“The king has reopened the eastern tunnels,” the voice continued. “There are rumors of a thick vein of ore only a day’s march. It would do honor to my expedition if Belwar Dissengulp would find his way to accompany us.”
A hopeful smile widened on Drizzt’s face, not for any thoughts he had of venturing out, but because he had noticed that Belwar seemed a bit too reclusive in the otherwise open svirfneblin community.
“Burrow-Warden Brickers,” Belwar explained to Drizzt grimly, not sharing the drow’s budding enthusiasm in the least. “One of those who comes to my door before every expedition, bidding me to join in the journey.”
“And you never go,” Drizzt reasoned.
Belwar shrugged. “A courtesy call, nothing more,” he said, his nose twitching and his wide teeth grating together.
“You are not worthy to march beside them.” Drizzt added, his tone dripping with sarcasm. At last, he believed, he had found the source of his friend’s frustration.
Again Belwar shrugged.
Drizzt scowled at him. “I have seen you at work with your mithril hands,” he said. “You would be no detriment to any party! Indeed, far more! Do you so quickly consider yourself crippled, when those about you do not?”
Belwar slammed his hammer-hand down on the table, sending a fair-sized crack running through the stone. “I can cut rock faster than the lot of them!” the burrow-warden growled fiercely. “And if monsters descended upon us…” He waved his pickaxe-hand in a menacing way, and Drizzt did not doubt that the barrel-chested deep gnome could put the instrument to good use.
“Enjoy the day, Most Honored Burrow-Warden,” came a final cry from outside the door. “As ever, we shall respect your decision, but, as ever, we also shall lament your absence.”
Drizzt stared curiously at Belwar. “Why, then?” he asked at length. “If you are as competent as all―yourself included―agree, why do you remain behind? I know the love svirfnebli have for such expeditions, yet you are not interested. Nor do you ever speak of your own adventures outside Blingdenstone. Is it my presence that holds you at home? Are you bound to watch over me?”
“No,” Belwar replied, his booming voice echoing back several times in Drizzt’s keen ears. “You have been granted the return of your weapons, dark elf. Do not doubt our trust.”
“But. . ?” Drizzt began, but he stopped short, suddenly realizing the truth of the deep gnome’s reluctance. “The fight,” he said softly, almost apologetically. “That evil day more than a decade ago?”
Belwar’s nose verily rolled up over itself, and he briskly turned away.
“You blame yourself for the loss of your kin!” Drizzt continued, gaining volume as he gained confidence in his reasoning. Still, the drow could hardly believe his words as he spoke them.
But when Belwar turned back on him, the burrow-warden’s eyes were rimmed with wetness and Drizzt knew that the words had struck home.
Drizzt ran a hand through his thick white mane, not really knowing how to respond to Belwar’s dilemma. Drizzt personally had led the drow party against the svirfnebli mining group, and he knew that no blame for the disaster could rightly be placed on any of the deep gnomes. Yet, how could Drizzt possibly explain that to Belwar?
“I remember that fated day,” Drizzt began tentatively. “Vividly I remember it, as if that evil moment will be frozen in my thoughts, never to recede.”
“No more than in mine,” the burrow-warden whispered.
Drizzt nodded his accord. “Equally, though,” he said, “for I find myself caught within the very same web of guilt that entraps you.”
Belwar looked at him curiously, not really understanding.
“It was I who led the drow patrol,” Drizzt explained. “I found your troupe, errantly believing you to be marauders intending to descend upon Menzoberranzan.”
“If not you, then another,” Belwar replied.
“But none could have led them as well as I,” Drizzt said. “Out there―” he glanced at the door “―in the wilds, I was at home. That was my domain.”
Belwar was listening to his every word now, just as Drizzt had hoped.
“And it was I who defeated the earth elemental,” Drizzt continued, speaking matter-of-factly, not cockily. “Had it not been for my presence, the battle would have proved equal. Many svirfnebli would have survived to return to Blingdenstone.”
Belwar could not hide his smile. There was a measure of truth in Drizzt’s words, for Drizzt had indeed been a major factor in the drow attack’s success. But Belwar found Drizzt’s attempt to dispel his guilt a bit of a stretch of the truth.
“I do not understand how you can blame yourself,” Drizzt said, now smiling and hoping that his levity would bring some measure of comfort to his friend. “With Drizzt Do’Urden at the lead of the drow party, you never had a chance.”
“Magga cammara! It is a painful subject to jest of,” Belwar replied, though he chuckled in spite of himself even as he spoke the words.
“Agreed,” said Drizzt, his tone suddenly serious. “But dismissing the tragedy in a jest is no more ridiculous than living mired in guilt for a blameless incident. No, not blameless,” Drizzt quickly corrected himself. “The blame lies on the shoulders of Menzoberranzan and its inhabitants. It is the way of the drow that caused the tragedy. It is the wicked existence they live, every day, that doomed your expedition’s peaceable miners.”
“Charged with the responsibility of his group is a burrow-warden,” Belwar retorted. “Only a burrow-warden may call an expedition. He must then accept the responsibility of his decision.”
“You chose to lead the deep gnomes so close to Menzoberranzan?” Drizzt asked.
“I did.”
“Of your own volition?” Drizzt pressed. He believed that he understood the ways of the deep gnomes well enough to know that most, if not all, of their important decisions were democratically resolved. “Without the word of Belwar Dissengulp, the mining party would never have come into that region?”
“We knew of the find,” Belwar explained. “A rich cache of ore. It was decided in council that we should risk the nearness to Menzoberranzan. I led the appointed party.”
“If not you, then another,” Drizzt said pointedly, mimicking Belwar’s earlier words.
“A burrow-warden must accept the respons―” Belwar began, his gaze drifting away from Drizzt.
“They do not blame you,” Drizzt said, following Belwar’s empty stare to the blank stone door. “They honor you and care for you.”
“They pity me!” Belwar snarled.
“Do you need their pity?” Drizzt cried back. “Are you less than they? A helpless cripple?”
“Never I was!”
“Then go out with them!” Drizzt yelled at him. “See if they truly pity you. I do not believe that at all, but if your assumptions prove true, if your people do pity their ‘Most Honored Burrow-Warden’; then show them the truth of Belwar Dissengulp! If your companions mantle upon you neither pity nor blame, then do not place either burden upon your own shoulders!”
Belwar stared at his friend for a very long moment, but he did not reply.
“All the miners who accompanied you knew the risk of venturing so close to Menzoberranzan,” Drizzt reminded him. A smile widened on Drizzt’s face. “None of them, yourself included, knew that Drizzt Do’Urden would lead your drow opponents against you. If you had, you certainly would have stayed at home.”
“Magga cammara,” Belwar mumbled. He shook his head in disbelief, both at Drizzt’s joking attitude and at the fact that, for the first time in over a decade, he did feel better about those tragic memories. He rose up from the stone table, flashed a grin at Drizzt, and headed for the inner room of his house.
“Where are you going?” Drizzt asked.
“To rest,” replied the burrow-warden. “The events of this day have already wearied me.”