Exile (The Dark Elf Trilogy #2)(92)

“I cannot bear to lose you again,” Drizzt said. “When I saw you in the illithid cavern-“

“It was not me that you saw,” Zaknafein tried to explain. “It was the zombie of Malice’s evil will. I am gone, my son. I have been gone for many years.”

“You are here,” Drizzt reasoned.

“By Malice’s will, not... my own,” Zaknafein growled, and his face contorted as he struggled to push Malice away for just a moment longer. Back in control, Zaknafein studied the warrior that his son had become. “You fight well,” he remarked. “Better than I had ever imagined. That is good, and it is good that you had the courage to run-“ Zaknafein’s face contorted again suddenly, stealing the words. This time, both of his hands went to his swords, and this time, both weapons came flashing out.

“No!” Drizzt pleaded as a mist welled in his lavender eyes. “Fight her.”

“I ... cannot,” the spirit-wraith replied. “Flee from this place, Drizzt. Flee to the very... ends of the world! Malice will never forgive. She... will never stop-“

The spirit-wraith leaped forward, and Drizzt had no choice but to draw his weapons. But Zaknafein jerked suddenly before he got within reach of Drizzt.

“For us!” Zak cried in startling clarity, a call that pealed like a trumpet of victory in the green-glowing chamber and echoed across the miles to Matron Malice’s heart like the final toll of a drum signaling the onset of doom. Zaknafein had wrested control again, for just a fleeting instant-one that allowed the charging spirit-wraith to veer off the walkway.





CHAPTER 25

CONSEQUENCES


Matron Malice could not even scream her denial. A thousand explosions pounded her brain when Zaknafein went into the acid lake, a thousand realizations of impending and unavoidable disaster. She leaped from her stone throne, her slender hands twisting and clenching in the air as though she were trying to find something tangible to grasp, something that wasn’t there.

Her breath rasped in labored gasps and wordless snarls issued from her gulping mouth. After a moment in which she could not calm herself, Malice heard one sound more clearly than the din of her own contortions. Behind her came the slight hiss of the small, wicked snake heads of a high priestess’s whip.

Malice spun about, and there stood Briza, her face grimly and determinedly set and her whip’s six living snake heads waving in the air.

“I had hoped that my time of ascension would be many years away,” the eldest daughter said calmly. “But you are weak, Malice, too weak to hold House Do’Urden together in the trials that will follow our-your-failure.”

Malice wanted to laugh in the face of her daughter’s foolishness; snake-headed whips were personal gifts from the Spider Queen and could not be used against matron mothers. For some reason, though, Malice could not find the courage or conviction to refute her daughter at that moment. She watched, mesmerized, as Briza’s arm slowly reared back and then shot forward.

The six snake heads uncoiled toward Malice. It was impossible! It went against all tenets of Lloth’s doctrine! The fanged heads came on eagerly and dived into Malice’s flesh with all the Spider Queen’s fury behind them. Searing agony coursed through Malice’s body, jolting and racking her and leaving an icy numbness in its wake.

Malice teetered on the brink of consciousness, trying to hold firmly against her daughter, trying to show Briza the futility and stupidity of continuing the attack.

The snake whip snapped again and the floor rushed up to swallow Malice. Briza muttered something, Malice heard, some curse or chant to the Spider Queen.

Then came a third crack, and Malice knew nothing more. She was dead before the fifth strike, but Briza pounded on for many minutes, venting her fury to let the Spider Queen be assured that House Do’Urden truly had forsaken its failing matron mother.

By the time Dinin, unexpectedly and unannounced, burst into the room, Briza had settled comfortably into the stone throne. The elderboy glanced over at his mother’s battered body, then back to Briza, his head shaking in disbelief, and a wide, knowing grin splayed across his face.

“What have you done, sis-Matron Briza?” Dinin asked, catching his slip of the tongue before Briza could react to it.

“Zin-carla has failed,” Briza growled as she glared at him. “Lloth would no longer accept Malice.”

Dinin’s laughter, which seemed founded in sarcasm, cut to the marrow of Briza’s bones. Her eyes narrowed further and she let Dinin see her hand clearly as it moved down to the hilt of her whip.

“You have chosen the perfect moment for ascension,’ the elderboy explained calmly, apparently not at all worried that Briza would punish him. “We are under attack.”

“Fey-Branche?” Briza cried, springing excitedly from her seat. Five minutes in the throne as matron mother, and already Briza faced her first test. She would prove herself to the Spider Queen and redeem House Do’Urden from much of the damage that Malice’s failures had caused.

“No, sister,” Dinin said quickly, without pretense. “Not House Fey-Branche.”

Her brother’s cool response put Briza back in the throne and twisted her grin of excitement into a grimace of pure dread.

“Baenre,” Dinin, too, no longer smiled.

Vierna and Maya looked out from House Do’Urden’s balcony to the approaching forces beyond the adamantite gate. The sisters did not know their enemy, as Dinin had, but they understood from the sheer size of the force that some great house was involved. Still, House Do’Urden boasted two hundred fifty soldiers, many trained by Zaknafein himself. With two hundred more well-trained and well-armed troops on loan from Matron Baenre, both Vierna and Maya figured that their chances were not so bad. They quickly outlined defense strategies, and Maya swung one leg over the balcony railing, meaning to descend to the courtyard and relay the plans to her captains.