“Shall we explain to the next shipwrecked and miserable victims we happen across, good and decent folk who just watched family and friends murdered, that the pirates who scuttled them were operating within acceptable boundaries?” asked Deudermont. “Are we to tolerate such injustice and malevolence out of some fear of an unknown future?”

“Things are not always as simple as they seem,” Robillard said again. “The Hosttower of the Arcane, the Arcane Brotherhood itself, might not be the most just and deserving rulers of Luskan, but we have seen the result of their rule: Peace in the city, if not in the seas beyond. Are you so confident that without them, Luskan can steer better course?”

“Yes,” Deudermont declared. “Yes, indeed.”

“I would expect such surety from Brambleberry.”

“I have lived my life trying to do right,” said Deudermont. “And it’s not for fear of any god or goddess, nor of the law and its enforcers. I follow that course because I believe that doing good will bring about good results.”

“The wide world is not so easily controlled.”

“Indeed, but do you not agree that the better angels of man will win out? The world moves forward to better times, times of peace and justice. It’s the nature of humanity.”

“But it’s not a straight road.”

“I grant you that,” said Deudermont. “And the twists and turns, the steps backward to strife, are ever facilitated by creatures like Arklem Greeth, by those who hold power but should not. They drive us to darkness when men do nothing, when bravery and honor is in short supply. They are a suffocating pall on the land, and only when brave men lift that pall can the better angels of men stride forward.”

“It’s a good theory, a goodly philosophy,” said Robillard.

“Brave men must act of their heart!” Deudermont declared.

“And of their reason,” Robillard warned. “Strides on ice are wisely tempered.”

“The bold man reaches the mountaintop!”

Robillard thought, but didn’t say, or falls to his death.

“You will fight beside me, beside Lord Brambleberry, against your former brother wizards?”

“Against those who don’t willingly come over to us, yes,” Robillard answered. “My oath of loyalty is to you, and to Sea Sprite. I have spent too many years saving you from your own foolishness to let you die so ingloriously now.”

Deudermont clapped his dearest friend on the shoulder and moved to the rail beside him, leading Robillard’s gaze back out to the open sea. “I do fear that you may be right,” he conceded. “When we defeat Arklem Greeth and end the pirate scourge, the unintended consequences might include the retirement of Sea Sprite. We’ll have nothing left to hunt, after all.”

“You know the world better than that. There were pirates before Arklem Greeth, there are pirates in the time of Greeth, and there will be pirates when his name is lost to the ashes of history. Better angels, you say, and on the whole, I believe—or at least I pray—that you are correct. But it’s never the whole that troubles us, is it? It’s but a tiny piece of humanity who sail the Sword Coast as pirates.”

“A tiny piece magnified by the powers of the Hosttower.”

“You may well be right,” said Robillard. “And you may well be wrong, and that, my friend, is my fear.”

Deudermont held fast to the rail and kept his gaze to the horizon, unblinking though the sun had broken through and reflected brilliantly off the rolling waters. It was a good man’s place to act for the cause of justice. It was a brave man’s place to battle those who would oppress and do harm to helpless innocents. It was a leader’s place to act in concert with his principles and trust enough in those principles to believe that they would lead him and those who followed him to a better place.

Those were the things Deudermont believed, and he recited them in his mind as he stared at the brilliant reflections on the waters he loved so dearly. He had lived his life, had shaped his own code of conduct, through his faith in the dictums of a good and brave leader, and they had served him well as he in turn had served so well the people of Luskan, Waterdeep, and Baldur’s Gate.

Robillard knew the Hosttower and the ways of the Arcane Brotherhood, and so Deudermont would indeed defer to him on the specifics of their present enemy.

But Captain Deudermont would not shy from the duty he saw before him, not with the opportunity of having eager Lord Brambleberry and his considerable resources sailing beside him.

He had to believe that he was right.

CHAPTER 8

SMOTHERED BY A SECURITY BLANKET

P erhaps I’m just getting older and harder to impress,” Regis said to Drizzt as they walked across a wide fields of grass. “She’s not so great a city, not near the beauty of Mithral Hall—and surely not Silverymoon—but I’m glad they let you in through the gates, at least. Folk are stubborn, but it gives me hope that they can learn.”

“I was no more impressed by Mirabar than you were,” Drizzt replied, tossing a sidelong glance at his halfling friend. “I had long heard of her wonders, but I agree they’re lacking beside Mithral Hall. Or maybe it’s just that I like the folk who live in Mithral Hall better.”

“It’s a warmer place,” Regis decided. “From the king on down. But still, you must be glad of your acceptance in Mirabar.”

Drizzt shrugged as though it didn’t matter, and of course, it didn’t. Not to him, anyway; he could not deny his hope that Marchion Elastul would truly make peace with Mithral Hall and his lost dwarves. That development could only bode well for the North, particularly with an orc kingdom settled on Mithral Hall’s northern border.

“I’m more glad that Bruenor found the courage to go to Obould’s aid for a cause of common good,” the drow remarked. “We’ve seen a great change in the world.”

“Or a temporary reprieve.”

Again Drizzt shrugged, but the gesture was accompanied by a look of helpless resignation. “Every day Obould holds the peace is a day of greater security than we could have expected. When his hordes rushed down from the mountains, I believed we would know nothing but war for years on end. When they surrounded Mithral Hall, I feared we would be driven from the place forever more. Even in the first months of stalemate, I, like everyone else, expected that it would surely descend into war and misery.”

“I still expect it.”

Drizzt’s smile showed that he didn’t necessarily disagree. “We stay vigilant for good reason. But every passing day makes that future just a bit less certain. And that’s a good thing.”

“Or is every passing day nothing more than another day Obould prepares to finish his conquest?” Regis asked.

Drizzt draped his arm over the halfling’s shoulders.

“Am I too cynical for fearing such?” Regis asked.

“If you are, then so am I, and so is Bruenor—and Alustriel, who has spies working all through the Kingdom of Many-Arrows. Our experience with the orcs is long and bitter, full of treachery and war. To think that all we’ve known to be true is not necessarily an absolute is unsettling and almost incomprehensible, and so to walk the road of acceptance and peace often takes more courage than the way of the warrior.”

“It always is more complicated than it seems, isn’t it?” Regis asked with a wry grin. “Like you, for example.”

“Or like a halfling friend of mine who fishes with one foot and flees with the other, fights with a mace in his right hand and pickpockets an unsuspecting fool with his left, and all the while manages to keep his belly full.”

“I have a reputation to uphold,” Regis answered, and handed Drizzt back the purse he’d just lifted from the drow’s belt.

“Very good,” Drizzt congratulated. “You almost had it off my belt before I felt your hand.” As he took the purse, he handed Regis back the unicorn-headed mace he’d deftly slid from the halfling’s belt as the rogue was lifting his purse.