Exile: The Legend of Drizzt (16 page)

“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 rothé. 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 svirfnebli’s hammer and pick, and the sight of the mithral 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 tendays 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 rothé 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.

he 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.