"Bivrip!" Belwar bellowed. He clapped his mithril hands together and immediately sparks and arcing lines of energy ran along his crafted hands. He put a wry look on the councilor, who merely laughed in a squeaky svirfneblin way Poor Firble.
Drizzt was glad to escort a group of orcs from the isle back to the mainland, if only so that he could avoid the eager Khareesa. She watched him go from the shore, her expression caught somewhere between a pout and anticipation, as if to say that Drizzt might have escaped, but only for now.
With the isle behind him, Drizzt put all thoughts of Khareesa from his mind. His task, and dangers, lay ahead, in the city proper, and he honestly did not know where he would begin looking for answers. He feared that it would all come down to his surrender, that he would have to give himself over to protect the friends that he had left behind.
He thought of Zak'nafein, his father and friend, who had been sacrificed to the evil Spider Queen in his stead. He thought of Wulf gar, his lost friend, and memories of the young barbarian strength ened Drizzt's resolve.
He offered no explanation to the surprised slavers awaiting the craft on the beach. His expression alone told them not to question him as he walked past their encampment, away from Donigarten.
Soon he moved easily, warily, along the winding ways of Men zoberranzan. He passed close by several dark elves, under the more than curious eyes of dozens of house guards, standing watch from their parapets along the sides of hollowed stalactites. Drizzt carried with him an irrational notion that he might be recognized, and had to tell himself many times that he had been out of Menzo berranzan for more than thirty years, that Drizzt Do'Urden, even House Do'Urden, was now part of Menzoberranzan's history.
But, if that were true, why was he here, in this place where he did not want to be?
Drizzt wished that he had a piwafwi, the black cloak typical of drow outerwear. His forest green cloak, thick and warm, was more suited to the environs of the surface world and might connect him, in the eyes of onlookers, to that rarely seen place. He kept the hood up, the cowl low, and pushed on. This would be one of many excur sions into the city proper, he believed, as he familiarized himself once more with the winding avenues and the dark ways.
The flicker of light around a bend surprised him, stung his heat seeing eyes, and he moved tightly against the wall of a stalagmite, one hand under his cloak, grasping Twinkle's hilt.
A group of four drow males came around the bend, talking eas ily, paying Drizzt no heed. They wore the symbol of House Baenre, Drizzt noted as his vision shifted back to the normal spectrum, and one of them carried a torch!
Little that Drizzt had witnessed in all his life seemed so out of place to him. Why? he asked himself repeatedly, and he felt that this all was somehow related to him. Were the drow preparing an offensive against some surface location?
The notion rocked Drizzt to his core. House Baenre soldiers car rying torches, getting their Underdark eyes desensitized to the light. Drizzt did not know what to think. He would have to go back to the Isle of Rothe, he decided, and he figured that that out of the way place was as good a base as any he could secure in the city Perhaps he could get Khareesa to tell him the meaning of the lights, so that the next excursion into the city proper might prove fruitful.
He stalked back through the city, cowl low, thoughts inward, and did not notice the movements shadowing his own; few in Men zoberranzan ever noticed the movements of Bregan D'aerthe.
Catti-brie had never viewed anything so mysterious and won derful and, in the starlight of her vision, the glow of the stalagmite towers and hanging stalactites seemed more wonderful still. The faerie fires of Menzoberranzan highlighted ten thousand wondrous carvings, some of definite shape (mostly spiders), and others free flowing forms, surrealistic and beautiful. She would like to come here under different circumstances, Catti-brie decided. She would like to be an explorer that discovered an empty Menzoberranzan, that she might study and absorb the incredible