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The captain looked at him curiously

"The year?" Entreri repeated

"The very year hteen years ago this co the math

"The Year of the Awakened Sleepers," Afafrenfere reer," Aris put in dryly

"I have ever been a friend to Ten-Towns," Drizzt called out "Soe has happened here Beyond reason or all sense I bid you letcouncil, perhaps a gathering of all the towns--"

"Ride around, drow," the captain replied sternly "Your previous reputation wards you from the wrath of the people, perhaps, but you have used up all your good will here You’ll not be allowed entry here, nor to any of the other towns, once word has spread of your return"

"I did not bring the deue

"Go to the dwarves, then," the captain offered, and he winced as he spoke, as if trying to reconcile the Drizzt of legend with the Drizzt who had brought ruin tobefore him "Stokely Silverstrea of Ten-Towns Let him plead the case of Drizzt Do’Urden"

The advice seeh, a pocket of clarity within this tuical sea of absurdity Drizzt and Entreri dismissed theirthe southerly route When they cauard towers, er structures that had been there when last they had passed through, still further confir sleep in the strange forest on the banks of Lac Dinneshere

"It’s true, then," Aate, for of course these could not have been constructed in the tenday they believed they had been gone Before the gate and just south of it, was a wide circle of blackness, surrounded by a rock wall and with a small stone statue of a droarrior, sword and shield upraised

" ‘On this spot did Master Tiago slay the demon,’ " Afafrenfere read from the plaque beneath it " ‘And the snoill cover it neverone insane, then," said Dahlia, shaking her head "I have walked the planes to the Shadowfell, I have existed as a statue of stone, and now I have awakened frohteen winters? What madness this?"

She walked off a bit to the west and stood facing away from the others, hands on hips and head down

"Madness indeed," muttered Entreri

"But if it’s all true, then Draygo Quick’s long lost interest," Aave a great snort "But why’s the long faces?" she asked of theone, eh? We coo’s hunters"

"And Draygo’s eyes," Effron reminded

"Aye, and Cavus Dun, too," said Afafrenfere

"So fugitives we been, and now one long nap’s fixed it for us!" Ah "Slate’s as clean as an Icewind Dale snowstorm, and every road’s open!"

"You would dismiss this loss of time so easily?" Drizzt asked incredulously

"Ye thinkin’ ye know anything I ainst it?" the dwarf replied "It is what it is, elf, and what it is is a blessin’ more than any curse to any one o’ us! Least-ways, that’s what I be thinkin’!"

Effron nodded his agreeed a smile, as did Afafrenfere, but neither Entreri nor Drizzt could find the line of thinking to join in their relief, or whatever it was The shock of this all had the, particularly Drizzt, who dropped a hand into his belt pouch and rolled a sers They had found an enchanted forest, so it seeh a long night’s slu of Mielikki, so he believed, and had found a re-lost friend

But what did it all ht he draw?

Overwhelmed, Drizzt led the others away froot into the foothills of Kelvin’s Cairn as night descended and, exhausted and overwhelmed, set their caht of the Spring Equinox, the holiest day in the calendar of Mielikki, in the Year of the Awakened Sleepers

Drizzt got the fire burning, and Ahts At one point, the dwarf giggled that she would surely "turn the night orange"

"Truly?" Effron replied "I prefer purple!" With that, he cast a spell, and a colored bolt reached out fro the color indeed--to purple

"Bah for yerself and yer ris huffed, and she cast her own enchant the warlock’s tricks

"Oh, indeed!" said Effron, and he went right back at her, and the fla hue in a wild dance for supreame to her and Effron, to the a to the blaze

Even ever-dour Entreri, sitting off to the side and polishing his dagger, couldn’t suppress a chuckle or two

Because they were all free, Drizzt realized This apparent and bizarre time-shift had only itives The dwarf and o as they pleased with no fear of Cavus Dun, and for Effron and Entreri, the specter of Draygo Quick seemed lifted, and likely, too, the shadows of a hundred others with a vendetta against Artee leap of years benefit Drizzt and Dahlia, he realized, but the elf warrior showed nohis way every now and again