Exile: The Legend of Drizzt (41 page)

The remaining duergar turned to flee, but the enraged hook horror moved faster. Clacker caught the gray dwarf in a claw and hoisted him into the air. Screeching like a frenzied bird, the hook horror hurled the unseen opponent into the wall. The duergar came back into sight, broken and crumbled at the base of the stone wall.

No opponents stood to face the hook horror, but Clacker’s savage hunger was far from satiated. Drizzt and the wounded duergar emerged from the darkness then, and the hook horror barreled in.

With the specter of Belwar’s combat taking his attention, Drizzt did not realize Clacker’s intent until the duergar prisoner screamed in terror.

By then, it was too late.

Drizzt watched his prisoner’s head go flying back into the globe of darkness.

“Clacker!” the drow screamed in protest. Then Drizzt ducked and dived backward for his own life as the other claw came viciously swinging across.

Spotting new prey nearby, the hook horror didn’t follow the drow into the globe. Belwar and the dagger-wielding duergar were too engaged in their own struggles to notice the approaching crazed giant. Clacker bent low, collected the prone combatants in his huge arms, and heaved them both straight up into the air. The duergar had the misfortune of coming down first, and Clacker promptly batted it across the chamber. Belwar would have found a similar fate, but crossed scimitars intercepted the hook horror’s next blow.

The giant’s strength slid Drizzt back several feet, but the parry softened the blow enough for Belwar to fall by. Still, the burrow-warden crashed heavily into the floor and spent a long moment too dazed to react.

“Clacker!” Drizzt cried again, as a giant foot came up with the obvious intent of squashing Belwar flat. Needing all his speed and agility, Drizzt dived around to the back of the hook horror, dropped to the floor, and went for Clacker’s knees, as he had in their first encounter. Trying to stomp on the prone svirfneblin, Clacker was already a bit off balance, and Drizzt easily tripped him to the stone. In the blink of an eye, the drow warrior sprang atop the monster’s chest and slipped a scimitar tip between the armored folds of Clacker’s neck.

Drizzt dodged a clumsy swing as Clacker continued to struggle. The drow hated what he had to do, but then the hook horror calmed suddenly and looked up at him with sincere understanding.

“D-d-do … it,” came a garbled demand. Drizzt, horrified, glanced over to Belwar for support. Back on his feet, the burrow-warden just looked away.

“Clacker?” Drizzt asked the hook horror. “Are you Clacker once again?”

The monster hesitated, then the beaked head nodded slightly.

Drizzt sprang away and looked at the carnage in the chamber. “Let us leave,” he said.

Clacker remained prone a moment longer, considering the grim implications of his reprieve. With the battle’s conclusion, the hook horror side backed out of its full control of Clacker’s consciousness. Those savage instincts lurked, Clacker knew, not far from the surface, waiting for another opportunity to find a firm hold. How many times would the faltering pech side be able to fight those instincts?

Clacker slammed the stone, a mighty blow that sent cracks running through the chamber’s floor. With great effort, the weary giant climbed to his feet. In his embarrassment, Clacker didn’t look at his companions, but just stormed away down the tunnel,
each banging footstep falling like a hammer on a nail in Drizzt Do’Urden’s heart.

“Perhaps you should have finished it, dark elf,” Belwar suggested, moving beside his drow friend.

“He saved my life in the illithid cavern,” Drizzt retorted sharply. “And has been a loyal friend.”

“He tried to kill me, and you,” the deep gnome said grimly.
“Magga cammara”

“I am his friend!” Drizzt growled, grabbing the svirfneblin’s shoulder. “You ask me to kill him?”

“I ask you to act as his friend,” retorted Belwar, and he pulled free of the grasp and started away down the tunnel after Clacker.

Drizzt grabbed the burrow-warden’s shoulder again and roughly spun him around.

“It will only get worse, dark elf,” Belwar said calmly into Drizzt’s grimace. “A firmer hold does the wizard’s spell gain with every passing day. Clacker will try to kill us again, I fear, and if he succeeds, the realization of the act will destroy him more fully than your blades ever could!”

“I cannot kill him,” Drizzt said, and he was no longer angry. “Nor can you.”

“Then we must leave him,” the deep gnome replied. “We must let Clacker go free in the Underdark, to live his life as a hook horror. That surely is what he will become, body and spirit.”

“No,” said Drizzt. “We must not leave him. We are his only chance. We must help him.”

“The wizard is dead,” Belwar reminded him, and the deep gnome turned away and started again after Clacker.

“There are other wizards,” Drizzt replied under his breath, this time making no move to impede the burrow-warden. The drow’s eyes narrowed and he snapped his scimitars back into their sheaths. Drizzt knew what he must do, what price his friendship
with Clacker demanded, but he found the thought too disturbing to accept.

There were indeed other wizards in the Underdark, but chance meetings were far from common, and wizards capable of dispelling Clacker’s polymorphed state would be fewer still. Drizzt knew where such wizards could be found, though.

The thought of returning to his homeland haunted Drizzt with every step he and his companions took that day. Having viewed the consequences of his decision to leave Menzoberranzan, Drizzt never wanted to see the place again, never wanted to look upon the dark world that had so damned him.

But if he chose now not to return, Drizzt knew that he would soon witness a more wicked sight than Menzoberranzan. He would watch Clacker, a friend who had saved him from certain death, degenerate fully into a hook horror. Belwar had suggested abandoning Clacker, and that course seemed preferable to the battle that Drizzt and the deep gnome surely must fight if they were near Clacker when the degeneration became complete.

Even if Clacker were far removed, though, Drizzt knew that he would witness the degeneration. His thoughts would stay on Clacker, the friend he had abandoned, for the rest of his days, just one more pain for the tormented drow.

In all the world, Drizzt could think of nothing he desired less than viewing the sights of Menzoberranzan or conversing with his former people. Given the choice, he would prefer death over returning to the drow city, but the choice was not so simple. It hinged on more than Drizzt’s personal desires. He had founded his life on principles, and those principles now demanded loyalty. They demanded that he put Clacker’s needs above his own desires, because Clacker had befriended him and because the concept of true friendship far outweighed personal desires.

Later on, when the friends had set camp for a short rest, Belwar
noticed that Drizzt was engaged in some inner conflict. Leaving Clacker, who once again was tap-tapping at the stone wall, the svirfneblin moved cautiously by the drow’s side.

Belwar cocked his head curiously. “What are you thinking, dark elf?”

Drizzt, too caught up in his emotional turbulence, did not return Belwar’s gaze. “My homeland boasts a school of wizardry,” Drizzt replied with steadfast determination.

At first the burrow-warden didn’t understand what Drizzt hinted at, but then, when Drizzt glanced over to Clacker, Belwar realized the implications of Drizzt’s simple statement.

“Menzoberranzan?” the svirfneblin cried. “You would return there, hoping that some dark elf wizard would show mercy upon our pech friend?”

“I would return there because Clacker has no other chance,” Drizzt retorted angrily.

“Then no chance at all has Clacker,” Belwar roared.
“Magga cammara
, dark elf. Menzoberranzan will not be so quick to welcome you!”

“Perhaps your pessimism will prove valid,” said Drizzt. “Dark elves are not moved by mercy, I agree, but there may be other options.”

“You are hunted,” Belwar said. His tone showed that he hoped his simple words would shake some sense into his drow companion.

“By Matron Malice,” Drizzt retorted. “Menzoberranzan is a large place, my little friend, and loyalties to my mother will play no part in any encounter we find beyond those with my own family. I assure you that I have no plans to meet anyone from my own family!”

“And what, dark elf, might we offer in exchange for dispelling Clacker’s curse?” Belwar replied sarcastically. “What have we to offer that any dark elf wizard of Menzoberranzan would value?”

Drizzt’s reply started with a blurring cut of a scimitar, was heightened by a familiar simmering fire in the drow’s lavender eyes, and ended with a simple statement that even stubborn Belwar could not find the words to refute.

“The wizard’s life.”

atron Baenre took a long and careful scan of Malice Do’Urden, measuring how greatly the trials of Zin-carla had weighed on the matron mother. Deep lines of worry creased Malice’s once smooth face, and her stark white hair, which had been the envy of her generation, was, for one of the very few times in five centuries, frazzled and unkempt. Most striking, though, were Malice’s eyes, once radiant and alert but now dark with weariness and sunken in the sockets of her dark skin.

“Zaknafein almost had him,” Malice explained, her voice an uncharacteristic whine. “Drizzt was in his grasp, and yet somehow, my son managed to escape!

“But the spirit-wraith is close on his trail again,” Malice quickly added, seeing Matron Baenre’s disapproving frown. In addition to being the most powerful figure in all of Menzoberranzan, the withered matron mother of House Baenre was considered Lolth’s personal representative in the city. Matron Baenre’s approval was
Lolth’s approval, and by the same logic, Matron Baenre’s disapproval most often spelled disaster for a house.

“Zin-carla requires patience, Matron Malice,” Matron Baenre said calmly. “It has not been so long.”

Malice relaxed a bit, until she looked again at her surroundings. She hated the chapel of House Baenre, so huge and demeaning. The entire Do’Urden complex could fit within this single chamber, and if Malice’s family and soldiers were multiplied ten times over, they still would not fill the rows of benches. Directly above the central altar, directly above Matron Malice, loomed the illusionary image of the gigantic spider, shifting into the form of a beautiful drow female, then back again into an arachnid. Sitting here alone with Matron Baenre under that overpowering image made Malice feel even more insignificant.

Matron Baenre sensed her guest’s uneasiness and moved to comfort her. “You have been given a great gift,” she said sincerely. “The Spider Queen would not bestow Zin-carla, and would not have accepted the sacrifice of SiNafay Hun’ett, a matron mother, if she did not approve of your methods and your intent.”

“It is a trial,” Malice replied offhandedly.

“A trial you will not fail!” Matron Baenre retorted. “And then the glories you will know, Malice Do’Urden! When the spirit-wraith of he who was Zaknafein has completed his task and your renegade son is dead, you will sit in honor on the ruling council. Many years, I promise you, will pass before any house will dare to threaten House Do’Urden. The Spider Queen will shine her favor upon you for the proper completion of Zin-carla. She will hold your house in the highest regard and will defend you against rivals.”

“What if Zin-carla fails?” Malice dared to ask. “Let us suppose …” Her voice trailed away as Matron Baenre’s eyes widened in shock.

“Speak not the words!” Baenre scolded. “And think not of such impossibilities! You grow distracted by fear, and that alone will spell your doom. Zin-carla is an exercise of willpower and a test of your devotion to the Spider Queen. The spirit-wraith is an extension of your faith and your strength. If you falter in your trust, then the spirit-wraith of Zaknafein will falter in his quest!”

“I will not falter!” Malice roared, her hands clenched around the armrests of her chair. “I accept the responsibility of my son’s sacrilege, and with Lolth’s help and blessings, I will enact the appropriate punishment upon Drizzt.”