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 slipped 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 weapons 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 weapons 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.
mpudent!” 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 weapons 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 chi
ld 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.
Adamantine 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.