“Drizzt will go alone,” the drow replied. “As you just said, the surface is not the place of a svirfneblin.”
“Nor a drow,” the deep gnome added pointedly.
“I do not fit the usual expectations of drow,” Drizzt retorted. “My heart is not their heart, and their home is not mine. How far must I walk through the endless tunnels to be free of my family’s hatred? And if, in fleeing Menzoberranzan, I chance upon another of the great dark elf cities, Ched Nasad or some similar place, will those drow, too, take up the hunt to fulfill the Spider Queen’s desires that I be slain? No, Belwar, I will find no peace in the close ceilings of this world. You, I fear, would never be content removed from the stone of the Underdark. Your place is here, a place of deserved honor among your people.”
Belwar sat quietly for a long time, digesting all that Drizzt had said. He would follow Drizzt willingly if Drizzt desired it so, but he truly did not wish to leave the Underdark. Belwar could raise no argument against Drizzt’s desires to go. A dark elf would find many trials up on the surface, Belwar knew, but would they outweigh the pains Drizzt would ever experience in the Underdark?
Belwar reached into a deep pocket and took out the light-giving brooch. “Take this, dark elf,” he said softly, flipping it to Drizzt, “and do not forget me.”
“Never for a single day in all the centuries of my future,” Drizzt promised. “Never once.”
The week passed all too quickly for Belwar, who was reluctant to see his friend go. The burrow-warden knew that he would never look upon Drizzt again, but he knew also that Drizzt’s decision was a sound one. As a friend, Belwar took it upon himself to see that Drizzt had the best chance of success. He took the drow to the finest provisioners in all of Blingdenstone and paid for the supplies out of his own pocket. Belwar then procured an even greater gift for Drizzt. Deep gnomes had traveled to the surface on occasion, and King Schnicktick possessed several copies of rough maps leading out of the Underdark tunnels.
“The journey will take you many weeks,” Belwar said to Drizzt when he handed him the rolled parchment, “but I fear that never would you find your way at all without this.”
Drizzt’s hands trembled as he unrolled the map. It was true, he now dared to believe. He was indeed going to the surface. He wanted to tell Belwar at that moment to come along; how could he say good-bye to so dear a friend?
But principles had carried Drizzt this far in his travels, and principles demanded that he not be selfish now.
He walked out of Blingdenstone the next day, promising Belwar that if he ever came this way again, he would return to visit. Both of them knew he would never return.
Miles and days passed uneventfully. Sometimes Drizzt held the magical brooch Belwar had given to him high; sometimes he walked in the quiet darkness. Whether coincidence or kind fate, he met no monsters along the course laid out on the rough map. Few things had changed in the Underdark, and though the parchment was old, even ancient, the trail was easily followed.
Shortly after breaking camp on his thirty-third day out of Blingdenstone, Drizzt felt a lightening of the air, a sensation of that cold and vast wind he so vividly remembered.
He pulled the onyx figurine from his pouch and summoned Guenhwyvar to his side. Together they walked on anxiously, expecting the ceiling to disappear around every bend.
They came into a small cave, and the darkness beyond the distant archway was not nearly as gloomy as the darkness behind them. Drizzt held his breath and led Guenhwyvar out.
Stars twinkled through the broken clouds of the night sky, the moon’s silvery light splayed out in a duller glow behind one large cloud, and the wind howled a mountain song. Drizzt was high up in the Realms, perched on the side of a tall mountain in the midst of a mighty range.
He minded not at all the bite of the breeze, but stood very still for a long time and watched the meandering clouds pass him on their slow aerial trek to the moon.
Guenhwyvar stood beside him, unjudging, and Drizzt knew the panther always would.
FB2 document info
Document ID: 73658579-98a8-4a2a-a25e-797a0a743a58
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 31.10.2005
Created using: doc2fb, FB Tools software
Document authors :
Stranger
Document history:
v. 0.9 – scanned By crazypjm; proofed by Cress; proofed by BW-SciFi (correct lots of minor inconsistencies) v. 1.0 – fb2 created. Stranger, 31.10.2005
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Exile (frde-2) Page 30
