Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(28)

Yet I was no less lost when a handless deep gnome came into my life, a svirfneblin that I had rescued from certain death, many years before, at my brother Dinin’s merciless blade. My deed was repaid in full, for when the svirfneblin and I again met, this time in the clutches of his people, I would have been killed-truly would have preferred death-were it not for Belwar Dissengulp.

My time in Blingdenstone, the city of the deep gnomes, was such a short span in the measure of my years. I remember well Belwar’s city and his people, and I always shall.

Theirs was the first society I came to know that was based on the strengths of community, not the paranoia of selfish individualism. Together the deep gnomes survive against the perils of the hostile Underdark, labor in their endless toils of mining the stone, and play games that are hardly distinguishable from every other aspect of their rich lives.

Greater indeed are pleasures that are shared.

- Drizzt Do’Urden





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.”