Realms of Valor a-1

by Douglas Niles

  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 Mithril 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 ores.

  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 Mithril 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 dwarven 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."

  Nojheim went silent and shook his head. Physically, he was indeed a goblin, but I could tell already by the sincerity of his tone that he was far different in temperament from his wicked kin. The thought shook me more than a little. In my years as a ranger, I had never stopped to question my actions against goblins, never held back my scimitars long enough to determine if any of them might possibly be of a different demeanor than I had come to know as typical of the normally evil creatures.

  "You should have told me that you were a slave," I said again.

  "I'm not proud of that fact."

  "Why do you sit in here?" I demanded, though I knew the answer immediately. I, too, had once been a slave, a captive of wicked mind flayers, among the most evil of the Under-dark's denizens. There is no condition so crippling, no torment so profound. In my homeland, I had seen a contingent of a hundred ores held under complete control by no more than six drow soldiers. If they had mustered a common courage, those ores could surely have destroyed their keepers. But while courage is not the first thing to be stripped from a slave, it is certainly among the most important.

  "You do not deserve this fate," I said more softly.

  "What do you know of it?" Nojheim demanded.

  "I know that it is wrong," I said. "I know that something should be done."

  "I know that I would be hung by my neck if I tried to break free,
" he said bluntly. "I have never done any harm to any person or any thing. Neither do I desire to harm anyone. But, this is my lot in life."

  "We are not bound by our race," I told him, finding some conviction finally in remembering my own long trail from the dark ways of Menzoberranzan. "You said that you have heard tales of me. Are they what you might expect of a dark elf?"

  "You are drow, not goblin," he said, as if that fact explained everything.

  "By your own words, you are no more akin to goblins than I am to drow," I reminded him.

  "Who can tell?" he replied with a shrug, a helpless gesture that pained me deeply. "Am I to tell Rico that I am not a goblin in heart and action, just a victim of merciless fate? Do you think that he would believe me? Do you think that sort of understanding is within the grasp of these simple farmer folk?"

  "Are you afraid to try?" I asked him.

  "Yes!" His intensity was surprising. "I'm not Rico's first slave," he said. "He's held goblins, ores, even a bugbear once. He enjoys forcing others to do his own work, you see. Yet, how many of these other slaves did you see when you came into Rico's compound, Drizzt Do'Urden?"

  He knew that I had not seen any, and I was not surprised by his explanation. I was beginning to hate this Rico Pengallen more than a little.

  "Rico finished with them," Nojheim went on. 'They lost their ability to survive. They lost their usefulness. Did you notice the high cross-pole beside the front gate?"

  I shuddered when I pictured what use that cross-pole might have been put to.

  "I'm alive, and I'll stay alive," Nojheim declared. Then, for the first time, the determined goblin allowed his guard to slip down, his sullen expression betraying his words.

  "You wish that the raiding ogres would have killed you," I said to him, and he offered no argument.

  For some time we sat in silence, silence that weighed heavily on both of us. I knew that I could not let this injustice stand, could not turn my back on one-even a goblin- who so obviously needed help. I considered the courses open to me and came to the conclusion that to truly remedy this injustice, I must use what influence I could. Like most of the farming villages in the region, Pengallen was not an independent community. The people here were within the general protection of, and therefore, under the overseeing law of the greater cities nearby. I could appeal to Alustriel, who ruled Silverymoon, and to Bruenor Battlehammer, the nearest king and my dearest friend.

  "Perhaps some day I will find the strength to stand against Rico," Nojheim said unexpectedly, pulling me from my contemplations. I remember his next words vividly. "I am not a courageous goblin. I prefer to live, though oftentimes I wonder what my life is truly worth."

  My father could have said those very words. My father, Zak'nafein, too, was a slave, though a slave of a different sort. Zak'nafein lived well in Menzoberranzan, but he detested the dark elves and their evil ways. He saw no escape, though, no way out of the drow city. For lack of courage, he lived his life as a drow warrior, survived by following those same codes that were so abhorrent to him.

  I tried to remind Nojheim again that I had escaped a similar fate, that I had walked out of a desperate situation. I explained that I had traveled among peoples who surely hated me and feared me for the reputation of my heritage.

  'You are drow, not any goblin," he replied again, and this time I began to understand the meaning behind his words. "They will never understand that I am not evil in heart, as are other goblins. I don't even understand it!"

  "But you believe it," I said firmly.

  "Am I to tell them that this goblin is not an evil sort?"

  "Exactly that!" I argued. It seemed reasonable enough to me. I thought that I had found the opening I needed.

  Nojheim promptly closed that door, promptly taught me something about myself and about the world that I had not previously considered.

  "What is the difference between us?" I pressed, hoping he would see my understanding of the truth.

  "You think yourself persecuted?" the goblin asked. His yellow eyes narrowed, and I knew that he thought he was being shrewd.

  "I no longer accept that definition, just as I no longer accept the persecution," I declared. My pride had suddenly got in the way of understanding what this pitiful wretch was getting at. "People will draw their own judgments, but I will no longer accept their unfair conclusions."

  "You will fight those that do you wrong?" Nojheim asked.

  "I will deny them, ignore them, and know in my heart that I am right in my beliefs."

  Nojheim's smile revealed both an honest happiness that I had found my way, and a deeper sorrow-for himself, I came to know.

  "Our situations are not the same," he insisted. I started to protest, but he stopped me with an upraised hand. "You are drow, exotic, beyond the experiences of the vast majority of people you meet."

  "Almost everyone of the surface has heard horrible tales of the drow," I tried to reason.

  "But they have not dealt directly with drow elves!" Nojheim replied sharply. "You are an oddity to them, strangely beautiful, even by their own standards of beauty. Your features are fine, Drizzt Do'Urden, your eyes penetrating. Even your skin, so black and lustrous, must be considered beautiful by the people of the surface world. I am a goblin, an ugly goblin, in body if not in spirit."

  "If you showed them the truth of that spirit…"

  Nojheim's laughter mocked my concern. "Showed them the truth? A truth that would make them question what they had known all of their lives? Am I to be a dark mirror of their conscience? These people, Rico included, have killed many goblins-probably rightly so," he quickly added, and that clarification explained to me everything Nojheim had been trying to get through my blind eyes.

  If these farmers, many of whom had often battled goblins, and others who had kept goblins as slaves, found just one creature who did not fit into their definitions of the evil race, just one goblin who showed conscience and compassion, intellect and a spirit akin to their own, it might throw their whole existence into chaos. I, myself, felt as though I had been slapped in the face when I'd learned of Nojheim's true demeanor. Only through my own experiences with my dark elven kin, the overwhelming majority of whom well deserved their evil reputation, was I able to work through that initial turmoil and guilt.

  These farmers, though, might not so easily understand Nojheim. They would surely fear him, hate him all the more.

  "I am not a courageous being," Nojheim said again, and though I disagreed, I held that thought private.

  "You will leave with me," I told him. 'This night. We will go back to the west, to Mithril Hall."

  "No!"

  I looked at him, more hurt than confused.

  "I'll not be hunted again," he explained, and I guessed from the faraway, pained look he gave me that he was remembering the first time Rico had chased him down.

  I could not force Nojheim to comply, but I could not allow this injustice to stand. Was I to openly confront Rico? There were implications, potentially grave, to that course. I knew not what greater powers Pengallen held fealty to. If this village was sponsored by a city not known for tolerance, such as Nesme, to the south and west, then any action I took against its citizens could force trouble between that city and Mithril Hall, since I was, in effect, an emissary of Bruenor Battlehammer.

  And so I left Nojheim. In the morning I secured the use of a fine horse and took the only route left open to me. I would go to Silverymoon first, I decided, since Alustriel was among the most respected rulers in all the land. Then, if need be, I would appeal to Bruenor's strong sense of justice.

  I also decided then and there that if neither Alustriel nor Bruenor would act on Nojheim's behalf, I would take the matter unto myself-whatever the cost.

  It took me three days of hard riding to get to Silvery-moon. The greeting at the Moorgate, on the city's western side, was uncommonly polite, the guards welcoming me with all the blessings of Lady Alustriel. It was Alustriel that I needed to see, I told them, and
they replied that the Lady of Silverymoon was out of the city, on business with Sundabar, to the east. She would not return for a fortnight.

  I could not wait, and so I bade the guards farewell, explaining that I would return within a tenday or two. Then I set off, back the way I had come. Bruenor would have to act.

  The return ride was both exhilarating and tormenting to me. The greeting at Silverymoon, so different from what I had come to expect, had given me an almost giddy hope that the wrongs of the world could be defeated. At the same time, I felt as though I had abandoned Nojheim, felt as if my desire to follow proper etiquette was a cowardly course. I should have insisted that the goblin accompany me, should have taken Nojheim from his pain and then tried to mend the situation diplomatically.

  I have made mistakes in my life, as I knew I had made one here. I veered back toward Pengallen instead of traveling straight to Bruenor's court at Mithril Hall.

  I found Nojheim hanging from Rico's high cross-pole.

  There are events forever frozen in my memory, feelings that exude a more complete aura, a memory vivid and lasting. I remember the wind at that horrible moment. The day, thick with low clouds, was unseasonably warm, but the wind, on those occasions it had to gust, carried a chilling bite, coming down from the high mountains and carrying the sting of deep snow with it. That wind was behind me, my thick and long white hair blowing around my face, my cloak pressing tightly against my back as I sat on my mount and stared helplessly at the high cross-pole.

  The gusty breeze also kept Nojheim's stiff and bloated body turning slightly, the bolt holding the hemp rope creaking in mournful, helpless, protest.

  I will see him that way forever.

  I had not even moved to cut the poor goblin down when Rico and several of his rugged cohorts, all armed, came out of the house to meet me-to challenge me, I believed. Beside them came Tharman, carrying no weapon, his expression forlorn.

  "Damned goblin tried to kill me," Rico explained, and for a fleeting moment, I believed him, feared that I had compelled Nojheim to make a fateful error. As Rico continued, though, claiming that the goblin had attacked him in broad daylight, before a dozen witnesses, I came to realize that it was all an elaborate lie. The witnesses were no more than partners in an unjust conspiracy.