“Ah!” Drizzt shouted, wide-eyed. “But will not Hephaestus’s perceived surrender also give the wizard and his nasty thieving friends hope of such plunder? And what dragon possesses more to steal than Hephaestus, the red of rich Mirabar?”
The dragon was at a loss. Hephaestus liked his way of life, sleeping on treasures ever-growing from high-paying merchants. He didn’t need the likes of heroic adventurers poking around in his lair! Those were the exact sentiments Drizzt had been counting on.
“Tomorrow!” the dragon roared. “This day I contemplate the spell and tomorrow Mergandevinasander shall be a black once more! Then he shall depart, his tail aflame, if he dares utter one more blasphemous word! Now I must take my rest to recall the spell. You shall not move, dragon in drow form. I smell you where you are and hear as well as anything in all the world. I am not as sound a sleeper as many thieves have wished!”
Drizzt did not doubt a word of it, of course, so while things had gone as well as he had hoped, he found himself in a bit of a mess. He couldn’t wait a day to resume his conversation with the red, nor could his friends. How would proud Hephaestus react, Drizzt wondered, when the dragon tried to counter a spell that didn’t even exist? And what, Drizzt told himself as he neared panic, would he do if Hephaestus actually did change him into a black dragon?
“Of course, the breath of a black has advantages over a red’s,” Drizzt blurted as Hephaestus swung away.
The red came back at him in a frightening flash and with frightening fury.
“Would you like to feel my breath?” Hephaestus snarled. “How great would come your boasts then, I must wonder?”
“No, not that” Drizzt replied, “Take no insult, mighty Hephaestus. Truly the spectacle of your fires stole my pride! But the breath of a black cannot be underestimated. It has qualities beyond even the power of a red’s fire!”
“How say you?”
“Acid, O Hephaestus the Incredible, Devourer of Ten Thousand Cattle,” Drizzt replied. “Acid clings to a knight’s armor, digs through in lasting torment.”
“As dripping metal might?” Hephaestus asked sarcastically. “Metal melted by a red’s fire?”
“Longer, I fear,” Drizzt admitted, dropping his gaze. “A red’s breath comes in a burst of destruction, but a black’s lingers, to the enemy’s dismay.”
“A burst?” Hephaestus growled. “How long can your breath last, pitiful black? Longer can I breath, I know!”
“But… ” Drizzt began, indicating the alcove. This time, the dragon’s sudden intake pulled Drizzt several steps forward and nearly whipped him from his feet. The drow kept his wits enough to cry out the appointed signal, “Fires of the Nine Hells!” as Hephaestus swung his head back in line with the alcove.
“The signal!” Mateus said above the tumult. “Run for your lives! Run!”
“Never!” cried the terrified Brother Herschel, and the others, except for Jankin, didn’t disagree.
“Oh, to suffer so!” the shaggy-haired fanatic wailed, stepping from the tunnel.
“We have to! On our lives!” Mateus reminded them, catching Jankin by the hair to keep him from going the wrong way.
They struggled at the tunnel exit for several seconds and then the other friars, realizing that perhaps their only hope soon would pass them by, burst out of the tunnel and the whole group tumbled out and down the sloping path from the wall. When they recovered, they were surely in a fix, and they danced about aimlessly, not sure of whether to climb back up to the tunnel or light out for the exit. Their desperate scrambling hardly made any headway up the slope, especially with Mateus still trying to rein in Jankin, so the exit was the only way. Tripping all over themselves, the friars fled across the room.
Even their terror did not prevent each of them, even Jankin, from scooping up a pocketful of baubles as he passed.
Never had there been such a blast of dragon fire! Hephaestus, eyes closed, roared on and on, disintegrating the stone in the alcove. Great gouts of flame burst out into the room—Drizzt was nearly overcome by the heat—but the angry dragon did not relent, determined to humble the annoying visitor once and for all.
The dragon peeked once, to witness the effects of his display. Dragons knew their treasure rooms better than anything in the world, and Hephaestus did not miss the image of five fleeting figures darting across the main chamber toward the exit.
The breath stopped abruptly and the dragon swung about. “Thieves!” he roared, splitting stone with his thunderous voice.
Drizzt knew that the game was up.
The great, spear-filled maw snapped at the drow. Drizzt stepped to the side and leaped, having nowhere else to go. He caught one of the dragon’s horns and rode up with the beast’s head. Drizzt managed to scramble on top of it and held on for all his life as the outraged dragon tried to shake him free. Drizzt reached for a scimitar but found a pocket instead, and he pulled out a handful of dirt. Without the slightest hesitation, the drow flung the dirt down into the dragon’s evil eye.
Hephaestus went berserk, snapping his head violently, up and down and all about. Drizzt held on stubbornly, and the devious dragon discerned a better method.
Drizzt understood Hephaestus’s intent as the head shot up into the air at full speed. The ceiling was not so high—not compared with Hephaestus’s serpentine neck. It was a long fall, but a preferable fate by far, and Drizzt dropped off just before the dragon’s head slammed into the rock.
Drizzt dizzily regained his feet as Hephaestus, hardly slowed by the crushing impact, sucked in his breath. Luck saved the drow, and not for the first or the last time, as a considerable chunk of stone fell from the battered ceiling and crashed into the dragon’s head. Hephaestus’s breath blurted out in a harmless puff and Drizzt darted with all speed over the treasure mound, diving down behind.
Hephaestus roared in rage and loosed the rest of his breath, without thinking, straight for the mound. Gold coins melted together; enormous gemstones cracked under the pressure. The mound was fully twenty feet thick and tightly packed, but Drizzt, against the opposite side, felt his back aflame. He jumped out from the pile, leaving his cloak smoking and meshed with molten gold.
Out came Drizzt, scimitars drawn, as the dragon reared. The drow rushed straight in bravely, stupidly, whacking away with all his strength. He stopped, stunned, after only two blows, both scimitars ringing painfully in his hands; he might as well have banged them against a stone wall!
Hephaestus, head high, had paid the attack no heed. “My gold!” the dragon wailed. Then the beast looked down, his lamplight gaze boring through the drow once more. “My gold!” Hephaestus said again, wickedly.
Drizzt shrugged sheepishly, then he ran.
Hephaestus snapped his tail about, slamming it into yet another mound of treasure and showering the room in flying gold and silver coins and gemstones. “My gold!” the dragon roared over and over as he slammed his way through the tight piles.
Drizzt fell behind another mound. “Help me, Guenhwyvar,” he begged, dropping the figurine.
“I smell you, thief!” The dragon purred—as if a thunderstorm could purr—not far from Drizzt’s mound.
In response, the panther came to the top of the mound, roared in defiance, then sprang away. Drizzt, down at the bottom, listened carefully, measuring the steps, as Hephaestus rushed forward.
“I shall chew you apart, shape-changer!” the dragon bellowed, and his gaping mouth snapped down at Guenhwyvar.
But teeth, even dragon teeth, had little effect on the insubstantial mist that Guenhwyvar suddenly became.