Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(36)

“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?”