The Dark Elf Trilogy: Homeland

Chapter 29 Alone

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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 vio-lence 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 heiooked back to the silent, sinister mounds of the vast draw 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 Menzoberran-zan. He pushed the thoughts aside, stopped them from dull-ing 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 as-sassins. 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 with-out a word of explanation and shoved aside the guards be-low the balcony.

The house was strangely quiet; Drizzt would have ex-pected 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 con-vince Zak to follow such a course. Zak could have left be-fore, 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. Tho quiet. Drizzt hadn't expected Zak to be there, but some-thing more than his father was absent. The father's pres-ence, 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 se. rene; 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 be- I fore 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 i 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 si-lently, 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 trav-els 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.

Drizzt glared at her and she recoiled, feeling the same bit-ter chill that Zaknafein had cast over her earlier in the night.

"I instructed you not to leave the house" Malice said again, still holding calm. "Why did you disobey me?"

"I had matters to attend" Drizzt replied, "urgent matters. I did not wish to bother you with them"

"War is upon us, my son" Matron Malice explained. "You are vulnerable out in the city by yourself. House Do'Urden cannot afford to lose you now"

"My business had to be handled alone" Drizzt answered.

"Is it completed?"

"It is"

"Then I trust that you will not disobey me again" The words came calm and even, but Drizzt understood at once the severity of the threat behind them.

"To other matters, then" Malice went on.

"Where is Zaknafein?" Drizzt dared to ask again.

Briza mumbled some curse under her breath and pulled the whip from her belt. Matron Malice threw an out-stretched hand in her direction to stay her. They needed tact, not brutality, to bring Drizzt under control at this criti-cal time. There would be ample opportunities for punish-ment after House Hun'ett was properly defeated.

"Concern yourself not with the fate of the weapon master" Malice replied. "He works for the good of House Do'Urden even as we speak-on a personal mission"

Drizzt didn't believe a word of it. Zak would never have left without his weapons. The truth hovered about Drizzt's thoughts, but he wouldn't let it in.

"Our concern is House Hun'ett" Malice went on, addressing them all. "The war's first strikes may fall this day"

"The first strikes already have fallen" Drizzt interrupted.

All eyes came back to him, to his wounds. He wanted to con-tinue the discussion about Zak but knew that he would only get himself, and Zak, if Zak was still alive, into further trou-ble. Perhaps the conversation would bring him more clues.

"You have seen battle?" Malice asked.

"You know of the Faceless One?" Drizzt asked.

"Master of the Academy" Dinin answered, "of Sorcere. have dealt with him often"

"He has been of use to us in the past" said Malice, "but no more, I believe. He is a Hun'ett, Gelroos Hun'ett"

"No" Drizzt replied. "Once he may have been, but Alton DeVir is his name. .. was his name"

"The link!" Dinin growled, suddenly comprehending.

"Gelroos was to kill Alton on the night of House DeVir's fall!

"It would seem that Alton DeVir proved the stronger" mused Malice, and all became clear to her. "Matron SiNafay Hun'ett accepted him, used him to her gain" she explained to her family. She looked back to Drizzt. "You battled with him?"