Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(32)

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!