And today I sha’not die.

The logic is simple and straightforward, and the trap is easily set, for if I did these things the day before and do these same things today, I can reasonably assume that the result will not change.

And the result is that I will be alive tomorrow to do these things yet again.

Thus do the mundane and the routine become the—false—assurance of continued life, but I have to wonder, even if the premise were true, even if doing the same thing daily would ensure immortality, would a year of such existence not already be the same as the most troubling possibility of death?

From my perspective, this ill-fated logic ensures the opposite of that delusional promise! To live a decade in such a state is to ensure the swiftest path to death, for it is to ensure the swiftest passage of the decade, an unremarkable recollection that will flitter by without a pause, the years of mere existence. For in those hours and heartbeats and passing days, there is no variance, no outstanding memory, no first kiss.

To seek the road and embrace change could well lead to a shorter life in these dangerous times in Faerûn. But in those hours, days, years, whatever the measure, I will have lived a longer life by far than the smith who ever taps the same hammer to the same familiar spot on the same familiar metal.

For life is experience, and longevity is, in the end, measured by memory, and those with a thousand tales to tell have indeed lived longer than any who embrace the mundane.

— Drizzt Do’Urden

CHAPTER 1

FAIR WINDS AND FOLLOWING SEAS

S ails billowing, timbers creaking, water spraying high from her prow, Thrice Lucky leaped across the swells with the grace of a dancer. All the multitude of sounds blended together in a musical chorus, both invigorating and inspiring, and it occurred to young Captain Maimun that if he had hired a band of musicians to rouse his crew, their work would add little to the natural music all around them.