"You wish that the raiding ogres would have killed you," I said to him, and he offered no argument.
For some time we sat in silence, silence that weighed heavily on both of us. I knew that I could not let this injustice stand, could not turn my back on one-even a goblin- who so obviously needed help. I considered the courses open to me and came to the conclusion that to truly remedy this injustice, I must use what influence I could. Like most of the farming villages in the region, Pengallen was not an independent community. The people here were within the general protection of, and therefore, under the overseeing law of the greater cities nearby. I could appeal to Alustriel, who ruled Silverymoon, and to Bruenor Battlehammer, the nearest king and my dearest friend.
"Perhaps some day I will find the strength to stand against Rico," Nojheim said unexpectedly, pulling me from my contemplations. I remember his next words vividly. "I am not a courageous goblin. I prefer to live, though oftentimes I wonder what my life is truly worth."
My father could have said those very words. My father, Zak'nafein, too, was a slave, though a slave of a different sort. Zak'nafein lived well in Menzoberranzan, but he detested the dark elves and their evil ways. He saw no escape, though, no way out of the drow city. For lack of courage, he lived his life as a drow warrior, survived by following those same codes that were so abhorrent to him.
I tried to remind Nojheim again that I had escaped a similar fate, that I had walked out of a desperate situation. I explained that I had traveled among peoples who surely hated me and feared me for the reputation of my heritage.
'You are drow, not any goblin," he replied again, and this time I began to understand the meaning behind his words. "They will never understand that I am not evil in heart, as are other goblins. I don't even understand it!"
"But you believe it," I said firmly.
"Am I to tell them that this goblin is not an evil sort?"
"Exactly that!" I argued. It seemed reasonable enough to me. I thought that I had found the opening I needed.
Nojheim promptly closed that door, promptly taught me something about myself and about the world that I had not previously considered.
"What is the difference between us?" I pressed, hoping he would see my understanding of the truth.
"You think yourself persecuted?" the goblin asked. His yellow eyes narrowed, and I knew that he thought he was being shrewd.
"I no longer accept that definition, just as I no longer accept the persecution," I declared. My pride had suddenly got in the way of understanding what this pitiful wretch was getting at. "People will draw their own judgments, but I will no longer accept their unfair conclusions."
"You will fight those that do you wrong?" Nojheim asked.
"I will deny them, ignore them, and know in my heart that I am right in my beliefs."
Nojheim's smile revealed both an honest happiness that I had found my way, and a deeper sorrow-for himself, I came to know.
"Our situations are not the same," he insisted. I started to protest, but he stopped me with an upraised hand. "You are drow, exotic, beyond the experiences of the vast majority of people you meet."
"Almost everyone of the surface has heard horrible tales of the drow," I tried to reason.
"But they have not dealt directly with drow elves!" Nojheim replied sharply. "You are an oddity to them, strangely beautiful, even by their own standards of beauty. Your features are fine, Drizzt Do'Urden, your eyes penetrating. Even your skin, so black and lustrous, must be considered beautiful by the people of the surface world. I am a goblin, an ugly goblin, in body if not in spirit."
"If you showed them the truth of that spirit…"
Nojheim's laughter mocked my concern. "Showed them the truth? A truth that would make them question what they had known all of their lives? Am I to be a dark mirror of their conscience? These people, Rico included, have killed many goblins-probably rightly so," he quickly added, and that clarification explained to me everything Nojheim had been trying to get through my blind eyes.
If these farmers, many of whom had often battled goblins, and others who had kept goblins as slaves, found just one creature who did not fit into their definitions of the evil race, just one goblin who showed conscience and compassion, intellect and a spirit akin to their own, it might throw their whole existence into chaos. I, myself, felt as though I had been slapped in the face when I'd learned of Nojheim's true demeanor. Only through my own experiences with my dark elven kin, the overwhelming majority of whom well deserved their evil reputation, was I able to work through that initial turmoil and guilt.
These farmers, though, might not so easily understand Nojheim. They would surely fear him, hate him all the more.
"I am not a courageous being," Nojheim said again, and though I disagreed, I held that thought private.
"You will leave with me," I told him. 'This night. We will go back to the west, to Mithril Hall."
"No!"
I looked at him, more hurt than confused.
"I'll not be hunted again," he explained, and I guessed from the faraway, pained look he gave me that he was remembering the first time Rico had chased him down.
I could not force Nojheim to comply, but I could not allow this injustice to stand. Was I to openly confront Rico? There were implications, potentially grave, to that course. I knew not what greater powers Pengallen held fealty to. If this village was sponsored by a city not known for tolerance, such as Nesme, to the south and west, then any action I took against its citizens could force trouble between that city and Mithril Hall, since I was, in effect, an emissary of Bruenor Battlehammer.
And so I left Nojheim. In the morning I secured the use of a fine horse and took the only route left open to me. I would go to Silverymoon first, I decided, since Alustriel was among the most respected rulers in all the land. Then, if need be, I would appeal to Bruenor's strong sense of justice.
I also decided then and there that if neither Alustriel nor Bruenor would act on Nojheim's behalf, I would take the matter unto myself-whatever the cost.
It took me three days of hard riding to get to Silvery-moon. The greeting at the Moorgate, on the city's western side, was uncommonly polite, the guards welcoming me with all the blessings of Lady Alustriel. It was Alustriel that I needed to see, I told them, and they replied that the Lady of Silverymoon was out of the city, on business with Sundabar, to the east. She would not return for a fortnight.
I could not wait, and so I bade the guards farewell, explaining that I would return within a tenday or two. Then I set off, back the way I had come. Bruenor would have to act.
The return ride was both exhilarating and tormenting to me. The greeting at Silverymoon, so different from what I had come to expect, had given me an almost giddy hope that the wrongs of the world could be defeated. At the same time, I felt as though I had abandoned Nojheim, felt as if my desire to follow proper etiquette was a cowardly course. I should have insisted that the goblin accompany me, should have taken Nojheim from his pain and then tried to mend the situation diplomatically.
I have made mistakes in my life, as I knew I had made one here. I veered back toward Pengallen instead of traveling straight to Bruenor's court at Mithril Hall.
I found Nojheim hanging from Rico's high cross-pole.
There are events forever frozen in my memory, feelings that exude a more complete aura, a memory vivid and lasting. I remember the wind at that horrible moment. The day, thick with low clouds, was unseasonably warm, but the wind, on those occasions it had to gust, carried a chilling bite, coming down from the high mountains and carrying the sting of deep snow with it. That wind was behind me, my thick and long white hair blowing around my face, my cloak pressing tightly against my back as I sat on my mount and stared helplessly at the high cross-pole.
The gusty breeze also kept Nojheim's stiff and bloated body turning slightly, the bolt holding the hemp rope creaking in mournful, helpless, protest.
I will see him that way forever.
I had not even moved to cut the poor goblin down when Rico and several of his rugged cohorts, all armed, came out of the house to meet me-to challenge me, I believed. Beside them came Tharman, carrying no weapon, his expression forlorn.
"Damned goblin tried to kill me," Rico explained, and for a fleeting moment, I believed him, feared that I had compelled Nojheim to make a fateful error. As Rico continued, though, claiming that the goblin had attacked him in broad daylight, before a dozen witnesses, I came to realize that it was all an elaborate lie. The witnesses were no more than partners in an unjust conspiracy.
"No reason to get upset," Rico went on, and his smug smile answered all my questions about the murder. "I've killed many goblins," he quickly added, his accent changing slightly, "probably rightly so, too."
Why had Rico hedged by using the word "probably"? Then I realized that I had heard those exact words spoken before, in exactly the same manner. I'd heard Nojheim say them, and, obviously, Rico had also heard! The fears the goblin had expressed that night in the barn suddenly rang ominously true.
I wanted to draw my scimitars and leap from the horse, cut Rico down and drive away any that would stand to help this murderer.
Tharman looked at me, looked right through my intentions, and shook his head, silently reminding me that there was nothing my weapons could do that would do anybody, Nojheim included, any good.
Rico went on talking, but I no longer listened. What recourse did I have? I could not expect Alustriel, or even Bruenor, to take any action against Rico. Nojheim, by all accounts, was simply a goblin, and even if I could somehow prove differently, could convince Alustriel or Bruenor that this goblin was a peaceful sort and unjustly persecuted, they would not be able to act. Intent is the determining factor of crime, and to Rico and the people of Pengallen, Nojheim, for all my claims, remained only a goblin. No court of justice in the region, where bloody battles with goblins are still commonplace, where almost everyone has lost at least one of his or her kin to such creatures, could find these men guilty for hanging Nojheim, for hanging a monster.
I had helped to perpetrate the incident. I had recaptured Nojheim and returned him to wicked Rico-even when I had sensed that something was amiss. And then I had forced myself into the goblin's life once more, had spoken dangerous thoughts to him.
Rico was still talking when I slid down from my borrowed mount, looped Taulmaril over my shoulder, and walked off for Mithril Hall.
* * * * *