And so was he.
Serreg turned his head to the corner of the grotto that he had chosen for his stash, and let the dagger drop from his teeth. It struck the muddy floor with a ring, a keening metallic sound of frustration, and bounced far higher than physically justifiable. It bounced again, and again, and again. Eventually it landed, rocking from side to side, and the vibrations rotated the blade around until it pointed accusingly at Serreg.
With the back of his left paw, Serreg nudged the blade aside, but the push carried the blade around until it pointed at him again.
Complain if you want to, thought Serreg, I have no further need of you.
Limping slightly on his right forepaw, he moved to the entrance to his grotto.
I've studied long enough, he thought. Time to put that knowledge to use.
So thinking, he soared into the sky.
GORLIST'S DRAGON
The Year of the Trumpet (1301 DR)
Ten-year-old Gorlist stared with open-mouthed dismay at the gift that commemorated the end of his word-weaning years. His reward for surviving a decade in the squalid outer caverns of Ched Nasad, for endless hours struggling with the intricacies of the dark elven speech, hand cant, and written language, was a book. A book!
His tutor, T'sarlt, watched expectantly. Gorlist snatched up his gift and hurled it across the room.
Folding his thin arms, he leveled a mutinous glare at the old drow and said, "Soldiers don't have the time to read."
"The time, or the wit?" T'sarlt snapped. "Raise your aspirations, boy! Some drow are bred for battle fodder, but you-you are a wizard's son."
According to the laws and customs of the drow, Gorlist was no such thing. The wizard Nisstyre had — sired him and sent T'sarlt to teach and care for him, but Gorlist was Chindra's son-Chindra, the gladiator who'd won free of the arena and worked her way up the ranks of the city's elite guard.
Chindra's son, Gorlist concluded sullenly, should have had a dagger as his word-weaning gift.
T'sarlt retrieved the book from the rough stone floor and placed it open on the table. He tapped the faintly glowing markings with a spidery black forefinger.
"You are entering your second decade of life. It is time for you to learn simple spells."
The boy glanced at the book and quickly snatched his gaze away. The magical markings seemed to writhe and crawl on the page, like maggots feasting upon a rotting glowfish. He repressed a shudder and twisted his lips in an imitation of the sneer Chindra wore whenever talk turned to such matters.
"Magic," he scoffed, "is for weaklings. Give me a sword, not bat dung and bad poetry."
T'sarlt pushed the book closer and said, "There is power here, and Nisstyre wishes you to wield it."
"So? All of Nisstyre's wishes won't keep Chindra from putting this book in the privy and making good use of its pages."
"If that's your measure of this book's worth," he said in a voice tense with controlled rage, "you are as stupid as you are arrogant."
Gorlist shrugged aside the insult and said, "Any education worth having comes from blood spilled, not books read. You can tell that to my mother's cast-off parzdiametkis."
The vulgar term, most commonly employed in a brothel, found the limits of T'sarlt's patience. The old drow lunged for the boy, his long, skinny fingers curved like a raptor's talons.
Gorlist easily danced aside. He lifted one hand in a rude gesture as he darted out of the cave they shared with Chindra. He scampered down the narrow stone alley, leaping over piles of street offal and dodging his tutor's grasping hands.
T'sarlt soon gave up the chase and clung, wheezing, to one of the twin stalagmites framing the entrance to Dragonsdoom Tavern, the brothel that provided Gorlist with his colorful vocabulary, as well as the occasional coin.
"Gorlist, come back at once!" T'sarlt called. "You'll be whipped for this!"
No doubt he would be, but not badly. Since Gorlist could write a little, he could send word to his father. T'sarlt was too old to take on another drow youngling. If Nisstyre dismissed him, where would he go?
Perhaps Chindra would keep him on. A sly grin twitched Gorlist's lips at the thought of his tutor spit-polishing Chindra's boots. Chindra had never shown much interest in T'sarlt, or in Gorlist, for that matter, but Gorlist took pride in his mother's steadfast refusal to relinquish him to Nisstyre.
"Males claiming children? Can't be done," she'd proclaimed. "Sets a bad precedent."
The memory of his mother's clipped, military tone brought a smile to the boy's face. What need had he of books? Chindra couldn't read or write, but she had her own mark, and those who mattered knew and feared it.
Gorlist reached inside his tunic and ran his fingers over the crude pendant hidden there-a small, flat stone, onto which he'd scratched Chindra's mark. To him, it was as fine as any matron's gems.
He squeezed through the crowd lined up outside Zimyar's Exotic Mushrooms. Beyond the market cavern lay a maze of tunnels, lairs for Underdark beasts and would-be ambushers. Gorlist started running as soon as he broke free of the crowd, his mind fixed upon glories ahead.
He made his way to the guard's training cavern without incident. Skirting the main entrance, he climbed the rough-hewn rocks to a small, secret cave high above the battleground. There he'd spent many stolen hours, watching the females train.
Two soldiers were on the field, moving together in a tight circle. His eyes went immediately to the taller female, a well-muscled drow whose shaved head was shiny with sweat and oil. That could be none but Chindra. Other females valued the beauty of flowing white hair, but Chindra refused to give her opponents the benefit of a hand-hold.
A happy sigh escaped Gorlist as he watched his mother. T'sarlt had often chided him for that dangerous affection.
"The heart is a subtle weapon," he'd cautioned. "It will be turned against you, if you're fool enough to hand it to another drow."
Gorlist cared nothing for his tutor's cautions. He loved everything about Chindra-her fierce grace in battle, the tune she whistled whenever she headed for the taverns, the welter of scars on her forearms. He'd asked her about them during one of her rare good moods, and was rewarded with the longest conversation they'd ever shared.
"Tangled as Lolth's web," she'd said proudly, turning her arms this way and that to display her battle scars. "Get in knife fights, and you're going to get cut. The skill is managing how and where, and how deep. You'll learn the way of it, if you live long enough."
"Will you teach me?" he'd asked eagerly.
That had amused her.
"Are you so anxious to bleed, drowling? Watch to learn, learn to wait. The rest will come in time."
That very day he'd followed Chindra to the practice field for the first time. After all, where better to watch and learn?
Gorlist took his treasures from a cranny in the rock walclass="underline" a broken whetstone and a once-rusty sickle he'd found in a garbage heap. He settled down and began to smooth the stone over the slim, shining blade as he watched the battle below.
The fighters were testing new weapons-thick gloves tipped with curving metal talons. Gorlist watched, heart pounding, as the two females circled and slashed. The smaller female took a vicious swipe at Chindra. She leaned out of reach and countered with a quick, snatching movement that, captured her opponent's hand. She clenched, forcing her opponent's claws to bite into her own hand. Chindra's claws followed, disappearing into her opponent's flesh.