The Dao of Drizzt, page 4
Streams of Silver
I pray that the world never runs out of dragons. I say that in all sincerity, though I have played a part in the death of one great wyrm. For the dragon is the quintessential enemy, the greatest foe, the unconquerable epitome of devastation. The dragon, above all other creatures, even the demons and the devils, evokes images of dark grandeur, of the greatest beast curled asleep on the greatest treasure hoard. They are the ultimate test of the hero and the ultimate fright of the child. They are older than the elves and more akin to the earth than the dwarves. The great dragons are the preternatural beast, the basic element of the beast, that darkest part of our imagination. The wizards cannot tell you of their origin, though they believe that a great wizard, a god of wizards, must have played some role in the first spawning of the beast. The elves, with their long fables explaining the creation of every aspect of the world, have many ancient tales concerning the origin of the dragons, but they admit, privately, that they really have no idea of how the dragons came to be.
My own belief is more simple, and yet more complicated, by far. I believe that dragons appeared in the world immediately after the spawning of the first reasoning race. I do not credit any god of wizards with their creation, but rather, the most basic imagination, wrought of unseen fears, of those first reasoning mortals. We make the dragons as we make the gods, because we need them, because, somewhere deep in our hearts, we recognize that a world without them is a world not worth living in. There are so many people in the land who want an answer, a definitive answer, for everything in life, and even for everything after life. They study and they test, and because those few find the answers for some simple questions, they assume that there are answers to be had for every question. What was the world like before there were people? Was there nothing but darkness before the sun and the stars? Was there anything at all? What were we, each of us, before we were born? And what, most importantly of all, shall we be after we die? Out of compassion, I hope that those questioners never find that which they seek. One self-proclaimed prophet came through Ten Towns denying the possibility of an afterlife, claiming that those people who had died and were raised by priests, had, in fact, never died, and that their claims of experiences beyond the grave were an elaborate trick played on them by their own hearts, a ruse to ease the path to nothingness. For that is all there was, he said, an emptiness, a nothingness. Never in my life have I ever heard one begging so desperately for someone to prove him wrong. For what are we left with if there remains no mystery? What hope might we find if we know all of the answers? What is it within us, then, that so desperately wants to deny magic and to unravel mystery?
Fear, I presume, based on the many uncertainties of life and the greatest uncertainty of death. Put those fears aside, I say, and live free of them, for if we just step back and watch the truth of the world, we will find that there is indeed magic all about us, unexplainable by numbers and formulas. What is the passion evoked by the stirring speech of the commander before the desperate battle, if not magic? What is the peace that an infant might know in its mother’s arms, if not magic? What is love, if not magic? No, I would not want to live in a world without dragons, as I would not want to live in a world without magic, for that is a world without mystery, and that is a world without faith. And that, I fear, for any reasoning, conscious being, would be the cruelest trick of all.
* * *
He wants to go home. He wants to find a world he once knew. I know not if it is the promise of riches or of simplicity that now drives Bruenor. He wants to go and find Mithral Hall, to clear it of whatever monsters might now inhabit the place, to reclaim it for Clan Battlehammer. On the surface that desire seems a reasonable, even noble, thing. We all quest for adventure, and for those whose families have lived in noble tradition, the desire to avenge a wrong and restore family name and position cannot be underestimated.
Our road to Mithral Hall will not likely be an easy one. Many dangerous, uncivilized lands lay between Icewind Dale and the region far to the east of Luskan, and certainly that road promises to become even darker if we do find the entrance to those lost dwarven mines. But I am surrounded by capable and powerful friends, and so I fear no monsters—none that we can fight with sword, at least. No, my one fear concerning this journey we undertake is a fear for Bruenor Battlehammer. He wants to go home, and there are many good reasons why he should. There remains one good reason why he should not, and if that reason, nostalgia, is the source of his desire, then I fear he will be bitterly disappointed. Nostalgia is possibly the greatest of the lies that we all tell ourselves. It is the glossing of the past to fit the sensibilities of the present. For some, it brings a measure of comfort, a sense of self and of source, but others, I fear, take these altered memories too far, and because of that, paralyze themselves to the realities about them.
How many people long for that “past, simpler, and better world,” I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them? As a drow elf, I expect to live several centuries, but those first few decades of life for a drow, and for a surface elf, are not so different in terms of emotional development from those of a human, or a halfling or a dwarf. I, too, remember that idealism and energy of my more youthful days, when the world seemed an uncomplicated place, when right and wrong were plainly written on the path before my every stride. Perhaps, in a strange sort of way, because of the fact that my early years were so full of terrible experiences, were so full of an environment and an experience that I simply could not tolerate, I am better off now. For unlike so many of those I have met on the surface, my existence has steadily improved. Has that contributed to my optimism, for my own existence and for all the world around me? So many people, particularly humans who have passed the middle of their expected lives, continue to look back for their paradise, continue to claim that the world was a far better place when they were young. I cannot believe that. There may be specific instances where that is true—a tyrant king replaces a compassionate ruler, a plague engulfs the land after an era of health—but I believe, I must believe, that the people of the world are an improving lot, that the natural evolution of civilizations, though not necessarily a straight-line progression, moves toward the betterment of the world. For every time a better way is found, the people will naturally gravitate in that direction while failed experiments will be abandoned. I have listened to Wulfgar’s renderings of the history of his people, the barbarian tribes of Icewind Dale, for example, and I am amazed and horrified by the brutality of their past, the constant fighting of tribe against tribe, the wholesale rape of captured women and the torture of captured men. The tribesmen of Icewind Dale are still a brutal lot, no doubt, but not, if the oral traditions are to be believed, on a par with their predecessors. And that makes perfect sense to me, and thus, I have hopes that the trend will continue. Perhaps one day, a great barbarian leader will emerge who truly finds love with a woman, who finds a wife who forces from him a measure of respect practically unknown among the barbarians. Will that leader somewhat elevate the status of women among the tribes? If that happens, the barbarian tribes of Icewind Dale will find a strength that they simply do not understand within half of their population. If that happens, if the barbarian women find an elevation of status, then the tribesmen will never, ever, force them back into their current roles that can only be described as slavery. And all of them, man and woman, will be better for the change. Because for change to be lasting among reasoning creatures, that change must be for the better. And so civilizations, peoples, evolve to a better understanding and a better place. For the Matron Mothers of Menzoberranzan, as with many generations of tyrant families, as with many rich landowners, change can be seen as a definite threat to their power base, and so their resistance to it seems logical, even expected. How, then, can we find explanation in the fact that so many, many people, even people who live in squalor, as did their parents and their parents’ parents, and back for generation after generation, view any change with an equal fear and revulsion? Why would not the lowliest peasant desire evolution of civilization if that evolution might lead to a better life for his children? That would seem logical, but I have seen that it is not the case, for many if not most of the short-lived humans who have passed their strongest and healthiest years, who have put their own better days behind them, accepting any change seems no easy thing. No, so many of them clutch at the past, when the world was “simpler and better.” They rue change on a personal level, as if any improvements those coming behind them might make will shine a bright and revealing light on their own failings. Perhaps that is it. Perhaps it is one of our most basic fears, and one wrought of foolish pride, that our children will know better than we do. At the same time that so many people tout the virtues of their children, is there some deep fear within them that those children will see the errors of their parents? I have no answers to this seeming paradox, but for Bruenor’s sake, I pray that he seeks Mithral Hall for the right reasons, for the adventure and the challenge, for the sake of his heritage and the restoration of his family name, and not for any desire he might have to make the world as it once was. Nostalgia is a necessary thing, I believe, and a way for all of us to find peace in that which we have accomplished, or even failed to accomplish. At the same time, if nostalgia precipitates actions to return to that fabled, rosy-painted time, particularly in one who believes his life to be a failure, then it is an empty thing, doomed to produce nothing but frustration and an even greater sense of failure. Even worse, if nostalgia throws barriers in the path toward evolution, then it is a limiting thing indeed.
* * *
In my travels on the surface, I once met a man who wore his religious beliefs like a badge of honor upon the sleeves of his tunic. “I am a Gondsman!” he proudly told me as we sat beside each other at a tavern bar, I sipping my wine, and he, I fear, partaking a bit too much of his more potent drink. He went on to explain the premise of his religion, his very reason for being, that all things were based in science, in mechanics, and in discovery. He even asked if he could take a piece of my flesh, that he might study it to determine why the skin of the drow elf is black. “What element is missing,” he wondered, “that makes your race different from your surface kin?” I think that the Gondsman honestly believed his claim that if he could merely find the various elements that comprised the drow skin, he might effect a change in that pigmentation to make the dark elves become more akin to their surface relatives, and given his devotion, almost fanaticism, it seemed to me as if he felt he could effect a change in more than physical appearance. Because, in his view of the world, all things could be so explained and corrected. How could I even begin to enlighten him to the complexity? How could I show him the variations between drow and surface elf in the very view of the world resulting from eons of walking widely disparate roads? To a Gondsman fanatic, everything can be broken down, taken apart, and put back together. Even a wizard’s magic might be no more than a way of conveying universal energies—and that, too, might one day be replicated. My Gondsman companion promised me that he and his fellow inventor priests would one day replicate every spell in any wizard’s repertoire, using natural elements in the proper combinations. But there was no mention of the discipline any wizard must attain as he perfects his craft. There was no mention of the fact that powerful wizardly magic is not given to anyone, but rather, is earned, day by day, year by year, and decade by decade. It is a lifelong pursuit with a gradual increase in power, as mystical as it is secular. So it is with the warrior. The Gondsman spoke of some weapon called an arquebus, a tubular missile thrower with many times the power of the strongest crossbow. Such a weapon strikes terror into the heart of the true warrior, and not because he fears that he will fall victim to it, or even that he fears that it will one day replace him. Such weapons offend because the true warrior understands that while one is learning how to use a sword, one should also be learning why and when to use a sword. To grant the power of a weapon master to anyone at all, without effort, without training and proof that the lessons have taken hold, is to deny the responsibility that comes with such power. Of course, there are wizards and warriors who perfect their craft without learning the level of emotional discipline to accompany it, and certainly there are those who attain great prowess in either profession to the detriment of all the world—Artemis Entreri seems a perfect example—but these individuals are, thankfully, rare, and mostly because their emotional lacking will be revealed early in their careers, and it often brings about a fairly abrupt downfall. But if the Gondsman has his way, if his errant view of paradise should come to fruition, then all the years of training will mean little. Any fool could pick up an arquebus or some other powerful weapon and summarily destroy a skilled warrior. Or any child could utilize a Gondsman’s magic machine and replicate a fireball, perhaps, and burn down half a city. When I pointed out some of my fears to the Gondsman, he seemed shocked—not at the devastating possibilities, but rather, at my, as he put it, arrogance. “The inventions of the priests of Gond will make all equal!” he declared. “We will lift up the lowly peasant.” Hardly. All that the Gondsman and his cronies would do is ensure death and destruction at a level heretofore unknown across the Realms. There was nothing more to be said, for I knew that the man would never hear my words. He thought me, or, for that matter, anyone who achieved a level of skill in the fighting or magic arts, arrogant, because he could not appreciate the sacrifice and dedication necessary for such achievement.
Arrogant? If the Gondsman’s so-called lowly peasant came to me with a desire to learn the fighting arts, I would gladly teach him. I would revel in his successes as much as in my own, but I would demand, always I would demand, a sense of humility, dedication, and an understanding of this power I was teaching, an appreciation of the potential for destruction. I would teach no one who did not continue to display an appropriate level of compassion and community. To learn how to use a sword, one must first master when to use a sword. There is one other error in the Gondsman’s line of reasoning, I believe, on a purely emotional level. If machines replace achievement, then to what will people aspire? And who are we, truly, without such goals? Beware the engineers of society, I say, who would make everyone in all the world equal. Opportunity should be equal, must be equal, but achievement must remain individual.
The Halfling’s Gem
I am dying. Every day, with every breath I draw, I am closer to the end of my life. For we are born with a finite number of breaths, and each one I take edges the sunlight that is my life toward the inevitable dusk. It is a difficult thing to remember, especially while we are in the health and strength of our youth, and yet, I have come to know that it is an important thing to keep in mind—not to complain or to make melancholy, but simply because only with the honest knowledge that one day I will die can I ever truly begin to live. Certainly I do not dwell on the reality of my own mortality, but I believe that a person cannot help but dwell, at least subconsciously, on that most imposing specter until he has come to understand, to truly understand and appreciate, that he will one day die. That he will one day be gone from this place, this life, this consciousness and existence, to whatever it is that awaits. For only when a person completely and honestly accepts the inevitability of death is he free of the fear of it. So many people, it seems, stick themselves into the same routines, going through each day’s rituals with almost religious precision. They become creatures of simple habit. Part of that is the comfort afforded by familiarity, but there is another aspect to it, a deep-rooted belief that as long as they keep everything the same, everything will remain the same. Such rituals are a way to control the world about them, but in truth, they cannot. For even if they follow the exact routine day after day after day, death will surely find them.
