upon loyal servants.
"Slaves" would have been a better word, Drizzt had come
to realize, for nowhere in all this grand school to the drow
deity had he heard anything synonymous with, or even
hinting at, the word love. His people worshiped Llothj the
females of Menzoberranzan gave over their entire exist-
ence in her servitude. Their giving was wholly wrought of
selfishness, though; a cleric of the Spider Queen aspired to
the position of high priestess solely for the personal power
that accompanied the title.
It all seemed so very wrong in Drizzt's heart.
Drizzt had drifted through the six months of Arach-
Tinilith with his customary stoicism, keeping his eyes low
and his mouth shut. Now, finally, he had come to the last
day, the Ceremony of Graduation, an event most holy to the
drow, and wherein, Vierna had promised him, he would
come to understand the true glory of Lloth.
With tentative steps, Drizzt moved out from the shelter of
his tiny, unadorned room. He worried that this ceremony
had become his personal trial. Up to now, very little about
the society around Drizzt had made any sense to him, and
he wondered, despite his sister's assurances, whether the
events of this day would allow him to see the world as his
kin saw it. Drizzt's fears had taken a spiral twist, one rolling
out from the other to surround him in a predicament he
could not escape.
Perhaps, he worried, he truly feared that the day's events
would fulfill Vierna's promise.
Drizzt shielded his eyes as he entered the circular cer-
emonial hall of Arach- Tinilith. A fire burned in the center of
the room, in an eight-legged brazier that resembled, as
everything in this place seemed to resemble, a spider. The
headmistress of all the Academy, the matron mistress, and
the other twelve high priestesses serving as instructors of
Arach- Tinilith, including Drizzt's sister, sat cross-legged in a
circle around the brazier. Drizzt and his classmates from
the school of fighters stood along the wall behind them.
"Ma ku!" the matron mistress commanded, and all was si-
lent save the crackle of the brazier's flames. The door to the
room opened again, and a young cleric entered. She was to
be the first graduate of Arach- Tinilith this year, Drizzt had
been told, the finest student in the school of Lloth. Thus, she
had been awarded the highest honors in this ceremony. She
shrugged off her robes and walked naked through the ring
of sitting priestesses to stand before the flames, her back to
the matron mistress.
Drizzt bit his lip, embarrassed and a little excited. He had
never seen a female in such a light before, and he suspected
that the sweat on his brow was from more than the bra-
zier's heat. A quick glance around the room told him that his
classmates entertained similar ideas.
"Rae-go si'n'ee calamay” the matron mistress whispered,
and red smoke poured from the brazier, colpring the room
in a hazy glow. It carried an aroma with it, rich and sickly
sweet. As Drizzt breathed the scented air, he felt himself
grow lighter and wondered if he soon would be floating off
the floor!
The flames in the brazier suddenly roared higher, causing
Drizzt to squint against the brightness and turn away. The
clerics began a ritual chant, though the words were unfa-
miliar to Drizzt. He hardly paid them any heed, though, for
he was too intent on holding his own thoughts in the over-
powering swoon of the inebriating haze.
"Glabrezu” the matron mistress moaned, and Drizzt rec-
ognized the tone as a summons, the name of a denizen of
the lower planes. He looked back to the events at hand and
saw the matron mistress holding a single-tongued snake
whip.
"Where did she get that?" Drizzt mumbled, then he real.
ized that he had spoken aloud and hoped he hadn't dis-
turbed the ceremony. He was comforted when he glanced
around, for many of his classmates were mumbling to them-
selves, and some seemed hardly able to hold their balance.
"Call to it” the matron mistress instructed the naked stu-
dent.
Tentatively, the young cleric spread her arms out wide
and whispered, "Glabrezu”
The flames danced about the rim of the brazier. The
smoke wafted into Drizzt's face, compelling him to inhale it.
His legs tingled on the edge of numbness, yet they somehow
felt more sensitive, more alive, than they ever had before.
"Glabrezu” he heard the student say again louder, and
Drizzt heard, too, the roar of the flames. Brightness as-
saulted him, but somehow he didn't seem to care. His gaze
roamed about the room, unable to find a focus, unable to
place the strange, dancing sights in accord with the ritual's
sounds.
He heard the high priestesses gasping and coaxing the stu-
dent on, knowing the conjuring to be at hand. He heard the
snap of the snake whip-another incentive?-and cries of
"Glabrezu!" from the student. So primal, so powerful, were
these screams that they cut through Drizzt and the other
males in the room with an intensity they never would have
believed possible.
The flames heard the call. They roared higher and higher
and began to take shape. One sight caught the vision of all in
the room now-caught it and held it fully. A giant head, a
goat-horned dog, appeared within the flames, apparently
studying this alluring young drow student who had dared
to utter its name.
Somewhere beyond the otherplanar form, the snake
whip cracked again, and the female student repeated her
call, her cry beckoning, praying.
The giant denizen of the lower planes stepped through
the flames. The sheer unholy power of the creature
stunned Drizzt. Glabrezu towered nine feet and seemed
much more, with muscled arms ending in giant pincers in-
stead of hands and a second set of smaller arms, normal
arms, protruding from the front of its chest.
Drizzt's instincts told him to attack the monster and res-
cue the female student, but when he looked around for sup-
port, he found the matron mistress and the other teachers
of the school back in their ritualistic chanting, this time with
an excited edge permeating their every word.
Through all the haze and the daze, the talJtalizing, dizzy-
ing aroma of the smoky red incense continued its assault on
reality. Drizzt trembled, teetered on a narrow ledge of con-
trol, his gathering rage fighting the scented smoke's confus-
ing allure. Instinctively, his hands went to the hilts of the
scimitars on his belt.
Then a hand brushed against his leg.
He looked down to see a mistress, reclined and asking him
to join her-a scene that had suddenly become general
around the chamber.
The smoke continued its assault on him. ;
The mistress beckoned to him, her fingernails lightly
scraping the skin of his leg.
Drizzt ran his fingers through his thick hair, trying to find
some focal point in the dizziness. He did not like this loss of
control, this mental numbness that stole the fine edge of his
reflexes and alertness.
He liked even less the scene unfolding before him. The
sheer wrongness of it assaulted his soul. He pulled away
from the mistress's hopeful grasp and stumbled across the
room, tripping over numerous entwined forms too engaged
to take note of him. He made the exit as quickly as his wob-
bly legs could carry him, and he rushed out of the room,
pointedly closing the door behind him.
Only the screams of the female student followed him. No
stone or mental barricade could block them out.
Drizzt leaned heavily against the cool stone wall, grasping
at his stomach. He hadn't even paused to consider the impli-
cations of his actions; he knew only that he had to get out of
that foul room.
Vierna then was beside him, her robe opened casually in
the front. Drizzt, his head clearing, began to wonder about
the price of his actions. The look on his sister's face, he
noted with still more confusion, was not one of scorn.
"You prefer privacy” she said, her hand resting easily on
Drizzt's shoulder. Vierna made no move to close her robe. "I
understand” she said.
Drizzt grabbed her arm and pulled her away. "What in-
sanity is this?" he demanded.
Vierna's face twisted as she came to understand her
brother's true intentions in leaving the ceremony. "You
refused a high priestess!" she snarled at him. "By the laws,
she could kill you for your insolence”
"I do not even know her” Drizzt shot back. "I am expected
to-"
"You are expected to do as you are instructed!"
"I care nothing for her” Drizzt stammered. He found he
could not hold his hands steady.
"Do you think Zaknafein cared for Matron Malice?"
Vierna replied, knowing that the reference to Drizzt's hero
would surely sting him. Seeing that she had indeed
wounded her brother, Vierna softened her expression and
took his arm. "Come back” she purred, "into the room.
There is still time”
Drizzt's cold glare stopped her as surely as the point of a
scimitar.
"The Spider Queen is the deity of our people” Vierna
sternly reminded him. "I am one of those who speaks her
will”
"I would not be so proud of that” Drizzt retorted, clinging
to his anger against the wave of very real fear that threat-
ened to defeat his principled stand.
Vierna slapped him hard across the face. "Go back to the
ceremony!" she demanded.
"Go kiss a spider” Drizzt replied. "And may its pincers tear
your cursed tongue from your mouth”
It was Vierna now who could not hold her hands steady.
"You should take care when you speak to a high priestess”
she warned.
"Damn your Spider Queen!" Drizzt spat. "Though I am
certain Lloth found damnation eons ago!"
"She brings us power!" Vierna shrieked.
"She steals everything that makes us worth more than the
stone we walk upon!" Drizzt screamed back.
"Sacrilege'" Vierna sneered, the word rolling off her
tongue like the whistle of the matron mistress's snake whip.
A climactic, anguished scream erupted from inside the
room.
"Evil union” Drizzt muttered, looking away.
"There is a gain” Vierna replied, quickly back in control of
her temper.
Drizzt cast an accusing glance her way. "Have you had a
similar experience?"
"I am a high priestess” was her simple reply.
Darkness hovered all about Drizzt, outrage so intense
that he nearly swooned. "Did it please you?" he spat.
"It brought me power” Vierna growled back. "You cannot
understand the value”
"What did it cost you?"
Vierna's slap nearly knocked Drizzt from his feet. "Come
with me” she said, grabbing the front of his robe. "There is a
place I want to show to you”
They moved out from Arach. Tinilith and across the Acad-
emy's courtyard. Drizzt hesitated when they reached the
pillars that marked the entrance to Tier Breche.
"I cannot pass between these” he reminded his sister. "I
am not yet graduated from Melee-Magthere”
"A formality” Vierna replied, not slowing her pace at all. "I
am a mistress of Arach- Tinilith; 1 have the power to gradu-
ate you”
Drizzt wasn't certain of the truth of Vierna's claim, but
she was indeed a mistress of Arach- Tinilith. As much as
Drizzt feared the edicts of the Academy, he didn't want to
anger Vierna again.
He followed her down the wide stone stairs and out into
the meandering roadways of the city proper.
"Home?" he dared to ask after a short while.
"Not yet” came the curt reply. Drizzt didn't press the point
any further.
They veered off to the eastern end of the great cavern,
across from the wall that held House Do'Orden, and came to
the entrances of three small tunnels, all guarded by glowing
statues of giant scorpions. Vierna paused for just a moment
to consider which was the correct course, then led on again,
down the smallest of the tunnels.
The minutes became an hour, and still they walked. The
passage widened and soon led them into a twisting cata-
comb of crisscrossing corridors. Drizzt quickly lost track of
the path behind them as they made their way through, but
Vierna followed a predetermined course that she knew
well.
Then, beyond a low archway, the floor suddenly dropped
away and they found themselves on a narrow ledge over-
looking a wide chasm. Drizzt looked at his sister curiously
but held his question when he saw that she was deep in the
concentration. She uttered a few simple commands, then
tapped herself and Drizzt on the forehead.
"Come” she instructed, and she and Drizzt stepped off the
ledge and levitated down to the chasm floor.
A thin mist, from some unseen hot pool or tar pit, hugged
the stone. Drizzt could sense the danger here, and the evil.
A brooding wickedness hung in the air as tangibly as the
mist.
"Do not fear” Vierna signaled to him. "I have put a spell of
masking upon us. They cannot see us”
"They?" Drizzt's hands asked, but even as he motioned in
the code, he heard a scuttling off to the side. He followed
Vierna's gaze down to a distant boulder and the wretched
thing perched upon it.
At first, Drizzt thought it was a drow elf, and from the
waist up, it was indeed, though bloated and pale. Its lower
body, though, resembled a spider, with eight arachnid legs
to support its frame. The creature held a bow ready in its
hands but seemed confused, as though it could not discern
what had entered its lair.
Vierna was pleased by the disgust on her brother's face as
he viewed the thing. "Look upon it well, younger brother”
