"This is the world” Dinin replied, though Drizzt's question had been rhetorical. "Do not worry, Secondboy” he laughed, moving up onto the railing. "You will learn of Menzoberranzan in the Academy. You will learn who you are and who your people are”
The declaration unsettled Drizzt. Perhaps-remembering his last bitter encounter with the drow he had most trusted-that knowledge was exactly what he was afraid of. He shrugged in resignation and followed Dinin over the balcony in a magical descent to the compound floor: the first steps down that dark path.
Another set of eyes watched intently as Dinin and Drizzt started out from House Do'Urden.
Alton DeVir sat quietly against the side of a gigantic mushroom, as he had every day for the last week, staring at the Do'Urden complex.
Daermon N'a'shezbaernon, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan. The house that had murdered his matron, his sisters and brothers, and all there ever was of House DeVir . . . except for Alton.
Alton thought back to the days of House DeVir, when Matron Ginafae had gathered the family members together so that they might discuss their aspirations. Alton, just a student when House DeVir fell, now had a greater insight to those times. Twenty years had brought a wealth of experience.
Ginafae had been the youngest matron among the ruling families, and her potential had seemed unlimited. Then she had aided a gnomish patrol, had used her Lloth-given powers to hinder the drow elves that ambushed the little people in the caverns outside Menzoberranzan-all because Ginafae desired the death of a single member of that attacking drow party, a wizard son of the city's third house, the house labeled as House DeVir's next victim.
The Spider Queen took exception to Ginafae's choice of weapons; deep gnomes were the dark elves' worst enemy in the whole of the Underdark. With Ginafae fallen out of Lloth's favor, House DeVir had been doomed.
Alton had spent twenty years trying to learn of his enemies, trying to discover which drow family had taken ad. vantage of his mother's mistake and had slaughtered his kin. Threnty long years, and then his adopted matron, SiNafay Hun'ett, had ended his quest as abruptly as it had begun. Now, as Alton sat watching the guilty house, he knew only one thing for certain: twenty years had done nothing to diminish his rage.
Part 3
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The declaration unsettled Drizzt. Perhaps-remembering his last bitter encounter with the drow he had most trusted-that knowledge was exactly what he was afraid of. He shrugged in resignation and followed Dinin over the balcony in a magical descent to the compound floor: the first steps down that dark path.
Another set of eyes watched intently as Dinin and Drizzt started out from House Do'Urden.
Alton DeVir sat quietly against the side of a gigantic mushroom, as he had every day for the last week, staring at the Do'Urden complex.
Daermon N'a'shezbaernon, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan. The house that had murdered his matron, his sisters and brothers, and all there ever was of House DeVir . . . except for Alton.
Alton thought back to the days of House DeVir, when Matron Ginafae had gathered the family members together so that they might discuss their aspirations. Alton, just a student when House DeVir fell, now had a greater insight to those times. Twenty years had brought a wealth of experience.
Ginafae had been the youngest matron among the ruling families, and her potential had seemed unlimited. Then she had aided a gnomish patrol, had used her Lloth-given powers to hinder the drow elves that ambushed the little people in the caverns outside Menzoberranzan-all because Ginafae desired the death of a single member of that attacking drow party, a wizard son of the city's third house, the house labeled as House DeVir's next victim.
The Spider Queen took exception to Ginafae's choice of weapons; deep gnomes were the dark elves' worst enemy in the whole of the Underdark. With Ginafae fallen out of Lloth's favor, House DeVir had been doomed.
Alton had spent twenty years trying to learn of his enemies, trying to discover which drow family had taken ad. vantage of his mother's mistake and had slaughtered his kin. Threnty long years, and then his adopted matron, SiNafay Hun'ett, had ended his quest as abruptly as it had begun. Now, as Alton sat watching the guilty house, he knew only one thing for certain: twenty years had done nothing to diminish his rage.
Part 3
The Academy
The Academy.
It is the propagation of the lies that bind drow society together; the ultimate perpetration of falsehoods repeated so many times that they ring true against any contrary evidence. The lessons young drow are taught of truth and justice are so blatantly refuted by everyday life in wicked Menzoberranzan that it is hard to understand how any could believe them. Still they do.
Even now, decades removed, the thought of the place frightens me, not for any physical pain or the ever-present sense of possible death – I have trod down many roads equally dangerous in that way. The Academy of Menzoberranzan frightens me when I think of the survivors, the graduates, existing-reveling-within the evil fabrications that shape their world.
They live with the belief that anything is acceptable if you can get away with it, that self-gratification is the most important aspect of existence, and that power comes only to she or he who is strong enough and cunning enough to snatch it from the failing hands of those who no longer deserve it. Compassion has no place in Menzoberranzan, and yet it is compassion, not fear; that brings harmony to most races. It is harmony, working toward shared goals, that precedes greatness.
Lies engulf the drow in fear and mistrust, refute friendship at the tip of a Lloth-blessed sword. The hatred and ambition fostered by these amoral tenets are the doom of my people, a weakness that they perceive as strength. The result is a paralyzing, paranoid existence that the drow call the edge of readiness.
I do not know how I survived the Academy; how I discovered the falsehoods early enough to use them in contrast, and thus strengthen, those ideals I most cherish.
It was-Zaknafein, I must believe, my teacher. Through the experiences of Zak's long years, which embittered him and cost him so much, I came to hear the screams: the screams of protest against murderous treachery; the screams of rage from the leaders of drow society; the high priestesses of the Spider Queen, echoing down the paths of my mind, ever to hold a place within my mind. The screams of dying children.
-Drizzt Do'Urden
Chapter 12
This Enemy,"They"
Wearing the outfit of a noble son, and with a dagger concealed in one boot-a suggestion from Dinin-Drizzt ascended the wide stone stairway that led to Tier Breche, the Academy of the drow. Drizzt reached the top and moved between the giant pillars, under the impassive gazes of two guards, last-year students of Melee-Magthere.
Three dozen other young drow milled about the Academy compound, but Drizzt hardly noticed them. Three structures dominated his vision and his thoughts. To his left stood the pointed stalagmite tower of Sorcere, the school of wizardry. Drizzt would spend the first sixth months of his tenth and last year of study in there.
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 himself, 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 not 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 continued, 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 firemar 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 sur. face world. Always we asked for peace, and always we were answered by swords and killing arrows!"
He paused, his face twisting into a widening, malicious smile. "Then we found the goddess!"
"Praise Lloth!" came one anonymous cry. Again Hatch'net let the slip of tongue go by unpunished, knowing that every accenting comment only drew his audience deeper into his web of rhetoric.
"Indeed” the master replied. "All praise to the Spider Queen. It was she who took our orphaned race to her side and helped us fight off our enemies. It was she who guided the forematrons of our race to the paradise of the Underdark. It is she” he roared, a clenched fist rising into the air,
"who now gives us the strength and the magic to pay back our enemies.
"We are the drow!" Hatch'net cried. "You are the drow, never again to be downtrodden, rulers of all you desire, conquerors of lands you choose to inhabit!"
"The surface?" came a question.
"The surface?" echoed Hatch'net with a laugh. "Who would want to return to that vile place? Let the faeries have it! Let them burn under the fires of the open sky! We claim the Underdark, where we can feel the core of the world thrumming under our feet, and where the stones of the walls show the heat of the world's power!"
Drizzt sat silent, absorbing every word of-the talented orator's often-rehearsed speech. Drizzt was caught, as were all the new students, in Hatch'net's hypnotic variations of inflection and rallying cries. Hatch'net had been the master of Lore at the Academy for more than two centuries, owning more prestige in Menzoberranzan than nearly any other male drow, and many of the females. The matrons of the ruling families understood well the value of his practiced tongue.
So it went every day, an endless stream of hate rhetoric directed against an enemy that none of the students had ever seen. The surface elves were not the only target of Hatch'net's sniping. Dwarves, gnomes, humans, halflings, and all of the surface races-and even subterranean races such as the duergar dwarves, which the drow often traded with and fought beside-each found an unpleasant spot in the master's ranting.
Drizzt came to understand why no weapons were permitted in the oval chamber. When he left his lesson each day, he found his hands clenched by his sides in rage, unconsciously grasping for a scimitar hilt. It was obvious from the commonplace fights among the students that others felt the same way. Always, though, the overriding factor that kept some measure of control was the master's lie of the horrors of the outside world and the comforting bond of the stu. dents' common heritage-a heritage, the students would soon come to believe, that gave them enough enemies to battle beyond each other.
The long, draining hours in the oval chamber left little time for the students to mingle. They shared common barracks, but their extensive duties outside of Hatch'net's lessons-serving the older students and masters, preparing meals, and cleaning the building-gave them barely enough time for rest. By the end of the first week, they walked on the edge of exhaustion, a condition, Drizzt realized, that only increased the stirring effect of Master Hatch'net's les sons.
Drizzt accepted the existence stoically, considering it far better than the six years he had served his mother and sisters as page prince. Still, there was one great disappointment to Dnzzt in his first weeks at Melee-Magthere. He found himself longing for his practice sessions.
He sat on the edge of his bedroll late one night, holding a scimitar up before his shining eyes, remembering those many hours engaged in battle-play with Zaknafein.
"We go to the lesson in two hours” Kelnozz, in the next bunk, reminded him. "Get some rest”
"I feel the edge leaving my hands” Drizzt replied quietly.
"The blade feels heavier, unbalanced”
"The grand melee is barely ten cycles of Narbondel away” Kelnozz said. "You will get all the practice you desire there! Fear not, whatever edge has been dulled by the days with the master of Lore will soon be regained. For the next nine years, that fine blade of yours will rarely leave your hands!"
Drizzt slid the scimitar back into its scabbard and reclined on his bunk. As with so many aspects of his life so far-and, he was beginning to fear, with so many aspects of his future in Menzoberranzan-he had no choice but to accept the circumstances of his existence.
"This segment of your training is at an end” Master Hatch'net announced on the morning of the fiftieth day. Another master, Dinin, entered the room, leading a magically suspended iron box filled with meagerly padded wooden poles of every length and design comparable to drow weapons.
"Choose the sparring pole that most resembles your own weapon of choice” Hatch'net explained as Dinin made his way around the room. He came to his brother, and Drizzt's eyes settled at once on his choice: two slightly curving poles about three-and-a-half feet long. Drizzt lifted them out and put them through a simple cut. Their weight and balance closely resembled the scimitars that had become so familiar to his hands.
"For the pride of Daermon N'a'shezbaernon” Dinin whispered, then moved along.
Drizzt twirled the mock weapons again. It was time to measure the value of his sessions with Zak.
"Your class must have an order” Hatch'net was saying as Drizzt turned his attention beyond the scope of his new weapons. "Thus the grand melee. Remember, there can be only one victor!"
Hatch'net and Dinin herded the students out of the oval chamber and out of Melee-Magthere altogether, down the tunnel between the two guardian spider statues at the back of Tier Breche. For all of the students, this was the first time they had ever been out of Menzoberranzan.
"What are the rules?" Drizzt asked Kelnozz, in line at his side.
"If a master calls you out, then you are out” Kelnozz replied.
"The rules of engagement?" asked Drizzt. Kelnozz cast him an incredulous glance. "Win” he said simply, as though there could be no other answer.
A short time later they came into a fairly large cavern, the arena for the grand melee. Pointed stalactites leered down at them from the ceiling and stalagmite mounds broke the floor into a twisting maze filled with ambush holes and blind corners.
"Choose your strategies and find your starting point” Master Hatch'net said to them. "The grand melee begins in a count of one hundred!"
The twenty-five students set off into action, some pausing to consider the landscape laid out before them, others sprinting off into the gloom of the maze.
Drizzt decided to find a narrow corridor, to ensure that he would fight off one-against-one, and he just started off in his search when he was grabbed from behind.
"A team?" Kelnozz offered.
Drizzt did not respond, unsure of the other's fighting worth and the accepted practices of this traditional encounter.
"Others are forming into teams” Kelnozz pressed. "Some in threes. Together we might have a chance”
"The master said there could be only one victor” Drizzt reasoned.
"Who better than you, if not me” Kelnozz replied with a sly wink. "Let us defeat the others, then we can decide the issue between ourselves”
The reasoning seemed prudent, and with Hatch'net's count already approaching seventy-five, Drizzt had little time to ponder the possibilities. He clapped Kelnozz on the shoulder and led his new ally into the maze.
Catwalks had been constructed all around the room's perimeter, even crossing through the center of the chamber, to give the judging masters a good view of all the action below. A dozen of them were up there now, all eagerly awaiting the first battles so that they might measure the talent of this young class.
"One hundred!" cried Hatch'net from his high perch. Kelnozz began to move, but Drizzt stopped him, keeping him back in the narrow corridor between two long stalagmite mounds.
"Let them come to us” Drizzt signaled in the silent hand and facial expression code. He crouched in battle readiness.
"Let them fight each other to weariness. Patience is our ally!"
Kelnozz relaxed, thinking he had made a good choice in Drizzt.
Their patience was not tested severely, though, for a moment later, a tall and aggressive student burst into their defensive position, wielding a long spear-shaped pole. He came right in on Drizzt, slapping with the butt of his weapon, then spinning it over full in a brutal thrust designed for a quick kill, a strong move perfectly executed.
Drizzt, though, it seemed the most basic of attack routines-too basic, almost, for Drizzt hardly believed that a trained student would attack another skilled fighter in such a straightforward manner. Drizzt convinced himself in time that this was indeed the chosen method of attack, and no feint, and he launched the proper parry. His scimitar poles spun counterclockwise in front of him, striking the thrusting spear in succession and driving the weapon's tip harmlessly above the striking line of its wielder's shoulder.
The aggressive attacker, stunned by the advanced parry, found himself open and off balance. Barely a split second later, before the attacker could even begin to recover, Drizzt's counter poked one, then the other scimitar pole into his chest.
A soft blue light appeared on the stunned student's face, and he and Drizzt followed its line up to see a wand-wielding master looking down at them from the catwalk.
"You are defeated” the master said to the tall student. "Fall where you stand!"
The student shot an angry glare at Drizzt and obediently dropped to the stone.
"Come” Drizzt said to Kelnozz, casting a glance up at the master's revealing light. "Any others in the area will know of our position now. We must seek a new defensible area”
Kelnozz paused a moment to watch the graceful hunting strides of his comrade. He had indeed made a good choice in selecting Drizzt, but he knew already, after only a single quick encounter, that if he and this skilled swordsman were the last two standing-a distinct possibility-he would have no chance at all of claiming victory.
Together they rushed around a blind corner, right into two opponents. Kelnozz chased after one, who fled in fright, and Drizzt faced off against the other, who wielded sword and dirk poles.
A wide smile of growing confidence crossed Drizzt's face as his opponent took the offensive, launching routines similarly basic to those of the spear wielder that Drizzt had easily dispatched.
A few deft twists and turns of his scimitars, a few slaps on the inside edges of his opponent's weapons, had the sword and dirk flying wide. Drizzt's attack came right up the middle, where he executed another double-poke into his opponent's chest.
The expected blue light appeared. "You are defeated” came the master's call. "Fall where you stand”
Outraged, the stubborn student chopped viciously at Drizzt. Drizzt blocked with one weapon and snapped the other against his attacker's wrist, sending the sword pole flying to the floor.
The attacker clenched his bruised wrist, but that was the least of his troubles. A blinding flash of lightning exploded from the observing master's wand, catching him full in the chest and hurtling him ten feet backward to crash into a stalagmite mound. He crumpled to the floor, groaning in agony, and a line of glowing heat rose from his scorched body, which lay against the cool gray stone.
"You are defeated!" the master said again. Drizzt started to the fallen drow's aid, but the master issued an emphatic, "No!"
Then Kelnozz was back at Drizzt's side. "He got away” Kelnozz began, but he broke into a laugh when he saw the downed student. "If a master calls you out, then you are out!" Kelnozz repeated into Drizzt's blank stare.
"Come” Kelnozz continued. "The battle is in full now. Let us find some fun! "
Drizzt thought his companion quite cocky for one who had yet to lift his weapons. He only shrugged and followed. Their next encounter was not so easy. They came into a double passage turning in and out of several rock formations and found themselves faced off against a group of three-nobles from leading houses, both Drizzt and Kelnozz realized.
Drizzt rushed the two on his left, both of whom wielded single swords, while Kelnozz worked to fend off the third. Drizzt had little experience against multiple opponents, but Zak had taught him the techniques of such a battle quite well. His movements were solely defensive at first, then he settled into a comfortable rhythm and allowed his opponents to tire themselves out, and to make the critical mistakes.
These were cunning foes, though, and familiar with each other's movements. Their attacks complemented each other, slicing in at Drizzt from widely opposing angles.
"Two-hands” Zak had once called Drizzt, and now he lived up to the title. His scimitars worked independently, yet in perfect harmony, foiling every attack.
From a nearby perch on the catwalk, Masters Hatch'net and Dinin looked on, Hatch'net more than a little impressed, and Dinin swelling with pride.
Drizzt saw the frustration mounting on his opponents' faces, and he knew that his opportunity to strike would soon be at hand. Then they crossed up, coming in together with identical thrusts, their sword poles barely inches apart.
Drizzt spun to the side and launched a blinding uppercut slice with his left scimitar, deflecting both attacks. Then he reversed his body's momentum, dropped to one knee, back in line with his opponents, and thrust in low with two snaps of his free right arm. His jabbing scimitar pole caught the first, and then the second, squarely in the groin.
They dropped their weapons in unison, clutched their bruised parts, and slumped to their knees. Drizzt leaped up before them, trying to find the words for an apology. Hatch'net nodded his approval at Dinin as the two masters set their lights on the two losers.
"Help me!" Kelnozz cried from beyond the dividing wall of stalagmites.
Drizzt dove into a roll through a break in the wall, came up quickly, and downed a fourth opponent, who was concealed for a backstab surprise, with a backhand chop to the chest. Drizzt stopped to consider his latest victim. He hadn't even consciously known that the drow was there, but his aim had been perfect!
Hatch'net blew a low whistle as he shifted his light to the most recent loser's face. "He is good!" the master breathed.
Drizzt saw Kelnozz a short distance away, practically forced down to his back by his opponent's skilled maneuvers. Drizzt leaped between the two and deflected an attack that surely would have finished Kelnozz.
This newest opponent, wielding two sword poles, proved Drizzt's toughest challenge yet. He came at Drizzt with complicated feints and twists, forcing him on his heels more than once.
"Berg'inyon of House Baenre” Hatch'net whispered to Dinin. Dinin understood the significance and hoped that his young brother was up to the test.
Berg'inyon was not a disappointment to his distinguished kin. His moves came skilled and measured, and he and Drizzt danced about for many minutes with neither finding any advantage. The daring Berg'inyon then came in with the attack routine perhaps most familiar to Drizzt: the double-thrust low.
Drizzt executed the cross-down to perfection, the appropriate parry as Zaknafein had so pointedly proved to him. Never satisfied, though, Drizzt then reacted on an impulse, agilely snapping a foot up between the hilts of his crossed blades and into his opponent's face. The stunned son of House Baenre fell back against the wall.
"I knew the parry was wrong!" Drizzt cried, already savoring the next time he would get the opportunity to foil the double-thrust low in a session against Zak.
"He is good” Hatch'net gasped again to his glowing companion.
Dazed, Berg'inyon could not fight his way out of the disadvantage. He put a globe of darkness around himself, but Drizzt waded right in, more than willing to fight blindly.
Drizzt put the son of House Baenre through a quick series of attacks, ending with one of Drizzt's scimitar poles against Berg'inyon's exposed neck.
"I am defeated” the young Baenre conceded, feeling the pole. Hearing the call, Master Hatch'net dispelled the darkness. Berg'inyon set both his weapons on the stone and slumped down, and the blue light appeared on his face. Drizzt couldn't hold back the widening grin. Were there any here that he could not defeat? he wondered.
Drizzt then felt an explosion on the back of his head that dropped him to his knees. He managed to look back in time to see Kelnozz walking away.
"A fool” Hatch'net chuckled, putting his light on Drizzt, then turning his gaze upon Dinin. " A good fool”
Dinin crossed his arms in front of his chest, his face glowing brightly now in a flush of embarrassment and anger.
Drizzt felt the cool stone against his cheek, but his only thoughts at that moment were rooted in the past, locked onto Zaknafein's sarcastic, but painfully accurate, statement: "It is our way!"
Three dozen other young drow milled about the Academy compound, but Drizzt hardly noticed them. Three structures dominated his vision and his thoughts. To his left stood the pointed stalagmite tower of Sorcere, the school of wizardry. Drizzt would spend the first sixth months of his tenth and last year of study in there.
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 himself, 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 not 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 continued, 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 firemar 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 sur. face world. Always we asked for peace, and always we were answered by swords and killing arrows!"
He paused, his face twisting into a widening, malicious smile. "Then we found the goddess!"
"Praise Lloth!" came one anonymous cry. Again Hatch'net let the slip of tongue go by unpunished, knowing that every accenting comment only drew his audience deeper into his web of rhetoric.
"Indeed” the master replied. "All praise to the Spider Queen. It was she who took our orphaned race to her side and helped us fight off our enemies. It was she who guided the forematrons of our race to the paradise of the Underdark. It is she” he roared, a clenched fist rising into the air,
"who now gives us the strength and the magic to pay back our enemies.
"We are the drow!" Hatch'net cried. "You are the drow, never again to be downtrodden, rulers of all you desire, conquerors of lands you choose to inhabit!"
"The surface?" came a question.
"The surface?" echoed Hatch'net with a laugh. "Who would want to return to that vile place? Let the faeries have it! Let them burn under the fires of the open sky! We claim the Underdark, where we can feel the core of the world thrumming under our feet, and where the stones of the walls show the heat of the world's power!"
Drizzt sat silent, absorbing every word of-the talented orator's often-rehearsed speech. Drizzt was caught, as were all the new students, in Hatch'net's hypnotic variations of inflection and rallying cries. Hatch'net had been the master of Lore at the Academy for more than two centuries, owning more prestige in Menzoberranzan than nearly any other male drow, and many of the females. The matrons of the ruling families understood well the value of his practiced tongue.
So it went every day, an endless stream of hate rhetoric directed against an enemy that none of the students had ever seen. The surface elves were not the only target of Hatch'net's sniping. Dwarves, gnomes, humans, halflings, and all of the surface races-and even subterranean races such as the duergar dwarves, which the drow often traded with and fought beside-each found an unpleasant spot in the master's ranting.
Drizzt came to understand why no weapons were permitted in the oval chamber. When he left his lesson each day, he found his hands clenched by his sides in rage, unconsciously grasping for a scimitar hilt. It was obvious from the commonplace fights among the students that others felt the same way. Always, though, the overriding factor that kept some measure of control was the master's lie of the horrors of the outside world and the comforting bond of the stu. dents' common heritage-a heritage, the students would soon come to believe, that gave them enough enemies to battle beyond each other.
The long, draining hours in the oval chamber left little time for the students to mingle. They shared common barracks, but their extensive duties outside of Hatch'net's lessons-serving the older students and masters, preparing meals, and cleaning the building-gave them barely enough time for rest. By the end of the first week, they walked on the edge of exhaustion, a condition, Drizzt realized, that only increased the stirring effect of Master Hatch'net's les sons.
Drizzt accepted the existence stoically, considering it far better than the six years he had served his mother and sisters as page prince. Still, there was one great disappointment to Dnzzt in his first weeks at Melee-Magthere. He found himself longing for his practice sessions.
He sat on the edge of his bedroll late one night, holding a scimitar up before his shining eyes, remembering those many hours engaged in battle-play with Zaknafein.
"We go to the lesson in two hours” Kelnozz, in the next bunk, reminded him. "Get some rest”
"I feel the edge leaving my hands” Drizzt replied quietly.
"The blade feels heavier, unbalanced”
"The grand melee is barely ten cycles of Narbondel away” Kelnozz said. "You will get all the practice you desire there! Fear not, whatever edge has been dulled by the days with the master of Lore will soon be regained. For the next nine years, that fine blade of yours will rarely leave your hands!"
Drizzt slid the scimitar back into its scabbard and reclined on his bunk. As with so many aspects of his life so far-and, he was beginning to fear, with so many aspects of his future in Menzoberranzan-he had no choice but to accept the circumstances of his existence.
"This segment of your training is at an end” Master Hatch'net announced on the morning of the fiftieth day. Another master, Dinin, entered the room, leading a magically suspended iron box filled with meagerly padded wooden poles of every length and design comparable to drow weapons.
"Choose the sparring pole that most resembles your own weapon of choice” Hatch'net explained as Dinin made his way around the room. He came to his brother, and Drizzt's eyes settled at once on his choice: two slightly curving poles about three-and-a-half feet long. Drizzt lifted them out and put them through a simple cut. Their weight and balance closely resembled the scimitars that had become so familiar to his hands.
"For the pride of Daermon N'a'shezbaernon” Dinin whispered, then moved along.
Drizzt twirled the mock weapons again. It was time to measure the value of his sessions with Zak.
"Your class must have an order” Hatch'net was saying as Drizzt turned his attention beyond the scope of his new weapons. "Thus the grand melee. Remember, there can be only one victor!"
Hatch'net and Dinin herded the students out of the oval chamber and out of Melee-Magthere altogether, down the tunnel between the two guardian spider statues at the back of Tier Breche. For all of the students, this was the first time they had ever been out of Menzoberranzan.
"What are the rules?" Drizzt asked Kelnozz, in line at his side.
"If a master calls you out, then you are out” Kelnozz replied.
"The rules of engagement?" asked Drizzt. Kelnozz cast him an incredulous glance. "Win” he said simply, as though there could be no other answer.
A short time later they came into a fairly large cavern, the arena for the grand melee. Pointed stalactites leered down at them from the ceiling and stalagmite mounds broke the floor into a twisting maze filled with ambush holes and blind corners.
"Choose your strategies and find your starting point” Master Hatch'net said to them. "The grand melee begins in a count of one hundred!"
The twenty-five students set off into action, some pausing to consider the landscape laid out before them, others sprinting off into the gloom of the maze.
Drizzt decided to find a narrow corridor, to ensure that he would fight off one-against-one, and he just started off in his search when he was grabbed from behind.
"A team?" Kelnozz offered.
Drizzt did not respond, unsure of the other's fighting worth and the accepted practices of this traditional encounter.
"Others are forming into teams” Kelnozz pressed. "Some in threes. Together we might have a chance”
"The master said there could be only one victor” Drizzt reasoned.
"Who better than you, if not me” Kelnozz replied with a sly wink. "Let us defeat the others, then we can decide the issue between ourselves”
The reasoning seemed prudent, and with Hatch'net's count already approaching seventy-five, Drizzt had little time to ponder the possibilities. He clapped Kelnozz on the shoulder and led his new ally into the maze.
Catwalks had been constructed all around the room's perimeter, even crossing through the center of the chamber, to give the judging masters a good view of all the action below. A dozen of them were up there now, all eagerly awaiting the first battles so that they might measure the talent of this young class.
"One hundred!" cried Hatch'net from his high perch. Kelnozz began to move, but Drizzt stopped him, keeping him back in the narrow corridor between two long stalagmite mounds.
"Let them come to us” Drizzt signaled in the silent hand and facial expression code. He crouched in battle readiness.
"Let them fight each other to weariness. Patience is our ally!"
Kelnozz relaxed, thinking he had made a good choice in Drizzt.
Their patience was not tested severely, though, for a moment later, a tall and aggressive student burst into their defensive position, wielding a long spear-shaped pole. He came right in on Drizzt, slapping with the butt of his weapon, then spinning it over full in a brutal thrust designed for a quick kill, a strong move perfectly executed.
Drizzt, though, it seemed the most basic of attack routines-too basic, almost, for Drizzt hardly believed that a trained student would attack another skilled fighter in such a straightforward manner. Drizzt convinced himself in time that this was indeed the chosen method of attack, and no feint, and he launched the proper parry. His scimitar poles spun counterclockwise in front of him, striking the thrusting spear in succession and driving the weapon's tip harmlessly above the striking line of its wielder's shoulder.
The aggressive attacker, stunned by the advanced parry, found himself open and off balance. Barely a split second later, before the attacker could even begin to recover, Drizzt's counter poked one, then the other scimitar pole into his chest.
A soft blue light appeared on the stunned student's face, and he and Drizzt followed its line up to see a wand-wielding master looking down at them from the catwalk.
"You are defeated” the master said to the tall student. "Fall where you stand!"
The student shot an angry glare at Drizzt and obediently dropped to the stone.
"Come” Drizzt said to Kelnozz, casting a glance up at the master's revealing light. "Any others in the area will know of our position now. We must seek a new defensible area”
Kelnozz paused a moment to watch the graceful hunting strides of his comrade. He had indeed made a good choice in selecting Drizzt, but he knew already, after only a single quick encounter, that if he and this skilled swordsman were the last two standing-a distinct possibility-he would have no chance at all of claiming victory.
Together they rushed around a blind corner, right into two opponents. Kelnozz chased after one, who fled in fright, and Drizzt faced off against the other, who wielded sword and dirk poles.
A wide smile of growing confidence crossed Drizzt's face as his opponent took the offensive, launching routines similarly basic to those of the spear wielder that Drizzt had easily dispatched.
A few deft twists and turns of his scimitars, a few slaps on the inside edges of his opponent's weapons, had the sword and dirk flying wide. Drizzt's attack came right up the middle, where he executed another double-poke into his opponent's chest.
The expected blue light appeared. "You are defeated” came the master's call. "Fall where you stand”
Outraged, the stubborn student chopped viciously at Drizzt. Drizzt blocked with one weapon and snapped the other against his attacker's wrist, sending the sword pole flying to the floor.
The attacker clenched his bruised wrist, but that was the least of his troubles. A blinding flash of lightning exploded from the observing master's wand, catching him full in the chest and hurtling him ten feet backward to crash into a stalagmite mound. He crumpled to the floor, groaning in agony, and a line of glowing heat rose from his scorched body, which lay against the cool gray stone.
"You are defeated!" the master said again. Drizzt started to the fallen drow's aid, but the master issued an emphatic, "No!"
Then Kelnozz was back at Drizzt's side. "He got away” Kelnozz began, but he broke into a laugh when he saw the downed student. "If a master calls you out, then you are out!" Kelnozz repeated into Drizzt's blank stare.
"Come” Kelnozz continued. "The battle is in full now. Let us find some fun! "
Drizzt thought his companion quite cocky for one who had yet to lift his weapons. He only shrugged and followed. Their next encounter was not so easy. They came into a double passage turning in and out of several rock formations and found themselves faced off against a group of three-nobles from leading houses, both Drizzt and Kelnozz realized.
Drizzt rushed the two on his left, both of whom wielded single swords, while Kelnozz worked to fend off the third. Drizzt had little experience against multiple opponents, but Zak had taught him the techniques of such a battle quite well. His movements were solely defensive at first, then he settled into a comfortable rhythm and allowed his opponents to tire themselves out, and to make the critical mistakes.
These were cunning foes, though, and familiar with each other's movements. Their attacks complemented each other, slicing in at Drizzt from widely opposing angles.
"Two-hands” Zak had once called Drizzt, and now he lived up to the title. His scimitars worked independently, yet in perfect harmony, foiling every attack.
From a nearby perch on the catwalk, Masters Hatch'net and Dinin looked on, Hatch'net more than a little impressed, and Dinin swelling with pride.
Drizzt saw the frustration mounting on his opponents' faces, and he knew that his opportunity to strike would soon be at hand. Then they crossed up, coming in together with identical thrusts, their sword poles barely inches apart.
Drizzt spun to the side and launched a blinding uppercut slice with his left scimitar, deflecting both attacks. Then he reversed his body's momentum, dropped to one knee, back in line with his opponents, and thrust in low with two snaps of his free right arm. His jabbing scimitar pole caught the first, and then the second, squarely in the groin.
They dropped their weapons in unison, clutched their bruised parts, and slumped to their knees. Drizzt leaped up before them, trying to find the words for an apology. Hatch'net nodded his approval at Dinin as the two masters set their lights on the two losers.
"Help me!" Kelnozz cried from beyond the dividing wall of stalagmites.
Drizzt dove into a roll through a break in the wall, came up quickly, and downed a fourth opponent, who was concealed for a backstab surprise, with a backhand chop to the chest. Drizzt stopped to consider his latest victim. He hadn't even consciously known that the drow was there, but his aim had been perfect!
Hatch'net blew a low whistle as he shifted his light to the most recent loser's face. "He is good!" the master breathed.
Drizzt saw Kelnozz a short distance away, practically forced down to his back by his opponent's skilled maneuvers. Drizzt leaped between the two and deflected an attack that surely would have finished Kelnozz.
This newest opponent, wielding two sword poles, proved Drizzt's toughest challenge yet. He came at Drizzt with complicated feints and twists, forcing him on his heels more than once.
"Berg'inyon of House Baenre” Hatch'net whispered to Dinin. Dinin understood the significance and hoped that his young brother was up to the test.
Berg'inyon was not a disappointment to his distinguished kin. His moves came skilled and measured, and he and Drizzt danced about for many minutes with neither finding any advantage. The daring Berg'inyon then came in with the attack routine perhaps most familiar to Drizzt: the double-thrust low.
Drizzt executed the cross-down to perfection, the appropriate parry as Zaknafein had so pointedly proved to him. Never satisfied, though, Drizzt then reacted on an impulse, agilely snapping a foot up between the hilts of his crossed blades and into his opponent's face. The stunned son of House Baenre fell back against the wall.
"I knew the parry was wrong!" Drizzt cried, already savoring the next time he would get the opportunity to foil the double-thrust low in a session against Zak.
"He is good” Hatch'net gasped again to his glowing companion.
Dazed, Berg'inyon could not fight his way out of the disadvantage. He put a globe of darkness around himself, but Drizzt waded right in, more than willing to fight blindly.
Drizzt put the son of House Baenre through a quick series of attacks, ending with one of Drizzt's scimitar poles against Berg'inyon's exposed neck.
"I am defeated” the young Baenre conceded, feeling the pole. Hearing the call, Master Hatch'net dispelled the darkness. Berg'inyon set both his weapons on the stone and slumped down, and the blue light appeared on his face. Drizzt couldn't hold back the widening grin. Were there any here that he could not defeat? he wondered.
Drizzt then felt an explosion on the back of his head that dropped him to his knees. He managed to look back in time to see Kelnozz walking away.
"A fool” Hatch'net chuckled, putting his light on Drizzt, then turning his gaze upon Dinin. " A good fool”
Dinin crossed his arms in front of his chest, his face glowing brightly now in a flush of embarrassment and anger.
Drizzt felt the cool stone against his cheek, but his only thoughts at that moment were rooted in the past, locked onto Zaknafein's sarcastic, but painfully accurate, statement: "It is our way!"
Chapter 13
The Price of Winning
"You deceived me” Drizzt said to Kelnozz that night in the barracks. The room was black around them and no other Students stirred in their cots, exhausted from the day's fighting and from their endless duties serving the older students.
Kelnozz fully expected this encounter. He had guessed Drizzt's naivete early on, when Drizzt had actually queried him about the rules of engagement. An experienced drow warrior, particularly a noble, should have known better, should have understood that the only rule of his existence was the pursuit of victory. Now, Kelnozz knew I this foolish young Do'Urden would not strike at him for his earlier actions-vengeance fueled by anger was not one of Drizzt's traits.
"Why?" Drizzt pressed, finding no answer forthcoming from the smug commoner of House Kenafin.
The volume of Drizzt's voice caused Kelnozz to glance around nervously. They were supposed to be sleeping; if a master heard them arguing. . .
"What is the mystery?" Kelnozz signaled back in the hand code, the warmth of his fingers glowing clearly to Drizzt's heat-sensing eyes. "I acted as I had to act, though I now believe I should have held off a bit longer. Perhaps, if you had defeated a few more, I might have finished higher than third in the class”
"If we had worked together, as we had agreed, you might have won, or finished second at the least” Drizzt signaled back, the sharp movements of his hands reflecting his anger.
"Most assuredly second” Kelnozz replied. "I knew from the beginning that I would be no match for you. You are the finest swordsman I have ever seen”
"Not by the masters' standing” Drizzt grumbled aloud.
Eighth is not so low” Kelnozz whispered back. Berg'inyon is only ranked tenth, and he is from the ruling house of Menzoberranzan. You should be glad that your standing is not to be envied by your classmates” A shuffle outside the room's door sent Kelnozz back into the silent mode. "Holding a higher rank means only that I have more fighters eyeing my back as a convenient place to rest their daggers”
Drizzt let the implications of Kelnozz's statement slip by; he refused to consider such treachery in the Academy. "Berg'inyon was the finest fighter I saw in the grand melee” he signaled. "He had you beaten until I interceded on your behalf “
Kelnozz smiled the thought away. "Let Berg'inyon serve as cook in some lowly house for alii care” he whispered even more quietly than before-for the son of House Baenre's bunk was only a few yards away. "He is tenth, yet I, Kelnozz of Kenafin, am third!"
"I am eighth” said Drizzt, an uncharacteristic edge on his voice, more anger than jealousy, "but I could defeat you with any weapon”
Kelnozz shrugged, a strangely blurring movement to on-lookers seeing in the infrared spectrum. "You did not” he signaled. "I won our encounter”
"Encounter?" Drizzt gasped. "You deceived me, that is all!"
"Who was left standing?" Kelnozz pointedly reminded him. "Who wore the blue light of a master's wand?"
"Honor demands that there be rules of engagement” growled Drizzt.
"There is a rule” Kelnozz snapped back at him. "You may do whatever you can get away with. I won our encounter, Drizzt Do'Urden, and I hold the higher rank! That is all that matters!"
In the heat of the argument, their voices had grown too loud. The door to the room swung wide, and a master stepped onto the threshold, his form vividly outlined by the hallway's blue lights. Both students promptly rolled over and closed their eyes-and their mouths.
The finality of Kelnozz's last statement rocked Drizzt to some prudent observations. He realized then that his friendship with Kelnozz had come to an endand, perhaps, that he and Kelnozz had never been friends at all.
"You have seen him?" Alton asked, his fingers tapping anxiously on the small table in the highest chamber of his private quarters. Alton had set the younger students of Sorcere to work repairing the blasted place, but the scorch marks on the stone walls remained, a legacy of Alton's fireball.
"I have” replied Masoj. "I have heard of his skill with weapons”
"Eighth in his class after the grand melee” said Alton, "a fine achievement”
"By all accounts, he has the prowess to be first” said Masoj. "One day he will claim that title. I shall be careful around that one”
"He will never live to claim it!" Alton promised. "House Do'Urden puts great pride in this purple-eyed youth, and thus 1 have decided upon Drizzt as my first target for revenge. His death will bring pain to that treacherous Matron Malice!"
Masoj saw a problem here and decided to put it to rest once and for all. "You will not harm him” he warned Alton.
"You will not even go near him” Alton's tone became no less grim. "I have waited two decades-" he began.
"You can wait a few more” Masoj snapped back. "I remind you that you accepted Matron SiNafay's invitation into House Hun'ell. Such an alliance requires obedience. Matron SiNafay-our matron mother-has placed upon my shoulders the task of handling Drizzt Do'Urden, and I will execute her will”
Alton rested back in his seat across the table and put what was left of his acid-torn chin into a slender palm, carefully weighing the words of his secret partner.
"Matron SiNafay has plans that will bring you all the revenge you could possibly desire” Masoj continued. "I warn you now, Alton DeVir” he snarled, emphasizing the surname that was not Hun'ett, "that if you begin a war with House Do'Urden, or even put them on the defensive with any act of violence unsanctioned by Matron SiNafay, you will incur the wrath of House Hun'ett. Matron SiNafay will expose you as a murderous imposter and will exact every punishment allowable by the ruling council upon your pitiful bones!"
Alton had no way to refute the threat. He was a rogue, without family beyond the adopted Hun'etts. If SiNafay turned against him, he would find no allies. "What plan does SiNafay . . . Matron SiNafay . . . have for House Do'Urden?" he asked calmly. "Tell me of my revenge so that I may survive these torturous years of waiting”
Masoj knew that he had to act carefully at this point. His mother had not forbidden him to tell Alton of the future course of action, but if she had wanted the volatile DeVir to know, Masoj realized, she would have told him herself.
"Let us just say that House Do'Urden's power has grown, and continues to grow, to the point where it has become a very real threat to all the great houses” Masoj purred, loving the intrigue of positioning before a war. "Witness the fall of House DeVir, perfectly executed with no obvious trail. Many of Menzoberranzan's nobles would rest easier if . . . "
He let it go at that, deciding that he probably had said too much already.
By the hot glimmer in Alton's eyes, Masoj could tell that the lure had been strong enough to buy Alton's patience.
The Academy held many disappointments for young Drizzt, particularly in that first year, when so many of the dark realities of drow society, realities that Zaknafein had barely hinted at, remained on the edges of Drizzt's cognizance with stubborn resilience. He weighed the masters' lectures of hatred and mistrust in both hands, one side holding the masters' views in the context of the lectures, the other bending those same words into the very different logic assumed by his old mentor. The truth seemed so ambiguous, so hard to define. Through all of the examination, Drizzt found that he could not escape one pervading fact: In his entire young life, the only treachery he had ever witnessed-and so often!-was at the hands of drow elves. The physical training of the Academy, hours on end of dueling exercises and stealth techniques, was more to Drizzt's liking. Here, with his weapons so readily in his hands, he freed himself of the disturbing questions of truth and perceived truth.
Here he excelled. If Drizzt had come into the Academy with a higher level of training and expertise than that of his classmates, the gap grew only wider as the grueling months passed. He learned to look beyond the accepted defense and attack routines put forth by the masters and create his own methods, innovations that almost always at least equaled-and usually outdid-the standard techniques.
At first, Dinin listened with increasing pride as his peers exalted in his younger brother's fighting prowess. So glowing came the compliments that the eldest son of Matron Malice soon took on a nervous wariness. Dinin was the elderboy of House Do'Urden, a title he had gained by eliminating Nalfein. Drizzt, showing the potential to become one of the finest swordsmen in all of Menzoberranzan, was now the secondboy of the house, eyeing, perhaps, Dinin's title. Similarly, Drizzt's fellow students did not miss the growing brilliance of his fighting dance. Often they viewed it too close for their liking! They looked upon Drizzt with seething jealousy, wondering if they could ever measure up against his whirling scimitars. Pragmatism was ever a strong trait in drow elves. These young students had spent the bulk of their years observing the elders of their families twisting every situation into a favorable light. Everyone of them recognized the value of Drizzt Do'Urden as an ally, and thus, when the grand melee came around the next year,
Drizzt was inundated with offers of partnership.
The most surprising query came from Kelnozz of House Kenafin, who had downed Drizzt through deceit the previous year. "Do we join again, this time to the very top of the class?" the haughty young fighter asked as he moved beside Drizzt down the tunnel to the prepared cavern. He moved around and stood before Drizzt easily, as if they were the best of friends, his forearms resting across the hilts of his belted weapons and an overly friendly smile spread across his face.
Dnzzt could not even answer. He turned and walked away, pointedly keeping his eye over one shoulder as he left.
"Why are you so amazed?" Kelnozz pressed, stepping quickly to keep up.
Drizzt spun on him. "How could I join again with one who so deceived me?" he snarled. "I have not forgotten your trick!"
"That is the point” Kelnozz argued. "You are more wary this year; certainly I would be a fool to attempt such a move again!"
"How else could you win?" said Drizzt. "You cannot defeat me in open battle” His words were not a boast, just a fact that Kelnozz accepted as readily as Drizzt.
"Second rank is highly honored” Kelnozz reasoned. Drizzt glared at him. He knew that Kelnozz would not settle for anything less than ultimate victory. "If we meet in the melee” he said with cold finality, "it will be as opponents” He walked off again, and this time Kelnozz did not follow.
Luck bestowed a measure of justice upon Drizzt that day, for his first opponent, and first victim, in the grand melee was none other than his former partner. Drizzt found Kelnozz in the same corridor they had used as a defensible starting point the previous year and took him down with his very first attack combination. Drizzt somehow managed to hold back on his winning thrust, though he truly wanted to jab his scimitar pole into Kelnozz's ribs with all his strength.
Then Drizzt was off into the shadows, picking his way carefully until the numbers of surviving students began to dwindle. With his reputation, Drizzt had to be extra wary, for his classmates recognized a common advantage in eliminating one of his prowess early in the competition. Working alone, Drizzt had to fully scope out every battle before he engaged, to ensure that each opponent had no secret companions lurking nearby.
This was Drizzt's arena, the place where he felt most comfortable, and he was up to the challenge. In two hours, only five competitors remained, and after another two hours of cat and mouse, it came down to only two: Drizzt and Berg'inyon Baenre.
Drizzt moved out into an open stretch of the cavern.
"Come out, then, student Baenre!" he called. "Let us settle this challenge openly and with honor!" Watching from the catwalk, Dinin shook his head in disbelief.
"He has relinquished all advantage” said Master Hatch'net, standing beside the elderboy of House Do'Urden. " As the better swordsman, he had Berg'inyon worried and unsure of his moves. Now your brother stands out in the open, showing his position”
"Still a fool” Dinin muttered.
Hatch'net spotted Berg'inyon slipping behind a stalagmite mound a few yards behind Drizzt. "It should be settled soon”
"Are you afraid?" Drizzt yelled into the gloom. "If you truly deserve the top rank, as you freely boast, then come out and face me openly. Prove your words, Berg'inyon Baenre, or never speak them again!"
The expected rush of motion from behind sent Drizzt into a sidelong roll.
"Fighting is more than swordplay!" the son of House Baenre cried as he came on, his eyes gleaming at the advantage he now seemed to hold.
Berg'inyon stumbled then, tripped up by a wire Drizzt had set out, and fell flat to his face. Drizzt was on him in a flash, scimitar pole tip in at Berg'inyon's throat.
"So I have learned” Drizzt replied grimly.
"Thus a Do'Urden becomes the champion” Hatch'net observed, putting his blue light on the face of House Baenre's defeated son. Hatch'net then stole Dinin's widening smile with a prudent reminder: "Elderboys should beware secondboys with such skills”
While Drizzt took little pride in his victory that second year, he took great satisfaction in the continued growth of his fighting skills. He practiced every waking hour when he was not busy in the many serving duties of a young student. Those duties were reduced as the years passedthe youngest students were worked the hardest-and Drizzt found more and more time in private training. He reveled in the dance of his blades and the harmony of his movements. His scimitars became his only friends, the only things he dared to trust.
He won the grand melee again the third year, and the year after that, despite the conspiracies of many others against him. To the masters, it became obvious that none in Drizzt's class would ever defeat him, and the next year they placed him into the grand melee of students three years his senior.
He won that one, too.
The Academy, above anything else in Menzoberranzan, was a structured place, and though Drizzt's advanced skill defied that structure in terms of battle prowess, his tenure as a student would not be lessened. As a fighter, he would spend ten years in the Academy, not such a long time considering the thirty years of study a wizard endured in Sorcere, or the fifty years a budding priestess would spend in Arach-Tinilith. While fighters began their training at the young age of twenty, wizards could not start until their twenty-fifth birthday, and clerics had to wait until the age of forty.
The first four years in Melee-Magthere were devoted to singular combat, the handling of weapons. In this, the masters could teach Drizzt little that Zaknafein had not already shown him.
After that, though, the lessons became more involved.
The young drow warriors spent two full years learning group fighting tactics with other warriors, and the subsequent three years incorporated those tactics into warfare techniques beside, and against, wizards and clerics.
The final year of the Academy rounded out the fighters' education. The first six months were spent in Sorcere, learning the basics of magic use, and the last six, the prelude to graduation, saw the fighters in tutelage under the priestesses of Arach-Tinilith.
All the while there remained the rhetoric, the hammering in of those precepts that the Spider Queen held so dear, those lies of hatred that held the drow in a state of controllable chaos.
Drizzt, the Academy became a personal challenge, a private classroom within the impenetrable womb of his whirling scimitars. Inside the adamantite walls he formed with those blades, Drizzt found he could ignore the many injustices he observed all around him, and could somewhat insulate himself against words that would have poisoned his heart. The Academy was a place of constant ambition and deceit, a breeding ground for the ravenous, consuming hunger for power that marked the life of all the drow. Drizzt would survive it unscathed, he promised himself.
Kelnozz fully expected this encounter. He had guessed Drizzt's naivete early on, when Drizzt had actually queried him about the rules of engagement. An experienced drow warrior, particularly a noble, should have known better, should have understood that the only rule of his existence was the pursuit of victory. Now, Kelnozz knew I this foolish young Do'Urden would not strike at him for his earlier actions-vengeance fueled by anger was not one of Drizzt's traits.
"Why?" Drizzt pressed, finding no answer forthcoming from the smug commoner of House Kenafin.
The volume of Drizzt's voice caused Kelnozz to glance around nervously. They were supposed to be sleeping; if a master heard them arguing. . .
"What is the mystery?" Kelnozz signaled back in the hand code, the warmth of his fingers glowing clearly to Drizzt's heat-sensing eyes. "I acted as I had to act, though I now believe I should have held off a bit longer. Perhaps, if you had defeated a few more, I might have finished higher than third in the class”
"If we had worked together, as we had agreed, you might have won, or finished second at the least” Drizzt signaled back, the sharp movements of his hands reflecting his anger.
"Most assuredly second” Kelnozz replied. "I knew from the beginning that I would be no match for you. You are the finest swordsman I have ever seen”
"Not by the masters' standing” Drizzt grumbled aloud.
Eighth is not so low” Kelnozz whispered back. Berg'inyon is only ranked tenth, and he is from the ruling house of Menzoberranzan. You should be glad that your standing is not to be envied by your classmates” A shuffle outside the room's door sent Kelnozz back into the silent mode. "Holding a higher rank means only that I have more fighters eyeing my back as a convenient place to rest their daggers”
Drizzt let the implications of Kelnozz's statement slip by; he refused to consider such treachery in the Academy. "Berg'inyon was the finest fighter I saw in the grand melee” he signaled. "He had you beaten until I interceded on your behalf “
Kelnozz smiled the thought away. "Let Berg'inyon serve as cook in some lowly house for alii care” he whispered even more quietly than before-for the son of House Baenre's bunk was only a few yards away. "He is tenth, yet I, Kelnozz of Kenafin, am third!"
"I am eighth” said Drizzt, an uncharacteristic edge on his voice, more anger than jealousy, "but I could defeat you with any weapon”
Kelnozz shrugged, a strangely blurring movement to on-lookers seeing in the infrared spectrum. "You did not” he signaled. "I won our encounter”
"Encounter?" Drizzt gasped. "You deceived me, that is all!"
"Who was left standing?" Kelnozz pointedly reminded him. "Who wore the blue light of a master's wand?"
"Honor demands that there be rules of engagement” growled Drizzt.
"There is a rule” Kelnozz snapped back at him. "You may do whatever you can get away with. I won our encounter, Drizzt Do'Urden, and I hold the higher rank! That is all that matters!"
In the heat of the argument, their voices had grown too loud. The door to the room swung wide, and a master stepped onto the threshold, his form vividly outlined by the hallway's blue lights. Both students promptly rolled over and closed their eyes-and their mouths.
The finality of Kelnozz's last statement rocked Drizzt to some prudent observations. He realized then that his friendship with Kelnozz had come to an endand, perhaps, that he and Kelnozz had never been friends at all.
"You have seen him?" Alton asked, his fingers tapping anxiously on the small table in the highest chamber of his private quarters. Alton had set the younger students of Sorcere to work repairing the blasted place, but the scorch marks on the stone walls remained, a legacy of Alton's fireball.
"I have” replied Masoj. "I have heard of his skill with weapons”
"Eighth in his class after the grand melee” said Alton, "a fine achievement”
"By all accounts, he has the prowess to be first” said Masoj. "One day he will claim that title. I shall be careful around that one”
"He will never live to claim it!" Alton promised. "House Do'Urden puts great pride in this purple-eyed youth, and thus 1 have decided upon Drizzt as my first target for revenge. His death will bring pain to that treacherous Matron Malice!"
Masoj saw a problem here and decided to put it to rest once and for all. "You will not harm him” he warned Alton.
"You will not even go near him” Alton's tone became no less grim. "I have waited two decades-" he began.
"You can wait a few more” Masoj snapped back. "I remind you that you accepted Matron SiNafay's invitation into House Hun'ell. Such an alliance requires obedience. Matron SiNafay-our matron mother-has placed upon my shoulders the task of handling Drizzt Do'Urden, and I will execute her will”
Alton rested back in his seat across the table and put what was left of his acid-torn chin into a slender palm, carefully weighing the words of his secret partner.
"Matron SiNafay has plans that will bring you all the revenge you could possibly desire” Masoj continued. "I warn you now, Alton DeVir” he snarled, emphasizing the surname that was not Hun'ett, "that if you begin a war with House Do'Urden, or even put them on the defensive with any act of violence unsanctioned by Matron SiNafay, you will incur the wrath of House Hun'ett. Matron SiNafay will expose you as a murderous imposter and will exact every punishment allowable by the ruling council upon your pitiful bones!"
Alton had no way to refute the threat. He was a rogue, without family beyond the adopted Hun'etts. If SiNafay turned against him, he would find no allies. "What plan does SiNafay . . . Matron SiNafay . . . have for House Do'Urden?" he asked calmly. "Tell me of my revenge so that I may survive these torturous years of waiting”
Masoj knew that he had to act carefully at this point. His mother had not forbidden him to tell Alton of the future course of action, but if she had wanted the volatile DeVir to know, Masoj realized, she would have told him herself.
"Let us just say that House Do'Urden's power has grown, and continues to grow, to the point where it has become a very real threat to all the great houses” Masoj purred, loving the intrigue of positioning before a war. "Witness the fall of House DeVir, perfectly executed with no obvious trail. Many of Menzoberranzan's nobles would rest easier if . . . "
He let it go at that, deciding that he probably had said too much already.
By the hot glimmer in Alton's eyes, Masoj could tell that the lure had been strong enough to buy Alton's patience.
The Academy held many disappointments for young Drizzt, particularly in that first year, when so many of the dark realities of drow society, realities that Zaknafein had barely hinted at, remained on the edges of Drizzt's cognizance with stubborn resilience. He weighed the masters' lectures of hatred and mistrust in both hands, one side holding the masters' views in the context of the lectures, the other bending those same words into the very different logic assumed by his old mentor. The truth seemed so ambiguous, so hard to define. Through all of the examination, Drizzt found that he could not escape one pervading fact: In his entire young life, the only treachery he had ever witnessed-and so often!-was at the hands of drow elves. The physical training of the Academy, hours on end of dueling exercises and stealth techniques, was more to Drizzt's liking. Here, with his weapons so readily in his hands, he freed himself of the disturbing questions of truth and perceived truth.
Here he excelled. If Drizzt had come into the Academy with a higher level of training and expertise than that of his classmates, the gap grew only wider as the grueling months passed. He learned to look beyond the accepted defense and attack routines put forth by the masters and create his own methods, innovations that almost always at least equaled-and usually outdid-the standard techniques.
At first, Dinin listened with increasing pride as his peers exalted in his younger brother's fighting prowess. So glowing came the compliments that the eldest son of Matron Malice soon took on a nervous wariness. Dinin was the elderboy of House Do'Urden, a title he had gained by eliminating Nalfein. Drizzt, showing the potential to become one of the finest swordsmen in all of Menzoberranzan, was now the secondboy of the house, eyeing, perhaps, Dinin's title. Similarly, Drizzt's fellow students did not miss the growing brilliance of his fighting dance. Often they viewed it too close for their liking! They looked upon Drizzt with seething jealousy, wondering if they could ever measure up against his whirling scimitars. Pragmatism was ever a strong trait in drow elves. These young students had spent the bulk of their years observing the elders of their families twisting every situation into a favorable light. Everyone of them recognized the value of Drizzt Do'Urden as an ally, and thus, when the grand melee came around the next year,
Drizzt was inundated with offers of partnership.
The most surprising query came from Kelnozz of House Kenafin, who had downed Drizzt through deceit the previous year. "Do we join again, this time to the very top of the class?" the haughty young fighter asked as he moved beside Drizzt down the tunnel to the prepared cavern. He moved around and stood before Drizzt easily, as if they were the best of friends, his forearms resting across the hilts of his belted weapons and an overly friendly smile spread across his face.
Dnzzt could not even answer. He turned and walked away, pointedly keeping his eye over one shoulder as he left.
"Why are you so amazed?" Kelnozz pressed, stepping quickly to keep up.
Drizzt spun on him. "How could I join again with one who so deceived me?" he snarled. "I have not forgotten your trick!"
"That is the point” Kelnozz argued. "You are more wary this year; certainly I would be a fool to attempt such a move again!"
"How else could you win?" said Drizzt. "You cannot defeat me in open battle” His words were not a boast, just a fact that Kelnozz accepted as readily as Drizzt.
"Second rank is highly honored” Kelnozz reasoned. Drizzt glared at him. He knew that Kelnozz would not settle for anything less than ultimate victory. "If we meet in the melee” he said with cold finality, "it will be as opponents” He walked off again, and this time Kelnozz did not follow.
Luck bestowed a measure of justice upon Drizzt that day, for his first opponent, and first victim, in the grand melee was none other than his former partner. Drizzt found Kelnozz in the same corridor they had used as a defensible starting point the previous year and took him down with his very first attack combination. Drizzt somehow managed to hold back on his winning thrust, though he truly wanted to jab his scimitar pole into Kelnozz's ribs with all his strength.
Then Drizzt was off into the shadows, picking his way carefully until the numbers of surviving students began to dwindle. With his reputation, Drizzt had to be extra wary, for his classmates recognized a common advantage in eliminating one of his prowess early in the competition. Working alone, Drizzt had to fully scope out every battle before he engaged, to ensure that each opponent had no secret companions lurking nearby.
This was Drizzt's arena, the place where he felt most comfortable, and he was up to the challenge. In two hours, only five competitors remained, and after another two hours of cat and mouse, it came down to only two: Drizzt and Berg'inyon Baenre.
Drizzt moved out into an open stretch of the cavern.
"Come out, then, student Baenre!" he called. "Let us settle this challenge openly and with honor!" Watching from the catwalk, Dinin shook his head in disbelief.
"He has relinquished all advantage” said Master Hatch'net, standing beside the elderboy of House Do'Urden. " As the better swordsman, he had Berg'inyon worried and unsure of his moves. Now your brother stands out in the open, showing his position”
"Still a fool” Dinin muttered.
Hatch'net spotted Berg'inyon slipping behind a stalagmite mound a few yards behind Drizzt. "It should be settled soon”
"Are you afraid?" Drizzt yelled into the gloom. "If you truly deserve the top rank, as you freely boast, then come out and face me openly. Prove your words, Berg'inyon Baenre, or never speak them again!"
The expected rush of motion from behind sent Drizzt into a sidelong roll.
"Fighting is more than swordplay!" the son of House Baenre cried as he came on, his eyes gleaming at the advantage he now seemed to hold.
Berg'inyon stumbled then, tripped up by a wire Drizzt had set out, and fell flat to his face. Drizzt was on him in a flash, scimitar pole tip in at Berg'inyon's throat.
"So I have learned” Drizzt replied grimly.
"Thus a Do'Urden becomes the champion” Hatch'net observed, putting his blue light on the face of House Baenre's defeated son. Hatch'net then stole Dinin's widening smile with a prudent reminder: "Elderboys should beware secondboys with such skills”
While Drizzt took little pride in his victory that second year, he took great satisfaction in the continued growth of his fighting skills. He practiced every waking hour when he was not busy in the many serving duties of a young student. Those duties were reduced as the years passedthe youngest students were worked the hardest-and Drizzt found more and more time in private training. He reveled in the dance of his blades and the harmony of his movements. His scimitars became his only friends, the only things he dared to trust.
He won the grand melee again the third year, and the year after that, despite the conspiracies of many others against him. To the masters, it became obvious that none in Drizzt's class would ever defeat him, and the next year they placed him into the grand melee of students three years his senior.
He won that one, too.
The Academy, above anything else in Menzoberranzan, was a structured place, and though Drizzt's advanced skill defied that structure in terms of battle prowess, his tenure as a student would not be lessened. As a fighter, he would spend ten years in the Academy, not such a long time considering the thirty years of study a wizard endured in Sorcere, or the fifty years a budding priestess would spend in Arach-Tinilith. While fighters began their training at the young age of twenty, wizards could not start until their twenty-fifth birthday, and clerics had to wait until the age of forty.
The first four years in Melee-Magthere were devoted to singular combat, the handling of weapons. In this, the masters could teach Drizzt little that Zaknafein had not already shown him.
After that, though, the lessons became more involved.
The young drow warriors spent two full years learning group fighting tactics with other warriors, and the subsequent three years incorporated those tactics into warfare techniques beside, and against, wizards and clerics.
The final year of the Academy rounded out the fighters' education. The first six months were spent in Sorcere, learning the basics of magic use, and the last six, the prelude to graduation, saw the fighters in tutelage under the priestesses of Arach-Tinilith.
All the while there remained the rhetoric, the hammering in of those precepts that the Spider Queen held so dear, those lies of hatred that held the drow in a state of controllable chaos.
Drizzt, the Academy became a personal challenge, a private classroom within the impenetrable womb of his whirling scimitars. Inside the adamantite walls he formed with those blades, Drizzt found he could ignore the many injustices he observed all around him, and could somewhat insulate himself against words that would have poisoned his heart. The Academy was a place of constant ambition and deceit, a breeding ground for the ravenous, consuming hunger for power that marked the life of all the drow. Drizzt would survive it unscathed, he promised himself.