Exile: The Legend of Drizzt (29 page)

“Oh, you ist going to pay dearly for that one, yest you ist!” came a cry from within.

“Run away!” cried the burrow-warden, and even the outraged hook horror was in full agreement. But as soon as Belwar looked into the drow’s lavender eyes, he knew that Drizzt would not flee. Clacker, too, backed away a step from the fires gathering within Drizzt Do’Urden.

“Magga cammara
, dark elf, we cannot get in,” the svirfneblin prudently reminded Drizzt.

Drizzt pulled out the onyx figurine and held it against the arrow slit, blocking it with his body. “We shall see,” he growled, and then he called to Guenhwyvar.

The black mist swirled about and found only one empty path clear from the figurine.

“I vill keell you all!” cried the unseen wizard.

The next sound from within the tower was a low panther’s growl, and then the wizard’s voice rang out again. “I cood be wrong!”

“Open the door!” Drizzt screamed. “On your life, foul wizard!” “Never!”

Guenhwyvar roared again, then the wizard screamed and the door swung wide.

Drizzt led the way. They entered a circular room, the tower’s bottom level. An iron ladder ran up its center to a trap door, the wizard’s attempted escape route. The human hadn’t quite made it, however, and he hung upside-down off the back side of the ladder, one leg hooked at the knee through a rung. Guenhwyvar, appearing fully healed from the ordeal in the acid lake and looking again like the most magnificent of panthers, perched on the other side of the ladder, casually mouthing the wizard’s calf and foot.

“Do come een!” the wizard cried, throwing his arms out wide, then drawing them back to pull his drooping robe up from his face. Wisps of smoke rose from the remaining tatters of the lightning-blackened robe. “I am Brister Fendlestick. Velcome to my hoomble home!”

Belwar kept Clacker at the door, holding his dangerous friend back with his hammer-hand, while Drizzt moved up to take charge of the prisoner. The drow paused long enough to regard his dear feline companion, for he hadn’t summoned Guenhwyvar since that day when he had sent the panther away to heal.

“You speak drow,” Drizzt remarked, grabbing the wizard by the collar and agilely spinning him down to his feet. Drizzt eyed the man suspiciously; he had never seen a human before the encounter in the corridor by the stream. To this point, the drow wasn’t overly impressed.

“Many tongues ist known to me,” replied the wizard, brushing himself off. And then, as if his proclamation was meant to carry some great importance, he added, “I am Brister Fendlestick!”

“Do you name pech among your languages?” Belwar growled from the door.

“Pech?” the wizard replied, spitting the word with apparent distaste.

“Pech,” Drizzt snarled, emphasizing his response by snapping the edge of a scimitar to within an inch of the wizard’s neck.

Clacker took a step forward, easily sliding the blocking svirfneblin across the smooth floor.

“My large friend was once a pech,” Drizzt explained. “You should know that.”

“Pech,” the wizard spat. “Useless leetle things, and always they ist in the way” Clacker took another long stride forward.

“Be on with it, drow,” Belwar begged, futilely leaning against the huge hook horror.

“Give him back his identity,” Drizzt demanded. “Make our friend a pech again. And be quick about it.”

“Bah!” snorted the wizard. “He ist better off as he ist!” the unpredictable human replied. “Why would anyone weesh to remain a pech?”

Clacker’s breath came in a loud gasp. The sheer strength of his third stride sent Belwar skidding off to the side.

“Now, wizard,” Drizzt warned. From the ladder, Guenhwyvar issued a long and hungry growl.

“Oh, very vell, very vell!” the wizard spouted, throwing up his hands in disgust. “Wretched pech!” He pulled an immense book from of a pocket much too small to hold it. Drizzt and Belwar smiled to each other, thinking victory at hand. But then the wizard made a fatal mistake.

“I shood have killed him as I killed the others,” he mumbled under his breath, too low for even Drizzt, standing right beside him, to make out the words.

But hook horrors had the keenest hearing of any creature in the Underdark.

A swipe of Clacker’s enormous claw sent Belwar spiraling across the room. Drizzt, spinning about at the sound of heavy steps, was thrown aside by the momentum of the rushing giant, the drow’s scimitars flying from his hands. And the wizard, the foolish wizard, padded Clacker’s impact with the iron ladder, a jolt so vicious that it bowed the ladder and sent Guenhwyvar flying off the other side.

Whether the initial crushing blow of the hook horror’s five-hundred-pound body had killed the wizard was academic by the time either Drizzt or Belwar had recovered enough to call out to their friend. Clacker’s hooks and beak slashed and snapped relentlessly, tearing and crushing. Every now and then came a sudden flash and a puff of smoke as another of the many magical
items that the wizard carried snapped apart.

And when the hook horror had played out his rage and looked around at his three companions, surrounding him in battle-ready stances, the lump of gore at Clacker’s feet was no longer recognizable.

Belwar started to remark that the wizard had agreed to change Clacker back, but he didn’t see the point. Clacker fell to his knees and dropped his face into his claws, hardly believing what he had done.

“Let us be gone from this place,” Drizzt said, sheathing his blades.

“Search it,” Belwar suggested, thinking that marvelous treasures might be hidden within. But Drizzt could not remain for another moment. He had seen too much of himself in the unbridled rage of his giant companion, and the smell of the bloodied heap filled him with frustrations and fears that he could not tolerate. With Guenhwyvar in tow, he walked from the tower.

Belwar moved over and helped Clacker to his feet, then guided the trembling giant from the structure. Stubbornly practical, though, the burrow-warden made his companions wait around while he scoured the tower, searching for items that might aid them, or for the command word that would allow him to carry the tower along. But either the wizard was a poor man—which Belwar doubted—or he had his treasures safely hidden away, possibly in some other plane of existence, for the svirfneblin found nothing beyond a simple water skin and a pair of worn boots. If the marvelous adamantite tower had a command word, it had gone to the grave with the wizard.

Their journey home was a quiet one, lost in private concerns, regrets, and memories. Drizzt and Belwar did not have to speak their most pressing fear. In their discussions with Clacker, they
both had learned enough of the normally peaceable race of pech to know that Clacker’s murderous outburst was far removed from the creature he once had been.

But, the deep gnome and the drow had to admit to themselves, Clacker’s actions were not so far removed from the creature he was fast becoming.

hat do you know?” Matron Malice demanded of Jarlaxle, walking at her side across the compound of House Do’Urden. Malice normally would not have been so conspicuous with the infamous mercenary, but she was worried and impatient. Reported stirring within the hierarchy of Menzoberranzan’s ruling families did not bode well for House Do’Urden. “Know?” Jarlaxle echoed, feigning surprise. Malice scowled at him, as did Briza, walking on the other side of the brash mercenary.

Jarlaxle cleared his throat, though it sounded more like a laugh. He couldn’t supply Malice with the details of the rumblings; he was not so foolish as to betray the more powerful houses of the city. But Jarlaxle could tease Malice with a simple statement of logic that only confirmed what she already had assumed. “Zincarla, the spirit-wraith, has been in use for a very long time.” Malice struggled to keep her breathing inconspicuously
smooth. She realized that Jarlaxle knew more than he would say, and the fact that the calculating mercenary had so coolly stated the obvious told her that her fears were justified. The spirit-wraith of Zaknafein had indeed been searching for Drizzt for a very long time. Malice did not need to be reminded that the Spider Queen was not known for her patience.

“Have you any more to tell me?” Malice asked.

Jarlaxle shrugged noncommittally.

“Then be gone from my house,” the matron mother snarled.

Jarlaxle hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should demand payment for the little information he had provided. Then he dipped into one of his well-known low, hat-sweeping bows and turned for the gate.

He would find his payment soon enough.

In the anteroom to the house chapel an hour later, Matron Malice rested back in her throne and let her thoughts roll out into the winding tunnels of the wild Underdark. Her telepathy with the spirit-wraith was limited, usually a passing of strong emotions, nothing more. But from those internal struggles of Zaknafein, who had been Drizzt’s father and closest friend in life and was now Drizzt’s deadliest enemy, Malice could learn much of her spirit-wraith’s progress. Anxieties caused by Zaknafein’s inner struggle inevitably would increase whenever the spirit-wraith got close to Drizzt.

Now, after the disturbing meeting with Jarlaxle, Malice had to learn of Zaknafein’s progress. A short time later, her efforts were rewarded.

“Matron Malice insists that the spirit-wraith has gone west, beyond the svirfneblin city,” Jarlaxle explained to Matron Baenre.
The mercenary had set out straight from House Do’Urden to the mushroom grove in the southern end of Menzoberranzan, to where the greatest of the drow families were housed.

“The spirit-wraith keeps to the trail,” Matron Baenre mused, more to herself than to her informant. “That is good.”

“But Matron Malice believes that Drizzt has a lead of many days, even tendays,” Jarlaxle went on.

“She told you this?” Matron Baenre asked incredulously, amazed that Malice would reveal such damaging information.

“Some information can be gathered without words,” the mercenary replied slyly. “Matron Malice’s tone inferred much that she did not wish me to know.”

Matron Baenre nodded and closed her wrinkled eyes, wearied by the whole experience. She had played a role in getting Matron Malice onto the ruling council, but now she could only sit and wait to see if Malice would remain.

“We must trust in Matron Malice,” Matron Baenre said at length.

Across the room from Baenre and Jarlaxle, El-viddinvelp, Matron Baenre’s companion mind flayer, turned its thoughts away from the conversation. The drow mercenary had reported that Drizzt had gone west, far out from Blingdenstone, and that news carried potential importance that could not be ignored.

The mind flayer projected its thoughts far out to the west, issued a clear warning down the corridors that were not as empty as they might appear.