Exile: The Legend of Drizzt (26 page)

Back in her anteroom, Matron Malice Do’Urden felt the struggle within her creation. In Zin-carla, control of the spirit-wraith remained the responsibility of the matron mother that the Spider Queen graced with the gift. Malice had to work hard at the appointed task, had to spit off a succession of chants and spells to insinuate herself between the thought processes of the spirit wraith and the emotions and soul of Zaknafein Do’Urden.

The spirit-wraith lurched as he felt the intrusions of Malice’s powerful will. It proved to be no contest; in barely a second, the spirit-wraith was studying the small chamber Drizzt and one other being, probably a deep gnome, had disguised as a campsite. They were gone now, tendays out, and no doubt moving away from Blingdenstone with all speed. Probably, the spirit-wraith reasoned, moving away from Menzoberranzan as well.

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 tenday 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, probibably,” 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 now!” 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 oogly little friend simply consider it your duty to velcome me to the neighborhood!”

“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.

But the human had learned to survive in the Underdark, and his defenses were in place long before Drizzt and Belwar ever appeared around the rocky outcropping. He waved his hands and uttered a single word that the companions could not understand. A ring on his finger glowed brightly and loosed a tiny ball of fire up into the air between him and the intruders.

“Velcome to my home, then!” the wizard yelled triumphantly. “Play with this!” He snapped his fingers and vanished.

Drizzt and Belwar could feel the explosive energy gathering around the glowing orb.

“Run!” the burrow-warden cried, and he turned to flee. In Blingdenstone, most of the magic was illusionary, designed for defense. But in Menzoberranzan, where Drizzt had learned of magic, the spells were undeniably offensive. Drizzt knew the wizard’s attack, and he knew that in these narrow and low corridors, flight would not be an option.

“No!” he cried, and he grabbed the back of Belwar’s leather jack and pulled the deep gnome along, straight toward the glowing orb. Belwar knew to trust in Drizzt, and he turned and ran willingly beside his friend. The burrow-warden understood the drow’s plan as soon as his eyes managed to tear away from the spectacle of the orb. Drizzt was making for the stream.

The friends dived headlong into the water, bouncing and scraping on the stones, just as the fireball exploded.

A moment later, they rose up from the steaming water, wisps of smoke rising from the back of their clothing, which had not been submerged. They coughed and sputtered, for the flames had temporarily stolen the air from the chamber, and the residual heat from the glowing stones nearly overwhelmed them.

“Humans,” Belwar muttered grimly. He pulled himself from the water and shook vigorously. Drizzt came out beside him and couldn’t hide his laughter.

The deep gnome, though, found no levity at all in the situation. “The wizard,” he pointedly reminded Drizzt. Drizzt dropped into a crouch and glanced nervously all around. They set off at once.

“Home!” Belwar proclaimed a couple of days later. The two friends looked down from a narrow ledge at a wide and high cavern that housed an underground lake. Behind them was a three-chambered cave with only a single tiny entrance, easily defensible.

Drizzt climbed the ten or so feet to stand by his friend on the topmost ledge. “Possibly,” he tentatively agreed, “though we left the wizard only a few days’ walk from here.”

“Forget the human,” Belwar snarled, glancing over at the burn mark on his precious jack.

“And I am not so fond of having so large a pool only a few feet from our door,” Drizzt continued.

“With fish it is filled!” the burrow-warden argued. “And with mosses and plants that will keep our bellies full, and water that seems clean enough!”

“But such an oasis will attract visitors,” reasoned Drizzt. We would find little rest, I fear.”

Belwar looked down the sheer wall to the floor of the large cavern. “Never a problem,” he said with a snicker. “The bigger ones cannot get up here, and the smaller ones … well, I have seen the cut of your blades, and you have seen the strength of my hands. About the smaller ones I shall not worry!”

Drizzt liked the svirfneblin’s confidence, and he had to agree that they had found no other place suitable for use as a dwelling. Water, hard to find and more often than not, undrinkable, was a precious commodity in the dry Underdark. With the lake and
the growth about it, Drizzt and Belwar would never have to travel far to find a meal.

Drizzt was about to agree, but then a movement down by the water caught his and Belwar’s attention.

“And crabs!” spouted the svirfneblin, obviously not having the same reaction to the sight as the drow.
“Magga cammara
, dark elf! Crabs! As fine a meal as ever you will find!”

Indeed it was a crab that had slipped out of the lake, a gigantic, twelve-foot monster with pincers that could snap a human—or an elf or a gnome—fully in half. Drizzt looked at Belwar incredulously. “A meal?” he asked.

Belwar’s smile rolled right up around his crinkled nose as he banged his hammer and pick hands together.

They ate crab meat that night, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and Drizzt soon was quite willing to agree that the three-chambered cave by the underground lake made a fine home.