Zak’s nose crunched flat. His eyes lolled upward, and blood exploded over his hollow cheeks. Zak knew that he was falling, that the devilish young warrior would be on him in a flash, gaining an advantage that Zak could not hope to overcome.
"What of you, Zaknafein Do’Urden?" he heard Drizzt snarl, distantly, as though he were falling far away. "I have heard of the exploits of House Do’Urden’s weapon master! How he so enjoys killing!" The voice was closer now, as Drizzt stalked in, and as the rebounding rage of Zaknafein sent him spiraling back to the battle. "I have heard how murder comes so very easily to Zaknafein!" Drizzt spat derisively. "The murder of clerics, of other drow! Do you so enjoy it all?" He ended the question with a blow from each scimitar, attacks meant to kill Zak, to kill the demon in them both.
But Zaknafein was now fully back to consciousness, hating himself and Drizzt equally. At the last moment, his swords came up and crossed, lightning fast, throwing Drizzt’s arms wide. Then Zak finished with a kick of his own, not so strong from the prone position but accurate in its search for Drizzt’s groin.
Drizzt sucked in his breath and twirled away, forcing himself back into composure when he saw Zaknafein, still dazed, rising to his feet. "Do you so enjoy it all?" he managed to ask again.
"Enjoy?" the weapon master echoed.
"Does it bring you pleasure?" Drizzt grimaced.
"Satisfaction!" Zak corrected. "I kill. Yes, I kill."
"You teach others to kill!"
"To kill drow!" Zak roared, and he was back in Drizzt’s face, his weapons up but waiting for Drizzt to make the next move.
Zak’s words again entwined Drizzt in a mesh of confusion. Who was this drow standing before him?
"Do you think that your mother would let me live if I did not serve her evil designs?" Zak cried.
Drizzt did not understand.
"She hates me." Zak said, more in control as he began to understand Drizzt’s confusion, "despises me for what I know." Drizzt cocked his head.
"Are you so blind to the evil around you?" Zak yelled in his face. "Or has it consumed you, as it consumes all of them, in this murderous frenzy that we call life?"
"The frenzy that holds you?" Drizzt retorted, but there was little conviction in his voice now. If he understood Zak’s words correctly―if Zak played the killing game simply because of his hatred for the perverted drow―the most Drizzt could blame him for was cowardice.
"No frenzy holds me." Zak replied. "I live as best I can, survive in a world that is not my own, not my heart." The lament in his words, the droop of his head as he admitted his helplessness, struck a familiar chord in Drizzt. "I kill, kill drow, to serve Matron Malice―to placate the rage, the frustration, that I know in my soul. When I hear the children scream…" His gaze snapped up on Drizzt and he rushed in all of a sudden, his fury returned tenfold.
Drizzt tried to get his scimitars up, but Zak knocked one of them across the room and drove the other aside. He rushed in step with Drizzt’s awkward retreat until he had Drizzt pinned against a wall. The tip of Zak’s sword drew a droplet of blood from Drizzt’s throat.
"The child lives!" Drizzt gasped. "I swear, I did not kill the elven child!"
Zak relaxed a bit but still held Drizzt, sword to throat. "Dinin said…"
"Dinin was mistaken." Drizzt replied frantically. "Fooled by me. I knocked the child down―only to spare her―and covered her with the blood of her murdered mother to mask my own cowardice!"
Zak leaped back, overwhelmed.
"I killed no elves that day." Drizzt said to him. "The only times I desired to kill were my own companions!"
"So now we know." said Briza, staring into the scrying bowl, watching the conclusion of the battle between Drizzt and Zaknafein and hearing their every word. "It was Drizzt who angered the Spider Queen."
"You suspected him all along, as did I." Matron Malice replied, "though we both hoped differently.
"So much promise!" Briza lamented. "How I wish that one, had learned his place, his values. Perhaps…"
"Mercy?" Matron Malice snapped at her. "Do you show mercy that would further invoke the Spider Queen’s displeasure?"
"No, Matron." Briza replied. "I had only hoped that Drizzt could be used in the future, as you have used Zaknafein all these years. Zaknafein is growing older."
"We are about to fight a war, my daughter." Malice reminded her. "Lolth must be appeased. Your brother has brought his fate upon himself, his actions were his own to decide."
"He decided wrongly."
The words hit Zaknafein harder than Drizzt’s boot had.
The weapon master threw his swords to the ends of the room and rushed in on Drizzt. He buried him in a hug so intense that it took the young drow a long moment to even realize what had happened.
"You have survived!" Zak said, his voice broken by muffled tears. "Survived the Academy, where all the others died!"
Drizzt returned the embrace, tentatively, still not guessing the depth of Zak’s elation.
"My son!"
Drizzt nearly fainted, overwhelmed by the admission of what he had always suspected, and even more so by the knowledge that he was not the only one in his dark world angered by the ways of the drow. He was not alone.
"Why?" Drizzt asked, pushing Zak out to arm’s length. "Why have you stayed?"
Zak looked at him incredulously. "Where would I go? No one, not even a drow weapon master would survive for long out in the caverns of the Underdark. Too many monsters, and other races, hunger for the sweet blood of dark elves."
"Surely you had options."
"The surface?" Zak replied. "To face the painful inferno every day? No, my son, I am trapped, as you are trapped." Drizzt had feared that statement, had feared that he would find no solution from his newfound father to the dilemma that was his life. Perhaps there were no answers.
"You will do well in Menzoberranzan." Zak said to comfort him. "You are strong, and Matron Malice will find an appropriate place for your talents, whatever your heart may desire."
"To live a life of assassinations, as you have?" Drizzt asked, trying futilely to keep the rage out of his words.
"What choice is before us?" Zak answered, his eyes seeking the unjudging stone of the floor.
"I will not kill drow." Drizzt declared flatly.
Zak’s eyes snapped back on him. "You will." he assured his son. "In Menzoberranzan, you will kill or be killed."
Drizzt looked away, but Zak’s words pursued him, could not be blocked out.
"There is no other way," the weapon master continued softly. "Such is our world. Such is our life. You have escaped this long, but you will find that your luck soon will change."
He grabbed Drizzt’s chin firmly and forced his son to look at him directly.
"I wish that it could be different," Zak said honestly, "but it is not such a bad life. I do not lament killing dark elves. I perceive their deaths as their salvation from this wicked existence. If they care so dearly for their Spider Queen, then let them go and visit her!"
Zak’s growing smile washed away suddenly. "Except for the children." he whispered. "Often have I heard the cries of dying children, though never, I promise you, have I caused them. I have always wondered if they, too, are evil, born evil. Or if the weight of our dark world bends them to fit our foul ways."
"The ways of the demon Lolth." Drizzt agreed.
They both paused for many heartbeats, each privately weighing the realities of his own personal dilemma. Zak was next to speak, having long ago come to terms with the life that was offered to him.
"Lolth." he chuckled. "She is a vicious queen, that one. I would sacrifice everything for a chance at her ugly face!"