Drizzt spent midday sleeping in the cool shadows of a cave, many miles from Mithril Hall's eastern door. The early summer air was warm, the breeze off the cold glaciers of the mountains carrying little weight against the powerful rays of the sun in a cloudless summer sky.

The draw did not sleep long or well. His rest was filled with thoughts of Wulfgar, of all his friends, and of distant images, memories of that awful place, Menzoberranzan.

Awful and beautiful, like the dark elves who had sculpted it.

Drizzt moved to his shallow cave's entrance to take his meal. He basked in the warmth of the bright afternoon, in the sounds of the many animals. How different was this from his Underdark home! How wonderful!

Drizzt threw his dried biscuit into the dirt and punched the floor beside him.

How wonderful indeed was this false hope that had been dangled before his desperate eyes. All that he had wanted in life was to escape the ways of his kin, to live in peace. Then he had come to the surface, and soon after, had decided that this place—this place of buzzing bees and chirping birds, of warm sunlight and alluring moonlight— should be his home, not the eternal darkness of those tunnels far below.

Drizzt Do'Urden had chosen the surface, but what did that choice mean? It meant that he would come to know new, dear friends, and by his mere presence, trap them into his dark legacy. It meant that Wulfgar would die by the summons of Drizzt's own sister, and that all of Mithril Hall might soon be in peril.

It meant that his choice was a false one, that he could not stay.

The disciplined drow calmed quickly and took out some more food, forcing it past the angry lump in his throat. He considered his course as he ate. The road before him would lead out of the mountains and past a village called Pen-gallen. Drizzt had been there recently, and he did not wish to return.

He would not follow the road at all, he decided at length. What purpose would going to Silverymoon serve? Drizzt doubted that Lady Alustriel would be there, with the trading season open in full. Even if she was, what could she tell him that he did not already know?