Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(101)

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.