Not so long ago, I had a conversation with Nanfoodle the gnome in Mithral Hall. We discussed his cleverness in funneling explosive gasses under the mountain ridge where Obould’s giant allies had set up devastating artillery. Quite an engineering feat by the gnome and his crew of dwarves, and one that blew the mountain ridge apart more fully than even a fireball from Elminster could have done. Nanfoodle is much more a follower of Gond, the god of inventions, than he is a practitioner of the Art. I asked him about that, inquiring as to why he tinkered so when so much of what he might do could be accomplished more quickly by simply touching the Weave.
I never got an answer, of course, as that is not Nanfoodle’s wont. Instead, he launched into a philosophical discussion of the false comfort we take in our dependence on, and expectation of, “that which is.”
Never has his point been more clear to me than it is now, as I see “that which is” collapsing around us all.
Do the farmers around the larger cities of Faerûn, around Waterdeep and Silverymoon, know how to manage their produce without the magical aid of the druids? Without such magical help, will they be able to meet the demands of the large populations in those cities? And that is only the top level of the problems that will arise should magic fail! Even the sewers of Waterdeep are complicated affairs, built over many generations, and aided at certain critical points, since the city has so expanded, by the power of wizards, summoning elementals to help usher away the waste. Without them—what?
And what of Calimport? Regis has told me often that there are far too many people there, beyond any sensible number for which the ocean and desert could possibly provide. But the fabulously rich Pashas have supplemented their natural resources by employing mighty clerics to summon food and drink for the markets, and mighty wizards to teleport in fresh sustenance from faraway lands.
Without that aid, what chaos might ensue?
And, of course, in my own homeland of Menzoberranzan, it is magic that keeps the kobolds enslaved, magic that protects the greater Houses from their envious rivals, and magic that holds together the threads of the entire society. Lady Lolth loves chaos, they say, and so she may see it in the extreme if that magic fades!
The societies of the world have grown over the centuries. The systems we have in place have evolved through the many generations, and in that evolution, I fear, we have long forgotten the basic foundations of society’s structures. Worse, perhaps, even re-learning those lost arts and crafts will not likely suffice to meet the needs of lands grown fatter and more populous because of the magical supplements to the old ways. Calimport could never have supported her enormous population centuries ago.
Nor could the world, a much wider place by far, have attained such a level of singularity, of oneness, of community, as it has now. For people travel and communicate to and with distant lands much more now than in times long past. Many of the powerful merchants in Baldur’s Gate are often seen in Waterdeep, and vice versa. Their networks extend over the leagues because their wizards can maintain them. And those networks are vital in ensuring that there will be no war between such mighty rival cities. If the people of Baldur’s Gate are dependent upon the craftsmen and farmers of Waterdeep, then they will want no war with that city!
But what happens if it all collapses? What happens if “that which is” suddenly is not? How will we cope when the food runs out, and the diseases cannot be defeated through godly intervention?
Will the people of the world band together to create new realities and structures to fulfill the needs of the masses?
Or will all the world know calamity, on a scale never before seen?
The latter, I fear. The removal of “that which is” will bring war and distance and a world of pockets of civilization huddled defensively in corners against the intrusion of murderous insanity.
I look helplessly at Catti-brie’s lifelessness, at Regis’s terror, and at Bruenor’s torn shoulder and I fear that I am seeing the future.
— Drizzt Do’Urden
CHAPTER 10
BEARDED PROXY
You garner too much enjoyment from so simple a trick,” Hephaestus said to his companion in a cave south of Spirit Soaring. “It is a matter of simple efficiency and expedience, dragon, from which I take no measure of enjoyment,” Yharaskrik answered in the voice of Ivan Bouldershoulder, whose body the illithid had come to reside in—partially, at least.
Any who knew Ivan would have scratched their heads in surprise at the strange accent in the dwarf’s gravelly voice. A closer inspection would only have added to the onlooker’s sense of strangeness, for Ivan stood too calmly. He refrained from tugging at the hairs of his great yellow beard, shifting from one foot to the other, or thumping his hands against his hips or chest, as was typical.
“I am still within you,” Yharaskrik added. “Hephaestus, Crenshinibon, and Yharaskrik as one. Holding this dwarf under my control allows me to give external voice to our conversations, though that is rarely a good thing.”
“While you are reading my every thought,” the dragon replied, no small amount of sarcasm in his tone, “you have externalized a portion of your consciousness to shield your own thoughts from me.”
The dwarf bowed.
“You do not deny it?” Hephaestus asked.
“I am in your consciousness, dragon. You know what I know. Any question you ask of me is rendered rhetorical.”
“But we are no longer fully joined,” Hephaestus protested, and the dwarf chuckled. The dragon’s confusion was apparent. “Are you not wise enough to segment your thoughts into small compartments, some within and some, in the guise of that ugly little dwarf, without?”
The Yharaskrik in Ivan’s body bowed again. “You flatter me, great Hephaestus. Trust that we are inexorably joined. I could no more hurt you than harm myself, for to do to one is truly to do to the other. You know this is true.”
“Then why did you reach out to the dwarf, this proxy host?”
“Because for you, particularly, who have never known such mental intimacy,” the illithid answered, “it can become confusing as to where one voice stops and the other begins. We might find ourselves battling for control of the body we both inhabit, working each other to exhaustion over the simplest of movements. It is better this way.”
“So you say.”
“Look within yourself, Hephaestus.”
The dracolich did exactly that and for a long while did not reply. Finally, he looked the dwarf straight in the eye and said, “It is a good thing.”
Yharaskrik bowed again. He glanced to the side of the chamber, past the four animated corpses of the Baldurian wizards, to the pair of huddled creatures in the deeper shadows.
“As Crenshinibon has externalized parts of itself,” the illithid said in the dwarf’s voice.
Fetchigrol stepped forward before Hephaestus could respond. “We are Crenshinibon,” the specter said. “Now we are apart in body, sundered by the magic of the falling Weave, but we are one in thought.”
Hephaestus nodded his gigantic head, but Yharaskrik, who had felt a strange evolution over the last few days, disagreed. “You are not,” the illithid argued. “You are tentacles of the squid, but there is independence in your movements.”
“We do as we are commanded,” Fetchigrol protested, but it rang hollow to the Ghost King. The illithid was correct in his assessment. The seven apparitions were gaining a small measure of independent thought once more, though neither feared that the Ghost King could be threatened by such an occurrence.
“You are fine soldiers for the cause of Crenshinibon,” said Yharaskrik. “Yet within the philosophy that guides you there is independence, as you have shown here in these mountains.”