she signaled. "Behold the fate of those who anger the Spider
Queen”
"What is it?" Drizzt signaled back quickly.
" A drider” Vierna whispered in his ear. Then, back in the
silent code, she added, "Lloth is not a merciful deity”
Drizzt watched, mesmerized, as the drider shifted its po-
sition on the boulder, searching for the intruders. Drizzt
couldn't tell if it was a male or female, so bloated was its
torso, but he knew that it didn't matter. The creature was
not a natural creation and would leave no descendants be-
hind, whatever its gender. It was a tormented body, nothing
more, hating itself, in all probability, more than everything
else around it.
"I am merciful” Vierna continued silently, though she
knew her brother's attention was fully on the drider. She
rested back flat against the stone wall.
Drizzt spun on her, suddenly realizing her intent.
Then Vierna sank into the stone. "Goodbye, little brother”
came her final call. "This is a better fate than you deserve”
"No!" Drizzt growled, and he clawed at the empty wall un-
til an arrow sliced into his leg. The scimitars flashed out in
his hands as he spun back to face the danger. The drider
took aim for a second shot.
Drizzt meant to dive to the side, to the protection of an-
other boulder, but his wounded leg immediately fell numb
and useless. Poison.
Drizzt just got one blade up in time to deflect the second
arrow, and he dropped to one knee to clutch at his wound.
He could feel the cold poison making its way through his
limb, but he stubbornly snapped off the arrow shaft and
turned his attention back to the attacker. He would have to
worry about the wound later, would have to hope that he
could tend to it in time. Right now, his only concern was to
get out of the chasm.
He turned to flee, to seek a sheltered spot where he could
levitate back up to the ledge, but he found himself face-to-
face with another drider.
An axe sliced by his shoulder, barely missing its mark.
Drizzt blocked the return blow and launched his second
scimitar into a thrust, which the drider stopped with a sec-
ond axe.
Drizzt was composed now, and was confident that he
could defeat this foe, even with one leg limiting his
mobility-until an arrow cracked into his back.
Drizzt lurched forward under the weight of the blow, but
managed to parry another attack from the drider before
him. Drizzt dropped to his knees and fell face-down.
When the axe-wielding drider, thinking Drizzt dead,
started toward him, Drizzt kicked into a roll that put him
squarely under the creature's bulbous belly. He plunged his
scimitar up with all his strength, then curled back under the
deluge of spidery fluids.
The wounded drider tried to scurry away but fell to the
side, its insides draining out onto the stone floor. Still, Drizzt
had no hope. His arms, too, were numb now, and when the
other wretched creature descended upon him, he could not
hope to fight it off. He struggled to cling to consciousness,
searching for some way out, battling to the bitter end. His
eyelids became heavy. . . .
Then Drizzt felt a hand grab his robe, and he was roughly
lifted to his feet and slammed against the stone wall.
He opened his eyes to see his sister's face.
"He lives” Drizzt heard her say. "We must get him back
quickly and tend to his wounds”
Another figure moved in front of him.
"I thought this the best way” Vierna apologized.
"We cannot afford to lose him” came an unemotional re-
ply. Drizzt recognized the voice from his past. He fought
through the blur and forced his eyes to focus.
"Malice” he whispered. "Mother”
Her enraged punch brought him into a clearer mind-set.
"MatrQn Malice!" she growled, her angry scowl only an
inch from Drizzt's face. "Do not ever forget that!"
To Drizzt, her coldness rivaled the poison's, and his relief
at seeing her faded away as quickly as it had flooded
through him.
"You must learn your place!" Malice roared, reiterating
the command that had haunted Drizzt all of his young life.
"Hear my words” she demanded, and Drizzt heard them
keenly. "Vierna brought you to this place to have you killed.
She showed you mercy” Malice cast a disappointed glance at
her daughter.
"I understand the will of the Spider Queen better than
she” the matron continued, her spittle spraying Drizzt with
every word. "If ever you speak ill of Lloth, our goddess,
again, I will take you back to this place myself! But not to kill
you; that would be too easy” She jerked Drizzt's head to the
side so that he could look upon the grotesque remains of the
drider he had killed.
"You will come back here” Malice assured him, "to be-
come a drider!"
Part 4
Guenhwyvar
What eyes are these that see
The pain I know in my innermost soul?
What eyes are these that see
The twisted strides of my kindred,
Led on in the wake of toys unbridled:
Arrow, bolt, and sword tip?
Yours. . . aye, yours,
Straight run and muscled spring,
Soft on padded paws, sheathed claws,
Weapons rested for their need,
Stained not by frivolous blood
Or murderous deceit.
Face to face, my mirror,
Reflection in a still pool by light.
Would that I might keep that image
Upon this face mine own.
Would that I might keep that heart
Within my breast untainted.
Hold tight to the proud honor of yo
Mighty Guenhwyvar,
And hold tight to my side,
My dearest friend.
-Drizzt Do'Urden
Chapter 17
Homecoming
Drizzt was graduated-formally-on schedule and with
the highest honors in his class. Perhaps Matron Malice had
whispered into the right ears, smoothing over her son's in-
discretions, but Drizzt suspected that more likely none of
those present at the Ceremony of Graduation even remem-
bered that he had left.
He moved through the decorated gate of House Do'Urden,
drawing stares from the common soldiery, and over to the
cavern floor below the balcony. "So I am home” he re-
marked under his breath, "for whatever that means” After
what had happened in the drider lair, Drizzt wondered if he
would ever view House Do'Urden as his home again. Ma-
tron Malice was expecting him. He didn't dare arrivp,.late.
"It is good that you are home” Briza said to him when she
saw him rise up over the balcony's railing.
Drizzt stepped tentatively through the entryway beside
his oldest sister, trying to get a firm grasp on his surround.
ings. Home, Briza called it, but to Drizzt, House Do'Urden
seemed as unfamiliar as the Academy had on his first day as
a student. Thn years was not such a long time in the centu-
ries of life a drow elf might know, but to Drizzt, more than
the decade of absence now separated him from this place.
Maya joined them in the great corridor leading to the
chapel anteroom. "Greetings, Prince Drizzt” she said, and
Drizzt couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. "We
have heard of the honors you achieved at Melee-Magthere.
Your skill did House Do'Urden proud” In spite of her words,
Maya could not hide a derisive chuckle as she finished the
thought. "Glad, I am, that you did not become drider food”
Drizzt's glare stole the smile from her face.
Maya and Briza exchanged concerned glances. They
knew of the punishment Vierna had put upon their younger
brother, and of the vicious scolding he had received at the
hands of Matron Malice. They each cautiously rested a hand
on their snake whips, not knowing how foolish their dan-
gerous young brother might have become.
It was not Matron Malice or Drizzt's sisters that now had
Drizzt measuring every step before he took it. He knew
where he stood with his mother and knew what he had to
do to keep her appeased. There was another member of the
family, though, that evoked both confusion and anger in
Drizzt. Of all his kin, only Zaknafein pretended to be what
he was not. As Drizzt made his way to the chapel, he
glanced anxiously down every side passage, wondering
when Zak would make his appearance.
"How long before you leave for patrol?" Maya asked, pull-
ing Drizzt from his contemplations.
"Thro days” Drizzt replied absently, his eyes still darting
from shadow to shadow. Then he was at the anteroom door,
with no sign of Zak. Perhaps the weapon master was
within, standing beside Malice.
"We know of your indiscretions; Briza snapped, suddenly
cold, as she placed her hand on the latch to the anteroom's
door. Drizzt was not surprised by her outburst. He was be-
ginning to expect such explosions from the high priestesses
of the Spider Queen.
"Why could you not just enjoy the pleasures of the cere-
mony?" Maya added. "We are fortunate that the mistresses
and the matron of the Academy were too involved in their
own excitement to note your movements. You would have
brought shame upon our entire house!"
"You might have placed Matron Malice in Lloth's disfavor;
Briza was quick to add.
The best thing I could ever do for her, Drizzt thought. He
quickly dismissed the notion, remembering Briza's uncanny
proficiency at reading minds.
"Let us hope he did not” Maya said grimly to her sister.
"The tides of war hang thick in the air?'
"I have learned my place” Drizzt assured them. He bowed
low. "Forgive me, my sisters, and know that the truth of the
drow world is fast opening before my young eyes. Never
will 1 disappoint House Do'Urden in such a way again?'
So pleased were his sisters at the proclamation that the
ambiguity of Drizzt's words slipped right past them. Then
Drizzt, not wanting to push his luck too far, also slipped past
them, making his way through the door, noting with relief
that Zaknafein was not in attendance.
"All praises to the Spider Queen!" Briza yelled after him.
Drizzt paused and turned to meet her gaze. He bowed low
a second time. "As it should be” he muttered.
Creeping behind the small group, Zak had studied Drizzt's
every move, trying to measure the toll a decade at the Acad-
emy had exacted on the young fighter.
Gone now was the customary smile that lit Drizzt's face.
Gone, too, Zak supposed, was the innocence that had kept
this one apart from the rest of Menzoberranzan.
Zak leaned back heavily against the wall in a side passage.
He had caught only portions of the conversation at the ante-
room door. Most clearly he had heard Drizzt's heartfelt ac-
cord with Briza's honoring of Lloth.
"What have I done?" the weapon master asked himself. He
looked back around the bend in the main corridor, but the
door to the anteroom had already closed.
"Truly, when I look upon the drow-the drow warrior!-
that was my most treasured, I shame for my cowardice”
Zak lamented. "What has Drizzt lost that 1 might have
saved?"
He drew his smooth sword from its scabbard, his sensitive
fingers running the length of the razor edge. "A finer blade
you would be had you tasted the blood of Drizzt Do'Urden,
to deny this world, our world, another soul for its taking, to
free that one from the unending torments of life!" He low-
ered the weapon's tip to the floor.
"But I am a coward” he said. "I have failed in the one act
that could have brought meaning to my pitiful existence.
The secondboy of House Do'Urden lives, it would appear,
but Drizzt Do'Urden, my 'Two-hands, is long dead” Zak
looked back to the emptiness where Drizzt had been stand-
ing, the weapon master's expression suddenly a grimace.
"Vet this pretender lives.
"A drow warrior”
Zak's weapon clanged to the stone floor and his head
slumped down to be caught by the embrace of his open
palms, the only shield Zaknafein Do'Urden had ever found.
Drizzt spent the next day at rest, mostly in his room, try-
ing to keep out of the way of the other members of his im-
mediate family. Malice had dismissed him without a word in
their initial meeting, but Drizzt did not want to confront her
again. Likewise, he had little to say to Briza and Maya, fear-
ing that sooner or later they would begin to understand the
true connotations of his continuing stream of blasphemous
responses. Most of all, though, Drizzt did not want to see
Zaknafein, the mentor he had once thought of as his salva-
tion against the realities around him, the one glowing light
in the darkness that was Menzoberranzan.
That, too, Drizzt believed, had been only a lie.
On his second day home, when Narbondel, the time clock
of the city, had just begun its cycle of light, the door to
Drizzfs small chamber swung open and Briza walked in.
"An audience with Matron Malice” she said grimly.
A thousand thoughts rushed through Drizzfs mind as he
grabbed his boots and followed his oldest sister down the
passageways to the house chapel. Had Malice and the others
discovered his true feelings toward their evil deity? What
punishments did they now have waiting for him? Uncon-
sciously, Drizzt eyed the spider carvings on the chapel's
arched entrance.
"You should be more familiar and more at ease with this
place” Briza scolded, noting his discomfort. "It is the place
of our people's highest glories”
Drizzt lowered his gaze and did not respond-and was t
careful not to even think of the many stinging retorts he felt
in his heart.
His confusion doubled when they entered the chapel, for
Rizzen, Maya, and Zaknafein stood before the matron
mother, as expected. Beside them, though, stood Dinin and
