The Halfling’s Gem Read Online Free Page A

let the words hang ominously before them.
    “But you have little choice,” the wizard continued. “A horse cannot match the speed of a sailing ship, and the sea route is straighter than the road. So take to the sea, is my advice. Perhaps I can make some arrangements to speed your accommodations. My student has already set the enchanted shoes on your mounts, and with their aid, you may get to the great port in short days.”
    “And how long shall we sail?” Wulfgar asked, dismayed and hardly believing that Drizzt would go along with the wizard’s suggestion.
    “Your young friend does not understand the breadth of this journey,” Malchor said to Drizzt. The wizard laid his fork on the table and another a few inches from it. “Here is Icewind Dale,” he explained to Wulfgar, pointing to the first fork. “And this other, the Tower of Twilight, where you now sit. A distance of nearly four hundred miles lies between.”
    He tossed a third fork to Drizzt, who laid it out in front of him, about three feet from the fork representing their present position.
    “It is a journey you would travel five times to equal the road ahead of you,” Malchor told Wulfgar, “for that last fork is Calimport, two thousand miles and several kingdoms to the south.”
    “Then we are defeated,” moaned Wulfgar, unable to comprehend such a distance.
    “Not so,” said Malchor. “For you shall ride with sails full of the northern wind, and beat the first snows of winter. You will find the land and the people more accommodating to the south.”
    “We shall see,” said the dark elf, unconvinced. To Drizzt, people had ever spelled trouble.
    “Ah,” agreed Malchor, realizing the hardships a drow elf would surely find among the dwellers of the surface world. “But I have one more gift to give to you: a map to a treasure that you can recover this very day.”
    “Another delay,” said Wulfgar.
    “A small price to pay,” replied Malchor, “and this short trip shall save you many days in the populated South, where a drow elf may walk only in the night. Of this I am certain.”
    Drizzt was intrigued that Malchor so clearly understood his dilemma and was apparently hinting at an alternative. Drizzt would not be welcome anywhere in the South. Cities that would grant the foul Entreri free passage would throw chains upon the dark elf if he tried to cross through, for the drow had long ago earned their reputation as ultimately evil and unspeakably vile. Few in all the Realms would be quick to recognize Drizzt Do’Urden as the exception to the rule.
    “Just to the west of here, down a dark path in Neverwinter Wood and in a cave of trees, dwells a monster that the local farmers have named Agatha,” said Malchor. “Once an elf, I believe, and a fair mage in her own right, according to legend, this wretched thing lives on after death and calls the night her time.”
    Drizzt knew the sinister legends of such creatures, and he knew their name. “A banshee?” he asked.
    Malchor nodded. “To her lair you should go, if you are brave enough, for the banshee has collected a fair hoard of treasure, including one item that would prove invaluable to you, Drizzt Do’Urden.”
    He saw that he had the drow’s full attention. Drizzt leaned forward over the table and weighed Malchor’s every word.
    “A mask,” the wizard explained. “An enchanted mask that will allow you to hide your heritage and walk freely as a surface elf—or as a man, if that suits you.”
    Drizzt slumped back, a bit unnerved at the threat to his very identity.
    “I understand your hesitancy,” Malchor said to him. “It is not easy to hide from those who accuse you unjustly, to give credibility to their false perceptions. But think of your captive friend and know that I make this suggestion only for his sake. You may get through the southlands as you are, dark elf, but not unhindered.”
    Wulfgar bit his lip and said nothing, knowing this to be Drizzt’s own decision. He knew