was often used by long-lived races, particularly elves, when they sought
memories of their distant past. Normally the imbibers returned to a more
pleasant time, though. Old Night looked on with grave concern, for the
potion had returned Bruenor to a wicked day in his past, a memory that his
mind had blocked out, or at least blurred, to defend him against powerful
emotions. Those emotions would now be laid bare, revealed to the dwarf's
conscious mind in all their fury.
"Bring him to the Chamber of the Dwarves," Old Night instructed. Let
him bask in the images of his heroes. They will aid in remembering, and
give him strength throughout his ordeal."
Wulfgar lifted Bruenor and bore him gently down the passage to the
Chamber of the Dwarves, laying him in the center of the circular floor. The
friends backed away, leaving the dwarf to his delusions.
Bruenor could only half-see the images around him now, caught between
the worlds of the past and present. Images of Moradin, Dumathoin, and all
his deities and heroes looked down upon him from their perches in the
rafters, adding a small bit of comfort against the waves of tragedy.
Dwarven-sized suits of armor and cunningly crafted axes and warhammers
surrounded him, and he bathed in the presence of the highest glories of his
proud race.
The images, though, could not dispell the horror he now knew again, the
falling of his clan, of Mithril Hall, of his father.
"Daylight!" he cried, torn between relief and lament. "Alas for me
father, and me father's father! But yea, our escape is at hand! Settlestone
. . . " he faded from consciousness for a moment, overcome, " . . . shelter
us. The loss, the loss! Shelter us!"
"The price is high," said Wulfgar, pained at the dwarf's torment.
"He is willing to pay," Drizzt replied.
"It will be a sorry payment if we learn nothing," said Regis. "There is
no direction to his ramblings. Are we to sit by and hope against hope?"
"His memories have already brought him to Settlestone, with no mention
of the trail behind him," Wulfgar observed.
Drizzt drew a scimitar and pulled the cowl of his cloak low over his
face.
"What?" Regis started to ask, but the drow was already moving. He
rushed to Bruenor's side and put his face close to the dwarf's
sweat-lathered cheek.
"I am a friend," he whispered to Bruenor. "Come at the news of the
falling of the hall! My allies await! Vengeance will be ours, mighty dwarf
of Clan Battlehammer! Show us the way so that we might restore the glories
of the hall!"
"Secret," Bruenor gasped, on the edge of consciousness.
Drizzt pressed harder. "Time is short! The darkness is falling!" he
shouted. "The way, dwarf, we must know the way!"
Bruenor mumbled some inaudible sounds and all the friends gasped in the
knowledge that the drow had broken through the final mental barrier that
hindered Bruenor from finding the hall.
"Louder!" Drizzt insisted.
"Fourthpeak!" Bruenor screamed back. "Up the high run and into Keeper's
Dale!"
Drizzt looked over to Old Night, who was nodding in recognition, then
turned back to Bruenor. "Rest, mighty dwarf," he said comfortingly. "Your
clan shall be avenged!"
"With the description the book gives of Settlestone, Fourthpeak can
describe only one place," Old Night explained to Drizzt and Wulfgar when
they got back to the library. Regis remained in the Chamber of the Dwarves
to watch over Bruenor's fretful sleep.
The herald pulled a scroll tube down from a high shelf, and unrolled
the ancient parchment it held: a map of the central northland, between
Silverymoon and Mirabar.
"The only dwarven settlement in the time of Mithril Hall above ground,
and close enough to a mountain range to give a reference to a numbered
peak, would be here," he said, marking the southernmost peak on the
southernmost spur of the Spine of the World, just north of Nesme and the
Evermoors. "The deserted city of stone is simply called "the Ruins" now,
and it was commonly known as Dwarvendarrows when the bearded race lived
there. But the ramblings of your companion have convinced me that this is
indeed the Settlestone that the book speaks of."
"Why, then, would the book not refer to it as Dwarvendarrow?" asked
Wulfgar.
"Dwarves are a secretive race," Old Night explained with a knowing
chuckle, "especially where treasure is concerned. Garumn of Mithril Hall
was determined to keep the location of his trove hidden from the greed of
the outside world. He and Elmor of Settlestone no doubt worked out an
arrangement that included intricate codes and constructed names to
reference their surroundings. Anything to throw prying mercenaries off the
trail. Names that now appear in disjointed places throughout the tomes of
dwarven history. Many scholars have probably even read of Mithril Hall,
called by some other name that the readers assumed referred to another of
the many ancient dwarven homelands now lost to the world."
The herald paused for a moment to digest everything that had occurred.
"You should be away at once," he advised. "Carry the dwarf if you must, but
get him to Settlestone before the effects of the potion wear away. Walking
in his memories, Bruenor might be able to retrace his steps of two hundred
years ago back up the mountains to Keeper's Dale, and to the gate of
Mithril Hall."
Drizzt studied the map and the spot that Old Night had marked as the
location of Settlestone. "Back to the west." he muttered, echoing
Alustriel's suspicions. "Barely two days march from here."
Wulfgar moved in close to view the parchment and added, in a voice that
held both anticipation and a measure of sadness, "Our road nears its end."
17
The Challenge
They left under stars and did not stop until stars filled the sky once
again. Bruenor needed no support. Quite the opposite. It was the dwarf,
recovered from his delirium and his eyes focused at last upon a tangible
path to his long-sought goal, who drove them, setting the strongest pace
since they had come out of Icewind Dale. Glassy-eyed and walking both in
past and present, Bruenor's obsession consumed him. For nearly two hundred
years he had dreamed of this return, and these last few days on the road
seemed longer than the centuries that had come before.
The companions had apparently beaten their worst enemy: time. If their
reckoning at the Holdfast was correct, Mithril Hall loomed just a few days
away, while the short summer had barely passed its midpoint. With time no
longer a pressing issue, Drizzt, Wulfgar, and Regis had anticipated a
moderate pace as they prepared to leave the Holdfast. But Bruenor, when he
awoke and learned of the discoveries, would hear no arguments about his
rush. None were offered, though, for in the excitement, Bruenor's already
surly disposition had grown even fouler.
"Keep yer feet moving!" he kept snapping at Regis, whose little legs
could not match the dwarf's frantic pace. "Ye should've stayed in Ten-Towns
with yer belly hanging over yer belt!" The dwarf would then sink into quiet
grumbling, bending even lower over his pumping feet, and driving onward,
his ears blocked to any remarks that Regis might shoot back or any comments
forthcoming from Wulfgar or Drizzt concerning his behavior.
They angled their path back to the Rauvin, to use its waters as a
guide. Drizzt did manage to convince. Bruenor to veer back to the northwest
as soon as the peaks of the mountain range came into view. The drow had no
desire to meet any patrols from Nesme again, certain that it was that
city's warning cries that had forced Alustriel to keep him out of
Silverymoon.
Bruenor found no relaxation at the camp that night, even though they
had obviously covered far more than half the distance to the ruins of
Settlestone. He stomped about the camp like a trapped animal, clenching and
unclenching his gnarly fists and mumbling to himself about the fateful day
when his people had been pushed out of Mithril Hall, and the revenge he
would find when he at last returned. `
"Is it the potion?" Wulfgar asked Drizzt later that evening as they
stood to the side of the camp and watched the dwarf.
"Some of it, perhaps," Drizzt answered, equally concerned about his
friend. "The potion has forced Bruenor to live again the most painful
experience of his long life. And now, as the memories of that past find
their way into his emotions, they keenly edge the vengeance that has
festered within him all these years."
"He is afraid," Wulfgar noted.
Drizzt nodded. "This is the trial of his life. His vow to return to
Mithril Hall holds within it all the value that he places upon his own
existence."
"He pushes too hard," Wulfgar remarked, looking at Regis, who had
collapsed, exhausted, right after they had supped. "The halfling cannot
keep the pace."
"Less than a day stands before us," Drizzt replied. "Regis will survive
this road, as shall we all." He patted the barbarian on the shoulder and
Wulfgar, not fully satisfied, but resigned to the fact that he could not
sway the dwarf, moved away to find some rest. Drizzt looked back to the
pacing dwarf, and his dark face bore a look of deeper concern than he had
revealed to the young barbarian.
Drizzt truly wasn't worried about Regis. The halfling always found a
way to come through better off than he should. Bruenor, though, troubled
the drow. He remembered when the dwarf had crafted Aegis-fang, the mighty
warhammer. The weapon had been Bruenor's ultimate creation in a rich career
as a craftsman, a weapon worthy of legend. Bruenor could not hope to outdo
that accomplishment, nor even equal it. The dwarf had never put hammer to
anvil again.
Now the journey to Mithril Hall, Bruenor's lifelong goal. As Aegis-fang
had been Bruenor's finest crafting, this journey would be his highest
climb. The focus of Drizzt's concern was more subtle, and yet more
dangerous, than the success or failure of the search; the dangers of the
road affected all of them equally, and they had accepted them willingly
before starting out. Whether or not the ancient halls were reclaimed,
Bruenor's mountain would be crested. The moment of his glory would be
passed.
"Calm yourself, good friend," Drizzt said, moving beside the dwarf.
"It's me home, elf!" Bruenor shot back, but he did seem to compose
himself a bit.
"I understand," Drizzt offered. "It seems that we shall indeed look
upon Mithril Hall, and that raises a question we must soon answer."
Bruenor looked at him curiously, though he knew well enough what Drizzt
was getting at.
"So far we have concerned ourselves only with finding Mithril Hall, and
little has been said of our plans beyond the entrance to the place."
"By all that is right, I am King of the Hall," Bruenor growled.
"Agreed," said the drow, "but what of the darkness that may remain? A
force that drove your entire clan from the mines. Are we four to defeat
it?"
"It may have gone on its own, elf," Bruenor replied in a surly tone,
not wanting to face the possibilities. "For all our knowing, the halls may
be clean."
"Perhaps. But what plans have you if the darkness remains?"
Bruenor paused for a moment of thought. "Word'll be sent to Icewind
Dale," he answered. "Me kin'll be with us in the spring."
"Barely a hundred strong!" Drizzt reminded him.
"Then I'll call to Adbar if more be needed!" Bruenor snapped.
"Harbromm'll be glad to help, for a promise of treasure."
Drizzt knew that Bruenor wouldn't be so quick to make such a promise,
but he decided to end the stream of disturbing but necessary questions.
"Sleep well," he bid the dwarf. "You shall find your answers when you
must."
The pace was no less frantic the morning of the next day. Mountains
soon towered above them as they ran along, and another change came over the
dwarf. He stopped suddenly, dizzied and fighting for his balance. Wulfgar
and Drizzt were right beside him, propping him up.
"What is it?" Drizzt asked.
"Dwarvendarrow," Bruenor answered in a voice that seemed far removed.
He pointed to an outcropping of rock jutting from the base of the nearest
mountain.
"You know the place?"
Bruenor didn't answer. He started off again, stumbling, but rejecting
any offers of help. His friends shrugged helplessly and followed.
An hour later, the structures came into view. Like giant houses of
cards, great slabs of stone had been cunningly laid together to form
dwellings, and though they had been deserted for more than a hundred years,
the seasons and the wind had not reclaimed them. Only dwarves could have
imbued such strength into the rock, could have laid the stones so perfectly
that they would last as the mountains themselves lasted, beyond the
generations and the tales of the bards, so that some future race would look
upon them in awe and marvel at their construction without the slightest
idea of who had created them.
Bruenor remembered. He wandered into the village as he had those many
decades ago, a tear rimming his gray eye and his body trembling against the
memories of the darkness that had swarmed over his clan.
His friends let him go about for a while, not wanting to interrupt the
