Exile: The Legend of Drizzt (13 page)

“I do not know,” Drizzt replied. “I was a member of a hunting party, years ago, a decade perhaps. We battled a group of svirfnebli that had come into our region.” He flinched at the deep gnome’s frown but continued on, knowing that the single svirfneblin survivor of that encounter might be his only hope. “Only one deep gnome survived, I think, and returned to Blingdenstone.”

“What was this survivor’s name?” the svirfneblin demanded
angrily, his arms crossed tightly over his chest and his heavy boot tapping on the stone floor.

“I do not remember,” Drizzt admitted.

“Why do you tell me this?” the svirfneblin growled. “I had thought you different from—”

“He lost his hands in the battle,” Drizzt went on stubbornly. “Please, you must know of him.”

“Belwar?” the svirfneblin replied immediately. The name rekindled even more memories in Drizzt.

“Belwar Dissengulp,” Drizzt spouted. “Then he is alive! He might remember—”

“He will never forget that evil day, dark elf!” the svirfneblin declared through clenched teeth, an angry edge evident in his voice. “None in Blingdenstone will ever forget that evil day!”

“Get him. Get Belwar Dissengulp,” Drizzt pleaded.

The deep gnome backed out of the room, shaking his head at the dark elf’s continued surprises.

The stone door slammed shut, leaving Drizzt alone to contemplate his mortality and to push aside hopes he dared not hope.

“Did you think that I would let you go away from me?” Malice was saying to Rizzen when Dinin entered the chapel’s anteroom. “It was but a ploy to keep SiNafay Hun’ett’s suspicions at ease.”

“Thank you, Matron Mother,” Rizzen replied in honest relief. Bowing with every step, he backed away from Malice’s throne.

Malice looked around at her gathered family. “Our tendays of toil are ended,” she proclaimed. “Zin-carla is complete!”

Dinin wrung his hands in anticipation. Only the females of the family had seen the product of their work. On cue from Malice, Vierna moved to a curtain on the side of the room and pulled it
away. There stood Zaknafein, the weapon master, no longer a rotting corpse, but showing the vitality he had possessed in life.

Dinin rocked back on his heels as the weapon master came forward to stand before Matron Malice.

“As handsome as you always were, my dear Zaknafein,” Malice purred to the spirit-wraith. The undead thing made no response.

“And more obedient,” Briza added, drawing chuckles from all the females.

“This … he … will go after Drizzt?” Dinin dared to ask, though he fully understood that it was not his place to speak. Malice and the others were too absorbed by the spectacle of Zaknafein to punish the elderboy’s oversight.

“Zaknafein will exact the punishment that your brother so deeply deserves,” Malice promised, her eyes sparkling at the notion.

“But wait,” Malice said coyly, looking from the spirit-wraith to Rizzen. “He is too pretty to inspire fear in my impudent son.” The others exchanged confused glances, wondering if Malice was further trying to placate Rizzen for the ordeal she had put him through.

“Come, my husband,” Malice said to Rizzen. “Take your blade and mark your dead rival’s face. It will feel good to you, and it will inspire terror in Drizzt when he looks upon his old mentor!”

Rizzen moved tentatively at first, then gained confidence as he closed on the spirit-wraith. Zaknafein stood perfectly still, not breathing or blinking, seemingly oblivious to the events around him. Rizzen put a hand to his sword, looking back to Malice one final time for confirmation.

Malice nodded. With a snarl, Rizzen brought his sword out of its sheath and thrust it at Zaknafein’s face.

But it never got close.

Quicker than the others could follow, the spirit-wraith
exploded into motion. Two swords came out and cut away, diving and crossing with perfect precision. The sword went flying from Rizzen’s hand and before the doomed patron of House Do’Urden could even speak a word of protest, one of Zaknafein’s swords crossed over his throat and the other plunged deep into his heart.

Rizzen was dead before he hit the floor, but the spirit-wraith was not so quickly and cleanly finished with him. Zaknafein’s weapons continued their assault, hacking and slicing into Rizzen a dozen times until Malice, satisfied with the display, called him off.

“That one bores me,” Malice explained to the disbelieving stares of her children. “I have another patron already selected from among the commoners.”

It was not, however, Rizzen’s death that inspired the awestruck expressions of Malice’s children; they cared nothing for any of the mates that their mother chose as patron of the house, always a temporary position. It was the speed and skill of the spirit-wraith that had stolen their breath.

“As good as in life,” Dinin remarked.

“Better!” Malice replied. “Zaknafein is all that he was as a warrior, and now that fighting skill holds his every thought. He will view no distractions from his chosen course. Look upon him, my children. Zin-carla, the gift of Lolth.” She turned to Dinin and smiled wickedly.

“I’ll not approach the thing,” Dinin gasped, thinking his macabre mother might desire a second display.

Malice laughed at him. “Fear not, Elderboy. I have no cause to harm you.”

Dinin hardly relaxed at her words. Malice needed no cause; the hacked body of Rizzen showed that fact all too clearly. “You will lead the spirit-wraith out,” Malice said.

“Out?” Dinin replied tentatively.

“Into the region where you encountered your brother,” Malice explained.

“I am to stay beside the thing?” Dinin gasped.

“Lead him out and leave him,” Malice replied. “Zaknafein knows his prey. He has been imbued with spells to aid him in his hunt.”

Off to the side, Briza seemed concerned.

“What is it?” Malice demanded of her, seeing her frown.

“I do not question the spirit-wraith’s power, or the magic that you have placed upon it,” Briza began tentatively, knowing that Malice would accept no discord regarding this all-important matter.

“You still fear your youngest brother?” Malice asked her. Briza didn’t know how to answer.

“Allay your fears, as valid as you may think them,” Malice said calmly. “All of you. Zaknafein is the gift of our queen. Nothing in all the Underdark will stop him!” She looked at the undead monster. “You will not fail me, will you my weapon master?”

Zaknafein stood impassive, bloodied swords back in their scabbards, hands at his sides, and eyes unblinking. A statue, he seemed, not breathing. Unalive.

But any who thought Zaknafein inanimate needed only to look at the spirit-wraith’s feet, to the mutilated lump of gore that had been the patron of House Do’Urden.

riendship: The word has come to mean many different things among the various races and cultures of both the Underdark and the surface of the Realms. In Menzoberranzan, friendship is generally born out of mutual profit. While both parties are better off for the union, it remains secure. But loyalty is not a tenet of drow life, and as soon as a friend believes that he will gain more without the other, the union—and likely the other’s life—will come to a swift end.

I have had few friends in my life, and if I live a thousand years, I suspect that this will remain true. There is little to
lament in this fact, though, for those who have called me friend have been persons of great character and have enriched my existence, given it worth. First there was Zaknafein, my father and mentor, who showed me that I was not alone and that I was not incorrect in holding to my beliefs. Zaknafein saved me, from both the blade and the chaotic, evil, fanatic religion that damns my people.

Yet I was no less lost when a handless deep gnome came into my life, a svirfneblin that I had rescued from certain death, many years before, at my brother Dinin’s merciless blade. My deed was repaid in full, for when the svirfneblin and I again met, this time in the clutches of his people, I would have been killed—truly would have preferred death—were it not for Belwar Dissengulp.

My time in Blingdenstone, the city of the deep gnomes, was such a short span in the measure of my years. I remember well Belwar’s city and his people, and I always shall. Theirs was the first society I came to know that was based on the strengths of community, not the paranoia of selfish individualism. Together the deep gnomes survive against the perils of the hostile Underdark, labor in their endless toils of mining the stone, and play games that are hardly
distinguishable from every other aspect of their rich lives.

Greater indeed are pleasures that are shared.

—Drizzt Do’Urden

ur thanks for your coming, Most Honored Burrow-Warden,” said one of the deep gnomes gathered outside the small room holding the drow prisoner. The entire group of svirfneblin elders bowed low at the burrow-warden’s approach.