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.
'How do they feel?' Belwar asked.
'They do not,' Drizzt replied.
The gnome nodded his hairless head and brought his pickaxe up to scratch at his huge nose. 'You got nookered,' he remarked.
Drizzt did not reply, obviously not understanding.
'Nookered,' Belwar said again, moving to a cabinet bolted to the wall. He hooked the door with his pickaxe and swung it open, then used both hands to tentatively grasp some item inside and take it out for Drizzt to see. 'A newly designed weapon,' Belwar explained. 'Been around for only a few years.'
Drizzt thought that the item resembled a beaver's tail, with a short handle for grasping on the narrow end and with the wide end curled over at a sharp angle. It was smooth all about, with the notable exception of one serrated edge.
'A nooker,' Belwar said, holding it up high. It slipped from his tentative grasp and dropped to the floor.
Belwar shrugged and clapped his mithril hands together. 'A good thing it is that I have my own weapons!' Belwar banged the hammer and pickaxe together a second time.
'Lucky you are, Drizzt Do'Urden,' he went on, 'that the svirfnebli in battle recognized you for a friend.'
Drizzt snorted; he didn't, at that moment, feel very lucky.
'He could have hit you with the sharp edge,' Belwar went on. 'Cut your backbone in half, it would have!'
'My backbone feels as if it lias been cut in half,' Drizzt remarked.
'No, no,' Belwar said, walking back to the bottom of the hammock, 'just nookered.' The gnome poked his pickaxe hard against the bottom of Drizzfs foot, and the drow winced and shifted. 'See, coming back already is the feeling,' Belwar declared, and, smiling mischievously, he prodded Drizzt again.
'I will walk again, Burrow Warden,' the relieved drow promised, his tone threatening so that he could play along with the game.
Belwar poked him again. 'A while will that be!' he laughed. 'And soon you will feel a tickle as well!'
It seemed like old times to Drizzt; it seemed like the very pressing problems that had burdened his shoulders had been temporarily lifted. How good it was to see his old friend again, this gnome who had gone out with him, out of loyalty alone, into the wilds of the Underdark, who had been captured beside Drizzt by the dreaded mind flayers and had fought his way out beside Drizzt.
