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 peace ful time he had spent as Belwar 's guest in Blingdenstone.
He came out of his personal thoughts and noticed that the svirf neblin 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 svirf nebli 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 has been cut in half, " Drizzt remarked.
"No, no, " Belwar said, walking back to the bottom of the ham mock, "just nookered." The gnome poked his pickaxe hard against the bottom of Drizzt's 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 press ing problems that had burdened his shoulders had been temporar ily 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.
"It was a coincidence, fortunate for both me and your fellows in the tunnels, that I happened into the area when I did, " Drizzt said.
"Not so much a chance of fate, " Belwar replied, and a grim demeanor clouded his cheerful expression. "The fights have become too common. One a week, at least, and many svirfnebli have died."
Drizzt closed his lavender eyes and tried to digest the unwel come news.
"Lloth is hungry, so it is said, " Belwar went on, "and life has not been good for the gnomes of Blingdenstone. The cause of it all we are trying to learn.
Drizzt took it all in stride, feeling then, more than ever before, that he had done right in returning. More was happening than a simple drow attempt to recapture him. Belwar 's description, the assertion that Lloth was hungry, seemed on the mark.
Drizzt got prodded again, hard, and he popped open his eyes to see the smiling burrow warden staring down at him, the cloud of recent events apparently passed. "But enough of the darkness!" Bel war declared. "Twenty years we have to recall, you for me and me for you!" He reached down and hooked one of Drizzt's boots, lifting it up and sniffing at the sole. "You found the surface?" he asked, sin cerely hopeful.
The two friends spent the rest of that day trading tales, with Drizzt, who had gone into so different a world, doing most of the talking. Many times Belwar gasped and laughed; once he shared tears with his drow friend, seeming sincerely hurt by the loss of Wulfgar.