“You have seen battle?” Malice asked.
“You know of the Faceless One?” Drizzt asked.
“Master of the Academy,” Dinin answered, “of Sorcere. I have dealt with him often.”
“He has been of use to us in the past,” said Malice, “but no more, I believe. He is a Hun’ett, Gelroos Hun’ett.”
“No,” Drizzt replied. “Once he may have been, but Alton DeVir is his name... was his name.”
“The link!” Dinin growled, suddenly comprehending. “Gelroos was to kill Alton on the night of House DeVir’s fall!”
“It would seem that Alton DeVir proved the stronger,” mused Malice, and all became clear to her. “Matron SiNafay Hun’ett accepted him, used him to her gain,” she explained to her family. She looked back to Drizzt. “You battled with him?”
“He is dead,” Drizzt answered. Matron Malice cackled with delight.
“One less wizard to deal with,” Briza remarked, replacing the whip on her belt.
“Two,” Drizzt corrected, but there was no boasting in his voice. He was not proud of his actions. “Masoj Hun’ett is no more.”
“My son!” Matron Malice cried. “You have brought us a great edge in this war!” She glanced all about her family, infecting them, except Drizzt, with her elation. “House Hun’ett may not even choose to strike us now, knowing its disadvantage. We will not let them get away! We will destroy them this day and become the Eighth House of Menzoberranzan! Woe to the enemies of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon!
“We must move at once, my family,” Malice reasoned, her hands rubbing over each other in excitement. “We cannot wait for an attack. We must take the offensive! Alton DeVir is gone now; the link that justifies this war is no more. Surely the ruling council knew of Hun’ett’s intentions, and with both her wizards dead and the element of surprise lost, Matron SiNafay will move quickly to stop the battle.”
Drizzt’s hand unconsciously slipped into Zak’s pouch as the others joined Malice in her plotting.
“Where is Zak?” Drizzt demanded again, above the chorus. Silence dropped as quickly as the tumult had begun.
“He is of no concern to you, my son,” Malice said to him, still keeping to her tact despite Drizzt’s impudence. “You are the weapon master of House Do’Urden now. Lloth has forgiven your insolence; you have no crimes weighing against you. Your career may begin anew, to glorious heights!”
Her words cut through Drizzt as surely as his own scimitar might. “You killed him,” he whispered aloud, the truth too awful to be contained in silent thought.
The matron’s face suddenly gleamed, hot with rage. “You killed him!” she shot back at Drizzt. “Your insolence demanded repayment to the Spider Queen!”
Drizzt’s tongue got all tangled up behind his teeth.
“But you live,” Malice went on, relaxing again in her chair, “as the elven child lives!’
Dinin was not the only one in the room to gasp audibly. “Yes, we know of your deception,” Malice sneered. “The Spider Queen always knew. She demanded restitution!’
“You sacrificed Zaknafein?” Drizzt breathed, hardly able to get the words out of his mouth. “You gave him to that damned Spider Queen?”
“I would watch how I spoke of Queen Lloth,” Malice warned. “Forget Zaknafein. He is not your concern. Look to your own life, my warrior son. All glories are offered to you, a station of honor!’
Drizzt was indeed looking to his own life at that moment; at the proposed path that offered him a life of battle, a life of killing drow.
“You have no options,” Malice said to him, seeing his inward struggle. “I offer to you now your life. In exchange, you must do as 1 bid, as Zaknafein once did!’
“You kept your bargain with him,” Drizzt spat sarcastically.
“I did!” Matron Malice protested. “Zaknafein went willingly to the altar, for your sake!”
Her words stung Drizzt for only a moment. He would not accept the guilt for Zaknafein’s death! He had followed the only course he could, on the surface against the elves and here in the evil city.
“My offer is a good one,” Malice said. “I give it here, before all the family. Both of us will benefit from the agreement... Weapon Master?”
A smile spread across Drizzt’s face when he looked into Matron Malice’s cold eyes, a grin that Malice took as acceptance.
“Weapon master?” Drizzt echoed. “Not likely.”
Again Malice misunderstood. “I have seen you in battle,” she argued. “Two wizards! You underestimate yourself.”
Drizzt nearly laughed aloud at the irony of her words. She thought he would fail where Zaknafein had failed, would fall into her trap as the former weapon master had fallen, never to climb back out. “It is you who underestimate me, Malice,” Drizzt said with threatening calm.
“Matron!” Briza demanded, but she held back, seeing that Drizzt and everyone else was ignoring her as the drama played out.
“You ask me to serve your evil designs,” Drizzt continued. He knew but didn’t care that all of them were nervously fingering weapons or preparing spells, were waiting for the proper moment to strike the blasphemous fool dead. Those childhood memories of the agony of snake whips reminded him of the punishment for his actions. Drizzt’s fingers closed around a circular object, adding to his courage, though he would have continued in any case.
“They are a lie, as our-no, your-people are a lie!”
“Your skin is as dark as mine,” Malice reminded him. “You are a drow, though you have never learned what that means!”
“Oh, I do know what it means.”
“Then act by the rules!” Matron Malice demanded.
“Your rules?” Drizzt growled back. “But your rules are a damned lie as well, as great a lie as that filthy spider you claim as a deity!”
“Insolent slug!” Briza cried, raising her snake whip. Drizzt struck first. He pulled the object, the tiny ceramic globe, from Zaknafein’s pouch.
“A true god damn you all!” he cried as he slammed the ball to the stone floor. He snapped his eyes shut as the pebble within the ball, enchanted by a powerful light-emanating dweomer, exploded into the room and erupted into his kin’s sensitive eyes. “And damn that Spider Queen as well!”
Malice reeled backward, taking her great throne right over in a heavy crash to the hard stone. Cries of agony and rage came from every corner of the room as the sudden light bored into the stunned drow. Finally Vierna managed to launch a countering spell and returned the room to its customary gloom.
“Get him!” Malice growled, still trying to shake off the heavy fall. “I want him dead!”
The others had hardly recovered enough to heed to her commands, and Drizzt was already out of the house.
Carried on the silent winds of the Astral Plane, the call came. The entity of the panther stood up, ignoring its pains, and took note of the voice, a familiar, comforting voice.
The cat was off, then, running with all its heart and strength to answer the summons of its new master.
A short while later, Drizzt crept out of a little tunnel, Guenhwyvar at his side, and moved through the courtyard of the Academy to look down upon Menzoberranzan for the last time.
“What place is this,” Drizzt asked the cat quietly, “that I call home? These are my people, by skin and by heritage, but I am no kin to them. They are lost and ever will be.
“How many others are like me, I wonder?” Drizzt whispered, taking one final look. “Doomed souls, as was Zaknafein, poor Zak. I do this for him, Guenhwyvar; I leave as he could not. His life has been my lesson, a dark scroll etched by the heavy price exacted by Matron Malice’s evil promises.
“Good-bye, Zak!” he cried, his voice rising in final defiance. “My father. Take heart, as do I, that when we meet again, in a life after this, it will surely not be in the hellfire our kin are doomed to endure!”
Drizzt motioned the cat back into the tunnel, the entrance to the untamed Underdark. Watching the cat’s ea
sy movements, Drizzt realized again how fortunate he was to have found a companion of like spirit, a true friend. The way would not be easy for him and Guenhwyvar beyond the guarded borders of Menzoberranzan. They would be unprotected and alone-though better off, by Drizzt’s estimation more than they ever could be amid the evilness of the drow. Drizzt stepped into the tunnel behind Guenhwyvar and left Menzoberranzan behind.
About the Author
Bob Salvatore was born in Massachusetts in 1959. His love affair with fantasy, and with literature in general, began during his sophomore year of college when he was given a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as a Christmas gift. He promptly changed his major from computer-science to journalism. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Communications from Fitchburg State College in 1981, then returned for the degree he always cherished, the Bachelor of Arts in English. He began writing seriously in 1982, penning the manuscript that would become Echoes of the Fourth Magic.
His first published novel was The Crystal Shard from TSR in 1988. Since that time, Bob has published numerous novels, including the New York Times Bestselling The Halfling’s Gem, Sojourn, and The Legacy, thefirst hardcover for Bob and for TSR. Bob held many jobs during those first years as a writer, finally settling in (much to our delight) to write full time in 1990. R.A. Salvatore is best known as the creator of the dark elf Drizzt, one of the fantasy genre’s most beloved characters. Over three million R.A. Salvatore novels have been sold with many translated into different languages and audio versions.
His previously published TSR novels include The Icewind Dale Trilogy, The Dark Elf Trilogy, and The Cleric Quintet, as well as The Legacy, Starless Night, Siege of Darkness and Passage to Dawn. The Dark Elf Trilogy is now available in a hardcover collector’s edition. The Silent Blade is his sixteenth original novel for TSR. In the fall of 1997, Bob’s letters,manuscripts, and other professional papers were donated to the R.A. Salvatore Library at his alma mater, Fitchburg State College in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. When he isn’t writing, Bob attends his three children’s hockey games, horse shows, and fencing events. His gaming group of 18 years still meets on Sundays to play everything from Nintendo 64 Goldeneye to the AD&D game. Together they recently wrote The Accursed Tower, a Forgotten Realms game module set in Icewind Dale, due out from TSR in 1999. His hobbies include softball, hockey, and music, particularly a good blast of Mozart while tooling down the highway. He makes his home in Massachusetts, with his wife Diane, and their three children, Bryan, Geno, and Caitlin, their dog, Puddles, and a calico cat named Guenhwyvar.
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