Greater indeed are pleasures that are shared.
Chapter 7.
Most Honored Burrow-Warden
“Our thanks for your coming, Most Honored Burrow-Warden,” said one of the deep gnomes gathered outside the small room holding the drow prisoner. The entire group of svirfneblin elders bowed low at the burrow-warden’s approach.
Belwar Dissengulp flinched at the gracious greeting. He had never come to terms with the many laurels his people had mantled upon him since that disastrous day more than a decade before, when the drow elves had discovered his mining troupe in the corridors east of Blingdenstone, near Menzoberranzan. Horribly maimed and nearly dead from loss of blood, Belwar had returned back to Blingdenstone as the only survivor of the expedition.
The gathered svirfnebli parted for Belwar, giving him a clear view of the room and the drow. For prisoners strapped in the chair, the circular chamber seemed solid, unremarkable stone with no opening other than the heavy iron-bound door. There was, however, a single window in the chamber, covered by illusions of both sight and sound, that allowed the svirfneblin captors to view the prisoner at all times.
Belwar studied Drizzt for several moments. “He is a drow,” the burrow-warden huffed in his resonant voice, sounding a bit perturbed. Belwar still could not understand why he had been summoned. “Appearing as any other drow.”
“The prisoner claims he met you out in the Underdark,” an ancient svirfneblin said to Belwar. His voice was barely a whisper, and he dropped his gaze to the floor as he completed the thought. “On that day of great loss.”
Belwar flinched again at the mention of that day. How many times must he relive it?
“He may have,” Belwar said with a noncommittal shrug. “Not much can I distinguish between the appearances of drow elves, and not much do I wish to try.”
“Agreed,” said the other. “They all look alike.”
As the deep gnome spoke, Drizzt turned his face to the side and faced them directly, though he could not see or hear anything beyond the illusion of stone.
“Perhaps you may remember his name, Burrow-Warden,” another svirfneblin offered. The speaker paused, seeing Belwar’s sudden interest in the drow.
The circular chamber was lightless, and under such conditions, the eyes of a creature seeing in the infrared spectrum shone clearly. Normally, these eyes appeared as dots of red light, but that was not the case with Drizzt Do’Urden. Even in the infrared spectrum, this drow’s eyes showed clearly as lavender.
Belwar remembered those eyes. “Magga cammara,” Belwar breathed. “Drizzt,” he mumbled in reply to the other deep gnome.
“You do know him!” several of the svirfnebli cried together.
Belwar held up the handless stumps of his arms, one capped with the mithril head of a pickaxe, the other with the head of a hammer. “This drow, this Drizzt,” he stammered, trying to explain. “Responsible for my condition, he was!”
Some of the others murmured prayers for the doomed drow, thinking the burrow-warden was angered by the memory. “Then King Schnicktick’s decision stands,” one of them said. “The drow is to be executed immediately.”
“But he, this Drizzt, he saved my life,” Belwar interjected loudly. The others, incredulous, turned on him.
“Never was it Drizzt’s decision that my hands be severed,” the burrow-warden went on. “It was his offering that I be allowed to return to Blingdenstone. As an example; this
Drizzt said, but I understood even then that the words were uttered only to placate his cruel kin. The truth behind those words, I know, and that truth was mercy!”
An hour later, a single svirfneblin councilor, the one who had spoken to Drizzt earlier, came to the prisoner. “It was the decision of the king that you be executed,” the deep gnome said bluntly as he approached the stone chair.
“I understand,” Drizzt replied as calmly as he could. “I will offer no resistance to your verdict.” Drizzt considered his shackles for a moment. “Not that I could.”
The svirfneblin stopped and considered the unpredictable prisoner, fully believing in Drizzt’s sincerity. Before he continued, meaning to expand on the events of the day, Drizzt completed his thought.
“I ask only one favor,” Drizzt said. The svirfneblin let him finish, curious of the unusual drow’s reasoning.
“The panther,” Drizzt went on. “You will find Guenhwyvar to be a valued companion and a dear friend indeed. When I am no more, you must see to it that the panther is given to a deserving master―Belwar Dissengulp perhaps. Promise me this, good gnome, I beg.”
The svirfneblin shook his hairless head, not to deny Drizzt’s plea, but in simple disbelief. “The king, with much remorse, simply could not allow the risks of keeping you alive,” he said somberly. The deep gnome’s wide mouth turned up in a smile as he quickly added, “But the situation has changed!”
Drizzt cocked his head, hardly daring to hope.
“The burrow-warden remembers you, dark elf,” the svirfneblin proclaimed. “Most Honored Burrow-Warden Belwar Dissengulp has spoken for you and will accept the responsibility of keeping you!”
“Then…I am not to die?”
“Not unless you bring death upon yourself.”
Drizzt could barely utter the words. “And I am to be allowed to live among your people? In Blingdenstone?”
“That is yet to be determined,” replied the svirfneblin. “Belwar Dissengulp has spoken for you, and that is a very great thing. You will go to live with him. Whether the situation will be continued or expanded…” He let it hang at that, giving an unanswering shrug.
Following his release, the walk through the caverns of Blingdenstone was truly an exercise in hope for the beleaguered drow. Drizzt saw every sight in the deep gnome city as a contrast to Menzoberranzan. The dark elves had worked the great cavern of their city into shaped artwork, undeniably beautiful. The deep gnome city, too, was beautiful, but its features remained the natural traits of the stone. Where the drow had taken their cavern as their own, cutting it to their designs and tastes, the svirfnebli had fitted themselves into the native designs of their complex.
Menzoberranzan held a vastness, with a ceiling up beyond sight, that Blingdenstone could not approach. The drow city was a series of individual family castles, each a closed fortress and a house unto itself. In the deep gnome city was a general sense of home, as if the entire complex within the mammoth stone-and-metal doors was a singular structure, a community shelter from the ever-present dangers of the Underdark.
The angles of the svirfneblin city, too, were different. Like the features of the diminutive race, Blingdenstone’s buttresses and tiers were rounded, smooth, and gracefully curving. Conversely, Menzoberranzan was an angular place, as sharp as the point of a stalactite, a place of alleyways and leering terraces. Drizzt considered the two cities distinctive of the races they housed, sharp and soft like the features―and the hearts, Drizzt dared to imagine―of their respective inhabitants.
Tucked away in a remote corner of one of the outer chambers sat Belwar’s dwelling, a tiny structure of stone built around the opening of an even smaller cave. Unlike most of the open-faced svirfneblin dwellings, Belwar’s house had a front door. One of the five guards escorting Drizzt tapped on the door with the butt of his mace. “Greetings, Most Honored Burrow-Warden!” he called. “By orders of King Schnicktick, we have delivered the drow.”
Drizzt took note of the respectful tone of the guard’s voice. He had feared for Belwar on that day a decade and more ago, and had wondered if Dinin’s cutting off the deep gnome’s hands wasn’t more cruel than simply killing the unfortunate creature. Cripples did not fare well in the savage Underdark.