Homeland

Zaknafein Do’Urden, mentor, teacher, friend. I, in the blind agony of my own frustrations, more than once came to recognize Zaknafein as none of these. Did I ask of him more than he could give? Did I expect perfection of a tormented soul, hold Zaknafein up to standards beyond his experiences, or standards impossible in the face of his experiences?

I might have been him. I might have lived, trapped within the helpless rage, buried under the daily assault of the wickedness that is Menzoberranzan and the pervading evil that is my own family never in life to find escape.

It seems a logical assumption that we learn from the mistakes of our elders. This, I believe, was my salvation. Without the example of Zaknafein, I, too, would have found no escape, not in life.

Is this course I have chosen a better way than the life Zaknafein knew? I think, yes, though I find despair often enough sometimes to long for that other way. It would have been easier, truth, though, is nothing in the face of self-falsehood, and principles are of no value if the idealist cannot live up to his own standards.

This, then, is a better way.

I live with many laments, for my people, for myself, but mostly for that weapon master lost to me now, who showed me how―and why―to use a blade.

There is no pain greater than this; not the cut of a jagged-edged dagger nor the fire of a dragon’s breath. Nothing burns in your heart like the emptiness of losing something, someone, before you truly have learned of its value. Often now I lift my cup in a futile toast, an apology to ears that cannot hear

To Zak, the one who inspired my courage.

Chapter 24 To Know Our Enemies

"Eight drow dead, and one a cleric." Briza said to Matron Malice on the balcony of House Do’Urden. Briza had rushed back to the compound with the first reports of the encounter, leaving her sisters at the central plaza of Menzoberranzan with the gathered throng, awaiting further information. "But nearly two score of the gnomes died, a clear victory."

"What of your brothers?" asked Malice. "How did House Do’Urden fare in this encounter?"

"As with the surface elves, Dinin’s hand slew five." replied Briza. "They say that he led the main assault fearlessly, and he killed the most gnomes."

Matron Malice beamed with the news, though she suspected that Briza, standing patiently behind a smug smile, was holding something dramatic back from her. "What of Drizzt?" the matron demanded, having no patience for her daughter’s games. "How many svirfnebli fell at his feet?"

"None.", Briza replied, but still the smile remained. "Still the day belonged to Drizzt," she added quickly, seeing an angry scowl spreading across her volatile mother’s face. Malice did not seem amused.

"Drizzt defeated an earth elemental." Briza cried, "all alone, almost, with only minor help from a wizard! The high priestess of the patrol named the kill his!" Matron Malice gasped and turned away. Drizzt had ever been an enigma to her, as fine with the blade as any but lacking the proper attitude and the proper respect. Now this, an earth elemental! Malice herself had seen such a monster ravage an entire drow raiding party, killing a dozen seasoned warriors before wandering off on its way. Yet her son, her confusing son, had defeated one single-handedly!

"Lolth will favor us this day." Briza commented, not quite understanding her mother’s reaction.

Briza’s words struck an idea in Malice. "Gather your sisters." she commanded. "We shall meet in the chapel. If House Do’Urden so fully won the day out in the tunnels, perhaps the Spider Queen will grace us with some information."

"Vierna and Maya await the forthcoming news in the city plaza." Briza explained, mistakenly believing her mother to be referring to information about the battle. "Surely we will know the entire story within an hour."

"I care nothing for a battle against gnomes!" Malice scolded. "You have told everything that is important to our family, the rest does not matter. We must parlay your brothers’ heroics into gain."

"To learn of our enemies!" Briza blurted as she realized what her mother had in mind.

"Exactly." replied Malice. "To learn which house it is that threatens House Do’Urden. If the Spider Queen truly finds favor with us this day, she may grace us with the knowledge we need to defeat our enemies!"

A short while later, the four high priestesses of House Do’Urden gathered around the spider idol in the chapel anteroom. Before them, in a bowl of the deepest onyx, burned the sacred incense―sweet, deathlike, and favored by the yochlol, the handmaidens of Lolth.

The flame moved through a variety of colors, from orange to green to brilliant red. It then took shape, heard the beckons of the four priestesses and the urgency in the voice of Matron Malice. The top of the fire, no longer dancing, smoothed and rounded, assumed the form of a hairless head, then stretched upward, growing. The flame disappeared, consumed by the yochlol’s image, a half melted pile of wax with grotesquely elongated eyes and a drooping mouth.

"Who has summoned me?" the small figure demanded telepathically. The yochlol’s thoughts, too powerful for its diminutive stature, boomed within the heads of the gathered drow.

"I have, handmaiden." Malice replied aloud, wanting her daughters to hear. The matron bowed her head. "I am Malice, loyal servant of the Spider Queen."

In a puff of smoke, the yochlol disappeared, leaving only glowing incense embers in the onyx bowl. A moment later, the handmaiden reappeared, full size, standing behind Matron Malice. Briza, Vierna, and Maya held their breath as the being laid two sickly tentacles on their mother’s shoulders.

Matron Malice accepted the tentacles without reply, confident in her cause for summoning the yochlol.

"Explain to me why you dare to disturb me." came the yochlol’s insidious thoughts.

"To ask a simple question." Malice replied silently, for no words were necessary to communicate with a handmaiden. "One whose answer you know."

"Does this question interest you so greatly?" the yochlol asked. "You risk such dire consequences."

"It is imperative that I learn the answer." replied Matron Malice. Her three daughters watched curiously, hearing the yochlol’s thoughts but only guessing at their mother’s unspoken replies.

"If the answer is so important, and it is known to the handmaidens, and thus to the Spider Queen, do you not believe that Lolth would have given it to you if she so chose?"

"Perhaps, before this day, the Spider Queen did not deem me worthy to know." Malice responded. "Things have changed."

The handmaiden paused and rolled its elongated eyes back into its head as if communicating with some distant plane.

"Greetings, Matron Malice Do’Urden." the yochlol said aloud after a few tense moments. The creature’s spoken voice was calm and overly smooth for the thing’s grotesque appearance.

"My greetings to you, and to your mistress, Queen of Spiders." replied Malice. She shot a wry smile at her daughters and still didn’t turn to face the creature behind her. Apparently Malice’s guess of Lolth’s favor had been correct.

"Daermon N’a’shezbaernon has pleased Lolth." the handmaiden said. "The males of your house have won the day, even above the females that journeyed with them. I must accept Matron Malice Do’Urden’s summons." The tentacles slid off Malice’s shoulders, and the yochlol stood rigid behind her, awaiting her commands.

"Glad I am to please the Spider Queen." Malice began. She sought the proper way to phrase her question. "For the summons, as I have said, I beg only the answer to a simple question."

"Ask it." prompted the yochlol, and the mocking tone told Malice and her daughters that the monster already knew the question.

"My house is threatened, say the rumors." said Malice.

"Rumors?" The yochlol laughed an evil, grating sound.

"I trust in my sources." Malice replied defensively. "I would not have called upon you if I did not believe the threat."

"Continue." said the yochlol, amused by the whole affair."They are more than rumors, Matron Malice Do’Urden. Another house plans war upon you."

Maya’s immature gasp brought scornful eyes upon her from her mother and her sisters.

"Name this house to me." Malice pleaded. "If Daermon N’a’shezbaernon truly has pleased the Spider Queen this day, then I bid Lolth to reveal our enemies, that we might destroy them!"

"And if this other house also has pleased the Spider Queen?" the handmaiden mused. "Would Lolth then betray it to you?"

"Our enemies hold every advantage." Malice protested. "They know of House Do’Urden. No doubt they watch us every day, laying their plans. We ask Lolth only to give us knowledge equal to that of our enemies. Reveal them and let us prove which house is more worthy of victory."

"What if your enemies are greater than you?" asked the handmaiden. "Would Matron Malice Do’Urden then call upon Lolth to intervene and save her pitiful house?"

"No!" cried Malice. "We would call upon those powers that Lolth has given us to fight our foes. Even if our enemies are the more powerful, let Lolth be assured that they will suffer great pain for their attack on House Do’Urden!"

Again the handmaiden sank back within itself, finding the link to its home plane, a place darker than Menzoberranzan. Malice clenched tightly to Briza’s hand, to her right, and Vierna’s, to her left. They in turn passed along the confirmation of their bond to Maya, at the foot of the circle.

"The Spider Queen is pleased, Matron Malice Do’Urden." the handmaiden said at length. "Trust that she will favor House Do’Urden more than your enemies when battle rings out, perhaps…" Malice flinched at the ambiguity of that final word, grudgingly accepting that Lolth never made any promises, at any time.

"What of my question." Malice dared to protest, "the reason for the summons?"

There came a bright flash that stole the four clerics vision. When their eyesight returned to them, they saw the yochlol, tiny again, and glaring out at them from the flames of the onyx bowl.

"The Spider Queen does not give an answer that is already known!" The handmaiden proclaimed, the sheer power of its otherworldly voice cutting into the drow ears. The fire erupted in another blinding flash, and the yochlol disappeared, leaving the precious bowl sundered into a dozen pieces.

Matron Malice grabbed a large piece of the shattered onyx and threw it against a wall. "Already known?" she cried in rage. "Known to whom? Who in my family keeps this secret from me?"

"Perhaps the one who knows does not know that she knows." Briza put in, trying to calm her mother. "Or perhaps the information is newly found, and she has not yet had the chance to come to you with it."

"She?" growled Matron Malice. "What ‘she’ do you speak of, Briza? We are all here. Are any of my daughters stupid enough to miss such an obvious threat to our family?"

"No, Matron!" Vierna and Maya cried together, terrified of Malice’s growing wrath, rising beyond control.

"Never have I seen any sign!" said Vierna.

"Nor I!" added Maya. "By your side I have been these many weeks, and I have seen no more than you!"

"Are you implying that I have missed something?" Malice growled, her knuckles white at her sides.

"No, Matron!" Briza shouted above the commotion, loud enough to settle her mother for the moment and turn Malice’s attention fully upon her eldest daughter.

"Not she, then." Briza reasoned. "He. One of your sons may have the answer, or Zaknafein or Rizzen, perhaps."

"Yes." agreed Vierna. "They are only males, too stupid to understand the importance of minor details."

"Drizzt and Dinin have been out of the house." added Briza, "out of the city. In their patrol group are children of every powerful house, every house that would dare to threaten us!"

The fires in Malice’s eyes glowed, but she relaxed at the reasoning. "Bring them to me when they return to Menzoberranzan." she instructed Vierna and Maya. "You." she said to Briza, "bring Rizzen and Zaknafein. All the family must be present, so that we may learn what we may learn!"

"The cousins, and the soldiers, too?" asked Briza. "Perhaps one beyond the immediate family knows the answer."

"Should we bring them together, as well?" offered Vierna, her voice edged with the rising excitement of the moment.

"A gathering of the whole clan, a general war party of House Do’Urden?"

"No." Malice replied, "not the soldiers or the cousins. I do not believe they are involved in this, the handmaiden would have told us the answer if one of my direct family did not know it. It is my embarrassment to ask a question whose answer should be known to me, whose answer someone within the circle of my family knows." She gritted her teeth as she spat out the rest of her thoughts.

"I do not enjoy being embarrassed!"

Drizzt and Dinin came into the house a short while later, exhausted and glad the adventure was over. They had barely passed the entrance and turned down the wide corridor that led to their rooms when they bumped into Zaknafein, coming the other way.

"So the hero has returned." Zak remarked, eyeing Drizzt directly. Drizzt did not miss the sarcasm in his voice.

"We’ve completed our job, successfully." Dinin shot back, more than a little perturbed at being excluded from Zak’s greeting. "I led…"

"I know of the battle." Zak assured him. "It has been endlessly recounted throughout the city. Now leave us, Elderboy. I have unfinished business with your brother."

"I leave when I choose to leave!" Dinin growled. Zak snapped a glare upon him. "I wish to speak to Drizzt, only to Drizzt, so leave."

Dinin’s hand went to his sword hilt, not a smart move. Before he even moved the weapon hilt an inch from the scabbard, Zak had slapped him twice in the face with one hand.

The other had somehow produced a dagger and put its tip at Dinin’s throat.

Drizzt watched in amazement, certain that Zak would kill Dinin if this continued.

"Leave." Zak said again, "on your life." Dinin threw his hands up and slowly backed away. "Matron Malice will hear of this!" he warned.

"I will tell her myself." Zak laughed at him. "Do you think she will trouble herself on your behalf, fool? As far as Matron Malice cares, the family males determine their own hierarchy. Go away, Elderboy. Come back when you have found the courage to challenge me."

"Come with me, brother." Dinin said to Drizzt.

"We have business." Zak reminded Drizzt.

Drizzt looked to both of them, once and back again, stunned by their open willingness to kill each other. "I will stay." he decided. "I do indeed have unfinished business with the weapon master."

"As you choose, hero." Dinin spat, and he turned on his heel and stormed away.

"You have made an enemy." Drizzt remarked to Zak.

"I have made many." Zak laughed, "and I will make many more before my day ends! But no mind. Your actions have inspired jealousy in your brother―your older brother. You are the one who should be wary."

"He hates you openly." reasoned Drizzt.

"But would gain nothing from my death." Zak replied. "I am no threat to Dinin, but you…" He let the word hang in the air.

"Why would I threaten him?" Drizzt protested. "Dinin has nothing I desire."

"He has power." Zak explained. "He is the elderboy now but was not always."

"He killed Nalfein, the brother I never met."

"You know of this?" said Zak. "Perhaps Dinin suspects that another secondboy will follow the same course he took to become the elderboy of House Do’Urden."

"Enough." Drizzt growled, tired of the whole stupid system of ascension. How well you know it, Zaknafein, he thought. How many did you murder to attain your position?

"An earth elemental." Zak said, blowing a low whistle with the words. "It is a powerful foe that you defeated this day." He bowed low, showing Drizzt mockery beyond any doubt."What is next for the young hero? A daemon, perhaps? A demigod? Surely there is nothing that can…"

"Never have I heard such senseless words stream from your mouth." Drizzt retorted. Now it was time for some sarcasm of his own. "Is it that I have inspired jealousy in another besides my brother?"

"Jealousy?" Zak cried. "Wipe your nose, sniveling little boy! A dozen earth elementals have fallen to my blade!Daemons, too! Do not overestimate your deeds or your abilities. You are one warrior among a race of warriors. To forget that surely will prove fatal." He ended the line with pointed emphasis, almost in a sneer, and Drizzt began to consider again just how real their appointed «practice» in the gym would become.

"I know my abilities." Drizzt replied, "and my limitations. I have learned to survive."

"As have I." Zak shot back, "for so many centuries!"

"The gym awaits." Drizzt said calmly.

"Your mother awaits." Zak corrected. "She bids us all to the chapel. Fear not, though. There will be time for our meeting."

Drizzt walked past Zak without another word, suspecting that his and Zak’s blades would finish the conversation for them. What had become of Zaknafein? Drizzt wondered.

Was this the same teacher who had trained him those years before the Academy? Drizzt could not sort through his feelings. Was he seeing Zak differently because of the things he had learned of Zak’s exploits, or was there truly something different, something harder, about the weapon master’s demeanor since Drizzt had returned from the Academy?

The sound of a whip brought Drizzt from his contemplations.

"I am your patron!" he heard Rizzen say.

"That’s of no consequence!" retorted a female voice, the voice of Briza. Drizzt slipped to the corner of the next intersection and peeked around. Briza and Rizzen faced off, Rizzen unarmed, but Briza holding her snakeheaded whip.

"Patron." Briza laughed, "a meaningless title. You are a male lending your seed to the matron and of no more importance."

"Four I have sired." Rizzen said indignantly.

"Three!" Briza corrected, snapping the whip to accentuate the point. "Viera is Zaknafein’s, not yours! Nalfein is dead, leaving only two. One of those is female and above you. Only Dinin is truly under your rank!"

Drizzt sank back against the wall and looked behind him to the empty corridor he had just walked. He had always suspected that Rizzen was not his true father. The male had never paid him any mind, had never scolded him or praised him or offered to him any advice or training. To hear Briza say it, though… and Rizzen not deny it!

Rizzen fumbled about for some retort to Briza’s stinging words. "Does Matron Malice know of your desires?" he snarled. "Does she know that her eldest daughter seeks her title?"

"Every eldest daughter seeks the title of matron mother." Briza laughed at him. "Matron Malice would be a fool to suspect otherwise. I assure you that she is not, nor am I. I will get the title from her when she is weak with age. She knows and accepts this as fact."

"You admit that you will kill her?"

"If not I, then Vierna. If not Vierna, then Maya. It is our way, stupid male. It is the word of Lolth". Rage burned in Drizzt as he heard the evil proclamations, but he remained silent at the corner.

"Briza will not wait for age to steal her mother’s power." Rizzen snarled, "not when a dagger will expedite the transfer. Briza hungers for the throne of the house!"

Rizzen’s next words came out as an indecipherable scream as the six-headed whip went to work again and again.

Drizzt wanted to intervene, to rush out and cut them both down, but, of course, he could not. Briza acted now as she had been taught, followed the words of the Spider Queen in asserting her dominance over Rizzen. She wouldn’t kill him, Drizzt knew.

But what if Briza got carried away in the frenzy? What if she did kill Rizzen? In the empty void that was beginning to grow in his heart, Drizzt wondered if he even cared.

"You let him escape’" Matron SiNafay roared at her son. "You will learn not to disappoint me!"

"No, my matron!" Masoj protested. "I hit him squarely with a lightning bolt. He never even suspected the blow to be aimed at him! I could not finish the deed, the monster had me caught in the gate to its own plane!"

SiNafay bit her lip, forced to accept her son’s reasoning. She knew that she had given Masoj a difficult mission. Drizzt was a powerful foe, and to kill him without leaving an obvious trail would not be easy.

"I will get him." Masoj promised, determination showing on his face "I have the weapon readied, Drizzt will be dead before the tenth cycle, as you commanded."

"Why should I grant you another chance?" SiNafay asked him. "Why should I believe that you will fare better the next time you try?"

"Because I want him dead!" Masoj cried. "More than even you, my matron. I want to tear the life from Drizzt Do’Urden! When he is dead, I want to rip out his heart and display it as a trophy!"

SiNafay could not deny her son’s obsession. "Granted." she said. "Get him, Masoj Hun’ett. On your life, strike the first blow against House Do’Urden and kill its secondboy."

Masoj bowed, the grimace never leaving his face, and swept out of the room.

"You heard everything?" SiNafay signaled when the door had closed behind her son. She knew that Masoj might well have his ear to the door, and she did not want him to know of this conversation.

"I did." Alton replied in the silent code, stepping out from behind a curtain.

"Do you concur with my decision?" SiNafay’s hands asked.

Alton was at a loss. He had no choice but to abide by his matron mother’s decisions, but he did not think that SiNafay had been wise in sending Masoj back out after Drizzt. His silence grew long.

"You do not approve." Matron SiNafay bluntly motioned.

"Please, Matron Mother." Alton replied quickly. "I would not…"

"You are forgiven." SiNafay assured him. "I am not so certain that I should have allowed Masoj a second opportunity. Too much could go wrong."

"Then why?" Alton dared to ask. "You did not grant me a second chance, though I desire Drizzt Do’Urden’s death as fiercely as any."

SiNafay cast him a scornful glare, sending him back on his courageous heels. "You doubt my judgment?"

"No!" Alton cried aloud. He slapped a hand over his mouth and dropped to his knees in terror. "Never, my matron." he signaled silently. "I just do not understand the problem as clearly as you. Forgive me my ignorance."

SiNafay’s laughter sounded like the hiss of a hundred angry snakes. "We see together in this matter." she assured Alton. "I would no more give Masoj a second chance than I gave you."

"But…" Alton started to protest.

"Masoj will go back after Drizzt, but this time he will not be alone." SiNafay explained. "You will follow him, Alton DeVir. Keep him safe and finish the deed, on your life."

Alton beamed at the news that he would finally find some taste of vengeance. SiNafay’s final threat didn’t even concern him. "Could it ever be any other way?" his hands asked casually.

"Think!" Malice growled, her face close, her breath hot on Drizzt’s face. "You know something!"

Drizzt slumped back from the overpowering figure and glanced nervously around at his gathered family. Dinin, similarly grilled just a moment ago, kneeled with his chin in hand. He tried vainly to come up with an answer before Matron Malice upped the level of the interrogation techniques. Dinin did not miss Briza’s motions toward her snake whip, and the unnerving sight did little to aid his memory.

Malice slapped Drizzt hard across the face and stepped away. "One of you has learned the identity of our enemies." she snapped at her sons. "Out there, on patrol, one of you has seen some hint, some sign."

"Perhaps we saw it but did not know it for what it was." Dinin offered.

"Silence!" Malice screamed, her face bright with rage.

"When you know the answer to my question, you may speak! Only then!" She turned to Briza. "Help Dinin find his memory!"

Dinin dropped his head to his arms, folded on the floor in front of him, and arched his back to accept the torture. To do otherwise would only enrage Malice more.

Drizzt closed his eyes and recounted the events of his many patrols. He jerked involuntarily when he heard the snake whip’s crack and his brother’s soft groan.

"Masoj." Drizzt whispered, almost unconsciously. He looked up at his mother, who held her hand out to halt Briza’s attacks, to Briza’s dismay.

"Masoj Hun’ett." Drizzt said more loudly. "In the fight against the gnomes, he tried to kill me." All the family, particularly Malice and Dinin, leaned forward toward Drizzt, hanging on his every word.

"When I battled the elemental." Drizzt explained, spitting out the last word as a curse upon Zaknafein. He cast an angry glare at the weapon master and continued, "Masoj Hun’ett struck me down with a bolt of lightning."

"He may have been shooting for the monster." Vierna insisted. "Masoj insisted that it was he who killed the elemental, but the high priestess of the patrol denied his claim."

"Masoj waited." Drizzt replied. "He did nothing until I began to gain the advantage over the monster. Then he loosed his magic, as much at me as at the elemental. I think he hoped to destroy us both."

"House Hun’ett." Matron Malice whispered.

"Fifth House." Briza remarked, "under Matron SiNafay."

"So that is our enemy." said Malice.

"Perhaps not." said Dinin, wondering even as he spoke the words why he hadn’t left well enough alone. To disprove the theory only invited more whipping.

Matron Malice did not like his hesitation as he reconsidered the argument. "Explain!" she commanded.

"Masoj Hun’ett was angry at being excluded from the surface raid." said Dinin. "We left him in the city, only to witness our triumphant return." Dinin fixed his eyes straight on his brother. "Masoj has ever been jealous of Drizzt and all the glories that my brother has found, rightly or wrongly. Many are jealous of Drizzt and would see him dead."

Drizzt shifted uncomfortably in his seat, knowing the last words to be an open threat. He glanced over to Zaknafein and marked the weapon master’s smug smile.

"Are you certain of your words?" Malice said to Drizzt, shaking him from his private thoughts.

"There is the cat." Dinin interrupted, "Masoj Hun’ett’s magical pet, though it holds closer to Drizzt’s side than to the wizard’s."

"Guenhwyvar walks the point beside me." Drizzt protested, "a position that you ordered."

"Masoj does not like it." Dinin retorted. Perhaps that is why you put the cat there, Drizzt thought, but he kept the words to himself. Was he seeing conspiracies in coincidence? Or was his world so truly filled with devious schemes and silent struggles for power?

"Are you certain of your words?" Malice asked Drizzt again, pulling him from his pondering.

"Masoj Hun’ett tried to kill me." he asserted. "I do not know his reasons, but his intent I do not doubt!"

"House Hun’ett, then." Briza remarked, "a mighty foe."

"We must learn of them." Malice said. "Dispatch the scouts! I will know the count of House Hun’ett’s soldiers, its wizards, and, particularly, its clerics."

"If we are wrong." Dinin said. "If House Hun’ett is not the conspiring house…"

"We are not wrong!" Malice screamed at him.

"The yochlol said that one of us knows the identity of our enemy." reasoned Vierna. "All we have is Drizzt’s tale of Masoj."

"Unless you are hiding something." Matron Malice growled at Dinin, a threat so cold and wicked that it stole the blood from the elderboy’s face.

Dinin shook his head emphatically and slumped back, having nothing more to add to the conversation.

"Prepare a communion." Malice said to Briza, "Let us learn of Matron SiNafay’s standing with the Spider Queen."

Drizzt watched incredulously as the preparations began at a frantic pace, each command from Matron Malice following a practiced defensive course. It wasn’t the precision of Drizzt’s family’s battle planning that amazed him, he would expect nothing less from this group. It was the eager gleam in every eye.

Chapter 25 The Weapon Masters

"Impudent!" growled the yochlol. The fire in the brazier puffed, and the creature again stood behind Malice, again draped dangerous tentacles over the matron mother. "You dare to summon me again?"

Malice and her daughters glanced around, on the edge of panic. They knew that the mighty being was not toying with them, the handmaiden truly was enraged this time.

"House Do’Urden pleased the Spider Queen, it is true." the yochlol answered their unspoken thoughts, "but that one act does not dispel the displeasure your family brought upon Lolth in the recent past. Do not think that all is forgiven, Matron Malice Do’Urden!"

How small and vulnerable Matron Malice felt now! Her power paled in the face of the wrath of one of Lolth’s personal servants.

"Displeasure?" she dared to whisper. "How has my family brought displeasure to the Spider Queen? By what act?"

The handmaiden’s laughter erupted in a spout of flames and flying spiders, but the high priestesses held their positions. They accepted the heat and the crawling things as part of their penance.

"I have told you before, Matron Malice Do’Urden." The yochlol snarled with its droopy mouth, "and I shall tell you one final time. The Spider Queen does not reply to questions whose answers are already known!" In a blast of explosive energy that sent the four females of House Do’Urden tumbling to the floor, the handmaiden was gone.

Briza was the first to recover. She prudently rushed over to the brazier and smothered the remaining flames, thus closing the gate to the Abyss, the yochlol’s home plane.

"Who?" screamed Malice, the powerful matriarch once again. "Who in my family has invoked the wrath of Lolth?"

Malice appeared small again then, as the implications of the yochlol’s warning became all too clear. House Do’Urden was about to go to war with a powerful family. Without Lolth’s favor, House Do’Urden likely would cease to exist.

"We must find the perpetrator." Malice instructed her daughters, certain that none of them was involved. They were high priestesses, one and all. If any of them had done some misdeed in the eyes of the Spider Queen, the summoned yochlol surely would have exacted punishment on the spot. By itself, the handmaiden could have leveled House Do’Urden.

Briza pulled the snake whip from her belt. "I will get the information we require!" she promised.

"No!" said Matron Malice. "We must not reveal our search. Be it a soldier or a member of House Do’Urden, the guilty one is trained and hardened against pain. We cannot hope that torture will pull the confession from his lips not when he knows the consequences of his actions. We must discover the cause of Lolth’s displeasure immediately and properly punish the criminal. The Spider Queen must stand behind us in our struggles!"

"How, then, are we to discern the perpetrator?" the eldest daughter complained, reluctantly replacing the snake whip on her belt.

"Vierna and Maya, leave us." Matron Malice instructed. "Say nothing of these revelations and do nothing to hint at our purpose."

The two younger daughters bowed and scurried away, not happy with their secondary roles but unable to do anything about them.

"First we will look." Malice said to Briza. "We will see if we can learn of the guilty one from afar."

Briza understood. "The scrying bowl." she said. She rushed from the anteroom and into the chapel proper. In the central altar she found the valuable item, a wide golden bowl laced throughout with black pearls. Hands trembling, Briza placed the bowl atop the altar and reached into the most sacred of the many compartments. This was the holding bin for the prized possession of House Do’Urden, a great onyx chalice.

Malice then joined Briza in the chapel proper and took the chalice from her. Moving to the large font at the entrance to the great room, Malice dipped the chalice into a sticky fluid, the unholy water of her religion. She then chanted, "Spiderae aught icor ven." The ritual complete, Malice moved back to the altar and poured the unholy water into the golden bowl.

She and Briza sat down to watch.

Drizzt stepped onto the floor of Zaknafein’s training gym for the first time in more than a decade and felt as if he had come home. He’d spent the best years of his young life here, almost wholly here. For all the disappointments he had encountered since―and no doubt would continue to experience throughout his life―Drizzt would never forget that brief sparkle of innocence, that joy, he had known when he was a student in Zaknafein’s gym.

Zaknafein entered and walked over to face his former student. Drizzt saw nothing familiar or comforting in the weapon master’s face. A perpetual scowl now replaced the once common smile. It was an angry demeanor that hated everything around it, perhaps Drizzt most of all. Or had Zaknafein always worn such a grimace? Drizzt had to wonder. Had nostalgia glossed over Drizzt’s memories of those years of early training? Was this mentor, who had so often warmed Drizzt’s heart with a lighthearted chuckle, actually the cold, lurking monster that Drizzt now saw before him?

"Which has changed, Zaknafein." Drizzt asked aloud, "you, my memories, or my perceptions?"

Zak seemed not even to hear the whispered question.

"Ah, the young hero has returned." he said, "the warrior with exploits beyond his years."

"Why do you mock me?" Drizzt protested.

"He who killed the hook horrors." Zak continued. His swords were out in his hands now, and Drizzt responded by drawing his scimitars. There was no need to ask the rules of engagement in this contest, or the choice of weapons.

Drizzt knew, had known before he had ever come here, that there would be no rules this time. The weapons would be their weapons of preference, the blades that each of them had used to kill so many foes.

"He who killed the earth elemental." Zak snarled derisively. He launched a measured attack, a simple lunge with one blade. Drizzt batted it aside without even thinking of the parry.

Sudden fires erupted in Zak’s eyes, as if the first contact had sundered all the emotional bonds that had tempered his thrust. "He who killed the girl child of the surface elves!" he cried, an accusation and no compliment. Now came the second attack, vicious and powerful, an arcing swipe descending at Drizzt’s head. "Who cut her apart to appease his own thirst for blood!"

Zak’s words knocked Drizzt off his guard emotionally, wrapped his heart in confusion like some devious mental whip. Drizzt was a seasoned warrior, though, and his reflexes did not register the emotional distraction. A scimitar came up to catch the descending sword and deflected it harmlessly aside.

"Murderer!" Zak snarled openly. "Did you enjoy the dying child’s screams?" He came at Drizzt in a furious whirl, swords dipping and diving, slicing at every angle.

Drizzt, enraged by the hypocrite’s accusations, matched the fury, screaming out for no better reason than to hear the anger of his own voice.

Any watching the battle would have found no breath in the next few blurring moments. Never had the Underdark witnessed such a vicious fight as when these two masters of the blade each attacked the demon possessing the other, and himself.

Adamantite sparked and nicked, droplets of blood spattered both the combatants, though neither felt any pain, and neither knew if he’d injured the other.

Drizzt came with a two-blade sidelong swipe that drove Zak’s swords out wide. Zak followed the motion quickly, turned a complete circle, and slammed back into Drizzt’s thrusting scimitars with enough force to knock the young warrior from his feet. Drizzt fell into a roll and came back up to meet his charging adversary.

A thought came over him.

Drizzt came up high, too high, and Zak drove him back on his heels. Drizzt knew what would soon be coming, he invited it openly. Zak kept Drizzt’s weapons high through several combined maneuvers. He then went with the move that had defeated Drizzt in the past, expecting that the best Drizzt could attain would be equal footing, double-thrust low.

Drizzt executed the appropriate cross-down parry, as he had to, and Zak tensed, waiting for his eager opponent to try to improve the move. "Child killer!" he growled, goading on Drizzt. He didn’t know that Drizzt had found the solution.

With all the anger he had ever known, all the disappointments of his young life gathering within his foot, Drizzt focused on Zak. That smug face, feigning smiles and drooling for blood. Between the hilts, between the eyes, Drizzt kicked, blowing out every ounce of rage in a single blow.

Zak’s nose crunched flat. His eyes lolled upward, and blood exploded over his hollow cheeks. Zak knew that he was falling, that the devilish young warrior would be on him in a flash, gaining an advantage that Zak could not hope to overcome.

"What of you, Zaknafein Do’Urden?" he heard Drizzt snarl, distantly, as though he were falling far away. "I have heard of the exploits of House Do’Urden’s weapon master! How he so enjoys killing!" The voice was closer now, as Drizzt stalked in, and as the rebounding rage of Zaknafein sent him spiraling back to the battle. "I have heard how murder comes so very easily to Zaknafein!" Drizzt spat derisively. "The murder of clerics, of other drow! Do you so enjoy it all?" He ended the question with a blow from each scimitar, attacks meant to kill Zak, to kill the demon in them both.

But Zaknafein was now fully back to consciousness, hating himself and Drizzt equally. At the last moment, his swords came up and crossed, lightning fast, throwing Drizzt’s arms wide. Then Zak finished with a kick of his own, not so strong from the prone position but accurate in its search for Drizzt’s groin.

Drizzt sucked in his breath and twirled away, forcing himself back into composure when he saw Zaknafein, still dazed, rising to his feet. "Do you so enjoy it all?" he managed to ask again.

"Enjoy?" the weapon master echoed.

"Does it bring you pleasure?" Drizzt grimaced.

"Satisfaction!" Zak corrected. "I kill. Yes, I kill."

"You teach others to kill!"

"To kill drow!" Zak roared, and he was back in Drizzt’s face, his weapons up but waiting for Drizzt to make the next move.

Zak’s words again entwined Drizzt in a mesh of confusion. Who was this drow standing before him?

"Do you think that your mother would let me live if I did not serve her evil designs?" Zak cried.

Drizzt did not understand.

"She hates me." Zak said, more in control as he began to understand Drizzt’s confusion, "despises me for what I know." Drizzt cocked his head.

"Are you so blind to the evil around you?" Zak yelled in his face. "Or has it consumed you, as it consumes all of them, in this murderous frenzy that we call life?"

"The frenzy that holds you?" Drizzt retorted, but there was little conviction in his voice now. If he understood Zak’s words correctly―if Zak played the killing game simply because of his hatred for the perverted drow―the most Drizzt could blame him for was cowardice.

"No frenzy holds me." Zak replied. "I live as best I can, survive in a world that is not my own, not my heart." The lament in his words, the droop of his head as he admitted his helplessness, struck a familiar chord in Drizzt. "I kill, kill drow, to serve Matron Malice―to placate the rage, the frustration, that I know in my soul. When I hear the children scream…" His gaze snapped up on Drizzt and he rushed in all of a sudden, his fury returned tenfold.

Drizzt tried to get his scimitars up, but Zak knocked one of them across the room and drove the other aside. He rushed in step with Drizzt’s awkward retreat until he had Drizzt pinned against a wall. The tip of Zak’s sword drew a droplet of blood from Drizzt’s throat.

"The child lives!" Drizzt gasped. "I swear, I did not kill the elven child!"

Zak relaxed a bit but still held Drizzt, sword to throat. "Dinin said…"

"Dinin was mistaken." Drizzt replied frantically. "Fooled by me. I knocked the child down―only to spare her―and covered her with the blood of her murdered mother to mask my own cowardice!"

Zak leaped back, overwhelmed.

"I killed no elves that day." Drizzt said to him. "The only times I desired to kill were my own companions!"

"So now we know." said Briza, staring into the scrying bowl, watching the conclusion of the battle between Drizzt and Zaknafein and hearing their every word. "It was Drizzt who angered the Spider Queen."

"You suspected him all along, as did I." Matron Malice replied, "though we both hoped differently.

"So much promise!" Briza lamented. "How I wish that one, had learned his place, his values. Perhaps…"

"Mercy?" Matron Malice snapped at her. "Do you show mercy that would further invoke the Spider Queen’s displeasure?"

"No, Matron." Briza replied. "I had only hoped that Drizzt could be used in the future, as you have used Zaknafein all these years. Zaknafein is growing older."

"We are about to fight a war, my daughter." Malice reminded her. "Lolth must be appeased. Your brother has brought his fate upon himself, his actions were his own to decide."

"He decided wrongly."

The words hit Zaknafein harder than Drizzt’s boot had.

The weapon master threw his swords to the ends of the room and rushed in on Drizzt. He buried him in a hug so intense that it took the young drow a long moment to even realize what had happened.

"You have survived!" Zak said, his voice broken by muffled tears. "Survived the Academy, where all the others died!"

Drizzt returned the embrace, tentatively, still not guessing the depth of Zak’s elation.

"My son!"

Drizzt nearly fainted, overwhelmed by the admission of what he had always suspected, and even more so by the knowledge that he was not the only one in his dark world angered by the ways of the drow. He was not alone.

"Why?" Drizzt asked, pushing Zak out to arm’s length. "Why have you stayed?"

Zak looked at him incredulously. "Where would I go? No one, not even a drow weapon master would survive for long out in the caverns of the Underdark. Too many monsters, and other races, hunger for the sweet blood of dark elves."

"Surely you had options."

"The surface?" Zak replied. "To face the painful inferno every day? No, my son, I am trapped, as you are trapped." Drizzt had feared that statement, had feared that he would find no solution from his newfound father to the dilemma that was his life. Perhaps there were no answers.

"You will do well in Menzoberranzan." Zak said to comfort him. "You are strong, and Matron Malice will find an appropriate place for your talents, whatever your heart may desire."

"To live a life of assassinations, as you have?" Drizzt asked, trying futilely to keep the rage out of his words.

"What choice is before us?" Zak answered, his eyes seeking the unjudging stone of the floor.

"I will not kill drow." Drizzt declared flatly.

Zak’s eyes snapped back on him. "You will." he assured his son. "In Menzoberranzan, you will kill or be killed."

Drizzt looked away, but Zak’s words pursued him, could not be blocked out.

"There is no other way," the weapon master continued softly. "Such is our world. Such is our life. You have escaped this long, but you will find that your luck soon will change."

He grabbed Drizzt’s chin firmly and forced his son to look at him directly.

"I wish that it could be different," Zak said honestly, "but it is not such a bad life. I do not lament killing dark elves. I perceive their deaths as their salvation from this wicked existence. If they care so dearly for their Spider Queen, then let them go and visit her!"

Zak’s growing smile washed away suddenly. "Except for the children." he whispered. "Often have I heard the cries of dying children, though never, I promise you, have I caused them. I have always wondered if they, too, are evil, born evil. Or if the weight of our dark world bends them to fit our foul ways."

"The ways of the demon Lolth." Drizzt agreed.

They both paused for many heartbeats, each privately weighing the realities of his own personal dilemma. Zak was next to speak, having long ago come to terms with the life that was offered to him.

"Lolth." he chuckled. "She is a vicious queen, that one. I would sacrifice everything for a chance at her ugly face!"

"I almost believe you would." Drizzt whispered, finding his smile.

Zak jumped back from him. "I would indeed." he laughed heartily. "So would you!"

Drizzt flipped his lone scimitar up into the air, letting it spin over twice before catching it again by the hilt. "True enough!" he cried. "But no longer would I be alone!"

Chapter 26 Angler Of The Underdark

Drizzt wandered alone through the maze of Menzoberranzan, drifting past the stalagmite mounds, under the leering points of the great stone spears that hung from the cavern’s high ceiling. Matron Malice had specifically ordered all of the family to remain within the house, fearing an assassination attempt by House Hun’ett. Too much had happened to Drizzt this day for him to obey. He had to think, and contemplating such blasphemous thoughts, even silently, in a house full of nervous clerics might get him into serious trouble.

This was the quiet time of the city the heat-light of Narbondel was only a sliver at the stone’s base, and most of the drow comfortably slept within their stone houses. Soon after he slipped through the adamantite gate of the House Do’Urden compound, Drizzt began to understand the wisdom of Matron Malice’s command. The city’s quiet now, seemed to him like the crouched hush of a predator. It was poised to drop upon him from behind every of the many blind corners he faced on this trek.

He would find no solace here in which he might truly contemplate the day’s events, the revelations of Zaknafein, kindred in more than blood. Drizzt decided to break all the rules―that was the way of the drow, after all―and head out of the city, down the tunnels he knew so well from his weeks of patrol.

An hour later, he was still walking, lost in thought and feeling safe enough, for he was well within the boundaries of the patrol region.

He entered a high corridor, ten paces wide and with broken walls lined in loose rubble and crossed by many ledges.

It seemed as though the passage once had been much wider.

The ceiling was far beyond sight, but Drizzt had been through here a dozen times, up on the many ledges, and he gave the place no thought.

He envisioned the future, the times that he and Zaknafein, his father, would share now that no secrets separated them.

Together they would be unbeatable, a team of weapon masters, bonded by steel and emotions. Did House Hun’ett truly understand what it would be facing? The smile on Drizzt’s face disappeared as soon as he considered the implications, he and Zak, together, cutting through House Hun’ett’s ranks with deadly ease, through the ranks of drow elves, killing their own people.

Drizzt leaned against the wall for support, understanding firsthand the frustration that had racked his father for many centuries. Drizzt did not want to be like Zaknafein, living only to kill, existing in a protective sphere of violence, but what choices lay before him? Leave the city?

Zak had balked when Drizzt asked him why he had not left. "Where would I go?" Drizzt whispered now, echoing Zak’s words. His father had proclaimed them trapped, and so it seemed to Drizzt.

"Where would I go?" he asked again. "Travel the Underdark, where our people are so despised and a single drow would become a target for everything he passed? Or to the surface, perhaps, and let that ball of fire in the sky burn out my eyes so that I may not witness my own death when the elven folk descend upon me?" The logic of the reasoning trapped Drizzt as it had trapped Zak. Where could a drow elf go? Nowhere in all the Realms would an elf of dark skin be accepted. Was the choice then to kill? to kill drow?

Drizzt rolled over against the wall, his physical movement an unconscious act, for his mind whirled down the maze of his future. It took him a moment to realize that his back was against something other than stone.

He tried to leap away, alert again now that his surroundings were not as they should be. When he pushed out, his feet came up from the ground and he landed back in his original position. Frantically, before he took the time to consider his predicament, Drizzt reached behind his neck with both hands.

They, too, stuck fast to the translucent cord that held him. Drizzt knew his folly then, and all the tugging in the world would not free his hands from the line of the angler of the Underdark, a cave fisher.

"Fool!" he scolded himself as he felt himself lifted from the ground. He should have suspected this, should have been more careful alone in the caverns. But to reach out bare-handed! He looked down at the hilts of his scimitars, useless in their sheaths.

The cave fisher reeled him in, pulled him up the long wall toward its waiting maw.

Masoj Hun’ett smiled smugly to himself as he watched Drizzt depart the city. Time was running short for him, and Matron SiNafay would not be pleased if he failed again in his mission to destroy the secondboy of House Do’Urden. Now Masoj’s patience had apparently paid off, for Drizzt had come out alone, had left the city! There were no witnesses. It was too easy.

Eagerly the wizard pulled the onyx figurine from his pouch and dropped it to the ground. "Guenhwyvar!" he called as loudly as he dared, glancing around at the nearest stalagmite house for signs of activity.

The dark smoke appeared and transformed a moment later into Masoj’s magical panther. Masoj rubbed his hands together, thinking himself marvelous for having concocted such a devious and ironic end to the heroics of Drizzt Do’Urden."I have a job for you." he told the cat, "one that you’ll not enjoy!"

Guenhwyvar slumped casually and yawned as though the wizard’s words were hardly a revelation.

"Your point companion has gone out on patrol." Masoj explained as he pointed down the tunnel, "by himself. It’s too dangerous."

Guenhwyvar stood back up, suddenly very interested.

"Drizzt should not be out there alone." Masoj continued. "He could get killed." The evil inflections of his voice told the panther his intent before he ever spoke the words. "Go to him, my pet." Masoj purred. "Find him out there in the gloom and kill him!" He studied Guenhwyvar’s reaction, measured the horror he had laid on the cat. Guenhwyvar stood rigid, as unmoving as the statue used to summon it. "Go!" Masoj ordered. "You cannot resist your master’s commands! I am your master, unthinking beast! You seem to forget that fact too often!"

Guenhwyvar resisted for a long moment, a heroic act in itself, but the magic’s urges, the incessant pull of the master’s command, outweighed any instinctive feelings the great panther might have had. Reluctantly at first, but then pulled by the primordial desires of the hunt, Guenhwyvar sped off between the enchanted statues guarding the tunnel and easily found Drizzt’s scent.

Alton DeVir slumped back behind the largest of the stalagmite mounds, disappointed at Masoj’s tactics. Masoj would let the cat do his work for him. Alton would not even witness Drizzt Do’Urden’s death! Alton fingered the powerful wand that Matron SiNafay had given to him when he set out after Masoj that night. It seemed that the item would play no role in Drizzt’s demise. Alton took comfort in the item, knowing that he would have ample opportunity to put it to proper use against the remainder of House Do’Urden.

Drizzt fought for the first half of his ascent, kicking and spinning, ducking his shoulders under any outcrop he passed in a futile effort to hold back the pull of the cave fisher. He knew from the outset, though, against those warrior instincts that refused to surrender, that he had no chance to halt the incessant pull.

Halfway up, one shoulder bloodied, the other bruised, and with the floor nearly thirty feet below him, Drizzt resigned himself to his fate. If he would find a chance against the crablike monster that waited at the top of the line, it would be in the last instant of the ascent. For now, he could only watch and wait.

Perhaps death was not so bad an alternative to the life he would find among the drow, trapped within the evil framework of their dark society. Even Zaknafein, so strong and powerful and wise with age, had never been able to come to terms with his existence in Menzoberranzan what chance did Drizzt have?

When Drizzt had passed through his small bout with self-pity, when the angle of his ascent changed, showing him the lip of the final ledge, the fighting spirit within him took over once again. The cave fisher might have him, he decided then, but he’d put a boot or two into the thing’s eyes before it got its meal!

He could hear the clacking of the anxious monster’s eight crablike legs. Drizzt had seen a cave fisher before, though it had scrambled away before he and his patrol could catch up to it. He had imagined it then, and could imagine it now, in battle. Two of its legs ended in wicked claws, pincers that snipped up prey to fit into the maw.

Drizzt turned himself face-in to the cliff, wanting to view the thing as soon as his head crested the ledge. The anxious clacking grew louder, resounding alongside the thumping of Drizzt’s heart. He reached the ledge. Drizzt peeked over, only a foot or two from the monster’s long proboscis, with the maw just inches behind. Pincers reached out to grab him before he could get his footing, he would get no chance to kick out at the thing.

He closed his eyes, hoping again that death would be preferable to his life in Menzoberranzan.

A familiar growl then brought him from his thoughts.

Slipping through the maze of ledges, Guenhwyvar came in sight of the cave fisher and Drizzt just before Drizzt had reached the final ledge. This was a moment of salvation or death for the cat as surely as for Drizzt. Guenhwyvar had traveled here under Masoj’s direct command, giving no consideration to its duty and acting only on its own instincts in accord with the compelling magic. Guenhwyvar could not go against that edict, that premise for the cat’s very existence… until now.

The scene before the panther, with Drizzt only seconds from death, brought to Guenhwyvar a strength unknown to the cat, and unforeseen to the creator of the magical figurine. That instant of terror gave a life to Guenhwyvar beyond the scope of the magic.

By the time Drizzt had opened his eyes, the battle was in full fury. Guenhwyvar leaped atop the cave fisher but nearly went right over, for the monster’s six remaining legs were rooted to the stone by the same goo that held Drizzt fast to the long filament. Undaunted, the cat raked and bit, a ball of frenzy trying to find a break in the fisher’s armored shell.

The monster retaliated with its pincers, flipping them over its back with surprising agility and finding one of Guenhwyvar’s forelegs.

Drizzt was no longer being pulled in, the monster had other business to attend to.

Pincers cut through Guenhwyvar’s soft flesh, but the cat’s blood was not the only dark fluid staining the cave fisher’s back. Powerful feline claws tore up a section of the shell armor, and great teeth plunged beneath it. As the cave fisher’s blood splattered to the stone, its legs began to slip.

Watching the goo under the crablike legs dissolve as the blood of the monster struck it, Drizzt understood what would happen as a line of that same blood made its way down the filament, toward him. He would have to strike fast if the opportunity came he would have to be ready to help Guenhwyvar.

The fisher stumbled to the side, rolling Guenhwyvar away and spinning Drizzt over in a complete bumping circuit.

Still the blood oozed down the line, and Drizzt felt the filament’s hold loosen from his top hand as the liquid came in contact.

Guenhwyvar was up again, facing the fisher, looking for an attack route through the waiting pincers.

Drizzt’s hand was free. He snapped up a scimitar and dove straight ahead, sinking the tip into the fisher’s side. The monster reeled about, the jolt and the continuing blood flow shaking Drizzt from the filament altogether. The drow was agile enough to find a handhold before he had fallen far, though his drawn scimitar tumbled down to the floor. Drizzt’s diversion opened the fisher’s defenses for just a moment, and Guenhwyvar did not hesitate. The cat barreled into its foe, teeth finding the same fleshy hold they had already ripped. They went deeper, under the skin, crushing organs as Guenhwyvar’s raking claws kept the pincers at bay.

By the time Drizzt climbed back to the level of the battle, the cave fisher shuddered in the throes of death. Drizzt pulled himself up and rushed to his friend’s side. Guenhwyvar retreated step for step, its ears flattened and teeth bared.

At first, Drizzt thought that the pain of a wound blinded the cat, but a quick survey dispelled that theory. Guenhwyvar had only one injury, and that was not serious. Drizzt had seen the cat with worse.

Guenhwyvar continued to retreat, continued to growl, as the incesant pounding of Masoj’s command, back again after the instant of terror, hammered at its heart. The cat fought the urges, tried to see Drizzt as an ally, not as prey, but the urges.

"What is wrong, my friend?" Drizzt asked softly, resisting the urge to draw his remaining blade in defense. He dropped to one knee. "Do you not recognize me? How often we have fought together!"

Guenhwyvar crouched low and tamped down its hind legs, preparing, Drizzt knew, to spring. Still Drizzt did not draw his weapon, did nothing to threaten the cat. He had to trust that Guenhwyvar was true to his perceptions, that the panther was everything he believed it to be. What now could be guiding these unfamiliar reactions? What had brought Guenhwyvar out here at this late hour?

Drizzt found his answers when he remembered Matron Malice’s warnings about leaving House Do’Urden.

"Masoj sent you to kill me!" he said bluntly. His tone confused the cat, and it relaxed a bit, not yet ready to spring.

"You saved me, Guenhwyvar. You resisted the command."

Guenhwyvar’s growl sounded in protest.

"You could have let the cave fisher do the deed for you." Drizzt retorted, "but you did not! You charged in and saved my life! Fight the urges, Guenhwyvar! Remember me as your friend, a better companion than Masoj Hun’ett could ever be!"

Guenhwyvar backed away another step, caught in a pull that it could not yet resolve. Drizzt watched the cat’s ears come up from its head and knew that he was winning the contest.

"Masoj claims ownership." he went on, confident that the cat, through some intelligence Drizzt could not know, understood the meaning of his words. "I claim friendship. I am your friend, Guenhwyvar, and I’ll not fight against you." He leaped forward, arms unthreateningly wide, face and chestfully exposed. "Even at the cost of my own life!"

Guenhwyvar did not strike. Emotions pulled at the cat stronger than any magical spell, those same emotions that had put Guenhwyvar into action when it first saw Drizzt in the cave fisher’s clutches.

Guenhwyvar reared up and leaped out, crashing into Drizzt and knocking him to his back, then burying him in a rush of playful slaps and mock bites.

The two friends had won again, they had defeated two foes this day.

When Drizzt paused from the greeting to consider all that had transpired, though, he realized that one of the victories was not yet complete. Guenhwyvar was his in spirit now but still held by another, one who did not deserve the cat, who enslaved the cat in a life that Drizzt could no longer witness.

None of the confusion that had followed Drizzt Do’Urden out of Menzoberranzan that night remained. For the first time in his life, he saw the road he must follow, the path to his own freedom.

He remembered Zaknafein’s warnings, and the same impossible alternatives that he had contemplated, to no resolution.Where, indeed, could a drow elf go?

"Worse to be trapped within a lie," he whispered absently.

The panther cocked its head to the side, sensing again that Drizzt’s words carried great importance. Drizzt returned the curious stare with one that came suddenly grim. "Take me to your master." he demanded, "your false master."

Chapter 27 Untroubled Dreams

Zaknafein sank down into his bed in an easy sleep, the most comfortable rest he had ever known. Dreams did come to him this night, a rush of dreams. Far from tumultuous, they only enhanced his comfort. Zak was free now of his secret, of the lie that had dominated every day of his adult life.

Drizzt had survived! Even the dreaded Academy of Menzoberranzan could not daunt the youth’s indomitable spirit and sense of morality. Zaknafein Do’Urden was no longer alone. The dreams that played in his mind showed him the same wonderful possibilities that had followed Drizzt out of the city.

Side by side they would stand, unbeatable, two as one against the perverted foundations of Menzoberranzan.

A stinging pain in his foot brought Zak from his slumbers.

He saw Briza immediately, at the bottom of his bed, her snake whip in hand. Instinctively, Zak reached over the side to fetch his sword.

The weapon was gone. Vierna stood at the side of the room, holding it. On the opposite side, Maya held Zak’s other sword.

How had they come in so stealthily? Zak wondered. Magical silence, no doubt, but Zak was still surprised that he had not sensed their presence in time. Nothing had ever caught him unawares, awake or asleep.

Never before had he slept so soundly, so peacefully. Perhaps, in Menzoberranzan, such pleasant dreams were dangerous.

"Matron Malice will see you." Briza announced.

"I am not properly dressed." Zak replied casually. "My belt and weapons, if you please."

"We do not please!" Briza snapped, more at her sisters than at Zak. "You will not need the weapons." Zak thought otherwise.

"Come, now." Briza commanded, and she raised the whip.

"I should be certain of Matron Malice’s intentions before I acted so boldly, were I you." Zak warned. Briza, reminded of the power of the male she now threatened, lowered her weapon.

Zak rolled out of bed, putting the same intense glare alternately on Maya and Vierna, watching their reactions to better conclude Malice’s reasons for summoning him.

They surrounded him as he left his room, keeping a cautious but ready distance from the deadly weapon master.

"Must be serious." Zak remarked quietly, so that only Briza, in front of the troupe, could hear. Briza turned and flashed him a wicked smile that did nothing to dispel his suspicions. Neither did Matron Malice, who leaned forward in her throne in anticipation even before they entered the room.

"Matron." Zak offered, dipping into a bow and pulling the side of his nightshirt out wide to draw attention to his inappropriate dress. He wanted to let Malice know his feelings of being ridiculed at such a late hour.

The matron offered no return greeting. She rested back in her throne. One slender hand rubbed her sharp chin, while her eyes locked upon Zaknafein.

"Perhaps you could tell me why you’ve summoned me." Zak dared to say, his voice still holding an edge of sarcasm. "I would prefer to return to my slumbers. We should not give House Hun’ett the advantage of a tired weapon master."

"Drizzt has gone." growled Malice.

The news slapped Zak like a wet rag. He straightened, and the teasing smile disappeared from his face.

"He left the house against my commands." Malice went on.

Zak relaxed visibly when Malice announced that Drizzt was gone, Zak had first thought that she and her devious cohorts had driven him out or killed him.

"A spirited boy." Zak remarked. "Surely he will return soon."

"Spirited." Malice echoed, and her tone did not put the description in a positive light.

"He will return." Zak said again. "There’s no need for our alarm, for such extreme measures." He glared at Briza, though he knew well that the matron mother had called him to audience to do more than tell him of Drizzt’s departure.

"The secondboy disobeyed the matron mother." Briza snarled, a rehearsed interruption.

"Spirited." Zak said again, trying not to chuckle. "A minor indiscretion."

"How often he seems to have those." Malice commented.

"Like another spirited male of House Do’Urden."

Zak bowed again, taking her words as a compliment. Malice already had his punishment decided, if she meant to punish him at all. His actions now, at this trial―if that’s what it was―would be of little consequence.

"The boy has displeased the Spider Queen!" Malice growled, openly enraged and tired of Zak’s sarcasm. "Even you were not foolish enough to do that!"

A dark cloud passed across Zak’s face. This meeting was indeed serious, Drizzt’s life could be at stake.

"But you know of his crime." Malice continued, easing back again. She liked that she had Zak concerned and on the defensive. She had found his vulnerable spot. It was her turn to tease.

"Leaving the house?" Zak protested. "A minor error in judgment. Lolth would not be concerned with such a trifle issue."

"Do not feign ignorance, Zaknafein. You know that the elven child lives!"

Zak lost his breath in a sharp gasp. Malice knew! Damn it all, Lolth knew!

"We are about to go to war." Malice continued calmly, "we are not in Lolth’s favor, and we must correct the situation."

She eyed Zak directly. "You are aware of our ways and know that we must do this."

Zak nodded, trapped. Anything he did now to disagree would only make matters worse for Drizzt, if matters could be worse for Drizzt.

"The secondboy must be punished." Briza said. Another rehearsed interruption, Zak knew. He wondered how many times Briza and Malice had practiced this encounter.

"Am I to punish him, then?" Zak asked. "I’ll not whip the boy that is not my place."

"His punishment is none of your concern." Malice said.

"Then why disturb my slumber?" Zak asked, trying to detach himself from Drizzt’s predicament, more for Drizzt’s sake than his own.

"I thought that you would wish to know." Malice replied.

"You and Drizzt became so close this day in the gym. Father and son."

She saw! Zak realized. Malice, and probably that wretched Briza, had watched the whole encounter! Zak’s head drooped as he came to know that he had unwittingly played a part in Drizzt’s predicament.

"An elven child lives." Malice began slowly, rolling out each word in dramatic clarity, "and a young drow must die."

"No!" The word came out of Zak before he realized he was speaking. He tried to find some escape. "Drizzt was young. He did not understand…"

"He knew exactly what he was doing!" Malice screamed back at him. "He does not regret his actions! He is so like you, Zaknafein! Too like you."

"Then he can learn." Zak reasoned. "I have not been a burden to you, Mali―Matron Malice. You have profited by my presence. Drizzt is no less skilled than I, he can be valuable to us."

"Dangerous to us." Matron Malice corrected. "You and he standing together? The thought does not please me."

"His death will aid House Hun’ett." Zak warned, grabbing at anything he could find to defeat the matron’s intent.

"The Spider Queen demands his death." Malice replied sternly. "She must be appeased if Daermon N’a’shezbaernon is to have any hope in its struggles against House Hun’ett."

"I beg you, do not kill the boy."

"Sympathy?" Malice mused. "It does not become a drow warrior, Zaknafein. Have you lost your fighting will?"

"I am old, Malice."

"Matron Malice!" Briza protested, but Zak put a look on her so cold that she lowered her snake whip before she had even begun to put it to use.

"Older still will I become if Drizzt is put to his death."

"I do not desire this either." Malice agreed, but Zak recognized her lie. She didn’t care about Drizzt, or about anything else, beyond gaining the Spider Queen’s favor.

"Yet I see no alternative. Drizzt has angered Lolth, and she must be appeased before our war."

Zak began to understand. This meeting wasn’t about Drizzt at all. "Take me in the boy’s stead." he said.

Malice’s narrow grin could not hide her feigned surprise.

This was what she had desired from the very beginning.

"You are a proven fighter." the matron argued. "Your value, as you yourself have already admitted, cannot be underestimated. To sacrifice you to the Spider Queen would appease her, but what void will be left in House Do’Urden in the wake of your passing?"

"A void that Drizzt can fill." Zak replied. He secretly hoped that Drizzt, unlike he, would find some escape from it all, some way around Matron Malice’s evil plots.

"You are certain of this?"

"He is my equal in battle." Zak assured her. "He will grow stronger, too, beyond what Zaknafein has ever attained."

"You are willing to do this for him?" Malice sneered, eager drool edging her mouth.

"You know that I am." Zak replied.

"Ever the fool." Malice put in.

"To your dismay." Zak continued, undaunted, "you know that Drizzt would do the same for me."

"He is young." Malice purred. "He will be taught better."

"As you taught me?" snapped Zak.

Malice’s victorious grin became a grimace. "I warn you, Zaknafein," she growled in all her vile rage. "If you do anything to disrupt the ceremony to appease the Spider Queen, if, in the end of your wasted life, you choose to anger me one final time, I will give Drizzt to Briza. She and her torturous toys will give him to Lolth!"

Unafraid, Zak held his head high. "I have offered myself, Malice." he spat. "Have your fun while you may. In the end, Zaknafein will be at peace. Matron Malice Do’Urden will ever be at war!"

Shaking in anger, the moment of triumph stolen by a few simple words, Malice could only whisper, "Take him!"

Zak offered no resistance as Vierna and Maya tied him to the spider-shaped altar in the chapel. He watched Vierna mostly, seeing an edge of sympathy rimming her quiet eyes. She, too, might have been like him, but whatever hope he had for that possibility had been buried long ago under the relentless preaching of the Spider Queen.

"You are sad." Zak remarked to her.

Vierna straightened and tugged tightly on one of Zak’s bonds, causing him to grimace in pain. "A pity." she replied as coldly as she could. "House Do’Urden must give much to repay Drizzt’s foolish deed. I would have enjoyed watching the two of you together in battle."

"House Hun’ett would not have enjoyed the sight." Zak replied with a wink. "Cry not… my daughter." Vierna slapped him across the face. "Take your lies to your grave!"

"Deny it as you choose, Vierna." was all that Zak cared to reply.

Vierna and Maya backed away from the altar. Vierna fought to hold her scowl and Maya bit back an amused chuckle, as Matron Malice and Briza entered the room. The matron mother wore her greatest ceremonial robe, black and weblike, clinging and floating about her all at once, and Briza carried a sacred coffer.

Zak paid them no heed as they began their ritual, chanting for the Spider Queen, offering their hopes for appeasement. Zak had his own hopes at that moment.

"Beat them all." he whispered under his breath. "Do more than survive, my son, as I have survived. Live! Be true to the callings in your heart."

Braziers roared to life, the room glowed. Zak felt the heat, knew that contact to that darker plane had been achieved.

"Take this…" he heard Matron Malice chant, but he put the words out of his thoughts and continued the final prayers of his life.

The spider-shaped dagger hovered over his chest. Malice clenched the instrument in her bony hands, the sheen of her sweat-soaked skin catching the orange reflection of the fires in a surrealistic glow.

Surreal, like the transition from life to death.

Chapter 28 Rightful Owner

How long had it been? An hour? Two? Masoj paced the length of the gap between the two stalagmite mounds just a few feet from the entrance to the tunnel that Drizzt, and then Guenhwyvar, had taken. "The cat should have returned by now." the wizard grumbled, at the end of his patience.

Relief flooded through his face a moment later, when Guenhwyvar’s great black head peered around the edge of the tunnel, behind one of the displacer beast statue guardians. The fur around the cat’s maw was conspicuously wet with fresh blood.

"It is done?" Masoj asked, barely able to contain a shout of elation. "Drizzt Do’Urden is dead?"

"Hardly." came the reply. Drizzt, for all his idealism, had to admit a tinge of pleasure as a cloud of dread cooled the elated fires in the sinister wizard’s cheeks.

"What is this, Guenhwyvar?" Masoj demanded. "Do as I bid you! Kill him now!"

Guenhwyvar stared blankly at Masoj, then lay at Drizzt’s feet.

"You admit your attempt on my life?" Drizzt asked.

Masoj measured the distance to his adversary, ten feet. He might be able to get off one spell. Perhaps. Masoj had seen Drizzt move, quick and sure, and had little desire to chance the attack if he could find another way out of this predicament. Drizzt had not yet drawn a weapon, though the young warrior’s hands rested easily across the hilts of his deadly blades.

"I understand." Drizzt continued calmly. "House Hun’ett and House Do’Urden are to battle."

"How did you know?" Masoj blurted without thinking, too shocked by the revelation to consider that Drizzt might merely be goading him into a larger admission.

"I know much but care little." Drizzt replied. "House Hun’ett wishes to wage war against my family. For what reason, I cannot guess."

"For the vengeance of House DeVir!" came a reply from a different direction.

Alton, standing on the side of a stalagmite mound, looked down at Drizzt.

A smile spread over Masoj’s face. The odds had so quickly changed.

"House Hun’ett cares not at all for House DeVir." Drizzt replied, still composed in the face of this new development. "I have learned enough of the ways of our people to know that the fate of one house is not the concern of another."

"But it is my concern!" Alton cried, and he threw back the cowl of his hood, revealing the hideous face, scarred by acid for the sake of a disguise. "I am Alton DeVir, lone survivor of House DeVir! House Do’Urden will die for its crimes against my family, starting with you."

"I was not even born when the battle took place." Drizzt protested.

"Of little consequence!" Alton snarled. "You are a Do’Urden, a filthy Do’Urden. That is all that matters." Masoj tossed the onyx figurine to the ground. "Guenhwyvar!" he commanded. "Be gone!"

The cat looked over its shoulder to Drizzt, who nodded his approval.

"Be gone!" Masoj cried again. "I am your master! You cannot disobey me!"

"You do not own the cat." Drizzt said calmly.

"Who does, then?" Masoj snapped. "You?"

"Guenhwyvar." Drizzt replied. "Only Guenhwyvar. I would think that a wizard would have a better understanding of the magic around him."

With a low growl that might have been a mocking laugh, Guenhwyvar loped across the stone to the figurine and dissipated into smoky nothingness.

The cat walked down the length of the planar tunnel, toward its home in the Astral Plane. Ever before had Guenhwyvar been anxious to make this journey, to escape the foul commands of its drow masters. This time, though, the cat hesitated with every stride, looking back over its shoulder to the dot of darkness that was Menzoberranzan.

"Will you deal?" Drizzt offered.

"You are in no position to bargain." Alton laughed, drawing out the slender wand that Matron SiNafay had given him.

Masoj cut him short. "Wait." he said. "Perhaps Drizzt will prove valuable to our struggle against House Do’Urden." He eyed the young warrior directly. "You will betray your family?"

"Hardly." Drizzt snickered. " As I have already said to you, I care little for the coming conflict. Let House Hun’ett and House Do’Urden both be damned, as surely they will! My concerns are personal."

"You must have something to offer us in exchange for your gain." Masoj explained. "Otherwise, what bargain can you hope to make?"

"I do have something to give to you in return." Drizzt replied, his voice calm, "your lives."

Masoj and Alton looked to each other and laughed aloud, but there was a trace of nervousness in their chuckles.

"Give me the figurine, Masoj." Drizzt continued, undaunted. "Guenhwyvar never belonged to you and will serve you no more."

Masoj stopped laughing.

"In return." Drizzt went on before the wizard could reply, "I will leave House Do’Urden and not take part in the battle."

"Corpses do not fight." Alton sneered.

"I will take another Do’Urden with me." Drizzt spat at him. "A weapon master. Surely House Hun’ett will have gained an advantage if both Drizzt and Zaknafein…"

"Silence!" Masoj screamed. "The cat is mine! I do not need any bargains from a pitiful Do’Urden! You are dead, fool, and House Do’Urden’s weapon master will follow you to your grave!"

"Guenhwyvar is free!" Drizzt growled.

The scimitars came out in Drizzt’s hands. He had never really fought a wizard before, let alone two, but he remembered vividly from past encounters the sting of their spells. Masoj had already begun to cast, but of more concern was Alton, out of quick reach and pointing that slender wand.

Before Drizzt ever decided his course of action, the issue was settled for him. A cloud of smoke engulfed Masoj and he fell back, his spell disrupted with the shock. Guenhwyvar was back.

Alton was out of Drizzt’s reach. Drizzt could not hope to get to the wizard before the wand went off, but to Guenhwyvar’s streamlined feline muscles, the distance was not so great. Hind legs tamped a footing and snapped, launching the hunting panther through the air.

Alton brought the wand to bear on this new nemesis in time and released a mighty bolt, scorching Guenhwyvar’s chest. Greater strength than a single bolt, though, would be needed to deter the ferocious panther. Stunned but still fighting, Guenhwyvar slammed into the faceless wizard, dropping him off the back side of the stalagmite mound. The lightning bolt’s flash stunned Drizzt as well, but he continued to pursue Masoj and could only hope that Guenhwyvar had survived. He rushed around the base of the other stalagmite mound and came face-to-face with Masoj, once again in the act of spellcasting. Drizzt didn’t slow, he ducked his head and barreled into his opponent, his scimitars leading the way.

He slipped right through his opponent, right through the image of his opponent!

Drizzt crashed heavily into the stone and rolled aside, trying to escape the magical attack he knew was coming.

This time, Masoj, standing fully thirty feet behind the projection of his image, was taking no chances with a miss. He launched a volley of magical missiles of energy that veered unerringly to intercept the dodging fighter. They slammed into Drizzt, jolting him, bruising him under his skin.

But Drizzt was able to shake away the numbing pain and regain his footing. He knew where the real Masoj was standing now and had no intention of letting the trickster out of sight again.

A dagger in his hand, Masoj watched Drizzt’s stalking approach.

Drizzt didn’t understand. Why wasn’t the wizard preparing another spell? The fall had reopened the wound in Drizzt’s shoulder, and the magical bolts had torn his side and a leg. The wounds were not serious, though, and Masoj had no chance against him in physical combat.

The wizard stood before him, unconcerned, dagger drown and a wicked smile on his face.

Face down on the hard stone, Alton felt the warmth of his own blood running freely between the melted holes that were his eyes. The cat was higher up the side of the mound, not yet fully recovered from the lightning bolt.

Alton forced himself up and raised his wand for a second strike… but the wand had snapped in half.

Frantically Alton recovered the other piece and held it up before his disbelieving eyes. Guenhwyvar was coming again, but Alton didn’t notice.

The glowing ends of the wand, a power building within the magical stick, enthralled him. "You cannot do that." Alton whispered in protest.

Guenhwyvar leaped just as the broken wand exploded.

A ball of fire roared up into Menzoberranzan’s night, chunks of rubble rocketed off the great cavern’s eastern wall and ceiling, and both Drizzt and Masoj were knocked from their feet.

"Now Guenhwyvar belongs to no one," Masoj sneered, tossing the figurine to the ground.

"No DeVir remains to claim vengeance on House Do’Urden." Drizzt growled back, his anger holding off his despair. Masoj became the focus of that anger, and the wizard’s mocking laughter led Drizzt toward him in a furious rush.

Just as Drizzt got in range, Masoj snapped his fingers and was gone.

"Invisible." Drizzt roared, slicing futilely at the empty air before him. His exertions took the edge from his blind rage and he realized that Masoj was no longer in front of him. How foolish he must seem to the wizard. How vulnerable!

Drizzt crouched to listen. He sensed a distant chanting from up above, on the cavern wall.

Drizzt’s instincts told him to dive to the side, but his new understanding of wizards told him that Masoj would anticipate such a move. Drizzt feigned to the left and heard the climactic words of the building spell. As the lightning blast thundered harmlessly to the side, Drizzt sprinted straight ahead, hoping his vision would return in time for him to get to the wizard.

"Damn you!" Masoj cried, understanding the feint as soon as he had errantly fired. Rage became terror in the next instant, as Masoj caught sight of Drizzt, sprinting across the stone, leaping the rubble, and crossing the sides of the mounds with all the grace of a hunting cat.

Masoj fumbled in his pockets for the components to his next spell. He had to be quick. He was fully twenty feet from the cavern floor, perched on a narrow ledge, but Drizzt was moving fast, impossibly fast!

The ground beneath him did not register in Drizzt’s conscious thoughts. The cavern wall would have seemed unclimbable to him in a more rational state, but now he gave it not a care. Guenhwyvar was lost to him. Guenhwyvar was gone.

That wicked wizard on the ledge, that embodiment of demonic evil, had caused it. Drizzt sprang to the wall, found one hand free―he must have discarded one scimitar―and caught a tenuous hold. It wasn’t enough for a rational drow, but Drizzt’s mind ignored the protests of the muscles in his straining fingers. He had only ten feet to go.

Another volley of energy bolts thudded into Drizzt, hammering the top of his head in rapid succession.

"How many spells remain, wizard?" he heard himself defiantly cry as he ignored the pain.

Masoj fell back when Drizzt looked up at him, when the burning light of those lavender orbs fell upon him like a pronouncement of doom. He had seen Drizzt in battle many times, and the sight of the fighting young warrior had haunted him through all the planning of this assassination. But Masoj had never seen Drizzt enraged before. If he had, he never would have agreed to try to kill Drizzt. If he had, he would have told Matron SiNafay to go sit on a stalagmite.

What spell was next? What spell could slow the monster that was Drizzt Do’Urden?

A hand, glowing with the heat of anger, grabbed the lip of the ledge. Masoj stomped on it with the heel of his boot. The fingers were broken―the wizard knew that the fingers were broken―but Drizzt, impossibly, was up beside him and the blade of a scimitar was through the wizard’s ribs.

"The fingers are broken!" the dying mage gasped in protest.

Drizzt looked down at his hand and realized the pain for the first time. "Perhaps." he said absently, "but they will heal."

Drizzt, limping, found his other scimitar and cautiously picked his way over the rubble of one of the mounds. Fighting the fear within his broken heart, he forced himself to peer over the crest at the destruction. The back side of the mound glowed eerily in the residual heat, a beacon for the awakening city.

So much for stealth…

Pieces of Alton DeVir lay scattered at the bottom, around the wizard’s smoldering robes. "Have you found peace, Faceless One?" Drizzt whispered, exhaling the last of his anger. He remembered the assault Alton had launched against him those years ago in the Academy. The faceless master and Masoj had explained it away as a test for a budding warrior.

"How long you have carried your hate." Drizzt muttered at the blasted bits of corpse.

But Alton DeVir was not his concern now. He scanned the rest of the rubble, looking for some clue to Guenhwyvar’s fate, not certain how a magical creature would fare in such a disaster. Not a sign of the cat remained, nothing that would even hint that Guenhwyvar had ever been there.

Drizzt consciously reminded himself that there was no hope, but the anxious spring in his steps mocked his stern visage. He rushed back down the mound and around the other stalagmite, where Masoj and he had been when the wand exploded. He spotted the onyx figurine immediately.

He lifted it gently in his hands. It was warm, as though it, too, had been caught in the blast, and Drizzt could sense that its magic had diminished. Drizzt wanted to call the cat, then, but he didn’t dare, knowing that the travel between the planes heavily taxed Guenhwyvar. If the cat had been injured, Drizzt figured that it would be better to give it some time to recuperate.

"Oh, Guenhwyvar." he moaned, "my friend, my brave friend." He dropped the figurine into his pocket.

He could only hope that Guenhwyvar had survived.

Chapter 29 Alone

Drizzt walked back around the stalagmite, back to the body of Masoj Hun’ett. He had had no choice but to kill his adversary, Masoj had drawn the battle lines.

That fact did little to dispel the guilt in Drizzt as he looked upon the corpse. He had killed another drow, had taken the life of one of his own people. Was he trapped, as Zaknafein had been trapped for so very many years, in a cycle of violence that would know no end?

"Never again." Drizzt vowed to the corpse. "Never again will I kill a drow elf."

He turned away, disgusted, and knew as soon as he looked back to the silent, sinister mounds of the vast drow city that he would not survive long in Menzoberranzan if he held to that promise.

A thousand possibilities whirled in Drizzt’s mind as he made his way through the winding ways of Menzoberranzan. He pushed the thoughts aside, stopped them from dulling his alertness. The light was general now in Narbondel the drow day was beginning, and activity had started from every corner of the city. In the world of the surface-dwellers, the day was the safer time, when light exposed assassins. In Menzoberranzan’s eternal darkness, the daytime of the dark elves was even more dangerous than the night. Drizzt picked his way carefully, rolling wide from the mushroom fence of the noblest houses, wherein lay House Hun’ett. He encountered no more adversaries and made the safety of the Do’Urden compound a short time later. He rushed through the gate and by the surprised soldiers without a word of explanation and shoved aside the guards below the balcony.

The house was strangely quiet Drizzt would have expected them all to be up and about with battle imminent. He gave the eerie stillness no more thought, and he cut a straight line to the training gym and Zaknafein’s private quarters.

Drizzt paused outside the gym’s stone door, his hand tightly clenched on the handle of the portal. What would he propose to his father? That they leave? He and Zaknafein on the perilous trails of the Underdark, fighting when they must and escaping the burdensome guilt of their existence under drow rule? Drizzt liked the thought, but he wasn’t so certain now, standing before the door, that he could convince Zak to follow such a course. Zak could have left before, at any time during the centuries of his life, but when Drizzt had asked him why he had remained, the heat had drained from the weapon master’s face. Were they indeed trapped in the life offered to them by Matron Malice and her evil cohorts?

Drizzt grimaced away the worries, no sense in arguing to himself with Zak only a few steps away.

The training gym was as quiet as the rest of the house. Too quiet. Drizzt hadn’t expected Zak to be there, but something more than his father was absent. The father’s presence, too, was gone.

Drizzt knew that something was wrong, and each step he took toward Zak’s private door quickened until he was in full flight. He burst in without a knock, not surprised to find the bed empty.

"Malice must have sent him out in search of me." Drizzt reasoned. "Damn, I have caused him trouble!" He turned to leave, but something caught his eye and held him in the room, Zak’s sword belt.

Never would the weapon master have left his room, not even for functions within the safety of House Do’Urden, without his swords. "Your weapon is your most trusted companion." Zak had told Drizzt a thousand times. "Keep it ever at your side!"

"House Hun’ett?" Drizzt whispered, wondering if the rival house had magically attacked in the night, while he was out battling Alton and Masoj. The compound, though, was serene surely the soldiers would have known if anything like that had occurred.

Drizzt picked up the belt for inspection. No blood, and the clasp neatly unbuckled. No enemy had torn this from Zak.

The weapon master’s pouch lay beside it, also intact.

"What, then?" Drizzt asked aloud. He replaced the sword belt beside the bed, but slung the pouch across his neck, and turned, not knowing where he should go next.

He had to see about the rest of the family, he realized before he had even stepped through the door. Perhaps then this riddle about Zak would become more clear.

Dread grew out of that thought as Drizzt headed down the long and decorated corridor to the chapel anteroom.

Had Malice, or any of them, brought Zak harm? For what, purpose? The notion seemed illogical to Drizzt, but it nagged him every step, as if some sixth sense were warning him.

There still was no sign of anyone.

The anteroom’s ornate doors swung in, magically and silently, even as Drizzt raised his hand to knock on them. He saw the matron mother first, sitting smugly on her throne at the rear of the room, her smile inviting.

Drizzt’s discomfort did not diminish when he entered.

The whole family was there, Briza, Vierna, and Maya to the sides of their matron, Rizzen and Dinin unobtrusively standing beside the left wall. The whole family. Except for Zak.

Matron Malice studied her son carefully, noting his many wounds. "I instructed you not to leave the house." she said to Drizzt, but she was not scolding him. "Where did your travels take you?"

"Where is Zaknafein?" Drizzt asked in reply.

"Answer the matron mother!" Briza yelled at him, her snake whip prominently displayed on her belt.

Drizzt glared at her and she recoiled, feeling the same bitter chill that Zaknafein had cast over her earlier in the night.

"I instructed you not to leave the house." Malice said again, still holding calm. "Why did you disobey me?"

"I had matters to attend." Drizzt replied, "urgent matters. I did not wish to bother you with them."

"War is upon us, my son." Matron Malice explained. "You are vulnerable out in the city by yourself. House Do’Urden cannot afford to lose you now."

"My business had to be handled alone." Drizzt answered.

"Is it completed?"

"It is."

"Then I trust that you will not disobey me again." The words came calm and even, but Drizzt understood at once the severity of the threat behind them.

"To other matters, then." Malice went on.

"Where is Zaknafein?" Drizzt dared to ask again.

Briza mumbled some curse under her breath and pulled the whip from her belt. Matron Malice threw an outstretched hand in her direction to stay her. They needed tact, not brutality, to bring Drizzt under control at this critical time. There would be ample opportunities for punishment after House Hun’ett was properly defeated.

"Concern yourself not with the fate of the weapon master." Malice replied. "He works for the good of House Do’Urden even as we speak, on a personal mission."

Drizzt didn’t believe a word of it. Zak would never have left without his weapons. The truth hovered about Drizzt’s thoughts, but he wouldn’t let it in.

"Our concern is House Hun’ett." Malice went on, addressing them all. "The war’s first strikes may fall this day."

"The first strikes already have fallen." Drizzt interrupted.

All eyes came back to him, to his wounds. He wanted to continue the discussion about Zak but knew that he would only get himself, and Zak, if Zak was still alive, into further trouble. Perhaps the conversation would bring him more clues.

"You have seen battle?" Malice asked.

"You know of the Faceless One?" Drizzt asked.

"Master of the Academy." Dinin answered, "of Sorcere, have dealt with him often."

"He has been of use to us in the past." said Malice, "but no more, I believe. He is a Hun’ett, Gelroos Hun’ett."

"No." Drizzt replied. "Once he may have been, but Alton DeVir is his name… was his name."

"The link!" Dinin growled, suddenly comprehending. "Gelroos was to kill Alton on the night of House DeVir’s fall!

"It would seem that Alton DeVir proved the stronger." mused Malice, and all became clear to her. "Matron SiNafay Hun’ett accepted him, used him to her gain." she explained to her family. She looked back to Drizzt. "You battled with him?"

"He is dead." Drizzt answered. Matron Malice cackled with delight.

"One less wizard to deal with." Briza remarked, replacing the whip on her belt.

"Two." Drizzt corrected, but there was no boasting in his voice. He was not proud of his actions. "Masoj Hun’ett is no more."

"My son!" Matron Malice cried. "You have brought us a great edge in this war!" She glanced all about her family, infecting them, except Drizzt, with her elation. "House Hun’ett may not even choose to strike us now, knowing its disadvantage. We will not let them get away! We will destroy them this day and become the Eighth House of Menzoberranzan! Woe to the enemies of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon!

"We must move at once, my family." Malice reasoned, her hands rubbing over each other in excitement. "We cannot wait for an attack. We must take the offensive! Alton DeVir is gone now the link that justifies this war is no more. Surely the ruling council knew of Hun’ett’s intentions, and with both her wizards dead and the element of surprise lost, Matron SiNafay will move quickly to stop the battle."

Drizzt’s hand unconsciously slipped into Zak’s pouch; the others joined Malice in her plotting.

"Where is Zak?" Drizzt demanded again, above the chorus.

Silence dropped as quickly as the tumult had begun.

"He is of no concern to you, my son." Malice said to him, still keeping to her tact despite Drizzt’s impudence. "You are the weapon master of House Do’Urden now. Lolth has forgiven your insolence, you have no crimes weighing against you. Your career may begin anew, to glorious heights!"

Her words cut through Drizzt as surely as his own scimitar might. "You killed him." he whispered aloud, the truth too awful to be contained in silent thought.

The matron’s face suddenly gleamed, hot with rage. "You killed him!" she shot back at Drizzt. "Your insolence demanded repayment to the Spider Queen!"

Drizzt’s tongue got all tangled up behind his teeth.

"But you live." Malice went on, relaxing again in her chair, "as the elven child lives!’

Dinin was not the only one in the room to gasp audibly.

"Yes, we know of your deception." Malice sneered. "The Spider Queen always knew. She demanded restitution!’

"You sacrificed Zaknafein?" Drizzt breathed, hardly able to get the words out of his mouth. "You gave him to that damned Spider Queen?"

"I would watch how I spoke of Queen Lolth." Malice warned. "Forget Zaknafein. He is not your concern. Look to your own life, my warrior son. All glories are offered to you, a station of honor!’

Drizzt was indeed looking to his own life at that moment at the proposed path that offered him a life of battle, a life of killing drow.

"You have no options." Malice said to him, seeing his inward struggle. "I offer to you now your life. In exchange, you must do as I bid, as Zaknafein once did!’

"You kept your bargain with him." Drizzt spat sarcastically.

"I did!" Matron Malice protested. "Zaknafein went willingly to the altar, for your sake!"

Her words stung Drizzt for only a moment. He would not accept the guilt for Zaknafein’s death! He had followed the only course he could, on the surface against the elves and here in the evil city.

"My offer is a good one." Malice said. "I give it here, before all the family. Both of us will benefit from the agreement… Weapon Master?"

A smile spread across Drizzt’s face when he looked into Matron Malice’s cold eyes, a grin that Malice took as acceptance.

"Weapon master?" Drizzt echoed. "Not likely."

Again Malice misunderstood. "I have seen you in battle." she argued. "Against wizards! You underestimate yourself."

Drizzt nearly laughed aloud at the irony of her words.

She thought he would fail where Zaknafein had failed, would fall into her trap as the former weapon master had fallen, never to climb back out. "It is you who underestimate me, Malice." Drizzt said with threatening calm.

"Matron!" Briza demanded, but she held back, seeing that Drizzt and everyone else was ignoring her as the drama played out.

"You ask me to serve your evil designs." Drizzt continued.

He knew but didn’t care that all of them were nervously fingering weapons or preparing spells, were waiting for the proper moment to strike the blasphemous fool dead. Those childhood memories of the agony of snake whips reminded him of the punishment for his actions. Drizzt’s fingers closed around a circular object, adding to his courage, though he would have continued in any case.

"They are a lie, as our―no, your―people are a lie!"

"Your skin is as dark as mine." Malice reminded him. "You are a drow, though you have never learned what that means!"

"Oh, I do know what it means."

"Then act by the rules!" Matron Malice demanded.

"Your rules?" Drizzt growled back. "But your rules are a damned lie as well, as great a lie as that filthy spider you claim as a deity!"

"Insolent slug!" Briza cried, raising her snake whip.

Drizzt struck first. He pulled the object, the tiny ceramic globe, from Zaknafein’s pouch.

"A true god damn you all!" he cried as he slammed the ball to the stone floor. He snapped his eyes shut as the pebble within the ball, enchanted by a powerful light-emanating dweomer, exploded into the room and erupted into his kin’s sensitive eyes. "And damn that Spider Queen as well!"

Malice reeled backward, taking her great throne right over in a heavy crash to the hard stone. Cries of agony and rage came from every corner of the room as the sudden light bored into the stunned drow. Finally Vierna managed to launch a countering spell and returned the room to its customary gloom.

"Get him!" Malice growled, still trying to shake off the heavy fall. "I want him dead!"

The others had hardly recovered enough to heed to her commands, and Drizzt was already out of the house.

Carried on the silent winds of the Astral Plane, the call came. The entity of the panther stood up, ignoring its pains, and took note of the voice, a familiar, comforting voice.

The cat was off, then, running with all its heart and strength to answer the summons of its new master.

A short while later, Drizzt crept out of a little tunnel, Guenhwyvar at his side, and moved through the courtyard of the Academy to look down upon Menzoberranzan for the last time.

"What place is this." Drizzt asked the cat quietly, "that I call home? These are my people, by skin and by heritage, but I am no kin to them. They are lost and ever will be.

"How many others are like me, I wonder?" Drizzt whispered, taking one final look. "Doomed souls, as was Zaknafein, poor Zak. I do this for him, Guenhwyvar I leave as he could not. His life has been my lesson, a dark scroll etched by the heavy price exacted by Matron Malice’s evil promises.

"Goodbye, Zak!" he cried, his voice rising in final defiance. "My father. "Take heart, as do I, that when we meet again, in a life after this, it will surely not be in the hellfire our kin are doomed to endure!"

Drizzt motioned the cat back into the tunnel, the entrance to the untamed Underdark. Watching the cat’s easy movements, Drizzt realized again how fortunate he was to have found a companion of like spirit, a true friend. The way would not be easy for him and Guenhwyvar beyond the guarded borders of Menzoberranzan. They would be unprotected and alone, though better off, by Drizzt’s estimation, more than they ever could be amid the evilness of the drow.

Drizzt stepped into the tunnel behind Guenhwyvar and left Menzoberranzan behind.