"Ungrateful?" Masoj snarled. "Foolish Alton, all of the spiders are on your side of the room. Remember?" Masoj turned to leave and called, "Good hunting" over his shoulder. He reached for the handle to the door, but as his long fingers closed around it, the portal’s surface transformed into the image of Matron Ginafae. She smiled widely, too widely, and an impossibly long and wet tongue reached out and licked Masoj across the face.
"Alton!" he cried, spinning back against the wall out of the slimy member’s reach. He noticed the wizard in the midst of spellcasting; Alton fighting to hold his concentration as a host of spiders continued their hungry ascent up his flowing robes.
"You are a dead one." Masoj commented matter-of-factly, shaking his head.
Alton fought through the exacting ritual of the spell, ignored his own revulsion of the crawling things, and forced the evocation to completion. In all of his years of study, Alton never would have believed he could do such a thing; he would have laughed at the mere mention of it. Now, however, it seemed a far preferable fate to the yochlol’s creeping doom.
He dropped a fireball at his own feet.
Naked and hairless, Masoj stumbled through the door and out of the inferno. The flaming faceless master came next, diving into a roll and stripping his tattered and burning robe from his back as he went.
As he watched Alton patting out the last of the flames, a pleasant memory flashed in Masoj’s mind, and he uttered the single lament that dominated his every thought at this disastrous moment.
"I should have killed him when I had him in the web."
A short time later, after Masoj had gone back to his room and his studies, Alton slipped on the ornamental metallic bracers that identified him as a master of the Academy and slipped outside the structure of Sorcere. He moved to the wide and sweeping stairway leading down from Tier Breche and sat down to take in the sights of Menzoberranzan.
Even with this view, though, the city did little to distract Alton from thoughts of his latest failure. For sixteen years he had forsaken all other dreams and ambitions in his desperate search to find the guilty house. For sixteen years he had failed.
He wondered how long he could keep up the charade, and his spirits. Masoj, his only friend―if Masoj could be called a friend―was more than halfway through his studies at Sorcere. What would Alton do when Masoj graduated and returned to House Hun’ett?
"Perhaps I shall carry on my toils for centuries to come," he said aloud, "only to be murdered by a desperate student, as I―as Masoj―murdered the Faceless One. Might that student disfigure himself and take my place?" Alton couldn’t stop the ironic chuckle that passed his lipless mouth at the notion of a perpetual "faceless master" of Sorcere. At what point would the Matron Mistress of the Academy get suspicious? A thousand years? Ten thousand? Or might the Faceless One outlive Menzoberranzan itself? Life as a master was not such a bad lot, Alton supposed. Many drow would sacrifice much to be given such an honor.
Alton dropped his face into the crook of his elbow and forced away such ridiculous thoughts. He was not a real master, nor did the stolen position bring him any measure of satisfaction. Perhaps Masoj should have shot him that day, sixteen years ago, when Alton was trapped in the Faceless One’s web.
Alton’s despair only deepened when he considered the actual time frame involved. He had just passed his seventieth birthday and was still young by drow standards. The notion that only a tenth of his life was behind him was not a comforting one to Alton DeVir this night.
"How long will I survive?" he asked himself. "How long until this madness that is my existence consumes me?" Alton looked back out over the city. "Better that the Faceless One had killed me." he whispered. "For now I am Alton of No House Worth Mentioning."
Masoj had dubbed him that on the first morning after House DeVir’s fall, but way back then, with his life teetering on the edge of a crossbow, Alton had not understood the title’s implications. Menzoberranzan was nothing more than a collection of individual houses. A rogue commoner might latch on to one of them to call his own, but a rogue noble wouldn’t likely be accepted by any house in the city. He was left with Sorcere and nothing more… until his true identity was discovered at last. What punishments would he then face for the crime of killing a master? Masoj may have committed the crime, but Masoj had a house to defend him. Alton was only a rogue noble.
He sat back on his elbows and watched the rising heatlight of Narbondel. As the minutes became hours, Alton’s despair and self-pity went through inevitable change. He turned his attention to the individual drow houses now, not to the conglomeration that bound them as a city, and he wondered what dark secrets each harbored. One of them, Alton reminded himself, held the secret he most dearly wanted to know. One of them had wiped out House DeVir.
Forgotten was the night’s failure with Matron Ginafae and the yochlol, forgotten was the lament for an early death. Sixteen years was not so long a time, Alton decided. He had perhaps seven centuries of life left within his slender frame. If he had to, Alton was prepared to spend every minute of those long years searching for the perpetrating house.
"Vengeance." he growled aloud, needing, feeding off, that audible reminder of his only reason for continuing to draw breath.
Chapter 8
Kindred
Zak pressed in with a series of low thrusts. Drizzt tried to back away quickly and return to even footing, but the relentless assault followed his every step, and he was forced to keep his movements solely on the defensive. More often than not, Drizzt found the hilts of his weapons closer to Zak than the blades.
Zak then dropped into a low crouch and came up under Drizzt’s defense.
Drizzt twirled his scimitars in a masterful cross, but he had to straighten stiffly to dodge the weapon master’s equally deft assault. Drizzt knew that he had been set up, and he fully expected the next attack as Zak shifted his weight to his back leg and dove in, both sword tips aimed for Drizzt’s loins.
Drizzt spat a silent curse and spun his scimitars into a downward cross, meaning to use the «V» of his blades to catch his teacher’s swords. On a sudden impulse, Drizzt hesitated as he intercepted Zak’s weapons, and he jumped away instead, taking a painful slap on the inside of one thigh. Disgusted, he threw both of his scimitars to the floor.
Zak, too, leaped back. He held his swords out to his sides, a look of sincere confusion on his face. "You should not have missed that move," he said bluntly.
"The parry is wrong." Drizzt replied.
Awaiting further explanation, Zak lowered one sword tip to the floor and leaned on the weapon. In past years, Zak had wounded, even killed, students for such blatant defiance.
"The crossdown defeats the attack, but to what gain?" Drizzt continued. "When the move is completed, my sword tips remain down too low for any effective attack routine, and you are able to slip back and free."
"But you have defeated my attack."
"Only to face another." Drizzt argued. "The best position I can hope to obtain from the crossdown is an even stance."
"Yes…" Zak prompted, not understanding his student’s problem with that scenario.
"Remember your own lesson!" Drizzt shouted. "Every move should bring an advantage, you preach to me, but I see no advantage in using the crossdown."
"You recite only one part of that lesson for your own purpose." Zak scolded; now growing equally angry. "Complete the phrase, or use it not at all! ‘Every move should bring an advantage or take away a disadvantage.’ The crossdown defeats the double thrust low, and your opponent obviously has gained the advantage if he even attempts such a daring offensive maneuver! Returning to an even stance is far preferable at that moment."