Robert Salvatore: The Halfling’s Gem

Malchor walked over to Wulfgar and clapped him again on the shoulder. “Discipline,” he said again. “Look at him, young warrior, for your dark-skinned friend is truly a master of his movements and, thus, a master of his craft. You do not yet understand, but we two are not so different.” He caught Wulfgar’s eyes squarely with his own. “We three are not so different. Different methods, I agree. But to the same ends!”

Tiring of his game, Drizzt caught the shoes one by one as they fell and hooked them over his forearm, all the while eyeing Malchor with approval. Seeing his young friend slump back in thought, the drow wasn’t sure which was the greater gift, the enchanted shoes or the lesson.

“But enough of this,” Malchor said suddenly, bursting into motion. He crossed to a section of the wall that held dozens of swords and other weapons.

“I see that one of your scabbards is empty,” he said to Drizzt. Malchor pulled a beautifully crafted scimitar from its mount. “Perhaps this will fill it properly.”

Drizzt sensed the power of the weapon as he took it from the wizard, felt the care of its crafting and the perfection of its balance. A single, star-cut blue sapphire glittered in its pommel.

“Its name is Twinkle,” Malchor said. “Forged by the elves of a past age.”

“Twinkle,” echoed Drizzt. Instantly a bluish light limned the weapon’s blade. Drizzt felt a sudden surge within it, and somehow sensed a finer edge to its cut. He swung it a few times, trailing blue light with each motion. How easily it arced through the air; how easily it would cut down a foe! Drizzt slid it reverently into his empty scabbard.

“It was forged in the magic of the powers that all the surface elves hold dear,” said Malchor. “Of the stars and the moon and the mysteries of their souls. You deserve it, Drizzt Do’Urden, and it will serve you well.”

Drizzt could not answer the tribute, but Wulfgar, touched by the honor Malchor had paid to his oft-maligned friend, spoke for him. “Our thanks to you, Malchor Harpell,” he said, biting back the cynicism that had dominated his actions of late. He bowed low.

“Keep to your heart, Wulfgar, son of Beornegar,” Malchor answered him. “Pride can be a useful tool, or it can close your eyes to the truths about you. Go now and take your sleep. I shall awaken you early and set you back along your road.”

Drizzt sat up in his bed and watched his friend after Wulfgar had settled into sleep. Drizzt was concerned for Wulfgar, so far from the empty tundra that had ever been his home. In their quest for Mithril Hall, they had trudged halfway across the northland, fighting every mile of the way. And in finding their goal, their trials had only begun, for they had then battled their way through the ancient dwarven complex. Wulfgar had lost his mentor there, and Drizzt his dearest friend, and truly they had dragged themselves back to the village of Longsaddle in need of a long rest.

But reality had allowed no breaks. Entreri had Regis in his clutches, and Drizzt and Wulfgar were their halfling friend’s only hope. In Longsaddle, they had come to the end of one road but had found the beginning of an even longer one.

Drizzt could deal with his own weariness, but Wulfgar seemed cloaked in gloom, always running on the edge of danger. He was a young man out of Icewind Dale—the land that had been his only home—for the first time in his life. Now that sheltered strip of tundra, where the eternal wind blew, was far to the north.

But Calimport was much farther still, to the south.

Drizzt lay back on his pillow, reminding himself that Wulfgar had chosen to come along. Drizzt couldn’t have stopped him, even if he had tried.

The drow closed his eyes. The best thing that he could do, for himself and for Wulfgar, was to sleep and be ready for whatever the next dawn would bring.

Malchor’s student awakened them—silently—a few hours later and led them to the dining room, where the wizard waited. A fine breakfast was brought out before them.

“Your course is south, by my cousin’s words,” Malchor said to them. “Chasing a man who holds your friend, this halfling, Regis, captive.”

“His name is Entreri,” Drizzt replied, “and we will find him a hard catch, by my measure of him. He flies for Calimport.”

“Harder still,” Wulfgar added, “we had him placed on the road.” He explained to Malchor, though Drizzt knew the words to be aimed at him, “Now we shall have to hope that he did not turn from its course.”

“There was no secret to his path,” argued Drizzt. “He made for Waterdeep, on the coast. He may have passed by there already.”

“Then he is out to sea,” reasoned Malchor.

Wulfgar nearly choked on his food. He hadn’t even considered that possibility.

“That is my fear,” said Drizzt. “And I had thought to do the same.”

“It is a dangerous and costly course,” said Malchor. “The pirates gather for the last runs to the south as the summer draws to an end, and if one has not made the proper arrangements, …” He let the words hang ominously before them.

“But you have little choice,” the wizard continued. “A horse cannot match the speed of a sailing ship, and the sea route is straighter than the road. So take to the sea, is my advice. Perhaps I can make some arrangements to speed your accommodations. My student has already set the enchanted shoes on your mounts, and with their aid, you may get to the great port in short days.”

“And how long shall we sail?” Wulfgar asked, dismayed and hardly believing that Drizzt would go along with the wizard’s suggestion.

“Your young friend does not understand the breadth of this journey,” Malchor said to Drizzt. The wizard laid his fork on the table and another a few inches from it. “Here is Icewind Dale,” he explained to Wulfgar, pointing to the first fork. “And this other, the Tower of Twilight, where you now sit. A distance of nearly four hundred miles lies between.”

He tossed a third fork to Drizzt, who laid it out in front of him, about three feet from the fork representing their present position.

“It is a journey you would travel five times to equal the road ahead of you,” Malchor told Wulfgar, “for that last fork is Calimport, two thousand miles and several kingdoms to the south.”

“Then we are defeated,” moaned Wulfgar, unable to comprehend such a distance.

“Not so,” said Malchor. “For you shall ride with sails full of the northern wind, and beat the first snows of winter. You will find the land and the people more accommodating to the south.”

“We shall see,” said the dark elf, unconvinced. To Drizzt, people had ever spelled trouble.

“Ah,” agreed Malchor, realizing the hardships a drow elf would surely find among the dwellers of the surface world. “But I have one more gift to give to you: a map to a treasure that you can recover this very day.”

“Another delay,” said Wulfgar.

“A small price to pay,” replied Malchor, “and this short trip shall save you many days in the populated South, where a drow elf may walk only in the night. Of this I am certain.”

Drizzt was intrigued that Malchor so clearly understood his dilemma and was apparently hinting at an alternative. Drizzt would not be welcome anywhere in the South. Cities that would grant the foul Entreri free passage would throw chains upon the dark elf if he tried to cross through, for the drow had long ago earned their reputation as ultimately evil and unspeakably vile. Few in all the Realms would be quick to recognize Drizzt Do’Urden as the exception to the rule.

“Just to the west of here, down a dark path in Neverwinter Wood and in a cave of trees, dwells a monster that the local farmers have named Agatha,” said Malchor. “Once an elf, I believe, and a fair mage in her own right, according to legend, this wretched thing lives on after death and calls the night her time.”