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  “Then they would no longer be our problem,” Wulfgar grimly replied, his meaning all too clear.

  Doregardo looked up at him for a long moment. “Consider them your problem no longer, then.” He motioned to his riders, who began rounding up the group.

  “Well, that depends on your intentions,” Wulfgar replied.

  “You think them redeemable?”

  “If we didn’t, they would all be dead back on the road.”

  “Then our intentions are to escort you to the Boareskyr Bridge,” Doregardo assured him, “and offer our help in managing your prisoners. And there at the bridge, we will hear your verdict.”

  “And honor it?” Wulfgar pressed.

  Doregardo gave a noncommittal shrug. “I’ve associates who are gathering more information regarding this band. If there is blood on their hands …”

  Wulfgar held up his hand to show that he understood and agreed. He nodded, satisfied.

  The Trade Way was very much a wild land, with precious cargo constantly flowing and highwaymen constantly lurking. There were few jails available, and fewer guardians, like the Grinning Ponies, to patrol the long road. For all who traversed this region, safety often balanced on the edge of a fine sword. The same had been true in Icewind Dale, of course, where justice, out of necessity, was usually swift and almost always brutal.

  Doregardo motioned to a nearby halfling rider, a wide-eyed young lass Regis did not know. She expertly swung her pony around and galloped back up the road, returning some time later after the wagon was rolling once more, with a pair of riderless ponies in tow.

  “Will you ride with us again, my old friend?” Doregardo asked Regis when the spare ponies neared.

  Regis grinned, as much at the curious reference—for how “old” a friend was Doregardo, after all, in comparison to the hulking barbarian who sat on the bench beside Regis?—as at the appealing prospect. He accepted the offer, and rode easily in a line between Doregardo and Showithal, and teased them with the tales he would tell them that night around the campfire.

  And what grand tales those were!

  Regis recounted the War of the Silver Marches all the way to the momentous battle at Dark Arrow Keep, and the great victory of King Bruenor and his allies. Many cheers went up from the Grinning Ponies—and even a few from the captured bandits.

  Regis told them of the dragons above the mountain, and coaxed Afafrenfere into detailing his battle with the white wyrm on the side of the mountain, and even though the monk downplayed the event with proper humility, a multitude of gasps accompanied his every sentence.

  It was long into the night when Regis finished, but none were asleep, not even Adelard and his band, all whispering and laughing at the grand story, all cheering for King Bruenor and King Harnoth and King Emerus Warcrown.

  “And now you are bound for Boareskyr Bridge,” Doregardo said when the whispers died away, halflings and bandits and barbarian alike moving to their bedrolls.

  “Suzail, actually,” Regis replied.

  Doregardo and Showithal exchanged curious looks.

  “Morada Topolino?” Showithal asked, and Regis’s smile confirmed the guess.

  “I promised Lady Donnola that I would return. It is not a promise I intend to break!”

  Showithal Terdidy, who remembered well the lovely Donnola, nodded and returned the grin.

  “And you?” Doregardo asked Wulfgar.

  “My eager little friend is often in need of protection,” Wulfgar replied.

  “As is Wulfgar, who smashed his face into rocks in the dark tunnels,” Regis quipped back.

  “Another tale?” asked Doregardo, and Regis laughed, more than willing to comply.

  But Showithal moved off to the side of the other three then, to a lone figure crouched on a flat stone, peering off into the darkness. Regis paused, all three straining to hear the exchange.

  “The Monastery of the Yellow Rose, so said Spider. Damara?” Showithal asked, obviously intrigued. Showithal was from that faraway land and had begun his career there with a halfling vigilante band known as the Kneebreakers.

  The monk nodded. “And there, I return.”

  “Ah, but we’ve got words to exchange, then, good monk! I’ve friends in that faraway land, too long estranged!”

  He scrambled up on the rock beside the monk and took up a conversation.

  “It is a good thing your friend insisted that he does not sleep,” Doregardo said to Wulfgar and Regis, “for Showithal Terdidy is not known for his brevity in recounting his adventures.”

  Regis nodded, more than aware of that very fact.

  “Now,” Doregardo said, clapping his hands. “Tell me this new tale. One of my stature is always thrilled to hear of tall humans running into low-hanging rocks in the dark.”

  He stopped and flashed a wide smile, but it dissipated as he considered Regis and Wulfgar, the halfling offering a questioning stare, and Wulfgar eventually nodding his agreement.

  “I do have another tale to tell you,” Regis told Doregardo, in a voice much softer and more somber. “But one you will hardly believe, I fear, and one that travels back to a time before you were born.”

  Doregardo looked curiously at this halfling—who seemed no more than half his age—then at Wulfgar.

  By the time the wagon began its roll down the Trade Way early the next morning, neither Regis, Doregardo, nor Wulfgar had slept. Doregardo most of all seemed as if his mind still whirled from the most fantastical tale he had ever heard, one of rebirth and a second chance at life, and one, he found to his own surprise, that he believed wholeheartedly.

  A tenday later, the troupe settled comfortably at the Boareskyr Bridge. There, another group of Grinning Ponies found them, Doregardo’s scouts seeking information on the highwaymen. That proved to be good news for five of the six captives, who would be granted leniency. But for the sixth, the bulky axeman, there came information of blood on his hands.

  He was hanged that same day from a tree just west of the bridge.

  Justice in the wild lands was swift and brutal.

  To the surprise of the companions from the Silver Marches, Doregardo informed them that he and some others of his band would escort them all the way to Suzail.

  “I know many of the ship captains, of course, and so can help you secure passage to Aglarond,” he explained.

  “Suzail is a journey of several hundred miles!” Regis reminded him.

  “A ride I have not made in far too long,” said Doregardo. “Showithal and I were discussing this very journey soon before we found you. Since the events of the Sundering and the great changes that have swept over the Realms, it is far past time for us to show the banner of the Grinning Ponies once more in Cormyr.”

  “We will be glad for the company,” Regis replied.

  “And we, too! But first we must secure for your friends two fine horses,” said Doregardo.

  Wulfgar nodded, but Afafrenfere shook his head. “I require no mount.”

  “Our pace will be swift,” Doregardo warned, but Afafrenfere reiterated his stance. Soon after they departed, no one questioned him again. Afafrenfere ran easily beside the group and had no trouble keeping pace in the tendays following.

  They had hoped to make Suzail by the beginning of summer, but the Western Heartlands remained quite unsettled following the many wars and upheavals of the tumultuous events of the previous years, and so that journey found many side streets, and small adventures, and goodly folk in need of assistance. It was well past midsummer when at last the troupe spotted the tall masts gently rocking in the harbor of Suzail.

  There they said goodbye to Brother Afafrenfere, who sailed out for Mulmaster on the Moonsea, the swiftest route to his monastery home.

  Ships to Aglarond were harder to find at that time, though, and so it wasn’t until the very last day of Eleasis that Wulfgar and Regis at last boarded a squat merchant vessel, serving as deck hands and hired swords, bound for Aglarond’s port city of Delthuntle.

  “
Fare you well, my friend Doregardo,” Regis said at the dock. “I tell you now to keep your eyes and ears open to the Crags, north of Neverwinter. There will King Bruenor Battlehammer claim once more the most ancient homeland of the Delzoun dwarves.”

  “Fare you well, my friend Regis …” Doregardo replied.

  “Spider Topolino,” Showithal said with a wink behind the halfling, and all got a laugh at that.

  “Regis,” Doregardo corrected, “hero of the north. And you, as well, Master Wulfgar. I wish that I could cut you into three pieces and make of you three additions to the Grinning Ponies!”

  “Until we meet again, then,” said Regis.

  “On the doorstep of Gauntlgrym, perhaps,” Doregardo replied. “And from there, you can take us to meet this dwarf king you name as friend.”

  Regis bowed, Wulfgar nodded respectfully, and the pair boarded the caravel.

  None of them could know it at the time, but on that very day, Bruenor, Drizzt, Catti-brie, and the vast army that had marched from the Silver Marches set its camp before the northern gates of the city of Neverwinter.

  PART 1

  As You Will

  I LOOK UPON THE STARS AGAIN AND THEY SEEM AS FOREIGN TO ME AS they did when first I climbed out of the Underdark.

  By every logic and measure of reason, my journey to Menzoberranzan should seem to me to be a great triumph.

  Demogorgon was destroyed. The threat to Menzoberranzan, and perhaps to the wider world, was thus lifted. I survived, as did my companions, and Dahlia is back among us, rescued from the spidery web of Matron Mother Baenre. Tiago is dead, and I need not fear that he will rally allies to come after me and my friends ever again. Even were the drow to resurrect him, the issue is settled, I am sure. Not Tiago, and likely no other drow, will come hunting for the trophy of Drizzt Do’Urden ever again.

  And so, by every measure of reason, my journey to the Underdark met with the greatest success that we could have hoped, with two unexpected and welcomed developments.

  I should be overjoyed, and more so to see again the stars.

  But now I know, and once known, it is a truth that cannot be unrealized.

  Perhaps, given the revelation, it is the only truth.

  And that, I find abhorrent.

  The only truth is that there is no truth? This existence, all existence, is just a game, a cheat, meaningless beyond the reality we place in our own eyes?

  Wulfgar was deceived by Errtu in the pits of the Abyss. His entire existence was recreated, fabricated, and so his perception of reality moved toward his deepest desires—only to be pulled away by the great demon.

  How far does that lie go? How deep into everything we see, everything we know, everything we believe, is the fabrication of demons, or gods?

  Or are those beings, too, mere manifestations of my own internal imagination? Am I a god, the only god? Is everything around me no more than my creation, my eyes giving it shape, my nose giving it smell, my ears giving it sound, my moods giving it story?

  Aye, I fear, and I do not want to be the god of my universe! Could there be a greater curse?

  But yes, aye, indeed! Worse would be to learn that I am not the maestro, but that I am a victim of the maestro, who teases me with his own sinister designs.

  Nay, not worse! No, for if I am the god-thing, if I create reality with my own perception, then am I not truly alone?

  I cannot find the footing to sort this out. I look at the stars, the same stars that have brightened my nights for decades, and they seem foreign.

  Because I fear that it is all a lie.

  And so every victory rings hollow. Every truth to which I would have dearly clung slips easily through my weak hands.

  That strange priestess, Yvonnel, called me the Champion of Lolth, but in my heart I understand her grand misrepresentation. I fought for Menzoberranzan, true, but in a righteous cause against a demonic horror—and not for Lolth in any way, but for those dark elves who have a chance to see the truth and live a worthy life.

  Or did I?

  In my journey, I walked the halls of House Do’Urden—as it was, and not as it is. I saw the death of Zaknafein, so I am led to believe, but that, too, I cannot know.

  The only truth is that there is no truth … no reality, just perception.

  Because if perception is reality, then what matters? If this is all a dream, then this is all simply me.

  Alone.

  Without purpose beyond amusement.

  Without morality beyond whim.

  Without meaning beyond entertainment.

  Alone.

  I lift my blades, Twinkle and Icingdeath, and see them now as paddles in a game. What conviction might I put behind the strikes of such weapons when I know now that there is no point beyond the amusement of a demon, or of a god, or of my own imagination?

  And so I journey for Luskan this clear, starlit night.

  Without purpose.

  Without morality.

  Without meaning.

  Alone.

  —Drizzt Do’Urden

  CHAPTER 1

  Foul Winds and Fronting Seas

  I AM NOT MUCH ENJOYING THIS,” A GREEN-GILLED REGIS SAID TO Wulfgar. The square-masted caravel Puddy’s Skipper roughly rolled over the twenty-foot seas. The crew worked furiously to keep the lumbering vessel square to the waves, fearing that a sidelong roll would tip her right over.

  “Too much in the hold,” explained Wulfgar, who was not nearly as seasick as his little friend. “And it’s not tied down well enough. Every roll sends the crates sliding.”

  Up they went again over a high wave, this one so steep on the backside that the pair, standing on the stern castle, found themselves staring straight down over the prow to the dark water. Both grabbed on tighter, and a good thing for that, as water rushed right over the bow, sweeping across the main deck.

  Wulfgar laughed.

  Regis threw up.

  It went on throughout the afternoon, but mercifully the sea calmed a bit as night fell. The starless sky, though, promised more of the rain and wind the next day.

  “Ha ha! I thought ye had yer sea legs, then!” the first mate laughed when Wulfgar escorted Regis down the ladder to the main deck.

  “We’ve sailed often,” Wulfgar answered.

  “With Deudermont, on Sea Sprite!” Regis added, as if that should carry some weight. But the first mate and Mallabie Pudwinker, the captain, both simply shrugged.

  “We’re not on the Sword Coast,” Wulfgar quietly reminded his little friend as they walked away. “We’re on a lake.”

  “Some lake,” the green-gilled Regis sarcastically replied.

  “Aye, and that’s why the waves can be nastier,” answered Mallabie Pudwinker, who had overheard the conversation. The woman, sturdy and handsome, moved up to the pair, and it wasn’t hard for Regis to notice the sparkle in Wulfgar’s eye as he looked upon her. Regis certainly understood the sentiment. Captain Mallabie—in her looks, her build, and just the way she handled herself—evinced competence and strength. The woman who could out spit you, outfight you, and outlove you all at once. She was possessed of piercing dark brown eyes that seemed to look through a person as much as at him. Her black hair bobbed freely around her shoulders, the only aspect of the woman that seemed loose in any way. Her clothes fit perfectly, neat and straight, her vest tight around her, under a bandolier of medals and harbor pins. She wore a cutlass on her left hip, and though Regis hadn’t seen her draw it, he had little doubt that she could do so with great proficiency.

  “Not as deep, you see, in the sheltered run between Sembia and the Dragon Coast, and so the rolling water can gather a bit of a frothy head as it lifts over the reefs and shoals.”

  “Frothy head?” the halfling answered incredulously.

  “I thought you said you were from Aglarond and had sailed the Sea of Fallen Stars?”

  “I am, and did … but just once.”

  “Delthuntle, you said!” Mallabie protested. “A life on the water,
you said!”

  “In a rowboat, or a skiff. No bigger,” Regis explained.

  The captain sighed. “Might that I should have charged you more for the trouble of taking you back then, eh?”

  Regis started to answer, but Wulfgar brought his arm across the halfling’s shoulders, quieting him.

  “What?” both Regis and Mallabie asked together.

  “Listing,” Wulfgar said.

  “Rolling,” Regis corrected, but Wulfgar shook his head.

  “Listing, to port,” he said, standing perfectly still and staring forward, lining up the mainmast and the prow.

  “Below decks, now!” Captain Mallabie yelled at a nearby crewman. “Search the lower hold!”

  Before that man even disappeared down the ladder, a cry came up that they were indeed taking on water. The bouncing had driven down the mainmast, cracking the timbers below her. And now, with so much of the cargo shifted to port, the water coming in rushed to that side, further unbalancing the caravel.

  “Drop the sails!” Captain Mallabie shouted as soon as she realized the problem. The sails, straining under the weight of the wind, were only causing more stress at the damage point and thus exacerbating the problem below.

  “A bucket team below!” she bellowed, and her crew jumped into action. Wulfgar started for the ladder, too, but Mallabie caught him by the arm. “Are you as strong as you look?”

  “Stronger,” Regis assured her.

  “Good. Then to the tiller with you, both of you,” Mallabie ordered. “The wheel won’t be nimble enough without the sails, so we’ll go direct to the rudder.” She motioned to the man at the wheel, who locked it in place and nodded. “Bricker there will get the tiller up and free for you, then it’s on you, barbarian. You keep us straight into the waves, or sure that we’re to be rolled.”

  Wulfgar nodded. He had done such dramatic tiller duty before, turning ships bigger than this with his brute strength in the midst of a pirate battle.

  “Once the seas calm and my crew has the bailing in order and have started the patching, you go below and get the cargo balanced,” the captain added. “I’ll not lose a pound of it!”