The Ghost King Read Free Page A

whether or not they care about the day-to-day existence of one rogue dark elf. The precepts of Mielikki—the morality, the sense of community and service, and the appreciation for life—are real to me, are in my heart. They were there before I found Mielikki, a name to place upon them, and they would remain there even if indisputable proof were given to me that there was no actual being, no physical manifestation of those precepts.
    Do we behave out of fear of punishment, or out of the demands of our heart? For me, it is the latter, as I would hope is true for all adults, though I know from bitter experience that such is not often the case. To act in a manner designed to catapult you into one heaven or another would seem transparent to a god, any god, for if one’s heart is not in alignment with the creator of that heaven, then … what is the point?
    And so I salute Cadderly and the seekers, who put aside the ethereal, the easy answers, and climb courageously toward the honesty and the beauty of a greater harmony.
    As the many peoples of Faerûn scramble through their daily endeavors, march through to the ends of their respective lives,there will be much hesitance at the words that flow from Spirit Soaring, even resentment and attempts at sabotage. Cadderly’s personal journey to explore the cosmos within the bounds of his own considerable intellect will no doubt foster fear, in particular of the most basic and terrifying concept of all, death.
    From me, I show only support for my priestly friend. I remember my nights in Icewind Dale, tall upon Bruenor’s Climb, more removed from the tundra below, it seemed, than from the stars above. Were my ponderings there any less heretical than the work of Spirit Soaring? And if the result for Cadderly and those others is anything akin to what I knew on that lonely mountaintop, then I recognize the strength of Cadderly’s armor against the curses of the incurious and the cries of heresy from less enlightened and more dogmatic fools.
    My journey to the stars, among the stars, at one with the stars, was a place of absolute contentment and unbridled joy, a moment of the most peaceful existence I have ever known.
    And the most powerful, for in that state of oneness with the universe around me, I, Drizzt Do’Urden, stood as a god.
    —Drizzt Do’Urden

CHAPTER
VISITING A DROW’S DREAMS

    I
will find you, drow
.
    The dark elf’s eyes popped open wide, and he quickly attuned his keen senses to his physical surroundings. The voice remained clear in his mind, invading his moment of quiet Reverie.
    He knew the voice, for with it came an image of catastrophe all too clear in his memories, from perhaps a decade and a half before.
    He adjusted his eye patch and ran a hand over his bald head, trying to make sense of it. It couldn’t be. The dragon had been destroyed, and nothing, not even a great red wyrm like Hephaestus, could have survived the intensity of the blast when Crenshinibon had released its power. Or even if the beast had somehow lived, why hadn’t it arisen then and there, where its enemies would have been helpless before it?
    No, Jarlaxle was certain that Hephaestus had been destroyed. But he hadn’t dreamed the intrusion into his Reverie. Of that, too, Jarlaxle was certain.
    I will find you, drow
.
    It had been Hephaestus—the telepathic impartation into Jarlaxle’s Reverie had brought the image of the great dragon to him clearly. He could not have mistaken the weight of that voice. It had startled him from his meditation, and he had instinctively retreated from it and forced himself back into the present, to his physical surroundings.
    He regretted that almost immediately, and calmed long enough to hear the contented snoring of his dwarf companion, to ensure that all around him was secure, then he closed his eyes once more and turned his thoughts inward, to a place of meditation and solitude.
    Except, he was not alone.
    Hephaestus was there waiting for him. He