From festering in the swirl of Abyss.
Given to Lloth and by Lloth given
That thee might seek the darkest of trails.
Presented to one who is most unshriven
And held out to thee, for thee shall fail!
So seek, Drizzt Do'Urden, the one who hates thee most.
A friend, and too, a foe, made in thine home that was first.
There thee will find one feared a ghost
Bonded by love and by battle's thirst.
The blind hag stopped abruptly, her sightless eyes lingering, her entire body perfectly still, as though the recital had taken a great deal of her strength. Then she drifted back between the stones, moving out of sight.
Drizzt hardly noticed her, just stood, shoulders suddenly slumped, strength sapped by the impossible possibility. "Given to Lloth," he muttered helplessly, and only one more word could he speak, "Zaknafein."
Chapter 10 KIERSTAAD'S HEART
They came out of the cave to find Guenhwyvar sitting calmly atop a pinned Dunkin. Drizzt waved the cat off the man and they departed.
Drizzt was hardly conscious of the journey back across the island to the rowboat. He said nothing all the way, except to dismiss Guenhwyvar back to her astral home as soon as they realized that they would face no resistance on the beach this time. The ice was gone and so were the zombies. The others, respecting the drow's mood, understanding the unnerving information the hag had given him, remained quiet as well.
Drizzt repeated the blind seer's words over and over in his mind, vainly trying to commit them to memory. Every syllable could be a clue, Drizzt realized, every inflection might offer him some hint as to who might be holding his father prisoner. But the words had come too suddenly, too unexpectedly.
His father! Zaknafein! Drizzt could hardly breathe as he thought of the sudden possibility. He remembered their many sparring matches, the years they had spent in joyful and determined practice. He remembered the time when Zaknafein had
tried to kill him, and he loved his father even more for that, because Zaknafein had come after him only in the belief that his beloved Drizzt had gone over to the dark ways of the drow.
Drizzt shook the memories from his mind. He had no time for nostalgia now; he had to focus on the task so suddenly at hand. As great as was his elation at the thought that Zaknafein might be returned to him, so was his trepidation. Some powerful being, either a matron mother, or perhaps even Lloth herself, held the secret, and the hag's words implicated Catti-brie as well as Drizzt. The ranger cast a sidelong glance at Catti-brie, who was lost in apparently similar contemplations. The hag had intimated that all of this, the attack in Waterdeep and the journey to this remote island, had been arranged by a powerful enemy who sought revenge not only upon Drizzt, but upon Catti-brie.
Drizzt slowed and let the others get a few steps ahead as they dragged the rowboat to the surf. He released Catti-brie from his gaze, and, momentarily at least, from his thoughts, going back to privately reciting the hag's verse. The best thing he could do for Catti-brie, and for Zaknafein, was to memorize it, all of it, as exactly as possible. Drizzt understood that consciously, but still, the possibility that Zaknafein might be alive, overwhelmed him, and all the verses seemed fuzzy, a distant dream that the ranger fought hard to recollect. Drizzt was not alert as they splashed back off the beach of Caerwich. His eyes focused only on the swish of the oars under the dark water, and so intent was he that if a horde of zombies had risen up against them from the water, Drizzt would have been the last to draw a weapon.
As it turned out, they got back to the Sea Sprite without incident and Deudermont, after a quick check with Drizzt to assure that they were done with their business on the island, wasted no time in putting the ship back out to sea. Deudermont called for full sails the moment they got out of the enveloping fog of Caerwich, and the swift schooner soon put the misty island far, far behind. Only after Caerwich was out of sight did Deudermont call Drizzt, Catti-brie, and the two wizards into his private quarters for a discussion of what had just transpired.
"You knew what the old witch was speaking about?" the captain asked Drizzt.
"Zaknafein," the drow replied without hesitation. He noticed that Catti-brie's expression seemed to cloud over. The woman
had been tense all the way back from the cave, almost giddy, but it seemed to Drizzt that she was now merely crestfallen.
"And our course now?" Deudermont asked.
"Home, and only home," Robillard put in. "We have no provisions, and we still have some damage to repair from the storm that battered us before we made the Gull Rocks."
"After that?" the captain wanted to know, looking directly at Drizzt as he asked the question.
Drizzt was warmed by the sentiment, by the fact that Deudermont was deferring to his judgment. When the drow gave no immediate response, the captain went on.
" 'Seek the one who hates you most, the witch said," Deudermont reasoned. "Who might that be?"
"Entreri," Catti-brie answered. She turned to a surprised Deudermont. "Artemis Entreri, a killer from the southlands."
"The same assassin we once chased all the way to Calimshan?" Deudermont asked.
"Our business with that one never seems to be finished," Catti-brie explained. "He's hating Drizzt more than any-"
"No," Drizzt interrupted, shaking his head, running a hand through his thick white hair. "Not Entreri." The drow understood Artemis Entreri quite well, too well. Indeed Entreri hated him, or had once hated him, but their feud had been more propelled by blind pride, the assassin's need to prove himself the better, than by any tangible reason for enmity. After his stay in Menzoberranzan, Entreri had been cured of that need, at least somewhat. No, this challenge went deeper than the assassin. This had to do with Lloth herself, and involved not only Drizzt, but Catti-brie, and the dropping of the stalactite mount into the Baenre chapel. This pursuit, this proverbial golden ring, was based in pure and utter hatred.
"Who then?" Deudermont asked after a lengthy silence.
Drizzt could not give a definite answer. "A Baenre, most likely," he replied. "I have made many enemies. There are dozens in Menzoberranzan who would go to great lengths to kill me."
"But how do you know it is someone from Menzoberranzan?" Harkle interjected. "Do not take this the wrong way, but you have made many enemies on the surface as well!"
"Entreri," Catti-brie said again.
Drizzt shook his head. "The hag said, 'A foe made in the home that was first, " Drizzt explained. "An enemy from Menzoberranzan."
Catti-brie wasn't sure that Drizzt had correctly repeated the witch's exact words, but the evidence seemed irrefutable.
"So where to start?" Deudermont, playing the role of moderator and nothing more, asked them all.
"The witch spoke of otherworldly influence," Robillard reasoned. "She mentioned the Abyss."
"Lloth's home," Drizzt added.
Robillard nodded. "So we must get some answers from the Abyss," the wizard reasoned.
"Are we to sail there?" Deudermont scoffed.
The wizard, more knowledgeable in such matters, merely smiled and shook his head. "We must bring a fiend to our world," he explained, "and extract information from it. Not so difficult or unusual a task for those practiced in the art of sorcery."
"As you are?" Deudermont asked him.
Robillard shook his head and looked to Harkle.
"What?" the distracted Harpell said dumbly as soon as he noticed every gaze upon him. The wizard was deep in thought, also trying to reconstruct the blind witch's verse, though from his vantage point in the cave, he hadn't heard every word.
"As you are," Robillard explained, "practiced in matters of sorcery."