Homeland

The Academy.

It is the propagation of the lies that bind drow society together the ultimate perpetration of falsehoods repeated so many times that they ring true against any contrary evidence. The lessons young drow are taught of truth and justice are so blatantly refuted by everyday life in wicked Menzoberranzan that it is hard to understand how any could believe them. Still they do.

Even now, decades removed, the thought of the place frightens me, not for any physical pain or the ever-present sense of possible death; I have trod down many roads equally dangerous in that way. The Academy of Menzoberranzan frightens me when I think of the survivors, the graduates, existing―reveling―within the evil fabrications that shape their world.

They live with the belief that anything is acceptable if you can get away with it, that self-gratification is the most important aspect of existence, and that power comes only to she or he who is strong enough and cunning enough to snatch it from the failing hands of those who no longer deserve it. Compassion has no place in Menzoberranzan, and yet it is compassion, not fear that brings harmony to most races. It is harmony, working toward shared goals that precedes greatness.

Lies engulf the drow in fear and mistrust, refute friendship at the tip of a Lolth-blessed sword. The hatred and ambition fostered by these amoral tenets are the doom of my people, a weakness that they perceive as strength. The result is a paralyzing, paranoid existence that the drow call the edge of readiness.

I do not know how I survived the Academy, how I discovered the falsehoods early enough to use them in contrast, and thus strengthen, those ideals I most cherish.

It was, Zaknafein, I must believe, my teacher. Through the experiences of Zak’s long years, which embittered him and cost him so much, I came to hear the screams, the screams of protest against murderous treachery, the screams of rage from the leaders of drow society, the high priestesses of the Spider Queen, echoing down the paths of my mind, ever to hold a place within my mind. The screams of dying children.

Drizzt Do’Urden

Chapter 12 This Enemy, "They"

Wearing the outfit of a noble son, and with a dagger concealed in one boot―a suggestion from Dinin―Drizzt ascended the wide stone stairway that led to Tier Breche, the Academy of the drow. Drizzt reached the top and moved between the giant pillars, under the impassive gazes of two guards, last year students of Melee-Magthere.

Two dozen other young drow milled about the Academy compound, but Drizzt hardly noticed them. Three structures dominated his vision and his thoughts. To his left stood the pointed stalagmite tower of Sorcere, the school of wizardry. Drizzt would spend the first sixth months of his tenth and last year of study in there.

Before him, at the back of the level, loomed the most impressive structure, Arach-Tinilith, the school of Lolth, carved from the stone into the likeness of a giant spider. By drow reckoning, this was the Academy’s most important building and thus was normally reserved for females. Male students were housed within Arach-Tinilith only during their last six months of study.

While Sorcere and Arach-Tinilith were the more graceful structures, the most important building for Drizzt at that tentative moment lined the wall to his right. The pyramidal structure of Melee-Magthere, the school of fighters. This building would be Drizzt’s home for the next nine years. His companions, he now realized, were those other dark elves in the compound, fighters, like himself, about to begin their formal training. The class, at twenty-five, was unusually large for the school of fighters.

Even more unusual, several of the novice students were nobles. Drizzt wondered how his skills would measure up against theirs, how his sessions with Zaknafein compared to the battles these others had no doubt fought with the weapon masters of their respective families.

Those thoughts inevitably led Drizzt back to his last encounter with his mentor. He quickly dismissed the memories of that unpleasant duel, and, more pointedly, the disturbing questions Zak’s observations had forced him to consider. There was no place for such doubts on this occasion. Melee-Magthere loomed before him, the greatest test and the greatest lesson of his young life.

"My greetings," came a voice behind him. Drizzt turned to face a fellow novice, who wore a sword and dirk uncomfortably on his belt and who appeared even more nervous than Drizzt, a comforting sight.

"Kelnozz of House Kenafin, fifteenth house," the novice said.

"Drizzt Do’Urden of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, House Do’Urden, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan," Drizzt replied automatically, exactly as Matron Malice had instructed him.

"A noble," remarked Kelnozz, understanding the significance of Drizzt bearing the same surname as his house. Kelnozz dropped into a low bow. "I am honored by your presence."

Drizzt was starting to like this place already. With the treatment he normally received at home, he hardly thought of himself as a noble. Any self-important notions that might have occurred to him at Kelnozz’s gracious greeting were dispelled a moment later, though, when the masters came out.

Drizzt saw his brother, Dinin, among them but pretended―as Dinin had warned him to―not “to notice, nor to expect any special treatment.” Drizzt rushed inside Melee-Magthere along with the rest of the students when the whips began to snap and the masters started shouting of the dire consequences if they tarried. They were herded down a few side corridors and into an oval room.

"Sit or stand as you will!" one of the masters growled. Noticing two of the students whispering off to the side, the master took his whip out and―crack―took one of the offenders off his feet.

Drizzt couldn’t believe how quickly the room then came to order.

"I am Hatch’net," the master began in a resounding voice, "the master of Lore. This room will be your hall of instruction for fifty cycles of Narbondel." He looked around at the adorned belts on every figure. "You will bring no weapons to this place!"

Hatch’net paced the perimeter of the room, making certain that every eye followed his movements attentively. "You are drow." he snapped suddenly. "Do you understand what that means? Do you know where you come from, and the history of our people? Menzoberranzan was not always our home, nor was any other cavern of the Underdark. Once we walked the surface of the world." He spun suddenly and came up right in Drizzt’s face.

"Do you know of the surface?" Master Hatch’net snarled.

Drizzt recoiled and shook his head.

"An awful place." Hatch’net continued, turning back to the whole of the group. "Each day, as the glow begins its rise in Narbondel, a great ball of fire rises into the open sky above, bringing hours of a light greater than the punishing spells of the priestesses of Lolth!" He held his arms outstretched, with his eyes turned upward, and an unbelievable grimace spread across his face.

Students gasps rose up all about him.

"Even in the night, when the ball of fire has gone below the far rim of the world," Hatch’net continued, weaving his words as if he were telling a horror tale, "one cannot escape the uncounted terrors of the surface. Reminders of what the next day will bring, dots of light―and sometimes a lesser ball of silvery fire―mar the sky’s blessed darkness."

"Once our people walked the surface of the world," he repeated his tone now one of lament, "in ages long past, even longer than the lines of the great houses. In that distant age, we walked beside the pale-skinned elves, the faeries!"

"It cannot be true!" one student cried from the side.

Hatch’net looked at him earnestly, considering whether more would be gained by beating the student for his unasked for interruption or by allowing the group to participate. "It is!" he replied, choosing the latter course. "We thought the faeries, our friends, we called them kin! We could not know, in our innocence, that they were the embodiments of deceit and evil. We could not know that they would turn on us suddenly and drive us from them, slaughtering our children and the eldest of our race! Without mercy the evil faeries pursued us across the surface world. Always we asked for peace, and always we were answered by swords and killing arrows!"

He paused, his face twisting into a widening, malicious smile. "Then we found the goddess!"

"Praise Lolth!" came one anonymous cry. Again Hatch’net let the slip of tongue go by unpunished, knowing that every accenting comment only drew his audience deeper into his web of rhetoric.

"Indeed." the master replied. "All praise to the Spider Queen. It was she who took our orphaned race to her side and helped us fight off our enemies. It was she who guided the forematrons of our race to the paradise of the Underdark. It is she," he roared, a clenched fist rising into the air, "who now gives us the strength and the magic to pay back our enemies."

"We are the drow!" Hatch’net cried. "You are the drow, never again to be downtrodden, rulers of all you desire, conquerors of lands you choose to inhabit!"

"The surface?" came a question.

"The surface?" echoed Hatch’net with a laugh. "Who would want to return to that vile place? Let the faeries have it! Let them burn under the fires of the open sky! We claim the Underdark, where we can feel the core of the world thrumming under our feet, and where the stones of the walls show the heat of the world’s power!"

Drizzt sat silent, absorbing every word of the talented orator’s often-rehearsed speech. Drizzt was caught, as were all the new students, in Hatch’net’s hypnotic variations of inflection and rallying cries. Hatch’net had been the master of Lore at the Academy for more than two centuries, owning more prestige in Menzoberranzan than nearly any other male drow, and many of the females. The matrons of the ruling families understood well the value of his practiced tongue.

So it went every day, an endless stream of hate rhetoric directed against an enemy that none of the students had ever seen. The surface elves were not the only target of Hatch’net’s sniping. Dwarves, gnomes, humans, halflings, and all of the surface races and even subterranean races such as the duergar dwarves, which the drow often traded with and fought beside, each found an unpleasant spot in the master’s ranting.

Drizzt came to understand why no weapons were permitted in the oval chamber. When he left his lesson each day, he found his hands clenched by his sides in rage, unconsciously grasping for a scimitar hilt. It was obvious from the commonplace fights among the students that others felt the same way. Always, though, the overriding factor that kept some measure of control was the master’s lie of the horrors of the outside world and the comforting bond of the students’ common heritage, a heritage, the students would soon come to believe, that gave them enough enemies to battle beyond each other.

The long, draining hours in the oval chamber left little time for the students to mingle. They shared common barracks, but their extensive duties outside of Hatch’net’s lessons―serving the older students and masters, preparing meals, and cleaning the building―gave them barely enough time for rest. By the end of the first week, they walked on the edge of exhaustion, a condition, Drizzt realized, that only increased the stirring effect of Master Hatch’net’s lessons.

Drizzt accepted the existence stoically, considering it far better than the six years he had served his mother and sisters as page prince. Still, there was one great disappointment to Drizzt in his first weeks at Melee-Magthere. He found himself longing for his practice sessions.

He sat on the edge of his bedroll late one night, holding a scimitar up before his shining eyes, remembering those many hours engaged in battle-play with Zaknafein.

"We go to the lesson in two hours," Kelnozz, in the next bunk, reminded him. "Get some rest."

"I feel the edge leaving my hands," Drizzt replied quietly."The blade feels heavier, unbalanced."

"The grand melee is barely ten cycles of Narbondel away," Kelnozz said. "You will get all the practice you desire there! Fear not, whatever edge has been dulled by the days with the master of Lore will soon be regained. For the next nine years, that fine blade of yours will rarely leave your hands!"

Drizzt slid the scimitar back into its scabbard and reclined on his bunk. As with so many aspects of his life so far―and, he was beginning to fear, with so many aspects of his future in Menzoberranzan―he had no choice but to accept the circumstances of his existence.

"This segment of your training is at an end," Master Hatch’net announced on the morning of the fiftieth day. Another master, Dinin, entered the room, leading a magically suspended iron box filled with meagerly padded wooden poles of every length and design comparable to drow weapons.

"Choose the sparring pole that most resembles your own weapon of choice," Hatch’net explained as Dinin made his way around the room. He came to his brother, and Drizzt’s eyes settled at once on his choice, two slightly curving poles about three-and-a-half feet long. Drizzt lifted them out and put them through a simple cut. Their weight and balance closely resembled the scimitars that had become so familiar to his hands.

"For the pride of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon," Dinin whispered, then moved along.

Drizzt twirled the mock weapons again. It was time to measure the value of his sessions with Zak.

"Your class must have an order," Hatch’net was saying as Drizzt turned his attention beyond the scope of his new weapons. "Thus the grand melee. Remember, there can be only one victor!"

Hatch’net and Dinin herded the students out of the oval chamber and out of Melee-Magthere altogether, down the tunnel between the two guardian spider statues at the back of Tier Breche. For all of the students, this was the first time they had ever been out of Menzoberranzan.

"What are the rules?", Drizzt asked Kelnozz, in line at his side.

"If a master calls you out, then you are out," Kelnozz replied.

"The rules of engagement?" asked Drizzt. Kelnozz cast him an incredulous glance. "Win." he said simply, as though there could be no other answer.

A short time later they came into a fairly large cavern, the arena for the grand melee. Pointed stalactites leered down at them from the ceiling and stalagmite mounds broke the floor into a twisting maze filled with ambush holes and blind corners.

"Choose your strategies and find your starting point," Master Hatch’net said to them. "The grand melee begins in a count of one hundred!"

The twenty-five students set off into action, some pausing to consider the landscape laid out before them, others sprinting off into the gloom of the maze.

Drizzt decided to find a narrow corridor, to ensure that he would fight off one-against-one and he just started off in his search when he was grabbed from behind.

"A team?" Kelnozz offered.

Drizzt did not respond, unsure of the other’s fighting worth and the accepted practices of this traditional encounter.

"Others are forming into teams," Kelnozz pressed. "Some in threes. Together we might have a chance."

"The master said there could be only one victor," Drizzt reasoned.

"Who better than you, if not me." Kelnozz replied with a sly wink. "Let us defeat the others, then we can decide the issue between ourselves."

The reasoning seemed prudent, and with Hatch’net’s count already approaching seventy-five, Drizzt had little time to ponder the possibilities. He clapped Kelnozz on the shoulder and led his new ally into the maze.

Catwalks had been constructed all around the room’s perimeter; even crossing through the center of the chamber, to give the judging masters a good view of all the action below. A dozen of them were up there now, all eagerly awaiting the first battles so that they might measure the talent of this young class.

"One hundred!" cried Hatch’net from his high perch. Kelnozz began to move, but Drizzt stopped him, keeping him back in the narrow corridor between two long stalagmite mounds.

"Let them come to us." Drizzt signaled in the silent hand and facial expression code. He crouched in battle readiness. "Let them fight each other to weariness. Patience is our ally!"

Kelnozz relaxed, thinking he had made a good choice in Drizzt.

Their patience was not tested severely, though, for a moment later, a tall and aggressive student burst into their defensive position, wielding a long spear-shaped pole. He came right in on Drizzt, slapping with the butt of his weapon, then spinning it over full in a brutal thrust designed for a quick kill, a strong move perfectly executed.

Drizzt thought it seemed the most basic of attack routines, too basic, almost, for Drizzt hardly believed that a trained student would attack another skilled fighter in such a straightforward manner. Drizzt convinced himself in time that this was indeed the chosen method of attack, and no feint, and he launched the proper parry. His scimitar poles spun counterclockwise in front of him, striking the thrusting spear in succession and driving the weapon’s tip harmlessly above the striking line of its wielder’s shoulder.

The aggressive attacker, stunned by the advanced parry, found himself open and off balance. Barely a split second later, before the attacker could even begin to recover, Drizzt’s counter poked one, then the other scimitar pole into his chest.

A soft blue light appeared on the stunned student’s face, and he and Drizzt followed its line up to see a wand-wielding master looking down at them from the catwalk.

"You are defeated," the master said to the tall student. "Fall where you stand!"

The student shot an angry glare at Drizzt and obediently dropped to the stone.

"Come," Drizzt said to Kelnozz, casting a glance up at the master’s revealing light. "Any others in the area will know of our position now. We must seek a new defensible area."

Kelnozz paused a moment to watch the graceful hunting strides of his comrade. He had indeed made a good choice in selecting Drizzt, but he knew already, after only a single quick encounter, that if he and this skilled swordsman were the last two standing, a distinct possibility, he would have no chance at all of claiming victory.

Together they rushed around a blind corner, right into two opponents. Kelnozz chased after one, who fled in fright, and Drizzt faced off against the other, who wielded sword and dirk poles.

A wide smile of growing confidence crossed Drizzt’s face as his opponent took the offensive, launching routines similarly basic to those of the spear wielder that Drizzt had easily dispatched.

A few deft twists and turns of his scimitars, a few slaps on the inside edges of his opponent’s weapons, had the sword and dirk flying wide. Drizzt’s attack came right up the middle, where he executed another double-poke into his opponent’s chest.

The expected blue light appeared. "You are defeated," came the master’s call. "Fall where you stand."

Outraged, the stubborn student chopped viciously at Drizzt. Drizzt blocked with one weapon and snapped the other against his attacker’s wrist, sending the sword pole flying to the floor.

The attacker clenched his bruised wrist, but that was the least of his troubles. A blinding flash of lightning exploded from the observing master’s wand, catching him full in the chest and hurtling him ten feet backward to crash into a stalagmite mound. He crumpled to the floor, groaning in agony, and a line of glowing heat rose from his scorched body, which lay against the cool gray stone.

"You are defeated!" the master said again. Drizzt started to the fallen drow’s aid, but the master issued an emphatic, "No!"

Then Kelnozz was back at Drizzt’s side. "He got away." Kelnozz began, but he broke into a laugh when he saw the downed student. "If a master calls you out, then you are out!" Kelnozz repeated into Drizzt’s blank stare.

"Come." Kelnozz continued. "The battle is in full now. Let us find some fun!"

Drizzt thought his companion quite cocky for one who had yet to lift his weapons. He only shrugged and followed. Their next encounter was not so easy. They came into a double passage turning in and out of several rock formations and found themselves faced off against a group of three, nobles from leading houses, both Drizzt and Kelnozz realized.

Drizzt rushed the two on his left, both of whom wielded single swords, while Kelnozz worked to fend off the third. Drizzt had little experience against multiple opponents, but Zak had taught him the techniques of such a battle quite well. His movements were solely defensive at first, then he settled into a comfortable rhythm and allowed his opponents to tire themselves out, and to make the critical mistakes.

These were cunning foes, though, and familiar with each other’s movements. Their attacks complemented each other, slicing in at Drizzt from widely opposing angles.

"Two-hands." Zak had once called Drizzt, and now he lived up to the title. His scimitars worked independently, yet in perfect harmony, foiling every attack.

From a nearby perch on the catwalk, Masters Hatch’net and Dinin looked on, Hatch’net more than a little impressed, and Dinin swelling with pride.

Drizzt saw the frustration mounting on his opponents’ faces, and he knew that his opportunity to strike would soon be at hand. Then they crossed up, coming in together with identical thrusts, their sword poles barely inches apart.

Drizzt spun to the side and launched a blinding uppercut slice with his left scimitar, deflecting both attacks. Then he reversed his body’s momentum, dropped to one knee, back in line with his opponents, and thrust in low with two snaps of his free right arm. His jabbing scimitar pole caught the first, and then the second, squarely in the groin.

They dropped their weapons in unison, clutched their bruised parts, and slumped to their knees. Drizzt leaped up before them, trying to find the words for an apology. Hatch’net nodded his approval at Dinin as the two masters set their lights on the two losers.

"Help me!" Kelnozz cried from beyond the dividing wall of stalagmites.

Drizzt dove into a roll through a break in the wall, came up quickly, and downed a fourth opponent, who was concealed for a backstab surprise, with a backhand chop to the chest. Drizzt stopped to consider his latest victim. He hadn’t even consciously known that the drow was there, but his aim had been perfect!

Hatch’net blew a low whistle as he shifted his light to the most recent loser’s face. "He is good!" the master breathed.

Drizzt saw Kelnozz a short distance away, practically forced down to his back by his opponent’s skilled maneuvers. Drizzt leaped between the two and deflected an attack that surely would have finished Kelnozz.

This newest opponent, wielding two sword poles, proved Drizzt’s toughest challenge yet. He came at Drizzt with complicated feints and twists, forcing him on his heels more than once.

"Berg’inyon of House Baenre," Hatch’net whispered to Dinin. Dinin understood the significance and hoped that his young brother was up to the test.

Berg’inyon was not a disappointment to his distinguished kin. His moves came skilled and measured, and he and Drizzt danced about for many minutes with neither finding any advantage. The daring Berg’inyon then came in with the attack routine perhaps most familiar to Drizzt, the double-thrust low.

Drizzt executed the cross-down to perfection, the appropriate parry as Zaknafein had so pointedly proved to him. Never satisfied, though, Drizzt then reacted on an impulse, agilely snapping a foot up between the hilts of his crossed blades and into his opponent’s face. The stunned son of House Baenre fell back against the wall.

"I knew the parry was wrong!" Drizzt cried, already savoring the next time he would get the opportunity to foil the double-thrust low in a session against Zak.

"He is good," Hatch’net gasped again to his glowing companion.

Dazed, Berg’inyon could not fight his way out of the disadvantage. He put a globe of darkness around himself, but Drizzt waded right in, more than willing to fight blindly.

Drizzt put the son of House Baenre through a quick series of attacks, ending with one of Drizzt’s scimitar poles against Berg’inyon’s exposed neck.

"I am defeated," the young Baenre conceded, feeling the pole. Hearing the call, Master Hatch’net dispelled the darkness. Berg’inyon set both his weapons on the stone and slumped down, and the blue light appeared on his face. Drizzt couldn’t hold back the widening grin. Were there any here that he could not defeat? he wondered.

Drizzt then felt an explosion on the back of his head that dropped him to his knees. He managed to look back in time to see Kelnozz walking away.

"A fool", Hatch’net chuckled, putting his light on Drizzt, then turning his gaze upon Dinin. " A good fool."

Dinin crossed his arms in front of his chest, his face glowing brightly now in a flush of embarrassment and anger.

Drizzt felt the cool stone against his cheek, but his only thoughts at that moment were rooted in the past, locked onto Zaknafein’s sarcastic, but painfully accurate, statement, "It is our way!"

Chapter 13 The Price of Winning

"You deceived me." Drizzt said to Kelnozz that night in the barracks. The room was black around them and no other students stirred in their cots, exhausted from the day’s fighting and from their endless duties serving the older students.

Kelnozz fully expected this encounter. He had guessed Drizzt’s naivete early on, when Drizzt had actually queried him about the rules of engagement. An experienced drow warrior, particularly a noble, should have known better, should have understood that the only rule of his existence was the pursuit of victory. Now, Kelnozz knew this foolish young Do’Urden would not strike at him for his earlier actions―vengeance fueled by anger was not one of Drizzt’s traits.

"Why?" Drizzt pressed, finding no answer forthcoming from the smug commoner of House Kenafin.

The volume of Drizzt’s voice caused Kelnozz to glance around nervously. They were supposed to be sleeping if a master heard them arguing…

"What is the mystery?" Kelnozz signaled back in the hand code, the warmth of his fingers glowing clearly to Drizzt’s heat-sensing eyes. "I acted as I had to act, though I now believe I should have held off a bit longer. Perhaps, if you had defeated a few more, I might have finished higher than third in the class."

"If we had worked together, as we had agreed, you might have won, or finished second at the least." Drizzt signaled back, the sharp movements of his hands reflecting his anger.

"Most assuredly second." Kelnozz replied. "I knew from the beginning that I would be no match for you. You are the finest swordsman I have ever seen."

"Not by the masters’ standing." Drizzt grumbled aloud.

"Eighth is not so low." Kelnozz whispered back. Berg’inyon is only ranked tenth, and he is from the ruling house of Menzoberranzan. You should be glad that your standing is not to be envied by your classmates." A shuffle outside the room’s door sent Kelnozz back into the silent mode. "Holding a higher rank means only that I have more fighters eyeing my back as a convenient place to rest their daggers."

Drizzt let the implications of Kelnozz’s statement slip by; he refused to consider such treachery in the Academy. "Berg’inyon was the finest fighter I saw in the grand melee." he signaled. "He had you beaten until I interceded on your behalf."

Kelnozz smiled the thought away. "Let Berg’inyon serve as cook in some lowly house for all I care," he whispered even more quietly than before―for the son of House Baenre’s bunk was only a few yards away. "He is tenth, yet I, Kelnozz of Kenafin, am third!"

"I am eighth," said Drizzt, an uncharacteristic edge on his voice, more anger than jealousy, "but I could defeat you with any weapon."

Kelnozz shrugged, a strangely blurring movement to onlookers seeing in the infrared spectrum. "You did not." he signaled. "I won our encounter."

"Encounter?" Drizzt gasped. "You deceived me, that is all!"

"Who was left standing?" Kelnozz pointedly reminded him. "Who wore the blue light of a master’s wand?"

"Honor demands that there be rules of engagement." growled Drizzt.

"There is a rule," Kelnozz snapped back at him. "You may do whatever you can get away with. I won our encounter, Drizzt Do’Urden and I hold the higher rank! That is all that matters!"

In the heat of the argument, their voices had grown too loud. The door to the room swung wide, and a master stepped onto the threshold, his form vividly outlined by the hallway’s blue lights. Both students promptly rolled over and closed their eyes―and their mouths.

The finality of Kelnozz’s last statement rocked Drizzt to some prudent observations. He realized then that his friendship with Kelnozz had come to an end, and, perhaps, that he and Kelnozz had never been friends at all.

"You have seen him?" Alton asked, his fingers tapping anxiously on the small table in the highest chamber of his private quarters. Alton had set the younger students of Sorcere to work repairing the blasted place but the scorch marks on the stone walls remained, a legacy of Alton’s fireball.

"I have." replied Masoj. "I have heard of his skill with weapons."

"Eighth in his class after the grand melee," said Alton, "a fine achievement."

"By all accounts, he has the prowess to be first," said Masoj. "One day he will claim that title. I shall be careful around that one."

"He will never live to claim it!" Alton promised. "House Do’Urden puts great pride in this purple-eyed youth, and thus I have decided upon Drizzt as my first target for revenge. His death will bring pain to that treacherous Matron Malice!"

Masoj saw a problem here and decided to put it to rest once and for all. "You will not harm him." he warned Alton. "You will not even go near him."

Alton’s tone became no less grim. "I have waited two decades…" he began.

"You can wait a few more." Masoj snapped back. "I remind you that you accepted Matron SiNafay’s invitation into House Hun’ett. Such an alliance requires obedience. Matron SiNafay―our matron mother―has placed upon my shoulders the task of handling Drizzt Do’Urden and I will execute her will."

Alton rested back in his seat across the table and put what was left of his acid-torn chin into a slender palm, carefully weighing the words of his secret partner.

"Matron SiNafay has plans that will bring you all the revenge you could possibly desire." Masoj continued. "I warn you now, Alton DeVir," he snarled, emphasizing the surname that was not Hun’ett, "that if you begin a war with House Do’Urden, or even put them on the defensive with any act of violence unsanctioned by Matron SiNafay, you will incur the wrath of House Hun’ett. Matron SiNafay will expose you as a murderous imposter and will exact every punishment allowable by the ruling council upon your pitiful bones!"

Alton had no way to refute the threat. He was a rogue, without family beyond the adopted Hun’etts. If SiNafay turned against him, he would find no allies. "What plan does SiNafay… Matron SiNafay… have for House Do’Urden?" he asked calmly. "Tell me of my revenge so that I may survive these torturous years of waiting."

Masoj knew that he had to act carefully at this point. His mother had not forbidden him to tell Alton of the future course of action but if she had wanted the volatile DeVir to know, Masoj realized, she would have told him herself.

"Let us just say that House Do’Urden’s power has grown, and continues to grow, to the point where it has become a very real threat to all the great houses." Masoj purred, loving the intrigue of positioning before a war. "Witness the fall of House DeVir, perfectly executed with no obvious trail. Many of Menzoberranzan’s nobles would rest easier if…"

He let it go at that, deciding that he probably had said too much already.

By the hot glimmer in Alton’s eyes, Masoj could tell that the lure had been strong enough to buy Alton’s patience.

The Academy held many disappointments for young Drizzt, particularly in that first year, when so many of the dark realities of drow society, realities that Zaknafein had barely hinted at, remained on the edges of Drizzt’s cognizance with stubborn resilience. He weighed the masters lectures of hatred and mistrust in both hands, one side holding the masters’ views in the context of the lectures, the other bending those same words into the very different logic assumed by his old mentor. The truth seemed so ambiguous, so hard to define. Through all of the examination, Drizzt found that he could not escape one pervading fact: In his entire young life, the only treachery he had ever witnessed―and so often!―was at the hands of drow elves. The physical training of the Academy, hours on end of dueling exercises and stealth techniques, was more to Drizzt’s liking. Here, with his weapons so readily in his hands, he freed himself of the disturbing questions of truth and perceived truth.

Here he excelled. If Drizzt had come into the Academy with a higher level of training and expertise than that of his classmates, the gap grew only wider as the grueling months passed. He learned to look beyond the accepted defense and attack routines put forth by the masters and create his own methods, innovations that almost always at least equaled―and usually outdid―the standard techniques.

At first, Dinin listened with increasing pride as his peers exalted in his younger brother’s fighting prowess. So glowing came the compliments that the eldest son of Matron Malice soon took on a nervous wariness. Dinin was the elderboy of House Do’Urden, a title he had gained by eliminating Nalfein. Drizzt, showing the potential to become one of the finest swordsmen in all of Menzoberranzan, was now the secondboy of the house, eyeing, perhaps, Dinin’s title.

Similarly, Drizzt’s fellow students did not miss the growing brilliance of his fighting dance. Often they viewed it too close for their liking! They looked upon Drizzt with seething jealousy, wondering if they could ever measure up against his whirling scimitars. Pragmatism was ever a strong trait in drow elves. These young students had spent the bulk of their years observing the elders of their families twisting every situation into a favorable light. Everyone of them recognized the value of Drizzt Do’Urden as an ally, and thus, when the grand melee came around the next year, Drizzt was inundated with offers of partnership.

The most surprising query came from Kelnozz of House Kenafin, who had downed Drizzt through deceit the previous year. "Do we join again, this time to the very top of the class?" the haughty young fighter asked as he moved beside Drizzt down the tunnel to the prepared cavern. He moved around and stood before Drizzt easily, as if they were the best of friends, his forearms resting across the hilts of his belted weapons and an overly friendly smile spread across his face.

Dnzzt could not even answer. He turned and walked away, pointedly keeping his eye over one shoulder as he left.

"Why are you so amazed?" Kelnozz pressed, stepping quickly to keep up.

Drizzt spun on him. "How could I join again with one who so deceived me?" he snarled. "I have not forgotten your trick!"

"That is the point." Kelnozz argued. "You are more wary this year certainly I would be a fool to attempt such a move again!"

"How else could you win?" said Drizzt. "You cannot defeat me in open battle." His words were not a boast, just a fact that Kelnozz accepted as readily as Drizzt.

"Second rank is highly honored." Kelnozz reasoned. Drizzt glared at him. He knew that Kelnozz would not settle for anything less than ultimate victory. "If we meet in the melee." he said with cold finality, "it will be as opponents." He walked off again, and this time Kelnozz did not follow.

Luck bestowed a measure of justice upon Drizzt that day, for his first opponent, and first victim, in the grand melee was none other than his former partner. Dnzzt found Kelnozz in the same corridor they had used as a defensible starting point the previous year and took him down with his very first attack combination. Drizzt somehow managed to hold back on his winning thrust, though he truly wanted to jab his scimitar pole into Kelnozz’s ribs with all his strength.

Then Drizzt was off into the shadows, picking his way carefully until the numbers of surviving students began to dwindle. With his reputation, Drizzt had to be extra wary, for his classmates recognized a common advantage in eliminating one of his prowess early in the competition. Working alone, Drizzt had to fully scope out every battle before he engaged, to ensure that each opponent had no secret companions lurking nearby.

This was Drizzt’s arena, the place where he felt most comfortable, and he was up to the challenge. In two hours, only five competitors remained, and after another two hours of cat and mouse, it came down to only two, Drizzt and Berg’inyon Baenre.

Drizzt moved out into an open stretch of the cavern.

"Come out, then, student Baenre!" he called. "Let us settle this challenge openly and with honor!"

Watching from the catwalk, Dinin shook his head in disbelief.

"He has relinquished all advantage." said Master Hatch’net, standing beside the elderboy of House Do’Urden. "As the better swordsman, he had Berg’inyon worried and unsure of his moves. Now your brother stands out in the open, showing his position."

"Still a fool." Dinin muttered.

Hatch’net spotted Berg’inyon slipping behind a stalagmite mound a few yards behind Drizzt. "It should be settled soon."

"Are you afraid?" Drizzt yelled into the gloom. "If you truly deserve the top rank, as you freely boast, then come out and face me openly. Prove your words, Berg’inyon Baenre, or never speak them again!"

The expected rush of motion from behind sent Drizzt into a sidelong roll.

"Fighting is more than swordplay!" the son of House Baenre cried as he came on, his eyes gleaming at the advantage he now seemed to hold.

Berg’inyon stumbled then, tripped up by a wire Drizzt had set out, and fell flat to his face. Drizzt was on him in a flash, scimitar pole tip in at Berg’inyon’s throat.

"So I have learned." Drizzt replied grimly.

"Thus a Do’Urden becomes the champion." Hatch’net observed, putting his blue light on the face of House Baenre’s defeated son. Hatch’net then stole Dinin’s widening smile with a prudent reminder, "Elderboys should beware secondboys with such skills."

While Drizzt took little pride in his victory that second year, he took great satisfaction in the continued growth of his fighting skills. He practiced every waking hour when he was not busy in the many serving duties of a young student. Those duties were reduced as the years passed―the youngest students were worked the hardest―and Drizzt found more and more time in private training. He reveled in the dance of his blades and the harmony of his movements. His scimitars became his only friends, the only things he dared to trust.

He won the grand melee again the third year and the year after that, despite the conspiracies of many others against him. To the masters, it became obvious that none in Drizzt’s class would ever defeat him, and the next year they placed him into the grand melee of students three years his senior.

He won that one, too.

The Academy, above anything else in Menzoberranzan, was a structured place, and though Drizzt’s advanced skill defied that structure in terms of battle prowess, his tenure as a student would not be lessened. As a fighter, he would spend ten years in the Academy, not such a long time considering the thirty years of study a wizard endured in Sorcere, or the fifty years a budding priestess would spend in Arach-Tinilith. While fighters began their training at the young age of twenty, wizards could not start until their twenty-fifth birthday, and clerics had to wait until the age of forty.

The first four years in Melee-Magthere were devoted to singular combat, the handling of weapons. In this, the masters could teach Drizzt little that Zaknafein had not already shown him.

After that, though, the lessons became more involved.

The young drow warriors spent two full years learning group fighting tactics with other warriors and the subsequent three years incorporated those tactics into warfare techniques beside, and against, wizards and clerics.

The final year of the Academy rounded out the fighter’s education. The first six months were spent in Sorcere, learning the basics of magic use, and the last six, the prelude to graduation, saw the fighters in tutelage under the priestesses of Arach-Tinilith.

All the while there remained the rhetoric, the hammering in of those precepts that the Spider Queen held so dear, those lies of hatred that held the drow in a state of controllable chaos.

To Drizzt, the Academy became a personal challenge, a private classroom within the impenetrable womb of his whirling scimitars. Inside the adamantite walls he formed with those blades, Drizzt found he could ignore the many injustices he observed all around him, and could somewhat insulate himself against words that would have poisoned his heart. The Academy was a place of constant ambition and deceit, a breeding ground for the ravenous, consuming hunger for power that marked the life of all the drow. Drizzt would survive it unscathed, he promised himself.

As the years passed, though, as the battles began to take on the edge of brutal reality, Drizzt found himself caught up time and again in the heated throes of situations he could not so easily brush away.

Chapter 14 Proper Respect

They moved through the winding tunnels as quietly as a whispering breeze, each step measured in stealth and ending in an alert posture. They were ninth-year students working on their last year in Melee-Magthere, and they operated as often outside the cavern of Menzoberranzan as within. No longer did padded poles adorn their belts, adamantite weapons hung there now, finely forged and cruelly edged.

At times, the tunnels closed in around them, barely wide enough for one dark elf to squeeze through. Other times, the students found themselves in huge caverns with walls and ceilings beyond their sight. They were drow warriors, trained to operate in any type of Underdark landscape and learned in the ways of any foe they might encounter.

"Practice patrols," Master Hatch’net had called these drills, though he had warned the students that "practice patrols" often met monsters quite real and unfriendly. Drizzt, still rated in the top of his class and in the point position, led this group, with Master Hatch’net and ten other students following in formation behind. Only twenty-two of the original twenty-five in Drizzt’s class remained. One had been dismissed―and subsequently executed―for a foiled assassination attempt on a higher-ranking student, a second had been killed in the practice arena, and a third had died in his bunk of natural causes―for a dagger in the heart quite naturally ends one’s life.

In another tunnel a short distance away, Berg’inyon Baenre, holding the class’s second rank, led Master Dinin and the other half of the class in a similar exercise.

Day after day, Drizzit and the others had struggled to keep the fine edge of readiness. In three months of these mock patrols, the group had encountered only one monster, a cave fisher, a nasty crablike denizen of the Underdark. Even that conflict had provided only brief excitement, and no practical experience, for the cave fisher had slipped out along the high ledges before the drow patrol could even get a strike at it.

This day, Drizzt sensed something different. Perhaps it was an unusual edge on Master Hatch’net’s voice or a tingling in the stones of the cavern, a subtle vibration that hinted to Drizzt’s subconscious of other creatures in the maze of tunnels. Whatever the reason, Drizzt knew enough to follow his instincts, and he was not surprised when the telltale glow of a heat source flitted down a side passage on the periphery of his vision. He signaled for the rest of the patrol to halt, then quickly climbed to a perch on a tiny ledge above the side passage’s exit.

When the intruder emerged into the main tunnel, he found himself lying back down on the floor with two scimitar blades crossed over his neck. Drizzt backed away immediately when he recognized his victim as another drow student.

"What are you doing down here?" Master Hatch’net demanded of the intruder. "You know that the tunnels outside Menzoberranzan are not to be traveled by any but the patrols!"

"Your pardon, Master." the student pleaded,"I bring news of an alert."

All in the patrol crowded around, but Hatch’net backed them off with a glare and ordered Drizzt to set them out in defensive positions.

"A child is missing," the student went on, "a princess of House Baenre! Monsters have been spotted in the tunnels!"

"What sort of monsters?" Hatch’net asked. A loud clacking noise, like the sound of two stones being clapped together, answered his question.

"Hook horrors!" Hatch’net signaled to Drizzt at his side.

Drizzt had never seen such beasts, but he had learned enough about them to understand why Master Hatch’net had suddenly reverted to the silent hand code. Hook horrors hunted through a sense of hearing more acute than that of any other creature in all the Underdark. Drizzt immediately relayed the signal around to the others, and they held absolutely quiet for instructions from the master. This was the situation they had trained to handle for the last nine years of their lives, and only the sweat on their palms belied the calm readiness of these young drow warriors.

"Spells of darkness will not foil hook horrors." Hatch’net signaled to his troops. "Nor will these." He indicated the pistol crossbow in his hand and the poison-tipped dart it held, a common firststrike weapon of the dark elves. Hatch’net put the crossbow away and drew his slender sword.

"You must find a gap in the creature’s bone armor," he reminded the others, "and slip your weapon through to the flesh." He tapped Drizzt on the shoulder, and they started off together, the other students falling into line behind them.

The clacking resounded clearly, but, echoing off the stone walls of the tunnels, it provided a confusing beacon for the hunting drow. Hatch’net let Drizzt steer their course and was impressed by the way the student soon discerned the pattern of the echo riddle. Drizzt’s step came in confidence, though many of the others in the patrol glanced about anxiously unsure of the peril’s direction or distance.

Then a singular sound froze them all where they stood, cutting through the din of the clacking monsters and resounding again and again, surrounding the patrol in the echoing madness of a terrifying wail. It was the scream of a child.

"Princess of House Baenre!" Hatch’net signaled to Drizzt.

The master started to order his troops into a battle formation, but Drizzt didn’t wait to watch the commands. The scream had sent a shudder of revulsion through his spine, and when it sounded again, it lighted angry fires in his lavender eyes.

Drizzt sprinted off down the tunnel, the cold metal of his scimitars leading the way.

Hatch’net organized the patrol into quick pursuit. He hated the thought of losing a student as skilled as Drizzt, but he considered, too, the benefits of Drizzt’s rash actions. If the others watched the finest of their class die in an act of stupidity, it would be a lesson they would not soon forget.

Drizzt cut around a sharp corner and down a straight expanse of narrow, broken walls. He heard no echoes now, just the ravenous clacking of the waiting monsters and the muffled cries of the child.

His keen ears caught the slight sounds of his patrol at his back, and he knew that if he was able to hear them, the hook horrors surely could. Drizzt would not relinquish the passion or the immediacy of his quest. He climbed to a ledge ten feet above the floor, hoping it would run the length of the corridor. When he slipped around a final bend, he could barely distinguish the heat of the monsters’ forms through the blurring coolness of their bony exoskeletons, shells nearly equal in temperature to the surrounding stone.

He made out five of the giant beasts, two pressed against the stone and guarding the corridor and three others farther back, in a little cul-de-sac, toying with some crying object.

Drizzt mustered his nerve and continued along the ledge, using all the stealth he had ever learned to creep by the sentries. Then he saw the child princess, lying in a broken heap at the foot of one of the monstrous bipeds. The motion of her sobs told Drizzt that she was alive. Drizzt had no intention of engaging the monsters if he could help it, hoping that he might perhaps slip in and steal the child away.

Then the patrol came headlong around the bend in the corridor, forcing Drizzt to action.

"Sentries!" he screamed in warning, probably saving the lives of the first four of the group. Drizzt’s attention abruptly returned to the wounded child as one of the hook horrors raised its heavy, clawed foot to crush her.

The beast stood nearly twice Drizzt’s height and outweighed him more than five times over. It was fully armored in the hard shell of its exoskeleton and adorned with gigantic clawed hands and a long and powerful beak. Three of the monsters stood between Drizzt and the child.

Drizzt couldn’t care about any of those details at that horrible, critical moment. His fears for the child outweighed any concern for the danger looming before him. He was a drow warrior, a fighter trained and outfitted for battle, while the child was helpless and defenseless.

Two of the hook horrors rushed at the ledge, just the break Drizzt needed. He rose up to his feet and leaped out over them, coming down in a fighting blur onto the side of the remaining hook horror. The monster lost all thoughts of the child as Drizzt’s scimitars snapped in at its beak relentlessly, cracking into its facial armor in a desperate search for an opening.

The hook horror fell back, overwhelmed by its opponent’s fury and unable to catch up to the blades blinding, stinging movements.

Drizzt knew that he had the advantage on this one, but he knew, as well, that two others would soon be at his back. He did not relent. He slid down from his perch on the monster’s side and rolled around to block its retreat, dropping between its stalagmitelike legs and tripping it to the stone.

Then he was on top of it, poking furiously as it floundered on its belly.

The hook horror desperately tried to respond, but its armored shell was too encumbering for it to twist out from under the assault.

Drizzt knew his own situation was even more desperate. Battle had been joined in the corridor, but Hatch’net and the others couldn’t possibly get through the sentries in time to stop the two hook horrors undoubtedly charging his back.

Prudence dictated that Drizzt relinquish his position over this one and spin away into a defensive posture.

The child’s agonized scream, however, overruled prudence. Rage burned in Drizzt’s eyes so blatantly that even the stupid hook horror knew its life was soon to end. Drizzt put the tips of his scimitars together in a «V» and plunged them down onto the back of the monster’s skull with all his might. Seeing a slight crack in the creature’s shell, Drizzt crossed the hilts of his weapons, reversed the points, and split a clear opening in the monster’s defense. He then snapped the hilts together and plunged the blades straight down, through the soft flesh and into the monster’s brain. A heavy claw sliced a deep line across Drizzt’s shoulders, tearing his piwafwi and drawing blood. He dove forward into a roll and came up with his wounded back to the far wall. Only one hook horror moved in at him, the other picked up the child.

"No!" Drizzt screamed in protest. He started forward, only to be slapped back by the attacking monster. Then, paralyzed, he watched in horror as the other hook horror put an end to the child’s screams.

Rage replaced determination in Drizzt’s eyes. The closest hook horror rushed at him, meaning to crush him against the stone. Drizzt recognized its intentions and didn’t even try to dodge out of the way. Instead, he reversed his grip on his weapons and locked them against the wall, above his shoulders.

With the momentum of the monster’s eight-hundred-pound bulk carrying it on, even the armor of its shell could not protect the hook horror from the adamantite scimitars.

It slammed Drizzt up against the wall, but in doing so impaled itself through the belly.

The creature jumped back, trying to wriggle free, but it could not escape the fury of Drizzt Do’Urden. Savagely the young drow twisted the impaled blades. He then shoved off from the wall with the strength of anger, tumbling the giant monster backward.

Two of Drizzt’s enemies were dead, and one of the hook horror sentries in the hallway was down, but Drizzt found no relief in those facts. The third hook horror towered over him as he desperately tried to get his blades free from his latest victim. Drizzt had no escape from this one.

The second patrol arrived then, and Dinin and Berg’inyon Baenre rushed into the cul-de-sac, along the same ledge Drizzt had taken. The hook horror turned away from Drizzt just as the two skilled fighters came at it.

Drizzt ignored the painful gash in his back and the cracks he had no doubt suffered in his slender ribs. Breathing came to him in labored gasps, but this, too, was of no consequence. He finally managed to free one of his blades, and he charged at the monster’s back. Caught in the middle of the three skilled drow, the hook horror went down in seconds.

The corridor was finally cleared, and the dark elves rushed in all around the cul-de-sac. They had lost only one student in their battle against the monster sentries.

"A princess of House Barrison’del’armgo." remarked one of the students in Dinin’s patrol, looking at the child’s body.

"House Baenre, we were told." said another student, one from Hatch’net’s group. Drizzt did not miss the discrepancy. Berg’inyon Baenre rushed over to see if the victim was indeed his youngest sister.

"Not of my house." he said with obvious relief after a quick inspection. He then laughed as further examination revealed a few other details about the corpse. "Not even a princess!" he declared.

Drizzt watched it all curiously, noting the impassive, callous attitude of his companions most of all.

Another student confirmed Berg’inyon’s observation. "A boy child!" he spouted. "But of what house?"

Master Hatch’net moved over to the tiny body and reached down to take the purse from around the child’s neck. He emptied its contents into his hand, revealing the emblem of a lesser house.

"A lost waif." he laughed to his students, tossing the empty purse back to the ground and pocketing its contents, "of no consequence."

"A fine fight." Dinin was quick to add, "with only one loss. Go back to Menzoberranzan proud of the work you have accomplished this day."

Drizzt slapped the blades of his scimitars together in a resounding ring of protest.

Master Hatch’net ignored him. "Form up and head back." he told the others. "You all performed well this day." He then glared at Drizzt, stopping the angry student in his tracks.

"Except for you!" Hatch’net snarled. "I cannot ignore the fact that you downed two of the beasts and helped with a third." Hatch’net scolded, "but you endangered the rest of us with your foolish bravado!"

"I warned of the sentries…", Drizzt stuttered.

"Damn your warning!" shouted the master. "You went off without command! You ignored the accepted methods of battle! You led us in here blindly! Look at the corpse of your fallen companion!" Hatch’net raged, pointing to the dead student in the corridor. "His blood is on your hands!

"I meant to save the child." Drizzt argued.

"We all meant to save the child!" retorted Hatch’net. Drizzt was not so certain. What would a child be doing out in these corridors all alone? How convenient that a group of hook horrors, a rarely seen beast in the region of Menzoberranzan, just happened by to provide training for this "practice patrol." Too convenient, Drizzt knew, considering that the passages farther from the city teemed with the true patrols of seasoned warriors, wizards, and even clerics.

"You knew what was around the bend in the tunnel." Drizzt said evenly, his eyes narrowing at the master. The slap of a blade across the wound on his back made Drizzt lurch in pain, and he nearly lost his footing. He turned to find Dinin glaring down at him. "Keep your foolish words unspoken." Dinin warned in a harsh whisper, "or I will cut out your tongue."

"The child was a plant." Drizzt insisted when he was alone with his brother in Dinin’s room.

Dinin’s response was a stinging smack across the face.

"They sacrificed him for the purpose of the drill." growled the unrelenting younger Do’Urden.

Dinin launched a second punch, but Drizzt caught it in midswing. "You know the truth of my words." Drizzt said. "You knew about it all along."

"Learn your place, Secondboy." Dinin replied in open threat, "in the Academy and in the family." He pulled away from his brother.

"To the Nine Hells with the Academy!" Drizzt spat at Dinin’s face. "If the family holds similar…" He noticed that Dinin’s hands now held sword and dirk.

Drizzt jumped back, his own scimitars coming out at the ready. "I have no desire to fight you, my brother," he said. "Know well that if you attack, I will defend. Only one of us will walk out of here."

Dinin considered his next move carefully. If he attacked and won, the threat to his position in the family would be at an end. Certainly no one, not even Matron Malice, would question the punishment he levied against his impertinent younger brother. Dinin had seen Drizzt in battle, though.

Two hook horrors! Even Zaknafein would be hard pressed to attain such a victory. Still, Dinin knew that if he did not carry through with his threat, if he let Drizzt face him down, he might give Drizzt confidence in their future struggles, possibly inciting the treachery he had always expected from the secondboy.

"What is this, then?" came a voice from the room’s doorway. The brothers turned to see their sister Vierna, a mistress of Arach-Tinilith. "Put your weapons away." she scolded. "House Do’Urden cannot afford such infighting now!"

Realizing that he had been let off the hook, Dinin readily complied with the demands, and Drizzt did likewise.

"Consider yourselves fortunate." said Vierna, "for I’ll not tell Matron Malice of this stupidity. She would not be merciful, I promise you."

"Why have you come unannounced to Melee-Magthere?" asked the elderboy, perturbed by his sister’s attitude. He, too, was a master of the Academy, even if he was only a male, and deserved some respect.

Vierna glanced up and down the hallway, then closed the door behind her. "To warn my brothers." she explained quietly. "There are rumors of vengeance against our house."

"By what family?" Dinin pressed. Drizzt just stood back in confused silence and let the two continue. "For what deed?"

"For the elimination of House DeVir, I would presume." replied Vierna. "Little is known, the rumors are vague. I wanted to warn you both, though, so that you might keep your guard especially high in the coming months."

"House DeVir fell many years ago." said Dinin. "What penalty could still be enacted?"

Vierna shrugged. "They are just rumors." she said. "Rumors to be listened to!"

"We have been accused of a wrongful deed?" Drizzt asked. "Surely our family must callout this false accuser." Vierna and Dinin exchanged smiles. "Wrongful?" Vierna laughed.

Drizzt’s expression revealed his confusion.

"On the very night you were born." Dinin explained, "House DeVir ceased to exist. An excellent attack, thank you."

"House Do’Urden?" gasped Drizzt, unable to come to terms with the startling news. Of course, Drizzt knew of such battles, but he had held out hope that his own family was above that sort of murderous action.

"One of the finest eliminations ever carried out." Vierna boasted. "Not a witness left alive."

"You… our family… murdered another family?"

"Watch your words, Secondboy." Dinin warned. "The deed was perfectly executed. In the eyes of Menzoberranzan, therefore, it never happened."

"But House DeVir ceased to exist." said Drizzt.

"The child." said Dinin with a laugh.

A thousand possibilities assaulted Drizzt at that awful moment, a thousand pressing questions that he needed answered. One in particular stood out vividly, welling like a lump of bile in his throat.

"Where was Zaknafein that night?" he asked.

"In the chapel of House DeVir’s clerics, of course." replied Vierna. "Knafein plays his part in such business so very well."

Drizzt rocked back on his heels, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. He knew that Zak had killed drow before, had killed clerics of Lolth before, but Drizzt had always assumed that the weapon master had acted out of necessity, in self-defense.

"You should show more respect to your brother." Vierna scolded him. "To draw weapons against Dinin! You owe him your life!"

"You know?" Dinin chuckled, casting Vierna a curious glance.

"You and I were melded that night." Vierna reminded him. "Of course I know."

"What are you talking about?" asked Drizzt, almost afraid to hear the reply.

"You were to be the third born male in the family." Vierna explained, "the third living son."

"I have heard of my brother Nal…". The name stuck in Drizzt’s throat as he began to understand. All he had ever been able to learn of Nalfein was that he had been killed by another drow.

"You will learn in your studies at Arach-Tinilith that third living sons are customarily sacrificed to Lolth." Vierna continued. "So were you promised. On the night that you were born, the night that House Do’Urden battled House DeVir, Dinin made his ascent to the position of elderboy." She cast a sly glance at her brother, standing with his arms proudly crossed over his chest.

"I can speak of it now." Vierna smiled at Dinin, who nodded his head in accord. "It happened too long ago for any punishment to be brought against Dinin."

"What are you talking about?" Drizzt demanded. Panic hovered all about him. "What did Dinin do?"

"He put his sword into Nalfein’s back." Vierna said calmly.

Drizzt swam on the edge of nausea. Sacrifice? Murder?

The annihilation of a family, even the children? What were his siblings talking about?

"Show respect to your brother!" Vierna demanded. "You owe him your life.

"I warn the both of you." she purred, her ominous glare shaking Drizzt and knocking Dinin from his confident pedestal. "House Do’Urden may be on a course of war. If either of you strike out against the other, you will bring the wrath of all your sisters and Matron Malice―four high priestesses―down upon your worthless soul!" Confident that her threat carried sufficient weight, she turned and left the room.

"I will go." Drizzt whispered, wanting only to skulk away to a dark corner.

"You will go when you are dismissed!" Dinin scolded. "Remember your place, Drizzt Do’Urden, in the Academy and in the family."

"As you remembered yours with Nalfein?"

"The battle against DeVir was won." Dinin replied, taking no offense. "The act brought no peril to the family."

Another wave of disgust swept over Drizzt. He felt as if the floor were climbing up to swallow him, and he almost hoped that it would.

"It is a difficult world we inhabit." Dinin said.

"We make it so." Drizzt retorted. He wanted to continue further, to implicate the Spider Queen and the whole amoral religion that would sanction such destructive and treacherous actions. Drizzt wisely held his tongue, though. Dinin wanted him dead he, understood that now. Drizzt understood as well that if he gave his scheming brother the opportunity to turn the females of the family against him, Dinin surely would.

"You must learn," Dinin said, again in a controlled tone, "to accept the realities of your surroundings. You must learn to recognize your enemies and defeat them."

"By whatever means are available." Drizzt concluded.

"The mark of a true warrior!" Dinin replied with a wicked laugh.

"Are our enemies drow elves?"

"We are drow warriors!" Dinin declared sternly. "We do what we must to survive."

"As you did, on the night of my birth." Drizzt reasoned, though at this point, there was no remaining trace of outrage in his resigned tone. "You were cunning enough to get away cleanly with the deed."

Dinin’s reply, though expected, stung the younger drow profoundly.

"It never happened."

Chapter 15 On The DarkSide

"I am Drizzt…"

"I know who you are." replied the student mage, Drizzt’s appointed tutor in Sorcere. "Your reputation precedes you. Most in all the Academy have heard of you and of your prowess with weapons."

Drizzt bowed low, a bit embarrassed.

"That skill will be of little use to you here." the mage went on, "I am to tutor you in the wizardly arts, the dark side of magic, we call them. This is a test of your mind and your heart, meager metal weapons will play no part. Magic is the true power of our people!"

Drizzt accepted the berating without reply. He knew that the traits this young mage was boasting of were also necessary qualities of a true fighter. Physical attributes played only a minor role in Drizzt’s style of battle. Strong will and calculated maneuvers, everything the mage apparently believed only wizards could handle, won the duels that Drizzt fought.

"I will show you many marvels in the next few months." the mage went on, "artifacts beyond your belief and spells of a power beyond your experience!"

"May I know your name?" Drizzt asked, trying to sound somewhat impressed by the student’s continued stream of self-glorification. Drizzt had already learned quite a lot about wizardry from Zaknafein, mostly of the weaknesses inherent in the class. Because of magic’s usefulness in situations other than battle, drow wizards were accorded a high position in the society, second to the clerics of Lolth. It was a wizard, after all, who lighted the glowing Narbondel, time clock of the city, and wizards who lighted faerie fires on the sculptures of the decorated houses.

Zaknafein had little respect for wizards. They could kill quickly and from a distance, he had warned Drizzt, but if one could get in close to them, they had little defense against a sword.

"Masoj." replied the mage. "Masoj Hun’ett of House Hun’ett, beginning my thirtieth and final year of study. Soon I will be recognized as a full wizard of Menzoberranzan, with all of the privileges accorded my station."

"Greetings, then, Masoj Hun’ett." Drizzt replied. "I, too, have but a year remaining in my training at the Academy, for a fighter spends only ten years."

"A lesser talent." Masoj was quick to remark. "Wizards study thirty years before they are even considered practiced enough to go out and perform their craft."

Again Drizzt accepted the insult graciously. He wanted to get this phase of his instruction over with, then finish out the year and be rid of the Academy altogether.

Drizzt found his six months under Masoj’s tutelage actually the best of his stay at the Academy. Not that he came to care for Masoj, the budding wizard constantly sought ways to remind Drizzt of fighters’ inferiority. Drizzt sensed a competition between himself and Masoj, almost as if the mage were setting him up for some future conflict. The young fighter shrugged his way through it, as he always had, and tried to get as much out of the lessons as he could.

Drizzt found that he was quite proficient in the ways of magic. Every drow, the fighters included, possessed a degree of magical talent and certain innate abilities. Even drow children could conjure a globe of darkness or edge their opponents in a glowing outline of harmless colored flames. Drizzt handled these tasks easily, and in a few weeks, he could manage several cantrips and a few lesser spells.

With the innate magical talents of the dark elves also came a resistance to magical attacks, and that is where Zaknafein had recognized the wizards’ greatest weakness. A wizard could cast his most powerful spell to perfection, but if his intended victim was a drow elf, the wizard may well have found no results for his efforts. The surety of a well-aimed sword thrust always impressed Zaknafein, and Drizzt, after witnessing the drawbacks of drow magic during those first weeks with Masoj, began to appreciate the course of training he had been given.

He still found great enjoyment in many of the things Masoj showed him, particularly the enchanted items housed in the tower of Sorcere. Drizzt held wands and staves of incredible power and went through several attack routines with a sword so heavily enchanted that his hands tingled from its touch.

Masoj, too, watched Drizzt carefully through it all, studying the young warrior’s every move, searching for some weakness that he might exploit if House Hun’ett and House Do’Urden ever did fall into the expected conflict. Several times, Masoj saw an opportunity to eliminate Drizzt, and he felt in his heart that it would be a prudent move. Matron SiNafay’s instructions to him, though, had been explicit and unbending.

Masoj’s mother had secretly arranged for him to be Drizzt’s tutor. This was not an unusual situation, instruction for fighters during their six months in Sorcere was always handled one-on-one by higher-level Sorcere students. When she had told Masoj of the setup, SiNafay quickly reminded him that his sessions with the young Do’Urden remained no more than a scouting mission. He was not to do anything that might even hint of the planned conflict between the two houses. Masoj was not fool enough to disobey.

Still, there was one other wizard lurking in the shadows, who was so desperate that even the warnings of the matron mother did little to deter him.

"My student, Masoj, has informed me of your fine progress." Alton DeVir said to Drizzt one day.

"Thank you, Master Faceless One." Drizzt replied hesitantly, more than a little intimidated that a master of Sorcere had invited him to a private audience.

"How do you perceive magic, young warrior?" Alton asked. "Has Masoj impressed you?"

Drizzt didn’t know how to respond. Truly, magic had not impressed him as a profession, but he did not want to insult a master of the craft. "I find the art beyond my abilities." he said tactfully. "For others, it seems a powerful course, but I believe my talents are more closely linked to the sword."

"Could your weapons defeat one of magical power?" Alton snarled. He quickly bit back the sneer, trying not to tip off his intent.

Drizzt shrugged. "Each has its place in battle." he replied. "Who could say which is the mightier? As with every combat, it would depend upon the individuals engaged."

"Well, what of yourself?" Alton teased. "First in your class, I have heard, year after year. The masters of Melee-Magthere speak highly of your talents."

Again Drizzt found himself flushed with embarrassment. More than that, though, he was curious as to why a master and student of Sorcere seemed to know so much about him.

"Could you stand against one of magical powers?" asked Alton. "Against a master of Sorcere, perhaps?"

"I do not…" Drizzt began, but Alton was too enmeshed in his own ranting to hear him.

"Let us learn!" the Faceless One cried. He drew out a thin wand and promptly loosed a bolt of lightning at Drizzt. Drizzt was down into a dive before the wand even discharged. The lightning bolt sundered the door to Alton’s highest chamber and bounced about the adjoining room, breaking items and scorching the walls.

Drizzt came rolling back to his feet at the side of the room, his scimitars drawn and ready. He still was unsure of this master’s intent.

"How many can you dodge?" Alton teased, waving the wand in a threatening circle. "What of the other spells I have at my disposal―those that attack the mind, not the body?"

Drizzt tried to understand the purpose of this lesson and the part he was meant to play in it. Was he supposed to attack this master?

"These are not practice blades." he warned, holding his weapons out toward Alton.

Another bolt roared in, forcing Drizzt to dodge back to his original position. "Does this seem like practice to you, foolish Do’Urden?" Alton growled. "Do you know who I am?" Alton’s time of revenge had come―damn the orders of Matron SiNafay!

Just as Alton was about to reveal the truth to Drizzt, a dark form slammed into the master’s back, knocking him to the floor. He tried to squirm away but found himself helplessly pinned by a huge black panther.

Drizzt lowered the tips of his blades he was at a loss to understand any of this.

"Enough, Guenhwyvar!" came a call from behind Alton. Looking past the fallen master and the cat, Drizzt saw Masoj enter the room.

The panther sprang away from Alton obediently and moved to rejoin its master. It paused on its way, to consider Drizzt, who stood ready in the middle of the room. So enchanted was Drizzt with the beast, the graceful flow of its rippling muscles and the intelligence in its saucer eyes, that he paid little attention to the master who had just attacked him, though Alton, unhurt, was back to his feet and obviously upset.

"My pet." Masoj explained. Drizzt watched in amazement as Masoj dismissed the cat back to its own plane of existence by sending its corporeal form back into the magical onyx statuette he held in his hand.

"Where did you get such a companion?" Drizzt asked.

"Never underestimate the powers of magic." Masoj replied, dropping the figurine into a deep pocket. His beaming smile became a scowl as he looked to Alton.

Drizzt, too, glanced at the faceless master. That a student had dared to attack a master seemed impossibly odd to the young fighter. This situation grew more puzzling each minute.

Alton knew that he had overstepped his bounds, and that he would have to pay a high price for his foolishness if he could not find some way out of this predicament.

"Have you learned your lesson this day?" Masoj asked Drizzt, though Alton realized that the question was also directed his way.

Drizzt shook his head. "I am not certain of the point of all this." he answered honestly.

"A display of the weakness of magic," Masoj explained, trying to disguise the truth of the encounter, "to show you the disadvantage caused by the necessary intensity of a casting wizard, to show you the vulnerability of a mage obsessed…" he eyed Alton directly at this point, "with spellcasting. The complete vulnerability when a wizard’s intended prey becomes his overriding concern."

Drizzt recognized the lie for what it was, but he could not understand the motives behind this day’s events. Why would a master of Sorcere attack him so? Why would Masoj, still just a student, risk so much to come to his defense?

"Let us bother the master no more." Masoj said, hoping to deflect Drizzt’s curiosity further. "Come with me now to our practice hall. I will show you more of Guenhwyvar, my magical pet."

Drizzt looked to Alton, wondering what the unpredictable master would do next.

"Do go." Alton said calmly, knowing the facade Masoj had begun would be his only way around the wrath of his adopted matron mother. "I am confident that this day’s lesson was learned." he said, his eyes on Masoj.

Drizzt glanced back to Masoj, then back to Alton again. He let it go at that. He wanted to learn more of Guenhwyvar.

When Masoj had Drizzt back in the privacy of the tutor’s own room, he took out the polished onyx figurine in the form of a panther and called Guenhwyvar back to his side. The mage breathed easier after he had introduced Drizzt to the cat, for Drizzt spoke no more about the incident with Alton.

Never before had Drizzt encountered such a wonderful magical item. He sensed a strength in Guenhwyvar, a dignity, that belied the beast’s enchanted nature. Truly, the cat’s sleek muscles and graceful moves epitomized the hunting qualities drow elves so dearly desired. Just by watching Guenhwyvar’s movements, Drizzt believed, he could improve his own techniques.

Masoj let them play together and spar together for hours, grateful that Guenhwyvar could help him smooth over any damage that foolish Alton had done.

Drizzt had already put his meeting with the faceless monster far behind him.

"Matron SiNafay would not understand." Masoj warned Alton when they were alone later that day.

"You will tell her." Alton reasoned matter-of-factly. So frustrated was he with his failure to kill Drizzt that he hardly cared.

Masoj shook his head. "She need not know."

A suspicious smile found its way across Alton’s disfigured face. "What do you want?" he asked coyly. "Your tenure here is almost at its end. What more might a master do for Masoj?"

"Nothing." Masoj replied. "I want nothing from you."

"Then why?" Alton demanded. "I desire no debts following my paths. This incident is to be done with here and now!"

"It is done." Masoj replied. Alton didn’t seem convinced.

"What could I gain from telling Matron SiNafay of your foolish actions?" Masoj reasoned. "Likely, she would kill you, and then the coming war with House Do’Urden would have no basis. You are the link we need to justify the attack. I desire this battle, I’ll not risk it for the little pleasure I might find in your tortured demise."

"I was foolish." Alton admitted, more somberly. "I had not planned to kill Drizzt when I summoned him here, just to watch him and learn of him, so that I might savor more when the time to kill him finally arrived. Seeing him before me, though, seeing a cursed Do’Urden standing unprotected before me…!"

"I understand." said Masoj sincerely. "I have had those same feelings when looking upon that one."

"You have no grudge against House Do’Urden."

"Not the house." Masoj explained, "that one! I have watched him for nearly a decade, studied his movements and his attitudes."

"You like not what you see?" Alton asked, a hopeful tone in his voice.

"He does not belong." Masoj replied grimly. "After six months by his side, I feel I know him less now than I ever did. He displays no ambition, yet has emerged victorious from his class’s grand melee nine years in a row. It’s unprecedented! His grasp of magic is strong he could have been a wizard, a very powerful wizard, if he had chosen that course of study."

Masoj clenched his fist, searching for the words to convey his true emotions about Drizzt. "It is all too easy for him." he snarled. "There is no sacrifice in Drizzt’s actions, no scars for the great gains he makes in his chosen profession."

"He is gifted." Alton remarked, "but he trains as hard as any I have ever seen, by all accounts."

"That is not the problem." Masoj groaned in frustration.

There was something less tangible about Drizzt Do’Urden’s character that truly irked the young Hun’ett. He couldn’t recognize it now, because he had never witnessed it in any dark elf before, and because it was so very foreign to his own makeup. What bothered Masoj―and many other students and masters―was the fact that Drizzt excelled in all the fighting skills the drow elves most treasured but hadn’t given up his passion in return. Drizzt had not paid the price that the rest of the drow children were made to sacrifice long before they had even entered the Academy.

"It is not important." Masoj said after several fruitless minutes of contemplation. "I will learn more of the young Do’Urden in time."

"His tutelage under you was finished, I had thought." said Alton. "He goes to Arach-Tinilith for the final six months of his training―quite inaccessible to you."

"We both graduate after those six months." Masoj explained. "We will share our indenture time in the patrol forces together."

"Many will share that time." Alton reminded him. "Dozens of groups patrol the corridors of the region. You may never even see Drizzt in all the years of your term."

"I already have arranged for us to serve in the same group." replied Masoj. He reached into his pocket and produced the onyx figurine of the magical panther.

"A mutual agreement between yourself and the young Do’Urden." Alton reasoned with a complimentary smile.

"It appears that Drizzt has become quite fond of my pet.", Masoj chuckled.

"Too fond?" Alton warned. "You should watch your back for scimitars."

Masoj laughed aloud. "Perhaps our friend, Do’Urden, should watch his back for panther claws!"

Chapter 16 Sacrilege

"Last day." Drizzt breathed in relief as he donned his ceremonial robes. If the first six months of this final year, learning the subtleties of magic in Sorcere, had been the most enjoyable, these last six in the school of Lolth had been the least. Every day, Drizzt and his classmates had been subjected to endless eulogies to the Spider Queen, tales and prophecies of her power and of the rewards she bestowed upon loyal servants.

"Slaves" would have been a better word, Drizzt had come to realize, for nowhere in all this grand school to the drow deity had he heard anything synonymous with, or even hinting at, the word love. His people worshiped Lolth, the females of Menzoberranzan gave over their entire existence in her servitude. Their giving was wholly wrought of selfishness, though a cleric of the Spider Queen aspired to the position of high priestess solely for the personal power that accompanied the title.

It all seemed so very wrong in Drizzt’s heart.

Drizzt had drifted through the six months of Arach-Tinilith with his customary stoicism, keeping his eyes low and his mouth shut. Now, finally, he had come to the last day, the Ceremony of Graduation, an event most holy to the drow, and wherein, Vierna had promised him, he would come to understand the true glory of Lolth.

With tentative steps, Drizzt moved out from the shelter of his tiny, unadorned room. He worried that this ceremony had become his personal trial. Up to now, very little about the society around Drizzt had made any sense to him, and he wondered, despite his sister’s assurances, whether the events of this day would allow him to see the world as his kin saw it. Drizzt’s fears had taken a spiral twist, one rolling out from the other to surround him in a predicament he could not escape.

Perhaps, he worried, he truly feared that the day’s events would fulfill Vierna’s promise.

Drizzt shielded his eyes as he entered the circular ceremonial hall of Arach-Tinilith. A fire burned in the center of the room, in an eight-legged brazier that resembled, as everything in this place seemed to resemble, a spider. The headmistress of all the Academy, the matron mistress, and the other twelve high priestesses serving as instructors of Arach-Tinilith, including Drizzt’s sister, sat cross-legged in a circle around the brazier. Drizzt and his classmates from the school of fighters stood along the wall behind them.

"Ma ku!" the matron mistress commanded, and all was silent save the crackle of the brazier’s flames. The door to the room opened again, and a young cleric entered. She was to be the first graduate of Arach-Tinilith this year, Drizzt had been told, the finest student in the school of Lolth. Thus, she had been awarded the highest honors in this ceremony. She shrugged off her robes and walked naked through the ring of sitting priestesses to stand before the flames, her back to the matron mistress.

Drizzt bit his lip, embarrassed and a little excited. He had never seen a female in such a light before, and he suspected that the sweat on his brow was from more than the brazier’s heat. A quick glance around the room told him that his classmates entertained similar ideas.

"Raego si’n’ee calamay." the matron mistress whispered, and red smoke poured from the brazier, coloring the room in a hazy glow. It carried an aroma with it, rich and sickly sweet. As Drizzt breathed the scented air, he felt himself grow lighter and wondered if he soon would be floating off the floor!

The flames in the brazier suddenly roared higher, causing Drizzt to squint against the brightness and turn away. The clerics began a ritual chant, though the words were unfamiliar to Drizzt. He hardly paid them any heed, though, for he was too intent on holding his own thoughts in the overpowering swoon of the inebriating haze.

"Glabrezu." the matron mistress moaned, and Drizzt recognized the tone as a summons, the name of a denizen of the lower planes. He looked back to the events at hand and saw the matron mistress holding a singletongued snake whip.

"Where did she get that?" Drizzt mumbled, then he realized that he had spoken aloud and hoped he hadn’t disturbed the ceremony. He was comforted when he glanced around, for many of his classmates were mumbling to themselves, and some seemed hardly able to hold their balance.

"Call to it." the matron mistress instructed the naked student.

Tentatively, the young cleric spread her arms out wide and whispered, "Glabrezu."

The flames danced about the rim of the brazier. The smoke wafted into Drizzt’s face, compelling him to inhale it. His legs tingled on the edge of numbness, yet they somehow felt more sensitive, more alive, than they ever had before.

"Glabrezu." he heard the student say again louder, and Drizzt heard, too, the roar of the flames. Brightness assaulted him, but somehow he didn’t seem to care. His gaze roamed about the room, unable to find a focus, unable to place the strange, dancing sights in accord with the ritual’s sounds.

He heard the high priestesses gasping and coaxing the student on, knowing the conjuring to be at hand. He heard the snap of the snake whip―another incentive?―and cries of "Glabrezu!" from the student. So primal, so powerful, were these screams that they cut through Drizzt and the other males in the room with an intensity they never would have believed possible.

The flames heard the call. They roared higher and higher and began to take shape. One sight caught the vision of all in the room now, caught it and held it fully. A giant head, a goat-horned dog, appeared within the flames, apparently studying this alluring young drow student who had dared to utter its name.

Somewhere beyond the other planar form, the snake whip cracked again, and the female student repeated her call, her cry beckoning, praying.

The giant denizen of the lower planes stepped through the flames. The sheer unholy power of the creature stunned Drizzt. Glabrezu towered nine feet and seemed much more, with muscled arms ending in giant pincers instead of hands and a second set of smaller arms, normal arms, protruding from the front of its chest.

Drizzt’s instincts told him to attack the monster and rescue the female student, but when he looked around for support, he found the matron mistress and the other teachers of the school back in their ritualistic chanting, this time with an excited edge permeating their every word.

Through all the haze and the daze, the tantalizing, dizzying aroma of the smoky red incense continued its assault on reality. Drizzt trembled, teetered on a narrow ledge of control, his gathering rage fighting the scented smoke’s confusing allure. Instinctively, his hands went to the hilts of the scimitars on his belt.

Then a hand brushed against his leg.

He looked down to see a mistress, reclined and asking him to join her―a scene that had suddenly become general around the chamber.

The smoke continued its assault on him.

The mistress beckoned to him, her fingernails lightly scraping the skin of his leg.

Drizzt ran his fingers through his thick hair, trying to find some focal point in the dizziness. He did not like this loss of control, this mental numbness that stole the fine edge of his reflexes and alertness.

He liked even less the scene unfolding before him. The sheer wrongness of it assaulted his soul. He pulled away from the mistress’s hopeful grasp and stumbled across the room, tripping over numerous entwined forms too engaged to take note of him. He made the exit as quickly as his wobbly legs could carry him, and he rushed out of the room, pointedly closing the door behind him.

Only the screams of the female student followed him. No stone or mental barricade could block them out.

Drizzt leaned heavily against the cool stone wall, grasping at his stomach. He hadn’t even paused to consider the implications of his actions, he knew only that he had to get out of that foul room.

Vierna then was beside him, her robe opened casually in the front. Drizzt, his head clearing, began to wonder about the price of his actions. The look on his sister’s face, he noted with still more confusion, was not one of scorn.

"You prefer privacy." she said, her hand resting easily on Drizzt’s shoulder. Vierna made no move to close her robe. "I understand." she said.

Drizzt grabbed her arm and pulled her away. "What insanity is this?" he demanded.

Vierna’s face twisted as she came to understand her brother’s true intentions in leaving the ceremony. "You refused a high priestess!" she snarled at him. "By the laws, she could kill you for your insolence."

"I do not even know her." Drizzt shot back. "I am expected to…"

"You are expected to do as you are instructed!"

"I care nothing for her." Drizzt stammered. He found he could not hold his hands steady.

"Do you think Zaknafein cared for Matron Malice?" Vierna replied, knowing that the reference to Drizzt’s hero would surely sting him. Seeing that she had indeed wounded her brother, Vierna softened her expression and took his arm. "Come back," she purred, "into the room.There is still time."

Drizzt’s cold glare stopped her as surely as the point of a scimitar.

"The Spider Queen is the deity of our people." Vierna sternly reminded him. "I am one of those who speaks her will."

"I would not be so proud of that." Drizzt retorted, clinging to his anger against the wave of very real fear that threatened to defeat his principled stand.

Vierna slapped him hard across the face. "Go back to the ceremony!" she demanded.

"Go kiss a spider." Drizzt replied. "And may its pincers tear your cursed tongue from your mouth."

It was Vierna now who could not hold her hands steady.

"You should take care when you speak to a high priestess." she warned.

"Damn your Spider Queen!" Drizzt spat. "Though I am certain Lolth found damnation eons ago!"

"She brings us power!" Vierna shrieked.

"She steals everything that makes us worth more than the stone we walk upon!" Drizzt screamed back.

"Sacrilege." Vierna sneered, the word rolling off her tongue like the whistle of the matron mistress’s snake whip. A climactic, anguished scream erupted from inside the room.

"Evil union." Drizzt muttered, looking away.

"There is a gain." Vierna replied, quickly back in control of her temper.

Drizzt cast an accusing glance her way. "Have you had a similar experience?"

"I am a high priestess." was her simple reply. Darkness hovered all about Drizzt, outrage so intense that he nearly swooned. "Did it please you?" he spat.

"It brought me power." Vierna growled back. "You cannot understand the value."

"What did it cost you?"

Vierna’s slap nearly knocked Drizzt from his feet. "Come with me." she said, grabbing the front of his robe. "There is a place I want to show to you."

They moved out from Arach-Tinilith and across the Academy’s courtyard. Drizzt hesitated when they reached the pillars that marked the entrance to Tier Breche.

"I cannot pass between these." he reminded his sister. "I am not yet graduated from Melee-Magthere."

"A formality." Vierna replied, not slowing her pace at all. "I am a mistress of Arach-Tinilith, I have the power to graduate you."

Drizzt wasn’t certain of the truth of Vierna’s claim, but she was indeed a mistress of Arach- Tinilith. As much as Drizzt feared the edicts of the Academy, he didn’t want to anger Vierna again.

He followed her down the wide stone stairs and out into the meandering roadways of the city proper.

"Home?" he dared to ask after a short while.

"Not yet." came the curt reply. Drizzt didn’t press the point any further.

They veered off to the eastern end of the great cavern, across from the wall that held House Do’Urden, and came to the entrances of three small tunnels, all guarded by glowing statues of giant scorpions. Vierna paused for just a moment to consider which was the correct course, then led on again, down the smallest of the tunnels.

The minutes became an hour, and still they walked. The passage widened and soon led them into a twisting catacomb of crisscrossing corridors. Drizzt quickly lost track of the path behind them as they made their way through, but Vierna followed a predetermined course that she knew well.

Then, beyond a low archway, the floor suddenly dropped away and they found themselves on a narrow ledge overlooking a wide chasm. Drizzt looked at his sister curiously but held his question when he saw that she was deep in the concentration. She uttered a few simple commands, then tapped herself and Drizzt on the forehead.

"Come." she instructed, and she and Drizzt stepped off the ledge and levitated down to the chasm floor.

A thin mist, from some unseen hot pool or tar pit, hugged the stone. Drizzt could sense the danger here, and the evil.

A brooding wickedness hung in the air as tangibly as the mist.

"Do not fear." Vierna signaled to him. "I have put a spell of masking upon us. They cannot see us."

"They?" Drizzt’s hands asked, but even as he motioned in the code, he heard a scuttling off to the side. He followed Vierna’s gaze down to a distant boulder and the wretched thing perched upon it.

At first, Drizzt thought it was a drow elf, and from the waist up, it was indeed, though bloated and pale. Its lower body, though, resembled a spider, with eight arachnid legs to support its frame. The creature held a bow ready in its hands but seemed confused, as though it could not discern what had entered its lair.

Vierna was pleased by the disgust on her brother’s face as he viewed the thing. "Look upon it well, younger brother." she signaled. "Behold the fate of those who anger the Spider Queen."

"What is it?" Drizzt signaled back quickly.

"A drider." Vierna whispered in his ear. Then, back in the silent code, she added, "Lolth is not a merciful deity."

Drizzt watched, mesmerized, as the drider shifted its position on the boulder, searching for the intruders. Drizzt couldn’t tell if it was a male or female, so bloated was its torso, but he knew that it didn’t matter. The creature was not a natural creation and would leave no descendants behind, whatever its gender. It was a tormented body, nothing more, hating itself, in all probability, more than everything else around it.

"I am merciful." Vierna continued silently, though she knew her brother’s attention was fully on the drider. She rested back flat against the stone wall.

Drizzt spun on her, suddenly realizing her intent. Then Vierna sank into the stone. "Goodbye, little brother." came her final call. "This is a better fate than you deserve."

"No!" Drizzt growled, and he clawed at the empty wall until an arrow sliced into his leg. The scimitars flashed out in his hands as he spun back to face the danger. The drider took aim for a second shot.

Drizzt meant to dive to the side, to the protection of another boulder, but his wounded leg immediately fell numb and useless. Poison.

Drizzt just got one blade up in time to deflect the second arrow, and he dropped to one knee to clutch at his wound.

He could feel the cold poison making its way through his limb, but he stubbornly snapped off the arrow shaft and turned his attention back to the attacker. He would have to worry about the wound later, would have to hope that he could tend to it in time. Right now, his only concern was to get out of the chasm.

He turned to flee, to seek a sheltered spot where he could levitate back up to the ledge, but he found himself face-to-face with another drider.

An axe sliced by his shoulder, barely missing its mark.

Drizzt blocked the return blow and launched his second scimitar into a thrust, which the drider stopped with a second axe.

Drizzt was composed now, and was confident that he could defeat this foe, even with one leg limiting his mobility, until an arrow cracked into his back.

Drizzt lurched forward under the weight of the blow, but managed to parry another attack from the drider before him. Drizzt dropped to his knees and fell face-down.

When the axe-wielding drider, thinking Drizzt dead, started toward him, Drizzt kicked into a roll that put him squarely under the creature’s bulbous belly. He plunged his scimitar up with all his strength, then curled back under the deluge of spidery fluids.

The wounded drider tried to scurry away but fell to the side, its insides draining out onto the stone floor. Still, Drizzt had no hope. His arms, too, were numb now, and when the other wretched creature descended upon him, he could not hope to fight it off. He struggled to cling to consciousness, searching for some way out, battling to the bitter end. His eyelids became heavy…

Then Drizzt felt a hand grab his robe, and he was roughly lifted to his feet and slammed against the stone wall.

He opened his eyes to see his sister’s face.

"He lives." Drizzt heard her say. "We must get him back quickly and tend to his wounds."

Another figure moved in front of him.

"I thought this the best way." Vierna apologized.

"We cannot afford to lose him." came an unemotional reply. Drizzt recognized the voice from his past. He fought through the blur and forced his eyes to focus.

"Malice." he whispered. "Mother."

Her enraged punch brought him into a clearer mind-set.

"Matron Malice!" she growled, her angry scowl only an inch from Drizzt’s face. "Do not ever forget that!"

To Drizzt, her coldness rivaled the poison’s, and his relief at seeing her faded away as quickly as it had flooded through him.

"You must learn your place!" Malice roared, reiterating the command that had haunted Drizzt all of his young life.

"Hear my words." she demanded, and Drizzt heard them keenly. "Vierna brought you to this place to have you killed. She showed you mercy." Malice cast a disappointed glance at her daughter.

"I understand the will of the Spider Queen better than she." the matron continued, her spittle spraying Drizzt with every word. "If ever you speak ill of Lolth, our goddess, again, I will take you back to this place myself! But not to kill you that would be too easy." She jerked Drizzt’s head to the side so that he could look upon the grotesque remains of the drider he had killed.

"You will come back here." Malice assured him, "to become a drider!"