“Not so old,” Drizzt started to argue, determined this time to press the burrow-warden into revealing what it was that troubled him so. But Belwar simply turned and walked silently into his cave-room, pulling closed behind him the blanket he had strung up as a door.
Drizzt shook his head and banged his fist into his palm in frustration. Belwar had done so much for him, first by saving him from the svirfneblin king’s judgment, then by befriending him over the last few weeks and teaching him the svirfneblin tongue and the deep gnomes’ ways. Drizzt had been unable to return the favor, though he clearly saw that Belwar carried some great burden. Drizzt wanted to rush through the blanket now, go to the burrow-warden, and make him speak his gloomy thoughts.
Drizzt would not yet be so bold with his new friend, however. He would find the key to the burrow-warden’s pain in time, he vowed, but right now he had his own dilemma to overcome. Belwar had given him permission to go out into Blingdenstone! Drizzt looked back to the group across the cavern. Three of them stood perfectly still before the effigy, as if turned to stone. Curious, Drizzt moved to the doorway, and then, before he realized what he was doing, he was outside and approaching the young deep gnomes.
The game ended as the drow neared, the svirfnebli being more interested in meeting the dark elf they had rumored about for so many weeks. They rushed over to Drizzt and surrounded him, whispering curiously.
Drizzt felt his muscles tense involuntarily as the svirfnebli moved all about him. The primal instincts of the hunter sensed a vulnerability that could not be tolerated. Drizzt fought hard to sublimate his alter ego, silently but firmly reminding himself that the svirfnebli were not his enemies. “Greetings, drow friend of Belwar Dissengulp,” one of the youngsters offered. “I am Seldig, fledgling and pledgling, and to be an expedition miner in but three years hence.”
It took Drizzt a long moment to sort out the deep gnome’s rapid speech patterns. He did understand the significance of Seldig’s future occupation, though, for Belwar had told him that expedition miners, those svirfnebli who went out into the Underdark in search of precious minerals and gems, were among the highest ranking deep gnomes in all the city.
“Greetings, Seldig,” Drizzt answered at length. “I am Drizzt Do’Urden.” Not really knowing what he should do next, Drizzt crossed his arms over his chest. For the dark elves, this was a gesture of peace, though Drizzt was not certain if the motion was universally accepted throughout the Underdark.
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.