Homeland

by R. A. Salvatore

  “The frenzy that holds you?” Drizzt retorted, but there was little conviction in his voice now. If he understood Zak’s words correctly if Zak played the killing game simply because of his hatred for the perverted drow-the most Drizzt could blame him for was cowardice.

  “No frenzy holds me,” Zak replied. “I live as best I can survive in a world that is not my own, not my heart.” The lament in his words, the droop of his head as he admitted his helplessness, struck a familiar chord in Drizzt. “I kill, kill drow, to serve Matron Malice-to placate the rage, the frustration, that I know in my soul. When I hear the children scream ...”

  His gaze snapped up on Drizzt and he rushed in all of a sudden, his fury returned tenfold.

  Drizzt tried to get his scimitars up, but Zak knocked one of them across the room and drove the other aside. He rushed in step with Drizzt’s awkward retreat until he had Drizzt pinned against a wall. The tip of Zak’s sword drew a droplet of blood from Drizzt’s throat.

  “The child lives!” Drizzt gasped. “I swear, I did not kill the elven child!”

  Zak relaxed a bit but still held Drizzt, sword to throat. “Dinin said-”

  “Dinin was mistaken,” Drizzt replied frantically. “Fooled by me. I knocked the child down-only to spare her-and covered her with the blood of her murdered mother to mask my own cowardice!”

  Zak leaped back, overwhelmed.

  “I killed no elves that day,” Drizzt said to him. “The only times I desired to kill were my own companions!”

  “So now we know,” said Briza, staring into the scrying bowl, watching the conclusion of the battle between Drizzt and Zaknafein and hearing their every word. “It was Drizzt who angered the Spider Queen.”

  “You suspected him all along, as did I,” Matron Malice replied, “though we both hoped differently.

  “So much promise!” Briza lamented. “How I wish that one had learned his place, his values. Perhaps...”

  “Mercy?” Matron Malice snapped at her. “Do you show mercy that would further invoke the Spider Queen’s displeasure?”

  “No, Matron,” Briza replied. “I had only hoped that Drizzt could be used in the future, as you have used Zaknafein all these years. Zaknafein is growing older.”

  “We are about to fight a war, my daughter,” Malice reminded her. “Lloth must be appeased. Your brother has brought his fate upon himself; his actions were his own to decide.”

  “He decided wrongly.”

  The words hit Zaknafein harder than Drizzt’s boot had.

  The weapon master threw his swords to the ends of the room and rushed in on Drizzt. He buried him in a hug so intense that it took the young drow a long moment to even realize what had happened.

  “You have survived!” Zak said, his voice broken by muffled tears. “Survived the Academy, where all the others died!”

  Drizzt returned the embrace, tentatively, still not guessing the depth of Zak’s elation. “My son!”

  Drizzt nearly fainted, overwhelmed by the admission of what he had always suspected, and even more so by the knowledge that he was not the only one in his dark world angered by the ways of the drow. He was not alone.

  “Why?” Drizzt asked, pushing Zak out to arm’s length. “Why have you stayed?”

  Zak looked at him incredulously. “Where would I go? No one, not even a drow weapon master would survive for long out in the caverns of the Underdark. Too many monsters, and other races, hunger for the sweet blood of dark elves.”

  “Surely you had options.”

  “The surface?” Zak replied. “To face the painful inferno every day? No, my son, I am trapped, as you are trapped.”

  Drizzt had feared that statement, had feared that he would find no solution from his newfound father to the dilemma that was his life. Perhaps there were no answers.

  “You will do well in Menzoberranzan,” Zak said to comfort him. “You are strong, and Matron Malice will find an appropriate place for your talents, whatever your heart may desire.”

  “To live a life of assassinations, as you have?” Drizzt asked, trying futilely to keep the rage out of his words.

  “What choice is before us?” Zak answered, his eyes seeking the unjudging stone of the floor.

  “I will not kill drow,” Drizzt declared flatly.

  Zak’s eyes snapped back on him. “You will,” he assured his son. “In Menzoberranzan, you will kill or be killed.”

  Drizzt looked away, but Zak’s words pursued him, could not be blocked out.

  “There is no other way,” the weapon master continued softly. “Such is our world. Such is our life. You have escaped this long, but you will find that your luck soon will change.”

  He grabbed Drizzt’s chin firmly and forced his son to look at him directly.

  “I wish that it could be different,” Zak said honestly, “but it is not such a bad life. I do not lament killing dark elves. I perceive their deaths as their salvation from this wicked existence. If they care so dearly for their Spider Queen, then let them go and visit her!”

  Zak’s growing smile washed away suddenly. “Except for the children,” he whispered. “Often have I heard the cries of dying children, though never, I promise you, have I caused them. I have always wondered if they, too, are evil, born evil. Or if the weight of our dark world bends them to fit our foul ways.”

  “The ways of the demon Lloth,” Drizzt agreed. They both paused for many heartbeats, each privately weighing the realities of his own personal dilemma. Zak was next to speak, having long ago come to terms with the life that was offered to him.

  “Lloth,” he chuckled. “She is a vicious queen, that one. I would sacrifice everything for a chance at her ugly face!”

  “I almost believe you would,” Drizzt whispered, finding his smile.

  Zak jumped back from him. “I would indeed,” he laughed heartily. “So would you!”

  Drizzt flipped his lone scimitar up into the air, letting it spin over twice before catching it again by the hilt. “True enough!” he cried. “But no longer would I be alone!”

  Chapter 26

  Angler Of The Underdark

  Drizzt wandered alone through the maze of Menzoberranzan, drifting past the stalagmite mounds, under the leering points of the great stone spears that hung from the cavern’s high ceiling. Matron Malice had specifically ordered all of the family to remain within the house, fearing an assassination attempt by House H un’ett.

  Too much had happened to Drizzt this day for him to obey. He had to think, and contemplating such blasphemous thoughts, even silently, in a house full of nervous clerics might get him into serious trouble.

  This was the quiet time of the city; the heat-light of Narbondel was only a sliver at the stone’s base, and most of the drow comfortably slept within their stone houses. Soon after he slipped through the adamantite gate of the House Do’Urden compound, Drizzt began to understand the wisdom of Matron Malice’s command. The city’s quiet now’ seemed to him like the crouched hush of a predator. It was poised to drop upon him from behind everyone of the: many blind corners he faced on this trek..”

  He would find no solace here in which he might truly contemplate the day’s events, the revelations of Zaknafein, kindred in more than blood. Drizzt decided to break all the rules-that was the way of the drow, after all- and head out of the city, down the tunnels he knew so well from his weeks of patrol.

  An hour later, he was still walking, lost in thought and feeling safe enough, for he was well within the boundaries of the patrol region. ‘

  He entered a high corridor, ten paces wide and with broken walls lined in loose rubble and crossed by many ledges. It seemed as though the passage once had been much wider.

  The ceiling was far beyond sight, but Drizzt had been through here a dozen times, up on the many ledges, and he gave the place no thought.

  He envisioned the future, the times that he and Zaknafein, his father, would share now that no secrets separated them.

  Together they would
be unbeatable, a team of weapon masters, bonded by steel and emotions. Did House Hun’ett truly understand what it would be facing? The smile on Drizzt’s face disappeared as soon as he considered the implications: he and Zak, together, cutting through House Hun’ett’s ranks with deadly ease, through the ranks of drow elves-killing their own people.

  Drizzt leaned against the wall for support, understanding firsthand the frustration that h ad racked his father for many centuries. Drizzt did not want to be like Zaknafein, living only to kill, existing in a protective sphere of violence, but what choices lay before him? Leave the city?

  Zak had balked when Drizzt asked him why he had not left.

  “Where would I go?” Drizzt whispered now, echoing Zak’s words. His father had proclaimed them trapped, and so it seemed to Drizzt.

  “Where would I go?” he asked again. “Travel the Underdark, where our people are so despised and a single drow would become target for everything he passed? Or to the surface, perhaps, and let that ball of fire in the sky burn out my eyes so that I may not witness my own death when the elven folk descend upon me?”

  The logic of the reasoning trapped Drizzt as it had trapped Zak. Where could a drow elf go? Nowhere in all the Realms would an elf of dark skin be accepted.

  Was the choice then to kill? To kill drow? Drizzt rolled over against the wall, his physical movement an unconscious act, for his mind whirled down the maze of h is future. It took him a moment to realize that his back was against something other than stone.

  He tried to leap away, alert again now that his surroundings were not as they should be. When he pushed out, his feet came up from the ground and he landed back in his original position. Frantically, before he took the time to consider his predicament, Drizzt reached behind his neck with both hands.

  They, too, stuck fast to the translucent cord that held him. Drizzt knew his folly then, and all the tugging in the world would not free his hands from the line of the tangler of the Underdark, a cave fisher.

  “Fool!” he scolded himself as he felt himself lifted from the ground. He should have suspected this, should have been more careful alone in the caverns. But to reach out barehanded! He looked down at the hilts of his scimitars, useless in their sheaths.

  The cave fisher reeled him in, pulled him up the long wall toward its waiting maw.

  Masoj Hun’ett smiled smugly to himself as he watched Drizzt depart the city. Time was running short for him, and Matron SiNafay would not be pleased if he failed again in his mission to destroy the secondboy of House Do’Urden. Now; Masoj’s patience had apparently paid off, for Drizzt had come out alone, had left the city! There were no witnesses. It was too easy.

  Eagerly the wizard pulled the onyx figurine from his pouch and dropped it to the ground. “Guenhwyvar!” he called as loudly as he dared, glancing around at the nearest Istalagmite house for signs of activity.

  The dark s moke appeared and transformed a moment later into Masoj’s magical panther. Masoj rubbed his hands together, thinking himself marvelous for having concocted such a devious and ironic end to the heroics of Drizzt Do’Urden

  “I have a job for you,” he told the cat, “one that you’ll not enjoy!”

  Guenhwyvar slumped casually and yawned as though the wizard’s words were hardly a revelation.

  “Your point companion has gone out on patrol,” Masoj explained as he pointed down the tunnel, “by himself. It’s too dangerous.”

  Guenhwyvar stood back up, suddenly very interested. “Drizzt should not be out there alone,” Masoj continued. “He could get killed.” The evil inflections of his voice told the panther his intent before he ever spoke the words.

  “Go to him, my pet,” Masoj purred. “Find him out there in the gloom and kill him!” He studied Guenhwyvar’s reaction, measured the horror he had laid on the cat. Guenhwyvar stood rigid, as unmoving as the statue used to summon it.

  “Go!” Masoj ordered. “You cannot resist your master’s commands! I am your master, unthinking beast! You seem to forget that fact too often!”

  Guenhwyvar resisted for a long moment, a heroic act in itself, but the magic’s urges, the incessant pull of the master’s command, outweighed any instinctive feelings the great panther might have had. Reluctantly at first, but then pulled by the primordial desires of the hunt, Guenhwyvar sped off between the enchanted statues guarding the tunnel and easily found Drizzt’s scent.

  Alton DeVir slumped back behind the largest of the stalagmite mounds, disappointed at Masoj’s tactics. Masoj would let the cat do his work for him; Alton would not even witness Drizzt Do’Urden’s death!

  Alton fingered the powerful wand that Matron SiNafay had given to him when he set out after Masoj that night. It seemed that the item would play no role in Drizzt’s demise.

  Alton took comfort in the item, knowing that he would have ample opportunity to put it to proper use against the remainder of House Do’Urden.

  Drizzt fought for the first half of his ascent, kicking and spinning, ducking his shoulders under any outcrop he passed in a futile effort to hold back the pull of the cave fisher. He knew from the outset, though, against those warrior instincts that refused to surrender, that he had no chance to halt the incessant pull.

  Halfway up, one shoulder bloodied, the other bruised, and with the floor nearly thirty feet below him, Drizzt resigned himself to his fate. If he would find a chance against the crablike monster that waited at the top of the line, it would be in the last instant of the ascent. For now, he could only watch and wait.

  Perhaps death was not so bad an alternative to the life he would find among the drow, trapped within the evil framework of their dark society. Even Zaknafein, so strong and powerful and wise with age, had never been able to come to terms with his existence in Menzoberranzan; what chance did Drizzt have?

  When Drizzt had passed through his small bout with self-pity, when the angle of his ascent changed, showing him the lip f the final ledge, the fighting spirit within him took over once again. The cave fisher might have him, he decided then, but he’d put a boot or two into the thing’s eyes before it got its meal!

  He could hear the clacking of the anxious monster’s eight crablike legs. Drizzt had seen a cave fisher before, though it had scrambled away before he and his patrol could catch up to it. He had imagined it then, and could imagine it now, in battle. Thro of its legs ended in wicked claws, pincers that snipped up prey to fit into the maw.

  Drizzt turned himself face-in to the cliff, wanting to view the thing as soon as his head crested the ledge. The anxious clacking grew louder, resounding alongside the thumping of Drizzt’s heart. He reached the ledge.

  Drizzt peeked over, only a foot or two from the monster’s long proboscis, with the maw just inches behind. Pincers reached out to grab him before he could get his footing; he would get no chance to kick out at the thing.

  He closed his eyes, hoping again that death would be preferable to his life in Menzoberranzan. A familiar growl then brought him from his thoughts.

  Slipping through the maze of ledges, Guenhwyvar came in sight of the cave fisher and Drizzt just before Drizzt had reached the final ledge. This was a moment o f salvation or death for the cat as surely as for Drizzt. Guenhwyvar had traveled here under Masoj’s direct command, giving no consideration to its duty and acting only on its own instincts in accord with the compelling magic. Guenhwyvar could not go against that edict, that premise for the cat’s very existence ... until now.

  The scene before the panther, with Drizzt only seconds from death, brought to Guenhwyvar a strength unknown to the cat, and unforeseen to the creator of the magical figurine. That instant of terror gave a life to Guenhwyvar beyond the scope of the magic.

  By the time Drizzt had opened his eyes, the battle was in full fury. Guenhwyvar leaped atop the cave fisher but nearly went right over, for the monster’s six remaining legs were rooted to the stone by the same goo that held Drizzt fast to the long filament. Undaunted, the cat raked and bit, a ball of frenzy
trying to find a break in the fisher’s armored shell.

  The monster retaliated with its pincers, flipping them over its back with surprising agility and finding one of Guenhwyvar’s forelegs.

  Drizzt was no longer being pulled in; the monster had other business to attend to.

  Pincers cut through Guenhwyvar’s soft flesh, but the cat’s blood was not the only dark fluid staining the cave fisher’s back. Powerful feline claws tore up a section of the shell armor, and great teeth plunged beneath it. As the cave fisher’s blood splattered to the stone, its legs began to slip.

  Watching the goo under the crablike legs dissolve as the blood of the monster struck it, Drizzt understood what would happen as a line of that same blood made its way down the filament, toward him. He would have to strike fast if the opportunity came; he would have to be ready to help Guenhwyvar.

  The fisher stumbled to the side, rolling Guenhwyvar away and spinning Drizzt over in a complete bumping circuit.

  Still the blood oozed down the line, and Drizzt felt the filament’s hold loosen from his top hand as the liquid came in contact.

  Guenhwyvar was up again, facing the fisher, looking for an attack route through the waiting pincers.

  Drizzt’s hand was free. He snapped up a scimitar and dove straight ahead, sinking the tip into the fisher’s side. The monster reeled about, the jolt and the continuing blood flow shaking Drizzt from the filament altogether. The drow was agile enough to find a handhold before he had fallen far, though his drawn scimitar tumbled down to the floor. Drizzt’s diversion opened the fisher’s defenses for just a moment, and Guenhwyvar did not hesitate. The cat barreled into its foe, teeth finding the same fleshy hold they had already ripped. They went deeper, under the skin, crushing organs as Guenhwyvar’s raking claws kept the pincers at bay.

  By the time Drizzt climbed back to the level of the battle, the cave fisher shuddered in the throes of death. Drizzt pulled himself up and rushed to his friend’s side. Guenhwyvar retreated step for step, its ears flattened and teeth bared.