o' them die trying to get yer hammer back? How're ye to feel when they bring ye the hammer and the news, and all the while, ye been sitting here safe while they did yer work for ye?"
Wulfgar looked at Delly hard, studying her face and recognizing that she was indeed pained to be speaking to him so.
"Stupid Josi Puddles for stealing the damn hammer and selling it out to the pirate," the woman finished.
"Some could die," Wulfgar agreed. "Sheila Kree is known to be a fierce one, and by all accounts she has surrounded herself with a formidable crew. By your own reasoning, then, none of us, not Deudermont and not Wulfgar, should go out in search of her and Aegis-fang."
"Not me own reasoning at all," Delly argued. "Deudermont and his crew're choosing the road of pirate hunting - that's not yer doing. It's their calling, and they'd be going after Sheila Kree even if she'd ne'er taken yer hammer."
"Then we are back where we started," Wulfgar reasoned with a chuckle. "Let Deudermont and his fine crew go out and find the hammer if they - "
"Not so!" Delly interrupted angrily. "Their calling is to go and hunt the pirates, to be sure, and yer own is to be with them until they're finding yer hammer. Yers is to find yer hammer and yerself, to get back where ye once were."
Wulfgar settled back on the bed and ran his huge, callused hands over his face again. "Perhaps I do not wish to be back there."
"Perhaps ye don't," said Delly. "But that's not a choice for ye to make until ye do get back there. When ye've found out again who ye were, me love, only then will ye be able to tell yerself honestly where ye're wanting to go. Until ye get it to where all is for the taking, then ye'll always be wondering and wanting."
She went quiet then, and Wulfgar had no response. He sighed many times and started to repudiate her many times, but every avenue he tried to explore proved inevitably to be a dead end.
"When did Delly Curtie become so wise in the course of life?" a defeated Wulfgar asked a short while later.
Delly snickered and rolled to face him. "Might that I always been," she answered playfully. "Or might not be at all. I'm just telling ye what I'm thinking, and what I'm thinking is that ye got to get back to a certain place afore ye can climb higher. Ye need to be getting yerself back to where ye once were, and ye'll find the road ye most want to walk, and not just the road ye're thinking ye have to walk."
"I was back to that place," Wulfgar replied in all seriousness, and a cloud passed over his face. "I was with them in Icewind Dale again, as it had been before, and I left, of my own choice."
"Because of a better road calling?" Delly asked. "Or because ye weren't yet ready to be back? There's a bit o' difference there."
Wulfgar was out of answers, and he knew it. He wasn't sure that he agreed with Delly, but when the call from Deudermont and Sea Sprite came the next day, he answered it.
Chapter 6 THE PATHS OF DOOM
e'lorinel worked defensively, as always, letting the opponent take the lead, his twin scimitars weaving a furious dance. The elf parried and backed, dodged easily and twirled aside, letting Tunevec's furious charge go right past.
Tunevec stumbled, and cursed under his breath, thinking the fight lost, thinking Le'lorinel would surely complain and moan about his deficiencies. He closed his eyes, waiting for the slap of a sword across his back, or his rump if Le'lorinel was feeling particularly petty this day.
No blow came.
Tunevec turned about to see the bald elf leaning against the wall, weapons put away.
"You do not even bother to finish the fight?" Tunevec asked.
Le'lorinel regarded him absently, as if it didn't matter. The elf stared up at the lone window on this side of the tower, the one to Mahskevic's study. Behind that window, Le'lorinel knew, the wizard was getting some more answers.
"Come!" Tunevec bade, and he clapped his scimitars in the air before him. "You paid me for one last fight, so let us fight!"
Le'lorinel eventually got around to looking at the impatient warrior. "We are done, now and forever."
"You paid for the last fight, and the last fight is not finished," Tunevec protested.