Homeland

Empty hours, empty days.

I find that I have few memories of that first period of my life, those first sixteen years when I labored as a servant. Minutes blended into hours, hours into days, and so on, until the whole of it seemed one long and barren moment. Several times I managed to sneak out onto the balcony of House Do’Urden and look out over the magical lights of Menzoberranzan. On all of those secret journeys, I found myself entranced by the growing, and then dissipating, heatlight of Narbondel, the timeclock pillar. Looking back on that now, on those long hours watching the glow of the wizard’s fire slowly walk its way up and then down the pillar I am amazed at the emptiness of my early days. I clearly remember my excitement, tingling excitement, each time I got out of the house and set myself into position to observe the pillar. Such a simple thing it was, yet so fulfilling compared to the rest of my existence.

Whenever I hear the crack of a whip, another memory―more a sensation than a memory actually―sends a shiver through my spine. The shocking jolt and the ensuing numbness from those snakeheaded weapons is not something that any person would soon forget. They bite under your skin, sending waves of magical energy through your body, waves that make your muscles snap and pull beyond their limits. Yet I was luckier than most. My sister Vierna was near to becoming a high priestess when she was assigned the task of rearing me and was at a period of her life where she possessed far more energy than such a job required. Perhaps, then, there was more to those first ten years under her care than I now recall. Vierna never showed the intense wickedness of our mother, or more particularly of our oldest sister Briza. Perhaps there were good times in the solitude of the house chapel it is possible that Vierna allowed a more gentle side of herself to show through to her baby brother. Maybe not. Even though I count Vierna as the kindest of my sisters, her words drip in the venom of Lolth as surely as those of any cleric in Menzoberranzan. It seems unlikely that she would risk her aspirations toward high priestesshood for the sake of a mere child, a mere male child.

Whether there were indeed joys in those years, obscured in the unrelenting assault of Menzoberranzan’s wickedness, or whether that earliest period of my life was even more painful than the years that followed―so painful that my mind hides the memories―I cannot be certain. For all my efforts, I cannot remember them.

I have more insight into the next six years, but the most prominent recollection of the days I spent serving the court of Matron Malice―aside from the secret trips outside the house―is the image of my own feet.

A page prince is never allowed to raise his gaze.

Drizzt Do’Urden

Chapter 6 ‘Two-Hands’

Drizzt promptly answered the call to his matron mother’s side, not needing the whip Briza used to hurry him along. How often he had felt the sting of that dreaded weapon! Drizzt held no thoughts of revenge against his vicious oldest sister. With all of the conditioning he had received, he feared the consequences of striking her―or any female―far too much to entertain such notions.

"Do you know what this day marks?" Malice asked him as he arrived at the side of her great throne in the chapel’s darkened anteroom.

"No, Matron Mother." Drizzt answered, unconsciously keeping his gaze on his toes. A resigned sigh rose in his throat as he noticed the unending view of his own feet. There had to be more to life than blank stone and ten wiggling toes, he thought.

He slipped one foot out of his low boot and began doodling on the stone floor. Body heat left discernable tracings in the infrared spectrum, and Drizzt was quick and agile enough to complete simple drawings before the initial lines had cooled.

"Sixteen years." Matron Malice said to him. "You have breathed the air of Menzoberranzan for sixteen years. An important period of your life has passed."

Drizzt did not react, did not see any importance or significance to the declaration. His life was an unending and unchanging routine. One day, sixteen years, what difference did it make? If his mother considered important the thing he had been put through since his earliest recollections, Drizzt shuddered to think of what the next decades might hold.

He had nearly completed his picture of a round-shouldered drow―Briza―being bitten on the behind by an enormous viper.

"Look at me." Matron Malice commanded.

Drizzt felt at a loss. His natural tendency once had been to look upon a person with whom he was talking, but Briza had wasted no time in beating that instinct out of him. The place of a page prince was servitude, and the only eyes a page prince’s were worthy of meeting were those of the creatures that scurried across the stone floor―except the eyes of a spider, of course Drizzt had to avert his gaze whenever one of the eight-legged things crawled into his vision. Spiders were too good for the likes of a page prince.

"Look at me." Malice said again, her tone hinting at volatile impatience. Drizzt had witnessed the explosions before, a wrath so incredibly vile that it swept aside anything and everything in its path. Even Briza, so pompous and cruel, ran for hiding when the matron mother grew angry.

Drizzt forced his gaze up tentatively, scanning his mother’s black robes, using the familiar spider pattern along the garment’s back and sides to judge the angle of his gaze. He fully expected, as every inch passed, a smack on his head, or a lashing on his back, Briza was behind him, always with her snake-headed whip near her anxious hand.

Then he saw her, the mighty Matron Malice Do’Urden, her heat-sensing eyes flashing red and her face cool, not flushed with angry heat. Drizzt kept tense, still expecting a punishing blow.

"Your tenure as page prince is ended." Malice explained. "You are secondboy of House Do’Urden now and are accorded all the…"

Drizzt’s gaze unconsciously slipped back to the floor.

"Look at me!" his mother screamed in sudden rage.

Terrified, Drizzt snapped his gaze back to her face, which now was glowing a hot red. On the edge of his vision he saw the wavering heat of Malice’s swinging hand, though he was not foolish enough to try to dodge the blow. He was on the floor then, the side of his face bruised.

Even in the fall, though, Drizzt was alert and wise enough to keep his gaze locked on to that of Matron Malice.

"No more a servant!" the matron mother roared. "To continue acting like one would bring disgrace to our family." She grabbed Drizzt by the throat and dragged him roughly to his feet.

"If you dishonor House Do’Urden," she promised, her face an inch from his, "I will put needles into your purple eyes."

Drizzt didn’t blink. In the six years since Vierna had relinquished care of him, putting him into general servitude to all the family, he had come to know Matron Malice well enough to understand all of the subtle connotations of her threats. She was his mother―for whatever that was worth―but Drizzt did not doubt that she would enjoy sticking needles in his eyes.

"This one is different." Vierna said, "in more than the shade of his eyes."

"In what way, then?" Zaknafein asked, trying to keep his curiosity at a professional level. Zak had always liked Vierna better than the others, but she recently had been ordained a high priestess, and had since become too eager for her own good.

Vierna slowed the pace of her gait; the door to the chapel’s antechamber was in sight now. "It is hard to say," she admitted. "Drizzt is as intelligent as any male child I have ever known, he could levitate by the age of five. Yet, after he became the page prince, it took weeks of punishment to teach him the duty of keeping his gaze to the floor, as if such a simple act ran unnaturally counter to his constitution."

Zaknafein paused and let Vierna move ahead of him. "Unnatural?" he whispered under his breath, considering the implications of Vierna’s observations. Unusual, perhaps, for a drow, but exactly what Zaknafein would expect―and hope for―from a child of his loins.

He moved behind Vierna into the lightless anteroom. Malice, as always, sat in her throne at the head of the spider idol, but all the other chairs in the room had been moved to the walls, even though the entire family was present. This was to be a formal meeting, Zak realized, for only the matron mother was accorded the comfort of a seat.

"Matron Malice," Vierna began in her most reverent voice, "I present to you Zaknafein, as you requested."

Zak moved up beside Vierna and exchanged nods with Malice, but he was more intent on the youngest Do’Urden, standing naked to the waist at the matron mother’s side.

Malice held up one hand to silence the others, then motioned for Briza, holding a house piwafwi, to continue.

An expression of elation brightened Drizzt’s childish face as Briza, chanting through the appropriate incantations, placed the magical cloak, black and shot with streaks of purple and red, over his shoulders.

"Greetings, Zaknafein Do’Urden." Drizzt said heartily, drawing stunned looks from all in the room. Matron Malice had not granted him privilege to speak he hadn’t even asked her permission!

"I am Drizzt, secondboy of House Do’Urden, no more the page prince. I can look at you now, I mean at your eyes and not your boots. Mother told me so." Drizzt’s smile disappeared when he looked up at the burning scowl of Matron Malice.

Vierna stood as if turned to stone, her jaw hanging open and her eyes wide in disbelief.

Zak, too, was amazed, but in a different manner. He brought a hand up to pinch his lips together, to prevent them from spreading into a smile that would have inevitably erupted into belly-shaking laughter. Zak couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the matron mother’s face so very bright!

Briza, in her customary position behind Malice, fumbled with her whip, too confounded by her young brother’s actions to even know what in the Nine Hells she should do.

That was a first, Zak knew, for Malice’s eldest daughter rarely hesitated when punishment was in order.

At the matron’s side, but now prudently a step farther away, Drizzt quieted and stood perfectly still, biting down on his bottom lip. Zak could see, though, that the smile remained in the young drow’s eyes. Drizzt’s informality and disrespect of station had been more than an unconscious slip of the tongue and more than the innocence of inexperience.

The weapon master took a long step forward to deflect the matron mother’s attention from Drizzt. "Secondboy?" he asked, sounding impressed both for the sake of Drizzt’s swelling pride and to placate and distract Malice. "Then it is time for you to train."

Malice let her anger slip away, a rare event. "Only the basics at your hand, Zaknafein. If Drizzt is to replace Nalfein, his place at the Academy will be in Sorcere. Thus the bulk of his preparation will fall upon Rizzen and his knowledge, limited though it may be, of the magical arts."

"Are you so certain that wizardry is his lot, Matron?" Zak was quick to ask.

"He appears intelligent." Malice replied. She shot an angry glare at Drizzt. "At least, some of the time. Vierna reported great progress with his command of the innate powers. Our house needs a new wizard." Malice snarled reflexively, reminded of Matron Baenre’s pride in her wizard son, the Archmage of the city. It had been sixteen years since Malice’s meeting with the First Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan, but she had never forgotten even the tiniest detail of that encounter. "Sorcere seems the natural course."

Zak took a flat coin from his neck-purse, flipped it into a spin, and snatched it out of the air. "Might we see?" he asked.

"As you will." Malice agreed, not surprised at Zak’s desire to prove her wrong. Zak placed little value in wizardry, preferring the hilt of a blade to the crystal rod component of a lightning bolt.

Zak moved to stand before Drizzt and handed him the coin. "Flip it."

Drizzt shrugged, wondering what this vague conversation between his mother and the weapon master was all about. Until now, he had heard nothing of any future profession being planned for him or of this place called Sorcere. With a consenting shrug of his shoulders, he slid the coin onto his curled index finger and snapped it into the air with his thumb, easily catching it. He then held it back out to Zak and gave the weapon master a confused look, as if to ask what was so important about such an easy task.

Instead of taking the coin, the weapon master pulled another from his neck-purse. "Try both hands." he said to Drizzt, handing it to him.

Drizzt shrugged again, and in one easy motion, put the coins up and caught them.

Zak turned an eye on Matron Malice. Any drow could have performed that feat, but the ease with which this one executed the catch was a pleasure to observe. Keeping a sly eye on the matron, Zak produced two more coins. "Stack two on each hand and send all four up together." he instructed Drizzt.

Four coins went up. Four coins were caught. The only parts of Drizzt’s body that had even flinched were his arms.

"Two-hands." Zak said to Malice. "This one is a fighter. He belongs in Melee-Magthere."

"I have seen wizards perform such feats." Malice retorted, not pleased by the look of satisfaction on the troublesome weapon master’s face. Zak once had been Malice’s proclaimed husband, and quite often since that distant time she took him as her lover. His skills and agility were not confined to the use of weapons. But along with the pleasures that Zaknafein gave to Malice, sensual skills that had prompted Malice to spare Zak’s life on more than a dozen occasions, came a multitude of headaches. He was the finest weapon master in Menzoberranzan, another fact that Malice could not ignore, but his disdain, even contempt, for the Spider Queen had often landed House Do’Urden into trouble.

Zak handed two more coins to Drizzt. Now enjoying the game, Drizzt put them into motion. Six went up. Six came down, the correct three landing in each hand. "Two-hands." Zak said more emphatically. Matron Malice motioned for him to continue, unable to deny the grace of her youngest son’s display.

"Could you do it again?" Zak asked Drizzt.

With each hand working independently, Drizzt soon had the coins stacked atop his index fingers, ready to flip. Zak stopped him there and pulled out four more coins, building each of the piles five high. Zak paused a moment to study the concentration of the young drow (and also to keep his hands over the coins and ensure that they were brightened enough by the warmth of his body heat for Drizzt to properly see them in their flight).

"Catch them all, Secondboy." he said in all seriousness. "Catch them all, or you will land in Sorcere, the school of magic. That is not where you belong!"

Drizzt still had only a vague idea of what Zak was talking about, but he could tell from the weapon master’s intensity that it must be important. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then snapped the coins up. He sorted their glow quickly, discerning each individual item. The first two fell easily into his hands, but Drizzt saw that the scattering pattern of the rest would not drop them so readily in line.

Drizzt exploded into action, spinning a complete circle, his hands an undecipherable blur of motion. Then he straightened suddenly and stood before Zak. His hands were in fists at his sides and a grim look lay on his face.

Zak and Matron Malice exchanged glances, neither quite sure of what had happened.

Drizzt held his fists out to Zak and slowly opened them, a confident smile widening across his childish face. Five coins in each hand.

Zak blew a silent whistle. It had taken him, the weapon master of the house, a dozen tries to complete that maneuver with ten coins. He walked over to Matron Malice.

"Two-hands." he said a third time. "He is a fighter, and I am out of coins."

"How many could he do?" Malice breathed, obviously impressed in spite of herself.

"How many could we stack?" Zaknafein shot back with a triumphant smile.

Matron Malice chuckled out loud and shook her head. She had wanted Drizzt to replace Nalfein as the house wizard, but her stubborn weapon master had, as always, deflected her course. "Very well, Zaknafein." she said, admitting her defeat. "The secondboy is a fighter."

Zak nodded and started back to Drizzt.

"Perhaps one day soon to be the weapon master of House Do’Urden." Matron Malice added to Zak’s back. Her sarcasm stopped Zak short, and he eyed her over his shoulder.

"With this one." Matron Malice continued wryly, wrenching back the upper hand with her usual lack of shame, "could we expect anything less?"

Rizzen, the present patron of the family shifted uncomfortably. He knew, and so did everyone ―even the slaves of House Do’Urden―that Drizzt was not his child.

"Three rooms?" Drizzt asked when he and Zak entered the large training hall at the southernmost end of the Do’Urden complex. Balls of multicolored magical light had been spaced along the length of the high-ceilinged stone room, basking the entirety in a comfortably dim glow. The hall had only three doors: one to the east, which led to an outer chamber that opened onto the balcony of the house, one directly across from Drizzt, on the south wall, leading into the last room in the house and the one from the main hallway that they had just passed through. Drizzt knew from the many locks Zak was now fastening behind them that he wouldn’t often be going back that way.

"One room." Zak corrected.

"But two more doors." Drizzt reasoned, looking out across the room. "With no locks."

"Ah," Zak corrected, "their locks are made of common sense." Drizzt was beginning to get the picture. "That door," Zak continued, pointing to the south, "opens into my private chambers. You do not ever want me to find you in there. The other one leads to the tactics room reserved for times of war. When―if―you ever prove yourself to my satisfaction, I might invite you to join me there. That day is years away, so consider this single magnificent hall," he swept his arm out in a wide arc, "your home."

Drizzt looked around, not overly thrilled. He had dared to hope that he had left this kind of treatment behind him with his page prince days. This setup, though, brought him back even to before his six years of servitude in the house, back to that decade when he had been locked away in the family chapel with Vierna. This room wasn’t even as large as the chapel, and was too tight for the likings of the spirited young drow. His next question came out as a growl.

"Where do I sleep?"

"Your home." Zak answered matter-of-factly.

"Where do I take meals?"

"Your home."

Drizzt’s eyes narrowed to slits and his face flushed in glowing heat. "Where do I…" he began stubbornly, determined to foil the weapon master’s logic.

"Your home." Zak replied in the same measured and weighted timbre before Drizzt could finish the thought. Drizzt planted his feet firmly and crossed his arms over his chest. "It sounds messy." he growled.

"It had better not be." Zak growled back.

"Then what is the purpose?" Drizzt began. "You pull me away from my mother…"

"You will address her as Matron Malice." Zak warned. "You will always address her as Matron Malice."

"From my mother…"

Zak’s next interruption came not with words but with the swing of a curled fist.

Drizzt awoke about twenty minutes later.

"First lesson." Zak explained, casually leaning against the wall a few feet away. "For your own good. You will always address her as Matron Malice."

Drizzt rolled to his side and tried to prop himself up on his elbow but found his head reeling as soon as it left the black-rugged floor. Zak grabbed him and hoisted him up.

"Not as easy as catching coins." the weapon master remarked.

"What?"

"Parrying a blow."

"What blow?"

"Just agree, you stubborn child."

"Secondboy!" Drizzt corrected, his voice again a growl and his arms defiantly back over his chest.

Zak’s fist curled at his side, a not too subtle point that Drizzt did not miss. "Do you need another nap?" the weapon master asked calmly.

"Secondboys can be children." Drizzt wisely conceded.

Zak shook his head in disbelief. This was going to be interesting. "You may find your time here enjoyable," he said, leading Drizzt over to a long, thick, and colorfully (though most of the colors were somber) decorated curtain. "But only if you can learn some control over that wagging tongue of yours." A sharp tug sent the curtain floating down, revealing the most magnificent weapons rack the young drow (and many older drow as well) had ever seen. Polearms of many sorts, swords, axes, hammers, and every other kind of weapon Drizzt could imagine―and a whole bunch he’d never imagine―sat in an elaborate array.

"Examine them." Zak told him. "Take your time and your pleasure. Learn which ones sit best in your hands, follow most obediently the commands of your will. By the time we have finished, you will know everyone of them as a trusted companion."

Wide-eyed, Drizzt wandered along the rack, viewing the whole place and the potential of the whole experience in a completely different light. For his entire young life, sixteen years, his greatest enemy had been boredom. Now, it appeared, Drizzt had found weapons to fight that enemy.

Zak headed for the door to his private chamber, thinking it better that Drizzt be alone in those first awkward moments of handling new weapons.

The weapon master stopped, though, when he reached his door and looked back to the young Do’Urden. Drizzt swung a long and heavy halberd, a polearm more than twice his height, in a slow arc. For all of Drizzt’s attempts to keep the weapon under control, its momentum spun his tiny frame right to the ground.

Zak heard himself chuckle, but his laughter only reminded him of the grim reality of his duty. He would train Drizzt, as he had trained a thousand young dark elves before him, to be a warrior, preparing him for the trials of the Academy and life in dangerous Menzoberranzan. He would train Drizzt to be a killer.

"How against this one’s nature that mantle seemed!" thought Zak. Smiles came too easily to Drizzt, the thought of him running a sword through the heart of another living being revolted Zaknafein. That was the way of the drow, though, a way that Zak had been unable to resist for all of his four centuries of life. Pulling his stare from the spectacle of Drizzt at play, Zak moved into his chamber and shut the door.

"Are they all like that?" he asked into his nearly empty room. "Do all drow children possess such innocence, such simple, untainted smiles that cannot survive the ugliness of our world?" Zak started for the small desk to the side of the room, meaning to lift the darkening shade off the continually glowing ceramic globe that served as the chamber’s light source. He changed his mind as that image of Drizzt’s delight with the weapons refused to diminish, and he headed instead for the large bed across from the door.

"Or are you unique, Drizzt Do’Urden?" he continued as he fell onto the cushioned bed. "And if you are so different, what, then, is the cause? The blood, my blood, that courses through your veins? Or the years you spent with your wean-mother?"

Zak threw an arm across his eyes and considered the many questions. Drizzt was different from the norm, he decided at length, but he didn’t know whether he should thank Vierna or himself.

After a while, sleep took him. But it brought the weapon master little comfort. A familiar dream visited him a vivid memory that would never fade.

Zaknafein heard again the screams of the children of House DeVir as the Do’Urden soldiers―soldiers he himself had trained―slashed at them.

"This one is different!" Zak cried, leaping up from his bed.

He wiped the cold sweat from his face.

"This one is different." He had to believe that.

Chapter 7 Dark Secrets

"Do you truly mean to try?" Masoj asked, his voice condescending and filled with disbelief.

Alton turned his hideous glare on the student.

"Direct your anger elsewhere, Faceless One." Masoj said, averting his gaze from his mentor’s scarred visage. "I am not the cause of your frustration. The question was valid."

"For more than a decade, you have been a student of the magical arts." Alton replied. "Still you fear to explore the nether world at the side of a master of Sorcere."

"I would have no fear beside a true master." Masoj dared to whisper.

Alton ignored the comment, as he had with so many others he had accepted from the apprenticing Hun’ett over the last sixteen years. Masoj was Alton’s only tie to the outside world, and while Masoj had a powerful family, Alton had only Masoj.

They moved through the door into the uppermost chamber of Alton’s four-room complex. A single candle burned there, its light diminished by an abundance of dark-colored tapestries and the black hue of the room’s stone and rugs. Alton slid onto his stool at the back of the small, circular table, and placed a heavy book down before him.

"It is a spell better left for clerics." Masoj protested, sitting down across from the faceless master. "Wizards command the lower planes, the dead are for the clerics alone."

Alton looked around curiously then turned a frown up at Masoj, the master’s grotesque features enhanced by the dancing candlelight. "It seems that I have no cleric at my call," the Faceless One explained sarcastically. "Would you rather I try for another denizen of the Nine Hells?"

Masoj rocked back in his chair and shook his head helplessly and emphatically. Alton had a point. A year before, the Faceless One had sought answers to his questions by enlisting the aid of an ice devil. The volatile thing froze the room until it shone black in the infrared spectrum and smashed a matron mother’s treasure horde worth of alchemical equipment. If Masoj hadn’t summoned his magical cat to distract the ice devil, neither he nor Alton would have gotten out of the room alive.

"Very well, then." Masoj said unconvincingly, crossing his arms in front of him on the table. "Conjure your spirit and find your answers."

Alton did not miss the involuntary shudder belied by the ripple in Masoj’s robes. He glared at the student for a moment, then went back to his preparations.

As Alton neared the time of casting Masoj’s hand instinctively went into his pocket, to the onyx figurine of the hunting cat he had acquired on the day Alton had assumed the Faceless One’s identity. The little statue was enchanted with a powerful dweomer that enabled its possessor to summon a mighty panther to his side. Masoj had used the cat sparingly, not yet fully understanding the dweomer’s limitations and potential dangers. "Only in times of need." Masoj reminded himself quietly when he felt the item in his hand. Why was it that those times kept occurring when he was with Alton? the apprentice wondered.

Despite his bravado, this time Alton privately shared Masoj’s trepidation. Spirits of the dead were not as destructive as denizens of the lower planes, but they could be equally cruel and subtler in their torments.

Alton needed his answer, though. For more than a decade and a half he had sought his information through conventional channels, enquiring of masters and students―in a roundabout manner, of course―of the details concerning the fall of House DeVir. Many knew the rumors of that eventful night; some even detailed the battle methods used by the victorious house.

None, though, would name that perpetrating house. In Menzoberranzan, one did not utter anything resembling an accusation, even if the belief was commonly shared, without enough undeniable proof to spur the ruling council into a unified action against the accused. If a house botched a raid and was discovered, the wrath of all Menzoberranzan would descend upon it until the family name had been extinguished. But in the case of a successfully executed attack, such as the one that felled House DeVir, an accuser was the one most likely to wind up at the wrong end of a snakeheaded whip.

Public embarrassment, perhaps more than any guidelines of honor, turned the wheels of justice in the city of drow.

Alton now sought other means for the solution to his quest. First he had tried the lower planes, the ice devil, to disastrous effect. Now Alton had in his possession an item that could end his frustrations: a tome penned by a wizard of the surface world. In the drow hierarchy, only the clerics of Lolth dealt with the realm of the dead, but in other societies, wizards also dabbled into the spirit world. Alton had found the book in the library of Sorcere and had managed to translate enough of it, he believed, to make a spiritual contact.

He wrung his hands together, gingerly opened the book to the marked page, and scanned the incantation one final time. "Are you ready?" he asked Masoj.

"No."

Alton ignored the student’s unending sarcasm and placed his hands flat on the table. He slowly sunk into his deepest meditative trance.

"Fey innad…" He paused and cleared his throat at the slip. Masoj, though he hadn’t closely examined the spell, recognized the mistake. "Fey innunad demin…" Another pause.

"Lolth be with us." Masoj groaned under his breath.

Alton’s eyes popped wide, and he glared at the student. "A translation." he growled. "From the strange language of a human wizard!"

"Gibberish." Masoj retorted.

"I have in front of me the private spellbook of a wizard from the surface world." Alton said evenly. "An archmage, according to the scribbling of the orcan thief who stole it and sold it to our agents." He composed himself again and shook his hairless head, trying to return to the depths of his trance.

"A simple, stupid orc managed to steal a spellbook from an archmage." Masoj whispered rhetorically, letting the absurdity of the statement speak for itself.

"The wizard was dead!" Alton roared. "The book is authentic!"

"Who translated it?" Masoj replied calmly. Alton refused to listen to any more arguments. Ignoring the smug look on Masoj’s face, he began again.

"Fey innunad demill desu dekef."

Masoj faded out and tried to rehearse a lesson from one of his classes, hoping that his sobs of laughter wouldn’t disturb Alton. He didn’t believe for a moment that Alton’s attempt would prove successful, but he didn’t want to screw up the fool’s line of babbling again and have to suffer through the ridiculous incantation all the way from the beginning still another time.

A short time later, when Masoj heard Alton’s excited whisper, "Matron Ginafae?" he quickly focused his attention back on the events at hand.

Sure enough, an unusual ball of green-hued smoke appeared over the candle’s flame and gradually took a more definite shape.

"Matron Ginafae!" Alton gasped again when the summon was complete. Hovering before him was the unmistakable image of his dead mother’s face.

The spirit scanned the room, confused. "Who are you?" it asked at length.

"I am Alton. Alton DeVir, your son."

"Son?" the spirit asked.

"Your child."

"I remember no child so very ugly."

"A disguise." Alton replied quickly, looking back at Masoj and expecting a snicker. If Masoj had chided and doubted Alton before, he now showed only sincere respect. Smiling, Alton continued, "Just a disguise, that I might move about in the city and exact revenge upon our enemies!"

"What city?"

"Menzoberranzan, of course."

Still the spirit seemed not to understand.

"You are Ginafae?" Alton pressed. "Matron Ginafae DeVir?"

The spirit’s features contorted into a twisted scowl as it considered the question. "I was… I think."

"Matron Mother of House DeVir, Fourth House of Menzoberranzan." Alton prompted, growing more excited. "High priestess of Lolth."

The mention of the Spider Queen sent a spark through the spirit. "Oh, no!" it balked. Ginafae remembered now.

"You should not have done this, my ugly son!"

"It is just a disguise." Alton interrupted.

"I must leave you." Ginafae’s spirit continued, glancing around nervously. "You must release me!"

"But I need some information from you, Matron Ginafae."

"Do not call me that!" the spirit shrieked. "You do not understand! I am not in Lolth’s favor…"

"Trouble." whispered Masoj offhandedly, hardly surprised.

"Just one answer!" Alton demanded, refusing to let another opportunity to learn his enemies identities slip past him.

"Quickly!" the spirit shrieked.

"Name the house that destroyed DeVir."

"The house?" Ginafae pondered. "Yes, I remember that evil night. It was House…"

The ball of smoke puffed and bent out of shape, twisting Ginafae’s image and sending her next words out as an undecipherable blurb.

Alton leaped to his feet. "No!" he screamed. "You must tell me! Who are my enemies?"

"Would you count me as one?" the spirit image said in a voice very different from the one it had used earlier, a tone of sheer power that stole the blood from Alton’s face. The image twisted and transformed, became something ugly, uglier than Alton. Hideous beyond all experience on the Material Plane.

Alton was not a cleric, of course, and he had never studied the drow religion beyond the basic tenets taught to males of the race. He knew the creature now hovering in the air before him, though, for it appeared as an oozing, slimy stick of melted wax: a yochlol, a handmaiden of Lolth.

"You dare to disturb the torment of Ginafae?" the yochlol snarled.

"Damn!" whispered Masoj, sliding slowly down under the black tablecloth. Even he, with all of his doubts of Alton, had not expected his disfigured mentor to land them in trouble this serious.

"But…" Alton stuttered.

"Never again disturb this plane, feeble wizard!" the yochlol roared.

"I did not try for the Abyss." Alton protested meekly. "I only meant to speak with…"

"With Ginafae!" the yochlol snarled. "Fallen priestess of Lolth. Where would you expect to find her spirit, foolish male? Frolicking in Olympus, with the false gods of the surface elves?"

"I did not think…"

"Do you ever?" the yochlol growled.

"Nope." Masoj answered silently, careful to keep himself as far out of the way as possible.

"Never again disturb this plane," the yochlol warned a final time. "The Spider Queen is not merciful and has no tolerance for meddling males!" The creature’s oozing face puffed and swelled, expanding beyond the limits of the smoky ball. Alton heard gurgling, gagging noises, and he stumbled back over his stool, putting his back flat against the wall and bringing his arms up defensively in front of his face.

The yochlol’s mouth opened impossibly wide and spewed forth a hail of small objects. They ricocheted off Alton and tapped against the wall all around him. Stones? the faceless wizard wondered in confusion. One of the objects then answered his unspoken question. It caught hold of Alton’s layered black robes and began crawling up toward his exposed neck. Spiders.

A wave of the eight-legged beasts rushed under the little table, sending Masoj tumbling out the other side in a desperate roll. He scrambled to his feet and turned back, to see Alton slapping and stomping wildly, trying to get out of the main host of the crawling things.

"Do not kill them!" Masoj screamed. "To kill spiders is forbidden by the…"

"To the Nine Hells with the clerics and their laws!" Alton shrieked back.

Masoj shrugged in helpless agreement, reached around under the folds of his own robes, and produced the same two-handed crossbow he had used to kill the Faceless One those years ago. He considered the powerful weapon and the tiny spiders scrambling around the room.

"Overkill?" he asked aloud. Hearing no answer, he shrugged again and fired.

The heavy bolt knifed across Alton’s shoulder, cutting a deep line. The wizard stared in disbelief, then turned an ugly grimace on Masoj.

"You had one on your shoulder" the student explained.

Alton’s scowl did not relent.

"Ungrateful?" Masoj snarled. "Foolish Alton, all of the spiders are on your side of the room. Remember?" Masoj turned to leave and called, "Good hunting" over his shoulder. He reached for the handle to the door, but as his long fingers closed around it, the portal’s surface transformed into the image of Matron Ginafae. She smiled widely, too widely, and an impossibly long and wet tongue reached out and licked Masoj across the face.

"Alton!" he cried, spinning back against the wall out of the slimy member’s reach. He noticed the wizard in the midst of spellcasting; Alton fighting to hold his concentration as a host of spiders continued their hungry ascent up his flowing robes.

"You are a dead one." Masoj commented matter-of-factly, shaking his head.

Alton fought through the exacting ritual of the spell, ignored his own revulsion of the crawling things, and forced the evocation to completion. In all of his years of study, Alton never would have believed he could do such a thing; he would have laughed at the mere mention of it. Now, however, it seemed a far preferable fate to the yochlol’s creeping doom.

He dropped a fireball at his own feet.

Naked and hairless, Masoj stumbled through the door and out of the inferno. The flaming faceless master came next, diving into a roll and stripping his tattered and burning robe from his back as he went.

As he watched Alton patting out the last of the flames, a pleasant memory flashed in Masoj’s mind, and he uttered the single lament that dominated his every thought at this disastrous moment.

"I should have killed him when I had him in the web."

A short time later, after Masoj had gone back to his room and his studies, Alton slipped on the ornamental metallic bracers that identified him as a master of the Academy and slipped outside the structure of Sorcere. He moved to the wide and sweeping stairway leading down from Tier Breche and sat down to take in the sights of Menzoberranzan.

Even with this view, though, the city did little to distract Alton from thoughts of his latest failure. For sixteen years he had forsaken all other dreams and ambitions in his desperate search to find the guilty house. For sixteen years he had failed.

He wondered how long he could keep up the charade, and his spirits. Masoj, his only friend―if Masoj could be called a friend―was more than halfway through his studies at Sorcere. What would Alton do when Masoj graduated and returned to House Hun’ett?

"Perhaps I shall carry on my toils for centuries to come," he said aloud, "only to be murdered by a desperate student, as I―as Masoj―murdered the Faceless One. Might that student disfigure himself and take my place?" Alton couldn’t stop the ironic chuckle that passed his lipless mouth at the notion of a perpetual "faceless master" of Sorcere. At what point would the Matron Mistress of the Academy get suspicious? A thousand years? Ten thousand? Or might the Faceless One outlive Menzoberranzan itself? Life as a master was not such a bad lot, Alton supposed. Many drow would sacrifice much to be given such an honor.

Alton dropped his face into the crook of his elbow and forced away such ridiculous thoughts. He was not a real master, nor did the stolen position bring him any measure of satisfaction. Perhaps Masoj should have shot him that day, sixteen years ago, when Alton was trapped in the Faceless One’s web.

Alton’s despair only deepened when he considered the actual time frame involved. He had just passed his seventieth birthday and was still young by drow standards. The notion that only a tenth of his life was behind him was not a comforting one to Alton DeVir this night.

"How long will I survive?" he asked himself. "How long until this madness that is my existence consumes me?" Alton looked back out over the city. "Better that the Faceless One had killed me." he whispered. "For now I am Alton of No House Worth Mentioning."

Masoj had dubbed him that on the first morning after House DeVir’s fall, but way back then, with his life teetering on the edge of a crossbow, Alton had not understood the title’s implications. Menzoberranzan was nothing more than a collection of individual houses. A rogue commoner might latch on to one of them to call his own, but a rogue noble wouldn’t likely be accepted by any house in the city. He was left with Sorcere and nothing more… until his true identity was discovered at last. What punishments would he then face for the crime of killing a master? Masoj may have committed the crime, but Masoj had a house to defend him. Alton was only a rogue noble.

He sat back on his elbows and watched the rising heatlight of Narbondel. As the minutes became hours, Alton’s despair and self-pity went through inevitable change. He turned his attention to the individual drow houses now, not to the conglomeration that bound them as a city, and he wondered what dark secrets each harbored. One of them, Alton reminded himself, held the secret he most dearly wanted to know. One of them had wiped out House DeVir.

Forgotten was the night’s failure with Matron Ginafae and the yochlol, forgotten was the lament for an early death. Sixteen years was not so long a time, Alton decided. He had perhaps seven centuries of life left within his slender frame. If he had to, Alton was prepared to spend every minute of those long years searching for the perpetrating house.

"Vengeance." he growled aloud, needing, feeding off, that audible reminder of his only reason for continuing to draw breath.

Chapter 8 Kindred

Zak pressed in with a series of low thrusts. Drizzt tried to back away quickly and return to even footing, but the relentless assault followed his every step, and he was forced to keep his movements solely on the defensive. More often than not, Drizzt found the hilts of his weapons closer to Zak than the blades.

Zak then dropped into a low crouch and came up under Drizzt’s defense.

Drizzt twirled his scimitars in a masterful cross, but he had to straighten stiffly to dodge the weapon master’s equally deft assault. Drizzt knew that he had been set up, and he fully expected the next attack as Zak shifted his weight to his back leg and dove in, both sword tips aimed for Drizzt’s loins.

Drizzt spat a silent curse and spun his scimitars into a downward cross, meaning to use the «V» of his blades to catch his teacher’s swords. On a sudden impulse, Drizzt hesitated as he intercepted Zak’s weapons, and he jumped away instead, taking a painful slap on the inside of one thigh. Disgusted, he threw both of his scimitars to the floor.

Zak, too, leaped back. He held his swords out to his sides, a look of sincere confusion on his face. "You should not have missed that move," he said bluntly.

"The parry is wrong." Drizzt replied.

Awaiting further explanation, Zak lowered one sword tip to the floor and leaned on the weapon. In past years, Zak had wounded, even killed, students for such blatant defiance.

"The crossdown defeats the attack, but to what gain?" Drizzt continued. "When the move is completed, my sword tips remain down too low for any effective attack routine, and you are able to slip back and free."

"But you have defeated my attack."

"Only to face another." Drizzt argued. "The best position I can hope to obtain from the crossdown is an even stance."

"Yes…" Zak prompted, not understanding his student’s problem with that scenario.

"Remember your own lesson!" Drizzt shouted. "Every move should bring an advantage, you preach to me, but I see no advantage in using the crossdown."

"You recite only one part of that lesson for your own purpose." Zak scolded; now growing equally angry. "Complete the phrase, or use it not at all! ‘Every move should bring an advantage or take away a disadvantage.’ The crossdown defeats the double thrust low, and your opponent obviously has gained the advantage if he even attempts such a daring offensive maneuver! Returning to an even stance is far preferable at that moment."

"The parry is wrong!" Drizzt said stubbornly.

"Pick up your blades." Zak growled at him, taking a threatening step forward. Drizzt hesitated and Zak charged, his swords leading.

Drizzt dropped to a crouch, snatched up the scimitars, and rose to meet the assault while wondering if it was another lesson or a true attack.

The weapon master pressed furiously, snapping off cut after cut and backing Drizzt around in circles. Drizzt defended well enough and began to notice an all-too-familiar pattern as Zak’s attacks came consistently lower, again forcing the hilts of Drizzt’s weapons up and out over the scimitars’ blades.

Drizzt understood that Zak meant to prove his point with actions, not words. Seeing the fury on Zak’s face, though, Drizzt wasn’t certain how far the weapon master would carry his point. If Zak proved correct in his observations, would he strike again to Drizzt’s thigh? Or to his heart? Zak came up and under and Drizzt stiffened and straightened.

"Double thrust low." the weapon master growled, and his swords dove in.

Drizzt was ready for him. He executed the crossdown, smiling smugly at the ring of metal as his scimitars crossed over the thrusting swords. Drizzt then followed through with only one of his blades, thinking he could deflect both of Zak’s swords well enough in that manner. Now with one blade free of the parry, Drizzt spun it over in a devious counter.

As soon as Drizzt reversed the one hand, Zak saw the ploy, a ruse he had suspected Drizzt would try. Zak dropped one of his own sword tips―the one nearest to the hilt of Drizzt’s single parrying blade―to the ground, and Drizzt, trying to maintain an even resistance and balance along the length of the blocking scimitar, lost his balance. Drizzt was quick enough to catch himself before he had stumbled too far, though his knuckles pinched into the stone of the floor. He still believed that he had Zak caught in his trap, and that he could finish his brilliant counter. He took a short step forward to regain his full balance.

The weapon master dropped straight down to the floor, under the arc of Drizzt’s swinging scimitar, and spun a single circuit, driving his booted heel into the back of Drizzt’s exposed knee. Before Drizzt had even realized the attack, he found himself lying flat on his back.

Zak abruptly broke his own momentum and threw his feet back under him. Before Drizzt could begin to understand the dizzying counter, he found the weapon master standing over him with the tip of Zak’s sword painfully and pointedly drawing a tiny drop of blood from his throat.

"Have you anything more to say?" Zak growled.

"The parry is wrong." Drizzt answered.

Zak’s laughter erupted from his belly. He threw his sword to the ground, reached down, and pulled the stubborn young student to his feet. He calmed quickly, his gaze finding that of Drizzt’s lavender orbs as he pushed the student out to arm’s length. Zak marveled at the ease of Drizzt’s stance, the way he held the twin scimitars almost as if they were a natural extension of his arms. Drizzt had been in training only a few months, but already he had mastered the use of nearly every weapon in the vast armory of House Do’Urden.

Those scimitars! Drizzt’s chosen weapons, with curving blades that enhanced the dizzying flow of the young fighter’s sweeping battle style. With those scimitars in hand, this young drow, barely more than a child, could outfight half the members of the Academy, and a shiver tingled through Zak’s spine when he pondered just how magnificent Drizzt would become after years of training.

It was not just the physical abilities and potential of Drizzt Do’Urden that made Zaknafein pause and take note, however. Zak had come to realize that Drizzt’s temperament was indeed different from that of the average drow, Drizzt possessed a spirit of innocence and lacked any maliciousness. Zak couldn’t help but feel proud when he looked upon Drizzt. In all manners, the young drow held to the same principles―morals so unusual in Menzoberranzan―as Zak.

Drizzt had recognized the connection as well, though he had no idea of how unique his and Zak’s shared perceptions were in the evil drow world. He realized that "Uncle Zak" was different from any of the other dark elves he had come to know; though that included only his own family and a few dozen of the house soldiers. Certainly Zak was much different from Briza, Drizzt’s oldest sister, with her zealous, almost blind, ambitions in the mysterious religion of Lolth. Certainly Zak was different from Matron Malice, Drizzt’s mother, who seemed never to say anything at all to Drizzt unless it was a command for service.

Zak was able to smile at situations that didn’t necessarily bring pain to anyone. He was the first drow Drizzt had met who was apparently content with his station in life. Zak was the first drow Drizzt had ever heard laugh.

"A good try." the weapon master conceded of Drizzt’s failed counter.

"In a real battle, I would have been dead." Drizzt replied.

"Surely," said Zak, "but that is why we train. Your plan was masterful, your timing perfect. Only the situation was wrong. Still, I will say it was a good try!’

"You expected it," said the student.

Zak smiled and nodded. "That is, perhaps, because I had seen the maneuver attempted by another student."

"Against you?" Drizzt asked, feeling a little less special now that he knew his battle insights were not so unique.

"Hardly." Zak replied with a wink. "I watched the counter fail from the same angle as you, to the same result." Drizzt’s face brightened again. "We think alike." he commented.

"We do," said Zak, "but my knowledge has been increased by four centuries of experience, while you have not even lived through a score of years. Trust me, my eager student. The crossdown is the correct parry."

"Perhaps." Drizzt replied.

Zak hid a smile. "When you find a better counter, we shall try it. But until then, trust my word. I have trained more soldiers than I can count, all the army of House Do’Urden and ten times that number when I served as a master in Melee-Magthere. I taught Rizzen, all of your sisters, and both of your brothers!"

"Both?"

"I…" Zak paused and shot a curious glance at Drizzt. "I see," he said after a moment. "They never bothered to tell you!" Zak wondered if it was his place to tell Drizzt the truth. He doubted that Matron Malice would care either way she probably hadn’t told Drizzt simply because she hadn’t considered the story of Nalfein’s death worth telling.

"Yes, both." Zak decided to explain. "You had two brothers when you were born, Dinin, whom you know, and an older one, Nalfein, a wizard of considerable power. Nalfein was killed in battle on the very night you drew your first breath!"

"Against dwarves or vicious gnomes?" Drizzt squeaked, as wide-eyed as a child begging for a frightening bedtime story. "Was he defending the city from evil conquerors or rogue monsters?"

Zak had a hard time reconciling the warped perceptions of Drizzt’s innocent beliefs. "Bury the young in lies." he lamented under his breath, but to Drizzt he answered, "No."

"Then against some opponent more foul?" Drizzt pressed. "Wicked elves from the surface?"

"He died at the hands of a drow!" Zak snapped in frustration, stealing the eagerness from Drizzt’s shining eyes. Drizzt slumped back to consider the possibilities, and Zak could hardly bear to watch the confusion that twisted his young face.

"War with another city?" Drizzt asked somberly. "I did not know…"

Zak let it go at that. He turned and moved silently toward his private chamber. Let Malice or one of her lackeys destroy Drizzt’s innocent logic. Behind him, Drizzt held his next line of questions in check, understanding that the conversation, and the lesson, was at an end. Understanding, too, that something important had just transpired.

The weapon master battled Drizzt through long hours as the days blended into weeks, and the weeks into months. Time became unimportant they fought until exhaustion overwhelmed them, and went back to the training floor again as soon as they were able.

By the third year, at the age of nineteen, Drizzt was able to hold out for hours against the weapon master, even taking the offensive in many of their contests.

Zak enjoyed these days. For the first time in many years, he had met one with the potential to become his fighting equal. For the first time that Zak could ever remember, laughter often accompanied the clash of adamantite weapons in the training room.

He watched Drizzt grow tall and straight, attentive, eager, and intelligent. The masters of the Academy would be hard put just to hold a stalemate against Drizzt, even in his first year!

That thought thrilled the weapon master only as long as it took him to remember the principles of the Academy, the precepts of drow life, and what they would do to his wonderful student. How they would steal that smile from Drizzt’s lavender eyes.

A pointed reminder of that drow world outside the practice room visited them one day in the person of Matron Malice.

"Address her with proper respect." Zak warned Drizzt when Maya announced the matron mother’s entrance. The weapon master prudently moved out a few steps to greet the head of House Do’Urden privately.

"My greetings, Matron." he said with a low bow. "To what do I owe the honor of your presence?"

Matron Malice laughed at him, seeing through his facade.

"So much time do you and my son spend in here" she said. "I came to witness the benefit to the boy."

"He is a fine fighter." Zak assured her.

"He will have to be." Malice muttered. "He goes to the Academy in only a year."

Zak narrowed his eyes at her doubting words and growled, "The Academy has never seen a finer swordsman."

The matron walked away from him to stand before Drizzt. "I doubt not your prowess with the blade," she said to Drizzt, though she shot a sly gaze back at Zak as she spoke the words. "You have the proper blood. There are other qualities that make up a drow warrior, qualities of the heart. The attitude of a warrior!"

Drizzt didn’t know how to respond to her. He had seen her only a few times in all of the last three years, and they had exchanged no words.

Zak saw the confusion on Drizzt’s face and feared that the boy would slip up, precisely what Matron Malice wanted. Then Malice would have an excuse to pull Drizzt out of Zak’s tutelage―dishonoring Zak in the process―and give him over to Dinin or some other passionless killer. Zak may have been the finest instructor with the blade, but now that Drizzt had learned the use of weapons, Malice wanted him emotionally hardened.

Zak couldn’t risk it; he valued his time with young Drizzt too much. He pulled his swords from their jeweled scabbards and charged right by Matron Malice, yelling, "Show her, young warrior!"

Drizzt’s eyes became burning flames at the approach of his wild instructor. His scimitars came into his hands as quickly as if he had willed them to appear.

It was a good thing they had! Zak came in on Drizzt with a fury that the young drow had never before seen, more so even than the time Zak had shown Drizzt the value of the cross-down parry. Sparks flew as sword rang against scimitar, and Drizzt found himself driven back, both of his arms already aching from the thudding force of the heavy blows.

"What are you…" Drizzt tried to ask.

"Show her." Zak growled, slamming in again and again. Drizzt barely dodged one cut that surely would have killed him. Still, confusion kept his moves purely defensive. Zak slapped one of Drizzt’s scimitars, then the other, out wide, and used an unexpected weapon, bringing his foot straight up in front of him and slamming his heel into Drizzt’s nose.

Drizzt heard the crackle of cartilage and felt the warmth of his own blood running freely down his face. He dove back into a roll, trying to keep a safe distance from his crazed opponent until he could realign his senses. From his knees he saw Zak a short distance away and approaching. "Show her!" Zak growled angrily with every determined step.

The purple flames of faerie fire limned Drizzt’s skin, making him an easier target. He responded the only way he could he dropped a globe of darkness over himself and Zak. Sensing the weapon master’s next move, Drizzt dropped to his belly and scrambled out, keeping his head low, a wise choice.

At his first realization of the darkness, Zak had quickly levitated up about ten feet and rolled right over, sweeping his blades down to Drizzt’s face level.

When Drizzt came clear of the other side of the darkened globe, he looked back and saw only the lower half of Zak’s legs. He didn’t need to watch anything more to understand the weapon master’s deadly blind attacks. Zak would have cut him apart if he had not dropped low in the blackness.

Anger replaced confusion. When Zak dropped from his magical perch and came rushing back out the front of the globe, Drizzt let his rage lead him back into the fight. He spun a pirouette just before he reached Zak, his lead scimitar cutting a gracefully arcing line and his other following in a deceptively sharp stab straight over that line.

Zak dodged the thrusting point and put a backhand block on the other.

Drizzt wasn’t finished. He set his thrusting blade into a series of short, wicked pokes that kept Zak on the retreat for a dozen steps and more, back into the conjured darkness. They now had to rely on their incredibly keen sense of hearing and their instincts. Zak finally managed to regain a foothold, but Drizzt immediately set his own feet into action, kicking away whenever the balance of his swinging blades allowed for it. One foot even slipped through Zak’s defenses, blasting the breath from the weapon master’s lungs.

They came back out the side of the globe, and Zak, too, glowed in the outline of faerie fire. The weapon master felt sickened by the hatred etched on his young student’s face, but he realized that this time, neither he nor Drizzt had been given a choice in the matter. This fight had to be ugly, had to be real. Gradually, Zak settled into an easy rhythm, solely defensive, and let Drizzt, in his explosive fury, wear himself down.

Drizzt played on and on, relentless and tireless. Zak coaxed him by letting him see openings where there were none, and Drizzt was always quick to oblige, launching a thrust, cut, or kick.

Matron Malice watched the spectacle silently. She couldn’t deny the measure of training Zak had given her son Drizzt was―physically―more than ready for battle.

Zak knew that, to Matron Malice, sheer skill with weapons might not be enough. Zak had to keep Malice from conversing with Drizzt for any length of time. She would not approve of her son’s attitudes.

Drizzt was tiring now, Zak could see, though he recognized the weariness in his student’s arms to be partly deception.

"Go with it." he muttered silently, and he suddenly «twisted» his ankle, his right arm flailing out wide and low as he struggled for balance, opening a hole in his defenses that Drizzt could not resist.

The expected thrust came in a flash, and Zak’s left arm streaked in a short cross-cut that slapped the scimitar right out of Drizzt’s hand.

"Ha!" Drizzt cried, having expected the move and launching his second ruse. His remaining scimitar knifed over Zak’s left shoulder, inevitably dipping in the follow-through of the parry.

But by the time Drizzt even launched the second blow, Zak was already down to his knees. As Drizzt’s blade cut harmlessly high, Zak sprang to his feet and launched a right cross, hilt first, that caught Drizzt squarely in the face. A stunned Drizzt leaped back a long step and stood perfectly still for a long moment. His remaining scimitar dropped to the ground, and his glossed eyes did not blink.

"A feint within a feint within a feint!" Zak calmly explained.

Drizzt slumped to the floor, unconscious. Matron Malice nodded her approval as Zak walked back over to her. "He is ready for the Academy." she remarked.

Zak’s face turned sour and he did not answer.

"Vierna is there already," Malice continued, "to teach as a mistress in Arach-Tinilith, the School of Lolth. It is a high honor."

A laurel for House Do’Urden, Zak knew, but he was smart enough to keep his thoughts silent.

"Dinin will leave soon," said the matron.

Zak was surprised. Two children serving as masters in the Academy at the same time? "You must have worked hard to get such accommodations." he dared to remark.

Matron Malice smiled. "Favors owed, favors called in."

"To what end?" asked Zak. "Protection for Drizzt?"

Malice laughed aloud. "From what I have just witnessed, Drizzt would more likely protect the other two!"

Zak bit his lip at the comment. Dinin was still twice the fighter and ten times the heartless killer as Drizzt. Zak knew that Malice had other motives.

"Three of the first eight houses will be represented by no fewer than four children in the Academy over the next two decades." Matron Malice admitted. "Matron Baenre’s own son will begin in the same class as Drizzt."

"So you have aspirations" Zak said. "How high, then, will House Do’Urden climb under the guidance of Matron Malice?"

"Sarcasm will cost you your tongue," the matron mother warned. "We would be fools to let slip by such an opportunity to learn more of our rivals!"

"The first eight houses." Zak mused. "Be cautious, Matron Malice. Do not forget to watch for rivals among the lesser houses. There once was a house named DeVir that made such a mistake."

"No attack will come from behind." Malice sneered. "We are the ninth house but boast more power than but a handful of others. None will strike at our backs there are easier targets higher up the line."

"And all to our gain." Zak put in.

"That is the point of it all, is it not?" Malice asked, her evil smile wide on her face.

Zak didn’t need to respond the matron knew his true feelings. That precisely was not the point.

"Speak less and your jaw will heal faster," Zak said later, when he again was alone with Drizzt.

Drizzt cast him a vile glance.

The weapon master shook his head. "We have become great friends," he said.

"So I had thought," mumbled Drizzt.

"Then think clearly," Zak scolded. "Do you believe that Matron Malice would approve of such a bonding between her weapon master and her youngest―her prized youngest―son? You are a drow, Drizzt Do'Urden, and of noble birth. You may have no friends!"

Drizzt straightened as if he had been slapped in the face.

"None openly, at least," Zak conceded, laying a comforting hand on the youngster's shoulder. "Friends equate to vulnerablity, inexcusable vulnerability. Matron Malice would never accept…" He paused, realizing that he was browbeating his student. "Well," he admitted in quiet conclusion, "at least we two know who we are."

Somehow, to Drizzt, that just didn't seem enough.

Chapter 9 Families

"Come quickly." Zak instructed Drizzt one evening after they had finished their sparring. By the urgency of the weapon master’s tone, and by the fact that Zak didn’t even pause to wait for Drizzt, Drizzt knew that something important was happening.

He finally caught up to Zak on the balcony of House Do’Urden, where Maya and Briza already stood.

"What is it?" Drizzt asked.

Zak pulled him close and pointed out across the great cavern, to the northeastern reaches of the city. Lights flashed and faded in sudden bursts, a pillar of fire rose into the air, then disappeared.

"A raid." Briza said offhandedly. "Minor houses, and of no concern to us."

Zak saw that Drizzt did not understand.

"One house has attacked another." he explained. "Revenge, perhaps, but most likely an attempt to climb to a higher rank in the city."

"The battle has been long," Briza remarked, "and still the lights flash."

Zak continued to clarify the event for the confused secondboy of the house. "The attackers should have blocked the battle within rings of darkness. Their inability to do so might indicate that the defending house was ready for the raid."

"All cannot be going well for the attackers." Maya agreed. Drizzt could hardly believe what he was hearing. Even more alarming than the news itself was the way his family talked about the event. They were so calm in their descriptions, as if this was an expected occurrence.

"The attackers must leave no witnesses," Zak explained to Drizzt, "else they will face the wrath of the ruling council."

"But we are witnesses." Drizzt reasoned.

"No." Zak replied. "We are onlookers, this battle is none of our affair. Only the nobles of the defending house are awarded the right to place accusations against their attackers."

"If any nobles are left alive," Briza added, obviously enjoying the drama.

At that moment, Drizzt wasn’t sure if he liked this new revelation. However he might have felt, he found that he could not tear his gaze from the continuing spectacle of drow battle. All the Do’Urden compound was astir now, soldiers and slaves running about in search of a better vantage point and shouting out descriptions of the action and rumors of the perpetrators.

This was drow society in all its macabre play, and while it seemed ultimately wrong in the heart of the youngest member of House Do’Urden, Drizzt could not deny the excitement of the night. Nor could Drizzt deny the expressions of obvious pleasure stamped upon the faces of the three who shared the balcony with him.

Alton made his way through his private chambers one final time, to make certain that any artifacts or tomes that might seem even the least bit sacrilegious were safely hidden. He was expecting a visit from a matron mother, a rare occasion for a master of the Academy not connected with Arach-Tinilith, the School of Lolth. Alton was more than a little anxious about the motives of this particular visitor, Matron SiNafay Hun’ett, head of the city’s fifth house and mother of Masoj, Alton’s partner in conspiracy.

A bang on the stone door of the outermost chamber in his complex told Alton that his guest had arrived. He straightened his robes and took yet another glance around the room. The door swung open before Alton could get there, and Matron SiNafay swept into the room. How easily she made the transformation―walking from the absolute dark of the outside corridor into the candlelight of Alton’s chamber―without so much as a flinch.

SiNafay was smaller than Alton had imagined diminutive even by the standards of the drow. She stood barely more than four feet high and weighed, by Alton’s estimation, no more than fifty pounds. She was a matron mother, though, and Alton reminded himself that she could strike him dead with a single spell.

Alton averted his gaze obediently and tried to convince himself that there was nothing unusual about this visit. He grew less at ease, however, when Masoj trotted in and to his mother’s side, a smug smile on his face.

"Greetings from House Hun’ett, Gelroos." Matron SiNafay said. "Seventy-five years and more it has been since we last talked."

"Gelroos?" Alton mumbled under his breath. He cleared his throat to cover his surprise. "My greetings to you, Matron SiNafay." he managed to stammer. "Has it been so very long?"

"You should come to the house," the matron said. "Your chambers remain empty."

My chambers? Alton began to feel very sick.

SiNafay did not miss the look. A scowl crossed her face and her eyes narrowed evilly.

Alton suspected that his secret was out. If the Faceless One had been a member of the Hun’ett family, how could Alton hope to fool the matron mother of the house? He scanned for the best escape route, or for some way he could at least kill the traitorous Masoj before SiNafay struck him down.

When he looked back toward Matron SiNafay, she had already begun a quiet spell. Her eyes popped wide at its completion, her suspicions confirmed.

"Who are you?" she asked, her voice sounding more curious than concerned.

There was no escape, no way to get at Masoj, standing prudently close to his powerful mother’s side.

"Who are you?" SiNafay asked again, taking a three-headed instrument from her belt, the dreaded snake-headed whip that injected the most painful and incapacitating poison known to drow.

"Alton." he stuttered, having no choice but to answer. He knew that since she now was on her guard, SiNafay would use simple magic to detect any lies he might concoct. "I am Alton DeVir."

"DeVir?" Matron SiNafay appeared at least intrigued. "Of the House DeVir that died some years ago?"

"I am the only survivor." Alton admitted.

"And you killed Gelroos―Gelroos Hun’ett―and took his place as master in Sorcere," the matron reasoned, her voice a snarl. Doom closed in all around Alton.

"I did not… I could not know his name… He would have killed me!" Alton stuttered.

"I killed Gelroos." came a voice from the side. SiNafay and Alton turned to Masoj, who once again held his favorite two-handed crossbow.

"With this." the young Hun’ett explained. "On the night House DeVir fell. I found my excuse in Gelroos’s battle with that one." He pointed to Alton.

"Gelroos was your brother." Matron SiNafay reminded Masoj.

"Damn his bones!" Masoj spat. "For four miserable years I served him, served him as if he were a matron mother! He would have kept me from Sorcere, would have forced me into the Melee-Magthere instead."

The matron looked from Masoj to Alton and back to her son. " And you let this one live." she reasoned, a smile again on her lips. "You killed your enemy and forged an alliance with a new master in a single move."

"As I was taught," Masoj said through clenched teeth, not knowing whether punishment or praise would follow.

"You were just a child." SiNafay remarked, suddenly realizing the timetable involved.

Masoj accepted the compliment silently. Alton watched it all anxiously. "Then what of me?" he cried. "Is my life forfeit?"

SiNafay turned a glare on him. "Your life as Alton DeVir ended, so it would seem, on the night House DeVir fell. Thus you remain the Faceless One, Gelroos Hun’ett. I can use your eyes in the Academy, to watch over my son and my enemies."

Alton could hardly breathe. To so suddenly find himself allied with one of the most powerful houses in Menzoberranzan! A jumble of possibilities and questions flooded his mind, one in particular, which had haunted him for nearly two decades.

His adopted matron mother recognized his excitement.

"Speak your thoughts." she commanded.

"You are a high priestess of Lolth." Alton said boldly, that one notion overpowering all caution. "It is within your power to grant me my fondest desire."

"You dare to ask a favor?" Matron SiNafay balked, though she saw the torment on Alton’s face and was intrigued by the apparent importance of this mystery. "Very well."

"What house destroyed my family?" Alton growled. "Ask the nether world, I beg, Matron SiNafay." SiNafay considered the question carefully, and the possibilities of Alton’s apparent thirst for vengeance. Another benefit of allowing this one into the family? SiNafay wondered.

"This is known to me already." she replied. "Perhaps when you have proven your value, I will tell…"

"No!" Alton cried. He stopped short; realizing that he had interrupted a matron mother, a crime that could invoke a punishment of death.

SiNafay held back her angry urges. "This question must be very important for you to act so foolishly," she said.

"Please" Alton begged. "I must know. Kill me if you will, but tell me first who it was."

SiNafay liked his courage, and his obsession could only prove of value to her. "House Do’Urden." she said.

"Do’Urden?" Alton echoed, hardly believing that a house so far back in the city hierarchy could have defeated House DeVir.

"You will take no actions against them," Matron SiNafay warned. "And I will forgive your insolence, this time. You are a son of House Hun’ett now remember always your place!" She let it stay at that, knowing that one who had been clever enough to carry out such a deception for the better part of two decades would not be foolish enough to disobey the matron mother of his house.

"Come Masoj," SiNafay said to her son, "let us leave this one alone so that he may consider his new identity."

"I must tell you, Matron SiNafay." Masoj dared to say as he and his mother made their way out of Sorcere, " Alton DeVir is a buffoon. He might bring harm to House Hun’ett."

"He survived the fall of his own house." SiNafay replied, "and has played through the ruse as the Faceless One for nineteen years. A buffoon? Perhaps, but a resourceful buffoon at the least."

Masoj unconsciously rubbed the area of his eyebrow that had never grown back. "I have suffered the antics of Alton DeVir for all these years." he said. "He does have a fair share of luck, I admit, and can get himself out of trouble―though he is usually the one who puts himself into it!"

"Do not fear." SiNafay laughed. "Alton brings value to our house."

"What can we hope to gain?"

"He is a master of the Academy." SiNafay replied. "He gives me eyes where I now need them." She stopped her son and turned him to face her so that he might understand the implications of her every word. "Alton DeVir’s claim against House Do’Urden may work in our favor. He was a noble of the house, with rights of accusation."

"You mean to use Alton DeVir’s charge to rally the great houses into punishing House Do’Urden?" Masoj asked.

"The great houses would hardly be willing to strike out for an incident that occurred almost twenty years ago." SiNafay replied. "House Do’Urden executed House DeVir’s destruction nearly to perfection―a clean kill. To so much as speak an open charge against the Do’Urdens now would be to invite the wrath of the great houses on ourselves."

"What good then is Alton DeVir?" Masoj asked. "His claim is useless to us."

The matron replied, "You are only a male and cannot understand the complexities of the ruling hierarchy. With Alton DeVir’s charge whispered into the proper ears, the ruling council might look the other way if a single house took revenge on Alton’s behalf."

"To what end?" Masoj remarked, not understanding the importance. "You would risk the losses of such a battle for the destruction of a lesser house?"

"So thought House DeVir of House Do’Urden." explained SiNafay. "In our world, we must be as concerned with the lower houses as with the higher ones. All of the greathouses would be wise now to watch closely the moves of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, the ninth house that is known as Do’Urden. It now has both a master and a mistress serving in the Academy and three high priestesses, with a fourth nearing the goal."

"Four high priestesses?" Masoj pondered. "In a single house." Only three of the top eight houses could claim more than that. Normally, sisters aspiring to such heights inspired rivalries that inevitably thinned the ranks.

"And the legions of House Do’Urden number more than three hundred fifty." SiNafay continued, "all of them trained by perhaps the finest weapon master in all the city."

"Zaknafein Do’Urden, of course!" Masoj recalled.

"You have heard of him?"

"His name is often spoken at the Academy, even in Sorcere."

"Good." SiNafay purred. "Then you will understand the full weight of the mission I have chosen for you." An eager light came into Masoj’s eyes.

"Another Do’Urden is soon to begin there." SiNafay explained. "Not a master, but a student. By the words of those few who have seen this boy, Drizzt, at training, he will be as fine a fighter as Zaknafein. We should not allow this."

"You want me to kill the boy?" Masoj asked eagerly.

"No." SiNafay replied, "not yet. I want you to learn of him, to understand the motivations of his every move. If the time to strike does come, you must be ready."

Masoj liked the devious assignment, but one thing still bothered him more than a little. "We still have Alton to consider," he said. "He is impatient and daring. What are the consequences to House Hun’ett if he strikes House Do’Urden before the proper time? Might we invoke open war in the city, with House Hun’ett viewed as the perpetrator?"

"Do not worry, my son." Matron SiNafay replied. "If Alton DeVir makes a grievous error while in the guise of Gelroos Hun’ett, we expose him as a murderous imposter and no member of our family. He will be an unhoused rogue with an executioner facing him from every direction."

Her casual explanation put Masoj at ease, but Matron SiNafay, so knowledgeable in the ways of drow society, had understood the risk she was taking from the moment she had accepted Alton DeVir into her house. Her plan seemed foolproof, and the possible gain―the elimination of this growing House Do’Urden―was a tempting piece of bait.

But the dangers, too, were very real. While it was perfectly acceptable for one house to covertly destroy another, the consequences of failure could not be ignored. Earlier that very night, a lesser house had struck out against a rival and, if the rumors held true, had failed. The illuminations of the next day would probably force the ruling council to enact a pretense of justice, to make an example of the unsuccessful attackers. In her long life, Matron SiNafay had witnessed this «justice» several times.

Not a single member of any of the aggressor houses―she was not even allowed to remember their names―had ever survived.

Zak awakened Drizzt early the next morning. "Come." he said. "We are bid to go out of the house this day."

All thoughts of sleep washed away from Drizzt at the news. "Outside the house?" he echoed. In all of his nineteen years, Drizzt had never once walked beyond the adamantite fence of the Do’Urden complex. He had only watched that outside world of Menzoberranzan from the balcony.

While Zak waited, Drizzt quickly collected his soft boots and his piwafwi. "Will there be no lesson this day?" Drizzt asked.

"We shall see." was all that Zak replied, but in his thoughts, the weapon master figured that Drizzt might be in for one of the most startling revelations of his life. A house had failed in a raid, and the ruling council had requested the presence of all the nobles of the city, to bear witness to the weight of justice.

Briza appeared in the corridor outside the practice room’s door. "Hurry." she scolded. "Matron Malice does not wish our house to be among the last groups joining the gathering!"

The matron mother herself, floating atop a blue-glowing disk―for matron mothers rarely walked through the city―led the procession out of House Do’Urden’s grand gate. Briza walked at her mother’s side, with Maya and Rizzen in the second rank and Drizzt and Zak taking up the rear. Vierna and Dinin, attending to the duties of their positions in the Academy, had gone to the ruling council’s summons with a different group.

All the city was astir this morning, rumbling in the rumors of the failed raid. Drizzt walked through the bustle wide-eyed, staring in wonderment at the close-up view of the decorated drow houses. Slaves of every inferior race―goblins, orcs, even giants―scrambled out of the way, recognizing Malice, riding her enchanted carriage, as a matron mother. Drow commoners halted conversations and remained respectfully silent as the noble family passed.

As they made their way toward the northwestern section, the location of the guilty house, they came into a lane blocked by a squabbling caravan of duergar, gray dwarves. A dozen carts had been overturned or locked together, apparently, two groups of duergar had come into the narrow lane together, neither relinquishing the right-of-way.

Briza pulled the snake-headed whip from her belt and chased off a few of the creatures, clearing the way for Malice to float up to the apparent leaders of the two groups. The dwarves turned on her angrily, until they realized her station.

"Beggin’ yer pardon, Madam." one of them stammered. "Unfortunate accident is all."

Malice eyed the contents of one of the nearest carts, crates of giant crab legs and other delicacies.

"You have slowed my journey." Malice said calmly.

"We have come to your city in hopes of trade." the other duergar explained. He cast an angry glare at his counterpart, and Malice understood that the two were rivals, probably bartering the same goods to the same drow house.

"I will forgive your insolence…" she offered graciously, still eyeing the crates.

The two duergar suspected what was forthcoming. So did Zak. "We eat well tonight." he whispered to Drizzt with a sly wink. "Matron Malice would not let such an opportunity slip by without gain."

"… if you can see your way to deliver half of these carts to the gate of House Do’Urden this night." Malice finished. The duergar started to protest but quickly dismissed the foolish notion. How they hated dealing with drow elves!

"You will be compensated appropriately." Malice continued. "House Do’Urden is not a poor house. Between both of your caravans, you will still have enough goods to satisfy the house you came to see."

Neither of the duergar could refute the simple logic, but under these trading circumstances, where they had offended a matron mother, they knew the compensation for their valuable foods would hardly be appropriate. Still, the gray dwarves could only accept it all as a risk of doing business in Menzoberranzan. They bowed politely and set their troops to clearing the way for the drow procession.

House Thken’duis, the unsuccessful raiders of the previous night, had barricaded themselves within their two stalagmite structure, fully expecting what was to come.

Outside their gates, all of the nobles of Menzoberranzan, more than a thousand drow, had gathered, with Matron Baenre and the other seven matron mothers of the ruling council at their head. More disastrous for the guilty house, the entirety of the three schools of the Academy, students and instructors, had surrounded the Thken’duis compound. Matron Malice led her group to the front line behind the ruling matrons. As she was matron of the ninth house, only one step from the council, other drow nobles readily stepped out of her way.

"House Thken’duis has angered the Spider Queen!" Matron Baenre proclaimed in a voice amplified by magical spells.

"Only because they failed." Zak whispered to Drizzt

Briza cast both males an angry glare.

Matron Baenre bade three young drow, two females and a male, to her side. "These are all that remain of House Freth." she explained. "Can you tell us, orphans of House Freth," she asked of them, "who it was that attacked your home?"

"House Thken’duis!" they shouted together.

"Rehearsed." Zak commented.

Briza turned around again. "Silence!" she whispered harshly.

Zak slapped Drizzt on the back of the head. "Yes." he agreed. "Do be quiet!"

Drizzt started to protest, but Briza had already turned away and Zak’s smile was too wide to argue against.

"Then it is the will of the ruling council," Matron Baenre was saying, "that House Thken’duis suffer the consequences of their actions!"

"What of the orphans of House Freth?" came a call from the crowd.

Matron Baenre stroked the head of the oldest female; a cleric recently finished in her studies at the Academy. "Nobles they were born, and nobles they remain." Baenre said.

"House Baenre accepts them into its protection they bear the name of Baenre now." Disgruntled whispers filtered through the gathering. Three young nobles, two of them female, was quite a prize. Any house in the city gladly would have taken them in.

"Baenre." Briza whispered to Malice. "Just what the first house needs, more clerics!"

"Sixteen high priestesses is not enough, it seems." Malice answered.

"And no doubt, Baenre will take any surviving soldiers of House Freth." Briza reasoned.

Malice was not so certain. Matron Baenre was walking a thin line by taking even the surviving nobles. If House Baenre got too powerful, Lolth surely would take exception.

In situations such as this, where a house had been almost eradicated, surviving common soldiers were normally pooled out to bidding houses. Malice would have to watch for such an auction. Soldiers did not come cheaply, but at this time, Malice would welcome the opportunity to add to her forces, particularly if there were any magic-users to be had.

Matron Baenre addressed the guilty house. "House Thken’duis!" she called. "You have broken our laws and have been rightfully caught. Fight if you will, but know that you have brought this doom upon yourself." With a wave of her hand, she set the Academy, the dispatcher of justice, into motion.

Great braziers had been placed in eight positions around House Thken’duis, attended by mistresses of Arach-Tinilith and the highest-ranking clerical students. Flames roared to life and shot into the air as the high priestesses opened gates to the lower planes. Drizzt watched closely, mesmerized and hoping to catch a glimpse of either Dinin or Vierna.

Denizens of the lower planes, huge, many-armed monsters, slime covered and spitting fire, stepped through the flames. Even the nearest high priestesses backed away from the grotesque horde. The creatures gladly accepted such servitude. When the signal from Matron Baenre came, they eagerly descended upon House Teken’duis.

Glyphs and wards exploded at every corner of the house’s feeble gate, but these were mere inconveniences to the summoned creatures.

The wizards and students of Sorcere then went into action, slamming at the top of House Teken’duis with conjured lightning bolts, balls of acid, and fireballs. Students and masters of Melee-Magthere, the school of fighters, rushed about with heavy crossbows, firing into windows where the doomed family might try to escape.

The horde of monsters bashed through the doors. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed.

Zak looked at Drizzt, and a frown replaced the master’s smile. Caught up in the excitement―and it certainly was exciting―Drizzt bore an expression of awe.

The first screams of the doomed family rolled out from the house, screams so terrible and agonized that they stole any macabre pleasure that Drizzt might have been experiencing. He grabbed Zak’s shoulder, spinning the weapon master to him, begging for an explanation.

One of the sons of House Teken’duis, fleeing a ten-armed giant monster, stepped out onto the balcony of a high window. A dozen crossbow quarrels struck him simultaneously, and before he even fell dead, three separate lightning bolts alternately lifted him from the balcony, then dropped him back onto it.

Scorched and mutilated, the drow corpse started to tumble from its high perch, but the grotesque monster reached out a huge, clawed hand from the window and pulled it back in to devour it.

"Drow justice." Zak said coldly. He didn’t offer Drizzt any consolation; he wanted the brutality of this moment to stick in the young drow’s mind for the rest of his life.

The siege went on for more than an hour, and when it was finished, when the denizens of the lower planes were dismissed through the braziers’ gates and the students and instructors of the Academy started their march back to Tier Breche, House Teken’duis was no more than a glowing lump of lifeless, molten stone.

Drizzt watched it all, horrified, but too afraid of the consequences to run away. He did not notice the artistry of Menzoberranzan on the return trip to House Do’Urden.

Chapter 10 The Stain of Blood

"Zaknafein is out of the house?" Malice asked.

"I sent him and Rizzen to the Academy to deliver a message to Vierna." Briza explained. "He shan’t return for many hours, not before the light of Narbondel begins its descent."

"That is good," said Malice. "You both understand your duties in this farce?"

Briza and Maya nodded. "I have never heard of such a deception." Maya remarked. "Is it necessary?"

"It was planned for another of the house." Briza answered, looking to Matron Malice for confirmation. "Nearly four centuries ago."

"Yes." agreed Malice. "The same was to be done to Zaknafein, but the unexpected death of Matron Vartha, my mother, disrupted the plans."

"That was when you became the matron mother," Maya said.

"Yes," replied Malice, "though I had not passed my first century of life and was still training in Arach-Tinilith. It was not a pleasant time in the history of House Do’Urden."

"But we survived." said Briza. "With the death of Matron Vartha, Nalfein and I became nobles of the house"

"The test on Zaknafein was never attempted." Maya reasoned.

"Too many other duties preceded it." Malice answered.

"We will try it on Drizzt, though." said Maya.

"The punishment of House Thken’duis convinced me that this action had to be taken." said Malice.

"Yes." Briza agreed. "Did you notice Drizzt’s expression throughout the execution?"

"I did." answered Maya. "He was revolted."

"Unfitting for a drow warrior," said Malice, "and so this duty is upon us. Drizzt will leave for the Academy in a short time, we must stain his hands with drow blood and steal his innocence."

"It seems a lot of trouble for a male child." Briza grumbled.

"If Drizzt cannot adhere to our ways, then why do we not simply give him to Lolth?"

"I will bear no more children!" Malice growled in response. "Every member of this family is important if we are to gain prominence in the city!" Secretly Malice hoped for another gain in converting Drizzt to the evil ways of the drow. She hated Zaknafein as much as she desired him, and turning Drizzt into a drow warrior, a true heartless drow warrior, would distress the weapon master greatly.

"On with it, then." Malice proclaimed. She clapped her hands, and a large chest walked in, supported by eight animated spider legs. Behind it came a nervous goblin slave.

"Come, Byuchyuch." Malice said in a comforting tone. Anxious to please, the slave bounded up before Malice’s throne and held perfectly still as the matron mother went through the incantation of a long and complicated spell.

Briza and Maya watched in admiration at their mother’s skills the little goblin’s features bulged and twisted, and its skin darkened. A few minutes later, the slave had assumed the appearance of a male drow. Byuchyuch looked at its features happily, not understanding that the transformation was merely a prelude to death.

"You are a drow soldier now." Maya said to it, "and my champion. You must kill only a single, inferior fighter to take your place as a free commoner of House Do’Urden!" After ten years as an indentured servant to the wicked dark elves, the goblin was more than eager.

Malice rose and started out of the anteroom. "Come." she ordered, and her two daughters, the goblin, and the animated chest fell in line behind her.

They came upon Drizzt in the practice room, polishing the razor edge of his scimitars. He leaped straight up to silent attention at the sight of the unexpected visitors.

"Greetings, my son." Malice said in a tone more motherly than Drizzt had ever heard. "We have a test for you this day, a simple task necessary for your acceptance into Melee-Magthere."

Maya moved before her brother. "I am the youngest, beside yourself." she declared. "Thus, I am granted the rights of challenge, which I now execute."

Drizzt stood confused. He had never heard of such a thing. Maya called the chest to her side and reverently opened the cover.

"You have your weapons and your piwafwi." she explained. "Now it is time for you to don the complete outfit of a noble of House Do’Urden." From the chest she pulled out a pair of high black boots and handed them to Drizzt.

Drizzt eagerly slipped out of his normal boots and put on the new ones. They were incredibly soft, and they magically shifted and adjusted to a perfect fit on his feet. Drizzt knew the magic within them; they would allow him to move in absolute silence. Before he had even finished admiring them, though, Maya gave him the next gift, even more magnificent.

Drizzt dropped his piwafwi to the floor as he took a set of silvery chain mail. In all the Realms, there was no armor as supple and finely crafted as drow chain mail. It weighed no more than a heavy shirt and would bend as easily as silken cloth, yet could deflect the tip of a spear as surely as dwarven-crafted plate mail.

"You fight with two weapons" Maya said, "and therefore need no shield. But put your scimitars in this it is more fitting to a drow noble." She handed Drizzt a black leather belt, its clasp a huge emerald and its two scabbards richly decorated in jewels and gemstones.

"Prepare yourself." Malice said to Drizzt. "The gifts must be earned" As Drizzt started to don the outfit, Malice moved beside the altered goblin, which stood nervously in the growing realization that its fight would be no simple task.

"When you kill him, the items will be yours." Malice promised. The goblin’s smile returned tenfold; it could not comprehend that it had no chance against Drizzt.

When Drizzt again fastened his piwafwi around his neck, Maya introduced the phony drow soldier. "This is Byuchyuch" she said, "my champion. You must defeat him to earn the gifts… and your proper place in the family."

Never doubting his abilities, and thinking the contest to be a simple sparring match, Drizzt readily agreed. "Let it begin, then." he said, drawing his scimitars from their lavish sheaths.

Malice gave Byuchyuch a comforting nod and the goblin took up the sword and shield that Maya had provided and moved right in at Drizzt.

Drizzt began slowly, trying to take a measure of his opponent before attempting any daring offensive strikes. In only a moment, though, Drizzt realized how badly Byuchyuch handled the sword and shield. Not knowing the truth of the creature’s identity, Drizzt could hardly believe that a drow would show such ineptitude with weapons. He wondered if Byuchyuch was baiting him, and with that thought, continued his cautious approach.

After a few more moments of Byuchyuch’s wild and off-balanced swings, however, Drizzt felt compelled to take the initiative. He slapped one scimitar against Byuchyuch’s shield. The goblin-drow responded with a lumbering thrust, and Drizzt slapped its sword from its hand with his free blade and executed a simple twist that brought the scimitar’s tip to a halt against the hollow of Byuchyuch’s chest.

"Too easy." Drizzt muttered under his breath.

But the true test had only begun.

On cue, Briza cast a mind-numbing spell on the goblin, freezing it in its helpless position. Still aware of its predicament, Byuchyuch tried to dive away, but Briza’s spell held it still.

"Finish the strike." Malice said to Drizzt. Drizzt looked at his scimitar, then to Malice, unable to believe what he was hearing.

"Maya’s champion must be killed." Briza snarled.

"I cannot…" Drizzt began.

"Kill!" Malice roared, and this time the word carried the weight of a magical command.

"Thrust!" Briza likewise commanded.

Drizzt felt their words compelling his hand to action.

Thoroughly disgusted with the thought of murdering a helpless foe, he concentrated with all of his mental strength to resist. While he managed to deny the commands for a few seconds, Drizzt found that he could not pull the weapon away.

"Kill!" Malice screamed.

"Strike!" yelled Briza.

It went on for several more agonizing seconds. Sweat beaded on Drizzt’s brow. Then the young drow’s willpower broke. His scimitar slipped quickly between Byuchyuch’s ribs and found the unfortunate creature’s heart. Briza released Byuchyuch from her holding spell then, to let Drizzt see the agony on the phony drow’s face and hear the gurgles as the dying Byuchyuch slipped to the floor. Drizzt could not find his breath as he stared at his bloodstained weapon.

It was Maya’s turn to act. She clipped Drizzt on the shoulder with her mace, knocking him to the floor.

"You killed my champion!" she growled. "Now you must fight me!"

Drizzt rolled back to his feet, away from the enraged female. He had no intention of fighting, but before he could even drop his weapons, Malice read his thoughts and warned, "If you do not fight, Maya will kill you!"

"This is not the way." Drizzt protested, but his words were lost in the ring of adamantite as he parried a heavy blow with one scimitar.

He was now into it, whether he liked it or not. Maya was a skilled fighter―all females spent many hours training with weapons―and she was stronger than Drizzt. But Drizzt was Zak’s son, the prime student, and when he admitted to himself that he had no way out of this predicament, he came in at Maya’s mace and shield with every cunning maneuver he had been taught.

Scimitars weaved and dipped in a dance that awed Briza and Maya. Malice hardly noticed, caught in the midst of yet another mighty spell. Malice never doubted that Drizzt could defeat his sister, and she had incorporated her expectations into the plan.

Drizzt’s moves were all defensive as he continued to hope for some semblance of sanity to come over his mother, and that this whole thing would be stopped. He wanted to back Maya up, cause her to stumble, and end the fight by putting her in a helpless position. Drizzt had to believe that Briza and Malice would not compel him to kill Maya as he had killed Byuchyuch.

Finally, Maya did slip. She threw her shield out to deflect an arcing scimitar but became overbalanced in the block, and her arm went wide. Drizzt’s other blade knifed in, only to nick at Maya’s breast and force her back.

Malice’s spell caught the weapon in midthrust.

The bloodstained adamantite blade writhed to life and Drizzt found himself holding the tail of a serpent, a fanged viper that turned back against him!

The enchanted snake spat its venom in Drizzt’s eyes, blinding him, then he felt the pain of Briza’s whip. All six snakeheads of the awful weapon bit into Drizzt’s back, tearing through his new armor and jolting him in excruciating pain. He crumbled down into a curled position, helpless as Briza snapped the whip in, again and again.

"Never strike at a drow female!" she screamed as she beat Drizzt into unconsciousness.

An hour later, Drizzt opened his eyes. He was in his bed, Matron Malice standing over him. The high priestess had tended to his wounds, but the sting remained, a vivid reminder of the lesson. But it was not nearly as vivid as the blood that still stained Drizzt’s scimitar.

"The armor will be replaced." Malice said to him. "You are a drow warrior now. You have earned it." She turned and walked out of the room, leaving Drizzt to his pain and his fallen innocence.

"Do not send him." Zak argued as emphatically as he dared. He stared up at Matron Malice, the smug queen on her high throne of stone and black velvet. As always, Briza and Maya stood obediently by her sides.

"He is a drow fighter." Malice replied, her tone still controlled. "He must go to the Academy. It is our way."

Zak looked around helplessly. He hated this place, the chapel anteroom, with its sculptures of the Spider Queen leering down at him from every angle, and with Malice sitting―towering― above him from her seat of power.

Zak shook the images away and regained his courage, reminding himself that this time he had something worth arguing about.

"Do not send him!" he growled. "They will ruin him!" Matron Malice’s hands clenched down on the rock arms of her great chair.

"Already Drizzt is more skilled than half of those in the Academy." Zak continued quickly, before the matron’s anger burst forth. "Allow me two more years, and I will make him the finest swordsman in all of Menzoberranzan!"

Malice eased back on her seat. From what she had seen of her son’s progress, she could not deny the possibilities of Zak’s claim. "He goes." she said calmly. "There is more to the making of a drow warrior than skill with weapons. Drizzt has other lessons he must learn."

"Lessons of treachery?" Zak spat, too angry to care about the consequences. Drizzt had told him what Malice and her evil daughters had done that day, and Zak was wise enough to understand their actions. Their «lesson» had nearly broken the boy, and had, perhaps, forever stolen from Drizzt the ideals he held so dear. Drizzt would find his morals and principles harder to cling to now that the pedestal of purity had been knocked out from under him."

"Watch your tongue, Zaknafein." Matron Malice warned.

"I fight with passion!" the weapon master snapped. "That is why I win. Your son, too, fights with passion, do not let the conforming ways of the Academy take that from him!"

"Leave us." Malice instructed her daughters. Maya bowed and rushed out through the door. Briza followed more slowly, pausing to cast a suspicious eye upon Zak. Zak didn’t return the glare, but he entertained a fantasy concerning his sword and Briza’s smug smile.

"Zaknafein." Malice began, again coming forward in her chair. "I have tolerated your blasphemous beliefs through these many years because of your skill with weapons. You have taught my soldiers well, and your love of killing drow, particularly clerics of the Spider Queen, has aided the ascent of House Do’Urden. I am not, and have not been, ungrateful."

"But I warn you now, one final time, that Drizzt is my son, not his sire’s! He will go to the Academy and learn what he must to take his place as a prince of House Do’Urden. If you interfere with what must be, Zaknafein, I will no longer turn my eyes from your actions! Your heart will be given to Lolth."

Zak stamped his heels on the floor and snapped a short bow of his head, then spun about and departed, trying to find some option in this dark and hopeless picture. As he made his way through the main corridor, he again heard in his mind the screams of the dying children of House DeVir, children who never got the chance to witness the evils of the drow Academy. Perhaps they were better off dead.

Chapter 11 Grim Preference

Zak slid one of his swords from its scabbard and admired the weapon’s wondrous detail. This sword, as with most of the drow weapons, had been forged by the gray dwarves, then traded to Menzoberranzan. The duergar workmanship was exquisite, but it was the work done on the weapon after the dark elves had acquired it that made it so very special. None of the races of the surface or Underdark could outdo the dark elves in the art of enchanting weapons. Imbued with the strange emanations of the Underdark, the magical power unique to the lightless world, and blessed by the unholy clerics of Lolth, no blade ever sat in a wielder’s hand more ready to kill.

Other races, mostly dwarves and surface elves, also took pride in their crafted weapons. Fine swords and mighty hammers hung over mantles as showpieces, always with a bard nearby to spout the accompanying legend that most often began, "In the days of yore…"

Drow weapons were different, never showpieces. They were locked in the necessities of the present, never in reminiscences, and their purpose remained unchanged for as long as they held an edge fine enough for battle, fine enough to kill.

Zak brought the blade up before his eyes. In his hands, the sword had become more than an instrument of battle. It was an extension of his rage, his answer to an existence he could not accept.

It was his answer, too, perhaps, to another problem that seemed to have no resolution.

He walked into the training hall, where Drizzt was hard at work spinning attack routines against a practice dummy.

Zak paused to watch the young drow at practice, wondering if Drizzt would ever again consider the dance of weapons a form of play. How the scimitars flowed in Drizzt’s hands! Interweaving with uncanny precision, each blade seemed to anticipate the other’s moves and whirred about in perfect complement.

This young drow might soon be an unrivaled fighter, a master beyond Zaknafein himself.

"Can you survive?" Zak whispered. "Have you the heart of a drow warrior?" Zak hoped that the answer would be an emphatic «No» but either way, Drizzt was surely doomed.

Zak looked down at his sword again and knew what he must do. He slid its sister blade from its sheath and started a determined walk toward Drizzt.

Drizzt saw him coming and turned at the ready. "A final fight before I leave for the Academy?" He laughed. Zak paused to take note of Drizzt’s smile. A facade? Or had the young drow really forgiven himself for his actions against Maya’s champion. It did not matter, Zak reminded himself. Even if Drizzt had recovered from his mother’s torments, the Academy would destroy him. The weapon master said nothing he just came on in a flurry of cuts and stabs that put Drizzt immediately on the defensive. Drizzt took it in stride, not yet realizing that this final encounter with his mentor was much more than their customary sparring.

"I will remember everything you taught me." Drizzt promised, dodging a cut and launching a fierce counter of his own. "I will carve my name in the halls of Melee-Magthere and make you proud."

The scowl on Zak’s face surprised Drizzt, and the young drow grew even more confused when the weapon master’s next attack sent a sword knifing straight at his heart. Drizzt leaped aside, slapping at the blade in sheer desperation, and narrowly avoided impalement.

"Are you so very sure of yourself?" Zak growled, stubbornly pursuing Drizzt.

Drizzt set himself as their blades met in ringing fury. "I am a fighter." he declared. "A drow warrior!"

"You are a dancer!" Zak shot back in a derisive tone. He slammed his sword onto Drizzt’s blocking scimitar so savagely that the young drow’s arm tingled.

"An imposter!" Zak cried. "A pretender to a title you cannot begin to understand!"

Drizzt went on the offensive. Fires burned in his lavender eyes and new strength guided his scimitars sure cuts. But Zak was relentless. He fended the attacks and continued his lesson. "Do you know the emotions of murder?" he spat. "Have you reconciled yourself to the act you committed?"

Drizzt’s only answers were a frustrated growl and a renewed attack.

"Ah, the pleasure of plunging your sword into the bosom of a high priestess." Zak taunted. "To see the light of warmth leave her body while her lips utter silent curses in your face! Or have you ever heard the screams of dying children?"

Drizzt let up his attack, but Zak would not allow a break.

The weapon master came back on the offensive; each thrust aimed for a vital area.

"How loud, those screams." Zak continued. "They echo over the centuries in your mind, they chase you down the paths of your entire life."

Zak halted the action so that Drizzt might weigh his every word. "You have never heard them, have you, dancer?" The weapon master stretched his arms out wide, an invitation.

"Come, then, and claim your second kill." he said, tapping his stomach. "In the belly, where the pain is greatest, so that my screams may echo in your mind. Prove to me that you are the drow warrior you claim to be."

The tips of Drizzt’s scimitars slowly made their way to the stone floor. He wore no smile now.

"You hesitate." Zak laughed at him. "This is your chance to make your name. A single thrust, and you will send a reputation into the Academy before you. Other students, even masters, will whisper your name as you pass. ‘Drizzt Do’Urden’ they will say. ‘The boy who slew the most honored weapon master in all of Menzoberranzan!’ Is this not what you desire?"

"Damn you." Drizzt spat back, but still he made no move to attack.

"Drow warrior?" Zak chided him. "Do not be so quick to claim a title you cannot begin to understand!"

Drizzt came on then, in a fury he had never before known. His purpose was not to kill, but to defeat his teacher, to steal the taunts from Zak’s mouth with a fighting display too impressive to be derided.

Drizzt was brilliant. He followed every move with three others and worked Zak low and high, inside and out wide.

Zak found his heels under him more often than the balls of his feet; too involved was he in staying away from his student’s relentless thrusts to even think of taking the offensive. He allowed Drizzt to continue the initiative for many minutes, dreading its conclusion, the outcome he had already decided to be the most preferable.

Zak then found that he could stand the delay no longer.

He sent one sword out in a lazy thrust and Drizzt promptly slapped the weapon out of his hand.

Even as the young drow came on in anticipation of victory, Zak slipped his empty hand into a pouch and grabbed a magical little ceramic ball, one of those that so often had aided him in battle.

"Not this time, Zaknafein!" Drizzt proclaimed, keeping his attacks under control, remembering well the many occasions that Zak reversed feigned disadvantage into clear advantage.

Zak fingered the ball, unable to come to terms with what he must do.

Drizzt walked him through an attack sequence, then another, measuring the advantage he had gained in stealing a weapon. Confident of his position, Drizzt came in low and hard with a single thrust.

Though Zak was distracted at the time, he still managed to block the attack with his remaining sword. Drizzt’s other scimitar slashed down on top of the sword, pinning its tip to the floor. In the same lightning movement, Drizzt slipped his first blade free of Zak’s parry and brought it up and around, stopping the thrust barely an inch from Zak’s throat.

"I have you!" the young drow cried.

Zak’s answer came in an explosion of light beyond anything Drizzt had ever imagined.

Zak had prudently closed his eyes, but Drizzt, surprised, could not accept the sudden change. His head burned in agony, and he reeled backwards, trying to get away from the light, away from the weapon master.

Keeping his eyes tightly shut, Zak had already divorced himself from the need of vision. He let his keen ears guide him now, and Drizzt, shuffling and stumbling, was an easy target to discern. In a single motion, the whip came off Zak’s belt and he lashed out, catching Drizzt around the ankles and dropping him to the floor.

Methodically, the weapon master came on, dreading every step but knowing his chosen course of action to be correct.

Drizzt realized that he was being stalked, but he could not understand the motive. The light had stunned him, but he was more surprised by Zak’s continuation of the battle.

Drizzt set himself, unable to escape the trap, and tried to think his way around his loss of sight. He had to feel the flow of battle, to hear the sounds of his attacker and anticipate each coming strike.

He brought his scimitars up just in time to block a sword chop that would have split his skull.

Zak hadn’t expected the parry. He recoiled and came in from a different angle. Again he was foiled.

Now more curious than wanting to kill Drizzt, the weapon master went through a series of attacks, sending his sword into motions that would have sliced through the defenses of many who could see him.

Blinded, Drizzt fought him off, putting a scimitar in line with each new thrust.

Treachery!" Drizzt yelled, painful residual explosions from the bright light still bursting inside his head. He blocked another attack and tried to regain his footing, realizing that he had little chance of continuing to fend off the weapon master from a prone position.

The pain of the stinging light was too great, though, and Drizzt, barely holding the edge of consciousness, stumbled back to the stone, losing one scimitar in the process. He spun over wildly; knowing that Zak was closing in.

The other scimitar was knocked from his hand. "Treachery." Drizzt growled again. "Do you so hate to lose?"

"Do you not understand?" Zak yelled back at him. "To lose is to die! You may win a thousand fights, but you can only lose one!" He put his sword in line with Drizzt’s throat. It would be a single clean blow. He knew that he should do it, mercifully, before the masters of the Academy got hold of his charge.

Zak sent his sword spinning across the room, and he reached out with his empty hands, grabbed Drizzt by the front of his shirt, and hoisted him to his feet.

They stood face-to-face, neither seeing the other very well in the blinding glare, and neither able to break the tense silence. After a long and breathless moment, the dweomer of the enchanted pebble faded and the room became more comfortable. Truly, the two dark elves looked upon each other in a different light.

"A trick of Lolth’s clerics." Zak explained. "Always they keep such a spell of light at the ready." A strained smile crossed his face as he tried to ease Drizzt’s anger. " Although I daresay that I have turned such light against clerics, even high priestesses, more than a few times."

"Treachery." Drizzt spat a third time.

"It is our way." Zak replied. "You will learn."

"It is your way." snarled Drizzt. "You grin when you speak of murdering clerics of the Spider Queen. Do you so enjoy killing? Killing drow?"

Zak could not find an answer to the accusing question. Drizzt’s words hurt him profoundly because they rang of truth, and because Zak had come to view his penchant for killing clerics of Lolth as a cowardly response to his own unanswerable frustrations.

"You would have killed me," Drizzt said bluntly.

"But I did not" Zak retorted. "And now you live to go to the Academy, to take a dagger in the back because you are blind to the realities of our world, because you refuse to acknowledge what your people are."

"Or you will become one of them." Zak growled. "Either way, the Drizzt Do’Urden I have known will surely die." Drizzt’s face twisted, and he couldn’t even find the words to dispute the possibilities Zak was spitting at him. He felt the blood drain from his face, though his heart raged. He walked away, letting his glare linger on Zak for many steps.

"Go, then, Drizzt Do’Urden!" Zak cried after him. "Go to the Academy and bask in the glory of your prowess. Remember, though, the consequences of such skills. Always there are consequences!"

Zak retreated to the security of his private chamber. The door to the room closed behind the weapon master with such a sound of finality that it spun Zak back to face its empty stone.

"Go, then, Drizzt Do’Urden." he whispered in quiet lament. "Go to the Academy and learn who you really are."

Dinin came for his brother early the next morning. Drizzt slowly left the training room, looking back over his shoulder every few steps to see if Zak would come out and attack him again or bid him farewell.

He knew in his heart that Zak would not.

Drizzt had thought them friends, had believed that the bond he and Zaknafein had sown went far beyond the simple lessons and swordplay. The young drow had no answers to the many questions spinning in his mind, and the person who had been his teacher for the last five years had nothing left to offer him.

"The heat grows in Narbondel." Dinin remarked when they stepped out onto the balcony. "We must not be late for your first day in the Academy."

Drizzt looked out into the myriad colors and shapes that composed Menzoberranzan. "What is this place?" he whispered, realizing how little he knew of his homeland beyond the walls of his own house. Zak’s words―Zak’s rage―pressed in on Drizzt as he stood there, reminding him of his ignorance and hinting at a dark path ahead.

"This is the world." Dinin replied, though Drizzt’s question had been rhetorical. "Do not worry, Secondboy." he laughed, moving up onto the railing. "You will learn of Menzoberranzan in the Academy. You will learn who you are and who your people are."

The declaration unsettled Drizzt. Perhaps―remembering his last bitter encounter with the drow he had most trusted―that knowledge was exactly what he was afraid of. He shrugged in resignation and followed Dinin over the balcony in a magical descent to the compound floor, the first steps down that dark path.

Another set of eyes watched intently as Dinin and Drizzt started out from House Do’Urden.

Alton DeVir sat quietly against the side of a gigantic mushroom, as he had every day for the last week, staring at the Do’Urden complex.

Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan. The house that had murdered his matron, his sisters and brothers, and all there ever was of House DeVir… except for Alton.

Alton thought back to the days of House DeVir, when Matron Ginafae had gathered the family members together so that they might discuss their aspirations. Alton, just a student when House DeVir fell, now had a greater insight to those times. Twenty years had brought a wealth of experience.

Ginafae had been the youngest matron among the ruling families, and her potential had seemed unlimited. Then she had aided a gnomish patrol, had used her Lolth-given powers to hinder the drow elves that ambushed the little people in the caverns outside Menzoberranzan, all because Ginafae desired the death of a single member of that attacking drow party, a wizard son of the city’s third house, the house labeled as House DeVir’s next victim.

The Spider Queen took exception to Ginafae’s choice of weapons; deep gnomes were the dark elves’ worst enemy in the whole of the Underdark. With Ginafae fallen out of Lolth’s favor, House DeVir had been doomed.

Alton had spent twenty years trying to learn of his enemies, trying to discover which drow family had taken advantage of his mother’s mistake and had slaughtered his kin. Twenty long years, and then his adopted matron, SiNafay Hun’ett, had ended his quest as abruptly as it had begun. Now, as Alton sat watching the guilty house, he knew only one thing for certain, twenty years had done nothing to diminish his rage.