Homeland de-1

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  Drizzt leaned against the wall for support, understanding firsthand the frustration that had 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 a 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 his 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 angler 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 bare-handed! 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 stalagmite house for signs of activity.

  The dark smoke 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 of 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. Two 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 of 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.

  At first, Drizzt thought that the pain of a wound blinded the cat, but a quick survey dispelled that theory. Guenhwyvar had only one injury, and that was not serious. Drizzt had seen the cat with worse.

  Guenhwyvar continued to retreat, continued to growl, as the incesant pounding of Masoj’s command, back again after the instant of terror, hammered at its heart. The cat fought the urges, tried to see Drizzt as an ally, not as prey, but the urges.

  "What is wrong, my friend?" Drizzt asked softly, resisting the urge to draw his remaining blade in defense. He dropped to one knee. "Do you not recognize me? How often we have fought together!"

  Guenhwyvar crouched low and tamped down its hind legs, preparing, Drizzt knew, to spring. Still Drizzt did not draw his weapon, did nothing to threaten the cat. He had to trust that Guenhwyvar was true to his perceptions, that the panther was everything he believed it to be. What now could be guiding these unfamiliar reactions? What had brought Guenhwyvar out here at this late hour?

  Drizzt found his answers when he remembered Matron Malice’s warnings about leaving House Do’Urden.

  "Masoj sent you to kill me!" he said bluntly. His tone confused the cat, and it relaxed a bit, not yet ready to spring.

  "You saved me, Guenhwyvar. You resisted the command."

  Guenhwyvar’s growl sounded in protest.

  "You could have let the cave fisher do the deed for you." Drizzt retorted, "but you did not! You charged in and saved my life! Fight the urges, Guenhwyvar! Remember me as your friend, a better companion than Masoj Hun’ett could ever be!"

  Guenhwyvar backed away another step, caught in a pull that it could not yet resolve. Drizzt watched the cat’s ears come up from its head and knew that he was winning the contest.

  "Masoj claims ownership." he went on, confident that the cat, through some intelligence Drizzt could not know, understood the meaning of his words. "I claim friendship. I am your friend, Guenhwyvar, and I’ll not fight against you." He leaped forward, arms unthreateningly wide, face and chestfully exposed. "Even at the cost of my own life!"

  Guenhwyvar did not strike. Emotions pulled at the cat stronger than any magical spell, those same emotions that had put Guenhwyvar into action when it first saw Drizzt in the cave fisher’s clutches.

  Guenhwyvar reared up and leaped out, crashing into Drizzt and knocking him to his back, then burying him in a rush of playful slaps and mock bites.

  The two friends had won again, they had defeated two foes this day.

  When Drizzt paused from the greeting to consider all that had transpired, though, he realized that one of the victories was not yet complete. Guenhwyvar was his in spirit now but still held by another, one who did not deserve the cat, who enslaved the cat in a life that Drizzt could no longer witness.

  None of the confusion that had followed Drizzt Do’Urden out of Menzoberranzan that night remained. For the first time in his life, he saw the road he must follow, the path to his own freedom.

  He remembered Zaknafein’s warnings, and the same impossible alternatives that he had contemplated, to no resolution.Where, indeed, could a drow elf go?

  "Worse to be trapped within a lie," he whispered absently.

  The panther cocked its head to the side, sensing again that Drizzt’s words carried great importance. Drizzt returned the curious stare with one that came suddenly grim. "Take me to your master." he demanded, "your false master."

  Chapter 27

  Untroubled Dreams

  Zaknafein sank down into his bed in an easy sleep, the most comfortable rest he had ever known. Dreams did come to him this night, a rush of dreams. Far from tumultuous, they only enhanced his comfort. Zak was free now of his secret, of the lie that had dominated every day of his adult life.

  Drizzt had survived! Even the dreaded Academy of Menzoberranzan could not daunt the youth’s indomitable spirit and sense of morality. Zaknafein Do’Urden was no longer alone. The dreams that played in his mind showed him the same wonderful possibilities that had followed Drizzt out of the city.

  Side by side they would stand, unbeatable, two as one against the perverted foundations of Menzoberranzan.

  A stinging pain in his foot brought Zak from his slumbers.

  He saw Briza immediately, at the bottom of his bed, her snake whip in hand. Instinctively, Zak reached over the side to fetch his sword.

  The weapon was gone. Vierna stood at the side of the room, holding it. On the opposite side, Maya held Zak’s other sword.

  How had they come in so stealthily? Zak wondered. Magical silence, no doubt, but Zak was still surprised that he had not sensed their presence in time. Nothing had ever caught him unawares, awake or asleep.

  Never before had he slept so soundly, so peacefully. Perhaps, in Menzoberranzan, such pleasant dreams were dangerous.

  "Matron Malice will see you." Briza announced.

  "I am not properly dressed." Zak replied casually. "My belt and weapons, if you please."

  "We do not please!" Briza snapped, more at her sisters than at Zak. "You will not need the weapons." Zak thought otherwise.

  "Come, now." Briza commanded, and she raised the whip.

  "I should be certain of Matron Malice’s intentions before I acted so boldly, were I you." Zak warned. Briza, reminded of the power of the male she now threatened, lowered her weapon.

  Zak rolled out of bed, putting the same intense glare alternately on Maya and Vierna, watching their reactions to better conclude Malice’s reasons for summoning him.

  They surrounded him as he left his room, keeping a cautious but ready distance from the deadly weapon master.

  "Must be serious." Zak remarked quietly, so that only Briza, in front of the troupe, could hear. Briza turned and flashed him a wicked smile that did nothing to dispel his suspicions. Neither did Matron Malice, who leaned forward in her throne in anticipation even before they entered the room.

  "Matron." Zak offered, dipping into a bow and pulling the side of his nightshirt out wide to draw attention to his inappropriate dress. He wanted to let Malice know his feelings of being ridiculed at such a late hour.

  The matron offered no return greeting. She rested back in her throne. One slender hand rubbed her sharp chin, while her eyes locked upon Zaknafein.

  "Perhaps you could tell me why you’ve summoned me." Zak dared to say, his voice still holding an edge of sarcasm. "I would prefer to return to my slumbers. We should not give House Hun’ett the adv
antage of a tired weapon master."

  "Drizzt has gone." growled Malice.

  The news slapped Zak like a wet rag. He straightened, and the teasing smile disappeared from his face.

  "He left the house against my commands." Malice went on.

  Zak relaxed visibly when Malice announced that Drizzt was gone, Zak had first thought that she and her devious cohorts had driven him out or killed him.

  "A spirited boy." Zak remarked. "Surely he will return soon."

  "Spirited." Malice echoed, and her tone did not put the description in a positive light.

  "He will return." Zak said again. "There’s no need for our alarm, for such extreme measures." He glared at Briza, though he knew well that the matron mother had called him to audience to do more than tell him of Drizzt’s departure.

  "The secondboy disobeyed the matron mother." Briza snarled, a rehearsed interruption.

  "Spirited." Zak said again, trying not to chuckle. "A minor indiscretion."

  "How often he seems to have those." Malice commented.

  "Like another spirited male of House Do’Urden."

  Zak bowed again, taking her words as a compliment. Malice already had his punishment decided, if she meant to punish him at all. His actions now, at this trial―if that’s what it was―would be of little consequence.

  "The boy has displeased the Spider Queen!" Malice growled, openly enraged and tired of Zak’s sarcasm. "Even you were not foolish enough to do that!"

  A dark cloud passed across Zak’s face. This meeting was indeed serious, Drizzt’s life could be at stake.

  "But you know of his crime." Malice continued, easing back again. She liked that she had Zak concerned and on the defensive. She had found his vulnerable spot. It was her turn to tease.