Book 3.
Trails Anew
16. Days of Old
A squat stone tower stood in a small dell against the facing of a steep hill. Because it was ivy covered and overgrown, a casual passer-by would not even have noticed the structure.
But the Companions of the Hall were not casual in their search. This was the Herald's Holdfast, possibly the solution to their entire search.
"Are you certain that this is the place?" Regis asked Drizzt as they peered over a small bluff. Truly the ancient tower appeared more a ruin. Not a thing stirred anywhere nearby, not even animals, as though an eerie, reverent hush surrounded the place.
"I am sure," Drizzt replied. "Feel the age of the tower. It has stood for many centuries. Many centuries."
"And how long has it been empty?" Bruenor asked, thus far disappointed in the place that had been described to him as the brightest promise to his goal.
"It is not empty," Drizzt replied. "Unless the information I received was in err."
Bruenor jumped to his feet and stormed over the bluff. "Probably right," he grumbled. "Some troll or scab yeti's inside the door watching us right now, I'll wager, drooling for us to come in! Let's be on with it, then! Sundabar's a day more away than when we left!"
The dwarf's three friends joined him on the remnants of the overgrown path that had once been a walkway to the tower's door. They approached the ancient stone door cautiously, with weapons drawn.
Moss-covered and worn to a smooth finish by the toll of time, apparently it hadn't been opened in many, many years.
"Use yer arms, boy," Bruenor told Wulfgar. "If any man can get this thing opened, it's yerself!"
Wulfgar leaned Aegis-fang against the wall and moved before the huge door. He set his feet as best he could and ran his hands across the stone in search of a good niche to push against.
But as soon as he applied the slightest pressure to the stone portal, it swung inward, silently and without effort.
A cool breeze wafted out of the still darkness within, carrying a blend of unfamiliar scents and an aura of great age. The friends sensed the place as otherworldly, belonging to a different time, perhaps, and it was not without a degree of trepidation that Drizzt led them in.
They stepped lightly, though their footfalls echoed in the quiet darkness. The daylight beyond the door offered little relief, as though some barrier remained between the inside of the tower and the world beyond.
"We should light a torch - " Regis began, but he stopped abruptly, frightened by the unintentional volume of his whisper.
"The door!" Wulfgar cried suddenly, noticing that the silent portal had begun to close behind them. He leaped to grab it before it shut completely, sinking them into absolute darkness, but even his great strength could not deny the magical force that moved it. It shut without a bang, just a hushed rush of air that resounded like a giant's sigh.
The lightless tomb they all envisioned as the huge door blocked out the final slit of sunlight did not come to pass, for as soon as the door closed, a blue glow lit up the room, the entrance hall to the Herald's Holdfast.
No words could they speak above the profound awe that enveloped them. They stood in view of the history of the race of Man within a bubble of timelessness that denied their own perspectives of age and belonging. In the blink of an eye they had been propelled into the position of removed observers, their own existence suspended in a different time and place, looking in on the passing of the human race as might a god. Intricate tapestries, their once-vivid colors faded and their distinct lines now blurred, swept the friends into a fantastic collage of images that displayed the tales of the race, each one retelling a story again and again; the same tale, it seemed, but subtly altered each time, to present different principles and varied outcomes.
Weapons and armor from every age lined the walls, beneath the standards and crests of a thousand longforgotten kingdoms. Bas-relief images of heroes and sages, some familiar but most unknown to any but the most studious of scholars, stared down at them from the rafters, their captured visages precise enough to emote the very character of the men they portrayed.
A second door, this one of wood, hung directly across the cylindrical chamber from the first, apparently leading into the hill behind the tower. Only when it began to swing open did the companions manage to break free of the spell of the place.
None went for their weapons, though, understanding that whoever, or whatever, inhabited this tower would be beyond such earthly strength.
An ancient man stepped into the room, older than anyone they had ever seen before. His face had retained its fullness, not hollowed with age, but his skin appeared almost wooden in texture, with lines that seemed more like cracks and a rough edge that defied time as stubbornly as an ancient tree. His walk was more a flow of quiet movement, a floating passing that transcended the definition of steps. He came in close to the friends and waited, his arms, obviously thin even under the folds of his long, satiny robe, peacefully dropped to his sides.
"Are you the herald of the tower?" Drizzt asked.
"Old Night, I am," the man replied in a voice singing with serenity. "Welcome, Companions of the Hall. The Lady Alustriel informed me of your coming, and of your quest."
Even consumed in the solemn respect of his surroundings, Wulfgar did not miss the reference to Alustriel. He glanced over at Drizzt, meeting the drow's eyes with a knowing smile.
Drizzt turned away and smiled, too.
"This is the Chamber of Man," Old Night proclaimed. "The largest in the Holdfast, except for the library, of course."
He noticed Bruenor's disgruntled scowl. "The tradition of your race runs deep, good dwarf, and deeper yet does the elves'," he explained. "But crises in history are more often measured in generations than in centuries. The short-lived humans might have toppled a thousand kingdoms and built a thousand more in the few centuries that a single dwarven king would rule his people in peace."
"No patience!" Bruenor huffed, apparently appeased.
"Agreed," laughed Old Night. "But come now, let us dine. We have much to do this night."
He led them through the doorway and down a similarly lit hallway. Doors on either side of them identified the various chambers as they passed - one for each of the goodly races, and even a few for the history of orcs and goblins and the giantkind.
The friends and Old Night supped at a huge, round table, its ancient wood as hard as mountain stone. Runes were inscribed all around its edge, many in tongues long lost to the world, that even Old Night could not remember. The food, like everything else, gave the impression of a distant past. Far from stale, though, it was delicious, with a flavor somewhat different from anything the friends had ever eaten before. The drink, a crystalline wine, possessed a rich bouquet surpassing even the legendary elixirs of the elves.
Old Night entertained them as they ate, retelling grand tales of ancient heroes, and of events that had shaped the Realms into their present state. The companions were an attentive audience, though in all probability substantial clues about Mithril Hall loomed only a door or two away.
When the meal was finished, Old Night rose from his chair and looked around at them with a weird, curious intensity. "The day will come, a millennium from now, perhaps, when I shall entertain again. On that day, I am sure, one of the tales I tell will concern the Companions of the Hall and their glorious quest."
The friends could not reply to the honor that the ancient man had paid them. Even Drizzt, even-keeled and unshakable, sat unblinking for a long, long moment.
"Come," Old Night instructed, "let your road begin anew." He led them through another door, the door to the greatest library in all the North.
Volumes thick and thin covered the walls and lay about in high piles on the many tables positioned throughout the large room. Old Night indicated one particular table, a smaller one off to the side, with a solitary book opened upon it.
"I have done much of your research for you," Old Night explained. "And in all the volumes concerning dwarves, this was the only one I could find that held any reference to Mithril Hall."
Bruenor moved to the book, grasping its edges with trembling hands. It was written in High Dwarven, the language of Dumathoin, Keeper of Secrets Under the Mountain, a script nearly lost in the Realms. But Bruenor could read it. He surveyed the page quickly, then read aloud the passages of concern.
"King Elmor and his people profited mightily from the labors of Garumn and the kin of Clan Battlehammer, but the dwarves of the secret mines did not refute Elmor's gains. Settlestone proved a valuable and trustworthy ally whence Garumn could begin the secret trail to market of the mithril works." Bruenor looked up at his friends, a gleam of revelation in his eye.