much more quickly than they’d anticipated. The two elves even dared to hope that, if good fortune held, they could be back in Mithral Hall before winter came on in full, before the deep snows filled Keeper’s Dale and the icy winds forced them to travel exclusively on the ground. In the air, the pegasi could cover thirty miles in a single day with ease, and those thirty miles were in a direct line to their goal, not winding around hillocks or following rivers for hours and hours until a ford could be found. On the ground, along the winding trails and empty terrain of the wilderness, where they had to beware of monsters and wild beasts, they would be lucky to travel ten miles in any given day, and luckier still if more than a third of those were actually in the direction of their goal.
“Our progress has been amazing,” Innovindil went on when Drizzt, standing on a bluff and staring out at the sea, made no move to reply. “Rillifain is with us,” she said, referring to an elf forest god, one of the deities of her Moonwood clan. “His calming breath is keeping the wintry blows at bay, that we might recover Ellifain and return with all speed.”
She continued on, speaking of the god Rillifain Rallathil and the various tales associated with him. The sun’s lower rim seemed to touch the distant water and still she talked. The sky turned a rich blue as the fiery orb disappeared behind the waves, and she realized that Drizzt was not listening, that he had not been listening to her at all.
“What is it?” she said, moving up beside him. She asked again a moment later, and forced him to look at her.
“Are you all right, my friend?” Innovindil asked.
“What did Obould know that we do not?” Drizzt asked in reply.
Innovindil took a step back, her fair elf face scrunching up, for he had caught her off guard.
“Are there good orcs and bad orcs, do you suppose?” Drizzt went on.
“Good orcs?”
“You are surprised that a goodly drow elf would ask such a question?”
Innovindil’s eyes snapped open wide at that, and she stuttered over a reply until Drizzt let her off the hook with a disarming grin.
“Good orcs,” he said.
“Well, I am sure that I do not know. I have never met one of goodly disposition.”
“How would you know if you had?”
“Well, then, perhaps there are such creatures as goodly orcs,” an obviously flustered Innovindil conceded. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know, but I’m also sure that if such beasts exist, they are not the norm for that race. Perhaps a few, but which are more predominant, your mythical goodly orc or those bent on evil?”
“It does not matter.”
“Your friend King Bruenor would not likely agree with you this time.”
“No, no,” Drizzt said, shaking his head. “If there are goodly orcs, even a few, would that not imply that there are varying degrees of conscience within the orc heart and mind? If there are goodly orcs, even a few, does that not foster hope that the race itself will move toward civilization, as did the elves and the dwarves … the halflings, gnomes, and humans?”
Innovindil stared at him as if she didn’t understand.
“What did Obould know that we do not?” Drizzt asked again.
“Are you suggesting some goodness within King Obould Many-Arrows?” Innovindil asked with an unmistakably sharp edge to her voice.
Drizzt took a deep breath and held his next thoughts in check as he considered the feelings of his friend Innovindil, who had watched her lover cleaved in half by Obould.
“The orcs are holding their discipline and creating the boundaries of their kingdom even without him,” Drizzt said, and he looked back out to sea. “Were they ready to forge their own kingdom? Is that the singular longing Obould tapped into to rouse them from their holes?”
“They will fall to fighting each other, tribe against tribe,” Innovindil replied, and her voice still held a grating edge to it. “They will feed upon each other until they are no more than a crawling mass of hopeless fools. Many will run back to their dark holes, and those that do not will wish that they had when King Bruenor comes forth, and when my people from the Moonwood join in the slaughter.”
“What if they don’t?”
“You doubt the elves?”
“Not them,” Drizzt clarified, “the orcs. What if the orcs do not fall to fighting amongst themselves? Suppose a new Obould rises among them, holding their discipline and continuing the fortification of this new kingdom?”
“You can’t believe that.”
“I offer a possibility, and if so, a question that all of us-from Silverymoon to Sundabar, Nesme to Mithral Hall, the Moonwood to Citadels Felbarr and Adbar-would be wise to answer carefully.”
Innovindil considered that for a moment, then said, “Very well then, I grant you your possibility. If the orcs do not retreat, what do we do?”
“A question we must answer.”
“The answer seems obvious.”
“Kill them, of course.”
“They are orcs,” Innovindil replied.
“Would it truly be wiser for us to wage war upon them to drive them back?” Drizzt asked. “Or might allowing them their realm help foster any goodness that is within them? Allow it to blossom, for if they are to hold a kingdom, must they not necessarily find some measure of civilization? And would not the needs of such a civilization favor the wise over the strong?”
Innovindil’s expression showed that she wasn’t taking him very seriously, and truthfully, as he heard the words leaving his own mouth, Drizzt Do’Urden couldn’t help but think himself a bit mad. Still, he knew he had to finish the thought, felt that he needed to speak it out clearly so that the notion might help him to sort things out in his own jumbled mind.
“If we are to believe in the general goodness of elf society-or dwarf, or human-it is because we believe that these peoples are able to progress toward goodness. Surely there are ample atrocities in all our respective histories, and still occurring today. How many wars have the humans waged upon each other?”
“One,” Innovindil answered, “without end.”
Drizzt smiled at the unexpected support and said, “But we believe that each of our respective peoples move toward goodness, yes? The humans, elves, dwarves-”
“And drow?”
Drizzt could only shrug at that notable exception and continue, “Our optimism is based on a general principle that things get better, that
Innovindil stared at him.
“To our own loss?” Drizzt asked.
The elf still could not answer.
“Are we limiting our own understanding of these creatures we view as our enemies by thinking of them as no more than a product of their history?” Drizzt pressed. “Do we err, to our own loss, in thinking them incapable of creating their own civilization?”
“You presume that the civilization they have created over the eons is somehow contrary to their nature,” Innovindil finally managed to say.
Drizzt shrugged and allowed, “You could be correct.”
“Would you unfasten your sword belt and walk into an orc enclave in the hopes that they will be ‘enlightened orcs’ and therefore will not slaughter you?”
“Of course not,” Drizzt admitted. “But what did Obould know that we do not? If the orcs do not cannibalize themselves, then by the admission of the council that convened in Mithral Hall, we have little hope of driving them back from the lands they have claimed.”
“But neither will they move forward,” Innovindil vowed.
“So they are left with this kingdom they claim as their own,” said Drizzt. “And that realm will only thrive with trade and exchange with those other kingdoms around them.”
Innovindil flashed him that incredulous look yet again.
