"Impudent!" growled the yochlol. The fire in the brazier puffed, and the creature again stood behind Malice, again draped dangerous tentacles over the matron mother. "You dare to summon me again?"
Malice and her daughters glanced around, on the edge of panic. They knew that the mighty being was not toying with them; the handmaiden truly was enraged this time.
"House Do'Urden pleased the Spider Queen, it is true" the yochlol answered their unspoken thoughts, "but that one act does not dispel the displeasure your family brought upon Lloth in the recent past. Do not think that all is for-given, Matron Malice Do'Urden!"
How small and vulnerable Matron Malice felt now! Her power paled in the face of the wrath of one of Lloth's per-sonal servants.
"Displeasure?" she dared to whisper. "How has my family brought displeasure to the Spider Queen? By what act?"
The handmaiden's laughter erupted in a spout of flames and flying spiders, but the high priestesses held their posi-tions. They accepted the heat and the crawling things as part of their penance.
"I have told you before, Matron Malice Do'Urden" the yochlol snarled with its droopy mouth, "and I shall tell you one final time. The Spider Queen does not reply to questions whose answers are already known!" In a blast' of explosive energy that sent the four females of House Do'Urden tumbling to the floor, the handmaiden was gone.
Briza was the first to recover. She prudently rushed over! to the brazier and smothered the remaining flames, thus closing the gate to the Abyss, the yochlol's home plane.
"Who?" screamed Malice, the powerful matriarch once again. "Who in my family has invoked the wrath of Lloth?"
Malice appeared small again then, as the implications of the yochlol's warning became all too clear. House Do'Urden was about to go to war with a powerful family. Without Lloth's favor, House Do'Urden likely would cease to exist.
"We must find the perpetrator" Malice instructed her daughters, certain that none of them was involved. They were high priestesses, one and all. If any of them had done some misdeed in the eyes of the Spider Queen, the sum-moned yochlol surely would have exacted punishment on the spot. By itself, the handmaiden could have leveled House Do'Urden.
Briza pulled the snake whip from her belt. "I will get the information we require!" she promised.
"No!" said Matron Malice. "We must not reveal our search.
Be it a soldier or a member of House Do'Urden, the guilty one is trained and hardened against pain. We cannot hope that torture will pull the confession from his lips; not when he knows the consequences of his actions. We must dis-cover the cause of Lloth's displeasure immediately and properly punish the criminal. The Spider Queen must stand behind us in our struggles!"
"How, then, are we to discern the perpetrator?" the eldest daughter complained, reluctantly replacing the snake whip on her belt.
"Vierna and Maya, leave us" Matron Malice instructed.
"Say nothing of these revelations and do nothing to hint at our purpose"
The two younger daughters bowed and scurried away, not happy with their secondary roles but unable to do any-thing about them.
"First we will look" Malice said to Briza. "We will see if we can learn of the guilty one from afar"
Briza understood. "The scrying bowl" she said. She rushed from the anteroom and into the chapel proper. In the central altar she found the valuable item, a wide golden bowl laced throughout with black pearls. Hands trembling, Briza placed the bowl atop the altar and reached into the most sacred of the many compartments. This was the hold-ing bin for the prized possession of House Do'Urden, a great onyx chalice.
Malice then joined Briza in the chapel proper and took the chalice from her. Moving to the large font at the entrance to the great room, Malice dipped the chalice into a sticky fluid, the unholy water of her religion. She then chanted, "Spide-rae aught icor ven" The ritual complete, Malice moved back to the altar and poured the unholy water into the golden bowl.
She and Briza sat down to watch.
Drizzt stepped onto the floor of Zaknafein's training gym for the first time in more than a decade and felt as if he had come home. He'd spent the best years of his young life here-almost wholly here. For all the disappointments he had encountered since-and no doubt would continue to experience throughout his life-Drizzt would never forget that brief sparkle of innocence, that joy, he had known when he was a student in Zaknafein's gym.
Zaknafein entered and walked over to face his former stu-dent. Drizzt saw nothing familiar or comforting in the weapon master's face. A perpetual scowl now replaced the once common smile. It was an angry demeanor trat hated everything around it, perhaps Drizzt most of all. Or had iZaknafein always worn such a grimace? Drizzt had to won-der. Had nostalgia glossed over Drizzt's memories of those years of early training? Was this mentor, who had so often warmed Drizzt's heart with a lighthearted chuckle, actually. the cold, lurking monster that Drizzt now saw before him?
"Which has changed, Zaknafein" Drizzt asked aloud, "you, my memories, or my perceptions?"
Zak seemed not even to hear the whispered question.
"Ah, the young hero has returned" he said, "the warrior with exploits beyond his years"
"Why do you mock me?" Dnzzt protested.
"He .who killed the hook horrors" Zak continued. His swords were out in his hands now, and Drizzt responded by drawing his scimitars. There was no need to ask the rules of engagement in this contest, or the choice of weap-ons.
Drizzt knew, had known before he had ever come here, that there would be no rules this time. The weapons would be their weapons of preference, the blades that each of them had used to kill so many foes.
"He who killed the earth elemental" Zak snarled deri-sively. He launched a measured attack, a simple lunge with one blade. Drizzt batted it aside without even thinking of the parry.
Sudden fires erupted in Zak's eyes, as if the first contact had sundered all the emotional bonds that had tempered his thrust. "He who killed the girl child of the surface elves!" he cried, an accusation and no compliment. Now came the sec-ond attack, vicious and powerful, an arcing swipe descend-ing at Drizzt's head. "Who cut her apart to appease his own thirst for blood!"
Zak's words knocked Dnzzt off his guard emotionally, wrapped his heart in confusion like some devious mental whip. Drizzt was a seasoned warrior, though, and his re-flexes did not register the emotional distraction. A scimitar came up to catch the descending sword and deflected it harmlessly aside.
"Murderer!" Zak snarled openly. "Did you enjoy the dying child's screams?" He came at Drizzt in a furious whirl, swords dipping and diving, slicing at every angle.
Drizzt, enraged by the hypocrite's accusations, matched the fury, screaming out for no better reason than to hear the anger of his own voice.
Any watching the battle would have found no breath in the next few blurring moments. Never had the Underdark witnessed such a vicious fight as when these two masters of the blade each attacked the demon possessing the other-and himself.
Adamantite sparked and nicked, droplets of blood spat. tered both the combatants, though neither felt any pain, , and neither knew if he'd injured the other.
Drizzt came with a two-blade sidelong swipe that drove Zak's swords out wide. Zak followed the motion quickly, turned a complete circle, and slammed back into Drizzt's thrusting scimitars with enough force to knock the young warrior from his feet. Drizzt fell into a roll and came back up to meet his charging adversary.
A thought came over him.
Drizzt came up high, too high, and Zak drove him back on his heels. Drizzt knew what would soon be coming; he in-vited it openly. Zak kept Drizzt's weapons high through sev. eral combined maneuvers. He then went with the move that had defeated Drizzt in the past, expecting that the best Drizzt could attain would be equal footing: double-thrust low.
Drizzt executed the appropriate cross-down parry, as he had to, and Zak tensed, waiting for his eager opponent to try to improve the move. "Child killer!" he growled, goading on Drizzt.
Jie didn't know that Drizzt had found the solution. With all the anger he had ever known, all the disappoint-ments of his young life gathering within his foot, Drizzt fo-cused on Zak. That smug face, feigning smiles and drooling for blood.
Between the hilts, between the eyes, Drizzt kicked, blow-ing out every ounce of rage in a single blow.
Zak's nose crunched flat. His eyes lolled upward, and blood exploded over his hollow cheeks. Zak knew that he was falling, that the devilish young warrior would be on him in a flash, gaining an advantage that Zak could not hope to overcome.
"What of you, Zaknafein Do'Urden?" he heard Drizzt snarl, distantly, as though he were falling far away. "I have heard of the exploits of House Do'Urden's weapon master!
How he so enjoys killing!" The voice was closer now, as Drizzt stalked in, and as the rebounding rage of Zaknafein sent him spiraling back to the battle.
"I have heard how murder comes so very easily to Zakna-fein!" Drizzt spat derisively. "The murder of clerics, of other drow! Do you so enjoy it all?" He ended the question with a blow from each scimitar, attacks meant to kill Zak, to kill the demon in them both.
But Zaknafein was now fully back to consciousness, hat-ing himself and Drizzt equally. At the last moment, his swords came up and crossed, lightning fast, throwing Drizzt's arms wide. Then Zak finished with a kick of his own, not so strong from the prone position but accurate in its search for Drizzt's groin.