"Will you deal?" Drizzt offered.
"You are in no position to bargain." Alton laughed, drawing out the slender wand that Matron SiNafay had given him.
Masoj cut him short. "Wait." he said. "Perhaps Drizzt will prove valuable to our struggle against House Do’Urden." He eyed the young warrior directly. "You will betray your family?"
"Hardly." Drizzt snickered. " As I have already said to you, I care little for the coming conflict. Let House Hun’ett and House Do’Urden both be damned, as surely they will! My concerns are personal."
"You must have something to offer us in exchange for your gain." Masoj explained. "Otherwise, what bargain can you hope to make?"
"I do have something to give to you in return." Drizzt replied, his voice calm, "your lives."
Masoj and Alton looked to each other and laughed aloud, but there was a trace of nervousness in their chuckles.
"Give me the figurine, Masoj." Drizzt continued, undaunted. "Guenhwyvar never belonged to you and will serve you no more."
Masoj stopped laughing.
"In return." Drizzt went on before the wizard could reply, "I will leave House Do’Urden and not take part in the battle."
"Corpses do not fight." Alton sneered.
"I will take another Do’Urden with me." Drizzt spat at him. "A weapon master. Surely House Hun’ett will have gained an advantage if both Drizzt and Zaknafein…"
"Silence!" Masoj screamed. "The cat is mine! I do not need any bargains from a pitiful Do’Urden! You are dead, fool, and House Do’Urden’s weapon master will follow you to your grave!"
"Guenhwyvar is free!" Drizzt growled.
The scimitars came out in Drizzt’s hands. He had never really fought a wizard before, let alone two, but he remembered vividly from past encounters the sting of their spells. Masoj had already begun to cast, but of more concern was Alton, out of quick reach and pointing that slender wand.
Before Drizzt ever decided his course of action, the issue was settled for him. A cloud of smoke engulfed Masoj and he fell back, his spell disrupted with the shock. Guenhwyvar was back.
Alton was out of Drizzt’s reach. Drizzt could not hope to get to the wizard before the wand went off, but to Guenhwyvar’s streamlined feline muscles, the distance was not so great. Hind legs tamped a footing and snapped, launching the hunting panther through the air.
Alton brought the wand to bear on this new nemesis in time and released a mighty bolt, scorching Guenhwyvar’s chest. Greater strength than a single bolt, though, would be needed to deter the ferocious panther. Stunned but still fighting, Guenhwyvar slammed into the faceless wizard, dropping him off the back side of the stalagmite mound. The lightning bolt’s flash stunned Drizzt as well, but he continued to pursue Masoj and could only hope that Guenhwyvar had survived. He rushed around the base of the other stalagmite mound and came face-to-face with Masoj, once again in the act of spellcasting. Drizzt didn’t slow, he ducked his head and barreled into his opponent, his scimitars leading the way.
He slipped right through his opponent, right through the image of his opponent!
Drizzt crashed heavily into the stone and rolled aside, trying to escape the magical attack he knew was coming.
This time, Masoj, standing fully thirty feet behind the projection of his image, was taking no chances with a miss. He launched a volley of magical missiles of energy that veered unerringly to intercept the dodging fighter. They slammed into Drizzt, jolting him, bruising him under his skin.
But Drizzt was able to shake away the numbing pain and regain his footing. He knew where the real Masoj was standing now and had no intention of letting the trickster out of sight again.
A dagger in his hand, Masoj watched Drizzt’s stalking approach.
Drizzt didn’t understand. Why wasn’t the wizard preparing another spell? The fall had reopened the wound in Drizzt’s shoulder, and the magical bolts had torn his side and a leg. The wounds were not serious, though, and Masoj had no chance against him in physical combat.
The wizard stood before him, unconcerned, dagger drown and a wicked smile on his face.
Face down on the hard stone, Alton felt the warmth of his own blood running freely between the melted holes that were his eyes. The cat was higher up the side of the mound, not yet fully recovered from the lightning bolt.
Alton forced himself up and raised his wand for a second strike… but the wand had snapped in half.
Frantically Alton recovered the other piece and held it up before his disbelieving eyes. Guenhwyvar was coming again, but Alton didn’t notice.
The glowing ends of the wand, a power building within the magical stick, enthralled him. "You cannot do that." Alton whispered in protest.
Guenhwyvar leaped just as the broken wand exploded.
A ball of fire roared up into Menzoberranzan’s night, chunks of rubble rocketed off the great cavern’s eastern wall and ceiling, and both Drizzt and Masoj were knocked from their feet.
"Now Guenhwyvar belongs to no one," Masoj sneered, tossing the figurine to the ground.
"No DeVir remains to claim vengeance on House Do’Urden." Drizzt growled back, his anger holding off his despair. Masoj became the focus of that anger, and the wizard’s mocking laughter led Drizzt toward him in a furious rush.
Just as Drizzt got in range, Masoj snapped his fingers and was gone.
"Invisible." Drizzt roared, slicing futilely at the empty air before him. His exertions took the edge from his blind rage and he realized that Masoj was no longer in front of him. How foolish he must seem to the wizard. How vulnerable!
Drizzt crouched to listen. He sensed a distant chanting from up above, on the cavern wall.
Drizzt’s instincts told him to dive to the side, but his new understanding of wizards told him that Masoj would anticipate such a move. Drizzt feigned to the left and heard the climactic words of the building spell. As the lightning blast thundered harmlessly to the side, Drizzt sprinted straight ahead, hoping his vision would return in time for him to get to the wizard.
"Damn you!" Masoj cried, understanding the feint as soon as he had errantly fired. Rage became terror in the next instant, as Masoj caught sight of Drizzt, sprinting across the stone, leaping the rubble, and crossing the sides of the mounds with all the grace of a hunting cat.
Masoj fumbled in his pockets for the components to his next spell. He had to be quick. He was fully twenty feet from the cavern floor, perched on a narrow ledge, but Drizzt was moving fast, impossibly fast!
The ground beneath him did not register in Drizzt’s conscious thoughts. The cavern wall would have seemed unclimbable to him in a more rational state, but now he gave it not a care. Guenhwyvar was lost to him. Guenhwyvar was gone.
That wicked wizard on the ledge, that embodiment of demonic evil, had caused it. Drizzt sprang to the wall, found one hand free―he must have discarded one scimitar―and caught a tenuous hold. It wasn’t enough for a rational drow, but Drizzt’s mind ignored the protests of the muscles in his straining fingers. He had only ten feet to go.
Another volley of energy bolts thudded into Drizzt, hammering the top of his head in rapid succession.
"How many spells remain, wizard?" he heard himself defiantly cry as he ignored the pain.
Masoj fell back when Drizzt looked up at him, when the burning light of those lavender orbs fell upon him like a pronouncement of doom. He had seen Drizzt in battle many times, and the sight of the fighting young warrior had haunted him through all the planning of this assassination. But Masoj had never seen Drizzt enraged before. If he had, he never would have agreed to try to kill Drizzt. If he had, he would have told Matron SiNafay to go sit on a stalagmite.