Homeland

by R. A. Salvatore

  Zaknafein left the audience hall with his eyes down and one hand nervously rubbing his sword’s hilt. Zak remembered the time he had deceived Drizzt with the light bomb, when he had Drizzt defenseless and beaten. He could have spared the young innocent from his horrid fate. He could have killed Drizzt then and there, mercifully, and released him from the inevitable circumstances of life in Menzoberranzan.

  Zak paused in the long corridor and turned back to watch the chamber. Drizzt and Dinin came out then, Drizzt casting Zak a single, accusatory look and pointedly turning away down a side passage.

  The gaze cut through the weapon master. “So it has come to this,” Zak murmured to himself. “The youngest warrior of House Do’Urden, so full of the hate that embodies our race, has learned to despise me for what I am.”

  Zak thought again of that moment in the training gym, that fateful second when Drizzt’s life teetered on the edge of a poised sword. It indeed would have been a merciful act to kill Drizzt at that time.

  With the sting of the young drow warrior’s gaze still cutting so keenly into his heart, Zak couldn’t decide whether the deed would have been more merciful to Drizzt or to himself.

  “Leave us,” Matron SiNafay commanded as she swept into the small room lighted by a candle’s glow. Alton gawked a t the request; it was, after all, his personal room! Alton prudently reminded himself that SiNafay was the matron mother of the family, the absolute ruler of House Hun’ett. With a few awkward bows and apologies for his hesitation, he backed out of the room.

  Masoj watched his mother cautiously as she waited for Alton to move away. From SiNafay’s agitated tone, Masoj understood the significance of her visit. Had he done something to anger his mother? Or, more likely, had Alton? When SiNafay spun back on him, her face twisted in evil glee, Masoj realized that her agitation was really excitement.

  “House Do’Urden has erred!” she snarled. “It has lost the Spider Queen’s favor!”

  “How?” Masoj replied. He knew that Dinin and Drizzt had returned from a successful raid, an assault that all of the city was talking about in tones of high praise.

  “I do not know the details,” Matron SiNafay replied, finding a measure of calmness in her voice. “One of them, perhaps one of the sons, did something to displease Lloth. This was told to me by a handmaiden of the Spider Queen. It must be true!”

  “Matron Malice will work quickly to correct the situation,” Masoj reasoned. “How long do we have?”

  “Lloth’s displeasure will not be revealed to Matron Malice,” SiNafay replied. “Not soon. The Spider Queen knows all. She knows that we plan to attack House Do’Urden, and only an unfortunate accident will inform Matron Malice of her desperate situation before her house is crushed!

  “We must move quickly,” Matron SiNafay went on. “Within ten cycles of Narbondel, the first strike must fall! The full battle will begin soon after, before House Do’Urden can link its loss to our wrongdoing.”

  “What is to be their sudden loss?” Masoj prompted, thinking, hoping, he had already guessed the answer. His mother’s words were like sweet music to his ears.

  “Drizzt Do’Urden,” she purred, “the favored son. Kill him Masoj rested back and clasped his slender fingers behind his head, considering the command.

  “You will not fail me,” SiNafay warned. “I will not,” Masoj assured her. “Drizzt, though young, is already a powerful foe. His brother, a former master of Melee-Magthere, is never far from his side,” He looked up at his matron mother, his eyes gleaming. “May I kill the brother, too?”

  “Be cautious, my son,” SiNafay replied. “Drizzt Do’Urden is your target. Concentrate your efforts toward his death.”

  “As you command,” Masoj replied, bowing low. SiNafay liked the way her young son heeded to her desires without question. She started out of the room, confident in Masoj’s ability to perform the task.

  “If Dinin Do’Urden somehow gets in the way,” she said, turning back to throw Masoj a gift for his obedience, “you may kill him, too.”

  Masoj’s expression revealed too much eagerness for the second task.

  “You will not fail me!” SiNafay said again, this time in an open threat that stole some of the wind out of Masoj’s filling sails. “Drizzt Do’Urden must die within ten days!”

  Masoj forced any distracting thoughts of Dinin out of his mind. “Drizzt must die,” he whispered over and over, long after his mother had gone. He already knew how he wanted to do it. He only had to hope that the opportunity would come soon.

  The awful memory of the surface raid followed Drizzt, haunted him, as he wandered the halls of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon. He had rushedrom the audience chamber as soon as Matron Malice had dismissed him, and had slipped away from his brother at the first opportunity, wanting only to be alone.

  The images remained: the broken sparkle in the young elven girl’s eyes as she knelt over her murdered mother’s corpse; the elven woman’s horrified expression, twisting in agony as ghar Nadal ripped the life from her body. The surface elves were there in Drizzt’s thoughts; he could not dis. miss them. They walked beside Drizzt as he wandered, as real s they had been when Drizzt’s raiding group had descended upon their joyful song.

  Drizzt wondered if he would ever be alone again. Eyes down, consumed by his empty sense of loss, Drizzt c did not mark the path before him. He jumped back, startled, when he turned a corner and bumped into somebody. He stood facing Zaknafein.

  “You are home,” the weapon master said absently, his blank face revealing none of the tumultuous emotions swirling through his mind.

  Drizzt wondered if he could properly hide his own grimace. “For a day,” he replied, equally nonchalant, though his rage with Zaknafein was no less intense. Now that Drizzt had witnessed the wrath of drow elves firsthand, Zak’s reputed deeds rang out to Drizzt as even more evil. “My patrol group goes back out at Narbondel’s first light.

  “So soon?” asked Zak, genuinely surprised.

  “We are summoned.” Drizzt replied, starting past. Zak caught him by the arm.

  “General patrol?” he asked.

  “Focused,” Drizzt replied. “Activity in the eastern tunnels.”

  “So the heroes are summoned,” chuckled Zak.

  Drizzt did not immediately respond. Was there sarcasm in Zak’s voice? Jealousy, perhaps, that Drizzt and Dinin were allowed to go out to fight, while Zak had to remain within the House Do’Urden’s confines to fulfill his role as the family’s fighting instructor? Was Zak’s hunger for blood so great that he could not accept the duties thrust upon them all?

  Zak had trained Drizzt and Dinin, had he not? And hundreds of others; he’d transformed them into living weapons, into murderers.

  “How long will you be out?” Zak pressed, more interested in Drizzt’s whereabouts.

  Drizzt shrugged. “A week at the longest.”

  “And then?”

  “Home.”

  “That is good,” said Zak. “I will be pleased to see you back within the walls of House Do’Urden.”

  Drizzt didn’t believe a word of it.

  Zak then slapped him on the shoulder in a sudden, unexpected movement designed to test Drizzt’s reflexes.

  More surprised than threatened, Drizzt accepted the pat without response, not sure of his uncle’s intent.

  “The gym, perhaps?” asked Zak. “You and I, as it once was.”

  Impossible! Drizzt wanted to shout. Never again would it be as it once was. Drizzt held those thoughts to himself and nodded his assent. “I would enjoy that,” he replied, secretly wondering how much satisfaction he would gain by cutting Zaknafein down. Drizzt knew the truth of his people now, and knew that he was powerless to change anything. Maybe he could make a change in his private life, though. Maybe by destroying Zaknafein, his greatest disappointment, Drizzt could remove himself from the wrongness around him.

  “As would I,” Zak said, the friendliness of his tone hiding his private thoughts-thoughts identical to
Drizzt’s.

  “In a week, then,” Drizzt said, and he pulled away, unable to continue the encounter with the drow who once had been his dearest friend, and who, Drizzt had come to learn, was truly as devious and evil as the rest of his kin.

  “Please, my matron,” Alton whimpered, “it is my right. I beg of you!”

  “Rest easy, foolish DeVir,” SiNafay replied, and there was pity in her voice, an emotion seldom felt and almost never revealed.

  “I have waited-.”

  “The time is almost upon you,” SiNafay countered, her tone growing more threatening. “You have tried for this one before?’

  Alton’s grotesque gawk brought a smile to SiNafay’sface. “Yes,” she said, “I know of your bungled attempt on Drizzt Do’Urden’s life. If Masoj had not arrived, the young warrior would probably have slain you?”

  “I would have destroyed him!” Alton growled.

  SiNafay did not argue the point. “Perhaps you would have won,” she said, “only to be exposed as a murderous imposter, with the wrath of all of Menzoberranzan hanging over your head!”

  “I did not care!”

  “You would have cared, I promise you!” Matron SiNafay sneered. “You would have forfeited your chance to claim a greater revenge. Trust in me, Alton DeVir. Your -our- victory is at hand!”

  “Masoj will kill Drizzt, and maybe Dinin,” Alton grumbled.

  “There are other Do’Urdens awaiting the fell hand of Alton DeVir,” Matron SiNafay promised.

  “High priestesses.” Alton could not dismiss the disappointment he felt at not being allowed to go after Drizzt. He badly wanted to kill that one. Drizzt had brought him embarrassment that day in his chambers at Sorcere; the young draw should have died quickly and quietly. Alton wanted to make up for that mistake.

  Alton also could not ignore the promise that Matron SiNafay had just made to him. The thought of killing one or more of the high priestesses of House Do’Urden did not displease him at all.

  The pillowy softness of the plush bed, so different from the rest of the hard stone world of Menzoberranzan, offered Drizzt no relief from the pain. Another ghost had reared up to overwhelm even the images of carnage on the surface: the specter of Zaknafein.

  Dinin and Vierna had told Drizzt the truth of the weapon master, of Zak’s role in the fall of House DeVir, and of how Zak so enjoyed slaughtering other drow-other drow who had done nothing to wrong him or deserve his wrath.

  So Zaknafein, too, took part in this evil game of drow life, the endless quest to please the Spider Queer.

  “As I so pleased her on the surface?” Drizzt couldn’t help but mumble, the sarcasm of the spoken words bringing him some small measure of comfort.

  The comfort Drizzt felt in saving the life of the elven child seemed such a minor act against the overwhelming wrongs his raiding group had exacted on her people. Matron Mal. ice, his mother, had so enjoyed hearing the bloody recounting. Drizzt remembered the elven child’s horror at the sight of her dead mother. Would he, or any dark elf, be so devastated if they looked upon such a sight. Unlikely, he thought.

  Drizzt hardly shared a loving bond with Malice, and most draw would be too engaged in measuring the consequences of their mother’s death to their own station to feel any sense of loss.

  Would Malice have cared if either Drizzt or Dinin had fallen in the raid? Again Drizzt knew the answer. All that Malice cared about was how the raid affected her own base of power. She had reveled in the notion that her children had pleased her evil goddess.

  What favor would Lloth show to House Do’Urden if she knew the truth of Drizzt’s actions? Drizzt had no way to measure how much, if any, interest the Spider Queen had taken in the raid. Lloth remained a mystery to him, one he had no desire to explore. Would she be enraged if she knew the truth of the raid? Or if she knew the truth of Drizzt’s thoughts at this moment?

  Drizzt shuddered to think of the punishments he might be bringing upon himself, but he had already firmly decided upon his course of action, whatever the consequences. He would return to House Do’Urden in a week.

  He would go then to the practice gym for a reunion with his old teacher.

  He would kill Zaknafein in a week. Caught up in the emotions of a dangerous and heartfelt decision, Zaknafein hardly heard the biting scrape as he ran the whetstone along his sword’s gleaming edge.

  The weapon had to be perfect, with no jags or burrs. This deed had to be executed without malice or anger.

  A clean blow, and Zak would rid himself of the demons of his own failures, hide himself once again within the sanctuary of his private chambers, his secret world. A clean blow, and he would do what he should have done a decade before.

  “If only I had found the strength then,” he lamented. “How much grief might I have spared Drizzt? How much pain did his days at the Academy bring to him, that he is so very changed?” The words rang hollow in the empty room. They were just words, useless now, for Zak had already decided that Drizzt was out of reason’s reach. Drizzt was a drow warrior, with all of the wicked connotations carried in such a title.

  The choice was gone to Zaknafein if he wished to hold any pretense of value to his wretched existence. This time, he could not stay his sword. He had to kill Drizzt.

  Chapter 22

  Gnomes, Wicked Gnomes

  Among the twists and turns of the tunnel mazes of the Underdark, slipping about their silent way, went the svirfnebli, the deep gnomes. Neither kind nor evil, and so out of place in this world of pervading wickedness, the deep gnomes survived and thrived. Haughty fighters, skilled in crafting weapons and armor, and more in tune to the songs of the stone than even the evil gray dwarves, the svirfnebli continued their business of plucking gems and precious metals in spite of the perils awaiting them at every turn.

  When the news came back to Blingdenstone, the cluster of tunnels and caverns that composed the deep gnomes’ city, that a rich vein of gemstones had been discovered twenty miles to the east-as the rockworm, the thoqqua, burrowed-Burrow-warden Belwar Dissengulp had to climb over a dozen others of his rank to be awarded the privilege of leading the mining expedition. Belwar and all of the others knew well that forty miles east-as the rockworm burrowed-would put the expedition dangerously close to Menzoberranzan, and that even getting there would mean a week of hiking, probably through the territories of a hundred other enemies. Fear was no measure against the love svirfnebli had for gems, though, and every day in the Underdark was a risk.

  When Belwar and his forty miners arrived in the small cavern described by the advance scouts and inscribed with the gnomes’ mark of treasure, they found that the claims had not been exaggerated. The burrow-warden took care not to get overly excited, though. He knew that twenty thousand drow elves, the svirfnebli’s most hated and feared enemy, lived fewer than five miles away.

  Escape tunnels became the first order of business, winding constructions high enough for a three-foot gnome b ut not for a taller pursuer. All along the course of these the gnomes placed breaker walls, designed to deflect a lightning bolt or offer some protection from the expanding flames of a fireball.

  Then, when the true mining at last began, Belwar kept fully a third of his crew on guard at all times and walked the area of the work with one hand always clutching the magical emerald, the summoning stone, he kept on a chain around his neck.

  “Three full patrol groups,” Drizzt remarked to Dinin when they arrived at the open “field,” on the eastern side of Menzoberranzan. Few stalagmites lined this region of the city, but it did not seem so open now, with dozens of anxious drow milling about.

  “Gnomes are not to be taken lightly,” Dinin replied. “They are wicked and powerful-.”

  “As wicked as surface elves?” Drizzt had to interrupt, covering his sarcasm with false exuberance.

  “Almost,” his brother warned grimly, missing the connotations of Drizzt’s question. Dinin pointed off to the side, where a contingent of female drow was coming in to join the group. “
Clerics,” he said, “and one of them a high priestess. The rumors of activity must have been confirmed.”

  A shudder coursed through Drizzt, a tingle of pre-battle excitement. That excitement was altered and lessened, though, by fear, not of physical harm, or even of the gnomes. Drizzt feared that this encounter might be a repeat of the surface tragedy.

  He shook the black thoughts away and reminded himself that this time, unlike the surface expedition, his home was being invaded. The gnomes had crossed the boundaries of the draw realm. If they were as evil as Dinin and all the others claimed, Menzoberranzan had no choice but to respond with force. If.

  Drizzt’s patrol, the most celebrated group among the males, was selected to lead, and Drizzt, as always, took the point position. Still unsure, he wasn’t thrilled with the assignment, and as they started out, Drizzt even contemplated leading the group astray. Or perhaps, Drizzt thought, he could contact the gnomes privately before the others arrived and warn them to flee.

  Drizzt realized the absurdity of the notion. He couldn’t stop the wheels of Menzoberranzan from turning along their designated course, and he couldn’t do anything to hinder the two score drow warriors, excited and impatient, at his back. Again he was trapped and on the edge of despair. Masoj Hun’ett appeared then and made everything better.

  “Guenhwyvar!” the young wizard called, and the great panther came bounding. Masoj left the cat beside Drizzt and headed back toward his place in the line.

  Guenhwyvar could no more hide its elation at seeing Drizzt than Drizzt could contain his own smile. With the interruption of the surface raid, and then his time back home, he hadn’t seen Guenhwyvar in mere than a month.

  Guenhwyvar thumped against Drizzt’s side as it passed, nearly knocking the slender drow from his feet. Drizzt responded with a heavy pat, vigorously rubbing a hand over the cat’s ear.

  They both turned back together, suddenly conscious of the unhappy glare boring into them. There stood Masoj, arms crossed over his chest and a visible scowl heating up his face.