And so I salute Cadderly and the seekers, who put aside the ethereal, the easy answers, and climb courageously toward the honesty and the beauty of a greater harmony.

As the many peoples of Faerûn scramble through their daily endeavors, march through to the ends of their respective lives, there will be much hesitance at the words that flow from Spirit Soaring, even resentment and attempts at sabotage. Cadderly’s personal journey to explore the cosmos within the bounds of his own considerable intellect will no doubt foster fear, in particular of the most basic and terrifying concept of all, death.

From me, I show only support for my priestly friend. I remember my nights in Icewind Dale, tall upon Bruenor’s Climb, more removed from the tundra below, it seemed, than from the stars above. Were my ponderings there any less heretical than the work of Spirit Soaring? And if the result for Cadderly and those others is anything akin to what I knew on that lonely mountaintop, then I recognize the strength of Cadderly’s armor against the curses of the incurious and the cries of heresy from less enlightened and more dogmatic fools.

My journey to the stars, among the stars, at one with the stars, was a place of absolute contentment and unbridled joy, a moment of the most peaceful existence I have ever known.

And the most powerful, for in that state of oneness with the universe around me, I, Drizzt Do’Urden, stood as a god.

— Drizzt Do’Urden

CHAPTER 1

VISITING A DROW’S DREAMS

I will find you, drow.

The dark elf’s eyes popped open wide, and he quickly attuned his keen senses to his physical surroundings. The voice remained clear in his mind, invading his moment of quiet Reverie.