Exile

Chapter 7. Most Honored Burrow-Warden

“Our thanks for your coming, Most Honored Burrow-Warden,” said one of the deep gnomes gathered outside the small room holding the drow prisoner. The entire group of svirfneblin elders bowed low at the burrow-warden’s approach.

Belwar Dissengulp flinched at the gracious greeting. He had never come to terms with the many laurels his people had mantled upon him since that disastrous day more than a decade before, when the drow elves had discovered his mining troupe in the corridors east of Blingdenstone, near Menzoberranzan. Horribly maimed and nearly dead from loss of blood, Belwar had returned back to Blingdenstone as the only survivor of the expedition.

The gathered svirfnebli parted for Belwar, giving him a clear view of the room and the drow. For prisoners strapped in the chair, the circular chamber seemed solid, unremarkable stone with no opening other than the heavy iron-bound door. There was, however, a single window in the chamber, covered by illusions of both sight and sound, that allowed the svirfneblin captors to view the prisoner at all times.

Belwar studied Drizzt for several moments. “He is a drow,” the burrow-warden huffed in his resonant voice, sounding a bit perturbed. Belwar still could not understand why he had been summoned. “Appearing as any other drow.”

“The prisoner claims he met you out in the Underdark,” an ancient svirfneblin said to Belwar. His voice was barely a whisper, and he dropped his gaze to the floor as he completed the thought. “On that day of great loss.”

Belwar flinched again at the mention of that day. How many times must he relive it?

“He may have,” Belwar said with a noncommittal shrug. “Not much can I distinguish between the appearances of drow elves, and not much do I wish to try.”

“Agreed,” said the other. “They all look alike.”

As the deep gnome spoke, Drizzt turned his face to the side and faced them directly, though he could not see or hear anything beyond the illusion of stone.

“Perhaps you may remember his name, Burrow-Warden,” another svirfneblin offered. The speaker paused, seeing Belwar’s sudden interest in the drow.

The circular chamber was lightless, and under such conditions, the eyes of a creature seeing in the infrared spectrum shone clearly. Normally, these eyes appeared as dots of red light, but that was not the case with Drizzt Do’Urden. Even in the infrared spectrum, this drow’s eyes showed clearly as lavender.

Belwar remembered those eyes. “Magga cammara,” Belwar breathed. “Drizzt,” he mumbled in reply to the other deep gnome.

“You do know him!” several of the svirfnebli cried together.

Belwar held up the handless stumps of his arms, one capped with the mithril head of a pickaxe, the other with the head of a hammer. “This drow, this Drizzt,” he stammered, trying to explain. “Responsible for my condition, he was!”

Some of the others murmured prayers for the doomed drow, thinking the burrow-warden was angered by the memory. “Then King Schnicktick’s decision stands,” one of them said. “The drow is to be executed immediately.”

“But he, this Drizzt, he saved my life,” Belwar interjected loudly. The others, incredulous, turned on him.

“Never was it Drizzt’s decision that my hands be severed,” the burrow-warden went on. “It was his offering that I be allowed to return to Blingdenstone. As an example; this

Drizzt said, but I understood even then that the words were uttered only to placate his cruel kin. The truth behind those words, I know, and that truth was mercy!”

An hour later, a single svirfneblin councilor, the one who had spoken to Drizzt earlier, came to the prisoner. “It was the decision of the king that you be executed,” the deep gnome said bluntly as he approached the stone chair.

“I understand,” Drizzt replied as calmly as he could. “I will offer no resistance to your verdict.” Drizzt considered his shackles for a moment. “Not that I could.”

The svirfneblin stopped and considered the unpredictable prisoner, fully believing in Drizzt’s sincerity. Before he continued, meaning to expand on the events of the day, Drizzt completed his thought.

“I ask only one favor,” Drizzt said. The svirfneblin let him finish, curious of the unusual drow’s reasoning.

“The panther,” Drizzt went on. “You will find Guenhwyvar to be a valued companion and a dear friend indeed. When I am no more, you must see to it that the panther is given to a deserving master―Belwar Dissengulp perhaps. Promise me this, good gnome, I beg.”

The svirfneblin shook his hairless head, not to deny Drizzt’s plea, but in simple disbelief. “The king, with much remorse, simply could not allow the risks of keeping you alive,” he said somberly. The deep gnome’s wide mouth turned up in a smile as he quickly added, “But the situation has changed!”

Drizzt cocked his head, hardly daring to hope.

“The burrow-warden remembers you, dark elf,” the svirfneblin proclaimed. “Most Honored Burrow-Warden Belwar Dissengulp has spoken for you and will accept the responsibility of keeping you!”

“Then…I am not to die?”

“Not unless you bring death upon yourself.”

Drizzt could barely utter the words. “And I am to be allowed to live among your people? In Blingdenstone?”

“That is yet to be determined,” replied the svirfneblin. “Belwar Dissengulp has spoken for you, and that is a very great thing. You will go to live with him. Whether the situation will be continued or expanded…” He let it hang at that, giving an unanswering shrug.

Following his release, the walk through the caverns of Blingdenstone was truly an exercise in hope for the beleaguered drow. Drizzt saw every sight in the deep gnome city as a contrast to Menzoberranzan. The dark elves had worked the great cavern of their city into shaped artwork, undeniably beautiful. The deep gnome city, too, was beautiful, but its features remained the natural traits of the stone. Where the drow had taken their cavern as their own, cutting it to their designs and tastes, the svirfnebli had fitted themselves into the native designs of their complex.

Menzoberranzan held a vastness, with a ceiling up beyond sight, that Blingdenstone could not approach. The drow city was a series of individual family castles, each a closed fortress and a house unto itself. In the deep gnome city was a general sense of home, as if the entire complex within the mammoth stone-and-metal doors was a singular structure, a community shelter from the ever-present dangers of the Underdark.

The angles of the svirfneblin city, too, were different. Like the features of the diminutive race, Blingdenstone’s buttresses and tiers were rounded, smooth, and gracefully curving. Conversely, Menzoberranzan was an angular place, as sharp as the point of a stalactite, a place of alleyways and leering terraces. Drizzt considered the two cities distinctive of the races they housed, sharp and soft like the features―and the hearts, Drizzt dared to imagine―of their respective inhabitants.

Tucked away in a remote corner of one of the outer chambers sat Belwar’s dwelling, a tiny structure of stone built around the opening of an even smaller cave. Unlike most of the open-faced svirfneblin dwellings, Belwar’s house had a front door. One of the five guards escorting Drizzt tapped on the door with the butt of his mace. “Greetings, Most Honored Burrow-Warden!” he called. “By orders of King Schnicktick, we have delivered the drow.”

Drizzt took note of the respectful tone of the guard’s voice. He had feared for Belwar on that day a decade and more ago, and had wondered if Dinin’s cutting off the deep gnome’s hands wasn’t more cruel than simply killing the unfortunate creature. Cripples did not fare well in the savage Underdark.

The stone door swung open and Belwar greeted his guests. Immediately his gaze locked with Drizzt’s in a look they had shared ten years before, when they had last parted.

Drizzt saw a somberness in the burrow-warden’s eyes, but the stout pride remained, if a bit diminished. Drizzt did not want to look upon the svirfneblin’s disfigurement; too many unpleasant memories were tied up in that long-ago deed. But, inevitably, the drow’s gaze dropped, down Belwar’s barrel-like torso to the ends of his arms, which hung by his side.

Far from his fears, Drizzt’s eyes widened in wonderment when he looked upon Belwar’s “hands”. On the right side, wondrously fitted to cap the stub of his arm, was the blocked head of a hammer crafted of mithril and etched with intricate, fabulous runes and carvings of an earth elemental and some other creatures that Drizzt did not know.

Belwar’s left appendage was no less spectacular. There the deep gnome wielded a two-headed pickaxe, also of mithril and equally crafted in runes and carvings, most notably a dragon taking flight across the flat surface of the instrument’s wider end. Drizzt could sense the magic in Belwar’s hands, and he realized that many other svirfnebli, both artisans and magic-users, had played a part in perfecting the items.

“Useful,” Belwar remarked after allowing Drizzt to study his mithril hands for a few moments.

“Beautiful,” Drizzt whispered in reply, and he was thinking of more than the hammer and pick. The hands themselves were indeed marvelous, but the implications of their crafting seemed even more so to Drizzt. If a dark elf, particularly a drow male, had crawled back into Menzoberranzan in such a disfigured state, he would have been rejected and put out by his family to wander about as a helpless rogue until some slave or other drow finally put an end to his misery. There was no room for apparent weakness in the drow culture. Here, obviously, the svirfnebli had accepted Belwar and had cared for him in the best way they knew how.

Drizzt politely returned his stare to the burrow-warden’s eyes. “You remembered me.” he said. “I had feared―”

“Later we shall talk, Drizzt Do’Urden.” Belwar interrupted. Using the svirfneblin tongue, which Drizzt did not know, the burrow-warden said to the guards, “If your business is completed, then take your leave.”

“We are at your command, Most Honored Burrow-Warden.” one of the guards replied. Drizzt noticed Belwar’s slight shudder at the mention of the title. “The king has sent us as escorts and guards, to remain by your side until the truth of this drow is revealed.”

“Be gone, then.” Belwar replied, his booming voice rising in obvious ire. He looked directly at Drizzt as he finished. “I know the truth of this one already. I am in no danger.”

“Your pardon, Most Honor―”

“You are excused.” Belwar said abruptly, seeing that the guard meant to argue. “Be gone. I have spoken for this one. He is in my care, and I fear him not at all.”

The svirfneblin guards bowed low and slowly moved away. Belwar took Drizzt inside the door, then turned him back to slyly point out that two of the guards had taken up cautious positions beside nearby structures. “Too much do they worry for my health.” he remarked dryly in the drow tongue.

“You should be grateful for such care,” Drizzt replied.

“I am not ungrateful!” Belwar shot back, an angry flush coming to his face.

Drizzt read the truth behind those words. Belwar was not ungrateful, that much was correct, but the burrow-warden did not believe that he deserved such attention. Drizzt kept his suspicions private, not wanting to further embarrass the proud svirfneblin.

The inside of Belwar’s house was sparsely furnished with a stone table and single stool, several shelves of pots and jugs, and a fire pit with an iron cooking grate. Beyond the rough-hewn entrance to the back room, the room within the small cave, was the deep gnome’s sleeping quarters, empty except for a hammock strung from wall to wall. Another hammock, newly acquired for Drizzt, lay in a heap on the floor, and a leather, mithril-ringed jack hung on the back wall, with a pile of sacks and pouches underneath it.

“In the entry room we shall string it,” Belwar said, pointing with his hammer-hand to the second hammock. Drizzt moved to get the item, but Belwar caught him with his pick-hand and spun him about.

“Later,” the svirfneblin explained. “First you must tell me why you have come.” He studied Drizzt’s battered clothing and scuffed and dirty face. It was obvious that the drow had been out in the wilds for some time. “And tell me, too, you must, where you have come from.”

Drizzt flopped down on the stone floor and put his back against the wall. “I came because I had nowhere else to go,” he answered honestly.

“How long have you been out of your city, Drizzt Do’Urden?” Belwar asked him softly. Even in quieter tones, the solid deep gnome’s voice rang out with the clarity of a finely tuned bell. Drizzt marveled at its emotive range and how it could convey sincere compassion or inspire fear with subtle changes of volume.

Drizzt shrugged and let his head roll back so that his gaze was raised to the ceiling. His mind already looked down a road to his past. “Years―I have lost count of the time.” He looked back to the svirfneblin. “Time has little meaning in the open passages of the Underdark.”

From Drizzt’s ragged appearance, Belwar could not doubt the truth of his words, but the deep gnome was surprised nonetheless. He moved over to the table in the center of the room and took a seat on a stool. Belwar had witnessed Drizzt in battle, had once seen the drow defeat an earth elemental―no easy feat! But if Drizzt was indeed speaking the truth, if he had survived alone out in the wilds of the Underdark for years, then the burrow-warden’s respect for him would be even more considerable.

“Of your adventures, you must tell me, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Belwar prompted. “I wish to know everything about you, so that I may better understand your purpose in coming to a city of your racial enemies.”

Drizzt paused for a long time, wondering where and how to begin. He trusted Belwar―what other choice did he have?―but he wasn’t sure if the svirfneblin could begin to understand the dilemma that had forced him out of the security of Menzoberranzan. Could Belwar, living in a community of such obvious friendship and cooperation, understand the tragedy that was Menzoberranzan? Drizzt doubted it, but again, what choice did he have?

Drizzt quietly recounted to Belwar the story of the last decade of his life; of the impending war between House Do’Urden and House Hun’ett; of his meeting with Masoj and Alton, when he acquired Guenhwyvar; of the sacrifice of Zaknafein, Drizzt’s mentor, father, and friend; and of his subsequent decision to forsake his kin and their evil deity, Lloth. Belwar realized that Drizzt was talking about the dark goddess the deep gnomes called Lolth, but he calmly let the regionalism pass. If Belwar had any suspicions at all, not really knowing Drizzt’s true intent on that day when they had met many years before, the burrow-warden soon came to believe that his guesses about this drow had been accurate. Belwar found himself shuddering and trembling as Drizzt told of life in the Underdark, of his encounter with the basilisk, and the battle with his brother and sister.

Before Drizzt even mentioned his reason for seeking the svirfnebli―the agony of his loneliness and the fear that he was losing his very identity in the savagery necessary to survive in the wilds―Belwar had guessed it all. When Drizzt came to the final days of his life outside of Blingdenstone, he picked his words carefully. Drizzt had not yet come to terms with his feelings and fears of who he truly was, and he was not yet ready to divulge his thoughts, however much he trusted his new companion.

The burrow-warden sat silently, just looking at Drizzt when the drow had finished his tale. Belwar understood the pain of the recounting. He did not prod for more information or ask for details of personal anguish that Drizzt had not openly shared.

“Magga cammara,” the deep gnome whispered soberly.

Drizzt cocked his head.

“By the stones,” Belwar explained. “Magga cammara.”

“By the stones indeed,” Drizzt agreed. A long and uncomfortable silence ensued.

“A fine tale, it is,” Belwar said quietly. He patted Drizzt once on the shoulder, then walked into the cave-room to retrieve the spare hammock. Before Drizzt even rose to assist, Belwar had set the hammock in place between hooks on the walls.

“Sleep in peace, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Belwar said, as he turned to retire. “No enemies have you here. No monsters lurk beyond the stone of my door.”

Then Belwar was gone into the other room and Drizzt was left alone in the undecipherable swirl of his thoughts and emotions. He remained uncomfortable, but, surely, his was hope renewed.

Chapter 8. Strangers

Drizzt looked out Belwar’s open door at the daily routines of the svirfneblin city, as he had every day for the last few weeks. Drizzt felt as though his life was in a state of limbo, as though everything had been put into stasis. He had not seen or heard of Guenhwyvar since he had come to Belwar’s house, nor had he any expectations of getting his piwafwi or his weapons and armor back anytime soon. Drizzt accepted it all stoically, figuring that he, and Guenhwyvar, were better off now than they had been in many years and confident that the svirfnebli would not harm the statuette or any of his other possessions. The drow sat and watched, letting events take their due course.

Belwar had gone out this day, one of the rare occasions that the reclusive burrow-warden left his house. Despite the fact that the deep gnome and Drizzt rarely conversed―Belwar was not the type who spoke simply for the sake of hearing his own voice―Drizzt found that he missed the burrow-warden. Their friendship had grown, even if the substance of their conversations had not.

A group of young svirfnebli walked past and shouted a few quick words at the drow within. This had happened many times before, particularly in the first days after Drizzt had entered the city. On those previous occasions, Drizzt had been left wondering if he had been greeted or insulted. This time, though, Drizzt understood the basic friendly meaning of the words, for Belwar had taken the time to instruct him in the basics of the svirfneblin tongue.

The burrow-warden returned hours later to find Drizzt sitting on the stone stool, watching the world slip past.

“Tell me, dark elf,” the deep gnome asked in his hearty, melodic voice, “what do you see when you look upon us? Are we so foreign to your ways?”

“I see hope,” Drizzt replied. “ And I see despair.” Belwar understood. He knew that the svirfneblin society was better suited to the drow’s principles, but watching the bustle of Blingdenstone from afar could only evoke painful memories in his new friend.

“King Schnicktick and I met this day.” the burrow-warden said. “I tell you in truth that he is very interested in you.”

“Curious would seem a better word.” Drizzt replied, but he smiled as he did so, and Belwar wondered how much pain was hidden behind the grin.

The burrow-warden dipped into a short, apologetic bow, surrendering to Drizzt’s blunt honesty. “Curious, then, as you wish. You must know that you are not as we have come to regard drow elves. I beg that you take no offense.”

“None.” Drizzt answered honestly. “You and your people have given me more than I dared hope. If I had been killed that first day in the city, I would have accepted the fate without placing blame on the svirfnebli.”

Belwar followed Drizzt’s gaze out across the cavern, to the group of gathered youngsters. “You should go among them.” Belwar offered.

Drizzt looked at him, surprised. In all the time he had spent in Belwar’s house, the svirfneblin had never suggested such a thing. Drizzt had assumed that he was to remain the burrow-warden’s guest, and that Belwar had been made personally responsible for curtailing his movements.

Belwar nodded toward the door, silently reiterating his suggestion. Drizzt looked out again. Across the cavern, the group of young svirfnebli, a dozen or so, had begun a contest of heaving rather large stones at an effigy of a basilisk, a life-sized likeness built of stones and old suits of armor. Svirfnebli were highly skilled in the magical crafts of illusion, and one such illusionist had placed minor enchantments upon the likeness to smooth out the rough spots and make the effigy appear even more lifelike.

“Dark elf, you must go out sometime,” Belwar reasoned. “How long will you find my home’s blank walls fulfilling?”

“They suit you,” Drizzt retorted, a bit more sharply than he had intended.

Belwar nodded and slowly turned about to survey the room. “So they do,” he said quietly, and Drizzt could clearly see his great pain. When Belwar turned back to the drow, his round-featured face held an unmistakably resigned expression. “Magga cammara, dark elf. Let that be your lesson.”

“Why?” Drizzt asked him. “Why does Belwar Dissengulp, the Most Honored Burrow-Warden―” Belwar flinched again at the title―”remain within the shadows of his own door?”

Belwar’s jaw firmed up and his dark eyes narrowed. “Go out,” he said in a resonating growl. “Young you are, dark elf, and all the world is before you. Old I am. My day is long past.”

“Not so old,” Drizzt started to argue, determined this time to press the burrow-warden into revealing what it was that troubled him so. But Belwar simply turned and walked silently into his cave-room, pulling closed behind him the blanket he had strung up as a door.

Drizzt shook his head and banged his fist into his palm in frustration. Belwar had done so much for him, first by saving him from the svirfneblin king’s judgment, then by befriending him over the last few weeks and teaching him the svirfneblin tongue and the deep gnomes’ ways. Drizzt had been unable to return the favor, though he clearly saw that Belwar carried some great burden. Drizzt wanted to rush through the blanket now, go to the burrow-warden, and make him speak his gloomy thoughts.

Drizzt would not yet be so bold with his new friend, however. He would find the key to the burrow-warden’s pain in time, he vowed, but right now he had his own dilemma to overcome. Belwar had given him permission to go out into Blingdenstone! Drizzt looked back to the group across the cavern. Three of them stood perfectly still before the effigy, as if turned to stone. Curious, Drizzt moved to the doorway, and then, before he realized what he was doing, he was outside and approaching the young deep gnomes.

The game ended as the drow neared, the svirfnebli being more interested in meeting the dark elf they had rumored about for so many weeks. They rushed over to Drizzt and surrounded him, whispering curiously.

Drizzt felt his muscles tense involuntarily as the svirfnebli moved all about him. The primal instincts of the hunter sensed a vulnerability that could not be tolerated. Drizzt fought hard to sublimate his alter ego, silently but firmly reminding himself that the svirfnebli were not his enemies. “Greetings, drow friend of Belwar Dissengulp,” one of the youngsters offered. “I am Seldig, fledgling and pledgling, and to be an expedition miner in but three years hence.”

It took Drizzt a long moment to sort out the deep gnome’s rapid speech patterns. He did understand the significance of Seldig’s future occupation, though, for Belwar had told him that expedition miners, those svirfnebli who went out into the Underdark in search of precious minerals and gems, were among the highest ranking deep gnomes in all the city.

“Greetings, Seldig,” Drizzt answered at length. “I am Drizzt Do’Urden.” Not really knowing what he should do next, Drizzt crossed his arms over his chest. For the dark elves, this was a gesture of peace, though Drizzt was not certain if the motion was universally accepted throughout the Underdark.

The svirfnebli looked around at each other, returned the gesture, then smiled in unison at the sound of Drizzt’s relieved sigh.

“You have been in the Underdark, so it is said,” Seldig went on, motioning for Drizzt to follow him back to the area of their game.

“For many years,” Drizzt replied, falling into step beside the young svirfneblin. The hunting ego within the drow grew ill at ease at the following deep gnomes’ proximity, but

Drizzt was in full control of his reflexive paranoia. When the group reached the fabricated basilisk’s side, Seldig sat on the stone and bid Drizzt to give them a tale or two of his adventures.

Drizzt hesitated, doubting that his command of the svirfneblin tongue would be sufficient for such a task, but Seldig and the others pressed him. At length, Drizzt nodded and stood. He spent a moment in thought, trying to remember some tale that might interest the youngsters. His gaze unconsciously roamed the cavern, searching for some clue. It fell upon, and locked upon, the illusion-heightened basilisk effigy.

“Basilisk,” Seldig explained.

“I know,” Drizzt replied. “I have met such a creature.” He turned casually back to the group and was startled by its appearance. Seldig and every one of his companions had rocked forward, their mouths hanging open in a mixture of expressed intrigue, terror, and delight.

“Dark elf! You have seen a basilisk?” one of them asked incredulously. “A real, living basilisk?”

Drizzt smiled as he came to decipher their amazement. The svirfnebli, unlike the dark elves, sheltered the younger members of their community. Though these deep gnomes were probably as old as Drizzt, they had rarely, if ever, been out of Blingdenstone. By their age, drow elves would have spent years patrolling the corridors beyond Menzoberranzan. Drizzt’s recognition of the basilisk would not have been so unbelievable to the deep gnomes then, though the formidable monsters were rare even in the Underdark.

“You said that basilisks were not real!” one of the svirfnebli shouted to another, and he pushed him hard on the shoulder.

“Never I did!” the other protested, returning the shove.

“My uncle saw one once,” offered another.

“Scrapings in the stone was all your uncle saw!” Seldig laughed. “They were the tracks of a basilisk, by his own proclamation.” Drizzt’s smile widened. Basilisks were magical creatures, more common on other planes of existence. While drow, particularly the high priestesses, often opened gates to other planes, such monsters obviously were beyond the norm of svirfneblin life. Few were the deep gnomes who had ever looked upon a basilisk. Drizzt chuckled aloud. Fewer still, no doubt, were the deep gnomes who ever returned to tell that they had seen one!

“If your uncle followed the trail and found the monster,” Seldig continued, “he would sit to this day as a pile of stone in a passageway! I say to you now that rocks do not tell such tales!”

The berated deep gnome looked around for some rebuttal. “Drizzt Do’Urden has seen one!” he protested. “He is not so much a pile of stone!” All eyes turned back to Drizzt.

“Have you really seen one, dark elf?” Seldig asked. “Answer only in truth, I beg.”

“One,” Drizzt replied.

“And you escaped from it before it could return the gaze?” Seldig asked, a question he and the other svirfnebli considered rhetorical.

“Escaped?” Drizzt echoed the gnomish word, unsure of its meaning.

“Escape…err…run away,” Seldig explained. He looked to one of the other svirfnebli, who promptly feigned a look of sheer horror, then stumbled and scrambled frantically a few steps away. The other deep gnomes applauded the performance, and Drizzt joined in their laughter.

“You ran from the basilisk before it could return your gaze,” Seldig reasoned.

Drizzt shrugged, a bit embarrassed, and Seldig guessed that he was withholding something.

“You did not run away?”

“I could not…escape,” Drizzt explained. “The basilisk had invaded my home and had killed many of my rothe. Homes,” he paused, searching for the correct svirfneblin word. “Sanctuaries,” he explained at length, “ are not commonplace in the wilds of the Underdark. Once found and secured, they must be defended at all costs.”

“You fought it?” came an anonymous cry from the rear of the svirfneblin group.

“With stones from afar?” asked Seldig. “That is the accepted method.”

Drizzt looked over at the pile of boulders the deep gnomes had been hurling at the effigy, then considered his own slender frame. “My arms could not even lift such stones.” He laughed.

“Then how?” asked Seldig. “You must tell us.”

Drizzt now had his story. He paused for a few moments, collecting his thoughts. He realized that his limited skills with his new language would not allow him to weave much of an intricate tale, so he decided to illustrate his words. He found two poles that the svirfnebli had been carrying, explained them as scimitars, then examined the effigy’s construction to ensure that it would hold his weight.

The young deep gnomes huddled around anxiously as Drizzt set up the situation, detailing his darkness spell―actually placing one just beyond the basilisk’s head―and the positioning of Guenhwyvar, his feline companion. The svirfnebli sat on their hands and leaned forward, gasping at every word. The effigy seemed to come alive in their minds, a lumbering monster, with Drizzt, this stranger to their world, lurking in the shadows behind it.

The drama played out and the time came for Drizzt to enact his movements in the battle. He heard the svirfnebli gasp in unison as he sprang lightly onto the basilisk’s back, carefully picking his steps up toward the thing’s head. Drizzt became caught up in their excitement, and this only heightened his memories.

It all became so real.

The deep gnomes moved in close, anticipating a dazzling display of swordsmanship from this remarkable drow who had come to them from the wilds of the Underdark. Then something terrible happened.

One moment he was Drizzt the showman, entertaining his new friends with a tale of courage and weaponry. The next moment, as the drow lifted one of his pole props to strike at the phony monster, he was Drizzt no longer. The hunter stood atop the basilisk, just as he had that day back in the tunnels outside the moss-filled cave.

Poles jabbed at the monster’s eyes; poles slammed viciously into the stone head.

The svirfnebli backed away, some in fear, others in simple caution. The hunter pounded away, and the stone chipped and cracked. The slab that served as the creature’s head broke away and fell, the dark elf tumbling behind. The hunter went down in a precise roll, came back to his feet, and charged right back in, slamming away furiously with his poles. The wooden weapons snapped apart and Drizzt’s hands bled, but he-the hunter-would not yield.

Strong deep gnome hands grabbed the drow by the arms, trying to calm him. The hunter spun on his newest adversaries. They were stronger than he, and two held him tightly, but a few deft twists had the svirfnebli off balance. The hunter kicked at their knees and dropped to his own, turning about as he fell and launching the two svirfnebli into headlong rolls.

The hunter was up at once, broken scimitars at the ready as a single foe moved in at him.

Belwar showed no fear, held his arms defenselessly out wide. “Drizzt!” he called over and over. “Drizzt Do’Urden!”

The hunter eyed the svirfneblin’s hammer and pick, and the sight of the mithril hands invoked soothing memories. Suddenly, he was Drizzt again. Stunned and ashamed, he dropped the poles and eyed his scraped hands.

Belwar caught the drow as he swooned, hoisted him up in his arms and carried him back to his hammock.

Troubled dreams invaded Drizzt’s sleep, memories of the Underdark and of that other, darker self that he could not escape.

“How can I explain?” he asked Belwar when the burrow-warden found him sitting on the edge of the stone table later that night. “How can I possibly offer an apology?”

“None is needed.” Belwar said to him.

Drizzt looked at him incredulously. “You do not understand.” Drizzt began, wondering how he could possibly make the burrow-warden comprehend the depth of what had come over him.

“Many years you have lived out in the Underdark,” Belwar said, “surviving where others could not.”

“But have I survived?” Drizzt wondered aloud.

Belwar’s hammer-hand patted the drow’s shoulder gently, and the burrow-warden sat down on the table beside him. There they remained throughout the night. Drizzt said no more, and Belwar didn’t press him. The burrow-warden knew his role that night: a silent support.

Neither knew how many hours had passed when Seldig’s voice came in from beyond the door. “Come, Drizzt Do’Urden.” the young deep gnome called. “Come and tell us more tales of the Underdark.”

Drizzt looked at Belwar curiously, wondering if the request was part of some devious trick or ironic joke.

Belwar’s smile dispelled that notion. “Magga cammara, dark elf.” the deep gnome chuckled. “They’ll not let you hide.”

“Send them away.” Drizzt insisted.

“So willing are you to surrender?” Belwar retorted, a distinct edge to his normally round-toned voice. “You who have survived the trials of the wilds?”

“Too dangerous.” Drizzt explained desperately, searching for the words. “I cannot control…cannot be rid of…”

“Go with them, dark elf.” Belwar said. “They will be more cautious this time.”

“This…beast…follows me.” Drizzt tried to explain.

“Perhaps for a while.” the burrow-warden replied casually. “Magga cammara, Drizzt Do’Urden! Five weeks is not such a long time, not measured against the trials you have endured over the last ten years. Your freedom will be gained from this…beast.” Drizzt’s lavender eyes found only sincerity in Belwar Dissengulp’s dark gray orbs.

“But only if you seek it,” the burrow-warden finished.

“Come out, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Seldig called again from beyond the stone door.

This time, and every time in the days to come, Drizzt, and only Drizzt, answered the call.

The myconid king watched the dark elf prowl across the cavern’s moss-covered lower level. It was not the same drow that had left, the fungoid knew, but Drizzt, an ally, had been the king’s only previous contact with the dark elves. Oblivious to its peril, the eleven-foot giant crept down to intercept the stranger.

The spirit-wraith of Zaknafein did not even attempt to flee or hide as the animated mushroom-man closed in. Zaknafein’s swords were comfortably set in his hands. The myconid king puffed a cloud of spores, seeking a telepathic conversation with the newcomer.

But undead monsters existed on two distinct planes, and their minds were impervious to such attempts. Zaknafein’s material body faced the myconid, but the spirit-wraith’s mind was far distant, linked to his corporeal form by Matron Malice’s will. The spirit-wraith closed over the last few feet to his adversary.

The myconid puffed a second cloud, this one of spores designed to pacify an opponent, and this cloud was equally futile. The spirit-wraith came on steadily, and the giant raised its powerful arms to strike it down.

Zaknafein blocked the swings with quick cuts of his razor-edged swords, severing the myconid’s hands. Too fast to follow, the spirit-wraith’s weapons slashed at the king’s mushroomlike torso, and dug deep wounds that drove the fungoid backward and to the ground.

From the top level, dozens of the older and stronger myconids lumbered down to rescue their injured king. The spirit-wraith saw their approach but did not know fear. Zaknafein finished his business with the giant, then turned calmly to meet the assault.

Fungus-men came on, blasting their various spores. Zaknafein ignored the clouds, none of which could possibly affect him, and concentrated fully on the clubbing arms. Myconids came charging in all around him.

And they died all around him.

They had tended their grove for centuries untold, living in peace and going about their own way. But when the spirit-wraith returned from the crawl-tunnel that led to the now-abandoned small cave that once had served as Drizzt’s home, Zak’s fury would tolerate no semblance of peace. Zaknafein rushed up the wall to the mushroom grove, hacking at everything in his path.

Giant mushrooms tumbled like cut trees. Below, the small rothe herd, nervous by nature, broke into a frenzied stampede and rushed out into the tunnels of the open Underdark. The few remaining fungus-men, having witnessed the power of this dark elf, scrambled to get out of his thrashing way. But myconids were not fast-moving creatures, and Zaknafein relentlessly chased them down.

Their reign in the moss-covered cave, and the mushroom grove they had tended for so very long, came to a sudden and final end.

Chapter 9. Whispers in the Tunnels

The svirfneblin patrol inched its way around the bends of the broken and twisting tunnel, war hammers and pickaxes held at the ready. The deep gnomes were not far from Blingdenstone―less than a day out―but they had gone into their practiced battle formations usually reserved for the deep Underdark.

The tunnel reeked of death.

The lead deep gnome, knowing that the carnage lay just beyond, gingerly peeked over a boulder. Goblins! his senses cried out to his companions, a clear voice in the racial empathy of the svirfnebli. When the dangers of the Underdark closed in on the deep gnomes, they rarely spoke aloud, reverting to a communal empathic bond that could convey basic thoughts.

The other svirfnebli clutched their weapons and began deciphering a battle plan from the excited jumble of their mental communications. The leader, still the only one who had peered over the boulder, halted them with an overriding notion. Dead goblins!

The others followed him around the boulder to the grisly scene. A score of goblins lay about, hacked and torn. “Drow.” one of the svirfneblin party whispered, after seeing the precision of the wounds and the obvious ease with which the blades had cut through the unfortunate creatures’ hides. Among the Underdark races, only the drow wielded such slender and wicked-edged blades.

Too close, another deep gnome responded empathetically, punching the speaker on the shoulder. “These have been dead for a day and more,” another said aloud, refuting his companion’s caution. “The dark elves would not lie in wait in the area. It is not their way.”

“Nor is it their way to slaughter bands of goblins,” the one who had insisted on the silent communications replied. “Not when there are prisoners to be taken!”

“They would take prisoners only if they meant to return directly to Menzoberranzan,” remarked the first. He turned to the leader. “Burrow-Warden Krieger, at once we must go back to Blingdenstone and report this carnage!”

“A thin report it would be,” Krieger replied. “Dead goblins in the tunnels? It is not such an uncommon sight.”

“This is not the first sign of drow activity in the region,” the other remarked. The burrow-warden could deny neither the truth of his companion’s words nor the wisdom of the suggestion. Two other patrols had returned to Blingdenstone recently with tales of dead monsters―most probably slain by drow elves―lying in the corridors of the Underdark.

“And look,” the other deep gnome continued, bending low to scoop a pouch off one of the goblins. He opened it to reveal a handful of gold and silver coins. “What dark elf would be so impatient as to leave such booty behind?”

“Can we be sure that this was the doings of the drow?” Krieger asked, though he himself did not doubt the fact. “Perhaps some other creature has come to our realm. Or possibly some lesser foe, goblin or orc, has found drow weapons.”

Drow! the thoughts of several of the others agreed immediately.

“The cuts were swift and precise,” said one. “And I see nothing to indicate any wounds beyond those suffered by the goblins. Who else but dark elves are so efficient in their killing?”

Burrow-Warden Krieger walked off alone a bit farther down the passage, searching the stone for some clue to this mystery. Deep gnomes possessed an affinity to the rock beyond that of most creatures, but this passage’s stone walls told the burrow-warden nothing. The goblins had been killed by weapons, not the clawed hands of monsters, yet they hadn’t been looted. All of the kills were confined to a small area, showing that the unfortunate goblins hadn’t even found the time to flee. That twenty goblins were cut down so quickly implicated a drow patrol of some size, and even if there had been only a handful of the dark elves, one of them, at least, would have pillaged the bodies.

“Where shall we go, Burrow-Warden?” one of the deep gnomes asked at Krieger’s back. “Onward to scout out the reported mineral cache or back to Blingdenstone to report this?”

Krieger was a wily old svirfneblin who thought that he knew every trick of the Underdark. He wasn’t fond of mysteries, but this scene had him scratching his bald head with out a clue. Back, he relayed to the others, reverting to the silent empathic method. He found no arguments among his kin; deep gnomes always took great care to avoid drow elves whenever possible.

The patrol promptly shifted into a tight defensive formation and began its trek back home.

Levitating off to the side, in the shadows of the high ceiling’s stalactites, the spirit-wraith of Zaknafein Do’Urden watched their progress and marked well their path.

King Schnicktick leaned forward in his stone throne and considered the burrow-warden’s words carefully. Schnicktick’s councilors, seated around him, were equally curious and nervous, for this report only confirmed the two previous tales of potential drow activity in the eastern tunnels.

“Why would Menzoberranzan be edging in on our borders?” one of the councilors asked when Krieger had finished. “Our agents have made no mention of any intent of war. Surely we would have had some indications if Menzoberranzan’s ruling council planned something dramatic.”

“We would,” King Schnicktick agreed, to silence the nervous chatter that sprang up in the wake of the councilor’s grim words. “To all of you I offer the reminder that we do not know if the perpetrators of these reported kills were drow elves at all.”

“Your pardon, my King.” Krieger began tentatively.

“Yes, Burrow-Warden,” Schnicktick replied immediately, slowly waving one stubby hand before his craggy face to prevent any protests. “You are quite certain of your observations. And well enough do I know you to trust in your judgments. Until this drow patrol has been seen, however, no assumptions will I make.”

“Then we may agree only that something dangerous has invaded our eastern region.” another of the councilors put in.

“Yes.” answered the svirfneblin king. “We must set about discovering the truth of the matter. The eastern tunnels are therefore sealed from further mining expeditions.” Schnicktick again waved his hands to calm the ensuing groans. “I know that several promising veins of ore have been reported―we will get to them as soon as we may. But for the present, the east, northeast, and southeast regions are hereby declared war patrol exclusive. The patrols will be doubled, both in the number of groups and in the size of each, and their range will be extended to encompass all the region within a three-day march of Blingdenstone. Quickly must this mystery be resolved.”

“What of our agents in the drow city?” asked a councilor. “Should we make contact?”

Schnicktick held his palms out. “Be at ease.” he explained. “We will keep our ears open wide, but let us not inform our enemies that we suspect their movements.” The svirfneblin king did not have to express his concerns that their agents within Menzoberranzan could not be entirely relied upon. The informants might readily accept svirfneblin gemstones in exchange for minor information, but if the powers of Menzoberranzan were planning something drastic in Blingdenstone’s direction, agents would quite likely work double-deals against the deep gnomes.

“If we hear any unusual reports from Menzoberranzan,” the king continued, “or if we discover that the intruders are indeed drow elves, then we will increase our network’s actions. Until then, let the patrols learn what they may.”

The king dismissed his council then, preferring to remain alone in his throne room to consider the grim news. Earlier that same week, Schnicktick had heard of Drizzt’s savage attack on the basilisk effigy.

Lately, it seemed, King Schnicktick of Blingdenstone had heard too much of dark elves’ exploits.

The svirfneblin scouting patrols moved farther out into the eastern tunnels. Even those groups that found nothing came back to Blingdenstone full of suspicions, for they had sensed a stillness in the Underdark beyond the quiet norm. Not a single svirfneblin had been injured so far, but none seemed anxious to travel out on the patrols. There was something evil in the tunnels, they knew instinctively, something that killed without question and without mercy.

One patrol found the moss-covered cavern that once had served as Drizzt’s sanctuary. King Schnicktick was saddened when he heard that the peaceable myconids and their treasured mushroom grove were destroyed.

Yet, for all of the endless hours the svirfnebli spent wandering the tunnels, not an enemy did they spot. They continued with their assumption that dark elves, so secretive and brutal, were involved.

“And we now have a drow living in our city,” a deep gnome councilor reminded the king during one of their daily sessions.

“Has he caused any trouble?” Schnicktick asked

“Minor.” replied the councilor. “And Belwar Dissengulp, the Most Honored Burrow-Warden, speaks for him still and keeps him in his house as guest, not prisoner. Burrow-Warden Dissengulp will accept no guards around the drow.”

“Have the drow watched.” the king said after a moment of consideration. “But from a distance. If he is a friend, as Master Dissengulp most obviously believes, then he should not suffer our intrusions.”

“And what of the patrols?” asked another councilor, this one a representative from the entrance cavern that housed the city guard. “My soldiers grow weary. They have seen nothing beyond a few signs of battle, have heard nothing but the scrape of their own tired feet.”

“We must be alert,” King Schnicktick reminded him. “If the dark elves are massing…”

“They are not.” the councilor replied firmly. “We have found no camp, nor any trace of a camp. This patrol from Menzoberranzan, if it is a patrol, attacks and then retreats to some sanctuary we cannot locate, possibly magically inspired.”

“And if the dark elves truly meant to attack Blingdenstone,” offered another, “would they leave so many signs of their activity? The first slaughter, the goblins found by Burrow-Warden Krieger’s expedition, occurred nearly a week ago, and the tragedy of the myconids was some time before that. I have never heard of dark elves wandering about an enemy city, and leaving signs such as slaughtered goblins, for days before they execute their full attack.”

The king had been thinking along the same lines for some time. When he awoke each day and found Blingdenstone intact, the threat of a war with Menzoberranzan seemed more distant. But, though Schnicktick took comfort in the similar reasoning of his councilor, he could not ignore the gruesome scenes his soldiers had been finding in the eastern tunnels. Something, probably drow, was down there, too close for his liking.

“Let us assume that Menzoberranzan does not plan war against us at this time,” Schnicktick offered. “Then why are drow elves so close to our doorway? Why would drow elves haunt the eastern tunnels of Blingdenstone, so far from home?”

“Expansion?” replied one councilor.

“Renegade raiders?” questioned another. Neither possibility seemed very likely. Then a third councilor chirped in a suggestion, so simple that it caught the others off guard.

“They are looking for something.”

The king of the svirfnebli dropped his dimpled chin heavily into his hands, thinking he had just heard a possible solution to the puzzle and feeling foolish that he had not thought of it before.

“But what?” asked one of the councilors, obviously feeling the same. “Dark elves rarely mine the stone―they do not do it very well when they try, I must add―and they would not have to go so far from Menzoberranzan to find precious minerals. What, so near to Blingdenstone, might the dark elves be looking for?”

“Something they have lost.” replied the king. Immediately his thoughts went to the drow that had come to live among his people. It all seemed too much of a coincidence to be ignored. “Or someone.” Schnicktick added, and the others did not miss his point.

“Perhaps we should invite our drow guest to sit with us in council?”

“No.” the king replied. “But perhaps our distant surveillance of this Drizzt is not enough. Get orders to Belwar Dissengulp that the drow is to be monitored every minute. And, Firble,” he said to the councilor nearest him. “Since we have reasonably concluded that no war is imminent with the dark elves, set the spy network into motion. Get me information from Menzoberranzan, and quickly. I like not the prospect of dark elves wandering about my front door. It does so diminish the neighborhood.”

Councilor Firble, the chief of covert security in Blingdenstone, nodded in agreement, though he wasn’t pleased by the request. Information from Menzoberranzan was not cheaply gained, and it as often turned out to be a calculated deception as the truth. Firble did not like dealing with anyone or anything that could outsmart him, and he numbered dark elves as first on that ill-favored list.

The spirit-wraith watched as yet another svirfneblin patrol made its way down the twisting tunnel. The tactical wisdom of the being that once had been the finest weapon master in all of Menzoberranzan had kept the undead monster and his anxious sword arm in check for the last few days. Zaknafein did not truly understand the significance of the increasing number of deep gnome patrols, but he sensed that his mission would be put into jeopardy if he struck out against one of them. At the very least, his attack against so organized a foe would send alarms ringing throughout the corridors, alarms that the elusive Drizzt surely would hear.

Similarly, the spirit-wraith had sublimated his vicious urges against other living things and had left the svirfneblin patrols nothing to find in the last few days, purposely avoiding conflicts with the many denizens of the region. Matron Malice Do’Urden’s evil will followed Zaknafein’s every move, pounding relentlessly at his thoughts, urging him on with a great vengeance. Any killing that Zaknafein did sated that insidious will temporarily, but the undead thing’s tactical wisdom overruled the savage summons. The slight flicker that was Zaknafein’s remaining reasoning knew that he would only find his return to the peace of death when Drizzt Do’Urden joined him in his eternal sleep.

The spirit-wraith kept his swords in their sheaths as he watched the deep gnomes pass by.

Then, as still another group of weary svirfnebli made its way back to the west, another flicker of cognition stirred within the spirit-wraith. If these deep gnomes were so prominent in this region, it seemed likely that Drizzt Do’Urden would have encountered them.

This time, Zaknafein did not let the deep gnomes wander out beyond his sight. He floated down from the concealment of the stalactite-strewn ceiling and fell into pace behind the patrol. The name of Blingdenstone bobbed at the edge of his conscious grasp, a memory of his past life.

“Blingdenstone,” the spirit-wraith tried to speak aloud, the first word Matron Malice’s undead monster had tried to utter. But the name came out as no more than an undecipherable snarl.

Chapter 10. Belwar’s Guilt

Drizzt went out with Seldig and his new friends many times during the passing days. The young deep gnomes, on advice from Belwar, kept their time with the drow elf in calm and unobtrusive games; no more did they press Drizzt for reenactments of exciting battles he had fought in the wilds.

For the first few times Drizzt went out, Belwar watched him from the door. The burrow-warden did trust Drizzt, but he also understood the trials the drow had endured. A life of savagery and brutality such as the one Drizzt had known could not so easily be dismissed.

Soon, though, it became apparent to Belwar, and to all the others who observed Drizzt, that the drow had settled into a comfortable rhythm with the young deep gnomes and posed little threat to any of the svirfnebli of Blingdenstone. Even King Schnicktick, worried of the events beyond the city’s borders, came to agree that Drizzt could be trusted.

“You have a visitor,” Belwar said to Drizzt one morning. Drizzt followed the burrow-warden’s movements to the stone door, thinking Seldig had come to call on him early this day. When Belwar opened the door, though, Drizzt nearly toppled over in surprise, for it was no svirfneblin that bounded into the stone structure. Rather, it was a huge and black feline form.

“Guenhwyvar!” Drizzt cried out, dropping into a low crouch to catch the rushing panther. Guenhwyvar bowled him over, playfully swatting him with a great paw.

When at last Drizzt managed to get out from under the panther and into a sitting position, Belwar walked over to him and handed him the onyx figurine. “Surely the councilor charged with examining the panther was sorry to part with it.” the burrow-warden said. “But Guenhwyvar is your friend, first and most.”

Drizzt could not find the words to reply. Even before the panther’s return, the deep gnomes of Blingdenstone had treated him better than he deserved, or so he believed. Now for the svirfnebli to return so powerful a magical item, to show him such absolute trust, touched him deeply.

“At your leisure you may return to the House Center, the building in which you were detained when first you came to us,” Belwar went on, “and retrieve your weapons and armor.”

Drizzt was a bit tentative at the notion, remembering the incident at the mock-up of the basilisk. What damage might he have wrought that day if he had been armed, not with poles, but with fine drow scimitars?

“We will keep them here and keep them safe,” Belwar said, understanding his friend’s sudden distress. “If you need them, you will have them.”

“I am in your debt,” Drizzt replied. “In the debt of all Blingdenstone.”

“We do not consider friendship a debt,” the burrow-warden replied with a wink. He left Drizzt and Guenhwyvar then and went back into the cave-room of his house, allowing the two dear friends a private reunion.

Seldig and the other young deep gnomes were in for quite a treat that day when Drizzt came out to join them with Guenhwyvar by his side. Seeing the cat at play with the svirfnebli, Drizzt could not help but remember that tragic day, a decade before, when Masoj had used Guenhwyvar to hunt down the last of Belwar’s fleeing miners. Apparently, Guenhwyvar had dismissed that awful memory altogether, for the panther and the young deep gnomes frolicked together for the entire day.

Drizzt wished only that he could so readily dismiss the errors of his past.

“Most Honored Burrow-Warden,” came a call a couple of days later, while Belwar and Drizzt were enjoying their morning meal. Belwar paused and sat perfectly still, and Drizzt did not miss the unexpected cloud of pain that crossed his host’s broad features. Drizzt had come to know the svirfneblin so very well, and when Belwar’s long, hawk-like nose turned up in a certain way, it inevitably signaled the burrow-warden’s distress.

“The king has reopened the eastern tunnels,” the voice continued. “There are rumors of a thick vein of ore only a day’s march. It would do honor to my expedition if Belwar Dissengulp would find his way to accompany us.”

A hopeful smile widened on Drizzt’s face, not for any thoughts he had of venturing out, but because he had noticed that Belwar seemed a bit too reclusive in the otherwise open svirfneblin community.

“Burrow-Warden Brickers,” Belwar explained to Drizzt grimly, not sharing the drow’s budding enthusiasm in the least. “One of those who comes to my door before every expedition, bidding me to join in the journey.”

“And you never go,” Drizzt reasoned.

Belwar shrugged. “A courtesy call, nothing more,” he said, his nose twitching and his wide teeth grating together.

“You are not worthy to march beside them.” Drizzt added, his tone dripping with sarcasm. At last, he believed, he had found the source of his friend’s frustration.

Again Belwar shrugged.

Drizzt scowled at him. “I have seen you at work with your mithril hands,” he said. “You would be no detriment to any party! Indeed, far more! Do you so quickly consider yourself crippled, when those about you do not?”

Belwar slammed his hammer-hand down on the table, sending a fair-sized crack running through the stone. “I can cut rock faster than the lot of them!” the burrow-warden growled fiercely. “And if monsters descended upon us…” He waved his pickaxe-hand in a menacing way, and Drizzt did not doubt that the barrel-chested deep gnome could put the instrument to good use.

“Enjoy the day, Most Honored Burrow-Warden,” came a final cry from outside the door. “As ever, we shall respect your decision, but, as ever, we also shall lament your absence.”

Drizzt stared curiously at Belwar. “Why, then?” he asked at length. “If you are as competent as all―yourself included―agree, why do you remain behind? I know the love svirfnebli have for such expeditions, yet you are not interested. Nor do you ever speak of your own adventures outside Blingdenstone. Is it my presence that holds you at home? Are you bound to watch over me?”

“No,” Belwar replied, his booming voice echoing back several times in Drizzt’s keen ears. “You have been granted the return of your weapons, dark elf. Do not doubt our trust.”

“But. . ?” Drizzt began, but he stopped short, suddenly realizing the truth of the deep gnome’s reluctance. “The fight,” he said softly, almost apologetically. “That evil day more than a decade ago?”

Belwar’s nose verily rolled up over itself, and he briskly turned away.

“You blame yourself for the loss of your kin!” Drizzt continued, gaining volume as he gained confidence in his reasoning. Still, the drow could hardly believe his words as he spoke them.

But when Belwar turned back on him, the burrow-warden’s eyes were rimmed with wetness and Drizzt knew that the words had struck home.

Drizzt ran a hand through his thick white mane, not really knowing how to respond to Belwar’s dilemma. Drizzt personally had led the drow party against the svirfnebli mining group, and he knew that no blame for the disaster could rightly be placed on any of the deep gnomes. Yet, how could Drizzt possibly explain that to Belwar?

“I remember that fated day,” Drizzt began tentatively. “Vividly I remember it, as if that evil moment will be frozen in my thoughts, never to recede.”

“No more than in mine,” the burrow-warden whispered.

Drizzt nodded his accord. “Equally, though,” he said, “for I find myself caught within the very same web of guilt that entraps you.”

Belwar looked at him curiously, not really understanding.

“It was I who led the drow patrol,” Drizzt explained. “I found your troupe, errantly believing you to be marauders intending to descend upon Menzoberranzan.”

“If not you, then another,” Belwar replied.

“But none could have led them as well as I,” Drizzt said. “Out there―” he glanced at the door “―in the wilds, I was at home. That was my domain.”

Belwar was listening to his every word now, just as Drizzt had hoped.

“And it was I who defeated the earth elemental,” Drizzt continued, speaking matter-of-factly, not cockily. “Had it not been for my presence, the battle would have proved equal. Many svirfnebli would have survived to return to Blingdenstone.”

Belwar could not hide his smile. There was a measure of truth in Drizzt’s words, for Drizzt had indeed been a major factor in the drow attack’s success. But Belwar found Drizzt’s attempt to dispel his guilt a bit of a stretch of the truth.

“I do not understand how you can blame yourself,” Drizzt said, now smiling and hoping that his levity would bring some measure of comfort to his friend. “With Drizzt Do’Urden at the lead of the drow party, you never had a chance.”

“Magga cammara! It is a painful subject to jest of,” Belwar replied, though he chuckled in spite of himself even as he spoke the words.

“Agreed,” said Drizzt, his tone suddenly serious. “But dismissing the tragedy in a jest is no more ridiculous than living mired in guilt for a blameless incident. No, not blameless,” Drizzt quickly corrected himself. “The blame lies on the shoulders of Menzoberranzan and its inhabitants. It is the way of the drow that caused the tragedy. It is the wicked existence they live, every day, that doomed your expedition’s peaceable miners.”

“Charged with the responsibility of his group is a burrow-warden,” Belwar retorted. “Only a burrow-warden may call an expedition. He must then accept the responsibility of his decision.”

“You chose to lead the deep gnomes so close to Menzoberranzan?” Drizzt asked.

“I did.”

“Of your own volition?” Drizzt pressed. He believed that he understood the ways of the deep gnomes well enough to know that most, if not all, of their important decisions were democratically resolved. “Without the word of Belwar Dissengulp, the mining party would never have come into that region?”

“We knew of the find,” Belwar explained. “A rich cache of ore. It was decided in council that we should risk the nearness to Menzoberranzan. I led the appointed party.”

“If not you, then another,” Drizzt said pointedly, mimicking Belwar’s earlier words.

“A burrow-warden must accept the respons―” Belwar began, his gaze drifting away from Drizzt.

“They do not blame you,” Drizzt said, following Belwar’s empty stare to the blank stone door. “They honor you and care for you.”

“They pity me!” Belwar snarled.

“Do you need their pity?” Drizzt cried back. “Are you less than they? A helpless cripple?”

“Never I was!”

“Then go out with them!” Drizzt yelled at him. “See if they truly pity you. I do not believe that at all, but if your assumptions prove true, if your people do pity their ‘Most Honored Burrow-Warden’; then show them the truth of Belwar Dissengulp! If your companions mantle upon you neither pity nor blame, then do not place either burden upon your own shoulders!”

Belwar stared at his friend for a very long moment, but he did not reply.

“All the miners who accompanied you knew the risk of venturing so close to Menzoberranzan,” Drizzt reminded him. A smile widened on Drizzt’s face. “None of them, yourself included, knew that Drizzt Do’Urden would lead your drow opponents against you. If you had, you certainly would have stayed at home.”

“Magga cammara,” Belwar mumbled. He shook his head in disbelief, both at Drizzt’s joking attitude and at the fact that, for the first time in over a decade, he did feel better about those tragic memories. He rose up from the stone table, flashed a grin at Drizzt, and headed for the inner room of his house.

“Where are you going?” Drizzt asked.

“To rest,” replied the burrow-warden. “The events of this day have already wearied me.”

“The mining expedition will depart without you.”

Belwar turned back and cast an incredulous stare at Drizzt. Did the drow really expect that Belwar would so easily refute years of guilt and just go bounding off with the miners?

“I had thought Belwar Dissengulp possessed more courage,” Drizzt said to him. The scowl that crossed the burrow-warden’s face was genuine, and Drizzt knew that he had found a weakness in Belwar’s armor of self-pity.

“Boldly do you speak,” Belwar growled through a grimace.

“Boldly to a coward,” Drizzt replied. The mithril handed svirfneblin stalked in, his breathing coming in great heaves of his densely muscled chest.

“If you do not like the title, then cast it away!” Drizzt growled in his face. “Go with the miners. Show them the truth of Belwar Dissengulp, and learn it for yourself!”

Belwar banged his mithril hands together. “Run out then and get your weapons!” he commanded. Drizzt hesitated. Had he just been challenged? Had he gone too far in his attempt to shake the burrow-warden loose of his guilty bonds?

“Get your weapons, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Belwar growled again, “for if I am to go with the miners, then so are you!”

Elated, Drizzt clasped the deep gnome’s head between his long, slender hands and banged his forehead softly into Belwar’s, the two exchanging stares of deep admiration and affection. In an instant, Drizzt rushed away, scrambling to the House Central to retrieve his suit of finely meshed chain mail, his piwafwi, and his scimitars.

Belwar just banged a hand against his head in disbelief, nearly knocking himself from his feet, and watched Drizzt’s wild dash out of the front door.

It would prove an interesting trip.

Burrow-Warden Brickers accepted Belwar and Drizzt readily, though he gave Belwar a curious look behind Drizzt’s back, inquiring as to the drow’s respectability. Even the doubting burrow-warden could not deny the value of a dark elf ally out in the wilds of the Underdark, particularly if the whispers of drow activity in the eastern tunnels proved to be true.

But the patrol saw no activity, or carnage, as they proceeded to the region named by the scouts. The rumors of a thick vein of ore were not exaggerated in the least, and the twenty-five miners of the expedition went to work with an eagerness unlike any the drow had ever witnessed. Drizzt was especially pleased for Belwar, for the burrow-warden’s hammer and pickaxe hands chopped away at the stone with a precision and power that outdid any of the others. It didn’t take long for Belwar to realize that he was not being pitied by his comrades in any way. He was a member of the expedition―an honored member and no detriment―who filled the wagons with more ore than any of his companions.

Through the days they spent in the twisting tunnels, Drizzt, and Guenhwyvar, when the cat was available, kept a watchful guard around the camp. After the first day of mining, Burrow-Warden Brickers assigned a third companion guard for the drow and panther, and Drizzt suspected correctly that his new svirfneblin companion had been appointed as much to watch him as to look for dangers from beyond. As the time passed, though, and the svirfneblin troupe became more accustomed to their ebony-skinned companion, Drizzt was left to roam about as he chose.

It was an uneventful and profitable trip, just the way the svirfnebli liked it, and soon, having encountered not a single monster, their wagons were filled with precious minerals. Clapping each other on the backs―Belwar being careful not to pat too hard―they gathered up their equipment, formed their pull-carts into a line, and set off for home, a journey that would take them two days bearing the heavy wagons.

After only a few hours of travel, one of the scouts ahead of the caravan returned, his face grim.

“What is it?” Burrow-Warden Brickers prompted, suspecting that their good fortune had ended.

“Goblin tribe.” the svirfneblin scout replied. “Two score at the least. They have put up in a small chamber ahead to the west and up a sloping passage.”

Burrow-Warden Brickers banged a fist into a wagon. He did not doubt that his miners could handle the goblin band, but he wanted no trouble. Yet with the heavy wagons rumbling along noisily, avoiding the goblins would be no easy feat. “Pass the word back that we sit quiet.” he decided at length. “If a fight there will be, let the goblins come to us.”

“What is the trouble?” Drizzt asked Belwar as he came in at the back of the caravan. He had kept a rear guard since the troupe had broken camp.

“Band of goblins.” Belwar replied. “Brickers says we stay low and hope they pass us by.”

“And if they do not?” Drizzt had to ask.

Belwar tapped his hands together. “They’re only goblins.” he muttered grimly, “but I, and all my kin, wish the path had stayed clear.”

It pleased Drizzt that his new companions were not so anxious for battle, even against an enemy they knew they could easily defeat. If Drizzt had been traveling beside a drow party, the whole of the goblin tribe probably would be dead or captured already.

“Come with me.” Drizzt said to Belwar. “I need you to help Burrow-Warden Brickers understand me. I have a plan, but I fear that my limited command of your language will not allow me to explain its subtleties.”

Belwar hooked Drizzt with his pickaxe-hand, spinning the slender drow about more roughly than he had intended.

“No conflicts do we desire.” he explained. “Better that the goblins go their own way.”

“I wish for no fight.” Drizzt assured him with a wink. Satisfied, the deep gnome fell into step behind Drizzt.

Brickers smiled widely as Belwar translated Drizzt’s plan.

“The expressions on the goblins’ faces will be well worth seeing,” Brickers laughed to Drizzt. “I should like to accompany you myself!”

“Better left for me,” Belwar said. “Both the goblin and drow languages are known to me, and you have responsibilities back here, in case things do not go as we hope:’

“The goblin tongue is known to me as well,” Brickers replied. “And I can understand our dark elf companion well enough. As for my duties with the caravan, they are not as great as you believe, for another burrow-warden accompanies us this day.”

“One who has not seen the wilds of the Underdark for many years,” Belwar reminded him.

“Ah, but he was the finest of his trade,” retorted Brickers. “The caravan is under your command, Burrow-Warden Belwar. I choose to go and meet with the goblins beside the drow.”

Drizzt had understood enough of the words to fathom Brickers’s general course of action. Before Belwar could argue, Drizzt put a hand on his shoulder and nodded. “If the goblins are not fooled and we need you, come in fast and hard,” he said.

Then Brickers removed his gear and weapons, and Drizzt led him away. Belwar turned to the others cautiously, not knowing how they would feel about the decision. His first glance at the caravan’s miners told him that they stood firmly behind him, every one, waiting and willing to carry out his commands.

Burrow-Warden Brickers was not the least disappointed with the expressions on the goblins’ toothy and twisted faces when he and Drizzt walked into their midst. One goblin let out a shriek and lifted a spear to throw, but Drizzt, using his innate magical abilities, dropped a globe of darkness over its head, blinding it fully. The spear came out anyway and Drizzt snapped out a scimitar and sliced it from the air as it flew by.

Brickers, his hands bound, for he was emulating a prisoner in this farce, dropped his jaw open at the speed and ease with which the drow took down the flying spear. The svirfneblin then looked to the band of goblins and saw that they were similarly impressed.

“One more step and they are dead.” Drizzt promised in the goblin tongue, a guttural language of grunts and whimpers. Brickers came to understand a moment later when he heard a wild shuffle of boots and a whimper from behind. The deep gnome turned to see two goblins, limned by the dancing purplish flames of the drow’s faerie fire, scrambling away as fast as their floppy feet could carry them.

Again the svirfneblin looked at Drizzt in amazement. How had Drizzt even known that the sneaky goblins were back there?

Brickers, of course, could not know of the hunter, that other self of Drizzt Do’Urden that gave this drow a distinct edge in encounters such as this. Nor could the burrow-warden know that at that moment Drizzt was engaged in yet another struggle to control that dangerous alter ego.

Drizzt looked at the scimitar in his hand and back to the crowd of goblins. At least three dozen of them stood ready, yet the hunter beckoned Drizzt to attack, to bite hard into the cowardly monsters and send them fleeing down every passageway leading out of the room. One look at his bound svirfneblin companion, though, reminded Drizzt of his plan in coming here and allowed him to put the hunter to rest.

“Who is the leader?” he asked in guttural goblin.

The goblin chieftain was not so anxious to single itself out to a drow elf, but a dozen of its subordinates, showing typical goblin courage and loyalty, spun on their heels and poked their stubby fingers in its direction.

With no other choice, the goblin chieftain puffed out its chest, straightened its bony shoulders, and strode forward to face the drow. “Bruck!” the chieftain named itself, thumping a fist into its chest.

“Why are you here?” Drizzt sneered as he said it.

Bruck simply did not know how to answer such a question. Never before had the goblin thought to ask permission for its tribe’s movements.

“This region belongs to the drow!” Drizzt growled. “You do not belong here!”

“Drow city many walks,” Bruck complained, pointing over Drizzt’s head―the wrong way to Menzoberranzan, Drizzt noted, but he let the error pass. “This svirfneblin land.”

“For now,” replied Drizzt, prodding Brickers with the butt of his scimitar. “But my people have decided to claim the region as our own.” A small flame flickered in Drizzt’s lavender eyes and a devious smile spread across his face. “Will Bruck and the goblin tribe oppose us?”

Bruck held its long-fingered hands out helplessly.

“Be gone!” Drizzt demanded. “We have no need of slaves now, nor do we wish the revealing sound of battle echoing down the tunnels! Name yourself as lucky, Bruck. Your tribe will flee and live…this time!”

Bruck turned to the others, looking for some assistance. Only one drow elf had come against them, while more than three dozen goblins stood ready with their weapons. The odds were promising if not overwhelming.

“Be gone!” Drizzt commanded, pointing his scimitar at a side passage. “Run until your feet grow too weary to carry you!”

The goblin chieftain defiantly hooked its fingers into the piece of rope holding up its loincloth.

A cacophonous banging sounded all around the small chamber then, showing the tempo of purposeful drumming on the stone. Bruck and the other goblins looked around nervously, and Drizzt did not miss the opportunity.

“You dare defy us?” the drow cried, causing Bruck to be edged by the purple-glowing flames. “Then let stupid Bruck be the first to die!”

Before Drizzt even finished the sentence, the goblin chieftain was gone, running with all speed down the passage Drizzt had indicated. Justifying the flight as loyalty to their chieftain, the whole lot of the goblin tribe set off in quick pursuit. The swiftest even passed Bruck by.

A few moments later, Belwar and the other svirfneblin miners appeared at every passage. “Thought you might need some support.” the mithril-handed burrow-warden explained, tapping his hammer hand on the stone.

“Perfect was your timing and your judgment, Most Honored Burrow-Warden.” Brickers said to his peer when he managed to stop laughing. “Perfect, as we have come to expect from Belwar Dissengulp!”

A short while later, the svirfneblin caravan started on its way again, the whole troupe excited and elated by the events of the last few days. The deep gnomes thought themselves very clever in the way they had avoided trouble. The gaiety turned into a full-fledged party when they arrived in Blingdenstone―and svirfnebli, though usually a serious, work-minded people, threw parties as well as any race in all the Realms.

Drizzt Do’Urden, for all of his physical differences with the svirfnebli, felt more at home and at ease than he had ever felt in all the four decades of his life.

And never again did Belwar Dissengulp flinch when a fellow svirfneblin addressed him as “Most Honored Burrow-Warden”.

The spirit-wraith was confused. Just as Zaknafein had begun to believe that his prey was within the svirfneblin city, the magical spells that Malice had placed upon him sensed Drizzt’s presence in the tunnels. Luckily for Drizzt and the svirfneblin miners, the spirit-wraith had been far away when he caught the scent. Zaknafein worked his way back through the tunnels, dodging deep gnome patrols. Every potential encounter he avoided proved a struggle for Zaknafein, for Matron Malice, back on her throne in Menzoberranzan, grew increasingly impatient and agitated.

Malice wanted the taste of blood, but Zaknafein kept to his purpose, closing in on Drizzt. But then, suddenly, the scent was gone.

Bruck groaned aloud when another solitary dark elf wandered into his encampment the next day. No spears were hoisted and no goblins even attempted to sneak up behind this one.

“We went as we were ordered!” Bruck complained, moving to the front of the group before he was called upon. The goblin chieftain knew now that his underlings would point him out anyway.

If the spirit-wraith even understood the goblin’s words, he did not show it in any way. Zaknafein kept walking straight at the goblin chieftain, his swords in his hands.

“But we―” Bruck began, but the rest of his words came out as gurgles of blood. Zaknafein tore his sword out of the goblin’s throat and rushed at the rest of the group.

Goblins scattered in all directions. A few, trapped between the crazed drow and the stone wall, raised crude spears in defense. The spirit-wraith waded through them, hacking away weapons and limbs with every slice. One goblin poked through the spinning swords, the tip of its spear burying deep into Zaknafein’s hip.

The undead monster didn’t even flinch. Zak turned on the goblin and struck it with a series of lightning-fast, perfectly aimed blows that took its head and both of its arms from its body.

In the end, fifteen goblins lay dead in the chamber and the tribe was scattered and still running down every passage in the region. The spirit-wraith, covered in the blood of his enemies, exited the chamber through the passage opposite from the one in which he had entered, continuing his frustrated search for the elusive Drizzt Do’Urden.

Back in Menzoberranzan, in the anteroom to the chapel of House Do’Urden, Matron Malice rested, thoroughly exhausted and momentarily sated. She had felt every kill as Zaknafein made it, had felt a burst of ecstacy every time her spirit-wraith’s sword had plunged into another victim.

Malice pushed away her frustrations and her impatience, her confidence renewed by the pleasures of Zaknafein’s cruel slaughter. How great Malice’s ecstacy would be when the spirit-wraith at last encountered her traitorous son!

Chapter 11. The Informant

Councilor Firble of Blingdenstone moved tentatively into the small rough-hewn cavern, the appointed meeting place. An army of svirfnebli, including several deep gnome enchanters holding stones that could summon earth elemental allies, moved into defensive positions all along the corridors to the west of the room. Despite this, Firble was not at ease. He looked down the eastern tunnel, the only other entrance into the chamber, wondering what information his agent would have for him and worrying over how much it would cost.

Then the drow made his swaggering entrance, his high black boots kicking loudly on the stone. His gaze darted about quickly to ensure that Firble was the only svirfneblin in the chamber―their usual deal―then strode up to the deep gnome councilor and dropped into a low bow.

“Greetings, little friend with the big purse,” the drow said with a laugh. His command of the svirfneblin language and dialect, with the perfect inflections and pauses of a deep gnome who had lived a century in Blingdenstone, always amazed Firble.

“You could exercise some caution,” Firble retorted, again glancing around anxiously.

“Bah,” the drow snorted, clicking the hard heels of his boots together. “You have an army of deep gnome fighters and wizards behind you, and I… well, let us just agree that I am well protected as well.”

“That fact I do not doubt, Jarlaxle.” Firble replied. “Still, I would prefer that our business remain as private and as secretive as possible.”

“All of the business of Bregan D’aerthe is private, my dear Firble.” Jarlaxle answered, and again he bowed low, sweeping his wide-brimmed hat in a long and graceful arc.

“Enough of that.” said Firble. “Let us be done with our business, so that I may return to my home.”

“Then ask.” said Jarlaxle.

“There has been an increase in drow activity near Blingdenstone,” explained the deep gnome.

“Has there?” Jarlaxle asked, appearing surprised. The drow’s smirk revealed his true emotions, though. This would be an easy profit for Jarlaxle, for the very same matron mother in Menzoberranzan who had recently employed him was undoubtedly connected with the Blingdenstone’s distress. Jarlaxle liked coincidences that made the profits come easy.

Firble knew the ploy of feigned surprise all too well. “There has.” he said firmly.

“And you wish to know why?” Jarlaxle reasoned, still holding a facade of ignorance.

“It would seem prudent, from our vantage point.” huffed the councilor, tired of Jarlaxle’s unending game. Firble knew without any doubts that Jarlaxle was aware of the drow activity near Blingdenstone, and of the purpose behind it. Jarlaxle was a rogue without house, normally an unhealthy position in the world of the dark elves. Yet this resourceful mercenary survived―even thrived―in his renegade position. Through it all, Jarlaxle’s greatest advantage was knowledge―knowledge of every stirring within Menzoberranzan and the regions surrounding the city.

“How long will you require?” Firble asked. “My king wishes to complete this business as swiftly as possible.”

“Have you my payment?” the drow asked, holding out a hand.

“Payment when you bring me the information.” Firble protested. “That has always been our agreement.”

“So it has.” agreed Jarlaxle. “This time, though, I need no time to gather your information. If you have my gems, we can be done with our business right now.”

Firble pulled the pouch of gems from his belt and tossed them to the drow. “Fifty agates, finely cut.” he said with a growl, never pleased by the price. He had hoped to avoid using Jarlaxle this time; like any deep gnome, Firble did not easily part with such sums.

Jarlaxle quickly glanced into the pouch, then dropped it into a deep pocket. “Rest easy, little deep gnome,” he began, “for the powers who rule Menzoberranzan plan no actions against your city. A single drow house has an interest in the region, nothing more.”

“Why?” Firble asked after a long moment of silence had passed. The svirfneblin hated having to ask, knowing the inevitable consequence. Jarlaxle held out his hand. The more finely cut agates passed over.

“The house searches for one of its own.” Jarlaxle explained. “A renegade whose actions have put his family out of the favor of the Spider Queen.”

Again a few interminable moments of silence passed. Firble could guess easily enough the identity of this hunted drow, but King Schnicktick would roar until the ceiling fell in if he didn’t make certain. He pulled ten more gemstones from his belt pouch. “Name the house.” he said.

“Daermon N’a’shezbaernon.” replied Jarlaxle, casually dropping the gems into his deep pocket. Firble crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. The unscrupulous drow had caught him once again.

“Not the ancestral name!” the councilor growled, grudgingly pulling out another ten gems.

“Really, Firble.” Jarlaxle teased. “You must learn to be more specific in your questioning. Such errors do cost you so much!”

“Name the house in terms that I might understand.” Firble instructed. “And name the hunted renegade. No more will I pay you this day, Jarlaxle.”

Jarlaxle held his hand up and smiled to silence the deep gnome. “Agreed.” he laughed, more than satisfied with his take. “House Do’Urden, Eighth House of Menzoberranzan searches for its secondboy.” The mercenary noted a hint of recognition in Firble’s expression. Might this little meeting provide Jarlaxle with information that he could turn into further profit at the coffers of Matron Malice?

“Drizzt is his name.” the drow continued, carefully studying the svirfneblin’s reaction. Slyly, he added, “Information of his whereabouts would bring a high profit in Menzoberranzan.”

Firble stared at the brash drow for a long time. Had he given away too much when the renegade’s identity had been revealed? If Jarlaxle had guessed that Drizzt was in the deep gnome city, the implications could be grim. Now Firble was in a predicament. Should he admit his mistake and try to correct it? But how much would it cost Firble to buy Jarlaxle’s promise of silence? And no matter how great the payment, could Firble really trust the unscrupulous mercenary?

“Our business is at its end.” Firble announced, deciding to trust that Jarlaxle had not guessed enough to bargain with House Do’Urden. The councilor turned on his heel and started out of the chamber.

Jarlaxle secretly applauded Firble’s decision. He had always believed the svirfneblin councilor a worthy bargaining adversary and was not now disappointed. Firble had revealed little information, too little to take to Matron Malice, and if the deep gnome had more to give, his decision to abruptly end the meeting was a wise one. In spite of their racial differences, Jarlaxle had to admit that he actually liked Firble. “Little gnome,” he called out after the departing figure. “I offer you a warning.”

Firble spun back, his hand defensively covering his closed gem pouch.

“Free of charge,” Jarlaxle said with a laugh and a shake of his bald head. But then the mercenary’s visage turned suddenly serious, even grim. “If you know of Drizzt Do’Urden,” Jarlaxle continued, “keep him far away. Lloth herself has charged Matron Malice Do’Urden with Drizzt’s death, and Malice will do whatever she must to accomplish the task. And even if Malice fails, others will take up the hunt, knowing that the Do’Urden’s death will bring great pleasure to the Spider Queen. He is doomed, Firble, and so doomed will be any foolish enough to stand beside him.”

“An unnecessary warning.” Firble replied, trying to keep his expression calm. “For none in Blingdenstone know or care anything for this renegade dark elf. Nor, I assure you, do any in Blingdenstone hold any desire to find the favor of the dark elves’ Spider Queen deity!”

Jarlaxle smiled knowingly at the svirfneblin’s bluff. “Of course.” he replied, and he swept off his grand hat, dropping into yet another bow.

Firble paused a moment to consider the words and the bow, wondering again if he should try to buy the mercenary’s silence.

Before he came to any decision, though, Jarlaxle was gone, clomping his hard boots loudly with every departing step. Poor Firble was left to wonder.

He needn’t have. Jarlaxle did indeed like little Firble, the mercenary admitted to himself as he departed, and he would not divulge his suspicions of Drizzt’s whereabouts to Matron Malice.

Unless, of course, the offer was simply too tempting. Firble just stood and watched the empty chamber for many minutes, wondering and worrying.

For Drizzt, the days had been filled with friendship and fun. He was somewhat of a hero with the svirfneblin miners who had gone out into the tunnels beside him, and the story of his clever deception against the goblin tribe grew with every telling. Drizzt and Belwar went out often, now, and whenever they entered a tavern or meeting house, they were greeted by cheers and offers of free food and drink. Both the friends were glad for the other, for together they had found their place and their peace. Already Burrow-Warden Brickers and Belwar were busily planning another mining expedition. Their biggest task was narrowing the list of volunteers, for svirfnebli from every corner of the city had contacted them, eager to travel beside the dark elf and the most honored burrow-warden.

When a loud and insistent knock came one morning on Belwar’s door, both Drizzt and the deep gnome figured it to be more recruits looking for a place in the expedition. They were indeed surprised to find the city guard waiting for them, bidding Drizzt, at the point of a dozen spears, to go with them to an audience with the king.

Belwar appeared unconcerned. “A precaution,” he assured Drizzt, pushing away his breakfast plate of mushrooms and moss sauce. Belwar went to the wall to grab his cloak, and if Drizzt, concentrating on the spears, had noticed Belwar’s jerking and unsure movements, the drow most certainly would not have been assured.

The journey through the deep gnome city was quick indeed, with the anxious guards prodding the drow and the burrow-warden along. Belwar continued to brush the whole thing off as a “precaution” with every step, and in truth, Belwar did a fine job keeping a measure of calm in his round-toned voice. But Drizzt carried no illusions with him into the king’s chambers. All of his life had been filled with crashing ends to promising beginnings.

King Schnicktick sat uncomfortably on his stone throne, his councilors standing equally ill at ease around him. He did not like this duty that had been placed upon his shoulders―the svirfnebli considered themselves loyal friends―but in light of councilor Firble’s revelations, the threat to Blingdenstone could not be ignored.

Especially not for the likes of a dark elf.

Drizzt and Belwar moved to stand before the king, Drizzt curious, though ready to accept whatever might come of this, but Belwar on the edge of anger.

“My thanks in your prompt arrival,” King Schnicktick greeted them, and he cleared his throat and looked around to his councilors for support. “Spears do keep one in motion,” Belwar snarled sarcastically.

The svirfneblin king cleared his throat again, noticeably uncomfortable, and shifted in his seat. “My guard does get a bit excited,” he apologized. “Please take no offense.”

“None taken,” Drizzt assured him.

“Your time in our city you have enjoyed?” Schnicktick asked, managing a bit of a smile. Drizzt nodded. “Your people have been gracious beyond anything I could have asked for or expected,” he replied.

“And you have proven yourself a worthy friend, Drizzt Do’Urden,” Schnicktick said. “Really our lives have been enriched by your presence.”

Drizzt bowed low, full of gratitude for the svirfneblin king’s kind words. But Belwar narrowed his dark gray eyes and crinkled his hooked nose, beginning to understand what the king was leading up to.

“Unfortunately,” King Schnicktick began, looking around pleadingly to his councilors, and not directly at Drizzt, “a situation has come upon us…”

“Magga cammara!” shouted Belwar, startling everyone in attendance. “No!” King Schnicktick and Drizzt looked at the burrow-warden in disbelief.

“You mean to put him out!” Belwar snarled accusingly at Schnicktick.

“Belwar!” Drizzt began to protest.

“Most Honored Burrow-Warden,” the svirfneblin king said sternly. “It is not your place to interrupt. If again you do so, I will be forced to have you removed from this chamber.”

“It is true then.” Belwar groaned softly. He looked away.

Drizzt glanced from the king to Belwar and back again, confused as to the purpose behind this whole encounter.

“You have heard of the suspected drow activity in the tunnels near our eastern borders?” the king asked Drizzt. Drizzt nodded.

“We have learned the purpose of this activity.” Schnicktick explained. The pause as the svirfneblin king looked yet another time to his councilors sent shivers through Drizzt’s spine. He knew beyond any doubts what was coming next, but the words wounded him deeply anyway. “You, Drizzt Do’Urden, are that purpose.”

“My mother searches for me.” Drizzt replied flatly.

“But she will not find you!” Belwar snarled in defiance aimed at both Schnicktick and this unknown mother of his new friend. “Not while you remain a guest of the deep gnomes of Blingdenstone!”

“Belwar, hold!” King Schnicktick scolded. He looked back to Drizzt and his visage softened. “Please, friend Drizzt, you must understand. I cannot risk war with Menzoberranzan.”

“I do understand.” Drizzt assured him with sincerity. “I will gather my things.”

“No!” Belwar protested. He rushed up to the throne. “We are svirfnebli. We do not put out friends in the face of any danger!” The burrow-warden ran from councilor to councilor, pleading for justice. “Only friendship has Drizzt Do’Urden shown us, and we would put him out! Magga cammara! If our loyalties are so fragile, are we any better than the drow of Menzoberranzan?”

“Enough, Most Honored Burrow-Warden!” King Schnicktick cried out in a tone of finality that even stubborn Belwar could not ignore. “Our decision did not come easily to us, but it is final! I will not put Blingdenstone in jeopardy for the sake of a dark elf, no matter that he has shown himself to be a friend.” Schnicktick looked to Drizzt. “I am truly sorry.”

“Do not be,” Drizzt replied. “You do only as you must, as I did on that long-ago day when I chose to forsake my people. That decision I made alone, and I have never asked any for approval or aid. You, good svirfneblin king, and your people have given me back so much that I had lost. Believe that I have no desire to invoke the wrath of Menzoberranzan against Blingdenstone. I would never forgive myself if I played any part in that tragedy. I will be gone from your fair city within the hour. And in parting I offer only gratitude.”

The svirfneblin king was touched by the words, but his position remained unbending. He motioned for his guardsmen to accompany Drizzt, who accepted the armed escort with a resigned sigh. He looked once to Belwar, standing helplessly beside the svirfneblin councilors, then left the king’s halls.

A hundred deep gnomes, particularly Burrow-Warden Krieger and the other miners of the single expedition Drizzt had accompanied, said their farewells to the drow as he walked out of Blingdenstone’s huge doors. Conspicuously absent was Belwar Dissengulp; Drizzt had not seen the burrow-warden at all in the hour since he had left the throne room. Still, Drizzt was grateful for the send-off these svirfnebli gave him. Their kind words comforted him and gave him the strength that he knew he would need in the trials of the coming years. Of all the memories Drizzt would take out of Blingdenstone, he vowed to hold onto those parting words.

Still, when Drizzt moved away from the gathering, across the small platform and down the wide staircase, he heard only the resounding echoes of the enormous doors slamming shut behind him. Drizzt trembled as he looked down the tunnels of the wild Underdark, wondering how he could possibly survive the trials this time. Blingdenstone had been his salvation from the hunter; how long would it take that darker side to rear up again and steal his identity?

But what choice did Drizzt have? Leaving Menzoberranzan had been his decision, the right decision. Now, though, knowing better the consequences of his choice, Drizzt wondered about his resolve. Given the opportunity to do it all over again, would he now find the strength to walk away from his life among his people?

He hoped that he would.

A shuffle off to the side brought Drizzt alert. He crouched and drew his scimitars, thinking that Matron Malice had agents waiting for him who had expected him to be expelled from Blingdenstone. A shadow moved a moment later, but it was no drow assassin that came in at Drizzt. “Belwar!” he cried in relief. “I feared that you would not say farewell.”

“And so I will not.” replied the svirfneblin. Drizzt studied the burrow-warden, noticing the full pack that Belwar wore. “No, Belwar, I cannot allow―”

“I do not remember asking for your permission.” the deep gnome interrupted. “I have been looking for some excitement in my life. Thought I might venture out and see what the wide world has to offer.”

“It is not as grand as you expect.” Drizzt replied grimly. “You have your people, Belwar. They accept you and care for you. That is a greater gift than anything you can imagine.”

“Agreed,” replied the burrow-warden. “And you, Drizzt Do’Urden, have your friend, who accepts you and cares for you. And stands beside you. Now, are we going to be on with this adventure, or are we going to stand here and wait for that wicked mother of yours to walk up and cut us down?”

“You cannot begin to imagine the dangers,” Drizzt warned, but Belwar could see that the drow’s resolve was already starting to wear away.

Belwar banged his mithril hands together. “And you, dark elf cannot begin to imagine the ways I can deal with such dangers! I am not letting you walk off alone into the wilds. Understand that as fact―magga cammara―and we can get on with things.”

Drizzt shrugged helplessly, looked once more to the stubborn determination stamped openly on Belwar’s face, and started off down the tunnel, the deep gnome falling into step at his side. This time, at least, Drizzt had a companion he could talk to, a weapon against the intrusions of the hunter. He put his hand in his pocket and fingered the Guenhwyvar’s onyx figurine. Perhaps, Drizzt dared to hope, the three of them would have a chance to find more than simple survival in the Underdark.

For a long time afterward, Drizzt wondered if he had acted selfishly in giving in so easily to Belwar. Whatever guilt he felt, however, could not begin to compare with the profound sense of relief Drizzt knew whenever he looked down at his side, to the most honored burrow-warden’s bald, bobbing head.