"You must have something to offer us in exchange for
your gain” Masoj explained. "Otherwise, what bargain can
you hope to make?"
"I do have something to give to you in return” Drizzt re-
plied, his voice calm, "your lives”
Masoj and Alton looked to each other and laughed aloud,
but there was a trace of nervousness in their chuckles.
"Give me the figurine, Masoj” Drizzt continued, un-
daunted. "Guenhwyvar never belonged to you and will
serve you no more”
Masoj stopped laughing.
"In return” Drizzt went on before the wizard could reply,
"I will leave House Do'Urden and not take part in the battle”
"Corpses do not fight” Alton sneered.
"I will take another Do'Urden with me” Drizzt spat at him.
" A weapon master. Surely House Hun'ett will have gained an
advantage if both Drizzt and Zaknafein-"
"Silence!" Masoj screamed. "The cat is mine! I do not need
any bargains from a pitiful Do'Urden! You are dead, fool,
and House Do'Urden's weapon master will follow you to
your grave!"
"Guenhwyvar is free!" Drizzt growled.
The scimitars came out in Drizzt's hands. He had never re-
ally fought a wizard before, let alone two, but he remem.
bered vividly from past encounters the sting of their spells.
Masoj had already begun to cast, but of more concern was
Alton, out of quick reach and pointing that slender wand.
Before Drizzt ever decided his course of action, the issue
was settled for him. A cloud of smoke engulfed Masoj and
he fell back, his spell disrupted with the shock.
Guenhwyvar was back.
Alton was out of Drizzt's reach. Drizzt could not hope to
get to the wizard before the wand went off, but to
Guenhwyvar's streamlined feline muscles, the distance was
not so great. Hind legs tamped a footing and snapped,
launching the hunting panther through the air.
Alton brought the wand to bear on this new nemesis in
time and released a mighty bolt, scorching Guenhwyvar's
chest. Greater strength than a single bolt, though, would be
needed to deter the ferocious panther. Stunned but still
fighting, Guenhwyvar slammed into the faceless wizard,
dropping him off the back side of the stalagmite mound.
The lightning bolt's flash stunned Drizzt as well, but he
continued to pursue Masoj and could only hope that
Guenhwyvar had survived. He rushed around the base of
the other stalagmite mound and came face-to-face with Ma-
soj, once again in the act of spellcasting. Drizzt didn't slow;
he ducked his head and barreled into his opponent, his
scimitars leading the way.
He slipped right through his opponent-right through the
image of his opponent!
Drizzt crashed heavily into the stone and rolled aside, try-
ing to escape the magical attack he knew was coming.
This time, Masoj, standing fully thirty feet behind the pro.
jection of his image, was taking no chances with a miss. He
launched a volley of magical missiles of energy that veered
unerringly to intercept the dodging fighter. They slammed
into Drizzt, jolting him, bruising him under his skin.
But Drizzt was able to shake away the numbing pain and
regain his footing. He knew where the real Masoj was stand-
ing now and had no intention of letting the trickster out of
sight again.
A dagger in his hand, Masoj watched Drizzt's stalking ap-
proach.
Drizzt didn't understand. Why wasn't the wizard prepar-
ing another spell? The fall had reopened the wound in
Drizzt's shoulder, and the magical bolts had torn his side
and a leg. The wounds were not serious, though, and Masoj
had no chance against him in physical combat.
The wizard stood before him, unconcerned, dagger
drawn and a wicked smile on his face.
Face down on the hard stone, Alton felt the warmth of his
own blood running freely between the melted holes that
were his eyes. The cat was higher up the side of the mound,
not yet fully recovered from the lightning bolt.
Alton forced himself up and raised his wand for a second
strike. .. but the wand had snapped in half.
Frantically Alton recovered the other piece and held it up
before his disbelieving eyes. Guenhwyvar was coming
again, but Alton didn't notice.
The glowing ends of the wand, a power building within
the magical stick, enthralled him. "You cannot do that” Al-
ton whispered in protest.
Guenhwyvar leaped just as the broken wand exploded.
A ball of fire roared up into Menzoberranzan's night,
chunks of rubble rocketed off the great cavern's eastern
wall and ceiling, and both Drizzt and Masoj were knocked
from their feet.
"Now Guenhwyvar belongs to no one}' Masoj sneered,
tossing the figurine to the ground.
"No DeVir remains to claim vengeance on House Do'Ur-
den” Drizzt growled back, his anger holding off his despair.
Masoj became the focus of that anger, and the wizard's
mocking laughter led Drizzt toward him in a furious rush.
Just as Drizzt got in range, Masoj snapped his fingers and
was gone.
"Invisible” Drizzt roared, slicing futilely at the empty air
before him. His exertions took the edge from his blind rage
and he realized that Masoj was no longer in front of him.
How foolish he must seem to the wizard. How vulnerable!
Drizzt crouched to listen. He sensed a distant chanting
from up above, on the cavern wall.
Drizzt's instincts told him to dive to the side, but his new
understanding of wizards told him that Masoj would antici-
pate such a move. Drizzt feigned to the left and heard the
climactic words of the building spell. As the lightning blast
thundered harmlessly to the side, Drizzt sprinted straight
ahead, hoping his vision would return in time for him to get
to the wizard.
"Damn you!" Masoj cried, understanding the feint as soon
as he had errantly fired. Rage became terror in the next in-
stant, as Masoj caught sight of Drizzt, sprinting across the
stone, leaping the rubble, and crossing the sides of the
mounds with all the grace of a hunting cat.
Masoj fumbled in his pockets for the components to his
next spell. He had to be quick. He was fully twenty feet from
the cavern floor, perched on a narrow ledge, but Drizzt was
moving fast, impossibly fast!
The ground beneath him did not register in Drizzt's con-
scious thoughts. The cavern wall would have seemed un-
climbable to him in a more rational state, but now he gave it
not a care. Guenhwyvar was lost to him. Guenhwyvar was
gone.
That wicked wizard on the ledge, that embodiment of de-
monic evil, had caused it. Drizzt sprang to the wall, found
one hand free-he must have discarded one scimitar-and
caught a tenuous hold. It wasn't enough for a rational drow,
but Drizzt's mind ignored the protests of the muscles in his
straining fingers. He had only ten feet to go.
Another volley of energy bolts thudded into Drizzt, ham-
mering the top of his head in rapid succession.
"How many spells remain, wizard?" he heard himself defi-
antly cry as he ignored the pain.
Masoj fell back when Drizzt looked up at him, when the
burning light of those lavender orbs fell upon him like a pro-
nouncement of doom. He had seen Drizzt in battle many
times, and the sight of the fighting young warrior had
haunted him through all the planning of this assassination.
But Masoj had never seen Drizzt enraged before. If he
had, he never would have agreed to try to kill Drizzt. If he
had, he would have told Matron 5iNafay to go sit on a stalag-
mite.
What spell was next? What spell could slow the monster
that was Drizzt Do'Urden?
A hand, glowing with the heat of anger, grabbed the lip of
the ledge. Masoj stomped on it with the heel of his boot. The
fingers were broken-the wizard knew that the fingers
were broken-but Drizzt, impossibly, was up beside him
and the blade of a scimitar was through the wizard's ribs.
"The fingers are broken!" the dying mage gasped in pro-
test.
Drizzt looked down at his hand and realized the pain for
the first time. "Perhaps” he said absently, "but they will
heal”
Drizzt, limping, found his other scimitar and cautiously
picked his way over the rubble of one of the mounds. Fight-
ing the fear within his broken heart, he forced himself to
peer over the crest at the destruction. The back side of the
mound glowed eerily in the residual heat, a beacon for the
awakening city.
So much for stealth. .
Pieces of Alton DeVir lay scattered at the bottom, around
the wizard's smoldering robes. "Have you found peace,
Faceless One?" Drizzt whispered, exhaling the last of his an-
ger. He remembered the assault Alton had launched against
him those years ago in the Academy. The faceless master
and Masoj had explained it away as a test for a budding war-
rior.
"How long you have carried your hate” Drizzt muttered
at the blasted bits of corpse.
But Alton DeVir was not his concern now. He scanned the
rest of the rubble, looking for some clue to GuenhwyYar's
fate, not certain how a magical creature would fare in such
a disaster. Not a sign of the cat remained, nothing that
would even hmt that GuenhwyYar had ever been there.
Drizzt consciously reminded himself that there was no
hope, but the anxious spring in his steps mocked his stern
visage. He rushed back down the mound and around the
other stalagmite, where Masoj and he had been when the
wand exploded. He spotted the onyx figurine immediately.
He lifted it gently in his hands. It was warm, as though it,
too, had been caught in the blast, and Drizzt could sense
that its magic had diminished. Drizzt wanted to call the cat,
then, but he didn't dare, knowing that the travel between
the planes heavily taxed GuenhwyYar. If the cat had been in-
jured, Drizzt figured that it would be better to give it some
time to recuperate.
"Oh, Guenhwyvar” he moaned, "my friend, my brave
friend” He dropped the figurine into his pocket.
He could only hope that GuenhwyYar had survived.
Chapter 29
Alone
Drizzt walked back around the stalagmite, back to the
body of Masoj Hun'ett. He had had no choice but to kill his
adversary; Masoj had drawn the battle lines.
That fact did little to dispel the guilt in Drizzt as he looked
upon the corpse. He had killed another drow, had taken the
life of one of his own people. Was he trapped, as Zaknafein
had been trapped for so very many years, in a cycle of vio-
lence that would know no end?
"Never again” Drizzt vowed to the corpse. "Never again
will I kill a drow elf”
He turned away, disgusted, and knew as soon as heiooked
back to the silent, sinister mounds of the vast draw city that
he would not survive long in Menzoberranzan if he held to
that promise.
A thousand possibilities whirled in Drizzt's mind as he
made his way through the winding ways of Menzoberran-
zan. He pushed the thoughts aside, stopped them from dull-
ing his alertness. The light was general now in Narbondel;
the drow day was beginning, and activity had started from
every corner of the city. In the world of the surface-
dwellers, the day was the safer time, when light exposed as-
sassins. In Menzoberranzan's eternal darkness, the daytime
of the dark elves was even more dangerous than the night.
Drizzt picked his way carefully, rolling wide from the
mushroom fence of the noblest houses, wherein lay House
Hun'ett. He encountered no more adversaries and made the
safety of the Do'Urden compound a short time later. He
rushed through the gate and by the surprised soldiers with-
out a word of explanation and shoved aside the guards be-
low the balcony.
The house was strangely quiet; Drizzt would have ex-
pected them all to be up and about with battle imminent. He
gave the eerie stillness no more thought, and he cut a
straight line to the training gym and Zaknafein's private
quarters.
Drizzt paused outside the gym's stone door, his hand
tightly clenched on the handle of the portal. What would he
propose to his father? That they leave? He and Zaknafein on
the perilous trails of the Underdark, fighting when they
must and escaping the burdensome guilt of their existence
under drow rule? Drizzt liked the thought, but he wasn't so
certain now, standing before the door, that he could con-
vince Zak to follow such a course. Zak could have left be-
fore, at any time during the centuries of his life, but when
Drizzt had asked him why he had remained, the heat had
drained from the weapon master's face. Were they indeed
trapped in the life offered to them by Matron Malice and
her evil cohorts?
Drizzt grimaced away the worries; no sense in arguing to
himself with Zak only a few steps away.
The training gym was as quiet as the rest of the house. Tho
quiet. Drizzt hadn't expected Zak to be there, but some-
thing more than his father was absent. The father's pres-
ence, too, was gone.
Drizzt knew that something was wrong, and each step he
took toward Zak's private door quickened until he was in
full flight. He burst in without.a knock, not surprised to find
the bed empty.
"Malice must have sent him out in search of me” Drizzt
reasoned. "Damn, I have caused him trouble!" He turned to
leave, but something caught his eye and held him in the
room-Zak's sword belt.
Never would the weapon master have left his room, not
even for functions within the safety of House Do'Urden,
without his swords. "Your weapon is your most trusted
companion” Zak had told Drizzt a thousand times. "Keep it
ever at your side!"
"House Hun'ett?" Drizzt whispered, wondering if the rival
