Passage to Dawn

to grow toward goodness, toward a better place. It is the absence of pride and envy, the willingness to share our joys and to bask in the accomplishments of others. It is above justification because it is what truly lies in each and every heart. If a person does an evil act, then let him weave his mask, but it will not hide the truth, the absolute, from what is naked within his own heart.

There is a place within each of us where we cannot hide from the truth, where virtue sits as judge. To admit the truth of our actions is to go before that court, where process is irrelevant. Good and evil are intents, and intent is without excuse.

Cadderly Bonaduce went to that place as willingly and completely as any man I have known. I recognize that growth within him, and see the result, the Spirit Soaring, most majestic and yet most humble of human accomplishments.

Artemis Entreri will go to that place. Perhaps not until the moment of his death, but he will go, as we all must eventually go, and what agony he will realize when the truth of his evil existence is laid bare before him. I pray that he goes soon, and my hope is not born of vengeance, for vengeance is an empty prayer. May Entreri go of his own volition to that most private place within his heart to see the truth and, thus, to correct his ways. He will find joy in his penance, true harmony that he can never know along his present course.

I go to that place within my heart as often as I am able in order to escape the trap of easy justification. It is a painful place, a naked place, but only there might we grow toward goodness; only there, where no mask can justify, might we recognize the truth of our intents, and thus, the truth of our actions. Only there, where virtue sits as judge, are heroes born.

– Drizzt Do'Urden

Chapter 13 THE SPIRIT SOARING

Drizzt, Catti-brie, Deudermont, and Harkle encountered no trouble as they left Carradoon for their trek into the Snowflake Mountains. The drow kept the cowl of his cloak pulled low, and everyone in town was so excited by the presence of the schooner that none paid too much attention to the group as they departed.

Once they got past the gate, the foursome found the going easy and safe. Guided around any potential problems by the drow ranger, they found nothing remarkable, nothing exciting.

Given what they had all been through over the last few weeks, that was just the way they wanted it.

They chatted easily, mostly with Drizzt explaining to them the nature of the wildlife about them-which birds went with which chatter, and how many deer had made the beds of flattened needles near to one grove of pines. Occasionally the conversation drifted to the task at hand, to the blind seer's poem. This put poor Harkle in quite a predicament. He knew that the others were missing obvious points, possibly critical points in the verse, for with his journal, he had been able to scrutinize the poem

thoroughly. The wizard wasn't sure how much he could intervene, though. Fog of fate had been created as a passive spell, a method for Harkle to facilitate, and then witness dramatic unfolding events. If he became an active participant in those events by letting another of the players in this drama glance at his enchanted journal, or by using what the journal had shown to him, he would likely ruin the spell.

Certainly Harkle could use his other magical abilities if fate led them to battle, and certainly he could use his intuition, as in the discussion on the Sea Sprite when they had first agreed that they needed to see a sorcerer or a priest. But direct intervention, using information given by the facilitation of the spell, would alter the future perhaps, and thus defeat the intentions of fate. Harkle's spell had never been created for such a purpose; the magic had its edges. Poor Harkle didn't know how far he could push that boundary. In living his forty years surrounded by wizards at least as outrageous as he, he understood all too well the potentially grave side effects of pushing magic too far.

So Harkle let the other three babble through their discussions of the poem, nodding his head and agreeing with whatever seemed to be the most accepted interpretation of any given line. He avoided any direct questions, though his halfhearted shrugs and mumbled responses brought many curious looks.

The trails climbed higher into the mountains, but the going remained easy, for the path was well-worn and oft-traveled. When the foursome came out from under the gloom of the mountain canopy, off the path and onto a flat meadow near to the edge of one steep drop, they understood why.

Drizzt Do'Urden had seen the splendors of Mithril Hall, so had Catti-brie. With his magic, Harkle Harpell had visited many exotic places, such as the Hosttower of the Arcane in Luskan. Deudermont had sailed the Sword Coast from Water-deep to exotic Calimport. But none of those places had ever taken the breath from any of the four like the sight before them now.

It was called the Spirit Soaring, a fitting name indeed for a gigantic temple-a cathedral-of soaring towers and flying buttresses, of great windows of colored glass and a gutter system finished at every corner with an exotic gargoyle. The lowest edges of

the cathedral's main roof were still more than a hundred feet from the ground, and three of the towers climbed to more than twice that height.

The Baenre compound was larger, of course, and the Host-tower was more obviously a free-flowing creation of magic. But there was something more solemn about this place, more reverent and holy. The stone of the cathedral was gray and brown, unremarkable really, but it was the construction of that stone, the earthly, and even greater, strength of the place that gave them awe. It was as though the cathedral's roots were deep in the mountains and its soaring head touched the heavens themselves.

A beautiful melody, a voice rich and sweet, wafted out of the temple, reverberated off the stones. It took the four a moment to even realize that it was a voice, a human voice, for the Spirit Soaring seemed to have a melody all its own.

The grounds were no less spectacular. A grove of trees lined a cobblestone walk that led up to the temple's massive front doors. Outside that perfectly straight tree line was a manicured lawn, thick and rich, bordered by perfectly-shaped hedgerows and filled with various flower beds, all red and pink, purple and white. Several leafy bushes dotted the lawn as well, and these had been shaped to resemble various woodland animals-a deer and a bear, a huge rabbit and a group of squirrels.

Catti-brie blinked several times when she spotted the gardener, the most unusual dwarf she, who had been raised by dwarves, had ever seen. She poked Drizzt, pointing out the little fellow, and the others noticed, too. The gardener saw them, and began bobbing their way, smiling widely.

His beard was green-green! — split in half and pulled back over his large ears, then twisted with his long green hair into a single braid that dangled more than halfway down his back. He wore a thin sleeveless robe, pale green in color, that hung halfway to the knee, leaving bare his bowed legs, incredibly hairy and powerfully muscled. Bare too were the dwarf's large feet, except for the thin straps of his open-toed sandals.

He cut an intersecting course, coming onto the cobblestones thirty feet ahead of the foursome. There he skidded to a stop, stuck two fingers in his mouth, looked back over his shoulder and gave a shrill whistle.

'What?' came a call a moment later. A second dwarf, this one

looking more like what the foursome would expect, rose up from the shade of the tree closest to the temple door. He had broad, square shoulders and a yellow beard. Dressed all in brown, he wore a huge axe strapped on his back and a helmet adorned with deer antlers.

'I telled ye I'd help ye!' the yellowbeard roared. 'But ye promised me sleep time!' Then this second dwarf noticed the foursome and he stopped his tirade immediately and bobbed down the path toward the group.

The green-bearded dwarf got there first. He said not a word, but gave a dramatic bow, then took up Catti- brie's hand and kissed it. 'Hee hee hee,' he squeaked with a blush, moving in turn from Catti-brie to Deudermont, to Drizzt, to …

Back to Drizzt, where the little one ducked low, peeking up under the full hood.

The drow obliged him, pulling back the hood and shaking out his thick white mane. First meetings were always difficult for Drizzt, especially so far from those places where he was known and accepted.

'Eek!' the little one squealed.

'A stinkin' drow!' roared the yellowbeard, running down the path, tearing the axe off of his back as he