Alton suspected that his secret was out. If the Faceless One had been a member of the Hun’ett family, how could Alton hope to fool the matron mother of the house? He scanned for the best escape route, or for some way he could at least kill the traitorous Masoj before SiNafay struck him down.
When he looked back toward Matron SiNafay, she had already begun a quiet spell. Her eyes popped wide at its completion, her suspicions confirmed.
"Who are you?" she asked, her voice sounding more curious than concerned.
There was no escape, no way to get at Masoj, standing prudently close to his powerful mother’s side.
"Who are you?" SiNafay asked again, taking a three-headed instrument from her belt, the dreaded snake-headed whip that injected the most painful and incapacitating poison known to drow.
"Alton." he stuttered, having no choice but to answer. He knew that since she now was on her guard, SiNafay would use simple magic to detect any lies he might concoct. "I am Alton DeVir."
"DeVir?" Matron SiNafay appeared at least intrigued. "Of the House DeVir that died some years ago?"
"I am the only survivor." Alton admitted.
"And you killed Gelroos―Gelroos Hun’ett―and took his place as master in Sorcere," the matron reasoned, her voice a snarl. Doom closed in all around Alton.
"I did not… I could not know his name… He would have killed me!" Alton stuttered.
"I killed Gelroos." came a voice from the side. SiNafay and Alton turned to Masoj, who once again held his favorite two-handed crossbow.
"With this." the young Hun’ett explained. "On the night House DeVir fell. I found my excuse in Gelroos’s battle with that one." He pointed to Alton.
"Gelroos was your brother." Matron SiNafay reminded Masoj.
"Damn his bones!" Masoj spat. "For four miserable years I served him, served him as if he were a matron mother! He would have kept me from Sorcere, would have forced me into the Melee-Magthere instead."
The matron looked from Masoj to Alton and back to her son. " And you let this one live." she reasoned, a smile again on her lips. "You killed your enemy and forged an alliance with a new master in a single move."
"As I was taught," Masoj said through clenched teeth, not knowing whether punishment or praise would follow.
"You were just a child." SiNafay remarked, suddenly realizing the timetable involved.
Masoj accepted the compliment silently. Alton watched it all anxiously. "Then what of me?" he cried. "Is my life forfeit?"
SiNafay turned a glare on him. "Your life as Alton DeVir ended, so it would seem, on the night House DeVir fell. Thus you remain the Faceless One, Gelroos Hun’ett. I can use your eyes in the Academy, to watch over my son and my enemies."
Alton could hardly breathe. To so suddenly find himself allied with one of the most powerful houses in Menzoberranzan! A jumble of possibilities and questions flooded his mind, one in particular, which had haunted him for nearly two decades.
His adopted matron mother recognized his excitement.
"Speak your thoughts." she commanded.
"You are a high priestess of Lolth." Alton said boldly, that one notion overpowering all caution. "It is within your power to grant me my fondest desire."
"You dare to ask a favor?" Matron SiNafay balked, though she saw the torment on Alton’s face and was intrigued by the apparent importance of this mystery. "Very well."
"What house destroyed my family?" Alton growled. "Ask the nether world, I beg, Matron SiNafay." SiNafay considered the question carefully, and the possibilities of Alton’s apparent thirst for vengeance. Another benefit of allowing this one into the family? SiNafay wondered.
"This is known to me already." she replied. "Perhaps when you have proven your value, I will tell…"
"No!" Alton cried. He stopped short; realizing that he had interrupted a matron mother, a crime that could invoke a punishment of death.
SiNafay held back her angry urges. "This question must be very important for you to act so foolishly," she said.
"Please" Alton begged. "I must know. Kill me if you will, but tell me first who it was."
SiNafay liked his courage, and his obsession could only prove of value to her. "House Do’Urden." she said.
"Do’Urden?" Alton echoed, hardly believing that a house so far back in the city hierarchy could have defeated House DeVir.
"You will take no actions against them," Matron SiNafay warned. "And I will forgive your insolence, this time. You are a son of House Hun’ett now remember always your place!" She let it stay at that, knowing that one who had been clever enough to carry out such a deception for the better part of two decades would not be foolish enough to disobey the matron mother of his house.
"Come Masoj," SiNafay said to her son, "let us leave this one alone so that he may consider his new identity."
"I must tell you, Matron SiNafay." Masoj dared to say as he and his mother made their way out of Sorcere, " Alton DeVir is a buffoon. He might bring harm to House Hun’ett."
"He survived the fall of his own house." SiNafay replied, "and has played through the ruse as the Faceless One for nineteen years. A buffoon? Perhaps, but a resourceful buffoon at the least."
Masoj unconsciously rubbed the area of his eyebrow that had never grown back. "I have suffered the antics of Alton DeVir for all these years." he said. "He does have a fair share of luck, I admit, and can get himself out of trouble―though he is usually the one who puts himself into it!"
"Do not fear." SiNafay laughed. "Alton brings value to our house."
"What can we hope to gain?"
"He is a master of the Academy." SiNafay replied. "He gives me eyes where I now need them." She stopped her son and turned him to face her so that he might understand the implications of her every word. "Alton DeVir’s claim against House Do’Urden may work in our favor. He was a noble of the house, with rights of accusation."
"You mean to use Alton DeVir’s charge to rally the great houses into punishing House Do’Urden?" Masoj asked.
"The great houses would hardly be willing to strike out for an incident that occurred almost twenty years ago." SiNafay replied. "House Do’Urden executed House DeVir’s destruction nearly to perfection―a clean kill. To so much as speak an open charge against the Do’Urdens now would be to invite the wrath of the great houses on ourselves."
"What good then is Alton DeVir?" Masoj asked. "His claim is useless to us."
The matron replied, "You are only a male and cannot understand the complexities of the ruling hierarchy. With Alton DeVir’s charge whispered into the proper ears, the ruling council might look the other way if a single house took revenge on Alton’s behalf."
"To what end?" Masoj remarked, not understanding the importance. "You would risk the losses of such a battle for the destruction of a lesser house?"
"So thought House DeVir of House Do’Urden." explained SiNafay. "In our world, we must be as concerned with the lower houses as with the higher ones. All of the greathouses would be wise now to watch closely the moves of Daermon N’a’shezbaernon, the ninth house that is known as Do’Urden. It now has both a master and a mistress serving in the Academy and three high priestesses, with a fourth nearing the goal."
"Four high priestesses?" Masoj pondered. "In a single house." Only three of the top eight houses could claim more than that. Normally, sisters aspiring to such heights inspired rivalries that inevitably thinned the ranks.
"And the legions of House Do’Urden number more than three hundred fifty." SiNafay continued, "all of them trained by perhaps the finest weapon master in all the city."
"Zaknafein Do’Urden, of course!" Masoj recalled.
"You have heard of him?"
"His name is often spoken at the Academy, even in Sorcere."