“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.