Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(54)

Zaknafein moved outside the chamber into the main tunnel. He sniffed one way, back east toward Menzoberranzan, then turned and dropped to a crouch and sniffed again. The location spells Malice had imbued upon Zaknafein could not cover such distances, but the minute sensations the spirit-wraith received from his inspection only confirmed his suspicions. Drizzt had gone west.

Zaknafein walked off down the tunnel, not the slightest limp evident from the wound he had received at the end of a goblin’s spear, a wound that would have crippled a mortal being. He was more than a week behind Drizzt, maybe two, but the spirit-wraith was not concerned. His prey had to sleep, had to rest and eat. His prey was flesh, and mortal and weak.

“What manner of being is it?” Drizzt whispered to Belwar as they watched the curious bipedal creature filling buckets in a fast-running stream. This entire area of the tunnels was magically lighted, but Drizzt and Belwar felt safe enough in the shadows of a rocky outcropping a few dozen yards from the stooping robed figure.

“A man,” Belwar replied. “Human, from the surface.’

“He is a long way from home,” Drizzt remarked. “Yet he seems comfortable in his surroundings. I would not believe that a surface-dweller could survive in the Underdark. It goes against the teachings I received in the Academy.”

“Probably a wizard,” Belwar reasoned. “That would account for the light in this region. And it would account for his being here.”

Drizzt looked at the svirfneblin curiously.

“A strange lot are wizards,” Belwar explained, as though the truth was self-evident. “Human wizards, even more than any others, so I’ve heard tell. Drow wizards practice for power. Svirfneblin wizards practice the arts to better know the stone. But human wizards; the deep gnome went on, obvious disdain in his tone. “Magga cammara, dark elf, human wizards are a different lot altogether!”

“Why do human wizards practice the art of magic at all?” Drizzt asked.

Belwar shook his head. “I do not believe that any scholars have yet discovered the reason,” he replied in all sincerity. “A strange and dangerously unpredictable race are the humans, and better to be left alone.”

“You have met some?”

“A few,” Belwar shuddered, as though the memory was not a pleasant one. “Traders from the surface. Ugly things, and arrogant. The whole of the world is only for them, by their thinking.”

The resonant voice rang out a bit more loudly than Belwar had intended, and the robed figure by the stream cocked his head in the companions’ direction.

“Comen out, leetle rodents,” the human called in a language that the companions could not understand. The wizard reiterated the request in another tongue, then in drow, and then in two more unknown tongues, and then in svirfneblin. He continued on for many minutes, Drizzt and Belwar looking at each other in disbelief.

“He is a learned man,” Drizzt whispered to the deep gnome.

“Rats, probably,” the human muttered to himself. He glanced around, seeking some way to flush out the unseen noisemakers, thinking that the creatures might provide a fine meal.

“Let us learn if he is friend or foe,” Drizzt whispered, and he started to move out from the concealment. Belwar stopped him and looked at him doubtfully, but then, with no recourse other than his own instincts, he shrugged and let Drizzt move on.

“Greetings, human so far from home,” Drizzt said in his native language, stepping out from behind the outcropping.

The human’s eyes went hysterically wide and he pulled roughly on his scraggly white beard. “You ist notten a rat” he shrieked in strained but understandable drow.

“No.’ Drizzt said. He looked back to Belwar, who was moving out to join him.

“Thieves!” the human cried. “Comen to shteal my home, ist you?”

“No.’ Drizzt said again.

“Go avay!” the human yelled, waving his hands as a farmer would to shoo chickens. “Getten. Go on, qvickly nowl”

Drizzt and Belwar exchanged curious glances.

“No.’ Drizzt said a third time.

“Thees ist my home, stupit dark elven!” the human spat.

“Did I asket you to comen here? Did I sent a letter invititing you to join me in my home? Or perhapst you and your oogiy little friend simply consider it your duty to velcome me to the neighborhoodl”

“Careful, drow,” Belwar whispered as the human rambled on. “He’s a wizard, for sure, and a shaky one, even by human standards.”

“Oren maybe bot the drow ant deep gnome races fear of me?” the human mused, more to himself than to the intruders. “Yes, of course. They have heard that I Brister

Fendlestick, decided to take to the corridors of the Underdark and have joined forces to protecket themselvens against me! Yes, yes, it all seems so clear, and so pititiful, to me now!”

“I have fought wizards before,” Drizzt replied to Belwar under his breath. “Let us hope that we can settle this without blows. Whatever must happen, though, know that I have no desire to return the way we came,” Belwar nodded his grim agreement as Drizzt turned back to the human.

“Perhaps we can convince him simply to let us pass,” Drizzt whispered.

The human trembled on the verge of an explosion. “Fine!” he screamed suddenly. “Then do not getten away!” Drizzt saw his error in thinking that he might reason with this one. The drow started forward, meaning to close in before the wizard could launch any attacks.