students were housed within Arach- Tinilith only during
their last six months of study.
While Sorcere and Arach. Tinilith were the more graceful
structures, the most important building for Drizzt at that
tentative moment lined the wall to his right. The pyramidal
structure of Melee-Magthere, the school of fighters. This
building would be Drizzt's home for the next nine years. His
companions, he now realized, were those other dark elves
in the compound-fighters, like himself, about to begin
their formal training. The class, at twenty-five, was unusu-
ally large for the school of fighters.
Even more unusual, several of the novice students were
nobles. Drizzt wondered how his skills would measure up
against theirs, how his sessions with Zaknafein compared to
the battles these others had no doubt fought with the
weapon masters of their respective families.
Those thoughts inevitably led Drizzt back to his last
encounter with his mentor. He quickly dismissed the memo-
ries of that unpleasant duel, and, more pointedly, the dis-
turbing questions Zak's observations had forced him to
consider. There was no place for such doubts on this occa-
sion. Melee-Magthere loomed before him, the greatest test
and the greatest lesson of his young life.
"My greetings” came a voice behind him. Drizzt turned to
face a fellow novice, who wore a sword and dirk uncom-
fortably on his belt and who appeared even more nervous
than Drizzt-a comforting sight.
"Kelnozz of House Kenafin, fifteenth house” the novice
said.
"Drizzt Do'Urden of Daermon N'a'shezbaernon, House
Do'Urden, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan” Drizzt replied
automatically, exactly as Matron Malice had instructed him.
"A noble” remarked Kelnozz, understanding the signifi-
cance of Drizzt bearing the same surname as his house.
Kelnozz dropped into a low bow. "I am honored by your
presence”
Drizzt was starting to like this place already. With the
treatment he normally received at home, he hardly thought
of himself as a noble. Any self-important notions that might
have occurred to him at Kelnozz's gracious greeting were
dispelled a moment later, though, when the masters came
out.
Drizzt saw his brother, Dinin, among them but
pretended-as Dinin had warned him to-not "to notice, nor
to expect any special treatment. Drizzt rushed inside Melee-
Magthere along with the rest of the students when the
whips began to snap and the masters started shouting of the
dire consequences if they tarried. They were herded down
a few side corridors and into an oval room.
"Sit or stand as you will!" one of the masters growled. No-
ticing two of the students whispering off to the side, the
master took his whip out and-crack/-took one of the of-
fenders off his feet.
Drizzt couldn't believe how quickly the room then came
to order.
"I am Hatch'net” the master began in a resounding voice,
"the master of Lore. This room will be your hall of instruc-
tion for fifty cycles of Narbondel” He looked around at the
adorned belts on every figure. "You will bring no weapons
to this place!"
Hatch'net paced the perimeter of the room, making cer-
tain that every eye followed his movements attentively. "You
are drow” he snapped suddenly. "Do you understand what
that means? Do you know where you come from, and the
history of our people? Menzoberranzan was not always our
home, nor was any other cavern of the Underdark. Once
we walked the surface of the world” He spun suddenly and
came up right in Drizzt's face.
"Do you know of the surface?" Master Hatch'net snarled.
Drizzt recoiled and shook his head.
"An awful place” Hatch'net continued, turning back to the
whole of the group. "Each day, as the glow begins its rise in
Narbondel, a great ball of fire rises into the open sky above,
bringing hours of a light greater than the punishing spells of
the priestesses of Lloth!" He held his arms outstretched,
with his eyes turned upward, and an unbelievable grimace
spread across his face.
Students' gasps rose up all about him.
"Even in the night, when the ball of fire has gone below
the far rim of the world” Hatch'net continued, weaving his
words as if he were telling a horror tale, "one cannot escape
the uncounted terrors of the surface. Reminders of what
the next day will bring, dots of light-and sometimes a
lesser ball of silvery fire-mar the sky's blessed darkness.
"Once our people walked the surface of the world” he re-
peated/ his tone now one of lament, "in ages long past, even
longer than the lines of the great houses. In that distant age,
we walked beside the pale-skinned elves, the faeries!"
"It cannot be true!" one student cried from the side.
Hatch'net looked at him earnestly, considering whether
more would be gained by beating the student for his
unasked. for interruption or by allowing the group to partic-
ipate. "It is!" he replied, choosing the latter course. "We
thought the faeries our friends; we called them kin! We
could not know, in our innocence, that they were the em-
bodiments of deceit and evil. We could not know that they
would turn on us suddenly and drive us from them, slaugh-
tering our children and the eldest of our race!
"Without mercy the evil faeries pursued us across the sur.
face world. Always we asked for peace, and always we
were answered by swords and killing arrows!"
He paused, his face twisting into a widening, malicious
smile. "Then we found the goddess!"
"Praise Lloth!" came one anonymous cry. Again Hatch'net
let the slip of tongue go by unpunished, knowing that every
accenting comment only drew his audience deeper into his
web of rhetoric.
"Indeed” the master replied. "All praise to the Spider
Queen. It was she who took our orphaned race to her side
and helped us fight off our enemies. It was she who guided
the forematrons of our race to the paradise of the Under-
dark. It is she” he roared, a clenched fist rising into the air,
"who now gives us the strength and the magic to pay back
our enemies.
"We are the drow!" Hatch'net cried. "You are the drow,
never again to be downtrodden, rulers of all you desire,
conquerors of lands you choose to inhabit!"
"The surface?" came a question.
"The surface?" echoed Hatch'net with a laugh. "Who
would want to return to that vile place? Let the faeries have
it! Let them burn under the fires of the open sky! We claim
the Underdark, where we can feel the core of the world
thrumming under our feet, and where the stones of the
walls show the heat of the world's power!"
Drizzt sat silent, absorbing every word of-the talented or-
ator's often-rehearsed speech. Drizzt was caught, as were
all the new students, in Hatch'net's hypnotic variations of in-
flection and rallying cries. Hatch'net had been the master of
Lore at the Academy for more than two centuries, owning
more prestige in Menzoberranzan than nearly any other
male drow, and many of the females. The matrons of the
ruling families understood well the value of his practiced
tongue.
So it went every day, an endless stream of hate rhetoric di-
rected against an enemy that none of the students had ever
seen. The surface elves were not the only target of
Hatch'net's sniping. Dwarves, gnomes, humans, halflings,
and all of the surface races-and even subterranean races
such as the duergar dwarves, which the drow often traded
with and fought beside-each found an unpleasant spot in
the master's ranting.
Drizzt came to understand why no weapons were permit-
ted in the oval chamber. When he left his lesson each day, he
found his hands clenched by his sides in rage, uncon-
sciously grasping for a scimitar hilt. It was obvious from the
commonplace fights among the students that others felt the
same way. Always, though, the overriding factor that kept
some measure of control was the master's lie of the horrors
of the outside world and the comforting bond of the stu.
dents' common heritage-a heritage, the students would
soon come to believe, that gave them enough enemies to
battle beyond each other.
The long, draining hours in the oval chamber left little
time for the students to mingle. They shared common bar-
racks, but their extensive duties outside of Hatch'net's
lessons-serving the older students and masters, preparing
meals, and cleaning the building-gave them barely enough
time for rest. By the end of the first week, they walked on
the edge of exhaustion, a condition, Drizzt realized, that
only increased the stirring effect of Master Hatch'net's les
sons.
Drizzt accepted the existence stoically, considering it far
better than the six years he had served his mother and sis-
ters as page prince. Still, there was one great disappoint-
ment to Dnzzt in his first weeks at Melee-Magthere. He
found himself longing for his practice sessions.
He sat on the edge of his bedroll late one night, holding a
scimitar up before his shining eyes, remembering those
many hours engaged in battle-play with Zaknafein.
"We go to the lesson in two hours” Kelnozz, in the next
bunk, reminded him. "Get some rest”
"I feel the edge leaving my hands” Drizzt replied quietly.
"The blade feels heavier, unbalanced”
"The grand melee is barely ten cycles of Narbondel away”
Kelnozz said. "You will get all the practice you desire there!
Fear not, whatever edge has been dulled by the days with
the master of Lore will soon be regained. For the next nine
years, that fine blade of yours will rarely leave your hands!"
Drizzt slid the scimitar back into its scabbard and reclined
on his bunk. As with so many aspects of his life so far-and,
he was beginning to fear, with so many aspects of his future
in Menzoberranzan-he had no choice but to accept the cir-
cumstances of his existence.
"This segment of your training is at an end” Master
Hatch'net announced on the morning of the fiftieth day. An-
other master, Dinin, entered the room, leading a magically
suspended iron box filled with meagerly padded wooden
poles of every length and design comparable to drow weap-
ons.
"Choose the sparring pole that most resembles your own
weapon of choice” Hatch'net explained as Dinin made his
way around the room. He came to his brother, and Drizzt's
eyes settled at once on his choice: two slightly curving poles
about three-and-a-half feet long. Drizzt lifted them out and
put them through a simple cut. Their weight and balance
closely resembled the scimitars that had become so familiar
to his hands.
"For the pride of Daermon N'a'shezbaernon” Dinin whis-
pered, then moved along.
Drizzt twirled the mock weapons again. It was time to
measure the value of his sessions with Zak.
"Your class must have an order” Hatch'net was saying as
Drizzt turned his attention beyond the scope of his new
weapons. "Thus the grand melee. Remember, there can be
only one victor!"
Hatch'net and Dinin herded the students out of the oval
chamber and out of Melee-Magthere altogether, down the
tunnel between the two guardian spider statues at the back
of Tier Breche. For all of the students, this was the first time
they had ever been out of Menzoberranzan.
"What are the rules?" Drizzt asked Kelnozz, in line at his
side.
"If a master calls you out, then you are out” Kelnozz re-
plied.
"The rules of engagement?" asked Drizzt.
Kelnozz cast him an incredulous glance. "Win” he said
simply, as though there could be no other answer.
A short time later they came into a fairly large cavern, the
arena for the grand melee. Pointed stalactites leered down
at them from the ceiling and stalagmite mounds broke the
floor into a twisting maze filled with ambush holes and
blind corners.
"Choose your strategies and find your starting point”
Master Hatch'net said to them. "The grand melee begins in a
count of one hundred!"
The twenty-five students set off into action, some pausing
to consider the landscape laid out before them, others
sprinting off into the gloom of the maze.
Drizzt decided to find a narrow corridor, to ensure that
he would fight off one-against-one, and he just started off in
his search when he was grabbed from behind.
"A team?" Kelnozz offered.
Drizzt did not respond, unsure of the other's fighting
worth and the accepted practices of this traditional encoun-
ter.
"Others are forming into teams” Kelnozz pressed. "Some
in threes. Thgether we might have a chance”
"The master said there could be only one victor” Drizzt
reasoned.
"Who better than you, if not me” Kelnozz replied with a
sly wink. "Let us defeat the others, then we can decide the
issue between ourselves”
The reasoning seemed prudent, and with Hatch'net's
count already approaching seventy-five, Drizzt had little
time to ponder the possibilities. He clapped Kelnozz on the
shoulder and led his new ally into the maze.
Catwalks had been constructed all around the room's pe-
rimeter, even crossing through the center of the chamber,
to give the judging masters a good view of all the action be-
low. A dozen of them were up there now, all eagerly await-
ing the first battles so that they might measure the talent of
this young class.
"One hundred!" cried Hatch'net from his high perch.
Kelnozz began to move, but Drizzt stopped him, keeping
him back in the narrow corridor between two long stalag-
