Sojourn

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 tu

“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 ru

“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 ru

“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 tu

“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 ca

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 ca

“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!”