What spell was next? What spell could slow the monster that was Drizzt Do’Urden?
A hand, glowing with the heat of anger, grabbed the lip of the ledge. Masoj stomped on it with the heel of his boot. The fingers were broken―the wizard knew that the fingers were broken―but Drizzt, impossibly, was up beside him and the blade of a scimitar was through the wizard’s ribs.
"The fingers are broken!" the dying mage gasped in protest.
Drizzt looked down at his hand and realized the pain for the first time. "Perhaps." he said absently, "but they will heal."
Drizzt, limping, found his other scimitar and cautiously picked his way over the rubble of one of the mounds. Fighting the fear within his broken heart, he forced himself to peer over the crest at the destruction. The back side of the mound glowed eerily in the residual heat, a beacon for the awakening city.
So much for stealth…
Pieces of Alton DeVir lay scattered at the bottom, around the wizard’s smoldering robes. "Have you found peace, Faceless One?" Drizzt whispered, exhaling the last of his anger. He remembered the assault Alton had launched against him those years ago in the Academy. The faceless master and Masoj had explained it away as a test for a budding warrior.
"How long you have carried your hate." Drizzt muttered at the blasted bits of corpse.
But Alton DeVir was not his concern now. He scanned the rest of the rubble, looking for some clue to Guenhwyvar’s fate, not certain how a magical creature would fare in such a disaster. Not a sign of the cat remained, nothing that would even hint that Guenhwyvar had ever been there.
Drizzt consciously reminded himself that there was no hope, but the anxious spring in his steps mocked his stern visage. He rushed back down the mound and around the other stalagmite, where Masoj and he had been when the wand exploded. He spotted the onyx figurine immediately.
He lifted it gently in his hands. It was warm, as though it, too, had been caught in the blast, and Drizzt could sense that its magic had diminished. Drizzt wanted to call the cat, then, but he didn’t dare, knowing that the travel between the planes heavily taxed Guenhwyvar. If the cat had been injured, Drizzt figured that it would be better to give it some time to recuperate.
"Oh, Guenhwyvar." he moaned, "my friend, my brave friend." He dropped the figurine into his pocket.
He could only hope that Guenhwyvar had survived.
Chapter 29
Alone
Drizzt walked back around the stalagmite, back to the body of Masoj Hun’ett. He had had no choice but to kill his adversary, Masoj had drawn the battle lines.
That fact did little to dispel the guilt in Drizzt as he looked upon the corpse. He had killed another drow, had taken the life of one of his own people. Was he trapped, as Zaknafein had been trapped for so very many years, in a cycle of violence that would know no end?
"Never again." Drizzt vowed to the corpse. "Never again will I kill a drow elf."
He turned away, disgusted, and knew as soon as he looked back to the silent, sinister mounds of the vast drow city that he would not survive long in Menzoberranzan if he held to that promise.
A thousand possibilities whirled in Drizzt’s mind as he made his way through the winding ways of Menzoberranzan. He pushed the thoughts aside, stopped them from dulling his alertness. The light was general now in Narbondel the drow day was beginning, and activity had started from every corner of the city. In the world of the surface-dwellers, the day was the safer time, when light exposed assassins. In Menzoberranzan’s eternal darkness, the daytime of the dark elves was even more dangerous than the night. Drizzt picked his way carefully, rolling wide from the mushroom fence of the noblest houses, wherein lay House Hun’ett. He encountered no more adversaries and made the safety of the Do’Urden compound a short time later. He rushed through the gate and by the surprised soldiers without a word of explanation and shoved aside the guards below the balcony.
The house was strangely quiet Drizzt would have expected them all to be up and about with battle imminent. He gave the eerie stillness no more thought, and he cut a straight line to the training gym and Zaknafein’s private quarters.
Drizzt paused outside the gym’s stone door, his hand tightly clenched on the handle of the portal. What would he propose to his father? That they leave? He and Zaknafein on the perilous trails of the Underdark, fighting when they must and escaping the burdensome guilt of their existence under drow rule? Drizzt liked the thought, but he wasn’t so certain now, standing before the door, that he could convince Zak to follow such a course. Zak could have left before, at any time during the centuries of his life, but when Drizzt had asked him why he had remained, the heat had drained from the weapon master’s face. Were they indeed trapped in the life offered to them by Matron Malice and her evil cohorts?
Drizzt grimaced away the worries, no sense in arguing to himself with Zak only a few steps away.
The training gym was as quiet as the rest of the house. Too quiet. Drizzt hadn’t expected Zak to be there, but something more than his father was absent. The father’s presence, too, was gone.
Drizzt knew that something was wrong, and each step he took toward Zak’s private door quickened until he was in full flight. He burst in without a knock, not surprised to find the bed empty.
"Malice must have sent him out in search of me." Drizzt reasoned. "Damn, I have caused him trouble!" He turned to leave, but something caught his eye and held him in the room, Zak’s sword belt.
Never would the weapon master have left his room, not even for functions within the safety of House Do’Urden, without his swords. "Your weapon is your most trusted companion." Zak had told Drizzt a thousand times. "Keep it ever at your side!"
"House Hun’ett?" Drizzt whispered, wondering if the rival house had magically attacked in the night, while he was out battling Alton and Masoj. The compound, though, was serene surely the soldiers would have known if anything like that had occurred.
Drizzt picked up the belt for inspection. No blood, and the clasp neatly unbuckled. No enemy had torn this from Zak.
The weapon master’s pouch lay beside it, also intact.
"What, then?" Drizzt asked aloud. He replaced the sword belt beside the bed, but slung the pouch across his neck, and turned, not knowing where he should go next.
He had to see about the rest of the family, he realized before he had even stepped through the door. Perhaps then this riddle about Zak would become more clear.
Dread grew out of that thought as Drizzt headed down the long and decorated corridor to the chapel anteroom.
Had Malice, or any of them, brought Zak harm? For what, purpose? The notion seemed illogical to Drizzt, but it nagged him every step, as if some sixth sense were warning him.
There still was no sign of anyone.
The anteroom’s ornate doors swung in, magically and silently, even as Drizzt raised his hand to knock on them. He saw the matron mother first, sitting smugly on her throne at the rear of the room, her smile inviting.
Drizzt’s discomfort did not diminish when he entered.
The whole family was there, Briza, Vierna, and Maya to the sides of their matron, Rizzen and Dinin unobtrusively standing beside the left wall. The whole family. Except for Zak.
Matron Malice studied her son carefully, noting his many wounds. "I instructed you not to leave the house." she said to Drizzt, but she was not scolding him. "Where did your travels take you?"
"Where is Zaknafein?" Drizzt asked in reply.
"Answer the matron mother!" Briza yelled at him, her snake whip prominently displayed on her belt.