Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(79)
When the others had gone, Malice lit a candle and took out a tiny, precious mirror. What a wretched thing she had become in the last few weeks. She had hardly eaten, and deep lines of worry creased her formerly glass-smooth, ebony skin. By appearances, Matron Malice had aged more in the last few weeks than in the century before that. “I will become as Matron Baenre,” she whispered in disgust, “withered and ugly,” For perhaps the very first time in her long life, Malice began to wonder of the value of her continual quest for power and the merciless Spider Queen’s favor. The thoughts disappeared as quickly as they had come, though. Matron Malice had gone too far for such silly regrets. By her strength and devotion, Malice had taken her house to the status of a ruling family and had secured a seat for herself on the prestigious ruling council.
She remained on the verge of despair, though, nearly broken by the strains of the last years. Again she wiped the sweat from her eyes and looked into the little mirror.
What a wretched thing she had become.
Drizzt had done this to her, she reminded herself. Her youngest son’s actions had angered the Spider Queen; his sacrilege had put Malice on the edge of doom.
“Get him, my spirit-wraith,” Malice whispered with a sneer. At that moment of anger, she hardly cared what future the Spider Queen would layout for her.
More than anything else in all the world, Matron Malice Do’Urden wanted Drizzt dead.
They ran through the winding tunnels blindly, hoping that no monsters would rear up suddenly before them. With the danger so very real at their backs, the three companions could not afford the usual caution.
Hours passed and still they ran. Belwar, older than his friends and with little legs working two strides for every one of Drizzt’s and three strides for each of Clacker’s, tired first, but that didn’t slow the group. Clacker hoisted the burrow-warden onto a shoulder and ran on.
How many miles they had covered they could not know when they at last broke for their first rest. Drizzt, silent and melancholy through all the trek, took up a guard position at the entrance to the small alcove they had chosen as a temporary camp. Recognizing his drow friend’s deep pain, Belwar moved over to offer comfort.
“Not what you expected, dark elf?” the burrow-warden asked softly. With no answer forthcoming, but with Drizzt obviously needing to talk, Belwar pressed on. “The drow in the cavern you knew. Did you claim that he was your father?”
Drizzt snapped an angry glare on the svirfneblin, but his visage softened considerably when he took the moment to realize Belwar’s concern.
“Zaknafein,” Drizzt explained. “Zaknafein Do’Urden, my father and mentor. It was he who trained me with the blade and who instructed me in all my life. Zaknafein was my only friend in Menzoberranzan, the only drow I have ever known who shared my beliefs.”
“He meant to kill you,” Belwar stated flatly. Drizzt winced, and the burrow-warden quickly tried to offer him some hope. “Did he not recognize you, perhaps?”
“He was my father,” Drizzt said again, “my closest companion for two decades.”
“Then why, dark elf?”
“That was not Zaknafein,” replied Drizzt. “Zaknafein is dead, sacrificed by my mother to the Spider Queen.”
“Magga cammara,” Belwar whispered, horrified at the revelation concerning Drizzt’s parents. The straightforwardness with which Drizzt explained the heinous deed led the burrow-warden to believe that Malice’s sacrifice was not so very unusual in the drow city. A shudder coursed through Belwar’s spine, but he sublimated his revulsion for the sake of his tormented friend.
“I do not yet know what monster Matron Malice has put in Zaknafein’s guise,” Drizzt went on, not even noticing Belwar’s discomfort.
“A formidable foe, whatever it may be,” the deep gnome remarked.
That was exactly what troubled Drizzt. The drow warrior he had battled in the illithid cavern moved with the precision and unmistakable style of Zaknafein Do’Urden.
Drizzt’s rationale could deny that Zaknafein would turn against him, but his heart told him that the monster he had crossed swords with was indeed his father.
“How did it end?” Drizzt asked after a long pause.
Belwar looked at him curiously.
“The fight,” Drizzt explained. “I remember the illithid but nothing more.”
Belwar shrugged and looked to Clacker. “ Ask him,” the burrow-warden replied. “A stone wall appeared between you and your enemies, but how it got there I can only guess.”
Clacker heard the conversation and moved over to his friends. “I put it there,” he said, his voice still perfectly clear.
“Powers of a pech?” Belwar asked. The deep gnome knew the reputation of pech powers with the stone, but not in enough detail to fully understand what Clacker had done.
“We are a peaceful race,” Clacker began, realizing that this might be his only chance to tell his friends of his people. He remained more pechlike than he had since the polymorph, but already he felt the base urges of a hook horror creeping back in. “We desire only to work the stone. It is our calling and our love. And with this symbiosis with the earth comes a measure of power. The stones speak to us and aid us in our toils.”
Drizzt looked wryly at Belwar. “Like the earth elemental you once raised against me.”