Realms of the Underdark

Chapter Three: Page Prince

Never lift your gaze from the floor.

That was Drizzt Do'Urden's first lesson as page prince, and it had been one hard learned. He couldn't count the times he had felt the stinging bite of his sister Briza's snake-headed whip as punishment for breaking that all-important rule. It wasn't that it was so hard a thing to remember. Drizzt knew that he wasn't supposed to look up without permission. But knowing something wasn't as easy as doing it. No matter how hard he tried to stare at his boots, it seemed that something peculiar, or interesting, or wonderful always caught his attention, lifting his gaze before he even knew it was happening.

Unfortunately, more often than not, Briza would be lurking behind him, waiting for just such a transgression to occur. With an evil grin, she would uncoil her hissing whip and rake the fanged serpents across his back. Drizzt never cried out or tried to dodge the blows. To do so would only win him more lashes. He was page prince, and as far as he could tell, that meant he was the lowest form of life in all House Do'Urden.

"Page Prince, come here!" a voice called out across the house's main enclosure. "I have a task for you."

This time Drizzt remembered to keep his head down. He could not see the speaker, but he knew the voice well. It belonged to his sister, Vierna.

For the first ten years of his life, before he had become page prince, Vierna's had been the only voice he had known, save for his own. Vierna had been his word-wean mother. She had been given Drizzt as an infant, and as he grew she had taught him the language of the drow-both the spoken tongue and the complex system of hand signs that the dark elves used to communicate in silence. She had also taught him how to use and control his innate magical abilities: the power to levitate by force of will, and to conjure glowing faerie fire from thin air. More than anything else, however, she had taught him his place as a male in drow society. Females were his superiors, and he was always to defer to them. She had made him repeat this doctrine so often that sometimes he still woke at night to find he had been speaking it in his sleep.

Though Vierna's teachings had been anything but gentle, she had seldom used her whip on him, and when she did it was without the open relish Briza always displayed. However, in the year since he had become page prince, Vierna had resumed her studies at Arach-Tinilith, and would soon be anointed as a high priestess. As that time approached, Drizzt knew he could expect less and less kindness from his sister. High priestesses of Lloth were not known for their mercy.

Keeping his eyes on the floor, Drizzt hurried in the direction of the voice, relying on his keen senses of hearing and touch to avoid objects he could not see. In moments, he stood before a pair of supple leather slippers he knew belonged to his sister.

"Listen well, Page Prince, for I do not have time to instruct you twice," Vierna said in curt tones. "The Festival of the Founding is but two days hence, and the matron mother has ordered that the house be made ready for the Spider Queen's imminent visit."

"If she bothers to come at all," Drizzt mumbled under his breath before he could think to stifle the words. To his good fortune, Vierna either did not hear the statement or chose to ignore it.

"A green fungus has grown on the walls in the feast hall since the last revel was held," the young drow woman went on. "Briza wants you to clean all the stones. With this."

Into his hand she thrust a bent copper spoon. He gaped in astonishment at the small spoon. Clearly it was utterly inadequate for so large a task.

"I'm supposed to scrape all the walls in the feast hall with this?" he groaned, forgetting himself.

"Do not question me, Page Prince!" Vierna warned in an overloud voice. "Expect a lash of the whip for every speck of fungus you leave on the walls!"

Knowing better than to question her again, Drizzt started to bow in submission. Then, to his surprise, Vierna leaned over and whispered in his ear. "I have placed an enchantment of sharpness on the spoon, little brother, so perhaps the task will not prove quite so impossible. But I swear, if you tell Briza-or anyone-about what I have done, I will beat you until your skin slips from your flesh like a rothe-hide coat."

Drizzt shivered at her chilling words. He did not doubt that she meant them. Before he could answer, Vierna whirled around and disappeared through a side door. Drizzt studied the spoon in his hand, his thumb testing the magically sharpened edge. Perhaps the priestesses of Lloth at Arach-Tinilith had not yet bled all the mercy out of Vierna.

Not wishing to get caught with the enchanted object, Drizzt dashed down a stone passageway. At eleven years, he was much like other dark-elven youths- small and slender, but quick as Briza's whip. In moments, he reached the empty feast hall.

Unlike most of the noble houses of Menzoberranzan, which were typically built within a stalactite-stalagmite pair, House Do'Urden was set into the western wall of the cavern. The feast hall delved deeper into the surrounding rock than did any other room in the house, and so was damp and prone to mold.

Drizzt groaned in renewed dismay as he stared at the walls. The stones were covered with spongy growths of a fungus that exuded a noxious green glow. He sighed. Procrastinating would only give the fungus more time to grow. Gripping the spoon, he trudged toward one of the walls and started in on the task. Vierna had underestimated the power of her enchantment.

As Drizzt scraped the spoon across the wall, a strip of glowing fungus darkened and shriveled, falling to the floor, where it turned to dust. Not believing his eyes, he ran the instrument over the fungus-covered wall again. A swath of smooth, black stone appeared in its wake. A grin crept across the youthful drow's face. It looked as if the task Briza had concocted for him was not going to be nearly as horrid and tedious as she had hoped.

With buoyant energy, the young dark elf threw himself into the task. Concentrating briefly, he rose into the air, using his natural-born powers of levitation to reach the high walls and ceiling. Soon it became a game as he whirled and dived through the air, swiping at bulbous patches of fungus with the enchanted spoon. He imagined each was Briza's homely face as it shriveled and disintegrated, and soon peals of elven laughter rang out across the hall. After what seemed almost too short a time, Drizzt sank back to the floor, panting for breath and grinning. He surveyed the walls. Not a speck of fungus marred the smooth onyx surfaces.

A scrabbling sound reached his pointed ears. Drizzt looked up to see a rat scramble out of a crack in the dark stone. The small creature scuttled across the floor of the hall, its eyes hot and red as blood, making for a hole in the opposite wall. With a fierce cry, Drizzt sprang into the air and landed in the rat's path, brandishing the glowing spoon before him. The spoon wasn't exactly a sword, but then the rat wasn't exactly a fierce monster of the Underdark. Neither fact mattered much to Drizzt.

Sometimes, from a secret vantage point high above the main courtyard, he watched as the weapons master, Zaknafein, trained the house's three-hundred soldiers. For hours on end, Drizzt would watch them practice their weapons skills. He wasn't sure why, but a thrill coursed through his veins every time he heard the clanging of their adamantite swords, and the feral, dancelike offensive maneuvers of Zaknafein fascinated him. Drizzt was doomed to life as a page prince for five more years, but after that-if Briza hadn't managed to kill him with all her evil chores-he would become a noble proper, and it would be time to train in skills that would benefit the house. Drizzt knew that it was possible he would be sent to the towers of Sorcere in Tier Breche, to learn the dark secrets of magic. But in his heart he hoped that he would be given to Zaknafein, to study with the weapons master. He wanted to learn to dance that dangerous dance.

Performing his best imitation of the weapons master, Drizzt stalked around the rat. The creature hissed, raising its hackles and baring yellow teeth. Drizzt lunged forward with the magically sharpened spoon. Quick as he was, the rat was quicker. It scuttled past him, running from the feast hall. With a whoop, Drizzt ran after, careening down a corridor. He gained on his enemy, then sprang forward, landing in front of it. The creature backed into a corner, hissing and spitting, eyes glowing with hate. Drizzt closed in to finish off his foe. As he had seen Zaknafein do a hundred times, he raised his weapon, then spun around to bring it down in a swift killing blow.

He froze, halting the spoon a fraction of an inch from disaster. Sensing its opportunity, the rat dashed between Drizzt's legs and disappeared through a crack. Drizzt did not watch it go. Instead, his eyes remained riveted on the object before his face.

A web. The silvery strands stretched like gossamer across the corner of the corridor. In the center of the web, like a plump jewel, clung a small spider. Had he not halted his swing at the last moment, his arm would have plunged right through the fragile strands. With great care, Drizzt lowered the spoon. All spiders were sacred to the goddess Lloth. To disturb one's web would have earned him a long appointment with Briza's whip. But if he had accidentally killed the arachnid…

Drizzt let out a low breath. The punishment for killing a spider was death: quick, painful, and with no chance of reprieve.

Despite the fatal nature of his near accident, Drizzt drew closer to the web in fascination, studying the spider in the center. "I don't understand this Lloth of yours," he murmured aloud. "Everybody seems to want her favor. My mother. My sisters. All the other noble houses. They'll do anything to get it. But they're terrified of Lloth, too. Sometimes I even think they hate her. But that only makes them worship her all the Harder. Why? Why is Lloth so important if she's so awful?" The spider only clung in silence to its web. Drizzt frowned in annoyance. "Well, I don't care what everyone else thinks," he decided. "I'm not afraid of spiders. If Lloth appears to me on the Festival of the Founding, I'll say so to her ugly face."

Oddly heartened by this bold exclamation, he turned and strode down the hallway, back to the capricious world he knew as page prince, leaving the spider to spin its tangled webs alone in the darkness.