Hunched across the way, the Faceless One kept his back to
the young DeVir. Better to be done with this cleanly, the
master reminded himself. He knew, though, that the spell
he was now preparing would kill Alton before the student
could learn his family's fate, before the Faceless One could
fully complete Dinin Do'Urden's final instructions. Tho
much was at stake. Better to be done with this cleanly.
"You. ." Alton began again, but he prudently held his
words and tried to sort out the situation before him. How
unusual to be summoned to the private chambers of a mas-
ter of the Academy before the day's lessons had even begun.
When he had first received the summons, Alton feared that
he had somehow failed one of his lessons. That could be a fa-
tal mistake in Sorcere. Alton was close to graduation, but
the disdain of a single master could put an end to that.
He had done quite well in his lessons with the Faceless
One, had even believed that this mysterious master favored
him. Could this call be simply a courtesy of congratulations
on his impending graduation? Unlikely, Alton realized
against his hopes. Masters of the drow Academy did not of-
ten congratulate students.
Alton then heard quiet chanting and noticed that the mas-
ter was in the midst of spellcasting. Something cried out as
very wrong to him now; something about this whole situa-
tion did not fit the strict ways of the Academy. Alton set his
feet firmly and tensed his muscles, following the advice of
the motto that had been drilled into the thoughts of every
student at the Academy, the precept that kept drow elves
alive in a society so devoted to chaos: Be prepared.
The doors exploded before him, showering the room with
stone splinters and throwing Masoj back against the wall.
He felt the show well worth both the inconvenience and the
new bruise on his shoulder when Alton DeVir scrambled
out of the room. The student's back and left arm trailed
wisps of smoke, and the most exquisite expression of terror
and pain that Masoj had ever seen was etched on the DeVir
noble's face.
Alton stumbled to the floor and kicked into a roll, desper-
ate to put some ground between himself and the murder-
ous master. He made it down and around the descending
arc of the room's floor and through the door that led into
the next lower chamber just as the Faceless One made his
appearance at the sundered door.
The master stopped to spit a curse at his misfire, and to
consider the best way to replace his door. "Clean it up!" he
snapped at Masoj, who was again leaning casually with his
hands atop his broomstick and his chin atop his hands.
Masoj obediently dropped his head and started sweeping
the stone splinters. He looked up as the Faceless One stalked
past, however, and cautiously started after the master.
Alton couldn't possibly escape, and this show would be
too good to miss.
The third room, the Faceless One's private library, was
the brightest of the four in the spire, with dozens of candles
burning on each wall.
"Damn this light!" Alton spat, stumbling his way down
through the dizzying blur to the door that led to the Face-
less One's entry hall, the lowest room of the master's quar-
ters. If he could get down from this spire and outside of the
tower to the courtyard of the Academy, he might be able to
turn the momentum against the master.
Alton's world remained the darkness of Menzoberranzan,
but the Faceless One, who had spent so many decades in the
candlelight of Sorcere, had grown accustomed to using his
eyes to see shades of light, not heat.
The entry hall was cluttered with chairs and chests, but
only one candle burned there, and Alton could see clearly
enough to dodge or leap any obstacles. He rushed to the
door and grabbed the heavy latch. It turned easily enough,
but when Alton tried to shoulder through, the door did not
budge and a burst of sparkling blue energy threw him back
to the floor.
"Curse this place” Alton spat. The portal was magically
held. He knew a spell to open such enchanted doors but
doubted whether his magic would be strong enough to dis-
pel the castings of a master. In his haste and fear, the words
of the dweomer floated through Alton's thoughts in an un-
decipherable jumble.
"Do not run, DeVir” came the Faceless One's call from the
previous chamber. "You only lengthen your torment!"
"A curse upon you, too” Alton replied under his breath.
Alton forgot about the stupid spell; it would never come to
him in time. He glanced around the room for an option.
His eyes found something unusual halfway up the side
wall, in an opening between two large cabinets. Alton
scrambled back a few steps to get a better angle but found
himself caught within the range of the candlelight, within
the deceptive field where his eyes registered both heat and
light.
He could only discern that this section of the wall showed
a uniform glow in the heat spectrum and that its hue was
subtly different from the stone of the walls. Another door-
way? Alton could only hope his guess to be right. He rushed
back to the center of the room, stood directly across from
the object, and forced his eyes away from the infrared spec-
trum, fully back into the world of light.
As his eyes adjusted, what came into view both startled
and confused the young DeVir. He saw no doorway, nor any
opening with another chamber behind it. What he looked
upon was a reflection of himself, and a portion of the room
he now stood in. Alton had never, in his fifty-five years of
life, witnessed such a spectacle, but he had heard the mas-
ters of Sorcere speak of these devices. It was a mirror.
A movement in the upper doorway of the chamber re-
minded Alton that the Faceless One was almost upon him.
He couldn't hesitate to ponder his options. He put his head
down and charged the mirror.
Perhaps it was a teleportation door to another section of
the city, perhaps a simple door to a room beyond. Or per-
haps, Alton dared to imagine in those few desperate sec-
onds, this was some interplanar gate that would bring him
into a strange and unknown plane of existence!
He felt the tingling excitement of adventure pulling him
on as he neared the wondrous thing-then he felt only the
impact, the shattering glass, and the unyielding stone wall
behind it.
Perhaps it was just a mirror.
"Look at his eyes” Vierna whispered to Maya as they ex-
amined the newest member of House Do'Urden.
Truly the babe's eyes were remarkable. Although the
child had been out of the womb for less than an hour, the
pupils of his orbs darted back and forth inquisitively. While
they showed the expected radiating glow of eyes seeing into
the infrared spectrum, the familiar redness was tinted by a
shade of blue, giving them a violet hue.
"Blind?" wondered Maya. "Perhaps this one will be given
to the Spider Queen still”
Briza looked back to them anxiously. Dark elves did not al-
low children showing any physical deficiency to live.
"Not blind” replied Vierna, passing her hand over the
child and casting an angry glare at both of her eager sisters.
"He follows my fingers”
Maya saw that Vierna spoke the truth. She leaned closer
to the babe, studying his face and strange eyes. "What do
you see, Drizzt Do'Urden?" she asked softly, not in an act of
gentleness toward the babe, but so that she would not dis-
turb her mother, resting in the chair at the head of the spi-
der idol.
"What do you see that the rest of us cannot?"
Glass crunched under Alton, digging deeper wounds as
he shifted his weight in an effort to rise to his feet. What
would it matter? he thought. "My mirror!" he heard the
Faceless One groan, and he looked up to see the outraged
master towering over him.
How huge he seemed to Alton! How great and powerful,
fully blocking the candlelight from this little alcove between
the cabinets, his form enhanced tenfold to the eyes of the
helpless victim by the mere implications of his presence.
Alton then felt a gooey substance floating down around
him, detached webbing finding a sticky hold on the cabi.
nets, on the wall, and on Alton. The young DeVir tried to
leap up and roll away, but the Faceless One's spell already
held him fast, trapped him as a dirgit fly would be trapped
in the strands of a spider's home.
"First my door” the Faceless One growled at him, "and
now this, my mirror! Do you know the pains I suffered to
acquire such a rare device?"
Alton turned his head from side to side, not in answer, but
to free at least his face from the binding substance.
"Why did you not just stand still and let the deed be fin-
ished cleanly?" the Faceless One roared, thoroughly dis-
gusted. .
"Why?" Alton lisped, spitting some of the webbing from
his thin lips. "Why would you want to kill me?"
"Because you broke my mirror!" the Faceless One shot
back.
It didn't make any sense, of course-the mirror had only
been shattered after the initial attack-but to the master, AI.
ton supposed, it didn't have to make sense. Alton knew his
cause to be hopeless, but he continued on in his efforts to
dissuade his opponent.
"You know of my house, of House DeVir” he said, indig-
nant, "fourth in the city. Matron Ginafae will not be pleased.
A high priestess has ways to learn the truth of such situa-
tions!"
"House DeVir?" The Faceless One laughed. Perhaps the
torments that Dinin Do'Urden had requested would be in
line after all. Alton had broken his mirror!
"Fourth house!" Alton spat.
"Foolish youth” the Faceless One cackled. "House DeVir is
no more-not fourth, not fifty-fourth, nothing”
Alton slumped, though the webbing did its best to hold his
body erect. What could the master be babbling about?
"They all are dead” the Faceless One taunted. "Matron
Ginafae sees Lloth more clearly this day” Alton's expression
of horror pleased the disfigured master. "All dead” he
snarled one more time. "Except for poor Alton, who lives on
to hear of his family's misfortune. That oversight shall be
remedied now!" The Faceless One raised his hands to cast a
spell.
"Who?" Alton cried.
The Faceless One paused and seemed not to understand.
"What house did this?" the doomed student clarified. "Or
what conspiracy of houses brought down DeVir?"
"Ah, you should be told” replied the Faceless One, obvi-
ously enjoying the situation. "I suppose it is your right to
know before you join your kin in the realm of death” A
smile widened across the opening where his lips once had
been.
"But you broke my mirror!" the master growled. "Die stu.
pid, stupid boy! Find your own answers!"
The Faceless One's chest jerked out suddenly, and he
shuddered in convulsions, babbling curses in a tongue far
beyond the terrified student's comprehension. What vile
spell did this disfigured master have prepared for him, so
wretched that its chant sounded in an arcane language for-
eign to learned Alton's ears, so unspeakably evil that. its se-
mantics jerked on the very edge of its caster's control? The
Faceless One then fell forward to the floor and expired.
Stunned, Alton followed the line of the master's hood
down to his back-to the tail of a protruding dart. Alton
watched the poisoned thing as it continued to shudder from
the body's impact, then he turned his scan upward to the
center of the room, where the young cleaning attendant
stood calmly.
"Nice weapon, Faceless One!" Masoj beamed, rolling a
two-handed, crafted crossbow over in his hands. He threw
a wicked smile at Alton and fitted another dart.
Matron Malice hoisted herself out of her chair and willed
herself to her feet. "Out of the way!" she snapped at her
daughters.
Maya and Vierna scooted away from the spider idol and
the baby. "See his eyes, Matron Mother” Vierna dared to re-
mark. "They are so unusual”
Matron Malice studied the child. Everything seemed in
place, and a good thing, too, for Nalfein, elderboy of House
Do'Urden, was dead, and this boy, Drizzt, would have a dif.
ficult job replacing the valuable son.
"His eyes” Vierna said again.
The matron shot her a venomous look but bent low to see
what the fuss was about.
"Purple?" Malice said, startled. Never had she heard of
such a thing.
"He is not blind” Maya was quick to put in, seeing the dis-
dain spreading across her mother's face.
"Fetch the candle” Matron Malice ordered. "Let us see
how these eyes appear in the world of light”
Maya and Vierna reflexively headed for the sacred cabi-
net, but Briza cut them off. "Only a high priestess may touch
the holy items” she reminded them in a tone that carried
the weight of a threat. She spun around haughtily, reached
into the cabinet, and produced a single half-used red candle.
The clerics hid their eyes and Matron Malice put a prudent
hand over the baby's face as Briza lit the sacred candle. It
produced only a tiny flame, but to drow eyes it came as a
brilliant intrusion.
"Bring it” said Matron Malice after several moments of ad-
justing. Briza moved the candle near Drizzt, and Malice
gradually slid her hand away.
"He does not cry” Briza remarked, amazed that the babe
could quietly accept such a stinging light.
"Purple again” whispered the matron, paying no heed to
her daughter's rambling. "In both worlds, the child's eyes
show as purple”
Vierna gasped audibly when she looked again upon her
