The Crystal Shard

 

Regis the halfling, the only one of his kind for hundreds of miles in any direction, locked his fingers behind his head and leaned back against the mossy blanket of the tree trunk. Regis was short, even by the standards of his diminutive race, with the fluff of his curly brown locks barely cresting the three-foot mark, but his belly was amply thickened by his love of a good meal, or several, as the opportunities presented themselves.

The crooked stick that served as his fishing pole rose up above him, clenched between two of his furry toes, and hung out over the quiet lake, mirrored perfectly in the glassy surface of Maer Dualdon. Gentle ripples rolled down the image as the red-painted wooden bobber began to dance slightly. The line had floated in toward shore and hung limply in the water, so Regis couldn't feel the fish nibbling at the bait. In seconds, the hook was cleaned with no catch to show for it, but the halfling didn't know, and it would be hours before he'd even bother to check. Not that he'd have cared, anyway.

This trip was for leisure, not work. With winter coming on, Regis figured that this might well be his last excursion of the year to the lake; he didn't go in for winter fishing, like some of the fanatically greedy humans of Ten-Towns. Besides, the halfling already had enough ivory stocked up from other people's catches to keep him busy for all seven months of snow. He was truly a credit to his less-than-ambitious race, carving out a bit of civilization in a land where none existed, hundreds of miles from the most remote settlement that could rightly be called a city. Other halflings never came this far north, even during the summer months, preferring the comfort of the southern climes. Regis, too, would have gladly packed up his belongings and returned to the south, except for a little problem he had with a certain guildmaster of a prominent thieves' guild.

A four-inch block of the "white gold" lay beside the reclining halfling, along with several delicate carving instruments. The beginnings of a horse's muzzle marred the squareness of the block. Regis had meant to work on the piece while he was fishing.

Regis meant to do a lot of things.

"Too fine a day," he had rationalized, an excuse that never seemed to grow stale for him. This time, though, unlike so many others, it truly bore credibility. It seemed as though the weather demons that bent this harsh land to their iron will had taken a holiday, or perhaps they were just gathering their strength for a brutal winter. The result was an autumn day fitting for the civilized lands to the south. A rare day indeed for the land that had come to be called Icewind Dale, a name well-earned by the eastern breezes that always seemed to blow in, bringing with them the chilled air of Reghed Glacier. Even on the few days that the wind shifted there was little relief, for Ten-Towns was bordered on the north and west by miles of empty tundra and then more ice, the Sea of Moving Ice. Only southern breezes promised any relief, and any wind that tried to reach this desolate area from that direction was usually blocked by the high peaks of the Spine of the World.

Regis managed to keep his eyes open for a while, peering up through the fuzzy limbs of the fur trees at the puffy white clouds as they sailed across the sky on the mild breezes. The sun rained down golden warmth, and the halfling was tempted now and then to take off his waistcoat. Whenever a cloud blocked out the warming rays, though, Regis was reminded that it was September on the tundra. In a month there would be snow. In two, the roads west and south to Luskan, the nearest city to Ten-Towns, would be impassable to any but the sturdy or the stupid.

Regis looked across the long bay that rolled in around the side of his little fishing hole. The rest of Ten-Towns was taking advantage of the weather, too; the fishing boats were out in force, scrambling and weaving around each other to find their special "hitting spots." No matter how many times he witnessed it, the greed of humans always amazed Regis. Back in the southern land of Calimshan, the halfling had been climbing a fast ladder to Associate Guildmaster in one of the most prominent thieves' guilds in the port city of Calimport. But, as he saw it, human greed had cut short his career. His guildmaster, the Pasha Pook, possessed a wonderful collection of rubies - a dozen, at least - whose facets were so ingeniously cut that they seemed to cast an almost hypnotic spell on anyone who viewed them. Regis had marveled at the scintillating stones whenever Pook put them out on display, and, after all, he'd only taken one. To this day, the halfling couldn't figure out why the Pasha, who had no less than eleven others, was still so angry with him.

"Alas for the greed of humans," Regis would say whenever the Pasha's men showed up in another town that the halfling had made his home, forcing him to extend his exile to an even more remote land. But he hadn't needed that phrase for a year-and-a-half now, not since he had arrived in Ten-Towns. Pook's arms were long, but this frontier settlement, in the middle of the most inhospitable and untamed land imaginable, was a longer way still, and Regis was quite content in the security of his new sanctuary. There was wealth here, and for those nimble and talented enough to be a scrimshander, someone who could transform the ivorylike bone of a knucklehead trout into an artistic carving, a comfortable living could be made with a minimum amount of work.

And with Ten-Towns' scrimshaw fast becoming the rave of the south, the halfling meant to shake off his customary lethargy and turn his new-found trade into a booming business.

Someday.

* * *

Drizzt Do'Urden trotted along silently; his soft, low-cut boots barely stirring the dust. He kept the cowl of his brown cloak pulled low over the flowing waves of his stark white hair and moved with such effortless grace that an onlooker might have thought him to be no more than an illusion, an optical trick of the brown sea of tundra.

The dark elf pulled his cloak tighter about him. He felt as vulnerable in the sunlight as a human would in the dark of night. Two hundred years of living many miles below ground had not been erased by five years on the sunlit surface. To this day, sunlight drained and dizzied him.

But Drizzt had traveled right through the night and was compelled to continue. Already he was overdue for his meeting with Bruenor in the dwarf's valley, and he had seen the signs.

The reindeer had begun their autumn migration southwest to the sea, yet no human tracks followed the herd. The caves north of Ten-Towns, always a stop-over for the nomadic barbarians on their way back to the tundra, had not even been stocked to reprovision the tribes on their long trek. Drizzt understood the implications. In normal barbarian life, the survival of the tribes depended on their following the reindeer herd. The apparent abandonment of their traditional ways was more than a little disturbing.

And Drizzt had heard the battle drums.

Their subtle rumblings rolled over the empty plain like distant thunder, in patterns usually recognizable only to the other barbarian tribes. But Drizzt knew what they foretold. He was an observer who understood the value of knowledge of friend or foe, and he had often used his stealth prowess to observe the daily routines and traditions of the proud natives of Icewind Dale, the barbarians.

Drizzt picked up his pace, pushing himself to the limits of his endurance. In five short years, he had come to care for the cluster of villages known as Ten-Towns and for the people who lived there. Like so many of the other outcasts who had finally settled there, the drow had found no welcome anywhere else in the Realms. Even here he was only tolerated by most, but in the unspoken kinship of fellow rogues, few people bothered him. He'd been luckier than most; he'd found a few friends who could look beyond his heritage and see his true character.

Anxiously, the dark elf squinted at Kelvin's Cairn, the solitary mountain that marked the entrance to the rocky dwarven valley between Maer Dualdon and Lac Dinneshere, but his violet-colored almond eyes, marvelous orbs that could rival an owl's in the night, could not penetrate the blur of daylight enough to gauge the distance.

Again he ducked his head under the cowl, preferring a blind run to the dizziness of prolonged exposure to the sun, and sank back into the dark dreams of Menzoberranzan, the lightless underworld city of his ancestors. The drow elves had actually once walked on the surface world, dancing beneath the sun and the stars with their fair-skinned cousins. Yet the dark elves were malicious, passionless killers beyond the tolerance of even their normally unjudging kin. And in the inevitable war of the elven nations, the drow were driven into the bowels of the ground. Here they found a world of dark secrets and dark magics and were content to remain. Over the centuries, they had flourished and grown strong once more, attuning themselves to the ways of mysterious magics. They became more powerful than even their surface-dwelling cousins, whose dealings with the arcane arts under the life-giving warmth of the sun were hobby, not necessity.

As a race, though, the drow had lost all desire to see the sun and the stars. Both their bodies and minds had adapted to the depths, and luckily for all who dwelt under the open sky, the evil dark elves were content to remain where they were, only occasionally resurfacing to raid and pillage. As far as Drizzt knew, he was the only one of his kind living on the surface. He had learned some tolerance of the light, but he still suffered the hereditary weaknesses it imparted upon his kind.

Yet even considering his disadvantage under daytime conditions, Drizzt was outraged by his own carelessness when the two bearlike tundra yetis, their camouflaging coats of shaggy fur still colored in summer brown, suddenly rose up before him.

* * *

A red flag rose from the deck of one of the fishing boats, signaling a catch. Regis watched as it moved higher and higher. "A four-footer, or better," the halfling mumbled approvingly when the flag topped out just below the mast's crosspiece. "There'll be singing in one house tonight!"

A second ship raced up beside the one that had signaled the catch, banging into the anchored vessel in its rush. The two crews immediately drew weapons and faced off, though each remained on its respective ship. With nothing between him and the boats but empty water, Regis clearly heard the shouts of the captains.

"Ere, ye stole me catch!" the captain of the second ship roared.

"You're water-weary!" the captain of the first ship retorted. "Never it was! It's our fish fairly hooked and fairly hauled! Now be gone with your stinking tub before we take you out of the water!"

Predictably, the crew of the second ship was over the rail and swinging before the captain of the first ship had finished speaking.

Regis turned his eyes back to the clouds; the dispute on the boats did not hold any interest for him, though the noises of the battle were certainly disturbing. Such squabbles were common on the lakes, always over the fish, especially if someone landed a big one. Generally they weren't too serious, more bluster and parrying than actual fighting, and only rarely did someone get badly wounded or killed. There were exceptions, though. In one skirmish involving no less than seventeen boats, three full crews and half of a fourth were cut down and left floating in the bloodied water. On that same day, that particular lake, the southernmost of the three, had its name changed from Dellon-lune to Redwaters.

"Ah little fishes, what trouble you bring," Regis muttered softly, pondering the irony of the havoc the silvery fish wreaked on the lives of the greedy people of Ten-Towns. These ten communities owed their very existence to the knucklehead trout, with their oversized, fist-shaped heads and bones the consistency of fine ivory. The three lakes were the only spots in the world where the valuable fish were known to swim, and though the region was barren and wild, overrun with humanoids and barbarians and sporting frequent storms that could flatten the sturdiest of buildings, the lure of quick wealth brought in people from the farthest reaches of the Realms.

As many inevitably left as came in, though. Icewind Dale was a bleak, colorless wasteland of merciless weather and countless dangers. Death was a common visitor to the villagers, stalking any who could not face the harsh realities of Icewind Dale.

Still, the towns had grown considerably in the century that had passed since the knuckleheads were first discovered. Initially the nine villages on the lakes were no more than the shanties where individual frontiersmen had staked out a claim on a particularly good fishing hole. The tenth village, Bryn Shander, though now a walled, bustling settlement of several thousand people, had been merely an empty hill sporting a solitary cabin where the fishermen would meet once a year, exchanging stories and goods with the traders from Luskan.

Back in the early days of Ten-Towns a boat, even a oneman rowboat, out on the lakes, whose waters year-round were cold enough to kill in minutes anyone unfortunate enough to fall overboard, was a rare sight, but now every town on the lakes had a fleet of sailing vessels flying its flag. Targos alone, largest of the fishing towns, could put over a hundred vessels onto Maer Dualdon, some of them two-masted schooners with crews of ten or more.

A death cry sounded from the embattled ships, and the clang of steel on steel rang out loudly. Regis wondered, and not for the first time, if the people of Ten-Towns would be better off without the troublesome fish.

The halfling had to admit that Ten-Towns had been a haven for him, though. His practiced, nimble fingers adapted easily to the instruments of the scrimshander, and he had even been elected as the council spokesman of one of the villages. Granted, Lonelywood was the smallest and northernmost of the ten towns, a place where the rogues of rogues hid out, but Regis still considered his appointment an honor. It was convenient as well. As the only true scrimshander in Lonelywood, Regis was the sole person in the town with reason or desire to travel regularly to Bryn Shander, the principle settlement and market hub of Ten-Towns. This had proved to be quite a boon to the halfling. He became the primary courier to bring the catches of Lonelywood's fishermen to market, for a commission equaling a tenth-piece of the goods. This alone kept him deep enough in ivory to make an easy living.

Once a month during the summer season and once every three in the winter, weather permitting, Regis had to attend council meetings and fulfill his duties as spokesman. These meetings took place in Bryn Shander, and though they normally broke down into nothing more than petty arguments over fishing territories between villages, they usually lasted only a few hours. Regis considered his attendance a small price to pay for keeping his monopoly on trips to the southern marketplace.

The fighting on the boats soon ended, only one man dead, and Regis drifted back into quiet enjoyment of the sailing clouds. The halfling looked back over his shoulder at the dozens of low wooden cabins dotting the thick rows of trees that comprised Lonelywood. Despite the reputation of its inhabitants, Regis found this town to be the best in the region. The trees provided a measure of protection from the howling wind and good corner posts for the houses. Only its distance from Bryn Shander had kept the town in the wood from being a more prominent member of Ten-Towns.

Abruptly, Regis pulled the ruby pendant out from under his waistcoat and stared at the wondrous gem he had appropriated from his former master a thousand miles and more to the south, in Calimport.

"Ah, Pook," he mused, "if only you could see me now."

* * *

The elf went for the two scimitars sheathed on his hips, but the yetis closed quickly. Instinctively, Drizzt spun to his left, sacrificing his opposite flank to accept the rush of the closest monster. His right arm became helplessly pinned to his side as the yeti wrapped its great arms around him, but he managed to keep his left arm free enough to draw his second weapon. Ignoring the pain of the yeti's squeeze, Drizzt set the hilt of the scimitar firmly against his hip and allowed the momentum of the second charging monster to impale it on the curving blade.

In its frenzied death throes, the second yeti pulled away, taking the scimitar with it.

The remaining monster bore Drizzt to the ground under its weight. The drow worked his free hand frantically to keep the deadly teeth from gaining a hold on his throat, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before his stronger foe finished him.

Suddenly Drizzt heard a sharp crack. The yeti shuddered violently. Its head contorted weirdly, and a gout of blood and brains poured over its face from above its forehead.

"Yer late, elf!" came the rough edge of a familiar voice. Bruenor Battlehammer walked up the back of his dead foe, disregarding the fact that the heavy monster lay on top of his elven friend. In spite of the added discomfort, the dwarf's long, pointed, often-broken nose and gray-streaked, though still-fiery red beard came as a welcome sight to Drizzt. "Knew I'd find ye in trouble if I came out an' looked for ye!"

Smiling in relief, and also at the mannerisms of the ever-amazing dwarf, Drizzt managed to wriggle out from under the monster while Bruenor worked to free his axe from the thick skull.

"Head's as hard as frozen oak!" grumbled the dwarf. He planted his feet behind the yeti's ears and pulled the axe free with a mighty jerk. "Where's that kitten o' yers, anyway?"

Drizzt fumbled around in his pack for a moment and produced a small onyx statue of a panther. "I'd hardly label Guenhwyvar a kitten," he said with fond reverence. He turned the figurine over in his hands, feeling the intricate details of the work to ensure that it had not been damaged in the fall under the yeti.

"Bah, a cat's a cat!" insisted the dwarf. "An' why isn't it here when ye needed it?"

"Even a magical animal needs its rest," Drizzt explained.

"Bah," Bruenor spouted again. "It's sure to be a sorry day when a drow - and a ranger, what's more - gets taken off 'is guard on an open plain by two scab tundra yetis!" Bruenor licked his stained axe blade, then spat in disgust.

"Foul beasts!" he grumbled. "Can't even eat the damn things!" He pounded the axe into the ground to clean the blade and stomped off toward Kelvin's Cairn.

Drizzt put Guenhwyvar back into the pack and went to retrieve his scimitar from the other monster.

"Come on, elf," scolded the dwarf. "We've five miles an more of road to go!"

Drizzt shook his head; and wiped the bloodstained blade on the felled monster's fur: "Roll on, Bruenor Battlehammer," he whispered under his smile. "And know to your pleasure that every monster along our trail will mark well your passing and keep its head safely hidden!"