Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(26)

“But...” Alton stuttered.

“Never again disturb this plane, feeble wizard!” the yochlol roared.

“I did not try for the Abyss,” Alton protested meekly. “I only meant to speak with-”

“With Ginafae!” the yochlol snarled. “Fallen priestess of Lloth. Where would you expect to find her spirit, foolish male? Frolicking in Olympus, with the false gods of the surface elves?”

“I did not think...”

“Do you ever?” the yochlol growled.

“Nope,” Masoj answered silently, careful to keep himself as far out of the way as possible.

“Never again disturb this plane,” the yochlol warned a final time. “The Spider Queen is not merciful and has no tolerance for meddling males!” The creature’s oozing face puffed and swelled, expanding beyond the limits of the smoky ball. Alton heard gurgling, gagging noises, and he stumbled back over his stool, putting his back flat against the wall and bringing his arms up defensively in front of his face.

The yochlol’s mouth opened impossibly wide and spewed forth ahail of small objects. They ricocheted off Alton and tapped against the wall all around him. Stones? the faceless wizard wondered in confusion. One of the objects then answered his unspoken question. It caught hold of Alton’s layered black robes and began crawling up toward his exposed neck.

Spiders.

A wave of the eight-legged beasts rushed under the little table, sending Masoj tumbling out the other side in a desperate roll. He scrambled to his feet and turned back, to see Alton slapping and stomping wildly, trying to get out of the main host of the crawling things.

“Do not kill them!” Masoj screamed. “To kill spiders is forbidden by the-”

“To the Nine Hells with the clerics and their laws!” Alton shrieked back.

Masoj shrugged in helpless agreement, reached around under the folds of his own robes, and produced the same two-handed crossbow he had used to kill the Faceless One those years ago. He considered the powerful weapon and the tiny spiders scrambling around the room.

“Overkill?” he asked aloud. Hearing no answer, he shrugged again and fired.

The heavy bolt knifed across Alton’s shoulder, cutting a deep line. The wizard stared in disbelief, then turned an ugly grimace on Masoj.

“You had one on your shoulder,” the student explained. Alton’s scowl did not relent.

“Ungrateful?” Masoj snarled. “Foolish Alton, all of the spiders are on your side of the room. Remember?” Masoj turned to leave and called, “Good hunting,” over his shoulder. He reached for the handle to the door, but as his long fingers closed around it, the portal’s surface transformed into the image of Matron Ginafae. She smiled widely, too widely, and an impossibly long and wet tongue reached out and licked Masoj across the face.

“Alton!” he cried, spinning back against the wall out of the slimy member’s reach. He noticed the wizard in the midst of spellcasting, Alton fighting to hold his concentration as a host of spiders continued their hungry ascent up his flowing robes.

“You are a dead one,” Masoj commented matter-of-factly, shaking his head.

Alton fought through the exacting ritual of the spell, ignored his own revulsion of the crawling things, and forced the evocation to completion. In all of his years of study, Alton never would have believed he could do such a thing; he would have laughed at the mere mention of it. Now, however, it seemed a far preferable fate to the yochlol’s creeping doom.

He dropped a fireball at his own feet. Naked and hairless, Masoj stumbled through the door and out of the inferno. The flaming faceless master came next, diving into a roll and stripping his tattered and burning robe from his back as he went.

As he watched Alton patting out the last of the flames, a pleasant memory flashed in Masoi’s mind, and he uttered the single lament that dominated his every thought at this disastrous moment.

“I should have killed him when I had him in the web.” A short time later, after Masoj had gone back to his room and his studies, Alton slipped on the ornamental metallic bracers that identified him as a master of the Academy and slipped outside the structure of Sorcere. He moved to the wide and sweeping stairway leading down from Tier Breche and sat down to take in the sights of Menzoberranzan. Even with this view, though, the city did little to distract Alton from thoughts of his latest failure. For sixteen years he had forsaken all other dreams and ambitions in his desperate search to find the guilty house. For sixteen years he had failed.

He wondered how long he could keep up the charade, and his spirits. Masoj, his only friend-if Masoj could be called a friend-was more than halfway through his studies at Sorcere. What would Alton do when Masoj graduated and returned to House Hun’ett?

“Perhaps I shall carryon my toils for centuries to come,” he said aloud, “only to be murdered by a desperate student, as I as Masoj-murdered the Faceless One. Might that student disfigure himself and take my place?” Alton couldn’t stop the ironic chuckle that passed his lipless mouth at the notion of a perpetual “faceless master,” of Sorcere. At what point would the Matron Mistress of the Academy get suspicious? A thousand years? ‘!en thousand? Or might the Faceless One outlive Menzoberranzan itself? Life as a master was not such a bad lot, Alton supposed. Many drow would sacrifice much to be given such an honor.

Alton dropped his face into the crook of his elbow and forced away such ridiculous thoughts. He was not a real master, nor did the stolen position bring him any measure of satisfaction. Perhaps Masoj should have shot him that day, sixteen years ago, when Alton was trapped in the Faceless One’s web.