Glacier's Edge (The Way of the Drow) by R. A. Salvatore

Author:R. A. Salvatore [Salvatore, R. A.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

A Missing Length of Rope

“I thought you were going to get Drizzt,” Penelope said when she saw Kimmuriel walking the halls of the Ivy Mansion the next morning.

“I am.”

“I thought you were going yesterday.”

“There are many side streets,” Kimmuriel replied. “King Bruenor wishes to speak with the elf, Freewindle, from Silverymoon. Do I bring him here or bring Bruenor there? Or would it be better to keep Bruenor here and allow those of . . . less intensity to visit the old and addled elf? We are trying to sort it all out. Is the halfling with Azzudonna again?”

“He is, or was, at least,” Penelope answered. “I think Wulfgar is with them as well. Wulfgar knows the north better than anyone, although I think Gromph threw our friends beyond the regions we typical think of as the north.”

“You are not pleased with the archmage.”

“I find it irresponsible to teleport a group of people to an unknown destination. Wouldn’t you agree?” Penelope asked him.

“They had ways to come back almost instantly, or to be retrieved.”

“And yet, here we are,” said Penelope.

“We do not know where we are. Azzudonna says they are lost to us. Somewhere. Somehow. That is all we know.”

“Yet you haven’t gone to retrieve Drizzt.”

“Does it matter?” Kimmuriel said. “What do you expect him to do? Run to the north? The next moves are my own and those of Gromph. If we can find a way to better search for our missing companions, we will act.”

“Really?” Her sharp tone stuck his forthcoming words in his throat. “You know something and you’re holding back,” she accused.

“I cannot get through Azzudonna’s mental discipline,” Kimmuriel admitted. “Nor can Gromph or any spells any of you will place upon her or in the room about her. Her willpower is impressive.”

“But?”

“If I took her to the hive mind, all she knows would be revealed,” he said. “Everything she has ever known, every thought she has ever had, would be revealed.”

“And you don’t want to do that,” Penelope reasoned.

“You cannot begin to comprehend the level of intrusion,” Kimmuriel told her. “Her deepest secrets, deepest fantasies, darkest acts, would be laid bare, torn from her against her will. It would be perhaps the greatest violation any being could suffer.”

Penelope turned her head a bit and studied the psionicist with a side-eyed gaze, a smile curling on her lips as if she was catching on to something in Kimmuriel’s tone. “How do you know this?”

Kimmuriel chuckled.

“You?”

“I am Oblodran,” he answered. “And we were trained to accept the intrusions of the hive mind as the door to our greatness. Yet these centuries later, the first time my mind was scoured still haunts me. I try to forget about their intrusions, but they are with me often, and usually without warning. A smell, a notion, an action, something I see or hear—anything at all can bring me back to that experience. It tries me and chases me in my nightmares—and again, I submitted to it willingly! For Azzudonna, this act, forced upon her against her will, would utterly break her.

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