Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(42)

Before him, at the back of the level, loomed the most impressive structure, Arach-Tinilith, the school of Lloth, carved from the stone into the likeness of a giant spider. By drow reckoning, this was the Academy’s most important building and thus was normally reserved for females. Male students were housed within Arach-Tinilith only during their last six months of study.

While Sorcere and Arach-Tinilith were the more graceful structures, the most important building for Drizzt at that tentative moment lined the wall to his right. The pyramidal structure of Melee-Magthere, the school of fighters. This building would be Drizzt’s home for the next nine years. His companions, he now realized, were those other dark elves in the compound-fighters, like h imself, about to begin their formal training. The class, at twenty-five, was unusually large for the school of fighters.

Even more unusual, several of the novice students were nobles. Drizzt wondered how his skills would measure up against theirs, how his sessions with Zaknafein compared to the battles these others had no doubt fought with the weapon masters of their respective families.

Those thoughts inevitably led Drizzt back to his last encounter with his mentor. He quickly dismissed the memories of that unpleasant duel, and, more pointedly, the disturbing questions Zak’s observations had forced him to consider. There was no place for such doubts on this occasion. Melee- Magthere loomed before him, the greatest test and the greatest lesson of his young life.

“My greetings,” came a voice behind him. Drizzt turned to face a fellow novice, who wore a sword and dirk uncomfortably on his belt and who appeared even more nervous than Drizzt-a comforting sight.

“Kelnozz of House Kenafin, fifteenth house,” the novice said.

“Drizzt Do’Urden of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, House Do’Urden, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan,” Drizzt replied automatically, exactly as Matron Malice had instructed him.

“A noble,” remarked Kelnozz, understanding the significance of Drizzt bearing the same surname as his house. Kelnozz dropped into a low bow. “I am honored by your presence.”

Drizzt was starting to like this place already. With the treatment he normally received at home, he hardly thought of himself as a noble. Any self-important notions that might have occurred to him at Kelnozz’s gracious greeting were dispelled a moment later, though, when the masters came out.

Drizzt saw his brother, Dinin, among them but pretended-as Dinin had warned him to-not “to notice, nor to expect any special treatment. Drizzt rushed inside Melee-Magthere along with the rest of the students when the whips began to snap and the masters started shouting of the dire consequences if they tarried. They were herded down a few side corridors and into an oval room.

“Sit or stand as you will!” one of the masters growled. Noticing two of the students whispering off to the side, the master took his whip out and- crack!-took one of the offenders off his feet.

Drizzt couldn’t believe how quickly the room then came to order.

“I am Hatch’net,” the master began in a resounding voice, “the master of Lore. This room will be your hall of instruction for fifty cycles of Narbondel,” He looked around at the adorned belts on every figure. “You will bring no weapons to this place!”

Hatch’net paced the perimeter of the room, making certain that every eye followed his movements attentively. “You are drow,” he snapped suddenly. “Do you understand what that means? Do you know where you come from, and the history of our people? Menzoberranzan was n ot always our home, nor was any other cavern of the Underdark. Once we walked the surface of the world,” He spun suddenly and came up right in Drizzt’s face.

“Do you know of the surface?” Master Hatch’net snarled. Drizzt recoiled and shook his head.

“An awful place,” Hatch’net continued, turning back to the whole of the group. “Each day, as the glow begins its rise in Narbondel, a great ball of fire rises into the open sky above, bringing hours of a light greater than the punishing spells of the priestesses of Lloth!” He held his arms outstretched, with his eyes turned upward, and an unbelievable grimace spread across his face.

Students’ gasps rose up all about him. “Even in the night, when the ball of fire has gone below the far rim of the world,” Hatch’net ontinued, weaving his words as if he were telling a horror tale, “one cannot escape the uncounted terrors of the surface. Reminders of what the next day will bring, dots of light-and sometimes a lesser ball of silvery fire-mar the sky’s blessed darkness.

“Once our people walked the surface of the world,” he repeated, his tone now one of lament, “in ages long past, even longer than the lines of the great houses. In that distant age, we walked beside the pale-skinned elves, the faeries!”

“It cannot be true!” one student cried from the side.

Hatch’net looked at him earnestly, considering whether more would be gained by beating the student for his unasked-for interruption or by allowing the group to participate. “It is!” he replied, choosing the latter course.

“We thought the faeries our friends; we called them kin! We could not know, in our innocence, that they were the embodiments of deceit and evil. We could not know that they would turn on us suddenly and drive us from them, slaughtering our children and the eldest of our race!

“Without mercy the evil faeries pursued us across the surface world. Always we asked for peace, and always we were answered by swords and killing arrows!”