Chapter 24 Chapter 20 The End of the Dream

When the shock of the collapse finally died down, the four surviving friends walked back through the rubble and the rising smoke to the oval room.Bruenor, paying no attention to the pile of cracked stones and the huge crack in the floor that had just threatened to engulf them, crawled into the alcove of the room, the others following him. The two sword masters did not leave any blood or other traces, only a pile of rubble covered the hole of the stone trap.Bruenor could see the edge of darkness under the cairn, and he called Drizzt's name.His reason had contradicted his heart and his hopes, telling him that the drow was out of hearing, that the trap had taken Drizzt from him.

Tears began to stream down his cheeks when he found the only remaining scimitar, a magical weapon that Drizzt had looted from the dragon's lair, leaning against the ruins of the alcove.He picked it up solemnly and put it in his belt. "I grieve for you, elf!" he howled over the ruins. "You didn't deserve to die like this!" If others weren't caught up in their own grief, they would have noticed the anger mingling with Bruenor's mourning .Having lost his closest and most trusted friend, and having doubted whether to continue his journey through Mithril Hall before the tragedy struck, Bruno found guilt mixed with his own grief.He couldn't get himself out of playing the part that caused the drow to fall.He remembered painfully how he had tricked Drizzt into joining the journey, pretending he was dying, pledging an adventure that neither of them had ever experienced.

He stood up quietly and accepted the torment within himself.Wulfgar's grief was equally deep, and accompanied by no other emotion.The barbarian lost one of his mentors, the warrior who transformed him from brutal to calculating and sophisticated. He lost one of his most trusted friends.He is willing to follow Drizzt to the bottom of the Demonic Abyss to seek adventures.He firmly believed that the dark elves might one day lead them to inescapable misery, but whenever he could fight alongside Drizzt, or compete with his master teacher, he felt alive and within himself. Dangerous edge of boundaries.Wulfgar had pictured himself dying beside the dark elves many times, the glorious end that the bard would keep on recording, long after the enemy who had killed them both had vanished in a nameless tomb.

This is an ending that the young savage is not afraid of. "You are at last at rest, my friend," said Catti-brie softly, for she knew the drow's plight better than anyone else.Catti-brie's sense of the world matched Drizzt's sensitive side, a layer of personality buried beneath a hard-working veneer that his other friends couldn't see.It was this part of Drizzt Do'Urden that demanded he leave Menzoberranzan and his wicked kin, and that forced him to become a homeless vagabond.Catti-brie knew the joy of the dark elf's heart, and the inevitable pain in his heart when people repelled him because they could not see his soul because of the color of his skin.

She also knew that good and evil lost a champion today, because Catti-brie saw Drizzt's mirror image in Entreri.The world would be a better place without this killer. But the price is too high. The sense of relief Regis had felt with Entreri's death was gone by being swept up in a swamp of grief.Part of the halfling himself died in this alcove.There was no need for him to go on, the Bashar Pooks would not be after him, but for the first time in his entire life he had to accept the consequences of his actions.He knew Entreri was right behind him, joining Bruenor's party, and he knew what a potential danger this was for his friends.

He was a confident gambler, and the thought of losing the challenge never crossed his mind.Life was a gamble he tried to play on the edge of danger, and he never thought of paying the price for the risk.If there's anything in the world that slows down a halfling's obsession with speculation, it's the loss of one of his few true friends because he chose to take the risk. "Farewell, my friend," he whispered to the rubble.He turned to Bruno and said, "Where are we going? How are we going to get out of this horrible place?" Regis didn't mean to criticize Bruenor, but because the dwarf was forced into a defensive stance by being caught in guilt, Bruenor really took it as a rebuke and fought back. "You did it!" he growled at Regis. "You're killing us with eyes!" Bruno took a menacing step forward, his face contorted with rising rage, his hands white with clenched hands.

Wulfgar, confused by the sudden rage, took a step closer to Regis.The halfling didn't back away, but he didn't make a defensive move either, he still didn't believe that Bruenor's heart was full of anger. "You thief!" Bruno yelled. "You're on your way and don't see what you're following behind, and you're asking your friend to pay for it!" His anger grew with every word, almost like something different from the dwarves. An entity gains kinetic energy and strength. His second move would have brought him to Regis' side, his movement clearly showing that he was about to attack, but Wulfgar stepped between the two of them and stopped Bruenor with a stare.

The resolute gesture of the Savage brought Bruno out of his furious trance, and he realized what he was about to do.Embarrassed, he disguised it by turning his attention to the immediate issue of survival.He turned to look at the rest of the room.Their supplies were running low after the catastrophe. "Leave those things here; we have no time to waste!" Bruno told the others, a choked growl coming from his throat. "We'll be leaving this dreadful place behind in no time!" Wulfgar and Catti-brie scanned the pile of stones for anything they could recover, and they had no intention of fleeing without even a single supply, as Bruenor had requested.They soon came to the same conclusion as the dwarves, however, and after paying their respects to the ruins of the alcove, they followed Bruenor back down the passage.

"I'm planning to walk to Glen's Canyon before my next break," Bruno announced, "so be prepared for a long walk." "And where?" Wulfgar asked, guessing, but he didn't like the answer. "Get out!" Bruno yelled. "The sooner the better." He glared at the Savage, challenging his retort. "Bring your people back with us?" Wulfgar pressed further. "Not coming back," Bruno said. "Never come back!" "Then Drizzt died for nothing!" Wulfgar said bluntly. "He died for an ideal that will never be realized!"

Bruenor paused to calm himself before Wulfgar's sharp feeling.He wasn't looking at the tragedy with cynical eyes, and he didn't like the implication. "What a waste!" he growled at the savage. "Here's a warning to get us out! There are demons here, as many orcs as there are goblins around the mutton! Don't you smell that, boy? Don't your eyes and nose tell you to get out of here quickly?" "My eyes tell me there is danger here," Wulfgar replied calmly, "as they always do. But Ho is a warrior and pays no heed to the warnings!" "Then you'll be a dead warrior," Catti-brie put in.

Wulfgar glared at her. "Dizzy is here to recover the Hall of Mithril, and I want to see this done!" "Then you will die a terrible death," Bruno murmured.The anger in his voice gradually dissipated. "We have come to find my home, boy, but this is not the place anymore. My people once lived here, it is true. But the darkness that creeps into Mithril Hall has ended my claim to the place." Advocated. I don't want to come back once I get out of the stink of this place, hope your hard head knows it. Now this place belongs to the shadows and the gray guys, may this whole stinky place come down when they stink head!" Bruno said enough is enough.He turned abruptly and walked down the passage, his heavy boots treading the stone with an uncompromising determination. Regis and Catti-brie followed closely.Wulfgar pondered the dwarf's decision for a moment, then trotted after them. As soon as Sydney confirmed that the group of partners had left, she took Polk back to the oval room.Like the group of friends before her, she made her way to the ruins of the alcove, and stood there for a while, considering the impact of this sudden event on her mission.She was surprised at the depth of her grief at losing Entreri, because even though she didn't fully trust the killer, guessing that he was after the same thing as Dandiba, she had come to respect him.When the battle begins, is there a better ally than him? Sydney had no time to mourn Entreri, for the loss of Drizzt Do'Urden was an immediate danger to her own safety.Dandiba would not let her go easily when he heard the news, and the wizard's genius in punishing people was well known in the entire Wizard Tower. Pork waited for a while, expecting some order from the mage, but when nothing came, the golem stepped into the alcove and began removing the knoll of rubble. "Stop!" Sydney ordered. Pork continued to do this difficult work, driven by the instructions planted in him to track down the dark elves. "Stop!" Sydney said again, more firmly this time. "The dark elf is dead, you idiot!" The blunt declaration forced her to accept the fact, and set her mind going again.Pork actually stopped and turned to her, and she paused for a moment to figure out the best course of action at the moment. "Let's go after the others," she blurted out, partly to educate herself and partly to instruct the golem. "Yes, if we send the dwarves and the others to Dendybar, he will forgive us for being so foolish as to let the drow die and be helpless." She looked at the golem, but of course it didn't change its expression, offer her any encouragement. "You should have fallen," Sydney muttered to herself, but she was just playing the piano to the cow with sarcasm. "With Entreri here, at least he can give some advice. But anyway, I've made up my mind. We'll follow the others, and catch them when we get a chance. They'll tell us about the Crystal Shard!" Polk remained motionless, waiting for her instructions.Even in his simplest mode of thinking, Pork knew that Sydney knew best how to accomplish their mission. The group of companions traversed vast caverns, much more natural than dwarf-worked stone.The high ceiling of the cave and many rock walls extending out of the reach of torches in the dark made the group of friends realize their fragility in fear.They all huddled together as they advanced, imagining a horde of duergarmen watching them from the darkness of the cavern, or anticipating terrible creatures swooping down from the darkness above. The rhythm of their footsteps has been followed by the unceasing sound of dripping water, and its "tick, tick" sound echoed throughout the cave, setting off the emptiness of this place. Bruno still remembered the complicated places in this area, and he found himself flooding his mind with long-forgotten images again.These rooms are the "meeting halls," where all the Warhammer clan come to hear King Glenn speak, or to meet important visitors.The battle plan is formulated here, and the strategy of dealing with the outside world is also planned here.Even the youngest of the dwarves was in attendance, and Bruno recalled the many times he had sat innocently beside his father, Bong, and behind his grandfather, King Glenn, as Bung pointed out to him the king's tricks of captivating audiences and instructed the young Bruno is the kind of leadership he'll use someday. The day he becomes king of Mithril Hall. The emptiness and silence of these caverns weighed heavily on the dwarf, and he had heard ten thousand dwarves here singing and dancing.If he did lead the rest of his tribe back, it would only fill a small corner of one of the rooms. "Too many people are missing," Bruno said to the empty space, his whispered words echoing louder than he expected.Catti-brie and Wulfgar, who cared about the dwarf and watched his every movement, noticed his comment and guessed the memory and emotion that drove him to say it.They exchanged glances, and Catti-brie saw Wulfgar's anger at the dwarves dissipate in a flood of sympathy. There is only a short walkway between the hall room and the back hall room.There were corners and forks every few feet, but Bruno was pretty sure he knew his way to the canyon.He also knew that everyone below should have heard the sound of the trap collapsing and came up to investigate.This section of the upper road is not like other places they have traveled, there are many passages leading to the lower floor.Wulfgar extinguished the torches, and Bruenor led them on under the cover of darkness. Their caution was vindicated before long, for as soon as they entered another wide cave, Regis grabbed Bruenor by the shoulders, held him back, and told them all to be silent.Bruenor almost exploded in anger, but he saw the sincerity and fear in Regis's face immediately. The halfling's hearing, sharpened by years of listening to the click of locks, recognized a sound in the distance other than the sound of dripping water.The others heard it a moment later, and it was not long before they recognized the sound of many boots on the ground.Bruno led them to a dark shelter, where they watched and waited. They didn't see the group of people passing by well enough to count the numbers or see the faces of the members, but they knew from the number of torches at the other end of the cave that they had crossed that the number of the two sides was ten to one, and they could guess these too. People's origins. "It must be the gray one, or my mother's friends with the orcs!" grumbled Bruno.He watched Wulfgar, wondering if the barbarian had any further complaints about his decision to leave Mithril Hall. Wulfgar took the stare with a nod of approval. "How long will it take to get to Glen Canyon?" he asked, and he soon decided, like the others, to retreat.He still felt as though he had abandoned Drizzt, but he had learned that Bruenor had made a wise choice.Clearly, if they had stayed, Drizzt Do'Urden would not have been the only one to die in Mithril Hall. "It takes an hour to walk to the last passage," Bruno replied. "It's more than an hour from there." The gray dwarf walked out of the cave quickly, and the group of companions started to move again, being careful not to step too hard. With each step, Bruno's memory became clearer. He knew exactly where he was, and he chose the shortest path to the canyon, hoping to get out as soon as possible.However, after many minutes of walking, he took a fork in the road that he could not just ignore.He knew that every second of delay represented a risk of one point, but the temptation emanating from the room at the end of this short passage was too great for him to refuse.He had to know how much of Mithril Hall's treasures had been plundered; he had to find out if the uppermost chamber containing the most treasure was still intact. The group of friends followed him without question, and soon found themselves standing in front of a tall and ornately decorated metal door bearing the hammer of Moradin, the supreme god of the dwarves, beneath some cryptic writing.Bruno's heavy breathing proved his apparent calm was false. "Here are gifts from friends of our clan," Bruno read respectfully, "and works of our clan. You must know that when you enter this shallow hall, you will see the heritage of the Warhammer clan. Friends welcome Be careful, thieves!" Bruno turned to his companions, beads of sweat streaming down his forehead. "The Hall of Dumathoin," he explained. "Your enemies have been within Mithril Hall for two hundred years," Wulfgar deduced. "The place must have been ransacked." "Not necessarily," Bruno said. "This door is sealed with magic, and it will not be opened for the enemies of the family. There are" hundreds of organs inside, which will peel the skin of gray guys who want to pass through! He glared at Regis, his gray eyes narrowed into lines of firm warning. "Watch your hands, glutton."The agency won't know you're a friendly thief! " The advice was harsh, and Regis could not ignore the dwarf's stinging sarcasm.The halfling accepted Bruenor's words unconsciously, putting his hands in his pockets. "Take a torch from the wall," Bruenor said to Wulfgar. "My head told me there was no light inside." Bruenor had begun opening the great door before Wulfgar returned.It was easily pushed away by the hand of the friend, and they saw a short passage inside, with a black curtain at the end.A pendulum of blades hangs hostilely in the middle of the aisle, beneath a pile of bones. "These thieves." Bruno chuckled softly in cold satisfaction.He passed the blade, walked to the black curtain, and waited for his friend to join him before entering the room. Bruno paused, summoning the courage to open the last barrier leading to the room.The dwarf's anxiety spread to his friends, and sweat glistened on their faces. Bruno let out a determined grunt and pulled the curtain aside. "Look at Dumathoin," he began, but his throat choked as soon as he saw what was inside.The devastation he had seen in Mithril Hall had never been more complete than here.The bones are like mountains, scattered on the ground.Many of the pedestals that once held the best work of their kind were smashed in two, others smashed to pieces. Bruenor fell in blindly, his hands shaking, and screamed out of nowhere.He hadn't even looked at the entire room before he knew how completely destroyed it was. "How is that possible?" Bruno sighed.However, while he was asking himself this question, he also saw a huge hole in the wall.It was not a narrow tunnel that went around the gate, but a huge hole, as if some magical instrument had blasted the stone whole. "What ability can do such a thing?" Wulfgar asked, following the dwarf's gaze into the hole. Bruenor leaned over for some clues, and Catti-brie and Wulfgar followed.Regis went the other way, to see if there was anything else of value left. Catti-brie caught a glimpse of what she thought was a pool of dark liquid, glowing in an arc on the floor.But when she stooped to take a closer look, she saw that it was not liquid at all, but a scale, darker than the deepest night, and almost the size of a man.Wulfgar and Bruenor heard her exclamation, and ran to her side. "Dragon!" Wulfgar blurted out, recognizing the distinctive shape.He took hold of the edge of the scale and lifted it to examine it more closely.Then he and Catti-brie turned to see if Bruenor knew anything about the monster. The dwarf's eyes were wide and frightened, and the question was answered before they could ask it. "Blacker than black," Bruno whispered, repeating one of the most frequently mentioned names on that fateful day two hundred years ago. "My father told me about this," he explained to Wulfgar and Catti-brie. "He called it a dragon born of the devil, and its darkness was blacker than black. It wasn't the gray ones that drove us out, and we would fight them to the last. The dragon of darkness killed many of us and drove us out out of the Mithril Hall. Not a tenth of those left in the little hall at the other end stood against his hateful minions." The hot wind blowing from the cave reminded them that it was likely to lead to the hall below, and the dragon's lair. "Go away," suggested Catti-brie, "before the monster notices we're here." Then Regis yelled from across the room.The group of friends rushed over, not knowing whether he yelled because of the treasure or because of the danger. They found him squatting beside a pile of stones, peering into the cracks between the stones. He took up an arrow with a silver shaft. "I found this in there," he explained, "and I think there's something else in there, maybe a bow, I think." Wulfgar moved the torch closer to the gap, and saw clearly an arc of what could only have been the wood of a longbow, and its gleaming silver strings.Wulfgar took hold of the wooden section and gave it a gentle tug, guessing that it would snap in two under his hands due to the sheer weight of the stone. But even with all his strength, the bow kept breaking.He looked around at the stones, trying to figure out the best way to get the weapon out. Just then, Regis found something else, a golden board stuck in another crack in the stone pile.He wanted to pull it out, then held a torch to light it, and read the mysterious words on it. "Tamari Heartbow," he read out. "Dedicated—" "Yanariel, sister of Faerun." Bruno said it all without looking at it.He nodded in answer to Catti-brie's questioning look. "Bring out this bow, boy," he said to Wulfgar. "That way it will be put to better use." Wulfgar had already figured out the structure of the pile of stones, and immediately began to lift the stones in important places.Soon enough, Catti-brie was actually able to swing the longbow out from side to side, but she saw something else further down, and asked Wulfgar to keep digging. As the burly savage moved more stones, the others marveled at the bow's beauty.Its wood has not been scratched by the stone, and its original luster has been restored with a light hand rub.Catti-brie attached the string with ease, feeling its firmness and pull. "Try this," Regis suggested, and he handed her the silver arrow. Catti-brie didn't resist.She put the arrow on the string and pulled it back, just to see if it worked, she didn't really intend to shoot it. "Quiver!" Wulfgar yelled, lifting the last few stones. "There are more silver arrows!" Bruno pointed into the darkness and nodded.Catti-brie didn't hesitate. When the arrow whizzed into the darkness, it flew for a while with a long silver tail and stopped suddenly with a snap.They all ran over and felt something unusual.They found the arrow easily, because it was already halfway stuck in the wood and stone wall! Where it shot in, the stone was charred, and even with all his strength, Wulfgar could not pull it out. "Take your time," Regis said, counting the arrows in Wulfgara's quiver. "Nineteen...twenty more!" He backed away, stunned.The others looked at him in bewilderment. "There were only nineteen," Regis explained. "I was right." Wulfgar, confused by the situation, counted quickly. "Twenty sticks," he said. "Twenty now," Regis replied. "But the first time I counted it was nineteen." "That means there's magic on the quiver too," Catti-brie guessed. "What a powerful gift Goddess Yanaril gave to your people!" "Is there anything else we can find in this ruin?" Regis asked, rubbing his hands. "Not anymore," Bruno replied roughly. "Let's go now, don't argue with me a single word!" Regis looked at the other two, realized that he was helpless, shrugged helplessly, and followed them out of the veil to the passage. "Go to the canyon!" Bruno announced, leading them onward again. "Hold on, Pork," Sydney whispered to Pork when the companion's torches were back in the aisle again, a short distance ahead of them. "Not yet," she said.She thought of the future, and a smile appeared on her dusty face. "We'll find better opportunities!"