CHAPTER 8
STRANGERS
Drizzt looked out Belwar’s open door at the daily routines of the svirfneblin city, as he had every day for the last few weeks. Drizzt felt as though his life was in a state of limbo, as though everything had been put into stasis. He had not seen or heard of Guenhwyvar since he had come to Belwar’s house, nor had he any expectations of getting his piwafwi or his weapons and armor back anytime soon. Drizzt accepted it all stoically, figuring that he, and Guenhwyvar, were better off now than they had been in many years and confident that the svirfnebli would not harm the statuette or any of his other possessions. The drow sat and watched, letting events take their due course.
Belwar had gone out this day, one of the rare occasions that the reclusive burrow-warden left his house. Despite the fact that the deep gnome and Drizzt rarely conversed-
Belwar was not the type who spoke simply for the sake of hearing his own voice-Drizzt found that he missed the burrow-warden. Their friendship had grown, even if the substance of their conversations had not.
A group of young svirfnebli walked past and shouted a few quick words at the drow within. This had happened many times before, particularly in the first days after Drizzt had entered the city. On those previous occasions, Drizzt had been left wondering if he had been greeted or insulted. This time, though, Drizzt understood the basic friendly meaning of the words, for Belwar had taken the time to instruct him in the basics of the svirfneblin tongue.
The burrow-warden returned hours later to find Drizzt sitting on the stone stool, watching the world slip past.
“Tell me, dark elf,” the deep gnome asked in his hearty, melodic voice, “what do you see when you look upon us? Are we so foreign to your ways?”
“I see hope,” Drizzt replied. “ And I see despair,” Belwar understood. He knew that the svirfneblin society was better suited to the drow’s principles, but watching the bustle of Blingdenstone from afar could only evoke painful memories in his new friend.
“King Schnicktick and I met this day,” the burrow-warden said. “I tell you in truth that he is very interested in you.”
“Curious would seem a better word,” Drizzt replied, but he smiled as he did so, and Belwar wondered how much pain was hidden behind the grin.
The burrow-warden dipped into a short, apologetic bow, surrendering to Drizzt’s blunt honesty. “Curious, then, as you wish. You must know that you are not as we have come to regard drow elves. I beg that you take no offense.”
“None,” Drizzt answered honestly. “You and your people have given me more than I dared hope. If I had been killed that first day in the city, I would have accepted the fate without placing blame on the svirfnebli.”
Belwar followed Drizzt’s gaze out across the cavern, to the group of gathered youngsters. “You should go among them,” Belwar offered.
Drizzt looked at him, surprised. In all the time he had spent in Belwar’s house, the svirfneblin had never suggested such a thing. Drizzt had assumed that he was to remain the burrow-warden’s guest, and that Belwar had been made personally responsible for curtailing his movements.
Belwar nodded toward the door, silently reiterating his suggestion. Drizzt looked out again. Across the cavern, the group of young svirfnebli, a dozen or so, had begun a contest of heaving rather large stones at an effigy of a basilisk, a life-sized likeness built of stones and old suits of armor. Svirfnebli were highly skilled in the magical crafts of illusion, and one such illusionist had placed minor enchantments upon the likeness to smooth out the rough spots and make the effigy appear even more lifelike.
“Dark elf, you must go out sometime,” Belwar reasoned. “How long will you find my home’s blank walls fulfilling?”
“They suit you,” Drizzt retorted, a bit more sharply than he had intended.
Belwar nodded and slowly turned about to survey the room. “So they do,” he said quietly, and Drizzt could clearly see his great pain. When Belwar turned back to the drow, his round-featured face held an unmistakably resigned expression. “Magga cammara, dark elf. Let that be your lesson.”
“Why?” Drizzt asked him. “Why does Belwar Dissengulp, the Most Honored Burrow-Warden-“ Belwar flinched again at the title-“remain within the shadows of his own door?”
Belwar’s jaw firmed up and his dark eyes narrowed. “Go out,” he said in a resonating growl. “Young you are, dark elf, and all the world is before you. Old I am. My day is long past.”
“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.