The Dark Elf Trilogy: Homeland

 

Drizzt wandered alone through the maze of Menzober-ranzan, drifting past the stalagmite mounds, under the leer-ing points of the great stone spears that hung from the cavern's high ceiling. Matron Malice had specifically or- dered all of the family to remain within the house, fearing an assassination attempt by House Hun'ett. Tho much had happened to Drizzt this day for him to obey. He had to think, and contemplating such blasphemous thoughts, even silently, in a house full of nervous clerics might get him into serious trouble.



This was the quiet time of the city; the heat-light of Nar-bondel was only a sliver at the stone's base, and most of the drow comfortably slept within their stone houses. Soon af-ter he slipped through the adamantite gate of the House Do'Urden compound, Drizzt began to understand the wis-dom of Matron Malice's command. The city's quiet now' seemed to him like the crouched hush of a predator. It was poised to drop upon him from behind everyone of the: many blind corners he faced on this trek. "



He would find no solace here in which he might truly contemplate the day's events, the revelations of Zaknafein, kindred in more than blood. Drizzt decided to break all the rules-that was the way of the drow, after all-and head out of the city, down the tunnels he knew so well from his weeks of patrol. ~



An hour later, he was still walking, lost in thought and feeling safe enough, for he was well within the boundaries of the patrol region. '



He entered a high corridor, ten paces wide and with bro-ken walls lined in loose rubble and crossed by many ledges.



It seemed as though the passage once had been much wider.



The ceiling was far beyond sight, but Drizzt had been through here a dozen times, up on the many ledges, and he gave the place no thought.



He envisioned the future, the times that he and Zaknafein, his father, would share now that no secrets separated them.



Together they would be unbeatable, a team of weapon mas-ters, bonded by steel and emotions. Did House Hun'ett truly understand what it would be facing? The smile on Drizzt's face disappeared as soon as he considered the implications: he and Zak, together, cutting through House Hun'ett's ranks with deadly ease, through the ranks of drow elves-killing their own people.



Drizzt leaned against the wall for support, understanding firsthand the frustration that had racked his father for many centuries. Drizzt did not want to be like Zaknafein, living only to kill, existing in a protective sphere of violence, but what choices lay before him? Leave the city?



Zak had balked when Drizzt asked him why he had not left. "Where would I go?" Drizzt whispered now, echoing Zak's words. His father had proclaimed them trapped, and so it seemed to Drizzt.



"Where would I go?" he asked again. "1i'avel the Under-dark, where our people are so despised and a single drow would become a target for everything he passed? Or to the surface, perhaps, and let that ball of fire in the sky burn out my eyes so that I may not witness my own death when the elven folk descend upon me?"



The logic of the reasoning trapped Drizzt as it had trapped Zak. Where could a drow elf go? Nowhere in all the Realms would an elf of dark skin be accepted.



Was the choice then to kill? to kill drow?



Drizzt rolled over against the wall, his physical movement an unconscious act, for his mind whirled down the maze of his future. It took him a moment to realize that his back was against something other than stone.



He tried to leap away, alert again now that his surround-ings were not as they should be. When he pushed out, his feet came up from the ground and he landed back in his original position. Frantically, before he took the time to con-sider his predicament, Drizzt reached behind his neck with both hands.



They, too, stuck fast to the translucent cord that held him. Drizzt knew his folly then, and all the tugging in the world would not free his hands from the line of the angler of the Underdark, a cave fisher.



"Foo!!" he scolded himself as he felt himself lifted from the ground. He should have suspected this, should have been more careful alone in the caverns. But to reach out bare- handed! He looked down at the hilts of his scimitars, useless in their sheaths.



The cave fisher reeled him in, pulled him up the long wall toward its waiting maw.



Masoj Hun'ett smiled smugly to himself as he watched Drizzt depart the city. Time was running short for him, and Matron SiNafay would not be pleased if he failed again in his mission to destroy the secondboy of House Do'Urden. Now;



Masoj's patience had apparently paid off, for Drizzt had come out alone, had left the city! There were no witnesses. It was too easy.



Eagerly the wizard pulled the onyx figurine from his . pouch and dropped it to the ground. "Guenhwyvar!" he called as loudly as he dared, glancing around at the nearest Istalagmite house for signs of activity.



The dark smoke appeared and transformed a moment later into Masoj's magical panther. Masoj rubbed his hands together, thinking himself marvelous for having concocted such a devious and ironic end to the heroics of Drizzt Do'Urden "I have a job for you" he told the cat, "one that you'll not enjoy!"



Guenhwyvar slumped casually and yawned as though the wizard's words were hardly a revelation.



"Your point companion has gone out on patrol" Masoj explained as he pointed down the tunnel, "by himself. It's too dangerous"



Guenhwyvar stood back up, suddenly very interested.



"Drizzt should not be out there alone" Masoj continued.



"He could get killed"



The evil inflections of his voice told the panther his intent before he ever spoke the words.



"Go to him, my pet" Masoj purred. "Find him out there in the gloom and kill him!" He studied Guenhwyvar's reaction, measured the horror he had laid on the cat. Guenhwyvar stood rigid, as unmoving as the statue used to summon it.



"Go!" Masoj ordered. "You cannot resist your master's commands! I am your master, unthinking beast! You seem to forget that fact too often!"



Guenhwyvar resisted for a long moment, a heroic act in it. self, but the magic's urges, the incessant pull of the master's command, outweighed any instinctive feelings the great panther might have had. Reluctantly at first, but then pulled by the primordial desires of the hunt, Guenhwyvar sped off between the enchanted statues guarding the tun-nel and easily found Drizzt's scent.



Alton DeVir slumped back behind the largest of the stalag-mite mounds, disappointed at Masoj's tactics. Masoj would let the cat do his work for him; Alton would not even wit-ness Drizzt Do'Urden's death!



Alton fingered the powerful wand that Matron SiNafay had given to him when he set out after Masoj that night. It seemed that the item would play no role in Drizzt's demise.



Alton took comfort in the item, knowing that he would have ample opportunity to put it to proper use against the remainder of House Do'Urden.



Drizzt fought for the first half of his ascent, kicking and spinning, ducking his shoulders under any outcrop he passed in a futile effort to hold back the pull of the cave fisher. He knew from the outset, though, against those war. rior instincts that refused to surrender, that he had no chance to halt the incessant pull.



Halfway up, one shoulder bloodied, the other bruised, and with the floor nearly thirty feet below him, Drizzt re-signed himself to his fate. If he would find a chance against the crablike monster that waited at the top of the line, it would be in the last instant of the ascent. For now, he could only watch and wait.



Perhaps death was not so bad an alternative to the life he would find among the drow, trapped within the evil frame-work of their dark society. Even Zaknafein, so strong and powerful and wise with age, had never been able to come to terms with his existence in Menzoberranzan; what chance did Drizzt have?



When Drizzt had passed through his small bout with self-pity, when the angle of his ascent changed, showing him the lip of the final ledge, the fighting spirit within him took over once again. The cave fisher might have him, he decided then, but he'd put a boot or two into the thing's eyes before it got its meal!



He could hear the clacking of the anxious monster's eight crablike legs. Drizzt had seen a cave fisher before, though it had scrambled away before he and his patrol could catch up to it. He had imagined it then, and could imagine it now, in battle. Thro of its legs ended in wicked claws, pincers that snipped up prey to fit into the maw.



Drizzt turned himself face-in to the cliff, wanting to view the thing as soon as his head crested the ledge. The anxious clacking grew louder, resounding alongside the thumping of Drizzt's heart. He reached the ledge.



Drizzt peeked over, only a foot or two from the monster's long proboscis, with the maw just inches behind. Pincers reached out to grab him before he could get his footing; he would get no chance to kick out at the thing.



He closed his eyes, hoping again that death would be pref-erable to his life in Menzoberranzan.



A familiar growl then brought him from his thoughts.



Slipping through the maze of ledges, Guenhwyvar came in sight of the cave fisher and Drizzt just before Drizzt had reached the final ledge. This was a moment of salvation or death for the cat as surely as for Drizzt. Guenhwyvar had traveled here under Masoj's direct command, giving no con-sideration to its duty and acting only on its own instincts in accord with the compelling magic. Guenhwyvar could not go against that edict, that premise for the cat's very exist-ence . .. until now.



The scene before the panther, with Drizzt only seconds from death, brought to Guenhwyvar a strength unknown to the cat, and unforeseen to the creator of the magical figu-rine. That instant of terror gave a life to Guenhwyvar be. yond the scope of the magic.



By the time Drizzt had opened his eyes, the battle was in full fury. Guenhwyvar leaped atop the cave fisher but nearly went right over, for the monster's six remaining legs were rooted to the stone by the same goo that held Drizzt fast to the long filament. Undaunted, the cat raked and bit, a ball of frenzy trying to find a break in the fisher's armored shell.



The monster retaliated with its pincers, flipping them over its back with surprising agility and finding one of Guenhwyvar's forelegs.



Drizzt was no longer being pulled in; the monster had other business to attend to.



Pincers cut through Guenhwyvar's soft flesh, but the cat's blood was not the only dark fluid staining the cave fisher's back. Powerful feline claws tore up a section of the shell ar-mor, and great teeth plunged beneath it. As the cave fisher's blood splattered to the stone, its legs began to slip.



Watching the goo under the crablike legs dissolve as the blood of the monster struck it, Drizzt understood what would happen as a line of that same blood made its way down the filament, toward him. He would have to strike fast if the opportunity came; he would have to be ready to help Guenhwyvar.



The fisher stumbled to the side, rolling Guenhwyvar away and spinning Dmzt over in a complete bumping cir-cuit.



Still the blood oozed down the line, and Drizzt felt the fila-ment's hold loosen from his top hand as the liquid came in contact.



Guenhwyvar was up again, facing the fisher, looking for an attack route through the waiting pincers.



Drizzt's hand was free. He snapped up a scimitar and dove straight ahead, sinking the tip into the fisher's side. The monster reeled about, the jolt and the continuing blood flow shaking Drizzt from the filament altogether. The drow was agile enough to find a handhold before he had fallen far, though his drawn scimitar tumbled down to the floor. Drizzt's diversion opened the fisher's defenses for just a moment, and Guenhwyvar did not hesitate. The cat bar-reled into its foe, teeth finding the same fleshy hold they had already ripped. They went deeper, under the skin, " crushing organs as Guenhwyvar's raking claws kept the pin- cers at bay.



By the time Drizzt climbed back to the level of the battle, the cave fisher shuddered in the throes of death. Drizzt pulled himself up and rushed to his friend's side. Guenhwyvar retreated step for step, its ears flattened and teeth bared.



At first, Drizzt thought that the pain of a wound blinded the cat, but a quick survey dispelled that theory. Guenhwy- var had only one injury, and that was not serious. Drizzt had seen the cat with worse.



Guenhwyvar continued to retreat, continued to growl, as the incesant pounding of Masoi's command, back again af-ter the Instant of terror, hammered at its heart. The cat fought the urges, tried to see Drizzt as an ally, not as prey, but the urges.



"What is wrong, my friend?" Drizzt asked softly, resisting the urge to draw his remaining blade in defense. He dropped to one knee. "Do you not recognize me? How often we have fought together!"



Guenhwyvar crouched low and tamped down its hind legs, preparing, Drizzt knew, to spring. Still Drizzt did not draw his weapon, did nothing to threaten the cat. He had to trust that Guenhwyvar was true to his perceptions, that the panther was everything he believed it to be. What now could be guiding these unfamiliar reactions? What had brought Guenhwyvar out here at this late hour?



Drizzt found his answers when he remembered Matron Malice's warnings about leaving House Do'Urden.



"Masoj sent you to kill me!" he said bluntly. His tone con-fused the cat, and it relaxed a bit, not yet ready to spring.



"You saved me, Guenhwyvar. You resisted the command" Guenhwyvar's growl sounded in protest.



"You could have let the cave fisher do the deed for you" Drizzt retorted, "but you did not! You charged in and saved my life! Fight the urges, Guenhwyvar! Remember me as your friend, a better companion than Masoj Hun'ett could ever be!"



Guenhwyvar backed away another step, caught in a pull that it could not yet resolve. Drizzt watched the cat's ears come up from its head and knew that he was winning the contest.



"Masoj claims ownership" he went on, confident that the cat, through some intelligence Drizzt could not know, un-derstood the meaning of his words. "I claim friendship. I am your friend, Guenhwyvar, and I'll not fight against you" He leaped forward, arms unthreateningly wide, face and chest fully exposed. "Even at the cost of my own life!"



Guenhwyvar did not strike. Emotions pulled at the cat stronger than any magical spell, those same emotions that had put Guenhwyvar into action when it first saw Drizzt in the cave fisher's clutches.



Guenhwyvar reared up and leaped out, crashing into Drizzt and knocking him to his back, then burying him in a rush of playful slaps and mock bites.



The two friends had won again; they had defeated two foes this day.



When Drizzt paused from the greeting to consider all that had transpired, though, he realized that one of the victories was not yet complete. Guenhwyvar was his in spirit now' but still held by another, one who did not deserve the cat, W?o enslaved the cat in a life that Drizzt could no longer witness.



None of the confusion that had followed Drizzt Do'Urden out of Menzoberranzan that night remained. For the first time in his life, he saw the road he must follow, the path to his own freedom.



He remembered Zaknafein's warnings, and the same im- possible alternatives that he had contemplated, to no resolu-tion.



Where, indeed, could a drow elf go?



"Worse to be trapped within a lie; he whispered absently.



The panther cocked its head to the side, sensing again that Drizzt's words carried great importance. Drizzt returned the curious stare with one that came suddenly grim.



"take me to your master" he demanded, "your false master"