"He is a drow fighter." Malice replied, her tone still controlled. "He must go to the Academy. It is our way."
Zak looked around helplessly. He hated this place, the chapel anteroom, with its sculptures of the Spider Queen leering down at him from every angle, and with Malice sitting―towering― above him from her seat of power.
Zak shook the images away and regained his courage, reminding himself that this time he had something worth arguing about.
"Do not send him!" he growled. "They will ruin him!" Matron Malice’s hands clenched down on the rock arms of her great chair.
"Already Drizzt is more skilled than half of those in the Academy." Zak continued quickly, before the matron’s anger burst forth. "Allow me two more years, and I will make him the finest swordsman in all of Menzoberranzan!"
Malice eased back on her seat. From what she had seen of her son’s progress, she could not deny the possibilities of Zak’s claim. "He goes." she said calmly. "There is more to the making of a drow warrior than skill with weapons. Drizzt has other lessons he must learn."
"Lessons of treachery?" Zak spat, too angry to care about the consequences. Drizzt had told him what Malice and her evil daughters had done that day, and Zak was wise enough to understand their actions. Their «lesson» had nearly broken the boy, and had, perhaps, forever stolen from Drizzt the ideals he held so dear. Drizzt would find his morals and principles harder to cling to now that the pedestal of purity had been knocked out from under him."
"Watch your tongue, Zaknafein." Matron Malice warned.
"I fight with passion!" the weapon master snapped. "That is why I win. Your son, too, fights with passion, do not let the conforming ways of the Academy take that from him!"
"Leave us." Malice instructed her daughters. Maya bowed and rushed out through the door. Briza followed more slowly, pausing to cast a suspicious eye upon Zak. Zak didn’t return the glare, but he entertained a fantasy concerning his sword and Briza’s smug smile.
"Zaknafein." Malice began, again coming forward in her chair. "I have tolerated your blasphemous beliefs through these many years because of your skill with weapons. You have taught my soldiers well, and your love of killing drow, particularly clerics of the Spider Queen, has aided the ascent of House Do’Urden. I am not, and have not been, ungrateful."
"But I warn you now, one final time, that Drizzt is my son, not his sire’s! He will go to the Academy and learn what he must to take his place as a prince of House Do’Urden. If you interfere with what must be, Zaknafein, I will no longer turn my eyes from your actions! Your heart will be given to Lolth."
Zak stamped his heels on the floor and snapped a short bow of his head, then spun about and departed, trying to find some option in this dark and hopeless picture. As he made his way through the main corridor, he again heard in his mind the screams of the dying children of House DeVir, children who never got the chance to witness the evils of the drow Academy. Perhaps they were better off dead.
Chapter 11
Grim Preference
Zak slid one of his swords from its scabbard and admired the weapon’s wondrous detail. This sword, as with most of the drow weapons, had been forged by the gray dwarves, then traded to Menzoberranzan. The duergar workmanship was exquisite, but it was the work done on the weapon after the dark elves had acquired it that made it so very special. None of the races of the surface or Underdark could outdo the dark elves in the art of enchanting weapons. Imbued with the strange emanations of the Underdark, the magical power unique to the lightless world, and blessed by the unholy clerics of Lolth, no blade ever sat in a wielder’s hand more ready to kill.
Other races, mostly dwarves and surface elves, also took pride in their crafted weapons. Fine swords and mighty hammers hung over mantles as showpieces, always with a bard nearby to spout the accompanying legend that most often began, "In the days of yore…"
Drow weapons were different, never showpieces. They were locked in the necessities of the present, never in reminiscences, and their purpose remained unchanged for as long as they held an edge fine enough for battle, fine enough to kill.
Zak brought the blade up before his eyes. In his hands, the sword had become more than an instrument of battle. It was an extension of his rage, his answer to an existence he could not accept.
It was his answer, too, perhaps, to another problem that seemed to have no resolution.
He walked into the training hall, where Drizzt was hard at work spinning attack routines against a practice dummy.
Zak paused to watch the young drow at practice, wondering if Drizzt would ever again consider the dance of weapons a form of play. How the scimitars flowed in Drizzt’s hands! Interweaving with uncanny precision, each blade seemed to anticipate the other’s moves and whirred about in perfect complement.
This young drow might soon be an unrivaled fighter, a master beyond Zaknafein himself.
"Can you survive?" Zak whispered. "Have you the heart of a drow warrior?" Zak hoped that the answer would be an emphatic «No» but either way, Drizzt was surely doomed.
Zak looked down at his sword again and knew what he must do. He slid its sister blade from its sheath and started a determined walk toward Drizzt.
Drizzt saw him coming and turned at the ready. "A final fight before I leave for the Academy?" He laughed. Zak paused to take note of Drizzt’s smile. A facade? Or had the young drow really forgiven himself for his actions against Maya’s champion. It did not matter, Zak reminded himself. Even if Drizzt had recovered from his mother’s torments, the Academy would destroy him. The weapon master said nothing he just came on in a flurry of cuts and stabs that put Drizzt immediately on the defensive. Drizzt took it in stride, not yet realizing that this final encounter with his mentor was much more than their customary sparring.
"I will remember everything you taught me." Drizzt promised, dodging a cut and launching a fierce counter of his own. "I will carve my name in the halls of Melee-Magthere and make you proud."
The scowl on Zak’s face surprised Drizzt, and the young drow grew even more confused when the weapon master’s next attack sent a sword knifing straight at his heart. Drizzt leaped aside, slapping at the blade in sheer desperation, and narrowly avoided impalement.
"Are you so very sure of yourself?" Zak growled, stubbornly pursuing Drizzt.
Drizzt set himself as their blades met in ringing fury. "I am a fighter." he declared. "A drow warrior!"
"You are a dancer!" Zak shot back in a derisive tone. He slammed his sword onto Drizzt’s blocking scimitar so savagely that the young drow’s arm tingled.
"An imposter!" Zak cried. "A pretender to a title you cannot begin to understand!"
Drizzt went on the offensive. Fires burned in his lavender eyes and new strength guided his scimitars sure cuts. But Zak was relentless. He fended the attacks and continued his lesson. "Do you know the emotions of murder?" he spat. "Have you reconciled yourself to the act you committed?"
Drizzt’s only answers were a frustrated growl and a renewed attack.
"Ah, the pleasure of plunging your sword into the bosom of a high priestess." Zak taunted. "To see the light of warmth leave her body while her lips utter silent curses in your face! Or have you ever heard the screams of dying children?"
Drizzt let up his attack, but Zak would not allow a break.
The weapon master came back on the offensive; each thrust aimed for a vital area.
"How loud, those screams." Zak continued. "They echo over the centuries in your mind, they chase you down the paths of your entire life."
Zak halted the action so that Drizzt might weigh his every word. "You have never heard them, have you, dancer?" The weapon master stretched his arms out wide, an invitation.