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"What are you plotting, drow?"

Drizzt shook his head "I cannot explain it, but I’ll show you"

"A ship sails for the south in two days I plan to be on it"

"I ask you to reconsider"

"You said I didn’t owe you anything"

"You don’t"

"Then why should I follow you?"

Drizzt took a deep breath again the incessant cynicis "what’s in it for me?"

"Because I ask this of you"

"Do better," said Entreri

Drizzt stared at him plaintively Entreri started to close the door

"I knohere to find your dagger," Drizzt blurted out He hadn’t intended to say it, indeed he’d never planned to help Entreri retrieve it

Entreri seeer?"

"I knohere it is I’ve seen it recently"

"Do tell"

"Say you’ll come with h" He paused for a moment, then had to add, for his own sake if not for Entreri’s, "Coer or anything else you ain You need this journey, my old eneh the plan forhts would take hiht prove even more important to Artemis Entreri

This conflicted and deeply scarred ht well be the ht

Would the journey of Artereater lie of his life?

Entreri see to unwind that last sentence when Drizzt turned his focus back to hiood to

Drizzt sht?" Entreri asked

"There is so I must do first," Drizzt explained "I will need a day, perhaps two, and then ill go"

"To retrieve er," Entreri said

"To findthe door closed, he added under his breath, "for both of us"

Drizzt’s stride was ht continued to clear, theto Drizzt as he glanced out the , for he looked out at the world noith a new light and a new hope

Suddenly

Drizzt and Dahliathe forest road south and east of the city of Neverwinter--er drow had allowed Dahlia to set the pace Drizzt hadn’t expected her to accompany hiht the house of a red-haired seer, Arunika, who had once offered--and hopefully would again offer--insights about Guenhwyvar

Pale sunlight cast long shadows through the tree branches and speckled the ground before the the many fallen leaves Winter had not yet arrived, but it was not far off Some of the trees had turned to their autuainst the chill wind, while others stubbornly clung to the last leaves of the season

"Why are we here?" Dahlia asked, and not for the first tiht Drizzt from his conteht to remind Dahlia that she had come out of her own volition, and perhaps even to add that he would have preferred it if she had reht about it, but he knew better than to say it

Still, he let her words go This was his realoddess, the place where he wasnotion allowed Drizzt to keep perspective on those problerand scheme of the world, the cycle of life and death, the vastness of the celestial spheres, so many "problems" seeain with the same question

"You could have remained in Neverwinter," Drizzt replied before he could consider his words

"You don’t wantquickly to her voice, and Drizzt could only sigh, realizing that he had fallen into her trap He was trying to make sense of his relationship with Dahlia, perhaps ic and reason seemed oft trumped by more basic and powerful emotions in issues of personal relationships