known. His purpose was not to kill, but to defeat his teacher,
to steal the taunts from Zak's mouth with a fighting display
too impressive to be derided.
Drizzt was brilliant. He followed every move with three
others' and worked Zak low and high, inside and out wide.
Zak found his heels under him more often than the balls of
his feet, too involved was he in staying away from his stu.
dent's relentless thrusts to even think of taking the offen-
sive. He allowed Drizzt to continue the initiative for many
minutes, dreading its conclusion, the outcome he had al-
ready decided to be the most preferable.
Zak then found that he could stand the delay no longer.
He sent one sword out in a lazy thrust and Drizzt promptly
slapped the weapon out of his hand.
Even as the young drow came on in anticipation of vic-
tory, Zak slipped his empty hand into a pouch and grabbed a
magical little ceramic ball-one of those that so often had
aided him in battle.
"Not this time, Zaknafein!" Drizzt proclaimed, keeping his
attacks under control, remembering well the many occa-
sions that Zak reversed feigned disadvantage into clear ad-
vantage.
Zak fingered the ball, unable to come to terms with what
he must do.
Drizzt walked him through an attack sequence, then an-
other, measuring the advantage he had gained in stealing a
weapon. Confident of his position, Drizzt came in low and
hard with a single thrust.
Though Zak was distracted at the time, he still managed to
block the attack with his remaining sword. Drizzt's other
scimitar slashed down on top of the sword, pinning its tip to
the floor. In the same lightning movement, Drizzt slipped
his first blade free of Zak's parry and brought it up and
around, stopping the thrust barely an inch from Zak's
throat.
"I have you!" the young drow cried.
Zak's answer came in an explosion of light beyond any-
thing Drizzt had ever imagined.
Zak had prudently closed his eyes, but Drizzt, surprised,
could not accept the sudden change. His head burned in ag-
ony, and he reeled backwards, trying to get away from the
light, away from the weapon master.
Keeping his eyes tightly shut, Zak had already divor.ced
himself from the need of vision. He let his keen ears guide
him now, and Drizzt, shuffling and stumbling, was an easy
target to discern. In a single motion, the whip came off Zak's
belt and he lashed out, catching Drizzt around the ankles
and dropping him to the floor.
Methodically, the weapon master came on, dreading
every step but knowing his chosen course of action to be
correct.
Drizzt realized that he was being stalked, but he could not
understand the motive. The light had stunned him, but he
was more surprised by Zak's continuation of the battle.
Drizzt set himself, unable to escape the trap, and tried to
think his way around his loss of sight. He had to feel the
flow of battle, to hear the sounds of his attacker and antici-
pate each coming strike.
He brought his scimitars up just in time to block a sword
chop that would have split his skull.
Zak hadn't expected the parry. He recoiled and came in
from a different angle. Again he was foiled.
Now more curious than wanting to kill Drizzt, the
weapon master went through a series of attacks, sending
his sword into motions that would have sliced through the
defenses of many who could see him.
Blinded, Drizzt fought him off, putting a scimitar in line
with each new thrust.
Treachery!" Drizzt yelled, painful residual explosions
from the bright light still bursting inside his head. He
blocked another attack and tried to regain his footing, real-
izing that he had little chance of continuing to fend off the
weapon master from a prone position.
The pain of the stinging light was too great, though, and
Drizzt, barely holding the edge of consciousness, stumbled
back to the stone, losing one scimitar in the process. He
spun over wildly, knowing that Zak was closing in.
The other scimitar was knocked from his hand.
treachery” Drizzt growled again. "Do you so hate to
lose?"
"Do you not understand?" Zak yelled back at him. "1b lose
is to die! You may win a thousand fights, but you can only
lose one!" He put his sword in line with Drizzt's throat. It
would be a single clean blow. He knew that he should do it,
mercifully, before the masters of the Academy got hold of
his charge.
Zak sent his sword spinning across the room, and he
reached out with his empty hands, grabbed Drizzt by the
front of his shirt, and hoisted him to his feet.
They stood face-to-face, neither seeing the other very well
in the blinding glare, and neither able to break the tense si-
lence. After a long and breathless moment, the dweomer of
the enchanted pebble faded and the room became more
comfortable. lruly, the two dark elves looked upon each
other in a different light.
"A trick of Lloth's clerics” Zak explained. "Always they
keep such a spell of light at the ready” A strained smile
crossed his face as he tried to ease Drizzt's anger. " Although
I daresay that I have turned such light against clerics, even
high priestesses, more than a few times”
"Treachery” Drizzt spat a third time.
"It is our way” Zak replied. "You will learn”
"It is your way” snarled Drizzt. "You grin when you speak
of murdering clerics of the Spider Queen. Do you so enjoy
killing'? Killing drow?"
Zak could not find an answer to the accusing question.
Drizzt's words hurt him profoundly because they rang of
truth, and because Zak had come to view his penchant for
killing clerics of Lloth as a cowardly response to his own un-
answerable frustrations.
"You would have killed me” Drizzt said bluntly.
"But I did not” Zak retorted. "And now you live to go to the
Academy-to take a dagger in the back because you are
blind to the realities of our world, because you refuse to ac-
knowledge what your people are.
"Or you will become one of them” Zak growled. "Either
way, the Drizzt Do'Urden I have known will surely die”
Drizzt's face twisted, and he couldn't even find the words
to dispute the possibilities Zak was spitting at him. He felt
the blood drain from his face, though his heart raged. He
walked away, letting his glare linger on Zak for many steps.
"Go, then, Drizzt Do'Urden!" Zak cried after him. "Go to
the Academy and bask in the glory of your prowess. Re-
member, though, the consequences of such skills. Alway&
there are consequences!'.'
Zak retreated to the security of his private chamber. The
door to the room closed behind the weapon master with
such a sound of finality that it spun Zak back to face its
empty stone.
"Go, then, Drizzt Do'Urden” he whispered in quiet la-
ment. "Go to the Academy and learn who you really are”
Dinin came for his brother early the next morning. Drizzt
slowly left the training room, looking back over his shoul-
der every few steps to see if Zak would come out and attack
him again or bid him farewell.
He knew in his heart that Zak would not.
Drizzt had thought them friends, had believed that the
bond he and Zaknafein had sown went far beyond the sim-
ple lessons and swordplay. The young drow had no answers
to the many questions spinning in his mind, and the person
who had been his teacher for the last five years had nothing
left to offer him.
"The heat grows in Narbondel” Dinin remarked when
they stepped out onto the balcony. "We must not be late for
your first day in the Academy”
Drizzt looked out into the myriad colors and shapes that
composed Menzoberranzan. "What is this place?" he whis-
pered, realizing how little he knew of his homeland beyond
the walls of his own house. Zak's words-Zak's rage-
pressed in on Drizzt as he stood there, reminding him of his
ignorance and hinting at a dark path ahead.
"This is the world” Dinin replied, though Drizzt's question
had been rhetorical. "Do not worry, Secondboy” he
laughed, moving up onto the railing. "You will learn of Men-
zoberranzan in the Academy. You will learn who you are
and who your people are”
The declaration unsettled Drizzt. Perhaps-remembering
his last bitter encounter with the drow he had most
trusted-that knowledge was exactly what he was afraid of.
He shrugged in resignation and followed Dinin over the
balcony in a magical descent to the compound floor: the
first steps down that dark path.
Another set of eyes watched intently as Dinin and Drizzt
started out from House Do'Urden.
Alton DeVir sat quietly against the side of a gigantic mush-
room, as he had every day for the last week, staring at the
Do'Urden complex.
Daermon N'a'shezbaernon, Ninth House of Menzoberran-
zan. The house that had murdered his matron, his sisters
and brothers, and all there ever was of House DeVir . . . ex-
cept for Alton.
Alton thought back to the days of House DeVir, when Ma-
tron Ginafae had gathered the family members together so
that they might discuss their aspirations. Alton, just a stu-
dent when House DeVir fell, now had a greater insight to
those times. 1Wenty years had brought a wealth of experi-
ence.
Ginafae had been the youngest matron among the ruling
families, and her potential had seemed unlimited. Then she
had aided a gnomish patrol, had used her Lloth-given
powers to hinder the drow elves that ambushed the little
people in the caverns outside Menzoberranzan-all because
Ginafae desired the death of a single member of that attack-
ing drow party, a wizard son of the city's third house, the
house labeled as House DeVir's next victim.
The Spider Queen took exception to Ginafae's choice of
weapons; deep gnomes were the dark elves' worst enemy in
the whole of the Underdark. With Ginafae fallen out of
Lloth's favor, House DeVir had been doomed.
Alton had spent twenty years trying to learn of his ene-
mies, trying to discover which drow family had taken ad.
vantage of his mother's mistake and had slaughtered his kin.
Threnty long years, and then his adopted matron, SiNafay
Hun'ett, had ended his quest as abruptly as it had begun.
Now, as Alton sat watching the guilty house, he knew only
one thing for certain: twenty years had done nothing to di-
minish his rage.
Part 3
The Academy
The Academy.
It is the propagation of the lies that bind drow society to-
getheI; the ultimate perpetration of falsehoods repeated so
many times that they ring true against any contrary evi-
dence. The lessons young drow are taught of truth and jus-
tice are so blatantly refuted by everyday life in wicked
Menzoberranzan that it is hard to understand how any
could believe them. Still they do.
Even now, decades removed, the thought of the place
frightens me, not for any physical pain or the ever-present
sense of possible death-1 have trod down many roads
equally dangerous in that way. The Academy of Menzober-
ranzan frightens me when I think of the survivors, the grad-
uates, existing-reveling-within the evil fabrications that
shape their world.
They live with t~e belief tha t anything is acceptable if you
can get away with it, that self-gratification is the most im-
portant aspect of existence, and that power comes only to
she or he who is strong enough and cunning enough to
snatch it from the failing hands of those who no longer de-
serve it. Compassion has no place in Menzoberranzan, and
yet it is compassion, not feaI; that brings harmony to most
races. It is harmony, working toward shared goals, that pre-
cedes greatness.
Lies engulf the drow in fear and mistrust, refute friend-
ship at the tip of a Lloth-blessed sword. The hatred and am-
bition fostered by these amoral tenets are the doom of my
people, a weakness that they perceive as strength. The
result is a paralyzing, paranoid existence that the drow call
the edge of readiness.
I do not know how I survived the Academy; how I discov-
ered the falsehoods early enough to use them in contrast,
and thus strengthen, those ideals I most cherish.
It was-Zaknafein, I must believe, my teacheJ: Through the
experiences of Zak's long years, which embittered him and
cost him so much, I came to hear the screams: the screams
of protest against murderous treachery; the screams of
rage from the leaders of drow society; the high priestesses
of the Spider Queen, echoing down the paths of my mind,
ever to hold a place within my mind. The screams of dying
children.
-Drizzt Do'Urden
Chapter 12
This Enemy,"They"
Wearing the outfit of a noble son, and with a dagger con-
cealed in one boot-a suggestion from Dinin-Drizzt as-
cended the wide stone stairway that led to Tier Breche, the
Academy of the drow. Drizzt reached the top and moved
between the giant pillars, under the impassive gazes of two
guards, last-year students of Melee-Magthere.
Thro dozen other young drow milled about the Academy
compound, but Drizzt hardly noticed them. Three struc-
tures dominated his vision and his thoughts. 1b his left stood
the pointed stalagmite tower of Sorcere, the school of wiz-
ardry. Drizzt would spend the first sixth months of his tenth
and last year of study in there.
Before him, at the back of the level, loomed the most im-
pressive structure, Arach.Tinilith, the school of Lloth,
carved from the stone into the likeness of a giant spider. By
drow reckoning, this was the Academy's most important
building and thus was normally reserved for females. Male
