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For Drizzt, there was just confusion Had his sleep, had the enchanted forest, been a vision, a love letter to him from Mielikki? More likely, he realized, it had been ain the tiny secluded area of a land still grasped by the late winter signaled a farewell to Drizzt

The forest was gone

Somehow he knew that, in his heart and soul The enchanted forest was gone, was no more, and so too were flown any ties to the world that had once been, before the Spellplague

Thus, his past was gone, at long last

He focused on that ht it a passage He thought of Innovindil (and stole a glance at Dahlia) and her insistence that an elf must live his life in shorter time spans, must reinvent his existence, his friends, his love, with each passing generation, to know vitality and happiness

He glanced at Dahlia again, but his gaze inevitably lowered to his own hands, where he rolled a piece of scriain

By the time he looked back up, while the dwarf, one to sit with Entreri, the two conversing privately

Drizzt nodded, rose, and walked off into the night He ca Bryn Shander away to the southeast, and with the high peak of Kelvin’s Cairn to the northwest behind him He stood there, the wind in his face and in his ears, reht now be

"We’re not staying," came Dahlia’s voice behind hie "We’ll go to the dwarves, perhaps, but for a short while only We’re to ride with a caravan out of this forlorn place at the earliest opportunity"

"To where?" Drizzt asked, but didn’t turn to face her

"Does it one by and our names have slipped past in the wind"

"You underestimate the memories of those with a vendetta," Drizzt said, and he turned in ti, as if it hardly mattered

"When we came here, you said it would be for the season The seasons have co ht any tiht now, before rumors of our return filter to the south?"

Drizzt ue the point He was as confused as the rest of theht mean Was it really 1484? Had the world passed them by while they had slept in some enchanted forest?

And if that was the enchanted forest of Nathan Obridock, the place named Iruladoon, then what of the auburn-haired witch and the halfling by the pond?

Drizzt couldn’t help but wince as he considered the place, for there it was again in his heart, the knowledge that he had witnessed the very end of Iruladoon when he had awakened in the one waric drain away to nothingness It wasn’t that the enchantether That place, whether it was Iruladoon or not, was no h he knew not how he understood it with certainty Mielikki had signaled to hi sense of coreed?" Dahlia asked impatiently, and Drizzt realized fro that question for reed?" he had to ask

"First caravan out," Dahlia said

Drizzt chewed his lip and looked all around, but really tried to look within his own heart Behind Dahlia loomed the blackness of Kelvin’s Cairn, and it did not elicit a cold emotion within Drizzt--quite the opposite

"We can have the life up here that we spoke of before ent to Easthaven," he said

Dahlia looked at hihed at him

"It will be an easy life, and one of adventure"

"They wouldn’t even let you in their town, you fool," Dahlia ree, with time"

But Dahlia shook her head resolutely, and Drizzt recognized that she didn’t disagree with his particular reasoning, but rejected the whole pre, all five," she said "Even Aain Dahlia laughed at him "Does it matter?"

"If it doesn’t, then why not here?"

"No," she stated flatly "We are leaving this forlorn place of tedious winds and endless boredohosts back to Icewind Dale again, if all of Menzoberranzan, all of the E us"

"There are no ghosts left to chase," Drizzt whispered under his breath, for he knew it to be true

But even with that, spoken sincerely, there was no compromise to be found within her, Drizzt realized She saind Dale as a surrogate to Catti-brie for him, a place of those memories, and she would not tolerate it