral Hall. Bruenor had seemed honestly surprised that his name had grown to such proportions, even among his own race.

Now, though, that surprise was turning to mere annoyance, as Bumpo and Donat and their two oar-pulling cousins, Yipper and Quipper Fishsquisher, continued to rain compliments, promises of fealty, and general slobber all over him.

Sitting back from the dwarves, Drizzt and Catti-brie smiled. The ranger alternated his looks between Catti-brie-how he loved to gaze upon her when she wasn't looking-and the tumult of the dwarves. Then Regis— who was lying on his belly at the prow, head hanging over the front of the boat, his hands drawing pictures in the water-and back behind them to the diminishing skyline of Baldur's Gate.

Again he thought about his passage through the city, as easy a time of it as the drow had ever known, including those occasions when he had worn the magical mask. He had earned this peace; they all had. Once this mission was completed and the crystal shard was safely in the hands of Cadderly, and once they had recovered Wulfgar and helped him through his darkness, then perhaps they could journey the wide world again, for no better reason than to see what lay over the next horizon and with no troubles beyond the fawning of bumbling dwarves.

Truly Drizzt wore a contented smile, finding hope again, for Wulfgar and for them all. He could never have dreamed that he would ever find such a life on that day decades before when he had walked out of Menzoberranzan.

It occurred to him then that his father, Zaknafein, who had died to give him this chance, was watching him at that moment from another plane, a goodly place for one as deserving as Zak.

Watching him and smiling.

Whether a king's palace, a warrior's bastion, a wizard's tower, an encampment for nomadic barbarians, a farmhouse with stone-lined or hedge-lined fields, or even a tiny and

unremarkable room up the back staircase of a ramshackle inn, we each of us spend great energy in carving out our own little kingdoms. From the grandest castle to the smallest nook, from the arrogance of nobility to the unpretentious desires of the lowliest peasant, there is a basic need within the majority of us for ownership, or at least for stewardship. We want to-need to-find our realm, our place in a world often too confusing and too overwhelming, our sense of order in one little corner of a world that oft looms too big and too uncontrollable.

And so we carve and line, fence and lock, then protect our space fiercely with sword or pitchfork.

The hope is that this will be the end of that road we chose to walk, the peaceful and secure rewards for a life of trials. Yet, it never comes to that, for peace is not a place, whether lined by hedges or by high walls. The greatest king with the largest army in the most invulnerable fortress is not necessarily a man at peace. Far from it, for the irony of it all is that the acquisition of such material wealth can work against any hope of true serenity. But beyond any physical securities there lies yet another form of unrest, one that neither the king nor the peasant will escape. Even that great king, even the simplest beggar will, at times, be full of the unspeakable anger we all sometimes feel. And I do not mean a rage so great that it cannot be verbalized but rather a frustration so elusive and permeating that one can find no words for it. It is the quiet source of irrational outbursts against friends and family, the perpetrator of temper. True freedom from it cannot be found in any place outside one's own mind and soul.

Bruenor carved out his kingdom in Mithral Hall, yet found no peace there. He preferred to return to Icewind Dale, a place he had named home not out of desire for wealth, nor out of any inherited kingdom, but because there, in the frozen northland, Bruenor had come to know his greatest measure of inner peace. There he surrounded himself with friends, myself among them, and though he will not admit this-I am not certain he even recognizes it-his return to Icewind Dale was, in fact, precipitated by his desire to return to that emotional place and time when he and I, Regis, Catti-brie, and yes, even Wulfgar, were together. Bruenor went back in search of a memory.

I suspect that Wulfgar now has found a place along or at the end of his chosen road, a niche, be it a tavern in Luskan or Waterdeep, a borrowed barn in a farming village, or even a cave in the Spine of the World. Because what Wulfgar does not now have is a clear picture of where he emotionally wishes to be, a safe haven to which he can escape. If he finds it again, if he can get past the turmoil of his most jarring memories, then likely he, too, will return to Icewind Dale in search of his soul's true home.

In Menzoberranzan I witnessed many of the little kingdoms we foolishly cherish, houses strong and powerful and barricaded from enemies in a futile attempt at security. And when I walked out of Menzoberranzan into the wild Underdark, I, too, sought to carve out my niche. I spent time in a cave talking only to Guenhwyvar and

sharing space with mushroomlike creatures that I hardly understood and who hardly understood me. I ventured to Blingdenstone, city of the deep gnomes, and could have made that my home, perhaps, except that staying there, so close to the city of drow, would have surely brought ruin upon those folk.

And so I came to the surface and found a home with Montolio deBrouchee in his wondrous mountain grove, perhaps the first place I ever came to know any real measure of inner peace. And yet I came to learn that the grove was not my home, for when Montolio died I found to my surprise that I could not remain there.

Eventually I found my place and found that the place was within me, not about me. It happened when I came to Icewind Dale, when I met Catti-brie and Regis and Bruenor. Only then did I learn to defeat the unspeakable anger within. Only there did I learn true peace and serenity.

Now I take that calm with me, whether my friends accompany me or not. Mine is a kingdom of the heart and soul, defended by the security of honest love and friendship and the warmth of memories. Better than any land-based kingdom, stronger than any castle wall, and most importantly of all, portable.

I can only hope and pray that Wulfgar will eventually walk out of his darkness and come to this same emotional place.

— Drizzt Do'Urden

Delly pulled her coat tighter about her, more trying to hide her gender than to fend off any chill breezes. She moved quickly along the street, skipping fast to try and keep up with the shadowy figure turning corners ahead of her, a man one of the other patrons of the Cutlass had assured her was indeed Morik the Rogue, no doubt come on another spying mission.

She turned into an alleyway, and there he was. He was standing right before her, waiting for her, dagger in hand.

Delly skidded to a stop, hands up in a desperate plea for her life. "Please Mister Morik!" she cried. "I'm just wantin' to talk to ye."