The Dark Elf Trilogy: Sojourn

21. Hephaestus

 
Tephanis watched the party of six - the five friars and Drizzt - make their slow way toward the tunnel on the western approach to Mirabar. Roddy had sent the quickling ahead to scout out the region, telling Tephanis to turn the drow, if he found the drow, back toward Roddy. "Bleeder'll be taking care of that one," Roddy had snarled, slapping his formidable axe across his palm.
Tephanis wasn't so sure. The sprite had watched Ulgulu, a master arguably more powerful than Roddy McGristle, dispatched by the drow, and another mighty master, Caroak, had been torn apart by the drow's black panther. If Roddy got his wish and met the drow in battle, Tephanis might soon be searching for yet another master.
"Not-this-time, drow," the sprite whispered suddenly, an idea coming to mind. "This-time-I-get-you!" Tephanis knew the tunnel to Mirabar - he and Roddy had used it the winter before last, when snow had buried the western road - and had learned many of its secrets, including one that the sprite now planned to use to his advantage.
He made a wide circuit around the group, not wanting to alert the sharp-eared drow, and still made the tunnel entrance long before the others. A few minutes later, the sprite was more than a mile in, picking at an intricate lock, one that seemed clumsy to the skilled quickling, on a portcullis crank.
* * *
Brother Mateus led the way into the tunnel, with another friar at his side and the remaining three completing a shielding circle around Drizzt. Drizzt had requested this so that he could remain inconspicuous if anyone happened by. He kept his cloak pulled up tightly and his shoulders hunched. He stayed low in the middle of the group.
They met no other travelers and moved along the torch-lit passage at a steady pace. They came to an intersection and Mateus stopped abruptly, seeing the raised portcullis to a passage on the right side. A dozen steps in, an iron door swung wide, and the passage beyond that was pitch black, not torch-lit like the main tunnel.
"How curious," Mateus remarked.
"Careless," another corrected. "Let us pray that no other travelers, who might not know the way as well as we, happen by here and take the wrong path!"
"Perhaps we should close the door," still another offered.
"No," Mateus quickly interjected. "There may be some down there, merchants perhaps, who would not be so pleased if we followed that plan."
"No!" Brother Jankin cried suddenly and ran to the front of the group. "It is a sign! A sign from God! We are beckoned, my brethren, to Phaestus, the ultimate suffering!"
Jankin turned to charge down the tunnel, but Mateus and one other, hardly surprised by Jankin's customarily wild outburst, immediately sprang upon him and bore him to the ground.
"Phaestus!" Jankin cried wildly, his long and shaggy black hair flying all about his face. "I am coming!"
"What is it?" Drizzt had to ask, having no idea of what the friars were talking about, though he thought he recognized the reference. "Who, or what, is Phaestus?"
"Hephaestus," Brother Mateus corrected.
Drizzt did know the name. One of the books he had taken from Mooshie's Grove was of dragon lore, and Hephaestus, a venerable red dragon living in the mountains northwest of Mirabar, had an entry.
"That is not the dragon's real name, of course," Mateus went on between grunts as he struggled with Jankin. "I do not know that, nor does anyone else anymore." Jankin twisted suddenly, throwing the other monk aside, and promptly stomped down on Mateus's sandal.
"Hephaestus is an old red dragon who has lived in the caves west of Mirabar for as long as anyone, even the dwarves, can remember," explained another friar, Brother Herschel, one less engaged than Mateus. "The city tolerates him because he is a lazy one and a stupid one, though I would not tell him so. Most cities, I presume, would choose to tolerate a red if it meant not fighting the thing! But Hephaestus is not much for pillaging - none can recall the last time he even came out of his hole - and he even does some ore-melting for hire, though the fee is steep."
"Some pay it, though," added Mateus, having Jankin back under control, "especially late in the season, looking to make the last caravan south. Nothing can separate metal like a red dragon's breath!" His laughter disappeared quickly as Jankin slugged him, dropping him to the ground.
Jankin bolted free, for just a moment. Quicker than anyone could react, Drizzt threw off his cloak and rushed after the fleeing monk, catching him just inside the heavy iron door. A single step and twisting maneuver put Jankin down hard on his back and took the wild-eyed friar's breath away.
"Let us get by this region at once," the drow offered, staring down at the stunned friar. "I grow tired of Jankin's antics - I might just allow him to run down to the dragon!"
Two of the others came over and gathered Jankin up, then the whole troupe turned to depart.
"Help!" came a cry from farther down the dark tunnel.
Drizzt's scimitars came out in his hands. The friars all gathered around him, peering down into the gloom.
"Do you see anything?" Mateus asked the drow, knowing that Drizzt's night vision was much keener than his own.
"No, but the tunnel turns a short way from here," Drizzt replied.
"Help!" came the cry again. Behind the group, around the corner in the main tunnel, Tephanis had to suppress his laughter. Quicklings were adept ventriloquists, and the biggest problem Tephanis had in deceiving the group was keeping his cries slow enough to be understood.
Drizzt took a cautious step in, and the friars, even Jankin, sobered by the distress call, followed right behind. Drizzt motioned for them to go back, even as he suddenly realized the potential for a trap.
But Tephanis was too quick. The door slammed with a resounding thud and before the drow, two steps away, could push through the startled friars, the sprite already had the door locked. A moment later, Drizzt and the friars heard a second crash as the portcullis came down.
Tephanis was back out in the daylight a few minutes later, thinking himself quite clever and reminding himself to keep a puzzled expression when he explained to Roddy that the drow's party was nowhere to be found.
* * *
The friars grew tired of yelling as soon as Drizzt reminded them that their screams might arouse the occupant at the other end of the tunnel. "Even if someone happens by the portcullis, he will not hear you through this door," the drow said, inspecting the heavy portal with the single candle Mateus had lit. A combination of iron, stone, and leather, and perfectly fitted, the door had been crafted by dwarves. Drizzt tried pounding on it with the pommel of a scimitar, but that produced only a dull thud that went no farther than the screams.
"We are lost," groaned Mateus. "We have no way out, and our stores are not too plentiful."
"Another sign!" Jankin blurted suddenly, but two of the friars knocked him down and sat on him before he could run off toward the dragon's den.
"Perhaps there is something to Brother Jankin's thinking," Drizzt said after a long pause.
Mateus looked at him suspiciously. "Are you thinking that our stores would last longer if Brother Jankin went to meet Hephaestus?" he asked.
Drizzt could not hold his laughter. "I have no intention of sacrificing anyone," he said and looked at Jankin struggling under the friars. "No matter how willing! But we have only one way out, it would seem."
Mateus followed Drizzt's gaze down the dark tunnel. "If you plan no sacrifices, then you are looking the wrong way," the portly friar huffed. "Surely you are not thinking to get past the dragon!"
"We shall see," was all that the drow answered. He lit another candle from the first one and moved a short distance down the tunnel. Drizzt's good sense argued against the undeniable excitement he felt at the prospect of facing Hephaestus, but it was an argument that he expected simple necessity to overrule. Montolio had fought a dragon, Drizzt remembered, had lost his eyes to a red. The ranger's memories of the battle, aside from his wounds, were not so terrible. Drizzt was beginning to understand what the blind ranger had told him about the differences between survival and fulfillment. How valuable would be the five hundred years Drizzt might have left to live?
For the friar's sake, Drizzt did hope that someone would come along and open the portcullis and door. The drow's fingers tingled with promised thrills, though, when he reached into his sack and pulled out a book on dragon lore he had taken from the grove.
The drow's sensitive eyes needed little light, and he could make out the script with only minor difficulty. As he suspected, there was an entry for the venerable red who lived west of Mirabar. The book confirmed that Hephaestus was not the dragon's real name, rather the name given to it in reference to some obscure god of blacksmiths.
The entry was not extensive, mostly tales from the merchants who went in to hire the dragon for its breath, and other tales of merchants who apparently said the wrong thing or haggled too much about the cost - or perhaps the dragon was merely hungry or in a foul mood - for they never came back out. Most importantly to Drizzt, the entry confirmed the friar's description of the beast as lazy and somewhat stupid. According to the notes, Hephaestus was overly proud, as dragons usually were, and able to speak the common tongue, but "lacking in the area of suspicious insight normally associated with the breed, particularly with venerable reds."
"Brother Herschel is attempting to pick the lock," Mateus said, coming over to Drizzt. "Your fingers are nimble. Would you give it a try?"
"Neither Herschel nor I could get through that lock," Drizzt said absently, not looking up from the book.
"At least Herschel is trying," Mateus growled, "and not huddled off by himself wasting candles and reading some worthless tome!"
"Not so worthless to any of us who mean to get out of here alive," Drizzt said, still not looking up. He had the portly friar's attention.
"What is it?" Mateus asked, leaning closely over Drizzt's shoulder, even though he could not read.
"It tells of vanity," Drizzt replied.
"Vanity? What does vanity have to do... "
"Dragon vanity," Drizzt explained. "A very important point, perhaps. All dragons possess it in excess, evil ones more than good ones."
"Wielding claws as long as swords and breath that can melt a stone, well they should!" grumbled Mateus.
"Perhaps," Drizzt conceded, "but vanity is a weakness - do not doubt - even to a dragon. Several heroes have exploited this trait to a dragon's demise."
"Now you're thinking of killing the thing?" Mateus gawked.
"If I must," Drizzt said, again absently. Mateus threw up his hands and walked away, shaking his head to answer the questioning stares of the others.
Drizzt smiled privately and returned to his reading. His plans were taking definite form now. He read the entire entry several times, committing every word of it to memory. Three candles later, Drizzt was still reading and the friars were growing impatient and hungry. They prodded Mateus, who stood, hiked his belt up over his belly, and strode toward Drizzt.
"More vanity?" he asked sarcastically.
"Done with that part," Drizzt answered. He held up the book, showing Mateus a sketch of a huge black dragon curled up around several fallen trees in a thick swamp. "I am learning now of the dragon that may aid our cause."
"Hephaestus is a red," Mateus remarked scornfully, "not a black."
"This is a different dragon," Drizzt explained. "Mergandevinasander of Chult, possibly a visitor to converse with Hephaestus."
Brother Mateus was at a complete loss. "Reds and blacks do not get on well," he snipped, his skepticism obvious. "Every fool knows that."
"Rarely do I listen to fools," Drizzt replied, and again the friar turned and walked away, shaking his head.
"There is something more that you do not know, but Hephaestus most probably will," Drizzt said quietly, too low for anyone to hear. "Mergandevinasander has purple eyes!" Drizzt closed the book, confident that it had given him enough understanding to make his attempt. If he had ever witnessed the terrible splendor of a venerable red before, he would not have been smiling at that moment. But both ignorance and memories of Montolio bred courage in the young drow warrior who had so little to lose, and Drizzt had no intention of giving in to starvation for fear of some unknown danger. He wouldn't go forward either, not yet.
Not until he had time to practice his best dragon voice.
* * *
Of all the splendors Drizzt had seen in his adventurous life, none - not the great houses of Menzoberranzan, the cavern of the illithids, even the lake of acid - began to approach the awe-inspiring spectacle of the dragon's lair. Mounds of gold and gems filled the huge chamber in rolling waves, like the wake of some giant ship on the sea. Weapons and armor, gleaming magnificently, were piled all about, and the abundance of crafted items - chalices, goblets and the like - could have fully stocked the treasure rooms of a hundred rich kings.
Drizzt had to remind himself to breathe when he looked upon the splendor. It wasn't the riches that held him so - he cared little for material things - but the adventures that such wondrous items and wealth hinted at tugged Drizzt in a hundred different directions. Looking at the dragon's lair belittled his simple survival on the road with the Weeping Friars and his simple desire to find a peaceful and quiet place to call his home. He thought again of Montolio's dragon tale, and of all the other adventurous tales the blind ranger had told him. Suddenly he needed those adventures for himself.
Drizzt wanted a home, and he wanted to find acceptance, but he realized then, looking at the spoils, that he also desired a place in the books of the bards. He hoped to travel roads dangerous and exciting and even write his own tales.
The chamber itself was immense and uneven, rolling back around blind corners. The whole of it was dimly lit in a smoky, reddish golden glow. It was warm, uncomfortably so when Drizzt and the others took the time to consider the source of that heat.
Drizzt turned back to the waiting friars and winked, then pointed down to his left, to the single exit. "You know the signal," he mouthed silently.
Mateus nodded tentatively, still wondering if it had been wise to trust the drow. Drizzt had been a valuable ally to the pragmatic friar on the road these last few months, but a dragon was a dragon.
Drizzt surveyed the room again, this time looking past the treasures. Between two piles of gold he spotted his target, and that was no less splendid than the jewels and gems. Lying in the valley of those mounds was a huge, scaled tail, red-gold like the hue of the light, swishing slightly and rhythmically back and forth, each swipe piling the gold deeper around it.
Drizzt had seen pictures of dragons before; one of the wizard masters in the Academy had even created illusions of the various dragon types for the students to inspect. Nothing, though, could have prepared the drow for this moment, his first view of a living dragon. In all the known realms there was nothing more impressive, and of all the dragon types, huge reds were perhaps the most imposing.
When Drizzt finally managed to tear his gaze from the tail, he sorted out his path into the chamber. The tunnel exited high on the side of a wall, but a clear trail led down to the floor. Drizzt studied this for a long moment, memorizing every step. Then he scooped two handfuls of dirt into his pockets, removed an arrow from his quiver, and placed a darkness spell over it. Carefully and quietly, Drizzt picked his blind steps down the trail, guided by the continuing swish of the scaly tail. He nearly stumbled when he reached the first pile of gems and heard the tail come to an abrupt stop.
"Adventure," Drizzt reminded himself quietly, and he went on, concentrating on his mental image of his surroundings. He imagined the dragon rearing up before him, seeing through his darkness-globe disguise. He winced instinctively, expecting a burst of flame to engulf him and shrivel him where he stood. But he pressed on, and when he at last came over the gold pile, he was glad to hear the easy, thunderlike, breathing of the slumbering dragon.
Drizzt started up the second mound slowly, letting a spell of levitation form in his thoughts. He didn't really expect the spell to work very well - it had been failing more completely each time he attempted it. Any help he could get would add to the effect of his deception. Halfway up the mound, Drizzt broke into a run, spraying coins and gems with every step. He heard the dragon rouse, but didn't slow, drawing his bow as he went.
When he reached the ridge, he leaped out and enacted the levitation, hanging motionless in the air for a split second before the spell failed. Then Drizzt dropped, firing the bow and sending the darkness globe soaring across the chamber.
He never would have believed that a monster of such size could be so nimble, but when he crashed heavily onto a pile of goblets and jeweled trinkets, he found himself staring into the face of a very angry beast.
Those eyes! Like twin beams of damnation, their gaze latched onto Drizzt, bored right through him, impelled him to fall on his belly and grovel for mercy, and to reveal every deception, to confess every sin to Hephaestus, this god-thing. The dragon's great, serpentine neck angled slightly to the side, but the gaze never let go of the drow, holding him as firmly as one of Bluster the bear's hugs.
A voice sounded faintly but firmly in Drizzt's thoughts, the voice of a blind ranger spinning tales of battle and heroism. At first, Drizzt hardly heard it, but it was an insistent voice, reminding Drizzt in its own special way that five other men depended on him now. If he failed, the friars would die.
This part of the plan was not too difficult for Drizzt, for he truly believed in his words. "Hephaestus!" he cried in the common tongue. "Can it be, at long last? Oh, most magnificent! More magnificent than the tales, by far!"
The dragon's head rolled back a dozen feet from Drizzt, and a confused expression came into those all-knowing eyes, revealing the facade. "You know of me?" Hephaestus boomed, the dragon's hot breath blowing Drizzt's white mane behind him.
"All know of you, mighty Hephaestus!" Drizzt cried, scrambling to his knees but not daring to stand. "It was you whom I sought, and now I have found you and am not disappointed!"
The dragon's terrible eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why would a dark elf seek Hephaestus, Destroyer of Cockleby, Devourer of Ten Thousand Cattle, He Who Crushed Angalander the Stupid Silver, He Who... " It went on for many minutes, with Drizzt bearing the foul breath stoically, all the while feigning enchantment with the dragon's listing of his many wicked accomplishments. When Hephaestus was done, Drizzt had to pause a moment to remember the initial question.
His real confusion only added to the deception at the time. "Dark elf?" he asked as if he didn't understand. He looked up at the dragon and repeated the words, even more confused. "Dark elf?"
The dragon looked all around, his gaze falling like twin beacons across the treasure mounds, then lingering for some time on Drizzt's blackness globe, halfway across the room. "I mean you!" Hephaestus roared suddenly, and the force of the yell knocked Drizzt over backward. "Dark elf!"
"Drow?" Drizzt said, recovering quickly and daring now to stand. "No, not I." He surveyed himself and nodded in sudden recognition. "Yes, of course," he said. "So often do I forget this mantle I wear!"
Hephaestus issued a long, low, increasingly impatient growl and Drizzt knew he had better move quickly.
"Not a drow," he said. "Though soon I might be if Hephaestus cannot help me!" Drizzt could only hope that he had piqued the dragon's curiosity. "You have heard of me, I am sure, mighty Hephaestus. I am, or was and hope to be again, Mergandevinasander of Chult, an old black of no small fame."
"Mergandevin... ?" Hephaestus began, but the dragon let the word trail away. Hephaestus had heard of the black, of course; dragons knew the names of most of the other dragons in all the world. Hephaestus knew, too, as Drizzt had hoped he would, that Mergandevinasander had purple eyes.
To aid him through the explanation, Drizzt recalled his experiences with Clacker, the unfortunate pech who had been transformed by a wizard into the form of a hook horror. "A wizard defeated me," he began somberly. "A party of adventurers entered my lair. Thieves! I got one of them, though, a paladin!"
Hephaestus seemed to like this little detail, and Drizzt, who had just thought of it, congratulated himself silently.
"How his silvery armor sizzled under the acid of my breath!"
"Pity to so waste him" Hephaestus interjected. "Paladins do make such fine meals!"
Drizzt smiled to hide his uneasiness at the thought. How would a dark elf taste? he could not help but wonder with the dragon's mouth so very near. "I would have killed them all - and a fine treasure take it would have been - but for that wretched wizard! It was he that did this terrible thing to me!" Drizzt looked at his drow form reprovingly.
"Polymorph?" Hephaestus asked, and Drizzt noted a bit of sympathy - he prayed - in the voice.
Drizzt nodded solemnly. "An evil spell. Took my form, my wings, and my breath. Yet I remained Mergandevinasander in thought, though... " Hephaestus widened his eyes at the pause, and the pitiful, confused look that Drizzt gave actually backed the dragon up.
"I have found this sudden affinity to spiders," Drizzt muttered. "To pet them and kiss them... " So that is what a disgusted red dragon looks like, Drizzt thought when he glanced back up at the beast. Coins and trinkets tinkled all throughout the room as an involuntary shudder coursed through the dragon's spine.
* * *
The friars in the low tunnel couldn't see the exchange, but they could make out the conversation well enough and understood what the drow had in mind. For the first time that any of them could recall, Brother Jankin was stricken speechless, but Mateus managed to whisper a few words, echoing their shared sentiments.
"He has got a measure of fortitude, that one!" The portly friar chuckled, and he slapped a hand across his own mouth, fearing that he had spoken too loudly.
* * *
"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!"
"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.