definite shape.
"Matron Ginafae!" Alton gasped again when the summons
was complete. Hovering before him was the unmistakable
image of his dead mother's face.
The spirit scanned the room, confused. "Who are you?" it
asked at length.
"I am Alton. Alton DeVir, your son”
"Son?" the spirit asked.
"Your child”
"I remember no child so very ugly”
"A disguise” Alton replied quickly, looking back at Masoi
and expecting a snicker. If Masoi had chided and doubted
Alton before, he now showed only sincere respect.
Smiling, Alton continued, "Just a disguise, that I might
move about in the city and exact revenge upon our ene-
mies!"
"What city?"
"Menzoberranzan, of course”
Still the spirit seemed not to understand.
"You are Ginafae?" Alton pressed. "Matron Ginafae
DeVir?"
The spirit's features contorted into a twisted scowl as it
considered the question. "I was. . . I think”
"Matron Mother of House DeVir, Fourth House of Menzo-
berranzan” Alton prompted, growing more excited. "High
priestess of Lloth”
The mention of the Spider Queen sent a spark through
the spirit.. "Dh, no!" it balked. Ginafae remembered now.
"You should not have done this, my ugly son!"
"It is iust a disguise” Alton interrupted.
"I must leave you” Ginafae's spirit continued, glancing
around nervously. "You must release me!"
"But I need some information from you, Matron Ginafae”
"Do not call me that!" the spirit shrieked. "You do not un-
derstand! I am not in Lloth's favor. . . “
"'ll'ouble” whispered Masoi offhandedly, hardly sur-
prised.
"Just one answer!" Alton demanded, refusing to let an-
other opportunity to learn his enemies' identities slip past
him.
"Quickly!" the spirit shrieked.
"Name the house that destroyed DeVir”
"The house?" Ginafae pondered. "Yes, I remember that
evil night. It was House-"
The ball of smoke puffed and bent out of shape, twisting
Ginafae's image and sending her next words out as an unde-
cipherable blurb.
Alton leaped to his feet. "No!" he screamed. "You must tell
me! Who are my enemies?"
"Would you count me as one?" the spirit image said in a
voice very different from the one it had used earlier, a tone
of sheer power that stole the blood from Alton's face. The
image twisted and transformed, became something ugly,
uglier than Alton. Hideous beyond all experience on the Ma-
terial Plane.
Alton was not a cleric, of course, and he had never stud-
ied the drow religion beyond the basic tenets taught to
males of the race. He knew the creature now hovering in
the air before him, though, for it appeared as an oozing,
slimy stick of melted wax: a yochlol, a handmaiden of Lloth.
"You dare to disturb the torment of Ginafae?" the yochlol
snarled.
"Damn!" whispered Masoj, sliding slowly down under the
black tablecloth. Even he, with all of his doubts of Alton,
had not expected his disfigured mentor to land them in
trouble this serious.
"But. . “ Alton stuttered.
"Never again disturb this plane, feeble wizard!" the yoch-
lol roared.
"I did not try for the Abyss” Alton protested meekly. "I
only meant to speak with-"
"With Ginafae!" the yochlol snarled. "Fallen priestess of
Uoth. Where would you expect to find her spirit, foolish
male? Frolicking in Olympus, with the false gods of the sur-
face elves?"
"I did not think. . “
"Do you ever?" the yochlol growled.
"Nope” Masoj answered silently, careful to keep himself as
far out of the way as possible.
"Never again disturb this plane” the yochlol warned a fi-
nal time. "The Spider Queen is not merciful and has no tol-
erance for meddling males!" The creature's oozing face
puffed and swelled, expanding beyond the limits of the
smoky ball. Alton heard gurgling, gagging noises, and he
stumbled back over his stool, putting his back flat against
the wall and bringing his arms up defensively in front of his
face.
The yochlol's mouth opened impossibly wide and spewed
forth a hail of small objects. They ricocheted off Alton and
tapped against the wall all around him. Stones? the faceless
wizard wondered in confusion. One of the objects then an-
swered his unspoken question. It caught hold of Alton's lay-
ered black robes and began crawling up toward his exposed
neck. Spiders.
A wave of the eight-legged beasts rushed under the little
table, sending Masoj tumbling out the other side in a desper-
ate roll. He scrambled to his feet and turned back, to see Al-
ton slapping and stomping wildly, trying to get out of the
main host of the crawling things.
"Do not kill them!" Masoj screamed. "Th kill spiders is for-
bidden by the-"
"To the Nine Hells with the clerics and their laws!" Alton
shrieked back.
Masoj shrugged in helpless agreement, reached around
under the folds of his own robes, and produced the same
two-handed crossbow he had used to kill the Faceless One
those years ago. He considered the powerful weapon and
the tiny spiders scrambling around the room.
"Overkill?" he asked aloud. Hearing no answer, he
shrugged again and fired.
The heavy bolt knifed across Alton's shoulder, cutting a
deep line. The wizard stared in disbelief, then turned an
ugly grimace on Masoj.
"You had one on your shoulder” the student explained.
Alton's scowl did not relent.
"Ungrateful?" Masoj snarled. "Foolish Alton, all of the spi-
ders are on your side of the room. Remember?" Masoj
turned to leave and called, "Good hunting” over his shoul-
der. He reached for the handle to the door, but as his long
fingers closed around it, the portal's surface transformed
into the image of Matron Ginafae. She smiled widely, too
widely, and an impossibly long and wet tongue reached out
and licked Masoj across the face.
" Alton!" he cried, spinning back against the wall out of the
slimy member's reach. He noticed the wizard in the midst of
spellcasting, Alton fighting to hold his concentration as a
host of spiders continued their hungry ascent up his flow-
ing robes.
"You are a dead one” Masoj commented matter-of-factly,
shaking his head.
Alton fought through the exacting ritual of the spell, ig-
nored his own revulsion of the crawling things, and forced
the evocation to completion. In all of his years of study, Al-
ton never would have believed he could do such a thing; he
would have laughed at the mere mention of it. Now, how-
ever, it seemed a far preferable fate to the yochlol's creeping
doom.
He dropped a fireball at his own feet.
Naked and hairless, Masoj stumbled through the door and
out of the inferno. The flaming faceless master came next,
diving into a roll and stripping his tattered and burning
robe from his back as he went.
As he watched Alton patting out the last of the flames, a
pleasant memory flashed in Masoi's mind, and he uttered
the single lament that dominated his every thought at this
disastrous moment.
"I should have killed him when I had him in the web”
A short time later, after Masoj had gone back to his room
and his studies, Alton slipped on the ornamental metallic
bracers that identified him as a master of the Academy and
slipped outside the structure of Sorcere. He moved to the
wide and sweeping stairway leading down from Tier
Breche and sat down to take in the sights of Menzoberran-
zan.
Even with this view, though, the city did little to distract
Alton from thoughts of his latest failure. For sixteen years
he had forsaken all other dreams and ambitions in his des-
perate search to find the guilty house. For sixteen years he
had failed.
He wondered how long he could keep up the charade, and
his spirits. Masoj, his only friend-if Masoj could be called a
friend-was more than halfway through his studies at Sor-
cere. What would Alton do when Masoj graduated and reo
turned to House Hun'ett? j
"Perhaps I shall carryon my toils for centuries to come”
he said aloud, "only to be murdered by a desperate student,
as I-as Masoj-murdered the Faceless One. Might that stu-
dent disfigure himself and take my place?" Alton couldn't
stop the ironic chuckle that passed his lipless mouth at the
notion of a perpetual "faceless master" of Sorcere. At what
point would the Matron Mistress of the Academy get suspi-
cious? A thousand years? '!en thousand? Or might the Face-
less One outlive Menzoberranzan itself? Life as a master
was not such a bad lot, Alton supposed. Many drow would
sacrifice much to be given such an honor.
Alton dropped his face into the crook of his elbow and
forced away such ridiculous thoughts. He was not a real
master, nor did the stolen position bring him any measure
of satisfaction. Perhaps Masoj should have shot him that
day, sixteen years ago, when Alton was trapped in the Face-
less One's web.
Alton's despair only deepened when he considered the ac-
tual time frame involved. He had just passed his seventieth
birthday and was still young by drow standards. The notion
that only a tenth of his life was behind him was not a com-
forting one to Alton DeVir this night.
"How long will I survive?" he asked himself. "How long un-
til this madness that is my existence consumes me?" Alton
looked back out over the city. "Better that the Faceless One
had killed me” he whispered. "For now I am Alton of No
House Worth Mentioning”
Masoj had dubbed him that on the first morning after
House DeVir's fall, but way back then, with his life teetering
on the edge of a crossbow, Alton had not understood the ti-
tle's implications. Menzoberranzan was nothing more than
a collection of individual houses. A rogue commoner might
latch on to one of them to call his own, but a rogue noble
wouldn't likely be accepted by any house in the city. He was
left with Sorcere and nothing more. . . until his true identity
was discovered at last. What punishments would he then
face for the crime of killing a master? Masoj may have com-
mitted the crime, but Masoj had a house to defend him. Al-
ton was only a rogue noble.
He sat back on his elbows and watched the rising heat-
light of Narbondel. As the minutes became hours, Alton's
despair and self-pity went through inevitable change. He
turned his attention to the individual drow houses now, not
to the conglomeration that bound them as a city, and he
wondered what dark secrets each harbored. One of them,
Alton reminded himself, held the secret he most dearly
wanted to know. One of them had wiped out House DeVir.
Forgotten was the night's failure with Matron Ginafae and
the yochlol, forgotten was the lament for an early death.
Sixteen years was not so long a time, Alton decided. He had
perhaps seven centuries of life left within his slender frame.
If he had to, Alton was prepared to spend every minute of
those long years searching for the perpetrating house.
"Vengeance” he growled aloud, needing, feeding off, that
audible reminder of his only reason for continuing to draw
breath.
Chapter 8
Kindred
Zak pressed in with a series of low thrusts. Drizzt tried to
back away quickly and return to even footing, but the re-
lentless assault followed his every step, and he was forced
to keep his movements solely on the defensive. More often
than not, Drizzt found the hilts of his weapons closer to Zak
than the blades.
Zak then dropped into a low crouch and came up under
Drizzt's defense.
Drizzt twirled his scimitars in a masterful cross, but he
had to straighten stiffly to dodge the weapon master's
equally deft assault. Drizzt knew that he had been set up,
and he fully expected the next attack as Zak shifted his
weight to his back leg and dove in, both sword tips aimed
for Drizzt's loins.
Drizzt spat a silent curse and spun his scimitars into a
downward cross, meaning to use the "V" of his blades to
catch his teacher's swords. On a sudden impulse, Drizzt
hesitated as he intercepted Zak's weapons, and he jumped
away instead, taking a painful slap on the inside of one
thigh. Disgusted, he threw both of his scimitars to the floor.
Zak, too, leaped back. He held his swords out to his sides,
a look of sincere confusion on his face. "You should not have
missed that move” he said bluntly.
"The parry is wrong” Drizzt replied.
Awaiting further explanation, Zak lowered one sword tip
to the floor and leaned on the weapon. In past years, Zak
had wounded, even killed, students for such blatant defi-
ance.
his blades down to Drizzt's face level.
When Drizzt came clear of the other side of the darkened
globe, he looked back and saw only the lower half of Zak's
legs. He didn't need to watch anything more to understand
the weapon master's deadly blind attacks. Zak would have
cut him apart if he had not dropped low in the blackness.
Anger replaced confusion. When Zak dropped from his
magical perch and came rushing back out the front of the
globe, Drizzt let his rage lead him back into the fight. He
spun a pirouette just before he reached Zak, his lead scimi.
tar cutting a gracefully arcing line and his other following in
a deceptively sharp stab straight over that line.
Zak dodged the thrusting point and put a backhand block
on the other.
