House Hun'ett the advantage of a tired weapon master”
"Drizzt has gone” growled Malice.
The news slapped Zak like a wet rag. He straightened, and
the teasing smile disappeared from his face.
"He left the house against my commands” Malice went on.
Zak relaxed visibly; when Malice announced that Drizzt
was gone, Zak had first thought that she and qer devious co-
horts had driven him out or killed him.
"A spirited boy” Zak remarked. "Surely he will return
soon”
"Spirited” Malice echoed, and her tone did not put the de-
scription in a positive light.
"He will return” Zak said again. "There's no need for our
alarm, for such extreme measures” He glared at Briza,
though he knew well that the matron mother had called
him to audience to do more than tell him of Drizzt's depar-
ture.
"The secondboy disobeyed the matron mother” Briza
snarled, a rehearsed interruption.
"Spirited” Zak said again, trying not to chuckle. "A minor
indiscretion”
"How often he seems to have those” Malice commented.
"Like another spirited male of House Do'Urden”
Zak bowed again, taking her words as a compliment. Mal-
ice already had his punishment decided, if she meant to
punish him at all. His actions now, at this trial-if that's what
it was-would be of little consequence.
"The boy has displeased the Spider Queen!" Malice
growled, openly enraged and tired of Zak's sarcasm. "Even
you were not foolish enough to do that!"
A dark cloud passed across Zak's face. This meeting was
indeed serious; Drizzt's life could be at stake.
"But you know of his crime” Malice continued, easing
back again. She liked that she had Zak concerned and on the
defensive. She had found his vulnerable spot. It was her
turn to tease.
"Leaving the house?" Zak protested. "A minor error in
judgment. Lloth would not be concerned with such a trifle
issue”
"Do not feign ignorance, Zaknafein. You know that the el-
yen child lives!"
Zak lost his breath in a sharp gasp. Malice knew! Damn it
all, Lloth knew!
"We are about to go to war” Malice continued calmly, "we
are not in Lloth's favor, and we must correct the situation”
She eyed Zak directly. "You are aware of our ways and know:
that we must do this”
Zak nodded, trapped. Anything he did now to disagree
would only make matters worse for Drizzt-if matters
could be worse for Drizzt.
"The secondboy must be punished” Briza said.
Another rehearsed interruption, Zak knew. He wondered
how many times Briza and Malice had practiced this
encounter.
"Am I to punish him, then?" Zak asked. "I'll not whip the
boy; that is not my place”
"His punishment is none of your concern” Malice said.
"Then why disturb my slumber?" Zak asked, trying to de-
tach himself from Drizzt's predicament, more for Drizzt's
sake than his own.
"I thought that you would wish to know” Malice replied.
"You and Drizzt became so close this day in the gym. Father
and son”
She saw! Zak realized. Malice, and probably that
wretched Briza, had watched the whole encounter! Zak's
head drooped as he came to know that he had unwittingly
played a part in Drizzt's predicament.
"An elven child lives” Malice began slowly, rolling out
each word in dramatic clarity, "and a young drow must die”
"No!" The word came out of Zak before he realized he was
speaking. He tried to find some escape. "Drizzt was young.
He did not understand. . . "
"He knew exactly what he was doing!" Malice screamed
back at him. "He does not regret his actions! He is so like
you, Zaknafein! Tho like you”
"Then he can learn” Zak reasoned. "I have not been a bur-
den to you, Mali-Matron Malice. You have profited by my
presence. Drizzt is no less skilled than I; he can be valuable
to us”
"Dangerous to us” Matron Malice corrected. "You and he
standing together? The thought does not please me”
"His death will aid House Hun'ett” Zak warned, grabbing
at anything he could find to defeat the matron's intent.
"The Spider Queen demands his death” Malice replied
sternly. "She must be appeased if Daermon N'a'shezbaernon
is to have any hope in its struggles against House Hun'ett”
"I beg you, do not kill the boy”
"Sympathy?" Malice mused. "It does not become a drow
warrior, Zaknafein. Have you lost your fighting will?"
"I am old, Malice”
"Matron Malice!" Briza protested, but Zak put a look on
her so cold that she lowered her snake whip before she had
even begun to put it to use.
"Older still will I become if Drizzt is put to his death”
"I do not desire this either” Malice agreed, but Zak recog-
nized her lie. She didn't care about Drizzt, or about any-
thing else, beyond gaining the Spider Queen's favor.
"Yet I see no alternative. Drizzt has angered Lloth, and she
must be appeased before our war”
Zak began to understand. This meeting wasn't about
Drizzt at all. "Thke me in the boy's stead” he said.
Malice's narrow grin could not hide her feigned surprise.
This was what she had desired from the very beginning.
"You are a proven fighter” the matron argued. "Your
value, as you yourself have already admitted, cannot be un-
derestimated. To sacrifice you to the Spider Queen would
appease her, but what void will be left in House Do'Urden in
the wake of your passing?"
" A void that Drizzt can fill” Zak replied. He secretly hoped
that Drizzt, unlike he, would find some escape from it all,
some way around Matron Malice's evil plots.
"You are certain of this?"
"He is my equal in battle” Zak assured her. "He will grow
stronger, too, beyond what Zaknafein has ever attained”
"You are willing to do this for him?" Malice sneered, eager
drool edging her mouth.
"You know that I am” Zak replied.
"Ever the fool” Malice put in.
"To your dismay” Zak continued, undaunted, "you know
that Drizzt would do the same for me”
"He is young” Malice purred. "He will be taught better”
" As you taught me?" snapped Zak.
Malice's victorious grin became a grimace. "I warn you,
Zaknafein; she growled in all her vile rage. "If you do any.
thing to disrupt the ceremony to appease the Spider Queen,
if, in the end of your wasted life, you choose to anger me
one final time, I will give Drizzt to Briza. She and her tortur.
ous toys will give him to Lloth!"
Unafraid, Zak held his head high. "I have offered myself,
Malice” he spat. "Have your fun while you may. In the end,
Zaknafein will be at peace; Matron Malice Do'Urden will
ever be at war!"
Shaking in anger, the moment of triumph stolen by a few
simple words, Malice could only whisper, "lake him!"
Zak offered no resistance as Vierna and Maya tied him to
the spider-shaped altar in the chapel. He watched Vierna
mostly, seeing an edge of sympathy rimming her quiet eyes.
She, too, might have been like him, but whatever hope he
had for that possibility had been buried long ago under the
relentless preaching of the Spider Queen.
"You are sad” Zak remarked to her.
Vierna straightened and tugged tightly on one of Zak's
bonds, causing him to grimace in pain. "A pity” she replied
as coldly as she could. "House Do'Urden must give much to
repay Drizzt's foolish deed. I would have enjoyed watching
the two of you together in battle”
"House Hun'ett would not have enjoyed the sight” Zak re-
plied with a wink. "Cry not, . .. my daughter”
Vierna slapped him across the face. "lake your lies to your
grave! "
"Deny it as you choose, Vierna” was all that Zak cared to
reply.
Vierna and Maya backed away from the altar. Vierna
fought to hold her scowl and Maya bit back an amused
chuckle, as Matron Malice and Briza entered the room. The
matron mother wore her greatest ceremonial robe, black
and weblike, clinging and floating about her all at once, and
Briza carried a sacred coffer.
Zak paid them no heed as they began their ritual, chant.
ing for the Spider Queen, offering their hopes for appease-
ment. Zak had his own hopes at that moment.
"Beat them all” he whispered under his breath. "Do more
than survive, my son, as I have survived. Live! Be true to the
callings in your heart”
Braziers roared to life; the room glowed. Zak felt the heat,
knew that contact to that darker plane had been achieved.
"Take this. . . " he heard Matron Malice chant, but he put
the words out of his thoughts and continued the final pray-
ers of his life.
The spider-shaped dagger hovered over his chest. Malice
clenched the instrument in her bony hands, the sheen of
her sweat-soaked skin catching the orange reflection of the
fires in a surrealistic glow.
Surreal, like the transition from life to death.
Chapter 28
Rightful Owner
How long had it been? An hour? Thro? Masoj paced the
length of the gap between the two stalagmite mounds just a
few feet from the entrance to the tunnel that Drizzt, and
then Guenhwyvar, had taken. "The cat should have re-
turned by now” the wizard grumbled, at the end of his pa.
tience.
Relief flooded through his face a moment later, when
Guenhwyvar's great black head peered around the edge of
the tunnel, behind one of the displacer beast statue guard.
ians. The fur around the cat's maw was conspicuously wet
with fresh blood.
"It is done?" Masoj asked, barely able to contain a shout of
elation. "Drizzt Do'Urden is dead?"
"Hardly” came the reply. Drizzt, for all his idealism, had to
admit a tinge of pleasure as a cloud of dread cooled the
elated fires in the sinister wizard's cheeks.
"What is this, Guenhwyvar?" Masoj demanded. "Do as I
bid you! Kill him now!"
Guenhwyvar stared blankly at Masoj, then lay at Drizzt's
feet.
"You admit your attempt on my life?" Drizzt asked.
Masoj measured the distance to his adversary-ten feet.
He might be able to get off one spell. Perhaps. Masoj had
seen Drizzt move, quick and sure, and had little desire to .
chance the attack if he could find another way out of this
predicament. Drizzt had not yet drawn a weapon, though
the young warrior's hands rested easily across the hilts of
his deadly blades.
"I understand” Drizzt continued calmly. "House Hun'ett
and House Do'Urden are to battle”
"How did you know?" Masoj blurted without thinking, too
shocked by the revelation to consider that Drizzt might
merely be goading him into a larger admission.
"I know much but care little” Drizzt replied. "House
Hun'ett wishes to wage war against my family. For what rea-
son, I cannot guess”
"For the vengeance of House DeVir!" came a reply from a
different direction.
Alton, standing on the side of a stalagmite mound, looked
down at Drizzt.
A smile spread over Masoj's face. The odds had so quickly
changed.
"House Hun'ett cares not at all for House DeVir” Drizzt re-
plied, still composed in the face of this new development. "I
have learned enough of the ways of our people to know that
the fate of one house is not the concern of another”
"But it is my concernI" Alton cried, and he threw back the
cowl of his hood, revealing the hideous face, scarred by acid
for the sake of a disguise. "I am Alton DeVir, lone survivor of
House DeVir! House Do'Urden will die for its crimes against
my family, starting with you”
"I was not even born when the battle took place” Drizzt
protested.
"Of little consequence!" Alton snarled. "Vou are a Do'Ur-
den, a filthy Do'Urden. That is all that matters”
Masoj tossed the onyx figurine to the ground. "Guenhwy-
var!" he commanded. "Be gone!"
The cat looked over its shoulder to Drizzt, who nodded
his approval.
"Be gone!" Masoj cried again. "I am your master! Vou can-
not disobey me!"
"You do not own the cat” Drizzt said calmly.
"Who does, then?" Masoj snapped. "Vou?"
"Guenhwyvar” Drizzt replied. "Only Guenhwyvar. I
would think that a wizard would have a better understand-
ing of the magic around him”
With a low growl that might have been a mocking laugh,
Guenhwyvar loped across the stone to the figurine and dis-
sipated into smoky nothingness.
The cat walked down the length of the planar tunnel, to-
ward its home in the Astral Plane. Ever before had
Guenhwyvar been anxious to make this journey, to escape
the foul commands of its drow masters. This time, though,
the cat hesitated with every stride, looking back over its
shoulder to the dot of darkness that was Menzoberranzan.
"Will you deal?" Drizzt offered.
"You are in no position to bargain” Alton laughed, draw-
ing out the slender wand that Matron SiNafay had given
him.
Masoj cut him short. "Wait” he said. "Perhaps Drizzt will
prove valuable to our struggle against House Do'Urden” He
eyed the young warrior directly. "You will betray your fam-
ily?"
"Hardly” Drizzt snickered. " As I have already said to you, I
care little for the coming conflict. Let House Hun'ett and
House Do'Urden both be damned, as surely they will! My
concerns are personal”
