"Has he a name?" the mercenary asked.
"A name that is known to you, and to us," Firble replied, feeling positively superior (a rare occurrence in his dealings with the crafty mercenary).
His cryptic answer, though, had given more information than intended to Jarlaxle. Few drow were known by name to the gnomes of Blingdenstone, and Jarlaxle could check on the whereabouts of most of those few quite easily. The mercenary's eyes widened suddenly, but he quickly regained his composure, his mind reeling down the path of a new possibility.
"Tell me of the events," Firble demanded. "Why are Menzoberranzan drow near Blingdenstone? Tell me, and to you I shall give the name!"
"Give the name if you choose," Jarlaxle scoffed. "The events? I have already told you to look to Ched Nasad, or to playful young males, students, perhaps, out of the Academy."
Firble hopped up and down, fists clenched in front of him as though he meant to jump over and punch the unpredictable mercenary. All feelings that he had gained the upper hand washed away in the blink of a drow eye.
"Dear Firble," Jarlaxle cooed. "Really, we should not be meeting unless we have more important matters to discuss. And, really, you and your escort should not be so far from home, not in these dark times."
The little svirfneblin let out an unintentional groan of frustration at the mercenary's continued hints that something dire was going on, that the increased drow activity was linked to some greater design.
But Jarlaxle, standing with one arm across his belly, his elbow in his hand and his other hand propping his chin, remained impassive, seeming positively amused by it all. Firble would get no pertinent information this day, he realized, so he gave a curt bow and spun about, kicking stones every step of the way out of the chamber.
The mercenary held his relaxed posture for some time after the gnome had left, then casually lifted one hand and signaled to the tunnel behind him. Out walked a human, though his eyes glowed red with the infravision common to Underdark races, a gift from a high priestess.
"Did you find that amusing?" Jarlaxle asked in the surface tongue.
"And informative," Entreri replied. "When we get back to the city, it should be a minor thing for you to discern the identity of the captured drow."
Jarlaxle regarded the assassin curiously. "Do you not already know it?" he asked.
"I know of no missing nobles," Entreri replied, taking time as he spoke to carefully study the mercenary. Had he missed something? "Certainly, their prisoner must be a noble, since his name was known not only to you, but to the gnomes. A noble or an adventurous drow merchant."
"Suppose I told you that the drow in Blingdenstone was no prisoner," Jarlaxle hinted, a wry smile on his ebon-skinned face.
Entreri stared at him blankly, apparently having no clue as to what the mercenary was talking about.
"Of course," Jarlaxle said a moment later. "You do not know of the past events, so you would have no way of putting the information together. There was once a drow who left Menzoberranzan and stopped, for a time, to live with the gnomes, though I hardly expected that he would return."
"You cannot be hinting that…" Entreri said, verily losing his breath.
"Precisely," Jarlaxle replied, turning his gaze to the tunnel through which Firble had disappeared. "It seems that the fly has come to the spiders."
Entreri did not know what to think. Drizzt Do'Urden, back in the Underdark! What did that mean for the planned raid on Mithril Hall? Would the plans be dropped? Would Entreri's last chance to see the surface world be taken from him?
"What are we to do?" he asked the mercenary, his tone hinting at desperation.
"Do?" Jarlaxle echoed. He leaned back and gave a hearty laugh.
"Do?" the drow asked again, as though the thought was absurd. "Why, we sit back and enjoy it, of course!"
His response was not totally unexpected to Entreri, not when the assassin took a moment to consider it. Jarlaxle was a lover of ironies—that was why he thrived in the world of the chaotic drow—and this unexpected turn certainly qualified. To Jarlaxle, life was a game, to be played and enjoyed without consideration for consequences or morality.
In other times, Entreri could empathize with that attitude, had even adopted it on occasion, but not now. Too much hung in the balance for Artemis Entreri, for the poor, miserable assassin. Drizzt's presence so near Menzoberranzan raised important questions for the assassin's future, a future that looked bleak indeed.
Jarlaxle laughed again, long and hard. Entreri stood solemnly, staring at the tunnel that led generally toward the gnome city, his mind staring into the face, the violet eyes, of his most hated enemy.
Drizzt took great comfort in the familiar surroundings about him. He almost felt that he must be dreaming, for the small stone dwelling was exactly as he remembered it, right down to the hammock in which he now found himself.
But Drizzt knew that this was no dream, knew it from the fact that he could feel nothing from his waist down, neither the hammock's cords nor even a tingle in his bare feet.
"Awake?" came a question from the dwelling's second, smaller, chamber. The word struck Drizzt profoundly, for it was spoken in the Svirfneblin tongue, that curious blend of elven melodies and crackling dwarven consonants. Svirfneblin words rushed back to Drizzt's thoughts, though he had neither heard nor spoken the language in more than twenty years. It took some effort for Drizzt to turn his head and see the approaching burrow warden.
The drow's heart skipped a few beats at the sight.
Belwar had aged a bit but still seemed sturdy. He banged his «hands» together when he realized that Drizzt, his long-ago friend, was indeed awake.
Drizzt was pleased to see those hands, works of metallic art, capping the gnome's arms. Drizzt's own brother had cut off Belwar's hands when Drizzt and Belwar had first met. There had been a battle between the deep gnomes and a party of drow, and, at first, Drizzt had been Belwar's prisoner. Dirtin came fast to Drizzt's aid, though, and the positions were quickly reversed.
Dinin would have killed Belwar had it not been for Drizzt. But Drizzt wasn't sure how much his attempt to save the svirfneblin's life had been worth, for Dinin had ordered Belwar crippled. In the brutal Underdark, crippled creatures usually did not survive long.
When Drizzt had met Belwar again, when he had come into Blingdenstone as a refugee from Menzoberranzan, he had found that the svirfnebli, so unlike the drow, had come to their wounded friend's aid, Grafting him apropos caps for his stubby arms. On the right arm, the Most Honored Burrow Warden (as the deep gnomes called Belwar) wore a mithril hammerhead etched with marvelous runes and sketchings of powerful creatures, including an earth elemental. The double-headed pickaxe Belwar wore on his left arm was no less spectacular. These were formidable tools for digging and fighting, and more formidable still, for the svirfneblin shamans had enchanted the "hands." Drizzt had seen Belwar burrow through solid stone as fast as a mole through soft dirt.
It was so good to see that Belwar had continued to thrive, that Drizzt's first non-drow friend, Drizzt's first true friend, other than Zak'nafein, was well.
"Magga cammara, elf," the svirfneblin remarked with a chuckle as he walked past the hammock. "I thought you would never wake up!"
Magga cammara, Drizzt's mind echoed, "by the stones." The curious phrase, one that Drizzt had not heard in twenty years, put the drow at ease, brought his thoughts cascading back to the peaceful time he had spent as Belwar's guest in Blingdenstone.
He came out of his personal thoughts and noticed that the svirfneblin was at his feet, studying his posture.