The svirfnebli looked around at each other, returned the gesture, then smiled in unison at the sound of Drizzt’s relieved sigh.
“You have been in the Underdark, so it is said,” Seldig went on, motioning for Drizzt to follow him back to the area of their game.
“For many years,” Drizzt replied, falling into step beside the young svirfneblin. The hunting ego within the drow grew ill at ease at the following deep gnomes’ proximity, but
Drizzt was in full control of his reflexive paranoia. When the group reached the fabricated basilisk’s side, Seldig sat on the stone and bid Drizzt to give them a tale or two of his adventures.
Drizzt hesitated, doubting that his command of the svirfneblin tongue would be sufficient for such a task, but Seldig and the others pressed him. At length, Drizzt nodded and stood. He spent a moment in thought, trying to remember some tale that might interest the youngsters. His gaze unconsciously roamed the cavern, searching for some clue. It fell upon, and locked upon, the illusion-heightened basilisk effigy.
“Basilisk,” Seldig explained.
“I know,” Drizzt replied. “I have met such a creature.” He turned casually back to the group and was startled by its appearance. Seldig and every one of his companions had rocked forward, their mouths hanging open in a mixture of expressed intrigue, terror, and delight.
“Dark elf! You have seen a basilisk?” one of them asked incredulously. “A real, living basilisk?”
Drizzt smiled as he came to decipher their amazement. The svirfnebli, unlike the dark elves, sheltered the younger members of their community. Though these deep gnomes were probably as old as Drizzt, they had rarely, if ever, been out of Blingdenstone. By their age, drow elves would have spent years patrolling the corridors beyond Menzoberranzan. Drizzt’s recognition of the basilisk would not have been so unbelievable to the deep gnomes then, though the formidable monsters were rare even in the Underdark.
“You said that basilisks were not real!” one of the svirfnebli shouted to another, and he pushed him hard on the shoulder.
“Never I did!” the other protested, returning the shove.
“My uncle saw one once,” offered another.
“Scrapings in the stone was all your uncle saw!” Seldig laughed. “They were the tracks of a basilisk, by his own proclamation.” Drizzt’s smile widened. Basilisks were magical creatures, more common on other planes of existence. While drow, particularly the high priestesses, often opened gates to other planes, such monsters obviously were beyond the norm of svirfneblin life. Few were the deep gnomes who had ever looked upon a basilisk. Drizzt chuckled aloud. Fewer still, no doubt, were the deep gnomes who ever returned to tell that they had seen one!
“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 rothe. 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 svirfneblin’s hammer and pick, and the sight of the mithril 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.