* * *
“Why have you come to me?” Hephaestus roared angrily. Drizzt skidded backward under the force but managed to hold his balance this time.
“I beg, mighty Hephaestus!” Drizzt pleaded. “I have no choice. I traveled to Menzoberranzan, the city of drow, but this wizard’s spell was powerful, they told me, and they could do nothing to dispel it. So I come to you, great and powerful Hephaestus, renowned for your abilities with spells of transmutation. Perhaps one of my own kind… ”
“A black?” came the thunderous roar, and this time, Drizzt did fall. “Your own kind?”
“No, no, a dragon,” Drizzt said quickly, retracting the apparent insult and hopping back to his feet—thinking that he might be running soon. Hephaestus’s continuing growl told Drizzt that he needed a diversion, and he found it behind the dragon, in the deep scorch marks along the walls and back of a rectangular alcove. Drizzt figured this was where Hephaestus earned his considerable pay melting ores. The drow couldn’t help but shudder as he wondered how many unfortunate merchants or adventurers might have found their end between those blasted walls.
“What caused such a cataclysm?” Drizzt cried in awe. Hephaestus dared not turn away, suspecting treachery. A moment later, though, the dragon realized what the dark elf had noticed and the growl disappeared.
“What god has come down to you, mighty Hephaestus, and blessed you with such a spectacle of power? Nowhere in all the realms is there stone so torn! Not since the fires that formed the world… ”
“Enough!” Hephaestus boomed. “You who are so learned does not know the breath of a red?”
“Surely fire is the means of a red,” Drizzt replied, never taking his gaze from the alcove, “but how intense might the flames be? Surely not so as to wreak such devastation!”
“Would you like to see?” came the dragon’s answer in a sinister, smoking hiss.
“Yes!” Drizzt cried, then, “No!” he said, dropping into a fetal curl. He knew he was walking a tentative line here, but he knew it was a necessary gamble. “Truly I would desire to witness such a blast, but truly I fear to feel its heat.”
“Then watch, Mergandevinasander of Chult!” Hephaestus roared. “See your better!” The sharp intake of the dragon’s breath pulled Drizzt two steps forward, brought his white hair stinging around into his eyes, and nearly tore the blanket-cloak from his back. On the mound behind him, coins toppled forward in a noisy rush.
Then the dragon’s serpentine neck swung about in a long and wide arc, putting the great red’s head in line with the alcove.
The ensuing blast stole the air from the chamber; Drizzt’s lungs burned and his eyes stung, both from the heat and the brightness. He continued to watch, though, as the dragon fire consumed the alcove in a roaring, thunderous blaze. Drizzt noted, too, that Hephaestus closed his eyes tightly when he breathed his fire.
When the conflagration was finished, Hephaestus swung back triumphantly. Drizzt, still looking at the alcove, at the molten rock running down the walls and dripping from the ceiling, did not have to feign his awe.
“By the gods!” he whispered harshly. He managed to look back at the dragon’s smug expression. “By the gods,” he said again. “Mergandevinasander of Chult, who thought himself supreme, is humbled.”
“And well he should be!” Hephaestus boomed. “No black is the equal of a red! Know that now, Mergandevinasander. It is a fact that could save your life if ever a red comes to your door!”
“Indeed,” Drizzt promptly agreed. “But I fear that I shall have no door.” Again he looked down at his form and scowled with disdain. “No door beyond one in the city of dark elves!”
“That is your fate, not mine,” Hephaestus said. “But I shall take pity on you. I shall let you depart alive, though that is more than you deserve for disturbing my slumber!”
This was the critical moment, Drizzt knew. He could have taken Hephaestus up on the offer; at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to be out of there. But his principles and Mooshie’s memory wouldn’t let him go. What of his companions in the tunnel? he reminded himself. And what of the adventures for the bards’ books?
“Devour me then,” he said to the dragon, though he could hardly believe the words as he spoke them. “I who have known the glory of dragonkind cannot be content with life as a dark elf.”
Hephaestus’s huge maw inched forward.
“Alas for all the dragonkind!” Drizzt wailed. “Our numbers ever decreasing, while the humans multiply like vermin. Alas for the treasures of dragons, to be stolen by wizards and paladins!” The way he spat that last word gave Hephaestus pause.
“And alas for Mergandevinasander,” Drizzt continued dramatically, “to be struck down thus by a human wizard whose power outshines even that of Hephaestus, mightiest of dragonkind!”
“Outshines!” Hephaestus cried, and the whole chamber trembled under the power of that roar.
“What am I to believe?” Drizzt yelled back, somewhat pitifully compared to the dragon’s volume. “Would Hephaestus not aid one of his own diminishing kind? Nay, that I cannot believe, that the world shall not believe!” Drizzt aimed a pointed finger at the ceiling above him, preaching for all he was worth. He did not have to be reminded of the price of failure. “They will say, one and all from all the wide realms, that Hephaestus dared not try to dispel the wizard’s magic, that the great red dared not reveal his weakness against so powerful a spell for fear that his weakness would invite that same wizard-led party to come north for another haul of dragon plunder!
“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!”
r /> “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.
Drizzt managed to pocket a few baubles as he rushed out, his retreat covered by the din of the frustrated dragon’s tantrum. The chamber was large and Drizzt was not quite gone when Hephaestus recovered and spotted him. Confused but no less enraged, the dragon roared and started after Drizzt.
In the goblin tongue, knowing from the book that Hephaestus spoke it but hoping that the dragon wouldn’t know he knew, Drizzt yelled, “When the stupid beast follows me out, come out and get the rest!”
Hephaestus skidded to a stop and spun about, eyeing the low tunnel that led to the mines. The stupid dragon was in a frightful fit, wanting to munch on the imposing drow but fearing a robbery from behind. Hephaestus stalked over to the tunnel and slammed his scaly head into the wall above it, for good measure, then moved back to think things over.
The thieves had made the exit by now, the dragon knew; he would have to go out under the wide sky if he wanted to catch them—not a wise proposition at this time of year, considering the dragon’s lucrative business. In the end, Hephaestus settled the dilemma as he settled every problem: He vowed to thoroughly eat the next merchant party that came his way. His pride restored in that resolution, one that he undoubtedly would forget as soon as he returned to his sleep, the dragon moved back about his chamber, repiling the gold and salvaging what he could from the mounds he inadvertently had melted.
22. Homeward Bound
“You got us through!” Brother Herschel cried. All of the friars except Jankin threw a great hug on Drizzt as soon as the drow caught up to them in a rocky vale west of the dragon lair’s entrance.
“If ever there is a way that we can repay you… !”
Drizzt emptied his pockets in response, and five sets of eager eyes widened as gold trinkets and baubles rolled forth, glittering in the afternoon sun. One gem in particular, a two-inch ruby, promised wealth beyond anything the friars had ever known.
“For you,” Drizzt explained. “All of it. I have no need of treasures.”
The friars looked about guiltily, none of them willing to reveal the booty stored in his own pockets. “Perhaps you should keep a bit,” Mateus offered, “if you still plan to strike out on your own.”
“I do,” Drizzt said firmly.
“You cannot stay here,” reasoned Mateus. “Where will you go?”
Drizzt really hadn’t given it much thought. All he really knew was that his place was not among the Weeping Friars. He pondered a while, recalling the many dead-end roads he had traveled. A thought popped into his head.
“You said it,” Drizzt remarked to Jankin. “You named the place a week before we entered the tunnel.”
Jankin looked at him curiously, hardly remembering.
“Ten-Towns,” Drizzt said. “Land of rogues, where a rogue might find his place.”
“Ten-Towns?” Mateus balked. “Surely y
ou should reconsider your course, friend. Icewind Dale is not a welcoming place, nor are the hardy killers of Ten-Towns.”
“The wind is ever blowing,” Jankin added with a wistful look in his dark and hollow eyes, “filled with stinging sand and an icy bite. I will go with you!”
“And the monsters!” added one of the others, slapping Jankin on the back of the head. “Tundra yeti and white bears, and fierce barbarians! No, I would not go to Ten-Towns if Hephaestus himself tried to chase me there!”
“Well the dragon might,” said Herschel, glancing nervously back toward the not-so-distant lair. “There are some farmhouses nearby. Perhaps we could stay there the night and get back to the tunnel tomorrow.”
“I’ll not go with you,” Drizzt said again. “You name Ten-Towns an unwelcoming place, but would I find any warmer reception in Mirabar?”
“We will go to the farmers this night,” Mateus replied, reconsidering his words. “We will buy you a horse there, and the supplies you will need. I do not wish you to go away at all,” he said, “but Ten-Towns seems a good choice—” He looked pointedly at Jankin—”for a drow. Many have found their place there. Truly it is a home for he who has none.”
Drizzt understood the sincerity in the friar’s voice and appreciated Mateus’s graciousness. “How do I find it?” he asked.
“Follow the mountains,” Mateus replied. “Keep them always at your right hand’s reach. When you get around the range, you have entered Icewind Dale. Only a single peak marks the flat land north of the Spine of the World. The towns are built around it. May they be all that you hope!”
With that, the friars prepared to leave. Drizzt clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back against the valley wall. It was indeed time for his parting with the friars, he knew, but he could not deny both the guilt and loneliness that the prospect offered. The small riches they had taken from the dragon’s lair would greatly change his companions’ lives, would give them shelter and all the necessities, but wealth could do nothing to alter the barriers that Drizzt faced.