“Greetings,” Bruenor offered in a tone that could be considered jovial for the dour dwarf. “And know ye that the sight of yer fair city has bringed new life into me weary heart!”
The guards hardly heard him, intent upon the drow, who had pulled back his cowl. They seemed curious, for they had never actually seen a black elf, but, they didn’t appear too surprised by Drizzt’s arrival.
“May we be escorted to the Moonbridge now?” Regis asked after a period of silence that grew increasingly uncomfortable. “You cannot guess how anxious we are to view Silverymoon. So much we have heard!”
Drizzt suspected what was forthcoming. An angry lump welled in his throat.
“Go away,” the guard said quietly. “You may not pass.”
Bruenor’s face reddened in rage, but Regis cut off his explosion. “Surely we have done nothing to cause such a harsh judgement,” the halfling protested calmly. “We are simple travelers, seeking no trouble.” His hand went to his jacket, and to the hypnotic ruby, but a scowl from Drizzt halted his plan.
“Your reputation seems to outweigh your actions,” Wulfgar remarked to the guards.
“I am sorry,” replied one, “but I have my duties, and I see them through.”
“Us, or the drow?” Bruenor demanded.
“The drow,” answered the guard. “The rest of you may go to the city, but the drow may not pass.”
Drizzt felt the walls of hope crumbling around him. His hands trembled at his sides. Never before had he experienced such pain, for never before had he come to a place without the expectation of rejection. Still, he managed to sublimate his immediate anger and remind himself that this was Bruenor’s quest, not his own, for good or for ill.
“Ye dogs!” Bruenor cried. “Th’ elf’s worth a dozen of ye, and more! I owe him me life a hundred times, and ye think to say that he’s not good enough for yer stinking city! How many trolls be layin’ dead for the work of yer sword?”
“Be calm, my friend,” Drizzt interrupted, fully in control of himself. “I expect as much. They cannot know Drizzt Do’Urden. Just the reputation of my people. And they cannot be blamed. You go in, then. I will await your return.”
“No!” Bruenor declared in a tone that brooked no debate. “If ye can’t go in, then none of us will!”
“Think of our goal, stubborn dwarf,” Drizzt scolded. “The Vault of Sages is in the city. Perhaps our only hope.”
“Bah!” Bruenor snorted. “To the Abyss with this cursed city and all who live here! Sundabar sits less than a week’s walking. Helm, the dwarf-friend, will be more inviting, or I’m a bearded gnome!”
“You should enter,” Wulfgar said. “Let not our anger defeat our purpose. But I remain with Drizzt. Where he cannot go, Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, refuses to go!”
But the determined stomps of Bruenor’s stocky legs were already carrying him down the road back out from the city. Regis shrugged at the other two and started after, as loyal to the drow as any of them.
“Choose your camp as you wish, and without fear,” the guard offered, almost apologetically. “The Knights of Silver will not disturb you, nor will they let any monsters near the borders of Silverymoon.”
Drizzt nodded, for though the sting of the rejection had not diminished, he understood that the guard had been helpless to change the unfortunate situation. He started slowly away, the disturbing questions that he had avoided for so many years already beginning to press in upon him.
Wulfgar was not so forgiving. “You have wronged him,” he said to the guard when Drizzt moved away. “Never has he raised sword against any who did not deserve it, and this world, yours and mine, is better off for having Drizzt Do’Urden about!”
The guard looked away, unable to answer the justifiable scolding.
“And I question the honor of one who heeds to unjust commands,” Wulfgar declared.
The guard snapped an angry glare on the barbarian. “The Lady’s reasons are not asked,” he answered, hand on sword hilt. He sympathized with the anger of the travelers, but would accept no criticism of the Lady Alustriel, his beloved leader. “Her commands follow a righteous course, and are beyond the wisdom of me, or you!” he growled.
Wulfgar did not justify the threat with any show of concern. He turned away and started down the road after his friends.
Bruenor purposely positioned their camp just a few hundred yards down the Rauvin, in clear sight of the guard post. He had sensed the guard’s discomfort at turning them away and he wanted to play upon that guilt as strongly as he could.
“Sundabar’ll show us the way,” he kept saying after they had supped, trying to convince himself as much as the others that their failure at Silverymoon would not hurt the quest. “And beyond that lies Citadel Adbar. If any in all the Realms know of Mithril Hall, it be Harbromm and the dwarves of Adbar!”
“A long way,” Regis commented. “Summer may run out before we ever reach the fortress of King Harbromm.”
“Sundabar,” Bruenor reiterated stubbornly. “And Adbar if we must!”
The two went back and forth with the conversation for a while. Wulfgar didn’t join in, too intent on the drow, who had moved a short distance away from the camp right after the meal—which Drizzt had hardly touched and stood silently staring at the city up the Rauvin.
Presently, Bruenor and Regis settled themselves off to sleep, angry still, but secure enough in the safety of the camp to succumb to their weariness. Wulfgar moved to join the drow.
“We shall find Mithril Hall,” he offered in comfort, though he knew that Drizzt’s lament did not concern their current objective.
Drizzt nodded, but did not reply.
“Their rejection hurt you,” Wulfgar observed. “I thought that you had accepted your fate willingly. Why is this time so different?”
Again the drow made no move to answer.
Wulfgar respected his privacy. “Take heart, Drizzt Do’Urden, noble ranger and trusted friend. Have faith that those who know you would die willingly for you or beside you.” He put a hand on Drizzt’s shoulder as he turned to leave.
Drizzt said nothing, though he truly appreciated Wulfgar’s concern. Their friendship had gone far beyond the need for spoken thanks, though, and Wulfgar only hoped that he had given his friend some comfort as he returned to the camp, leaving Drizzt to his thoughts.
The stars came out and, found the drow still standing alone beside the Rauvin. Drizzt had made himself vulnerable for the first time since his initial days on the surface, and the disappointment he now felt triggered the same doubts that he had believed resolved years ago, before he had ever left Menzoberranzan, the city of the black elves. How could he ever hope to find any normalcy in the daylight world of the fair-skinned elves? In Ten-Towns, where murderers and thieves often rose to positions of respect and leadership, he was barely tolerated. In Longsaddle, where prejudice was secondary to the fanatical curiosity of the unsinkable Harpells, he had been placed on display like some mutated farm animal, mentally poked and prodded. And though the wizards meant him no harm, they lacked any compassion or respect for him as anything other than an oddity to be observed.
Now Silverymoon, a city founded and structured on tenets of individuality and fairness, where peoples of all races found welcome if they came in goodwill, had shunned him. All races, it seemed, except for the dark elves.
The inevitability of Drizzt’s life as an outcast had never before been so clearly laid out before him. No other city, not even a remote village, in all the Realms could offer him a home, or an existence anywhere but on the fringes of its civilization. The severe limitations of his options, and even moreso, of his future hopes for change, appalled him.
He stood now under the stars, looking up at them with the same profound level of love and awe as any of his surface cousins had ever felt, but sincerely reconsidering his decision to leave the underworld.