Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(20)

I clearly remember my excitement, tingling excitement, each time I got out of the house and set myself into position to observe the pillar. Such a simple thing it was, yet so fulfilling compared to the rest of my existence. Whenever I hear the crack of a whip, another memory -more a sensation than a memory actually- sends a shiver through my spine. The shocking jolt and the ensuing numbness from those snake-headed weapons is not something that any person would soon forget. They bite under your skin, sending waves of magical energy through your body, waves that make your muscles snap and pull beyond their limits.

Yet I was luckier than most. My sister Vierna was near to becoming a high priestess when she was assigned the task of rearing me and was at a period of her life where she possessed far more energy than such a job required. Perhaps, then, there was more to those first ten years under her care than I now recall. Vierna never showed the intense wickedness of our mother or -more particularly- of our oldest sister Briza. Perhaps there were good times in the solitude of the house chapel; it is possible that Vierna allowed a more gentle side of herself to show through to her baby brothel.

Maybe not. Even though I count Vierna as the kindest of my sisters, her words drip in the venom of Lloth as surely as those of any cleric in Menzoberranzan. It seems unlikely that she would risk her aspirations toward high priestesshood for the sake of a mere child, a mere male child.

Whether there were indeed joys in those years, obscured in the unrelenting assault of Menzoberranzan’s wickedness, or whether that earliest period of my life was even more painful than the years that followed-so painful that my mind hides the memories-I cannot be certain. For all my efforts, I cannot remember them.

I have more insight into the next six years, but the most prominent recollection of the days I spent serving the court of Matron Malice-aside from the secret trips outside the house-is the image of my own feet. A page prince is never allowed to raise his gaze.

- Drizzt Do’Urden





Chapter 6

“Two-Hands.”


Drizzt promptly answered the call to his matron mother’s side, not needing the whip Briza used to hurry him along. How often he had felt the sting of that dreaded weapon! Drizzt held no thoughts of revenge against his vicious oldest sister. With all of the conditioning he had received, he feared the consequences of striking her -or any female- far too much to entertain such notions.

“Do you know what this day marks?” Malice asked him as he arrived at the side of her great throne in the chapel’s darkened anteroom.

“No, Matron Mother,” Drizzt answered, unconsciously keeping his gaze on his toes. A resigned sigh rose in his throat as he noticed the unending view of his own feet. There had to be more to life than blank stone and ten wiggling toes, he thought.

He slipped one foot out of his low boot and began doodling on the stone floor. Body heat left discernable tracings in the infrared spectrum, and Drizzt was quick and agile enough to complete simple drawings before the initial lines had cooled.

“Sixteen years,” Matron Malice said to him. “You have breathed the air of Menzoberranzan for sixteen years. An important period of your life has passed.”

Drizzt did not react, did not see any importance or significance to the declaration. His life was an unending and unchanging routine. One day, sixteen years, what difference did it make? If his mother considered important the things he had been put through since his earliest recollections,

Drizzt shuddered to think of what the next decades might hold.

He had nearly completed his picture of a round-shouldered drow -Briza- being bitten on the behind by an enormous viper.

“Look at me,” Matron Malice commanded. Drizzt felt at a loss. His natural tendency once had been to look upon a person with whom he was talking, but Briza had wasted no time in beating that instinct out of him. The place of a page prince was servitude, and the only eyes a page prince’s were worthy of meeting were those of the creatures that scurried across the stone floor-except the eyes of a spider, of course; Drizzt had to avert his gaze whenever one of the eight-legged things crawled into his vision. Spiders were too good for the likes of a page prince.

“Look at me,” Malice said again, her tone hinting at volatile impatience. Drizzt had witnessed the explosions before, a wrath so incredibly vile that it swept aside anything and everything in its path. Even Briza, so pompous and cruel, ran for hiding when the matron mother grew angry.

Drizzt forced his gaze up tentatively, scanning his mother’s black robes, using the familiar spider pattern along the garment’s back and sides to judge the angle of his gaze. He fully expected, as every inch passed, a smack on his head, or a lashing on his back-Briza was behind him, always with her snake-headed whip near her anxious hand.

Then he saw her, the mighty Matron Malice Do’Urden, her heat sensing eyes flashing red and her face cool, not flushed with angry heat. Drizzt kept tense, still expecting a punishing blow.

“Your tenure as page prince is ended,” Malice explained. “You are secondboy of House Do’Urden now and are accorded all the...”

Drizzt’s gaze unconsciously slipped back to the floor. “Look at me!” his mother screamed in sudden rage.

Terrified, Drizzt snapped his gaze back to her face, which now was glowing a hot red. On the edge of his vision he saw the wavering heat of Malice’s swinging hand, though he was not foolish enough to try to dodge the blow. He was on the floor then, the side of his face bruised.