Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(53)

“You will go when you are dismissed!” Dinin scolded. “Remember your place, Drizzt Do’Urden, in the Academy and in the family.”

“As you remembered yours with Nalfein?”

“The battle against DeVir was won,” Dinin replied, taking no offense. “The act brought no peril to the family.”

Another wave of disgust swept over Drizzt. He felt as if the floor were climbing up to swallow him, and he almost hoped that it would.

“It is a difficult world we inhabit,” Dinin said.

“We make it so,” Drizzt retorted. He wanted to continue further, to implicate the Spider Queen and the whole amoral religion that would sanction such destructive and treacherous actions. Drizzt wisely held his tongue, though. Dinin wanted him dead; he understood that now. Drizzt understood as well that if he gave his scheming brother the opportunity to turn the females of the family against him, Dinin surely would.

“You must learn,” Dinin said, again in a controlled tone, “to accept the realities of your surroundings. You must learn to recognize your enemies and defeat them.”

“By whatever means are available,” Drizzt concluded.

“The mark of a true warrior!” Dinin replied with a wicked laugh.

“Are our enemies drow elves?”

“We are drow warriors!” Dinin declared sternly. “We do what we must to survive.”

“As you did, on the night of my birth,” Drizzt reasoned, though at this point, there was no remaining trace of outrage in his resigned tone. “You were cunning enough to get away cleanly with the deed.”

Dinin’s reply, though expected, stung the younger drow profoundly. “It never happened.”





Chapter 15

On The Dark-Side


“I am Drizzt-.”

“I know who you are,” replied the student mage, Drizzt’s appointed tutor in Sorcere. “Your reputation precedes you. Most in all the Academy have heard of you and of your prowess with weapons.”

Drizzt bowed low, a bit embarrassed.

“That skill will be of little use to you here,” the mage went on. “I am to tutor you in the wizardly arts, the dark side of magic, we call them. This is a test of your mind and your heart; meager metal weapons will play no part. Magic is the true power of our people!”

Drizzt accepted the berating without reply. He knew that the traits this young mage was boasting of were also necessary qualities of a true fighter. Physical attributes played only a minor role in Drizzt’s style of battle. Strong will and calculated maneuvers, everything the mage apparently believed only wizards could handle, won the duels that Drizzt fought.

“I will show you many marvels in the next few months,” the mage went on, “artifacts beyond y our belief and spells of a power beyond your experience!”

“May I know your name?” Drizzt asked, trying to sound somewhat impressed by the student’s continued stream of self glorification. Drizzt had already learned quite a lot about wizardry from Zaknafein, mostly of the weaknesses inherent in the class.

Because of magic’s usefulness in situations other than battle; drow wizards were accorded a high position in the society, second to the clerics of Lloth. It was a wizard, after all, who lighted the glowing Narbondel, time clock of the city, and wizards who lighted faerie fires on the sculptures of the decorated houses.

Zaknafein had little respect for wizards. They could kill quickly and from a distance, he had warned Drizzt, but if one could get in close to them, they had little defense against a sword.

“Masoj,” replied the mage. “Masoj Hun’ett of House Hun’ett, beginning my thirtieth and final year of study. Soon I will be recognized as a full wizard of Menzoberranzan, with all of the privileges accorded my station.”

“Greetings, then, Masoj Hun’ett,” Drizzt replied. “I, too, have but a year remaining in my training at the Academy, for a fighter spends only ten years.”

“A lesser talent,” Masoj was quick to remark. “Wizards study thirty years before they are even onsidered practiced enough to go out and perform their craft.”

Again Drizzt accepted the insult graciously. He wanted to get this phase of his instruction over with, then finish out the year and be rid of the Academy altogether.

Drizzt found his six months under Masoj’s tutelage actually the best of his stay at the Academy. Not that he came to care for Masoj; the budding wizard constantly sought ways to remind Drizzt of fighters’ inferiority. Drizzt sensed a competition between himself and Masoj, almost as f the mage were setting him up for some future conflict. The young fighter shrugged his way through it, as he always had, and tried to get as much out of the lessons as he could.

Drizzt found that he was quite proficient in the ways of magic. Every drow, he fighters included, possessed a degree of magical talent and certain innate abilities. Even drow children could conjure a globe of darkness or edge their opponents in a glowing outline pf harmless colored flames. Drizzt handled these tasks easily, and in a few weeks, he could manage several cantrips and a few lesser spells.

With the innate magical talents of the dark elves also came a resistance to magical attacks, and that is where Zaknafein had recognized the wizards’ greatest weakness.

A wizard could ast his most powerful spell to perfection, but if his intended victim was a drow elf, the wizard may well have found no results for his efforts. The surety of a well-aimed sword thrust always impressed Zaknafein, and Drizzt, after witnessing the drawbacks of drow magic during those first weeks with Masoj, began to appreciate the course of training he had been given.